"Gordian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this monotony of the journey which will last up to the frontier of Turkestan. Oasis and desert, desert and oasis. As we approach the Pamir the scenery will change a little. There are picturesque bits of landscape in that orographic knot which the Russians have had to cut as Alexander cut the gordian knot that was worth something to the Macedonian conqueror of Asia. Here is a good augury for the ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... to be sure, would have scorned the augury; had he been the prey of such petty superstitions he would never have conquered Asia. We know how he compelled the oracle at Delphi to yield to his wishes; how he cut the Gordian knot; how he made his dominating personality felt at the temple of Ammon in Egypt. We know, in a word, that he yielded to superstitions only in so far as they served his purpose. Left to his own devices, he would not have consulted an oracle at the banks of the Hyphasis; or, consulting, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... grew familiar with it, then it was driven out by another thought that followed swiftly on its track. Frank Muller must die, and die before the morning light. By no other possible means could the Gordian knot be cut, and both Bessie and her old uncle be saved. If he were dead he could not marry Bessie, and if he died with the warrant unsigned their uncle could not be executed. That was the terrible ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... Hastings had somewhat recovered from her influence; and feeling the difficulties of reconciling his honour and his worldly prospects to further prosecution of the love, rashly expressed but not deeply felt, he had determined frankly to cut the Gordian knot he could not solve, and inform Sibyll that marriage between them was impossible. With that view he had appointed this meeting, and his conference with the king but confirmed his intention. It was in this state of mind that he was ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... armies and navies, draining the revenues of each portion of the dissevered empire, would be created; exterminating war would follow-not a war of two or three years, but of interminable duration until some Philip or Alexander, some Csar or Napoleon, would rise to cut the Gordian Knot, and solve the problem of the capacity of man for self-government, and crush the liberties of both the dissevered portions of this Union. Can you, sir, lightly contemplate these consequences? Can you yield yourself to a torrent of passion, amidst dangers which ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... now on historic ground. To our right, on the Owas, a tributary of the Sakaria, was the little village of Istanas, where stood the ancient seat of Midas, the Phrygian king, and where Alexander the Great cut with his sword the Gordian knot to prove his right to the rulership of the world. On the plain, over which we were now skimming, the great Tatar, Timur, fought the memorable battle with Bajazet I., which resulted in the capture of the Ottoman conqueror. Since the time that the title of Asia applied to the ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, You would say it hath been all in all his study; List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle rend'red you in music; Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks, The air, a charter'd libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences; So that the art and practic' part of life Must be the mistress ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... some approach to satisfaction. It is now seen that they blend either in the present or the past insensibly into one another, much as Mr. Herbert Spencer shows us that geology and astronomy blend into one another, {265} and cannot be classified except by cutting Gordian knots in a way which none but plain sensible people can tolerate. Strictly speaking, there is only one place, one time, one action, and one individual or thing; of this thing or individual each one of us is a part. It is perplexing, but it is philosophy; and modern philosophy, like modern music, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... construction of the place. The Gordian knot was all very well in its way: so was the maze of Hampton Court: so is the maze at the Beulah Spa: so were the ties of stiff white neckcloths, when the difficulty of getting one on, was only to be equalled by the apparent impossibility of ever getting it off again. But what involutions ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Gordian knots were tied to be By magistrates divided; We cut them—and the severed ends Do much ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... from which, he said to Mr Asterias, 'You have caught an odd fish, indeed.' Mr Toobad was highly exasperated at this unseasonable pleasantry; but Mr Hilary softened his anger, by producing a knife, and cutting the Gordian knot of his reticular envelopment. 'You see,' said Mr Toobad, 'you see, gentlemen, in my unfortunate person proof upon proof of the present dominion of the devil in the affairs of this world; and I have no doubt but that the apparition of this night was Apollyon himself in disguise, ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... pretty high. One is almost inclined to believe with the Eskimos that demons take possession of these animals. Sometimes they seem to be quite crazy. A favorite trick of theirs is to leap over and under and around each other, getting their traces in a snarl beside which the Gordian knot would be as nothing. Then, in a temperature anywhere between zero and 60 deg. below, the driver has to remove his heavy mittens and disentangle the traces with his bare hands, while the dogs leap and snap and bark and seem to mock him. And this brings me to an incident which practically ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... for them—your best friends—to leave you stranded, and—I didn't want that either. I couldn't help feeling there'd be a tremendous fascination in being so near you, with my face hidden, you not knowing, if only the strain of it needn't last too long; and Molly just cut the Gordian knot of the scrape, as she always does. She assured me that being in the same car need commit me to no decision as to what I would do in the end. But—you remember how she drew you out, about your feeling for the Boy, how you missed him, and how ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... in his own way. For six months, while the world resounded with his fame, the court withheld approval. Jealous courtiers "deemed Drake the master thief of the unknown world," till Elizabeth cut the Gordian knot by one of her defiant strokes. On April 4 she went in state to dine on the Golden Hind, to the music of those stringed instruments that had harped away Drake's fear of death or devil as he ploughed an English keel round ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... pliant twig; or potters form Their soft and ductile clay to various shapes. Nor is't enough to breed; but to preserve Must be the huntsman's care. The stanch old hounds Guides of thy pack, though but in number few, Are yet of great account; shall oft untie The Gordian knot, when reason at a stand Puzzling is lost, and all thy art is vain. O'er clogging fallows, o'er dry plastered roads, O'er floated meads, o'er plains with flocks distained 170 Rank-scenting, these must lead the dubious way. As party-chiefs in senates who preside, With pleaded ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... for they had no chance. The worms crawled round and round the canvas bag, and played at making Gordian knots with each other, while several fish came and looked at the unbaited hook which Dexter offered for their inspection, but preferred to ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... the pomp suitable to their standing, while they gnawed secretly and unseen at the hard crust of want. Thus from father to son the debts were constantly increasing, and the revenues becoming smaller and smaller. If I do not make an end of this, and sever the Gordian knot like Alexander, instead of attempting the wearisome task of untying it, I shall soon present to the court and nobility the sad spectacle of a Count Rhedern who is compelled to give up ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... slaveholders' slave-drivers? I was neither born nor bred for that. I drew my first breath in a little town not far off, a poor little town where the farmers and mechanics first unsheathed that Revolutionary sword which, after eight years of hewing, clove asunder the Gordian knot that bound America to the British yoke. One raw morning in spring—it will be eighty years the 19th of this month—Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great Deliverance, were both at Lexington; ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... 240a. When the Gordian knot is ready to be cut, God sends the Alexander! Does not the Crown Prince William's confession of his belief in courage as the highest flower of the human spirit, in his book "Deutschland in Waffen," sound like ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... picture to yourself the sort of entertainment which followed. The intelligent Argentines manoeuvred round me like performing horses doing the quadrilles or an Old English Maypole dance, while with the reins we made cat's-cradles, and Gordian knots. That idiot, Mark Tapley, would indeed have envied my lot, and have been welcome to it. The row made by the firing was terrific, for pom-poms and artillery were joining in, and a fair amount of bullets came by us with the led horses. Suddenly our fellows came doubling back, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd; 50 And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, Dissolv'd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed Their lustres with the ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... priests, O Khalid, have yet a little to do with you. Such arguments about the Divine Law and the Canon Law, about alms and spiritual beggars, might cut the Gordian knot with your uncle, but—and whether it be good or bad English, we say it—they cut no ice with the Church. Yes, Mother Church, under whose wings you and your cousin were born and bred, and under whose wings you and your cousin would be married, can not take off for the sweet sake of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... not being expressly stated in the original or early black-letter translation, many persons—whose love of country prompted their wishes—have endeavoured to attach a nationality to these gordian knots of erudition. An Hibernian gentleman of immense research—the celebrated "Darby Kelly"—has openly asserted the whole affair to be decidedly of Milesian origin: and, amid a vast number of corroborative ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... Roman parents at Lycopolis in Egypt. It is from his writings we get the best account of Ammonius' doctrine. He was with the latter until 243; then joined Gordian III's expedition against Persia, with a view to studying Persian and Indian philosophies at their source. But Gordian was assassinated; and Plotinus, after a stay at Antioch, made his way to Rome and opened a school there. This was in the so-called Age of the Thirty ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... complexness &c. adj.; complexus[obs3]; complication, implication; intricacy, intrication[obs3]; perplexity; network, labyrinth; wilderness, jungle; involution, raveling, entanglement; coil &c. (convolution) 248; sleave[obs3], tangled skein, knot, Gordian knot, wheels within wheels; kink, gnarl, knarl[obs3]; webwork[obs3]. [complexity if a task or action] difficulty &c. 704. V. complexify[obs3], complicate. Adj. gnarled, knarled[obs3]. complex, complexed; intricate, complicated, perplexed, involved, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... turned and twisted in a more intricate and perplexed manner than they are usually found in other Hearts; insomuch that the whole Heart was wound up together in a Gordian Knot, and must have had very irregular and unequal Motions, whilst it was employed in its ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele |
