Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Prophecy
Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!
The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,
And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
Byron—Bride of Abydos. Canto II. St. 20.
Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast;
Is that portentous phrase, “I told you so.”
Byron—Don Juan. Canto XIV. St. 50.
The prophet’s mantle, ere his flight began,
Dropt on the world—a sacred gift to man.
Campbell—Pleasures of Hope. Pt. I. L. 43.
Bene qui conjiciet, vatem hunc perhibebo optimum.
I shall always consider the beet guesser the best prophet.
Cicero—De Divinatione. II. 5. (Greek adage.)
Ancestral voices prophesying war.
Coleridge—Kubla Khan.
We know in part, and we prophesy in part.
I Corinthians. XIII. 9.
From hence, no question, has sprung an observation … confirmed now into a settled opinion, that some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging, arrive to the height of prophetic spirits.
Erasmus—Praise of Folly. (Old translation.)
Thy voice sounds like a prophet’s word;
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Fitz-Greene Halleck—Marco Bozzaris.
Prophet of evil! never hadst thou yet
A cheerful word for me. To mark the signs
Of coming mischief is thy great delight,
Good dost thou ne’er foretell nor bring to pass.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. I. L. 138. Bryant’s trans.
A tunnel underneath the sea from Calais straight to Dover, Sir,
The squeamish folks may cross by land from shore to shore,
With sluices made to drown the French, if e’er they would come over, Sir,
Has long been talk’d of, till at length ’tis thought a monstrous bore.
Theodore Hook—Bubbles of 1825. In John Bull, 1825.
This solemn moment of triumph, one of the greatest moments in the history of the world … this great hour which rings in a new era … and which is going to lift up humanity to a higher plane of existence for all the ages of the future.
David Lloyd George. Speech at Guildhall after the signing of the Armistice, Nov. 11, 1918.
My gran’ther’s rule was safer ’n ’t is to crow:
Don’t never prophesy—onless ye know.
Lowell—Biglow Papers. No. 2. Mason and Slidell.
It takes a mind like Dannel’s, fact, ez big ez all ou’doors
To find out thet it looks like rain arter it fairly pours.
Lowell—Biglow Papers. No. 9. L. 97.
A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and in his own house.
Matthew. XIII. 57.
No mighty trance, or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
Milton—Hymn on Christ’s Nativity. L. 173.
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
Milton—Il Penseroso. L. 173.
Is Saul also among the prophets?
I Samuel. X. 11.
O my prophetic soul!
My uncle!
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. L. 40.
There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceas’d,
The which observed, a man may prophesy
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 80.
Prognostics do not always prove prophecies, at least the wisest prophets make sure of the event first.
Horace Walpole—Letter to Thos. Walpole. Feb. 9, 1785.
Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
Zechariah. I. 5.