A Quote by Orison Swett Marden

There is a legend of an artist who long sought for a piece of sandalwood, out of which to carve a Madonna. He was about to give up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dream he was bidden to carve his Madonna from a block of oak wood which was destined for the fire. He obeyed and produced a masterpiece from a log of common firewood. Many of us lose great opportunities in life by waiting to find sandalwood for our carvings, when they really lie hidden in the common logs that we burn.

Orison Swett Marden

Quote Topics

About Artist Block Burn Carve Common Despair Destined Dream Find Fire Firewood Give Great Hidden His Leaving Legend Lie Life Log Long Lose Madonna Many Masterpiece Oak Opportunities Our Out Piece Produced Really Sandalwood Sought Up Us Vision Waiting Which Wood

Quote Author

Orison Swett Marden
American - Writer
1850 - 1924

Once upon a time there was a piece of wood. It was not an expensive piece of wood. Far from it. Just a common block of firewood, one of those thick, solid logs that are put on the fire in winter to make cold rooms cozy and warm.

Carlo Collodi

The great artist Michelangelo claimed that his sculptures were already present in the stone, and all he had to do was carve away everything else. Our understanding of identity is often similar: Beneath the many layers of shoulds and shouldn’ts that cover us, there lies a constant, single, true self that is just waiting to be discovered.

Sheena Iyengar

Out of the best and most productive years of each man's life, he should carve a segment in which he puts his private career aside to serve his community and his country, and thereby serve his children, his neighbours, his fellow men, and the cause of freedom.

David Lilienthal

The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don't believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.

Steven Pressfield

What is it that dies? A log of wood dies to become a few planks. The planks die to become a chair. The chair dies to become a piece of firewood, and the firewood dies to become ash. You give different names to the different shapes the wood takes, but the basic substance is there always. If we could always remember this, we would never worry about the loss of anything. We never lose anything; we never gain anything. By such discrimination we put an end to unhappiness. (118-119)

Swami Satchidananda

Such was a poet and shall be and is -who'll solve the depths of horror to defend a sunbeam's architecture with his life: and carve immortal jungles of despair to hold a mountain's heartbeat in his hand.

e. e. cummings

I pray we... come to this darkness so far above light! If only we lacked sight and knowledge so as to see, so as to know, unseeing and unknowing, that which lies beyond all vision and knowledge. For this would be really to see and to know: to praise the Transcendent One in a transcending way... We would be like sculptors who set out to carve a statue. They remove every obstacle to the pure view of the hidden image, and simply by the act of clearing aside they show up the beauty which is hidden.

Pope Dionysius

A poet wants only one small stone on which to carve his life.

Joan Walsh Anglund

The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself and whatever science or art or course of action he engages in reacts upon and illuminates the recesses of his own mind. Thus friends seem to be only mirrors to draw out and explain to us ourselves; and that which draws us nearer our fellow man, is, that the deep Heart in one, answers the deep Heart in another, - that we find we have (a common Nature) - one life which runs through all individuals, and which is indeed Divine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have nothing against Sean Penn. I don't even mind that he ended up divorcing Madonna. I mean, I still like Shia LaBeouf even though he chose to star in Transformers, which turned out to be a movie about robots from space. That Talk. Which is just as bad as choosing to divorce Madonna, if you ask me

Meg Cabot

New Year's Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

I would really, really, really like to be a legend like Madonna. Madonna knows what to do next, and when she's performing, the audience is just in awe of her.

Britney Spears

The domestic man, who loves no music so well as his kitchen clock, and the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on the hearth, has solaces which others never dream of.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was reported that Guy Ritchie has cast his wife Madonna in a small walk-on role in his new movie, Revolver. Madonna will play the part of the woman who ruins the film.

Tina Fey

Scotland is the country above all others that I have seen, in which a man of imagination may carve out his own pleasures; there are so many inhabited solitudes.