Inscription Quotes

In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references! ~ Bart D. Ehrman

Rarely has a man been more comfortable with his own greatness. He spent much of his leisure time penning long and flattering portraits of himself, declaring that there had never 'been a greater botanist or zoologist', and that his system of classification was 'the greatest achievement in the realm of science'. Modestly, he suggested that his gravestone should bear the inscription Princeps Botanicorum, 'Prince of Botanists'. It was never wise to question his generous self-assessments. Those who did so were apt to find they had weeds named after them. ~ Bill Bryson

Nor is it merely that we can discern in Christ that close union of personality with perfection which forms the real distinction between the classical and romantic movement in life, but the very basis of his nature was the same as that of the nature of the artist - an intense and flamelike imagination. He realised in the entire sphere of human relations that imaginative sympathy which in the sphere of Art is the sole secret of creation. He understood the leprosy of the leper, the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of the rich. Someone wrote to me in trouble, 'When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting.' How remote was the writer from what Matthew Arnold calls 'the Secret of Jesus.' Either would have taught him that whatever happens to another happens to oneself, and if you want an inscription to read at dawn and at night-time, and for pleasure or for pain, write up on the walls of your house in letters for the sun to gild and the moon to silver, 'Whatever happens to oneself happens to another. ~ Oscar Wilde

Harry: This book belongs to Harry Potter.
Ron: Shared by Ron Weasley, because his fell apart.
Hermione: Why don't you buy a new one then?
Ron: Write on your own book, Hermione.
Hermione: You bought all those dungbombs on Saturday. You could have bought a new book instead.
Ron: Dungbombs rule. ~ J.K. Rowling

I Pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on THIS HOUSE, and on All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof! President Franklin D. Roosevelt had this lettered in gold in the marble over the fireplace in the State Dining Room of the White House. The quotation above follows the capitalization used in the inscription. ~ John Adams

The 1980s: feminism, postmodernism, sexual/textual politics

While it might be tempting to generalise that Woolf 's writing was being discussed almost in two separate camps during the 1980s, formalists on the one hand, and feminists on the other, this would be to simplify things too far.
Many critics were attempting to make sense of and connect her feminist politics with her modernist practices. Such investigations coincided with the explosion of theory in literary studies, and once again the work of Virginia
Woolf was central to the framing of many of the major theoretical developments in literary critical engagements with feminism, postmodernism, deconstruction and psychoanalysis. In the context of the rise of 'high theory'
and the questioning of old-school Marxist, materialist, humanist and historicist literary theories, Woolf studies wrestled with the locating of her radical feminist politics in the avant-garde qualities of the text itself, and its endlessly transgressive play of signifiers, with the Woolfian inscription of radically deconstructed models of the self and of sexuality and jouissance. ~ Jane Goldman

Gratefully accepting the proffered honor, [to inscribe a new legal work to him] I give the leave, begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Santa Claus ran his finger across the rough parchment, lightly tracing the inscription below. "Charity unto others brings its own reward," he whispered. ~ Brom

The shameless Chloe placed on the tombs of her seven husbands the inscription, "The work of Chloe." How could she have expressed herself more plainly? ~ Martial

It is human nature to write of that which interests us, of facts that are deemed essential at the time of inscription and that is why history as is documented, is as much an interpretation, as it is a collection of facts. ~ Aysha Taryam

Martin Luther King (Jr.) during the civil rights movement used to exclaim that he looked forward to heaven where he would be "Free at last." That is the inscription on his tomb in Atlanta. ~ Billy Graham

Constantine saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing this inscription: conquer by this. At the sight, he himself was struck with amazement and his whole army also. ~ Eusebius

We will be judged according to our ability. The retired couple who count the offering every Sunday, never divulging the amount anyone in the congregation contributes, will not be tested in the same way as the millionaire who wants an inscription on the stained glass window, so everyone will know who donated it. Some of the most severe tests will be given to the [preachers] for the way in which they handled the Word of God. There will be no reward for leading others astray in lifestyle or in doctrine through false teaching. ~ Billy Graham

