Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Storm
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
Addison—The Campaign.
I have heard a greater storm in a boiling pot.
Athenæus—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. St. 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. Vol. 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—Iliad. Bk. XV. L. 752. Pope’s trans.
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.
Ride the air
In whirlwind.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 545.
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.
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. St. 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.
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.
Scott—On a Thunderstorm. Written at the age of twelve. Found in Lockhart’s Life of Scott. Vol. I. Ch. III.
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.
Henry VI. Pt. II. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 101.
A little gale will soon disperse that cloud
… for every cloud engenders not a storm.
Henry VI. Pt. III. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 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.
Julius Cæsar. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 5.
Blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark!
The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.
Julius Cæsar. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 67.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples.
King Lear. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 1.
Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle.
Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 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.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 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.
Richard II. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 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.
Richard III. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 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.
Thomson—Seasons. Summer. L. 1,133.
For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms and did my duty faithfully.
Thoreau—Walden.