Ancients Quotes

1. "It's rather the possibility of friendship, unencumbered by feelings of attraction or shyness; the possibility of working on the same wavelength, as it were, with someone who understands you because he's a boy as you are, or a girl as you are. Committee work stifles the imagination, because people have to work down to the common denominator of what would be minimally acceptable to everyone. But friendship exalts the imagination. Indeed it is one of the things that the ancients said friendship was for. Plato suggests in Symposium that one of the highest forms of friendship is one whose love issues forth in beautiful and virtuous deeds, for thus "the partnership between [the friends] will be far closer and the bond of affection far stronger than between ordinary parents, because the children that they share surpass human children by being immortal as well as more beautiful."
Author: Anthony Esolen

2. "Eldest taught me about ancient religions that worshiped the sun. I never understood why- it's just a ball of light and heat. But if the sun of Sol-Earth swirls in colors and lights like that girl's hair, well, I can see why the ancients would worship that."
Author: Beth Revis

3. "Truly, as the ancients taught us, there is nothing under the moon, however fine, that is not subject to corruption."
Author: C.J. Sansom

4. "We are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants; thanks to them, we see farther than they. Busying ourselves with the treatises written by the ancients, we take their choice thoughts, buried by age and human neglect, and we raise them, as it were from death to renewed life." -Peter of Blois (d. 1212)."
Author: Carter Lindberg

5. "Like so many others of my tenure and temperament—stubborn ancients, I suppose—web reporting is anathema to everything I love about newspapering: getting a tip, developing leads, fleshing-out the details, then telling the story. Now it stops with the tip. Just verify (hopefully!) and post it. I didn't write stories anymore; I 'produced content."
Author: Chris Rose

6. "...Understanding as had the ancients that angels and demons were identical- interchangeable archetypes- all a matter of polarity: the guardian angel who conquered your enemy in battle was perceived by your enemy as a demon destroyer..."
Author: Dan Brown

7. "As the sun rose over Washington, Langdon looked to the heavens, where the last of the nighttime stars were fading out. He thought about science, about faith, about man. He thought about how every culture, in every country, in every time, had always shared one thing. We all had the Creator. We use different names, different faces, and different prayers, but God was the universal constant for man. God was the symbol we all shared...the symbol of all the mysteries of life that we could not understand. The ancients had praised God as a symbol of our limitless human potential, but that ancient symbol had been lost over time. Until now."
Author: Dan Brown

8. "The Pentacle - The ancients envisioned their world in two halves - masculine and feminine. Their gods and goddesses worked to keep a balance of power. Yin and Yang. When male and female were balanced, there was harmony in the world. When they were unbalanced there was chaos."
Author: Dan Brown

9. "Those ancients who in poetry presented the golden age, who sang its happy state,perhaps, in their Parnassus, dreamt this place. Here, mankind's root was innocent; and herewere every fruit and never-ending spring; these streams--the nectar of which poets sing."
Author: Dante Alighieri

10. "The ancients understood the regulation of power better than the regulation of liberty."
Author: Edward Dahlberg

11. "My pawing over the ancients and semi-ancients has been one struggle to find out what has been done, once and for all, better than it can ever be done again, and to find out what remains for us to do, and plenty does remain, for if we still feel the same emotions as those who launched a thousand ships, it is quite certain that we came on these feelings differently, through different nuances, by different intellectual gradations. Each age has its own abounding gifts yet only some ages transmute them into matters of duration."
Author: Ezra Pound

12. "The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing."
Author: Frank Herbert

13. "Almost I feel the pulsebeat of the ages, Now swift, now slow, beneath my fingertips.The heartthrobs of the prophets and the sagesBeat through these bindings; and my quick hand slipsOld books from dusty shelves, in eager seekingFor truths the flaming tongues of the ancients tell;For the words of wisdom that they still are speakingAs clearly as an echoing silver bell.Here is the melody that lies foreverAt the deep heart of living; here we keepThe accurate recorded discs that neverCan be quite silenced, though their makers sleepThe still deep sleep, so long as a seeker findsThe indelible imprint of their moving minds."
Author: Grace Noll Crowell

14. "I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients."
Author: Gustave Courbet

15. "...but I don't need to go into a church and kiss a silver platter and reach into my pockets to fatten a pack of humbugs who eat better than we do! Because one can honor him just as well in a forest, in a field, or even by gazing up at the ethereal vault, like the ancients."
Author: Gustave Flaubert

16. "It were indeed to be wish'd that our art had been less ingenious, in contriving means destructive to mankind; we mean those instruments of war, which were unknown to the ancients, and have made such havoc among the moderns. But as men have always been bent on seeking each other's destruction by continual wars; and as force, when brought against us, can only be repelled by force; the chief support of war, must, after money, be now sought in chemistry."
Author: Hermann Boerhaave

17. "Here we must examine the classical understanding of happiness proclaimed by Moses, Solomon, Jesus, Aristotle, Plato, the church fathers and medieval theologians, and many more—the understanding that has recently been replaced by "pleasurable satisfaction." According to the ancients, happiness is a life well lived, a life of virtue and character, a life that manifests wisdom, kindness, and goodness."
Author: J.P. Moreland

18. "• "To us today, it is tempting to ask why societies with early writing systems accepted the ambiguities that restricted writing to a few functions and a few scribes. But even to pose that question is illustrate the gap between ancient perspectives and our own expectations of mass literacy. The intended restricted uses of early writing provided a positive disincentive for devising less ambiguous writing systems. The kings and priests of ancient Sumer wanted writing to be used by professional scribes to recorded numbers of sheep owed in taxes, not by the masses to write poetry and hatch plots. As the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss put it, ancients writing's main function was "to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings." Personal uses of writing by nonprofessionals came only much later, as writing systems grew simpler and more expressive"
Author: Jared Diamond

19. "Ghost Dog: In the words of the ancients, one should make his decision within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break through to the other side."
Author: Jim Jarmusch

20. "The ancients waited for cherry blossoms, grieved when they were gone, and lamented their passing in countless poems. How very ordinary the poems had seemed to Sachiko when she read them as a girl, but now she knew, as well as one could know, that grieving over fallen cherry blossoms was more than a fad or convention."
Author: Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

21. "We were, on that day, no different from the ancients, terrified of our own big sky."
Author: Karen Thompson Walker

22. "The ancients Knew exactly what they were doing. There is no mystery on why the monuments around the word are placed where they are. Do your research and discover the ancient knowledge so you can live a wise future."
Author: Kenneth G. Ortiz

23. "Two Ancients' mates in the same family. Maybe you are more like Rhyn than I gave you credit for. Both of you are blemishes on your family."
Author: Lizzy Ford

24. "Raistlin lay on the floor, his skin white, his breathing shallow. Blood trickled from his mouth. Kneeling down, Caramon lifted him in his arms."Raistlin?" he whispered. "What happened?""That's what happened," Tanis said grimly, pointing.Caramon glanced up, his gaze coming to rest on the dragon orb - now grown to the size Caramon had seen in Silvanesti. It stood on the stand Raistlin had made for it. Caramon sucked in his breath in horror. Terrible visions of Lorac flooded his mind. Lorac insane, dying..."Raist!" he moaned, clutching his brother tightly.Raistlin's head moved feebly. His eyelids fluttered, and he opened his mouth."What?" Caramon bent low, his brother's breath cold upon his skin. "What?""Mine..." Raistlin whispered. "Spells...of the ancients...mine...Mine..." The mage's head lolled, his words died. But his face was calm, placid, relaxed. His breathing grew regular."
Author: Margaret Weis

25. "As however the ancients say that in case of necessity any Christian lay person can administer the sacrament of Baptism, so Luther says the same thing about absolution in case of necessity, where no priest is present."
Author: Martin Chemnitz

