Steppe Quotes & Sayings

Wheat is blond in the Steppe, yellow in the Prairie. Algae in the labs is many different brownish greens. — Kim Stanley Robinson

I have brought many artifacts back with me from the steppe. My favourite is a 90-year-old Kazakh saddle decorated with silverwork in traditional motifs. It symbolises the deep relationship between man and horse on the Eurasian Steppe. — Tim Cope

The deeper the Whites moved into the steppe, the more they resorted to terror against a hostile population. Their Ice March left a trail of blood. It was perhaps unavoidable, given the Volunteers' desperate need for food and the reluctance of the peasants to give it to them. The Whites were stranded in a Red peasant sea. But there was also an element of sheer class war and revenge in their violence, as in so many acts of the White Terror, which was a mirror image of the class resentment and hatred that drove the Red Terror. Terror lay at the heart of both regimes. — Orlando Figes

When ye look at me I am an idle, idle man; when I look at myself I am a busy, busy man. Since upon the plain of uncreated infinity I am building, building the tower of ecstasy, I have no time for building houses. Since upon the steppe of the void of truth I am breaking, breaking the savage fetter of suffering, I have no time for ploughing family land. Since at the bourn of unity ineffable I am subduing, subduing the demon-foe of self, I have no time for subduing angry foe-men. Since in the palace of mind which transcends duality I am waiting, waiting for spiritual experience as my bride, I have no time for setting up house. Since in the circle of the Buddhas of my body I am fostering, fostering the child of wisdom, I have no time for fostering snivelling children. Since in the frame of the body, the seat of all delight, I am saving, saving precious instruction and reflection, I have no time for saving wordly wealth. — Milarepa

Hundreds of versts of desolate, monotonous, sun-parched steppe cannot bring on the depression induced by one man who sits and talks, and gives no sign of ever going. — Anton Chekhov

But I couldn't be sure we wouldn't all die here on the steppe with snow in our mouths and holes in our hearts. — Dan Smith

In Mongolia, the nomads always told me that wolves were the most dangerous things on the steppe, and I didn't believe them at first. — Tim Cope

There is something sad, dreamy, and in the highest degree poetic in a lonely grave ... You can hear its silence, and in this silence you sense the presence of the soul of the unknown person who lies under the cross. Is it good for this soul in the steppe? Does it languish — Anton Chekhov

Conditions to the north of us, in the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts zone of action, and our offensive on Kharkov demands that we not lose time and we commit all forces so that we can draw off as many divisions as possible from Kharkov. And even if we do not draw them off, at least we will not give Manstein the ability to take any of his units from our part of the front. If we attract one or two German tank divisions - it will be the best contribution to the defeat of the enemy in the south. — Aleksandr Vasilevsky

Perhaps most important for nomads was the belief in the symbiosis that existed between wolf and humans on the steppe. Wolves were an integral part of keeping the balance of nature, ensuring that plagues of rabbits and rodents didn't break out, which in turn protected the all-important pasture for the nomads' herds. — Tim Cope

Not forever can one enjoy stillness and peace. But misfortune and obstruction are not final. When the grass has been burnt by the fire of the steppe, it will grow anew in summer. — Jean Sasson

And while I at length debate and beate the bush, There shall steppe in other men and catch the burdes. — John Heywood

What drew me to Kazakhstan was a curiosity to learn about life in this 'middle earth' of steppe between the endless forests of Russia in the north and the world's greatest mountain chains to the south. — Tim Cope

Taken with the archaeological data, we can say that the old hypothesis of an invasion of people - not merely their language - from the steppe appears to be true. — Spencer Wells

We see evidence that lakes and forests and wetlands can have different equilibria - so you have a savanna system that may be stable and thriving, but it can also tip over and become an arid steppe if pushed too far by warming, land degradation, and biodiversity loss. — Johan Rockstrom

- Come Inanna, enter, Neti said to her, and as Inanna entered the first gate, the sugurra, crown of the steppe, was taken from her head.
- What is this? asked Inanna
- Quiet, Inanna, she was told. The customs of the city of the dead are perfect. They may not be questioned. — Hal Duncan

... I agree with two things: the steppe is wide - even though I've never been there, and the mountains, fuck, yes, the mountains are a thing for themselves. They eat you up, swallow you whole, digest and churn around until their loneliness spits you back out again and you think that nothing else matters. Just them, and that tiny handful of life that's your own. Fucking insignificant. Nothing, no one, barely remembered, except perhaps for a moment of recognition in a goddamned teahouse." He shut up, suddenly, had said too much.
Vadim flashed a smile. "You're my favourite enemy, too. Fucking messy Brit. — Aleksandr Voinov

Gazing at the faces of the horses and the people, at this boundless stream of life raised up by the power of my will and now hurtling into nowhere across the sunset-crimson steppe, I often think: where am I in this flux? GHENGIS KHAN — Victor Pelevin

Exchanging gifts is an important thing in the steppe culture, a way for them to feel you have become a part of their lives. — Tim Cope

For the traveller, Kazakhstan offers more than just a staging post for the Silk Road, as is often perceived, and there is more than just steppe. — Tim Cope

My dream was to ride a horse from Mongolia to Hungary, 10,000 km across the great Eurasian Steppe, and in doing so, come to understand the nomadic cultures that have presided there for thousands of years. — Tim Cope

Who is the lonely Traveller
Racing the moonlight to my door?
Racing his troika over the steppe
Pacing his steeds with the wind in the forest.
The North wind that harries
The South wind that tarries
Who the lone Traveller come to my door?
- Lonely no more."

Siberian song - Trans-Baikal region — Lesley Blanch

Where are you now? What roads are you treading? We have so many new roads now, right across the steppe all the way to the Altai and Siberia. Many brave souls are toiling there. Perhaps you're among them? You left, my Jamilia, across the wide steppe without a backward glance. Perhaps you are weary, perhaps you have lost faith in your self? Just lean on Daniyar's shoulder. Have him sing to you his song of love, of life, of the earth. May the steppe come alive and blossom in all its glory. May you recall that August night. Keep on, Jamilia, have no regrets; you've found your hard-sought happiness.
When I gaze at them long enough I can hear Daniyar's voice. He is calling to me, too, to take the highroad, which means it is time for me to get ready. I shall cross the steppe back to my village and find fresh colours there.
May Daniyar's song resound and may Jamilia's heart beat with every stroke of my brush. — Chingiz Aitmatov

If a girl is traveling in the steppe and she sees nothing but a single moving dot in the great distance, the dot sees her. Stag, man, wolf. — Atticus Lish

What a terrible mistake, thought Drogo, perhaps everything is like that - we think there are beings like ourselves around us and instead there is nothing but ice and stones speaking a strange language; we are on the point of greeting a friend but our arm falls inert, the smile dies away because we are completely alone. — Dino Buzzati

In the initial stages of my journey, I was trying to travel too fast by horse by sticking to a 'five days on and two off' schedule. On the steppe, time is not measured by days, weeks or hours but the fall of the seasons and condition of the animals. — Tim Cope

It was at this period that Drogo realised how far apart men are whatever their affection for each other, that if you suffer the pain is yours and yours alone, no one else can take upon himself the least part of it; that if you suffer it does not mean that others feel pain even though their love is great: hence the loneliness of life. — Dino Buzzati

The most successful hyperpowers are the ones where there was actual intermixing. Tang dynasty China was China's golden age, and contrary to what I was told when I was growing up, Tang China was founded by a man who by today's standards was no more than half Chinese. It was a mixed-blood dynasty that pulled in 'barbarians' from the steppe. — Amy Chua

For a few heady weeks of the year the steppe in a binge throws out a wilderness of flowers that tangle your hooves and confuse your horse. — Bryn Hammond

He looks upon sky and steppe and sees that which God has created. I look and see God Himself. — Steven Pressfield

What is a look of absolute fear? Popescu asked. The doctor belched a few times, shifted in his chair, and answered that it was a kind of look of mercy, but empty, as if all that were left of mercy, after a mysterious voyage, was the skin, as if mercy were a skin of water, say, in the hands of a Tatar horseman who gallops away over the steppe and dwindles untile he vanishes, and then the horseman returns, or the ghost of the horseman returns, or his shadow, or the idea of him, and he has the skin, empty of water now, because he drank it all during his trip, or he and his horse drank it, and the skin is empty now, it's a normal skin, an empty skin, because after all the abnormal thing is a skin swollen with water, but this skin swollen with water, this hideous skin swollen with water doesn't arouse fear, doesn't awaken it, much less isolate it, but the empty skin does, and that was what he saw in the mathematician's face, absolute fear. — Roberto Bolano

The crickets kept crepitating; from time to time there came a sweet whiff of burning juniper; and above the black alpestrine steppe, above the silken sea, the enormous, all-engulfing sky, dove-gray with stars, made one's head spin, and suddenly Martin again experienced a feeling he had known on more than one occasion as a child: an unbearable intensification of all his senses, a magical and demanding impulse, the presence of something for which alone it was worth living. — Vladimir Nabokov