Flavor text/Real-world quotations
Magic cards have used real-world quotations (from classics and modern literature, the bible, famous speeches and sayings) in flavor text since Alpha.[1] [2] They were considered to have an immediate impact and built-in sense of history that in-setting flavor text also strived for, yet would take on subtly novel shades of meaning when presented on a Magic card.[3] Later, R&D stopped doing them in order to devote more space to their own created worlds, characters and stories.[4] For copyright reasons, the quotations were preferably in the public domain, from a source at least 100 years old.[5]
The Dark was the last expansion set to feature real-world quotations. According to Mark Rosewater, a compromise was reached that the basic set would have literary quotes and the expert expansions wouldn't, in order to showcase their own worlds. He argued that real-world literature would take players out of the world of dueling wizards and according to some, would make them feel like they're in school.[6] Rosewater also stated that they wanted Magic to be fun, not "edutainment."[6] Since then, literary quotes were relegated to starter-level set, core sets, promotional cards and From the Vault. They were eventually slowly phased out, making their last appearance in Magic 2014. However, they were revisited in 2020 on a card from the Secret Lair Happy Little Gathering Drop featuring Bob Ross's artwork and one of his characteristic quotes. In 2022, Artist Series: Nils Hamm followed up with four classical quotes.
According to research on this topic by Wizards of the Coast, the majority of people enjoy in world Magic flavor text over real world quotes.[7]
Card list
Year | First appearance | Card | Quote | Author | Source | Type |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1993 | Limited Edition | Dragon Whelp | O to be a dragon … of silkworm size or immense … | Marianne Moore | O to Be a Dragon | Poem (1959) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Firebreathing | And topples round the dreary west A looming bastion fringed with fire. |
Alfred, Lord Tennyson | In Memoriam | Poem (1849) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Frozen Shade | There are some qualities—some incorporate things, That have a double life, which thus is made A type of twin entity which springs From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade. |
Edgar Allan Poe | Silence | Poem (1839) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Hypnotic Specter | …There was no trace Of aught on that illumined face…. |
Samuel Coleridge | Phantom | Poem (1805) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Pearled Unicorn | ‘Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!’ ‘Well, now that we have seen each other,’ said the Unicorn, ‘if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.’ |
Lewis Carroll | Through the Looking-Glass | Novel (1871) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Phantom Monster | While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale door, A hideous throng rush out forever, And laugh—but smile no more. |
Edgar Allan Poe | The Haunted Palace | Poem (1839) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Plague Rats | Should you a Rat to madness tease Why ev'n a Rat may plague you… |
Samuel Coleridge | Recantation | Poem (1798) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Scathe Zombies | They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. |
Samuel Coleridge | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Poem (1798) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Wall of Brambles | What else, when chaos draws all forces inward to shape a single leaf. | Conrad Aiken | The Room | Poem (1930) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Wall of Ice | And through the drifts the snowy cliffs Did send a dismal sheen: Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken— The ice was all between. |
Samuel Coleridge | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Poem (1798) |
1993 | Limited Edition | Will-o'-the-Wisp | About, about in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night; The water, like a witch’s oils, Burnt green, and blue and white. |
Samuel Coleridge | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Poem (1798) |
1993 | Unlimitierte Auflage | Demonic Tutor (German FWB) |
Das also war des Pudels Kern! Ein fahrender Skolast? Der Kassus macht mich lachen! (So that is then the essence of the brute? A travelling scholar? Time to laugh yet!) |
J.W. Goethe | Faust | Tragedy (1808) |
1993 | Tirage Non Limité | Royal Assassin (French FWB) |
