Quotes & Sayings About Grindstone

It was when I firmly pressed myself against my grindstone of life, did my most illuminating sparks fly. — Garry Fitchett

I. In Secret II. The Grindstone III. The Shadow IV. Calm in Storm — Charles Dickens

One of the few graces of getting old-and God knows there are few graces-is that if you've worked hard and kept your nose to the grindstone, something happens: The body gets old but the creative mechanism is refreshed, smoothed and oiled and honed. That is the grace. That is what's happening to me. — Maurice Sendak

Then you must tell them that love isn't something like a grindstone that's the same thing everywhere and do the same thing to everything it touches. Love is like the sea. It is a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and its different with every shore. (written properly and not in slang) — Zora Neale Hurston

I've been pretty good about keeping my nose to the grindstone. I feel like I won a lot of matches from hard work and persistence, even maybe when I had better options as far as shot-making. — Andy Roddick

If you keep your nose to the grindstone, you don't have any nose, — Les Wexner

Grindstone III. The Shadow IV. Calm in Storm V. The Wood-Sawyer VI. — Charles Dickens

Life really is like a grindstone, in that it will either grind you down or polish you up. — Zig Ziglar

We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity. — H.G.Wells

A dull ax never loves grindstones. — Henry Ward Beecher

Marriage is love put to it's ultimate test - the grindstone of life. Where the idealism of love meets the everydayness of marriage. — Carew Papritz

A grindstone that had not grit in it, how long would it take to sharpen an ax? And affairs that had not grit in them, how long would they take to make a man? — Henry Ward Beecher

...a clerk, a machine, a riding-school hack, eating and drinking and sleeping at fixed hours. I should be like everyone else. And that's what they call living, that life at the grindstone, doing the same thing over and over again.... I am hungry and nothing is offered to appease my appetite. — Honore De Balzac

I've been good about keeping my nose to the grindstone. — Andy Roddick

Loadstone Rock Book the Third - the Track of a Storm I. In Secret II. The Grindstone III. The Shadow — Charles Dickens

Realizing how often ingenious speculation in the complex biological world has led nowhere and how often the real advances in biology as well as in chemistry, physics and astronomy have kept within the bounds of mechanistic interpretation, we geneticists should rejoice, even with our noses on the grindstone (which means both eyes on the objectives), that we have at command an additional means of testing whatever original ideas pop into our heads. — Thomas Hunt Morgan

It's almost comical that astronauts are stereotyped as daredevils and cowboys. As a rule, we're highly methodical and detail-oriented. Our passion isn't for thrills but for the grindstone, and pressing our noses to it. — Chris Hadfield

In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you'll dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it to the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused. — Ernest Hemingway,

You'd just die if you put your head to the grindstone. — Jim Rash

Experience is a grindstone; and it is lucky for us, if we can get brightened by it, and not ground. — Josh Billings

clarity of vision that could only have come from being honed on the grindstone of reality. — Margaret Atwood

It's a favorite myth in our culture that hardship makes you a better person, that is is merely the grindstone on which your essence is refined and polished. But the truth is that scarcity, depression, thwarted ambition, and suffering most often leave the person a little twisted. That is the territory where mean drunks and tyrannical bastards come from. — Jessa Crispin

Keep your nose to the grindstone. It sharpens your boogers. — Steven Tyler

I can't abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their work, and was afraid o' doing a stroke too much ... I hate to see a man's arms drop down as if he was shot, before the clock's fairly struck, just as if he'd never a bit o' pride and delight in's work. The very grindstone 'ull go on turning a bit after you loose it. — George Eliot

The kernels of wheat entered the aperture virtually in single file, as if passing between a thumb and an index finger. To mill any faster risked overheating the stone, which in turn risked damaging the flour. In this fact, Dave explained, lies the origin of the phrase "nose to the grindstone": a scrupulous miller leans in frequently to smell his grindstone for signs of flour beginning to overheat. (So the saying does not signify hard work as much as attentiveness.) A wooden spout at the bottom of the mill emitted a gentle breeze of warm, tan flour that slowly accumulated in a white cloth bag. I leaned in close for a whiff. Freshly milled whole-grain flour is powerfully fragrant, redolent of hazelnuts and flowers. For the first time I appreciated what I'd read about the etymology of the word "flour" -- that it is the flower, or best part, of the wheat seed. Indeed. White flour has little aroma to speak of; this flour smelled delicious. — Michael Pollan

Now, you might think that because there are more poets than ever, there might be more opportunities for poets than ever. And you'd be correct. If your fondest wish is to become the next totally obscure minor poet on the block, well, you're probably already successful at that. This literary landscape has proven itself infinitely capable of absorbing countless interchangeable artists, all doing roughly the same thing in relative anonymity: just happily plucking away until death at the grindstone, making no great cultural headway, bouncing poems off their friends and an audience of about 40 people. A totally fine little life for an artist, to be sure. No grand expectations from the world to sit up and listen. One can live out one's days quite satisfied to create something enjoyed by a genial cult. But that's not why any of us are here tonight. We're here to conquer American Poetry and suck it dry of all glory and juice. — Jim Behrle

I do not know the difference between them, for the politics of the Yankees is a puzzle I cannot solve, study it as I may. But as far as seeing through a grindstone goes, I am afraid - " Susan shook her head dubiously, "that they are all tarred with the same brush. — L.M. Montgomery

The lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had never given, and would never take away. — Charles Dickens

The Grindstone III. The Shadow IV. Calm in Storm V. The Wood-Sawyer — Charles Dickens

A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose to the grindstone. — Benjamin Franklin

Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us. — Thomas Holcroft

The faith that anyone could move from rags to riches - with enough guts and gumption, hard work and nose to the grindstone - was once at the core of the American Dream. — Robert Reich

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. — Charles Dickens

It's like the frog that tried to outdo the cow...see, the consequences are reflected in each of us as individuals. A people so oppressed by the West have no mental leisure, they can't do anything worthwhile. They get an education that's stripped to the bare bone, and they're driven with their noses to the grindstone until they're dizzy -- that's why they all end up with nervous breakdowns. Try talking to them -- they're usually stupid. They haven't thought about a thing beyond themselves, that day, that very instant. They're too exhausted to think about anything else; it's not their fault. Unfortunately, exhaustion of the spirit and deterioration of the body come hand-in-hand. And that's not all. The decline of morality has set in too. Look where you will in this country, you won't find one square inch of brightness. It's all pitch black. So what difference would it make... — Soseki Natsume

Storm I. In Secret II. The Grindstone III. The Shadow IV. Calm in Storm V. The Wood-Sawyer VI. Triumph — Charles Dickens

Once this person this counselor at school, this LADY, if you know what I mean, told me that if you kept your nose to the grindstone you could be someone in the world, and I thought, Yeah someone with a fucked up nose. — Robert Boswell

When I first graduated college, I told my parents I'd try to pursue comedy for the first year or two, and if it didn't work out, I'd put my nose to the grindstone and try to find a job somehow. I went to UCB, and it clicked with me. — Ben Schwartz

America?" said Gamesh, smiling. "Roland, what's American to you? Or me, or those tens of thousands up in the the stands? It's just a word they use to keep your nose to the grindstone and your toes to the line. America is the opiate of the people. — Philip Roth

Danger was the grindstone on which the swordsman whetted his spirit. Enemies were teachers in disguise. — Eiji Yoshikawa

A man doesn't know till he tries it how killing uncongenial work is, and how it destroys the power of doing what one's fit for, even if there's time for both. — Edith Wharton

Third - the Track of a Storm I. In Secret II. The Grindstone III. The Shadow IV. — Charles Dickens

So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business; but to these we must add frugality if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a grout at last. — Benjamin Franklin

Away with the joint-stools, remove the
court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save
me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let
the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.
Antony, and Potpan! — William Shakespeare

I'm just having fun making jokes and writing books. But you see me once a year, I come on when I have a new book out, but basically, I've got my nose to the grindstone and I'm doing what I'm supposed to do in life, which is make stories. — T.C. Boyle

The world is a grindstone and life is your nose — Fred Allen

The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with red upon it that the sun had never give, and would never take away. — Charles Dickens

Opinions, theories, and systems pass by turns over the grindstone of time, which at first gives them brilliancy and sharpness, but finally wears them out. — Antoine Rivarol

There are so many examples of people who have flourished by keeping their nose to the grindstone and doing their thing. Be persistent and don't give up. — Stephnie Weir