What's a quote that has stuck with you for your whole life?

zinklog@lemmy.fmhy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 609 points –

I always loved browsing such posts on reddit, so thought I should make one on lemmy too

Edit: Usually these kind of posts only used to have excerpts from books or ancient proverbs, but now I am seeing a lot more quotes from shows/movies/games are also resonating with people. It's pretty cool to see.

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Does a poem count? Ozymandias has stuck with me forever.

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."

I thought this was some quote from like, Iliad times. Nope, this is Percy Bysshe Shelley. That guy was pretty awesome

My favourite poem; I was just thinking about reading it again, and here we are. Thanks!

Fun facts time! There are actually two versions of Ozymandias, one written by Shelley and the other by his friend Horace Smith. They had a competition to both write a poem with the same title and subject matter, which I think it's fair to say Shelley won. But anyway, here is Smith's version:

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,

Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws

The only shadow that the Desert knows:—

"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,

"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows

The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—

Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose

The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder — and some Hunter may express

Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness

Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,

He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess

What powerful but unrecorded race

Once dwelt in that annihilated place.