Prophecy

Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come (cf. divine knowledge) as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the world is divine. The process of prophecy especially involves reciprocal communication of the prophet with the (divine) source of the messages.

Sourced

• Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
  Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast;
  Is that portentous phrase, "I told you so."
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XIV, Stanza 50.

• O my prophetic soul!
  My uncle!
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act I, scene 5, line 40.

• There is a history in all men's lives,
  Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd,
  The which observed, a man may prophesy
  With a near aim, of the main chance of things
  As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
  And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act III, scene 1, line 80.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 636-37.

• Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!
  The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,
  And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
  • Lord Byron, Bride of Abydos, Canto II, Stanza 20.

• The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began,
  Dropt on the world—a sacred gift to man.
  • Thomas Campbell, Pleasures of Hope, Part I, line 43.

• Bene qui conjiciet, vatem hunc perhibebo optimum.
  • I shall always consider the beet guesser the best prophet.
  • Cicero, De Divinatione, II. 5. (Greek adage.).

• Ancestral voices prophesying war.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan.

• We know in part, and we prophesy in part.
  • I Corinthians, XIII. 9.

• From hence, no question, has sprung an observation … confirmed now into a settled opinion, that some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging, arrive to the height of prophetic spirits.
  • Erasmus, Praise of Folly. (Old translation).

• Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;
  And in its hollow tones are heard
  The thanks of millions yet to be.
  • Fitz-Greene Halleck, Marco Bozzaris.

• Prophet of evil! never hadst thou yet
  A cheerful word for me. To mark the signs
  Of coming mischief is thy great delight,
  Good dost thou ne'er foretell nor bring to pass.
  • Homer, The Iliad, Book I, line 138. Bryant's translation.

• A tunnel underneath the sea from Calais straight to Dover, Sir,
  The squeamish folks may cross by land from shore to shore,
  With sluices made to drown the French, if e'er they would come over, Sir,
  Has long been talk'd of, till at length 'tis thought a monstrous bore.
  • Theodore Hook, Bubbles of 1825, in John Bull (1825).

• This solemn moment of triumph, one of the greatest moments in the history of the world … this great hour which rings in a new era … and which is going to lift up humanity to a higher plane of existence for all the ages of the future.
  • David Lloyd George, speech at Guildhall after the signing of the Armistice (Nov. 11, 1918).

• My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 't is to crow:
  Don't never prophesy—onless ye know.
  • James Russell Lowell, Biglow Papers, No. 2. Mason and Slidell.

• It takes a mind like Dannel's, fact, ez big ez all ou'doors
  To find out thet it looks like rain arter it fairly pours.
  • James Russell Lowell, Biglow Papers, No. 9, line 97.

• A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and in his own house.
  • Matthew, XIII. 57.

• No mighty trance, or breathed spell
  Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
  • John Milton, Hymn on Christ's Nativity, line 173.

• Till old experience do attain
  To something like prophetic strain.
  • John Milton, Il Penseroso (1631), line 173.

• Is Saul also among the prophets?
  • I Samuel. X. 11.

• Prognostics do not always prove prophecies, at least the wisest prophets make sure of the event first.
  • Horace Walpole, letter to Thomas Walpole. Feb. 9, 1785.

• Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
  • Zechariah. I. 5.