Quotes About Portents

from those humble beginnings we learned to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favors the paranoid.

And from those humble beginnings we learned to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favors the paranoid.

And from those humble beginnings we learned to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favors the paranoid. Even

I want limits, damn it. I'll accept omens and portents and second sight. I'll accept giant black hounds and creepy ravens and magpies. I'm still working out the fae and Wild Hunt thing. But I draw the line at people disappearing into thin air.

How the vulgar loved portents, prodigies and the untoward. Only the religious knew how embarrassing they could be - and quite beside the point.

We may be undermined by our survival instincts, honed over eons to help us deny, defy, or ignore catastrophic portents lest they paralyze us with fright.

And yet I fear you; for you are fatal then, When your eyes roll so. Alas! why gnaw you so your nether lip? Some bloody passion shakes your very frame: These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope, They do not point on me." Shakspeare.

There is, to be sure, sometimes only a small difference between being alert to possible danger and allowing oneself to become terrified to the point of paralysis by seeming or imagined portents.

The cloud-mottled night seemed full of signs and portents, as if fate itself was warning me to go or daring me to stay.

Here its stock-in-trade was ironies, coincidences, and the only true portents: those that revealed themselves, unmistakable and impossible to ignore, in retrospect.

They say that eclipses are portents of disaster, because disasters are so common, and misfortune occurs often enough for these forecasts to be right, whereas if they said that eclipses were portents of good fortune they would often be wrong.

By a curious coincidence, as each point was recalled, the black wizards of Ashantee would strike up with their hatchets, as in ominous comment on the white stranger's thoughts. Pressed by such enigmas and portents, it would have been almost against nature, had not, even into the least distrustful heart, some ugly misgivings obtruded.

only while under the dominion of fear do men fall a prey to superstition; that all the portents ever invested with the reverence of misguided religion are mere phantoms of dejected and fearful minds; and lastly, that prophets have most power among the people, and are most formidable to rulers, precisely at those times when the state is in most peril. I think this is sufficiently plain to all, and will therefore say no more on the subject.

There can be no doubt that the cult of death and the insistence upon portents of the end proceed from surreptitious desire to see it happen, and to put an end to the anxiety and doubt that always threaten the hold of faith.

So it is best for you to withdraw into the world of your portents, for there at least you can decide yourself how portentous they are.

He knew that again now. Hennessey's death had opened to Croft vistas of such omnipotence that he was afraid to consider it directly. All day the fact hovered about his head, tantalizing him with odd dreams and portents of power.

When I write, I wait for the sudden appearance of signs and portents in the air, always on the lookout for secret messages encoded in graffiti or heralds disguised as strangers in the club cars of trains. A bright encounter with twins, a brother and sister, on a morning flight to Rome changed the entire configuration of the Wingo family in The Prince of Tides.

They say that in the hour before an earthquake the clouds hang leaden in the sky, the winds slows to a hot breath, and the birds fall quiet in the trees of the town square. Yes but these are the same portents that precede lunchtime, frankly.

Done Amid fear and suspicion, with startled minds and frightened eyes, we pine and scheme over what steps to take to avoid the certain danger that threatens us so horribly. Yet we are wrong. This was not the danger in store; the portents were false (or we never heard them, or failed to construe them properly). It's some other disaster, precipitous, violent, one we hadn't imagined, that suddenly takes us unawares, and – there's no time now – overcomes us.

He gave me no sign. I was never the sort to receive portents, or to delude myself that I had. Silence was always my portion, in return for my prayers.

I had long ago learned to ignore things I could not resolve. Whenever I was faced with such choices, something always occured to tip the scales one way or another and relieve me of the decision. I watched the skies for portents from the Gods.

Certain signs precede certain events.