Constantine P. Cavafy: Quotes about God

“The greatest gods of our glorious Greece
appeared before you.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

Julian at the Mysteries http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=166&cat=4
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: The greatest gods of our glorious Greece
appeared before you.
And if they left, don’t think for a minute
that they were frightened by a gesture.

God , Appearance

“The almighty gods ought to have taken the trouble
to create a fourth, a decent man.
I would gladly have gone along with him.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

Source: To Have Taken The Trouble (1930), l. 28
Context: One of the three will want me anyway.
And my conscience is quiet
about my not caring which one I choose:
the three of them are equally bad for Syria. But, a ruined man, it's not my fault.
I'm only trying, poor devil, to make ends meet.
The almighty gods ought to have taken the trouble
to create a fourth, a decent man.
I would gladly have gone along with him.

God

“That we’ve broken their statues,
that we’ve driven them out of their temples,
doesn’t mean at all that the gods are dead.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

Ionic http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=76&cat=1.
Variant translation: Because we have broken up their images,
because we have expelled them from their fanes,
in no wise are they dead for that — the gods.
Land of Ionia, it is you they love
still — you whose memories still delight their souls.
Poems by C. P. Cavafy as translated by John Cavafy (2003) http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=205&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: That we’ve broken their statues,
that we’ve driven them out of their temples,
doesn’t mean at all that the gods are dead.
O land of Ionia, they’re still in love with you,
their souls still keep your memory.

God , Dead

“The holy Cross goes forward; it brings joy and consolation
to every quarter where Christians live;
and these God-fearing people, elated,
stand in their doorways and greet it reverently,
the strength, the salvation of the universe, the Cross.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

A Great Procession of Priests and Laymen http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=87&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

God , People , Fear , Universe

“Nero wasn’t worried at all when he heard
the utterance of the Delphic Oracle:
“Beware the age of seventy-three.”
Plenty of time to enjoy himself still.
He’s thirty. The deadline
the god has given him is quite enough
to cope with future dangers.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

Nero’s Deadline http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=53&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

God , Age , Time , Future

“We for the best will strive. And always more
defective, more perplexing than before,
shall all things fare; until, as in a mist,
we stray bewildered. Then we shall desist.
For in that helpless hour the gods attend.
They always come, the gods. They will descend
from their machines, and straightway liberate
some and as suddenly exterminate
others; and having reformed us, they will go. —
And afterward, one will act so; and so
another; and in time the rest will do
as they needs must. And we shall start anew.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

The Intervention of the Gods http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=235&cat=4
Poems by C. P. Cavafy (2003)

God , Time

“Immoral to a degree — and probably more than a degree —
they certainly were. But they had the satisfaction that their life
was the notorious life of Antioch,
delectably sensual, in absolute good taste. To give up all this, indeed, for what? His hot air about the false gods,
his boring self-advertisement,
his childish fear of the theatre,
his graceless prudery, his ridiculous beard.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

Julian and the Antiochians http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=107&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

Life , God , Fear , Falseness