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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



... seemed from Davie's account to have been a hard drinker. Kipping was reminded of yarns about Malay pirates, which he told so quietly, so mildly, that they seemed by contrast thrice as terrible. Neddie Benson lugubriously recalled the prophecy of the charming fortune-teller and argued the worst of our mysterious stranger. "The lady said," he repeated, "that there'd be a dark man and a light man and no end o' trouble. She was a nice lady, too." But Neddie and his doleful fortune-teller as usual banished ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... another with impassioned farewells. Sergeants and corporals and men were wakeful. Some of these, too, were writing letters, sending messages; others joined in the discussion as to the theatre of war, or made knots of their own, centres of conjectures and prophecy; others roamed the streets, or down by the river bank watched the dark stream. Of these, a few proposed to strip and have a swim—who knew when they'd see the old river again? But the notion was frowned upon. One must be dressed ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... 'Lord Lyttelton's vision has revived the taste; though it seems a little odd that an APPARITION should despair of getting access to his Lordship's bed, in the shape of a young woman, without being forced to use the disguise of a robin-redbreast.' What was an apprehension or prophecy has become a dream, and the dream has become an apparition of a robin-redbreast and a ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... Persian named Cambyses, who took her with him to his own country. But after his daughter's marriage Astyages had another dream, which was interpreted by the priests to mean that his daughter's child was destined to reign in his stead. Alarmed by this prophecy he sent for his daughter, and when in course of time she bore a son, he ordered his trusty lieutenant Harpagus to carry the child to his own house and kill it. Harpagus took the infant as he had been ordered to do, but moved by the pleadings of his wife he determined ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... back and now I heard the witches faintly wailing, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair—" Sid has them echo that line offstage at the end to give a feeling of prophecy fulfilled. ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... humour, and a masculine vigorous fancy that had not yet learned to obey the rein. Their crude but genuine merit suggests a regret that he did not in after days enrich the Edinburgh Review with a couple of articles on classical subjects, as a sample of that ripened scholarship which produced the Prophecy of Capys, and the episode relating to the Phalaris controversy in the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... don't know, let me seek my husband." "Isn't that a mouthful?" said Jeanette laughingly disengaging herself from the merry group, as an undefined sense of apprehension swept over her. Was it a presentiment of coming danger? An unspoken prophecy to be verified by bitter tears, and lonely fear that seemed for a moment to turn life's sweetness into bitterness and gall. In the midst of a noisy group, in the dining room, she found Charles drinking the wine as it gave its color aright in the cup. She saw the deep flush upon his cheek, and ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... this fatal evening [Feb. 20, 1435], the revels of the court were kept up to a late hour ... the prince himself appears to have been in unusually gay and cheerful spirits. He even jested, if we may believe the cotemporary manuscript, about a prophecy which had declared that a king should that year be slain."—Death of King James I.; Tytler, Hist. Scotland, vol. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various

... see Him receive my sister into glory. During all those years, after our Lord had spoken to me, until her death, what I then learnt with respect to her was never forgotten either by myself or by my friend, who, when my sister was thus dead, came to me in great amazement at the fulfilment of the prophecy. God be praised for ever, who takes such care of souls that they may not ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... and were thus enabled to use the key of language to unlock the perplexities of savage customs, savage laws and legends, and, particularly, of savage religions and mythologies. If this alliance between anthropology and philology became real, then, and then only, might we hope to see Bunsen's prophecy fulfilled, that anthropology would become the highest branch of that science for which ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various

... angry,' they said. But the daughter of the chief said, 'My people have found their home.' And in the morning they found that the Meae-Topaiho had fallen, the blade of the spear was broken, and the prophecy fulfilled. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... with conviction, "I more than believe, I know! For I have the gift of foreknowledge, to a certain extent, and from my earliest childhood I have felt convinced that the prophecy is true—I cannot explain how, or why; I only know that it is so. And with the passage of the years I have ever felt that the time for its fulfilment was drawing nearer, until now I know that it is so close at hand that ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... industry and thorough respectability, would so exactly have suited 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 ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... him in thought," her husband said, "that I would help to build the city he loved. It was a prophecy," his tone grew dreamy, "a prophecy that he and his—the Garvez blood—should always stir in San Francisco's heart." Swiftly he rose and, standing very straight before the picture, raised his right hand ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... The prophecy came true. He was assassinated in the summer of 1860 on the shore of the Bocche di Cattaro, and left but two daughters. The assassin, a Montenegrin, was arrested and executed and died without giving any explanation of his ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... glistened like silver in the sunlight, and their sweet odor filled the air with delicious perfume. No hand plucked them from the earth, and no foot trampled out their fragrance; for an ancient prophecy had said that while the lilies stood the happiness of the ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller

... demeanour are particularly described in my Sister's Journal. The sort of prophecy with which the verses conclude has, through God's goodness, been realized; and now, approaching the close of my 73rd year, I have a most vivid remembrance of her and the beautiful objects with which she was surrounded. She is alluded to in the poem of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... with only her father for a companion. Judge Dupree was one of the rich men of the neighbourhood, and he lavished everything upon his daughter; but people had said that Lucy would suffer for the lack of a woman's care, and the prophecy had been tragically fulfilled. There had come a man, much older than herself, but with a glamour of romance about him; and the wonder of love had suddenly revealed itself to Lucy, and swept her away as no emotion had ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair

... ruin. Astrologers need not go to heaven to foretell, as they do, GREAT REVOLUTIONS' [this is the speech of the Elizabethan age—'great revolutions'] 'and imminent mutations.' [This is the new kind of learning and prophecy; there was but one source of it open then, that could yield axioms of this kind; for this is the kind that Lord Bacon tells us the head-spring of sciences must be visited for.] 'But conformity is a quality antagonist ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... these statements, it did not take long for the latter part of the article to become a prophecy fulfilled, and soon, excited, inflamed and misguided parties of men and boys were scouring the woods and roads in search of strange "niggers." Nor was it long, before one of the parties raised the cry that they had found the culprits. They had come upon two strange negroes going through ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... myke no food for pahder. Wot oh!—they said, time o' the war—ye're fightin' for yer children's 'eritage. Well; wot's the 'eritage like, now we've got it? Empty as a shell before yer put the 'igh explosive in. Wot's it like? [Warming to his theme] Like a prophecy in the pypers—not a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the heels of triumph, and banishes the feelings of exulting joy. We will cite another, where misery was followed and consummated by ennui. The most eloquent of the Girondists was Vergniaud. It was he that in the spirit of prophecy compared the French revolution to Saturn, since it was about to devour successively all its children, and finally to establish despotism with its attendant calamities. The rivalship of the Mountain in the Convention, the unsuccessful attack on ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... said, too, that it should perish through a goose (oie), and as the word "Huss" means a goose in Bohemian patois, it was said afterward that the writings of Huss, or more truly, perhaps, the work of the goose-quill, had fulfilled the prophecy in undermining and finally subverting the order. There were also disputes respecting the taxes, which the people declared to be oppressive, and finally, in 1454, a formidable rebellion took place against the authority ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... 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 ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... anxiety for 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 on all sides, and the only entrance to which was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... would melt away again in the smoke, and vanish from sight, after which the assembly would disperse in silence. By next morning all the invited blacks would have gone off to their respective homes. The witches, as I afterwards learnt, lived alone in caves; and that they possessed wonderful powers of prophecy was evidenced in my own case, because they told me when I came among them that I would still be many years with their people, but I would eventually return to my own kind. The warriors, too, invariably consulted these ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... greatest names in the history of European wars, until a greater eclipsed them both. Conde, a prophecy of Napoleon, a general by instinct, incapable of defeat, insatiable of glory, throwing his marshal's baton within the lines of the enemy, and following it; passionate, false, unscrupulous, mean. Turenne, the precursor of Wellington rather, simple, honest, truthful, humble, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... Lamson's store. Outside, the wind was blowing a gale; it howled and shrieked around the corners of the building, banged forgotten window-shutters, slammed suspended signboards with relentless fury, and afforded unlimited food for reflection, reminiscence and prophecy. It was long past Mr. Lamson's customary hour for closing the store, but with rare tact the loungers permitted him to do most of the talking. It was nice and warm in the vicinity of the stove, and there were ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... April, 1830, the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," was first organized in the town of Manchester, Ontario co., state of New York. Some few were called and ordained by the spirit of revelation, and prophecy, and began to preach as the spirit gave them utterance, and though weak, yet were they strengthened by the power of God, and many were brought to repentance, were immersed in the water, and were filled with the Holy Ghost by the laying ...
— The Wentworth Letter • Joseph Smith

... the frog is a learned animal. You must know that the true frog is a weather-prophet: when it is going to rain he knows it, comes out of the water and croaks his prophecy; when dry weather is coming he ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... produced a humanising and mellowing effect. It may very well prove that he has stamped his mark on the East of the twentieth century, as Turgot did his on the West of the nineteenth century; but without straying into the perilous fields of prophecy we are safe in recording the impression that Lord Cromer was not altogether a man of to-day; he looked forward and he looked backward. Probably the nearest counterpart to his manner of mind and conversation may be found in the circle of whom we read in the Diary of Fanny Burney. We can ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... says Father. "He had had Enough to make him so. One feels taller in the Consciousness of having known such a Man. He was great in practical! Things; he was also a profound Scholar, though he made out the fourth Kingdom in Daniel's Prophecy to be the Kingdoms of the Lagidae and the Seleucidae; which, you know, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... assisted by Churchill, who, however, did not write prose so vigorously as verse. He had sent to the North Briton a biting paper against the Scotch. On reflection, he recalled and recast it in rhyme. It was "The Prophecy of Famine;" and became so popular as to make a whole nation his enemies, and all their enemies his friends. This completely filled up the measure of Churchill's triumph. He actually dressed his youngest son in the Highland garb, took ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... of their present speculative mode of life, was far from imagining that signs of the foul future so much dreaded were actually apparent to Ethelberta at the time the lament was spoken. Hence the daughter's uncommon sensitiveness to prophecy. It was as if a dead-reckoner poring over his chart should predict breakers ahead to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... made some fitting reply, but I was in no mood to heed the skipper's words, or to give a second thought to the prophecy of a storm. I left the two together, and with my brain in a whirl I crept down to the seclusion of ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... Mondes," of April, 1862, p. 916. It is interesting to find him quoting Humboldt's prophecy that "the time will come, be it a century sooner or later, when the production of silver will have no other limit than that imposed upon it by its ever-increasing depreciation as a value." ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... deeds done in the past lives of Jeremiah that accompany him on his return to earth; God could not, in an arbitrary fashion, have conferred on him the gift of prophecy had he not acquired it by his efforts in a past life; unless, here too, we altogether abandon reason and go back to a capricious or unjust—consequently ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... Washington had thus in reality fallen upon them. He was at Raystown when the dismal tidings came; and, although complimented by Gen. Forbes upon the bravery his rangers had displayed, was deeply grieved and mortified. In secret, many a man would have been gratified at beholding a prophecy he had uttered thus fulfilled; but Washington, incapable of such selfish and unnatural vanity, could but sorrow thereat, although it must needs increase his reputation for foresight and sagacity. As the only good thing that came from this defeat, I must tell you (and you will ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... arise, we have the prophecy of Christ; but, that old ones should be abolished, we hold no prediction. That there must be heresies, is true, not only in our church, but also in any other: even in the doctrines heretical there will be superheresies; and Arians, not only divided from the church, ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... and he did his duty. But now he had a word to say in which he himself could take some little interest. Mr. Daubeny could be fiery or flaccid as it suited himself;—and now it suited him to be fiery. He had a prophecy to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men. Mr. Daubeny conceived it to be his duty to inform the House, and through the House the country, that now, at last, had the day of ruin come upon the British Empire, because it had bowed itself to the dominion of an unscrupulous and ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... O Boniface!] The spirit mistakes Dante for Boniface VIII. who was then alive, and who he did not expect would have arrived so soon, in consequence, as it should seem, of a prophecy, which predicted the death of that Pope at a later period. Boniface died ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... joy from the boys, and the excited exclamations, questions and answers that followed showed that they agreed heartily with Will in his last prophecy that "they would have no ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... sit together, with the skies, The steadfast skies, above us; We look into each other's eyes, "And how long will you love us?" The eyes grow dim with prophecy, The voices, low and breathless— "Till death us part!"—O words, to be Our best for love the deathless! ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... loves you, too, my son. If He chooses that the dross in her character should be burned away, and your two lives fused, there are in His providence just the fiery trials, just the circumstances that will bring it about." (Was she unconsciously uttering a prophecy?) "The crucible of affliction, the test of some great emergency, will often develop a seemingly weak and frivolous girl into noble life, where there is real gold of latent worth to ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... heaps on human society more burdens than all other causes combined; that sends armies on armies, in a form more appalling, and infinitely more loathsome than Napoleon's "food for cannon," to the grave: unless he can find some prophecy, or some principle, or some declaration, that will justify these, the Bible is against him, and he knows it. As well might he search for a principle to authorize him to plant a Bohon Upas on every man's farm, and in the heart ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... them, unto the name of the Lord, thy God.'—Isai. lx. 9. This seems to imply that in the time of the glorious increase of the church, in the latter days (of which the whole chapter is undoubtedly a prophecy), commerce shall subserve the spread of the gospel. The ships of Tarshish were trading vessels, which made voyages for traffic to various parts; thus much therefore must be meant by it, that navigation, especially that ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... wept, as they stuck up with wafers on the window, a paper notifying that the little rooms so long occupied were to let! They never would have such lodgers again, that was quite clear. After-life proved the truth of this melancholy prophecy, and Mrs. Clapp revenged herself for the deterioration of mankind by levying the most savage contributions upon the tea-caddies and legs of mutton of her locataires. Most of them scolded and grumbled; some of them did not pay; none of them stayed. The landlady might well ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... descent of Europe into hell brought unbounded surprise; to others, over wide area, it brought the Schaden Freude of the bitterly hurt; but most of us, I judge, looked on silently and sorrowfully, in sober thought, seeing sadly the prophecy of ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... confidence reposed in him by Partab Singh, that he gave way, telling him, as Charteris had done before, that the difficulties of the position would in all probability make it more of a punishment than promotion. With this cheering prophecy in his ears Gerrard departed for Agpur, and Charteris, riding out to meet him, saw at once that he was in low spirits. He gave no hint of his discovery, however, until the state entry into the city and the first formal visits were over, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... Franklyn-Haldene was naturally a daughter of Eve; she was more than a gossip, she was a prophetess. She foretold scandal. She would move Heaven and earth, so the saying goes, to prove her gossip infallible. And when some prophecy of hers went wrong, she did everything in her power to right it. To have acquired the reputation of prophesying is one thing, always to fulfil these prophecies is another. It never occurred to her that she was destroying other people's peace of mind, that she was constituting ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... senses—the literal and mystical; and for that reason it must convey its instruction under borrowed characters and allusions throughout."—The Antiquity, Evidence, and Certainty of Christianity canvassed, or Dr. Middleton's Examination of the Bishop of London's Discourses on Prophecy. By Anselm Bayly, LL.B., Minor Canon of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... a moment among the trees, just before the cottage passed out of sight. The sun was sinking in a golden haze, the first prophecy of autumnal mists. Broad lights lay here and there upon the water, to be lost again in depths of shadow, wherein woods of dream gave back the woods that stooped to them from the shore. Everything was so still he could hear the fish ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Helen, for he was still a boy, and his mother, Thetis of the silver feet, a goddess of the sea, had sent him to be brought up as a girl, among the daughters of Lycomedes of Scyros, in an island far away. Thetis did this because Achilles was her only child, and there was a prophecy that, if he went to the wars, he would win the greatest glory, but die very young, and never see his mother again. She thought that if war broke out he would not be found hiding in girl's dress, among girls, ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang

... certain changes in the weather, such as cold, heat, rain, storms; he beholds at certain periods, vapours arise from the bottom of some particular caverns? there needs nothing further to impress upon him the belief, that these beings possess the knowledge of future events; enjoy the gifts of prophecy: he looks upon them as supernatural agents, employed by his gods: it is thus he becomes the ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... he is the most ill-informed and gullible of fools, even among the mass of incompetent agents who have done their utmost to ruin every plan that has been formed. I doubt whether he has ever been correct in a single statement that he has made, and am quite sure that every prophecy he has ventured upon has been falsified, every negotiation he has entered into has failed, and every report sent home to government is useful only if it is assumed to be wrong in every particular; and yet the man is so puffed up with pride and arrogance that he is well-nigh insupportable. The Spaniards ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams." We see then, according to the prophecy of Joel, that the daughters as well as the sons were to prophesy. According to Acts 2:4, they all spake as the Spirit gave them utterance. Does not the "all" include the women present? Was not their speaking as the Spirit gave utterance the act of a ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole

... 1857, the prophecy of these words was realized in the famous Dred Scott Case,[63] in which Section 8 of the Missouri Compromise, whereby slavery was excluded from the territories, was held void under the Fifth Amendment, not on the ground that the procedure ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... certain ethical cheeriness that was almost de rigueur—the strange fact remains that the only sort of supernaturalism the Victorians allowed to their imaginations was a sad supernaturalism. They might have ghost stories, but not saints' stories. They could trifle with the curse or unpardoning prophecy of a witch, but not with the pardon of a priest. They seem to have held (I believe erroneously) that the supernatural was safest when it came from below. When we think (for example) of the uncountable riches of religious art, imagery, ritual and popular ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... deserve it, but that sentence was never so far from being an axiom as in the present case. Not to mention how he had shackled himself with strophe, antistrophe, and epode (yet acquitting himself nobly), the nature of prophecy forbade him naming his kings. To me they are apparent enough—yet I am far from thinking either piece perfect, though with what faults they have, I hold them in the first rank of genius and poetry. The second strophe of the first ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... informing Mr. Losberne, in strict confidence afterwards, that he considers it an excellent performance, but deems it as well not to say so. It is a standing and very favourite joke, for Mr. Brownlow to rally him on his old prophecy concerning Oliver, and to remind him of the night on which they sat with the watch between them, waiting his return; but Mr. Grimwig contends that he was right in the main, and, in proof thereof, remarks that Oliver did not come back after ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... the first words I heard Chaka speak, and they were words of prophecy, and they came true. The last words I heard him speak were words of prophecy also, and I think that they will come true. Even now they are coming true. In the one he told how the Zulu people should rise. And say, have they not risen? In the other he told how they should ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... sit up. (It was not a platitude in nineteen-six, but a prophecy.) The Colonel and the subalterns hung on his words; and when the Canon saw them hanging, his mouth began to relax a little of its own accord. In his first hour Jevons had ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... the extreme of wretchedness and suffering was truly pitiable. Oh, Bonaparte! I charge thee fling away ambition; it is, unfortunately for the world, thy besetting sin. It cannot continue for ever, and you will be brought up with a severe round turn before you are many years older—such is my prophecy. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... were asleep, but Giw being awake, and seeing an armed force evidently in pursuit of his party, boldly put on his armor, mounted Behzad, and before the enemy came up, advanced to the charge. He attacked the horsemen furiously with sword, and mace, for he had heard the prophecy, which declared that Kai-khosrau was destined to be the king of kings, and therefore he braved the direst peril with confidence, and the certainty of success. It was this feeling which enabled him ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... convention stenographers said: "This is the funniest convention I have ever attended." We have an idea that there was an element of prophecy in her homely remark—a body representing more than four million American soldiers and sailors that makes so little political noise is likely to be about as funny to the conventionally minded politician ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat

... most human of all arts—singing—need give up if he has burning within him the song impulse, the hunger to sing. This inner impulse is by its strength an evidence of the power to sing; the very hunger is a promise and a prophecy. ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown

... on prophecy were as unsatisfactory as those on miracles. They often handled the prophecies unfairly if not deceitfully. They 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 ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... approached themselves nearer to the oracles of heaven. But the fountain, the cavern, and the grove, were no less holy than the mountain-top in the eyes of the first religionists of the East. Streams and fountains were dedicated to the Sun, and their exhalations were supposed to inspire with prophecy, and to breathe of the god. The gloom of caverns, naturally the brooding-place of awe, was deemed a fitting scene for diviner revelations—it inspired unearthly contemplation and mystic revery. Zoroaster ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his eyes on her as he nodded a silent assent; and suddenly, though her face was so changed, he knew it was more like his portrait of her than ever, and that the prophecy of his hand ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford

... 15: Panomphaean.—Ver. 198. Jupiter had the title 'Panomphaeus,' from pan, 'all,' and omphe, 'the voice,' either because he was worshipped by the voices of all, or because he was the author of all prophecy.] ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... kept saying, while the service was going on, 'It'll be my John next.' In a little while, sure enough, John Gregory's coffin was put off the train, as Billy Morris's had been, and I regarded her as a woman gifted with prophecy. Other coffins, too, were put off from time to time. About the war there could no longer be a doubt. And, a little later, its realities and horrors came nearer home to us, with ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... with a sinister smile, that he felt very much inclined to fulfil the prophecy of his host; and they reentered the dining-room to find the circle increased by the arrival of several visitors. Some of these rode, others came on foot from ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... already, this will soon be the case with the whole Southern population. The slaveholder and the man of trade and commerce who feared the tumult, and would have avoided it, will have seen their apprehensions turned into the fulfillment of prophecy. The non-slave-holding farmer, mechanic, or laborer, will be made to see clearly that his interest did not lie on the side of treason. The political adventurer who planned the conspiracy, is already brought to see the fallacy of his dream. He may now ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... heard a rap on the door. Opening it, there stood his mother-in-law. She said, 'Two gentlemen are in the parlor waiting for you.' I went down, and the interview revealed the exact fulfillment both of the promise and the prophecy. The Lord answered my prayer two days before I called on Him. One of the two came from New York to my home in a Western city to inquire about the very thing which was troubling me. He was to me an entire stranger, never having heard of him until I saw him. Having consulted his friend, ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... A prophecy of the priest Pech, which is perhaps the one here referred to, appears in several of the Books of Chilan Balam, and also Spanish translations of it in the Histories of Lizana and Cogolludo, and a French version in Brasseur's report ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various

... amid shouts of applause were heard cries of "Ahenobarbus, Ahenobarbus! Where hast thou put thy flaming beard? Dost thou fear that Rome might catch fire from it?" And those who cried out in that fashion knew not that their jest concealed a dreadful prophecy. ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... hereto, the LORD witnesseth by MOSES, that He shall put dissension betwixt His people, and the people that contrarieth and pursueth His people. Who, Sir, is he that shall preach the truth of GOD's Word to that unfaithful people, and shall let [hinder] the Soothfastness of the gospel, and the prophecy of GOD Almighty to ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... minute her prophecy came true; the wild thing, with a quick whirl of her lithe body, was at the front door, and in another instant had flashed ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... local interests. To the middle ground of politics so ostentatiously occupied by Louis Philippe at the beginning of his reign, he predicted a brief duration, believing that it would speedily be merged in despotism, or supplanted by the popular rule. His prophecy has been fulfilled more amply than he could have imagined—fulfilled in ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... any man is the prophecy of what may happen to official-ridden Peking. The air is surcharged with mutterings. The brutally oppressed people may turn at last, rise, and, in their fury, rend to bits all ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... would not write it in her heart, that he wished her to use some of her leisure time in writing a few lines to him daily. As was his custom when in distress, he sought a fortune-teller for comfort, and as usual, was delighted with his prophecy. The notorious Balthazar described to him perfectly the woman he loved, told him that his love was returned, that there would never be a cloud in their sky, in spite of the intensity of their characters, and that he would be going to see her within six months. The soothsayer ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... the dreams—the dreams I dreamed! When I was a boy, a little boy! For the grace that through the lattice streamed Over my folded eyelids seemed To have the gift of prophecy, And to bring me glimpses of times to be When manhood's clarion seemed to call— Ah! that was the sweetest dream of all, When I was ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field

... hands he bore an open book, but he did not glance at it. His head was thrown back; his eyes seemed fastened on something outside and beyond the church; and he rolled out the victorious words as though he would stake all that he held dearest in this world that their prophecy was true. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Were his remarks a prophecy? He had hardly ceased speaking when an officer appeared with a telegram in his hand. This the major eagerly took and, noting that it was in cipher, read it by means of the code he carried in his ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... we can bring Montcalm to battle, we can gain the victory," said Charteris. "I for one, Tayoga, thank you for the prophecy." ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... uncertain whether a strike had prevented it from leaving New-Arad, the starting-point. Occasionally the rather elegant stationmaster, and occasionally the porter with the round, disarming face, raised their voices in prophecy, but they were increasingly unable—so far, at least, as I was concerned—to modify the feelings of dullness that were caused by the circumstances and by the dreary nature of the surroundings: a plain with several uninteresting little lakes upon it. There was time enough ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... very young a further prophecy was made to the King—namely that the Prince would only become a Buddha after he had seen four common sights which for him would be four omens—an old man, a sick man, a dead man and a holy man in the yellow robe of a beggar. Then and then only, said ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... beneath a tree opposite her apartment, watching the passing and repassing lights in the chamber. During the period in which a life so passionately valued was in danger, he paraphrased Petrarch's celebrated sonnet, narrating a dream whose prophecy was accomplished by the death of Laura. It took place the night on which the vision arose amid his slumber. Dr. Darwin extended the thought of that sonnet into ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... brother Chaka, slew him also with the help of Umslopogaas, the son of Chaka. In after years Umslopogaas told me the story of the dreadful ghost-haunted death of this tyrant, but, of course, he could not tell me exactly upon what day it happened. Therefore I do not know whether the prophecy was ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... of the precipice. The sunrise, which was broadening over sea and shore, was one of those rare and splendid ones in which there seems to be no mist or doubt, and nothing but a universal clarification more and more complete. All the colours were transparent. It seemed like a triumphant prophecy of some perfect world where everything being innocent will be intelligible; a world where even our bodies, so to speak, may be as of burning glass. Such a world is faintly though fiercely figured in the coloured windows of Christian architecture. The sea that lay before them was like a pavement ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... away into a land of dreams, a far-off land, where, under the black shadows of the Norway firs, he could see the gleam of white hands thrown up despairingly in the icy waters. It was a fiend's prophecy of a nameless horror ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... amid a stillness freighted with the prophecy of a startling revelation. All held their breath as Josef, turning slowly from countenance to countenance, read the disdain ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... prophecy of the muni, thus miraculously confirmed, returned to the forest, resolved to await patiently the fulfilment of the promise; and shortly afterwards the queen brought forth a son possessing all good marks,[2] to whom his father ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... not attain them in this life, but I think the very desire is a prophecy, and even promise, that we shall at some stage of our being ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen

... on the morning of the year's great race, the Ashland Oaks. In a private parlor of the Phoenix Hotel the two men who were, perhaps, most deeply interested of all in it, were weary of their speculations after they had gone, for the thousandth time, over every detail of possible prophecy and speculation. The Colonel sat beside a table upon which stood a "long" glass from which protruded, and in which nestled fragrant mint-leaves. At the bottom of the glass there lingered, yet, the good third of ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... monotonous and gloomy! If religion is, as it has so often been conceived to be, hostile to the natural good and joy which the heart seeks instinctively,—if sadness, if melancholy, be the soul of its inspiration, and misery for myriads the burden of its prophecy,—I do not believe that the vast deeps of space above us would have been tinted with tender azure, hiding their awfulness; I do not believe that storms would break away into rainbows, and that the clouds of sunset would display ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... It suffices me. It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give and of me to receive. It profanes nobody. In these warm lines the heart will trust itself, as it will not to the tongue, and pour out the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of heroism have yet ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... her issue has been bruited abroad, and hence she is made a witch, and her children are supposed to inherit the infamous taint. So it is with yon tomb. It is said to be dangerous to our family, and dangerous no doubt it is to those who believe in the saying, which, luckily, I do not. The prophecy works its own fulfilment. The absurdity and injustice of yielding to the opinion are manifest. No wrong can have been done the abbot by Mother Demdike, any more than by her children, and yet they are to be punished for the misdeeds ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... fixed upon us amidst the deepest silence. It was an hour of triumph for the originators of secession in South Carolina, and no doubt it seemed to them the culmination of all their hopes; but could they have seen into the future with the eye of prophecy, their joy might have been turned into mourning. Who among them could have conceived that the Charleston they deemed so invincible, which they boasted would never be polluted by the footsteps of a Yankee invader until every son ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday

... stood a youth bare of all guise Save when a light enwrapped him in its flame; He bore the ages in his listening eyes, And prophecy there waited for a name; Joy loved him best, and gave eternity, And his lithe, lustrous being seemed to say "I am the aspiration ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan

... in the presence of the Emperor, and Rapp informed me that on dismissing him the Emperor said, "If you were on 'the heights of Montmartre,' I would answer such impertinence only by cannon-balls." This observation was very remarkable, inasmuch as subsequent events rendered it a prophecy. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... 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

... The above prophecy has been generously fulfilled. Mlle. Breslau is indeed a poet in her ability to picture youth and its sweet intimacies, and she does this so easily. With a touch she reveals the grace of one and the affectations of another subject of her brush, and skilfully renders the varying emotions in the ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... preferred for distance work. The rotary air-cooled type has its uses, and for them it will probably remain among the range of current types for some time to come. Experience of matters aeronautical is sufficient to show, however, that prophecy in ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... 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 precious when some valued hand has transcribed the lines; and the verses ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... be taxed. Then the idol is execrated. No Italian hand can govern these hardy demons of the north; they will mutiny and fall away. A new demagogue will lead on the people, and Rienzi will be the victim. Mark my prophecy!" ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... for their thorough investigation. All our party were highly gratified at having visited this Rabbath-Ammon—alias Philadelphia—alias, at present, 'Amman. We were not, however, so fortunate as Lord Lindsay in finding a fulfilment of the prophecy (Ezek. xxv. 5) with respect to camels, either alive or dead. Probably, when he was there, it was soon after an Egyptian military expedition to Kerak. The prodigious number of dead camels that he saw there would seem to indicate that a great Arab battle had been fought at that place shortly before. ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... of strict interpretation. Christian O'Connarchy, who was bishop of Lismore in the twelfth century, is regarded as a native of Decies, though the contrary is slightly suggested by his final retirement to Kerry. The alleged prophecy concerning Kerry men and the coarbship points to some rule, regulation or ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... Merit of this Work which was all the knowledge he had of him endeavour'd to serve him without his own application; & wrote to my Ld gore, but he did not succeed. Mr. Johnson published afterwds another Poem in Latin with Notes the whole very Humerous call'd the Norfolk Prophecy. P.' ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... for her hungry children, she would steal up to her, pass her little arm round the poor woman's neck, and whisper, "God is good; He'll take care of us, mammy; He'll send us some supper, if He can't send us any dinner;" and the child's hopeful words often proved a true prophecy, for sometimes when Coomber had been out all day without finding anything that could be called food, he would, when returning, manage to secure a wild duck, perhaps, or a couple of sea magpies, or a few ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie

... claws of the brute? But if nature be no goddess, how can we accept her as sponsor for liberty? And if liberty be taken on its own merits, how is it to be distinguished from anarchy? How, but by the due admixture of coercion? And, that admitted, must we not descend from the mountain-top of prophecy to the ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... year 1824, a certain Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, then in command of a cutter stationed off the southern coast of Cornwall, was told of an ancient Cornish prophecy, that no human power should ever succeed in overturning the Loggan Stone. No sooner was the prediction communicated to him, than he conceived a mischievous ambition to falsify practically an assertion which the commonest common sense ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... implies that the parties wore helmets that covered these organs. For we two nights, therefore, read "we two knights." Knights were at that time soldiers. So Joppa in his prophecy ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... vowels form the initials of a sentence in Latin and German, signifying, 'The house of Austria is to govern the whole world.'"[26] Notwithstanding the archidiaconal sneer, Frederick III.'s anagram came quite as near the truth as any uninspired prophecy that can be mentioned. In little more than sixty years after the Emperor's death, the house of Austria ruled over Germany, the Netherlands, Naples, Sicily, the Milanese, Hungary, Bohemia, the Spains, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... 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 ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... while in the third generation the child is ashamed both of its parents and their lingo, the newspapers dwindle in circulation, the theatres languish. The reality of this process has been denied by no less distinguished an American than Dr. Charles Eliot, ex-President of Harvard University, whose prophecy of Jewish solidarity in America and of the contribution of Judaism to the world's future is more optimistic than my own. Dr. Eliot points to the still unmelted heaps of racial matter, without suspecting—although he is a chemist—that their semblance of solidity is only kept up by the constant ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill

... to him on reflection that he had been churlish even almost to childishness. And yet the words came to him in spite of himself, and he had flung them out eagerly, almost triumphantly. Even Mr. Bolitho felt a shiver pass through his body as Paul spoke. His speech seemed to contain a kind of prophecy. There was something ominous about it. It seemed to tell of dark days to come, of tragedy—why, he could not understand, ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... has gone to dust. Still shall he live in story and in rhyme; Then History's self shall multiply his bust, And he defy the silent Conqueror, Time. My song is sung: My prophecy is made— The State will make ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope

... wonderful narratives are given of the speedy destruction of idolatry in many of the islands. With too sanguine hopes, some of the missionaries spoke of these revolutions as the result of religious zeal, and even quoted the prophecy of "a nation being born in a day." A few years' experience taught them that in many instances the first profession of Christianity was due to various influences, and that the people with impetuous impulse followed ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... of the people in the water, are admirable as absolute realisation of the scene. Again, in the Sacrifice of Noah, there is in the foreshortened figure of God, floating, brooding, like a cloud, with face downward and outstretched hands over the altar, something which is a prophecy, and more than a prophecy, of what art will come to in the Sixtine and the Loggie. But these inventions are due to Uccello's special and extraordinary studies of the problems of modelling and foreshortening; and when his contemporaries try to ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... The prophecy was destined to a perfect fulfillment, for poor Santron, who lay motionless and unconscious up to that moment, suddenly gave signs of life by moving his features, and jerking his limbs to this side and that. The doctor's ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... Sinon was a spy; but he was cut short in his remonstrance by two huge serpents, which glided out of the sea and devoured him and his two sons. Cassandra, too, a daughter of Priam, who had the gift of prophecy, but was fated never to be believed, shrieked with despair when she saw the Trojans harnessing themselves to the horse to drag it into Troy, but nobody heeded her, and there was a great feast to ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... credulous mankind likes to draw inferences for good or bad from these unsubstantial creations of his fancy, he laughs to himself with a hollow reverberating sound. It must, however, have been in the true spirit of prophecy on the occasion of King Manfred's birth, that the genius of the Mountain despatched two cloud-forms into the sky (so the unabashed old chroniclers gravely relate), one having the appearance of a warrior armed cap-a-pie, and the other that of a fully ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... sea, The mouthing of his madness to the moon, The seething of his endless sorcery, His prophecy no power can attune, Swept over me as, on the sounding prow Of a great ship that steered into the stars, I stood and felt the awe upon my brow Of death and destiny and all ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice

... 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,'" and again ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... This prophecy of the celebrated American author, who was afterwards Consul-General to France for six years, is noteworthy considering the date at which it was made. There were indeed many "physical obstacles which for a while hindered" the practical adoption of the invention, but they were eventually ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... not to its dregs the urn of bitter prophecy. Let us get back to facts. Have you, as a matter of evidence, anything at all to bring against Martin's story as he has told ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley



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



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