A SOURCE FOR DEEP THOUGHT

"I stopped to admire a spider's web....Threads of gossamer had that mite woven in a symmetrical net of perfect lines that was now embellished by droplets of dew, each globule a minute mirror that returned images of the sky and the grasses and the trees, tiny cameos enameled in color against a background of burnished silver.  In the heart of the masterpiece was the builder, a small crouched being all furry and gray and black, whose shining legs gripped the silks they had so carefully arranged."  ~R.D. Lawrence (1921-2003)

"Heavy dew this morning and every spider web in the garden is strong with pearls of moisture....webs wherever I look, all shining things of silver beauty.  The difference between utility and utility plus beauty is the difference between telephone wires and the spider's web."  ~Edwin Way Teale, 1953

"Spiders are busy spinning webs in the grass, in the bushes, wherever there is prey to be caught....made of silken strands only a few millionths of an inch thick but stronger than steel.  Structures that are pure beauty when jeweled with morning dewdrops."  ~Hal Borland, 1973

"Oh Daddy.  Daddy O.  How'd you get those legs to grow, so very long and lean in size?  From spiderobic exercise?  Did you drink milk?  Or chew on cheese?  And by the way, where are your knees?"  ~The Daddy Long legs, 1998

"What's miraculous about a spider's web?.....I don't see why you say a web is a miracle.  It's just a web."

  ......"Ever try to spin one?"

"To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread.  The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing."  ~Robertson Davies

"The greatest force is derived from the power of thought.  The finer the element, the more powerful it is.  The silent power of thought influences people even at a distance, because the mind is one as well as many.  The universe is a cobweb...minds are spiders."  ~Swami Vivekananda

"Many and most moments go by with us hardly aware of their passage.  But love and hate and fear cause time to snag you, to drag you down like a spider's web holding fast to a doomed fly's wings.  And when you're caught like that, you're aware of every moment and movement and nuance."  ~Walter Mosley

"Health is the greatest of God's gifts, but we take it for granted; yet it hangs on a thread as fine as a spider's web and the tiniest thing can make it snap, leaving the strongest of us helpless in an instant."  ~Jennifer Worth

"If I were confined to a corner of an attic all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me."  ~Henry David Thoreau

"What shall I compare it to, this fantastic thing I call my Mind?  To a waste-paper basket, to a sieve choked with sediment, or to a barrel full of floating froth and refuse?  No, what it is really most likely is a spider's web, insecurely hung on leaves and twigs, quivering in every wind, and sprinkled with dewdrops and dead flies.  And at its center, pondering forever the Problem of Existence, sits motionless the spider-like and uncanny Soul."  ~Logan Pearsall Smith

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place:  from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.  The problem is not that there are problems.  The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."  ~Theodore Isaac Rubin

"Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world.  In deep sleep there are no thoughts, and there is no world.  In the states of waking and dream, there are thoughts, and there is a world also.  Just as the spider emits the thread of the web out of itself and again withdraws it into itself, likewise the mind projects the world out of itself and again resolves it into itself."  ~Ramana Maharshi

"The wisdom of bees, ants and spiders?  What wise hand teacheth them to do what reason cannot teach us?.......The civility of these little citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdom of their Maker."  ~Thomas Browne

"Just imagine the banner headlines if a marine biologist were to discover a species of dolphin that wove large, intricately meshed fishing nets, twenty dolphin-lengths in diameter!  Yet we take a spider web for granted, as a nuisance in the house, rather than as one of the wonders of the world."  ~Richard Dawkins