Deluge Quotes:

The Deluge: A punishment inflicted on the human race by an all-knowing God, who, through not having foreseen the wickedness of men, repented of having made them, and drowned them once for all to make them better - an act which, as we all know, was accompanied by the greatest success.

- Voltaire

topic: Men, Knowing, Race, Deluge, Foreseen

You can remember, a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones.

- Plato

topic: Remember, Deluge

Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark all is deluge.

- Horace Mann

source: Horace Mann (1867). “Thoughts”, p.220

topic: Education, Safety, Political, Deluge, World Water Day

Those entrapped by the herd instinct are drowned in the deluges of history. But there are always the few who observe, reason, and take precautions, and thus escape the flood. For these few gold has been the asset of last resort.

- Antony C. Sutton

source: Antony C. Sutton (1977). “The War on Gold”, Concord Books

topic: Gold, Lasts, Reason, Deluge

Millions who could not follow closely or accurately the main events of the War looked day after day in the papers for the fortunes of Mafeking, and when finally the news of its relief was flashed throughout the world, the streets of London became impassable, and the floods of sterling, cockney patriotism were released in such a deluge of unbridled, delirious joy as was never witnessed again till Armistace Night, 1918.

- Winston Churchill

source: Winston Churchill (1959). “Great Contemporaries”

topic: War, Night, Joy, Deluge, Cockneys

By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.74, Harvard University Press

topic: Angel, Men, Sharks, Deluge, Future Possibilities

We two [Deucalion and Pyrrha, after the deluge] form a multitude. [Lat., Nos duo turba sumus.]

- Ovid

topic: Future, Two, Duos, Deluge

When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow? If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad, Threatening the welkin with his big-swoln face? And wilt thou have a reason for this coil? I am the sea; hark, how her sighs do blow! She is the weeping welkin, I the earth: Then must my sea be moved with her sighs; Then must my earth with her continual tears Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd: For why my bowels cannot hide her woes, But like a drunkard must I vomit them. Then give me leave, for losers will have leave To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.

- William Shakespeare

source: "The Works of William Shakespeare". Volume VI,

topic: Blow, Wind, Sea, Bowels, Deluge

In the Great Deluge in the days of Noah, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the earth, and out of this deluge very few escape. Scarcely anyone is saved.

- Alphonsus Liguori

topic: Eight, Water, Ark, Deluge

DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.

- Ambrose Bierce

source: Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.43, 谷月社

topic: Baptism, World, Firsts, Deluge

Out of monuments, names, words proverbs ...and the like, we do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.

- Francis Bacon

source: Francis Bacon (1753). “The Works...”, p.37

topic: Teacher, Names, Monument, Deluge

Upon Love's bosom Earth floats like an Ark Safely through all the Deluge of the dark.

- Gerald Massey

source: Gerald MASSEY (Poet.) (1854). “Poems and ballads ... Containing the Ballad of babe Christabel ... Revised and corrected by the author”, p.29

topic: Love, Dark, Ark, Deluge, Bosoms

At length corruption, like a general flood (So long by watchful ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun.

- Alexander Pope

topic: Long, Sun, Corruption, Deluge

Without union our independence and liberty would never have been achieved; without union they can never be maintained. Divided into twenty-four, or even a smaller number, of separate communities, we shall see our internal trade burdened with numberless restraints and exactions; communications between distant points and sections obstructed or cut off; our sons made soldiers to deluge with blood the fields they now till in peace...The loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, plenty, and happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union.

- Andrew Jackson

source: Andrew Jackson (1835). “Annual messages, veto messages, protest, &c. of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States”, p.148

topic: Communication, Son, Cutting, Deluge

In the end, they traded their tired wings for the resignation that living brings. And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow for the glitter and the rouge, and in the moment they were swept before the deluge.

- Jackson Browne

topic: Future, Tired, Wings, Premonition, Deluge

Coffee as drunk in England, debilitates the stomach, and produces a slight nausea ... it is usually made from bad Coffee, served out tepid and muddy, and drowned in a deluge of water.

- William Kitchiner

source: William Kitchiner (1830). “The Cook's Oracle: And Housekeeper's Manual. Containing Receipts for Cookery, and Directions for Carving ... with a Complete System of Cookery for Catholic Families ... Being the Result of Actual Experiments Instituted in the Kitchen of William Kitchiner”, p.340

topic: Coffee, Drunk, Water, Muddy, Deluge

To pass to the deluge, and beyond it, and to come to close quarters with our proper division, the origin of Romance itself is a very debatable subject, or rather it is a subject which the wiser mind will hardly care to debate much.

- George Saintsbury

source: George Saintsbury (2012). “The English Novel”, p.13, tredition

topic: Romance, Mind, Division, Deluge

I feel like someone after a deluge being asked to describe the way it was before the flood while I'm still plucking seaweed out of my hair.

- Norman Rush

source: Norman Rush (2013). “Mating”, p.16, Granta Books

topic: Heartbreak, Hair, Way, Deluge, Seaweed

Undaunted faith can stop the mouths of lions, make ineffective the fiery flames, make dry corridors through beds of rivers and seas. Unwavering faith can protect against deluge, terminate droughts, heal the sick, and bring heavenly manifestations. Indomitable faith can help us live the commandments and thereby bring blessings unnumbered with peace, perfection, and exaltation in the kingdom of God.

- Spencer W. Kimball

topic: Blessing, Flames, Sea, Indomitable, Undaunted

Captain Fisher, the commander, with a party of young ladies from the city and gentlemen belonging to his ship, came one day to pay me a visit in the midst of a deluge of rain.

- Joshua Slocum

source: Joshua Slocum (2005). “Sailing Alone around the World”, p.95, Shambhala Publications

topic: Party, Rain, Cities, Deluge

The question and the cry 'Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance 'I am!'

- Rabindranath Tagore

source: Rabindranath Tagore, William Radice (2011). “Gitanjali: Song Offerings”, p.176, Penguin Books India

topic: Tears, World, Cry, Deluge

Why do you rant and brag with such a spate of words, as if you wanted to overwhelm me with a sort of tempest and deluge of oratory-which nevertheless falls with the greater force on your own head, while my ark rides aloft in safety?

- Martin Luther

source: Desiderius Erasmus, Martin Luther, Ernest Gordon Rupp, Philip Saville Watson (1969). “Luther and Erasmus: free will and salvation”

topic: Fall, Safety, Ark, Deluge

I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need their beauty and grandeur. I need their imperious silence. I need it against the witless bellowing of the barracks yard and the witty chatter of the yes-men. I want to hear the rustling of the organ, this deluge of ethereal notes. I need it against the shrill farce of marches.

- Pascal Mercier

source: Pascal Mercier (2009). “Night Train To Lisbon”, p.85, Atlantic Books Ltd

topic: Witty, Men, Silence, Deluge, Chatter

Already, he was dreaming of a refined solitude, a comfortable desert, a motionless ark in which to seek refuge from the unending deluge of human stupidity.

- Joris-Karl Huysmans

source: Joris-Karl Huysmans (2015). “Against the Grain”, p.7, Booklassic

topic: Dream, Stupidity, Solitude, Unending, Deluge

No reflection was to be allowed now, not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet, so deadly sad, that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank, something like then world when the deluge was gone by.

- Charlotte Bronte

source: Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.261, Penguin

topic: Sweet, Reflection, Past, Deluge

A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.

- Charles Caleb Colton

source: Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.116

topic: Wicked, Would Be, Earth, Deluge

This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry; the cloud is black before it breaks, and overshadows before it yields its deluge of mercy. Depression has now become to me as a prophet in rough clothing, a John the Baptist, heralding the nearer coming of my Lord's richer benison

- Charles Spurgeon

topic: Blessing, Clouds, Yield, John The Baptist, Deluge

Since that deluge of newspaper articles I have been so flooded with questions, invitations, suggestions, that I keep dreaming I am roasting in Hell, and the mailman is the devil eternally yelling at me, showering me with more bundles of letters at my head because I have not answered the old ones.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Dream, Yelling, Devil, Mailman, Keep Dreaming

Private fortunes, in the present state of our circulation, are at the mercy of those self-created money lenders, and are prostrated by the floods of nominal money with which their avarice deluges us.

- Thomas Jefferson

source: Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.205

topic: Self, Mercy, States, Money Lenders, Deluge

You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.45, Xist Publishing

topic: Grandchildren, Reflection, Men, Deluge, Geologist

However, the small probability of a similar encounter [of the earth with a comet], can become very great in adding up over a huge sequence of centuries. It is easy to picture to oneself the effects of this impact upon the Earth. The axis and the motion of rotation changed; the seas abandoning their old position to throw themselves toward the new equator; a large part of men and animals drowned in this universal deluge, or destroyed by the violent tremor imparted to the terrestrial globe.

- Pierre-Simon Laplace

topic: Animal, Men, Axes, Deluge, Equator

They have written volumes out of which a couplet of verse, a period in prose, may cling to the rock of ages, as a shell that survives a deluge.

- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

topic: Rocks, Age, Shells, Deluge, Couplets

Prayer and contemplation are both exercises in concentration. The normal deluge of conscious thought is restricted and the mind is brought to one conscious area of operation. The results are those you find in any concentrative practice: deep calm, a physiological slowing of the metabolism and a sense of peace and wellbeing

- Henepola Gunaratana

topic: Spiritual, Prayer, Exercise, Deluge, Metabolism

There is not a soul on Earth who can read the deluge of physics publications in its entirety. As a result, it is sad but true that physics has irretrievably fallen apart from a cohesive to a fragmented discipline. ... It was not that long ago that people were complaining about two cultures. If we only had it that good. today.

- Abraham Pais

topic: Two, Discipline, Long, Sad But True, Publication

Oh! what waves of crime and bloodshed have swept like the waves of a deluge down the valley of the Rhine! War has laid his mailed hand on those desolate towers and ruthlessly torn down what time has spared, yet he could not mar the beauty of the shore, nor could Time himself hurl down the mountains that guard it.

- Bayard Taylor

topic: War, Hands, Mountain, Deluge

We can't afford the wrath of Heaven. We survived a deluge by the skin of our teeth, but an economic crisis would be disastrous.

- Friedrich Durrenmatt

topic: Heaven, Skins, Economic, Deluge, Economic Crisis

We believe that the Greeks have been punished through [the Crusades] by the just judgement of God: these Greeks who have striven to rend the Seamless Robe of Jesus Christ ... Those who would not join Noah in his ark perished justly in the deluge; and these have justly suffered famine and hunger who would not receive as their shepherd the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles.

- Pope Innocent III

topic: Jesus, Believe, Blessed, Deluge

It was the fashion of the times to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will of the Deity; the alterations of nature were connected, by an invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical opinions of the human mind; and the most sagacious divines could distinguish, according to the colour of their respective prejudices, that the establishment of heresy tended to produce an earthquake, or that a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the progress of sin and error.

- Edward Gibbon

topic: Fashion, Earthquakes, Errors, Deluge

Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, tanquam tabula naufragii: when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.

- Francis Bacon

source: Francis Bacon, Basil Montagu (1825). “The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England: A New Edition:”, p.107

topic: Book, Names, Stories, Deluge, Remnants

Every gazette brings accounts of the untutored freaks of the wind,--shipwrecks and hurricanes which the mariner and planter acceptas special or general providences; but they touch our consciences, they remind us of our sins. Another deluge would disgrace mankind.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1025, Delphi Classics

topic: Wind, Special, Hurricanes, Deluge, Planters

You know, it's so funny that the internet's become a series of traps where you do sort of innocent things like give your name or address or indicate a preference, I like this thing, and then therefore you open yourself up to a deluge of advertising based on those stated preferences.

- Tim Wu

source: "How Free Web Content Traps People In An Abyss Of Ads And Clickbait". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, wjsu.org. October 17, 2016.

topic: Names, Giving, Addresses, Deluge