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Metamorphoses Quotes

Browse 13 quotes about Metamorphoses.

Metamorphoses Quotes

“There is a place at the centre of the World, between the zones of earth, sea, and sky, at the boundary of the three worlds. From here, whatever exists is seen, however far away, and every voice reaches listening ears. Rumour lives there, choosing a house for herself on a high mountain summit, adding innumerable entrances, a thousand openings, and no doors to bar the threshold. It is open night and day: and is all of sounding bronze. All rustles with noise, echoes voices, and repeats what is heard. There is no peace within: no silence anywhere. Yet there is no clamour, only the subdued murmur of voices, like the waves of the sea, if you hear them far off, or like the sound of distant thunder when Jupiter makes the dark clouds rumble. Crowds fill the hallways: a fickle populace comes and goes, and, mingling truth randomly with fiction, a thousand rumours wander, and confused words circulate. Of these, some fill idle ears with chatter, others carry tales, and the author adds something new to what is heard. Here is Credulity: here is rash Error, empty Delight, and alarming Fear, sudden Sedition, and Murmurings of doubtful origin. Rumour herself sees everything that happens in the heavens, throughout the ocean, and on land, and inquires about everything on earth.”

FameRumorAntiquityOvidMetamorphoses
Book:Metamorfosis VII - XV
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“For it cannot be denied that all over the world and in all ages there are beings who are perceived to be extraordinary, charming, and appealing, and whom many honor as benevolent spirits, because they make one think of a more beautiful, a freer, a more winged life than the one we lead.”

LifeInspirationalBeautifulExtraordinaryFreeHermann HesseHesseMetamorphosesPictor S
Book:Pictor's Metamorphoses and Other Fantasies
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“Nothing persists without changing its outward appearance, for Nature is always engaged in acts of renewal, creating new forms everywhere out of the old ones; nothing in all of the cosmos can perish, believe me, but takes on a different shape; and what we call birth is when something first changes out of its former condition, and what we call death is when its identity ceases; things may perhaps be translated hither and thither; nevertheless, they stay constant in their sum total.”

PhilosophyGreek MythologyOvidMetamorphosesRoman Mythology
Book:Metamorphoses
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“My vessel is launched on the boundless main and my sails are spread to the wind ! In the whole of the world there is nothing that stays unchanged. All is in flux. Any shape that is formed is constantly shifting. Time itself flows steadily by in perpetual motion. Think of a river: no river can ever arrest its current, nor can the fleeting hour. But as water is forced downstream by the water behind it and presses no less on the water ahead, so time is in constant flight and pursuit, continually new. The present turns into the past and the future replaces the present; every moment that passes is new and eternally changing.”

TimeVesselRiverBoundlessFluxOvidMetamorphosesSails
Book:Metamorphoses
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“The shade of Orpheus now fled below, and recognized all he had seen before; and as he searched through the Elysian Fields, he came upon his lost Eurydice, and passionately threw his arms about her; here and now, they walk together, side by side, or now he follows as she goes before, or he precedes, and she goes after him; and now there is no longer any danger when Orpheus looks upon Eurydice.”

OrpheusOvidMetamorphosesOrpheus And EurydiceEurydiceThe UnderworldFields Of Elysium
Book:Metamorphoses
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“We ate the birds. We ate them. We wanted their songs to flow up through our throats and burst out of our mouths, and so we ate them. We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh. We wanted their wings, we wanted to fly as they did, soar freely among the treetops and the clouds, and so we ate them. We speared them, we clubbed them, we tangled their feet in glue, we netted them, we spitted them, we threw them onto hot coals, and all for love, because we loved them. We wanted to be one with them. We wanted to hatch out of clean, smooth, beautiful eggs, as they did, back when we were young and agile and innocent of cause and effect, we did not want the mess of being born, and so we crammed the birds into our gullets, feathers and all, but it was no use, we couldn’t sing, not effortlessly as they do, we can’t fly, not without smoke and metal, and as for the eggs we don’t stand a chance. We’re mired in gravity, we’re earthbound. We’re ankle-deep in blood, and all because we ate the birds, we ate them a long time ago, when we still had the power to say no.”

WishDreamsYouthFlyingBirdsTransformationsMetamorphoses
Author:Margaret Atwood
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