"Oracle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... signifying the fleet, and though thought to be peculiarly English, was used by the Delphic oracle, when applied to by the Athenians on the Persian invasion: ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... none; for from the moment I know that it is even possible or probable that I may leave a place, I have no longer a single hour I can call my own, and though I have now a glimmer of hope, still I shall not be at rest till I know how things are. One of the oracle's sayings must come to pass. I think it will be the middle one or the last—I care not which, for at all events ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... on the top of a frightful rock, in a frozen climate. At length, at dawn of day, he perceived the rock, which was very high and very steep, and upon the summit of it was the bird, speaking like an oracle, telling wonderful things. He thought that with a little dexterity it would be easy to catch it, for it seemed very tame. He got off his horse, and climbed up very quietly. He was so close to the green bird that he thought he could lay hands ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... star fall they judge their kings," interrupted Pausanias (with a curl of his haughty lip) "to have offended the Gods, and suspend them from their office till acquitted by an oracle at Delphi, or a priest at Olympia. A wise superstition. But, Lysander, the night is not moonless, and ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... Be attentive, readers. Gasterea, the most attractive of the muses, inspires me. I will be as clear as an oracle, and my precepts will live ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... gone away somewhere," enlightened our oracle. "They went to the train last night in a taxi. They have gone somewhere to find out something about ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... going to hear her talk now," whispered Favraud; "that is a sign—equal to General Finistere's—the snuffbox tapping, I mean. The oracle is beginning to arouse! Come I let me stir her further!" and he inclined ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... a family. She made afterwards a not very happy marriage; and when her husband died just before I went to Europe, she was left alone and poor. I arranged a small house for her in the neighbourhood of the Hollow; and there she lives—a kind of mysterious oracle to the people about. And her greatest earthly pleasure, I suppose, is to have me come and see her. Gyda Boerresen is ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... and take the name of my God in vain." This has not any of the marks of being a Jewish prayer, for the Jews never prayed but when they were in trouble, and never for anything but victory, vengeance, or riches.—Author. (Prov. xxx. 1, and xxxi. 1) the word "prophecy" in these verses is translated "oracle" or "burden" (marg.) in the revised version.—The prayer of Agur was quoted by Paine in his plea for the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... not the correct account of the notion of justice; if justice be totally independent of utility, and be a standard per se, which the mind can recognize by simple introspection of itself; it is hard to understand why that internal oracle is so ambiguous, and why so many things appear either just or unjust, according to the light in which they are regarded. We are continually informed that Utility is an uncertain standard, which every different person interprets differently, and that there is no safety but in the immutable, ineffaceable, ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... the prince, 'that commerce could develop such an oracle; it is a subtle sense of fitness you express. I ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... and protected all, delivering none back— neither the servant to his master, the debtor to his creditor, nor the murderer into the hands of the magistrate; saying it was a privileged place, and they could so maintain it by an order of the holy oracle; insomuch that the city grew presently very populous." It was men, of course, who took advantage of this asylum, for who ever heard of women who would rush in great numbers to such a place? Rome was a ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... suddenly acquired a mysterious and wise significance and became oracular. She alone had the power of inspiring him to be profound. He had noticed that before, years ago, and first at their first meeting. Or was it that she saw in him an oracle, and caused him to see ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... appeared in the Tages Zeitung of August 14th last, is interesting because Reventlow is without doubt the oracle and mouthpiece of the Prussian Conservatives. He continues to attack me in this article but much of the attack is in reality praise, and, as we say in expressive slang, "every knock is a ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... into every department of human affairs; speaking from the legislator's lips, at the bar, from the pulpit,—putting in its word every where, always at hand, always sufficient, constituting itself, in virtue of its own irresistible claims and in the face of what we are told of it, the oracle, the great practical, mysterious, but universally acknowledged, oracle of our modern life; the fact that these two great branches of the modern philosophy make their appearance in history at the same moment, that they ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... 