Explore Quotes by C.P. Cavafy

Give me artificial flowers - porcelain and metal glories - neither fading nor decaying, forms unaging. Flowers of the splendid gardens of another place, where Forms and Styles and Knowledge dwell. I love flowers made of glass or gold, true Art's true gifts, their painted hues more beautiful than nature's, worked in nacre and enamel, with perfect leaves and branches.

Return often and take me, beloved sensation, return and take me - When memory of the body awakens, and old desire again runs through the blood; when the lips and skin remember, and the hands feel as if they touch again.

What shall become of us without any barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution.

Honor to those who in the life they lead_x000D__x000D_define and guard a Thermopylae._x000D__x000D_Never betraying what is right,_x000D__x000D_consistent and just in all they do_x000D__x000D_but showing pity also, and compassion;_x000D__x000D_generous when they are rich, and when they are poor,_x000D__x000D_still generous in small ways,_x000D__x000D_still helping as much as they can;_x000D__x000D_always speaking the truth,_x000D__x000D_yet without hating those who lie. _x000D__x000D_And even more honor is due to them_x000D__x000D_when they foresee (as many do foresee)_x000D__x000D_that in the end Ephialtis will make his appearance,_x000D__x000D_that the Medes will break through after all.

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge.

And if you can't shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade it.

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.

To certain people there comes a day when they must say the great Yes or the great No.

Days to come stand in front of us like a row of lighted candles— golden, warm, and vivid candles. Days gone by fall behind us, a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles; the nearest are smoking still, cold, melted, and bent. I don’t want to look at them: their shape saddens me, and it saddens me to remember their original light. I look ahead at my lighted candles. I don’t want to turn for fear of seeing, terrified, how quickly that dark line gets longer, how quickly the snuffed-out candles proliferate.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what these Ithacas mean.

Have Ithaka always in your mind. Your arrival there is what you are destined for. But don't in the least hurry the journey.