"Damocles" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... But when I hurried on to the next question, "Have you fixed a date?" silence was my answer. She had dropped the receiver, and I was afraid I could guess why. She couldn't bear to discuss the sword hanging over her head. Few descendants of Damocles can! ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... much as that people should speak ill of him, and especially this is the bugbear under which the nobleman of Cho-sen is constantly labouring, and upon which these black-mailers and "spongers" work. High officials, whose heads rest on their shoulders, "hung by a hair," like Damocles' sword, suffer very much at the hands of these marauders. Were they to refuse their hospitality it would bring upon them slander, scandal and libel from envenomed tongues, which things, in consequence of the scandalous intriguing which goes on at the Corean ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... discussing the outlook and expecting to learn that some agreement had been reached. In an adjoining room the members of the delegation were sitting in conference on the burning subject, painfully aware that time pressed, that the Damocles's sword of Mr. Wilson's declaration hung by a thread over their heads, and that a spirit of large compromise was indispensable. At three o'clock Mr. Lloyd George's secretary brought the reply of the Council of Three to Italy's maximum of concessions. Only one point remained in dispute, I was ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... than he then was, but that perhaps his best years had been those when he was between fifty-five and seventy-five, and Dr Johnson placed the pleasures of old age far higher than those of youth. True, in old age we live under the shadow of Death, which, like a sword of Damocles, may descend at any moment, but we have so long found life to be an affair of being rather frightened than hurt that we have become like the people who live under Vesuvius, and ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... seems to have haunted his imagination ever afterward. Why the creature should have been introduced into this romance is not very clear, for it plays no part in the development of the plot. The spider hangs suspended over the old Doctor's head like the sword of Damocles, and one would expect it to descend at the proper moment in the narrative, and make an end of him with its nippers; but Doctor Grimshawe dies a comparatively natural death, and the desiccated body ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... you, Ruth, for you are the only one who seems really to know and love that dear little Nellie Mayo and those blessed babies. Ruth, there is a Damocles sword hanging over that nest of birds, and it is liable to fall at any moment. Oh, it has weighed on my heart like lead ever since I discovered the secret. I know you don't like Frank Mayo, but ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... thinning stars raced the patient electronic bloodhound; invisible, irreversible, indestructible; slowly, but inexorably accelerating. It flashed by the planet Damocles at multiples of the speed of light, and sensing the proximity of the prey on which it was homed, spurted into the intergalactic depths after the receding ship, intent on meshing with and thereby distorting the encephalograph pattern of its target. It was quite mindless, ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... of the finest orient! The shell alone—in buttons—would have recouped Eisenfeldt. He was ugly when he saw that I had escaped him. Threatened to expose you. But knowing Eisenfeldt for what he is, I had a little sword of Damocles suspended over his thick neck. The thought of having lost eight months' interest will ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... slippery ground; breakers, shoals, shallows, bank, shelf, flat, lee shore, ironbound coast; rock ahead, breakers ahead. precipice; maelstrom, volcano; ambush &c. 530; pitfall, trapdoor; trap &c. (snare) 545. sword of Damocles; wolf at the door, snake in the grass, death in the pot; latency &c. 526. ugly customer, dangerous person, le chat qui dort[Fr]; firebrand, hornet's nest. Phr. latet anquis in herba [Lat][Vergil]; proximus ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... means. So in case of a tussle the odds are big that you'll finish underside. And, besides, if you have a bit of a whip-hand over me, I'd have you remember that until I've got my terms, you are standing under a Damocles arrangement which may tumble on your hat at any moment. And it doesn't take much of a wizard to tell that your nerves aren't good to stand that strain ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... time? Let us go to Mars. We have the means. Let us beard the lion in his den. Let us ourselves turn conquerors and take possession of that detestable planet, and if necessary, destroy it in order to relieve the earth of this perpetual threat which now hangs over us like the sword of Damocles." ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... I was astonished at the turn things had taken would not give the slightest idea of my feelings. And yet a great joy filled my heart. The sword of Damocles, which seemed to hang over my ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... delivered with official assumption in the fine frenzy of a muse-inspired priest, their unity of purpose and of style makes them virtually a continuous poem. It lashes the vices and the short-sighted folly of society; with the Sword of Damocles above his head the rich man sits at a luxurious board (III, i, 17); sails in his bronzed galley, lolls in his lordly chariot, with black Care ever at the helm or on the box (III, i, 40). By hardihood in the field and cheerful poverty at home Rome became great of yore; such should ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... Governorof Winchester Castle had carried three days in his pocket, were carted back to the Tower, where, not pardoned, their sentences not commuted, but simply deferred, they were tortured with a living death hanging over them, like the sword of Damocles depending on royal caprice. ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens |
