Glory

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow. ~ Cicero

Glory (Latin: glōria · glory, fame, renown, praise, ambition, boasting; cognate with Greek: κλέος · kleos, rumor, report) is a word indicating "renown", and great repute. The optical phenomenon known as a Glory is produced by light reflected toward its source by a cloud or mist and producing an appearance of the spectrum of a rainbow around the observer. In Judeo-Christian religious tradition, the word represents the manifestation of God's presence, and in Christian art this is depicted as a halo surrounding the whole body of a person. Glorification designates in the canonization of a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and in general Christian theology indicates the nature of believers after death and judgement, in the final step in the application of redemption.

For the 1989 film about the American Civil War, see Glory (film)

Quotes

"Who am I?", and the answer now came more emphatically than ever before, "No-one."
But a no-one with a crown of light about his head. ~ R. S. Thomas

I am doing my best to glorify the scamp … The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him. ~ Lin Yutang

• Gloria virtutem tanquam umbra sequitur.
  • Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.
    • Cicero, Tusculanarum Disputationum, I.45.109.

• True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.
  • Cicero, as quoted in Great Catches; or, Grand Matches (1861), by Eleanor Frances Blakiston, p. 82.

• If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
  • Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker (2016)

• And I will shake all the nations, and the precious things of all the nations will come in; and I will fill this house with glory,’ says Jehovah of armies.
  • Haggai 2:7, New World Translation

• The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares Jehovah of armies.
  • Haggai 2:8

• The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.
  • Haggai 2:9 King James Version.

• Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience—the knowledge that our might deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries or "of those that are to be." We are ready to sacrifice our true, transitory self for the imaginary eternal self we are building up, by our heroic deeds, in the opinion and imagination of others.
  • Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951) Ch.13 Factors Promoting Self-sacrifice, §45

• Not hate, but glory, made these chiefs contend;
  And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.
  • Homer, in The Iliad as translated by Alexander Pope, Book VII, line 364.

• As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
  O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
  When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
  And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
  Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
  And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,
  O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
  And tip with silver every mountain's head;
  Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
  A flood of glory bursts from all the skies.
  • Homer, in The Iliad as translated by Alexander Pope, Book VIII, line 687.

• Arise, O woman, shed light, for your light has come. The glory of Jehovah shines on you. For look! darkness will cover the earth and thick gloom the nations; But on you Jehovah will shine, and on you his glory will be seen. Nations will go to your light and kings to your shining splendor.
  • Isaiah, 60: 1-3, NWT

• Better a short life, full of deeds and glory, than a long life without substance.
  • Ernst Jünger, On Pain (1934), p. 30

• This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur.
  • James Russell Lowell, The Biglow Papers (1848), First Series. No, II.

• True glory is a flame lighted at the skies.
  • Horace Mann, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 256.

• Cineri gloria sera est.
  • Glory paid to our ashes comes too late
    • Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), I. 26. 8.

• Less glory is more liberty. When the drum is silent, reason sometimes speaks.
  • Albert Pike, in Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. I : Apprentice, The Twelve-Inch Rule and Common Gavel, p. 1.

• True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.
  • Pliny the Elder, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 256.

• Glory is like a circle in the water,
  Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself
  Till, by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I (c. 1588-90), Act I, scene 2, line 133.

• When the moon shone, we did not see the candle;
  So doth the greater glory dim the less.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act V, scene 1, line 92.

• Like madness is the glory of this life.
  • William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act I, scene 2, line 139.

• Who would be so mock'd with glory?
  • William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act IV, scene 2, line 33.

• The fear of Jehovah is a training in wisdom, and before glory there is humility.
  • Solomon, Proverbs 15:33, NWT

• For I consider that the sufferings of the present time do not amount to anything in comparison with the glory that is going to be revealed in us. For the creation is waiting with eager expectation for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but through the one who subjected it, on the basis of hope that the creation itself will also be set free from enslavement to corruption and have the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we know that all creation keeps on groaning together and being in pain together until now.
  • Paul of Tarsus, Romans 8:18-22, NWT

• On seeing his shadow fall on such ancient rocks, he had to question himself in a different context and ask the same old question as before, "Who am I?", and the answer now came more emphatically than ever before, "No-one."
  But a no-one with a crown of light about his head. He would remember a verse from Pindar: "Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet."
  • R. S. Thomas, Neb [No-one] (1985).

• Real glory
  Springs from the silent conquest of ourselves; and without that the conqueror is nought but the first slave.
  • James Thomson, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 256.

• We rise in glory, as we sink in pride:
  Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 508.

• I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.
  • Lin Yutang, in The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 313-14.

• So may glory from defect arise.
  • Robert Browning, Deaf and Dumb.

• The glory dies not, and the grief is past.
  • Egerton Brydges, On the Death of Sir Walter Scott.

• Who track the steps of Glory to the grave.
  • Lord Byron, Monody on the Death of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan.

• Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi.
  • Holy Father, so passes away the glory of the world.
  • See Cornelius a Lapide, Commentaria, 2nd. Epist. ad Cor, Chapter XII. 7. The sentence is used in the Service of the Pope's enthronement after the burning of flax. Rite used in the triumphal processions of the Roman republic. According to Zonaræ—Annals. (1553).

• Glory built
  On selfish principles is shame and guilt.
  • William Cowper, Table Talk, line 1.

• The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
  • Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 9.

• The first in glory, as the first in place.
  • Homer, The Odyssey, Book XI, line 441. Pope's translation.

• Fulgente trahit constrictos Gloria curru
  Non minus ignotos generosis.
  • Glory drags all men along, low as well as high, bound captive at the wheels of her glittering car.
  • Horace, Satires, I. 6. 23.

• O quam cito transit gloria mundi.
  • O how quickly passes away the glory of the earth.
    • Thomas á Kempis, Imitation of Christ, Book I, Chapter III. 6.

• Aucun chemin de fleurs ne conduit à la gloire.
  • No flowery road leads to glory.
    • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, X. 14.

• La gloire n'est jamais où la vertu n'est pas.
  • Glory is never where virtue is not.
    • Le Franc, Didon.

• The glory of Him who
  Hung His masonry pendant on naught, when the world He created.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Children of the Lord's Supper, line 177.

• Those glories come too late
  That on our ashes wait.
  • Richard Lovelace, inscription on title-page of Posthumous Poems (1659).

• Go where glory waits thee;
  But while fame elates thee,
  Oh! still remember me.
  • Thomas Moore, Go Where Glory Waits Thee.

• Immensum gloria calcar habet.
  • The love of glory gives an immense stimulus.
  • Ovid, Epistolæ Ex Ponto, IV. 2. 36.

• Nisi utile est quod facimus, stulta est gloria.
  • Unless what we do is useful, our glory is vain.
    • Phaedrus, Fables, III. 17. 12.

• Who pants for glory, finds but short repose;
  A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.
  • Alexander Pope, Second Book of Horace, Epistle I, line 300.

• Magnum iter adscendo; sed dat mihi gloria vires.
  • I am climbing a difficult road; but the glory gives me strength.
    • Sextus Propertius, Elegies, IV. 10. 3.

• Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
  To all the sensual world proclaim,
  One crowded hour of glorious life
  Is worth an age without a name.
  • Walter Scott, On Mortality (1816), Chapter XXXIV, introductory stanza. Recently discovered in The Bee, Edinburgh (Oct. 12, 1791). Said to have been written by Major Mordaunt. Whole poem reproduced in Literary Digest (Sept. 11, 1920), p. 38.

• Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
  Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force,
  Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill;
  Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
  And every humor hath his adjunct pleasure,
  Wherein it finds a joy above the rest.
  • William Shakespeare, Sonnet XCI.

• Avoid shame, but do not seek glory,—nothing so expensive as glory.
  • Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir, Volume I, p. 86.

• Heu, quam difficilis gloriæ custodia est.
  • Alas! how difficult it is to retain glory!
    • Syrus, Maxims.

• Et ipse quidem, quamquam medio in spatio integræ ætatis ereptus, quantum ad gloriam, longissimum ævum peregit.
  • As he, though carried off in the prime of life, had lived long enough for glory.
  • Tacitus, Agricola. XLIV.

• 'Twas glory once to be a Roman;
  She makes it glory, now, to be a man.
  • • Bayard Taylor, The National Ode.

• I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness.
  • Themistocles, on being taunted with his want of social accomplishments. Plutarch's Life.

• Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,
  But look'd to near have neither heat nor light.
  • John Webster, The White Devil, Act V, scene 1.

• Great is the glory, for the strife is hard!
  • William Wordsworth, To B. R. Haydon, line 14.