Oracles Quotes - Page 4

• We pass more women with swollen bellies hurrying towards the godshouse and Arjuro presses a kiss to Tariq's outstretched fingers. 'She's mocking me, runt of our litter,' Arjuro tells him. 'The Oracle is mocking me for choosing a man to share my bed. And her punishment is that I spend the rest of eternity staring between the legs of women.

  Melina Marchetta

  Kissing, Men, Bed

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• But I cannot recite, even thus rudely, laws of the intellect, without remembering that lofty and sequestered class of men who have been its prophets and oracles, the high-priesthood of the pure reason, the Trismegisti, the expounders of the principles of thought from age to age.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Law, Class

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.104, Graphic Arts Books

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• From all human oracles, however self-confident, we turn at last to the inspired Word, where instead of ambiguous and untrustworthy utterances, we find teachings distinct and definite, authoritative and infallible.

  Arthur Tappan Pierson

  Bible, Christian, Teaching

  Arthur Tappan Pierson (1910). “Knowing the Scriptures: Rules and Methods of Bible Study”

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• And every stone and every star a tongue, And every gale of wind a curious song. The Heavens were an oracle, and spoke Divinity: the Earth did undertake The office of a priest; and I being dumb (Nothing besides was dumb) all things did come With voices and instructions.

  Thomas Traherne

  Song, Stars, Wind

  Thomas Traherne, “Dumbness”

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• We know next to nothing with any certainty about Pythagoras, except that he was not really called Pythagoras. The name by which he is known to us was probably a nickname bestowed by his followers. According to one source, it meant ‘He who spoke truth like an oracle’. Rather than entrust his mathematical and philosophical ideas to paper, Pythagoras is said to have expounded them before large crowds. The world’s most famous mathematician was also its first rhetorician.

  Daniel Tammet

  Philosophical, Names, Ideas

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the muse of history will utter oracles as never to those who do not respect themselves.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, History, Students

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.104, Penguin

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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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• 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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• 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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• What is a totem? It is as a rule an animal (whether edible and harmless or dangerous and feared) and more rarely a plant or a natural phenomenon (such as rain or water), which stands in a peculiar relation to the whole clan. In the first place, the totem is the common ancestor of the clan; at the same time it is their guardian spirit and helper, which sends them oracles and, if dangerous to others, recognizes and spares its own children.

  Sigmund Freud

  Children, Rain, Animal

  Sigmund Freud (2003). “Totem and Taboo”, p.3, Routledge

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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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• The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.

  Emma Goldman

  Atheist, Philosophy, Real

  Emma Goldman (1915). “Mother Earth Bulletin”

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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 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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• 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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• 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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• And if we now cast our eyes over the nations of the earth, we shall find that, instead of possessing the pure religion of the Gospel, they may be divided either into infidels, who deny the truth; or politicians who make religion a stalking horse for their ambition; or professors, who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy, and are more attentive to traditions and ordinances of men than to the oracles of truth.

  Samuel Adams

  Horse, Ambition, Eye

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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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• 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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• When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal. And it has nothing to do with money. I mean, you buy clothes with money, and cars. But I really wanted to work with people I enjoyed working with, who I admired and liked.

  Larry Ellison

  Inspirational, Mean, Clothes

  Interview with Daniel Morrow, americanhistory.si.edu. October 24, 1995.

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