Oracles Quotes - Page 4

Scratching people where they itch and addressing their 'felt needs' is a stratagem of the poor steward of the oracles of God. This was the recipe for success for the false prophets of the Old Testament.

R. C. Sproul

People, Needs, Recipes

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Solitude is not an absence of energy or action, as some believe, but is rather a boon of wild provisions transmitted to us from the soul. In ancient times, purposeful solitude was both palliative and preventative. It was used to heal fatigue and to prevent weariness. It was also used as an oracle, as a way of listening to the inner self to solicit advice and guidance otherwise impossible to hear in the din of daily life.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Believe, Self, Advice

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All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character or illustrates an existence.

Benjamin Disraeli

Character, Men, Thinking

Benjamin Disraeli (1844). “Coningsby: Or, The New Generation”, p.114, London : H. Colburn

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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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Since ... 'the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force' (Mt. 11:12), and it is impossible for the faithful to enter it by any other way, unless they come through the narrow gate of trials and tribulations, the divine oracle rightly commands us, saying: 'Strive to enter by the narrow door' (Lk. 13:24). Again He says, 'By your endurance you will gain your souls' (Lk. 21:19), and, 'Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of heaven' (Acts 14:22).

Symeon the New Theologian

Christian, Doors, Heaven

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When the Lilliputians first saw Gulliver's watch, that "wonderful kind of engine...a globe, half silver and half of some transparent metal," they identified it immediately as the god he worshiped. After all, "he seldom did anything without consulting it: he called it his oracle, and said it pointed out the time for every action in his life." To Jonathan Swift in 1726 that was worth a bit of satire. Modernity was under way. We're all Gullivers now. Or are we Yahoos?

James Gleick

Firsts, Gulliver, Watches

James Gleick (2000). “Faster: The Acceleration of Just about Everything”, Vintage

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Wine talks; ask anyone. The oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great plans, tragic loves, and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It revives summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places, everyone...a humble miracle

Joanne Harris

Summer, Laughter, Memories

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You think that your silence on certain topics, perhaps in the face of injustice, or unkindness, or mean-spiritedness, causes others to reserve judgement of you. Far otherwise; your silence utters very loud: you have no oracle to speak, no wisdom to offer, and your fellow men have learned that you cannot help them. Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice? We would be well to do likewise.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Kindness, Mean, Men

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The main thing is to study pictures and stop listening to the pontifictaions of photographers. Photographers aren't oracles of wisdom. If they're good photographers, then take a good look at their pictures - what else do you need?

Elliott Erwitt

Photography, Listening, Needs

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As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea's foot and marveling at a midge's humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.

Desiderius Erasmus

Life, Wise, Laughter

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There was a time when we were told . . . that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members...This language at the present day would appear as wild as that great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience.

Alexander Hamilton

Wisdom Experience, Public Opinion, Lessons

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The road I've taken to this point has not been easy. Being back on HBO is a big thing, but fighting on HBO in my hometown is huge. To be great you have to fight the best. Chad has beaten the best so these are the type fights I want to take. I will put on a great show for all the fans that come out to Oracle Arena.

Andre Ward

Taken, Fighting, Hbo

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They have removed the struggle to find anything. And therefore there is no genuine sense of discovery. Struggle is the first thing we know getting along the birth canal, out in the world. It's pretty basic. Book store owners and record store owners used to be oracles, in that way; you'd go in this dusty old place and they might point you toward something that would change your life. All that's gone.

Tom Waits

Struggle, Book, Discovery

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IBM has had a long partnership with Siebel, JD Edwards and Peoplesoft, so from a partner perspective, this is a good move by both sides. This agreement reflects the reality of what customers expect for their investment, support and openness. Oracle really needed to do this for Websphere, but it opens up tremendous opportunities for both companies.

Stephen Graham

Moving, Opportunity, Reality

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It's my job for Oracle, the number two software company in the world; to become the number one software company in the world. My job is to build better than the competition, sell those products in the marketplace and eventually supplant Microsoft and move from being number two to number one.

Larry Ellison

Inspirational, Jobs, Moving

"Prophet of Software". Interview, www.achievement.org. May 22, 1997.

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Thought is fugitive; the mind does not repeat itself; if you do not catch the whisperings of the oracle as they come to you, they are lost forever. You must-and this is absolutely essential-convince yourselves that what is offered you this very moment will never be offered again.

Jean Guitton

Forever, Mind, Essentials

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One of the nuisances of the ballot is that when the oracle has spoken you never know what it means.

Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Mean, Nuisance, Ballots

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I know just as well what to teach this people and just what to say to them and what to do in order to bring them into the celestial kingdom...I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call Scripture. Let me have the privilege of correcting a sermon, and it is as good Scripture as they deserve. The people have the oracles of God continually.

Brigham Young

Children, Men, Order

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When you write a program for Android, you use the Oracle Java tools for everything, and at the very end, you push a button and say, Convert this to Android format.

Larry Ellison

Writing, Buttons, Tools

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Las Vegas has become a child's picture-book dream of a city -- here a storybook castle, there a sphinx-flanked black pyramid beaming white light into the darkness as a landing beam for UFOs, and everywhere neon oracles and twisting screens predict happiness and good fortune, announce singers and comedians and magicians in residence or on their way, and the lights always flash and beckon and call.

Neil Gaiman

Dream, Children, Book

Neil Gaiman (2011). “American Gods”, p.187, Hachette UK

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When the soldier returns from the wars, even though he has white hair, he very soon finds a young wife. But a woman has only one summer; if she does not make hay while the sun shines, no one will afterwards have anything to say to her, and she spends her days consulting oracles that never send her a husband.

Aristophanes

Summer, Husband, War

"Lysistrata". Book by Aristophanes, 410 BCE.

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The people of your world became so stupid and rude that my companions and I no longer enjoyed teaching them. You must surely have heard of us: we were called oracles, nymphs, spirits, fairies, household gods, lemures, larvas, lamias, sprites, water-nymphs, incubi, shades, spirits of the dead, specters and ghosts.

Cyrano de Bergerac

Stupid, Teaching, Nymphs

"The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon". Book by Cyrano de Bergerac, 1657.

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Population trends have always provoked doom-fraught oracles, because their popular interpreters suppose that every new series will be infinitely sustained; yet, beyond the short term, expectations based on them are never fulfilled.

Thomas Malthus

Expectations, Trends, Population

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Friends given by God in mercy and in love;
My counsellors, my comforters, and guides;
My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy;
Companions of my young desires; in doubt
My oracles; my wings in high pursuit.
Oh! I remember, and will ne'er forget
Our meeting spots, our chosen sacred hours;
Our burning words, that utter'd all the soul,
Our faces beaming with unearthly love;--
Sorrow with sorrow sighing, hope with hope
Exulting, heart embracing heart entire.

Robert Pollok

Friends, Grief, Heart

Robert Pollok, “The Course Of Time. Book V.”

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I despise the proper constructions and cases, because I think it very unfitting that the words of the celestial oracle should be restricted by the rules of Donatus [a well-known grammarian].

Pope Gregory I

Thinking, Scary, Construction

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