"Prophecy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by augury, he came, that the people might not grudge him fair renown. He was not in truth the son of Abas, but Leto's son himself begat him to be numbered among the illustrious Aeolids; and himself taught him the art of prophecy—to pay heed to birds and to observe the ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... prophecy of birds, And sunbeams play on the expectant boughs, The leaves uncurl and fill their veins with life, And I forget, forget ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... come. Had Dryden died at his age, we should have had none of the great satires; had Scott died at his age, we should have had no Waverley Novels. Dying at the height of his power, and in the full tide of thought and activity, he seems almost to have fulfilled the aspiration and unconscious prophecy of one ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... all, or almost all, agreed that antique paganism was the work of the devil, and that idolatry was, at any rate in part, a worship of demons. From the Middle Ages I can adduce a pregnant expression of the same view from Thomas Aquinas; in his treatment of idolatry and also of false prophecy he definitely accepts the demonology of the early Church. On this point he appeals to Augustine, and with perfect right; from this it may presumably be assumed that the Schoolmen in general had the same view, Augustine being, as we know, ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... Kai policy of military centralization with himself as head, after trying out conclusions with Chang Tso Lin as his rival. This is the course which the past record of military leaders indicates. But even if Wu Pei Fu follows precedent and goes bad, he will only hasten his own final end. This is not prophecy. It is only a statement of what has uniformly happened in China just at the moment a military leader seemed to have complete power in his grasp. In other words, a victory for Wu Pei Fu may either accelerate or may retard the development ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... shalt find him apt to learn." So thee thy father taught, but, as it seems, In vain. Yet even now essay to move 960 Warlike Achilles; if the Gods so please, Who knows but that thy reasons may prevail To rouse his valiant heart? men rarely scorn The earnest intercession of a friend. But if some prophecy alarm his fears, 965 And from his Goddess mother he have aught Received, who may have learnt the same from Jove, Thee let him send at least, and order forth With thee the Myrmidons; a dawn of hope Shall thence, it may be, on our host arise. 970 And let him send thee to ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... and quitted the Duchess, without believing in her prophecy; but he could not avoid smiling as he passed near the HERO ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... secured the respect and confidence of the nation, I will leave the reader to imagine. Who but himself can describe his thoughts when he recurred to that scene in the Senate Chamber, when he raised the voice of prophecy and foreshadowed the traitor's reward? Was there a pang in the thought that he was himself reaping the bitterest fruit of ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... prophecy about "retrospection" as being fulfilled in 1904, when he received the invitation of Messrs. Chapman and Hall to begin collecting material for his autobiography which was subsequently published in two large volumes, under ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... of so highly amorous a complexion that the distance between Tricca and Paphlagonia was no bar to his union with Alexander's mother. A Sibylline prophecy had also ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... that the Indians have a prophecy that a great lake will come back and make the desert fruitful, and that there are some who know the very place where the water will begin to flow." And here the hammock, with a final convulsion, gave ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... long had my notions about what was coming from the West, and recorded my prophecy on my return from America in 1835. People in England are determined to shut their eyes as long as they can; but they will be startled out of their wilful blindness some day by some gigantic facts proving the indisputable superiority of that country in all that constitutes ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... travel. He had also been fascinated by the map. It may be said of him even in his childhood, as Sir Thomas Browne has said in general of every human being, that Africa and all her prodigies were within him. No passage in his autobiography suggests the first prophecy of his career so markedly as that in which he writes: "It was in 1868, when nine years old or thereabouts, that while looking at a map of Africa of the time and putting my finger on the blank space then representing the unsolved ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... and prophecy were fulfilled, all the world knows now. A more miserable waste of apparently ample means and material has seldom been recorded in the annals of modern war. General Hooker stands forth the worthy rival of that ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... imagine that it was in Helen's power to do more than just sympathise with him, but then he had never forgotten that was only a wistful fancy. It brought the tears to his eyes to think of her attempt to cheer him with her prophecy of happiness for him. Happiness for him! Dream as vain as ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... happier frame of mind the excitement of the last few days had contributed. Detroit, that city of amiable audiences, had liked "The Primrose Way." The theatre, in fulfilment of Teddy's prophecy, had been allowed to open on the Tuesday, and a full house, hungry for entertainment after its enforced abstinence, had welcomed the play wholeheartedly. The papers, not always in agreement with the applause of a first-night audience, had on this ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... discourse respects two kinds of use of service from superior men. Direct giving is agreeable to the early belief of men; direct giving of material or metaphysical aid, as of health, eternal youth, fine senses, arts of healing, magical power, and prophecy. The boy believes there is a teacher who can sell him wisdom. Churches believe in imputed merit. But, in strictness, we are not much cognizant of direct serving. Man is endogenous, and education is his unfolding. ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... summer thus began to them all. It would be difficult to say which of them all enjoyed their new life the most. But Janet's prophecy came true. The newness of farming proved to be its chief charm to the lads; and if it had been left entirely to them to plant and sow, and care for, and gather in the harvest, it is to be feared ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... both ancient and modern. But even the name of Psalms will speak for me, which, being interpreted, is nothing but Songs; then, that is fully written in metre, as all learned Hebricians agree, although the rules be not yet fully found. Lastly, and principally, his handling his prophecy, which is merely poetical. For what else is the awaking his musical instruments; the often and free changing of persons; his notable prosopopoeias, when he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in His majesty; his telling of the beasts' joyfulness, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... prophecy might be realized, my good woman! But seven months have already gone since they departed. During three of them a hundred persons have been employed in seeking the wanderers. They have been sought for in every direction, and not the slightest intelligence has ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... at twelve," said the porter. But, in spite of this discouraging prophecy, Greta was so elated at the fresh intelligence that she drew out her purse and gave the man five shillings. She had no other change than two half crowns and two pennies, and in her present elevation of soul there could be no choice, between the silver and the copper, ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... enjoyed the graces of his child, but at the same time his heart was heavy with anxiety for her fate, whenever he called to mind the prediction concerning her; so that at length he determined to consult a celebrated dervish, his friend, on the possible means of averting the fulfilment of the prophecy. The dervish gave him but little hopes of being able to counteract the will of heaven, but advised him to carry the beautiful maiden to a sequestered mansion, situated among unfrequented mountains surrounding it on all sides, and the only entrance to which was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... church was to be built at Geneu'r Glyn, and that Glanfreadfawr farm house was to occupy the place where they were then endeavouring to build the church. The prophecy, or warning, was attended to, and the church erection abandoned, but the work was carried out at Geneu'r Glyn, in accordance with the Spirit's direction, and the church was built in ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... the country of sir Robert Walpole, then the obnoxious prime minister of this country, inveighs against the Brunswick succession, and the measures of government consequent upon it. To this supposed prophecy, he added a commentory, making each expression apply to the times, with warm ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... one of those rare golden-aired days that sometimes break over the bleak brows of brawling March in sunny prophecy of yet distant summer; windless days, when rime and haze are equally unknown, and tender fingers of the timid spring, lifting the shrouding sod, advance tendril and leaf and bud as heralds of the annual resurrection. Double ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... non-juring character of his Church, entitled "A Preservative against Presbytery." A performance of greater effort, published in 1757, excited some attention, and the unqualified commendation of the learned Bishop Sherlock. In this production, entitled "A Dissertation on Jacob's Prophecy," which was intended as a supplement to a treatise on the same subject by Dr Sherlock, the author has established, by a critical examination of the original language, that the words in Jacob's prophecy (Gen. xlix. 10), ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... being intimidated, however, he quite coolly dashed a handful of sand in her eyes, whereupon she instantly disappeared. "Now," he said, turning to the lady, who was half dead with terror, "you won't have the nightmare again"—which prophecy ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... "the militia boys," "our tin soldier boys," at the other. His appearance in the armory of any regiment in the city would have been the signal for a demonstration he had no desire to face. Through the newspaper offices, too, he flitted, shedding oracular statement and prophecy, claiming to speak "by the card" when he had news to tell, and preserving mysterious, suggestive silence when questioned on matters whereof he ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... with anxiety concerning the health of the young Queen Myra, who seemed gradually becoming deranged; the especial significance of their anxiety being explained by the fact— stated with the utmost gravity—that an ancient prophecy, in which they placed the most implicit faith, foretold that should ever a monarch die without issue, the fall of the nation and its absorption by its savage neighbours would immediately follow. The point of it all lay in the fact that the Queen was unwedded, and insisted on remaining so, while ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... to keep you busy," said Casey grimly. And apparently in instant fulfilment of the prophecy came the short, decisive bark of a six-shooter. By the sound, the shot had been fired outside the camp, in the direction of ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... 14 he, too, went to Rugby, and there is an interesting prophecy about him by his brother Hugh belonging to this time. Hugh had by now earned a certain right to pronounce judgment, having already started to fulfil his early promise by making some mark as a soldier and ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... prophecy! It sounds sharp and clear in many a vibrant line, in many a sonorous sentence of the essays herein collected for the first time. Written for various Californian journals and periodicals and extending over a period of more than a quarter of a century, ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... something like alarm, passed round the room, so daring did these words appear upon the lips of Hermiston's only son. But the amendment was not seconded; the previous question was promptly moved and unanimously voted, and the momentary scandal smuggled by. Innes triumphed in the fulfilment of his prophecy. He and Archie were now become the heroes of the night; but whereas every one crowded about Innes, when the meeting broke up, but one of all his companions came to speak ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... opened her eyes on the world one day in the year 1754, he would have been a bold prophet who would have predicted that she would one day be the uncrowned Queen of the Court of Russia, plus Reine que la Reine, and that her children would have in their veins the proudest blood in Europe. Such a prophecy might well have been laughed to scorn, for little Wilhelmine had as obscure a cradle as almost any infant in all Prussia. Her father was an army bugler, who wore private's uniform in Frederick the Great's army; and her early years ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... of, if with a decent deploring of the frequency of it, yet composedly enough. But there remained that other part of it. And this he could not dispose of so cursorily. His own unhappy deformity, it is true, was amply accounted for on lines quite other than the fulfilment of prophecy, offering, as it did, example of a class of prenatal accidents which, if rare, is still admittedly recurrent in the annals of obstetrics and embryology. Nevertheless, the foretelling of that strange Child of Promise, whose outward aspect and the circumstances of whose birth—as set forth in ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the convention stenographers said: "This is the funniest convention I have ever attended." We have an idea that there was an element of prophecy in her homely remark—a body representing more than four million American soldiers and sailors that makes so little political noise is likely to be about as funny to the conventionally minded politician as a bombardment of gas shells. This language of restraint in the mouths of ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... factory like Rosie. Hers were the quickest fingers, the sharpest tongue, the prettiest face. She was scornful, impatient, and passionate—qualities not highly developed in her companions, and which in her case foreboded ill if one believed Annie Kinzer's prophecy: "That Rosie Sweeny 'll go to the bad ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... presence of European soldiers. The mass of the European force was in the far North-West, in the Punjab, and towards the border of Afghanistan, as if there the danger lay. The Sepoys saw that if they could combine and act in concert they could with ease strike us to the ground. Then the prophecy was widely spread that our rule was speedily to come to an end. It had commenced with our victory at Plassey on June 23, 1757; and when the sun of June 23, 1857, should set, not one English face would be seen in India. Mysterious cakes, resembling our bannocks, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... thus pleading, he heard a rap on the door. Opening it, there stood his mother-in-law. She said, 'Two gentlemen are in the parlor waiting for you.' I went down, and the interview revealed the exact fulfillment both of the promise and the prophecy. The Lord answered my prayer two days before I called on Him. One of the two came from New York to my home in a Western city to inquire about the very thing which was troubling me. He was to me an entire stranger, never having heard of him until I saw him. Having ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... most common minds. If not already, this will soon be the case with the whole Southern population. The slaveholder and the man of trade and commerce who feared the tumult, and would have avoided it, will have seen their apprehensions turned into the fulfillment of prophecy. The non-slave-holding farmer, mechanic, or laborer, will be made to see clearly that his interest did not lie on the side of treason. The political adventurer who planned the conspiracy, is already brought to see the fallacy of his dream. He may now consider the incongruous materials ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... whose distinctive feature is sameness for all times. He is painfully liberal in the construction of the Bible. He thinks he is a curse himself according to the prophet Noah, for he has not yet discovered the distinctive and conditional element in prophecy. His theology is in the main denominational and is like the laws of the Medes and Persians which admit of no change. His mind does not discriminate between the ipse dixit of the Almighty and external authority in matters relating to dogma. In the pulpit he lacks decorum, deep spirituality, ...
— The Defects of the Negro Church - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 10 • Orishatukeh Faduma
