Ancient Quotes - Page 20

• 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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• It was by music that the ancient kings gave elegant expression to their joy. By their armies and axes they gave the same to their anger.

  Confucius

  Kings, Anger, Army

  Confucius (1967). “Li Chi: Book of Rites: An Encyclopedia of Ancient Ceremonial Usages, Religious Creeds, and Social Institutions”

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• They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Evil, Ends

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.102, Beacon Press

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• In Europe we have the "loss of self" motif clearly illustrated in the whirl dances of the Russians sects of the Molokani in Armenia....All the countries that bordered the Meditteranean in ancient times, and the less remote sections of Asia as well, appear to have had whirl dances.

  Curt Sachs

  Dance, Country, Loss

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• THE PATH IS exceedingly vast. From ancient times to the present day, even the greatest sages were unable to perceive and comprehend the entire truth; the explanation and teachings of masters and saints express only part of the whole. It is not possible for anyone to speak of such things in their entirety. Just head for the light and heat, learn from the gods, and through the virtue of devoted practice of the Art of Peace, become one with the divine.

  Morihei Ueshiba

  Art, Teaching, Practice

  Morihei Ueshiba, John Stevens (2010). “The Art of Peace”, p.183, Shambhala Publications

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• Nobody brings ancient history and archaeology to life like Adrienne Mayor. From the Russian steppes to China, and from Roman Egypt and Arabia to the Etruscans, she leads the reader on a breathtaking quest for the real ancient warrior women reflected in myths--their daring, archery, tattoos, fine horses, and independence from male control. The book's rich erudition, communicated in sparkling prose and beautiful illustrations, makes it a riveting read.

  Edith Hall

  Tattoo, Beautiful, Horse

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• In ancient Greece, politics and the market were not decoupled.

  George Papandreou

  Ancient Greece, Greece

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• Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forger, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise.

  Simon Greenleaf

  Party, Law, Custody

  Simon Greenleaf (1847). “An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice: With an Account of the Trial of Jesus”, p.7

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• Implosion is no invention in the conventional sense, but rather the renaissance of ancient knowledge, lost over the course of time.

  Viktor Schauberger

  Renaissance, Invention, Lost

  Viktor Schauberger, Callum Coats (2000). “The Energy Evolution – Harnessing Free Energy from Nature: Volume 4 of Renowned Environmentalist Viktor Schauberger’s Eco-Technology Series”, p.149, Gill & Macmillan Ltd

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• Diane Cluck is a virtuosic talent with an emotionality that feels at once ancient and alien. Her mastery of her voice as an ecstatic instrument is so compelling.

  Antony Hegarty

  Voice, Mastery, Aliens

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• I know ours is a world made by men for men, their dictatorship is so ancient it even extends to language.

  Oriana Fallaci

  Men, World, Language

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• You sit back in the darkness, nursing your beer, breathing in that ineffable aroma of the old-time saloon: dark wood, spilled beer, good cigars, and ancient whiskey - the sacred incense of the drinking man.

  Bruce Aidells

  Humorous, Drinking, Nursing

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• As artists, we belong to an ancient and holy tribe. We are the carriers of the truth that spirit moves through us all. When we deal with one another, we are dealing not merely with our own human personalities but also with the unseen but ever-present throng of ideas, visions, stories, poems, songs, sculptures, art-as-facts that crowd the temple of consciousness waiting their turn to be born.

  Julia Cameron

  Song, Art, Moving

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• Terence: nihil humanum alienum a me-"nothing human is alien to me," the greatest expression of ancient megalopsychia or great-souled and cosmopolitan "magnanimity."

  Kenny Smith

  Expression, Soul, Aliens

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• It helps to regard soul as an active intelligence, forming and plotting each person's fate. Translators use "plot" to render the ancient Greek word mythos in English. The plots that entangle our souls and draw forth our characters are the great myths. That is why we need a sense of myth and knowledge of different myths to gain insight into our epic struggles, our misalliances, and our tragedies. Myths show the imaginative structures inside our messes, and our human characters can locate themselves against the background of the characters of myth.

  James Hillman

  Struggle, Character, Fate

  James Hillman (2012). “The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life”, p.11, Ballantine Books

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• God created music as a common language for all men. It inspires the poets, the composers and the architects. It lures us to search our souls for the meaning of the mysteries described in ancient books.

  Khalil Gibran

  Book, Men, Inspire

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