"Icarus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this year was Daedalus and Icarus, a strikingly conceived picture. The two figures are singularly noble conceptions of the idealized nude; the drapery at the back of Icarus is typical of the painter in every fold, while the landscape seen far below the stone platform on which the figures stand, shows a bay of the blue Aegean sea in full sidelight, with a lovely glimpse of the white ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... the midst of chaos. He was experiencing that frightful plunge of Icarus, from the clouds to the sea. He was falling, falling. When one falls from a great height, when waters roll thunderously over one's head, strange and significant fragments of life pass and repass the vision. And at this moment there flashed across the ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... Lygia's faithful servant had not come, for on the pile some other Christian was burning,—a man quite unknown to Vinicius. In the next picture Chilo, whom Caesar would not excuse from attendance, saw acquaintances. The death of Daedalus was represented, and also that of Icarus. In the role of Daedalus appeared Euricius, that old man who had given Chilo the sign of the fish; the role of Icarus was taken by his son, Quartus. Both were raised aloft with cunning machinery, and then hurled suddenly from ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... essay To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings O'er daring Icarus and bid thy lay Sleep hidden in the lyre's silent strings Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill, Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... haste were drowned in Seine, For all too narrow was the bridge's floor, An wished, like Icarus, for wings in vain, Having grim death behind them and before, Save Oliver, and Ogier hight the Dane, The paladins are prisoners to the Moor: Wounded beneath his better shoulder fled The first, that other ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... in the harbor just ready to start on a voyage across the sea, and in it Daedalus embarked with all his precious tools and his young son Icarus. Day after day the little vessel sailed slowly southward, keeping the shore of the mainland always upon the right. It passed Troezen and the rocky coast of Argos, and then struck boldly out ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... the faithful clew; Till the kind artist, mov'd with pious grief, Lent to the loving maid this last relief, And all those erring paths describ'd so well That Theseus conquer'd and the monster fell. Here hapless Icarus had found his part, Had not the father's grief restrain'd his art. He twice assay'd to cast his son in gold; Twice from his hands ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... ICARUS, father of aviation. Record holder for the first tumble. Selected water as the spot for his fall, and was not picked up with the debris. Ambition: A Wright machine. Recreation: Tuning ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... Byron loved and where Sappho sang her songs like wine and honey, sharp wine and golden honey. Here had the Roman galleys splashed and here the great Venetian boats set proud sail against the Genoese. Here had the Lion-heart sailed gallantly to Palestine. Here had Icarus fallen in the blue sea. Here had Paul been shipwrecked, sailing on a ship of Andramyttium bound to the coast of Asia, crossing the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia, and trans-shipping at Myra. How modern it all sounded but ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... civilizations have put on a level great poets and great inventors, erected into divinities or demi-gods historical or legendary personages in whom the genius of discovery is personified:—among the Hindoos, Vicavakarma; among the Greeks, Hephaestos, Prometheus, Triptolemus, Daedalus and Icarus. The Chinese, despite their dry imagination, have done the same; and we find the same condition in Egypt, Assyria, and everywhere. Moreover, the practical and mechanical arts have passed through a first period of no-change, during which the artisan, subjected to fixed rules and an undisputed ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... Some dreaming Icarus will perfect the flying machine, and upon the aluminium wings of the swift Pegassus of the air the light-hearted society girl will sail ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... startling weakness for his fellow-creatures. While he is hymning the EGO and commencing with God and the universe, a woman goes below his window; and at the turn of her skirt, or the colour of her eyes, Icarus is recalled from heaven by the run. Love is so startlingly real that it takes rank upon an equal footing of reality with the consciousness of personal existence. We are as heartily persuaded of the identity of those we love as of our own identity. And so sympathy pairs with self-assertion, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ICARUS, son of DAEDALUS (q. v.), who, flying with his father from Crete on wax-fastened wings, soared so high that the sun melted the wax and he dropped into the sea, giving name ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... now return the pinions we borrowed from Icarus, and prepare to bid farewell to the wilds. The time allotted to these wanderings is drawing fast to a close. Every day for the last six months has been employed in paying close attention to natural history in the forests of Demerara. Above two hundred ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... them in their mediocrity. And since mediocre people constitute the bulk of humanity, this is no doubt very properly so. But it does not follow that the one sort of proposition is any less true than the other, or that Icarus is not to be more praised, and perhaps more envied, than Mr. Samuel Budgett the Successful Merchant. The one is dead, to be sure, while the other is still in his counting-house counting out his money; and doubtless this is a consideration. ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I, since you treat me thus, Try to kill my father? No. Did I from the window throw That unlucky Icarus? Is my drink somniferous? Do I ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... will have cost him five or six hundred thousand. It's worth seeing already. His studio here in the C—— studio building is a dream. It's thick with the loveliest kinds of things. I've helped buy them myself. And he isn't dull. He wrote a book at twenty, 'Icarus,' which is not bad either and which he says is something like himself. He has read your book ("Sister Carrie") and he sympathizes with that man Hurstwood. Says parts of it remind him of his own struggles. ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... how was I to do this? She herself would disdain my interference. Since then I must be an object of indifference or contempt to her, better, far better avoid her, nor expose myself before her and the scornful world to the chance of playing the mad game of a fond, foolish Icarus. One day, several months after my return to England, I quitted London to visit my sister. Her society was my chief solace and delight; and my spirits always rose at the expectation of seeing her. Her ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... mythical artificer who constructed the labyrinth for Minos, king of Crete; but being detained there against his will, he made wings for himself and his son Icarus and ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus
... and gallery cry "Hats off!" And awed Consumption checks his chided cough, Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love Drops, 'reft of pin, her play-bill from above: Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap, Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap; But, wiser far than he, combustion fears, And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers; Till, sinking gradual, with repeated ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... never have ventured on the mighty ocean! We have tried to imitate the bird, the kite, and the balloon, and our experiments have failed, and always must, so long as we do not look farther and think deeper. Every Icarus who attempts to overcome the force of gravity, which conquers planets, and propel himself through the air by any sort of apparatus, will always finish the trip with a ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... She had not considered the Professor's character very deeply. There were far too many other things to think of. It was simpler to avoid him. But now everything had changed. The present moment was not exciting; she had no plans and projects in her head; she was not about to court the fate of Icarus. That fate had already overtaken her. The waves were closing over-head; her wings were wet and crippled, in the blue depths. Why not take what the gods had sent and make the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird |
