A garland of quotations CX

I write, for a living, books

A smalle fyre, yan a loud flame, proves more true.
•Thomas Chatterton, “Ælla” (ca. 1770).

Burn down everything which is getting in the way of your perception of truth.
•Robert Svoboda, Aghora: The Left Hand of God (1986).

Though for a hundred years the Guebre feeds his flame,
Did he once fall therein, ’twould feed on him the same.
•Sâdi, The Rose Garden (1258).

Nero, on Tarpeian Rock,
watched as Rome went up in flames;
crying ancients, screaming infants,
and not one thing cause...