#silver

One day we took the children to see a goldsmith refine gold after the ancient manner of the East. He was sitting beside his little charcoal fire. ("He shall sit as a refiner"; the gold- or silversmith never leaves his crucible once it is on the fire.) In the red glow lay a common curved roof tile; another tile covered it like a lid. This was the crucible. In it was the medicine made of salt, tamarind fruit and burnt brick dust, and imbedded in it was the gold. The medicine does its appointed work on the gold, "then the fire eats it," and the goldsmith lifts the gold out with a pair of tongs, lets it cool, rubs it between his fingers, and if not satisfied puts it back again in fresh medicine. This time he blows the fire hotter than it was before, and each time he puts the gold into the crucible, the heat of the fire is increased; "it could not bear it so hot at first, but it can bear it now; what would have destroyed it then helps it now." "How do you know when the gold is purified?" we asked him, and he answered, "When I can see my face in it [the liquid gold in the crucible] then it is pure. ↗

— Amy Carmichael

#fire #gold #heat #pain #pure

Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines. ↗

— Paracelsus

#alchemy #consider #gold #lie #making

Nature also forges man, now a gold man, now a silver man, now a fig man, now a bean man. ↗

— Paracelsus

#bean #fig #forges #gold #man

Gold and silver, like other commodities, have an intrinsic value, which is not arbitrary, but is dependent on their scarcity, the quantity of labour bestowed in procuring them, and the value of the capital employed in the mines which produce them. ↗

— David Ricardo

#arbitrary #bestowed #capital #commodities #dependent

There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 11 September attacks. There was nothing demonstrating or showing that something was coming in the United States. If there had been something, we would have acted on it. ↗

— Condoleezza Rice

#attacks #been #bullet #coming #could

Whatever it takes to get the image to reach that level is what that photographer needs to do. And for me, I just have such a love of the tactile and sensuous quality of a black and white silver gelatin print. ↗

— John Sexton

#black and white #get #i #image #in print

Silver, gold - I don't discriminate! I like sparkly things. ↗

— Charlaine Harris

#gold #i #like #silver #things

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#puddleglum #dreams

Pack is for comfort when you hurt, I thought, putting my head back down. And for the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever, I appreciated being a part of one. ↗

— Patricia Briggs

#comfort #family #mercy-thompson #pack #silver-borne

Early on I set out to write the next Great American Novel, and then later on I set out the silverware and enjoyed my dinner in silence. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#dinner #eat #food #great-american-novel #silence