Literary notes about Quarry (AI summary)
The term quarry in literature is remarkably versatile, functioning both literally and metaphorically. It can denote a tangible location—a site for extracting stone used in building or landscape, as in descriptions of ancient ruins or rustic settings ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5])—while at other times it symbolizes a pursued target, whether that be prey in the literal hunt ([6], [7], [8], [9]) or an abstract goal such as virtue, time, or intellect ([10], [11], [12]). In many instances the word enriches the narrative by creating a duality: it is both the desired object of chase and a metaphor for something fundamental, a resource from which modern structures, both physical and moral, are built ([13], [14], [15]). This layered use across genres and eras demonstrates how quarry, as a concept, continues to evolve and resonate with diverse literary traditions ([16], [17], [18]).
- The ruins of Laodicea have formed the quarry out of which the modern town of Denizli is built.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon by J. B. Lightfoot - Every thing about the church is marble, and all from the same quarry; it was bequeathed to the Archbishopric for this purpose centuries ago.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain - A good stone quarry in the neighbourhood of London would afford a considerable rent.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - Against one side of the quarry a little two-room cottage was built, and just outside the door an old woman was engaged in washing.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - The monoliths for the pillars were duly cut out at a quarry near Hamilton.
— from Toronto of Old by Henry Scadding - The quarry does not view virtue and vice from the standpoint of the hunter.
— from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore - Man to man they were the stronger; but they fought on the defensive only, which enabled the boys to hunt in pairs and choose their quarry.
— from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie - I followed where the quarry fled: My deadly arrow flew, And as the dying creature bled, The giant met my view.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - He must be an active huntsman, and drive his quarry into them and follow it up to its most inaccessible lairs.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski - [70] They do not know that it is the chase, and not the quarry, which they seek.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal - Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones [34] for the masonry of to-day.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Men who have left their mark on the world have appreciated the preciousness of time, regarding it as the great quarry.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden - The whole, a laboured quarry above ground; Two Cupids squirt before; a lake behind Improves the keenness of the northern wind.
— from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope - And she was the quarry, and she was also the hound.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - We are only ingenious in using ourselves ill: ‘tis the real quarry our intellects fly at; and intellect, when misapplied, is a dangerous tool!
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne - Sometimes I hunt in the midst of this element, which appears to be inaccessible to man, and quarry the game which dwells in my submarine forests.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne - What of the quarry ye went to kill? Brother, he crops in the jungle still.
— from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling - Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the marked down quarry, the destined prey.
— from Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy by Bernard Shaw
