Quotes from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Strange things have been spoken, why does your heart speak strangely? The dream was marvellous but the terror was great; we must treasure the dream whatever the terror.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“He looked at the walls,
Awed at the heights
His people had achieved
And for a moment -- just a moment --
All that lay behind him
Passed from view.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“How long does a building stand before it falls?
How long does a contract last? How long will brothers

share the inheritance before they quarrel?
How long does hatred, for that matter, last?

Time after time the river has risen and flooded.
The insect leaves the cocoon to live but a minute.

How long is the eye able to look at the sun?
From the very beginning nothing at all has lasted.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“I will set up my name in the place where the names of famous men are written, and where no man’s name is written yet I will raise a monument to the gods.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“The dream was marvellous but the terror was great; we must treasure the dream whatever the terror; for the dream has shown that misery comes at last to the healthy man, the end of his life is sorrow.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“How can I keep silent? How can I stay quiet?
My friend, whom I loved, has turned to clay,
my friend Enkidu, whom I loved has turned to clay.
Shall I not be like him, and also lie down,
never to rise again, through all eternity?”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“You have known, O Gilgamesh,
What interests me,
To drink from the Well of Immortality.
Which means to make the dead
Rise from their graves
And the prisoners from their cells
The sinners from their sins.
I think love's kiss kills our heart of flesh.
It is the only way to eternal life,
Which should be unbearable if lived
Among the dying flowers
And the shrieking farewells
Of the overstretched arms of our spoiled hopes.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“There is the house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay is their meat. They are clothed like birds with wings for covering, they see no light, they sit in darkness. I entered the house of dust and I saw the kings of the earth, their crowns put away for ever...”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Hold my hand in yours, and we will not fear what hands like ours can do.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“حمّل صاحب الخطيئة وزر خطيئته
وحمّل المعتدِيْ إثم اعتدائه
ولكن كن رحيماً في العقابِ لئلا يهلك ولا تهمله فيمعن في الشرّ”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“The river rises, flows over its banks
and carries us all away, like mayflies
floating downstream: they stare at the sun,
then all at once there is nothing.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Don't moralize at me! I have no love
For images, old gods, prophetic words.
I want to talk to Utnapishtim!
Tell me how.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Gilgamesh said to him, to Utnapishtim the remote,
"What can I do, Utnapishtim? Where can I go?
A thief has stolen my flesh.
Death lives in the house where my bed is,
and wherever I set my feet, there Death is.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Friendship is vowing toward immortality and does not know the passing away of beauty (Though take care!) because it aims for the spirit. Many years ago through loss I learned that love is wrung from our inmost heart until only the loved one is and we are not.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Gilgamesh was called a god and a man; Enkidu was an animal and a man. It is the story of their becoming human together.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Hold my hand in yours, and we will not fear what hands like ours can do.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“كن رحيما في العقاب لئلا يهلك ولا تهمله فيمعن في الشر”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Even the gods
Cowered like dogs at what they had done.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Whether or not the fame of Gilgamesh of Uruk had reached the Aegean – and the idea is attractive – there can be no doubt that it was as great as that of any other hero. In time his name became so much a household word that jokes and forgeries were fathered onto it, as in a popular fraud that survives on eighth-century B.C. tablets which perhaps themselves copy an older text. This is a letter supposed to be written by Gilgamesh to some other king, with commands that he should send improbable quantities of livestock and metals, along with gold and precious stones for an amulet for Enkidu, which would weigh no less that thirty pounds. The joke must have been well received, for it survives in four copies, all from Sultantepe.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“اي خير سأناله لو تزوجتك؟"
انت! ما انت الا الموقد الذي تخمد ناره في البرد
انت كالباب الناقص لا يصد عاصفة ولا ريحا
انت قصر يتحطم في داخله الأبطال
انت فيل يمزق رحله
انت قير يلوث من يحمله وقربة تبلل حامله
أنت حجر مرمر ينهار جداره
انت حجر"يشب" يستقدم العدو ويغريه
وأنت نعل يقرص قدم منتعله..”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“I was its king once, a long time ago, when the great gods decided to send the Flood. Five gods decided, and they took an oath to keep the plan secret: Anu their father, the counselor Enlil, Ninurta the gods’ chamberlain, and Ennugi the sheriff. Ea also, the cleverest of the gods, had taken the oath, but I heard him whisper the secret to the reed fence around my house. ‘Reed fence, reed fence, listen to my words. King of Shuruppak, quickly, quickly tear down your house and build a great ship, leave your possessions, save your life. The ship must be square, so that its length equals its width. Build a roof over it, just as the Great Deep is covered by the earth. Then gather and take aboard the ship examples of every living creature.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Shamash grant your wish.
What your mouth has said, may your eyes see.
May he open for you the barred path,
unclose the road for your footsteps,
unlock the mountain for your foot.
May the night give you things that please you,
and may Lugalbanda stand beside you
and satisfy your wish.
May you be granted your wish as a child is.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“When all the illusions of personal immortality are stripped away, there is only the act to maintain the freedom to act.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“As if some faces could be doorways in
To life one has an image of
But never sees. The vista was
A strange and beautiful
Release”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“Said Gilgamesh to him, to Uta-napishti the Distant:
'O Uta-napishti, what should I do and where should I go?
A thief has taken hold of my flesh!
For there in my bed-chamber Death does abide,
and wherever I turn, there too will be Death.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“He imagined the gazelles raising the dry dust
Like soft brush floating on the crests of sand.”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

“You are a human being now, not like them [the animals].”
― quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh

Popular quotes

“But when tomorrow came, the children had more than bread and milk, as you will soon see.”
― Gertrude Chandler Warner, quote from The Boxcar Children

“I smack into him as if shoved from behind. He doesn't budge, not an inch. Just holds my shoulders and waits. Maybe he's waiting for me to find my balance. Maybe he's waiting for me to gather my pride. I hope he's got all day.
I hear people passing on the boardwalk and imagine them staring. Best-case scenario, they think I know this guy, that we're hugging. Worst-case scenario, they saw me totter like an intoxicated walrus into this complete stranger because I was looking down for a place to park our beach stuff. Either way, he knows what happened. He knows why my cheek is plastered to his bare chest. And there is definite humiliation waiting when I get around to looking up at him.
Options skim through my head like a flip book.
Option One: Run away as fast as my dollar-store flip flops can take me. Thing is, tripping over them is partly responsible for my current dilemma. In fact, one of them is missing, probably caught in a crack of the boardwalk. I'm getting Cinderella didn't feel this foolish, but then again, Cinderella wasn't as clumsy as an intoxicated walrus.
Option two: Pretend I've fainted. Go limp and everything. Drool, even. But I know this won't work because my eyes flutter too much to fake it, and besides, people don't blush while unconscious.
Option Three: Pray for a lightning bolt. A deadly one that you feel in advance because the air gets all atingle and your skin crawls-or so the science books say. It might kill us both, but really, he should have been paying more attention to me when he saw that I wasn't paying attention at all.
For a shaved second, I think my prayers are answered because I go get tingly all over; goose bumps sprout everywhere, and my pulse feels like electricity. Then I realize, it's coming from my shoulders. From his hands.
Option Last: For the love of God, peel my cheek off his chest and apologize for the casual assault. Then hobble away on my one flip-flop before I faint. With my luck, the lightning would only maim me, and he would feel obligated to carry me somewhere anyway. Also, do it now.
I ease away from him and peer up. The fire on my cheeks has nothing to do with the fact that it's sweaty-eight degrees in the Florida sun and everything to do with the fact that I just tripped into the most attractive guy on the planet. Fan-flipping-tastic.
"Are-are you all right?" he says, incredulous. I think I can see the shape of my cheek indented on his chest.
I nod. "I'm fine. I'm used to it. Sorry." I shrug off his hands when he doesn't let go. The tingling stays behind, as if he left some of himself on me.
"Jeez, Emma, are you okay?" Chloe calls from behind. The calm fwopping of my best friend's sandals suggests she's not as concerned as she sounds. Track star that she is, she would already be at my side if she thought I was hurt. I groan and face her, not surprised that she's grinning wide as the equator. She holds out my flip-flop, which I try not to snatch from her hand.
"I'm fine. Everybody's fine," I say. I turn back to the guy, who seems to get more gorgeous by the second. "You're fine, right? No broken bones or anything?"
He blinks, gives a slight nod.
Chloe setts her surfboard against the rail of the boardwalk and extends her hand to him. He accepts it without taking his eyes off me. "I'm Chloe and this is Emma," she says. "We usually bring her helmet with us, but we left it back in the hotel room this time.”
― Anna Banks, quote from Of Poseidon

“Yes, he had heard it all his life, but it was only now that his ears were opened to this sound that came from darkness, that could only come from darkness, that yet bore such sure witness to the glory of the light. And now in his moaning, and so far from any help, he heard it in himself--it rose from his bleeding, his cracked-open heart. It was a sound of rage and weeping which filled the grave, rage and weeping from time set free, but bound now in eternity; rage that had no language, weeping with no voice--which yet spoke now, to John's startled soul, of boundless melancholy, of the bitterest patience, and the longest night; of the deepest water, the strongest chains, the most cruel lash; of humility most wretched, the dungeon most absolute, of love's bed defiled, and birth dishonored, and most bloody, unspeakable, sudden death. Yes, the darkness hummed with murder: the body in the water, the body in the fire, the body on the tree. John looked down the line of these armies of darkness, army upon army, and his soul whispered: Who are these? Who are they? And wondered: Where shall I go?”
― James Baldwin, quote from Go Tell It on the Mountain

“What's the matter Jaimy? Ain't-cha never seen a girl before?
-Jacky Faber”
― L.A. Meyer, quote from Bloody Jack

“مؤسف أنك غير قادر على الكلام. كنا سنحاول فهم ذلك معا. ما الذي جعل دون فرويلان يحتفظ بولاء كلبي لتروخييو؟ لقد بقى مخلصا حتى النهاية، مثلك. فهو لم يشارك في المؤامرة، ولم تفعل ذلك أنت أيضا. واصل لحس يد الزعيم بعد تبجحه في باراهونا بأنه ضاجع زوجته. الزعيم الذي جعله يلف ويدور في أميركا الجنوبية، ليزور بلدانا كوزير خارجية للجمهورية. وينتقل من بوينس آيرس إلى كاراكاس، ومن كاراكاس إلى ريو أو برازيليا، ومن برازيلبا إلى مونتيفيديو، ومن مونتيفيديو إلى كاراكاس، لمجرد أن يواصل الزعيم مضاجعة جارتنا الجميلة باطمئان.


انها صورة تحاصر اورانيا منذ زمن طويل، تسبب لها الضحك والسخط. صورة وزير الدولة للعلاقات الخارجية في العهد وهو يصعد ويهبط من طائرات. ليجوب العواصم الأمريكية الجنوبية. منصاعا لأوامر مستعجلة تنتظره في كل مطار، لكي يواصل ذلك الطريق الهستيري. مزعجا الحكومات بذرائع فارغة. وكل ذلك من أجل ألا يعود إلى مدينة تروخييو بينما الزعيم يضاجع زوجته. وهذا ما يرويه كراسويلر نفسه. أبرزكتاب سيرة حياة تروخييو. أي أن الجميع كانوا يعرفون ذلك. ودون فرويلان نفسه أيضا.


أهناك ما يستحق كل ذلك يا أبي؟ أكان الوهم بالتمتع بالسلطة؟ أحيانا أفكر أن لا. وأن الازدهار كان أمرا ثانويا. وأنكم في الحقيقة. أنت، وأرالا، وبيتشاردو، وتشيرينوس، وألفاريث بينا، ومانويل ألفونسو، كنتم تستلذون التلوث بالقذارة. وأن تروخييو قد أخرج من أعماق أرواحكم ميلا مازوشيا، ككائنات تحتاج إلى من يبصق عليها، يهينها، لأنها بالتحقير تجد ذواتها.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, quote from The Feast of the Goat

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