"Prophecy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that wert so fair and dear That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise With prophecy thy husband's widowed eyes, And bade him call the master's art to rear Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, And lips that at love's call should ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... A marvellous prophecy, truly! Cromwell could see nothing in Winstanley's demands save that they tended "to make the Tenant as liberal a fortune as the Land-lord,"[165:1] which did not conform to his sense of the eternal fitness of ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... queen-rose of the architrave blows fresh and sweet in the sunny air. Step by step Emerson has traveled the great road worn by so many of old, passing from the 'ideal' to the real, from reverie to a cheerful awaking,—and the prophecy of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... The usual prophecy for curbing arrogant youth on these occasions is the sure prediction that he will come a smash. As a matter of fact, it is extraordinarily rare for a man who has conquered the initial difficulties of success in money-making, ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... little way into the room. Look now, at the fat back for putting a little palm-tree on, while he is young. This is truth, old fellow, here is true gold lying at the foot of the rainbow, according to the prophecy." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... health, she had to pass Alida's house, and Alida's mother was waiting for her by the gate. As Dorcas came on swiftly, she had a thought that Alida was not very wise, or she would keep her lovers away from Mrs. Roe. The mother and daughter were too much alike. The older woman was a terrible prophecy. The fairness of youth had faded in her into a soft ivory, her hair was a yellow wisp tightly coiled, and her mouth drooped in a meagre discontent. She regarded Dorcas frowningly from sharp eyes, and Dorcas stepped more proudly. She had fancied ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... puffs the smoke thereof into the face of each warrior, from the eldest to the youngest; while they, putting their hands funnel-wise round their mouths, draw into the sinuosities of the brain that more than Delphic vapor of prophecy; which boy presently falls down in a swoon, and being dragged out by the heels and laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out likewise, and so on till the Tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... 2 Maccab. ii;—Josephus, Antiquities, II, i—Cyrus took occasion from the prophecy of Isaiah to release the people. The Jews held their property in peace under Cyrus in Babylon; hence they could well ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... from Goethe. Why did they not contain Goethe's statement, "Amerika, du hast es besser."? (America, you are better off). Or his prophecy about the Prussians, "The Prussian was born a brute, and civilisation will ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... other. (Gen. i. 28). They sinned. God announced to them the results of sin. One of these results was the rule which man would exercise over woman. (Gen. iii. 16). This rule was no more approved, endorsed, or sanctioned by God, than was the twin-born prophecy, "thou (Satan) shalt bruise his (Christ's) heel." God could not, from His nature, command Satan to injure Christ, or any other of the seed of woman. What particle of evidence is there then for supposing that in the parallel announcement He ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... considered her best. The Basset Table is also a superior comedy, especially interesting because it anticipates the modern blue-stocking in Valeria, a philosophical girl who supports vivisection, and has also a prophecy ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... from Spain." Lollis remarks that Columbus interpreted in his own way the "Oraculum Turcicum," which concludes the thirty prophecies of Joachim of Flora in regard to the popes. In the edition (Venice, 1589) which Lollis had seen, this prophecy was interpreted to mean Charles VIII. of France. Raccolta Colombiana, parte II., tomo II., ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... Alas! how has the prophecy been falsified! Many of the basins, where the fountains had once thrown up their sparkling showers, were dry and dusty. Some of the palaces were turned into gloomy convents, and the barefoot monk paced through these courts, which had once glittered ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... The prophecy of the aged Simeon for the infant Christ was this,—that through him the secrets of many hearts should be revealed. Jesus, that is to say, was not only to read the secrets of others' hearts, but he was to enable people to read their own hearts. They were to come into self-recognition as they came ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... but too probable termination of his own course? Here is a sincere and solemn avowal—a confession at once devout, poetical, and human—a history in the shape of a prophecy! What more was required of the biographer, than to have put his seal to the writing, testifying that the foreboding had been realized and that ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... new chapter of European history had been opened. Then Savonarola raised his voice, and cried that the crimes of Italy, the abominations of the Church, would speedily be punished. Events led rapidly to the fulfilment of this prophecy. Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici, was a vain, irresolute, and hasty princeling, fond of display, proud of his skill in fencing and football-playing, with too much of the Orsini blood in his hot veins, with too little of the Medicean craft in his weak head. The Italian despots ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... mingled in their composition, of which as yet we can form no idea. We grope in utter ignorance of the greatest of mysteries—Life!—and with all our modern advancement, we are utterly unable to measure or to account for life's many and various manifestations. In the very early days of imaginative prophecy, the 'elemental' nature of certain beings was accepted by men accounted wise in their own time,—in the long ago discredited assertions of the Count de Gabalis and others of his mystic cult,—and I am not entirely sure ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... obliging enough to fulfil the Bailli's prophecy, and perhaps it was this very carelessness about the name, and concern about the substance of popular government, this skill in getting the best out of things as they are, in utilizing all the motives which influence men, and in giving one direction ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... motive grew so evident, that there was no further question of bringing them to trial. Still the suspicion, once raised, grew like a weed, as suspicion does grow in the ready soil of the human heart. For a month after the tragedy it seemed as if Sylvia Whitman's prophecy concerning the falling off of the hotel guests was destined to fail. The old hostelry was crowded. Newspaper men and women from all parts of the country flocked there, and also many not connected with the press, who were morbidly curious and revelled in the sickly excitement of thinking ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a worse anarchy, and a worse disorder afflicting men than that poor mob of tired pedestrians shows.' Matthew, who was always fond of showing the links and connections between the Old Testament and the New, casts our Lord's impression of what He then saw into language borrowed from the prophecy of Ezekiel (ch. xxxiv.), which tells of a flock that is scattered in a dark and cloudy day, that is broken, and torn, and driven away. I venture to see in the text three points: (1) Christ teaching us how to look at men; (2) Christ teaching us how to feel at such a sight; and (3) Christ teaching ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... on making good the prophecy of Barbie. Though his father was spending money he could ill afford on his education, he fooled away his time. His mind developed a little, no doubt, since it was no longer dazed by brutal and repeated floggings. In some of his classes he did fairly well, but others he loathed. It was ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... Nero was ready in the field afore the Castle Terrabil with a great host, and he had ten battles, with many more people than Arthur had. Then Nero had the vanguard with the most part of his people, and Merlin came to King Lot of the Isle of Orkney, and held him with a tale of prophecy, till Nero and his people were destroyed. And there Sir Kay the seneschal did passingly well, that the days of his life the worship went never from him; and Sir Hervis de Revel did marvellous deeds with King Arthur, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... was carried up to the great city of Jerusalem, where, according to the religious custom of the Jews, he was to be offered or presented to the Lord, in the temple. Here a saintly old man named Simeon took him in his arms, with some strange words of prophecy of the salvation which this child was to bring ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... was begot by Loke with the giantess Angerbode. This wolf in the conflict of Surtur with the gods was to swallow Odin, who on account of this prophecy ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... extinction of this highly distinguished and ancient family is so well known that it need not be recapitulated here, and its literal fulfilment is one of the most curious instances of the kind on record. There is no doubt that the "prophecy" was widely known throughout the Highlands generations before it was fulfilled. Lockhart, in his "Life of Sir Walter Scott," says that "it connected the fall of the house of Seaforth not only with the appearance of a deaf 'Cabarfeidh,' ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... legal or canonical examination, and without the consent of the cardinals; that he had conspired against the life of the king; that, in spite of the remonstrances of his cardinals, he had cast the Body and Blood of our Lord into the flames; that he had arrogated to himself the gift of prophecy; that he had connived at an attempted assassination of the king; that he had condemned and executed three men without a judgment or an admission of their guilt; that he kept constantly about his person a book ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... it be said that this criticism does not imply the faintest want of respect for Lord Roberts, his qualities and his services. He has ventured into the field of foreign politics and prophecy. A public man of great eminence, he has expressed an English view of German "intentions." For the man in the street (I write in that capacity) to receive that expression in silence is to endorse it, to make it national. And I have stated here the reasons which make such an ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... in question became hopelessly bewildered, and stood stock still in the middle of the floor. By the time the set was disentangled, the dance seemed to be over, and the "bronco-buster" dismissed the dancers with the cynical prophecy, "You'll all get ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... recalled his saying when they came into the valley, "If they will let us alone for ten years, we will ask no odds of Uncle Sam or the Devil." The ten years had passed and the Devil was taking them at their word. One of them recalled the prophecy of another inspired leader, Parley Pratt, the Archer of Paradise: "Within ten years from now the people of this country who are not Mormons will be entirely subdued by the Latter-day Saints or swept from the face of the earth; and if this prophecy fails, then you may know the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... counsels, holding forth that peace (which they allow can only be purchased by the humiliating prostration of our honour) is indispensable to the very existence of this country, I think that for these two years past they have done their utmost to hasten the fulfilment of their own prophecy.' Yet, he adds, 9,000 copies are printed quarterly, 'no genteel family can pretend to be without it,' and it contains the only valuable literary criticism of the day. The antidote was to be supplied by the foundation of the 'Quarterly.' ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... with which volunteers sprang to the aid of England in the South African War—this response of English hearts in Canada, Australia, and elsewhere to the drum-beat of the empire was the fulfillment of one of Beaconsfield's imaginative dreams. A writer in the "Spectator" two years earlier had made the prophecy which in the century's end came ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... family, taking no especial pains that her sister should not hear her, "Well, folks, now that Sylvia's got through with that horrid Fiske fellow, I do hope we'll all have some peace!" a remark which proved to be a prophecy. They all, including Sylvia herself, knew the tranquillity of an extended period ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the poem, Browning represents all Nature as full of emotion, as gathered into a fuller life, by David's prophecy of the coming of immortal Love in Christ to man. This sympathy of Nature with humanity is so rare a thought in Browning, and so apart from his view of her, that I think he felt its strangeness here; so that ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... speaking one more word she turned away and left the hall. Every one was terrified at her saying, when the twelfth came forward, for she had not yet bestowed her gift, and though she could not do away with the evil prophecy, yet she could soften it, ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... exception, and appointed in their place Guy-Rochette, doctor and lawyer; Jean Beaudan, burgess; Francois Aubert, mason; and Cristol Ligier, farm labourer—all Catholics. He then left for Paris, where a short time after he concluded a treaty with the Calvinists, which the people with its gift of prophecy called "The halting peace of unsure seat," and which in the end led to the massacre of ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... him. 'Senior,' said she, 'I am an ancient woman; and it is now full sixty years, past and gone, since, as I was keeping vigils one winter's night by the fireside, I heard my father, who was an exceeding old man, read a prophecy, said to have been written by a holy friar; and this was the purport of the prophecy: that a time would arrive when our country would be invaded and conquered by a people from Africa, of a strange garb, a strange tongue, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... The Okons and the followers of the Okons were in possession of every office within the gift of the paleface. Floating proudly from the top of this great building was an immense banner, on which was painted in monster letters the talismanic words: "For mayor, 1902, Robert A. Smith," Verily the prophecy of the dusky maiden had been fulfilled. The paleface had become impregnably intrenched. The Okons could ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... spoke, Stuart's eyes suddenly sparkled with the thought that his words, spoken in jest, might be a prophecy of what could really happen. It had happened again and again. The ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... take the first step which might lead to recovery. There is, in fact—" he hesitated. "I may say that there is no hope for her cure while here. But if she is taken to a warm climate at once—at once—within two weeks—and kept there until summer, then, although I have not the gift of prophecy, yet I believe she would be in time a well woman. No medicine, can do it, but out-of-doors and warmth ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... prophecy about "retrospection" as being fulfilled in 1904, when he received the invitation of Messrs. Chapman and Hall to begin collecting material for his autobiography which was subsequently published in two large volumes, under the title of ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... impatient. He asked his officers if they knew of any prophecy saying that the Persians would be destroyed in Greece. They were all silent, though many of them ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... labour that Boone's prophecy was fulfilled, and when fourteen days had elapsed the little fort was declared to be ready for occupancy. The stockade was strong and had been made of the stakes fashioned from the trees. One end of each log was sharpened and then all ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... prophetess had uttered this oracle, the Lydians caused the prophecy to be written down, and went away at once to Sardis. And when the rest also who had been sent round were there arrived with the answers of the Oracles, then Croesus unfolded the writings one by one and looked upon them: and at first none of them pleased him, but when he heard ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... said the Athenian commander on the approach of that decisive day, "if we conquer, we shall make Athens the greatest city of Greece."[6] A prophecy how well fulfilled! "If God prosper us," might have been the more appropriate language of our fathers, when they landed upon this Rock, "if God prosper us, we shall here begin a work which shall last for ages; we shall plant here a new society, in the principles ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... power and producing materializations)—all these make a very consistent theory of the nature of the proceedings. For the rest, the list of gifts which St. Paul gives as being necessary for the Christian Disciple, is simply the list of gifts of a very powerful medium, including prophecy, healing, causing miracles (or physical phenomena), clairvoyance, and other powers (I Corinth, xii, 8, 11). The early Christian Church was saturated with spiritualism, and they seem to have paid no attention to those Old Testament prohibitions ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... dawning, this one that Winsome waited for. Dawn is the secret of the universe. It thrills us somehow with a far-off prophecy of that eternal dawning when the God That Is shall reveal himself—the dawning which shall brighten into ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... whole nation was racked with anxiety concerning the health of the young Queen Myra, who seemed gradually becoming deranged; the especial significance of their anxiety being explained by the fact— stated with the utmost gravity—that an ancient prophecy, in which they placed the most implicit faith, foretold that should ever a monarch die without issue, the fall of the nation and its absorption by its savage neighbours would immediately follow. The point of it all lay in the fact that the Queen was unwedded, and ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... of prophecy above all others. He was born at Delos, according to the poets; and it is there that the Homeric poems say was one of his most ancient sanctuaries. Thence, doubtless, issued the twenty famous oracles at the epoch of the colonisation. ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... soon have to come to our country for your ships: your little island cannot grow wood enough for a large marine." "Oh!" said the Englishman, "we can build ships of iron!" "Iron?" replied the American in surprise, "why, iron sinks; only wood can float!" "Well! you will find I am right." The prophecy was correct. The Englishman in question has now a fleet of splendid iron steamers ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... We read thy prophecy, We know what wish lies hidden, What germs of life may be Concealed beneath thy mantle, All folded close away, Awaiting their fruition, ...
— Christmas Sunshine • Various
... Eloise, nor my uncle, nor Mat nor Rex, but Jondo, John Doe, the nameless man, with whom Esmond Clarenden had walked all these years and for whose sake he had rescued Eloise St. Vrain. They had "toted together," as Aunty Boone had said. Oh, Aunty Boone with dull eyes of prophecy! I could hear her ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... of His presence, we may well exclaim—"Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour." [19:3] When He displayed His glory in the temple of old, He filled it with thick darkness; [19:4] when He delivered the sure word of prophecy, He employed strange and misty language; when He announced the Gospel itself, He uttered some things hard to be understood. It might have been said, too, of the Son of God, when He appeared on earth, that His ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... their evil deeds. We will listen outside the door, and perhaps you may hear the forgotten word. Then, when you have resumed human form, one of you can ask to marry me, that I too may be freed from this wretched enchantment; and the prophecy that a stork would bring ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... reached Lady Frances at Hendon Hall on the return of herself and her brother from Gorse Hall. But before that time the prophecy uttered by Lord Hampstead as to the story being all over London had already been in part fulfilled. Vivian during their hunting weeks at Gorse Hall had been running continually up and down from London, where his work as private secretary to the Secretary ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... us humble pioneers Of himself in consciousness of Life's tears, It needs no mighty prophecy To tell that what he could mindlessly show His creatures, he himself ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... right form of words; and therefore such truth coming forth in words is, in a sense, the person that speaks. And many of the utterances of truth in the Revelation, commonly called of St John, are not merely lofty in form, but carry with them the conviction that the writer was no mere "trumpet of a prophecy," but spoke that he did know, and ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... was fled at last, a prophecy of the end voiced itself in the pangs of hunger, which bit like poison within him. The demon of starvation leaped upon him, gloating, ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... Lord's dispensations, when there is no difference in our conditions; always we know not how soon the complaint may be ours also. This prayer was prayed long before the judgment and captivity came on, so that it had a prophecy in the bosom of it. Nay, it was the most kindly and affectionate way of warning the people could get, for Isaiah to pour forth such a prayer, as if he beheld with his eyes the calamity, as already come. And indeed it becometh us so to look on the word, as if it gave a present being ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... justice, forewarned "Napoleon the Little" of his future reverses, while nations and kingdoms, in view of his marvellous successes, hailed him as a friend of civilization; and Hugo lived to see the fulfilment of his prophecy. Moreover, it may be urged that the Prussian people,—ground down by an absolute military despotism, the mere tools of an ambitious king,—were not responsible for the atrocious conquests of Frederic II. The ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... Lute's prophecy of the manner in which her lover would be received was realized. Mrs. Grantly, unreal, unhealthy, scintillant with frigid magnetism, warmed and melted as though of truth she were dew and he sun. Mr. Barton beamed ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... and shows much of the same red light and black shadow, much of the same Vulcanic power over words, as with blast and forge and hammer, which startle us in the two battle-pieces. The lines "Annus Memorabilis," dated Jan. 6th, 1861, read like prophecy in 1865. "Wood and Coal" (November, 1863) gives a presage of the fire which the flame of the conflict would kindle. "The Burial of the Dane" shows the true human sympathy of the writer, in its simple, pathetic narrative; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... "is only the avant courier of the mind; and where that in a healthy and normal state goes I hold it to be a prophecy that realization ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... opposition to an heretical government, to fulfil, if a political crisis should render it practicable, the absurd prophecies of Pastorini and Columbkil. Although the prophecies of the former would appear to be out of date to a rational reader, yet Paddy, who can see farther into prophecy than any rational reader, honestly believes that Pastorini has left for those who are superstitiously given, sufficient range of expectation in ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... said remained in my mind, as the way of dark sayings is. Yet why should the word of a fool have the weight of truth? There are things none can explain. He proved right in the end, but gained nothing. Behold me; and where is Gooja Singh? I made no prophecy, and he ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... Detmold, he successively resided in Hamburg, Zuerich, and Baden-Baden, though most of his time has been spent in Vienna, where he has directed the Singakademie and the concerts of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Schumann's prophecy has been made good; Brahms is to-day one of the most eminent of living musicians. Among his most famous compositions are a Funeral Hymn for chorus and wind-band; the "German Requiem;" "Triumphlied," for double-chorus ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... hope that they may be of some use hereafter in recalling the ordinary aspect of our English seas, at the exact period when the nation had done its utmost in the wooden and woven strength of ships, and had most perfectly fulfilled the old and noble prophecy— ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... subordinated to party politics." Possibly now that we have been taught by painful experience all we want to know about U-boat warfare, excitement in this tale is rather to seek, but it remains a most successful prophecy. In the last story of the book we have the author in his very worst form. "Three of Them" is a study of children, and the only excuse I can find for it is that it must be intended as a sop to the sentimentalists. Of the others my first ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... might have been written for the war which we are waging to-day against a less honourable enemy. But, indeed, Shakespeare is full of prophecy. Here is his description of the volunteers who flocked to the colours in the ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... joy from the boys, and the excited exclamations, questions and answers that followed showed that they agreed heartily with Will in his last prophecy that "they would have ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... lead quiet lives in all godliness and honesty." Then he ventures to predict that America, now thrown open to British colonists, will be peopled in a century and a half with sixty million souls: a prophecy likely ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... business, Mr. Cavanagh," he said; "but it doesn't advance our inquiry a little bit. The prophecy of the old man with the white beard—whom you assure me to be none other than Hassan of Aleppo—is something we cannot very well act upon. He clearly believes it himself; for he has released you after having captured you, evidently in order that you may be at liberty to ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... makes a study of Farmers' Almanack weather he finds that it wins by predicting the same storms and the same cold snaps, the same drought and the same rain for just about the same seasons, year after year, spreading the prophecy over days enough to give it considerable leeway. "About this time expect a storm," it says, and in the ten days of the aforesaid time the storm ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... appropriated by the Mormons as a residence. Here, in the midst of their dwellings, they had erected a temple for worship, which, on their emigrating west, their arch-leader, Smith, prophesied would, by the interposition of heaven, be destroyed by fire. The prophecy was verified as to the fact, but heaven had, it appeared, little to do with it; for it was ascertained to be the work of an incendiary of their sect, who was detected and brought to ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... The next minute her prophecy came true; the wild thing, with a quick whirl of her lithe body, was at the front door, and in another instant had flashed through ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... From Newmarket I receive daily messages, and I have as much chance of being right as other men have; but you know what the Bard says. Ah! what a student of human nature that man was! What an intellect! In apprehension how like a god! You know what he says of prophecy and chance? I only fire a bolt at a venture, and if my venture don't come off, then I say, 'Pay up and ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... Union. If this was not done, merchants might bring their whole capitals into this branch of trade, and save paying any duties whatever. Mr. Boudinot observed, that the gentleman had overlooked the prophecy of St. Peter, where he foretells that among other damnable heresies, "Through covetousness shall they with feigned words ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... men, and to men the commands and rewards of the gods; and this power spans the chasm which divides them, and in this all is bound together, and through this the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; and through this power all the intercourse and speech of God with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts or ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... earth? Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools. The cry is the voice of sacred misery, exalted not into wild raving, but into the sanctified frenzy of prophecy and inspiration—in that bitterness of soul, in that indignation of suffering virtue, in that exaltation of despair, would not persecuted English loyalty cry out, with an awful warning voice, and denounce the destruction ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... work of the devil, and that idolatry was, at any rate in part, a worship of demons. From the Middle Ages I can adduce a pregnant expression of the same view from Thomas Aquinas; in his treatment of idolatry and also of false prophecy he definitely accepts the demonology of the early Church. On this point he appeals to Augustine, and with perfect right; from this it may presumably be assumed that the Schoolmen in general had the same view, Augustine ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... intrepidity than the emperor seemed to possess. He treated the whole business with contempt, as a hasty and inconsiderate tumult, and Philip's rival as a phantom of royalty, who in a very few days would be destroyed by the same inconstancy that had created him. The speedy completion of the prophecy inspired Philip with a just esteem for so able a counsellor; and Decius appeared to him the only person capable of restoring peace and discipline to an army whose tumultuous spirit did not immediately subside after the murder of Marinus. Decius, [2] who long resisted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... Mark Hanna, the shrewdest and most far-seeing man that Big Business ever brought into power, said that in twenty years there would be two parties in America, a capitalist and a socialist; and that it would be the Catholic church that would save the country from Socialism. That prophecy was widely quoted, and sank into the souls of our steel and railway and money magnates; from which time you might see, if you watched political events, a new tone of deference to the Roman Hierarchy on the ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... displacements in industry, had left great numbers not only of the peasantry and the artisans but also of the poorer nobles in practical destitution. The organization of society was giving strength to the strong and weakness to those of no might—thus exactly reversing Mary's prophecy of what her royal Son should bring; and those who were thus dispossessed and scattered felt, and had a right to feel, that the social organization under which such things ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... us now take off our arms, we have no need of them." "Wherefore?" said she. "Here is the army around the house." "Oh, lady, there is here no army." "Oh," cried she, "whence then was this tumult?" "The tumult was but to break thy prophecy and to obtain arms for thy son. And now has he got arms without any thanks unto thee." "By Heaven," said Arianrod, "thou art a wicked man. Many a youth might have lost his life through the uproar thou hast caused in this Cantrev to-day. Now will I lay a destiny upon this ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... a corner of the universe seen through a temperament, the temperament of Mr. Vedder must offer an enthralling study, for it seems to be a lens whose power of refraction defies prophecy because it deals with the incalculable forces. His art concerns itself little with the aesthetic, but is chiefly the art of the intellect and the imagination. All manner of symbols and analogies; the laws of the universe that prevail beyond the stars; the celestial figures; the undreamed ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... mournfully informed, in which the last Governor had expired. Then he did believe, all in one awful lump, all the stories he had been told, and added to their horrors a few original conceptions of death and purgatory, and a lot of transparent semi-formed images of his own delirium. Fortunately both prophecy and personal conviction alike miscarried, and the Governor returned from the jaws of death. But without a moment's delay he withdrew from the Port of Clarence and went up the mountain to Basile, which is in the neighbourhood of the highest native ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... now I am here, netted and in the toils, at the disposal of a suspicious, stern, and cold-hearted man, perhaps to be turned over to the solitude of a dungeon or the infamy of a public execution. O, Fergus! how true has your prophecy proved; and how speedy, how very speedy, has ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... brings with it multitudes of this class of slaves. It was doubtless in consequence of a knowledge of this fact, that one great statesman of the south predicted the downfall of slavery by the inevitable laws of population. Whether this prophecy is ever fulfilled or not, it is nevertheless plain that a very different-looking class of people are springing up at the south, and are now held in slavery, from those originally brought to this country from Africa; and if their increase do no other good, it will do away the force of the argument, ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... the last place in which to indulge in prophecy; it preserves too clearly the record of fallacy. In the last twenty-four hours have been reversed all the expectations of those in charge of this column, and even the direction of our march has been completely changed. My last entry ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the Federal and Confederate. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy; but I feel it within me that it is to be so. The universally kind feeling expressed for me at a time when it was supposed that each day would prove my last, seemed to me the beginning of the answer to ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... thee for that foul prophecy," cried the man starting up, his hand on the hilt of his sword. ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... there still was some life. Czech books were read more than ever, and the life of the national soul expressed itself in the performances in the National Theatre. When we heard about the storm of enthusiasm which greeted the prophecy in Smetana's opera Libusha, we felt suddenly relieved, and we knew that our sufferings ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... said I, inwardly; 'Captain Oliver, you said I should not see the moon rise to-night. Methinks you are somewhat tardy in fulfilling your prophecy.' ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... first part of the prophecy was fulfilled, for the countryman became a soldier, without his remembering anything of his adventure in the wood. He had already worn the uniform of a cavalry regiment for four years, when he was stationed with his ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... assented and consented to what she heard, and therefore became a very earnest disciple, enthusiastic about the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace, and all such matters. She understood the meaning of the Levitical types and offerings; could speak of dispensational truth and prophecy; was very zealous about missions to the heathen, and was also earnestly devoted to many charitable ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... the Book of the Lord, a "sure word of prophecy, whereunto we do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." It challenges us to "prove all things and hold ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... meanwhile in the throng, amid shouts of applause were heard cries of "Ahenobarbus, Ahenobarbus! Where hast thou put thy flaming beard? Dost thou fear that Rome might catch fire from it?" And those who cried out in that fashion knew not that their jest concealed a dreadful prophecy. ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and self-government to be anything else but a delusion and a mockery? This cleared out of our pathway, and we have enough virtue, intelligence, and wealth of physical resources in the land to realize the prophecy and the hope of all noble thinkers and believes on the planet, and place America first and foremost among the nations—the richest, the wisest, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... universities and military drill, regular examinations and rigidly prescribed work—all these interesting characteristics are, as is natural in character-formation, both cause and effect. It becomes an easy prophecy within behaviorism to forecast that American universities will continue regular and mediocre in mental activity and reasonably devoid of intellectual ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... her father had looked approvingly at the long-legged baby, with his fine, well-bred head. "You will have something worth riding when that fellow is fit to break in, my girlie," he had said, and his prophecy had been amply fulfilled. Mick Shanahan said he'd never put a leg over a finer pony. Norah knew there never had been a finer anywhere. He was a big pony, very dark bay in colour, and "as handsome as paint," and with the kindest disposition; full of ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... mediation, and kingdom; and they esteem it a gross perversion of these psalms and prophecies, to apply them to the experiences of private Christians. In proof of this, they not only urge the words of the apostle, that no prophecy is of any private interpretation, but they insist that the whole of the quotations from the ancient prophecies in the New Testament, and particularly those from the Psalms, are expressly applied to Christ. In this opinion, many other classes ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... against Authorities was what Friedrich and Voltaire had never dreamed of as possible, and had not in their minds the least idea of. In one, or perhaps two places you may find in Voltaire a grim and rather glad forethought, not given out as prophecy, but felt as interior assurance in a moment of hope, How these Priestly Sham Hierarchies will be pulled to pieces, probably on the sudden, once people are awake to them. Yes, my much-suffering M. de Voltaire, be pulled to pieces; or go aloft, like the awakening of Vesuvius, one day,—Vesuvius ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing,' is like saying, 'Though I see into the future but misunderstand its ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... This prophecy was literally fulfilled by the gift of half a million of money for the relief of the poor of London by the late George Peabody, himself a descendant of an ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... to-day. When I heerd you speakin' in court just now, I turned and says to Jim McGubbin, says I, "That there's the voice that'll wake 'em up in Congress." I felt just like the old feller in the Bible. The sperrit of prophecy was on me. And Jim he agreed with me. Jim's got the Shawnee organization right under his thumb, same as—'tween you and me—I've got H——. McGubbin's out and out for Holloway. "Holloway and Reform!" That's our cry this year. I seen ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... prophecy was quite right. In a few days practically all trace of his unfortunate mishap on the Tor had vanished, and there followed not merely one fishing trip, but several, for the artist's chief recreation was ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... it, considering the weakness with which he struggled. Never had I loved him so entirely, or felt such confidence in my future happiness. Yet the moment the name of Richard Clyde was mentioned, it sounded like a prophecy ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... hear, as if they had been a cry, the words repeated to her by many lips—the words uttered by Savonarola when he took leave of those brethren of San Marco who had come to witness his signature of the confession: "Pray for me, for God has withdrawn from me the spirit of prophecy." ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... ruin. Astrologers need not go to heaven to foretell, as they do, GREAT REVOLUTIONS' [this is the speech of the Elizabethan age—'great revolutions'] 'and imminent mutations.' [This is the new kind of learning and prophecy; there was but one source of it open then, that could yield axioms of this kind; for this is the kind that Lord Bacon tells us the head-spring of sciences must be visited for.] 'But conformity is a quality antagonist ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... of the judicial process to gather, comprehend, and weigh the necessary materials for decision whether it is a clear and present danger of substantive evil or a harmless letting off of steam. It is not a prophecy, for the danger in such cases has matured by the time of trial or it was never present. The test applies and had meaning where a conviction is sought to be based on a speech or writing which does not directly or explicitly advocate a crime but to which such tendency is sought to be ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... individual bondage rather than national subjection and tribute. (2.) That the prediction of crime justifies it; at least absolving those whose crimes fulfill it, if not transforming the crimes into virtues. How piously the Pharoahs might have quoted the prophecy "Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and they shall afflict there four hundred years." And then, what saints were those that crucified the Lord of glory! (3.) That the Africans are descended from Canaan. Whereas Africa was peopled from Egypt ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... not stay in Wallencamp long enough to witness with my own eyes the fulfillment of this prophecy, I know that it was abundantly fulfilled—that Lovell soon recovered from the shock incident to his wedding; that under the influence of his wholesome, active wife, and with the weight of greater responsibilities, he grew more ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... help her to understand her temper and herself. I had always thought it cruel of Adelaide, one of the evidences of the flint-like streak which ran through her otherwise generous and upright nature. But its awful prophecy was what affected me most now; for destruction had fallen on something more tender than aught that ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... have a prophecy That now the world is ending, and in fire The globe shall shrivel, and this empire ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... rather leads me to believe that the war will last for at least another year and a half, which is quite in line with Kitchener's prophecy, but where will all these countries be from a financial standpoint at the end of that time? I fancy some of them will have to go into bankruptcy and actually repudiate their debt, and what will become by that time of the high-spirited French, ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... The prophecy was indeed a proof that the Prince could read the future, but the sarcasm of the President, that the remark had been made in a tone of exultation, was belied by every action of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... gout' had in truth a much more disagreeable name. It was now twelve months since his doctor's first warning, directed against the savoury meats and ardent beverages which constituted his diet; Stephen resolved upon a change of habits, but the flesh held him in bondage, and medical prophecy was justified by the event. All through Jubilee Day he suffered acutely; for the rest of the week he remained at home, sometimes sitting in the garden, but generally keeping his room, where he lay on ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... and if credulous mankind likes to draw inferences for good or bad from these unsubstantial creations of his fancy, he laughs to himself with a hollow reverberating sound. It must, however, have been in the true spirit of prophecy on the occasion of King Manfred's birth, that the genius of the Mountain despatched two cloud-forms into the sky (so the unabashed old chroniclers gravely relate), one having the appearance of a warrior armed cap-a-pie, and the other that ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... all likely that a Herr Over-Commander would expedite us with the graciousness that had marked his underlings back along the line of communication. We remarked as much to one another; and it was a true prophecy. A staff officer—a colonel who spoke good English—received us at the door of the villa and examined our papers in the light which streamed over his shoulder from a fine big hallway behind him. In everything, both then and thereafter, ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... separated from Malavika. She had thereupon become a nun and made her way to Agnimitra's court, and had there found Malavika, who had been taken from the robbers by Agnimitra's general and sent as a present to Queen Dharini. She had not divulged the matter sooner, because of a prophecy that Malavika should be a servant for just one year before becoming a king's bride. This recital removes any possible objection to a union of Malavika and Agnimitra. To complete the king's happiness, there comes a letter announcing ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' I am sure that He never refuses to hear when a human being comes trusting to His blood shed on Calvary. Monsieur Laporte was reading from the Epistle of Timothy a prophecy that there should come 'some who shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... names to be known by, and Mrs. Hopkins was much exercised in the matter. Like many New England parents, she had a decided taste for names that were significant and sonorous. That which she had chosen for her oldest child, the young poet, was either a remarkable prophecy, or it had brought with it the endowments it promised. She had lost, or, in her own more pictorial language, she had buried, a daughter to whom she had given the names, at once of cheerful omen ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was a cake that he desired made, a cake for a wedding; and I directly found myself curious to know whose wedding. Even a dull wedding interests me more than other dull events, because it can arouse so much surmise and so much prophecy; but in this wedding I instantly, because of his strange and winning embarrassment, became quite absorbed. How came it he was ordering the cake for it? Blushing like the boy that he was entirely, he spoke in a most engaging voice: "No, not charged; and as you don't know me, ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... when his heart therein rested, And as it was theirs, which therein also trusted. This faith was grounded in Adam's memory, And clearly declared in Abel's innocency. Faith in that promise old Adam did justify, In that promise faith made Eve to prophecy. Faith in that promise proved Abel innocent, In that promise faith made Seth full obedient. That faith taught Enos on God's name first to call, And made Methuselah the oldest man of all. That faith brought Enoch to so high exercise, That God took him up with him into paradise. Of that faith ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... the dawn, all the images of the past, all my misty thoughts, for some reason, blended in me into one distinct, overpowering thought: everything was irrevocably over for Zinaida Fyodorovna and for me. This was as certain a conviction as though the cold blue sky contained a prophecy, but a minute later I was already thinking of ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... he know, either by the spirit of prophecy, or by intuitive penetration, that the majority of mankind would never observe these rules to any great degree, but would be blindly precipitated by their passions into every excess against which he so benevolently cautioned them; should this be a reason for ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day |
