Those creatures all had sold their souls to a devil from Hell’s lower classes, greedy for sordidness and laxity. They lived the intoxication of vanity and idleness, and they died blandly amid cushions of words in a wrinkling of sputum scorpions. – Bernando Soares (Fernando Pessoa), The Book of Disquiet
Archive for July, 2009
a wrinkling of sputum scorpions
Posted in Quotes, tagged Quotes on July 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Nothing is worse than the coarseness and meanness we perpetrate out of timidity.
Posted in Quotes, tagged Quotes on July 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
– E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born
I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare
Posted in Quotes on July 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy. – E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born
The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.
Posted in Quotes, tagged Quotes on July 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined [...]
The Night Migrations :: Louise Glück
Posted in Poetry, tagged Poetry on July 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This is the moment when you see again the red berries of the mountain ash and in the dark sky the birds’ night migrations. It grieves me to think the dead won’t see them– these things we depend on, they disappear. What will the soul do for solace then? I tell myself maybe it won’t [...]
thinking hurts
Posted in Quotes on July 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Throughout the world, at any given moment, the justifiable aims of legitimate geo-nations are being threatened by reckless individuals who insist on indulging their private, inscrutable agendas. The prospect of a world plagued by these fluid-nations — a world in which one’s identification with, and loyalty to, one’s parent geo-nation is constantly being undermined — [...]
Philosophy in the Morgue
Posted in Quotes, tagged Quotes on July 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Philosophy in the Morgue. “My nephew was obviously a failure. If he had succeeded in making something of himself he would have had a different ending than . . . this.” “You know, Madame,” I replied to the monumental matron who had addressed me, “whether one succeeds or not comes down to the same thing.” [...]
Ulysses :: Alfred Lord Tennyson
Posted in Poetry, tagged Poetry on July 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel; I will drink Life to the lees. All times I [...]
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways :: William Wordsworth
Posted in Poetry, tagged Poetry on July 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love: A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! –Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know When [...]
Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard :: Thomas Gray
Posted in Poetry, tagged Poetry on July 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning [...]
authentic poetry has nothing to do with “poetry”
Posted in Quotes, tagged Quotes on July 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In one medieval exorcism, all the parts of the body, even the smallest, are listed from which the demon is ordered to depart: a kind of lunatic anatomy treatise, fascinating for its hypertrophy of precision, its profusion of unexpected details. A scrupulous incantation. Leave the nails! Fanatic but not without poetic effect. For authentic poetry [...]
Lovers’ Spat on Mars
Posted in Movies, Quotes, tagged Quotes on July 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon. – Dr. Manhattan There’s no scientific consensus that life is important. – Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth Laurie is crying. On Mars. DR. MANHATTAN: Will you smile . . . if I admit I was wrong? LAURIE: . . . About what? DR. MANHATTAN: . . . [...]
To His Coy Mistress :: Andrew Marvell
Posted in Poetry, tagged Poetry on July 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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 Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood; [...]
Robert Herrick’s Julia Poems
Posted in Poetry, tagged Poetry on July 24, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Upon Julia’s Breasts Display thy breasts, my Julia—there let me Behold that circummortal purity, Between whose glories there my lips I’ll lay, Ravish’d in that fair via lactea. Upon Julia’s Clothes Whenas in silks my Julia goes, Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows That liquefaction of her clothes. Next, when I cast mine eyes and [...]
To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare :: Ben Jonson
Posted in Poetry, tagged Poetry on July 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ; While I confess thy writings to be such, As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much. ‘Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these ways Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise ; For [...]
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