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Prophecy   /prˈɑfəsi/   Listen
Prophecy

noun
(pl. prophecies)
1.
Knowledge of the future (usually said to be obtained from a divine source).  Synonyms: prognostication, vaticination.
2.
A prediction uttered under divine inspiration.  Synonym: divination.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Prophecy" Quotes from Famous Books



... message from Tourdestelle. Latterly her husband's name had been cited as among the wildfires of Parisian quays, in journals more or less devoted to those unreclaimed spaces of the city. Well, if she was unhappy, was it not the fulfilment of his prophecy in Venice? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... treated as absolute prophecies, prophecies which were expressly conditional. And they lost sight of the fact, so plainly stated in Jeremiah xviii, that all prophetic promises and threatenings are conditional. Then they took one bit of a prophecy and left another: kept out of sight predictions which had not been fulfilled, and dwelt exclusively on ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... passed round the room, so daring did these words appear upon the lips of Hermiston's only son. But the amendment was not seconded; the previous question was promptly moved and unanimously voted, and the momentary scandal smuggled by. Innes triumphed in the fulfilment of his prophecy. He and Archie were now become the heroes of the night; but whereas every one crowded about Innes, when the meeting broke up, but one of all his companions came to speak ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sincerity, and intensity of its expression of passion. When it was first brought forward in Vienna in October, 1823, Castelli observed that it was come fifty years before its time. He spoke with a voice of prophecy. It was not until the fifty years had expired that "Euryanthe" really came into its rights, and it was the light reflected upon it by the works of Weber's great successor at Dresden that disclosed in what those rights consisted. After that the critical voices of the world agreed in pronouncing "Euryanthe" ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... most easy and pleasant work, and the most delightful and honorable station, and leaves for others the most obscure, the most self-denying, and the most perilous. Discover such a spirit in any enterprise, secular or religious, and it requires not the gift of prophecy to predict a failure. Practical and business men understand full well the truth and force of this remark. The true method is this: if there is a work that is likely to be neglected on account of its obscurity or self-denial, let every one, ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... left records of itself in the map of Canaan. In the names of Canaanitish towns and villages the names of Babylonian deities frequently recur. Rimmon or Hadad, the god of the air, whom the Syrians identified with the Sun-god, Nebo, the god of prophecy, the interpreter of the will of Bel-Merodach, Anu, the god of the sky, and Anat, his consort, all alike meet us in the names sometimes of places, sometimes of persons. Mr. Tomkins is probably right in seeing even in Beth-lehem the name of the primeval Chaldaean deity Lakhmu. ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... stop over Sunday with his family, will have little cause to envy us Easterners our Saratoga as he paces up and down the piazza of the Spa hotel, mingling his full-flavored Havana with that lovely air, unbreathed before, which is floating down upon him from the snow peaks of the range." His prophecy has become true in every particular. But what would he have thought had he threaded the tortuous path now marked by glistening railway tracks? What would he have said of the Grand Canon of the Arkansas, the Black Canon of the Gunnison, Castle Canon and Marshall ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... west, now, and rising fast. I hope that your spirit of prophecy still speaks smooth things, for, upon my word, I believe we are both of us in a worse mess ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... readiness of reply, when suddenly called upon; but we cannot help suspecting that some confusion has arisen between the Robert Wilson, the writer of the two dramas above-named (as well as of "The Cobbler's Prophecy," 1594, a production of a similar character), and the Robert Wilson who is mentioned in "Henslowe's Diary," and whom Meres, as late as 1598, calls "our worthy Wilson," adding that he was "for learning and extemporal wit, without compare or compeer."[9] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... fun?" she asked, weakly. "'The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold.' Those bold, bad 'Possum Hunters' will never be able to hold up their heads in this county again! Routed by a girl with a troop of cattle!" (It may be added that she spoke no less than prophecy.) ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... bondage. But it will work its own redemption yet. Study carefully not only books but the world. You love nature; love her without fear. Be patient—wait the course of time. You will not be a soldier or a sailor, Henry; but if you live you will be—listen to my prophecy—you will be ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... unite his line with that of the old English kings, and to reign as their representative as well as his father's, and it was so understood, both by the party opposed to Henry and by his own supporters. Whatever we may think of the dying prophecy attributed to Edward the Confessor, that the troubles which he foresaw for England should end when the green tree—the English dynasty—cut off from its root and removed for the space of three acres' breadth—three foreign ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... them 'a peculiar people,' and brought them forth out of bondage to the Egyptian nation, and to one Pharaoh a tyrant, by strange and terrible signs and wonders wrought by the hand of Moses and Aaron, holy men, honoured with the gift of prophecy; by whom also he punished the Egyptians in fashion worthy of their wickedness, and led the Israelites (for thus the people descended from Abraham were called) through the Red Sea upon dry land, the waters dividing and making a wall on the right hand and a wall on the left. But when Pharaoh and ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... And this prophecy was indeed fulfilled. Mittie never became gentle, amiable and loving, like Helen, for as Arthur had justly said, her character was composed of strong and warring elements—but after a long and agonizing strife, she did become a zealous and devoted Christian. The hard, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... of France kept his promise to Law, and the latter in turn fulfilled his prophecy to the regent. Moreover, he swiftly went far toward verifying his boast to the Lady Catharine Knollys; for in less than a month his name was indeed on every tongue in Paris. The Banque Generale de L'as et Compagnie was seized upon by the public, debtor and creditor alike, as ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... Clara's taste and mode of life—had he only continued to be the heir of Castle Richmond. She and Owen would not enter upon the world together with nearly the same fair chance of happiness. Who could prophecy to what Owen might be led with his passionate impulses, his strong will, his unbridled temper, and his love of pleasure? That he was noble-hearted, affectionate, brave, and tender in his inmost spirit, Lady Desmond was very sure; but were such the qualities which would make her daughter happy? ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... prophecy was more than fulfilled. From the hour of Lane's return to consciousness, he made rapid improvement. Most of the time he slept and, upon awakening, he seemed to feel stronger. Lane had been ill often during the last eighteen months, but after ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... misunderstood by the people round them. Italy, sunk in sloth, priest-ridden, tyrant-ridden, exhausted with the unparalleled activity of the Renaissance, besotted with the vices of slavery and slow corruption, had no ears for spirit-thrilling prophecy. The Church, terrified by the Reformation, when she chanced to hear those strange voices sounding through 'the blessed mutter of the mass,' burned the prophets. The State, represented by absolute Spain, if it listened to them ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella

... merely a dim prophecy of our police system; and when adventurous girls grow rebellious and essay to lose themselves a hundred Arguses are watching them. You seem to ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... novel, called Quintus Servington, 3 vols. It professes to detail his life: it sets out with a gypsy prophecy, delivered at his birth, which gave warning to his father that his son would be in danger between his thirtieth and fortieth year; but, passing that period, safely reach a ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... growing weaker and weaker. The little thing had been upon the verge of passing on so many times, that her parents had grown skeptical of the doctor's prophecy—that she could not ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... venerable prediction. A battle was to be fought at Gladsmuir; go to, then—a battle was fought at Gladsmuir, or near Gladsmuir, which is very much the same thing: anyhow, not very far away from Gladsmuir. And so the Jacobites were contented, and more than ever convinced of the advantages of prophecy in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... cloud of late. Years ago I said it was a match, when no one supposed you could stoop. Lady Busshe would have it was a screen, and she was deemed high wisdom. The world will be with you. All the women will be: excepting, of course, Lady Busshe, whose pride is in prophecy; and she will soon be too glad to swell the host. There, my friend, your sincerest and oldest admirer congratulates you. I could not contain myself; I was compelled to pour forth. And now I must go and be talked to by Dr. Middleton. How does he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... week or two more, and Beatrice's prophecy had progressed so far towards fulfilment, that Antony was going about the woods and the moors saying over to himself the name he had found for the Image, as we saw in the first chapter; and his love for Silencieux, begun more or less ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne

... the Erbprinz was not dying when the old crone spoke these words, but Eberhard Ludwig, always feverishly anxious for his son's welfare, hurried back to Ludwigsburg in an agony of fear and related the peasant woman's prophecy, and the strange fact of that ancient thorn-tree putting forth a spray of white blossom. Her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin had been much offended by the story, and had ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... wedded maid—these epithets have long been mine. Betrothed!—wo's me! it is the key-stone of my destiny. Betrayer I am now denounced, though, thank God, I am clear from the guilt! It only follows that I should be betrayed, and the evil prophecy will be fulfilled ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... for a spirit of prophecy," Sir Thomas made answer, to "foresee troubles which were the sure effect of the causes then in operation, and which were actually close at hand. When the rain is gathering from the south or west, and those ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... as he found him to be, with humor, with sympathy, and yet with what the reader must instinctively feel to be entire truthfulness. I said that a race which had come to this effect in any member of it, had attained civilization in him, and I permitted myself the imaginative prophecy that the hostilities and the prejudices which had so long constrained his race were destined to vanish in the arts; that these were to be the final proof that God had made of one blood all nations of men. I