# Messenger

A messenger or courier is a person or thing that carries a message.

## Quotes

* A king does not kill messengers.
** Alexander the Great, as quoted in the Historia Alexandri Magni of Pseudo-Kallisthenes, 1.37.9-13
* Messenger, by night, drive on like the south wind! By day, be up like the dew!
** Enmerkar, in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, Neo-Sumerian period (ca. 21st century BC).
* The messenger runs like a wild ram and flies like a falcon. He leaves in the morning and returns already at dusk, like small birds at dawn.
** Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, Neo-Sumerian period (ca. 21st century BC).
* The messenger gave heed to the words of his king. He journeyed by the starry night, and by day he travelled with Utu of heaven. Where and to whom will he carry the important message of Inana with its stinging tone? He brought it up into the Zubi mountains, he descended with it from the Zubi mountains. Susa and the land of Anšan humbly saluted Inana like tiny mice. In the great mountain ranges, the teeming multitudes grovelled in the dust for her. He traversed five mountains, six mountains, seven mountains. He lifted his eyes as he approached Aratta. He stepped joyfully into the courtyard of Aratta, he made known the authority of his king. Openly he spoke out the words in his heart. The messenger transmitted the message to the lord of Aratta.
** Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, Neo-Sumerian period (ca. 21st century BC).
* The true Cynic must know that he is sent as a Messenger from God to men, to show unto them that as touching good and evil they are in error; looking for those where they are not to be found, nor ever bethinking themselves where they are.
** Epictetus Golden Sayings of Epictetus, 113, as translated by Hastings Crossley.
* The listener distrusts the prophetic messenger.
** Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune (1981), The Stolen Journals.
* Man is a messenger who forgot the message.
** Abraham Joshua Heschel, as quoted in The Zookeeper's Wife : A War Story (2008) by Diane Ackerman.
* The cooling breeze is the breath of heaven, a veritable messenger of life, carrying healing on its wings.
** John Harvey Kellogg, Battle Creek, MI: Good Health Publishing Company, 1903, p. 412. Full text online.
* Every word is a messenger. Some have wings; some are filled with fire; some are filled with death.
** Mary Oliver, Winter Hours (1999), "Sand Dabs, Six"
* I well believe it, to unwilling ears; none love the messenger who brings bad news.
** Sophocles, Antigone, lines 276–77.—The Dramas of Sophocles, trans. Sir George Young, p. 16 (1888). A sentinel is speaking to Creon.
* The heart of God through his creation stirs, We thrill to feel it, trembling as the flowers That die to live again, — his messengers, To keep faith firm in these sad souls of ours.
** Celia Thaxter, "Rockweeds" in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 21 (March 1868), p. 269.
* The messengers of thy Ka are come for thee; the messengers of thy father are come for thee; the messengers of Rē are come for thee. Go after thy sun; purify thyself, thy bones are female-falcons, goddesses, who are in heaven, that thou mayest be at the side of the god.
** Text in the Pyramid of Unas (d. c. 2345 BC), Utterance 214.
* Affirm the mind, the messenger of the hour, To speed between thee and the source of power.
** Ella Wheeler Wilcox, New Thought Pastels (1913), Affirm.

### Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

    Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
* He who lives to God rests in his Redeemer's love, and is trying to get rid of his old nature — to him every sorrow, every bereavement, every pain, will come charged with blessings, and death itself will be no longer the "king of terrors," but the messenger of grace.
** Frederick William Robertson, p. 119.

## See also

* Communication
* Message
* Speech
* Writing