Prince amiable, dis-nous si quelque ange au berceau Contre des assassins prit soin de te défendre (...) (Say, did an angel at thy cradle side, beloved prince! Against thy murderers defend thee with his care?) |
Racine | Athalie | Tragedy (1691) |
1993 | Arabian Nights | Aladdin's Ring | After these words the magician drew a ring off his finger, and put it on one of Aladdin’s, saying: ‘It is a talisman against all evil, so long as you obey me.’ |
The Arabian Nights | Folk tale (9th century) | |
1993 | Arabian Nights | Ali Baba | When he reached the entrance of the cavern, he pronounced the words, ‘Open, Sesame!’ |
The Arabian Nights | Folk tale (9th century) | |
1993 | Arabian Nights | Bird Maiden | Four things that never meet do here unite To shed my blood and to ravage my heart, A radiant brow and tresses that beguile And rosy cheeks and a glittering smile. |
The Arabian Nights | Folk tale (9th century) | |
1993 | Arabian Nights | Juzám Djinn | Expect my visit when the darkness comes. The night I think is best for hiding all. |
Ouallada | Darkness | Poem (11th century) |
1993 | Arabian Nights | King Suleiman | We made tempestuous winds obedient to Solomon And many of the devils We also made obedient to him. |
The Qur'an, 21:81 | Religious text (7th century) | |
1993 | Arabian Nights | Piety | Whoever obeys God and His Prophet, fears God and does his duty to Him, will surely find success. |
The Qur'an, 24:52 | Religious text (7th century) | |
1993 | Arabian Nights | Repentant Blacksmith | For my confession they burned me with fire And found that I was for endurance made. |
The Arabian Nights | Folk tale (9th century) | |
1994 | Revised | Serendib Efreet (French FWB) |
J'appris de la sorte 'que l'île de Serendib avait quatre-vingts parasanges de longueur et quatre-vingts de largeur; qu'elle avait une montagne, qui était la plus haute de la terre. (I learned this way that the island of Serendib is eighty parasangs in length, and as many in breadth; that it had a mountain, which was the highest in the world.) |
The Arabian Nights | Folk tale (9th century) | |
1994 | Antiquities | Shapeshifter | Born like a Phoenix from the Flame, But neither Bulk nor Shape the same. |
Jonathan Swift | Vanbrug's House | Poem (1708) |
1994 | Legends | Boomerang | O! call back yesterday, bid time return. | William Shakespeare | King Richard the Second | History play (1595) |
1994 | Legends | Cosmic Horror | Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th’ affrighted skies. |
Alexander Pope | The Rape of the Lock | Poem (1702) |
1994 | Legends | Darkness | If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in my arms. |
William Shakespeare | Measure for Measure | Comedy (1603) |
1994 | Legends | Devouring Deep | Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. |
William Shakespeare | The Tempest | Comedy (1610) |
1994 | Legends | Dream Coat | Adopt the character of the twisting octopus, which takes on the appearance of the nearby rock. Now follow in this direction, now turn a different hue. |
Theognis | Elegies 1, 215 | Poem (6th century BC) |
1994 | Legends | Durkwood Boars | And the unclean spirits went out, and entered the swine: and the herd ran violently … . | The Bible, Mark 5:13 | Religious text (1st century) | |
1994 | Legends | Emerald Dragonfly | Flittering, wheeling, darting in to strike, and then gone just as you blink. |
Dragonfly Haiku | Poem | |
1994 | Legends | Firestorm Phoenix | The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new-create another heir As great in admiration as herself. |
William Shakespeare | King Richard the Eighth | History play (1613) |
1994 | Legends | Gaseous Form | … [A]nd gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. |
William Shakespeare | A Midsummer Night's Dream | Comedy (1600) |
1994 | Legends | Giant Strength | O! it is excellent To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. |
William Shakespeare | Measure for Measure | Comedy (1603) |
1994 | Legends | Giant Turtle | The turtle lives ‘twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex. I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile. |
Ogden Nash | The Turtle | Poem (1945) |
1994 | Legends | Greed | There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. There is no greater guilt than discontentment. And there is no greater disaster than greed. |
Lao Tzu | Tao Té Ching 46 | Philosophical text (6th century BC) |
1994 | Legends | Hammerheim | Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue. |
Thomas Campbell | The Pleasures of Hope | Poem (1799) |
1994 | Legends | Headless Horseman | … The ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head … he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast … |
Washington Irving | The Legend of Sleepy Hollow | Short story (1820) |
1994 | Legends | Hellfire | High on a throne of royal state … insatiate to pursue vain war with heav'n. |
John Milton | Paradise Lost | Poem (1667) |
1994 | Legends | Holy Day | The day of spirits; my soul’s calm retreat Which none disturb! |
Henry Vaughan | Silex Scintillans: The Night | Poem (1650) |
1994 | Legends | Hornet Cobra | Then inch by inch out of the grass rose up the head and spread hood of Nag, the big black cobra, and he was five feet long from tongue to tail. |
Rudyard Kipling | The Jungle Books (Rikki-Tikki-Tavi) |
Short story (1894) |
1994 | Legends | Horror of Horrors | And a horror of outer darkness after, And dust returneth to dust again. |
Adam Lindsay Gordon | The Swimmer | Poem (1870) |
1994 | Legends | Hyperion Blacksmith | The smith a mighty man is he With large and sinewy hands. And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands. |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | The Village Blacksmith | Poem (1840) |
1994 | Legends | Karakas | To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. |
Emily Dickinson | To make a prairie | Poem (1755) |
1994 | Legends | Part Water | … and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. | The Bible, Exodus 14:22 | Religious text (6th century BC) | |
1994 | Legends | Pendelhaven | This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks … Stand like Druids of old. |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Evangeline | Poem (1847) |
1994 | Legends | Pyrotechnics | Hi! ni! ya! Behold the man of flint, that’s me! Four lightnings zigzag from me, strike and return. |
Navajo war chant | Chant (traditional) | |
1994 | Legends | Revelation | Many are in high place, and of renown: but mysteries are revealed unto the meek. | The Bible, Ecclesiastics 3:19 [8] | Religious text (5th century BC) | |
1994 | Legends | Rust | How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use, As though to breathe were life! |
Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Ulysses | Poem (1842) |
1994 | Legends | Segovian Leviathan | Leviathan, too! Can you catch him with a fish-hook or run a line round his tongue? | The Bible, Job 41:1[9] | Religious text (6th century BC) | |
1994 | Legends | Shimian Night Stalker | When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. |
William Shakespeare | Hamlet | Tragedy (ca. 1600) |
1994 | Legends | Syphon Soul | Her lips suck forth; see, where it flies! | Christopher Marlowe | The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus | Tragedy (ca. 1590) |
1994 | Legends | The Abyss | An immense river of oblivion is sweeping us away into a nameless abyss. | Ernest Renan | Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse | Autobiography (1883) |
1994 | Legends | The Brute | Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed. | Samuel Butler | The Note-Books of Samuel Butler | Note (1912) |
1994 | Legends | Thunder Spirit | It was full of fire and smoke and light and … it drove between us and the Efrafans like a thousand thunderstorms with lightning. |
Richard Adams | Watership Down | Novel (1972) |
1994 | Legends | Tolaria | Fairest Isle, all isles excelling, Seat of pleasures, and of loves … |
John Dryden | King Arthur | Opera (1691) |
1994 | Legends | Touch of Darkness | Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray, Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may. |
Thomas Middleton | The Witch | Tragicomedy (1616) |
1994 | Legends | Transmutation | You know what I was, You see what I am: change me, change me! |
Randall Jarrell | The Woman at the Washington Zoo | Poem (1960) |
1994 | Legends | Underworld Dreams | In the drowsy dark cave of the mind, dreams build their nest with fragments dropped from day’s caravan. |
Rabindranath Tagore | Fireflies | Aphorism (1912) |
1994 | Legends | Urborg | Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in town Death looks gigantically down. |
Edgar Allan Poe | The City in the Sea | Poem (1845) |
1994 | Legends | Vampire Bats | For something is amiss or out of place When mice with wings can wear a human face. |
Theodore Roethke | The Bat | Poem (1941) |
1994 | Legends | Visions | Visions of glory, spare my aching sight, Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul! |
Thomas Gray | The Bard | Poem (1757) |
1994 | Legends | Winds of Change | Tis the set of sails, and not the gales, Which tells us the way to go. |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox | The Winds of Fate | Poem (1916) |
