You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.
- John Ruskin
source: John Ruskin (2006). “A Joy for Ever, And Its Price in the Market”, p.83, Cosimo, Inc.
topic: Time, Flames, Teeth, Scythes, Mildew

When I stand in a library where is all the recorded wit of the world, but none of the recording, a mere accumulated, and not trulycumulative treasure; where immortal works stand side by side with anthologies which did not survive their month, and cobweb and mildew have already spread from these to the binding of those; and happily I am reminded of what poetry is,--I perceive that Shakespeare and Milton did not foresee into what company they were to fall. Alas! that so soon the work of a true poet should be swept into such a dust-hole!
- Henry David Thoreau
source: Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.256, Delphi Classics
topic: Fall, Dust, Poetry, Mildew
If we address frankly what is evoked by cheese, I think it becomes clear why so little is said. So what does cheese evoke? Damp dark cellars, molds, mildews and mushrooms galore, dirty laundry and high school locker rooms, digestive processes and visceral fermentations, he-goats which do not remind of Chanel ... In sum, cheese reminds of dubious, even unsavory places, both in nature and in our own organisms. And yet we love it.
- Michael Pollan
source: Michael Pollan (2013). “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation”, p.222, Penguin
topic: Dirty, School, Dark, Mildew, Locker Room
Life appears: a complex dampness, destined to an intricate future and charged with secret virtues, capable of challenge and creation. A kind of precarious slime, of surface mildew, in which a ferment is already working. A turbulent, spasmodic sap, a presage and expectation of a new way of being, breaking with mineral perpetuity and boldly exchanging it for the doubtful privilege of being able to tremble, decay, and multiply.
- Roger Caillois
source: Roger Caillois (1985). “The writing of stones”, Univ of Virginia Pr
topic: Expectations, Challenges, Secret, Slime, Mildew