"Oracle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... really offered such a toast? The fact is, he pretended to be a fierce radical, and was certainly the soul and the oracle of the small socialistic clubs in the neighborhood. People looked aghast when he began to talk of the reforms which he thought necessary; and they trembled when he proclaimed his convictions, that "the sword and the torch ought to search ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... does not however particularize. Lloyd in his "Worthies" adds nothing to Camden's information but the epithet "comely" applied to his person, the vague statement that "his embassies in France and Germany were so well managed, that in king Edward's days he was by the council pitched upon as the oracle whereby our agents were to be guided abroad," and a hint that he soon retired from the court of Elizabeth to devote himself to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... nostrils, and desired them to hasten their march as he would deliver the city into their hands, on which occasion he enjoined them to put all the Christians to the sword. The epumanon then disappeared, and they pursued their way joyfully, being animated by this oracle. On a sudden the heavens cleared up, and a most beautiful woman was seen, seated on a bright cloud, and having a charming yet severe and majestic countenance, which much abated the pride and haughtiness ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... ambitious monarch who was told by an oracle that if he could see Long Compton he would be king of England; the circle is his army, and the five "Whispering Knights" are five of his chieftains, who were hatching a plot against him when the magic spell was uttered. Local legends have sometimes helped to preserve ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... Here was an oracle anxious to be interrogated, so I questioned him further. I knew by report that the girl was fair, but I could not think of her in any fashion as a maid for Messer Simone, and I conveyed my doubts to Guido. "Is the girl to ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... them: "Listen yet! Long did our King Amfortas kneel before The sanctuary, praying in his pain And seeking for a word of hope from God. At length a radiance glowed around the Grail, And from its glory shone a Sacred Face That spake this oracle of mystic words: "By pity 'lightened, My guileless One,— Wait for him, Till ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... the most cherished emotions which glowed in her own mind. She found what she had ever been seeking, but had never found before, a truly sympathetic soul. She thought not of love. She looked up to M. Roland as to a superior being—to an oracle, by whose decisions she could judge whether her own opinions were right or wrong. It is true that M. Roland, cool and unimpassioned in all his mental operations, never entered those airy realms of beauty and those visionary regions of romance where Jane loved, at times, to revel. And perhaps ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Thus his oracle, but Jean Jacques' voice suddenly died down, for, as he sat there, the face of a woman made a vivid call of recognition. He slowly awakened from his self-hypnotism, to hear a woman speaking to him; to see two dark eyes looking ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... throne for twenty-two years. The great-grandson of Agum the Great was Agum II, and not until his reign were the statues of Merodach and his consort Zerpanitu^m brought back to the city of Babylon. This monarch recorded that, in response to the oracle of Shamash, the sun god, he sent to the distant land of Khani (Mitanni) for the great deity and his consort. Babylon would therefore appear to have been deprived of Merodach for about two centuries. The Hittite-Mitanni raid is dated about 1800 B.C., ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... thing I could do concerning the Book you wanted was to send your Enquiry to the Oracle ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... the sign of the cross—adding that at the touch a new fountain would burst forth, with the water whereof, if he bathed his eyes, he would forthwith receive his sight. And the blind man, instructed by the divine oracle, went to the little boy, made with his right hand on the ground the sign of salvation, and immediately did a new fountain burst forth. And his darkened eyes, being bathed with this healing stream, perceived ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... maintained. The curriculum rested for its main support upon a basis of the classics and mathematics, which imparted a classic and mathematical rigidity to the whole structure. The professor was an oracle, backed by oracular textbooks; the student's activity was restricted by a traditional association of learning with self-restraint and outward severity of life. The revolutionary change came with the marvelous development of the natural sciences, ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... possessions, than the priests which required restitution of their owne. But (saith he) bicause the image of Christ hanging on the crosse was thought to speake these words, such credit was giuen thereto, as it had beene an oracle, that the priests had their sute dashed, and all the trouble was ceassed. So the moonks held those possessions, howsoeuer they came to them, by the helpe of God, or rather (as saith the same Polydor) by the helpe of man. For there were euen then diuers that thought this to be rather an oracle ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... let him take, and held it for a moment seeming to collect himself; then with his other hand he took that of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the doctor in it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside this oracle without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the absolutely calm features of the woman when their hands were thus united by the Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvelous in its ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... We have an excellent newspaper press, daily and weekly, and should either or both ever, by any chance, fail to know anything—past, present, or to come—we have a Monday Lectureship, beside which the Oracle of Delphi was a ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... the text described as a response of the Taghairm, or Oracle of the Hide, it was of itself an augury frequently attended to. The fate of the battle was often anticipated, in the imagination of the combatants, by observing which party first shed blood. It is said that the Highlanders under Montrose were so deeply imbued with this notion, that ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... thrust his finger into a needless fire. He stands like a centre unmoved, while the circumference of his estate is drawn above, beneath, about him. Finally, his wit hath cost him much, and he can both keep, and value, and employ it. He is his own lawyer, the treasury of knowledge, the oracle of counsel; blind in no man's cause, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... admonition in his tone and manner.... He had the same droll sardonic way about everything. A wild Irishman, named F., one evening beginning to say something at a large supper, Matthews roared 'Silence!' and then pointing to F., cried out, in the words of the oracle, 'Orson is endowed with reason.' When Sir Henry Smith was expelled from Cambridge for a row with a tradesman named 'Hiron,' Matthews solaced himself with shouting under Hiron's windows ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... and tail alternate, winked huge goggles Derisively and gurgled. "Me get out, The Science-vouched, and Literature-upheld, And Reason-rehabilitated butt Of many years of misdirected mockery? You ask omniscient HUXLEY, cocksure oracle On all from protoplasm to Home Rule, From Scripture to Sea Serpents; go consult Belligerent, brave, beloved BILLY RUSSELL! Verisimilitude incarnate, I Scorn your vain sceptic mirth! Besides, behold The portent riding me, as Thetis rode The lolloping, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... of Ethiopia, being encouraged by an oracle, entered Egypt with a numerous army, and possessed himself of the country. He reigned with great clemency and justice. It is believed, that this Sabachus was the same with Solomon, whose aid was implored by Hosea king of Israel, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... notwithstanding such malicious assertions, waxed stronger as it grew. There was one noticeable feature of affairs at this juncture, that the uninitiated were at a loss to account for, and that was the studied neutrality maintained by the oracle of the village, who had been wont to utter his momentous decisions, upon the current topics of the day, through the medium of that "valuable" and popular paper ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... a mistake," I went on in my character as matrimonial oracle. "Love never made a law so cruel, a law that would rob true lovers of each other's society for a whole month in a year, stretching them on the rack of absence—" There my period broke down, so I began another less ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... pictures.[8] Him the past instructs. Him the future invites. Is not indeed every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student's behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true master? But as the old oracle said, "All things have two handles: Beware of the wrong one."[9] In life, too often, the scholar errs with mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and consider him in reference to the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... favourite. Harriet, though beautiful, egotistical, and self-satisfied, was not quite weak enough for him. She had some genuine self-respect amidst much false pride, and if she did not talk like an oracle, neither would she babble like one crazy; she would not permit herself to be treated quite as a doll, a child, a plaything; she expected to be bent ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... gentleman in the business of trade, and among-other things he observed well to me, how it is not the greatest wits, but the steady man, that is a good merchant: he instanced in Ford and Cocke, the last of whom he values above all men as his oracle, as Mr. Coventry do Mr. Jolliffe. He says that it is concluded among merchants, that where a trade hath once been and do decay, it never recovers again, and therefore that the manufacture of cloath of England will never come to esteem ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the last words with slow enunciation, like an oracle. Mr. Rhys looked up from his writing and smiled at her a little, though ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... than that evening he began to perceive why the oracle had spoken. Claude having excused himself from dressing for dinner on the ground of another mysterious engagement with Billy Cheever, and Mrs. Masterman having retired up-stairs, Thor was alone in the ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... counterfeiting folly it was also his object to escape notice, and so find better convenience to overthrow the kings, and to free his country whenever an occasion offered. That this was in his mind is seen first of all from the interpretation he gave to the oracle of Apollo, when, to render the gods favourable to his designs, he pretended to stumble, and secretly kissed his mother earth; and, again, from this, that on the death of Lucretia, though her father, her husband, and others ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... its sins of omission as well as of commission were leaping to light on the platform and in the Press. Wellington found his reputation for political sagacity agreeably recognised, and he fell into the attitude of an oracle whose jeremiads had come true. When Lord Grey proposed the renewal of the Coercion Act without alteration, Lord Althorp expressed a strong objection to such a proceeding. He had assured Littleton that the Act would not be put in force again in its entirety, and the latter, with more candour ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... they attempted to prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular nature of a House of Commons, as an immediate representative of the people, whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... after another, shall marry, to which he answers according to his own whim, or agreeable to the intimacies he has taken notice of during the time of merriment, and whatever he says is absolutely depended upon as an oracle; and if he couple two people who have an aversion to each other, tears and vexation succeed the mirth; this they call "cutting off the fiddler's head," for after this he is dead ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... children.—Such teaching palliates educational situations without affording a solution. It is so steeped in tradition that it resorts to statistics as it would consult an oracle. We look to see it establishing precedents only to find it following precedents. When we would find in it a leader we find merely a follower. To such teaching statistical numbers mean far more than living children. Indeed, children are but objects ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... entertained him affably with news of the day, or rather of ten days previous; for Pen, in his quality of Journalist, remembered to have seen some of the Captain's opinions in the Sporting and Theatrical Newspaper, which was Costigan's oracle. He stated that Sir Charles and Lady Mirabel were gone to Baden-Baden, and were most pressing in their invitations that he should join them there. Pen replied with great gravity, that he had heard that Baden was very pleasant, and the Grand Duke exceedingly hospitable to English. Costigan answered, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... three great and mighty separate mountains. This town of Tor is small but well situated, all its inhabitants being Christians who speak Arabic. It has a monastery of friars of the order of Monserrat, in which is the oracle or image of Santa Catalina of Mount Sinai or St Catharine. These friars are all Greeks. The harbour of Toro is not large, but very secure, having opposite to the shore a long stony bank, between which and the shore is the harbour. At this place both the coasts ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... As guardian of the oracle and priest of the desert sanctuary, Moses, like the later prophet of Islam, but with far greater spiritual power and deeper insight, taught his people not only the art of worship, but certain of ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... educated with great care. So the Hebrews depended on him, and were of good hopes great things would be done by him; but the Egyptians were suspicious of what would follow such his education. Yet because, if Moses had been slain, there was no one, either akin or adopted, that had any oracle on his side for pretending to the crown of Egypt, and likely to be of greater advantage to them, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the meekness of Moses; the heroism of Elijah; the gratitude of David; the sweetness of Hosea; the fervour of Isaiah; the tenderness of Jeremiah; the constancy of Daniel; the faithfulness of Ezekiel—and you unhesitatingly endorse the inspired oracle, that they were "holy men." And although some of the prophets are remarkable for particular features of character, they are not wanting in all the others which are requisite to ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... The Roman people were specially yearning to avenge the slaughter of Marcus Crassus and his army by the Parthians, and Caesar was at this time preparing an expedition against them. But a Sibylline oracle was alleged, that Parthia could only be conquered by a king; and it was proposed to invest Caesar with the royal title and authority over the foreign subjects of the state. It is agreed on all hands that, if his enemies did not originate this proposal, they at least craftily urged it on, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... a corner, he gave himself up to the torment of his thoughts. Two pictures alternately crowded his mind; one, that of the woman of his dream, entreating him to come back—which his memory clung to as an oracle; the other, of this woman, cold and lifeless, fathoms deep in the sea. He pondered on her chances. She was close to, or on the bridge steps; and boat No. 24, which he was almost sure was being cleared away as he looked, would swing close to ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... in the right, my venerable cropshin, they will indeed; the tongue of the oracle never twang'd truer. Your courtier cannot kiss his mistress's slippers in quiet for them; nor your white innocent gallant pawn his revelling suit to make his punk a supper. An honest decayed commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... hillside, that lies far, far behind us. It is enough. Thou shalt wander no more on this hopeless search. But when thou hast laid thy mother in the earth, then go, my son, to Delphi, and inquire of the oracle what ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... prejudicing opinion abroad was as little believed as the other stories, for—outside of a small clique—there grew up at this time all over the South such a perfect confidence in its strength and its perfect ability to work its own oracle, that very little care was felt for the action of Europe. In fact, the people were just now quite willing to wait for recognition of their independence by European powers, until it was already achieved. So, gradually the public mind ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... appeared in the guise of Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Independents and Quakers, according as any of these were most in credit; so, since the fashion hath been taken up of exploding religion, the popish missionaries have not been wanting to mix with the freethinkers; among whom, Toland the great oracle of the Antichristians is an Irish priest, the son of an Irish priest; and the most learned and ingenious author of a book called "The Rights of the Christian Church,"[20] was in a proper juncture reconciled to the Romish faith, whose true son, as appears by a hundred passages in his ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... in the midst of a secure nation, and pleaded like a priest of the temple of justice, with his hand on the altar of the constitution, and all England waiting to treasure every deluding oracle that came from his lips. Curran pleaded—not in a time when the public system was only so far disturbed as to give additional interest to his eloquence—but in a time when the system was threatened ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Perhaps if my poor uncle believed it really to be the cause of God Himself, he would not be in such extreme fear for it, or fancy it required such a hotbed and greenhouse culture. . . . Really, if his sisters were little girls of ten years old, who looked up to him as an oracle, there would be some reason in it. . . . But those tall, ball-going, flirting, self-satisfied cousins of mine—who would have been glad enough, either of them, two months ago, to snap up me, infidelity, bad character, and all, as ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... and courage that characterize the born leader. He possessed an iron will and unflinching determination, before which obstacles had to yield, and persecution found itself powerless. His talent to grasp and appreciate the true and the beautiful rendered him the oracle of the thousands who, to this day, are proud to call themselves his disciples. To him Haskalah was not merely acquaintance with general culture, or even its acquisition. It was the realization of one's ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... I have found you," said the Marquis; "and at this moment. This is the best group in the rooms. You must speak to the wizard. About an hour ago I lighted upon them, in another salon, and consulted the oracle by putting questions. I never was more amazed. Although his answers were a little disguised it was soon perfectly plain that he knew every detail about the business, which no one on earth had heard of but myself, and two or three ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... keeping this Educational Institution, kept in the same room—a little general shop. She had no idea what stock she had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a little greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue of Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transaction. Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself quiet unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... world stepped boldly and somewhat noisily into the arena, there was not wanting a considerable group of young and uninitiated members in the party who flocked to his standard and found in him a new oracle. ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... should I reply? Do you take me for an ancient oracle? It is you who are tiresome ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... they wished, while a man was put at both ends of that stretch of road to prevent their straying. Then the others would lie in the shade or sun themselves on the bank opposite the homestead, sleeping, smoking, reading or playing cards. Scarcely ever did the oracle fail to work. The door of the house would open and a fair maid appear, anon, a mother and a sister. The first would come tripping down the path ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... sublime significance to the Marseillais,—"When the last of the Gracchi expired, he flung dust towards heaven, and from this dust sprang Marius!"—that voice which had conquered the aversion of Mademoiselle de Marignan with its seductive melody—that voice which had been at once the oracle of the king and the law of the rabble. Mirabeau lay before the Rosicrucian, with his natural ugliness rendered yet more repulsive by the tokens of a terrible malady. The touch of death imparted additional horror to the massive deformity of his skull, to the coarseness of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... passage, where, in his appeal to the troops to fight bravely, he urged them to seek always the post of danger, since heaven would be the immediate reward of all who should be killed in battle; for, said he, as if moved by an oracle: 'What hab been, dat will be. He who is de fust man to get into de boat, and de fust to jump on shore, him, if he fall, will be de fust to get to heaben.' Then, as if standing already in the midst of the fight, and with all the feelings ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... could possibly be an impostor. He might have satisfied himself at once, by opening the note and reading the signature; but from some occult reason that even he could not have given, he held it in his hands for a few moments longer, as if it contained some oracle he dreaded to discover. At length he broke the seal and looked at the signature. It was a faint maze of scratches, so difficult to decipher that he gave it up in despair, and turning to ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the next day. In spite of examination and cross-examination, Mother Jael could give no evidence as to Jentham's real name, or about his past, or why he was lingering at Beorminster. 'He cum'd an' he go'd,' said Mother Jael, with the air of an oracle, and that was the extent of her information, delivered in ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... being a Jewish prayer, for the Jews never prayed but when they were in trouble, and never for anything but victory, vengeance, or riches.—Author. (Prov. xxx. 1, and xxxi. 1) the word "prophecy" in these verses is translated "oracle" or "burden" (marg.) in the revised version.—The prayer of Agur was quoted by Paine in his plea for the officers ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... was without offspring—in almost all eastern countries the most grievous calamity incident to man, more especially to those of noble or royal race. By the most surpassing penances he obtains an oracle from the wise Brighu, predicting that one of his wives will bring forth a single son, the other sixty thousand! Accordingly the fair Cesina gives birth to Asamanja; his other wife to a gourd, which, ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... himself, send his vassals to preside? Is he not master of Thermopylae and the passes into Greece, and holds he not those places by garrisons and mercenaries? Has he not thrust aside Thessalians, ourselves, Dorians, the whole Amphictyonic body, and got preaudience of the oracle, [Footnote: This privilege, which had belonged to the Phocians, was transferred to Philip. It was considered an advantage as well as an honor in ancient times; for there were only certain days appointed in every month, when the oracle could be consulted, and the order of consultation was determined ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... decision, and made very much in that spirit which leads men to toss up a penny for an oracle. And sometimes it seems as if a Fate, wise or otherwise, answers the call so recklessly made. If he lived for a century Allan knew that he would never forget that first walk to Promoters—the big fisherman at his side, the ocean roaring in his ears, the lights from the cottage windows dully ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... were an oak tree," he said, "I'd think you were consulting an oracle; but since it isn't, maybe you're just a Dryad who's fallen out of the branches. What are you doing away up here anyway? I guess you startled me almost as much as I seem to have startled you. I'm mighty sorry I scared ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... Socrates speaks of the vision of Timarchus, who, in the case of Trophonius, saw spirits which were partly attached to human bodies, and partly over and above them, shining luminously over their heads. He was informed by the oracle that the part of the spirit which was immersed in the body was called the "soul," but that the outer and unimmersed portion was called the "daemon." The oracle also informed him that every man had his daemon, whom he is bound to obey; those who implicitly follow that guidance are the prophetic ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... care to be accused of a superstitious faith in dream-books, but I do want to say that I have found all sorts of inspiration in a philosophical acceptance of that oracle attaching to my unfortunate birthday. If Saturday's child must work for her living, why not make the best of it? Why not make the most advantageous terms possible with Fate? why not work with, and not against, that ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... And now the Major spoke like an oracle, leaning forward on the table, uttering his words in a low voice, but very plainly, so that not a syllable might be lost. "When you remember how he ran at the Craven with 9 st. 12 lb. on him, that it took Archbishop all he knew to beat him with only 9 st. 2 lb., and what the lot at Chester ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... of the story, as it was told to me. No inquiry brought me any addition to these morsels of narrative. Who this Talbot was,—what was his crime,—how long he lived in this cave, and at what era,—were questions upon which the oracle ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... together in recovering a city which had formerly belonged to the Jewish nation, from their enemy, the King of Syria. He replied, that they were of one blood, and had but one interest, and that he should most gladly aid him; but cautiously added, that it was his particular wish that God's oracle should be consulted, as he did not like to undertake any thing without His direction. To gratify this superstitious whim, as he considered it, the Israelitish monarch collected together about four hundred false prophets, who were ready to say any thing that would give him pleasure, and asked ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... receiver-general in the department of Montenotte. M. Firmiani died in Greece about 1822, and she became Mme. de Camps in 1824 or 1825. At this time she dwelt on rue du Bac and had entree into the home of Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, the oracle of Faubourg Saint-Germain. An accomplished and excellent lady, loved even by her rivals, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, her cousin, Mme. de Macumer—Louise de Chaulieu—and the Marquise d'Espard. [Madame Firmiani.] She welcomed and protected Mme. Xavier Rabourdin. [The Government ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... the Great (B.C. 366-323), king of Macedon. While consulting the oracle of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan desert he was saluted by the priests as "Ammons Sonne." He died either of poison (Plutarch) ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... air. At last I saw one of them thrust strongly into his bosom, as if the gesture was excited by some powerful recollection. "Do I speak without proof of the public hazards?" he exclaimed. "I can give you demonstration—I need invoke neither powers above nor powers below to enlighten you. I have the oracle within my hand." The House fixed all its eyes upon him. He dropped his voice, and spoke with a faint, but clear tone which formed a remarkable contrast to his usually bold, and even harsh enunciation: "Sir," said he, in this half-whispered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... urchin. I remember his lively old face, his powdered bald head and pigtail, his slight erect figure, and how merrily he used to play the fiddle for his juvenile posterity to dance to. But I was not of an age to comprehend the value of this thin, living volume of old lore, or to question the oracle. Well, it can't be helped now, and the papers I've got are silent upon the point. But there were jollifications to no end both in Palmerstown and Chapelizod that night, and declamatory conversations rising up in the street at very ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... might be saved. For a pound of 'clean white rags' the ladies could get ten shillings! If you had lived then, and had your mother's rags to-day, what heaps of money you could have made! It was hard, too, for us newspaper men to get news. I was looking yesterday at a copy of the 'Portsmouth Oracle,' published in 1805. That was in this wonderful century. What did it say on the 26th of January? 'News by telegraph?' and did it tell us what the Hottentots were doing yesterday? No; it said, 'By the mails,' ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... the twice-elected successor of Washington; of Randolph, through whose initiative the stain produced by the word "slavery" was effaced from the provisional draft of the American Constitution; of Marshall, the most eminent jurist in the Republic, the oracle of the Constitution and the constructor of the Federal law; of Madison, the emulator of Hamilton in the editing of The Federalist; of Monroe, the asserter of the international doctrine of the independence of this continent; of John Quincy Adams, the pioneer of abolitionism in his radical condemnation ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... year since the great drought. Choflo, headman, sorcerer and oracle of the Cantanas, scanned the brassy sky and smote his breast ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... the tree—calling on Herod's conscience, long gagged and silent, to take part in the impeachment—he said, in effect: "I summon you before the bar of God, and in the pure light which streams from his holy Oracle, your consciences being witnesses against you, you know perfectly well that it is not right for you to be living as you are living. 'Thou shalt not ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... the oracle which was consulted in all naval deliberations; and the king raised him to the dignity of a peerage. In July, sir John Balchen, an admiral of approved valour and great experience, sailed from Spithead ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... a Syrian named Eunus—a man of great craft and courage; who having passed through many scenes of life, had become acquainted with a variety of arts. He pretended to have immediate communication with the gods; was the oracle and leader of his fellow-slaves; and, as is usual on such occasions confirmed his divine mission by miracles. When heated by enthusiasm and desirous of inspiring his followers with courage, he breathed flames or sparks among them from his mouth while he was addressing them. We are told ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... number he has engaged to furnish you, out of your liberality, would remunerate him, that he may not repent of having come to your assistance, nor we, who have prevailed with him to do so." This discourse of Neri to the senate was listened to with that profound attention which an oracle might be imagined to command; and his audience were so moved by it, that they could not restrain themselves, till the prince had replied, as strict decorum on such occasions required, but rising from their seats, with uplifted hands, and most ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the ancient oracle declares, temperance and fortitude, prudence and every virtue, are certain purgatives of the soul; and hence the sacred mysteries prophesy obscurely, yet with truth, that the soul not purified lies in Tartarus, immersed in filth. Since the impure ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter, Which we call mollis aer; and mollis aer We term it mulier; which mulier, I divine, Is this most constant wife: who even now, Answering the letter of the oracle, Unknown to you unsought, were clipp'd about With this ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... of vast experience in all the facts relating to those last fateful hours, which are the only certain event in every human existence, caused her to be regarded as a sort of Delphic oracle in such matters, and therefore Mrs. Kittridge, not without a share of the latent superstition to which each human heart must confess at some hours, drew confidentially near to Miss Roxy, and asked if she had anything particular ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which had been seen of a sudden to glide from the altar in his house, sent messengers to Delphi to inquire of the god what this thing might mean. And because he cared not that any strangers should hear the answer of the oracle, he sent his own sons, Titus and Aruns, and with them, to bear them company, or rather as one of whom they might make sport, this same Lucius Brutus. And when the young men offered gifts to the god, Brutus offered gold hidden away in ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... that you should ask the question. The form also presents the right of answering. This, no doubt, may be dispensed with, and so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since sentence was already pronounced at the Castle before the jury were empanelled. Your lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and I insist on ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... friendship; and the Ostrogoths of Pannonia were supported by his powerful aid against the oppression of the neighboring Huns. The North (such are the lofty strains of the poet) was agitated or appeased by the nod of Euric; the great king of Persia consulted the oracle of the West; and the aged god of the Tyber was protected by the swelling genius of the Garonne. [6] The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents; and France may ascribe her greatness to the premature death ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... characteristic of the natural is that it is intrinsic, of the positive, that it is extrinsic. In all ages men have sought the authority of the positive in that which is immediately beyond and above man—in some "voice of the Divinity" toning down the stream of ages, or speaking through a prophet or oracle, or written in some inspired and sacred book. They have sought for the authority of the natural in that which is immediately within man—the voice of the Divinity speaking in the conscience and heart of man. A careful study of the history of religion will show a reciprocal relation ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... characteristic swing of his arm gives tone to his whole bearing: the silversmith acquires a peering, cunning look, as if he were always examining delicate machinery: the physician becomes solemn, stately, pompous, and mysterious, and speaks like "Sir Oracle," as if he were eternally administering a bread-pill, or enjoining a regimen of drugs and starvation: the lawyer assumes a keen, alert, suspicious manner, as if he were constantly in pursuit of a latent perjury, or feared that his adversary might discover a flaw in his "case:" ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... And tell me yourself, Alexandra Pavlovna, what is his position in Darya Mihailovna's house? To be the idol, the oracle of the household, to meddle in the arrangements, all the gossip and petty trifles of the house—is that a dignified position for a man to ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... Every one also has rather marvelled at the somewhat lame and impotent conclusion of the play when Athene—herself in reality one of the most infamous of the Olympian deities—is brought on the stage to save the prestige of the oracle at Delphi and to explain away the altogether disreputable behaviour of the no less infamous Apollo. But no one before Verrall had thought of coupling together the free-thinking and the episode in the play. This is what Verrall did. Ion sees that the oracle can lie, and, therefore, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... Queen, for to-night we have sinned, both of us, who dared to summon Amen from his throne, and sin also fails not of its reward. Blood is the price of that oracle." ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... mathematics which are welcome to men, and so, though they deserve our thanks for other discoveries, they are particularly worthy of admiration for their ideas in that field. For example, each in a different way solved the problem enjoined upon Delos by Apollo in an oracle, the doubling of the number of cubic feet in his altars; this done, he said, the inhabitants of the island would be delivered from an ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... my oracle during the first six years of childhood, resolving my difficulties and answering my questions. I was happy—very happy! and still look back to those days with indescribable pleasure and satisfaction. I had no tasks. I was not pestered with A.B. C., nor ab. eb. ib. From things my parents chiefly ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... imprisonment in London to which Monk had sent them in 1651: Vol. IV. 296), Mr. James Wood of St. Andrews, old Mr. David Dickson, now Professor of Divinity in Edinburgh, and our perpetual friend Baillie. The minority, or Protesters, were led by such ministers as Mr. James Guthrie of Stirling, their first oracle, Mr. Patrick Giliespie of Glasgow University, Mr. John Livingston of Ancram, Mr, Samuel Rutherford of St. Andrews, and Mr. Andrew Cant of Aberdeen; with whom, as their best lay head, was Johnstone of Warriston. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... another proof of the fact that, while talent cannot safely ignore what is called technique, genius almost can. Coleridge, in spite of his formlessness, remains the wisest man who ever spoke in English about literature. His place is that of an oracle among controversialists. ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... executing slaughter, you do I supplicate, I supplicate: suffer the offspring of Agamemnon to forget his furious madness; alas! for his sufferings. What were they that eagerly grasping at, thou unhappy perishest, having received from the tripod the oracle which Phoebus spake, on that pavement, where are said to be the recesses in the midst of the globe! O Jupiter, what pity is there? what is this contention of slaughter that comes persecuting thee wretched, to whom some evil ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... after an air of great dignity and beauty, bids the people follow her to the temple, there to renew their supplications. The next scene shows the temple of Apollo. The high priest and the people make passionate appeal to the god for the life of their king, and the oracle replies that Admetus must perish, if no other will die in his place. The people, seized with terror, fly from the place, and Alcestis, left alone, determines to give up her own life for that of her husband. The high priest accepts ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... advantage of this passion, to increase their emoluments and offerings, and the more effectually to inspire the rest of their species with veneration and a willing submission to their authority. The oracle was delivered in a temple, or some sacred place; and in this particular we plainly discover that mixture of nature and art, of genuine enthusiasm and contriving craft, which is so frequently exemplified in the ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... to me, the probability is that I shall see it as they do. If any man think them scant of justice towards him, let him come to me. Should I find myself in doubt, I have here at my side my beloved and honoured master to whom to apply for counsel, knowing that what oracle he may utter I shall receive straight from the innermost parts of a temple of the Holy Ghost. Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... brought under his constant observation the last stages of "a long journey in December gone." Half a century or so of smithy work, even with some unlicensed doctoring and illicit distilling thrown in, was not by any means the future that he would have liked his oracle to predict for him. And though he forecast it accurately enough without the intervention of any soothsaying, this no more helped him to avoid it than if he had been an old-world tragical hero, whose friends were seeking by vain devices to circumvent the promulgated decrees of his ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... that the man who filled the office of high priest, being the head of the theocratic community, was naturally the medium of a divine oracle. When he says, 'being the high priest that year, Caiaphas prophesied,' he does not imply that the high priestly office was annual, but simply desires to mark the fateful importance of that year for the history of the world and the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... are people who will have influence at any price, and who will have other people busy themselves over them; when they cannot be oracles, they turn wags. M. Gillenormand was not of this nature; his domination in the Royalist salons which he frequented cost his self-respect nothing. He was an oracle everywhere. It had happened to him to hold his own against M. de Bonald, and even against ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... shrines, and oaths are sworn by them. The custom of swearing by the dead is widespread. In their character of powerful spirits they are agents in processes of magic and divination. Parts of dead bodies are used as charms. The skull especially is revered as an oracle.[686] ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... that she lacked good sense. This good creature flattered herself that she had an inexhaustible stock of this commodity; she placed the highest estimate on her own judgment; she believed herself to be well-nigh infallible. She discoursed in the tone of an oracle on future contingencies; she prided herself on being able to divine all things, to foresee all things, to predict all things—in a word, to be in the secret of the gods. As her Christian name was Joan, M. Moriaz, who set little store by his calendar, sometimes called her Pope Joan, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... appeared in the Tages Zeitung of August 14th last, is interesting because Reventlow is without doubt the oracle and mouthpiece of the Prussian Conservatives. He continues to attack me in this article but much of the attack is in reality praise, and, as we say in expressive slang, "every knock is a boost." The ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... going to happen I am all ears. I feel that I am sucked into the great whirlpool of Vast Events. I don't care a bit about being disillusioned afterwards. The experience has done me good, made a man of me and sent me back to Wellingsford as an oracle. And if you bring me a man who declares that he does not like being an oracle, I will say to his face that he is an ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... observed that I was a favorite among the boys of the Institute, a kind of leader and oracle among them, though I was not fully conscious of the fact at the time. While I now think I owe the greater portion of the esteem and regard in which I was held by my companions to my desire to be good ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... left Miss Matty at Cranford everything had been comfortably arranged for her. Even Mrs Jamieson's approval of her selling tea had been gained. That oracle had taken a few days to consider whether by so doing Miss Matty would forfeit her right to the privileges of society in Cranford. I think she had some little idea of mortifying Lady Glenmire by the decision she gave at last; which ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... their real power! it is here, that their office is indeed a divine and unearthly mission; and that in breathing balm and comfort, in healing the broken heart, in raising the crushed and degraded spirit—they are the voice, and oracle of the FATHER, who made us in benevolence, and will judge of us in mercy! I rose, and after a short pause, Dawson, who expressed himself impatient of the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... France again with new broils; he told her, that all the world made their court to Hermione, that if any body had any petitions, or addresses to make to the Prince, it was by her sole interest; she sat in their closest councils, and heard their gravest debates; and she was the oracle of the board: the Prince paying her perfect adoration, while she, whose charms of youth were ended, being turned of thirty, fortified her decays with all the art her wit and sex were capable of, and kept ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... century came Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Des Esseintes knew him only too well, for he was the Church's most reputed writer, founder of Christian orthodoxy, considered an oracle and sovereign master by Catholics. He no longer opened the pages of this holy man's works, although he had sung his disgust of the earth in the Confessions, and although his lamenting piety had essayed, in the City of God, to mitigate the frightful distress of the times by ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... people, being himself naturally of a devout and serious turn of mind, that he resolved to remain among them; and, in addition to the instruction of the children, has taken upon himself the duty of clergyman, and is the oracle of the community.' ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... when they die go to Paris," said Philip, "so says the oracle. Naughty Americans try it prematurely, and go while they are alive. Then Paris casts them out, and when they come back, their French disrepute ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... not see through a stone wall. The whole hypothesis is too extravagant to admit of any downright prosaic interpretation. But something might surely be done for the imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to be the real thing ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... years ago the Hirpani, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe of Italy, were wont to collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through certain rites, in memory of an oracle which predicted their extinction when they ceased to gain their living as wolves do, by violence and plunder. Therefore they ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... banks of the Lippe, near its confluence with the Rhine, dwelt the Virgin Velleda, a Bructerian weird woman, who exercised vast influence over the warriors of her nation. Dwelling alone in a lofty tower, shrouded in a wild forest, she was revered as an oracle. Her answers to the demands of her worshippers concerning future events were delivered only to a chosen few. To Civilis, who had formed a close friendship with her, she promised success, and the downfall of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was evident that we were going to have a prolonged spell of grand weather SOME TIME, and read out a poem which was printed over the top of the oracle, about ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... the painting-shops of the various manufactories where she had painted green leaves on yellow wash-basins (for in all her life she had done little else) she possessed a reputation as a prophet, seer, oracle, fortune-teller—what you will. Polite persons would perhaps never have heard of her reputation, the toiling millions of the Five Towns being of a rather secretive nature in such matters, had not the subject ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... killing? Who's he'll shed the blood That's dear to me? is't you, or you, or you, sir? What, not one speak! how you stand gaping all On your grave oracle, your wooden god there! Yet not a word! Then, sir, I'll tell you a secret; Suspicion's but at best a coward's ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... going to hear her talk now," whispered Favraud; "that is a sign—equal to General Finistere's—the snuffbox tapping, I mean. The oracle is beginning to arouse! Come I let me stir her further!" and he inclined ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... and swains of Alexander Pope dull and artificial. There are flies in this delicious ointment, one must admit, touches of corruption which a degenerate paganism condoned and palliated, but we must remember, as an extenuation of the Greek attitude, that the oracle of Delphi protested against them. The cyprus plains of Theocritus yet echo with the call of the cicada, and the anemones still bloom. The pipes of Pan are not all silent. The world would lose some of its beauty if Theocritus and the Sicilian poets did not entice ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. And since mediocre people constitute ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... &c.. [The Way of Light]: That is, A Reasonable Disquisition how the Intellectual Light of Souls, namely Wisdom, may now at length, in this Evening of the World, be happily diffused through all Minds and Peoples. This for the better understanding of these words of the oracle in Zachariah XIV. 7, It shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light. The Parliament meanwhile having reassembled, and our presence being known, I had orders to wait until they ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... a priest of Bacchus at Calydon, whose love was scorned by the nymph Callirrhoe, called forth a pestilence on the land. The Calydonians, ordered by the oracle to sacrifice the nymph, led her to the altar. Coresus, forgetting his resentment, sacrificed himself instead of her, who, conscious of ingratitude, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... temple treasures and the offerings made by 4 various kings, and other curiosities which the Greek passion for archaeology attributes to a dim antiquity. He then consulted the oracle first about his voyage. Learning that the sea was calm, and that no obstacles stood in his way, he sacrificed a large number of victims, and put covert questions about his own fortunes. The priest, whose name was Sostratus, seeing that the entrails were ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... well born, Alizon," she said, "and so it will be found in the end. And Richard thinks so, too, for he said so to me; and Richard is my oracle, Alizon." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth |
