Mythology Quotes
"First there was Chaos, the vast immeasurable abyss, outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild."
"From darkness and from death Love was born, and with its birth, order and beauty began to banish blind confusion."
"The earth was believed to be a round disk, divided into two equal parts by the Sea... Around the earth flowed the great river, Ocean, never troubled by wind or storm."
"For a long time, certainly throughout the happy Golden Age, only men were upon the earth; there were no women."
"Prometheus had not only stolen fire for men; he had also arranged that they should get the best part of any animal sacrificed and the gods the worst."
"In the whole universe there was nothing else; all was black, empty, silent, endless."
"In the morning they told Celeus what had happened and he called the people together and revealed to them the command of the goddess."
"He was the vine, which is always pruned as nothing else that bears fruits; every branch cut away, only the bare stock left; through the winter a dead thing to look at, an old gnarled stump seeming incapable of ever putting forth leaves again."
"The wine of Dionysus, when the weary cares of men leave every heart."
"Zeus punished his conquered enemies terribly. They were bound in bitter chains beneath the wide-wayed earth."
"Every morning when the dawn had put out the stars, and the sun’s rays had dried the hoarfrost on the grass, they would steal to the crack and, standing there, now utter words of burning love and now lament their hard fate, but always in softest whispers."
"Go and persuade the sea wave not to break. You will persuade me no more easily."
"The might of water overwhelmed dark earth, over the summits of the highest mountains."
"A beast, a starving beast, that frenzied runs with clumsy leaps and bounds."
"Still you shall be mine," and he made from what she had become a shepherd’s pipe of reeds with beeswax joined.
"I will charm Demeter’s daughter, I will charm the Lord of the Dead, moving their hearts with my melody."
"But at least you let us speak together. You give a passage for loving words to reach loving ears."
"Because of what they gave her they called her Pandora, which means 'the gift of all.'"
"For a while she swam idly to and fro in utter peace."
"Teacher of strange ways is Love, that knavish boy, maker of mischief."
"But for me, already old age is my companion, while the flower of your youth is only now coming into full bloom."
"She was like a lifeless dream, creeping on withered feet, trembling for weakness."
"She fell on her knees before them and begged them to take her with them."
"This is your seal—yours who will never more smile up at me."
"I do not come to bring you help, but only pain."
"Only the head sways slowly, but the horns are useless now."
"Let a man not speak of cannibal deeds among the blessed gods."
"The sight of you is dear as land after storm to the sailor, as a gushing stream to a thirsty wayfarer."
"The love I owed my father who is dead, the love I might have given to my mother, and my poor sister cruelly doomed to die."
"But to retrace the path, to come up to the sweet air of heaven, that is labor indeed."
"The death of the son of Atreus will be avenged by Orestes."
"Asking no questions they watched him, their master now, with compassion."
"Those who desire to be purified cannot be refused."
"The killers of that race had never suffered from their guilt and sought to be made clean."
"As for me—it is no misfortune for me to die."
"You are my dearest, my darling, my dear one."
"Clearly your child has been borne away to the gods."
"Tell him too, never to pluck flowers, and to think every bush may be a goddess in disguise."
"But the easy way has never in the long run commanded the allegiance of mankind."
"Man knows nothing if he knows not that wealth oft begets an ape."
"A coward thinks he will live forever if only he can shun warfare."
"Brave men can live well anywhere. A coward dreads all things."
"A man knows nothing if he knows not that wealth oft begets an ape."
"The mind knows only what lies near the heart."
"Moderately wise each one should be, not overwise, for a wise man's heart is seldom glad."
"Cattle die and kindred die. We also die. But I know one thing that never dies, Judgment on each one dead."
"Norse mythology and Greek mythology together give a clear picture of what the people were like from whom comes a major part of our spiritual and intellectual inheritance."