Harry Potter Quotes

“Alchemy throughout history was about the transformation of base metals into gold and the promise of eternal life, but really it is about the journey of making something of your life and becoming who you are supposed to be.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“Fluffy is a call-back to Cerberus, the Classical three-headed mythological beast and guard dog to the gates of hell, which Hercules had to capture as one of his twelve labours. The depiction of Cerberus and Hercules by Aegidius Sadeler II, engraver in the court of Rudolf II in Prague (made some time between 1586 and 1629), made the gates of hell look like a flaming brick prison. What’s interesting about the image of Hercules dragging the dark, muscular, fanged beast in his left hand and the way it is composed is the angle. You’re compelled to follow the action from right to left, as opposed to the conventional Western habit of reading left to right. This inversion could be because we are in the underworld, where logic, physics and, indeed, art are turned on their head. What also links Cerberus to Fluffy and the Philosopher’s Stone is that in capturing Cerberus and taking him to King Eurystheus (who was so terrified he immediately jumped into a large jar to escape), Hercules gained immortality by completing his penance. And just like Harry in his epic struggle to find the Philosopher’s Stone, Hercules did so less through physical effort than through courage and strength of mind.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“Hamburg, 1669, and he was attempting to discover gold. He was trying to do this by boiling urine of all things. Gold wasn’t the result, but the element he did discover was phosphorous.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“a serpent and crowned dragon eating each other’s tails. This is a common alchemical symbol called an Ourobouros, symbolising the cycle of birth and death, and the unification of prima materia (‘primary matter’) with spiritus universalis (‘universal spirit’).”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“18th-century toothpaste and today as a varnish for violins.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“Helleborus niger”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“that the bishop died before it was completed.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“He was trying to do this by boiling urine of all things. Gold wasn’t the result, but the element he did discover was phosphorous”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“– books themselves exert their own magical influence by the way they are interpreted and shared, and how they transform our knowledge of our surroundings, real and imagined.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“The colours of the stones have connections with the names of key characters in the Harry Potter series. The red stone has a connection to Rubeus Hagrid, whose name in Latin means ‘red’; likewise the white stone to Albus Dumbledore, whose first name means ‘white’, and the black stone to Sirius Black (for obvious reasons). Arguably, the three father figures of Harry Potter are bound together in the colours of the Philosopher’s Stone.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology

“Historically, an apothecary served as a sort of chemist or pharmacist, and texts recording symptoms and prescriptions have been found originating in the ancient societies of China, Babylon and Egypt.”
― Pottermore Publishing, Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology