Quotes about ghost page 5
Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer
Low Barometer http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2934.html, st. 2 (1926). <br class="br">Poetry
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)
Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge (1803–1874) Dutch minister
Source: Sermons on the First Epistle of Peter (1855), p. 11 (quote from James 1:27)
Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
"To Be Alone with You"
Lyrics, Seven Swans (2004)
Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist
Ghost Hunters. October 31, 2006.
In reference to Samoa Joe
Ghost Hunters
“Almost every reality you "know" at any given second is a mere ghost held in memory.”
Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author
Source: Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), Ch.8 Reality is a Shared Hallucination
Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena
Vol. 2, Ch. 22, § 261
Variant translations:
Reading is thinking with some one else's head instead of one's own.
As translated by T. Bailey Saunders
Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims
Manu Chao (1961) French Spanish singer, guitarist and record producer
Me llaman el desaparecido<br>Que cuando llega ya se ha ido<br>Volando vengo, volando voy<br>Deprisa, deprisa a rumbo perdido<br>Cuando me buscan nunca estoy<br>Cuando me encuentran yo no soy<br>El que está enfrente porque ya<br>Me fui corriendo más allá<br><br>Me dicen el desaparecido<br>Fantasma que nunca está<br>Me dicen el desagradecido<br>Pero esa no es la verdad<br>Yo llevo en el cuerpo un dolor<br>Que no me deja respirar<br>Llevo en el cuerpo una condena<br>Que siempre me echa a caminar <br class="br"> Desaparecido https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qew9cYR3t0g. <br class="br">Clandestino (1998)
Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter
"The Ghost of Tom Joad"
Song lyrics, The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Bayard Taylor (1825–1878) United States poet, novelist and travel writer
The Guests of Night (1871), st. 3 - 4, in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 314.
Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church
History of the Church, 6:476 (7 April 1844)
1840s, King Follett discourse (1844)
Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet
May, 1916
India's Rebirth
Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist
Approaching Timewave Zero Magical Blend Magazine (November 1994) http://www.mindroots.com/universe/timewavezero.htm
Wú Chéng'ēn (1500–1582) Chinese writer
Preface to a collection of short stories about monsters, now lost, as quoted in Arthur Waley's introduction to the American edition of Monkey (New York: Grove Press, 1943)
Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist
Source: "Quotes", Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), p. 70
Alec Douglas-Home (1903–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Michael Cockerell, "Live from Number 10", p. 105.
A story told by Douglas-Home about going on television in the 1964 election.
Attributed
Gianni Sarcone (1962) Italian author, artist, designer, and researcher in visual perception and cognitive psychology
Tangente Magazine (2013).
“In my creed, waste of public money is like the sin against the Holy Ghost.”
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor
Vol. II, bk. 5, ch. 3.
Recollections (1917)
Mordecai Richler (1931–2001) Canadian author, screenwriter and essayist
Reported in Donald Smith, D'une nation à l'autre: des deux solitudes à la cohabitation (Montreal: Éditions Alain Stanké, 1997), p. 61.
Other
Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches
Letter, May 22nd, ibid, p.279
Jon Courtenay Grimwood (1953) British writer
Source: Stamping Butterflies (2004), Chapter 37 (p. 237)
Gene Wolfe book Gene Wolfe's Book of Days
"Forlesen", Orbit 14 (1974), ed. Damon Knight, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Gene Wolfe's Book of Days (1981), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction
John Knox (1514–1572) Scottish clergyman, writer and historian
The First Blast to Awaken Women Degenerate
John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter
Queen of California
Song lyrics, Born and Raised (2012)
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
(17th July 1824) Poetic Sketches - 5th Series. Sketch the First. - Fidelity
The London Literary Gazette, 1824
Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast
"12th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc Youtube (April 19, 2008) <br class="br">Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism
Chế Lan Viên (1920–1989) Vietnamese writer
"Creation", as quoted in "Shattered Identities and Contested Images: Reflections of Poetry and History in 20th-Century Vietnam" by Neil Jamieson, in Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1992, p. 89, and in Understanding Vietnam by Neil Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), ISBN 978-0520916586, p. 164
George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876–1962) Historian
"Autobiography of an Historian", An Autobiography and Other Essays (1949).
“I have broken the machine and touched the ghost of matter.”
Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist
As quoted by Richard Reeves, A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2008) citing Ernest Rutherford Atom Man http://www.nzedge.com/ernest-rutherford/
Matthew Lewis (writer) (1775–1818) English novelist and dramatist
Walter Scott, manuscript note written in 1825; cited from J. G. Lockhart The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1896) p. 81 col. 2.
Criticism
Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter
In Tiger’s Eye, Vol. 1, no 9, October 1949; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 170
1940's
Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist
How ISIS is winning: The long reach of terror http://nypost.com/2015/02/05/how-isis-is-winning-the-long-reach-of-terror/, New York Post (February 5, 2015). <br class="br">New York Post
Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
Emily St. John Mandel book Station Eleven
“Look, it’s not a question of having been bad or...the people in there, in the Air Gradia jet, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Source: Station Eleven (2014), Chapter 44 (pp. 259-260)
“There is something beyond the grave; death does not end all, and the pale ghost escapes from the vanquished pyre.”
Sunt aliquid Manes: letum non omnia finit,
Luridaque evictos effugit umbra rogos.
Propertius (-47–-16 BC) Latin elegiac poet
IV, vii, 1.
Elegies
Grant Morrison (1960) writer
On life <br class="br">Context: Otherwise, I know I’m often wasting my breath and electronic ink saying this, but the “real-world” is a pretty weird place where lots of inexplicable things happen all the time, and I like to catch the flavor of that too. It just seems more modern and authentic to me as a storyteller. The “real world” doesn’t come with the neat three-act structures and resolutions we love to impose on it, and if repeated doses of movie and TV-storytelling have convinced anyone that it does, it‘s time to get out and about a bit. The real world is filled with ghost stories, non sequiturs, inexplicable mysteries, dead ends and absurdities, and I think it’s cool to season our comfortable fictions with at least a little taste of what actual reality is like. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/060904-Grant-Batman.html
Dan Aykroyd (1952) Canadian film actor
To his interviewer in "I'm still haunted by Belushi" by Sean O'Hagan in The Observer (28 September 2003) http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/sep/28/features.review <br class="br">Context: You're from the isle of ghosts and, as you know, there are ghosts walking around all over the place over there. Loads of people have seen them, heard a voice or felt the cold temperature. I believe that they are between here and there, that they exist between the fourth and the fifth dimension and that they visit us frequently.
“Yin people is the term Kwan uses, because "ghosts" is politically incorrect.”
Amy Tan (1952) American novelist
SALON Interview (1995)
Context: I've long thought about how life is influenced by death, how it influences what you believe in and what you look for. Yes, I think I was pushed in a way to write this book by certain spirits — the yin people — in my life. They've always been there, I wouldn't say to help, but to kick me in the ass to write.... Yin people is the term Kwan uses, because "ghosts" is politically incorrect. People have such terrible assumptions about ghosts — you know, phantoms that haunt you, that make you scared, that turn the house upside down. Yin people are not in our living presence but are around, and kind of guide you to insights. Like in Las Vegas when the bells go off, telling you you've hit the jackpot. Yin people ring the bells, saying, "Pay attention." And you say, "Oh, I see now." Yet I'm a fairly skeptical person. I'm educated, I'm reasonably sane, and I know that this subject is fodder for ridicule.... To write the book, I had to put that aside. As with any book. I go through the anxiety, "What will people think of me for writing something like this?" But ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of life continuing beyond our ordinary senses.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)
Context: This gentlemen hated to contribute a cent to the support of a “materialistic demon.” When I saw that statement I will tell you what I did. I knew the man’s conscience must be writhing in his bosom to think that he had contributed a dollar toward my support, toward the support of a “materialistic demon.” I wrote him a letter and I said: “My Dear Sir: In order to relieve your conscience of the crime of having contributed to the support of an unbeliever in ghosts, I hereby enclose the amount you paid to attend my lecture.” I then gave him a little good advice. I advised him to be charitable, to be kind, and regretted exceedingly that any man could listen to one of my talks for an hour and a half and not go away satisfied that all men had the same right to think. This man denied having received the money, but it was traced to him through a blot on the envelope.
“Ye realms, yet unrevealed to human sight,
Ye gods who rule the regions of the night,
Ye gliding ghosts, permit me to relate
The mystic wonders of your silent state!”
Di, quibus imperium est animarum, umbraeque silentes,
Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte tacentia late,
Sit mihi fas audita loqui: sit numine vestro
Pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book VI, Lines 264–267 (tr. John Dryden)
Joel Barlow (1754–1812) American diplomat
The Conspiracy of Kings (1792)
Context: Once draw the sword; its burning point shall bring
To thy quick nerves a never-ending sting;
The blood they shed thy weight of wo shall swell,
And their grim ghosts for ever with thee dwell. Learn hence, ye tyrants, ere ye learn too late,
Of all your craft th' inevitable fate.
The hour is come, the world's unclosing eyes
Discern with rapture where its wisdom lies;
From western heav'ns th' inverted Orient springs,
The morn of man, the dreadful night of kings.
Dim, like the day-struck owl, ye grope in light,
No arm for combat, no resource in sight;
If on your guards your lingering hopes repose,
Your guards are men, and men you've made your foes;
If to your rocky ramparts ye repair,
De Launay's fate can tell your fortune there.
No turn, no shift, no courtly arts avail,
Each mask is broken, all illusions fail;
Driv'n to your last retreat of shame and fear,
One counsel waits you, one relief is near :
By worth internal, rise to self-wrought fame,
Your equal rank, your human kindred claim;
'Tis Reason's choice, 'tis Wisdom's final plan,
To drop the monarch and assume the man.
“Let him move as the sunlight moves on the floor,
Or moonlight, silently, as Plato's ghost”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet
"Less and Less Human, O Savage Spirit"
Transport to Summer (1947)
Context: p> If there must be a god in the house, must be,
Saying things in the room and on the stair,Let him move as the sunlight moves on the floor,
Or moonlight, silently, as Plato's ghostOr Aristotle's skeleton. Let him hang out
His stars on the wall. He must dwell quietly.He must be incapable of speaking, closed,
As those are: as light, for all its motion, is;As color, even the closest to us, is;
As shapes, though they portend us, are.It is the human that is the alien,
The human that has no cousin in the moon.It is the human that demands his speech
From beasts or from the incommunicable mass.If there must be a god in the house, let him be one
That will not hear us when we speak: a coolnessA vermillioned nothingness, any stick of the mass
Of which we are too distantly a part.</p
“Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave
Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot”
Bk. I, l. 789
Endymion (1818)
Context: Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave
Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot;
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
Where long ago a giant battle was;
And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass
In every place where infant Orpheus slept.
Feel we these things? — that moment have we stept
Into a sort of oneness, and our state
Is like a floating spirit's. But there are
Richer entanglements, enthralments far
More self-destroying, leading, by degrees,
To the chief intensity: the crown of these
Is made of love and friendship, and sits high
Upon the forehead of humanity.
“This shows the lengths that hard science will go to to banish the ghost from the machine.”
Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books
De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: B. F. Skinner actually put forward – and this is a measure of scientific desperation over consciousness – the idea that consciousness was a weird vibrational by-product of the vocal cords. That we did not actually think. We thought we thought because of this weird vibration caused by the vocal cords. This shows the lengths that hard science will go to to banish the ghost from the machine.
R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) American writer
Source: Archipelago (1979), Chapter Three, Pt. 5, A "ghost story" as narrated in its entirety by a character in the novel in a small ward gathering.
Context: "The perfect ghost story is the story of Possession," he said, "and that is hypnotism from beyond the grave. This is possible since hypnotism is by the will, and the will is immortal. A number of notable men have been possessed, and all of their lives seem to fit a pattern: the inconsequential early years, the hiatus when they stood where Faust stood, and the decision. And then the rise to power and influence and almost universal honor after they have made the deal. But it is not themselves, it is the devils within them that gain these things. They are the possessed men who do much of the running of the world, and theirs is the most frightening story that can be imagined. But those who watch the great men do not know that they are shells inhabited by ghosts."
“True love is like the appearance of ghosts: everyone talks about it but few have seen it.”
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Il est du véritable amour comme de l'apparition des esprits: tout le monde en parle, mais peu de gens en ont vu.
Variant translation: With true love it's like with the appearance of ghosts: everyone talks about it but few have seen it.
Maxim 76.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter
Quoted, The Beautiful and Damned (1922)
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: Blasphemy is what an old mistake says of a newly discovered truth.
Blasphemy is what a withered last year's leaf says to a this year's bud.
Blasphemy is the bulwark of religious prejudice.
Blasphemy is the breastplate of the heartless.
And let me say now, that the crime of blasphemy, as set out in this statute, is impossible. No man can blaspheme a book. No man can commit blasphemy by telling his honest thought. No man can blaspheme a God, or a Holy Ghost, or a Son of God. The Infinite cannot be blasphemed.
James Randi (1928) Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic
This comprehensive statement was arrived at by examining the statutes of those seven states that have remained in the Dark Ages, so that I might satisfy their definitions of blasphemy. <br class="br">Skeptic Magazine, 1995 (Volume 3, No. 4) http://www.petting-zoo.net/~deadbeef/archive/383.html, stated in an unsuccessful effort to be officially charged with blasphemy http://www.celebatheists.com/?title=James_Randi.
Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters
"The Uncreating Chaos"
The Still Centre (1939)
Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29
Context: What is essential to understand at this point is that until now there was no such thing as mind and matter, subject and object, form and substance. Those divisions are just dialectical inventions that came later. The modern mind sometimes tends to balk at the thought of these dichotomies being inventions and says, "Well, the divisions were there for the Greeks to discover," and you have to say, "Where were they? Point to them!" And the modern mind gets a little confused and wonders what this is all about anyway, and still believes the divisions were there.
But they weren't, as Phædrus said. They are just ghosts, immortal gods of the modern mythos which appear to us to be real because we are in that mythos. But in reality they are just as much an artistic creation as the anthropomorphic Gods they replaced.
Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress
Summations, Chapter 48
Context: Our good Lord the Holy Ghost, which is endless life dwelling in our soul, full securely keepeth us; and worketh therein a peace and bringeth it to ease by grace, and accordeth it to God and maketh it pliant. And this is the mercy and the way that our Lord continually leadeth us in as long as we be here in this life which is changeable.
For I saw no wrath but on man’s part; and that forgiveth He in us. For wrath is not else but a forwardness and a contrariness to peace and love; and either it cometh of failing of might, or of failing of wisdom, or of failing of goodness: which failing is not in God, but is on our part. For we by sin and wretchedness have in us a wretched and continuant contrariness to peace and to love. And that shewed He full often in His lovely Regard of Ruth and Pity. For the ground of mercy is love, and the working of mercy is our keeping in love. And this was shewed in such manner that I could not have perceived of the part of mercy but as it were alone in love; that is to say, as to my sight.
Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist
"Babylon"
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)
Context: Robin, and Red Riding Hood
Take together to the wood,
And Sir Galahad lies hid
In a cave with Captain Kidd.
None of all the magic hosts,
None remain but a few ghosts
Of timorous heart, to linger on
Weeping for lost Babylon.
Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) English poet, diarist and memoirist
Collected Poems (1949), Revisitation
Context: O fathering friend and scientist of good,
Who in solitude, one bygone summer’s day,
And in the throes of bodily anguish, passed away
From dream and conflict and research-lit lands
Of ethnological learning, — even as you stood
Selfless and ardent, resolute and gay,
So in this hour, in strange survival stands
Your ghost, whom I am powerless to repay.
“This he has done in his sermon entitled “Ghosts against God or Ingersoll against Honesty.””
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)
Context: The next gentleman who has endeavored to answer what I have said, is the Rev. Samuel Robinson. This he has done in his sermon entitled “Ghosts against God or Ingersoll against Honesty.” I presume he imagines himself to be the defendant in both cases.
Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor
Jean Tinguely (1990); as quoted in: Museum Jean Tinguely Basel, Jean Tinguely, Fritz Gerber (1996) Museum Jean Tinguely Basel. p. 250.
This source explains, that Tinguely "wrote in the catalogue, a remark that addresses the elements of movement and hope that are always present in his sculptures. It appears that hopelessness was as foreign to him as it was to his machines."
Quotes, 1990's
“If your woman is a ghost, she doesn't know it. Neither will you.”
William Gibson book Neuromancer
Neuromancer (1984)
Context: The lane to the land of the dead. Where you are, my friend. Marie-France, my lady, she prepared this road, but her lord choked her off before I could read the book of her days. Neuro from the nerves, the silver paths. Romancer. Necromancer. I call up the dead. But no, my friend," and the boy did a little dance, brown feet printing the sand, "I am the dead, and their land." He laughed. A gull cried, "Stay. If your woman is a ghost, she doesn't know it. Neither will you."
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)
Context: It was said by Sir Thomas More that to give up witchcraft was to give up the Bible itself. This idea was entertained by nearly all the eminent theologians of a hundred years ago. In my judgment, they were right. To give up witchcraft is to give up, in a great degree at least, the supernatural. To throw away the little ghosts simply prepares the mind of man to give up the great ones. The founders of nearly all creeds, and of all religions properly so called, have taught the existence of good and evil spirits. They have peopled the dark with devils and the light with angels. They have crowded hell with demons and heaven with seraphs. The moment these good and evil spirits, these angels and fiends, disappear from the imaginations of men, and phenomena are accounted for by natural rather than by supernatural means, a great step has been taken in the direction of what is now known as materialism. While the church believes in witchcraft, it is in a greatly modified form. The evil spirits are not as plenty as in former times, and more phenomena are accounted for by natural means. Just to the extent that belief has been lost in spirits, just to that extent the church has lost its power and authority. When men ceased to account for the happening of any event by ascribing it to the direct action of good or evil spirits, and began to reason from known premises, the chains of superstition began to grow weak.
Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress
Summations, Chapter 54
Variant: Faith is nought else but a right understanding, with true belief and sure trust, of our Being: that we are in God, and God is in us: Whom we see not.
Context: Our faith is a Virtue that cometh of our Nature-Substance into our Sense-soul by the Holy Ghost; in which all our virtues come to us: for without that, no man may receive virtue. For it is nought else but a right understanding, with true belief, and sure trust, of our Being: that we are in God, and God in us, Whom we see not. And this virtue, with all other that God hath ordained to us coming therein, worketh in us great things. For Christ’s merciful working is in us, and we graciously accord to Him through the gifts and the virtues of the Holy Ghost. This working maketh that we are Christ’s children, and Christian in living.
Don McLean (1945) American Singer and songwriter
Song lyrics, American Pie (1971), American Pie
Context: I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But the man there said the music woudn't play
And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.
Percy Bysshe Shelley The Cloud
St. 7 (a cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person who is buried elsewhere)
The Cloud (1820)
Context: For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet
Mrs. Alving, Act II
Ghosts (1881)
Context: I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts, Mr. Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant, all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.
George Müller (1805–1898) German-English clergyman
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller Written by Himself, Third Part.
Third Part of Narrative
Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress
Summations, Chapter 58
Context: Our Substance is our Father, God Almighty, and our Substance is our Mother, God, All-wisdom; and our Substance is in our Lord the Holy Ghost, God All-goodness. For our Substance is whole in each Person of the Trinity, which is one God. And our Sense-soul is only in the Second Person Christ Jesus; in whom is the Father and the Holy Ghost: and in Him and by Him we are mightily taken out of Hell, and out of the wretchedness in Earth worshipfully brought up into Heaven and blissfully oned to our Substance: increased in riches and in nobleness by all the virtues of Christ, and by the grace and working of the Holy Ghost.
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), IV : The Essence of Catholicism
Context: The real sin — perhaps it is a sin against the Holy Ghost for which there is no remission — is the sin of heresy, the sin of thinking for oneself. The saying has been heard before now, here in Spain, that to be a liberal — that is, a heretic — is worse than being an assassin, a thief, or an adulterer. The gravest sin is not to obey the Church, whose infallibility protects us from reason.
Percy Bysshe Shelley book Ode to the West Wind
St. I
Ode to the West Wind (1819)
Context: O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth.
Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist
Poems and song lyrics
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher
Letter to Hugo Boxel (Oct. 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
Context: If I had as clear an idea of ghosts, as I have of a triangle or a circle, I should not in the least hesitate to affirm that they had been created by God; but as the idea I possess of them is just like the ideas, which my imagination forms of harpies, gryphons, hydras, &c., I cannot consider them as anything but dreams, which differ from God as totally as that which is not differs from that which is.<!--pp. 382-383
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)
Context: The inventor of paper—and he was not a Christian—did more than all the early fathers for mankind. The inventors of plows, of sickles, of cradles, of reapers; the inventors of wagons, coaches, locomotives; the inventors of skiffs, sail-vessels, steamships; the men who have made looms—in short, the inventors of all useful things—they are the civilizers taken in connection with the great thinkers, the poets, the musicians, the actors, the painters, the sculptors. The men who have invented the useful, and the men who have made the useful beautiful, are the real civilizers of mankind. The priests, in all ages, have been hindrances—stumbling-blocks. They have prevented man from using his reason. They have told ghost stories to courage until courage became fear. They have done all in their power to keep men from growing intellectually, to keep the world in a state of childhood, that they themselves might be deemed great and good and wise. They have always known that their reputation for wisdom depended upon the ignorance of the people.
“Aye, I built in woe. God willed it;
Woe that passeth ghosts of guilt.”
Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) American judge
"Juanita".
In Classic Shades, and Other Poems (1890)
Context: p>Dear, I took these trackless masses
Fresh from Him who fashioned them;
Wrought in rock, and hewed fair passes,
Flower set, as sets a gem.Aye, I built in woe. God willed it;
Woe that passeth ghosts of guilt.
Yet I built as His birds builded —
Builded singing as I built.All is finished! Roads of flowers
Wait your loyal little feet.
All completed? Nay, the hours
Till you come are incomplete.</p
Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet
Mrs. Alving, Act II
Ghosts (1881)
Context: I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts, Mr. Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant, all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.
Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress
The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 76
Context: I speak but little of reverent dread, for I hope it may be seen in this matter aforesaid. But well I wot our Lord shewed me no souls but those that dread Him. For well I wot the soul that truly taketh the teaching of the Holy Ghost, it hateth more sin for vileness and horribleness than it doth all the pain that is in hell. For the soul that beholdeth the fair nature of our Lord Jesus, it hateth no hell but sin, as to my sight. And therefore it is God’s will that we know sin, and pray busily and travail earnestly and seek teaching meekly that we fall not blindly therein; and if we fall, that we rise readily. For it is the most pain that the soul may have, to turn from God any time by sin.
Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) American judge
"For Those Who Fail" in Memorie and Rime (1884), p. 237.
Context: "All honor to him who shall win the prize,"
The world has cried for a thousand years;
But to him who tries, and who fails and dies,
I give great honor and glory and tears.Give glory and honor and pitiful tears
To all who fail in their deeds sublime;
Their ghosts are many in the van of years,
They were born with Time in advance of Time.
Paul J. McAuley (1955) British writer
Source: Four Hundred Billion Stars (1988), Chapter 2 “The Hold” (pp. 131-132)