America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy.
The Oxford History of the American People, 1965, Chapter 2.
2008-12-23
2008-12-18
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Lest we forget--lest we forget! (Rudyard Kipling, "Recessional")
Lest we forget--lest we forget! (Rudyard Kipling, "Recessional")
2008-12-10
nomenclature / nomenklatura
nomenclature
1. a set or system of names or terms, as those used in a particular science or art, by an individual or community, etc.;
2. the names or terms comprising a set or system.
nomenklatura
a select list or class of people from which appointees for top-level government positions are drawn, esp. from a Communist Party.
Thanks, dictionary.com
1. a set or system of names or terms, as those used in a particular science or art, by an individual or community, etc.;
2. the names or terms comprising a set or system.
nomenklatura
a select list or class of people from which appointees for top-level government positions are drawn, esp. from a Communist Party.
Thanks, dictionary.com
Jonathan Aaron
Acting Like a Tree
by Jonathan Aaron
When I got to the party and saw everybody
walking around in Christmas costumes,
I remembered I was supposed to be wearing one, too.
Bending slightly, I held out my hands
and waved them a little, wiggling my fingers.
I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, making
a tree face, and started slowly hopping on one foot,
then the other, the way I imagine trees do
in the forest when they’re not being watched.
Maybe people would take me for a hemlock,
or a tamarack. A little girl disguised as an elf
looked at me skeptically. Oh, come on!
her expression said. You call that acting like a tree?
Behind her I could see a guy in a reindeer suit
sitting down at the piano. As he hit the opening
chords of “Joy to the World” I closed my eyes
and tried again. This time I could feel the wind
struggling to lift my boughs, which were heavy
with snow. I was clinging to a mountain crag
and could see over the tops of other trees a few late-
afternoon clouds and the thin red ribbon of a river.
I smelled more snow in the air. A gust or two whispered
around my neck and face, but by now
all I could hear was the meditative creaking
of this neighbor or that—and a moment later, farther off,
the faint but eager call of a wolf.
Appears in the New Yorker, December 15, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/12/15/081215po_poem_aaron
by Jonathan Aaron
When I got to the party and saw everybody
walking around in Christmas costumes,
I remembered I was supposed to be wearing one, too.
Bending slightly, I held out my hands
and waved them a little, wiggling my fingers.
I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, making
a tree face, and started slowly hopping on one foot,
then the other, the way I imagine trees do
in the forest when they’re not being watched.
Maybe people would take me for a hemlock,
or a tamarack. A little girl disguised as an elf
looked at me skeptically. Oh, come on!
her expression said. You call that acting like a tree?
Behind her I could see a guy in a reindeer suit
sitting down at the piano. As he hit the opening
chords of “Joy to the World” I closed my eyes
and tried again. This time I could feel the wind
struggling to lift my boughs, which were heavy
with snow. I was clinging to a mountain crag
and could see over the tops of other trees a few late-
afternoon clouds and the thin red ribbon of a river.
I smelled more snow in the air. A gust or two whispered
around my neck and face, but by now
all I could hear was the meditative creaking
of this neighbor or that—and a moment later, farther off,
the faint but eager call of a wolf.
Appears in the New Yorker, December 15, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/12/15/081215po_poem_aaron
2008-12-01
Bob Hicok
As I Was Saying
by Bob Hicok
Long, thin clouds as if the sky were smoking.
I tell it to stop or share, it doesn’t stop or share,
this is what happens to my requests: they rise.
When I was a kid, a neighbor man
had a few and tied a cherry bomb to a pigeon,
it flew furiously until kaboom. Feathers
and bits of what made the pigeon go
landed on the Smitky twins playing hopscotch,
they looked up, I looked at them looking up,
two of everything the same, as if their parents
knew the odds of needing a spare. My wife
wants to fly in a hot-air balloon. I say to her,
I’ll wait here with the turtles. I try to save them
from getting squished when they cross the road.
They don’t know it’s a road or what a road
is for, getting away is what a road is for,
then coming back, then wondering why you came back
is what a road is for. My wife’s people
are Ukrainian, beets are important to them.
I tried to arm-wrestle her father once, he said,
Why would I do that: if I beat your arm,
the rest of you will want revenge.
I never looked at it that way. Forty-two years now
I’ve tried to look at it that way. The other day,
some kids knocked a ball through our window,
one of them asked for it back, I said, Sure,
if you give me the bat. He did, then asked
for the bat, I said, If you give me the ball,
he started to hand it over when I saw understanding
bloom in his face. That never happened for me:
understanding blooming in my face. Not the way
I wanted it to. So I’ll die and someone
will have to deal with what’s left, the body,
the shoes, the socks. The last person on Earth
will just be dead: not buried or mourned
or missed. As with kites, I cut the string
when they’re way up, because who’d want to come back.
So somewhere are all these kites, as somewhere
are all the picture frames from the camps,
and the bows from hair, and the hair itself
I saw once in a museum, some of it, in a room
all its own, as if one day the heads
would come back and think, That’s where I put you,
as I do with keys when I find them in my hand.
The New Yorker, December 8, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/12/08/081208po_poem_hicok
by Bob Hicok
Long, thin clouds as if the sky were smoking.
I tell it to stop or share, it doesn’t stop or share,
this is what happens to my requests: they rise.
When I was a kid, a neighbor man
had a few and tied a cherry bomb to a pigeon,
it flew furiously until kaboom. Feathers
and bits of what made the pigeon go
landed on the Smitky twins playing hopscotch,
they looked up, I looked at them looking up,
two of everything the same, as if their parents
knew the odds of needing a spare. My wife
wants to fly in a hot-air balloon. I say to her,
I’ll wait here with the turtles. I try to save them
from getting squished when they cross the road.
They don’t know it’s a road or what a road
is for, getting away is what a road is for,
then coming back, then wondering why you came back
is what a road is for. My wife’s people
are Ukrainian, beets are important to them.
I tried to arm-wrestle her father once, he said,
Why would I do that: if I beat your arm,
the rest of you will want revenge.
I never looked at it that way. Forty-two years now
I’ve tried to look at it that way. The other day,
some kids knocked a ball through our window,
one of them asked for it back, I said, Sure,
if you give me the bat. He did, then asked
for the bat, I said, If you give me the ball,
he started to hand it over when I saw understanding
bloom in his face. That never happened for me:
understanding blooming in my face. Not the way
I wanted it to. So I’ll die and someone
will have to deal with what’s left, the body,
the shoes, the socks. The last person on Earth
will just be dead: not buried or mourned
or missed. As with kites, I cut the string
when they’re way up, because who’d want to come back.
So somewhere are all these kites, as somewhere
are all the picture frames from the camps,
and the bows from hair, and the hair itself
I saw once in a museum, some of it, in a room
all its own, as if one day the heads
would come back and think, That’s where I put you,
as I do with keys when I find them in my hand.
The New Yorker, December 8, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/12/08/081208po_poem_hicok
2008-11-30
Stanley Kunitz
Halley's Comet
by Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006)
Miss Murphy in first grade
wrote its name in chalk
across the board and told us
it was roaring down the storm tracks
of the Milky Way at frightful speed
and if it wandered off its course
and smashed into the earth
there'd be no school tomorrow.
A red-bearded preacher from the hills
with a wild look in his eyes
stood in the public square
at the playground's edge
proclaiming he was sent by God
to save every one of us,
even the little children.
"Repent, ye sinners!" he shouted,
waving his hand-lettered sign.
At supper I felt sad to think
that it was probably
the last meal I'd share
with my mother and my sisters;
but I felt excited too
and scarcely touched my plate.
So mother scolded me
and sent me early to my room.
The whole family's asleep now
except for me. They never heard me steal
into the stairwell hall and climb
the ladder to the fresh night air.
Look for me, Father, on the roof
of the red brick building
at the foot of Green Street --
that's where we live, you know, on the top floor.
I'm the boy in the white flannel gown
sprawled on this coarse gravel bed
searching the starry sky,
waiting for the world to end.
Appears in the New Yorker, May 29, 2006.
by Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006)
Miss Murphy in first grade
wrote its name in chalk
across the board and told us
it was roaring down the storm tracks
of the Milky Way at frightful speed
and if it wandered off its course
and smashed into the earth
there'd be no school tomorrow.
A red-bearded preacher from the hills
with a wild look in his eyes
stood in the public square
at the playground's edge
proclaiming he was sent by God
to save every one of us,
even the little children.
"Repent, ye sinners!" he shouted,
waving his hand-lettered sign.
At supper I felt sad to think
that it was probably
the last meal I'd share
with my mother and my sisters;
but I felt excited too
and scarcely touched my plate.
So mother scolded me
and sent me early to my room.
The whole family's asleep now
except for me. They never heard me steal
into the stairwell hall and climb
the ladder to the fresh night air.
Look for me, Father, on the roof
of the red brick building
at the foot of Green Street --
that's where we live, you know, on the top floor.
I'm the boy in the white flannel gown
sprawled on this coarse gravel bed
searching the starry sky,
waiting for the world to end.
Appears in the New Yorker, May 29, 2006.
Edward Hirsch
Self Portrait
by Edward Hirsch
I lived between my heart and my head,
like a married couple who can't get along.
I lived between my left arm, which is swift
and sinister, and my right, which is righteous.
I lived between a laugh and a scowl,
and voted against myself, a two-party system.
My left leg dawdled or danced along,
my right cleaved to the straight and narrow.
My left shoulder was like a stripper on vacation,
my right stood upright as a Roman soldier.
Let's just say that my left side was the organ
donor and leave my private parts alone,
but as for my eyes, which are two shades
of brown, well, Dionysus, meet Apollo.
Look at Eve raising her left eyebrow
while Adam puts his right foot down.
No one expected it to survive,
but divorce seemed out of the question.
I suppose my left hand and my right hand
will be clasped over my chest in the coffin
and I'll be reconciled at last,
I'll be whole again.
Special Orders: Poems (Knopf 2008)
by Edward Hirsch
I lived between my heart and my head,
like a married couple who can't get along.
I lived between my left arm, which is swift
and sinister, and my right, which is righteous.
I lived between a laugh and a scowl,
and voted against myself, a two-party system.
My left leg dawdled or danced along,
my right cleaved to the straight and narrow.
My left shoulder was like a stripper on vacation,
my right stood upright as a Roman soldier.
Let's just say that my left side was the organ
donor and leave my private parts alone,
but as for my eyes, which are two shades
of brown, well, Dionysus, meet Apollo.
Look at Eve raising her left eyebrow
while Adam puts his right foot down.
No one expected it to survive,
but divorce seemed out of the question.
I suppose my left hand and my right hand
will be clasped over my chest in the coffin
and I'll be reconciled at last,
I'll be whole again.
Special Orders: Poems (Knopf 2008)
Edward Hirsch
A New Theology
by Edward Hirsch
God couldn’t bear their happiness
when He heard them laughing together in the garden.
He caught them kneeling down in the dirt
(or worse) and letting pomegranate juice
run down their faces. He found them
breaking open a fig with fresh delight
as if something crucial had dawned upon them.
I think the whole shebang—the serpent, the apple
with knowledge of good and evil—was a setup
because God couldn’t stand being alone
with His own creation, while Adam and Eve celebrated
as a man and a woman together in Paradise,
exactly like us, love, exactly like us.
Special Orders: Poems (Knopf 2008)
by Edward Hirsch
God couldn’t bear their happiness
when He heard them laughing together in the garden.
He caught them kneeling down in the dirt
(or worse) and letting pomegranate juice
run down their faces. He found them
breaking open a fig with fresh delight
as if something crucial had dawned upon them.
I think the whole shebang—the serpent, the apple
with knowledge of good and evil—was a setup
because God couldn’t stand being alone
with His own creation, while Adam and Eve celebrated
as a man and a woman together in Paradise,
exactly like us, love, exactly like us.
Special Orders: Poems (Knopf 2008)
Edward Hirsch
Special Orders
by Edward Hirsch
Give me back my father walking the halls
of Wertheimer Box and Paper Company
with sawdust clinging to his shoes.
Give me back his tape measure and his keys,
his drafting pencil and his order forms;
give me his daydreams on lined paper.
I don’t understand this uncontainable grief.
Whatever you had that never fit,
whatever else you needed, believe me,
my father, who wanted your business,
would squat down at your side
and sketch you a container for it.
Appears in The New York Review of Books, February 9, 2006. Editorial: Would seem to work for the living as well as the dead.
by Edward Hirsch
Give me back my father walking the halls
of Wertheimer Box and Paper Company
with sawdust clinging to his shoes.
Give me back his tape measure and his keys,
his drafting pencil and his order forms;
give me his daydreams on lined paper.
I don’t understand this uncontainable grief.
Whatever you had that never fit,
whatever else you needed, believe me,
my father, who wanted your business,
would squat down at your side
and sketch you a container for it.
Appears in The New York Review of Books, February 9, 2006. Editorial: Would seem to work for the living as well as the dead.
William Matthews
The Four Subjects of Poetry
by William Matthews
1. I went out into the woods today, and it made me feel, you know, sort of religious.
2. We're not getting any younger.
3. It sure is cold and lonely (a) without you, honey, or (b) with you, honey.
4. Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice versa, and in any case the coin is too soon spent, and on what we know not what.
by William Matthews
1. I went out into the woods today, and it made me feel, you know, sort of religious.
2. We're not getting any younger.
3. It sure is cold and lonely (a) without you, honey, or (b) with you, honey.
4. Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice versa, and in any case the coin is too soon spent, and on what we know not what.
Gehenna
1. The valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, where propitiatory sacrifices were made to Moloch. [II Kings 23:10];
2. Hell;
3. Any place of extreme torment or suffering.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gehenna
Gehenna (also gehenom or gehinom) is the Jewish equivalant to the Christian Purgatory. The name derived from the burning garbage dump near Jerusalem (the Valley of Hinnom), metaphorically identified with the entrance to the underworld. Gehenna is cited in the New Testament and in early Christian writing to represent the place where evil will be destroyed. It lends its name to Islam's hell, Jahannam. In both Rabbinical Jewish and Christian writing, Gehenna as a destination of the wicked is different from Sheol, the abode of all the dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_Hinnom
2. Hell;
3. Any place of extreme torment or suffering.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gehenna
Gehenna (also gehenom or gehinom) is the Jewish equivalant to the Christian Purgatory. The name derived from the burning garbage dump near Jerusalem (the Valley of Hinnom), metaphorically identified with the entrance to the underworld. Gehenna is cited in the New Testament and in early Christian writing to represent the place where evil will be destroyed. It lends its name to Islam's hell, Jahannam. In both Rabbinical Jewish and Christian writing, Gehenna as a destination of the wicked is different from Sheol, the abode of all the dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_Hinnom
encomium / Huguenot / cozen
encomium
Warm praise, especially a formal expression of such praise; a tribute (plural: encomiums or encomia).
Huguenot
A member of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th century.
cozen
To cheat; to defraud; to beguile; to deceive, usually by small arts, or in a pitiful way.
Warm praise, especially a formal expression of such praise; a tribute (plural: encomiums or encomia).
Huguenot
A member of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th century.
cozen
To cheat; to defraud; to beguile; to deceive, usually by small arts, or in a pitiful way.
2008-11-25
Philip Schultz
The God of Loneliness
by Philip Schultz
It’s a cold Sunday February morning
and I’m one of eight men waiting
for the doors of Toys R Us to open
in a mall on the eastern tip of Long Island.
We’ve come for the Japanese electronic game
that’s so hard to find. Last week, I waited
three hours for a store in Manhattan
to disappoint me. The first today, bundled
in six layers, I stood shivering in the dawn light
reading the new Aeneid translation, which I hid
when the others came, stamping boots
and rubbing gloveless hands, joking about
sacrificing sleep for ungrateful sons. “My boy broke
two front teeth playing hockey,” a man wearing
shorts laughs. “This is his reward.” My sons
will leap into my arms, remember this morning
all their lives. “The game is for my oldest boy,
just back from Iraq,” a man in overalls says
from the back of the line. “He plays these games
in his room all day. I’m not worried, he’ll snap out of it,
he’s earned his rest.” These men fix leaks, lay
foundations for other men’s dreams without complaint.
They’ve been waiting in the cold since Aeneas
founded Rome on rivers of blood. Virgil understood that
death begins and never ends, that it’s the god of loneliness.
Through the window, a clerk shouts, “We’ve only five.”
The others seem not to know what to do with their hands,
tuck them under their arms, or let them hang,
naked and useless. Is it because our hands remember
what they held, the promises they made? I know
exactly when my boys will be old enough for war.
Soon three of us will wait across the street at Target,
because it’s what men do for their sons.
The New Yorker, May 5, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/05/05/080505po_poem_schultz
by Philip Schultz
It’s a cold Sunday February morning
and I’m one of eight men waiting
for the doors of Toys R Us to open
in a mall on the eastern tip of Long Island.
We’ve come for the Japanese electronic game
that’s so hard to find. Last week, I waited
three hours for a store in Manhattan
to disappoint me. The first today, bundled
in six layers, I stood shivering in the dawn light
reading the new Aeneid translation, which I hid
when the others came, stamping boots
and rubbing gloveless hands, joking about
sacrificing sleep for ungrateful sons. “My boy broke
two front teeth playing hockey,” a man wearing
shorts laughs. “This is his reward.” My sons
will leap into my arms, remember this morning
all their lives. “The game is for my oldest boy,
just back from Iraq,” a man in overalls says
from the back of the line. “He plays these games
in his room all day. I’m not worried, he’ll snap out of it,
he’s earned his rest.” These men fix leaks, lay
foundations for other men’s dreams without complaint.
They’ve been waiting in the cold since Aeneas
founded Rome on rivers of blood. Virgil understood that
death begins and never ends, that it’s the god of loneliness.
Through the window, a clerk shouts, “We’ve only five.”
The others seem not to know what to do with their hands,
tuck them under their arms, or let them hang,
naked and useless. Is it because our hands remember
what they held, the promises they made? I know
exactly when my boys will be old enough for war.
Soon three of us will wait across the street at Target,
because it’s what men do for their sons.
The New Yorker, May 5, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/05/05/080505po_poem_schultz
2008-11-19
2008-11-12
Alice Walker
...One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.
An Open Letter to Barack Obama, TheRoot.com, Nov. 5, 2008. Thanks, Em.
An Open Letter to Barack Obama, TheRoot.com, Nov. 5, 2008. Thanks, Em.
2008-11-11
Andrew Marvell
To His Coy Mistress
by Andrew Marvell Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shoudst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingéd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
2008-11-06
omphaloskepsis
Contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation. From the Greek: omphalos (navel) + skepsis. The word has several other forms, such as omphaloskeptic, for someone who engages in navel-gazing, and omphaloskeptical, meaning to be in a self-absorbed state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphaloskepsis (thanks, bri)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphaloskepsis (thanks, bri)
lepidopterist / colocynth
lepidopterist
A person who catches and collects, studies, or simply observes lepidopterans, members of an order encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidopterist
colocynth
A viny plant native to the Mediterranean Basin and Asia. It produces a lemon-sized, yellowish, green-mottled, spongy, and extremely bitter fruit, a powerful hepatic stimulant and hydragogue cathartic used as a strong laxative. Also see vine of Sodom.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colocynth
A person who catches and collects, studies, or simply observes lepidopterans, members of an order encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidopterist
colocynth
A viny plant native to the Mediterranean Basin and Asia. It produces a lemon-sized, yellowish, green-mottled, spongy, and extremely bitter fruit, a powerful hepatic stimulant and hydragogue cathartic used as a strong laxative. Also see vine of Sodom.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colocynth
2008-09-30
George Orwell
Old Benjamin, the donkey, seemed quite unchanged since the Rebellion. He did his work in the same slow obstinate way as he had done it in Jones's time, never shirking and never volunteering for extra work either. About the Rebellion and its results he would express no opinion. When asked whether he was not happier now that Jones was gone, he would say only "Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey," and the others had to be content with this cryptic answer.
Animal Farm (1945), Chapter 3
Animal Farm (1945), Chapter 3
George Orwell
The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades. There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides.
Animal Farm (1945), Chapter 1
Animal Farm (1945), Chapter 1
2008-09-22
Noam Chomsky
When I'm driving, I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality which is beyond belief. In part, this reaction may be due to my own areas of interest, but I think it's quite accurate, basically. And I think that this concentration on topics such as sports makes a certain degree of sense. The way the system is set up, there is virtually nothing people can do anyway, without a degree of organization that's far beyond anything that exists now, to influence the real world. They might as well live in a fantasy world, and that's in fact what they do.
The Chomsky Reader (1987, p. 33)
The Chomsky Reader (1987, p. 33)
2008-09-20
William Shakespeare
When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that.
The Winter's Tale, Florizel, scene iv
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that.
The Winter's Tale, Florizel, scene iv
2008-09-11
Mahmoud Darwish
Viewpoint
by Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)
The difference between narcissus
and sunflower
is a point of view: the first
stares at his image in water
and says, there is no I but I
and the second looks
at the sun and says I am
what I worship.
And at night, difference shrinks
And interpretation widens.
Translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah. Appears in The New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 14 · September 25, 2008.
by Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)
The difference between narcissus
and sunflower
is a point of view: the first
stares at his image in water
and says, there is no I but I
and the second looks
at the sun and says I am
what I worship.
And at night, difference shrinks
And interpretation widens.
Translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah. Appears in The New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 14 · September 25, 2008.
2008-08-31
floccinaucinihilipilification
A coinage ... combining a number of roughly synonymous Latin stems. Latin flocci, from floccus, a wisp or piece of wool + nauci, from naucum, a trifle + nihili, from nihilum, nothing + pili, from pilus, a hair, something insignificant (all therefore having the sense of "worthless" or "nothing") + -fication.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/floccinaucinihilipilification
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/floccinaucinihilipilification
2008-08-24
J. D. Salinger
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
Holden Caulfield's opening statement in The Catcher in the Rye (1951).
Holden Caulfield's opening statement in The Catcher in the Rye (1951).
2008-08-22
William Faulkner
Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.
Unsourced
Unsourced
William Faulkner
A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.
Unsourced
Unsourced
William Shakespeare
...Great floods have flown
From simple sources; and great seas have dried,
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises.
All's Well That Ends Well, Helena, scene i
From simple sources; and great seas have dried,
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises.
All's Well That Ends Well, Helena, scene i
2008-08-21
Flannery O'Connor
To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.
Giordano Bruno
In a dialogue that Bruno wrote in the 1570s he imagines his home town of Nola in which fate has decreed...
that Vasta, wife of Albenzio Savolino, when she means to curl her hair at her temples, shall burn fifty-seven hairs for having let the curling iron get too hot, but she won’t burn her scalp and hence shall not swear when she smells the stench, but shall endure it patiently. That from the dung of her ox fifty-two dung beetles shall be born, of which fourteen shall be trampled and killed by Albenzio’s foot, twenty-six shall die upside down, twenty-two shall live in a hole, eighty shall make a pilgrim’s progress around the yard, forty-two shall retire to live under the stone by the door, sixteen shall roll their ball of dung wherever they please, and the rest shall scurry around at random. . . . Antonio Savolino’s bitch shall conceive five puppies, of which three shall live out their natural lifespan and two shall be thrown away, and of these three the first shall resemble its mother, the second shall be mongrel, and the third shall partly resemble the father and partly resemble Polidoro’s dog. . . . Paulino, when he bends over to pick up a broken needle, shall snap the red drawstring of his underpants, and if he should blaspheme for that reason, I mean for him to be punished thus: tonight his soup shall be too salty and taste of smoke, he shall fall and break his wine flask.
Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600) was an Italian philosopher, priest, cosmologist, and occultist. A statue of Bruno was erected in Campo de' Fiori in Rome in 1889.
that Vasta, wife of Albenzio Savolino, when she means to curl her hair at her temples, shall burn fifty-seven hairs for having let the curling iron get too hot, but she won’t burn her scalp and hence shall not swear when she smells the stench, but shall endure it patiently. That from the dung of her ox fifty-two dung beetles shall be born, of which fourteen shall be trampled and killed by Albenzio’s foot, twenty-six shall die upside down, twenty-two shall live in a hole, eighty shall make a pilgrim’s progress around the yard, forty-two shall retire to live under the stone by the door, sixteen shall roll their ball of dung wherever they please, and the rest shall scurry around at random. . . . Antonio Savolino’s bitch shall conceive five puppies, of which three shall live out their natural lifespan and two shall be thrown away, and of these three the first shall resemble its mother, the second shall be mongrel, and the third shall partly resemble the father and partly resemble Polidoro’s dog. . . . Paulino, when he bends over to pick up a broken needle, shall snap the red drawstring of his underpants, and if he should blaspheme for that reason, I mean for him to be punished thus: tonight his soup shall be too salty and taste of smoke, he shall fall and break his wine flask.
Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600) was an Italian philosopher, priest, cosmologist, and occultist. A statue of Bruno was erected in Campo de' Fiori in Rome in 1889.
2008-06-21
Salvatore Quasimodo
[Untitled]
by Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968)
Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera.
Everyone stands alone at the heart of the earth
transfixed by a ray of sun:
and suddenly it is evening.
by Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968)
Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera.
Everyone stands alone at the heart of the earth
transfixed by a ray of sun:
and suddenly it is evening.
2008-06-01
William Shakespeare
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth, Act V, Scene v.
Day after day after day. The days go slowly, up to the end of time. All the days in the past did no good except to bring fools through their lives up to the times of their deaths. Get blown out, flame of life! Life is short. Life is only a walking shadow. Life is only a poor actor, who walks around on the stage for a short time, and after that no one hears him any more. Life is a story that an idiot tells, full of sound and fury, but not meaning anything.
http://simple.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth, Act V, Scene v.
Day after day after day. The days go slowly, up to the end of time. All the days in the past did no good except to bring fools through their lives up to the times of their deaths. Get blown out, flame of life! Life is short. Life is only a walking shadow. Life is only a poor actor, who walks around on the stage for a short time, and after that no one hears him any more. Life is a story that an idiot tells, full of sound and fury, but not meaning anything.
http://simple.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
2008-05-30
2008-05-28
Theodore Roethke
The Meadow Mouse
by Theodore Roethke
1
In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking
Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow,
Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick
Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in,
Cradled in my hand,
A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling,
His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse,
His feet like small leaves,
Little lizard-feet,
Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away,
Wriggling like a minuscule puppy.
Now he's eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his
bottle-cap watering-trough--
So much he just lies in one corner,
His tail curled under him, his belly big
As his head; his bat-like ears
Twitching, tilting toward the least sound.
Do I imagine he no longer trembles
When I come close to him?
He seems no longer to tremble.
2
But this morning the shoe-box house on the back porch is empty.
Where has he gone, my meadow mouse,
My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm?--
To run under the hawk's wing,
Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree,
To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat.
I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,
The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,
The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,--
All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.
by Theodore Roethke
1
In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking
Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow,
Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick
Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in,
Cradled in my hand,
A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling,
His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse,
His feet like small leaves,
Little lizard-feet,
Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away,
Wriggling like a minuscule puppy.
Now he's eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his
bottle-cap watering-trough--
So much he just lies in one corner,
His tail curled under him, his belly big
As his head; his bat-like ears
Twitching, tilting toward the least sound.
Do I imagine he no longer trembles
When I come close to him?
He seems no longer to tremble.
2
But this morning the shoe-box house on the back porch is empty.
Where has he gone, my meadow mouse,
My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm?--
To run under the hawk's wing,
Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree,
To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat.
I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,
The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,
The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,--
All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.
Abraham Lincoln
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!
September 30, 1859, 'Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin'.
September 30, 1859, 'Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin'.
2008-05-22
George Orwell
He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
2008-05-20
Brad Leithauser
Old Globe
by Brad Leithauser
For her big birthday
we gave her (nothing less would do)
the world, which is to say
a globe copyrighted the very year
she was born—ninety years before.
She held it tenderly, and it was clear
both had come such a long way:
the lovely, dwindled, ever-eager-to-please
woman whose memory had begun to fray
and a planet drawn and redrawn through
endless shifts of aims and loyalties,
and war and war.
*
Her eye fell at random. "Formosa," she read.
"Now that's pretty. Is it there today?"
A pause. "It is," my brother said,
"though now it's called Taiwan."
She looked apologetic. "I sometimes forget..."
"Like Sri Lanka," I added. "Which was Ceylon."
And so my brothers and I, globe at hand, began:
which places had seen a change of name
in the last ninety years? Burma, Baluchistan,
Czechoslovakia, Abyssinia, Transjordan, Tibet.
Because she laughed, we extended our game
into history, mist: Vineland, Persia, Cathay...
*
She was in a middle place—
her fifties—when photos were first transmitted,
miraculously, from outer space.
Who could believe those men—in their black noon—
got up like robots, wandering the wild
wastelands of the moon,
and overheard a wholly naked sun
and an Earth so far away
it was less real than this one,
the gift received today—
the globe she'd so tenderly fitted
under her arm, like a child.
*
Finally, there's cake: nine candles in a ring.
...Just so, the past turns distant past,
each rich decade diminishing
to a little stick of wax, rapidly
expiring. I say, "Now make a wish before
you blow them out." She says, "I don't see—"
stops. Then mildly protests: "But they look so nice."
We laugh at her—and wince when a look of doubt
or fear clouds her face; she needs advice.
Well—what should anyone wish for
in blowing candles out
but that the light might last?
by Brad Leithauser
For her big birthday
we gave her (nothing less would do)
the world, which is to say
a globe copyrighted the very year
she was born—ninety years before.
She held it tenderly, and it was clear
both had come such a long way:
the lovely, dwindled, ever-eager-to-please
woman whose memory had begun to fray
and a planet drawn and redrawn through
endless shifts of aims and loyalties,
and war and war.
*
Her eye fell at random. "Formosa," she read.
"Now that's pretty. Is it there today?"
A pause. "It is," my brother said,
"though now it's called Taiwan."
She looked apologetic. "I sometimes forget..."
"Like Sri Lanka," I added. "Which was Ceylon."
And so my brothers and I, globe at hand, began:
which places had seen a change of name
in the last ninety years? Burma, Baluchistan,
Czechoslovakia, Abyssinia, Transjordan, Tibet.
Because she laughed, we extended our game
into history, mist: Vineland, Persia, Cathay...
*
She was in a middle place—
her fifties—when photos were first transmitted,
miraculously, from outer space.
Who could believe those men—in their black noon—
got up like robots, wandering the wild
wastelands of the moon,
and overheard a wholly naked sun
and an Earth so far away
it was less real than this one,
the gift received today—
the globe she'd so tenderly fitted
under her arm, like a child.
*
Finally, there's cake: nine candles in a ring.
...Just so, the past turns distant past,
each rich decade diminishing
to a little stick of wax, rapidly
expiring. I say, "Now make a wish before
you blow them out." She says, "I don't see—"
stops. Then mildly protests: "But they look so nice."
We laugh at her—and wince when a look of doubt
or fear clouds her face; she needs advice.
Well—what should anyone wish for
in blowing candles out
but that the light might last?
Jane Kramer
Archeology, as it is practiced today in nearly every country with an interest in shaping a historical identity, falls somewhere between a hard science - "facts" that can be ascertained by dating, testing, and inscription experts - and an interpretive social science whose "facts" have traditionally derived from ancient texts and their mapping and attribution clues.
'The Petition', The New Yorker, April 14, 2008, Vol. 84, Issue 9.
'The Petition', The New Yorker, April 14, 2008, Vol. 84, Issue 9.
Ted Hughes
Crow's Account of the Battle
by Ted Hughes
There was this terrific battle.
The noise was as much
As the limits of possible noise could take.
There were screams higher groans deeper
Than any ear could hold.
Many eardrums burst and some walls
Collapsed to escape the noise.
Everything struggled on its way
Through this tearing deafness
As through a torrent in a dark cave.
The cartridges were banging off, as planned,
The fingers were keeping things going
According to excitement and orders.
The unhurt eyes were full of deadliness.
The bullets pursued their courses
Through clods of stone, earth, and skin,
Through intestines pocket-books, brains, hair, teeth
According to Universal laws
And mouths cried "Mamma"
From sudden traps of calculus,
Theorems wrenched men in two,
Shock-severed eyes watched blood
Squandering as from a drain-pipe
Into the blanks between the stars.
Faces slammed down into clay
As for the making of a life-mask
Knew that even on the sun's surface
They could not be learning more or more to the point
Reality was giving it's lesson,
Its mishmash of scripture and physics,
With here, brains in hands, for example,
And there, legs in a treetop.
There was no escape except into death.
And still it went on--it outlasted
Many prayers, many a proved watch
Many bodies in excellent trim,
Till the explosives ran out
And sheer weariness supervened
And what was left looked round at what was left.
Then everybody wept,
Or sat, too exhausted to weep,
Or lay, too hurt to weep.
And when the smoke cleared it became clear
This has happened too often before
And was going to happen too often in the future
And happened too easily
Bones were too like lath and twigs
Blood was too like water
Cries were too like silence
The most terrible grimaces too like footprints in mud
And shooting somebody through the midriff
Was too like striking a match
Too like potting a snooker ball
Too like tearing up a bill
Blasting the whole world to bits
Was too like slamming a door,
Too like dropping in a chair
Exhausted with rage
Too like being blown up yourself
Which happened too easily
With too like no consequences.
So the survivors stayed.
And the earth and the sky stayed.
Everything took the blame.
Not a leaf flinched, nobody smiled.
by Ted Hughes
There was this terrific battle.
The noise was as much
As the limits of possible noise could take.
There were screams higher groans deeper
Than any ear could hold.
Many eardrums burst and some walls
Collapsed to escape the noise.
Everything struggled on its way
Through this tearing deafness
As through a torrent in a dark cave.
The cartridges were banging off, as planned,
The fingers were keeping things going
According to excitement and orders.
The unhurt eyes were full of deadliness.
The bullets pursued their courses
Through clods of stone, earth, and skin,
Through intestines pocket-books, brains, hair, teeth
According to Universal laws
And mouths cried "Mamma"
From sudden traps of calculus,
Theorems wrenched men in two,
Shock-severed eyes watched blood
Squandering as from a drain-pipe
Into the blanks between the stars.
Faces slammed down into clay
As for the making of a life-mask
Knew that even on the sun's surface
They could not be learning more or more to the point
Reality was giving it's lesson,
Its mishmash of scripture and physics,
With here, brains in hands, for example,
And there, legs in a treetop.
There was no escape except into death.
And still it went on--it outlasted
Many prayers, many a proved watch
Many bodies in excellent trim,
Till the explosives ran out
And sheer weariness supervened
And what was left looked round at what was left.
Then everybody wept,
Or sat, too exhausted to weep,
Or lay, too hurt to weep.
And when the smoke cleared it became clear
This has happened too often before
And was going to happen too often in the future
And happened too easily
Bones were too like lath and twigs
Blood was too like water
Cries were too like silence
The most terrible grimaces too like footprints in mud
And shooting somebody through the midriff
Was too like striking a match
Too like potting a snooker ball
Too like tearing up a bill
Blasting the whole world to bits
Was too like slamming a door,
Too like dropping in a chair
Exhausted with rage
Too like being blown up yourself
Which happened too easily
With too like no consequences.
So the survivors stayed.
And the earth and the sky stayed.
Everything took the blame.
Not a leaf flinched, nobody smiled.
N. Scott Momaday
The Gift
by N. Scott Momaday
Older, more generous,
We give each other hope.
The gift is ominous:
Enough praise, enough rope.
by N. Scott Momaday
Older, more generous,
We give each other hope.
The gift is ominous:
Enough praise, enough rope.
W. H. Auden
O Tell Me The Truth About Love
by W. H. Auden
Some say that love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round,
And some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.
Does it look like a pair of pajamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does it's odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.
Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway-guides.
Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.
I looked inside the summer-house;
it wasn't ever there:
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.
Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all it's time at the races,
Or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of it's own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.
When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my shoes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.
by W. H. Auden
Some say that love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round,
And some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.
Does it look like a pair of pajamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does it's odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.
Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway-guides.
Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.
I looked inside the summer-house;
it wasn't ever there:
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.
Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all it's time at the races,
Or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of it's own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.
When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my shoes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.
Miller Williams
The Ways We Touch
by Miller Williams
Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don't want it.
What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism
is always a sign of things no ears have heard,
no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.
by Miller Williams
Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don't want it.
What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism
is always a sign of things no ears have heard,
no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.
Rudyard Kipling
If
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
N. Scott Momaday
Nous avons vu la mer
by N. Scott Momaday
We have been lovers,
you and I.
We have been alive
in the clear mornings of Genesis;
in the afternoons,
among the prisms of the air,
our hands have shaped perfect silences.
We have seen the sea;
wonder is well known to us.
by N. Scott Momaday
We have been lovers,
you and I.
We have been alive
in the clear mornings of Genesis;
in the afternoons,
among the prisms of the air,
our hands have shaped perfect silences.
We have seen the sea;
wonder is well known to us.
Mary Stewart Hammond
The Big Fish Story
by Mary Stewart Hammond
Late fall and not a soul around for miles.
Just me and my man. And those scallopers
trolling a few hundred feet offshore I'm pointing to
say no, non, nein, nyet, nej,
in every language including body English,
to his idea that we take off all our clothes
smack in the middle of the lawn
in broad daylight and go swimming!
This is the line he throws me: "But, sweetheart,
the young have given up scalloping. Those
are all old men out there. Their eyesight
is terrible." which explains why
I'm naked in the water off the coast
of Massachusetts on the fourteenth of October
and loving it, the water still summer warm,
feeling like silk, like the feel of his flesh
drawing over my skin when we're landed
on a bed, so I swim off out of his reach
lolling and rolling, diving and surfacing,
floating on my back for his still good eyes.
I know what he has in mind and what
I have in mind is to play him for a while
for that line I swallowed, delay the moment
I'll do a slow crawl over to him,
wrap my legs around his waist, and
reel him in – just the fish he was after.
by Mary Stewart Hammond
Late fall and not a soul around for miles.
Just me and my man. And those scallopers
trolling a few hundred feet offshore I'm pointing to
say no, non, nein, nyet, nej,
in every language including body English,
to his idea that we take off all our clothes
smack in the middle of the lawn
in broad daylight and go swimming!
This is the line he throws me: "But, sweetheart,
the young have given up scalloping. Those
are all old men out there. Their eyesight
is terrible." which explains why
I'm naked in the water off the coast
of Massachusetts on the fourteenth of October
and loving it, the water still summer warm,
feeling like silk, like the feel of his flesh
drawing over my skin when we're landed
on a bed, so I swim off out of his reach
lolling and rolling, diving and surfacing,
floating on my back for his still good eyes.
I know what he has in mind and what
I have in mind is to play him for a while
for that line I swallowed, delay the moment
I'll do a slow crawl over to him,
wrap my legs around his waist, and
reel him in – just the fish he was after.
Wislawa Szymborska
A Tale Begun
by Wislawa Szymborska
The world is never ready
for the birth of a child.
Our ships are not yet back from Winnland.
We still have to get over the S. Gothard pass.
We've got to outwit the watchmen on the desert of Thor,
fight our way through the sewers to Warsaw's center,
gain access to King Harald the Butterpat,
and wait until the downfall of Minister Fouche.
Only in Acapulco
can we begin anew.
We've run out of bandages,
matches, hydraulic presses, arguments, and water.
We haven't got the trucks, we haven't got the Minghs' support.
This skinny horse won't be enough to bribe the sheriff.
No news so far about the Tartars' captives.
We'll need a warmer cave for winter
and someone who can speak Harari.
We don't know whom to trust in Nineveh,
what conditions the Prince-Cardinal will decree,
which names Beria has still got inside his files.
They say Karol the Hammer strikes tomorrow at dawn.
In this situation let's appease Cheops,
report ourselves of our own free will,
change faiths,
pretend to be friends with the Doge
and say that we've got nothing to do with the Kwabe tribe.
Time to light the fires.
Let's send a cable to grandma in Zabierzow.
Let's untie the knots in the yurt's leather straps.
May delivery be easy,
may our child grow and be well.
Let him be happy from time to time
and leap over abysses.
Let his heart have strength to endure
and his mind be awake and reach far.
But not so far
that it sees into the future.
Spare him
that one gift,
0 heavenly powers.
by Wislawa Szymborska
The world is never ready
for the birth of a child.
Our ships are not yet back from Winnland.
We still have to get over the S. Gothard pass.
We've got to outwit the watchmen on the desert of Thor,
fight our way through the sewers to Warsaw's center,
gain access to King Harald the Butterpat,
and wait until the downfall of Minister Fouche.
Only in Acapulco
can we begin anew.
We've run out of bandages,
matches, hydraulic presses, arguments, and water.
We haven't got the trucks, we haven't got the Minghs' support.
This skinny horse won't be enough to bribe the sheriff.
No news so far about the Tartars' captives.
We'll need a warmer cave for winter
and someone who can speak Harari.
We don't know whom to trust in Nineveh,
what conditions the Prince-Cardinal will decree,
which names Beria has still got inside his files.
They say Karol the Hammer strikes tomorrow at dawn.
In this situation let's appease Cheops,
report ourselves of our own free will,
change faiths,
pretend to be friends with the Doge
and say that we've got nothing to do with the Kwabe tribe.
Time to light the fires.
Let's send a cable to grandma in Zabierzow.
Let's untie the knots in the yurt's leather straps.
May delivery be easy,
may our child grow and be well.
Let him be happy from time to time
and leap over abysses.
Let his heart have strength to endure
and his mind be awake and reach far.
But not so far
that it sees into the future.
Spare him
that one gift,
0 heavenly powers.
2008-05-03
Jorge Luis Borges
There are no moral or intellectual merits. Homer composed the Odyssey; if we postulate an infinite period of time, with infinite circumstances and changes, the impossible thing is not to compose the Odyssey, at least once.
The Immortal, 1949
The Immortal, 1949
Vladimir Nabokov
For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.
This was included in the 1956 "Afterword" to Lolita which has been used in all later editions.
This was included in the 1956 "Afterword" to Lolita which has been used in all later editions.
Unknown
Go lightly, simply.
Too much seriousness clouds the soul.
Just go and follow the flowing moment.
Try not to cling to any experience.
The depths of wonder open of themselves.
Too much seriousness clouds the soul.
Just go and follow the flowing moment.
Try not to cling to any experience.
The depths of wonder open of themselves.
2008-05-02
Stanley Fish
We can still do all the things we have always done; we can still say that some things are true and others false, and believe it; we can still use words like better and worse and offer justifications for doing so. All we lose (if we have been persuaded by the deconstructive critique, that is) is a certain rationalist faith that there will someday be a final word, a last description that takes the accurate measure of everything. All that will have happened is that one account of what we know and how we know it — one epistemology — has been replaced by another, which means only that in the unlikely event you are asked “What’s your epistemology?” you’ll give a different answer than you would have given before. The world, and you, will go on pretty much in the same old way.
'Think Again: French Theory in America', The New York Times, April 6, 2008
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/
'Think Again: French Theory in America', The New York Times, April 6, 2008
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/
2008-04-29
Mabel Lee
Soul Mountain is a literary response to the devastation of the self of the individual by the primitive human urge for the warmth and security of an other, or others, in other words by socialized life. The existence of an other resolves the problem of loneliness but brings with it anxieties for the individual, for inherent in any relationship is, inevitably, some form of power struggle. This is the existential dilemma confronting the individual, in relationships with parents, partners, family, friends and large collective groups. Human history abounds with cases of the individual being induced by force or ideological persuasion to submit to the power of the collective; the surrender of the self to the collective eventually becomes habit, norm convention and tradition, and this phenomenon is not unique to any one culture.
From Mabel Lee’s ‘Introduction’ to Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain (2000).
From Mabel Lee’s ‘Introduction’ to Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain (2000).
Gao Xingjian
I must get out of this cave. The main peak of the Wuling Range, at the borders of the provinces of Guizhou, Sichuan, Hubei and Hunan, is 3200 meters above sea level. The annual rainfall is more than 3400 points and in one year there are barely one or two days of fine weather. When the wild winds start howling they often reach velocities of more than three hundred kilometers per hour. This is a cold, damp and evil place. I must return to the smoke and fire of the human world to search for sunlight, warmth, happiness and to search for human society to rekindle the noisiness, even if anxiety is regenerated, for that is in fact life in the human world.
Soul Mountain
The perennial and perplexing question of what is most important can be changed to a discussion of what is most authentic and at time can constitute what is known as debate. But let others discuss or debate such matters, they are of no consequence for I who am engrossed in my journey or you who are on your spiritual journey.
Soul Mountain
It is only when people refuse to accept that they shout out, even while not comprehending what they are shouting. Humans are simply such creatures, fettered by perplexities and inflicting anxiety upon themselves.
Soul Mountain
Soul Mountain
The perennial and perplexing question of what is most important can be changed to a discussion of what is most authentic and at time can constitute what is known as debate. But let others discuss or debate such matters, they are of no consequence for I who am engrossed in my journey or you who are on your spiritual journey.
Soul Mountain
It is only when people refuse to accept that they shout out, even while not comprehending what they are shouting. Humans are simply such creatures, fettered by perplexities and inflicting anxiety upon themselves.
Soul Mountain
2008-04-28
Gabriel García Márquez
Let no one be deceived, no, thinking that what he awaits will last longer than what he has seen.
Memories of My Melancholy Whore
Memories of My Melancholy Whore
Ecclesiastes
That thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
King James Version
Ecclesiastes 1:9
King James Version
Louise Erdrich
"I have never seen the truth," said Damien, "without crossing my eyes. Life is crazy."
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
William C. Brann
Too many forget that while the Lord made the world, the devil has been busy ever since putting on the finishing touches. Why, he began on the first woman before she was a week old, and he has been playing schoolmaster to her sons ever since. I confess to a sneaking respect for Satan, for he is pre-eminently a success in his chosen profession. He's playing a desperate game against omnipotent power and is more than holding his own. He sat into the game with a cash capital of one snake; now he's got half the globe grabbed and an option on the other half.
Brann the Iconoclast — Volume 12
Brann the Iconoclast — Volume 12
John Keats
A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory-- and very few eyes can see the mastery of his life-- a life like the scriptures, figurative.
The Letters of John Keats, 1814-1821
The Letters of John Keats, 1814-1821
2008-04-01
Thomas Lux
A Little Tooth
by Thomas Lux
Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all
over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,
your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.
by Thomas Lux
Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all
over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,
your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.
Jane Kenyon
Afternoon in the House
by Jane Kenyon
It's quiet here. The cats
sprawl, each
in a favored place.
The geranium leans this way
to see if I'm writing about her:
head all petals, brown
stalks, and those green fans.
So you see,
I am writing about you.
I turn on the radio. Wrong.
Let's not have any noise
in this room, except
the sound of a voice reading a poem.
The cats request
The Meadow Mouse, by Theodore Roethke.
The house settles down on its haunches
for a doze.
I know you are with me, plants,
and cats---and even so, I'm frightened,
sitting in the middle of perfect
possibility.
by Jane Kenyon
It's quiet here. The cats
sprawl, each
in a favored place.
The geranium leans this way
to see if I'm writing about her:
head all petals, brown
stalks, and those green fans.
So you see,
I am writing about you.
I turn on the radio. Wrong.
Let's not have any noise
in this room, except
the sound of a voice reading a poem.
The cats request
The Meadow Mouse, by Theodore Roethke.
The house settles down on its haunches
for a doze.
I know you are with me, plants,
and cats---and even so, I'm frightened,
sitting in the middle of perfect
possibility.
Robert Hayden
Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Alicia Partnoy
Communication
by Alicia Partnoy
Yo te hablo de poesía
y vos me preguntás
a qué hora comemos.
Lo peor es que
yo también tengo hambre.
I am talking to you about poetry
and you say
when do we eat.
The worst of it is
I’m hungry too.
From Revenge of the Apple/Venganza de la manzana
by Alicia Partnoy
Yo te hablo de poesía
y vos me preguntás
a qué hora comemos.
Lo peor es que
yo también tengo hambre.
I am talking to you about poetry
and you say
when do we eat.
The worst of it is
I’m hungry too.
From Revenge of the Apple/Venganza de la manzana
Barry Goldensohn
The Hundred Yard Dash Man
by Barry Goldensohn
I carried him lightly,
eighty pounds, my height,
half my weight
with enough body sense—
the old track star—
to work in my arms with the balance
of his remaining mass
as easy live weight.
It became his last voyage,
from living room to bed—
this carrying was comfort to both.
Morphine had ended months
of pain—he was genial now,
euphoric, enjoying himself,
with his daughter, and me, his son.
"You must have gotten stronger,"
he said, dismissing the loss
of body with a joke.
He knew he was on his way
out the door, and knowing was easy
though less clear for me
as I laid him down in bed
and laid myself in the twin
cold, rumpled, sour.
When hushed voices woke me
saying "He died last night,"
I couldn't open my eyes
and lay there frozen
among the murmuring women.
He had slipped silently
through the door that now
he left open for me.
by Barry Goldensohn
I carried him lightly,
eighty pounds, my height,
half my weight
with enough body sense—
the old track star—
to work in my arms with the balance
of his remaining mass
as easy live weight.
It became his last voyage,
from living room to bed—
this carrying was comfort to both.
Morphine had ended months
of pain—he was genial now,
euphoric, enjoying himself,
with his daughter, and me, his son.
"You must have gotten stronger,"
he said, dismissing the loss
of body with a joke.
He knew he was on his way
out the door, and knowing was easy
though less clear for me
as I laid him down in bed
and laid myself in the twin
cold, rumpled, sour.
When hushed voices woke me
saying "He died last night,"
I couldn't open my eyes
and lay there frozen
among the murmuring women.
He had slipped silently
through the door that now
he left open for me.
Mary Oliver
The Poet with His Face in His Hands
by Mary Oliver
You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn't need anymore of that sound.
So if you're going to do it and can't
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can't
hold it in, at least go by yourself across
the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets
like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water fun and you can
stand there, under it, and roar all you
want and nothing will be disturbed; you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched
by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.
by Mary Oliver
You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn't need anymore of that sound.
So if you're going to do it and can't
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can't
hold it in, at least go by yourself across
the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets
like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water fun and you can
stand there, under it, and roar all you
want and nothing will be disturbed; you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched
by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.
2008-03-30
William Shakespeare
...What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I'd have you do it ever. When you sing,
I'd have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so, and for the ord'ring you affairs,
To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o'th'sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that, move still, still so,
And own no other function. Each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.
The Winter's Tale, Act IV, Scene IV.
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I'd have you do it ever. When you sing,
I'd have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so, and for the ord'ring you affairs,
To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o'th'sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that, move still, still so,
And own no other function. Each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.
The Winter's Tale, Act IV, Scene IV.
2008-03-28
N. Scott Momaday
Two Figures
by N. Scott Momaday
These figures moving in my rhyme,
Who are they? Death and Death’s dog, Time.
by N. Scott Momaday
These figures moving in my rhyme,
Who are they? Death and Death’s dog, Time.
Ivan Illich
In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
Tools for Conviviality (1973)
Tools for Conviviality (1973)
Clarence Darrow
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.
Improving the Quality of Life for the Black Elderly: Challenges and Opportunities : Hearing before the Select Committee on Aging, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, first session, September 25, 1987. This quote is often misattributed to Charles Darwin.
Improving the Quality of Life for the Black Elderly: Challenges and Opportunities : Hearing before the Select Committee on Aging, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, first session, September 25, 1987. This quote is often misattributed to Charles Darwin.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Recuerdo
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
We were very tired, we were very merry---
We went back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable---
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry---
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucket full of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry.
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept "God bless you!" for the apples and the pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
(thanks, med)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
We were very tired, we were very merry---
We went back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable---
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry---
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucket full of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry.
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept "God bless you!" for the apples and the pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
(thanks, med)
Joe Kane
The boy who nearly won the Texaco Art Competition
by Joe Kane
he took a large sheet
of white paper and on this
he made the world an african world
of flat topped trees and dried grasses
and he painted an elephant in the middle
and a lion with a big mane and several giraffes
stood over the elephant and some small animals to fill
in the gaps he worked all day had a bath this was saturday
on sunday he put six jackals
in the world and a great big snake
and buzzards in the sky and tickbirds
on the elephants back he drew down blue
from the sky to make a river and got the elephants
legs all wet and smudged and one of the jackals got drowned
he put red flowers in the front of the picture and daffodils in the bottom corners
and his dog major chewing a bone and mrs murphys two cats tom and jerry
and milo the milkman with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth
and his merville dairy float pulled by his wonder horse trigger
that would walk when he said click click and the holy family
in the top right corner with the donkey and cow
and sheep and baby jesus and got the 40A bus
on monday morning in to abbey street to hand
it in and the man on the door said
thats a sure winner
by Joe Kane
he took a large sheet
of white paper and on this
he made the world an african world
of flat topped trees and dried grasses
and he painted an elephant in the middle
and a lion with a big mane and several giraffes
stood over the elephant and some small animals to fill
in the gaps he worked all day had a bath this was saturday
on sunday he put six jackals
in the world and a great big snake
and buzzards in the sky and tickbirds
on the elephants back he drew down blue
from the sky to make a river and got the elephants
legs all wet and smudged and one of the jackals got drowned
he put red flowers in the front of the picture and daffodils in the bottom corners
and his dog major chewing a bone and mrs murphys two cats tom and jerry
and milo the milkman with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth
and his merville dairy float pulled by his wonder horse trigger
that would walk when he said click click and the holy family
in the top right corner with the donkey and cow
and sheep and baby jesus and got the 40A bus
on monday morning in to abbey street to hand
it in and the man on the door said
thats a sure winner
Stanley Fish
All I’m saying is that analyzing arguments is a different project than taking positions on ethical, moral or political issues. Neither is objective; both involve opinions; the opinions are, however, about different things, in one case about the best thing to do or think; in the other, about whether the case made for thinking or doing something hangs together. It would be quite possible for me, or anyone else, to fault the arguments made in behalf of a policy or agenda and still support it. I am insisting on the distinction, but no claim to objectivity is involved.
'Think Again: Why I Write These Columns', The New York Times, March 9, 2008
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/why-i-write-these-columns/
'Think Again: Why I Write These Columns', The New York Times, March 9, 2008
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/why-i-write-these-columns/
Richard C. Lewontin
There is hardly a chapter in the main body of The Richness of Life that does not repay a careful reading. Of all the essays in it the one that is most important to the public understanding of science is "Measuring Heads: Paul Broca and the Heyday of Craniology," for it deals with an issue that is so discomfiting for scientists that they avoid it when they can. Despite the myth of detached objectivity that scientists propagate, their motivations are as messy as everyone else's. In particular, they have political, social, and personal concerns that may influence what they do, how they do it, and what they say about it. Putting aside deliberate fraud, of which we have an embarrassment of examples, the gathering of data, their statistical representation, and their interpretation offer many opportunities for unconscious bias toward conclusions that we already "knew" to be true.
'The Triumph of Stephen Jay Gould' in The New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 2 · February 14, 2008.
'The Triumph of Stephen Jay Gould' in The New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 2 · February 14, 2008.
Abraham Lincoln
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.
Frederick Trevor Hill credits Lincoln with this in 'Lincoln the Lawyer' (1906), adding that 'History has considerately sheltered the identity of the victim'.
Frederick Trevor Hill credits Lincoln with this in 'Lincoln the Lawyer' (1906), adding that 'History has considerately sheltered the identity of the victim'.
Aristotle
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
This quote is often misattributed to Aristotle because the concepts behind the quote are his. Apparently some of the phrases in the quote come from Will Durant (The quoted phrases within Durants quotation are from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 4; Book I, 7. ): "Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.'" (p.76 in 'Ch. II: Aristotle and Greek Science; part VII: Ethics and the Nature of Happiness' in The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers, 1926, Simon & Schuster, 1991). The misattribution , therefore, seems to come from taking Durant's summation of Aristotle's ideas as being the words of Artistotle himself.
This quote is often misattributed to Aristotle because the concepts behind the quote are his. Apparently some of the phrases in the quote come from Will Durant (The quoted phrases within Durants quotation are from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 4; Book I, 7. ): "Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.'" (p.76 in 'Ch. II: Aristotle and Greek Science; part VII: Ethics and the Nature of Happiness' in The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers, 1926, Simon & Schuster, 1991). The misattribution , therefore, seems to come from taking Durant's summation of Aristotle's ideas as being the words of Artistotle himself.
William Faulkner
The last sound on the worthless earth will be two human beings trying to launch a homemade spaceship and already quarreling about where they are going next.
To UNESCO Commission (New York Times, October 3, 1959)
To UNESCO Commission (New York Times, October 3, 1959)
Donald Rumsfeld
Now what is the message there? The message is that there are known "knowns." There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.
Press Conference at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, June 6, 2002.
Press Conference at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, June 6, 2002.
2008-03-27
Label Management
Expectancy - don't have 'em
Ephemeron - we are nothing, life is nothing, haplessness
Subjectivity - myth of detached objectivity, social life of scientists, postmodern logic
Historiography - study things, know things; study thyself, know thyself
Bagatelle - life is in the details, sillinesses, trifles
Love - is what it is
Sureness - to be yourself
Kindheartedness - be it
Praxis - practice practice practice
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Art
Etymology
Image
Plays
Poems
Quotes
Ephemeron - we are nothing, life is nothing, haplessness
Subjectivity - myth of detached objectivity, social life of scientists, postmodern logic
Historiography - study things, know things; study thyself, know thyself
Bagatelle - life is in the details, sillinesses, trifles
Love - is what it is
Sureness - to be yourself
Kindheartedness - be it
Praxis - practice practice practice
----------------------------------------
Art
Etymology
Image
Plays
Poems
Quotes
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