Theseus Quotes

• The course of true love never did run smooth.

  William Shakespeare

  Love, Life, Summer

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 1, sc. 1, l. 132

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• I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful." He further added: "No man can read the gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life...Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.

  Albert Einstein

  Jesus, Hero, Men

  54 Copy quote

• This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.

  William Shakespeare

  Passion, Men, Death Of A Friend

  William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens, Isaac Reed (1819). “The Plays of Shakspeare”, p.184

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• The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

  William Shakespeare

  Love You, Carpe Diem, Imagination Creativity

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 5, sc. 1, l. 7

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• To you your father should be as a god.

  William Shakespeare

  Father, Should, Midsummer

  1595 Theseus to Hermia. A Midsummer Night's Dream, act1, sc.1, l.47.

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• To you your father should be as a god;
  One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
  To whom you are but as a form in wax,
  By him imprinted, and within his power
  To leave the figure or disfigure it.

  William Shakespeare

  Dad, Father, Form

  William Shakespeare (2013). “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, p.8, Callisto Media Inc

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• But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
  Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
  Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

  William Shakespeare

  Life, Flower, Rose

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 1, sc. 1, l. 67

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• Lovers and madmen have such seething brains Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends.

  William Shakespeare

  Brain, Lovers, Fantasy

  1595 Theseus. A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 5, sc.1, l.4-6.

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• There are things roaming around inside my head as clever as Theseus in the Labyrinth. It's just that nobody ever gave them the necessary piece of string, so they'll never find their way out.

  Geraldine McCaughrean

  Clever, Roaming Around, Labyrinth

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• An unchangeable colour rules over the melancholic: his dwelling is a space the colour of mourning. Nothing happens in it. No one intrudes. It is a bare stage where the inert I is assisted by the I suffering from that inertia. The latter wishes to free the former, but all efforts fail, as Theseus would have failed had he been not only himself but also the Minotaur; to kill him then, he would have had to kill himself

  Alejandra Pizarnik

  Dwelling, Space, Mourning

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• All the Greek mythic heroes had gone east, but they were myths. Achilles was a myth. Perseus, Theseus, Hercules... they probably existed in some form. But they all went east. That's where a Greek went to make his bones so to speak. And Alexander the Great was the first man who actually went east not to plunder, not to loot and come back to Greece - which is where the Macedonians wanted to go back with the money. He stayed. And he became half-Eastern.

  Oliver Stone

  Hero, Men, Greek

  Source: www.chud.com

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• The heroes in paganism correspond exactly to the saints in popery, and holy dervises in MAHOMETANISM. The place of, HERCULES, THESEUS, HECTOR, ROMULUS, is now supplied by DOMINIC, FRANCIS, ANTHONY, and BENEDICT. Instead of the destruction of monsters, the subduing of tyrants, the defence of our native country; whippings and fastings, cowardice and humility, abject submission and slavish obedience, are become the means of obtaining celestial honours among mankind.

  David Hume

  Country, Hero, Mean

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.1245, Delphi Classics

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• Theseus made unscrupulous use of Ariadne (whom he left on an island where Bacchus later found her-I always think that really meant she took to drink, poor girl).

  Diana Wynne Jones

  Girl, Thinking, Islands

  Diana Wynne Jones (2012). “Reflections”, p.118, Random House

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