thought his merits positive and not comparative; and ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... beginning the composition of his immortal works, there appeared an allegorical poem of considerable length, so earnest in tone, so richly imaginative, so full of picturesque descriptions, that it seemed rather a fulfilment than a prophecy; that this poem—called "The Vision of William concerning Piers Ploughman," and written by an obscure monk whose name was probably William Langland—was the greatest poem and the most popular that had ever been written in England, and yet that it failed in many ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... Bible, and perhaps, too, Mill's "Political Economy." Have you perused therein the priceless Chapter "On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes"? If not, let me give you the reference—vol. ii, p. 315, of the Second Edition. Read it, thou self-satisfied Mammon, and perpend; for it is both a prophecy and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... mean," she replied, the texts he dreaded rising in an unuttered crowd behind the words. "He's one of those things that we are warned would come—one of those Latter-Day things." For her mind still bristled with the bogeys of the Antichrist and Prophecy, and she had only escaped the Number of the Beast, as it were, by the skin of her teeth. The Pope drew most of her fire usually, because she could understand him; the target was plain and she could shoot. But this tree-and-forest business was so vague and horrible. It terrified her. "He makes ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood

... Adams, Dr. Thomas Young and Josiah Quincy, Jr.,[17] an ardent young patriot devotedly attached to the liberties of his country, were the principal speakers. Only a fragment of the speech of Quincy remains. Counselling moderation, and in a spirit of prophecy, he said: ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... unpleasant days later in the month, noons when the skies were filled with ragged, swiftly moving clouds, and the winds blew the sheaves inside out and slashed against my face the flying grain as well as the leaping crickets. Such days gave prophecy of the passing of summer and the coming of fall. But there was a mitigating charm even in these conditions, for they were all welcome promises of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... the dark, were my hell. The sufferings I endured in this nature would justify the expression. I never laid my head on my pillow, I suppose, from the fourth to the seventh or eighth year of my life—so far as memory serves in things so long ago—without an assurance, which realized its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be old Stackhouse then acquitted in part, if I say, that to his picture of the Witch raising up Samuel—(O that old man covered with a mantle!) I owe—not my midnight terrors, the hell of my infancy—but the shape and manner of their ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... prognosticate," replied Wallace, "that on the eighteenth of April, a storm should burst over this land which would lay the country in ruins. Fear seized the farmers; but his prophecy regarded a nobler object than their harvests. The day came, rose unclouded, and continued perfectly serene. Lord March, to whom the seer had presaged the event, at noon reproached him with the unlikeliness of its completion. But even at the moment he was ridiculing the sage, a man on a foaming ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... she realized that she and Steve were being torn apart. When would they ever meet again? He had taught her those words himself. She remembered listening as he sang them over and over under the hau tree at Waikiki. Had it been prophecy? And she had admired his singing, had told him that he sang with such expression. She laughed aloud, hysterically, at the recollection. With such expression!—when he had been pouring his heart out in his voice. She knew now, and it was too late. Why ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London

... brother Julius, the unfortunate goldsmith, who had none of the qualities that could make him a suitable companion for her. She was full of hope for the success of my undertaking, and felt this confidence strengthened by the favourable prophecy which our dear Rosalie had made about me shortly before her ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... washing, and Yetta determined, unaided and unadvised, to be her own laundress. She made endless trips with her tin-pail from the sixth floor to the yard and back again, she begged a piece of soap from the friendly "janitor lady" and set valiantly to work. And Eva's prophecy was fulfilled. The dress looked "awful diff'rent" when it had dried to half its already scant proportions. From various sources Yetta collected six buttons of widely dissimilar design and colour and, with great difficulty since her hands were puffed and ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... will live to see the day when women who wear diamonds around their throats will have harsh, horny ringers there instead. There will be rich men's blood on every paving stone and beautiful necks will be slit with less mercy than marked the French butchery years ago. That's my prophecy. Some day you'll recall it to mind, especially if you happen to become very prosperous. It's bound to come. Now get out. I have a lot of writing to do." ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... not often, she remembered that the man who had stumbled upon the rich quartz vein in Yellow Dog Gulch could scarcely sign his name legibly to the papers recording his claim; that in those days there was no prophecy of the ambitious present in the man, half drunkard and half outlaw, whose name in the Yellow Dog district had been a synonym for—but these were unpleasant memories, and Margery rarely ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... essay with some traditions of man and nature, which a certain poet sang to me; and which, as they have always been in the world, and perhaps reappear to every bard, may be both history and prophecy. ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... says Regan, "I will own the Suburban and throw my rails from the present end of track to the Suburban right of way and into this town in a single night! Think over it well; on this spot where you sit among tumbledown walls you will raise up"—the man's tones thrilled like a prophecy—"you will raise up a station of stone and glass. The sounds in here, instead of running mice and the pawing of the old horse and your own curses on poverty, will be the footsteps of hurrying people, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... addressed to Andrew Jackson, the "Atlantic Ruler" is apostrophized on the supposition of a prophecy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... be the great theologian of Christianity and the principal writer of the New Testament. Now the New grew out of the Old; the one is in all its parts the prophecy and the other the fulfillment. But it required a mind saturated not only with Christianity, but with the Old Testament, to bring this out; and, at the age when the memory is most retentive, Paul acquired such a knowledge of the Old ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... house, which unhappily came to pass, as after his death the choice wavered only between the king of Spain (/afterwards/), Charles V., and the king of France, Francis I. With some anxiety it was added, that a similar prophecy, or rather intimation, was once more in circulation; for it was obvious that there was room left for the portrait of only one more emperor,—a circumstance which, though seemingly accidental, filled the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... man slowly, while he fixed his eyes on the smouldering fire, "Socialism is a political movement, a concept of life, a philosophy, an interpretation, a prophecy, an ideal. It embraces history, economics, science, art, religion, literature and every phase of human activity. It explains life, points the way to better things, gives us hope, strengthens the weary and heavy-laden, bids us look upward and onward, and constitutes the most sublime ideal ever ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... would have fuller measure were he strong of body as well. She believed she was just. She gave the flesh its due and the spirit its due; but she had, over and above, her own choice, her own individual ideal. She liked to see the two go hand in hand. Prophecy and dyspepsia did not affect her as a felicitous admixture. A splendid savage and a weak-kneed poet! She could admire the one for his brawn and the other for his song; but she would prefer that they had been made one in ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... the people should pass under an arch whereon was a bell and two doves, and he upon whose shoulders the doves should alight, and for whom the bell should ring as he passed under the arch was to be the next Pope. And when Jack and his companions came near the arch they all remembered his prophecy and wondered which of the three should receive the signs. And his first comrade passed under the arch and nothing happened, and then the second and nothing happened, but when Jack went through the doves descended and alighted upon his shoulder and ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... people understood as well as did the Jews that the child is the prophecy of the future, and that a nation is kept alive not by memory but by hope. Childhood to them was "the sign of fulfillment of glorious promises; the burden of psalm and prophecy was of a golden age to come, not of one that was in the dim past." So in the greatest of all books we come frequently ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... prophetical of Jesus Christ, his sufferings, atonement, mediation, and kingdom; and they esteem it a gross perversion of these psalms and prophecies, to apply them to the experiences of private Christians. In proof of this, they not only urge the words of the apostle, that no prophecy is of any private interpretation, but they insist that the whole of the quotations from the ancient prophecies in the New Testament, and particularly those from the Psalms, are expressly applied to Christ. In this opinion, many other classes ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... be mentioned that so late as the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes, pretenders of native blood, one of whom was named Harmachis, are known to have advanced their claims to the throne of Egypt. Moreover, there was a book of prophecy current among the priesthood which declared that after the nations of the Greeks the God Harsefi would create the "chief who is to come." It will therefore be seen that, although it lacks historical confirmation, the story of the great ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... Adraste, and Apaesus' realm, From Pityeia, and the lofty hill Tereian came, with linen corslets girt, Adrastus and Amphius led; two sons Of Merops of Percote; deeply vers'd Was he in prophecy; and from the war Would fain have kept his sons; but they, by fate, Doom'd to impending ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... her fate, whenever he called to mind the prediction concerning her; so that at length he determined to consult a celebrated dervish, his friend, on the possible means of averting the fulfilment of the prophecy. The dervish gave him but little hopes of being able to counteract the will of heaven, but advised him to carry the beautiful maiden to a sequestered mansion, situated among unfrequented mountains surrounding it ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... said the Athenian commander on the approach of that decisive day, "if we conquer, we shall make Athens the greatest city of Greece."[6] A prophecy how well fulfilled! "If God prosper us," might have been the more appropriate language of our fathers, when they landed upon this Rock, "if God prosper us, we shall here begin a work which shall last for ages; we shall plant here a new society, in the principles of the fullest ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... said Brace drily. "How curious it is that a prophecy of evil always makes more impression than one ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... poor woman, weeping to find the young maiden as beautiful as herself, "I know that they are trying to force you into a marriage with Monsieur de Chatillon, although you still love Monsieur de l'Ile Adam. Have confidence in the prophecy that I here make you, that he whom you have loved, and who only was false to you through a snare into which an angel might have fallen, will be free from the burden of his old wife before the leaves fall. Thus the constancy of your love will have its crown of ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... This prophecy has been fulfilled, for we passed along a tunnel under the hill, through which thousands of bullocks have been driven, and under an archway ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... is said Jo. 5:39, to contain the words of eternal life: and it represents Jesus and his Apostles, as fulfilling by their mission, doctrines and works, the predictions of the Prophets and the Law: which last is said to prophecy of, or to ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... what is in the future? I pray that death instead of shame may be the portion of the next generation, and I look at George's boys only to wonder which of them is the happy one who shall some day lie dead at his brother's feet. Are you surprised at my resolution never to marry? The fatal prophecy is rich in its fulfillment; none of our name and blood are safe; and the day might come when I too should have to call upon my children to curse me for their birth,—should have to watch while the burden which I could no longer ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... not mistaken in his prophecy. A furious West Indian hurricane broke on the last day of June; but his poor little ships, instead of lying safe in the shelter of San Domingo harbor, were exposed to all the ravages of the storm. Why? Because Ovando had refused to let him enter the port! A cruel insult; but ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... Deny All Distinction Between Right And Wrong. Dangers Of Mediumship. Miscellaneous Teaching. Spirits Cannot Be Identified. Chapter Six. Its Promises: How Fulfilled. Chapter Seven. Spiritualism A Subject Of Prophecy. Conclusion. Index Of Authors Referred To. Index Of Books, Papers, Etc., Quoted. Index Of Texts Of Scripture Illustrated Or ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... death return? Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy! The world is weary of the past,— Oh might it die or rest ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... different type was Theodore Parker. He stood in his pulpit, the embodiment of courageous attack on every falsehood and abuse as it appeared to the lofty and luminous mind of the preacher. With his prophecy there mingled no expediency. He spoke the truth as he saw it, and let consequences take care of themselves. For a generation, the Unitarian ministers had denied the doctrine of the Trinity, but they held the founder of Christianity in such reverence ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... that some of the thinking minds in Germany are in the belief that the dark ages are returning. The following passage in the "Life and Letters of Niebuhr," written less than two months before his death in 1831, is almost prophecy:— ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... altogether disappeared from the country, or at all events are fast disappearing. The old Harper is now hardly seen; the Senachie, where he exists, is but a dim and faded representative of that very old Chronicler in his palmy days; and the Prophecy-man unfortunately has survived the failure of his best and most cherished predictions. The poor old Prophet's stock in trade is nearly exhausted, and little now remains but the slaughter which is to take place at the mill of Louth, when human blood, and the miller to have six ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... A prophecy and indirection, a thought impalpable to breathe as air, A chorus of dryads, fading, departing, or hamadryads departing, A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, Voice of a mighty dying tree ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... Sam Ravenshaw said all through the winter that "something would come of it"? Was it not the daily remark of Angus Macdonald that such a state of things, "could not go on for ever—whatever"? Had not Peegwish glared prophecy with a degree of solemnity that rendered words not only impossible, but unnecessary? and had not Miss Trim asserted that dreadful consequences of some sort ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... its dregs the wine, Of bitter Prophecy. The world is weary of its past. Oh, might it die ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos

... top, stopped to take breath; then putting his hand on his breast, he found that he had left in his bedroom a chain that he always wore round his neck, which suspended a gold medallion that enclosed the sacred host. He owed this habit to a prophecy that an astrologer had made, that so long as he carried about a consecrated wafer, neither steel nor poison could take hold upon him. Now, finding himself without his talisman, he ordered Monsignors Caraffa to hurry back at once to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... our health will be improved; our safety at sea, and also in battle, will be assured; our coats and shoes, and all other instruments and implements will be skilfully made, because the workmen will be good and true. Aye, and if you please, you may suppose that prophecy, which is the knowledge of the future, will be under the control of wisdom, and that she will deter deceivers and set up the true prophets in their place as the revealers of the future. Now I quite agree that mankind, thus provided, would live and act according to ...
— Charmides • Plato

... own. They had tales among them about a prophet called MERLIN (of the same old time), who had foretold that their own King should be restored to them after hundreds of years; and they believed that the prophecy would be fulfilled in Arthur; that the time would come when he would rule them with a crown of Brittany upon his head; and when neither King of France nor King of England would have any power over them. When Arthur found himself riding in a glittering ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... Hake was born in 1809 and died in 1895. In 1839 he settled at Bury St. Edmunds as a physician, and he resided there until 1853. Here he was frequently visited by the Borrows. We have already quoted his prophecy concerning Lavengro that 'its roots will strike deep into the soil of English letters.' In 1853 Dr. Hake and his family left Bury for the United States, where they resided for some years. Returning to England they lived at Roehampton and met Borrow ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... she said, "have passed since I took you into my life. At that time I was told that I was doing a rash thing, a dangerous thing—that before your twenty-fifth birthday the bad blood would out; that you would, in short, have shot a man. And the prophecy has come true. By an irony of chance it has happened on the very last day. And by another irony you picked your victim from among ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... augur, equally as when one raven lifts up his hoary blackness from a stone, and sails sullenly off with a croak, that gets fiercer and more savage in the lofty distance? Does the leaf of the forest twinkle futurity? the lonely lichen brighten or pale its lustre with change? Does not the gift of prophecy dwell with the family of the violets and the lilies? The prescient harebells, do they not let drop their closing blossoms when the heavens are niggard of their dews, or uphold them like cups thirsty for wine, when the blessing, yet unfelt by duller animal life, is beginning ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... infinite; and his schemes were to affect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished,—always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardor, and enlightened by prophecy. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... was the first to fulfil Luther's prophecy. In 1549 he began publicly to propound a doctrine in which he abandoned the forensic conception of justification by imputation of the merits of Christ, and returned to the Roman view of justification by infusion ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... dispose of my property in poor frail England, and gain a station in Asia. She told me that, after leaving her, I should go into Egypt, but that in a little while I should return into Syria. I secretly smiled at this last prophecy as a “bad shot,” for I had fully determined after visiting the Pyramids to take ship from Alexandria for Greece. But men struggle vainly in the meshes of their destiny. The unbelieved Cassandra was right after all; the plague came, and the ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... His prophecy was fulfilled. Mrs. Jenkins washed the lucrative garment late one afternoon and left it on the line all night. The next morning, to the great consternation of the family and the wild distress of Amarilly, the beloved surplice, that friend of friends ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... and adoption of his plan.[18] Who knows but that the city of New Orleans might have been able to write a different chapter in the history of its health statistics on the Yellow Fever peril if its prejudices had not been allowed to dominate its prophecy? ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... can at any time, when it suits her, show herself as expert a jockey as her husband, and he appears to advantage in no other character, and is only eloquent when descanting on the merits of some particular animal; but she can do much more; she is a prophetess, though she believes not in prophecy; she is a physician, though she will not taste her own philters; she is a procuress, though she is not to be procured; she is a singer of obscene songs, though she will suffer no obscene hands to touch her; and though no one is ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... created in London in 1736 by the prophecy of the famous Whiston, that the world would be destroyed in that year, on the 13th of October. Crowds of people went out on the appointed day to Islington, Hampstead, and the fields intervening, to see the destruction of London, which was to be the "beginning ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... engage in the study of the law.... Whatever I do study ought to be engaged in with all my soul,— for I WILL BE EMINENT in something.... Let me reside one year at Cambridge; let me study belles-lettres; and after that time it will not require a spirit of prophecy to predict with some degree of certainty what kind of a figure I could make in the literary world. If I fail here, there is still time left for the study of a profession." ...His father could not make up his mind to trust his son to the uncertain reed of literature. ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... With this parting prophecy Ellen shut her lips, and Lucy, throbbing from the stripes of the encounter and seeing further parley fruitless, slipped from the room and fled to the quiet of the ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... possible to extract convincing evidence that the sisters are intended to be merely witches. It is not surprising that other portions of the play in which the sisters are mentioned should confirm this view. Banquo, upon hearing the fulfilment of the prophecy of the second witch, clearly expresses his opinion of the origin of the "foreknowledge" he has received, in the exclamation, "What, can the devil speak true?" For the devil most emphatically spoke through the witches; but how could he in any sense be said to speak ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... She rested upon a fallen log—from decay and death came moss, the snowdrop and the anemone. At the crossing of the brook were her footprints; not in mud downward, but in violets that sprang up in her pathway. O beautiful prophecy! literally fulfilled 2,000 years afterward in the life of the London apple woman, whose atmosphere sweetened bitter hearts and ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... afforded no occasion to have any complaint made of fortune on his account. He it was who alone had three of the most desirable things in the world,—the government of his nation, and the high priesthood, and the gift of prophecy. For the Deity conversed with him, and he was not ignorant of any thing that was to come afterward; insomuch that he foresaw and foretold that his two eldest sons would not continue masters of the government; and it will highly deserve our narration to describe their ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... a scroll, parchment, oracle, prophecy, precedent; do you ask for tablets marked with thought or words cut deep on the marble surface, do you seek measured utterance or ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle

... 'this country must, to the end of time, be peopled by the Canadian race, who have already taken such firm root, and got to so great a height, that any new stock transplanted will be totally hid, except in the towns of Quebec and Montreal.' Just how discerning this prophecy was may be judged from the fact that even to-day it holds true with regard to the districts that were settled at the time it was written. What rendered it void was the unexpected influx of the refugees of the Revolution. ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace

... came to this doleful prophecy. "I am glad of it, for then they will discharge me, and let me ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown

... her heart that the prophecy might come true; and privately she even believed it might—for she had brought all the women whom she had seen since she left home under sharp inspection, and the result had not ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... on duty was the one unpardonable sin. He looked across the darkness of the sea, to where the rising and falling light marked the schooner. The Commandant was a long way off! A faint breeze, which had—according to Blunt's prophecy—arisen with the night, brought up to him the voices of the boat's crew from the jetty below him. His friend Jack Mannix was coxswain of her. He would give Jack a drink. Leaving the gate, he advanced unsteadily to the edge of the embankment, and, putting ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... Somewhere in the distance, off to the west, there was a prolonged blast from the whistle of a passenger engine. A dog that had been sleeping in the roadway arose and barked. The stranger began to babble and made a prophecy concerning the child that lay in the arms ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... individual himself. Now it is the spread of this individual co-operation that the forward movement of the Spirit is leading us to, and it is the gradual extension of this universal principle that is alluded to in the prophecy of Daniel regarding the Stone cut out without hands that spreads until it fills the whole earth (Daniel ii. 34 and 44). According to the interpretation given by Daniel, this Stone is the emblem of a spiritual Kingdom, and the identity of the Stone and the Shepherd indicates that the Kingdom of ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... to repeat to Dexter all that Lady Clarinda told you about Mrs. Beauly," he went on. "And you think it is likely that Dexter will be overwhelmed, as you were overwhelmed, when he hears the story. I am going to venture on a prophecy. I say that Dexter will disappoint you. Far from showing any astonishment, he will boldly tell you that you have been duped by a deliberately false statement of facts, invented and set afloat, in her own guilty ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... prophecy concerning the easting of the wind proved a true one, for when we hauled up a couple of points after rounding Dungeness it followed us, keeping dead astern. At four bells (six o'clock) we mustered holystones and scrubbing-brushes, attached the hose to the fire hydrant, and industriously ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... general misery, of which he has been the innocent cause, King Henry appears like the powerless image of a saint, in whose wonder-working influence no man any longer believes: he can but sigh and weep over the enormities which he witnesses. In his simplicity, however, the gift of prophecy is lent to this pious king: in the moment of his death, at the close of this great tragedy, he prophesies a still more dreadful tragedy with which futurity is pregnant, as much distinguished for the poisonous wiles of cold-blooded ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... visited the secret chamber alone, but the scream of horror which came from the bride on seeing the spectacle which there presented itself to her, brought Wagner and Nisida to their side. Instantly on seeing the skeletons, the prophecy of Rosencrux rushed on the mind of Wagner; a complete revolution came over his whole frame, beautiful visions floated before his eyes, as of angels waiting to receive him and herald him to eternal glory; then stretching forth his arms, as if to embrace something immaterial, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... me, John, but a'm concerned aboot Sabbath, for a've been praying ever syne ye were called to Drumtochty that it micht be a great day, and that I micht see ye comin' tae yir people, laddie, wi' the beauty o' the Lord upon ye, according tae the auld prophecy: 'How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace,'" ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... thought struck him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a duke climbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some prophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in crowds down the street and ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... his prophecy. On our passage from Amsterdam to Samarang with a general cargo, of which, alas! only one-third in weight was stowed "above the beams," we had a lively time of it. It was lively, but not joyful. There was not even a single moment of comfort in it, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... were ten, fulfilling a prophecy which thus limited their number. The compilation of their sayings and doings to form a book which as years went on was venerated more and more, and the founding of Oomritsur, chief of their holy places, were the principal things ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... advancing on a straight road. It is not possible to bind ourselves down to a certain defined course, but still it is an enormous, an incalculable advantage for us to have some irreversible standard set up in us by which everything we meet is to be judged. That is the meaning of the prophecy—whether it will ever be fulfilled God only knows—that Christ shall judge the world. All religions have been this. They have said that in the midst of the infinitely possible—infinitely possible evil and infinitely possible good too—we become distracted. A thousand forces good and ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford

... chapters have been written about love verses—and how many more might be written!—might, would, could, should, or ought to be written!— I will venture to say, will be written! I have a mind to fulfil my own prophecy and write one myself; but no—my story must go on. However, I will say, that it is quite curious in how many ways the same little bit of paper may influence different people: the poem whose literary merit may be small becomes ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... of placid satisfaction shone on the circular face of Mr. Watkins Tottle, as he heard the prophecy. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... full impact of this prophecy at the moment. Indeed, it appeared to him that he had known since the previous midnight of his father's sudden doom; it appeared to him that the first glimpse of his father after the funeral had informed him of it positively. What impressed him at the moment was the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... compared to this wonderful crown of life—a woman's love. Where did it come from into this miserable world, this heavenly ray, this pure gift out of the divine beneficence, this spotless flower in a humanity so astray, this sure prophecy of the final redemption of the world? The immeasurable love of a good woman! And to him! Philip felt humble in his exaltation, charitable in his selfish appropriation. He wanted to write to Celia—but he did not—that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... to Westminster in Edward I.'s reign. The Commons sat for 300 years in the Abbey Chapter-house, then for 300 years more in St. Stephen's Chapel. In 1790 a report on the buildings declared them to be defective and in great danger of fire, a prophecy fulfilled in 1834. On the evening of October 16 in that year the wife of a doorkeeper saw a light under one of the doors, and gave an alarm. The place was made for a bonfire; a strong wind blowing from the south, and afterwards ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... birthday, Bryce divined that his father was closer to him than motherly Mrs. Tully or the half-breed girl, albeit the housekeeper sang to him the lullabys that mothers know while the Digger girl, improvising blank verse paeans of praise and prophecy, crooned them to her charge in the unmusical monotone of her tribal tongue. His father, on the contrary, wasted no time in singing, but would toss him to the ceiling or set him astride his foot and swing him until he screamed in ecstasy. Moreover, his father ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... instrument which is to accomplish the destruction of the wolf. St. Michael's sword is to smite off the head of Satan, who at the door of Christ's fold is, "with privy paw," daily devouring the hungry sheep. Note here that, according to some theologians, the archangel Michael, in prophecy, means Christ himself. (See the authorities quoted by Heber, Bampton Lectures, iv. note l, p. 242.) Hence it is His business to preserve His own sheep. In the Apocalypse the final blow of St. Michael's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various



Words linked to "Prophecy" :   prediction, foretelling, vaticination, crystal gazing, soothsaying, prognostication, forecasting, fortune telling, divination, oracle, prevision, anticipation, prophetical, prophetic



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