Delphi Quotes

Then I should be relieved to know what I was told an hour ago is false. It wasn't you who yanked a girl--by her hair--out of chair in the common lounge area.

What is it with the St. Delphi brothers and their attraction to halfs?

Saint Delphi my ass.

Then he leaned forward and rested his cheek against mine. Hot tingles spread through me as his lips moved against my ear. "You should tell me to stop." I didn't say a word.

It was him—Aiden St. Delphi. I’d never forget his name or face. The first time I’d caught a glimpse of him standing in front of the training arena, a ridiculous crush had sprung alive. I’d been fourteen and he seventeen. The fact he was a pure-blood hadn’t mattered whenever I’d spotted him around campus.

By the way," Aiden said casting me a long look that had me totally forgetting the seriousness of our mission. "You look damn good in a Sentinel uniform." A hot flush that had nothing to do with embarrassment spread over me. "So do you." "I know.

Aiden has gone Rambo on us.

Apollo had said he knew what this kind of love was capable of. And I finally understood why Paris had risked his country and his blood for Helen. Selfish, yes, but I understood. I would burn the world if that meant Alex would be safe.

It's just... wow, I'm happy for you. I think this is great. Its love- the real kind you make sacrifices for. The kind where you scream 'screw it' to everyone else. That's envy-worthy.

I swore to you that I wouldn't let that happen, and I know I've failed you, but I'm not going to just give up, Alex. I'll never give up on you.

I feel it in here," she said, placing her hand against her chest and then against her stomach, "and here. It’s like there’s not enough air or room inside me. That I may… burst out of my skin or drown in it, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I don’t know why I feel this way, but I always have… and will." She tipped her chin up and her entire face was a rosy color. "It’s you. I… I love you.

Apollo had changed Hyacinth into a flower to protect him. I would give Alex back control so she could protect herself instead of making the decision for her. That's how we were different from the gods.

To love is not weak. Love is the strongest thing there is.

DELPHI: That's the thing, isn't it? About friendships. You don't know what he needs. You only know he needs it. Find him, Scorpius. You two - you belong together.

That's not what this is." I stared at Apollo, but damn, that globe fascinated him. "If there's going to be a god gunning for my butt -" "It is a nice butt," Aiden murmured as he studied the toes of his boots. A small grin was on his face.

Know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe and God.

Aiden was gone. Like Caleb, but in a different way. I'd lost both of them.

What is God singing in his profound Delphi of gold and shadow?

That’s okay,” Apollo replied, smiling at him in a wholly creepy' hide your kids' kind of way. “When you least expect it, I’m going to turn you into a a pink flower that smells like cat pee.

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

Lowering my chin, I sighed. What my Seth wanted, I wanted, but... daimons? I rubbed my hands on my bent knees and sighed again - louder, like a petulant child. Aiden's back twisted as he turned his head. "What, Alex?" "Nothing," I mumbled. "There's something." He leaned back, tipping his head against the bar. "You have that tone." I frowned at the wall. "What tone?" "The 'I have something I want to say but I shouldn't' tone" A little bit of humor seeped into his voice. "I'm well familiar with it." Well... damn.

Hissettiklerimi hissetmeme asla izin verilmemesinden korkuyorum.

HARRY/VOLDEMORT: If you were my daughter, I’d know of you. DELPHI looks at him imploringly. DELPHI: I am from the future. The child of Bellatrix Lestrange and you.

DELPHI: Then kill me. HARRY: I can't do that either. ALBUS: What? Dad? She's dangerous. HARRY: No, Albus. ALBUS: But she's a murderer- I've seen her murder- HARRY: Yes, Albus, she's a murdurer, and we're not. HERMOINE: We have to be better than them. RON: Yeah, it's annoying but it's what we learnt.

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem.

My interest in drawing has died down here in England, but maybe I'll be in the mood again some day or other. Right now I am doing a great deal of reading

Over the entrance to the temple at Delphi was a famous inscription: KNOW THYSELF! It reminded visitors that man must never believe himself to be more than mortal - and that no man can escape his destiny.

Carved on the temple [at Delphi] were the exhortations "Know yourself" and "Nothing too much," mottoes with a similar meaning: You are only human, so don't try more than you are able (or you will pay the price). A recurring theme in Greek myth is the man or woman who loses sight of human limitations and acts arrogantly and with violence, as if immortal. And pays a terrible price.

I jerked my hand back and looked up, horrified. “The ground feels like skin!” A slow smile crept onto Hades’ face. “Zeus got bored with the whole rock and eagle bit.” Rock and eagle bit...? Then it hit me. “Prometheus?” “You’re standing on him,” Hades remarked. My stomach turned. “Oh gods, I think I’m going to vomit.” “Perfect,” the god said.

...the whole 'know thyself' thing isn’t a journey to a fixed destination. Learning about myself changes me, forcing me to learn more. 'Know thyself' isn’t a goal; it’s a road.

For, even the preachers have begun to tell us that God is radium, or ether or some scientific compound, and that the worst we wicked ones may expect is a chemical reaction.

But now he was little more than a whimpering oyster led to be devoured on the sands of a Southern sea by the artful walrus, Circumstance, and the implacable carpenter, Fate.

We still say ‘the apple of the eye’ when we wish to describe something superlatively precious.

Oracle of Delphi Speaks: In my deep mystery I breathe your fragrance swirling in your odourless soul I return your mystery revealing your destiny deep in the seed of your God Self

Cause-and-effect will not explain even the individuality of a single dandelion.

As he talked a good deal, had seen active service, and was naturally regarded as a man of energy and spirit, he was much sought after and listened to by simpletons.

I believe the entire natural world is but the ultimate expression of that spiritual world from which, and in which alone, it has its life.

Aiden smirked. "Wonder what this one is called?" The hellhound's ears twitched as the massive body lowered preparing for attack. I slid my hand to the middle of the blade, feeling my heart pound and the adrenaline kick my system into overdrive. In the pit of my stomach, the cord started to unravel. I swallowed. "Let's call this one... Toto." Three mouths opened in a growl that sent a cold chill down my spine, and a wave of hot, fetid breath smacked into us. Bile burned the back of my throat. "I guess it doesn't like the name," I said, moving slowly to the right. Aiden's powerful body tensed. "Here, Toto..." One head snapped in his direction. "That's a good Toto." I slipped around the ancient cross, creeping up on the hellhound from the right. The middle and left head focused on me, snapping and growlying. Aiden clucked his tongue. "Come on, Toto, I'm pretty tasty.

At first I thought I was going to have to undress her, and dear gods, there was no way I could do that and not, well, think and feel the things I would. Then she grabbed the hem of her sweater and started to lift. I had to force myself from the bathroom. Saint Delphi my ass.

Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.

Alex, stop staring at me and do some cardio.” He flipped another page. I blinked. “I hope that book of yours is on charm and personality skills.” ~ Aiden & Alex

The Oracle at Delphi contained three maxims emblematic of Greek life. "Know yourself." "Nothing in excess." and, "Offer a guarantee and disaster threatens.

B-b-but who will I have cleaning marathons with?” “Casey. I’ll be there in spirit.” “She’s not neurotic and cranky like you.” “You’ll miss that, ay?” “Hell yes, I’ll miss that! When you’re obsessive and pissy, you tell those floors who’s boss. They won’t shine like that when Casey scrubs them. And don’t get me started on our Covenant Series discussions. The girl thinks Alex should pick Seth. Seth, Em. How can I clean with someone who isn’t Team Aiden? It’s like...madness. Madness on Earth. The fucking apocalypse—” “Whitney,” I chuckled, squeezing her tighter, “I assure you, you’ll survive. The second she starts running her mouth about Aiden, just spray her with bleach. That’ll teach her a lesson.” -Emma and Whitney

There are instincts which are deeper than reason. — Arthur Conan Doyle, from “The Nightmare Room,” Collected Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (Delphi Classics; 6 edition May 13, 2011)

What are you doing?” Percy asked. “Sending a message,” Annabeth said. “I just hope Rachel gets it.” “Rachel?” Percy asked. “You mean our Rachel? Oracle of Delphi Rachel?” “That’s the one.” Annabeth suppressed a smile. Whenever she brought up Rachel’s name, Percy got nervous. At one point, Rachel had been interested in dating Percy. That was ancient history. Rachel and Annabeth were good friends now. But Annabeth didn’t mind making Percy a little uneasy. You had to keep your boyfriend on his toes.

So much the better — so much the better; for I have always found that a conceited man never knows content. All things prove it. Why have we not the wings of the pigeon, the eyes of the eagle, and the legs of the moose, if it had been intended that man should be equal to all his wishes?

Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.

If women were the equals of men, men would no longer equal themselves. Why then should women resemble what men would have ceased to be?

Up with the other one,” ordered the burglar. “You might be amphibious and shoot with your left. You can count two, can’t you? Hurry up, now.

I can resist everything except temptation.

Look, look!” cried the Tree, “the rose is finished now;” but the Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long grass, with the thorn in her heart.

Where the smoke cleared, the crystal air, with some of the efficacy of faith, seemed to remove the mountains almost to the sea, bringing them so near that one might count the scarred glades on their wooded sides.

Americans by the very nature of the soft fat they collected around their brains along with all of their comforts, their total ignorance of historical meanings, their delusion that anarchists were either comic little men plotting nothings in a dark cellar or misunderstood cranks--how could Americans be taken seriously in a world of real politics?

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public.  Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

Between blasts she resorted to Epictetian philosophy in the form of pepsin chewing gum.

who can tell me that that calmness itself is not DESPAIR?

The only thing that sustains one  through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling I have always cultivated.

But Elsie thought she could find it. She had heard that policemen, when politely addressed, or thumbscrewed by an investigation committee, will give up information and addresses.

We would call no one a lobster without good and sufficient claws.

Most religions and ideologies throughout history stated that there are objective yardsticks for goodness and beauty, and for how things ought to be. They were suspicious of the feelings and preferences of the ordinary person. At the entrance of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, pilgrims were greeted by the inscription: ‘Know thyself!’ The implication was that the average person is ignorant of his true self, and is therefore likely to be ignorant of true happiness. Freud would probably concur.

Excavations at Ai Khanoum on the northern border of modern Afghanistan have produced great quantities of Greek inscriptions and even the remnants of a philosophical treatise originally on papyrus. One of the most interesting is the base of a dedication by one Klearchos, perhaps the known student of Aristotle, that records his bringing to this new Greek city, Alexandria on the Oxus, the traditional maxims from the shrine of Apollo at Delphi concerning the five ages of man: In childhood, seemliness In youth, self-control In middle age, justice In old age, wise council In death, painlessness

It is an awful thing to get a glimpse, as one sometimes does, when the time is past, of some little little wheel which works the whole mighty machinery of FATE, and see how our destinies turn on a minute’s delay or advance, or on the turning of a street, or on somebody else’s turning of a street, or on somebody else’s doing of something else in Downing Street or in Timbuctoo, now or a thousand years ago.

To avoid /lese-majeste/ you have been presented first to the king and queen. They do not enter the story, which might be called “The Chronicle of the Princess, the Happy Thought, and the Lion that Bungled his Job.

That sounds self-indulgent and gratifying without vulgar ostentation,” says I; “and I don’t see how money could be better invested. Give me a cuckoo clock and a Sep Winner’s Self-Instructor for the Banjo, and I’ll join you.

The consul was interested in his report. He was only twenty-four; and he had not been in Coralio long enough for his enthusiasm to cool in the heat of the tropics — a paradox that may be allowed between Cancer and Capricorn.

They're trying to breed a nation of techno-peasants. Educated just enough to keep things going, but not enough to ask tough questions. They encourage any meme that downplays thoughtful analysis or encourages docility or self indulgence or uniformity. In what other society do people use "smart" and "wise" as insults? We tell people "don't get smart." Those who try, those who really like to learn, we call "nerds." Look at television or the press or the trivia that passes for political debate. When a candidate DOES try to talk about the issues, the newspapers talk about his sex life. Look at Saturday morning cartoon shows. Peasants, whether they're tilling fields or stuffing circuit boards, are easier to manipulate. Don't question; just believe. Turn off your computer and Trust the Force. Or turn your computer on and treat it like the Oracle of Delphi. That's right. They've made education superficial and specialized. Science classes for art majors? Forget it! And how many business or engineering students get a really good grounding in the humanities? When did universities become little more than white collar vocational schools?

Bob,” she said, “offerings burned in the mortal world appear on this altar, right?” Bob frowned uncomfortably, like he wasn’t ready for a pop quiz. “Yes?” “So what happens if I burn something on the altar here?” “Uh…” “That’s all right,” Annabeth said. “You don’t know. Nobody knows, because it’s never been done.” There was a chance, she thought, just the slimmest chance that an offering burned on this altar might appear at Camp Half-Blood. Doubtful, but if it did work… “Annabeth?” Percy said again. “You’re planning something. You’ve got that I’m-planning-something look.” “I don’t have an I’m-planning-something look.” “Yeah, you totally do. Your eyebrows knit and your lips press together and—” “Do you have a pen?” she asked him. “You’re kidding, right?” He brought out Riptide. “Yes, but can you actually write with it?” “I—I don’t know,” he admitted. “Never tried.” He uncapped the pen. As usual, it sprang into a full-sized sword. Annabeth had watched him do this hundreds of times. Normally when he fought, Percy simply discarded the cap. It always appeared in his pocket later, as needed. When he touched the cap to the point of the sword, it would turn back into a ballpoint pen. “What if you touch the cap to the other end of the sword?” Annabeth said. “Like where you’d put the cap if you were actually going to write with the pen.” “Uh…” Percy looked doubtful, but he touched the cap to the hilt of the sword. Riptide shrank back into a ballpoint pen, but now the writing point was exposed. “May I?” Annabeth plucked it from his hand. She flattened the napkin against the altar and began to write. Riptide’s ink glowed Celestial bronze. “What are you doing?” Percy asked. “Sending a message,” Annabeth said. “I just hope Rachel gets it.” “Rachel?” Percy asked. “You mean our Rachel? Oracle of Delphi Rachel?” “That’s the one.” Annabeth suppressed a smile. Whenever she brought up Rachel’s name, Percy got nervous. At one point, Rachel had been interested in dating Percy. That was ancient history. Rachel and Annabeth were good friends now. But Annabeth didn’t mind making Percy a little uneasy. You had to keep your boyfriend on his toes. Annabeth finished her note and folded the napkin. On the outside, she wrote: Connor, Give this to Rachel. Not a prank. Don’t be a moron. Love, Annabeth She took a deep breath. She was asking Rachel Dare to do something ridiculously dangerous, but it was the only way she could think of to communicate with the Romans—the only way that might avoid bloodshed. “Now I just need to burn it,” she said. “Anybody got a match?” The point of Bob’s spear shot from his broom handle. It sparked against the altar and erupted in silvery fire. “Uh, thanks.” Annabeth lit the napkin and set it on the altar. She watched it crumble to ash and wondered if she was crazy. Could the smoke really make it out of Tartarus? “We should go now,” Bob advised. “Really, really go. Before we are killed.” Annabeth stared at the wall of blackness in front of them. Somewhere in there was a lady who dispensed a Death Mist that might hide them from monsters—a plan recommended by a Titan, one of their bitterest enemies. Another dose of weirdness to explode her brain. “Right,” she said. “I’m ready.” ANNABETH LITERALLY STUMBLED over the second Titan.

The mosquito knows full well, small as he is he’s a beast of prey. But after all he only takes his bellyful, he doesn’t put my blood in the bank.

The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policemen can see them.  They are so far away from us that only the poet can understand them.

Know thyself.

The old couple were childless — they had only a married daughter living in Brooklyn.

You see this robe that I wear?” Bellchambers caressingly touched the straight-hanging garment: “At last I have found something that will not bag at the knees.

Susan Mebberley was a charming woman, but she was also an aunt.

It is the penalty and the safeguard of genius that it computes itself by troy weight in a world that measures by vulgar hundredweights.

The boys have all laid in enough footwear to last ’em ten years; and there’s nothing doing in the shoe store but dolcy far nienty.

It was the cause of many of Dad's outrages too, when people elected themselves his personal oracle of Delphi... They'd made the mistake of abridging Dad, putting Dad in a nutshell, telling Dad How It Was (and getting it all wrong). ... "The act of being personally misconstrued," Dad said, "informed to one's face one is no more complex than a few words haphazardly strung together like blotchy undershirts on a clothesline-- well, it can fall the most self-possessed of individuals.

When the hour comes it is to remind him of a story. Synopsis: A French girl says to her suitor: “Did you ask my father for my hand at nine o’clock this morning, as you said you would?” “I did not,” he. replies. “At nine o’clock I was fighting a duel with swords in the Bois de Boulogne.” “Coward!” she hisses.

I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1751, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father’s house.

Aglaia looked up at him with a tender smile. “I want to ask him to wait,” she said. “I have just found my father, and I want it to be just we two for a while. I want to tell him he will have to wait.

Mr. Ramsay was the head clerk; and as far as I am concerned I am for him. He never pinched the girls’ arms when he passed them in dark corners of the store; and when he told them stories when business was dull and the girls giggled and said: “Oh, pshaw!” it wasn’t G. Bernard they meant at all.

How low an opinion I had of human wisdom and integrity, when I was truly informed of the springs and motives of great enterprises and revolutions in the world, and of the contemptible accidents to which they owed their success

Tis the opinion of myself, Sanderson Pratt, who sets this down, that the educational system of the United States should be in the hands of the weather bureau. I can give you good reasons for it; and you can’t tell me why our college professors shouldn’t be transferred to the meteorological department.

MEN fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak.

Yet here, this night, you might repose with me, On green leaves pillowed: apples ripe have I, Soft chestnuts, and of curdled milk enow. And, see, the farm-roof chimneys smoke afar, And from the hills the shadows lengthening fall!

Of course there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other. We often hear “shop-girls” spoken of. No such persons exist. There are girls who work in shops. They make their living that way. But why turn their occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We do not refer to the girls who live on Fifth Avenue as “marriage-girls.

Painting a picture is as difficult as finding a large or a small diamond. Now, however, whereas everybody recognizes the value of a louis d’or or a pure pearl, those who cherish pictures and believe in them are unfortunately rare. But they exist nonetheless.

It is no coincidence that precisely when things started going downhill with the gods, politics gained its bliss-making character. There would be no reason for objecting to this, since the gods, too were not exactly fair. But at least people saw temples instead of termite architecture. Bliss is drawing closer; it is no longer in the afterlife, it will come, though not momentarily, sooner or later in the here and now - in time. The anarch thinks more primitively; he refuses to give up any of his happiness. "Make thyself happy" is his basic law. It his response to the "Know thyself" at the temple of Apollo in Delphi. These two maxims complement each other; we must know our happiness and our measure.

Jeff is in the line of unillegal graft. He is not to be dreaded by widows and orphans; he is a reducer of surplusage. His favorite disguise is that of the target-bird at which the spendthrift or the reckless investor may shy a few inconsequential dollars. He is readily vocalized by tobacco; so, with the aid of two thick and easy-burning brevas, I got the story of his latest Autolycan adventure.

Housed in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the following plate was completed in 1886, portraying the unusual subject of a skeleton smoking a cigarette. The work has roused many interpretations, including a depiction of mortality and a prophetic cry of the dangers of tobacco. In the next two years, van Gogh painted two other paintings with skulls, illustrating his fascination with the macabre subject.

The problem with romance is the occlusion. The tunnel vision, drawing your every gaze downstream, into those other eyes, the flotsam of your better self, your clearer self, along for the ride. It doesn't matter what secrets swirl and bob in the waters beneath you, as you float toward that lady at Delphi, who, you imagined, reading Mythology, must have been beautiful. It doesn't matter that Charybdis, with no body, with no form, with only a mouth-as-being, couldn't have been evil, because she lacked the brain for it. It doesn't matter that following the logical course of events, the natural course, always disadvantages someone else, because love, after all, is simply a competition for resources, made infinitely complex and unknowable when squared and cubed and raised to every other emotional exponent - and then layered with sex and society and a bad memory for what those resources were in the first place.

Is it trouble you are in, now, Miss,’ says I; ‘and what’s to be done about it?’ “‘’Tis none of your business at all, Denny Carnahan,’ says she, sittin’ up straight. And it was the voice of no other than Norah Flynn. “‘Then it’s not,’ says I, ‘and we’re after having a pleasant evening, Miss Flynn. Have ye seen the sights of this new Coney Island, then? I presume ye have come here for that purpose,’ says I. “‘I have,’ says she. ‘Me mother and Uncle Tim they are waiting beyond. ’Tis an elegant evening I’ve had. I’ve seen all the attractions that be.

Emotional position is part of it, but as an individual you are not your emotions, neither are you your intellect. These are things that you have . They're not things that you are . Therefore you have to start to become aware of the different requirements that human beings have, the different areas that they like to be satisfied in. Which means becoming aware of yourself. I mean, as a writer you're gonna have to understand pretty much the whole universe. But the best place to start is by understanding the inner universe. The entire universe – for one thing – only exists in your perceptions. That's all you're gonna see of it. To all practical intents and purposes this is purely some kind of lightshow that's being put on in the kind of neurons in our brain. The whole of reality. So. To understand the universe there's worse advice than that which was carved above the shrine of the Delphi oracle. Where it just said: “Know thyself”. Understand yourself. Know thyself is a magical goal, but like I say to me there is very little difference between magic and creative art in any sense – the laws of one apply perfectly well to the other.

He explained that this was a test of the action of the brain. It seemed easy to me. I never once mistook his finger for the bay. I’ll bet that if he had used the phrases: “Gaze, as it were, unpreoccupied, outward — or rather laterally — in the direction of the horizon, underlaid, so to speak, with the adjacent fluid inlet,” and “Now, returning — or rather, in a manner, withdrawing your attention, bestow it upon my upraised digit” — I’ll bet, I say, that Henry James himself could have passed the examination.

I’m the only honest man in the republic. The government knows it; the people know it; the boodlers know it; the foreign investors know it. I make the government keep its faith. If a man is promised a job he gets it. If outside capital buys a concession it gets the goods. I run a monopoly of square dealing here. There’s no competition. If Colonel Diogenes were to flash his lantern in this precinct he’d have my address inside of two minutes. There isn’t big money in it, but it’s a sure thing, and lets a man sleep of nights.

Now Brutus had deliberately assumed a mask to hide his true character.  When he learned of the murder by Tarquin of the Roman aristocrats, one of the victims being his own brother, he had come to the conclusion that the only way of saving himself was to appear in the king's eyes as a person of no account. If there were nothing in his character for Tarquin to fear, and nothing in his fortune to covet, then the sheer contempt in which he was held would be a better protection than his own rights could ever be.  Accordingly he pretended to be a half-wit and made no protest at the seizure by Tarquin of everything he possessed. He even submitted to being known publicly as the 'Dullard' (which is what his name signifies), that under cover of that opprobrious title the great spirit which gave Rome her freedom might be able to bide its time. On this occasion he was taken by Arruns and Titus to Delphi less as a companion than as a butt for their amusement; and he is said to have carried with him, as his gift to Apollo, a rod of gold inserted into a hollow stick of cornel-wood - symbolic, it may be, of his own character. The three young men reached Delphi, and carried out the king's instructions.  That done, Titus and Arruns found themselves unable to resist putting a further question to the oracle.  Which of them, they asked, would be the next king of Rome? From the depths of the cavern came the mysterious answer: 'He who shall be the first to kiss his mother shall hold in Rome supreme authority.' Titus and Arruns were determined to keep the prophecy absolutely secret, to prevent their other brother, Tarquin, who had been left in Rome, from knowing anything about it. Thus he, at any rate, would be out of the running. For themselves, they drew lots to determine which of them, on their return, should kiss his mother first. Brutus, however, interpreted the words of Apollo's priestess in a different way. Pretending to trip, he fell flat on his face, and his lips touched the Earth - the mother of all living things.

If others were to look attentively into themselves as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of emptiness and tomfoolery. I cannot rid myself of them without getting rid of myself. We are all steeped in them, each as much as the other; but those who realize this get off, as I know, a little more cheaply. That commonly approved practice of looking elsewhere than at our own self has served our affairs well! Our self is an object full of dissatisfaction: we can see nothing there but wretchedness and vanity. So as not to dishearten us, Nature has very conveniently cast the action of our sight outwards. We are swept on downstream, but to struggle back towards our self against the current is a painful movement; thus does the sea, when driven against itself, swirl back in confusion. Everyone says: 'Look at the motions of the heavens, look at society, at this man's quarrel, that man's pulse, this other man's will and testament' - in other words always look upwards or downwards or sideways, or before or behind you. That commandment given us in ancient times by that god at Delphi was contrary to all expectation: 'Look back into your self; get to know your self; hold on to your self.' Bring back to your self your mind and your will which are being squandered elsewhere; you are draining and frittering your self away. Consolidate your self; rein your self back. They are cheating you, distracting you, robbing you of your self. Can you not see that this world of ours keeps its gave bent ever inwards and its eyes ever open to contemplate itself? It is always vanity in your case, within and without, but a vanity which is less, the less it extends. Except you alone, O Man, said that god, each creature first studies its own self, and, according to its needs, has limits to its labours and desires. Not one is as empty and needy as you, who embrace the universe: you are the seeker with no knowledge, the judge with no jurisdiction and, when all is done, the jester of the farce.

Thus, the person of experience and reflection writes history. Anyone who has not experienced life on a greater and higher level than everyone else will not know how to interpret the greatness and loftiness of the past. The utterance of the past is always an oracular pronouncement. You will understand it only as builders of the future and as people who know about the present. People now explain the extraordinarily deep and far-reaching effect of Delphi by the particular fact that the Delphic priests had precise knowledge about the past. It is appropriate now to understand that only the man who builds the future has a right to judge the past. In order to look ahead, set yourselves an important goal, and at the same time control that voluptuous analytical drive with which you now lay waste the present and render almost impossible all tranquility, all peaceful growth and maturing. Draw around yourself the fence of a large and extensive hope, an optimistic striving. Create in yourselves a picture to which the future is to correspond, and forget the myth that you are epigones. You have enough to plan and to invent when you imagine that future life for yourselves. But in considering history do not ask that she show you the 'How?' and the 'With what?' If, however, you live your life in the history of great men, then you will learn from history the highest command: to become mature and to flee away from that paralyzing and prohibiting upbringing of the age, which sees advantages for itself in not allowing you to become mature, in order to rule and exploit you, the immature. And when you ask after biographies, then do not ask for those with the refrain 'Mr. Soandso and His Age' but for those whose title page must read 'A Fighter Against His Age.' Fill your souls with Plutarch, and dare to believe in yourselves when you have faith in his heroes. With a hundred people raised in such an unmodern way, that is, people who have become mature and familiar with the heroic, one could permanently silence the entire noisy pseudo-education of this age.

XXII. By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest The indistinctness of the suffering breast; Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one,    1810 Which seeks from all the refuge found in none; No words suffice the secret soul to show, For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe. On Conrad’s stricken soul Exhaustion prest, And Stupor almost lulled it into rest; So feeble now — his mother’s softness crept To those wild eyes, which like an infant’s wept: It was the very weakness of his brain, Which thus confessed without relieving pain. None saw his trickling tears — perchance, if seen,    1820 That useless flood of grief had never been: Nor long they flowed — he dried them to depart, In helpless — hopeless — brokenness of heart: The Sun goes forth, but Conrad’s day is dim: And the night cometh — ne’er to pass from him. There is no darkness like the cloud of mind, On Grief’s vain eye — the blindest of the blind! Which may not — dare not see — but turns aside To blackest shade — nor will endure a guide!

One morning she at last succeeded in helping him to the foot of the steps, trampling down the grass before him with her feet, and clearing a way for him through the briars, whose supple arms barred the last few yards. Then they slowly entered the wood of roses. It was indeed a very wood, with thickets of tall standard roses throwing out leafy clumps as big as trees, and enormous rose bushes impenetrable as copses of young oaks. Here, formerly, there had been a most marvellous collection of plants. But since the flower garden had been left in abandonment, everything had run wild, and a virgin forest had arisen, a forest of roses over-running the paths, crowded with wild offshoots, so mingled, so blended, that roses of every scent and hue seemed to blossom on the same stem. Creeping roses formed mossy carpets on the ground, while climbing roses clung to others like greedy ivy plants, and ascended in spindles of verdure, letting a shower of their loosened petals fall at the lightest breeze. Natural paths coursed through the wood — narrow footways, broad avenues, enchanting covered walks in which one strolled in the shade and scent. These led to glades and clearings, under bowers of small red roses, and between walls hung with tiny yellow ones. Some sunny nooks gleamed like green silken stuff embroidered with bright patterns; other shadier corners offered the seclusion of alcoves and an aroma of love, the balmy warmth, as it were, of a posy languishing on a woman’s bosom. The rose bushes had whispering voices too. And the rose bushes were full of songbirds’ nests. ‘We must take care not to lose ourselves,’ said Albine, as she entered the wood. ‘I did lose myself once, and the sun had set before I was able to free myself from the rose bushes which caught me by the skirt at every step.’ They had barely walked a few minutes, however, before Serge, worn out with fatigue, wished to sit down. He stretched himself upon the ground, and fell into deep slumber. Albine sat musing by his side. They were on the edge of a glade, near a narrow path which stretched away through the wood, streaked with flashes of sunlight, and, through a small round blue gap at its far end, revealed the sky. Other little paths led from the clearing into leafy recesses. The glade was formed of tall rose bushes rising one above the other with such a wealth of branches, such a tangle of thorny shoots, that big patches of foliage were caught aloft, and hung there tent-like, stretching out from bush to bush. Through the tiny apertures in the patches of leaves, which were suggestive of fine lace, the light

FILL THE GOBLET AGAIN A Song Fill the goblet again! for I never before Felt the glow which now gladdens my heart to its core; Let us drink! — who would not? — since, through life’s varied round, In the goblet alone no deception is found. I have tried in its turn all that life can supply; I have bask’d in the beam of a dark rolling eye; I have loved! — who has not? — but what heart can declare That pleasure existed while passion was there? In the days of my youth, when the heart’s in its spring, And dreams that affection can never take wing, I had friends! — who has not? — but what tongue will avow, That friends, rosy wine! are so faithful as thou? The heart of a mistress some boy may estrange, Friendship shifts with the sunbeam — thou never canst change; Thou grow’st old — who does not? — but on earth what appears, Whose virtues, like thine, still increase with its years? Yet if blest to the utmost that love can bestow, Should a rival bow down to our idol below, We aree jealous! — who is not? — thou hast no such alloy; For the more that enjoy thee, the more we enjoy. Then the season of youth and its vanities past, For refuge we fly to the goblet at last; There we find — do we not? — in the flow of the soul, That truth, as of yore, is confined to the bowl. When the box of Pandora was opened on earth, And Misery’s triumph commenced over Mirth, Hope was left, — was she not? — but the goblet we kiss, And care not for Hope, who are certain of bliss. Long life to the grape! for when summer is flown, The age of our nectar shall gladden our own: We must die — who shall not? — May our sins be forgiven, And Hebe shall never be idle in heaven.