Prometheus Quotes

“This belonged to my sister-in-law," Prometheus explained. "Pandora."

A lump formed in my throat. "As in Pandora's box?"

Prometheus shook his head. "I don't know how this box business got started. It was never a box. It was a pithos, a storage jar. I suppose Pandora's pithos doesn't have the same ring to it.”
― Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian

“Childhood is bound like the Gordian knot with my memories of the Black Sea, and I still feel its waters welling up within me today. Sometimes these waters are leaden, as grey as the military ships that sail on their curved expanses, and sometimes they are blue as pigmented cobalt. Then would come dusk, when I would sit and watch the seabirds waver to shore, flitting from open waters to the quiet empty vastlands in darkening spaces behind me, the same birds Ovid once saw during his exile, perhaps; and the same waters the Argonauts crossed searching for the fleece of renewal.

And out in the distance, invisible, the towering heights of Caucasus, where once-bright memories of the fire-thief have transmuted into something weird and many-faceted, and beyond these, pitch-black Karabakh in dolorous Armenia.”
― Paul Christensen, The Heretic Emperor

“He was, after all, the ultimate rebel -- it takes a lot of cojones to stand up to Zeus.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Big Over Easy

“Any technological advance can be dangerous. Fire was dangerous from the start, and so (even more so) was speech - and both are still dangerous to this day - but human beings would not be human without them.”
― Isaac Asimov

“Then you know Prometheus was rescued in the end. His chains were broken, and he was finally set free." The old man squinted one of his eyes and added, "How about that?”
― Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

“A tyrant's trust dishonors those who earn it.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“You are young and young your rule and you think that the tower in which you live is free from sorrow: from it have I not seen two tyrants thrown? The third, who now is king, I shall yet live to see him fall, of all three most suddenly, most dishonored.”
― Aeschylus

“Is that not the Promethean fable, that the fire stolen from the gods will light men their way even while it burns their hands?”
― Zia Haider Rahman

“Those who turn the instruments of science upon Nature will always be in danger of seeing more than they looked for. There is such a disaster as that of knowing too much, and at some time or another it may overtake each of us.”
― E.G. Swain, The Stoneground Ghost Tales

“Then Prometheus turned to Pandy, very obviously not looking at Douban.”
― Carolyn Hennesy, Pandora Gets Frightened

“Trust my folly then, since it is best
for a man truly wise to be thought a fool.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“Soul meets soul on lovers' lips.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

“The name Prometheus has always caused me particular annoyance, for my breast still aches from the everlasting beak of the vulture from which Alcides set me free.”
― Gérard de Nerval, Selected Writings

“The power worship of the Promethean amounts to a travesty of the enhancement of life.”
― Roberto Mangabeira Unger, The Religion of the Future

“Time shell be the limit of my suffering.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes

“But concern not thou thyself vainly with matters that are of no advantage.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes

“Thy tongue sounds in accordance with thy form. (Vulcan)”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes

“The stories abounded, both recounting these cross-continental journeys and perhaps inspiring them – how Hellenic Jason gathered his Argonauts together (including Augeas, whose vast stables Herakles would be forced to clean) for adventure and profit, how he stopped off along the Bosphorus and discovered the land of the rising sun before other Greek heroes headed to Asia in search of Helen, Troy and glory. In the Homeric epics we hear of Jason travelling east where he tangles with Medea of Colchis, her aunt Circe and the feisty Amazon tribe. Lured by the promise of gold (early and prodigious metalworking did indeed take place in the region – perhaps sparking the Greek idea that the East was ‘rich in gold’) and then detained by the potions and poisons of Princess Medea, Jason succeeded in penetrating the Caucasus – a land which, in the Greek mind, wept with both peril and promise. It was here that Prometheus was chained to a rock with iron rivets for daring to steal fire from the gods. Archaeology east of Istanbul demonstrates how myth grazes history.”
― Bettany Hughes, Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities

“Prometheus is a mirror in which I see myself; I Promethean.”
― Mecha Constantine

“Come and join the Church of the Serpent. Learn the philosophy of the snake and slough off the old, failed skin of humanity. Don’t you want to be one of the Prometheans, the HyperHumans, the Faustians? Don’t you want to complete the journey from Cimmeria (Alpha) to Hyperborea (Omega)? Only the Serpent Humans can bring all of humanity to the most precious fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and confer Absolute Knowledge on everyone. Only through the Serpents will you achieve gnosis. Join usssssssssss.”
― David Sinclair, The Church of the Serpent: The Philosophy of the Snake and Attaining Transcendent Knowledge

“Buna karşılık, dinleyin ne kadar düşkündü ölümlüler,
Ve ben bu ağızsız dilsiz, çocuksu varlıklara
Nasıl verdim aklı, düşünceyi,
Anlatayım bunu, insanları küçültmek için değil,
Onlara ne büyük iyilikler ettiğimi göstermek için.
Önceleri insanlar görmeden bakıyor,
Dinlediklerini anlamıyorlardı,
Uzun ömürleri boyunca düş görüntüleri gibi
Düzensiz, gelişigüzel yaşıyorlardı.
Bilmiyorlardı duvar yapmasını,
Ağaç kullanmasını bilmiyorlardı.
Yerin altında, karanlık mağaralarda
Karınca sürüleri gibi yaşıyorlardı.
Ne kışın geleceği belliydi onlar için,
Ne çiçekli baharın, ne bereketli yazın.
Bilinç yoktu hiçbir yaptıklarında
Ben gösterinceye kadar onlara yıldızların
Doğuş batışlarını kestirmenin yolunu.
Sonra sayı bilgisini verdim onlara,
Bu kaynak bilgiyi onlar için ben bulup çıkardım.
Sonra harf dizilerine geldi sıra,
O diziler ki belleğidir her şeyin,
Anasıdır bilimlerin ve sanatların.
Hayvanlara da ilk boyunduruk vuran ben oldum
Ölümlüleri kurtarmak için kaba işlerden;
Atları dizginleyip arabalara koştum,
Zenginlerin şanını artıran arabalara.
Denizler aşan gemilerin bez kanatlarını
Bulan da benim, başkası değil.
(...)
İnsanlar hasta düştükleri zaman
Ölüp gidiyorlardı devasızlık yüzünden;
Ne yiyecekleri şeyi biliyorlardı
Ne içecekleri, ne de sürünecekleri şeyi.
Ben öğrettim onlara otları birbirine karıştırıp
Bütün hastalıklara karşı ilaçlar,
Cana can katan merhemler yapmasını.
Kahinlik sanatının bin bir yolunu buldum.
Ben oldum ilkin düşler arasında
Hangilerinin yarın gerçek olacağını bilen.
Ben oldum insanlara ilk öğreten
Duyulan seslerde, yol rastlantılarında
Olacakların belirtisini görmeyi.
Belirttim açıkça yırtıcı kuş uçuşlarının
Ne zaman uğurlu, ne zaman uğursuz olacaklarını.
Hepsinin huylarını, dostluklarını, düşmanlıklarını,
Hangilerinin bir arada uçtuklarını.
Ve hayvan bağırsaklarının nasıl,
Hangi kayganlıkları, hangi renkleriyle
Safra kesesinin ve karaciğer bölümlerinin
Hangi biçimleri ve görünüşleriyle
Tanrıların hoşuna gideceğini.
Hayvanların butlarını, bacaklarını, sırtlarını
Yağlara sardırıp yaktırdım.
Ölümlüleri erdirmek için
Kahinlik sanatının karanlık sırlarına.
Açıkladım insanlara alevlerin
Dumanlara bürülü kalmış anlamlarını.
Kim yaptı bütün bunları? Ben yaptım.
Ya toprağın insanlardan sakladığı hazineler?
Tunç, demir, gümüş, altın ve bütün madenler,
Kim buldum diyebilir bunları benden önce?
Hiç kimse, yalan söyler kim buldum derse.
Uzun sözün kısası şunu bilmiş ol:
Bütün sanatları Prometheus verdi insanlara.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“Thou beholdest a spectacle ill-sighted to the eye. (Vulcan)”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes

“Heavenly Fire by Stewart Stafford

The Stygian hole of abandon,
Overlaid with a sentry 's cloak,
Now unmasked eyes can see,
Perforations in astral ermine.

Stars crash to this plain,
In all their splintered finery,
As a missive of mortal status,
Decreeing fire is not of this earth.

Like the casting down of Lucifer,
Or Prometheus pirating Zeus's flame,
And when giant reptiles vanished,
Quiet gratitude for this deep shelter.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved”
― Stewart Stafford