Quotes About Ancient

Sicily: A Short History from the Ancient Greeks to Cosa Nostra by John Julius Norwich

His own voice was older than he was. Ancient, unearthed from some mystical subterranean place...The voice seemed to make his whole body ache. Maybe it made him bleed inside. I wondered if it hurt, if it burned in his throat.

We have assumed that ancient houses were built like those of today – as weatherproof boxes for living in and raising families. So we have been very anxious to work out where people ate, slept and prepared their meals. It's all about what happened where – and we have discovered a great deal. But revealing where people slept or prepared their food makes little sense if we don't also try to appreciate what it was that motivated them to get out of bed every morning.

No,' I replied. 'You've got it wrong. He was a great prehistorian because he lived his own life to the full. Yes, prehistory is about facts and information, but it's mostly about people and you will never be able to understand the challenges faced by ancient communities if you've led a sheltered life yourself.

Nearly all of the atoms in your body were once cooked in the nuclear furnace of an ancient supernova—you are truly made of stardust.

Black is a blind remembering, she thought. You listen for pack sounds, for the cries of those who hunted your ancestors in a past so ancient only your most primitive cells remember. The ears see. The nostrils see.

They learned early that sharing secret or private names was an ancient device for ensnaring a person in affections.

We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function.

Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe.

Love leads to misery. Love is a very ancient force, which served its purpose in its day but no longer is essential for the survival of the species. Remember that woman's mistake, the pain.

the target dummy beside it patched and padded, looking like an ancient foot soldier maimed and battered in the wars. There stand I, Hawat thought.

They were doors large enough to have admitted an entire cathedral from one of the ancient religions. Passing through them was said to reduce a pilgrim's soul to motedom, sufficiently small that it could pass through the eye of a needle and enter heaven.

Key log: a truly ancient concept from the days before suspensors when lumbermen sent their fallen timber rushing down rivers to central mill sites. Sometimes the logs jammed up in the river and an expert was brought in to find the one log, the key log, which would free the jam when removed.

out of prayers older than Adam

It more or less has the shape of a love song, but 'Crescent Moon' reflects more my longing for an ancient romantic context that includes wild animals, fire, danger of death, stellar navigation, and seasonal intuition.

While the willingness of the ancient Greeks to sacrifice their lives for glory brings tears to my eyes, I cannot ultimately condone the choice of Achilles.

Most people think of solar and wind as new energy sources. In fact, they are two of our oldest.

It was the noise Of ancient trees falling while all was still Before the storm, in the long interval Between the gathering clouds and that light breeze Which Germans call the Wind's bride.

The Galapagos Islands provide a window on time. In a geologic sense, the islands are young, yet they appear ancient.

I was in Peru and visited a building near Lima built by the Incas. It was low in height, with no windows at all, but all the way in the back there was air movement. And I couldn't figure out how they'd done it; it was incredible.

Because we can't escape our ancient hunger to live close to nature, we encircle the house with lawns and gardens, install picture windows, adopt pets and Boston ferns, and scent everything that touches our lives.

There is nothing in the world like the extraordinary Shiraz and Grenache wines from South Australia. While the most sought-after are undeniably expensive (they're made in tiny quantities from ancient vines), they are huge, rich and concentrated, and represent some of planet Earth's most compelling wines.

Just as a fossil is 'petrified time,' so is an ancient artifact or text.

Anything based on ancient texts is difficult for a modern reader to get their head around.