"Oracle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... beautiful than my father's admiration and emotion when listening to his uncle's rapt passages, or than his childlike faith in my father's exegetical prowess. He used to have a list of difficult passages ready for "my nephew," and the moment the oracle gave a decision, the old man asked him to repeat it, and then took a permanent note of it, and would assuredly preach it some day with his own proper unction and power. One story of him I must give; my father, who heard ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... 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 to ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... Sandy Ericson had been regarded as a sort of chief. When any ship touched at the port it was his genial face that was first seen, and when they passed on their long voyages to distant lands it was he who gave the last word of farewell. Among the women he had been esteemed as an oracle, to whom they went for comfort in stormy weather when in doubt as to the fate of lovers or husbands at the fishing; and even the young children had learned to know his heavy stride, and to run into the street when he approached, ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... Laurentine fields, and of no mean birth. Let me unfold this hard saying in all sincerity: and do thou drink it into thy soul. I might not ally my daughter to any of her old wooers; such was the universal oracle of gods and men. Overborne by love for thee, overborne by kinship of blood and my weeping wife's complaint, I broke all fetters, I severed the maiden from her promised husband, I took up unrighteous ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... them himselfe, that he was reputed for a natiue member of that countrey: and by the same dexteritie he attained to manie languages. This man the Tartars hauing intelligence of by their spies, drew him perforce into their societie and being admonished by an oracle or vision, to challenge dominion ouer the whole earth, they allured him by many rewards to their faithfull seruice, by reason that they wanted interpreters. But concerning their maners and superstitions, of the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... frankly, "Who are they waiting for? Why, Quidnunc. Mister Quidnunc. That's who it is. Him they call Quidnunc. So now you know." In fact, I did not know. He had told me nothing, would tell me no more, and while I stood pondering the oracle I was sensible of some common movement run through the company with a thrill, unite them, intensify them, draw them together to be one people with one faith, one hope, one assurance. And then the nun, who stood near me, fell to her knees, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... 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, they abstained from ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... consulting seers and soothsayers, or augurs,—persons who were supposed to have the power of foretelling events. There were temples also where the gods gave answers through priests. Such answers were called Orʹa-cles, and this name was also given to the priests. The most celebrated oracle of ancient times was in the temple of Apollo at Delʹphi, in Greece. To this place people came from all parts of the world to consult the god, whose answers were given ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... sacred for common ears, and therefore whispered it into Mrs. Pennel's bonnet with a knowing nod and a look from her black spectacles which would not have been bad for a priestess of Dodona in giving out an oracle. In this secret direction about the mace lay the whole mystery of corn-oysters; and who can say what consequences might ensue from casting it in an unguarded ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... be brought about? Therein lay all the difficulty. The philosophers were not wise enough for this. To make the princess cry was as impossible as to make her weigh. They sent for a professional beggar; commanded him to prepare his most touching oracle of woe; helped him, out of the court charade-box, to whatever he wanted for dressing up, and promised great rewards in the event of his success. But it was all in vain. She listened to the mendicant artist's story, and gazed at his marvellous make-up, till she could contain herself ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... ancient Snake, Wine-eyed, bronze-gleaming in the brake Of deep-leaved laurel, ruled the dell, Sent by old Earth from under Strange caves to guard her oracle— A thing of ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... moment to persuade his fellow-countrymen to adopt his own far-sighted plans. Even when most of them had accepted his leadership and were obeying his orders, a handful of desperate men refused to go. They took refuge on the hill of the Acropolis, and acting upon the literal meaning of the oracle toiled with axe and hammer, building up wooden barriers before the gates of ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... suis vatibus, i.e. by the captured Etruscan soothsayer (haruspex). 1-2. ab externis oraculis, i.e. by the Delphic Oracle. 2-3. iam in partem ... (alios) deos. Camillus had vowed to give to Apollo the tenth part of the spoils of Veii. 3-4. alios ... spectare, i.e. Juno. 'It was a Roman practice to invite the patron deity of a place or ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... condition in which a given state finds itself at a given time? It seems too easy a solution of our problems to seek dogmatic answers to our questionings by having recourse to the "natural light," that ready oracle of the ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... religion, language; for the touch of the child is upon them all, and the debt of humanity to the little children has not yet been told. They have figured in the world's history and its folk-lore as magi and "medicine-men," as priests and oracle-keepers, as physicians and healers, as teachers and judges, as saints, heroes, discoverers, and inventors, as musicians and poets, actors and labourers in many fields of human activity, have been compared to ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... 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 uniformly ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... 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 ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... accidentally set in a field spread into a neighboring town, and destroyed, among other buildings, a temple consecrated to Minerva. After this, Alyattes found himself quite unsuccessful in all his expeditions and campaigns. He sent to a famous oracle to ask ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... signified no style, but an unslakable thirst for information, and a bustling human sympathy, and power of carrying things through. Or take two names often found in conjunction—Johnson and Boswell. Had the dear great oracle been named Boswell, and had the sitter-at-his-feet been named Johnson, would the two names seem to us less appropriate than they do? Should we suffer any greater loss than if Salmon were Gluckstein, and Gluckstein Salmon? Finally, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... relic of the heathen custom of destroying Morana or Mora, the goddess of night, of darkness, winter, and death, who, the country-folk say, sits on men at night and drinks their blood, and of Mrak (twilight), her helper, who brings little children to her by twilight. The priest, who used to be an oracle to his flock, was asked first to every festivity, and consulted in every difficulty. "The priest says so" put an end to all questioning. With their religious feeling, superstition goes hand in hand. ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... growing warmth: "Oracle and regulator of the fashions, my praise or censure made the law; I was quoted, copied, extolled, admired, and that by the best company in Paris, that is to say, Europe, the world. The women partook of the general ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... delivered ore rotundo, the haymakers ceased laughing. For even in lay matters they held the Parson to be an oracle, and words so long must have a ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... of earthly happiness, its promises only for those who lived to mortify their natural desires. Yet here was the very word of God encouraging him in his heart's hope. Were not men wont to use the Bible as their oracle, opening the pages at hazard, even ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... obscure their meaning: A ray of truth through error gleaming, Thus you the best elixir brew, To charm mankind, and edify them too. Then youth's fair blossoms crowd to view your play, And wait as on an oracle; while they, The tender souls, who love the melting mood, Suck from your work their melancholy food; Now this one, and now that, you deeply stir, Each sees the working of his heart laid bare. Their tears, their laughter, you command ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the mountain-stream fell in a snowy sheet. The pines above and around grew so thick and close, that not a sunbeam could enter, and a kind of mysterious twilight pervaded the spot. In Greece it would have been chosen for an oracle. I have seen, somewhere, a picture of the Spirit of Poetry, sitting beside just such a cataract, and truly the nymph could choose no more appropriate dwelling. But alas for sentiment! while we were admiring its picturesque beauty, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... ix., p. 457., &c.).—The late Sir Charles Bunbury, who was long the father of the Jury, and considered as an oracle in all matters relating to it, told me, many years ago, that Charles II. was nicknamed "Old Rowley" after a favourite stallion in the royal stud so called; and he added, that the same horse's appellation had been ever since preserved in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... a colonia probably by Octavian (coins of 1st century A.D.), and there must have been a Baal temple there in which Trajan consulted the oracle. The foundation of the present buildings, however, dates from Antoninus Pius, and their dedication from Septimius Severus, whose coins first show the two temples. The great courts of approach were not finished before the reigns of Caracalla and Philip. In commemoration, no doubt, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... subjects and villeins had to play at Greece and Rome, year in and year out. Temples were erected to Thetis, Diana, Flora, etc., and peasants went about dressed up as haruspices and augurs. The Pontifex slaughtered a sheep on the sacrificial altar, the oracle was consulted in a cave, and in a temple dedicated to the sun young priests kept up an ever-flaming fire. On this estate an actor was master of the hunt, librarian, theatre director, high priest of the sun ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... infallible 525 As three or four-legg'd oracle, The ancient cup, or modern chair; Spoke ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... York oracle, discoursing lately upon Canadian affairs, concludes that American ideas are pervading that region because the people speak of "baggage" and take the right hand in driving on the road. Having traveled somewhat in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and "the Island," I have never ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... the world, until the members of it left off talking and dwelling upon its former opulence. This remark, founded in a long and clear observation of mankind, I have seen verified in numerous instances in my own connections, who, to use the words of my oracle, will never thrive until they can become poor folks. He added, they may make some struggles, and with apparent success, to recover lost ground; they may, and sometimes do, get half way up again; but they are sure to fall back, unless, reconciling themselves to circumstances, they become in form, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... of the oracle and ex-councillor could not rest. He wrote direct to King Charles and Queen Marie to warn them of the danger. To him it seemed that there could be no good in the damsel. He mistrusted her for three reasons: first, because ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... incident was her introduction to the writings of Fenelon—an author whom, in later years, she came to regard as an oracle of spiritual wisdom. In the letter just quoted, she writes: "I am reading Fenelon's 'Maximes des Saints,' and many of his ideas please me exceedingly. Some of his 'Lettres Spirituelles' are delicious—so heavenly, so child-like in ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the government, it is not a legitimate sovereignty, but a usurpation. And he is deceived who expects lasting prosperity in that kingdom which is not ruled by the sceptre of God, that is, his holy word; for that heavenly oracle cannot fail, which declares that "where there is no vision, the people perish,"[1] Nor should you be seduced from this pursuit by a contempt of our meanness. We are fully conscious to ourselves how very mean and abject we are, being miserable sinners before God, and ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... to the sphere of his influence, and the leader of a nation is less incensed at a rival's triumph than the great man of a village. If we pursue this descending scale, what a desperately jealous person the oracle of oyster-dredges and cockle-women must be! Such ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... in editions for the people, and sold at the price of railway novels. Foreigners from all countries read his books as attentively as his most eager English disciples, and sought his opinion as to their own questions with as much reverence as if he had been a native oracle. An eminent American who came over on an official mission which brought him into contact with most of the leading statesmen throughout Europe, said to the present writer:—'The man who impressed me most of them all was Stuart Mill; you placed before him the facts on which you sought his opinion. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... this important year, the oracle of the traders, and the idol of the rabble, and by consequence was feared and courted by all to whom the kindness of the traders or the populace was necessary. The Drapier was a sign; the Drapier was a health; and which way soever the eye or the ear was turned, some tokens were found of the nation's ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... don't be so ridiculous!" said Margaret. "You know perfectly well I am no oracle; but I have a notion in my head. It is this: why should not those splendid-looking girls, the Vivians, join the Specialities? They did look rather funny, I will admit, yesterday; but even then one could see that clothes matter ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... with a heav'nly ray Of the first flame, and interwreathed bay, Inform my soul in labour to begin, Ios or Anthems, Poeans or a Hymne. Shall I a hecatombe on thy tripod slay, Or my devotions at thy altar pay? While which t' adore th' amaz'd world cannot tell, The sublime Urim or deep oracle. ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... time of the Judges, the Idol of Micah was consulted as a kind of oracle.[125] Gideon made, in his house and his city, an Ephod, accompanied by a superstitious image, which was for his family, and to all the people, the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... needeth not to be stood upon. It is enough to point at it; that no nation which doth not directly profess arms, may look to have greatness fall into their mouths. And on the other side, it is a most certain oracle of time, that those states that continue long in that profession (as the Romans and Turks principally have done) do wonders. And those that have professed arms but for an age, have, notwithstanding, commonly attained that ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... through the darkness and the night called life. I do not depend upon hearsay for that. I do not have to take the word of any other man, nor get upon my knees before a book. Here, in the temple of the mind, I go and consult the God—that is to say, my reason—and the oracle speaks to me, and I obey the oracle. What should I obey? Another man's oracle? Shall I take another man's word and not what he thinks, but what ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... invariably women, with this one remembered exception: I dreamed that Oscar Wilde, one of my photographs of him incarnate, approached me with a buffoon languishment and perpetrated fellatio, an act verbally expounded shortly before by my oracle. For a month or more, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... numbered by hundreds, he inserted a prediction that such movements would be made at the North, with most disastrous results. "Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine!" Mr. Paulding has already been taught by Judge Jay, that he who aspires to the fame of an oracle, without its inspiration, must resort to other expedients to prevent detection, than the clumsy ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... must be. The revelation was indeed come. Presentiment had not been mistaken in her impulse: there is a kind of presentiment which never is mistaken; it was I who had for a moment miscalculated; not seeing the true bearing of the oracle, I had thought she muttered of vision when, in ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... a god could not make up his mind easily to render service to a mere mortal. So he traveled to Delhi and questioned the oracle as to what he should do. This ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... by origin, and with some talent, suddenly becomes the Sir Oracle of his village; and, because the Governor-General does not advance his protege or connexions, or because he does not imagine that the welfare of the province hinges upon his support, turns sulky, and obtaining, by very easy means, a seat in the Assembly, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... you," she merely repeated. Though she disclaimed the prophetic vision she was at this instant the nearest approach he had ever met to the priestess of the oracle. The light was in her eyes. "You must face ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Cyriacus, their hiding-place is revealed. When the nails were brought to the queen she wept aloud, and the fountain of her tears flowed over her cheeks and down upon the jewels of her apparel. XIV. She seeks guidance by oracle as to the disposal of the nails. She is directed to make of them rings for the bridle of the chief of earthly kings. He who rides to war with such a bridle should be invincible; and a prophecy to that effect is quoted! Helena obeys, and ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... will thy face be turned, While Erech desolate doth cry to thee? Thy towers magnificent, oh, hast thou spurned? Her blood like water in Ul-bar,[2] oh, see! The seat of thine own oracle behold! The fire hath ravaged all thy cities grand, And like the showers of Heaven them all doth fold. O Ishtar! broken-hearted do I stand! Oh, crush our enemies as yonder reed! For hopeless, lifeless, kneels thy bard to thee, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... direction; was more or less luminous; was visible during a certain lapse of time, and then disappeared under such and such circumstances. When the Tchurtchun has obtained all the necessary information, he recites a few prayers, opens his book of divination, and finally pronounces his oracle, while the Tartars, who have come to consult him, listen to his words, kneeling, and rapt in profound devotion. Your Grand Lama, he says, is come to life again, in Thibet, at such a distance from your house; you will find him in such a family. When ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... this worke is the placing of Poales, of which we will first speake of the choise thereof, wherein if I discent from the opinion of other men, yet imagine I set downe no Oracle, but referre you to the experience or the practise, and so make your owne discreation the arbiter betweene our discentions. It is the opinion of some, that Alder-poales are most proper and fit for the Hoppe-garden, both ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... This brief oracle of comfort was addressed, in the first instance, specially to Martha. It had a primary reference, doubtless, to the vast miracle which was on the eve of performance. But there were more hearts ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... of the leaders of the Liberty party, "was a warm man, but with little reflection; McDougall was strong-minded; and Jay, appearing to fall in with the measures of Sears, tempered and controlled them; but Hamilton, after these great writings, became our oracle." ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... I say, then, to speak comprehensively (and I might be justly considered in so saying to speak as an oracle, not to be delivering a mere precept), that a good education and sound bringing-up is of the first and middle and last importance; and I declare it to be most instrumental and conducive to virtue and happiness. For all other human blessings compared to this are petty and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... smaller prospects, like the youth of conquered Athens. Xenophon thought it right to consult his spiritual guide, Socrates, on the propriety of abandoning his country for hireling service. The philosopher advised him to consult the oracle at Delphi, but the young man only asked what gods he might best conciliate before his departure, and Socrates, though noting the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... philodoggist, is an honest oracle in his way, and when he opes his mouth we hope no cur will be ungrateful enough to bark. He says in his last lecture that dumb animals are creatures like unto himself. That accounts for Mr. BERGH being Deer to the quadrupeds, and such a Terrier ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... blatant land," who was calm, steadfast, unmovable, and always at home. He did not want you, whoever you were; he was perfectly indifferent to you and your concerns. Preach? No! he never preached, he never cared to speak till he was spoken to. If you went to him as an oracle, then he spake as ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... from his wife, nine times in ten she will inquire from her father confessor whether or not she can grant him his request, and the poor husband will have to wait patiently for the permission of the master or the rebuke of the lord, according to the answer of the oracle which had to be consulted! If he gets impatient under the yoke, and murmurs, the wife will soon go to the feet of her confessor; to tell him how she has the misfortune to be united to a most unreasonable man, and ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... "Nosce Teipsum. This Oracle expounded in Two Elegies. 1. Of Humane Knowledge. 2. Of the Soule of Man, and the Immortalitie thereof. London, Printed by Richard Field, for ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... Society; and which, 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
... and 1737 appeared the Weekly Oracle; or, Universal Library. Published by a Society of Gentlemen. One folio sheet was published weekly, usually ending in the middle of a sentence. (Query. What is the technical name for this mode of publication? ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... 