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Oracle of Delphi   /ˈɔrəkəl əv dˈɛlfaɪ/   Listen
Oracle of Delphi

noun
1.
(Greek mythology) the oracle at Delphi where a priestess supposedly delivered messages from Apollo to those who sought advice; the messages were usually obscure or ambiguous.  Synonyms: Delphic oracle, Oracle of Apollo, Temple of Apollo.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Oracle of delphi" Quotes from Famous Books



... reign was disturbed by a dreadful plague, which suddenly broke out in Rome, and raged with great violence. It made such an impression upon his mind, that he resolved to send his sons, Titus and Arun, to consult the oracle of Delphi upon the cause of this contagion, and how they might effect its cure. The princes prepared magnificent presents for Apollo. Junius Brutus, the pretended idiot, was to accompany them for their amusement. He was the youngest son of the venerable ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux

... Romans; and at length, in the tenth year, a great prodigy occurred, in the shape of the sudden rising of the waters of the Alban Lake to an extraordinary height, without any apparent cause. The Romans, in their bewilderment, sent a messenger to the oracle of Delphi to inquire about it. Before this messenger returned, they also captured a Verentine priest, who informed them that there were certain oracular books in Veii, which declared that Veii could never perish unless the waters of the Alban Lake should reach the sea. Not long afterwards the messenger returned ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... Phocis. In the palace of Strophius Orestes grew up with the king's son Pylades, and formed with him that ardent friendship which has become proverbial. Electra frequently reminded her brother by messengers of the duty of avenging his father's death, and when grown up he consulted the oracle of Delphi, which confirmed him in his design. He therefore repaired in disguise to Argos, pretending to be a messenger from Strophius, who had come to announce the death of Orestes, and brought the ashes of the deceased in a funeral urn. After visiting his father's tomb and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... slanders arisen?" I will tell you what I take to be the explanation. It is due to a certain wisdom with which I seem to be endowed—not superhuman at all like that of these gentlemen. I speak not arrogantly, but on the evidence of the Oracle of Delphi, who told Chaerephon, a man known to you, that there was no wiser man than Socrates. Now, I am not conscious of possessing wisdom; but the God cannot lie. ...
— The World's Greatest Books--Volume 14--Philosophy and Economics • Various

... know everything, in Boston—but we do know where to find it. We have an excellent newspaper press, daily and weekly, and should either or both ever, by any chance, fail to know anything—past, present, or to come—we have a Monday Lectureship, beside which the Oracle of Delphi was a last year's ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... upon the present and upon the future. I had no difficulty in skewing myself a good guesser, because I always gave answers with a double meaning, one of the meanings being carefully arranged by me, so as not to be understood until after the event; in that manner, my cabalistic science, like the oracle of Delphi, could never be found in fault. I saw how easy it must have been for the ancient heathen priests to impose upon ignorant, and therefore credulous mankind. I saw how easy it will always be for impostors ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... WONT".(3) Plato lays down the very "law of least change" which has been described. "Whether the legislator is establishing a new state or restoring an old and decayed one, in respect of gods and temples,... if he be a man of sense, he will MAKE NO CHANGE IN ANYTHING which the oracle of Delphi, or Dodona, or Ammon has sanctioned, in whatever manner." In this very passage Plato(4) speaks of rites "derived from Tyrrhenia or Cyprus" as falling within the later period of the Greek Wanderjahre. On the high religious value of things antique, Porphyry wrote in a late age, and when the new ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... submitted for the most part to the Great King and joined their armies to the Persian force. The Athenians sent to consult the oracle of Delphi, but received only the reply; "Athens will be destroyed from base to summit." The god being asked to give a more favorable response, replied, "Zeus accords to Pallas [protectress of Athens] a wall of wood which alone shall not be taken; in that shall you and your children ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos



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