"Gnostic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with all the pure gold bequeathed to Greece by Pythagoras and his disciples, with whom the forces of the air conversed familiarly. Wherefore, gentlemen, it is convenient to explore the books of the Hebrews, the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians and those treatises of the Greeks which are called Gnostic precisely because they possessed knowledge. I reserve for myself, as is quite equitable, the most arduous part of this extensive work. I apply myself to decipher those hieroglyphics which the Egyptians used to inscribe in the temples of their gods and on the graves ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... method could be devised to assist the masses?' But for those who are wise he has always the higher teachings, which are given only to those who have proved themselves worthy of it. This teaching is not lost; the church cast it out when she expelled the great Gnostic Doctors, but it has nevertheless been preserved, and it is precisely that Wisdom which we are studying—precisely that which we find to answer all the problems of life, to give us a rational rule by which to live, ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... called the Life Force, the Will to Live, the Struggle for Existence. They have figured it too as Mother Nature. We may speculate whether it is not what the wiser among the Gnostics meant by the Demiurge, but since the Christians destroyed all the Gnostic books that must remain a mere curious guess. We may speculate whether this heat and haste and wrath of life about us is the Dark God of the Manichees, the evil spirit of the sun worshippers. But in contemporary thought there is no conviction apparent that this Demiurge is either good or evil; it ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... Subsequently its use spread beyond the Gnostics, and in modern times it is applied contemptuously (e g. by the early opponents of the evolution theory) to a conception or hypothesis which purports to be a simple solution of apparently insoluble phenomena. The Gnostic physician Serenus Sammonicus gave precise instructions as to its mystical use in averting or curing agues and fevers generally. The paper on which the word was written had to be folded in the form of a cross, suspended ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... help of Horapollo, Chiflet's gnostic gems, and other repertories of the same class, one might, peradventure, make a tolerable case in favour of the mythological identity of the legend of Ladybird—that is, the sun-chafer, or barn-bie, the fire-fly, "whose house is burnt, ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
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