Ancient Quotes - Page 9

• Why would so many risk their reputations, families, careers—even presidential legacies—for something that runs against human nature? Were monogamy an ancient, evolved trait characteristic of our species, as the standard narrative insists, these ubiquitous transgressions would be infrequent and such horrible enforcement unnecessary. No creature needs to be threatened with death to act in accord with its own nature.

  Christopher Ryan

  Running, Careers, Presidential

  11 Copy quote

• I see a city in the desert lies
  The vanity of an ancient king
  But the city lies in broken pieces
  While the wind howls and the vultures sing

  Sting

  Kings, Lying, Vanity

  6 Copy quote

• Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

  Francis Bacon

  Library, Shrines, Saint

  Francis Bacon, Brian Vickers (1996). “The Major Works”, p.170, Oxford University Press, USA

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon

  Voltaire

  History, Historical, Fables

  6 Copy quote

• I believe there is no liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety, than the Common Prayer of the Church of England.  And though the main of it was compiled considerably more than two hundred years ago, yet is the language of it, not only pure, but strong and elegant in the highest degree.

  John Wesley

  Strong, Prayer, Believe

  John Wesley “John Wesley's The Book of Common Prayer”, Lulu.com

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Again, if there are really no fairies, why do people believe in them, all over the world? The ancient Greeks believed, so did the old Egyptians, and the Hindoos, and the Red Indians, and is it likely, if there are no fairies, that so many different peoples would have seen and heard them?

  Andrew Lang

  Believe, People, Greek

  Andrew Lang (2015). “The Yellow Fairy Book”, p.4, Booklassic

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's a joy without canker or cark,
  There's a pleasure eternally new,
  'T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark
  Of china that's ancient and blue.

  Andrew Lang

  Blue, Joy, Pleasure

  Andrew Lang (2015). “Ballads in Blue China”, p.35, Library of Alexandria

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome.

  Charles Mackay

  Errors, Welcome, Familiar

  Charles Mackay (1841). “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions”, p.314

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even today, some opt for the comforts of mystification, preferring to believe that the wonders of the ancient world were built by Atlanteans, gods, or space travelers, instead of by thousands toiling in the sun. Such thinking robs our forerunners of their due, and us of their experience. Because then one can believe whatever one likes about the past - without having to confront the bones, potsherds, and inscriptions which tell us that people all over the world, time and again, have made similar advances and mistakes.

  Ronald Wright

  Mistake, Believe, Thinking

  Ronald Wright (2006). “An Illustrated Short History of Progress”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago He would've thought they were birds Or angels from another world Or messengers from other planets.

  Dejan Stojanovic

  Angel, Men, Years

  4 Copy quote

• O ye by wandering tempest sown
  'Neath every alien star,
  Forget not whence the breath was blown
  That wafted you afar!
  For ye are still her ancient seed
  On younger soil let fall—
  Children of Britain's island-breed,
  To whom the Mother in her need
  Perchance may one day call.

  William Watson

  Mother, Stars, Children

  William Watson, “England And Her Colonies”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men.

  Lord Byron

  Men, Holy, Tales

  Lord Byron (2015). “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage”, p.6, Sheba Blake Publishing

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar.

  Edward Said

  Middle East, Maps, Jars

  Edward W. Said (2014). “Orientalism”, p.18, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to the light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet cannot succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can't get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Beautiful, Mother, Struggle

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1941). “Goethe's Faust”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Earth is ancient now, but all knowledge is stored up in her. She keeps a record of everything that has happened since time began. Of time before time, she says little, and in a language that no one has yet understood. Through time, her secret codes have gradually been broken. Her mud and lava is a message from the past. Of time to come, she says much, but who listens?

  Jeanette Winterson

  Past, Broken, Secret

  Jeanette Winterson (2005). “Weight”, p.46, Penguin Books India

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• Rather than bring the full force of our creativity and rationality to bear on the problems of ethics, social cohesion, and even spiritual experience, moderates merely ask that we relax our standard of adherence to ancient superstitions and taboos, while otherwise maintaining a belief system that was passed down to us from men and women whose lives were simply ravaged by their basic ignorance about the world.

  Sam Harris

  Spiritual, Creativity, Ignorance

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

• Two households, both alike in dignity In fair Verona, where we lay our scene From ancient grudge break to new mutiny Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

  William Shakespeare

  Stars, Blood, Hands

  William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Alexander Pope, Edward Capell, Samuel Johnson (1821). “The plays and poems of William Shakspeare”, p.5

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ah; but my courage fails me, and my heart is sick within me! —Lord, take pity on the Christian who doubts, on the skeptic who would fain believe, on the galley-slave of life who puts to sea alone, in the darkness of night, beneath a firmament illumined no longer by the consoling beacon-fires of the ancient hope.

  Joris-Karl Huysmans

  Christian, Believe, Heart

  7 Copy quote

• One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn't was a lot of time thinking about the people who build their pyramids, either.

  Molly Ivins

  Hard Times, Thinking, Egypt

  8 Copy quote

• That a thing made by hand, the work and thought of a single craftsman, can endure much longer than its maker, through centuries in fact, can survive natural catastrophe, neglect, and even mistreatment, has always filled me with wonder. Sometimes in museums, looking at a humble piece of pottery from ancient Persia or Pompeii, or a finely wrought page from a medieval illuminated manuscript toiled over by a nameless monk, or a primitive tool with a carved handle, I am moved to tears. The unknown life of the maker is evanescent in its brevity, but the work of his or her hands and heart remains.

  Susan Vreeland

  Heart, Humble, Hands

  23 Copy quote

• There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties

  John Muir

  Mother, Nature, Adventure

  8 Copy quote

• Through neglect, ignorance, or inability, the new intellectual Borgias cram hairballs down our throats and refuse us the convulsion that could make us well. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, the ancient knowledge that only by being truly sick can one regain health. Even beasts know when it is good and proper to throw up. Teach me how to be sick then, in the right time and place, so that I may again walk in the fields and with the wise and smiling dogs know enough to chew sweet grass.

  Ray Bradbury

  Wise, Dog, Sweet

  Ray Bradbury (1991). “On stage: a chrestomathy of his plays”, Plume

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• And the dreams so rich in color. How else would death call you? Waking in the cold dawn it all turned to ash instantly. Like certain ancient frescoes entombed for centuries suddenly exposed to the day.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Dream, Color, Dawn

  Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road film tie-in”, p.20, Pan Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ancient astronauts didn't build the pyramids. Human beings built the pyramids, because they're clever and they work hard.

  Gene Roddenberry

  Clever, Hard Work, Pyramids

  12 Copy quote

• To think, analyze and invent, he [Pierre Menard] also wrote me, “are not anomalous acts, but the normal respiration of the intelligence. To glorify the occasional fulfillment of this function, to treasure ancient thoughts of others, to remember with incredulous amazement that the doctor universal is thought, is to confess our languor or barbarism. Every man should be capable of all ideas, and I believe that in the future he will be." (Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote, 1939)

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Believe, Men, Thinking

  7 Copy quote