Friday, November 28, 2008

Quotes: Literary Scholarship (1)

Lit scholarship vi Forget the commentaries. Read the original sources. "The motivation of humanist scholarship was…scientific—the recovery of the original historical evidence and the casting aside of the second-hand accounts, commentaries and glosses which over the centuries had become substitutes for the study of the original sources of European thought and culture." Introd. John Anthony Scott. Sir Thomas More, Utopia.

Literary critic 318 The true critic uses several different methods of looking at literary works. "The true critic...will never suffer himself to be limited to any settled custom of thought, or stereotyped mode of looking at things." Oscar Wilde, “The True Critic.” 1891. Gross, ed. Essays.

Literary Criticism 1235 The critic needs to have empathy for the writer. "Sympathy, methinks, should have some little share in the critic’s qualifications, murmured Eustace Bright." “Tanglewood Fireside. Introductory to ‘The Three golden Apples’” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Literary criticism 286 "Big book, big bore." Callimachus. 3rd century BC. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Literary criticism 53 You have to have the experience of aging and be willing to take the time to read and enjoy Proust. "You have to be over thirty to enjoy Proust." Gore Vidal. Portable Curmudgeon.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Quotes: Listening

Listening 1167 How to listen: Visualize. Cowslip: “I did not fall asleep [last night listening to one of Eustace Bright’s stories], and I only shut my eyes, so as to see a picture of what Cousin Eustace was telling about.” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Listening 641 People, especially older people, recognize a good listener. "He recognized me with evident pleasure; for my rare properties as a patient listener invariably make me a favorite with elderly gentlemen and ladies of narrative propensities." Hawthorne: Legends of the Province-House. II: “Edward Randolph’s Portrait.”

Listening 1040 One has to discard habit in order to listen attentively. "…others listen with a rapt attention, as if a living truth had now, for the first time, forced its way through the crust of habit, reached their hearts, and awakened them to life." Hawthorne: "Main-Street"

Listening 208 The biggest obstruction to listening is concern by the listeners for what they are going to say. "There are people who instead of listening to what is being said to them are already listening to what they are going to say themselves." Albert Guinon. 1900. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Listening 4 The good listener is able to finish the speaker's thought. [Half truth. RayS.] "To the good listener half a word is enough." Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Quote: Light

Light
Light 555 " …dusk, that particular…light that falls…on Park Avenue in the hour before people take leave of the office and become husbands and wives again…." DeLillo, Underworld.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Quotes: Lifestyle

Lifestyle 313 A life of adventure is better than a life that simply exists to prolong life. "For surely the love of living is stronger in an Alpine climber roping over a peril, or a hunter riding merrily at a stiff fence, than in a creature who lives upon a diet and walks a measured distance in the interest of his constitution." Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Lifestyle 314 Intelligence recognizes that life is precarious and is not at all afraid of it. "...so it is the first part of intelligence to recognize our precarious estate in life, and the first part of courage to be not at all abashed before the fact." Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Lifestyle 314 Prudence grows into a life afraid to take chances. "So soon as prudence has begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a paralysis of generous acts...begins to shrink spiritually...develops a fancy for parlors with a regulated temperature...." Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Lifestyle 314 Concern for scruples produces a life that stands still. "...the scruple-monger ends by standing stock-still." Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Lifestyle 315 It is better to live and die than to be afraid of death daily in a sick room. "It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick room." Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Lifestyle 316 A cheerful heart leaves a legacy of hope for mankind. "Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind." Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Lifestyle 316 It is wonderful to die in the midst of great plans. "And even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, they should be at once tripped up and silenced: is there not something brave and spirited in such a termination?...when the Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods love die young, I cannot help believing they had this sort of death also in their eye...surely, at whatever age, it overtake the man, this is to die young...in the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side...full-blooded spirit shoots into the spiritual land." Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Lifestyle 190 They worked out on their running machine, hoping to live forever. Clarice and Carl went running on their running machine upstairs…training to live forever. DeLillo, Underworld.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Quotes: Life (21)

Life and the universe 448 The difference between astronomy and botany. "The astronomer can tell where the North Star will be ten thousand years hence; the botanist cannot tell where the dandelion will bloom tomorrow." Joseph Wood Krutch. “The Colloid and the Crystal.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life and the universe 448 The difference between life and nonlife. "Life is rebellious and anarchical, always testing the supposed immutability of the rules which the nonliving changelessly accepts." Joseph Wood Krutch. “The Colloid and the Crystal.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life and the universe 449 The enemy of life is not death but the nonliving system. "Of us and all we stand for, the enemy is not so much death as the not-living, or rather that great system which succeeds without ever having had the need to be alive." Joseph Wood Krutch. “The Colloid and the Crystal.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life and the universe 449 Life could end in exhaustion and in succumbing to the inanimate system. "…the possibility that the snow flake was not, after all, always inanimate, that it merely surrendered at some time impossibly remote the life which once achieved its perfect organization…even if we can imagine such a thing to be true, it serves only to warn us all the more strongly against the possibility that what we call the living might in the end succumb also to the seduction of the immutably fixed." Joseph Wood Krutch. “The Colloid and the Crystal.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life and the universe 450 The lure of the inanimate. "And so my eye goes questioningly back to the frosted pane; while I slept the graceful pseudo-fronds crept across the glass, assuming, as life itself does, an intricate organization; ‘why live,’ they seem to say, ‘when we can be beautiful, complicated and orderly without the uncertainty and effort required of a living thing; once we were all that was; perhaps some day we shall be all that is; why not
join us?' " Joseph Wood Krutch. “The Colloid and the Crystal.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life and the universe 461 Humans vs. the universe. "The universe throws down a challenge to the human spirit; in spite of his insignificance and abjection, man has taken it up." Aldous Huxley. “Meditation on the Moon.” 1931. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life, death 367 We live thoughtlessly without any concern for death. "Thoughtlessly we live, thinking death will never come." Menander. Greek. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Quotes: Life (20)

Life and death 357 Goals still matter, even near death. "It is important what a man still plans at the end." Elias Canetti. 1978. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Life and Death 55 Why do we groan about life, yet are sorry when people are relieved from it by death? "Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are relieved from it." Sir Richard Steele, “On Recollections of Childhood; Death of Parents; First Love.” 1710. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life and death 315 Who would even want to begin to live if all he thought about was death? "Who would find heart enough to begin to live, if he dallied with the consideration of death?" Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life and death 409 A day moth's day of living. "It was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with keener breath than that of the summer months...possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part of life and a day moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meager opportunities to the full, pathetic...it seemed as if a fiber, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body...he was little or nothing but life...was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig zagging to show us the true nature of life." Virginia Woolf. “The Death of the Moth.” 1942. [Posthumous] Gross, ed. Essays.

Life and death 221 Why is the desire to live strongest as we grow old and closer to death? Metchnikoff "...it is necessary to find out...why [man] must grow old and die when his desire to live is strongest." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Life and death 221 We live in good health and then we crave to die. Metchnikoff "--the thing to do is to find a way to live long enough in good health until we shall really crave to die." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Life and death 471 I finally got to know him, and then he was a meaningless corpse. "For the first time he bridged the distance between his few contacts with Hearn and the last glimpse he had had of him, the bloody meaningless corpse." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life and death 529 Even though he was dead, he was very much alive to us. "Dead, he was as much alive to them as he had ever been." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life and the universe 447 A view of the universe as a frost flower. "Not the shapeless stone which seems to be merely waiting to be acted upon but the snow flake or the frost flower is the true representative of the lifeless universe as opposed to ours…represent plainly, as the stone does not, the fixed and perfect system of organization which includes the sun and its planets, includes therefore the earth itself, but against which life has set up its seemingly puny opposition." Joseph Wood Krutch. “The Colloid and the Crystal.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life and the universe 448 The eternal laws of the inanimate. "The snow flake eternally obeys its one and only law: ‘Be thou six pointed’; the planets their one and only: ‘Travel thou in an ellipse.’ " Joseph Wood Krutch. “The Colloid and the Crystal.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Quotes: Life (19)

Life 412 "…world of happy unawareness…." Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Life 455 How do we measure quality of life? "We have no measures of the 'quality of life.' ” Toffler, Future Shock.

Life 472 We exist to learn and to entertain our neighbors. "…formed just such a contrast with his early opinion on the subject when the poor little girl’s coming had been first agitated, as time is forever producing between the plans and decisions of mortals, for their own instruction, and their neighbors’ entertainment." Austen, Mansfield Park.

Life 66 It is better to do than to have. William James once wrote that “lives based on having are less free than lives based on doing….” Toffler, Future Shock.

Life 154 What we learn from celebrities. "These vicarious people [images of celebrities] both live and fictional, play a significant role in our lives, providing models for behavior, acting out for us various roles and situations from which we draw conclusions about our own lives." Toffler, Future Shock.

Life 253 What all who are young need to learn. Young black woman: "…you need to have a feeling for the temporary—of making something as good as you can, while it lasts." Toffler, Future Shock.

Life 264 Too much choice paralyzes. "Ironically, the people of the future may suffer not from an absence of choice, but from a paralyzing surfeit of it." Toffler, Future Shock.

Life and Death 924 Nothing is ever completed in this life; what is accomplished is simply an exercise of the spirit. "But, rather, such incomplete designs of this life will be perfected nowhere; this so frequent abortion of man’s dearest projects must be taken as a proof, that the deeds of earth, however etherealized by piety or genius, are without value, except as exercises and manifestations of the spirit." Hawthorne: “The Artist of the Beautiful”

Life and death 356 "…wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life." Spinoza. 1677. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Life and death 356 "No man should be afraid to die, who hath understood what it is to live." Thomas Fuller II. 1732. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Quotes: Life (18)

Life 203 Sometimes, life is simply to live, not to do. "To know that life is being as well as going, that there are times when the byways are more important than the highways of the world." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 310 Life is order in complexity. "Know that life is more than protoplasm, more than fertile egg or ovum, that it is ultimate order in complexity." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 340 The wonder of wondering. December. "But man is abroad...knowing dawn, knowing the wonder of a new day even in December...knowing the wonder of wondering itself." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 350 Life will persist whether humans are here to see it or not. "Even so rudimentary a thing as a root, a seed, or an insect egg is an expression of insistent vitality, of life itself...life, which will persist whether man is here to see it or not...and occasionally we catch a glimpse of its elemental meaning." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 355 We have faith that if there was a yesterday there will be a tomorrow. "We are wise; we are sophisticated; believing that because there was a yesterday there will be a tomorrow, we take it on faith; last year and last summer are sufficient proof that another year, another summer lie ahead." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 356 Earth, sun and time continue and only man summarizes. "Earth and sun and time proceed in their cyclic rounds, and only man presumes to summarize." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 356 There is no end or beginning to the year but only a part of the whole. "...year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a part of the infinite whole." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 357 "Now" does not exist without a yesterday and a tomorrow. " … 'now' itself has no meaning without a yesterday and a tomorrow." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 91 No one can completely comprehend the world. "Kafka’s intuition that if the world has coherence, it is one that we can never fully comprehend." Manguel, A History of Reading.

Life 195 Everything good in his life occurred because of chance. "Like all the good things that occurred in his long life, that tremendous fortune had its origins in chance." Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Quotes: Life (17)

Life 556 Life is profit and loss. "In the end the important thing was always to tot up your profit and loss." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 39 An evening at The Rainbow. "What was he to do this evening to pass the time...might as well go to the Rainbow, and hear the talk about the cock-fighting: everybody was there and what else was to be done?" George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Life 156 Things happen and we don't know why. “ 'Ah,' said Dolly, with soothing gravity, 'it’s like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest—one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor where.' " George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Life 183 I know what I know and everything else is a puzzle. "And that’s all as ever I can be sure on, and everything else is a big puzzle to me when I think on it." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Life 184 There's good in this world, even if I can't see it because of the wickedness and trouble. Silas: "There’s good i’ this world—I’ve a feeling o’ that now; and it makes a man feel as there’s a good more nor he can see, i’ spite o’ the trouble and the wickedness." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Life 189 Things will change. Silas: "But there’s this to be thought on, Eppie: things will change, whether we like it or no; things won’t go on for a long while just as they are and no difference. "George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Life 222 Some things cannot be fixed. "…it is too late to mend some things…." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Life 91 What can you learn from a bursting bud? "And it is written in so simple a place as a bursting bud." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 150 Another day is another chance. "This is another day, another blank page in the endless book of time, another chance." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Life 164 "Innate wariness is the price of life." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Friday, November 14, 2008

Quotes: Life (16)

Life 185 "But if you stop and quit moving you die." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 235 "You look out for everything, he thought, and you still get hit from behind." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 262 Prep school ethics? " …regular-fellow ethic borrowed from more exclusive eastern prep schools: you do not lie…you do not cheat…you do not swear…you do not screw…and you go to church." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 273 "Get potted, get screwed, and get up in the morning, somehow." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 275 One view of life. "Everything is crapped up, everything is phony, everything curdles when you touch it." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 316 "In the final analysis there was only necessity and one’s reactions to it." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 319 Lessons from life. "Life’s a hard thing, and nobody gives you nothing; you do it alone; every man’s hand is against you, that’s what you also find out." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 342 Croft: "If you can’t do nothin’, keep your mouth shut…one of his few maxims." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 486 There are private and public battles fought simultaneously. "Each of them was fighting his private battle." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 548 Metaphor for life. "You carried it alone as long as you could, and then you weren’t strong enough to take it any longer…kept fighting everything, and everything broke you down, until in the end you were just a little goddam bolt holding on and squealing when the machine went too fast." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Quotes: Life (15)

Life 40 If, to seem long, life must be filled with unpleasant events, who wants that kind of life? Clevinger: "Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it’s to seem long; but in that event, who wants one" Heller, Catch-22.

Life 180 Each day was a challenge to his mortality. "Each day he faced was another dangerous mission against mortality." Heller, Catch-22.

Life 254 It's better to face challenges than to live a slave. "Because it’s better to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees." Heller, Catch-22.

Life 254 It's better to stand tall than to die kneeling. "It is better to live on one’s feet than die on one’s knees." Heller, Catch-22.

Life 455 People [the media? RayS.] make money from good deeds and tragedy. "I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy." Heller, Catch-22.

Life 156 Facing death was simply facing one more event in life, nothing more. "He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death…he was a man." Crane, The Red Badge of Courage.

Life 156 Scene. Metaphor for life. "Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds." Crane, The Red Badge of Courage.

Life 14 Take it one day at a time. "There was nothing to do but to go from one day into the next." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 78 Put your time in, work hard and die quickly. “I’ll tell you, Ossie,” his father had said, “a man works and he toils, he puts in his good sweat tryin’ to pull out a livin’ from the land, and when all his work is done, if the good Lord sees it fitten, it’s taken away in a storm.” Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Life 182 If you make it your goal, you won't achieve it. "Ya lose whatever you want when you start goin’ for it." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Quotes: Life (14)

Life 10 Life comes from life. "His [Leeuwenhoek’s] good sense told him that life comes from life." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Life 20 Life feeds on life, which is cruel, but God's will. Leeuwenhoek: "Life lives on life—it is cruel, but it is God’s will." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Life 110 Mankind's basic fight: against death. "...the fight of mankind against death." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Life 97 Bad luck and loss are mysteries. "…the mystery of bad luck the mystery of loss." DeLillo, Underworld.

Life 97 The experience of an awful moment. "What’s it like to have to live with one awful moment?" DeLillo, Underworld.

Life 779 Sleeping through life. "I have trouble sleeping; I also have trouble staying awake." DeLillo, Underworld.

Life 817 With purpose and design in life come serenity. "The serenity of immense design is missing from her life." DeLillo, Underworld.

Life 826 "Everything is connected in the end." DeLillo, Underworld.

Life 9 Some people will do anything to prolong existence. "He was working hard at increasing his life span…did it by cultivating boredom." Heller, Catch-22.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Quotes: Life (13)