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 her illustrious lover as perfectly her slave, as if she had engaged him by all ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... prevailed, and began interpreting the language of the leaves, not greatly to my own advantage or that of any being in the universe. I was no prophet of good, but full of melancholy bodings, and something that bordered upon despair. Had I but commanded an oracle, as ancient visionaries were wont, I should have ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... who descends to ruffle the hitherto calm waters of the lake may be near at hand. Soon sorrow to some of these will give place to proportioned gladness. He who can first bathe his limbs in the blessed wave, says the sacred oracle, shall find relief from every infirmity. First: It is a short and simple word, yet how much of meaning it contains, and in its connection here how much instruction it affords! It is ever thus under the moral and providential government of God. The first to ask ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... of the king was to summon Hermione to be tried for having loved Polixenes too well. Already he had had recourse to an oracle; and the answer, sealed up, was brought into court and opened in the ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... with the childlike simplicity displayed by the taker of the oracle In the particular case wherein a pipe was employed, the party wished to discover whether it would be safe for him to proceed on a journey the following day. The pipe by a slight gyratory motion at once intimated its assent. He then besought it to make no mistake, and, after carefully stilling ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of any service to the positivist; for this something can only be of power or value if the prophecy it inevitably developes into be regarded as a true one. In the consciousness of the ancient world it lay undeciphered like the dark sentence of an oracle; and though it might be revered by some, it could not be denied by any. But its meaning is now translated for us, and there is a new factor in the case. We now can deny it; and if we do, its ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... The machinery of oracles was resorted to. The Greek oracles were of Egyptian origin. So profound was the respect paid to their commands that even the sovereigns were obliged to obey them. It was thus that a warning from the oracle of Amun caused Necho to stop the construction of his canal. For the determination of future events, omens were studied, entrails inspected, and nativities ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... rests mainly on his achievements as a precursor of the Revolution, to the eighteenth century he was as much a poet as a reformer. The whole of Europe beheld at Ferney the oracle, not only of philosophy, but of good taste; for thirty years every scribbler, every rising genius, and every crowned head, submitted his verses to the censure of Voltaire; Voltaire's plays were performed before crowded houses; his epic was pronounced superior to Homer's, Virgil's, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... event, it can be said also, according to Molina, that there is a mediate knowledge between that of intuition and that of intelligence. Instance is given of the famous example of David asking the divine oracle whether the inhabitants of the town of Keilah, where he designed to shut himself in, would deliver him to Saul, supposing that Saul should besiege the town. God answered yes; whereupon David took a different course. Now some advocates of this mediate knowledge are of opinion that God, foreseeing ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... his only oracle; Who could buy lands and pleasure at his will, Yet slighted that which silver could ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... with a tender pain and pleasure, for each baby was laid on grandma's knee, its small virtues, vices, ailments, and accomplishments rehearsed, its beauties examined, its strength tested, and the verdict of the family oracle pronounced upon it as it was cradled, kissed, and blessed on the kind old heart which had room for every care and joy of those who called her mother. It was a sight the girl never forgot, because ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... shipmaster on board who had left his vessel in Rio Janeiro, with directions to the mate to bring her to San Francisco, by way of Cape Horn. The oracle was consulted as to the position of the ship at that particular time. Without a moment's hesitation, the latitude and longitude of the vessel were given, placing her somewhere off Valparaiso (Chili). "That's just where I put her!" cried the master with an ejaculation of unfeigned ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... through the two hundred pages devoted to the word Sleep, the venerable wizard was very uneasy, but he was a persevering person and he did not abandon his endeavours. Merlin's wise books having failed him, he cast about for other means to learn what he desired, and consulted his oracle. ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... discussion, they allowed themselves an excursion into the domain of agreeable frivolity which constitutes the common basis of worldly conversation. Monsieur Gravier called this "from grave to gay." The Abbe Duret's rubber made another pleasing variety on the monologues of the oracle. The three rivals, tired of keeping their minds up to the level of the "high range of discussion"—as they called their conversation—but not daring to confess it, would sometimes turn with ingratiating hints to ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Roxy's reputation 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
... account which Herodotus gives us of the actions of the Greeks at Plataea, when their army confronted the remnant of the army of Xerxes, in the year 479 B.C. Here we see each side hesitating to attack the other, merely because the oracle had declared that whichever side struck the first blow would lose the conflict. Even after the Persian soldiers, who seemingly were a jot less superstitious or a shade more impatient than their opponents, had begun the attack, we are told that the Greeks ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Delos the stony, so empty that everything there now seems dead; and I am striving to reach the Delphian oracle before its inspiring vapour should be completely lost. The mules browse on its laurel. The pythoness, gone astray, ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... Mrs. Talbot, that man is never so flattered as when some woman thinks him an oracle. Besides, although yours is the best mind in any pretty woman's head I know of—in any woman's head for that matter—you still have much to learn, and I should feel very jealous if you ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... ceased paying it privately, as before, but would come to him on the first day of the year and give, some more, some less. He, after adding as much or more again, would return it, not only to the senators but to all the rest. I have also heard the story that on one day of the year, following some oracle or dream, he would assume the guise of a beggar and would accept money from those who passed. This, whether trustworthy or not, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... to be an oracle to which an appeal is always made in all discussions. The men of facts wait their turn in grim silence, with that slight tension about the nostrils which the consciousness of carrying a "settler" in the form of a fact or a revolver gives the individual thus armed. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of the pulleys, and the manufacture of the thunders. They saw the natural faces and heard the natural voices of the actors. Distant nations looked on the Pope as the Vicegerent of the Almighty, the oracle of the All-wise, the umpire from whose decisions, in the disputes either of theologians or of kings, no Christian ought to appeal. The Italians were acquainted with all the follies of his youth, and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the answer was to come. Twice before had they consulted that dread oracle, whose response was certain death to one of their number. Twice before had they recognised and submitted to its decree. No preliminaries needed to be discussed. These had been long ago arranged. There was nothing more to do than ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... evening that I visited this modern Delphic oracle; and, strangely enough, as is often the case, other events seemed to lead up to this one. The very lesson on Sunday evening was full of astrology. It was, I may mention, the story of the handwriting on the wall and the triumph of Daniel over ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... wonn confidence enough to beg his advice, how I might carry my self securely there, without offence of mine own conscience. Signor Arrigo mio (sayes he) I pensieri stretti, & il viso sciolto, will go safely over the whole World: Of which Delphian Oracle (for so I have found it) your judgement doth need no commentary; and therfore (Sir) I will commit you with it to the best of all ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... know most is, however, quite differently engaged. He has devoted his life to a mission to his fellow men, and especially to his fellow citizens. If we may so far trust Plato's Apology, the occasion of that was the answer received from the Delphic oracle by Chaerephon, whom we know from Aristophanes as one of the leading disciples of Socrates in the earlier part of his life. Chaerephon asked the god of Delphi whether there was any one wiser than Socrates, and ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... him with assurances of his being restored to his former fortune. And being most inclined to believe the latter prediction, upon losing Britain and Armenia, he imagined he had run through all the misfortunes which the fates had decreed him. But when, upon consulting the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, he was advised to beware of the seventy-third year, as if he were not to die till then, never thinking of Galba's age, he conceived such hopes, not only of living to advanced years, but of constant and singular good fortune, that having ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... sobriety and moderation; the decorum, and respect for religion, which he maintained among his subjects; the industry he promoted by wholesome laws and his own example; his consummate sagacity, which crowned all his enterprises with brilliant success, and made him the oracle of the princes ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... drench. Fear not, my good lad, lest a superabundance of liquid should either weaken or chill your stomach; far from thy better judgment be that silly fear of unadulterated drink. I will insure you against all consequences; and if my authority will not serve your turn, read Celsus. That oracle of the ancients makes an admirable panegyric on water; in short, he says in plain terms that those who plead an inconstant stomach in favor of wine, publish a libel on their own viscera, and make their constitution a pretense for ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... time after time that he is not an Egyptian governor, but a tributary ally and vassal of the Pharaoh, and that he had received his royal power, not by inheritance from his father or mother, but through the arm (or oracle) of "the Mighty King." As "the Mighty King" is distinguished from the "great King" of Egypt, we must see in him the god worshipped by Ebed-Tob, the "Most High God" of Melchizedek, and the prototype of "the Mighty God" of Isaiah. It is this same mighty king, Ebed-Tob assures the Pharaoh ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... more attention among the rustics or at the squire's hall than the passing by of a plough or a sheep. The fixed shop has deprived him of his utility, and daily newspapers of his attractions. He is content to sell his waistcoat or handkerchief pieces; but he is no longer the oracle of the village inn or the housekeeper's room. In the days however when neither draper's nor haberdasher's wares could be purchased without taking a day's journey at the least through miry ways to some considerable market-town, the ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... an Apuleius turned inside out, that you should suspect that an Ass lies hid under the Form of a Man. But do you believe this very Person to be the very Messiah whom the Types of the Law shadowed out, which the Oracle of the Prophets promised, which the Jews looked for so ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... spent almost her whole life out of doors, in heat and cold, storm and rain, she had come to be intimately acquainted with all the signs foreboding change of weather, and was looked upon by her acquaintances as a perfect oracle. She had also a most retentive memory, and being of a joyous nature, with a bodily frame that never knew illness, had learnt every verse or melody that was sung within her hearing, until her mind became a very storehouse of songs. To John, old Granny ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... engaged in battle without consulting priest or augur. It was not only their goods, but their families, their life, the honor of their country, and the sanctuary of their religion, that the Greeks were defending, and they might rely on the protection of the gods. The oracle of Apollo had answered, "I and the white virgins will provide for this matter." The people surrounded the temple, and the priests supported and encouraged the people. During the night small bodies of AEtolians, Amphisseans, and Phocidians arrived one after another. Four thousand men had joined within ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... department of our literary stores in 1821 with his "Cook's Oracle," which was very successful, and passed ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... Year Anniversary Song The Spring Oracle The Happy Couple Song of Fellowship Constancy in Change Table Song Wont and Done General Confession Coptic Song Another Vanitas! vanitatum vanitas! Fortune of War Open Table ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... muttered something about Trixie being always headstrong and never given to serious things, but even she was a little shaken by the unexpected testimony of her favourite oracle, ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... secondly he has not been "pre-eminently virtuous or just." This is true in its way. Oedipus is too passionate to be just; but he is at least noble in his impetuosity, his devotion, and his absolute truthfulness. It is important to realise that at the beginning of the play he is prepared for an oracle commanding him to die for his people (pp. 6, 7). And he never thinks of refusing that "task" any more than he tries to elude the doom that actually comes, or to conceal any fact that tells against him. If Oedipus had ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... military oracle of the Administration in the first days of the war. His ability and great experience entitled him to regard and deference on all questions relating to military operations. No one appreciated his ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... frail crafts into havens which we never sought! Perhaps the act which Pepeeta was about to perform had more ethical and spiritual value than the casual observer would suppose, because of the perfect sincerity with which she undertook its performance. No priestess ever entered an oracle, no vestal virgin a temple, nor saint a shrine with more reverence than she felt, as she passed into the silence of ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... is an exile, bred in the desperate hopes and wild schemes of exile; he is a prince without a kingdom, always dreaming of his wrongs and his restoration; and driven by the old savage doctrine, which an oracle has confirmed, of the duty and manliness of revenge. He is, as was shown by his later history, a man subject to overpowering impulses and to fits of will-less brooding. Lastly, he is very young, and is swept away by his ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... when a few great nobles controlled public affairs, that such a man could have been so recognized, rewarded, and honored. He died beloved and universally lamented, and his writings are still classics, and likely to remain so. He was not an oracle in general society, like Mackintosh and Macaulay; but among congenial and trusted friends he gave full play to his humor, and was as charming as Washington Irving is said to have been in his chosen circle of admirers. Although he was a Whig, we do not read of any particular intimacy ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... sanctified by him in the Spirit? And, therefore, he is here "anointed," not that he may become God, for he was so even before; nor that he may become king, for he had the kingdom eternally, existing as God's image, as the sacred oracle shows; but in our behalf is this written, as before. For the Israelitish kings, upon their being anointed, then became kings, not being so before, as David, as Ezekias, as Josias, and the rest; but the Savior, on the contrary, being God, and ever ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... comprehension. To the last moment they had been sceptical, for Lady Maclaughlan had shook her head and humphed whenever the subject was mentioned. For several months they had therefore vibrated between their own sanguine hopes and their oracle's disheartening doubts; and even when the truth was manifest, a sort of vague tremor took possession of their mind, as to what Lady Maclaughlan ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... treaty with such rogues, even at the cost of an unrecovered Flush, could not but oppose the new trade of elaborate deception. But his feeling was intensified by the personal repulsiveness of the professional medium. The vain, sleek, vulgar, emasculated, neurotic type of creature, who became the petted oracle of the dim-lighted room, was loathsome in his eyes. And his respect for his wife's genius made him feel that there was a certain desecration in the neighbourhood to her of men whom he regarded as verminous impostors. Yet he recognised her right to think for herself, and she, on ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... whose chief and oracle he had been for so long, asked him what they ought to do; Cavalier replied that if they would follow him, their best course and his would be to take the first opportunity of gaining the frontier and leaving the country. They all declared ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lowest we are all extremely happy.—Dorcas stands well in her lady's graces. Polly has asked her advice in relation to a courtship-affair of her own. No oracle ever gave better. Sally has had a quarrel with her woollen-draper; and made my charmer lady-chancellor in it. She blamed Sally for behaving tyrannically to a man who loves her. Dear creature! to stand against a glass, and to shut her eyes because ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... household. He had come to dine with them informally almost every alternate Sunday evening. To leave him out would be a dreadful cut; but what else could she do? What would be said of her set of old china if she inserted such a piece of new porcelain? What would Miss Lavinia Vandeleur, special oracle on the genealogy of the exclusive families, think, if Mrs. Gouverneur should be so recreant to right principles as to invite a young man without a single grandfather to his back, only because he ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... singer who has been told by the village oracle that she has a great voice and all she needs is a little "finishing," balks at the idea of devoting three or four years to the process, and so she looks for some one who will do it quickly and she always ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... Elsewhere Swift speaks of his "old Presbyterian housekeeper," "who has been my Walpole above thirty years, whenever I lived in this kingdom." "Joe Beaumont is my oracle for public affairs in the country, and an old Presbyterian ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Ivy worshipped very far off. Her friend was to her the embodiment of all knowledge and goodness and greatness. She marvelled to see him so at home in what was to her so strange. Every word that fell from his lips was an oracle. She secretly contrasted him with all the men she had ever met, to the utter discomfiture of the latter. Washington, the Apostle Paul, and Peter Parley were the only men of the past or present whom she considered at all worthy to be compared with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the isles of the Pacific unless his pedigree be long and in the upper regions mythical. And our king counts cousinship with most of the high families in the archipelago, and traces his descent to a shark and a heroic woman. Directed by an oracle, she swam beyond sight of land to meet her revolting paramour, and received at sea the seed of a predestined family. "I think lie," is the king's emphatic commentary; yet he is proud of the legend. From this illustrious beginning the fortunes of the race must ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... himself it may be necessary to say a word, in order that so remarkable an intellectual prodigy should fill his proper place in our frail and short-lived catalogue of the worthies of that day. He was the usual oracle of his neighbourhood, when a condensation of its ideas on any great event, like the one just mentioned, became necessary. His learning was justly computed, by comparison, to be of the most profound and erudite ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... the king's ears like the voice of an oracle. Standing in his place with staring eyes and trembling fingers, he repeated falteringly ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... driven his fellow countrymen into a corner at the point of a logical bayonet from which they felt that there was no escape, he proposed that the question what was to be done should be referred to an oracle in which the whole country had the greatest confidence, and to which recourse was always had in times of special perplexity. It was whispered that a near relation of the philosopher's was lady's-maid to the priestess who delivered the oracle, and the Puritan party declared that ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... bases of moral and political progress. The inevitable sympathy between the editor and his daily readers—the action and reaction which constantly take place and insensibly lead the journalist into the paths of popular opinion and passion—these are too apt to render him altogether unfit to be an oracle in the great work of social organization and government. The common sense of the multitude is often an invaluable corrective of speculative error; but the impulses and strong prejudices of communities, though calculated to sweep along with them ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Physiology. Foster's Physiology. Youman's Chemistry. Johnston's Chemistry of Common Life. Lewes's Physiology of Common Life. Gray's How Plants Grow. Rand's Vegetable Kingdom. Brillat Savarin's Art of Dining. Brillat Savarin's Physiologie du Gout. The Cook's Oracle, Dr. Kitchener. Food and Dietetics, by Dr. Chambers. Food and Dietetics, by Dr. Pary. Food and Digestion, by Dr. Brinton. Food, by Dr. ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... when an Armada is at my heels, the cares of the moon do not concern me," went on Baldry, with the gravity of an oracle. "Had Nero not fiddled, perhaps ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... tall, large-boned man, brawny and angular; with a face tanned by the sun, and graven with those considerate lines which New England so early writes on the faces of her sons. He was reputed an oracle in matters of agriculture and cattle, and, like oracles generally, was prudently sparing of his responses. Amaziah was one of those uncouth over-grown boys of eighteen whose physical bulk appears to have so suddenly developed that the soul has more matter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... considered to flatter, making his concealment more insinuating than his speech. He approaches with fictitious humility to the creature of his praise, and hangs with rivetted attention upon his lips, as though he spake with the voice of an oracle. He repeats what phrase or sentence may particularly gratify him, and both hands are little enough to bless him in return. Sometimes he extols the excellencies of his friend in his absence, but it is in the presence of those who he is pretty certain ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... was a sort of oracle, in such circumstances. He had passed his youth at sea, having often doubled the Horn, and was known to possess a very respectable amount of knowledge on the subject of vessels of all sorts and sizes, rig and qualities. He was now ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... profit by it: something else was needed. His mission was to the Athens of his day; he was going to save Athens if he could. So he went into the marketplace, the agora, and loafed about (so to say), and drew groups of young men and old about him, and talked to them. The Delphic Oracle had made pronouncement: Sophocles is wise; Euripides is wiser; but Socrates is the wisest of mankind. Sometimes, you see, the Delphic Oracle could get off a distinctly good thing. But Socrates, with his usual sense of humor, had never considered himself in that light at all; ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... 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
... Ogden (now the Newmarket oracle) the same person who, five-and-twenty years since, was an annual pedestrian to Ascot, covered with dust, amusing himself with "PRICKING in the belt," "HUSTLING in the hat," &c., among the lowest class of rustics, at the inferior booths ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... abuse The Gentiles; henceforth oracles are ceased, And thou no more with pomp and sacrifice Shalt be enquired at Delphos or elsewhere— At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute. God hath now sent his living Oracle 460 Into the world to teach his final will, And sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell In pious hearts, an inward oracle To all truth requisite for men to know." So spake our Saviour; but the subtle Fiend, Though inly stung with anger and disdain, Dissembled, and this answer smooth returned:— ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... 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
... Burns says that in 1889 "Lane's chief hero was Cleveland, and his oracle Godkin, of the EVENING POST"—later, the NATION. "When I knew him in New York he represented a San Francisco newspaper, the CHRONICLE, I think, as correspondent. He was not whole-heartedly in sympathy with his proprietor, nor indeed with the sensational aspect of journalism, and ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... in the ear, of malicious laughter from gnomes and imps grinning over the weaknesses of man—his paralytic facility in believing—his fraudulent villany in abusing this facility—but in no point accounting for those real effects of diffusive social benefits from the Oracle machinery, which must arrest the attention of candid students, amidst some opposite monuments of incorrigible credulity, or of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... inhabit the city of Pandion, to be mindful of Bacchus, all together throughout the wide streets to return fit thanks to the Bromian, and crowned with wreaths, to cause the odor of sacrifice to rise from the altars. In this oracle, Athens is the city of Pandion, because it was reported that under his rule the worship of Dionysus was introduced into the city. This and the other commands from Dodona and Delphi concerning Dionysus refer to the introduction of the worship of the god; for in every one the ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... "Thy potent aid." The goddess heard their words, And instant gave reply. "The temple leave, "Ungird your garments, veil your heads, and throw "Behind your backs your mighty mother's bones." Astonish'd long they stood! and Pyrrha first The silence broke; the oracle's behest Refusing to obey; and earnest pray'd, With trembling tongue for pardon for her sin: Her mother's shade to violate she dreads, Her bones thus rudely flinging. But meantime Deep in their minds, in dark mysterious veil Obscurely hid, the sentence they revolve. At length Deucalion sooths ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... a kind of mysticism which did actually absorb him at a later period, he confined himself to a positive worship of nature, which appeared to him then in the glorious shape of the mountains and lakes of Helvetia. Wordsworth was his oracle, and thus cultivating a poetry which deified nature, Shelley, in reality, remained at heart an atheist, and doubtless tried to imbue Byron with his ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... dispute about it, [Footnote: The sense of these words is not clear. Boissevain conjectures that there may have been some who doubted whether an emperor so diseased would ever live to reach Mysia.] seemed to bring to fulfillment the following verse, according to some oracle: ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... made subordinate. Money, which exalts the lowly, and sheds honour upon the exalted—money, which makes sin appear goodness, and gives to viciousness the seeming of chastity—money, which silences evil report, and opens wide the mouth of praise—money, which constitutes its possessor an oracle, to whom men listen with deference—money, which makes deformity beautiful, and sanctifies crime—money, which lets the guilty go unpunished, and wins forgiveness for wrong—money, which makes manhood and age respectable, and is commendation, surety, and ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... other words rationalise, about the gods.[93] 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 ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... when he had retired on the death of the baronet and marriage with the housekeeper he had brought away a red volume, by name Burke's Peerage, by which, as well as by his previous knowledge, he was enabled to serve as an oracle respecting all owners of yachts worthy of consideration. If their names were not recorded in that book, he scorned them as 'parvenoos,' however perfect their vessels might be in the eyes of mariners. The edition ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dean. He was honoured by the populace as the champion, patron, and instructor of Ireland; and gained such power as, considered both in its extent and duration, scarcely any man has ever enjoyed without greater wealth or higher station. He was from this important year the oracle of the traders, and the idol of the rabble, and by consequence was feared and courted by all to whom the kindness of the traders or the populace was necessary. The Drapier was a sign; the Drapier was a health; and which way soever the eye or the ear was turned, some tokens were found ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... obscured the April sun that afternoon, so that the new baby could be carried out under the elm tree and there rocked to his first sleep. My next excursion, so the family traditions aver, was to Uncle Peter's, the nearest neighbor, the oracle of the community for all signs, omens and country folk-lore, who, taking me in his arms, carried me to the attic of his house and touched my head to the ridgepole: "What did you do that for?" my mother asked. "Oh, that's the way to make him a great man sometime. I does it to all the ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... referred to, it was first embraced by persons in a certain grade of comfort and respectability; by persons approaching to what we should call the MIDDLE CLASSES in their condition, their education, and their moral views. Of this class Seneca himself was the idol, the oracle; he was, so to speak, the favourite preacher of the more intelligent and humane disciples of nature and virtue. Now the writings of Seneca show, in their way, a real anxiety among this class to raise the ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... the impossibility of such a thing, that I would justify Lord G from this piece of complaisance to the Jacobins, and convince the worthy magistrate he had been imposed upon: yet this man is the Professor of Eloquence at a college, is the oracle of the Jacobin society; and may perhaps become a member of the Convention. This seems so almost incredibly absurd, that I should fear to repeat it, were it not known to many besides myself; but I think ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... eyes were turned upon Paul, as the oracle of the group of wondering scouts. He shrugged his shoulders, as if he thought he had as much right as any of the others to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... that'll be exact," replied our oracle: "If the rain comes down pretty, we shan't have no hurricane; if it holds up ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... the sufferer was an evil-doer, justly hateful to the gods."[9] Jehu and his house were blamed for the blood spilt at Israel, although Jehu was commissioned by Elisha to destroy the house of Ahab.[10] This is like the case of OEdipus, who obeyed an oracle, but suffered for his act as for a crime. Jehovah caused the ruin of those who had displeased him, by putting false oracles in the mouths of prophets.[11] Hezekiah expostulated with God because, although he had walked before God with a perfect heart and had done what was right ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... sympathized with Luther in his religious feelings, treated him with great kindness, and recommended the reading of the Scriptures, and also the works of St. Augustine whose theological views he himself had embraced. Although St. Augustine was a great oracle in the Roman church, still, his doctrines pertaining to personal salvation differed in spirit from those which were encouraged by the Roman Catholic divines generally, who attached less importance to justification by faith ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... child,' Mr. Noah aggravatingly replied, 'except to go to bed and get a good night's rest. To-morrow we will return to the city and see what can be done. We must consult the oracle.' ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... of Ithaca; and be't of less expect That matter needless, of importless burden, Divide thy lips than we are confident, When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws, We shall hear music, wit, and oracle. ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... she confided to the night, with something of the awe with which one suddenly comprehends a hidden oracle; "there must be a difference, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... than these, though temple thou hast none, Nor altar heap'd with flowers; Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan 30 Upon the midnight hours; No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet From chain-swung censer teeming; No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat Of pale-mouth'd ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... 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
... is thine aged Grove, Prophetic Fount, and Oracle divine? What valley echoed the response of Jove? What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine? All, all forgotten—and shall Man repine That his frail bonds to fleeting life are broke?[152] Cease, Fool! the fate of Gods may well be thine: Wouldst thou ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... approval of conscience that transfigured the face of the martyred Stephen or Savonarola. For all happiness comes only through peace with one's self, one's record, and one's God. All the great, from AEschylus and Sophocles to Channing and Webster, have emphasized man's conscience as the oracle divine. Let the witnesses speak. Here is the Judge, famous in English history: It became his duty to sentence a servant for murdering his master. Suddenly, before the astounded onlookers, the Judge arose and took his place in the dock beside the prisoner. He ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... this sweetness was lost forever, both in this world and in the next, because it had been seen and heard on the stage. Frau von Eschenhagen had often expressed her views on that subject, and her son, a good, obedient son always, looked upon her as an oracle. But now he heaved a deep sigh, as ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... into the West Bengal jungles, and have descended from the North to their present site. They are called the finest specimens of the native savage. The guardian of the tribe is its deceased ancestor, and his ghost is consulted as an oracle. Their race-god is the 'Great Mountain,' but the sun represents the highest spirit; though they worship spirits of every sort, and regard beasts as divine; the men revering the tiger, and the women, elephants. The particularly ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... I was just reflecting how foolish is all this thing—the tomb—the epitaph. I think I would 'av none—no, no epitaph. We regard them first for the oracle of the dead, and find them after only the folly of the living. So I despise. Do you think your house of Knowl down there is what you call ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... gloom of the woods where the lonely pickets stand. Pipes are out now. An oracle outlines the general campaign of the war as it will be and as it should have been. A long-winded, innocent braggart tells of his personal prowess that day. A little group is guying the new recruit. A wag shaves a bearded comrade on ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... my selfe again, with thinking that peraduenture this was shee, according to the sacred Oracle and true speech, of the mighty Queene Eleutherillida: and therefore, that I should not shrinke or stoope vnder my burthen; for if I were not greatly deceiued, this was shee indeede. And hauing made thys amorous and discoursiue thought and ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... Gospel was being read, he received the admonition as if what was read was addressed to him: "Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me" [Matt. 19:21]. And by such oracle was he forthwith converted unto Thee. So quickly I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the Apostles, when I rose thence. I seized, I opened, and in silence I read that paragraph on which my eye first fell: "Not in rioting ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... session" of 1891, had it not been for two disasters which overtook the Liberals: The publication of Blake's letter and the revelation of the rascalities of the Mercier regime. Perhaps of the two blows, that delivered by Blake was the more disastrous. The letter was the message of an oracle. It required an interpretation which the oracle refused to supply; and in its absence the people regarded it as implying a belief by Blake that annexation was the logical sequel to the Liberal policy of unrestricted reciprocity. The ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... distended braces. We never met but one exception to the above rule—it was John Smith. Every reader has a friend of the name of John Smith—in confidence, that is the man. We would have sworn by him; in fact, we did swear by him, for ten long years he was our oracle. Never shall we forget the first, the only time our faith was shaken. We gazed upon and loved his honest face; we reciprocated the firm pressure of his manly grasp; our eyes descended in admiration even unto the ground on which he stood, and there, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... mothers decided to consult the bronze oracle in the temple of Fo. After burning gilt paper and perfume before the oracle, Madame Tou received the unsatisfactory answer that, until the jasper appeared, the pearl would unite with no one, and Madame ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... in the tones of the oracle, "that drinking alone is a pernicious habit. No, I don't think I feel like playing this evening. If we are going to reform we may as well abandon the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... it your father placed his trust, in it he found his reward, in it lives my only hope; consult it, my beloved niece, day and night, as the oracle of life.' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Babylon, the capital of the Assyrian empire, it was so little valued, that a law of the country even obliged every woman once in her life to depart from it. This abominable law, which, it is said, was promulgated by an oracle, ordained, That every woman should once in her life repair to the temple of Venus; that on her arrival there, her head should be crowned with flowers, and in that attire, she should wait till some stranger performed with her the rites ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... die in her place; likewise a custom whereby a nymph between fifteen and twenty years of age is annually sacrificed to the goddess. When besought to release the land from this tribute Diana through her oracle replies: ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... was far more than a Mason, he was a high initiate—the supreme oracle to which the secret societies applied for guidance. All this was disclosed a few years ago in the correspondence between Savalette de Langes and the Marquis de Chefdebien referred to in the previous chapter. Thus in the dossiers of the leading occultists supplied by Savalette ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... are true—for thus my vision ran; Surely some oracle has been with me, The gods have chosen me to reveal their plan, To warn an unjust judge of destiny: I, slumbering, heard and saw; awake I know, Christ's coming death, and Pilate's ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell |
