Quotes About Mortals And Gods

“Libations are for the gods. Cocktails are for mere mortals.”

— Jonathan Kieran

“Mortals did not need gods to order them to kill eachother. They were quite capable of finding reasons to do so themselves.”

— Trudi Canavan

“Then there was Buddha meddling in, telling all of the Hindu, Hebrew, Christian and Islamic gods and demons that they were nothing more than unenlightened fear induced figments of nirvana-starved mortals.”

— Andrew James Pritchard

“I'm telling you, you really should stick to mating within your species, whatever that is.'
'I would,' I said, 'but unfortunately, there are no gorgeous, all-powerful, all-knowing gods around here. I'd even settle for a demigod. It's a step down, I know. But alas, there are nothing but low-brained mortals here. And half-brains, like you.”

— Kristin Walker

“My name is Matthew Swift. I'm a sorcerer, the only one in the city who survived Robert Bakker's purge. I was killed by my teacher's shadow and my body dissolved into telephone static and all they had left to bury was a bit of blood. Then we came back, and I am we and we are me, and we are the blue electric angels, creatures of the phones and the wires, the gods made from the surplus life you miserable excuse for mortals pour into all things electric. I am the Midnight Mayor, the protector of the city, the guardian of the night, the keeper of the gates, the watcher on the walls. We turned back the death of cities, we were there when Lady Neon died, we drove the creature called Blackout into the shadows at the end of the alleys, we are light, we are life, we are fire and, would you believe it, the word that best describes our condition right now is cranky.
Would you like to see what happens when you make us mad?”

— Kate Griffin

“I don't believe in Him, and if He does exist, I don't like Him. His type of gods aren't gods who echo how mortals behave. They're gods who are held up as example of perfection to be emulated. They're not gods of the people. They're remote and inaccessible, they demand blind, unthinking obedience from their followers. They're dictators. We Aesir and Vanir, by contrast, are mirrors. Other gods rule. We reflect and magnify. We are you, only more so. We share your flaws and foibles. We are as humanlike as we are divine, and I think we are all the better for that.”

— James Lovegrove

“The Gods know what it is to be eternal, and they love to toy with mortals who use absolutes.”

— Josephine Angelini

“The wheel of Rome spins constantly. Gods rise and fall, mortals live and die, and round and round we go. We all play a part in that wheel ... And I make sure the wheel never stops spinning. You see, if the wheel stops, balance is lost.”

— Katlyn Charlesworth

“Gods know about fading. They know about being forgotten over centuries. The idea of ceasing to exist altogether terrifies us. In fact- well, Zeus would not like me sharing this information, and if you tell anyone, I will deny I ever said it-but the truth is we gods are a little in awe of you mortals. You spend your whole lives knowing you will die. No matter how many friends and relatives you have, your puny existences will quickly be forgotten. How do you cope with it? Why are you not running around constantly screaming and pulling your hair out? Your bravery, I must admit, is quite admirable.”

— Rick Riordan

“So there was love, once. More than love. And now there is more than hate. Mortals have no words for what we gods feel. Gods have no words for such things. But love like that doesn't just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always love left, underneath. Horrible, isn't it?”

— N.K. Jemisin

“Fie these gods! What beings are these who would play so cruelly with the sensibilities of rational, conscientious mortals?”

— R.A. Salvatore

“On nights such as these the gods, as has already been pointed out, play games other than chess with the fates of mortals and the thrones of kings. It is important to remember that they always cheat, right up to the end ...”

— Terry Pratchett

“Oh! ye poor mortals," she went on, with a sudden burst of passion; "ye beseech your gods for the gift of many years, being ignorant that ye would sow a seed within your breasts whence ye must garner ten thousand miseries. Know ye not that this world is indeed the wide house of hell, in whose chambers from time to time the spirit tarries a little while, then, weary and aghast, speeds wailing to the peace that it has won.”

— H. Rider Haggard

“And in that far distant day when the gods become wholly beautiful, or we at last are shown how beautiful they always were, this will happen more and more. For mortals, as you said, will become more and more jealous. And mother and wife and child and friend will all be in league to keep a soul from being united with the Divine Nature.”

— C.S. Lewis

“The gods do make playthings of us ... but it is we mortals who provide them with the tools.”

— Melina Marchetta

“The gods whispered to you once, Finnikin. And you listened. But they are proud and refuse to speak to those who do not believe that there is something out there mightier than the minds and intellect of mortals.”

— Melina Marchetta

“He looked up to the gods but never accepted their eternal superiority. For better or worse, plotting their overthrow was the only aspiration that stoked the fires of destiny. Such an exalted ambition was worthy of a man who had long accomplished the chore of dominating human minds. A man so terrified of finding himself alone in a stratosphere where no one could understand just how exceptional he was. In that place, the presumed existence of gods was a great comfort, especially in a profession in which his rivals were mere mortals.”

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

“When people treat you ill, blame your conduct,
or report anything to your disadvantage, enter into
the very soul of them ; examine their understandings,
and see of what nature they are. You will be fully
convinced that the opinion of such mortals is not
worth one troublesome thought. However, you must
be kind to them, for nature has made them your
relations. Besides, the gods give them all sort of
countenance, warn them by dreams and prophecy,
and help them to those things they have a mind.”

— Marcus Aurelius

“The most that many people could hope for was that they should not incur the wrath of gods whom they had failed to appease or propitiate; beyond that, gods should be left to get on with their proper business and mortals with theirs.”

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Those whom the gods choose, 'tis said, they first separate from other mortals-by treachery, by stripping from you your spirit's lifeblood. The gods will take all your loved ones, one by one, to their death. And, as you harden, as you become what they seek, the gods smile and nod. Each company you shun brings you closer to them. 'Tis the shaping of a tool, son, the prod and pull, and the final succour they offer you is to end your loneliness-the very isolation they helped you create.”

— Steven Erikson

“I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend ... I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend ...”

— Neil Gaiman

“I refuse to believe that gods want to make mortals unhappy and torment them. That's what humans do. And humans are very definitely not divine.”

— Karen Traviss

“I am the god of dreams, but not even I would dream of speaking for Hades," Morpheus replied with a mischievous look in his eyes. "But if I had to guess, I would say it's because he knows how destructive his little brother is. Hades, unlike most of the other gods, cares for mortals and doesn't want to see them at war. Probably because he has to tend their souls when they die. He has had to judge millions of souls and that has given him a strong sense of justice. Leaving you to fight Zeus with no training is something he would consider unjust.”

— Josephine Angelini

“That was the message. For me, alone among mortals, the gods send their messenger to tell me to stop whining. That'll teach me to go hide in a temple.”

— Megan Whalen Turner

“There is one God - supreme among gods and men - who is like mortals in neither body nor mind.”

— Xenophanes

“God is one, greatest of gods and men, not like mortals in body or thought.”

— Xenophanes

“The earliest Greek philosopher's criticized Homer's mythology because the gods resembled mortals too much and were just as egotistic and treacherous.”

— Jostein Gaarder

“You're saying the gods don't have free will."
"The power to make mistakes," Penny said. "Only we have that. Mortals.”

— Lev Grossman

“Let him submit to me! Only the god of death is so relentless, Death submits to no one-so mortals hate him most of all the gods. Let him bow down to me! I am the greater king, I am the elder-born, I claim-the greater man.”

— Homer

“Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given ...”

— Homer

“Fear in sooth holds so in check all mortals, becasue thay see many operations go on in earth and heaven, the causes of which they can in no way understand, believing them therefore to be done by power divine. for these reasons when we shall have seen that nothing can be produced from nothing, we shall then more correctly ascertain that which we are seeking, both the elements out of which every thing can be produced and the manner in which every thing can be produced in which all things are done without the hands of the gods.”

— Lucretius

“Some go to Church, proud humbly to repent, And come back much more guilty than they went: One way they look, another way they steer, Pray to the Gods; but would have Mortals hear; And when their sins they set sincerely down, They'll find that their Religion has been one.”

— Edward Young

“Happy the man, of mortals happiest he, Whose quiet mind from vain desires is free; Whom neither hopes deceive, nor fears torment, But lives at peace, within himself content; In thought, or act, accountable to none But to himself, and to the gods alone.”

— George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne

“If mortals wait until the gods remake the world to their liking to be happy, they are already in hell.”

— Bette Lord

“Failure may be cruel, but success is crueller still. The gods are usurers, you know; they lend to mortals, but they exact a desperate interest.”

— Katherine Cecil Thurston

“Look now how mortals are blaming the gods, for they say that evils come from us, but in fact they themselves have woes beyond their share because of their own follies.”

— Homer

“Thus have the gods spun the thread for wretched mortals: that they live in grief while they themselves are without cares; for two jars stand on the floor of Zeus of the gifts which he gives, one of evils and another of blessings.”

— Homer

“I wish that strife would vanish away from among gods and mortals, and gall, which makes a man grow angry for all his great mind, that gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside of a man's heart and becomes a thing sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey.”

— Homer

“Those whom the gods chose as their property must not consort with mortals.”

— Franz Grillparzer

“Ah yes, the gods use us mortals as footballs!”

— Plautus

“Assuredly whatsoever things are fabled to exist in deep Acheron, these all exist in this life. There is no wretched Tantalus, fearing the great rock that hangs over him in the air and frozen with vain terror. Rather, it is in this life that fear of the gods oppresses mortals without cause, and the rock they fear is any that chance may bring.”

— Lucretius