“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.”
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.
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Constantine P. Cavafy 62
Greek poet 1863–1933Related quotes
“We’ve met, and it wasn’t the highlight of my being dead.”
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1960s, Keep Moving From This Mountain (1965)
Source: Short fiction, Thomas the Proclaimer (1972), Chapter 11, “The March to the Sea” (p. 110)
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us, for he has allowed us to see where we’ve been blind. He has given us the chance, where we’ve been lost, to find our best selves. We may not have earned it, this grace, with our rancor and complacency, and short-sightedness and fear of each other -- but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He’s once more given us grace. But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.
Source: The Lathe of Heaven (1971), Chapter 10 (Orr)