Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“Love for Love And Blood for Blood—the simple golden rule Taught by the elder gods.”
Lewis Morris (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The temples are under your management; you are therefore to see that offering to the gods and the temple illumination are duly regulated, as directed out of government grants.”
Tipu Sultan (1751–1799) first seen 1790 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Circular of Tipu Sultan to local administrators on 1790. Cited in "India as a Secular State" Page 72 by "Donald Eugene Smith
“Thomas Raith: Harry's a wizard. A genuine, honest-to-good-ness wizard. He's Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket. He'll spit in the eye of gods and demons alike if he thinks it needs to be done, and to hell with the consequences-and yet somehow my little brother manages to remain a decent human being.”
Jim Butcher (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For this reason Ahuramazda bore aid, and the other gods who are, because I was not hostile, I was not a Lie-follower, I was not a doer of wrong -- neither I nor my family. According to righteousness I conducted myself. Neither to the weak nor to the powerful did I do wrong.”
Darius I of Persia (550–486 BC) said by 486 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“May Ahuramazda bear me aid, with the gods of the royal house; and may Ahuramazda protect this country from a (hostile) army, from famine, from the Lie!”
Darius I of Persia (550–486 BC) said by 486 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With the breakdown of the Medieval system, the gods of Chaos, Lunacy, and Bad Taste gained ascendancy.”
John Kennedy Toole (1937–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then brought they a fagot kindled with fire, and layd the same downe at D. Ridleys feete. To whome Maister Latymer spake in this maner: Be of good comfort maister Ridley, and play the man: wee shall this day light such a candle by Gods grace in England, as (I trust) shall neuer be put out.”
John Foxe (1516–1587) said by 1587 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 11, p. 1770
“Ripeness is all; her in her cooling planet Revere; do not presume to think her wasted. Project her no projectile, plan nor man it; Gods cool in turn, by the sun long outlasted.”
William Empson (1906–1984) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To an Old Lady" (1928), stanza 1
“Murphy said, 'Constants aren't', and Murphy was apparently one of the gods of this universe.”
Rick Cook (1944–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(James) Anderson has a gift from the gods: he could swing an orange.”
Geoff Boycott (born 1940) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian, 2008
“May all the gods whom I settled in their sacred centers ask daily of Bêl and Nâbu that my days be long and may they intercede for my welfare. ... The people of Babylon blessed my kingship, and I settled all the lands in peaceful abodes.”
Cyrus the Great (600–530 BC) said by 530 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Know that against time the gods themselves are powerless.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wonder if there are any gods at all—if they aren’t just another story.” Tom and Owl shrank from him. But no lightning struck.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His will grew tight again. This was no age for weaklings. You had to do whatever seemed best, without letting gods or men or the lower devils deter you.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hurry and hurry, autumn leaves hurrying on the rainy wind, snow hurrying out of the sky, life hurrying to death, gods hurrying to oblivion.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Over unforced love, the gods themselves had no might.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At most, the gods gave only a little happiness; the rest was merely existence.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have learned much in two thousand years, but nothing about any gods, except that they too, arise, change, age, and die. Whatever there is beyond the universe, if anything, I doubt it concerns itself with us.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’ve seen so many gods come and go, what’s one more?”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The priest was nodding as he sang. I remembered his anger. I remembered when his companion said, “Bastards,” and I realized I didn’t know if she meant the godnappers, or the gods who’d let themselves be taken, who’d let everyone down.”
China Miéville (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why wouldn’t the gods of the world be giant squid? What better beast? It wouldn’t take much to imagine those tentacles closing around the world, now would it?”
China Miéville (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science has heroes, but no gods. The great Names are not our superiors, or even our rivals, they are passed milestones on our road; and the most important milestone is the hero yet to come.”
Eliezer Yudkowsky (born 1979) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guardians of Ayn Rand (December 2007)
“As civilization develops, we become more preoccupied with human life, and less conscious of our relation to non-human nature. Literature reflects this, and the more advanced the civilization, the more literature seems to concern itself with purely human problems and conflicts. The gods and heroes of the old myths fade away and give place to people like ourselves.”
Northrop Frye (1912–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The future of poetry should be, must be, in the hearts of children, lifting them above mean desires and helping them to believe, with Socrates, that they who have the fewest wants are nearest to the gods.”
Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927) said by 1927 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The cultures we can look at had already grasped the essential unity of nature. No board of gods can survive that knowledge.”
Jack McDevitt (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The philosopher will ask himself … if the criticism we are now suggesting is not the philosophy which presses to the limit that criticism of false gods which Christianity has introduced into our history.”
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The gods love salt. The sweat of human endeavour adds savour to every sacrifice.”
Mary Stewart (1916–2014) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Hollow Hills (1973)
“After all, by what lights can you see atheism as a “leap of faith”? What is the “faith” there? Failure to accept gods is no more a leap of faith than is doubting the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, or Santa Claus. It’s not “faith” when you refuse to accept a proposition for which there’s no evidence.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Self-abasing atheist at the Guardian calls atheism is a “leap of faith”" October 29, 2015
“Of course, atheism, which is merely the lack of belief in gods, isn’t responsible for explaining altruism and ethics, a task that properly belongs to philosophy, science, and psychology. And those areas have offered plenty of nonreligious explanations for the “Moral law” and altruism. The explanations involve evolution, reason, and education.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Speak of the Gods as they are.”
Bias of Priene (600–530 BC) said by 530 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whatever good fortune befalls you, attribute it to the gods.”
Bias of Priene (600–530 BC) said by 530 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Framers did not pioneer the concept of man as a personally responsible agent. That notion, arguably the greatest of all Western ideas, dates to line 32 of Homer’s Odyssey, where Zeus asks people to stop blaming their bad choices on the gods.”
Mark Riebling (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before the epidemic ended, it had almost de-populated this planet. Since the survivors knew nothing about germs, they blamed it on the anger of the gods—the old story of recourse to supernaturalism in the absence of a known explanation—and a fanatically anti-scientific cult got control.”
H. Beam Piper (1904–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have with me two gods, Persuasion and Compulsion.”
Themistocles (524–459 BC) said by 459 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Columbia Book of Quotations (1993) edited by R. Andrews, p. 894.
“He was simply a nadhir, a messenger with a warning, and should approach the Quraysh humbly, avoid provocation, and be careful not to attack their gods. This is what the great prophets had done in the past.28 A prophet had to be altruistic; he must not trumpet his own opinions egotistically or trample on the sensibilities of others, but should always put the welfare of the community first.”
Karen Armstrong (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Processions of priests and religiosi have been for several days past praying for rain; but the gods are either angry, or nature is too powerful.”
Tim Powers (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is there to be no getting away from this loathsome vegetative physicality?.. .Utter contempt for the lewd enticements that always lure us back into life's clutches. And when, half-parched, we seek to quench our thirst, the gods laugh us to scorn.”
Max Beckmann (1884–1950) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beckmann's Diary-notes, 4 July, 1946, p. 156; as cited in 'Portfolios', Alexander Dückers; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, C…
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those whom the gods love grow young.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah! Do not judge the gods, young man, they have painful secrets.”
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Aegistheus, the kings have another secret.... Once liberty has exploded in the soul of a man, the Gods can do nothing against that man. It is a matter for men to handle amongst themselves, and it is up to other men — and to them alone — to let him flee or to destroy him.”
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your entire universe will not be enough to make me guilty. You are the king of the Gods, Jupiter, the king of the stones and of the stars, the king of the waves of the sea. But you are not the king of men.”
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who got drunk — and I would have liked to have the boozing scholars of the Universities wheeled into line and properly chastised for their squalid misuse of what I must ever regard as a gift of the gods.”
Winston Churchill (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The gods help them that help themselves.”
Aesop (620–564 BC) said by 564 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are the children of the gods, and are never more the slaves of circumstance than when we deem ourselves their masters. What may next happen in the dazzling farce of life, the Fates only know.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Undated letter to Rosina Bulwer Lytton, cited in Andre Maurois, Disraeli: A Picture of the Victorian Age (1927), p. 114.
“Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The gods sell anything to everybody at a fair price.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is difficult to be king when the gods are changing.”
James A. Michener (1907–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who need myths are indeed poor. Here the gods serve as beds or resting places as the day races across the sky.”
Albert Camus (1913–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”
Albert Camus (1913–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source