Delphi Quotes

• For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Men, Inquiry

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.365, Delphi Classics

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• The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign

  Heraclitus

  Giving, Oracles, Lord

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• Over the entrance to the temple at Delphi was a famous inscription: KNOW THYSELF! It reminded visitors that man must never believe himself to be more than mortal - and that no man can escape his destiny.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Believe, Destiny, Men

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “Sophie's World”, p.55, Hachette UK

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• At Delphi I prayed
  to Apollo
  that he maintain in me
  the flame of the poem
  and I drank of the brackish
  spring there.

  Denise Levertov

  Prayer, Spring, Flames

  Denise Levertov (1983). “Poems of Denise Levertov, 1960-1967”, p.140, New Directions Publishing

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• All too willingly man sees himself as the centre of the universe, as something not belonging to the rest of nature but standing apart as a different and higher being. Many people cling to this error and remain deaf to the wisest command ever given by a sage, the famous "Know thyself" inscribed in the temple of Delphi.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Men, Errors, People

  Konrad Lorenz (2005). “On Aggression”, p.99, Routledge

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• Cultures have long heard wisdom in non-human voices: Apollo, god of music, medicine and knowledge, came to Delphi in the form of a dolphin. But dolphins, which fill the oceans with blipping and chirping, and whales, which mew and caw in ultramarine jazz - a true rhapsody in blue - are hunted to the edge of silence.

  Jay Griffiths

  Ocean, Blue, Whales

  "Fifty years on, the silence of Rachel Carson's spring consumes us" by Jay Griffiths, www.theguardian.com. September 25, 2012.

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• We are living in the era of the busybody. In ancient Greece, if a person wanted guidance, it involved a long, arduous expensive journey to consult the oracle at Delphi. Today, if you want guidance, all you have to do is unplug your ears.

  Margo Kaufman

  Journey, Long, Advice

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• Zagreus was the son of Zeus. He was slain by the Titans, buried at the foot of Mount Parnassus, and rose from the dead as Dionysos. He was the god of fruit and wine. Like those of Christ his most devoted followers were women. He is the beloved son and occupies a throne at the right hand of his father, Zeus. His empty tomb at Delphi was long preserved by his devotees as proof of his death, and resurrection.

  John Remsburg

  Father, Wine, Son

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• Apollo at Delphi, through the oracular utterance of his priestess, pronounced Socrates the wisest of men. Of him it is related that he said with sagacity and great learning that the human breast should have been furnished with open windows, so that men might not keep their feelings concealed, but have them open to the view. Oh that nature, following his idea, had constructed them thus unfolded and obvious to the view.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Men, Views, Should Have

  "The Ten Books On Architecture". Book by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, Book III, Preface, Sec. 1, c. 15 BC.

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• And for Incoherent Speech, it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of Prophecy, because the Prophets of their Oracles, intoxicated with a spirit, or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi, were for a time really mad, and spake like mad-men; of whoose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event, in such sort, as all bodies are said to be made of Materia prima .

  Thomas Hobbes

  Taken, Men, Mad

  Thomas Hobbes (1953). “Leviathan”, Peter Smith Pub Inc

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• Antique art has come down to us in a fragmentary condition, and we have virtuously adapted our taste to this necessity. Almost all our favorite specimens of Greek sculpture, from the sixth century onward, were originally parts of compositions, and if we were faced with the complete group in which the Charioteer of Delphi was once a subsidiary figure, we might well experience a moment of revulsion. We have come to think of the fragment as more vivid, more concentrated, and more authentic.

  Kenneth Clark

  Art, Thinking, Greek

  Kenneth Clark (1956). “The nude: a study in ideal form”, M J F Books

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• GM will do what's best for GM, and Delphi should do what's good for them.

  David Tepper

  Should

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• It is difficult to see anything but infatuation in the destructive temperament which leads to the action ... that each of us is to rejoice that our several units are to be distinguished at death into countless millions of organisms; for such, it seems, is the latest revelation delivered from the fragile tripod of a modern Delphi.

  William E. Gladstone

  Death, Science, Action

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