1994 | Legends | Winter Blast | Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! | William Shakespeare | King Lear | Tragedy (1606) |
1994 | Legends | Wolverine Pack | Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils. | William Shakespeare | Henry V | History play (1599) |
1994 | The Dark | Fissure | Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death? | Plato | Phaedo | Dialogue (4th century BC) |
1994 | The Dark | Squire | Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse. Of his stature he was of evene lengthe. And wonderly delyvere, and of greete strengthe. |
Geoffrey Chaucer | The Canterbury Tales (General Prologue) |
Short story (1400) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Abyssal Specter | Mystic shadow, bending near me, Who art thou? Whence come ye? |
Stephen Crane | Mystic shadow, bending near me | Poem (1905) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Castle | … Our castle’s strength Will laugh a siege to scorn. |
William Shakespeare | Macbeth | Tragedy (1606) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Energy Flux | Nothing endures but change. | Heraclitus | On Nature | Philosophical text (5th century BC) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Force Spike | Unknown spears Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes … . |
William Butler Yeats | The Valley Of The Black Pig | Poem (1896) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Funeral March | Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul. |
John Keats | To Sleep | Poem (1900) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Hurricane | The raging winds …, settling on the sea, the surges sweep, Raise liquid mountains, and disclose the deep. |
Virgil | Aeneid | Poem (1st century BC) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Ivory Guardians | But who is to guard the guards themselves? | Juvenal | Satires | Poem (2nd century BC) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Marsh Viper | And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued. |
Edgar Allen Poe | The Conqueror Wurm | Poem (1843) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Radjan Spirit | Crawing, crawing, For my crowse crawing, I lost the best feather i’ my wing For my crowse crawing. |
Anonymous Scottish ballad | Ballad | |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Righteousness | I too shall be brought low by death, but until then let me win glory. |
Homer | The Iliad, Book XVIII | Poem (9th century BC) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Soul Barrier | The Soul selects her own Society— Then—shuts the Door— |
Emily Dickinson | The Soul selects her own Society | Poem (1862) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Updraft | Come one, come all! this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I. |
Sir Walter Scott | The Lady of the Lake | Poem (1810) |
1997 | Fifth Edition | Wind Spirit | … When the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by. |
Christina Rossetti | Who Has Seen the Wind? | Poem (1947) |
1997 | Portal | Armageddon | O miserable of happy! Is this the end Of this new glorious world … ? | John Milton | Paradise Lost | Poem (1667) |
1997 | Portal | Dread Charge | As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate. | John Dryden | Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew | Poem (1686) |
1997 | Portal | Knight Errant | … Before honor is humility. | The Bible, Proverbs 15:33 | Religious text (BC) | |
1997 | Portal | Moon Sprite | I am that merry wanderer of the night. | William Shakespeare | A Midsummer Night's Dream | Comedy (1600) |
1997 | Portal | Sacred Nectar | For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. | Samuel Coleridge | Kubla Khan | Poem (1797) |
1997 | Portal | Symbol of Unsummoning | … inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude … . | Kate Chopin | The Awakening | Novel (1899) |
1997 | Portal | Tidal Surge | Twas when the seas were roaring With hollow blasts of wind … . |
John Gay | The What D'Ye Call It | Poem (1715) |
1997 | Portal | Wind Drake | No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. | William Blake | The Marriage of Heaven and Hell | Poem (1793) |
1997 | Portal | Wrath of God | As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport. | William Shakespeare | King Lear | Tragedy (1606) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Multiple cards (40 [2]) | Multiple quotes | Luo Guanzhong | Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel | History novel (14th century) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Ambition's Cost | When you give offense to heaven, to whom can you pray? | Confucius | Analects | Philosophical text (3rd century BC) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Barbarian General | Barbarian tribes with their rulers are inferior to Chinese states without them. | Confucius | Analects | Philosophical text (3rd century BC) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Burning Fields | In raiding and plundering, be like fire, in immovability like a mountain. | Sun Tzu | The Art of War | Military treatise (5th century BC) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | False Defeat | All warfare is based on deception. | Sun Tzu | The Art of War | Military treatise (5th century BC) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Ravages of War | Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed. Lean years follow in the wake of a great war. | Lao Tzu | Tao Te Ching | Philosophical text (6th century BC) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Sage's Knowledge | Those who know do not talk. Those who talk do not know. | Lao Tzu | Tao Te Ching | Philosophical text (6th century BC) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Slashing Tiger | Unless you enter the tiger’s lair, you cannot get hold of the tiger’s cubs. | Sun Tzu | The Art of War | Military treatise (5th century BC) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Three Visits | Trying to meet a worthy man in the wrong way is as bad as closing the door on an invited guest. | Mencius | Mencius | Philosophical text (4th century BC) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Wei Scout | He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. | Sun Tzu | The Art of War | Military treatise (5th century BC) |
1999 | Portal Three Kingdoms | Young Wei Recruits | To send the common people to war untrained is to throw them away. | Confucius | Analects | Philosophical text (3rd century BC) |
1999 | Starter 1999 | Dakmor Ghoul | Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature’s rule! | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Locksley Hall | Poem (1835) |
1999 | Starter 1999 | Royal Trooper | Fortune does not side with the faint-hearted. | Sophocles | Phaedra | Tragedy (5th century BC) |
1999 | Starter 1999 | Squall | To-night the winds begin to rise … The rooks are blown about the skies … . | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | In Memoriam | Poem (1849) |
1999 | Starter 1999 | Tidings | Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills. | William Shakespeare | Hamlet | Tragedy (ca. 1600) |
2001 | Seventh Edition | Ancestral Memories | It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards | Lewis Carroll | Through the Looking Glass | Novel (1871) |
2001 | Seventh Edition | Boomerang | Returne from whence ye came… . | Edmund Spenser | The Faerie Queene | Poem (1590) |
2001 | Seventh Edition | Squall | May the winds blow till they have wakened death… . | William Shakespeare | Othello | Tragedy (1603) |
2001 | Seventh Edition | Jayemdae Tome | Knowledge is power. | Sir Francis Bacon | Meditationes Sacrae | Religious meditation (1597) |
2001 | Seventh Edition | Lightning Elemental | A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passes from life to his rest in the grave. |
William Knox | Mortality | Poem (1824) |
2001 | Seventh Edition | Dark Banishing | Hence ‘banishèd’ is banished from the world, And the world’s exile is death. |
William Shakespeare | Romeo and Juliet | Tragedy (1597) |
2001 | Seventh Edition | Wind Drake | But high she shoots through air and light, Above all low delay, Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, Nor shadow dims her way. |
Thomas Moore | Oh that I had Wings | Hymn (1855) |
2001 | FNM card | Carnophage | And in their blind and unattaining state their miserable lives have sunk so low that they must envy every other fate. | Dante | Inferno | Poem (1320) |
2001 | FNM card | Jackal Pup | Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. | William Shakespeare | Julius Caesar | Historic play (1599) |
2001 | FNM card | Ophidian | I will … tell thee more than thou hast wit to ask. | Christopher Marlowe | The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus | Tragedy (ca. 1590) |
2001 | FNM card | Quirion Ranger | I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. | Henry David Thoreau | Walden | Memoir (1854) |
2001 | FNM card | Swords to Plowshares | Peace hath her victories No less renownd than war. | John Milton | To the Lord General Cromwell | Poem (1852) |
2001 | Junior Super Series | City of Brass | Enter this palace-gate and ask the news Of greatness fallen into dust and clay. |
The Arabian Nights | Folk tale (9th century) | |
2001 | Judge Gift | Ball Lightning | Life, struck sharp on death, Makes awful lightning. | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Aurora Leigh | Poem (1856) |
2001 | Magic Player Reward | Wasteland | I will show you fear in a handful of dust. | T. S. Eliot | The Waste Land | Poem (1922) |
2002 | FNM card | Black Knight | The chill, to him who breathed it, drew Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold. |
Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Idylls of the King | Poem (1869) |
2002 | FNM card | Fireslinger | One pain is lessened by another’s anguish. | William Shakespeare | Romeo and Juliet | Tragedy (1597) |
2002 | FNM card | Soltari Priest | Fire is the test of gold; adversity of strong men. | Seneca | On Providence | Dialogue (64) |
2002 | FNM card | Wall of Blossoms | Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Compensation | Essay (1841) |
2002 | FNM card | White Knight | When good men die their goodness does not perish, But lives though they are gone. |
Euripides | Temenidae | Tragedy (5th century BC) |
2002 | Judge Gift | Tradewind Rider | Tis a shame, in such a tempest, to have but one anchor. | Laurence Sterne | Tristram Shandy | Novel (1759) |
2002 | Arena League promo | Dauthi Slayer | A wisp of life remains in the undergloom of Death; a visible form, though no heart beats within it. | Homer | The Iliad | Poem (9th century BC) |
2002 | Arena League promo | Mana Leak | If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts. | Sir Francis Bacon | Advancement of Learning | Letter (1605) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Archivist | Words — so innocent and powerless are they, as standing in a dictionary; how potent for good and evil they become to one who knows how to combine them! |
Nathaniel Hawthorne | The American Notebooks (1835 - 1853) | Note (1848) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Confiscate | It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected. | Mark Twain | More Maxims of Mark | Note (1927) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Cowardice | Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. | William Shakespeare | Julius Caesar | Historic play (1599) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Dark Banishing | Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say ‘death,’ For exile hath more terror in his look, Much more than death. |
William Shakespeare | Romeo and Juliet | Tragedy (1597) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Death Pits of Rath | Neither could I forget what I had read of these pits that the sudden extinction of life formed no part of their most horrible plan. |
Edgar Allan Poe | The Pit and the Pendulum | Short story (1842) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Defense Grid | A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection. | Crystal Eastman | Equality or Protection | Column (1924) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Distorting Lens | The Eye altering alters all. | William Blake | The Mental Traveller | Poem (1863) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Enrage | You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. | David Banner | The Incredible Hulk | Catchphrase (1978) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Fear | The horror. The horror. | Joseph Conrad | Heart of Darkness | Novella (1899) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Fertile Ground | The love of nature … is a furious, burning, physical greed… . |
Mary Webb | The House in Dormer Forest | Short story (1920) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Fleeting Image | Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. | Aesop | Fables | Fable (6th century BC) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Giant Octopus | Before my eyes was a horrible monster, worthy to figure in the legends of the marvellous… . Its eight arms, or rather feet, fixed to its head … were twice as long as its body, and were twisted like the furies’ hair. |
Jules Verne | Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea | Novel (1870) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Maggot Carrier | We do not suddenly fall on death, but advance towards it by slight degrees; we die every day. |
Seneca | Epistles | Letter (1st century) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Naturalize | One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. | William Shakespeare | Troilus and Cressida | Tragedy (1602) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Persecute | Of all the tyrannies on humane kind The worst is that which persecutes the mind. [10] | John Dryden | The Hind and the Panther | Poem (1687) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Redeem | Let me redeem my brothers both from death. | William Shakespeare | Titus Andronicus | Tragedy (ca. 1600) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Sacred Nectar | Over the silver mountains, Where spring the nectar fountains, There will I kiss The bowl of bliss; And drink my everlasting fill… . |
Sir Walter Raleigh | The Pilgrimage | Poem (ca. 1603) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Solidarity | We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. | Benjamin Franklin | Life of Franklin | Quote (1776) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Swarm of Rats | Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a life. | Bram Stoker | Dracula | Novel (1897) |
2003 | Eighth Edition | Treasure Trove | Wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade. | Emma Goldman | Anarchism | Essay (1910) |
2005 | Ninth Edition | Archivist | Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts. | Mary Harris "Mother" Jones | Speech to railroad workers. | Speech (1880's) |
2005 | Ninth Edition | Cruel Edict | No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,— The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells. |
Wilfred Owen | Anthem for Doomed Youth | Poem (1917) |
2005 | Ninth Edition | Early Harvest | Earth’s increase, foison plenty, Barns and garners never empty: Vines with clust'ring bunches growing; Plants with goodly burden bowing. |
William Shakespeare | The Tempest | Comedy (1610) |
2005 | Ninth Edition | Greater Good | To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. | Mary Shelley | Frankenstein | Novel (1818) |
2005 | Ninth Edition | Inspirit | The hour of your redemption is here… . Rally to me… . rise and strike. Strike at every favorable opportunity. For your homes and hearths, strike! | General Douglas MacArthur | Speech to the people of the Philippines. | Speech (1944) |
2005 | Ninth Edition | Phantom Warrior | There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream. | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Illusions | Essay (1860) |
2005 | Ninth Edition | Seasoned Marshal | We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. | Queen Victoria | Letter to Arthur Balfour during the Boer War. | Letter (1899) |
2005 | Ninth Edition | Seething Song | The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm. | Charles Colton | Lacon; or Many Things in Few Words; Addressed to Those Who Think | Note (1828) |
2005 | Ninth Edition | Warrior's Honor | No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. | Calvin Coolidge | Have Faith in Massachusetts: A Collection of Speeches and Messages | Speech (1916) |
2006 | Judge Gift | Pernicious Deed | The tyrannous and bloody deed is done, The most arch deed of piteous massacre That ever yet this land was guilty of. | William Shakespeare | Richard III | Historic play (1897) |
2006 | Judge Gift | Exalted Angel | She is a theme of honor and reknown, …Whose present courage may beat down our foes. |
William Shakespeare | Troilus and Cressida | Tragedy (1602) |
2007 | Tenth Edition | Air Elemental | The East Wind, an interloper in the dominions of Westerly Weather, is an impassive-faced tyrant with a sharp poniard held behind his back for a treacherous stab.[3] | Joseph Conrad | The Mirror of the Sea | Memoir (1906) |
2007 | Tenth Edition | Céphalalgie (French Megrim) |
Cloués au sol, de honte et de céphalalgies … (Nailed to the earth, in shame and mental horror ...) |
Arthur Rimbaud | Poésies: First Communions | Poem (1871) |
2007 | Tenth Edition | Mind Stone | Not by age but by capacity is wisdom gained. | Titus Maccius Plautus | Trinummus | Comedy (2nd century BC) |
2007 | Gateway card | Mind Stone | Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power. | René Descartes | Discourse on Method | Philosophical treatise (1637) |
2007 | Gateway card | Mogg Fanatic | As if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it. | Herman Melville | Moby Dick | Novel (1851) |
2008 | From the Vault: Dragons | Ebon Dragon | The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth. | William Shakespeare | Troilus and Cressida | Tragedy (1602) |
2009 | Magic 2010 | Alluring Siren | The ground polluted floats with human gore, And human carnage taints the dreadful shore Fly swift the dangerous coast: let every ear Be stopp’d against the song! ‘tis death to hear! |
Homer | The Odyssey | Poem (9th century BC) |
2010 | Magic 2011 | Back to Nature | Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same. | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Essays | Essay (1841) |
2010 | Magic 2011 | Dark Tutelage | It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness. | Seneca | Epistles | Letter (1st century) |
2010 | Magic 2011 | Diminish | ‘That was a narrow escape!’ said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence.’ | Lewis Carroll | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Novel (1865) |
2011 | Magic 2012 | Taste of Blood | How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads, to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. | Bram Stoker | Dracula | Novel (1897) |
2012 | Magic 2013 | Unsummon | Not to be. That is the answer. Rif on To be or not to be. |
William Shakespeare | Hamlet | Tragedy (ca. 1600) |
2013 | Magic 2014 | Pay No Heed | Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. | William Shakespeare | Henry IV, Part I | History play (1597) |
2013 | Magic 2014 | Zephyr Charge | All armies prefer high ground to low and sunny places to dark. | Sun Tzu | The Art of War | Military treatise (5th century BC) |
2020 | Happy Little Gathering | Evolving Wilds (Secret Lair Drop Series) | We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents. | Bob Ross | The Joy of Painting | Instructional television show (1983-1994) |
2022 | Artist Series: Nils Hamm | Deepglow Skate | Blue, glossy green, and velvet black They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of fire. |
Samuel Taylor Coleridge | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Poem (1798) |
2022 | Artist Series: Nils Hamm | Tireless Tracker | Tell me Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered far and wide. |
Homer | The Odyssey | Poem (9th century BC) |
2022 | Artist Series: Nils Hamm | Contagion Engine | Deep into that darkness, peering They coiled and swam; and every track I stood there wondering, fearing. |
Edgar Allan Poe | The Raven | Poem (1845) |
2022 | Artist Series: Nils Hamm | Sword of Truth and Justice | "The name of it", said the lady, "is Excalibur". | Sir Thomas Mallory | Le Morte d'Arthur | Prose (1485) |
2024 | Sheldon's Spellbook | Teferi's Protection (Secret Lair, #1691) | "If you’re doing it alone, you’re doing it wrong." | Sheldon Menery | Quotation | |
2024 | Sheldon's Spellbook | Inkshield (Secret Lair, #1694) | “You did it to yourself.” | Sheldon Menery | Commander deck name.[11] | Sheldon's signature deck.[12] |
2024 | Sheldon's Spellbook | Sheldon, the Commander (Secret Lair, #1695) | “I’m not great at everything, but I am great at one thing: surrounding myself with excellent people. And that tends to take care of the rest.” | Sheldon Menery | Gavin Verhey[13] | Quotation |
2024 | Sheldon's Spellbook | Sol Ring (Secret Lair, #1696) | From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother... |
William Shakespeare | Henry V | History play (1599) |
2024 | Sheldon's Spellbook | Command Tower (Secret Lair, #1697) | “Hate has no place here.” | Sheldon Menery | Quotation |
Notes and references
- ↑ Doug Beyer (November 19, 2008). "Perfection Through Etherium". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ a b John Dale Beety (February 24, 2011). "Compulsive Research - The Top Five Sources Of Real-World Flavor Text". StarCityGames.com.
- ↑ a b Wizards of the Coast (August 9, 2006). "Selecting Tenth Edition, Week 9". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (July 16, 2019). "Is there a chance of cards (or at least those in core sets) quoting real-life literature in their flavor texts again in the future?". Blogatog. Tumblr.
- ↑ Aaron Forsythe (July 25, 2002). "Selecting Eighth Edition". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ a b Mark Rosewater (March 25, 2002). "Add Text to Flavor". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (January 22, 2013). "Please tell the relevant people that i very strongly feel that core set flavor text should have more literary quotes.". Blogatog. Tumblr.
- ↑ The quotation in the flavor text is from Ecclesiastics 3:19, not from Ecclesiastes 3:19 as mentioned on the card. This error was corrected in Chronicles
- ↑ The quotation in the flavor text is from Job 41:1, not Job 40:25 as mentioned on the card (although it is Job 40:25 in the original Hebrew text). This error was corrected in Fifth Edition.
- ↑ Aaron Forsythe (October 10, 2002). "Selecting Eighth Edition". Magicthegathering.com.
- ↑ Big Tuck, Mr. Combo #5, Sheldon Menery (December 13, 2019). "Brews and Builds: Episode #18 – Rohan ft. Sheldon Menery". CMD Tower.
- ↑ Sheldon Menery (December 20, 2021). "Everything I Know About You Did This To Yourself In Commander". StarCityGames.
- ↑ Remembering the Legend of Sheldon Menery. magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast (September 8, 2023).