“For already, sometime, I have been a boy and a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a silent fish in the sea.”

— Empedocles

fr. 117
Variant translations:
Once on a time a youth was I, and I was a maiden/A bush, a bird, and a fish with scales that gleam in the ocean.
tr. Jane Ellen Harrison
Purifications
Source: Harrison, Jane Ellen. (1903). Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Princeton University Press. p. 590.

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 "For already, sometime, I have been a boy and a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a silent fish in the sea." by Empedocles?

Empedocles18

ancient Greek philosopher -490–-430 BC

Related quotes

“Joy to the world
All the boys and girls, now,
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me”

Hoyt Axton (1938–1999) American country singer

Joy to the World
Joy To The World (1971)

“The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing, But Man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

43
Stray Birds (1916)

“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)
Context: There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Source: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems

“A lad changed to a shrub in spring,
the shrub into a shepherd boy,
A fine hair to a lyre string,
snow into snow on hair piled high.”

Jaroslav Seifert (1901–1986) Czechoslovak poet, Nobel prize laureate

Transformations translated by Edward Osers
An Apple from your Lap (1933)

“Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to Bernard Berenson (13 September 1952); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

“Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it… it says "Chicken… by the Sea."”

Jessica Simpson (1980) American singer-songwriter and actress

While eating "Chicken of the Sea" canned tuna
Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica, "Newlyweds Clean House" [1.01], 19 August 2003

“If I were an animal, I would be a fish or a bird. It's the peace and beauty of ocean, the silent language of it. It seems like a womb, protective. The sky too. I love all colors, but blue mainly, because it's transparent like the water and the sky.”

Nastassja Kinski (1961) German actress

As quoted in Denise Worrell (1989), Icons: Intimate Portraits.

“She says “Do I know you?” I say “Well, no, not biblically,
But I've been waiting for you to come and talk to me.
I have been playing too many of those boy-girl games.”
She says, “Honey, you are safe here. This is a girl-girl thing.””

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

If It Isn't Her
Song lyrics

“Now that man can fly through the air like a bird … and swim in the sea like a fish, wouldn't it be wonderful if he could just walk the earth like a man?”

Jack Paar (1918–2004) American author, radio and television comedian and talk show host

My Saber is Bent http://books.google.com/books?id=MO-mqER9TrsC&q=%22Now+that+man+can+fly+through+the+air+like+a+bird%22+%22and+swim+in+the+sea+like+a+fish+wouldn't+it+be+wonderful+if+he+could+just+walk+the+earth+like+a+man%22&pg=PA79#v=onepage (1961)

“For already, sometime, I have been a boy and a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a silent fish in the sea.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Empedocles18

Related quotes

Related topics