Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Constantine P. Cavafy
Constantine P. Cavafy Quotes
67 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
He Knows He's Aged A Lot:
he sees it, feels it.
Yet it seems he was young just yesterday.
So brief an interval, so very brief. And he thinks of Prudence, how it fooled him,
how he always believed — what madness —
That Cheat Who Said:
Tomorrow. You have plenty of time.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
He who hopes to grow in spirit
will have to transcend obedience and respect.
He'll hold to some laws
but he'll mostly violate
both law and custom, and go beyond
the established, inadequate norm.
Sensual pleasures will have much to teach him.
He won't be afraid of the destructive act:
half the house will have to come down.
This way he'll grow virtuously into wisdom.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
From my most unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing —
from these alone will I be understood.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
The holy Cross goes forward; it brings joy and consolation
to every quarter where Christians live;
and these God-fearing people, elated,
stand in their doorways and greet it reverently,
the strength, the salvation of the universe, the Cross.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
But Argos can do without the sons of Atreus. Ancient houses are not eternal.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
One of the three will want me anyway.
And my conscience is quiet
about my not caring which one I choose:
the three of them are equally bad for Syria. But, a ruined man, it's not my fault.
I'm only trying, poor devil, to make ends meet.
The almighty gods ought to have taken the trouble
to create a fourth, a decent man.
I would gladly have gone along with him.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
So let's not exaggerate.
The light is good; and those coming are good,
their words and actions also good.
And let's hope all goes well.
But Argos can do without the house of Atreus.
Ancient houses are not eternal.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
And in Spain Galba
secretly musters and drills his army —
Galba, the old man in his seventy-third year.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
The empire is delivered at last.
The vile, the appalling Julian
reigns no longer.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have come this far is no small achievement:
what you have done is a glorious thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it is a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
Don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive — don't mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
I created you while I was happy, while I was sad,
with so many incidents, so many details. And, for me, the whole of you has been transformed into feeling.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
It will be a great relief when a window opens.
But the windows are not there to be found —
or at least I cannot find them. And perhaps
it is better that I don't find them.
Perhaps the light will prove another tyranny.
Who knows what new things it will expose?
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
When they saw Patroklos dead
— so brave and strong, so young —
the horses of Achilles began to weep;
their immortal nature was upset deeply
by this work of death they had to look at.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
The matter, says Mardonios, has gone too far,
the talk it has aroused must be stopped at all cost. —
So Julian goes to the church at Nicomedia,
a lector again, and there
with deep reverence he reads out loud
passages from the Holy Scriptures,
and everyone marvels at his Christian piety.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
He wasn't completely wrong, poor old Gemistus
(let Lord Andronicus and the patriarch suspect him if they like),
in wanting us, telling us to become pagan once again.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Source
Report...
New places you will not find, you will not find another sea
The city will follow you.
You will roam the same streets.
Constantine P. Cavafy
1
2
3
Quote of the day
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Constantine P. Cavafy
Creative Commons
Born:
April 29, 1863
Died:
April 29, 1933
(aged 70)
Bio:
Constantine P. Cavafy was a Greek poet who lived in Alexandria and worked as a journalist and civil servant. He wrote 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form.
Known for:
The complete poems of Cavafy
Poems: The Canon
The unfinished poems
Poems by C.P. Cavafy
Most used words:
find
barbarians
city
people
gods
life
man
today
love
grow
indispensable
hellenic
stand
unique
country
Constantine P. Cavafy on Wikipedia
Suggest an edit or a new quote
Constantine P. Cavafy Quotes
Constantine P. Cavafy Short Quotes
Greek Poet Quotes
Poet Quotes
19th-century Poet Quotes
Related People
Giorgos Seferis
Greek Diplomat
Odysseus Elytis
Greek Critic
Yiannis Ritsos
Greek Poet
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes