Ancient Quotes - Page 31

• We don't usually think of what we eat as a matter of ethics. Stealing, lying, hurting people - these acts are obviously relevant to our moral character. In ancient Greece and Rome, ethical choices about food were considered at least as significant as ethical choices about sex.

  Peter Singer

  Hurt, Sex, Lying

  Peter Singer, Jim Mason (2007). “The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter”, p.3, Rodale

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• As a child I became a confirmed believer in the ancient gods simply because as between the reality of fact and the reality f myth, I chose myth...Myth is the truth of fact, not fact the truth of myth.

  Kathleen Raine

  Children, Reality, Facts

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• If we only arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Courage, Princess, Race

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• From the apparent usefulness of the social virtues, it has readily been inferred by sceptics, both ancient and modern, that all moral distinctions arise from education, and were, at first, invented, and afterwards encouraged ... in order to render men tractable, and subdue their natural ferocity and selfishness, which incapacitated them for society.

  David Hume

  Men, Order, Selfishness

  David Hume (2006). “An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals”, p.48, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Children, Gay, Skills

  Oliver Goldsmith (1871). “The works of Oliver Goldsmith: Vicar of Wakefield, select poems and comedies, with intr., notes and a life by J.F. Waller”, p.222

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• The final test of religious faith... is whether it will enable men to endure insecurity without complacency or despair, whether it can so interpret the ancient verities that they will not become mere escape hatches from responsibilities but instruments of insights into what civilization means.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Religious, Mean, Responsibility

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• And this has been man's stupidity - a very ancient one: whenever he gets into difficulty, he changes the word. Change the word marriage into soul mates, but don't change yourself. And you are the problem, not the word; any word will do. A rose is a rose is a rose...you can call it by any name. You are asking to change the concept, you are not asking to change yourself.

  Rajneesh

  Marriage, Men, Names

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• Beautiful and rich is an old friendship, Grateful to the touch as ancient ivory, Smooth as aged wine, or sheen of tapestry Where light has lingered, intimate and long. Full of tears and warm is an old friendship That asks no longer deeds of gallantry, Or any deed at all- save that the friend shall be Alive and breathing somewhere, like a song.

  Eunice Tietjens

  Friendship, Beautiful, Song

  Eunice Tietjens (1929). “Leaves in Windy Weather”

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• Children of those ancient Aryans, through the grace of the Lord may you have the same pride, may that faith in your ancestors come into your blood, may it become a part and parcel of your lives, may it work towards the salvation of the world!

  Swami Vivekananda

  Motivational, Faith, Children

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1271, Manonmani Publishers

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• The first thing brought forth by the study of any religion, ancient or modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed by it — and that it cultivates the source from which its nourishment is derived.

  Upton Sinclair

  Firsts, Study, Modern

  Upton Sinclair (2005). “The Profits of Religion”, p.24, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The candle glimmers but an hour. The night
  Looms in its ancient hunger. Would you know
  The tragedy of human love and need?
  Gaze on the stars, then on a brother's face!

  George Sterling

  Brother, Stars, Night

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• I conceive of the film as a modern art form particularly interesting to the sense of sight. Painting has its own peculiar problems and specific sensations, and so has the film. But there are also problems in which the dividing line is obliterated, or where the two infringe upon each other. More especially, the cinema can fulfill certain promises made by the ancient arts, in the realization of which painting and film become close neighbors and work together.

  Hans Richter

  Art, Sight, Two

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• We still like to make up stories, just as our ancestors did, which use personification to explain the great forces of our existence. Such stories, which explain how the world began or where the sun goes when it sets, we call myths. Mythology is a natural product of the symbolizing mind; poets, when not making up myths of their own, are still commanding ancient ones.

  John Frederick Nims

  Mind, Sun, Stories

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• Wherever we direct our view, we discover the melancholy proofs of our depravity; whether we look to ancient or modern times, to barbarous or civilized nations, to the conduct of the world around us, or to the monitor within the breast; whether we read, or hear, or act, or think, or feel, the same humiliating lesson is forced upon us.

  William Wilberforce

  Thinking, Views, Looks

  William Wilberforce (2005). “A Practical View of Preferred Christians”, p.26, Cosimo, Inc.

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• As Earth warriors, we choose to be participants in the ancient battle between good and evil. On our side stand the waters and wind, and all things wild and of the Earth. On the other side, consumed with greed and in persuit of power, control and money, stand all the dark forces that lay waste to Her.

  Rod Coronado

  Warrior, Dark, Wind

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• How simple-minded of the Germans to imagine that we British could be cowed by the destruction of our ancient monuments! As though any havoc of the German bombs could possibly equal the things we have done ourselves!

  Osbert Sitwell

  Simple, Bombs, Done

  "Tribune", Quoted by George Orwell, December 31, 1943.

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• Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (1) Mauve waters and green mountains are nothing when the great ancient doctor Hua To could not defeat a tiny worm. A thousand villages collapsed, were choked with weeds, men were lost arrows. Ghosts sang in the doorway of a few desolate houses. Yet now in a day we leap around the earth or explore a thousand Milky Ways. And if the cowherd who lives on a star asks about the god of plagues, tell him, happy or sad, the god is gone, washed away in the waters. July 1, 1958

  Mao Zedong

  Life, Weed, Stars

  Zedong Mao (2008). “The Poems of Mao Zedong”, p.89, Univ of California Press

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• Sycamore trees were held to be sacred in ancient Egypt and are the first trees represented in ancient art. The sycamore, also, was sacred. Peasants gather around them in rituals. In the Land of the Dead there was a sycamore in whose branches the goddess Hathor lived; she leaned out of it giving sustenance and water to deceased souls. In Memphis, Hathor's epithet was Lady of the Sycamore.

  Larry Gates

  Life, Art, Egypt

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• This morning arrives a letter from my ancient silver-mining comrade, Calvin H. Higbie, a man whom I have not seen nor had communication with for forty-four years. . . . [Footnote: Roughing It is dedicated to Higbie.] . . . I shall allow myself the privilege of copying his punctuation and his spelling, for to me they are a part of the man. He is as honest as the day is long. He is utterly simple-minded and straightforward, and his spelling and his punctuation are as simple and honest as he is himself. He makes no apology for them, and no apology is needed.

  Mark Twain

  Morning, Communication, Apology

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• No, we don't accomplish our love in a single year as the flowers do; an immemorial sap flows up through our arms when we love. Dear girl, this: that we loved, inside us, not One who would someday appear, but seething multitudes; not just a single child, but also the fathers lying in our depths like fallen mountains; also the dried-up riverbeds of ancient mothers-;also the whole soundless landscape under the clouded or clear sky of its destiny -; all this, my dear, preceded you.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Love, Girl, Mother

  1923 Duinieser Elegien, no.3 (translated by Stephen Mitchell in The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke,1989).

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• How have you left the ancient love That bards of old enjoyed in you! The languid strings do scarcely move! The sound is forced, the notes are few!

  William Blake

  Love, Moving, Sound

  William Blake (2005). “Collected Poems”, p.12, Routledge

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• Nature is flexible and resilient. Nature likes redundancy and dispersion. It is approximate and deals in gradients. All boundaries are permeable. Nature nests small systems like molecules within larger systems like cells, which in turn are nested in systems called organs, organisms, ecosystems. We grew from ancient one-celled ancestors. Nature likes mergers: we contain multitudes of other life forms within us. We stand at the crest of four billion years, bacteria molded into wondrous form, burning with a slow fire and about to take the next step.

  Robert Frenay

  Nature, Ecosystems, Fire

  Robert Frenay (2006). “Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines Inspired by Living Things”, p.32, Macmillan

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• Trees have from time immemorial been closely associated with magic. These stout members of the vegetable kingdom may stand for as long as a thousand years, and tower far above our mortal heads. As such they are symbols and keepers of unlimited power, longevity, and timelessness. An untouched forest, studded with trees of all ages, sizes and types, is more than a mysterious, magical place - it is one of the energy reservoirs of nature. Within its boundaries stand ancient and new sentinels, guardians of the universal force which has manifested on the the Earth. . . .

  Scott Cunningham

  Vegetables, Years, Long

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• O, You who are ever giving life to all life, moving all creatures, root of all things, washing them clean, wiping out their mistakes, healing their wounds, You are our true life, luminous, wonderful, awakening the heart from its ancient sleep.

  Hildegard of Bingen

  Mistake, Moving, Heart

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• The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Relief, Needs

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.142, Jazzybee Verlag

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