Best 393 quotes in «ancient quotes» category

Whether or not the fame of Gilgamesh of Uruk had reached the Aegean – and the idea is attractive – there can be no doubt that it was as great as that of any other hero. In time his name became so much a household word that jokes and forgeries were fathered onto it, as in a popular fraud that survives on eighth-century B.C. tablets which perhaps themselves copy an older text. This is a letter supposed to be written by Gilgamesh to some other king, with commands that he should send improbable quantities of livestock and metals, along with gold and precious stones for an amulet for Enkidu, which would weigh no less that thirty pounds. The joke must have been well received, for it survives in four copies, all from Sultantepe.

Whoa, don't assume, dude," Marco said. "My mom always said, when you assume you make an ass of u and me--

Who knows for certain? Who shall here declare it? Whence was it born, whence came creation? The gods are later than this world's formation; Who then can know the origins of the world? None knows whence creation arose; And whether he has or has not made it; He who surveys it from the lofty skies. Only he knows- or perhaps he knows not.

Whoso meditates on the Omniscient, the Ancient, more minute than the atom, yet the Ruler and Upholder of all, Unimaginable, Brilliant like the Sun, beyond the reach of darkness.

Wind blew snow crystals back and forth between the graves. The ancient pines creaked overhead.

Word has it . . . the stone is from Japan, it's very ancient, it belonged to a shogun in the eleventh century." - a taxidermist

A great ancient poet was blind. A great classical composer was deaf. Many of us are dumb. What have we to show for it?

Abstract words are ancient coins whose concrete images in the give and take of talk have worn away with use.

A classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with ancient talismans.

According to the saying of an ancient philosopher, one should eat to live, and not live to eat

After all, it is an ancient and valuable right of the English people to turn their nouns into verbs when they are so minded.

A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.

Alan [Lomax] and his father started off changing the definition of folk music from something ancient and anonymous to something very contemporary.

A great deal of the furniture of ancient tyranny is torn to rags; the rest is entirely out of fashion.

All good fortune is a gift of the gods, and you don't win the favor of the ancient gods by being good, but by being bold.

All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others.

Always make your work be personal. And, you never have to lie... There is something we know that's connected with beauty and truth. There is something ancient. We know that art is about beauty, and therefore it has to be about truth.

All the aftermath that so frequently follows in the wake of war still confront the nation, and we now, as ever before, must hold fast to the ancient landmarks and see to it that all of these plagues that threaten so mightily shall be rendered harmless.

All societies, ancient or modern, primitive or sophisticated, have guided themselves by values and goals rooted in the experience of 'deep intuition'.

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

All this angst, all this stuff we all feel, is just tied to making art. It's so ancient.

An ancient tradition declares that every idiot blunder we pass into law will sooner or later redound to Athens' profit.

An ancient prophecy ... pronounced, That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it!

An ancient Vedic aphorism says, "Infinite flexibility is the secret to immortality." When we cultivate flexibility in or consciousness, we renew ourselves in every moment and reverse the aging process.

Ancient philosophy proposed to mankind an art of living. By contrast, modern philosophy appears above all as the construction of a technical jargon reserved for specialists.

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

Ancient travelers guessed; modern travelers measure.

Ancient and oriental civilizations were more sensitive than we are to the cycles of things; to the succession of generations, both divine and human; and to change within stasis. Western man is virtually alone in wanting to make his God into a fortress and personal immortality into a bulwark against time.

Ancient history, besides the still unequalled excellence of the writers, is the best instrument for cultivating the historical sense.

Ancient history is oddly short on incorrect omens.

And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

An ancient custom obtains force of nature.

An ancient dictum says that when Zeus wanted to destroy someone, he would first drive him mad.

Ancient and modern languages teem with happily expressed sentiments of more or less force and beauty, sufficiently individualized and excellent to warrant their reproduction and classification.

Ancient Hawaiians say: When you're itching for the waves, the only lotion is the ocean.

And perhaps, posterity will thank me for having shown that the ancients did not know everything.

An English homegrey twilight poured On dewy pasture, dewy trees, Softer than sleepall things in order stored, A haunt of ancient Peace.

anybody who has anything abusive to say of women, whether ancient or modern, can command a vast public in the popular press and a ready agreement from the average publisher.

Anything based on ancient texts is difficult for a modern reader to get their head around.

Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.

A phone tree isn't an ancient form of political organizing, but you have to call every person.

Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law.

As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky.

Astronomy is ... the only progressive Science which the ancient world produced.

At first the ancient images of the Goddess did not interest me.

As we willingly enter each place of fear, each place of deficiency and insecurity in ourselves, we will discover that its walls are made of untruths, of old images of ourselves, of ancient fears, of false ideas of what is pure and what is not.

A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.

Atlantis was destroyed by the greed of its inhabitants.

Back in the day, you'd walk down to a street corner and see some people making a story with a hat in front of them. It's ancient entertainment, ancient storytelling and oral history - now we're doing it on YouTube.

A very ancient and fish-like smell.