Oracle

In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination.

• The oracle-glass was maddeningly literal, capable of answering only the question one asked, rather than that which one wanted answered.
  • Michael Swanwick, King Dragon (2003). Reprinted in David G. Hartwell (ed.), Year’s Best Fantasy 4 (p. 6)

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 572.

• Ibis redibis non morieris in bello.
  • Thou shalt go thou shalt return never in battle shalt thou perish.
  • Utterance of the Oracle which through absence of punctuation and position of word "non" may be interpreted favorably or the reverse.

• A Delphic sword.
  • Aristotle, Politica, I, 2 (referring to the ambiguous Delphic Oracles).

• The oracles are dumb,
  No voice or hideous hum
  Runs thro' the arched roof in words deceiving.
  • John Milton, Hymn on Christ's Nativity, line 173.

• I am Sir Oracle,
  And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 1, line 93.

• Destiny
• Fate
• Luck
• Magic
• Mercury (mythology)
• Prophesy
• Omen

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