# Wind

Wind, while simply "the flow of air or other gases that compose an atmosphere (including that of the planet Earth)," has since ancient times been a significant and pervasive metaphor and symbol in human discourse.

## Quotes

* The wind shrieks, the wind grieves; It dashes the leaves on walls, it whirls then again; And the enormous sleeper vaguely and stupidly dreams And desires to stir, to resist a ghost of pain.
** Conrad Aiken, The House of Dust, (1916 - 1917).
* "Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees on a black night," he had said. "You must not try to be definite and sure about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly and the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon lips inflamed and made tender by kisses."
** Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio, (1919), "Death".
* We are the voices of the wandering wind, Which moan for rest and rest can never find; Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life, A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife.
** Sir Edwin Arnold (1832 - 1904), "The Deva's Song".
* Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away.
** Matthew Arnold Empedocles on Etna, (1852), Act I, sc. ii.
* The hushed winds wail with feeble moan Like infant charity.
** Joanna Baillie, Orra (1812), Act III, scene 1, "The Chough and Crow"; in Plays on the Passions, Volume III.
* Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!
** Hilaire Belloc, The Road to Rome, (1902).
* Therefore we should not try to alter circumstances but to adapt ourselves to them as they really are, just as sailors do. They don't try to change the winds or the sea but ensure that they are always ready to adapt themselves to conditions. In a flat calm they use the oars; with a following breeze they hoist full sail; in a head wind they shorten sail or heave to. Adapt yourself to circumstances in the same way.
** Bion of Borysthenes (c. 325 - c. 250), reported in Περὶ αὐταρκείας, On Self-Sufficiency (fragment), Teles the Cynic, fr. 2.
* Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau. Mock on, mock on—'tis all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again.
** William Blake, Poems from Blake's Notebook, (c. 1804), "Mock On", st. 1.
* There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live for ever.
** George Borrow, Lavengro, (1851), ch. 25.
* I didn't believe what I'd been hearing; maybe this wind blowing in just came from the ocean.
** Michelle Branch, "Hotel Paper", Hotel Paper (2003).
* Come in, dear wind, and be our guest You too have neither home nor rest.
** Bertolt Brecht, Berliner Börsen-Courier, (1924), "Weinachtslegende," trans. Poems, 1913-1956, (1976), "Christmas legend," p. 100.
* There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.
** Raymond Chandler, published in Trouble Is My Business, (1939), "Red Wind" (short story, 1938).
* And the wind will whip your tousled hair, The sun, the rain, the sweet despair, Great tales of love and strife. And somewhere on your path to glory You will write your story of a life.
** Harry Chapin, Sequel, (1999), "Story of a Life".
* The old Old winds that blew When chaos was, what do They tell the clattered trees that I Should weep?
** Adelaide Crapsey, Verses, (1915), "Night Winds".
* The rulers of the earth are sowing a fearful wind, to reap a most terrible whirlwind.
** Voltairine de Cleyre, in "The Economic Tendency of Freethought" in Liberty, Vol. XI, #25 (15 February 1890).
* [In Adelie Land, Antarctica, a howling river of] wind, 50 miles wide, blows off the plateau, month in and month out, at an average velocity of 50 m.p.h. As a source of power this compares favorably with 6,000 tons of water falling every second over Niagara Falls. I will not further anticipate some H. G. Wells of the future who will ring the antarctic with power-producing windmills; but the winds of the Antarctic have to be felt to be believed, and nothing is quite impossible to physicists and engineers.
** Frank Debenham speaking at convention of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Norwich (1935). As quoted in Science: One Against Darwin, Time (23 Sep 1935).
* The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind The Answer is blown' in the wind.
** Bob Dylan, in Blowin' in the Wind, on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963).
* When gentle winds blow through the city and strong winds scatter, I stand up as an equal to Ickur. I am Ezina, I am born for the warrior -- I do not give up.
** Ezina, in Debate between sheep and grain (mid to late 3rd millennium BCE)
* After this I saw four angels standing upon the four corners of the earth, holding tight the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow upon the earth or upon the sea or upon any tree.
** John the Evangelist, Apocalypse 7:1
* Perhaps the wind Wails so in winter for the summer's dead, And all sad sounds are nature's funeral cries For what has been and is not.
** George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book I.
* But certain winds will make men's temper bad.
** George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book I.
* What joy have I in June's return? My feet are parched—my eyeballs burn, I scent no flowery gust; But faint the flagging Zephyr springs, With dry Macadam on its wings, And turns me "dust to dust."
** Thomas Hood, Ode Imitated from Horace (1844), st. 2.
* The way of the Wind is a strange, wild way.
** Ingram Crockett, The Wind, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
* Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only The wind will listen.
** T.S. Eliot, "Ash Wednesday", (1930).
* Weave the wind. I have no ghosts, An old man in a draughty house Under a windy knob.
** T.S. Eliot, Poems, (1920), "Gerontion".
* Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.
** Harlan Ellison, Paladin of the Lost Hour, (1985).
* The shadow of a dove Falls on the cote, the trees are filled with wings; And down the valley through the crying trees The body of the darker storm flies; brings With its new air the breath of sunken seas And slender tenuous thunder . . . But I wait . . . Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain— Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate, Happier winds that pile her hair; Again They tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air Upon me, winds that I know, and storm.
** F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, Scribner: 1920.
* The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You´re one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you´re two months back in the middle of March.
** Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time, (1936), st. 3.
* The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
** Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (1776), v. 1, ch. 68.
* Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.
** Thomas Gray, The Bard, (1757), II, 2, Line 9.
* ਬੋਲੈ ਪਉਣੁ ॥ ਬੁਝੁ ਰੇ ਗਿਆਨੀ ਮੂਆ ਹੈ ਕਉਣੁ ॥
** The body is dust; the wind speaks through it. Understand, O wise one, who has died.
** Guru Granth Sahib, "On Death".
* He who will establish himself on a certain height must yield according to circumstances, like the weather-cock on a church-spire, which, though it be made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it remained obstinately immovable, and did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind.
** Heinrich Heine, English Fragments (1828), Ch. 11 : The Emancipation.
* The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows — a wall against the wind. This is the willow's purpose.
** Frank Herbert, Dune, (1965).
* A little wind kindles, much puts out the fire.
** George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).
* To a crazy ship all winds are contrary.
** George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).
* I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it— but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
** Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, (1858).
* For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind…
** Hosea 8:7 (KJV)
** Variant translations:
** They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. (NIV).
* There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.
** A. E. Housman, "A Shropshire Lad," (1896), No. 31, st. 4.
* La nuit n'était pas très obscure; c'était une pleine lune sur laquelle couraient de larges nuées chassées par le vent. Cela faisait au dehors des alternatives d'ombre et de clarté, des éclipses, puis des éclaircies, et au dedans une sorte de crépuscule. Ce crépuscule, suffisant pour qu'on pût se guider, intermittent à cause des nuages, ressemblait à l'espèce de lividité qui tombe d'un soupirail de cave devant lequel vont et viennent des passants.
** The night was not very dark; there was a full moon, across which large clouds were driving before the wind. This produced alternations of light and shade, out-of-doors eclipses and illuminations, and in-doors a kind of twilight. This twilight, enough to enable him to find his way, changing with the passing clouds, resembled that sort of livid light which falls through the window of a dungeon before which men are passing.
** Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, (1862), Book II—The Fall, "Chapter X—The Man Awakes," trans. Charles Edwin Wilbour, (1862 - 1863).
* O that our souls could scale a height like this, A mighty mountain swept o'er by the bleak Keen winds of heaven; and, standing on that peak Above the blinding clouds of prejudice, Would we could see all truly as it is; The calm eternal truth would keep us meek.
** Robinson Jeffers, Aurora, (1904), "A Hill-Top View".
* "Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great and strong wind will blow over you and rend the mountains and break in pieces the rocks, but the Lord will not be in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire. And after the fire a gentle, cooling breeze. That is where the Lord will be." This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow.
** Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, (1965), "The Desert. Sinai.", Ch. 21, p. 278.
* It is sunlight in modified form which turns all the windmills and water wheels and the machinery which they drive. It is the energy derived from coal and petroleum (fossil sunlight) which propels our steam and gas engines, our locomotives and automobiles. ... Food is simply sunlight in cold storage.
** John Harvey Kellogg, In New Dietetics: What to Eat and How (1921), 29.
* I came like Water, and like Wind I go.
** Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat, (c. 1120), XXVII, trans. Edward FitzGerald, (1889), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
* Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro — And what should they know of England who only England know?
** Rudyard Kipling, "The English Flag", (1891), Stanza 1.
* L'absence diminue les médiocres passions, et augmente les grandes, comme le vent éteint les bougies et allume le feu.
** Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and fan a fire.
** François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims, (1665–1678), Maxim 276.
* There is something peculiarly mournful in the sound of the autumn wind. It has none of the fierce mirth which belongs to that of March, calling aloud, as with the voice of a trumpet, on all earth to rejoice ; neither has it the mild rainy melody of summer, when the lily has given its softness and the rose its sweetness to the gentle tones. Still less has it the dreary moan, the cry as of one in pain, which is borne on a November blast ; but it has a music of its own — sad, low, and plaintive, like the last echoes of a forsaken lute — a voice of weeping, but tender and subdued, like the pleasant tears shed over some woful romance of the olden time, telling some mournful chance of the young knight falling in his first battle, or of a maiden pale and perishing with ill-requited love.
** Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Francesca Carrara (1834), Vol.III Chapter 11
* Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power—that is, power to move things. Take any given space of the earth's surface— for instance, Illinois; and all the power exerted by all the men, and beasts, and running-water, and steam, over and upon it, shall not equal the one hundredth part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same space. And yet it has not, so far in the world's history, become proportionably valuable as a motive power. It is applied extensively, and advantageously, to sail-vessels in navigation. Add to this a few windmills, and pumps, and you have about all. … As yet, the wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of it.
** Abraham Lincoln, Lecture Discoveries and Inventions, (1860) in Discoveries and Inventions (1915).
* How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life. This is our modern danger — one of the waxen wings of flight. It may cause our civilization to fall unless we act quickly to counteract it, unless we realize that human character is more important than efficiency, that education consists of more than the mere accumulation of knowledge.
** Charles Lindbergh, Reader's Digest (November 1939), "Aviation, Geography, and Race," pp. 64-67.
* A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, My Lost Youth, (1858), refrain.
* When the wind carries a cry which is meaningful to human ears, it is simpler to believe the wind shares with us some part of the emotion of Being than that the mysteries of a hurricane's rising murmur reduce to no more than the random collision of insensate molecules.
** Norman Mailer, Advertisements for Myself, (1959), "Advertisement for Myself on the Way Out".
* It is the winterwind that blows, wailing all night long, wailing for the far-off day; the branches toss, the boughs sway, it is the winterwind that blows... And the winds of winter sing a song of loneliness and silent sorrow; echo-less their lament dies away over the empty veld in the night, sighing through the grass seeds, and drawn is far away.
** Eugene Marais, reported in Drummer Hodge: The Poetry of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), (1978), M. van Wyk Smith.
* The wind is not helpless for any man's need, Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed.
** William Morris, Love is Enough, (1872), "Song II: Have No Thought for Tomorrow".
* Mournfully, oh, mournfully, The midnight wind doth sigh, Like some sweet plaintive melody Of ages long gone by.
** William Motherwell (1797 - 1835), "The Midnight Wind".
* The example of a believer is like a fresh tender plant; from whichever direction the wind blows, it bends the plant. But when the wind dies down, (it) straightens up again.
** Muhammad, Fiqh-us-Sunnah, Volume 4, Number 1.
* Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail.
** John Muir, Our National Parks, (1901).
* Look when the clouds are blowing And all the winds are free: In fury of their going They fall upon the sea. But though the blast is frantic, And though the tempest raves, The deep immense Atlantic Is still beneath the waves.
** Frederic William Henry Myers (1843 - 1901), "Wind, Moon and Tides".
* We love the kindly wind and hail, The jolly thunderbolt, We watch in glee the fairy trail Of ampere, watt, and volt.
** Ogden Nash, Many Long Years Ago, (1945), "A Watched Example Never Boils".
* Indoors or out, no one relaxes In March, that month of wind and taxes, The wind will presently disappear, The taxes last us all the year.
** Ogden Nash, Versus (1949), "Thar She Blows".
* A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind. Even a head wind is better than none. No man ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm.
** John Neal, reported in The Journal of Education for Upper Canada Vol. III (1850).
* Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
** George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946).
* A rush of wind comes furiously now, down from the mountaintop. "The ancient Greeks," I say, "who were the inventors of classical reason, knew better than to use it exclusively to foretell the future. They listened to the wind and predicted the future from that. That sounds insane now. But why should the inventors of reason sound insane?"
** Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, (1974).
* The American, Charles Brush is often credited with being the first person to use a wind powered machine to generate electricity, which operated for the first time during the winter of 1887. However, earlier in July 1887, Professor James Blyth, a Scottish academic of Anderson's College, Glasgow (which later became Strathclyde University) was undertaking very similar experiments to Brush, which culminated in a UK patent in 1891. Likewise the Dane, Poul La Cour, is known to have constructed relatively advanced wind turbines throughout the 1890s, which were also used to generate electricity which was then used to produce hydrogen.
** Trevor J. Price,“James Blyth — Britain's First Modern Wind Power Pioneer”, Wind Engineering, Volume: 29 issue: 3, page(s): 191-200, May 1, 2005
* I chose none to ask why the wind was blowing there chasing the fogs
** Suman Pokhrel, Khorampa
* The wind is blowing, adore the wind.
** Pythagoras (c. 582 - c. 496 BC), The Symbols, "Symbol 8".
* "I thought you understood," he said. "The world is your teacher. It will be all around you. The ocean and the wind and the stars and the moon will all teach you many things."
** Jane Roberts, Emir's Education In The Proper Use of Magical Powers (1979) p. 10.
* A sudden gust: How big the world seems in a wind.
** Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt (2002), Book 1: "Awake to Emptiness", Ch. 1.
* Perhaps we cannot raise the winds. But each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it.
** E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered, (1973).
* Come as the winds come, when Forests are rended, Come as the waves come, when Navies are stranded.
** Walter Scott, Pibroch of Donald Dhu, (1816), st. 4.
* Ignoranti quem portum petat nullus suus ventus est.
** If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable.
** Seneca the Younger, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, no. 71, sect. 3; trans. Philip Gaskell Landmarks in Classical Literature (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999) p. 151.
* What wind blew you hither, Pistol? Not the ill wind which blows no man to good.
** William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act V, scene 3, line 89.
* Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
** William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III (c. 1591), Act II, scene 5, line 55.
* Rough wind, the moanest loud Grief too sad for song; Wild wind, when sullen cloud Knells all the night long; Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Bare woods, whose branches strain, Deep caves and dreary main, — Wail, for the world's wrong!
** Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Dirge, (1821).
* I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright.
** Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Indian Serenade, (1819), st. 1.
* We hear the wail of the remorseful winds In their strange penance. And this wretched orb Knows not the taste of rest; a maniac world, Homeless and sobbing through the deep she goes.
** Alexander Smith (1830 - 1867), "Unrest and Childhood".
* Let the winds blow! a fiercer gale Is wild within me! what may quell That sullen tempest? I must sail Whither, O whither, who can tell!
** Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833 - 1908), "Amavi".
* I listen to the wind To the wind of my soul Where I'll end up well I think, Only God really knows
** Cat Stevens, Teaser and the Firecat, (1971) "The Wind".
* The north wind is a satisfying wind; the south wind is harmful to man. The east wind is a rain-bearing wind; the west wind is greater than those who live there. The east wind is a wind of prosperity, the friend of Naram-Suen.
** Sumerian proverb, Collection IV at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, 3rd millennium BCE.
* I have grown weary of the winds of heaven. I will not be a reed to hold the sound Of whatsoever breath the gods may blow, Turning my torment into music for them. They gave me life; the gift was bountiful, I lived with the swift singing strength of fire, Seeking for beauty as a flame for fuel — Beauty in all things and in every hour. The gods have given life — I gave them song; The debt is paid and now I turn to go.
** Sara Teasdale, Rivers to the Sea, (1915), "Sappho (Rivers to the Sea)".
* It is difficult to believe, but it is, nevertheless, a fact, that since time immemorial man has had at his disposal a fairly good machine which has enabled him to utilize the energy of the ambient medium. This machine is the windmill. Contrary to popular belief, the power obtainable from wind is very considerable. Many a deluded inventor has spent years of his life in endeavoring to "harness the tides," and some have even proposed to compress air by tide- or wave-power for supplying energy, never understanding the signs of the old windmill on the hill, as it sorrowfully waved its arms about and bade them stop. The fact is that a wave- or tide-motor would have, as a rule, but a small chance of competing commercially with the windmill, which is by far the better machine, allowing a much greater amount of energy to be obtained in a simpler way. Wind-power has been, in old times, of inestimable value to man, if for nothing else but for enabling him, to cross the seas, and it is even now a very important factor in travel and transportation. But there are great limitations in this ideally simple method of utilizing the sun's energy. The machines are large for a given output, and the power is intermittent, thus necessitating the storage of energy and increasing the cost of the plant.
** Nikola Tesla, "The Problem With Increasing Human Energy: With Special References To the Harnessing Of The Sun's Energy", Century Illustrated Magazine, (June 1900).
* You too, ye winds! that now begin to blow, With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you. Where are your stores, ye viewless beings! say? Where your aerial magazines reserv’d, Against the day of tempest perilous? In what untravel'd country of the air, Hush’d in still silence, sleep you, when ‘tis calm?
** James Thomson, The Seasons, Winter (1726).
* A fresher Gale Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream, Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn; While the Quail clamors for his running mate.
** James Thomson, The Seasons, Summer (1727), line 1,655.
* You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass -- I the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.
** Henry David Thoreau, Walden, (1854), "Chapter 8—The Village".
* First, there is the power of the Wind, constantly exerted over the globe.... Here is an almost incalculable power at our disposal, yet how trifling the use we make of it! It only serves to turn a few mills, blow a few vessels across the ocean, and a few trivial ends besides. What a poor compliment do we pay to our indefatigable and energetic servant!
** Henry Thoreau In Paradise (To Be) Regaine, Democratic Review (Nov 1848). Collected in A Yankee in Canada: with Anti-slavery and Reform Papers (1866), 188-89.
* There will be great winds by reason of which things of the East will become things of the West; and those of the South, being involved in the course of the winds, will follow them to distant lands.
** Leonardo da Vinci, (1452 - 1519), The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, XX, trans. Jean Paul Richter (1888).
* I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved Or boyish intellect approved, With some appropriate commentary on each; Until imagination brought A fitter welcome; but a thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech.
** William Butler Yeats, "In Memory Of Major Robert Gregory", st. 12, The Wild Swans at Coole, (1919).
* Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
** Theodore Huebner Roethke, "In a Dark Time", st. 4, The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, (1966).
* Voiceless it cries Wingless flutters Toothless bites, Mouthless mutters.
** The Hobbit Ch.5, written by J.R.R. Tolkien

### Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

    Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 872-74.
* Blow, Boreas, foe to human kind! Blow, blustering, freezing, piercing wind! Blow, that thy force I may rehearse, While all my thoughts congeal to verse!
** John Bancks, To Boreas.
* The faint old man shall lean his silver head To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread His temples, while his breathing grows more deep.
** William Cullen Bryant, Evening Wind, Stanza 4.
* Where hast thou wandered, gentle gale, to find The perfumes thou dost bring?
** William Cullen Bryant, May Evening, Stanza 2.
* A breeze came wandering from the sky, Light as the whispers of a dream; He put the o'erhanging grasses by, And softly stooped to kiss the stream, The pretty stream, the flattered stream, The shy, yet unreluctant stream.
** William Cullen Bryant, The Wind and Stream.
* When the stormy winds do blow; When the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy winds do blow.
** Thomas Campbell, Ye Mariners of England.
* The wind is awake, pretty leaves, pretty leaves, Heed not what he says, he deceives, he deceives; Over and over To the lowly clover He has lisped the same love (and forgotten it, too). He will be lisping and pledging to you.
** John Vance Cheney, The way of it
* The winds that never moderation knew, Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew; Or out of breath with joy, could not enlarge Their straighten'd lungs or conscious of their charge.
** John Dryden, Astræa Redux, line 242.
* The wind moans, like a long wail from some despairing soul shut out in the awful storm!
** W. H. Gibson, Pastoral Days, Winter.
* The wind, the wandering wind Of the golden summer eves— Whence is the thrilling magic Of its tunes amongst the leaves? Oh, is it from the waters, Or from the long, tall grass? Or is it from the hollow rocks Through which its breathings pass?
** Felicia Hemans, The Wandering Wind.
* An ill wind that bloweth no man good— The blower of which blast is she.
** John Heywood, Idleness, Stanza 5.
* Madame, bear in mind That princes govern all things—save the wind.
** Victor Hugo, The Infanta's Rose.
* He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.
** Isaiah, XXVII. 8.
* The wind bloweth where it listeth.
** John, III. 8.
* I hear the wind among the trees Playing the celestial symphonies; I see the branches downward bent, Like keys of some great instrument.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Day of Sunshine, Stanza 3.
* Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear Has grown familiar with your song; I hear it in the opening year, I listen, and it cheers me long.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Woods in Winter, Stanza 7.
* The winds with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kisst.
** John Milton, Hymn on the Nativity, Stanza 5.
* While rocking winds are piping loud.
** John Milton, Il Penseroso (1631), line 126.
* When the gust hath blown his fill, Ending on the rustling leaves, With minute drops from off the eaves.
** John Milton, Il Penseroso (1631), line 128.
* Never does a wilder song Steal the breezy lyre along, When the wind in odors dying, Wooes it with enamor'd sighing.
** Thomas Moore, To Rosa.
* When the stormy winds do blow.
** Martyn Parker, Ye Gentlemen of England.
* Cum ventis litigare.
** To strive with the winds.
** Petronius Arbiter, 83.
* Who walketh upon the wings of the wind.
** Psalms. CIV. 3.
* A young man who had been troubling society with impalpable doctrines of a new civilization which he called "the Kingdom of Heaven" had been put out of the way; and I can imagine that believer in material power murmuring as he went homeward, "it will all blow over now." Yes. The wind from the Kingdom of Heaven has blown over the world, and shall blow for centuries yet.
** George W. Russell, The Economics of Ireland, p. 23.
* O the wind is a faun in the spring time When the ways are green for the tread of the May! List! hark his lay! Whist! mark his play! T-r-r-r-l! Hear how gay!
** Clinton Scollard, The Wind.
* Take a straw and throw it up into the air, you may see by that which way the wind is.
** John Selden, Table Talk, Libels.
* Cease, rude Boreas! blustering railer!
** G. A. Stevens, The Storm.
* There are, indeed, few merrier spectacles than that of many windmills bickering together in a fresh breeze over a woody country; their halting alacrity of movement, their pleasant business, making bread all day with uncouth gesticulation; their air, gigantically human, as of a creature half alive, put a spirit of romance into the tamest landscape.
** Robert Louis Stevenson, Foreigner at Home.
* Emblem of man, who, after all his moaning And strain of dire immeasurable strife, Has yet this consolation, all atoning— Life, as a windmill, grinds the bread of Life.
** De Tabley, The Windmill.
* Yet true it is as cow chews cud, And trees at spring do yield forth bud, Except wind stands as never it stood, It is an ill wind turns none to good.
** Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie, Description of the Properties of Winds, Chapter XII.
* I dropped my pen; and listened to the wind That sang of trees uptorn and vessels tost; A midnight harmony and wholly lost To the general sense of men by chains confined Of business, care, or pleasure,—or resigned To timely sleep.
** William Wordsworth, sonnet composed while the author was engaged in writing a tract occasioned by the Convention of Cintra.

## See also

* Air
* Flight
* East wind
* Ninlil
* North wind
* South wind
* Storm
* Tornado
* Weather
* West wind
* Wind waves
* Zephyr