"Damocles" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... talk is vanity, you who lightly vouch That we, indifferent to the country's call, shun A crisis under which the People crouch Like DAMOCLES beneath the pendent falchion; That from our minds, incredibly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... Goddesses—here are the ingredients that make up this science fiction novel of suspense, intrigue, mystery and danger. For science fiction it is, with the supernatural making complete sense, and fun too, despite the Sword of Damocles hanging by a ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... religious ceremony (III, i, 1-2), delivered with official assumption in the fine frenzy of a muse-inspired priest, their unity of purpose and of style makes them virtually a continuous poem. It lashes the vices and the short-sighted folly of society; with the Sword of Damocles above his head the rich man sits at a luxurious board (III, i, 17); sails in his bronzed galley, lolls in his lordly chariot, with black Care ever at the helm or on the box (III, i, 40). By hardihood in the field and cheerful poverty at home Rome became great ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... man had heard about me, and for some reason found it worth while to follow, waving the sword of Damocles! His note burned my pocket. And I burned to know what it said. No doubt it would explain why he did not cut off my head at ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... round with dazed eyes. His arms fell to his sides. "All right, my good Victor; I'm not mad," he said. "Don't be scared! Did you ever hear of a chap called Damocles? He's an ancestor of mine, and history has a funny fashion of repeating itself. But there'll be a difference this time all the same. He couldn't eat his dinner for fear of a naked sword falling on his head. But I'm going to eat mine—whatever ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... short. For such a beat of time as our fine courteous and contemplative advance upon Naples, and for such another as our retreat northward under the same fine law of observation and homage, the bribed consciousness could only decline to question its security. The sword of Damocles suspended over that presumption, the skeleton at the banquet of extravagant ease, would have been that even at our actual inordinate rate—leaving quite apart "improvements" to come—such savings of trouble begin to use up the world; some hard grain of difficulty ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... to my sitting in his chair provided I didn't look at that map too much. Who was the chap that the sword hung over by a hair—Damocles? Well, maybe that's what that map is—it would smash pretty hard if the whole state fell down on Mort. But Mort knows just how many voters there are in every township and just how they line up election morning. There's a lot of brains in ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... trusting to his disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the moment. William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the curse of Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his appetite! He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he had been used to do—the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened and dulled; and this was a spectacle that Morton could ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no subterfuge. His mind was still centered in his own happiness. He could not wipe out of his brain the conviction that if he waited for Shan Tung he was waiting just so long under the sword of Damocles, with a hair between him and doom. He hoped that Miriam Kirkstone's refusal to confide in him and her reluctance to furnish him with the smallest facts in the matter would turn Mary Josephine's sympathy into a feeling of indifference if not of actual resentment. ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... the genial climate and the natural beauty of Ischia, it must be borne in mind that a residence on the island possesses one or two serious drawbacks. Apart from the ever-present fear of earthquakes, which hangs like the sword of Damocles above the heads of the inhabitants, there is yet another disadvantage, prosaic but very real, in the lack of pure water, every well and rivulet on Ischia being more or less impregnated with sulphur, with the result ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan |
