Skip to content
quotesby

I felt the body I was occupying so weakened that all its organs were shutting down. I asked the way to the hospital, and as soon as I walked in I discovered the body of a young man who had just given up the ghost. I approached the body and pretended I had seen it move. I protested to all the attendants that he wasn't dead and that his illness wasn't even dangerous. Nobody noticed when I adroitly breathed myself into him. My old body immediately dropped dead, and I stood up in this fresh body. Everyone exclaimed that it was a miracle, and I didn't stop to disabuse them.

Cyrano de Bergerac#22

DeathBodyDeceptionMiracle

About this quote

What does it mean?
The narrator breathes into a young body in a hospital, causing his old body to die and everyone to marvel at what they think is a miracle.
In plain terms
The narrator swaps bodies in a hospital, making his old body die and everyone believe in a miracle.
What can you take from it?
Apparent miracles can be tricks exploiting ignorance.

Where it applies

  • deathbed scenes
  • storytelling
  • medical settings

Putting it to work

  • writing fiction
  • explaining survival

Questions to consider

  • How do we define a miracle?
  • Is it okay to mislead on death?

Another view

This act deceives others about the nature of death.

More from Cyrano de Bergerac

  1. You imagine that what you can't understand is either spiritual or does not exist. The conclusion is quite wrong; rather there are obviously a million things in…

    Permalink to quote #21
  2. Our host received a piece of paper from my familiar spirit. I asked if he were giving him a check or note to pay the bill. He answered no, that he had settled …

    Permalink to quote #23
  3. Even though they, themselves, were material beings, they could show themselves to us only by taking on bodies that our senses were able to perceive.

    Permalink to quote #20

Related quotes

  1. Never again to wiggle your toes. What a hell of a thing, what a wonderful, beautiful thing, to wiggle your toes.

    Dalton TrumboDalton Trumbo quote #1
  2. Every body is a book of blood; Wherever we're opened, we're red.

    Clive BarkerClive Barker quote #2
  3. Nunc suscipe, terra, fovendum, gremioque hunc concipe molli. Hominis tibi membra sequestro, generosa et fragmina credo.

    PrudentiusPrudentius quote #2