“Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts:
Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured
Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed
By hymns of praise. From him alone of all
The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.”

—  Aeschylus

Fragment 146 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts: Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured Avails; no altars hath he,…" by Aeschylus?
Aeschylus photo
Aeschylus 119
ancient Athenian playwright -525–-456 BC

Related quotes

Robert Southwell photo

“Not Solomon, for all his wit,
Nor Samson, though he were so strong,
No king nor person ever yet
Could 'scape, but Death laid him along.”

Robert Southwell (1561–1595) English Jesuit

Source: Upon the Image of Death, Line 37; p. 137.

Edna St. Vincent Millay photo

“Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Sonnet XXX from Fatal Interview (1931)
Context: Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

Juvenal photo
Julian of Norwich photo

“For I saw full surely that where our Lord appeareth, peace is taken and wrath hath no place. For I saw no manner of wrath in God, neither for short time nor for long; — for in sooth, as to my sight, if God might be wroth for an instant, we should never have life nor place nor being.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 49
Context: This was an high marvel to the soul which was continually shewed in all the Revelations, and was with great diligence beholden, that our Lord God, anent Himself may not forgive, for He may not be wroth: it were impossible. For this was shewed: that our life is all grounded and rooted in love, and without love we may not live; and therefore to the soul that of His special grace seeth so far into the high, marvellous Goodness of God, and seeth that we are endlessly oned to Him in love, it is the most impossible that may be, that God should be wroth. For wrath and friendship be two contraries. For He that wasteth and destroyeth our wrath and maketh us meek and mild, — it behoveth needs to be that He be ever one in love, meek and mild: which is contrary to wrath.
For I saw full surely that where our Lord appeareth, peace is taken and wrath hath no place. For I saw no manner of wrath in God, neither for short time nor for long; — for in sooth, as to my sight, if God might be wroth for an instant, we should never have life nor place nor being. For as verily as we have our being of the endless Might of God and of the endless Wisdom and of the endless Goodness, so verily we have our keeping in the endless Might of God, in the endless Wisdom, and in the endless Goodness. For though we feel in ourselves, wretches, debates and strifes, yet are we all-mannerful enclosed in the mildness of God and in His meekness, in His benignity and in His graciousness. For I saw full surely that all our endless friendship, our place, our life and our being, is in God.

George Gordon Byron photo
Sara Teasdale photo

“Make songs for Death as you would sing to Love —
But you will not assuage him. He alone
Of all the gods will take no gifts from men.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"Erinna"
Helen of Troy and Other Poems (1911)

William Laud photo

“[T]he King is God's immediate lieutenant upon earth; and therefore one and the same action is God's by ordinance, and the King's by execution. And the power which resides in the King is not any assuming to himself, nor any gift from the people, but God's power, as well in, as over, him.”

William Laud (1573–1645) Archbishop of Canterbury

Source: Sermon at Whitehall (19 June 1625), quoted in The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Volume I: Sermons (1847), p. 94

Joseph Conrad photo

“He feared neither God, nor devil, nor man, nor wind, nor sea, nor his own conscience. And I believe he hated everybody and everything. But I think he was afraid to die. I believe I am the only man who ever stood up to him.”

Referring to Mr. Burns. Compare to Heart of Darkness' manager: "He was becoming confidential now, but I fancy my unresponsive attitude must have exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to inform me he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man. I said I could see that very well..."
The Shadow Line (1915)

William Julius Mickle photo

Related topics