Life 55 Down with dull lives. "But I do know that about ten times as many people find their lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I do believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we might make life more fun." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 104 Dreaming of being serene. "But he pictured loafing with Paul Riesling beside a lake in Maine…as overpowering and imaginative as homesickness…had never seen Maine, yet he beheld the shrouded mountains, the tranquil lake of evening." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 127 "He was converted to serenity." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 190 Life is mechanical. "With no Vergil Gunches before whom to set his face in resolute optimism, he [Babbitt] beheld and half admitted that he beheld, his way of life incredibly mechanical; mechanical business—a brisk selling of badly built houses; mechanical religion—a dry, hard church, shut off from the real life of the streets, inhumanly respectable as a top-hat; mechanical golf and dinner parties and bridge and conversation; save with Paul Riesling, mechanical friendships—back-slapping and jocular…." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 190 Pretentiousness (pretending to be what you are not) destroys the good moments in life. "He [Babbitt] saw the years, the brilliant winter days and all the long sweet afternoons which were meant for summery meadows, lost in such brittle pretentiousness." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 191 He hated cajoling men he hated. "He thought…of cajoling men he hated….." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 221 The futility of life. "It was coming to him [Babbitt] that perhaps all life as he knew it and vigorously practiced it was futile; that heaven as portrayed by the Reverend Dr. John Jennison Drew was neither probable nor very interesting; that he hadn’t much pleasure out of making money; that it was of doubtful work to rear children merely that they might rear children who would rear children." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 242 What do we run away from? "Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because he could never run away from himself." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 242 He had only one choice. "He knew he was slinking back [to Zenith] not because it was what he longed to do but because it was all he could do." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 00 Credo. [Paul DeKruif’s] ambition is to “grow old very slowly and stay young very long.” Intro to Paul DeKruif's Microbe Hunters.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Quotes: Life (12)

Life 357 Expecting an unpleasant event does not, in fact, cause it. "Elinor now found the difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event, however certain the mind may be told to consider it, and certainty itself." Jane Austen.

Life 371 Experience leads us back to home. "I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man’s experience is." Cather, My Ántonia

Life 320 One view of life: misery and tragic. "What misery, what an unspeakable tragedy, life is for some!" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Life 8 The world is cruel and dull and proud of it. "She did not yet know the immense ability of the world to be casually cruel and proudly dull...." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Life 156 We create most of our own troubles. "Most troubles are unnecessary." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Life 197 We need to be more conscious of life. "I think we want a more conscious life…tired of drudging and sleeping and dying." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.


Life 224 The feeling of never being able to escape the drudgery of life and people. "In the prairie heat she trudged along unchanging ways, talked about nothing to tepid people, and reflected that she might never escape from them." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Life 22 Tired of life as it is. "Oh, Lord, sometimes I'd like to quit the whole game…the office worry…and I act cranky and--I don't mean to, but I get--so darn tired." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 31 One man's dream. "I'd like to beat it off to the woods right now…loaf all day…go to Gunch's again tonight, and play poker, and cuss as much as I feel like, and drink a hundred and nine-thousand bottles of beer." Lewis, Babbitt.

Life 55 Does a man have any rights? How can I escape boredom? "Good Lord, I don't know what 'rights' a man has…and I don't know the solution to boredom." Lewis, Babbitt.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Quotes: Life (11)

Life 69 Life's common experiences. "We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure." Samuel Johnson. “Dignity and Uses of Biography.” 1750. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 311 Life is short. "We live the time that a match flickers...." Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 315 If you are about to die, keep living and accomplishing. "By all means, begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week." Robert Louis Stevenson, “Aes Triplex.” 1878. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 319 Most events of contemporary life are of little importance. "By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are." Oscar Wilde, “ ‘The True Critic’.” 1891. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 380 You will achieve health, strength, grace and beauty if you don't think about them. "The one supreme way of making all those processes go right, the process of health, and strength, and grace, and beauty...is to think about something else." G. K. Chesterton, “On Sandals and Simplicity.” 1905. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 446 "We find it difficult to conceive a world except in terms of purpose, will, or of intention." Joseph Wood Krutch. “The Colloid and the Crystal.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 448 The story of life is inevitable change. "The story of every living thing is still in the telling…may hope and it may try…though it may succeed or fail, it will certainly change." Joseph Wood Krutch. “The Colloid and the Crystal.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 514 The epitome of life. "By following these simple instructions and studying the methods of those who have already made good in the job, you can assure yourself a glamorous youth, prosperous middle age, the title of Grand Old Man, and finally some laudatory obituaries." Evelyn Waugh. “Well-Informed Circles…And How to Move In them.” 1939. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 543 Life has multiple images. "We are one of many appearances of the thing called Life; we are not its perfect image, for it has no image except Life, and life is multitudinous and emergent in the stream of time." Loren Eiseley. ‘The Snout.” 1957. Gross, ed. Essays.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Quotes: Life (10)

Life 291 One's follies are an important part of living. "Who lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks." La Rochefoucauld. French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 314 "We have all been mad once." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 341 The depressive point of view about life. "Everything wearies, everything breaks, everything passes away." French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 347 "Ingratitude is the world's payment." German. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 359 "Living is not breathing but doing." Rousseau. French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 309 The wonders of insects. "Hold in your hand the empty shell of a beetle or the shed husk of a locust; see the intricate parts, the ingenuity of life, now gone elsewhere…chitin, the horny substance much like your own fingernail, but only a few weeks ago a living thing…." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year.

Life 15 The "wheel" of life. "To see how the projectors of the world, like the spoke of the wheel of Sesostris’ chariot, are tumbled up and down, from beggary to worship, from worship to honor, from honor to baseness again." Owen Felltham, “How the Distempers of These Times Should Affect Wise Men.” 1620. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 15 The speciousness of Machiavelli. "To see Machiavel’s tenets held as oracles; honesty reputed shallowness; justice bought and sold...confess money to be stronger than truth." Owen Felltham, “How the Distempers of These Times Should Affect Wise Men.” 1620. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 16 The government distemper. "...plain dealing is thought the enemy of state and honor." Owen Felltham, “How the Distempers of These Times Should Affect Wise Men.” 1620. Gross, ed. Essays.

Life 16 The frustration of not being able to resolve the world's problems. "And, which would mad a man more than all, to know all this [wrong in the world], yet not know how to help it." Owen Felltham, “How the Distempers of These Times Should Affect Wise Men.” 1620. Gross, ed. Essays.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Quotes: Life (9)

Life 290 "The world is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel." Horace Walpole.

Life 88 "Bodies grow slowly and die quickly." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 175 "A man is lent, not given, to life": Publius Syrus. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 192 "Every day is a little life." German. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 207 "Seek to live unnoticed." Epicurus. Greek. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 208 "Life is a dream." Lope de Vega. Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 210 "The world more often rewards the appearance of merit than merit itself": La Rochefoucauld. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 216 "The last thing we lose is hope." Italian. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 246 "Life is not mere living but the enjoyment of health." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Life 247 "Not for ourselves alone are we born." Cicero. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Quotes: Life (8)

Life 158 "We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence…." George Bernard Shaw, Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 170 "Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." George Bernard Shaw, Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 170 "Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique and not too much imagination." Christopher Isherwood, Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 171 Life defined. "Life is a predicament which precedes death." Henry James, Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 171 "Human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience." A. N. Whitehead, Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 172 "Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer and then you find there is nothing in it." J. G. Huneker, Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 172 "The first half of life is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children." Clarence Darrow, Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 172 "The meaning of life is that it stops." Franz Kafka, Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 173 "Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim." Bertrand Russell, Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 173 "Life is a … treacherous game and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand are bastards." Theodore Dreiser, Portable Curmudgeon.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Quotes: Life (7)

Life 348 Life does not give us a great deal of time to think about what course of action we should take. "Life is fired at us point blank." Jose Ortega y Gasset. 1944. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Life 349 Words of wisdom mean nothing until we experience them in life. "Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced—even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it." Keats. 1819. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

63. Life 350 Live for the Day. "Nothing is worth more than this day." Goethe. Early 19th century. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Life 8 "To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die." Oscar Wilde. Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 9 A negative view of life. "Latent in every man is a venom of amazing bitterness, a black resentment; something that curses and loathes life, a feeling of being trapped, of having trusted and been fooled, of being the helpless prey of impotent rage, blind surrender, the victim of a savage, ruthless power that gives and takes away, enlists a man, drops him, promises and betrays, and--crowning injury--inflicts on him the humiliation of feeling sorry for himself." Paul Valéry. Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 62 A negative view of life. "Childhood: The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth—two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age." Ambrose Bierce. Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 64 A negative view of life. "A son of my own! Oh, no, no, no! Let my flesh perish with me, and let me not transmit to anyone the boredom and the ignominiousness of life." Gustave Falaubert. Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 65 A metaphor for life. "Everyone in the world is Christ and they are all crucified." Sherwood Anderson. Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 92 Our view of ourselves vs. how others see us. "The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us." Quentin Crisp. Portable Curmudgeon.

Life 140 Life is a bore. "The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore." H. L. Mencken. Portable Curmudgeon.