Ancient Quotes
  
  
  
	
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		A lot of people they don’t know that Africans even named the stars, that different peoples, different so-called native peoples, have their own names for the stars, and have star charts just as accurate as the Chinese star charts, which are more ancient than the European star charts or even the Arabic ones or the star charts of the New World civilizations. Everybody’s got their own cosmology. Everybody’s got their own description of the universe.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Gayl Jones
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Edgar Allan Poe
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		I suppose I felt doomed to be an artist early on because of the way I drew all over the books that I needed for school, from ancient history to math. I was more interested in drawing in the margins than actually doing the work.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Nancy Spero
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		How have you left the ancient love That bards of old enjoyed in you! The languid strings do scarcely move! The sound is forced, the notes are few!
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				William Blake
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		It was by music that the ancient kings gave elegant expression to their joy. By their armies and axes they gave the same to their anger.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Confucius
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		It's an ancient and honorable term for the final step in any engineering project. Turn it on, see if it smokes.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Lois McMaster
			
		
	
	
  
	 
	
		
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		And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Nicholas Sparks
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		The rich nations of the world are acting like ancient usurers, lending money to the desperate poor on terms that cannot possibly be met and, thus, steadily acquiring more and more control over the lives and assets of the poor.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				William Greider
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain- beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				William Butler Yeats
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		While it may be impossible to 'disprove' the existence of some 'Higher Power' or abstract Creator, it is entirely possible — through analysis and research — to find discrepancies within the ancient, organized religious traditions that support the idea of a specific God.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				David G. McAfee
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Blaise Pascal
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		In ancient times there was no public education, except that of the forum, the theater, and the street, and the general degree of illiteracy was very high. The early men of science were left very much to themselves and such a phrase as "the scientific culture of Alexandria in the third century B.C." does not cover any reality. In a sense, this is still true today; the real pioneers are so far ahead of the crowd (even a very literate crowd) that they remain almost alone.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				George Sarton
			
		
	
	
  
	 
	
		
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		There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Sophocles
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		A very ancient and fish-like smell.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				William Shakespeare
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		Our culture is obsessed with youth because we have lost the ancient knowledge that growth never stops. We are not transient, momentary mistakes in 
the cosmos- evolutionary curiosities that rise like mayflies, swarm for a day, and are gone. We are players who are here to stay, and the universe was built with us in mind. We reflect it, with our deepest loves and loftiest aspirations, just as it reflects us.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Eben Alexander
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		The words 'theory' and 'practice' are of Greek origin; they carry our thoughts back to the ancient philosophers by whom they were contrived, and by whom they were also contrasted and placed in opposition, as denoting two mutually conflicting and mutually inconsistent ideas. ... [this fallacy] based on a double system of natural laws retarded for centuries the development of physical science, notably mechanics.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				William John Macquorn Rankine
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		Hold on to the ancient Way to master the present, and to learn the distant beginning.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Lao Tzu
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		The art of beautiful motion is far and away the oldest. Before man learned how to use any instruments at all, he moved the most perfect instrument of all, his body. He did this with such abandon that the cultural history of prehistoric and ancient man is, for the most part, nothing but the history of the dance.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Gerard van der Leeuw
			
		
	
	
  
	 
	
		
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		Polygamy has an ancient history and is legal in many parts of the world. I find the rules of polygamy to be damaging and it's potentially dangerous to young girls and terrible for "excess" boys. But polyamory is supposed to be a more equal arrangement among agreeing adults.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Emily Yoffe
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		It is a sure criterion of the civilisation of ancient Egypt that the soldiers did not carry arms except on duty, and that the private citizens did not carry them at all.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				William Winwood Reade
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		In order to prove a friend to one's guests, frugality must reign in one's meals; and, according to an ancient saying, one must eat to live, not live to eat.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Moliere
			
		
	
	
  
	 
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		It is a true observation of ancient writers, that as men are apt to be cast down by adversity, so they, are easily satiated with prosperity, and that joy and grief produce the same effects. For whenever men are not obliged by necessity to fight they fight from ambition, which is so powerful a passion in the human breast that however high we reach we are never satisfied.
	
	
	
		
			
				
					
						
					
				
				Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli