Augury Quotes

History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy.

PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.

Let not thy divining heart Forethink me any ill; Destiny may take thy part, And may thy fears fulfill.

We turn to experts to tell us the future, even though they have not the foggiest idea themselves. It is a practice that goes back thousands of years.

I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh whenever he sees another soothsayer.

Well, I don't want to become a prognosticator.

The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs thro' the arched roof in words deceiving.

Prophecy - To observe that which has passed, and guess it will happen again.

In spite of myself, I gave a snort. "Just once, I'd like to hear a simple, straightforward prophecy.

Prophecy is what we all have to go by now.

People have always had this craving to have someone tell them the future. Long ago, kings would hire people to read sheep guts. There's always been a market for people who pretend to know the future. Listening to today's forecasters is just as crazy as when the king hired the guy to look at the sheep guts.

Good hope is often beguiled by her own augury.

As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

If every song is in the past tense, that's a drag, so you have to predict the future.

But the time has come; the revelation has already occurred, and the guardian seers have seen the lightning strike the darkness we call reality. And now we sleep in the brief interval between the lightning and the thunder.

The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.

The pollsters are engaged in an ancient and primitive rite—trying to predict the future.

Foreknowledge is a wonderful thing.

Legends of prediction are common throughout the whole Household of Man. Gods speak, spirits speak, computers speak. Oracular ambiguity or statistical probability provides loopholes, and discrepancies are expunged by Faith.

The difference between hearsay and prophecy is often one of sequence. Hearsay often turns out to have been prophecy.

Banish afar the foul worship of idols. On their alters let the blood of animals smoke no more, nor the soothsayer look for omens in warm entrails, nor the meaningless augur attend to the song of birds. Let all the images of the gods be smashed to the ground.

No serious futurist deals in prediction. These are left for television oracles and newspaper astrologers.

I do believe in prophecy.

Future events cast their shadow before them.