Prometheus Quotes

• When all the other animals, downcast looked upon the earth, he [Prometheus] gave a face raised on high to man, and commanded him to see the sky and raise his high eyes to the stars.

  Ovid

  Stars, Eye, Animal

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• ...art is something subversive. It's something that should not be free. Art and liberty, like the fire of Prometheus, are things that one must steal, to be used against the established order.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, Freedom, Fire

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• [Hermes addresses Prometheus :] To you, the clever and crafty, bitter beyond all bitterness, who has sinned against the gods in bestowing honors upon creatures of a day--to you, thief of fire, I speak.

  Aeschylus

  Clever, Fire, Honor

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• It is stern work, it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun
  And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men:
  But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done, would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Heart, Men, Fire

  Joyce Kilmer (1917). “Main Street, and Other Poems”

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• Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through.

  Ayn Rand

  Sleep, Men, Break Through

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.51, Xist Publishing

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• There really is only one story that you need to tell as a scientist or a technologist. It's Prometheus stealing fire. That's it. That's what we do as scientists or technologists.

  Brian Andreas

  Fire, Needs, Stories

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• Creative people see Prometheus in a mirror, never Pandora.

  David Brin

  Inspirational, Life, Mirrors

  David Brin (2013). “Exiles: The Uplift Storm Trilogy”, p.262, Hachette UK

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• Prometheus, I have no Titan's might,
  Yet I, too, must each dusk renew my heart,
  For daytime's vulture talons tear apart
  The tender alcoves built by love at night.

  Philip Jose Farmer

  Life, Heart, Night

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• God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.

  Herman Melville

  Heart, Men, Thinking

  Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.224, Velvet Element Books

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• Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. It’s not the tobacco we’re after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning.

  Tom Robbins

  Home, Fire, Volcanoes

  "Still Life with Woodpecker". Book by Tom Robbins, 1980.

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• Prometheus heretofore went up to Heaven, and stole fire from thence. Have not I as much Boldness as he?

  Cyrano de Bergerac

  Fire, Heaven, Boldness

  Cyrano de Bergerac (2015). “A Voyage to the Moon: Souls Needed for You”, p.12, 谷月社

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• They say, 'The coward dies many times'; so does the beloved. Didn't the eagle find a fresh liver to tear in Prometheus every time it dined?

  C. S. Lewis

  Eagles, Tears, Coward

  C.S. Lewis (2012). “A Grief Observed”, p.28, Faber & Faber

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• To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From it's own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, not falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous,beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Beautiful, Night, Thinking

  'Prometheus Unbound' (1820) act 4, l. 570

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• Prometheus, thief of light, giver of light, bound by the gods, must have been a book.

  Mark Z. Danielewski

  Book, Light, Thieves

  Twitter post from Apr 28, 2011

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• Prometheus is reaching out for the stars with an empty grin on his face.

  Arthur Koestler

  Stars, Faces, Empty

  Arthur Koestler (1981). “Kaleidoscope: essays from Drinkers of infinity, and The heel of Achilles and later pieces and stories”, Vintage

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• To hope till hope creates
  From its own wreck the thing it contemplates.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Hope, Wrecks, Unbound

  'Prometheus Unbound' (1820) act 4, l. 570

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• Go your way. Forget Prometheus, And all the woe that he is doom'd to bear; By his own choice this vile estate preferring To ignorant bliss and unfelt slavery.

  Hartley Coleridge

  Choices, Ignorant, Slavery

  Hartley Coleridge, Derwent Coleridge (1851). “Poems by Hartley Coleridge: With a Memoir of His Life by His Brother. ...”, p.298

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• If Prometheus was worthy of the wrath of heaven for kindling the first fire upon earth, how ought all the gods honor the men who make it their professional business to put it out?

  John Godfrey Saxe

  Men, Fire, Wrath

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• We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don't have our own style. Don't worry. Writing is a communal act. Contrary to popular belief, a writer is not Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire. We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas, and soda pop of this time. It all gets mixed up in our writing.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Writing, Thinking, Fire

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.102, Shambhala Publications

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• There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing.

  David

  Men, Arabia, Needs

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• Man must get back to himself before he can learn his relation to his fellows. Prometheus chained to the Rock of Ages is doomed to remain the prey of the vultures of darkness. Unbind Prometheus, and you dispel the night and its horrors.

  Emma Goldman

  Night, Men, Rocks

  Emma Goldman (1983). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”, Schocken

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• Man is the animal who weeps and laughs - and writes. If the first Prometheus brought fire from heaven in a fennel-stalk, the last will take it back - in a book.

  John Cowper Powys

  Book, Writing, Animal

  John Cowper Powys (1938). “Enjoyment of Literature”, New York, Simon

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• He groaned slightly and winced like Prometheus watching his vulture dropping in for lunch.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Lunch, Dropping, Vulture

  P.G. Wodehouse (2009). “Big Money”, p.125, Random House

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• And man will go on. Man, not men.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Goes On

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.51, Xist Publishing

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• If someone took the finest marble and knew how to shape it artfully: Prometheus' material was lowly clay, but his statues walked.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Life, Art, Clay

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