Dionysos Quotes

“You don't know what your life is, nor what you're doing, nor who you are.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“Every culture that has lost myth has lost, by the same token, its natural healthy creativity. Only a horizon ringed about with myths can unify a culture. The forces of imagination and the Apollonian dream are saved only by myth from indiscriminate rambling. The images of myth must be the daemonic guardians, ubiquitous but unnoticed, presiding over the growth of the child's mind and interpreting to the mature man his life and struggles.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

“they would be astonished to discover the seriously German problem that we are dealing with, a vortex and a turning-point at the very centre of German hopes. But perhaps those same people will find it distasteful to see an aesthetic problem taken so seriously, if they can see art as nothing more than an entertaining irrelevance, an easily dispensable tinkle of bells next to the 'seriousness of life': as if no one was aware what this contrast with the 'seriousness of life' amounted to. Let these serious people know that I am convinced that art is the supreme task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life in the sense of that man, my noble champion on that path, to whom I dedicate this book.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

“Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age, and to get drunk till forty; but, after forty, gives them leave to please themselves, and to mix a little liberally in their feasts the influence of Dionysos, that good deity who restores to younger men their gaiety and to old men their youth...fit to inspire old men with mettle to divert themselves in dancing and music; things of great use, and that they dare not attempt when sober.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“Just as you will never lose me, you will never lose your crown. Your coronet will guide sailors to safety through the labyrinth of the treacherous seas. Women will look to it for a sign of comfort, a light in the darkness. Children will whisper their wishes to it before they close their eyes to dream. It will stay there, fast and true, for all time.”
― Jennifer Saint, Ariadne

“Being a god and loving mortals means nothing more than watching them die. I know that all too well. Everytime I see my children learn a new skill, acquire a new word, take another step away from us, I see their shadow drifting in Hades' halls years from now, beyond my reach. You as well, one day nothing but smoke and ashes.”
― Jennifer Saint, Ariadne

“Let us drink. Why wait for the lighting of the lamps?
Night is a hair's breadth away. Take down the great goblets
from the shelf, dear friend, for the son of Semele and Zeus
gave us wine to forget our pains. Mix two parts water, one wine,
and let us empty the dripping cups—urgently.”
― Alkaios

“Let us hang garlands of celery
across our foreheads
and call a festival to Dionysos.”
― Anakreon