26. "The sciences were financially supported, honoured everywhere, universally pursued; they were like tall edifices supported by strong foundations. Then the Christian religion appeared in Byzantium and the centres of learning were eliminated, their vestiges effaced and the edifice of Greek learning was obliterated. Everything the ancient Greeks had brought to light vanished, and the discoveries of the ancients were altered out of recognition."
Author: Mas'udi

27. "Into darkness will I fade,Into a night that Man has made,But through that gloom shall gleam the sunWhen I am lost, and again am won.Release! Release! I call to theeIn new lands across the sea:Let, another on narrow pathways, come to me.Furthest and Highest,yet not beyond reach.Choose thou well a path that will teachHow the sunken is raisedand emptiness is filledand a wandering heart can finally be stilled.Seek the great stone! Mark it well,with a sign.That the one who shall followShall see it is mine,and seeing, shall ponder and certainly knowAs the Ancients have writ: "As above, so below."And I shall guard the Source of Greatness;Waiting by a teardropFrom neither joy nor sorrow born,In silver bound, beneath the ground,I am the spiral horn."
Author: Michael Green

28. "Jane Greyson had once told me that my voice was one of the Ancients—old and wise."
Author: Millicent Ashby

29. "In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names."
Author: Mortimer Adler

30. "It is my great hope someday, to see science and decision makers rediscover what the ancients have always known. Namely that our highest currency is respect."
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

31. "Anyone who studies present and ancient affairs will easily see how in all cities and all peoples there still exist, and have always existed, the same desires and passions. Thus, it is an easy matter for him who carefully examines past events to foresee future events in a republic and to apply the remedies employed by the ancients, or, if old remedies cannot be found, to devise new ones based upon the similarity of the events. But since these matters are neglected or not understood by those who read, or, if understood, remain unknown to those who govern, the result is that the same problems always exist in every era."
Author: Niccolò Machiavelli

32. "No one behind, no one ahead.The path the ancients cleared has closed.And the other path, everyone's path,easy and wide, goes nowhere.I am alone and find my way."
Author: Octavio Paz

33. "Medical research in the twentieth century mostly takes place in the lab; in the Renaissance, though, researchers went first and foremost to the library to see what the ancients had said."
Author: Peter Lewis Allen

34. "The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know. The hero journey is a symbol that binds, in the original sense of the word, two distant ideas, the spiritual quest of the ancients with the modern search for identity, always the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find."
Author: Phil Cousineau

35. "Darwin's ArkThe fact is, I know those ancestors floating through my sleep: an animal that breathed water, had a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull, undoubtedly hermaphrodite . . . I slide through all the oceans with these kin, salt water pulsing in my veins, and aeons follow me into the trees: a hairy, tailed quadruped, arboreal in its habits, scales slipping off my flanks . . . . I have sailed the ancients seas to come to the bones of Megatherium. . . . The thing I want to father most is the rarest, most difficult thing of all. Though knee-deep in these rivers of innocent blood, I want to be - a decent animal."
Author: Philip Appleman

36. "We are really so prejudiced by our educations, that, as the ancients deified their heroes, we deify their madmen."
Author: Philip Dormer Stanhope

37. "Unbelievable," Audrey's voice squeaked as I pushed past her. "Here we are, talking to you about your freaky little-boy encounter back in Breaux Bridge and how your caramel macchiato tasted like cardboard, and boom! You just zone out like one of the kids from Children of the Corn.""Um, Aud, babe … I don't think those kids zone out. They're just freaky twenty-four-seven. It's a year-round thing." Gabe's response drew a half-hearted laugh from me, but it was quickly reined in when I reached the Book of the Ancients."Whatever, Gabriel," Audrey said to him. "My point is, it's freaky, okay? She gets this glazed-over look in her eyes, like she's gonna whip out a butcher knife and go all Michael Myers on us or something."I glanced over my shoulder to cock an eyebrow at her."Oh, now you pay attention." She cocked an eyebrow back."What is it with you and the cheesy horror-movie references?" Gabe muttered. "Hey, now. Halloween is a classic," Gavin scolded him. "Don't go hating on the classics."
Author: Rachael Wade

38. "All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients."
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

39. "Ancients knew that you need guidance, patronage and protection as you move from one place or state to another, whenever you cross a bridge. You had better know what you are doing when you leave one group or place to join another."
Author: Richard Rohr

40. "The territory through which we passed had been overbuilt in the days over the Secular Ancients, but only a few traces of that exuberant time remained, and a whole forest had grown up since then, maple and birch and pine, its woody roots no doubt entwined with artifacts from the Efflorescence of Oil and with the bones of the artifacts' owners. What is the modern world, Julian once asked, but a vast Cemetery, reclaimed by nature? Every step we took reverberated in the skulls of our ancestors, and I felt as if there were centuries rather than soil beneath my feet."
Author: Robert Charles Wilson

41. "Certainly it's a rare glimpse into the lives of the Secular Ancients. They don't seem as bad as the Dominion histories make them out to be. Though clearly they were imperfect.""I don't deny that they were imperfect," Julian said in a distant voice. "I'm not uncritical of the Secular Ancients, Adam. They had all sorts of vices, and they committed one sin for which I can never bring myself to entirely forgive them.""What sin is that?""They evolved into us," he said."
Author: Robert Charles Wilson

42. "What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease."
Author: Sun Tzu

43. "It's hopeless," he went on. "We no longer have the learning of the ancients, the age of giants is past!""We are dwarfs," William admitted, "but dwarfs who stand on the shoulders of those giants, and small though we are, we sometimes manage to see farther on the horizon than they."
Author: Umberto Eco

44. "When the Bible is understood in its literary and historical context; errors, contradictions, and inconsistencies pose no threat to spirituality, whether that spirituality is theistic, non-theistic, or even explicitly Jesus-centered. The graver threat to what Christians call godliness may be fundamentalism - religion that flows from literalism and fear, religion based on anachronism and law. Fundamentalism teachers, in effect, that the tattered musings of our ancestors, those human words that so poorly represent the content of human thinking, somehow adequately describe God. Fundamentalism offers identity, security, and simplicity, but at a price: by binding believers to the moral imitations and cultural trappings of the Ancients, it precludes a deeper embrace of goodness, love, and truth - in other words, of Divinity."
Author: Valerie Tarico

45. "We will simply say here that, as a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer art. Rubens so understood it, doubtless, when it pleased him to introduce the hideous features of a court dwarf amid his exhibitions of royal magnificence, coronations and splendid ceremonial.The universal beauty which the ancients solemnly laid upon everything, is not without monotony; the same impression repeated again and again may prove fatiguing at last. Sublime upon sublime scarcely presents a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything, even the beautiful.On the other hand, the grotesque seems to be a halting-place, a mean term, a starting-point whence one rises toward the beautiful with a fresher and keener perception. The salamander gives relief to the water-sprite; the gnome heightens the charm of the sylph."
Author: Victor Hugo

46. "In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerner's access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book."
Author: Wm. Paul Young

47. "God's voice has been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while the educated Westerners' access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just a book"
Author: Wm. Paul Young

48. "I looked for it but I found no way out of this wild logical thicket. This was a tangle every bit as unknown and terrifying as that behind the Green Wall These were creatures just as extraordinary and incomprehensible, and they said as much with no words. I imagined that I saw through some kind of thick class the square root of minus one-infinitely huge and at the same time infinitely small, scorpion-shaped, with that hidden but always sensed sting of the minus sign... But maybe that is nothing except my "soul," like the legendary scorpion of the ancients, which would deliberately sting itself with everything that..."
Author: Yevgeny Zamyatin

49. "It's clear that you want to seem original. But is it possible that you—?" "It is clear," interrupted I-330, "that to be original means to stand out among others; consequently, to be original means to violate the law of equality. What was called in the language of the ancients ‘to be common' is with us only the fulfilling of one's duty. For—"
Author: Yevgeny Zamyatin

Ancients Quotes Pictures