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 ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... manifestations of intellect can be called forth only by the express will of the original Mind, independent of second causes. Genius descends upon us from the clouds precisely where we least look for it. Events may be calculated, predicted—spirits never; no earthly oracle announces the appearance of genius: the unfathomable will of the Creator suddenly calls ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. And since mediocre people constitute ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... coffin and funeral service, as well as a cup of coffee for anyone who would put himself out so far as to accept their hospitality on that occasion. But now, contrary to custom, his father had not proved an oracle—he was dead and everything else had gone with him—except the land on the Point. And how was that to be turned into cash when there was no cabin on it? He would probably have to starve to death himself. Wouldn't it be simplest to run down to the shore ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... possessions, than the priests which required restitution of their owne. But (saith he) bicause the image of Christ hanging on the crosse was thought to speake these words, such credit was giuen thereto, as it had beene an oracle, that the priests had their sute dashed, and all the trouble was ceassed. So the moonks held those possessions, howsoeuer they came to them, by the helpe of God, or rather (as saith the same Polydor) by the helpe of ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... the last words with slow enunciation, like an oracle. Mr. Rhys looked up from his writing and smiled at her a little, though he ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... demonstrated. He felt the time had come—the reference here and elsewhere is always to the realm of popular magazine literature appealing to a very wide audience—for the editor of some magazine to project his personality through the printed page and to convince the public that he was not an oracle removed from the people, but a real human being who could talk and not ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... his wife's advice, and in both instances his judgment failed and hers was right. Many men have found their wives' intuitive judgment so correct that they dare not resist it, as though it were the utterings of an oracle. It is well known that such men as Bonaparte and Jackson have relied with great confidence upon their wives' opinions. So universal is this opinion among men, that all our best moralists and most sage philosophers ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... young, since of a number of adult kangaroo rats taken during the first week of January none have been found to be breeding. Two records from Vernon Bailey are as follows: May 19-June 8, 1903, young specimen in nest (Santa Rosa, N. Mex.); June 12, 1889, one female, two embryos (Oracle, Ariz.). ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... Salisbury's conduct in the affair, one would suppose that he had shut himself up in his study, and consulted the oracle: ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, November 4, 1897, No. 52 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... how 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
... against the Boeotians was probably in a large measure due to the fact that, as the late Lord Salisbury might have said, they 'put their money on the wrong horse' during the Persian war. So also, it may be observed, did the oracle at Delphi." ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... characterize the born leader. He possessed an iron will and unflinching determination, before which obstacles had to yield, and persecution found itself powerless. His talent to grasp and appreciate the true and the beautiful rendered him the oracle of the thousands who, to this day, are proud to call themselves his disciples. To him Haskalah was not merely acquaintance with general culture, or even its acquisition. It was the realization of one's individuality as a Jew and a man. Gordon's advice, to be a Jew at home and a man abroad, found ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... cost different prices," quoth the oracle, so sententiously, that Miss Fosbrook's shoulders shook with laughing as she stood a little in the background of the eager heap in ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... those great philosophers the world hath ever had in admiration, whose works we do so much esteem, that gave precepts of wisdom to others, inventors of Arts and Sciences, Socrates the wisest man of his time by the Oracle of Apollo, whom his two scholars, [193]Plato and [194] Xenophon, so much extol and magnify with those honourable titles, "best and wisest of all mortal men, the happiest, and most just;" and as [195] Alcibiades incomparably commends him; Achilles ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... flame flared up before the nodding glass and metal of the top. His eyes looked at it, narrowed with attention, as if expecting an imperceptible sign. With his grave face he resembled a booted and misshapen pagan burning incense before the oracle of a Joss. There was no mistake. It was the lowest reading he had ever seen in ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... the sun, dost, with an equal ray, Into the palace and the cottage shine; And show'st the soul both to the clerk and lay, learned and By the clear lamp of th' oracle divine. [unlearned ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... Sir Thomas Malory, than the general tone of the present Idyls. Those first experiments, charged like a full sponge with the essence and volume of primitive legend, went to their purpose without retrospection or vacillation: each short tale, whether it laughed or moaned, promulgated itself like an oracle. The teller seemed to have been listening to the voice of Fate, and whether, Guinevere swayed the bridle-rein, or Elaine's web flew out and floated wide, or Lancelot sang tirra-lirra by the river, it was asserted with the positiveness of a Hebrew chronicle, which we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... the Oracle of Delphi: the Central Doors being the Gate of the 'Adytum,' or Innermost shrine. From the left Inferior Door enter the Priestess of the Oracle, who stands in front of the Central Gate, to ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... glad, my dear Sir Oracle, that you are beginning to recollect yourself and temper your severities on our sex," said my wife. "As usual, there is much truth lying about loosely in the vicinity of your assertions; but they are as far from being in themselves ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... emphasize this declaration, He added that any one who would not hear and obey the Church should be considered as a heathen and a publican—types of all that was bad.(29) The Church, therefore, is the oracle of God, it is His mouthpiece; it possesses and guards the only revelation which God has made to His rational creatures; it alone has ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... the lime-case a question, and if it swings, this is supposed to be an answer in the affirmative; if it does not move, this is a negative reply. This seems to be a very simple trick, for the diviner can impart movement to the lime-case by means of the hand. A similar way of consulting the oracle is by the bow, which is held in the hand by the middle of the string. A simple method of divining is by means of cowries or grains of rice. The diviner plunges his hand into a bag or basket after ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... uncommon independence of mind; for, you will generally find such persons arranged under the banner of some one of the various schools of theology, morals, philosophy, or politics, and following on with ardor the devious course of their leader receiving whatever falls from his lips as the voice of an oracle, and running with enthusiasm into all his extravagances. Like the vane upon the spire, that lifts up itself with proud eminence to the clouds, they are ready to be carried about by every wind of doctrine. Whereas true independence of mind consists in ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... one, had by his mother been consigned over to the Manichaeans, but had found out how much that sect was to be abhorred, and had, therefore, avoided it. But he assured her that the child of such tears as hers could not perish. Which answer she took as an oracle ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... tug. All this within her was confusedly present—a cloud of questions out of which Maud Manningham's large seated self loomed, however, as a mass more and more definite, taking in fact for the consultative relation something of the form of an oracle. From the oracle the sound did come—or at any rate the sense did, a sense all accordant with the insufflation she had just seen working. "Yes," the sense was, "I'll help you for Milly, because if that comes off I shall be helped, by its doing so, for Kate"—a view into which Mrs. Stringham could ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... imputation—by suggestion—by allegation—by collusion— and in fact! Now, if I was one o' them Hindus I could hire a priest to sing a hymn and start me clean again from the beginning. Trouble is, I'm a complacent liar! I'll do it again, and I know it! Brandy's the right oracle for me!" ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... 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
... London's ills can cope? "Behold this dreamer cometh!" So of old The sons of JACOB, envious, scornful, cold, And fearful for their privilege of birth And of possession, in derisive mirth, Cried at young JOSEPH's coming. A "young man," O reverend oracle! Yet his wit outran, His wisdom far outsoared, for all their boast, The nous collective of the elder host; And PHARAOH, when his "wise men" vainly schemed, Found statesmanship in a young man who dreamed. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... has it. In this incantation, again, we have the association with moonwort; and the connection is further illustrated in an old oracle ascribed to Hecate: 'From a root of wild rue fashion and polish a statue; adorn it with household lizards; grind myrrh, gum, and frankincense with the same reptiles, and let the mixture stand in the air during the waning of a moon; ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... honest passions and his manly thoughts; His feelings kindle at thy burning words, Which speak his duty in the battle's front; His parting whisper to the maid he loves Is breathed in eloquence he learned from thee; Thou art his Oracle in every mood— His trump of victory—his lyre ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... several minutes, during which I fondled the seeds and Halicarnassus enveloped himself in clouds of smoke. Presently there was a cessation of puffs, a rift in the cloud showed that the oracle was opening his mouth, and directly thereafter he delivered himself of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... at last found him and induced him to return, for his country was going to rack and ruin, and even its capital had fallen into the enemy's hands. The loving fairy herself sends the prince back to his country; for the oracle has decreed that she shall lay upon her lover the severest of tasks. Only by performing this task triumphantly can he make it possible for her to leave the immortal world of fairies in order to share the fate of her earthly lover, as ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... caverned rock, where a mysterious 'Suffing' (something) answers, through an interpreter, any questions in any tongue, even English, receiving, in return for the revelations, offerings of beads, leaf-tobacco, and cattle, which are mysteriously removed. The oracle is doubtless worked by some sturdy knave, a 'demon-doctor,' as the missionaries call him, who laughs at the beards of his implicitly-believing dupes. A tree growing near the stream represents 'Lot's wife's pillar;' some sceptical and Voltairian ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity. What am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... in the Adages, c. 189, as Jortin observes. Blackwell, in his curious Life of Homer, after showing that the ancient oracles were the fountains of knowledge, and that the votaries of the god of Delphi had their faith confirmed by the oracle's perfect acquaintance with the country, parentage, and fortunes of the suppliant, and many predictions verified; that besides all this, the oracles that have reached us discover a wide knowledge of everything relating to Greece;—this learned writer is at a loss to account for a knowledge that he ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... fine thing 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... home, and with the hearty acquiescence of his wife, who only needed to know the right, to pursue it, she began a physical life in obedience to the laws laid down by the said oracle, Andrew Combe. ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... because his slippers were placed by his bed-side for contrary feet; and I have won a wager by betting that he would turn the corner of a certain street at precisely three minutes before ten in the morning. My uncle used to frequent a club in the City, of which he had become the oracle. Precisely at eight o'clock he entered the room—took his seat in a leather-backed easy chair in a particular corner—read a certain favourite journal—drank two glasses of rum toddy—smoked four pipes—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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 and drunkenness, not ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... occasioned by the vast accumulation of wisdom and experience upon the brain. Hence he is apt to become narrative and admonitory, that is to say, fond of telling long stories, and of doling out advice, to the small profit and great annoyance of his friends. As I have a great horror of becoming the oracle, or, more technically speaking, the "bore," of the domestic circle, and would much rather bestow my wisdom and tediousness upon the world at large, I have always sought to ease off this surcharge of the intellect by means of my pen, and hence have ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... winked. But time has exposed the cheat. By the ruined shrine the worshipper may now see the secret steps by which the priest got to the back of the statue, and the pipe entering the back of its head through which he whispered the answers of the oracle. ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... with her devoted friend, the Comtesse de Maure, and continuing the traditions of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Her tastes had been formed in this circle, and she had also been under the instruction of the Chevalier de Mere, a litterateur and courtier who had great vogue, was something of an oracle, and molded the character and manners of divers women of this period, among others the future Mme. de Maintenon. His confidence in his own power of bringing talent out of mediocrity was certainly refreshing. Among his pupils was the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, who said to him one day, "I ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... 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 one of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... king, supposing the gods were angry, inquired of the oracle of Apollo, and Apollo answered him thus: "Let the damsel be placed on the top of a certain mountain, adorned as for the bed of marriage and of death. Look not for a son-in-law of mortal birth; but for that evil serpent-thing, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... 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 qualities more than the President, unless it was General Scott himself, who with great ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... a living oracle, to which he used to apply at all times. Here are extracts from two of his letters showing how he ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... comet's streams. And here were surfaces red and rough In the finished stuff, Where the knotted thread was proud and rebelled As the shuttle proved The fated warp and woof that held When the shuttle moved; And pressed the dye which ran to loss In a deep maroon Around an altar, oracle, cross Or a crescent moon. Around a face, a thought, a star In a ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... was an old journalist, whose face was a sealed book of Confucius, and who talked to me, patronizingly, now and then, like the Delphic Oracle. His name was Watch, and he wore a prodigious pearl in his shirt-bosom. He crept up to the editorial room at nine o'clock every night, and dashed off an hour's worth of glittering generalities, at the end of which time two or three gentlemen, blooming at the nose, and with cheeks ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... 