Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Gods
Hoeder, the blind old god
Whose feet are shod with silence.
Longfellow—Tegner’s Drapa. St. 6.
Janus am I; oldest of potentates!
Forward I look and backward and below
I count—as god of avenues and gates—
The years that through my portals come and go.
I block the roads and drift the fields with snow,
I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,
My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.
Longfellow—Written for the Children’s Almanac.
Estne Dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus, et aer,
Et cœlum, et virtus? Superos quid quærimus ultra?
Jupiter est, quodcunque vides, quodcunque moveris.
Has God any habitation except earth, and sea, and air, and heaven, and virtue? Why do we seek the highest beyond these? Jupiter is wheresoever you look, wheresoever you move.
Lucanus—Pharsalia. Bk. IX. 578.
A boy of five years old serene and gay,
Unpitying Hades hurried me away.
Yet weep not for Callimachus: if few
The days I lived, few were my sorrows too.
Lucian—In Greek Anthology.
Apparet divom numen, sedesque quietæ;
Quas neque concutiunt ventei, nec nubila nimbeis.
Aspergunt, neque nix acri concreta pruina
Cana cadens violat; semper sine nubibus æther
Integer, et large diffuso lumine ridet.
The gods and their tranquil abodes appear, which no winds disturb, nor clouds bedew with showers, nor does the white snow, hardened by frost, annoy them; the heaven, always pure, is without clouds, and smiles with pleasant light diffused.
Lucretius—De Rerum Natura. III. 18.
No wonder Cupid is a murderous boy;
A fiery archer making pain his joy.
His dam, while fond of Mars, is Vulcan’s wife,
And thus ’twixt fire and sword divides her life.
Meleager—In Greek Anthology.
Deus ex machina.
A god from a machine (artificial or mechanical contrivance).
Menander. (From the Greek.) Theop. 5. Lucan—Hermo. Plato—Bratylus. 425. Quoted by Socrates.
Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a groveling swine?
Milton—Comus. L. 50.
That moly
That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave.
Milton—Comus. L. 637.
Le seigneur Jupiter sait dorer la pilule.
My lord Jupiter knows how to gild the pill.
Molière—Amphitryon. III. 11.
Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.
Montaigne—Apology for Raimond Sebond. Bk. II. Ch. XII.
To be a god
First I must be a god-maker:
We are what we create.
James Oppenheim—Jottings. To Be a God. In War and Laughter.
Expedit esse deos: et, ut expedit, esse putemus.
It is expedient there should be gods, and as it is expedient, let us believe them to exist.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. Bk. I. L. 637. According to Tertullian—Ad Nationes. Bk. II. Ch. 2, Diogenes said, “I do not know, only there ought to be gods.”
Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.
Let the crowd delight in things of no value; to me let the golden-haired Apollo minister full cups from the Castalian spring (the fountain of Parnassus).
Ovid—Amorum. Bk. I. 15. 35. Motto on title-page of Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis.” Another reading: “Castaliæ aquæ,” of the Castalian spring.
The god we now behold with opened eyes,
A herd of spotted panthers round him lies
In glaring forms; the grapy clusters spread
On his fair brows, and dangle on his head.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. Bk. III. L. 789. Addison’s trans.
Jocos et Dii amant.
Even the gods love jokes.
Plato—Cratylus. (Trans. from Greek.)
The Graces sought some holy ground,
Whose sight should ever please;
And in their search the soul they found
Of Aristophanes.
Plato—In Greek Anthology.
Di nos quasi pilas homines habent.
The gods play games with men as balls.
Plautus—Captivi Prologue. XXII.
Cui homini dii propitii sunt aliquid objiciunt lucri.
The gods give that man some profit to whom they are propitious.
Plautus—Persa. IV. 3. 1.
Miris modis Di ludos faciunt hominibus.
In wondrous ways do the gods make sport with men.
Plautus—Rudens. Act III. 1. 1; Mercator. Act II.
Keep what goods the Gods provide you.
Plautus—Rudens. Act IV. Sc. 8. Riley’s trans.
Dum homo est infirmus, tunc deos, tunc hominem esse se meminit: invidet nemini, neminem miratur, neminem despicit, ac ne sermonibus quidem malignis aut attendit, aut alitur.
When a man is laboring under the pain of any distemper, it is then that he recollects there are gods, and that he himself is but a man; no mortal is then the object of his envy, his admiration, or his contempt, and having no malice to gratify, the tales of slander excite not his attention.
Pliny the Younger—Epistles. VII. 26.
Themistocles told the Adrians that he brought two gods with him, Persuasion and Force. They replied: “We also, have two gods on our side, Poverty and Despair.”
Plutarch—Herodotus.
Thamus … uttered with a loud voice his message, “The great Pan is dead.”
Plutarch—Why the Oracles cease to give Answers.
Or ask of yonder argent fields above
Why Jove’s satellites are less than Jove.
Pope—Essay on Man. I. 42.
Mundus est ingens deorum omnium templum.
The world is the mighty temple of the gods.
Seneca—Epistolæ Ad Lucilium. X.
The basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
Henry V. Act III. Sc. 7. L. 17.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.
King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 38.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
King Lear. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 170.
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid:
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 182.
Cupid is a knavish lad,
Thus to make poor females mad.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 440.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them in being merciful;
Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.
Titus Andronicus. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 117.
Me goatfoot Pan of Arcady—the Median fear,
The Athenian’s friend, Miltiades placed here.
Simonides—In Greek Anthology.
A glimpse of Breidablick, whose walls are light
As e’en the silver on the cliff it shone;
Of dark blue steel its columns azure height
And the big altar was one agate stone.
It seemed as if the air upheld alone
Its dome, unless supporting spirits bore it,
Studded with stars Odin’s spangled throne,
A light inscrutable burned fiercely o’er it;
In sky-blue mantles,
Sat the gold-crowned gods before it.
Tegnèr—Fridthjof’s Saga. Canto XXIII. St. 13.
Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet;
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.
Tennyson—Higher Pantheism.
But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheeked
In a shallop of crystal ivory-beaked.
Tennyson—The Islet.
Here comes to-day
Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each
This meed of fairest.
Tennyson—Œnone. St. 9.
Or sweet Europa’s mantle blew unclasped
From off her shoulder backward borne;
From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped
The mild bull’s golden horn.
Tennyson—Palace of Art. St. 30.
Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh
Half buried in the Eagle’s down,
Sole as a flying star, shot thro’ the sky,
Above the pillared town.
Tennyson—Palace of Art. St. 31.
Atlas, we read in ancient song,
Was so exceeding tall and strong,
He bore the skies upon his back,
Just as the pedler does his pack;
But, as the pedler overpress’d
Unloads upon a stall to rest,
Or, when he can no longer stand,
Desires a friend to lend a hand,
So Atlas, lest the ponderous spheres
Should sink, and fall about his ears,
Got Hercules to bear the pile,
That he might sit and rest awhile.
Swift—Atlas; or, the Minister of State.
Volente Deo.
The god so willing.
Vergil—Æneid. I. 303.
Incessu patuit Dea.
By her gait the goddess was known.
Vergil—Æneid. I. 405.
Heu nihil invitis fas quemquam fidere divis.
Alas! it is not well for anyone to be confident when the gods are adverse.
Vergil—Æneid. II. 402.
Jamque dies, ni fallor adest quem semper acerbum
Semper honoratum (sic dii voluistis) habeo.
That day I shall always recollect with grief; with reverence also, for the gods so willed it.
Vergil—Æneid. V. 49.
Vocat in certamina Divos.
He calls the gods to arms.
Vergil—Æneid. VI. 172.
Habitarunt Di quoque sylvas.
The gods also dwelt in the woods.
Vergil—Eclogues. II. 60.
Oh, meet is the reverence unto Bacchus paid!
We will praise him still in the songs of our fatherland,
We will pour the sacred wine, the chargers lade,
And the victim kid shall unresisting stand,
Led by his horns to the altar, where we turn
The hazel spits while the dripping entrails burn.
Vergil—Georgics. Bk. II. St. 17. L. 31. H. W. Preston’s trans.