Great Lion Quotes & Sayings

OLD GRIZZLY ADAMS. [37-*] James C. Adams, or "Grizzly Adams," as he was generally termed, from the fact of his having captured so many grizzly bears, and encountered such fearful perils by his unexampled daring, was an extraordinary character. For many years a hunter and trapper in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains, he acquired a recklessness which, added to his natural invincible courage, rendered him truly one of the most striking men of the age. He was emphatically what the English call a man of "pluck." In 1860, he arrived in New York with his famous collection of California animals, captured by himself, consisting of twenty or thirty immense grizzly bears, at the head of which stood "Old Sampson" - now in the American Museum - wolves, half a dozen other species of bear, California lions, tigers, buffalo, elk, etc., and Old Neptune, the great sea-lion, from the Pacific. — P.T. Barnum

Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was a coward on instinct. — William Shakespeare

Now he stood in the farthest end of the cave, in front of the great lion chase he had watched Thorn paint so long ago. He saw again: it was by far the greatest painting in the the cave, maybe the world. Maybe it would always be the greatest painting. — Kim Stanley Robinson

I trace my genealogy back to the land. Human and wild, I can see myself whole, not isolated but integrated in time and place. Our genetic makeup is not so different from the collared lizard, the canyon wren now calling, or the great horned owl who watches from the cottonwood near the creek. Mountain lion is as mysterious a creature as any soul I know. Is not the tissue of family always a movement between harmony and distance? — Terry Tempest Williams

So the lion is the law-breaker. Just as to the primitive man the lion is the lawbreaker, the great nuisance, dangerous to human beings and to animals, that breaks into the Kraal at night and fetches the bull out of the herd: he is the destructive instinct. — Carl Jung

Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great front feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself. "My son, my son," said Aslan. "I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another. — C.S. Lewis

Apophis the god of Chaos Anubis the god of funerals and death Babi the baboon god Bast the cat goddess Bes the dwarf god Disturber a god of judgement who works for Osiris Geb the earth god Gengen-Wer the goose god Hapi the god of the Nile Heket the frog goddess Horus the war god, son of Isis and Osiris Isis the goddess of magic, wife of her brother Osiris and mother of Horus Khepri the scarab god, Ra's aspect in the morning Khonsu the moon god Mekhit minor lion goddess, married to Onuris Neith the hunting goddess Nekhbet the vulture goddess Nut the sky goddess Osiris the god of the Underworld, husband of Isis and father of Horus Ra the sun god, the god of order; also known as Amun-Ra Sekhmet the lion goddess Serqet the scorpion goddess Set the god of evil Shu the air god, great-grandfather of Anubis Sobek the crocodile god Tawaret the hippo goddess Thoth the god of knowledge — Rick Riordan

Today I walked on the lion-coloured hills with only cypresses for company, until the sunset caught me, turned the brush to copper set the clouds to one great roof of flame above the earth, so that I walk through fire, beneath fire, and all in beauty. Being alone I could not be alone, but felt (closer than flesh) the presence of those who once had burned in such transfigurations. My happiness ran through the centuries in one continual brightness. Looking down, I saw the earth beneath me like a rose petaled with mountains, fragrant with deep peace. — Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth

Dante cuts short his excursion and returns to find Virgil mounted on the back of Geryon. Dante joins his Master and they fly down from the great cliff. Their flight carries them from the Hell of the VIOLENT AND THE BESTIAL (The Sins of the Lion) into the Hell of the FRAUDULENT AND MALICIOUS (The Sins of the Leopard). — Dante Alighieri

We must do business in great waters; we must be really on the deck in a storm, if we would see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. We must have stood side by side with King David; we must have gone down into the pit to slay the lion or have lifted up the spear against the eight hundred, if we would know the saving strength of God's right hand. Conflicts bring experience, and experience brings that growth in grace which is not to be attained by any other means. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

A rabbit, it has been said, can outrun a lion. But the rabbit's great fear of the lion paralyzes it, making it easy for the lion to catch and consume it. — Sheila Walsh

Hermes's eyes twinkled. "Martha, may I have the first package, please?"
Martha opened her mouth ... and kept opening it until it was as wide as my arm. She belched out a stainless steel canister-an old-fashioned lunch box thermos with a black plastic top. The sides of the thermos were enameled with red and yellow Ancient Greek scenes-a hero killing a lion; a hero lifting up Cerberus, the three-headed dog.
"That's Hercules," I said. "But how-"
"Never question a gift," Hermes chided. "This is a collector's item from Hercules Busts Heads. The first season."
"Hercules Busts Heads?"
"Great show." Hermes sighed. "Back before Hephaestus-TV was all reality programming. Of course, the thermos would be worth much more if I had the whole lunch box- — Rick Riordan

Chris. So, when the battle was over, Christian said, "I will here give thanks to Him that hath delivered me out of the mouth of the lion; to Him that did help me against Apollyon." And so he did, saying: "Great Satan, the captain of this fiend, Designed my ruin; therefore to this end He sent him harnessed out: and he with rage That hellish was, did fiercely me engage; But blessed angels helped me; and I, By dint of sword, did quickly make him fly: Therefore to God let me give lasting praise, And thank and bless His holy name always. — John Bunyan

Of all animals, the outward form of the Lion is the most striking ; his look is bold and confident; his gait proud; and his voice terrible ; and from his great strength and agility, is usually styled the king of beasts. — William Pinnock

The Great Bitch is the deadly female, a worthy opponent for the omnipotent hero to exercise his powers upon and through. She is desirous, greedy, clever, dishonest, and two jumps ahead all the time. The hero may either have her on his side and like a lion-tamer sool her on to his enemies, or he may have to battle for his life at her hands. — Germaine Greer

My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. And a favorite book as a child? Growing up, it was 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' - I would read the whole C.S. Lewis series out loud to my kids. I was once reading to Zelda, and she said 'don't do any voices. Just read it as yourself.' So I did, I just read it straight, and she said 'that's better.' — Robin Williams

However politically desirable a republic might be, it remains unable to compete imaginatively with monarchy because monarchy in principle more completely mirrors the nature of divine authority. One of the great imaginative advantages of the genre of fairy-tale or romance is to allow for the presentation of such a principle. In fairy-tale the author can leave behind the shallows of the 'realistic' novel, and is free to show the reader something better than mundane norms. What might it be like if human kings really did exhibit perfect kingship? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe attempts an answer. — Michael Ward

An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep. — Alexander The Great

The lion shall never lie down with the lamb. The lion eternally shall devour the lamb, the lamb eternally shall be devoured. Man knows the great consummation in the flesh, the sensual ecstasy, and that is eternal. Also the spiritual ecstasy of unanimity, that is eternal. But the two are separate and never to be confused. — D.H. Lawrence

This is the land of Narnia,' said the Faun, 'where we are now; all that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea. — C.S. Lewis

ONE WHO WRAPS HIMSELF

God called the Prophet Muhammad Muzzammil,
"The One Who Wraps Himself,"

and said,
"Come out from under your cloak, you so fond
of hiding and running away.

Don't cover your face.
The world is a reeling, drunken body, and you are its intelligent head.

Don't hide the candle
of your clarity. Stand up and burn
through the night, my prince.

Without your light
a great lion is held captive by a rabbit!

Be the captain of the ship,
Mustafa, my chosen one,
my expert guide.

Look how the caravan of civilization
has been ambushed.
Fools are everywhere in charge.
Do not practice solitude like Jesus. Be in the assembly,
and take charge of it.

As the bearded griffin, the Humay, lives on Mt. Qaf because he's native to it,
so you should live most naturally out in public
and be a communal teacher of souls. — Jalaluddin Rumi

It took me five years of going right into the mouth of the lion to learn to be at ease onstage ... if you deal with an audience as a bunch of people having a great time, you'll have a much bettrer time as a performer — Rory Block

The lion's share of the bear market is over, ... It's a two-part issue. Yes, the marketplace could be nasty. But there's a great deal of nastiness that's already happened in the bond market. — Paul McCulley

though he is a Lamb, he has wrath in him, and when the great day of his wrath comes in any form on earth, there is no standing before him; and how much less when he shall appear as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire; then kings and freemen will call to the rocks to fall upon them, and hide them from him; — John Gill

Let him look into [fear's] eye and search its nature, inspect its origin, - see the whelping of this lion, - which lies no great way back; he will then find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he will have made his hands meet on the other side, and can henceforth defy it and pass on superior. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Maharana Pratap Singh, the 'Lion of Mewar', is a heroic figure among Indian legends. His name is engraved with gold among the list of valiant kings who fought for the honour of nation. This great Rajput King preferred to sacrifice his life than surrendering against enemies of nation. He struggled like a true valiant for freedom even under adverse — Simran

The greatest fear in the world is the opinion of others, and the moment you are unafraid of the crowd, you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom. — Osho

Self-centered anger generates evil, but wrath at social injustice becomes the driving force for reform. Strong language that censures and combats a great evil often awakens adverse reactions from society, but this must not intimidate those who believe they are right. A lion is a lion because he roars. — Daisaku Ikeda

I've eaten lion, leopard, crocodile, python. I don't recommend lion. It tastes exactly like when a tomcat comes into your house and sprays. Snake and crocodile are great - a cross between lobster and chicken. — Wilbur Smith

Do you know why teachers use me? Because I speak in tongues. I write metaphors. Every one of my stories is a metaphor you can remember. The great religions are all metaphor. We appreciate things like Daniel and the lion's den, and the Tower of Babel. People remember these metaphors because they are so vivid you can't get free of them and that's what kids like in school. They read about rocket ships and encounters in space, tales of dinosaurs. All my life I've been running through the fields and picking up bright objects. I turn one over and say, Yeah, there's a story. And that's what kids like. Today, my stories are in a thousand anthologies. And I'm in good company. The other writers are quite often dead people who wrote in metaphors: Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne. All these people wrote for children. They may have pretended not to, but they did. — Ray Bradbury

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion. — Alexander The Great

By my physical constitution I am but an ordinary man ... Yet some great events, some cutting expressions, some mean hypocracies, have at times thrown this assemblage of sloth, sleep, and littleness into rage like a lion. — John Adams

But please, please - won't you - can't you give me something that will cure Mother?'
Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.
'My son, my son,' said Aslan. 'I know. Grief is great. — C.S. Lewis

And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. — C.S. Lewis

YOU HAVE KILLED
YOU HAVE STOLEN
YOU HAVE DESTROYED.
DEVOURER OF LIVES
DEVOURER OF SOULS
YOU ARE DEFEATED!

ROAR O LION OF JUDAH
PROCLAIM YOUR VICTORY!

CHILDREN OF ADAM BEHOLD...
BEHOLD THY SALVATION.
FOR GREAT IS THE DAY OF THE LORD.

TURN AND FOLLOW THE CHILD
AS LION LIES WITH LAMB.

O SWORD BE A PLOUGH
O SPEAR BE A PRUNING HOOK
"EDUCATORS" SILENCE!
WE SHALL LEARN WAR NO MORE. — David Holdsworth

All right, beautiful. You've got me tied down to this stone table, and there's a knife in your hand that says you get to rule Narnia for another hundred years. So maybe I die, and winter goes on. Maybe the hunger and the darkness and the fear never end. But as long as the children believe in me, I know that Aslan will live again. I, the Great Lion, Son of The Emperor Over The Sea, will live again and
aaaaauugh!! — C.S. Lewis

I am she who lifts the mountains
When she goes to hunt,
Who wears mamba for a headband
And a lion for a belt.
Beware!
I swallow elephants whole
And pick my teeth with rhinoceros horns,
I drink up rivers to get at the hippos.
Let them hear my words!
Nhamo is coming
And her hunger is great.
I am she who tosses trees
Instead of spears.
The ostrich is my pillow
And the elephant is my footstool!
I am Nhamo
Who makes the river my highway
And sends crocodiles scurrying into the reeds! — Nancy Farmer

I have often wondered how this circumpolar stars between the Drago and the Lion came to be known as the Great Bear. The ancient Egyptians called them the Unwearied Ones or the Rowers of the Ships of Ra. I prefer the Plough or the Wain or even the Big Dipper. The name of the Septriones, the proud walkers, grips the imagination, but the Great Bear is a plain misnomer. — John Hillaby

When many work together for a goal, Great things may be accomplished. It is said a lion cub was killed By a single colony of ants. — Saskya Pandita

Such is the prestige of the Nobel Award and of this place where I stand that I am impelled, not to speak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession and in the great and good men who have practised it through the ages. — John Steinbeck

If a hungry lion suddenly appeared, you'd be terrified. So terrified you'd probably run away. Great, fear's doing its job. But you might get so afraid that you lock up and can't move. This would be very bad. Guilt's the same. It can prevent you from fixing the situation, make you feel so bad you can't function at 100% and even lead to more guilt-provoking bad behavior. — David D. Burns

I am an ape forced to play the lion. — Gregory The Great

Said the lion to the lioness - "when you are amber dust -
No more a raging fire like the heat of the sun
(no liking but all lust) -
Remember still the flowering of the amber blood
and bone,
the rippling of bright muscles like
a sea,
Remember the rose-prickles of
bright paws
Though we shall mate no more
Till the fire of that sun
and the moon -
Cold bone are one"

Said the skeleton lying upon the
sands of time -
"The great gold planet that
is the mourning heat
of the sun
Is greater than all gold, more powerful
Than the tawny body of a lion that fire
consumes
Like all that grows or leaps...so
is the heart.

More powerful than all dust. Once
I was hercules
Or Samson, strong as the pillars of the
seas:
But the flames of the heart
Consumed me, and
the mind
Is but a foolish wind. — Edith Sitwell

Lock grinned at Gwen. "He's fun," he said, reaching out and cuffing Mitch without even looking at him. "He just keeps trying to get back up." Bam! "It's great." Bam! "Like 'The Little Lion Who Could.'" Bam! — Shelly Laurenston

Now, Mr. Great-heart was a strong man, so he was not afraid of a lion. — John Bunyan

Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back and his mane like a lion's, stood with his great sword point upwards, the red raiment of his office flapping around him like the red wings of an archangel. And the King saw, he knew not how, something new and overwhelming. The great green trees and the great red robes swung together in the wind. The preposterous masquerade, born of his own mockery, towered over him and embraced the world. This was the normal, this was sanity, this was nature, and he himself, with his rationality, and his detachment and his black frock-coat, he was the exception and the accident - a blot of black upon a world of crimson and gold. — G.K. Chesterton

By being with my kids. I'm like a lion who hunts and comes home to be looked after and sleep. I think girls tend to be drawn towards their dad. I'd love to have a son, but I have three kids who are great - three geezer birds and that's all I need to worry about. — Ray Winstone

Oh, Brown was our lion and Tubman our fox, great-grandson! — Terry Bisson

He had known a great deal about her before she knew he had any real interest in her, and that was just the way Tom wanted it. He had been looking for someone like Beverly Marsh all his life, and he moved in with the speed of a lion making a run at a slow antelope. Not that her vulnerability showed on the surface - you looked and saw a gorgeous woman, slim but abundantly stacked. — Stephen King

The great roe is a mythological beast with the head of a lion and the body of a lion, though not the same lion. — Woody Allen

I think you've seen Aslan," said Edmund.
"Aslan!" said Eustace. "I've heard that name mentioned several times since we joined the Dawn Treader. And I felt - I don't know what - I hated it. But I was hating everything then. And by the way, I'd like to apologise. I'm afraid I've been pretty beastly."
"That's all right," said Edmund. "Between ourselves, you haven't been as bad as I was on my first trip to Narnia. You were only an ass, but I was a traitor."
"Well, don't tell me about it, then," said Eustace. "But who is Aslan? Do you know him?"
"Well - he knows me," said Edmund. "He is the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia. We've all seen him. Lucy sees him most often. And it may be Aslan's country we are sailing to. — C.S. Lewis

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion's roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance. — Nhat Hanh

When a great figure passed through a city of Burgundy or Champagne, the corporation of the city turned out to deliver an address and present him with four silver goblets in which there were four wines. On the first goblet he read the inscription "monkey wine," on the second "lion wine," on the third "sheep wine," on the fourth "swine wine." These four inscriptions expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness: the first, which enlivens; the second, which irritates; the third, which stupefies; finally the last, which brutalizes. — Victor Hugo

To those great geniuses now in petticoats, who shall write novels for the beloved reader's children, these men and things will be as much legend and history as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion, or Jack Sheppard. — William Makepeace Thackeray

But that isn't right. The King of Beasts shouldn't be a coward,' said the Scarecrow.
'I know it,' returned the Lion, wiping a tear from his eye with the tip of his tail. 'It is my great sorrow, and makes my life very unhappy. But whenever there is danger, my heart begins to beat fast.'
'Perhaps you have heart disease,' said the Tin Woodman.
'It may be,' said the Lion. — L. Frank Baum

But who is Aslan? Do you know him?"
"Well-he knows me," said Edmund. "He is the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia. — C.S. Lewis

Lucy is the first to find the secret of the wardrobe in the Professor's mysterious old house. At first, her brothers and sister don't believe her when she tells of her visit to the land of Narnia. But soon Edmund, then Peter and Susan step through the wardrobe themselves. In Narnia they find a country buried under the evil enchantment of the White Witch. When they meet the Great Lion, Aslan, they realize they've been called to a great adventure and bravely join the battle to free Narnia from the Witch's sinister spell. — C.S. Lewis

Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above both is character. It is true, of course, that a genius may, on certain lines, do more than a brave and manly fellow who is not a genius; and so, in sports, vast physical strength may overcome weakness, even though the puny body may have in it the heart of a lion. But, in the long run, in the great battle of life, no brilliancy of intellect, no perfection of bodily development, will count when weighed in the balance against that assemblage of virtues, active and passive, of moral qualities, which we group together under the name of character; and if between any two contestants, even in college sport or in college work, the difference in character on the right side is as great as the difference of intellect or strength the other way, it is the character side that will win. — Theodore Roosevelt

The gospel is like a caged lion,' said the great baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. 'It does not need to be defended, it simply needs to be let out of it's cage' Today, the cage is our accommodation to the secular/sacred split that reduces Christianity to a matter of personal belief. To unlock the cage, we need to become utterly convinced that, as Francis Schaeffer said, Christianity is not merely religious truth, it is total truth- truth about the whole of reality. — Nancy Pearcey

Beware instinct
the lion will not touch the true prince.
Instinct is a great matter. — William Shakespeare

They were walking beside the stream and the Lion went before them: and he became so beautiful, and the music so despairing, that Jill did not know which of them it was that filled her eyes with tears.
Then Aslan stopped, and the children looked into the stream. And there, on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay King Caspian, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like water-weed. And all three stood and wept. Even the Lion wept: great lion-tears, each tear more precious than the Earth would be if it was a single solid diamond. — C.S. Lewis

The past is discredited because it is not modern. Not to be modern is the great sin. So, perhaps, it is. But every one has, in his day, been modern. And surely even modernity is a poor thing beside immortality. Since we must all die, is it not perhaps better to be a dead lion than a living dog? — Katharine Fullerton Gerould

How should those of us of no great education challenge him at table when he compared the efficiency of lions and camels and arrived at the conclusion that the carnivorous lion was far less efficient than the camel in the desert, which ate plants and grass. — Heinz Linge

Salem"

In salem seasick spindrift drifts or skips
to the canvas flapping on the seaward panes
until the knitting sailor stabs at ships
nosing like sheep of Morpheus through his brain's
asylum. Seaman, seaman, how the draft
lashes the oily slick about your head,
beating up whitecaps! Seaman, Charon's raft
dumps its damned goods into the harbor-bed,--
There sewage sickens the rebellious seas.
Remember, seaman, Salem fisherman
Once hung their nimble fleets on the Great Banks.
Where was it that New England bred the men
who quartered the Leviathan's fat flanks
and fought the British Lion to his knees? — Robert Lowell