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Icarus Quotes

Browse 68 quotes about Icarus.

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Icarus Quotes

“A single note, held in an amber suspension of time, like a charcoal drawing of Icarus falling. It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity. It went on and on, until my own lungs were burning. “What bird are you calling?” I asked finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer. The Bird Man stopped whistling. He grinned, so that I could see all his pebbly teeth. “You.”

MenFallMy OwnAliveCallingBirdLonelyNotesDrawingTeethBurningPurityFierceLungsAmberSuspensionWhistlingCharcoalIcarus
Author:Karen Russell
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“It doesn't matter how far you might rise. At some point you are bound to stumble because if you’re constantly doing what we do, raising the bar. If you're constantly pushing yourself higher, higher the law of averages not to mention the Myth of Icarus predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do I want you to know this, remember this: there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.”

IfsKnowsWantTryingMatterMightRememberMovingLawFallHigherBoundsAverageMythPushingI Want YouGraduationPush YourselfIcarusLaw Of Averages
Author:Oprah Winfrey
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“Greek myths are heroic, noble and tragic; but the American Dream is heroic, comical, and uplifting. Americans are a people in whom overweening ambition is rewarded, not punished. The Wright Brothers did not have their wings melt when they flew too high. Perhaps their wings were more soundly built than those of Icarus.”

PeopleDreamBrotherAmbitionBuiltWingsMythNobleUpliftingGreekTragicHeroicAmerican DreamFlewComicalIcarusGreek MythWright Brothers
Author:John C. Wright
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“I have always considered imaginative truth to be more profound, more loaded with significance, than every day reality... Everything we dream about, and by that I mean everything we desire, is true (the myth of Icarus came before aviation, and if Ader or Bleriot started flying it is because all men have dreamed of flight). There is nothing truer than myth... Reality does not have to be: it is simply what is.”

IfsMenMeanDoeDreamRealityDesireProfoundMythFlyingFlightAviationSignificanceImaginativeLoadedIcarus
Author:Eugene Ionesco
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“In the legends that males have invented to explain life, the first human creature is a man named Adam. Eve arrives later, to give him pleasure and cause trouble. In the paintings that adorn churches, God is an old man with a beard, never an old woman with white hair. And all the heroes are males: from Prometheus who discovered fire to Icarus who tried to fly, on down to Jesus whom they call the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit, almost as though the woman giving birth to him were an incubator or a wetnurse.”

MenGivingFirstsHumansSpiritJesusCausesChurchWhitePleasureFireTroublePaintingSonHairBirthHeroHolyCreaturesMalesHoly SpiritOld ManLegendsAdamNurseBeardOld WomanGiving BirthIcarusPrometheusWhite Hair
Author:Oriana Fallaci
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“Nothing is more symptomatic of the enervation, of the decompression of the Western imagination, than our incapacity to respond to the landings on the Moon. Not a single great poem, picture, metaphor has come of this breathtaking act, of Prometheus' rescue of Icarus or of Phaeton in flight towards the stars.”

StarsImaginationMoonWesternMetaphorFlightExplorationRescueApolloSpace ExplorationLandingStar GazingBreathtakingIncapacityIcarusPrometheus
Author:George Steiner
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