... often said to be fulfilled by actual events in history. Thus one of the many places where Merlin's grave was said to be was Drummelzion in Tweeddale, Scotland. On the east side of the churchyard a brook called the Pansayl falls into the Tweed, and there was this prophecy as to ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the day grew, the storm died, leaving ramparts of clouds hanging sullenly above the ocean's rim, while those skilled in weather prophecy foretold the coming of the equinoctial. In McNamara's office there was great stir and the coming of many men. The boss sat in his chair smoking countless cigars, his big face set in grim lines, his hard eyes peering ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... honest broker in China between St. Petersburg and Berlin, and to put the European Concert to rights. How often have I not told him that all he has to gain by playing this game is a final surrender on the part of France? Alas! my prophecy, already fulfilled in the East, is very near to coming true in the Far East. If it should prove otherwise, it would not be to anything in our foreign policy that our good luck would be due, but ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... have been observed, and the inevitable consequence of it foreseen, very close upon the Conquest, when the observation digested itself into a prophecy. No story less than three hundred years old could easily have been reported to Baron Finglas as having originated with St. Patrick and St. Columb. The Baron says—"The four Saints, St. Patrick, St. Columb, St. Braghan, and St. Moling, many hundred years agone, made prophecy that Englishmen ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... hesitation in pronouncing it a work of genius. In fact, I am not sure but what it is the greatest piece of literature it has ever been my fortune as a publisher to come upon. It is vital, and passionately sincere, and I will stake my reputation upon the prophecy that it will be an instantaneous success. I hope that we may become the publishers of it, and will be glad if you will come to see me at once and ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Maddocks; ere the "black gloves" were discarded, Esther had fulfilled the prophecy of Mrs Calvert. She broke off her engagement; scrupulously, however, refunding to Mr Maddocks every penny which he had spent upon her. This second instance on her part of jilting a fiance confirmed many people in the belief of her heartlessness; ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... disgraced the former reign, Did not some grave examples yet remain, Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill, And, having once been wrong, will be so still. 130 He who, to seem more deep than you or I, Extols old bards, or Merlin's prophecy, Mistake him not; he envies, not admires, And to debase the sons, exalts the sires. Had ancient times conspired to disallow What then was new, what had been ancient now? Or what remain'd so worthy to be read By learned ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... in the "Mirror for Magistrates," relating the unhappy catastrophe of George duke of Clarence, occasioned by a prophecy against one whose name began with a G, appears to have been composed in aid of the operation of this law. The author takes great pains to impress his readers with the futility as well as wickedness of such predictions, and concludes with the remark, that no one ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... broke my vow, I've lost most of my prophecy. My real gift is healing. Lost all of that," she concluded, not bitterly. "God is ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "He that shall lose (his life), He says, for my sake. There is the whole cause. He that shall lose, not in any way whatsoever, not for any reason that you like; but: For my sake. In prophecy those other martyrs already said: For thy sake we are killed all the day long (Ps. xliii, 22). Not therefore is it the punishment, that makes a martyr, but the cause." This is found in St. Augustine's sermon In natali martyrium ("On the festival ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... cared not much by what means. She spurred on the reluctant purpose of Macbeth, who felt compunction at the thoughts of blood, and did not cease to represent the murder of the king as a step absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of the flattering prophecy. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... had behaved with cool courage and real unselfishness. She felt certain that Brace's mania would not last, and that if it did he would be miserable. Strangely, then, she had declined to divorce him, and waited. Her prophecy turned out correct, and by the time they arrived at their journey's end the red-haired lady was engaged to a commercial traveller whom she met on the boat. By then Bruce and she were equally convinced that in going to Australia they ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... yell of joy from the boys, and the excited exclamations, questions and answers that followed showed that they agreed heartily with Will in his last prophecy that "they would have no ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... occasions, he had lurked behind the scenes while the miraculous "oracle" was delivering fiat or prophecy, and then he told his white brother how Tlacopa meant to completely confound the Children of the Sun when once ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... an interplanetarian | | story that will not be eclipsed | | soon. It will be referred to by all | | scienti-fiction fans for years to | | come. It will be read and reread. | | This is not a mere prophecy of ours, | | because we have been deluged with | | letters since we began publishing | | this story. In the closing chapters, | | you will follow the adventures with | | bated breath, and you will find that | | though the two preceding ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... Ferrol's prophecy regarding himself was coming true, for his cheek took on a heightened colour, his step a greater elasticity, and he flung his shoulders out with a little of the old military swagger: cheerful, forgetful of all the world, and buoyant in what he thought to be his new-found health ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... caprice of this or that individual, it is a solemn page either of history or prophecy; and when, as always in Dante and occasionally in Byron, it combines and harmonizes this double mission, it reaches the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... prophecy, Lord Clarendon mentions, which, he affirms, (and he must have known the truth,) was universally talked of almost from the beginning of the civil wars, and long before Cromwell was so considerable a person as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... after they had rested up a bit in the mountains. All the girls were looking forward to the mountains where shade, spring water and cooling breezes awaited them. Some of them were filled with curiosity as to what else awaited them there, having in mind the prophecy of the desert rider whom ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... announcement; program, programme &c. (plan) 626[Brit]; premonition &c. (warning) 668; prognosis, prophecy, vaticination, mantology[obs3], prognostication, premonstration|; augury, auguration|; ariolation|, hariolation|; foreboding, aboding[obs3]; bodement[obs3], abodement[obs3]; omniation|, omniousness[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... lamplight at Noumea; they look like wolves, and they look like preachers, and they look like the sick; Hulsh is a daisy to the best of them. Well, there's your company. They're waiting for you, Herrick, and you got to go; and that's a prophecy.' ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Count Mattzahn's prophecy came true. The King of Prussia came to Dresden, and there, as in every other part of Saxony, found no resistance. Fear and terror had gone before him, disarming all opposition. The king and prince-elector were not accustomed to have a will of their own; and Count Bruhl, the favorite of fortune, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... men in different ways—by dreams, by the flight of birds, or by a direct message from Olympus. Very often it was learned by consulting seers, augurs or soothsayers. These were persons believed to have the power of prophecy. There was a famous temple of Apollo at Delphi, in Greece, where a priestess called Pyth'i-a gave answers, or oracles, to those who came to consult her. The name oracle was also applied to the place where such answers were received. There were a great many oracles ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... Gladsmuir, or near Gladsmuir, which is very much the same thing: anyhow, not very far away from Gladsmuir. And so the Jacobites were contented, and more than ever convinced of the advantages of prophecy in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... consented to what she heard, and therefore became a very earnest disciple, enthusiastic about the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace, and all such matters. She understood the meaning of the Levitical types and offerings; could speak of dispensational truth and prophecy; was very zealous about missions to the heathen, and was also earnestly devoted to many charitable works ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... the stern and Nemesis-like God of the Old Testament, he looked confidently for a day of vengeance and retribution for the blacks. He felt, I doubt not, something peculiarly applicable to his enterprise, and intensely personal to himself in the stern and exultant prophecy of Zachariah, fierce and sanguinary words which were constantly in his mouth: "Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle." According to Vesey's lurid exegeisis "those nations" in the text meant, beyond a peradventure, ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... Corinne, and the prophecy she had quoted to them, formed one of the bright episodes in a year which brought little success or relief to the army encamped upon the waters of Lake George. There was no campaign that year. The two armies lay inside ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of Notting Hill' is not an easy book to understand: it may be a satire, it may be a serious book, it may be a prophecy, it may be a joke, it may even be a novel! I think that it is a little bit of a joke, in a degree serious—something of a satire, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... Therefore, since, after the manner of augurs and astrologers, I too, as a state augur, have by my previous predictions established the credit of my prophetic power and knowledge of divination in your eyes, my prediction will justly claim to be believed. Well, then, the prophecy I now give you does not rest on the flight of a bird nor the note of a bird of good omen on the left—according to the system of our augural college—nor from the normal and audible pattering of the corn of the sacred chickens. I have other signs to note; and if they are not more infallible ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... glad to put the question by, for she had enough to do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only Brad Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod or gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For he had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for that great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public conclave assembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... thrown the brethren into great consternation. [113:4] The apostle accordingly deemed it necessary to interpose, and to point out the dangerous character of the doctrines which had been so industriously promulgated. He now, too, delivered his famous prophecy announcing the revelation of the "Man of Sin" before the second coming of the Redeemer. [113:5] Almost all the members of the Thessalonian Church were probably converted Gentiles, [113:6] who must still have been but little acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures; ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... The above prophecy has been generously fulfilled. Mlle. Breslau is indeed a poet in her ability to picture youth and its sweet intimacies, and she does this so easily. With a touch she reveals the grace of one and the affectations of another subject of ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... believe, in our county," he said; "perhaps, therefore, you may have heard at some time of a curious old prophecy about our family, which is still preserved among the traditions of ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... smiled without turning her head. "Oh no, that wasn't your prophecy, mother. You said she was too plain to have a chance ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... a glimpse of the forbidden thing, and therefore turned aside his amazed eyes from the dread spectacle of the roads that he journeyed. Then he was taken by Loker, and found by very sure experience that every point of the prophecy was fulfilled upon him. So he assailed Handwan, king of the Hellespont, who was entrenched behind an impregnable defence of wall in his city Duna, and withstood him not in the field, but with battlements. Its summit defying all approach by a besieger, he ordered ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... countries than his own: for France has gone through the convulsions consequent on the social and moral evils which he has so well portrayed; but other nations are only in their commencement. What to the one is history, to the other, if not averted, may be prophecy. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... prophecy the clever footman returned, still grave and immovable of countenance, but bearing a well-filled work-basket, and a quantity of pieces of magnificent satin brocades which had been cut in six-inch squares—that being the size ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... may be argued, that in the very chapter of Genesis from which I have last quoted, will be found the curse pronounced upon Canaan, by which his posterity was consigned to servitude under his brothers Shem and Japheth. I know this prophecy was uttered, and was most fearfully and wonderfully fulfilled, through the immediate descendants of Canaan, i.e. the Canaanites, and I do not know but it has been through all the children of Ham but I do know that ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... Elias prophecy would make In thirsty Israel's passion: "To me a minstrel bring," he spake, "Who plays in David's fashion." Soon came on him Jehovah's hand, In words of help undoubted,— Great waters flowed the rainless land, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... could not but observe a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts, and those in the 'Pollio' of Virgil. This will not seem surprising, when we reflect, that the eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line by line, but selected such ideas as best agreed with the nature of pastoral poetry, and disposed them in that manner which served most to beautify his piece. I have ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... Sense'—a conviction arising from well-springs far deeper and purer than those that account for human reason. I know because I know. Reasoning, at best, is mere inference deduced from observation, but I am concerned with an inspiration—a something akin to the gift of prophecy." ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... few,' will always be dear to it, and whenever men see the yellow snapdragon blossoming on the wall of Trinity they will think of that gracious undergraduate who saw in the flower's sure recurrence a prophecy that he would abide for ever with the Benign Mother of his days—a prophecy that Faith, in her wisdom or her folly, suffered not to be fulfilled. Yes; autobiography is irresistible. Poor, silly, conceited Mr. Secretary Pepys ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... and love it, 'tis the prophecy For whose poor silver thou hast given me gold; Yea! those old faces for an hour seemed fair Only because some hints of Thee they were: Judge then, if I so loved weak types of old, How good, dear Heart, ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... to Fir Cottage—a quaint, delightful little house circled by big Scotch firs and overgrown with vines. Never were such delightful weeks as those that followed. Patty came rapidly back to health and strength. As for Marcella, Miss Draper's prophecy was also fulfilled; she soon looked and felt like another girl. The dismal years of drudgery behind her were forgotten like a dream, and she lived wholly in the beautiful present, in the walks and drives, the flowers ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... contrast was in some degree typified in the House of Commons under the last leadership of Mr. Gladstone: the old order with its fist on the box, and the new order with its feet on the table. Doubtless the wine of that prophecy was too strong even for the strong heads that carried it. It made Ruskin capricious and despotic, Tennyson lonely and whimsical, Carlyle harsh to the point of hatred, and Kingsley often rabid to the ruin of logic and charity. ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... sais I to her pretty curly-headed little boy; "come here to me," and I resumed my seat. "Now," sais I, "my old friend, I will show you how that prophecy is fulfilled to this child. That clock I sold to Deacon Flint only cost me five dollars, and five dollars more would pay duty, freight, and carriage, and all expenses, which left five pounds clear profit, but that warn't the least share ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Stuart's eyes suddenly sparkled with the thought that his words, spoken in jest, might be a prophecy of what could really happen. It had happened again and again. The miracle might happen ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... his throne, Astyages married his daughter to a Persian named Cambyses, who took her with him to his own country. But after his daughter's marriage Astyages had another dream, which was interpreted by the priests to mean that his daughter's child was destined to reign in his stead. Alarmed by this prophecy he sent for his daughter, and when in course of time she bore a son, he ordered his trusty lieutenant Harpagus to carry the child to his own house and kill it. Harpagus took the infant as he had been ordered to do, but moved by the pleadings of his wife he determined to commit the rest of his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... that the Vicomte de Mauleon has arrived in Paris, after many years of foreign travel; and then, referring modestly enough to the reputation for talent which he had acquired in early youth, proceeds to indulge in a prophecy of the future political career of a man who, if he have a grain of sens common, must think that the less said about him the better. I remember him well; a terrible mauvais sujet, but superbly handsome. There was a shocking story about the jewels of a foreign duchess, which ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... long and contained ten thousand people. It had twenty-five hundred good fighters. It was not afraid, but its people were here to hunt and dance and have a good time. Although they listened to the prophecy of Sitting Bull, they really did not expect that the soldiers would ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... I was made acquainted with the several officers in his suite—Colonel John Butler, father of Captain Walter Butler, broad and squat, a withered prophecy of what the son might one day be; Colonel Daniel Claus, a rather merry and battered Indian fighter; Colonel Guy Johnson, of Guy Park, dark and taciturn; a Captain Campbell, and a Captain McDonald ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... people be forced to make an eternal pledge whose keeping is beyond their power or prophecy and from which there is no release? What is it but ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... used a razor. He held poor Will Mountford in talk that night, when bloody Dick Hill ran him through. He will come to a bad end, will that young lord; and no end is bad enough for him," says honest Mr. Westbury: whose prophecy was fulfilled twelve years after, upon that fatal day when Mohun fell, dragging down one of the bravest and greatest gentlemen in England in ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... man's feet, his hands absent among tall grasses, and listening with all his ears. "A prophecy was made to me," Finegas began. "A man of knowledge foretold that I should catch the Salmon of Knowledge in the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... gather the divine impulse from another's spirit, just as we are told that the Pythian priestess, when she takes her seat on the tripod, where there is said to be a rent in the ground breathing upwards a heavenly emanation, straightway conceives from that source the godlike gift of prophecy, and utters her inspired oracles; so likewise from the mighty genius of the great writers of antiquity there is carried into the souls of their rivals, as from a fount of inspiration, an effluence which ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... very near the spot where he stood. Everybody, while they liked the prediction, looked upon it as a pleasant way the speaker had of giving his hosts and St. Paul a little "taffy," and nothing more. Such, however, was not the case, and Mr. Seward, when he uttered the prophecy, was thoroughly impressed with the truth of what he said, as ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... to the art of prophecy in relation to present events, but convinced in the sincerity of my heart that to injure England would be serving (shall I say revenging?) my country, I believe that this idea would powerfully excite the energy of ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... the measure of your deeds, and insult the woman whom you have robbed and made a widow. It was with a prophecy on your lips that you went forth just now to perpetrate your greatest crime; but it falls on your own head, for you laugh over our misfortune—and it cannot regard me, for my blood does not run cold; I am not overwhelmed nor hopeless, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... who had not yet begun to feel in his bones the heat of the old tropical fever which afterwards made him toss at nights and call out strange words, shook his head and spoke with the enormous gravity which gives an air of prophecy and awful wisdom to a man whose sense of humour and ironic wit have often twisted me into painful knots of mirth. But there was no glint of humour in the Philosopher's eyes when he stared at the greyness of ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... the barricades; the Empire drove him into exile. In his elder years, like Michelet, he found a new delight in the study of nature. La Creation (1870) exhibits the science of nature and that of human history as presenting the same laws and requiring kindred methods. It closes with the prophecy of science that creation is not yet fully accomplished, and that a nobler race will enter into the ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... marched directly on Prome, close to which he took up his position. About 8,000 of his men were slain whose confidence had not been shaken by contact with our troops; and these levies were accompanied by three young and beautiful women of high rank, who pretended to have the gift of prophecy, and to be possessed of power to turn aside a musket-ball. The Shans were led to believe, indeed, that they were invincible; but they soon discovered that they were unable to compete with the British. Being surrounded by danger on every side, Sir A. Campbell resolved at once to become the assailant; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... however, that if it comes, it will be a good thing, even though all Marx's arguments to prove that it must come should be at fault. In actual fact, time has shown many flaws in Marx's theories. The development of the world has been sufficiently like his prophecy to prove him a man of very unusual penetration, but has not been sufficiently like to make either political or economic history exactly such as he predicted that it would be. Nationalism, so far from diminishing, has increased, and has failed to be conquered ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell |
