"Minotaur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... others whom the Chief of the Hundred Valleys pointed out to his men, formed the reserve. We saw glittering in the sun the arms and the distinctive emblems of the legions, an eagle, a wolf, a dragon, a minotaur, and other figures of gilded bronze, decorated with leaves. The wind bore to us the piercing notes of the long Roman clarions, and our hearts leaped at the martial music. A horde of Numidian horsemen, wrapped ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... thrones," he answered, watching the swaying bonnet, or perhaps, contrasting the muscular, bronzed hand he had placed on the chair with the smooth, white one which held the blue ribbons; a small, though firm, hand to grapple with the minotaur, Life! ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... what is more, he had a son by her. As he could have got the sixty thousand francs of her "dot" in several other ways, the public assigned his uncommon intrepidity to a desire to escape an invasion of the Minotaur, against whom his personal qualifications would have insufficiently protected him had he rashly dared his fate by bringing home a young and pretty wife. The fact was, however, that the notary recognized the really ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... on the plains of Troy. There ruled Minos, who first gave laws to men, and who at his death was sent by the gods to judge the shades as they entered the lower world. There was the famous Labyrinth, and there the Minotaur devoured his annual tale of maidens until he was slain by Theseus. Was there such a real palace of Minos as the Greek poets sung? The magnificent palace of the Cretan kings at Cnossus has been found, by Mr. Evans, with its friezes, its spiral ornaments, its flounce-petticoated ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... with the labours of Hercules is the history of Pasiphae and the Minotaur; and this brings us again within the sphere of magic. Pasiphae was the wife of Minos, king of Crete, who conceived an unnatural passion for a beautiful white bull, which Neptune had presented to the king. Having found the means of gratifying ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... an example. The Athenians had been forced by the Cretan king Minos to deliver up to him every eight years seven boys and seven girls. These were thrown as food to a terrible monster, the Minotaur. When the mournful tribute was to be paid for the third time, the king's son Theseus accompanied it to Crete. On his arrival there, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos interested herself in him. The Minotaur dwelt in ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... overthrown by mastiffs. Then comes those groups into which man enters—the African horseman surprised by a great serpent whose formidable folds already enclose his struggling body; the Arabs killing a lion; and the "Theseus overcoming the Minotaur," wherein the calmly irresistible hero is about to bury his keen, short sword in the bull-neck of the gross monster. The success with which Barye has combined the human and bestial characteristics of the minotaur is most ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... and awful hour, the Divine Deliverer appears, the Son of Hermes, Genius of Interpretation, Champion of the Spiritual Life. As Hercules slew the Hydra, the Lion, and many another noxious thing; as Theseus the Minotaur, as Bellerophon the Chimera, as Rama the Ogre Ravan, as David the Giant, as Perseus the Gorgon and Sea-monster, so St. George slays the Dragon and rescues from its insatiable clutch the hope and pride of humanity. This hero of so many names is the Higher Reason; the Reason that knows (gnosis) ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... of this place," said he. "I will return to Dea! They shall not keep me here by force. Woe to him who bars my exit! What is that great tower yonder? If there was a giant, a hell-hound, a minotaur, to keep the gate of this enchanted palace, I would annihilate him. If an army, I would exterminate it. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... foe: costly wars, fruitless expeditions, in which each time thousands and thousands of native archers and rowers were recorded to have embarked, but whether they returned to their homes was never stated. Like the tribute that once upon a time Greece sent to the Minotaur of Crete, the Philippine youth embarked for the expedition, saying good-by to their country forever: on their horizon were the stormy sea, the interminable wars, the rash expeditions. Wherefore, Gaspar ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... impossible—but the unhappy hypochondriac recluse of the Rue Lafitte, who I believe has been most malignantly traduced by the third-rate English Colony in Paris—all his faults exaggerated, none of his good qualities even hinted at. The good British public has so long been used to look upon him as a minotaur that it will perhaps startle and amuse it to be told that he ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... professions of romantic natures the gaunt facts of monetary necessity remain the rulers of life. Every youth who must sell his art and capacity for gain, every girl who must sell herself for money, is one more sacrifice to the Minotaur of Private Ownership—before ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... your clew, old man," exclaimed Barton, as he handed Maitland a cup of his peculiar mixture, very weak, with plenty of milk and no sugar. "Oh, Ariadne, what a boon that clew of yours has been to the detective mind! To think that, without the Minotaur, the police would probably never have hit on that invaluable expression, 'the ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... requires that Captain Brown be hung? Is it indispensable to any Northern man? Is there no resource but to cast this man also to the Minotaur? If you do not wish it, say so distinctly. While these things are being done, beauty stands veiled and music is a screeching lie. Think of him,—of his rare qualities!—such a man as it takes ages to make, and ages ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... Bleared with unrestful sleep rise up another day, Their bodies racked with aftermaths of toil. Over the city, in each gasping street, Shudders a haze of heat, Reverberant from pillar, span and plinth. Once more, cribbed in this monstrous labyrinth Sacrificed to the Minotaur of Greed Men bear the turmoil, glare, sweat, brute inharmonies; Denial of each simplest human need, Loss of life's meaning as day lags on day; And my rebellious spirit rises, flies In dreams to the green quiet wood away, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... stories like the above. Now for my only brickbat. Of all the stories I have read, "The Wall of Death" is the only one I dislike; and the worst of it is that it was written by Victor Rousseau, who is one of my favorite authors. The story is horribly reminiscent of the old Greek myth of the Minotaur, which it resembles in many phases. Still, this is an exception that proves Victor Rousseau's stories to be of high average value. And I shall expect to ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... this noble youth, whose incessant toil had perfected genius, was the marvel of his age! What wonder that his famous group, Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur, elicited the enthusiastic admiration of the most noted art critics of Rome! What wonder that the little peasant boy, who had first opened his eyes, in 1757, in a mud cabin, closed them at last, in 1822, in a marble palace, crowned ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... to visit the rooms and halls of the labyrinth, it was necessary, as the reader will naturally suppose, for people to take the same precaution as Ariadne made Theseus use, when he was obliged to go and fight the Minotaur in the labyrinth of Crete. Virgil ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... at this time, was one of their great heroes. And you must read about his slaying the Minotaur in Crete, and about the beautiful Ariadne who fell in love with him, and gave him the clue to the labyrinth where her father, Minos, kept the monster hid. These things about the classic little island have an ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the gods, the type of cunning and craftiness, while Artemis, the goddess of the moon, the fruitful mother of nature, took the character of the chaste maiden, the goddess of hunting, who with her nymphs and hounds nightly roamed the fields and woods. The monsters, the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, symbols of a yet unhuman or half human power of nature, were overcome by the Greek heroes, Perseus, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, OEdipus, the types of human strength and valor. The religious festivals were enlivened ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... iron car. Red was his sword, and shield, and whole attire, And all the godhead seemed to glow with fire; Even the ground glittered where the standard flew, And the green grass was dyed to sanguine hue. High on his pointed lance his pennon bore His Cretan fight, the conquered Minotaur: The soldiers shout around with generous rage, And in that victory their own presage. He praised their ardour, inly pleased to see His host, the flower of Grecian chivalry. All day he marched, and all the ensuing night, ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... knew the Ariadne of mythology, and so the sight of the patent log-line trailing in the creamy turmoil of our wake used always to suggest imaginings to me, as I leaned gazing over our poop rail, of a modern Theseus being rescued by this line of ours from the labyrinthine caverns of some submarine Minotaur. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... indeed there, my mad Irishwoman! I had verily forgotten thee. But is not this king of ours as the Minotaur, dwelling in the labyrinths of deceit, and devouring the noblest in the land? There was his own Strafford, next his foolish Laud, and now comes my son, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... once more I marched to the great hall in her company; Dr. Jeffreys got Mrs. Smith; Papa Smith got Mrs. Jeffreys who looked like a Grecian maiden walking into dinner with the Minotaur; Scroope got one of the Miss Smiths, she who wore a pink bow, the gloomy curate got the other with a blue bow, and Archibald got Mrs. Scroope who departed making faces at us over ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... isn't he?" he commented in a low voice. "Wants to charge right out of his frame and trample. Take a look at that nose, parson—like a double-barreled shotgun, for all the world! Beautiful brute, Inglesby. Makes you think of that minotaur sideshow they used to ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... you are unsuspicious, and would scarcely see a monster in a minotaur. It is well, however, to draw good out of evil, and it is the peculiar gift of an elevated mind. Nevertheless, you must have observed, although with greater curiosity than concern, the slipperiness and tortuousness of ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... was gone the old trembling came again to Democrates. He had Bias light all the lamps. The room seemed full of lurking goblins,—harpies, gorgons, the Hydra, the Minotaur, every other foul and noxious shape was waiting to spring forth. And, most maddening of all, the chorus of AEschylus, that Song of the Furies Democrates had heard recited at the Isthmus, rang ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis |
