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Orpheus Quotes

Browse 49 quotes about Orpheus.

Orpheus Quotes

“[Hades] returned his attention to the playlist while I eased the car back on the road. His fingers flipped deftly over the screen. 'Orpheus...Dusk...Orpheus...Dusk...do you have anything on here that doesn't make people want to jump off a cliff?' ... 'I'm driving. When you learn to drive something more modern than a horse and buggy, we can listen to your music.' 'I can drive!' 'Did they even have cars the last time you can to the surface?' I teased. 'Yes.' 'Not counting the minute and a half you spent rescuing me last year?' Hades fell silent, and I laughed. 'I didn't think so.”

HumorMythologyDuskOrpheusDaughters Of ZeusJumping Off Cliffs
Author:Kaitlin Bevis
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“There the tree rises. Oh pure surpassing! Oh Orpheus sings! Oh great tree of sound! And all is silent, And from this silence arise New beginnings, intimations, changings. From the stillness animals throng, out of the clear Snapping forest of lair and nest; And thus they are stealthy not from cunning Not from fear But to hear. And in their hearts the howling, the cry, The stag-call seem too little. And where before Was but the rudest shelter to receive these, A refuge fashioned out of darkest longing Entered, tremulo, the doorpost aquiver, - There You have fashioned them a temple for their hearing.”

LoveBeautyMusicOrpheus
Book:Sonnets to Orpheus
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“E tu troverai alla sinistra delle case di Ade una fonte, e accanto a essa un bianco cipresso diritto: a questa fonte non accostarti neppure, da presso. E ne troverai un'altra, fredda acqua che scorre dalla palude di Mnemosine: e davanti stanno i custodi. Di' loro: Sono figlio di Terra e di Cielo stellante, inoltre la mia stirpe è Celeste; e questo sapete anche voi. Sono riarsa di sete e muoio: ma date, subito, fredda acqua che scorre dalla palude di Mnemosine. Ed essi ti lasceranno bere dalla fonte divina, e in seguito tu regnerai assieme agli altri eroi. Di Mnemosine, questo è il sepolcro..." Laminetta trovata a Petelia Oblio e memoria sono i due strumenti del dissetamento. Se si beve dalla corrente dell'oblio si dimentica tutto e si rinasce a una nuova vita, cioè la sete è soltanto ingannata, e l'arsura non tarda a ripresentarsi in una nuova individuazione. Ma se si beve dalla fonte di Mnemosine, come testimoniano queste laminette, la memoria fa recuperare la conoscenza del passato e dell'immutabile, l'uomo riconosce la sua origine divina e si identifica in Dioniso, e l'arsura non viene spenta, ma dissetata, da una gelida, divina, prorompente conoscenza.”

PhilosophyGreek MythologyOrpheus
Book:La sapienza greca, I. Dioniso, Apollo, Eleusi, Orfeo, Museo, Iperborei, Enigma
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“The nymph who laments, guardian of our spring of tears, Dares come only within the compass of praising, of song, - She who watches over the settling of the precipitate, That it be clear, on that same rock That bears the gates and the altars. - See, about her shoulders so tranquil there rises The sensation that she must be the youngest Of those sisters, to be disposed so. Exultation knows, and fierce Desire acknowledges, - Only Lamentation must still learn; with a maiden’s hand She counts out the old sorrows through the night. But suddenly, slantwise and unpractised, She holds aloft a constellation of our voices Against the heavens, left unobscured by her breath.”

MourningDivinityDoorOrpheusNymphDivine Sorrow
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
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“Go not to bed leaving bread and milk behind On the table: these summon the dead. But He, the exorcist, mingles Under the mildness of our eyelids Their spectres amongst all else that we see; And the spells from fumitory of earth smoke and of rue Are as explicit to Him as the clearest logical connection. Nothing can derange for Him the truly formed image, Be it of graves, be it of rooms, Singing of rings, of spangles, of urns.”

SpiritualityExorcismOrpheus
Book:Sonnets to Orpheus
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“It is all about praising. Created to praise, his heart is a winepress destined to break, that makes for us an eternal wine. His voice never chokes with dust when words for the sacred come through. All becomes vineyard. All becomes grape, ripening in the southland of his being. Nothing, not even the rot in royal tombs, or the shadow cast by a god, gives the lie to his praising. He is ever the messenger, venturing far through the doors of the dead, bearing a bowl of fresh-picked fruit.”

PraiseOrpheusPraising
Book:Sonnets to Orpheus
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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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“Tuning must come first. Each recital begins with a careful tightening of the pegs on the cross-bar, twisting them in their socket of red threads as each string is plucked and tested. He uses his thumb for this, softer and subtler than the plectrum, his head bent to the vibrating string and his lips slightly open, breathing quickly, as over the body of a lover.”

MusicLoverResonanceTuningOrpheusTuneStringStringed Instrument
Book:Orpheus: The Song of Life
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“At the last minute, he broke the rule and he looked. He was so rapt in his view of the light at the end of the tunnel, he got excited, tuned up, he got crazy nervous and for a second he wavered in his confidence and he looked! To confirm or affirm or just firm up,’ students laughing ‘his manly love for her and in that motion of divine stupidity, he killed her dead forever with a glance. Hades ripped her back into his den and that was, proverbially, that.’ A girl across from me says bitterly, ‘No second, second chance for Orpheus.’ ‘He was fucked,’ D continues, nodding. ‘Not because the gods were heartless, but because he fucked up. The guilt of that. Can you imagine? Spent the rest of his pathetic days wallowing, lamenting, composing (or was it decomposing?) heartbreaking tunes upon his lyre, dissolving in grief and music and art, never being the least bit happy or lovable. The saddest sap of all. How do we tell a story like that without being sappy? Oh woe! How do we shape into lines our most harrowing mistakes and losses without drenching them in sticky poetic sap?”

PoetryGriefMusicRegretMythologyMistakesCreative WritingHadesNo Turning BackOrpheus
Book:The Look of Amie Martine
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“Had we had all the money in the world to spend and we were doing another studio movie, we probably would have jumped quickly into the Necromonger universe and done an Orpheus Descending movie there. We didn't have that kind of resource. So, we said, this time, "If not that, this time, then what is it? What does this new movie look like?" Quickly, just in talking about it very simply with Vin [Diesel] in his kitchen, we decided on a survival, left-for-dead story, where Riddick could, as a character, reclaim the animal side.”

IfsWorldLooksKindDoeSaidDoneCharacterStoriesUniverseLeftSidesAnimalTalkingSurvivalResourcesDecidedStudiosKitchenDescendingDieselOrpheus
Author:David Twohy
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“Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot; Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit, Where long ago a giant battle was; And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass In every place where infant Orpheus slept. Feel we these things? - that moment have we stept Into a sort of oneness, and our state Is like a floating spirit's. But there are Richer entanglements, enthralments far More self-destroying, leading, by degrees, To the chief intensity: the crown of these Is made of love and friendship, and sits high Upon the forehead of humanity.”

LifeFeelsLongMadeSelfStatesMomentsSpiritHumanityFeetBattleDegreesRoundsGhostSpotsOnenessChiefsAwakeGiantsThat MomentIntensityDestroyingCrownsLong AgoFloatingInfantApolloForeheadsLove And FriendshipBronzeLullabyRaveTurfEntanglementOrpheus
Author:John Keats
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“Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below. Music can noble hints impart, Engender fury, kindle love; 40 With unsuspected eloquence can move, And manage all the man with secret art. When Orpheus strikes the trembling lyre The streams stand still, the stones admire; The listening savages advance, The world and lamb around him trip The bears in aukward measures leap, And tigers mingle in the dance The moving woods attended as he played And Rhodope was left without a shade.”

KnowsMenWorldArtStillsMovingLeftHeavenSecretMusicHe ManListeningBearsStonesWoodsNobleStrikesAdmireManageMortalsStreamsLeapShadeSavagesTigersFuryHintsEloquenceLambsTremblingImpartKindlesOrpheus
Author:Joseph Addison
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“Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing; To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.”

HeartArtMadePlayCareDiesFallGriefSunHeardTreeSeaSweetFlowerMountainMusic IsSpringLaysPlantKillingHearingLastingBowsHungShowersFreezeSprungMountain TopOrpheusSweet MusicPlants And Flowers
Author:William Shakespeare
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“How infinitely happier and more grateful is the whole personality or spirit when it finds something nourishing in art or writing or thinking, than the mere mind or intellect is: the kinship you celebrate in these personalities is your own dismembered Orpheus stumbling across another fine organ to rejoin to itself. I put it this way: aristic psyche loves itself enough to chasten itself, to put itself through boot camp for the sake of being competent for life, alive to life.”

ThinkingWayLifeWritingMindArtEnoughWholeSpiritAliveFinePersonalityGratefulMereSakeIntellectCelebrateCampsBootsOrgansCompetentStumblingKinshipOrpheusBoot Camp
Author:Kenny Smith
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“And I think that it is certainly possible that the objective universe can be affected by the poet. I mean, you recall Orpheus made the trees and the stones dance and so forth, and this is something which is in almost all primitive cultures. I think it has some definite basis to it. I'm not sure what. It's like telekinesis, which I know very well on a pinball machine is perfectly possible.”

ThinkingKnowsWellsMeanMadeCultureUniverseTreePoetStonesMachinesBasesObjectivesNot SureAffectedPrimitiveRecallsDefiniteOrpheusPinball
Book:The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer
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