Ancient Quotes - Page 24

• England! awake! awake! awake! Jerusalem thy sister calls! Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death And close her from thy ancient walls?

  William Blake

  Sister, Wall, Sleep

  'Jerusalem' (1815) 'To the Christians' (plate 77) "England! awake!... "

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• If a man’s imagination were not so weak, so easily tired, if his capacity for wonder not so limited, he would abandon forever such fantasies of the supernal.  He would learn to perceive in water, leaves and silence more than sufficient of the absolute and marvelous, more than enough to console him for the loss of the ancient dream.

  Edward Abbey

  Dream, Tired, Loss

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.177, Simon and Schuster

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• In fact, very few people on the face of the planet know that the very shape of the M25 forms the sigil *odegra* in the language of the Black Priesthood of Ancient Mu, and means 'Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds'.

  Terry Pratchett

  Mean, People, Black

  Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett (2011). “Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch”, p.15, Harper Collins

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• An ancient proverb summed it up when a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life.

  Terry Pratchett

  Tired, Glasses, Broken

  Terry Pratchett (2009). “The Light Fantastic: (Discworld Novel 2)”, p.33, Random House

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• I felt a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me, half wakened from sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind those words, if I could grasp it, far beyond ancient English.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Beautiful, Sleep, Thrill

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• I’ve often been accused of being too emotional and sentimental, but I believe in honest sentiment, and the need to purge ourselves at certain times, which is ancient. Men would live at least five or six more years and not have ulcers if they could cry better.

  Ray Bradbury

  Believe, Men, Emotional

  Tangent Interview, www.tangentonline.com. June 9, 2012.

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• The human animal began as a mere wriggling thing in the ancient seas, struggling out onto land with many regrets. That is what brings us so full of longing to the sea.

  Sebastian Barry

  Regret, Struggle, Animal

  Sebastian Barry (2008). “The Secret Scripture”, p.115, Faber & Faber

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• Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Children, Memories, Men

  "Orator Ad M. Brutum". Book by Marcus Tullius Cicero, 46 BC.

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• Based on the considerations of history, ancient history, and international axioms, the logic of following up a citizen with his shadow for the purpose of the demarcation of political frontiers of any state has been discounted for international conventions. For example the Arabs cannot ask Spain just because they were there some time in the past nor can they ask for any other area outside the frontiers of the Arab homeland

  Saddam Hussein

  Past, Political, Shadow

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• To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geo-strategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Together, Age, Empires

  Zbigniew Brzezinski (2007). “The Grand Chessboard”, p.43, Basic Books

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• MEMRI allows an audience far beyond the Arabic-speaking world to observe the wide variety of Arab voices speaking through the media, schoolbooks, and pulpits to their own people. What one hears is often astonishing, sometimes frightening, and always important. Most importantly, it includes the newly-emerging liberal voices of reform and hope, as well as disturbing echoes of ancient hatreds. Without the valuable research of MEMRI, the non-Arabic speaking world would not have this indispensable window.

  Richard Holbrooke

  Echoes, Media, Voice

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• I believe that a woman should always remain a woman and nothing feminine should be alien to her. At the same time, I strongly feel that no work done by a woman in the field of science or culture or whatever, however vigorous or demanding, can enter into conflict with her ancient 'wonderful mission' -- to love, to be loved -- and with her craving for the bliss of motherhood.

  Valentina Tereshkova

  Believe, Motherhood, Done

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• I remember myself, that when I was young, I had sometime the company of one ancient godly minister, who was of weaker parts than many others, but yet did profit me more than most; because he would never in prayer or conference speak of God, or the life to come, but with such marvelous seriousness and reverence, as if he had seen the majesty and glory which he talked of.

  Richard Baxter

  Prayer, Godly, Majesty

  Richard Baxter, William Orme (1830). “The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter, with a Life of the Author, and a Critical Examination of His Writings”, p.256

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• Ancient laws remain in force long after the people have the power to change them.

  Aristotle

  Power, Law, Long

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• The art of beautiful motion is far and away the oldest. Before man learned how to use any instruments at all, he moved the most perfect instrument of all, his body. He did this with such abandon that the cultural history of prehistoric and ancient man is, for the most part, nothing but the history of the dance.

  Gerard van der Leeuw

  Beautiful, Dance, Art

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• Like belief, doubt takes a lot of different forms, from ancient Skepticism to modern scientific empiricism, from doubt in many gods to doubt in one God, to doubt that recreates and enlivens faith and doubt that is really disbelief.

  Jennifer Michael Hecht

  Doubt, Different, Belief

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• Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets - as vast and indestructible as nature itself.

  Anne Rice

  Streets Of Paris, Age, Paris Fashion

  Anne Rice (2011). “The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned”, p.246, Ballantine Books

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• As everyone knows, the ancients before Aristotle did not consider the dream a product of the dreaming mind, but a divine inspiration, and in ancient times the two antagonistic streams, which one finds throughout in the estimates of dream life, were already noticeable. They distinguished between true and valuable dreams, sent to the dreamer to warn him or to foretell the future, and vain, fraudulent, and empty dreams, the object of which was to misguide or lead him to destruction.

  Sigmund Freud

  Dream, Inspiration, Two

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• The very general occurrence of the homosexual in ancient Greece, and its wide occurrence today in some cultures in which such activity is not taboo suggests that the capacity of an individual to respond erotically to any sort of stimulus, whether it is provided by another person of the same or opposite sex, is basic in the species.

  Alfred Kinsey

  Sex, Opposites, Culture

  Alfred C. Kinsey (1998). “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”, p.660, Indiana University Press

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• Truth is, most of us contain a splashing, giggling, squealing child who knows without thinking that bare skin and water go together as wings go with air, roots with earth, and the phoenix with incendiary sun. And innocence belongs to us as it did to ancient Greek athletes, who never wore clothes for their footraces or boxing matches but rather oiled themselves until their nude bodies glistened in the sunlight.

  Janet Lembke

  Children, Athlete, Thinking

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• Elizabeth Taylor is pre-feminist woman. This is the source of her continuing greatness and relevance. She wields the sexual power that feminism cannot explain and has tried to destroy. Through stars like Taylor, we sense the world-disordering impact of legendary women like Delilah, Salome, and Helen of Troy. Feminism has tried to dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary clich?. But the femme fatale expresses women's ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm. The specter of the femme fatale stalks all men's relations with women.

  Camille Paglia

  Stars, Power, Greatness

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays”, p.12, Vintage

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• Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.

  Gautama Buddha

  Inspirational, Wise, Truth

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• The Christians say, that among the ancient Jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep. Now they say 'charge it.' 'Put it on the slate.' The Savior will pay it. In this way, rascality is sold on credit, and the credit system in morals, as in business, breeds extravagance.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Christian, Sheep, Religion

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• The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Class, Justice, Diversity

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• There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched.

  Sophocles

  Life, Men, Judging

  "Women of Trachis". Play by Sophocles. "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations", 10th edition, 1919.

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