Under communism and feudalism there was hunger. Under capitalism the world has been able to feed twice as many mouths as could be fed before. Capitalism found a world of wood and iron ore, and made it into a world of steel. It puddled the pig-iron until the dross was out, and the pure metal was bessemered into steel. Now the task is to purify men as we have purified metals. Men have dross in their nature. They break under civilization's load. A steel world is hopeless if men are pig-iron.英文原著 · 《The Iron Puddler》
I forget the details; a certain number of pieces of yellow and white dross are spoken of. Ah, I see it is fifteen and some odd shillings and coppers. Let us say twenty.英文原著 · 《Old Friends》
"There are women," I said, "who look upon horsehair sofas and currant wine as dross. To them even the calculated modulation of your well- trimmed talk sounds like the dropping of rotten plums from a tree in the night. They are the maidens who walk back and forth in the villages, scorning the emptiness of the baskets at the doors of the young men who would win them.英文原著 · 《Options》
My lady hath a golden heart, Free from the dross of worldly art; Which, in the sight of heaven above, Is mine with all its hoarded love! Her love! Her boundless wealth of love!英文原著 · 《Poems》
That word, my friend, unsay; tho' grief this bosom tear, The hand that wounds I kiss--love vanquishes despair; Fate only, not Pauline, the foe that I accuse, No plighted faith she breaks who did this hand refuse. Duty--her father--Fate--these willed, she but obeyed; Not hers the woe, the strife that envious Ate made! Untimely, Fortune's shower must drown me, not revive; Too lavish and too late her fatal gifts arrive. The golden apple falls, the gold is turned to dross: When Fate at Fortune mocks, all gain is only loss!英文原著 · 《Polyuecte》