It was a wild, tempestuous night, towards the close of November. Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise upon surgery. Outside the wind howled down Baker Street, while the rain beat fiercely against the windows. It was strange there, in the very depths of the town, with ten miles of man's handiwork on every side of us, to feel the iron grip of Nature, and to be conscious that to the huge elemental forces all London was no more than the molehills that dot the fields. I walked to the window, and looked out on the deserted street. The occasional lamps gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and shining pavement. A single cab was splashing its way from the Oxford Street end. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

he noticed an inscription written on the floor at the foot of a pile of bones: What you are, they once were. What they are, you will be. ~ Zimbardo

Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante's hell is the inscription: Leave behind all hope, you who enter here. ~ Jurgen Moltmann

In the last book of the Iliad (24.602ff.), Achilles urges Priam to eat: even Niobe, he says, after all her children had been slaughtered by the gods, took food eventually. Both Priam and Achilles have been bereaved of their dearest, and yet they gather themselves, and eat, and sleep, and go on living. (...) ...there are two early Lucanian vases with mourners by a grave stele with the same inscription "spoken" by the tomb: "On my back I grow mallow and thick-rooted asphodel: / in my bosom I hold Oedipus, son of Laios." Even Oedipus, the great king of Thebes, archetype of tragedy, experienced a catastrophic fall and descended into the deepest pit of horrors; yet ordinary plants grow on his tomb. We are not so different. ~ Oliver Taplin

He recounted how, after the last of Charlemagne's forty-seven victorious campaigns, when he was returning from Saxony, a comet flashed across the sky and the Emperor's horse shied and threw him to the ground. The great Frankish Emperor had fallen so violently that his sword belt had been torn off him and the Spear, which he was clasping in his left hand, had been hurled some twenty feet away from him. At the same time there were earth tremors in the Royal Palace at Aachen, and the word "Princeps" had mysteriously faded from the red ochre inscription high up on a central beam in the Cathedral, which had formerly read 'Karolus Princeps.' Charlemagne himself had taken little notice of these portents, which his courtiers had taken to be a prophecy of his imminent death. In Einhard's own words: 'He refused to admit that any of these events could have any connection ith his own personal affairs.' Yet the 70-year-old Emperor drew up his last will and testament just in case these portents were correct. And they were! ~ Trevor Ravenscroft

Dante, I think, committed a crude blunder when, with a terror-inspiring ingenuity, he placed above the gateway of his hell the inscription, 'I too was created by eternal love'
at any rate, there would be more justification for placing above the gateway to the Christian Paradise ... the inscription 'I too was created by eternal hate' ... ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: 'Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France in the year 1800'. ~ John Adams

The people would stop and look up to read the inscription across the underside of her bow:
"Hell hath no fury like a woman seeking vengeance! She will not forget..."
The same was written in Shiraz across the upper side, a message that hopefully will be the last that any Shiraz would ever see that crossed my path. ~ Deandra Stephanos

This is part of what we disdain about sweeteners, the fact that we can taste without consequences. Our capitalist ethos loves a certain kind of inscription - insisting we can read tallies of sloth and discipline inscribed across the body itself - and artificial sweeteners threaten this legibility. They offer a way to cheat the arithmetic of indulgence and bodily consequence, just like sentimentality offers feeling without the price of complication. ~ Leslie Jamison

Let there be no inscription upon my tomb; let no man write my epitaph: no man can write my epitaph. ~ Robert Emmet

In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, anniversary of his birth, Michel de Montaigne, lon weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, retired to the bosom of the learned Virgins [Muses], where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life now more than half run out. If the fates permit, he will completethis abode, this sweet ancestral retreat; and he has consecrated it to his freedom, tranquility, and leisure. ~ Michel De Montaigne

King David had a ring with an inscription on it: 'All things pass.' When one is sad those words make one cheerful, and when one is cheerful it makes one sad. I have got myself a ring like that with Hebrew letters on it, and this talisman keeps me from infatuations. All things pass, life will pass, one wants nothing. Or at least one wants nothing but the sense of freedom, for when anyone is free, he wants nothing, nothing, nothing. ~ Anton Chekhov

They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten? ~ Samuel Butler

This saintly anarchist, who aroused the people of the abyss, the outcasts and "sinners," the Chandala of Judaism, to rise in revolt against the established order of things - and in language which, if the Gospels are to be credited, would get him sent to Siberia today - this man was certainly a political criminal, at least in so far as it was possible to be one in so absurdly unpolitical a community. This is what brought him to the cross: the proof thereof is to be found in the inscription that was put upon the cross. He died for his own sins - there is not the slightest ground for believing, no matter how often it is asserted, that he died for the sins of others. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The finger of God hath left an inscription upon all his works, not graphical or composed of letters, but of their several forms, constitutions, parts and operations, which, aptly joined together, do make one word that doth express their natures. ~ Thomas Browne

Our coin bears the inscription: In God We Trust. And our Bible reassures us: The Lord is just and merciful. With the Lord thence our protector, whom or what shall we fear? ~ Jeremiah Denton

To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workman. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivised;
even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the
face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said
'Sen~or' or 'Don' ort even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' or 'Thou', and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos
dias'. Tipping had been forbidden by law since the time of Primo de Rivera; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture
from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and the
trams and taxis and much of the other t ~ George Orwell

May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an inscription upon the rock! ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I love you is the inscription on Pandora's box. ~ Mason Cooley

The legendary inscription above the Academy's door speaks loudly about Plato's attitude toward mathematics. In fact, most of the significant mathematical research of the fourth century BC was carried out by people associated in one way or another with the Academy. Yet Plato himself was not a mathematician of great technical dexterity, and his direct contributions to mathematical knowledge were probably minimal. Rather, he was an enthusiastic spectator, a motivating source of challenge, an intelligent critic, an an inspiring guide. The first century philosopher and historian Philodemus paints a clear picture: "At that time great progress was seen in mathematics, with Plato serving as the general architect setting out problems, and the mathematicians investigating them earnestly." To which the Neoplatonic philosopher and mathematician Proclus adds: "Plato...greatly advanced mathematics in general and geometry in particular because of his zeal for these studies. It is well known that his writings are thickly sprinkled with mathematical terms and that he everywhere tries to arouse admiration for mathematics among students of philosophy." In other words, Plato, whose mathematical knowledge was broadly up to date, could converse with the mathematicians as an equal and as a problem presenter, even though his personal mathematical achievements were not significant. ~ Mario Livio

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. Isaiah 54:17 THERE is great clatter in the forges and smithies of the enemy. They are making weapons wherewith to smite the saints. They could not even do as much as this if the Lord of saints did not allow them; for he has created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire. But see how busily they labour! How many swords and spears they fashion! It matters nothing, for on the blade of every weapon you may read this inscription: It shall not prosper. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Love could be immortalized. It could be remembered and written forever into the world, inscribed on some inanimate object. It could be wonderful words given by a loved one, or simple letters combined to show an unbroken bond." Alexis from "The Shoreline ~ Lindsay Chamberlin

William Stoner entered the University of Missouri as a freshman in the year 1910, at the age of nineteen. Eight years later, during the height of World War I, he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree and accepted an instructorship at the same University, where he taught until his death in 1956. He did not rise above the rank of assistant professor, and few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his courses. When he died his colleagues made a memorial contribution of a medieval manuscript to the University library. This manuscript may still be found in the Rare Books Collection, bearing the inscription: 'Presented to the Library of the University of Missouri, in memory of William Stoner, Department of English. By his colleagues.'

An occasional student who comes upon the name may wonder idly who William Stoner was, but he seldom pursues his curiosity beyond a casual questions. Stoner's colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now; to the older ones, his name is a reminder of the end that awaits them all, and to the younger ones it is merely a sound which evokes no sense of the past and no identity with which they can associate themselves or their careers. ~ John Williams

The rising sun will eventually set,
A newborn's life will fade.
From sun to moon, moon to sun,
Give peaceful rest to the living dead. ~ Sun's Song Inscription

If her eyes had no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name or any other inscription on her face. ~ Charles Dickens

Inscriptions here of various Names I view'd,
The greater part by hostile time subdu'd;
Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past,
And Poets once had promis'd they should last. ~ Alexander Pope

It is so. It cannot be otherwise. ~ Inscription On The Ruins Of A 15th Century Cathedral In Amsterdam

The look of good sense and prudence, even of the best kind, differs from that of genius, in that the former bears the stamp of subjection to the will, while the latter is free from it. And therefore one can well believe the anecdote [...] how once at the court of the Visconti, when Petrarch and other noblemen and gentlemen were present, Galeazzo Visconti told his son, who was then a mere boy (he was afterwards first Duke of Milan), to pick out the wisest of the company; how the boy looked at them all for a little, and then took Petrarch by the hand and led him up to his father, to the great admiration of all present. For so clearly does nature set the mark of her dignity on the privileged among mankind that even a child can discern it.

Therefore, I should advise my sagacious countrymen, if ever again they wish to trumpet about for thirty years a very commonplace person as a great genius, not to choose for the purpose such a beer-house-keeper physiognomy as was possessed by that philosopher [Hegel], upon whose face nature had written, in her clearest characters, the familiar inscription, "commonplace person. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

I do not want any inscription on my tombstone. A blank stone, because what I would like to leave behind me is the sentiment of a great mystery. ~ Philippe Auclair

As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above", I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. ~ Charles Dickens

The bee has round it a mysterious inscription, which has been variously interpreted. It contains an allusion to beeswax, and one scholar has suggested that the tesserae were druggists' tokens for the purpose of advertising the sale of beeswax. Another explanation is that the inscription might be one of the mysterious magic formulae used as charms, and that the tokens might be charms to call the bees home when swarming; but the most plausible solution seems to be that the tesserae were connected with the secret rites of Artemis, especially as the stag of the goddess is the one on the reverse side of the tokens.

One of the most important animals connected with the worship of the Asiatic Great-Mother was the lion, and it is a curious fact that we often find a connection between bees and lions. At the old Hittite town of Carchemish behind her a long line of priestesses bearing various articles. We do not suggest that these were called Melissae, but in the jewellry we see how the goddess with her lions merges in or is connected with the 'Bee-goddess. ~ Hilda M. Ransome

And the story is told that a young woman taking an examination for a Communist party post was unsure of the answer to a question asking the inscription on a certain monument. She wrote the words of Marx quoted above and when the examination was over hurried to the monument to check. Reading the inscription "Religion is the opiate of the people," she fell to her knees, saying, "Thank God. ~ Roberson

The problem was not that they failed to find these principles written upon their hearts, but that they could not bring themselves to attend closely to the inscription. ~ J. Budziszewski

As inscribed on John Keats' tombstone:
This Grave
contains all that was Mortal,
of a
YOUNG ENGLISH POET,
Who
on his Death Bed,
in the Bitterness of his Heart,
at the Malicious Power of his Enemies
Desired
these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone:
"Here lies One
Whose Name was writ in Water."
Feb 24 1821 ~ John Keats

We marched. Gates opened and closed. We continued to march between the barbed wire. At every step, white signs with black skulls looked down on us. The inscription: WARNING! DANGER OF DEATH. What irony. Was there here a single place where one was NOT in danger of death? ~ Elie Wiesel

A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put. ~ Bernard Ramm

I finish a short afternoon shift that I spent learning about book descriptions with George. It is an arcane system that the Internet is putting paid to, where fair is foul and good is bad and perfect means you are a charlatan. Price-clipped is bad. Second impression is bad. Inscribed is bad, unless it is by the author, and then inscribed is good, but nearly as good as signed. Unless the inscription is to someone patently important - To my dear Laura, love from Petrarch. ~ Deborah Meyler

The moon charm has an inscription: Yours from dark to light. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny? ~ Socrates

History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand - and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? ~ Washington Irving

Here lies one whose name was writ on water. ~ John Keats

Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid. ~ Alexander Smith

Truly, more than removing the partition between vectors and values, we would have needed to talk about strengthening crisscrossed lacings: an intertwined kind of understanding that would de-ideologize 'ideologies,' desanctify sanctities, but also mentalize the material bases of systems of inscription, and psychoanalyze not souls but tools. That is, in one and the same gesture, make our mnemo-technic equipment intelligible as mentality and our mental equipment intelligible as technology. ~ Regis Debray

Let not the rash marble risk
garrulous breaches of oblivion's omnipotence,
in many words recalling
name, renown, events, birthplace.
All those glass jewels are best left in the dark.
Let not the marble say what men do not.
The essentials of the dead man's life
the trembling hope,
the implacable miracle of pain, the wonder of sensual delight
will abide forever.
Blindly the uncertain soul asks to continue
when it is the lives of others that will make that happen,
as you yourself are the mirror and image
of those who did not live as long as you
and others will be (and are) your immortality on earth. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

If you want a good handbag and glasses, it's hard to get something without the brand name on it because it's so important to have the charmed inscription. The only way you do it ... This handbag was the only one in the shop without a charmed inscription. It's just an ordinary bag. I went into the department store in Sloane Square, because I needed a new bag, because my old one lost its handles. Then I found this one, and I said "Why is it so cheap?" and the seller said, "Because it doesn't have a name!" ~ Marina Warner

Only the Christian faith claims that its Leader died and rose again and is alive at this moment. Many gravestones carry the inscription, "Here lies ... ," but on Christ's tomb are emblazoned the words, "He is not here. ~ Billy Graham

Viva fui in silvis sum dura occisa securi dum vixi tacui mortua dulce cano" is inscribed on the fingerboard of a 16th-century viola da gamba made by Kaspar Tieffenbrucker. It translates, "I was alive in the woods; I was cut down by the cruel axe. While I lived I was silent; In death I sweetly sing. ~ Anonymous

The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified. ~ Steven Pinker

End of Construction. Thank you 'for your patience. Inscription on Ruth Bell Graham's grave
inspired hy a road sign she saw. ~ Billy Graham

With sharpen'd sight pale Antiquaries pore, Th' inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears; The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years. ~ Alexander Pope

Stranger, think long before you enter,
For these corridors amuse not passing travellers.
But if you enter, keep your voice to yourself.
Nor should you tinkle and toll your tongue.
These columns rose not, for the such as you.
But for those urgent pilgrim feet that wander
On lonely ways, seeking the roots of rootless trees.
The earth has many flowery roads; choose one
That pleases your whim, and gods be with you.
But now leave! - leave me to my dark green solitude
Which like the deep dream world of the sea
Has its moving shapes; corals; ancient coins;
Carved urns and ruins of ancient ships and gods;
And mermaids, with flowing golden hair
That charm a patch of silent darkness
Into singing sunlight. ~ G.A. Kulkarni

The forbidden cabinet. The forbidden fruit. That fruit is - a volume, a huge blue-lilac volume with a gold inscription slantwise: Collected Works of A.S. Pushkin. I read the fat Pushkin in the cabinet with my nose in the book and on the shelf, almost in darkness and almost right up against it and even a little bit suffocated by his weight that came right into the throat, and almost blinded by the nearness of the tiny letters. I read Pushkin right into the chest and right into the brain. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Carry me away. To where I can breathe. To where my soul can thrive again. To where I can be free. To where I can live again. Give me life. The ability to span my wings. And fly. Not fall. I never want to fall again. So help me survive. Allow me to flourish. And then let me forgive. (tattoo inscription) ~ Jessica Sorensen

The parasol wasn't a very good cane. Its tip dug into the hard, grassless earth, and the folded frame creaked as Kestrel limped across the grounds. But it brought her where she needed to go.
She found Arin walking through the bare orange grove, horse tack draped over his shoulder. It jangled when he stopped and stared at her. He stood, shoulders stiff. As Kestrel came close she saw that his jaw was clenched, and that there was no trace of what her guards had done to him. No bruises. Nor would there be, not for something that had happened nearly a month ago.
"Did I shame you?" Kestrel said.
Something strange crossed his face. "Shame me," Arin repeated. He looked up into the empty branches as if he expected to see fruit there, as if it weren't almost winter.
"The book. The inscription I read. The duel. The way I tricked you. The order I gave to have you imprisoned. Did I shame you?"
He crossed his arms over his chest. He shook his head, his gaze never wavering from the trees. "No. The god of debts knows what I owe."
"Then what is it?" Kestrel was trying so hard not to ask about the rumors or the woman in the market that she said something worse. "Why won't you look at me?"
"I shouldn't even be speaking with you," he muttered.
It dawned on her why it had never made sense that Rax had been the one to release Arin. "My father," she said. "Arin, you don't have to worry about him. He'll be leaving the morning of the Firstwinter ball. The entir ~ Marie Rutkoski

Put no inscription over the grave, except the date of my birth and my death; and, wherever I am buried, let the funeral be perfectly private, with as few persons attending, and as little show and expense as possible. ~ Isaac Butt

When Goya was 80 he drew an ancient man propped on two sticks, with a great mass of white hair and beard all over his face, and the inscription, "I am still learning." ~ Simone De Beauvoir

I refilled the wineglass and took it with me for a nice long bubble bath, where I settled in with Ambrose's guide for low-voltage outdoor lighting.
It wasn't thrilling bubble-bath reading material, but I was impressed by his imagination. You wouldn't know from the writing that he'd never actually seen a low-voltage lighting system in someone's yard, much less installed one himself. His descriptions were clear, colorful, and written with authority. The inscription wasn't bad either: To Natalie, You're a high-voltage system as far as I am concerned. ~ Lee Goldberg

As soon as Don Quixote had read the inscription on the parchment he perceived clearly that it referred to the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and returning hearty thanks to heaven that he ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

It is noteworthy, the researcher further argued, that the inscription on the sword was engraved in the Romanian language, and, consequently, we see that Latin was actually Romanian, and not the invented language that for many centuries has passed for ancient Latin. ~ Vladimir Lorchenkov

He was almost at his door when Vik's earsplitting shriek resounded down the corridor. Tom was glad for the excuse to sprint back toward him. "Vik?"
He reached Vik's doorway as Vik was backing out of it. "Tom," he breathed, "it's an abomination."
Confused, Tom stepped past him into the bunk. Then he gawked, too.
Instead of a standard trainee bunk of two small beds with drawers underneath them and totally bare walls, Vik's bunk was virtually covered with images of their friend Wyatt Enslow. There were posters all over the wall with Wyatt's solemn, oval face on them. She wore her customary scowl, her dark eyes tracking their every move through the bunk. There was a giant marble statue of a sad-looking Vik with a boot on top of its head. The Vik statue clutched two very, very tiny hands together in a gesture of supplication, its eyes trained upward on the unseen stomper, an inscription at its base, WHY, OH WHY, DID I CROSS WYATT ENSLOW?
Tom began to laugh.
"She didn't do it to the bunk," Vik insisted. "She must've done something to our processors."
That much was obvious. If Wyatt was good at anything, it was pulling off tricks with the neural processors, which could pretty much be manipulated to show them anything. This was some sort of illusion she was making them see, and Tom heartily approved.
He stepped closer to the walls to admire some of the photos pinned there, freeze-frames of some of Vik's more embarrassing moments at the Spire: that t ~ S.J. Kincaid

The story of a life can be as long or as short as the teller wishes. Whether the life is tragic or enlightened, the classic gravestone inscription marking simply the dates of birth and death has, in its brevity, much to recommend it. ~ Michel Houellebecq

A little present from my run-in with a sword. Or should I say from when the sword had a run-in with me?" His eyes lit up.
"Want to see the scar? It's cool." He started pulling his shirt out of his pants.
"Janco," Ari warned. "We're not supposed to be fraternizing with the Sitians."
"But she's not Sitian. Right, Yelena? You haven't gone south on us, have you?" Janco's voice held mock horror.
"Because if you have I can't give you your present."
I took my switchblade out, showing the inscription to Janco. "What about 'Sieges weathered, fight together, friends forever'? Does that change if I become an official southerner?"
Janco rubbed the hair on his chin, considering.
"No," Ari said. "You could change into a goat and it would still apply. ~ Maria V. Snyder

Had I to carve an inscription on my tombstone I would ask for none other than "The Individual." ~ Soren Kierkegaard

I think that a true economics thinker or a Marxist thinker would make nonsense of my argument, although I have given massive seminars and no one has demolished it so far. I did think that this idea from an artisanal and trading perception of the auratic quality of goods when they are given character and inscription, made the stories of phantasmic wealth read more powerfully in the 18th and 19th centuries than the stories of Cinderella's wealth, because they are conjured out of nothing by these magic means. ~ Marina Warner

I found in one of the tombs an inscription saying, 'If you touch my tomb, you will be eaten by a crocodile and hippopotamus.' It doesn't mean the hippo will eat you, it means the person really wanted his tomb to be protected. ~ Zahi Hawass

Always recognize the foces that will shape my life. I let them do their work. Sometimes they tear through my life like a hurricane. Sometimes they simply shift the ground under me, so that I stand on different earth, and something or someone has been swallowed up. I steady myself, in the earthquate. I lie down, and let the hurricane pass over me. I never fight. Afterwards I look around me, and I say, 'Ah, so this at least is left for me. And that dear person has also survived.' I quietly inscribe on the stone tablet of my heart the name which has gone forever. Th inscription is a thing of agony. Then I start on my way again. ~ Josephine Hart

Consciousness ("here" and "now") is not
"false and misleading" because of language; consciousness is language, and
nothing else, because it is false and misleading. ~ Paul De Man

Hosiah Lister, now dead, rec'd his freedom."
Consider, then, the full measure of my sadness, reading this inscription; not merely for Hosiah Lister, but for all of us, consider the dear cost of liberty in a world so hostile, so teeming with enemies and opportunists, that one could not become free without casting aside all casualty, all choice, all will, all identity; finding freedom only in the spacious blankness of unbeing, the wide plains of nonentity, infinite and still. ~ M T Anderson

I designed this and had it made especially for you. The trefoil is the symbol of immortality: a beginning without an end, like our life together. The hearts represent my love for you. Forever love. Unending like the knot they form. I chose opals instead of diamonds, because opals are warm living stones, each color a birth stone, yours being the center of this ring just like you are the center of our family. "I know the inscription isn't original, but the meaning behind the words is. I wrote those words for the wife I dreamed of. And here you are. With My Last Breath. ~ Julieanne Reeves

We have a hieroglyphical inscription in the British Museum as early as the reign of Sevechus of the eighth century before the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity in Unity already formed part of their religion and that ... the three gods only made one person. ~ Samuel Sharpe

His troops routed the militia and gained possession of the American guns, one of which was a brass howitzer that carried the inscription "taken at the surrender of York town 1781. ~ Donald R. Hickey

It's said that in the beginning was the word, but for me the beginning is always an image. When I think about a conversation, it always starts with images. And what I love about photography is the inscription of a single moment: it's completely ephemeral. You take the photograph, and one second later, everything has changed. ~ Abbas Kiarostami

As Wulkan entered the mess with his wrenches, he saw above the door the inscription, Für Juden und Hunde Eintritt Verboten - Entrance forbidden to Jews and dogs. ~ Thomas Keneally

inscription, which reads in part, HINC CINERES TANTI HOMINIS RESURRECTIONEM MORTUORUM EXPECTANT RIP. Arthur heard Claire reading the dedication aloud then translating, "From the ashes of so great a man look for the resurrection of the dead. Rest in peace. ~ Glenn Cooper

I came home to find three rocks on my desk and a card with a penguin on the front. Seeing it was from Greg, I did a little happy dance as I bounced into my room, reading his inscription.


Dearest Fiona,

I'm missing you dreadfully. It's been an age, I don't think you'll recognize me when next we meet. I've put on ten stone and lost all my hair. And an eye. I hope you fancy a fat bald man with an eye patch.

Come out with me on Friday. Finals will finally be over and it'll be time to celebrate. I'll pick you up at four. We'll do a first date do-over, eat at Manganiello's again, plus a new, improved surprise.

Also, FYI: Gentoo penguins mate for life. Whereas Adélie penguins prostitute themselves for rocks.

I'd like to be your Gentoo penguin.

-Greg

P.S. Unless you're open to a rock arrangement. If so, please find my first down payment enclosed. ~ Penny Reid

Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist. ~ Paul Valery

Underneath this little stone
Lies Robert Earl of Huntington;
No other archer was so good -
And people called him Robin Hood.
Such outlaws as he and his men
Will England never see again. ~ Roger Lancelyn Green

Elohim was, in logical terminology, the genus of which ghosts, Chemosh, Dagon, Baal, and Jahveh were species. The Israelite believed Jahveh to be immeasurably superior to all other kinds of Elohim. The inscription on the Moabite stone shows that King Mesa held Chemosh to be, as unquestionably, the superior of Jahveh. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

The inscription on his gravestone had felt so wholly insufficient the moment she saw it. Just a name and dates, carved by machine. Just the inadequate and impersonal. Loving Father and Husband, like every other headstone there, whether it was true or not. This was the tasteful way to do it, she knew, even though it showed none of the true shape of the man ~ Stuart Nadler

first mention of Israel, as a race, comes in the victory stele, or monument, of the Pharaoh Merneptah, dated 1207 BC. Recording an invasion of Canaan and the decimation of the tribes of that region, the inscription declares that 'Israel's seed is not', after his army had finished with them. The verse reads: The princes are prostrate, saying "Mercy!" Not one raises his head among the Nine Bows. Desolation is for Tehenu; Hatti is pacified; Plundered is Canaan with every evil; Carried off is Ashkelon; seized upon is Gezer; ~ Ian Carroll

Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos-
Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health;
But pleasantest is it to win what we love. ~ Aristotle.

There was a pair of books, one by Hemingway, another by Thomas Wolfe. Each had written a long inscription to the other. A knowledgeable dealer had to inform the unfortunate owner who had just paid a pretty penny for them that the inscriptions were not authentic, and that the value was not what he had hoped. Later, another dealer discovered that they were spectacular forgeries: Wolfe had written Hemingway's inscription, and Hemingway, Wolfe's. ~ Allison Hoover Bartlett

Be something! That's the inscription written over the gates of hell. ~ Marty Rubin

At Camp Don Bosco, there were Bibles all over the place, mostly 1970s hippie versions like Good News for Modern Man. They had groovy titles like The Word or The Way, and translated the Bible into "contemporary English," which meant Saul yelling at Jonathan, "You son of a bitch!" (I Samuel 20:30). Awesome! The King James version gave this verse as "Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman," which was bogus in comparison. Maybe these translations went a bit far. I recall one of the Bibles translating the inscription over the cross, "INRI" (Iesus Nazaremus Rex Iudaeorum), as "SSDD" (Same Shit Different Day), and another describing the Last Supper - the night before Jesus' death, a death he freely accepted - where Jesus breaks the bread, gives it to his disciples, and says, "It's better to burn out than fade away," but these memories could be deceptive. ~ Rob Sheffield

Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; ~ Charles Dickens

So many crimes committed by lonesome people in Government are concealed in this place," I said, "that the inscription might well read, 'Better a Family of Criminals than No Family at All. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Upon the first goblet he read this inscription, monkey wine; upon the second, lion wine; upon the third, sheep wine; upon the fourth, swine wine. These four inscriptions expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness: the first, that which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which stupefies; finally the last, that which brutalizes. ~ Victor Hugo