# Fire

Fire is a phenomenon of the heat and light energy released during a chemical reaction, in particular a combustion reaction. Depending on the substances involved, and any impurities within, the color and intensity of the flames of fire will vary. It is one of the four classical elements in ancient Greek philosophy and science.

## Quotes

* ‘Say to the southern forest: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am about to set fire to you, and it will consume all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched.” ’
** Ezekiel, 20: 47.
* The Spirits of thy Lines infuse a Fire Like the Worlds Soul, which makes me thus aspire
** Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1531), translated by John French.
* Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
** Jorge Luis Borges, in "A New Refutation of Time" (1946).
* Those who don't build must burn.
** Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (1953)
* The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen, and the sun burnt Time, that meant everything burnt!
** Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (1953), p. 141.
* Controlling fires is an enormously difficult challenge. Our research has shown that by applying large electric fields we can suppress flames very rapidly. We're very excited about the results of this relatively unexplored area of research.
** Ludovico Cademartiri, 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society; as quoted in “Taming the flame: Electrical wave 'blaster' could provide new way to extinguish fires”, American Chemical Society, Phys.org, (March 28, 2011).
* Combustion is first and foremost a chemical reaction – arguably one of the most important – but it's been somewhat neglected by most of the chemical community. We're trying to get a more complete picture of this very complex interaction.
** Ludovico Cademartiri, 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society; as quoted in “Taming the flame: Electrical wave 'blaster' could provide new way to extinguish fires”, American Chemical Society, Phys.org, (March 28, 2011).
* "When you start using oscillating fields there are new mechanisms that come into play and these mechanisms lead to much stronger effects on flames -- effects that are so strong as to have been shown to suppress fires," Cademartiri said. The team reported that when they placed an insulated wire at the base of a thin, 19-inch flame and applied about 600 watts of power -- similar to a medium -- sized microwave oven, the flame went out. "This is quite different from blowing air on the flame," Cademartiri said. "When you blow on the flame, you generate flow outside the flame and you push air into this flame. In our case, we generate this flow within the flame."
** Ludovico Cademartiri, in ”Beams of Electricity Zap Fires”, by Jessica Marshall, ABC News, (April 2, 2011).
* You want it darker We kill the flame
** Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker (2016).
* "Regions Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway; Where his eagles never flew, None invincible as they." Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.
** William Cowper in "Boadicea" (1782).
* Derek Dunn-Rankin of the University of California, Irvine who works with NASA to study the effects of flames in electric fields in microgravity, doubts this technique will be used to put out large fires. His team has concluded from their own experiments that "it will not be possible to ever usefully extinguish flames of significant size," he said, because flames naturally have few charged particles to be moved by the electric field.
** Derek Dunn-Rankin in ”Beams of Electricity Zap Fires”, by Jessica Marshall, ABC News, (April 2, 2011).
* Remote fountains are of little help to nearby fires.
** 遠水不救近火也。 from Han Fei Tzu Volume 22 (s:zh:韓非子#說林上第二十二)
* The pain was maddening. You should pray to God when you're dying, if you can pray when you're in agony. In my dream I didn't pray to God, I thought of Roger and how dearly I loved him. The pain of those wicked flames was not half so bad as the pain I felt when I knew he was dead. I felt suddenly glad to be dying. I didn't know when you were burnt to death you'd bleed. I thought the blood would all dry up in the terrible heat. But I was bleeding heavily. The blood was dripping and hissing in the flames. I wished I had enough blood to put the flames out. The worst part was my eyes. I hate the thought of gong blind. It's bad enough when I'm awake but in dreams you can't shake the thoughts away. They remain. In this dream I was going blind. I tried to close my eyelids but I couldn't. They must have been burnt off, and now those flames were going to pluck my eyes out with their evil fingers, I didn't want to go blind. The flames weren't so cruel after all. They began to feel cold. Icy cold. It occurred to me that I wasn't burning to death but freezing to death.
** Arthur Guirdham in The Cathars and Reincarnation, p. 89.
* κόσμον τόνδε, τὸν αὐτὸν ἁπάντων, οὔτε τις θεῶν οὐτε ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ' ἦν ἀεὶ καὶ ἔστιν καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα
** This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.
** Heraclitus, Fragment 30 (c. 500 BC)
* It is stern work, it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men: But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done, Would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.
** Joyce Kilmer in "The Proud Poet" in Main Street and Other Poems (1917).
* Like the fire that needs the air, I won't burn unless you're there.
** Maze and Frankie Beverly, "I Need You" (1978), Golden Time of Day
* Whether fire was first procured for man through a daring theft practiced on the gods by some hero of antiquity, or whether, as the Sioux Indians allege, it originated in the sparks struck from the rocks by a panther as he bounded up the side of a hill, its value has been obvious to every human tribe, and there has existed no race within the time of which we have record or tradition to whom fire has been unknown. The part which it has played in man's history is beyond power of narration, and the immensity of this part is only made obvious as we become conscious of the psychological atavism which occurs as we sit by the fragrant wood-fire of gipsy or other roadside traveller. All the stuffiness of houses and the pettiness of modern gentility fade away, and we are borne back to times many centuries past, when our ancestors—who are ourselves—sat round just such a fire and watched the blue or purple smoke, "lark without song," float upward, carrying the fragrance of ash or holly to the nostrils of the gods.
** Harry Roberts (1871–1946), Tramp's Hand-book. John Lane. 1903. p. 75.
* Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.
** Delmore Schwartz, in "Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day" in In Dreams Begin Responsibilities (1938), p. 93.
* Combustion is the hidden principle behind every artifact we create. The making of a fishhook, manufacture of a china cup, or production of a television programme, all depend on the same process of combustion. …From the earliest times, human civilization has been no more than a strange luminescence growing more intense by the hour, of which no one can say when it will begin to wane and when it will fade away.
** W. G. Sebald, Tr. Michael Hulse, The Rings of Saturn (1995)
* In many religions, the fire is sacred and is the witness of spiritual practice. It is considered divine. In ancient India, the rishis guarded their sacred fire most carefully and kept it clean, as it was believed to be the residence of divinity. Sitting by the dhuni purifies one's vibrations. This you can find out for yourself. Whenever you have any kind of trouble, go to the dhuni and let it give you solace and uplift your spirit.
** Shastriji, quoted in: Haidakhan Babaji. The Teachings of Babaji. 2 August 1983.
* When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
** Shunryu Suzuki, quoted in Enter the Heart of the Fire : A collection of Mystical Poems (1981) by Mary E. Giles and Kathryn Hohlwein.
* Burning outside the fire is worse than burning inside [the fire].
** A proverb of the Uyghurs, as mentioned at "Uyghur Stories: More than 5 Years in Jail Just for “Listening” to Criticism of the Authorities", Bitter Winter (May 22, 2024)
* Fire may be represented as the destroyer of all sophistry, and as the image and demonstration of truth; because it is light and drives out darkness which conceals all essences [or subtle things].
** Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations, as translated by Edward MacCurdy.
* Fire destroys all sophistry, that is deceit; and maintains truth alone, that is gold.
** Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations, as translated by Edward MacCurdy.
* Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth.
** Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations, as translated by Edward MacCurdy.
* A bride burns her bridges, having fallen in love, and drowns in marriage.
** David Woodard, Breed the Unmentioned (1985)
* A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, 'What is it like, this thing you have seen?' So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the very first fire in the world. He tells them, 'It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone.' Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many times. More men look upon fire. After a time, fire is as common as grass and clouds and the air they breathe. They see that, while it is like a poppy, it is not a poppy, while it is like water, it is not water, while it is like the sun, it is not the sun, and while it is like that which eats and passes wastes, it is not that which eats and passes wastes, but something different from each of these apart or all of these together. So they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it. They call it 'fire.' If they come upon one who still has not seen it and they speak to him of fire, he does not know what they mean. So they, in turn, fall back upon telling him what fire is like. 'As they do so, they know from their own experience that what they are telling him is not the truth, but only a part of it. They know that this man will never know reality from their words, though all the words in the world are theirs to use. He must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart, or remain forever ignorant. Therefore, 'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.
** Roger Zelazny in Lord of Light (1968).

### Bible

    The Bible on Wikisource.
* His clothing was white like snow, and the hair of his head was like clean wool. His throne was flames of fire; its wheels were a burning fire.
** Daniel, Book of Daniel 7:9, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
* Nimrod becoming weary of arguing with Abraham, decided to cast him before his god--fire--and challenged Abraham's deliverance by the God of Abraham, but God saved him out of the fiery furnace.
** Genesis Rabbah 38, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 78.
* The sinners in Zion are in dread;
    Trembling has seized the apostates:
    ‘Who of us can live where there is a consuming fire?
    Who of us can live with unquenchable flames?’
   * Book of Isaiah 33:14, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
* Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
** James the Just, Epistle of James 3:5 (KJV).
* I came to set fire to the earth, and I wish it were already on fire!
** Jesus, Gospel of Luke 12:49, Contemporary English Version.
* And if anyone wants to harm them, fire issues forth from their mouths and devours their enemies; and if anyone should want to harm them, in this manner he must be killed.
** John the Evangelist, Book of Revelation 11:5, New World Translation
* Heap coals of fire upon his head.
** Book of Proverbs 25:22.
* We said, "O Fire! be thou cool, and (a means of) safety for Abraham!"
** Quran 21:69 trans. M. H. Shakir

### Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

    Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 272-73.
* Yet in oure asshen olde is fyr yreke.
** Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Reves Prologue, line 3,881.
* Words pregnant with celestial fire.
** William Cowper, Boadicea, 33.
* E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
** Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, 23. Gray says it was suggested by Petrarch, Sonnet, 169. Same phrase in Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1600s), Act V, scene 2.
* Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire.
** Thomas Gray, Elegy, 46.
* A crooked log makes a straight fire.
** George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).
* Well may he smell fire, whose gown burns.
** George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).
* Tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.
** Your own property is concerned when your neighbor's house is on fire.
** Horace, Epistles, I, 18, 84.
* The burnt child dreads the fire.
** Ben Jonson, The Devil Is an Ass (performed 1616; published 1631), Act I, scene 2.
* Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
** Hugh Latimer, The Martyrdom, p. 523.
* There can no great smoke arise, but there must be some fire.
** John Lyly, Euphues and his Emphœbus, p. 153 (Arber's Reprint).
* All the fatt's in the fire.
** John Marston, What You Will, 1607.
* Whirlwinds of tempestuous fire.
** John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book I, line 77.
* They lepe lyke a flounder out of a fryenge panne into the fyre.
** Thomas More, Dial, Book II, Chapter I. Folio LXIII. b.
* Dare pondus idonea fumo.
** Fit to give weight to smoke.
** Persius, Satires, V, 20.
* Out of the frying pan into the fire.
** Idea in Plato, De Repub., VIII, p. 569. B. Theodoret, Therap., III, 773.
* Flamma fumo est proxima.
** Flame is very near to smoke.
** Plautus, Curculio, Act I, 1, 53.
* Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire.
** Alexander Pope, Epistle to Mrs. Teresa Blount, on her leaving the Town after the Coronation.
* Parva sæpe scintilla contempta magnum excitavit incendium.
** A spark neglected has often raised a conflagration.
** Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandria Magni, VI, 3, 11.
* A little fire is quickly trodden out; Which, being sufter'd, rivers cannot quench.
** William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III (c. 1591), Act IV, scene 8, line 6.
* The fire i' the flint Shows not till it be struck.
** William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act I, scene 1, line 22.
* Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.
** William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act I, scene 2, line 30.
* In ashes of despaire, though burnt, shall make thee live.
** Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia.
* O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live.
** William Wordsworth, Ode, IV, 53. (Knight's ed.).

## See also

* Air
* Earth
* Gibil
* Water

## External links

* Media related to Fire on Wikimedia Commons
* Encyclopedic article on Fire on Wikipedia
* The dictionary definition of fire on Wiktionary