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 just then she was ready ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... that neither story nor character-drawing was his forte, that the dialogue is too colourless, and that though the description is often charming, it is seldom masterly. As before, there are jarring rhymes—"school" and "oracle," "Faun" and "scorn." Empedocles himself is sometimes dreadfully tedious; but the part of Callicles throughout is lavishly poetical. Not merely the show passages—that which the ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... apparent how vast his transactions had been. For years he had been known as a rising man, and suddenly he became an important man. The telegraph, the newspapers, chronicled his every movement; whatever he said was construed like a Delphic oracle. The smile or the frown of Jay Hawker himself had not a greater effect upon the market. The Southwest operation, which made so much noise in the courts, was merely an incident. In the lives of many successful men there are such incidents, which they do not care ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... an oracle anxious to be interrogated, so I questioned him further. I knew by report that the girl was fair, but I could not think of her in any fashion as a maid for Messer Simone, and I conveyed my doubts to Guido. "Is the girl to be ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... will furnish us with a piece of history not unapplicable to our present purpose. Servius Sulpicius, a gentleman of the patrician order, and a celebrated orator, had occasion to take the opinion of Quintus Mutius Scaevola, the oracle of the Roman law; but for want of some knowlege in that science, could not so much as understand even the technical terms, which his friend was obliged to make use of. Upon which Mutius Scaevola could not forbear to upbraid him with this memorable ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... with my spirit: as if they too had taken their cue from the ill-omened bodings of my Indian oracle! A storm-cloud had suddenly obscured the sun—black as the wing of the buzzard-vulture. Red shafts were shooting athwart the sky—threatening to scathe the trees of the forest; thunder rolled continuously along their ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the age, also, he has a message of kindred truth. The pulpit is erected as a witness against the generations as they come and go. It is by the preacher that Jesus Christ speaks to successive centuries. He is the true oracle of God. Against the carelessness, the covetousness, the debauchery and corruption of the nations, God would speak through him. Against the oppression of the poor, the robbery of the widow, the exploitation of the savage; against the crimes of the empires, the Almighty, through his lips, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... reasonable number of stout great-coated yeomen, bartering or dealing for the various commodities of their farms; and on other days of the week, only a few forlorn burghers, crawling about like half-awakened flies, and watching the town steeple till the happy sound of twelve strokes from Time's oracle should tell them it was time to take their meridian dram. The narrow windows of the shops intimated very imperfectly the miscellaneous contents of the interior, where every merchant, as the shopkeepers of Marchthorn were termed, more Scotico, sold every thing that could be thought ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... of their arrival, a banquet was given them by their compatriots; and from that hour, Foresti became the oracle and the consoler, the teacher, almoner, and chief of his fellow-exiles. Subsequent events drove many other Italian patriots to our shores; his purse and his counsel were ever ready for the impoverished and inexperienced, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... us another echo of the story of Minos in the shape of the reasons which led the Cretans to refuse aid to the rest of the Greeks during the Persian invasion. The Delphian oracle, which they consulted at this crisis, suggested to them that they had known enough of the misery caused by foreign expeditions. 'Fools, you complain of all the woes that Minos in his anger sent you, for aiding Menelaus, because they would not assist ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... you had that up your sleeve, young woman? I don't like it a little bit! That is why you talked so like an oracle a little while ago! ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... existence, and ceases to meet his compeers except on Sunday; nobody consults him; his experience has been monotonous, and his age is apt to grow unsocial. The old mechanic finds his tools and his methods superseded by those of younger men. But the superannuated fisherman graduates into an oracle; the longer he lives, the greater the dignity of his experience; he remembers the great storm, the great tide, the great catch, the great shipwreck; and on all emergencies his counsel has weight. He still busies himself about the boats too, ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... fly at once and discover the secret, then," said Raymond, slipping Amita's arm through his. "We will consult the oracle in the ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... present participle of rimay, to speak, to prattle. The river and the valley were known by this name among all the ancient Indians. The oracle of a temple with an idol, which stood in the neighborhood of the present city of Lima, conferred the name. It is said that before the time of the Incas persons suspected of magic were banished to the valley of the Rimac, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the 18th day of June, 1859, the "State Banner and Delphian Oracle," published weekly at Oxbow Village, one of the principal centres in a thriving river-town of New England, contained an advertisement which involved the story of a young life, and stained the emotions of a small community. Such faces of dismay, such shaking ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... saw sitting all alone (Farmer) Farewell, false Love, the oracle of lies (Byrd) Farewell, my joy! (Weelkes) Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave and new (John Dowland) Fire that must flame is with apt fuel fed (Campion) Flora gave me fairest flowers (Wilbye) Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet (Campion and Rosseter) ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... "The oracle speaks in poetry," laughed Eric. "That was Florence Percival, who led the class in mathematics, as I'm a living man. By many she is considered the beauty of her class. I can't say that such is my opinion. ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... civil war with their own flesh and blood. The threadbare author hates the gaudy coat; And swears at the gilt coach, but swears afoot: 10 For 'tis observed of every scribbling man, He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can; Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass, If pink and purple best become his face. For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays; Nor likes your wit, just as you like his plays; He has not yet so much of Mr Bayes. He does his best; and if he cannot please, Would quietly sue out his writ of ease. Yet, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... been introduced from outside. But it was long before Fortuna became of any real importance in Rome, and I shall leave her out of account here. She had two homes of renown in Latium, at Antium and Praeneste, and was in each connected with a kind of oracle, which seems to have been specially resorted to by women before and after childbirth. She was also very probably a deity of other kinds of fertility; and in course of time she took on the characteristics of the Greek Tyche, and became a favourite ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... spoke truth, and so the battle ended; and Frank went to his books, while Amyas, who must needs be doing, if he was not to dream, started off to the dockyard to potter about a new ship of Sir Richard's, and forget his woes, in the capacity of Sir Oracle among the sailors. And so he had played his move for Rose, even as Eustace had, and lost her: but ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... AWB], Oub, or Ob; and it is interpreted Pythonissa. The place where she resided, seems to have been named from the worship there instituted: for Endor is compounded of En-Ador, and signifies Fons Pythonis, the fountain of light, the oracle of the God Ador. This oracle was, probably, founded by the Canaanites; and had never been totally suppressed. In antient times they had no images in their temples, but, in lieu of them, used conical stones or pillars, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... giving a wealth of darkness to the full frank blue eyes, a mystery of meaning—more than brain was ever meant to fathom: richer, henceforth, than all mortal wisdom to Prince Ferdinand. For when nature turns artist, and produces contrasts of colour on a fair face, where is the Sage, or what the Oracle, shall match the depth ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hasten their march as he would deliver the city into their hands, on which occasion he enjoined them to put all the Christians to the sword. The epumanon then disappeared, and they pursued their way joyfully, being animated by this oracle. On a sudden the heavens cleared up, and a most beautiful woman was seen, seated on a bright cloud, and having a charming yet severe and majestic countenance, which much abated the pride and haughtiness inspired by the former vision. This was the queen of heaven, who ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... 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 swasiue pr[ae]suppose, abandoning all ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... then all's well. For, to tell you true, Pug, I had a kind of villainous apprehension that you had been here longer: but whatever thou sayest is an oracle, sweet Pug, and ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... aetiological myth to account for the practice. 'Wolves came and carried off the entrails from the fire; shepherds, following them, were killed by mortal vapours from a cave; thence ensued a pestilence, because they had followed the wolves. An oracle bade them "play the wolf," i.e. live on plunder, whence they were called Hirpi, wolves,' an attempt to account for a wolf clan-name. There is also a story that, when the grave of Feronia seemed all on fire, and the people were about ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... maid, or such a maid, naming all the girls one after another, shall marry, to which he answers according to his own whim, or agreeable to the intimacies he has taken notice of during the time of merriment, and whatever he says is absolutely depended upon as an oracle; and if he couple two people who have an aversion to each other, tears and vexation succeed the mirth; this they call "cutting off the fiddler's head," for after this he is dead ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... evil angels. But this was neither the whole, nor the principal part, of Pagan worship. Pallas was not, in the pure Greek mind, merely a powerful piece of ivory in a temple at Athens; neither was the choice of Leonidas between the alternatives granted him by the oracle, of personal death, or ruin to his country, altogether a ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... infinitely lower place than Man. It is difficult to believe this, when we see such range and dignity of thought on the subject in the mythologies, and find the poets producing such ideals as Cassandra, Iphigenia, Antigone, Macaria; where Sibylline priestesses told the oracle of the highest god, and he could not be content to reign with a, court of fewer than nine muses. Even Victory ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... day.—But in the field, Aye, there the Present Being makes itself felt. The personal must command, the actual eye Examine. If to be the chieftain asks All that is great in nature, let it be 55 Likewise his privilege to move and act In all the correspondencies of greatness. The oracle within him, that which lives, He must invoke and question—not dead books, Not ordinances, not mould-rotted ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... more thoughtful reader will not fail to recognise the proper tendency of certain current speculations, which are recommended to us on the ground that they accord entirely with the last discoveries of science, and embody the deliberate verdicts of the oracle within us. Notwithstanding all that has been urged in their behalf, those theories are little more than a return to long-exploded errors, a resuscitation of extinct volcanoes; or at best, they merely offer to introduce among us an array of civilising agencies, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... the moon, years by that of the sun. They praise Ptolemy, admire Copernicus, but place Aristarchus and Philolaus before him. They take great pains in endeavoring to understand the construction of the world, and whether or not it will perish, and at what time. They believe that the true oracle of Jesus Christ is by the signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, which signs do not thus appear to many of us foolish ones. Therefore they wait for the renewing of the age, ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... eloquence renown'd, The mouth of justice, oracle of law! Another Simon is beside him found, Another Simon ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... to 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
... however particularize. Lloyd in his "Worthies" adds nothing to Camden's information but the epithet "comely" applied to his person, the vague statement that "his embassies in France and Germany were so well managed, that in king Edward's days he was by the council pitched upon as the oracle whereby our agents were to be guided abroad," and a hint that he soon retired from the court of Elizabeth to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... to 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 no longer, ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... teaching palliates educational situations without affording a solution. It is so steeped in tradition that it resorts to statistics as it would consult an oracle. We look to see it establishing precedents only to find it following precedents. When we would find in it a leader we find merely a follower. To such teaching statistical numbers mean far more than living children. Indeed, children are but objects that become useful as a means of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... than an oracle," Hildebrand retorted. "When the wood-wench flouted him, our good King vowed that she ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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 ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... a little, felt a certain embarrassment in being publicly treated as an oracle. "If she's not nice ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... gathered three thousand warriors around him, gave them good pay, questioned the oracle with regard to a lucky day, and set out ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... depression, when the Guinea coast, having run eastward for a thousand miles and more, turned south, apparently without end. Toscanelli of Florence was a recognised authority on the geography of those days, and he was asked what he thought of the situation. No oracle ever said anything so wise as the answer of the Tuscan sage. For he told them that India was to be found not in the East, but in the West; and we shall see what came of it twenty years later, when his letter fell ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... work with which the name of Phidias was connected was the building of the temple of Theseus, called also the Theseion. This was a very important temple, and was constructed in obedience to the command of an oracle in this wise: In B.C. 470 the island of Scyros had been taken by the Athenians, and upon this island Theseus had been buried. After the battle of Marathon, in which he had aided the Athenians, Theseus was much regarded by them, and in B.C. 476 they were directed to remove ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... 't is the furthest Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm! An earthquake should announce so great a fall— A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon Its everlasting page the end of what Seem'd everlasting; but oh! thou TRUE sun! The burning oracle of all that live, As fountain of all life, and symbol of Him who bestows it, wherefore dost thou limit Thy lore unto calamity?[6] Why not Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine All-glorious burst ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... Little Jem's coming, had pored diligently over several wise volumes, and pinned her faith to one in especial, "Sir Oracle on the Care and Training of Children." Sir Oracle implored parents by all they held sacred never to talk "baby talk" to their children. Infants should invariably be addressed in classical language from the moment of their birth. So should they learn to speak English undefiled from their earliest ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... professes to ignore it; many of us felt drawn by a brotherhood of humanity to the late scholarly Pope, when we learned that, as death looked him in the face, he clung to Pagan Horace as a truthful and sympathetic oracle. "And we all go to-day to this singer of the ancient world for guidance in the deceptions of life, and for steadfastness in the ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... supreme felicity of these men, to stun all companies with noisy information; to still doubt, and overbear opposition, with certain knowledge or authentick intelligence. A liar of this kind, with a strong memory or brisk imagination, is often the oracle of an obscure club, and, till time discovers his impostures, dictates to his hearers with uncontrouled authority; for if a publick question be started, he was present at the debate; if a new fashion be mentioned, he was at court the first day of its appearance; if a new performance of literature ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... kinds of excitement," answered the oracle. "And this was the kind I'm best acquaint with. Oh, but it was just a ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... dreams were (and still are) 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, recalling this ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... did Mr. Whipple pronounce these words that Mr. Carvel stirred uneasily, and in spite of himself, as though he were listening to an oracle. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Phalaecus surrendered. Phocis was crushed. Philip took its place in the Amphictyonic Council, and was thus established as a Greek power in the very centre, at the sacred hearth, of Greece. The right of precedence in consultation of the oracle ([Greek: promanteia]) was transferred from Athens to Philip. While indignant Athenians were clamouring for the revocation of the peace, Demosthenes upheld it in his speech "On the Peace" in September. It ought never to have been made on such terms, he said. But, having been made, it had better ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... for him. The daily journals teemed with subjects of interest, and with their aid he planned innumerable campaigns. Military men were coming and going, and with these young officers the veteran was an oracle. He gave Hilland much shrewd advice; and even when it was not good, it was listened to with deference, and so the result was just as agreeable ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... gentle beauty; when from you That heavenly lesson for all hearts he drew. Eternal, universal as the sky; Then in the bosom of your purity A voice He set, as in a temple shrine, That Life's quick travellers ne'er might pass you by Unwarn'd of that sweet oracle divine. And though too oft its low, celestial sound By the harsh notes of work-day care is drown'd, And the loud steps of vain, unlist'ning haste, Yet the great lesson hath no tone of power, Mightier to reach the soul in thought's hush'd hour, Than yours, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Mr. Webb came out of Wiltshire, not out of Yorkshire; and so forth. Esmond did not think fit to correct his old master in these trifling blunders, but they served to give him a knowledge of the other's character, and he smiled to think that this was his oracle of early days; only now no ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... to express an opinion, in which I may be quite wrong, but to which I am entirely wedded? If the custom-house officers had been coming, they would have been here now. In other words, somebody is working the oracle, and (for a good ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Bains, commonly known as Granny Bains. Having 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. ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... of Ethiopia, being encouraged by an oracle, entered Egypt with a numerous army, and possessed himself of the country. He reigned with great clemency and justice. It is believed, that this Sabachus was the same with Solomon, whose aid was implored by Hosea king of Israel, against ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... of the "Koran" is all the work of Mohammed. He himself claimed that he spoke merely as the oracle of God. The commands and injunctions are in the first person, as if spoken by the Divine Being. The passionate enthusiasm and religious earnestness of the prophet are plainly seen in these strange writings. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... renowned throughout all ages for destroying[31]." Now Theseus and Hercules, you know, have been the heroes of all poets, and have been renowned through all ages, for destroying monsters, for succouring the distressed, and for putting to death inhuman arbitrary tyrants. Is this your oracle? If he were to write the acts and monuments of whig heroes, I find they should be quite contrary to mine: Destroyers indeed,—but of a lawful government; murderers,—but of their fellow-subjects; lovers, as Hercules was of Hylas; with a journey at last to hell, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... rescue, they found that the heads of the slain had been cut off and carried away. Lloyd's, it appears, was carried about the island by Hau-Hau preachers, who professed to find in it a kind of diabolical oracle, and used it with much effect in disseminating their teaching. One of these prophets, or preachers, however, had a short career. Three weeks after Lloyd's death, this man, having persuaded himself and his dupes that they were invulnerable, led them against ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... This is as strange a Maze, as ere men trod, And there is in this businesse, more then nature Was euer conduct of: some Oracle Must ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare |
