Storm

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. ~ Willa Cather

A storm (from Proto-Germanic *sturmaz "noise, tumult") is a disturbed state of an atmosphere, especially those affecting planetary or stellar surfaces, and strongly implying severe and dangerous weather. The weather phenomena is often used as a metaphor in referring to emotional or spiritual states in individuals or societies.

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Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. ~ Joseph Addison

• So when an angel by divine command
  With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
  Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed,
  Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
  And, pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform,
  Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
  • Joseph Addison, The Campaign (1704); an alteration of these lines occurs in Alexander Pope's satire The Dunciad, Book III, line 264, where he describes a contemporary theatre manager as an "Angel of Dulness":

Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease,
Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease;
And proud his mistress' order to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

• We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose. Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty; and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another. Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today: to make our country more just and generous; to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life. This work continues. This story goes on. And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.
  • George Walker Bush, First inaugural address (20 January 2001)

• There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.
  • George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876), Book 3, Ch. 24.

• I know there is a God — I see the storm coming and I see his hand in it — if he has a place then I am ready — we see the hand.
  • John F. Kennedy paraphrasing a statement by Abraham Lincoln; quoted in The New York Times (15 May 1964)

• Ride the air
  In whirlwind.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 545.

• We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?
  • John Page in a letter to Thomas Jefferson (20 July 1776), quoting a phrase from Ecclesiastes 9:11.

• Seventy-three men sailed in, from the San Francisco Bay,
  Rolled off of their ship and here's what they had to say.
  "We're calling everyone to ride along, to another shore.
  Where we can laugh our lives away and be free once more."
  But no one heard them calling, no one came at all,
  'Cause they were too busy watching those old raindrops fall.
  As a storm was blowing, out on the peaceful sea,
  Seventy-three men sailing off to history.
  • Mike Pinera and Frank "Skip" Konte, of Blues Image, in Ride Captain Ride (1970)

• As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,
  When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,
  I stood upon the hatches in the storm.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act III, scene 2, line 101.

• A little gale will soon disperse that cloud
  … for every cloud engenders not a storm.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III (c. 1591), Act V, scene 3, line 9.

• I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
  Have riv'd the knotty oaks, and I have seen
  The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
  To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds
  But never till to-night, never till now,
  Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act I, scene 3, line 5.

• Blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark!
  The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act V, scene 1, line 67.

• Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
  You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
  Till you have drench'd our steeples.
  • William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act III, scene 2, line 1.

• Merciful Heaven,
  Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
  Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
  Than the soft myrtle.
  • William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act II, scene 2, line 114.

• Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
  Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
  That in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
  And ere a man hath power to say "Behold"
  The jaws of darkness do devour it up.
  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-96), Act I, scene 1, line 144.

• His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
  For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
  Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act II, scene 1, line 33.

• When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;
  When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;
  When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
  Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act II, scene 3, line 32.

• At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of Heaven,
  The Tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,
  And rolls its awful burden on the wind,
  The Lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
  The Noise astounds; till overhead a sheet
  Of livid flame discloses wide, then shuts,
  And opens wider; shuts and opens still
  Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.
  Follows the loosen'd aggravated Roar,
  Enlarging, deepening, mingling, peal on peal,
  Crush'd, horrible, convulsing Heaven and Earth.
  • James Thomson, The Seasons, Summer (1727), line 1,133.

• Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.
  • Jay Wolpert, The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) (character of Edmond Dantès; screenplay based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas).

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 753-54.

• I have heard a greater storm in a boiling pot.
  • Atheneaus, Deipnosophistæ, VIII, 19. Dorian, a flutist, ridiculing Timotheos, a zither player, who imitated a storm at sea.

• The earth is rocking, the skies are riven—
  Jove in a passion, in god-like fashion,
  Is breaking the crystal urns of heaven.
  • Robert Buchanan, Horatius Cogitandibus, Stanza 16.

• A storm in a cream bowl.
  • James Butler, First Duke of Ormond, to the Earl of Arlington, Dec. 28, 1678. Ormond MSS. Commission New Series, Volume IV, p. 292.

• Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo.
  • He used to raise a storm in a teapot.
  • Cicero, De Legibus, III. 16. Erasmus, Adagia Occulta, p. 548. (Ed. 1670). Bernard Bayle—Storm in a Teacup. Comedietta performed March 20, 1854, Princess Theatre, London.

• Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impends,
  And swell'd with tempests on the ship descends;
  White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud
  Howl o'er the masts, and sing through every shroud:
  Pale, trembling, tir'd, the sailors freeze with fears;
  And instant death on every wave appears.
  • Homer, The Iliad, Book XV, line 752. Pope's translation.

• Roads are wet where'er one wendeth,
  And with rain the thistle bendeth,
  And the brook cries like a child!
  Not a rainbow shines to cheer us;
  Ah! the sun comes never near us,
  And the heavens look dark and wild.
  • Mary Howitt, The Wet Summer. From the German.

• C'est une tempête dans un verre d'eau.
  • It is a tempest in a tumbler of water.
  • Paul, Grand-Duc de Russie, Of the insurrection in Geneva.

• The winds grow high;
  Impending tempests charge the sky;
  The lightning flies, the thunder roars;
  And big waves lash the frightened shores.
  • Matthew Prior, The Lady's Looking-Glass.

• Lightnings, that show the vast and foaming deep,
  The rending thunders, as they onward roll,
  The loud, loud winds, that o'er the billows sweep—
  Shake the firm nerve, appal the bravest soul!
  • Mrs. Radcliffe, Mysteries of Udolpho, The Mariner, Stanza 9.

• Der Sturm ist Meister; Wind und Welle spielen
  Ball mit dem Menschen.
  • The storm is master. Man, as a ball, is tossed twixt winds and billows.
  • Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, IV. 1. 59.

• Loud o'er my head though awful thunders roll,
  And vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole,
  Yet 'tis Thy voice, my God, that bids them fly,
  Thy arm directs those lightnings through the sky.
  Then let the good Thy mighty name revere,
  And hardened sinners Thy just vengeance fear.
  • Walter Scott, On a Thunderstorm. Written at the age of twelve. Found in Lockhart's Life of Scott, Volume I, Chapter III.

• For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms and did my duty faithfully.
  • Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

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• Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.
  • Lord Byron

• Human misery must somewhere have a stop; there is no wind that always blows a storm.
  • Euripides

• Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?
  • Rose Kennedy

• A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.
  • John Muir

• Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
  • Rabindranath Tagore

• Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.
  • Arnold J. Toynbee

• If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.
  • Mohandas Gandhi

• If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine.
  • Morris West

• Into this house we're born
  Into this world we're thrown
  Like a dog without a bone
  An actor out alone
  Riders on the storm.
  
  • The Doors

• It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.
  • Charles Caleb Colton

• It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
  • Frederick Douglass

• It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls.
  • Bruce Fairchild Barton

• Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do.
  • Golda Meir

• What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution.
  • Henri Frédéric Amiel

• The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.
  • Albert Camus

• There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.
  • Willa Cather

• For the man sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every sky has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.
  • George Gissing in The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft

• Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere.
  • H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines

• Now, nation, arise and storm break loose!
  • Josef Goebells: Total War Speech

See also

• Tornado