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Post by Tamrin on Dec 22, 2013 9:31:36 GMT 10
1 of 2:As we turn over the pages of nineteenth century literature, we are constantly confronted with the question of alienation. Baudelaire, Marx, Kierkegaard, Chateau- briand, Cardinal Newman — it does not matter whether the voice comes from the Left or the Right; all are agreed in their rejection of the values of the prevailing ethic. Yet we never get a clear definition of alienation: what is man alienated from, and why?
Any talented decadent can make unreality believable. To make reality convincing is another matter, a matter for only the greatest masters
The holiness of the real is always there, accessible in total immanence. The nodes of transcendence coagulate in you, the experiencer, and in the other, the lover
All the reality that we can know is contingent, created out of nothing, and hence of an inferior order of reality. Faced with the “utterly other,” the contingent soul can finally only respond with fear and trembling
The existence of the creature, in so far as it exists, is the existence of God, and the creature’s experience of God is therefore in the final analysis equally unpredicable. Neither can even be described; both can only be indicated. We can only point at reality, our own or God’s
Harvey, Galileo, Copernicus do not seem occult to us, but they did so to their contemporaries, hierophants of the mysteries of Natural Law, revealers of the secrets of a New Order of the Ages
You can’t become a saint by taking dope, stealing your friends’ typewriters, giving girls chancres, not supporting your wife and children, and then reading St. John of the CrossKenneth RexrothAmerican poet, translator and critical essayist (Born this day 1905) I was giving a reading at some university. Down in the front row of the auditorium was a young lady in a leather microskirt and a leather microbolero, tied with a leather bootlace, and nothing else whatever. I said, "I have an extremely wide repertory. What would you like — sex, revolution, or mysticism?" She looked up and said quietly, "What’s the difference?"
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 22, 2013 9:32:33 GMT 10
2 of 2:Today we hear a great deal about Organizational Men, Mass Culture, Conformity, the Lonely Crowd, the Power Elite and its Conspiracy of Mediocrity. We forget that the very volume of this criticism is an indication that our society is still radically pluralistic. Not only are there plenty of exceptionalists who take exception to the stereotyping of the mass culture — but that very string of epithets comes from a series of books that have been recent best-sellers, symptoms of a popular, living tradition of dissent from things as they are
The mature man lives quietly, does good privately, takes responsibility for his actions, treats others with friendliness and courtesy, finds mischief boring and avoids it. Without the hidden conspiracy of goodwill, society would not endure an hour
Prior to 1918 the word “communism” did not mean Left Social Democracy of the sort represented by the Russian Bolsheviks, a radical, revolutionary form of State socialism Quite the contrary, it was used of those who wished in one way or another to abolish the State, who believed that socialism was not a matter of seizing power, but of doing away with power and returning society to an organic community of non-coercive human relations. They believed that this was what society was naturally, and that the State was only a morbid growth on the normal body of oeconomia, the housekeeping of the human family, grouped in voluntary association. Even the word “socialism” itself was originally applied to the free communist communities which were so common in America in the nineteenth century
When the newspapers have got nothing else to talk about, they cut loose on the young. The young are always news. If they are up to something, that's news. If they aren't, that's news too. Things we did as kids and thought nothing of, the standard capers of all young animals, now make headlines, shake up police departments and rend the frail hearts of social workers. Partly this is due to the mythologies of modern civilization
The characteristic paranoias of youth — the attribution of intention and duplicity to almost all human behavior. The young suffer terribly from the belief that the people they encounter are most of them up to something and that something has some relation to themselves. Actually, of course, most people just bobble along like apples in a stream. Usually it takes many years of experience to realize this
And think that life and glory flickered on the rushing bloodstream for me once, and for all who have gone before me, vessels of the billion-year-long river that flows now in your veins
We thought the years would last forever, they are all gone now, the days we thought would not come for us are hereKenneth Rexroth(Born this day 1905) There have always been those who, though they see tragedy as the outcome of freedom, will nevertheless judge that tragedy is not too high a price to pay
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 22, 2013 9:33:26 GMT 10
At college, and perhaps for a year afterwards, they had believed in literature, had believed in Beauty and in personal expression as an absolute end. When they lost this belief, they lost everything
Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize that they’ve been tricked and burn with resentment. Every day of their lives they read the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings, murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles, revolutions, war. This daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is a joke. Oranges can’t titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing
Man has a tropism for order. Keys in one pocket, change in the other. Mandolins are tuned G D A E. The physical world has a tropism for disorder, entropy. Man against Nature ... the battle of the centuries. Keys yearn to mix with change. Mandolins strive to get out of tune. Every order has within it the germ of destruction. All order is doomed, yet the battle is worth while
Crowds of people moved through the streets with a dream-like violence
Betty took him for a walk in the zoo and he was amused by her evident belief in the curative power of animals. She seemed to think that it must steady him to look at a buffalo
He smoked a cigarette, standing in the dark and listening to her undress. She made sea sounds; something flapped like a sail; there was the creak of ropes; then he heard the wave-against-a-wharf smack of rubber on flesh. Her call for him to hurry was a sea-moan, and when he lay beside her, she heaved, tidal, moon-driven
In the king’s bed is always found, just before it becomes a museum piece, the droppings of the black sheepNathanael WestUS author, screenwriter and satirist ( The Day of the Locust) (Died this day 1940) Numbers constitute the only universal language
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 22, 2013 9:34:28 GMT 10
A long time ago a bunch of people reached a general consensus as to what's real and what's not and most of us have been going along with it ever since
Not everything has to mean something. Some things just are
We're all made of stories. When they finally put us underground, the stories are what will go on. Not forever, perhaps, but for a time. It's a kind of immortality, I suppose, bounded by limits, it's true, but then so's everything
Let me give you some advice: Try to approach things without preconceived ideas, without supposing you already know everything there is to know about them. Get that trick down and you'll be surprised at what's really all around you
Not only do we all have magic, it's all around us as well. We just don't pay attention to it. Every time we make something out of nothing, that's an act of magic. It doesn't matter if it's a painting or a garden, or an abuelo telling his grandchildren some tall tale. Every time we fix something that's broken, whether it's a car engine or a broken heart, that's an act of magic. And what makes it magic is that we choose to create or help, just as we can choose to harm. But it's so easy to destroy and so much harder to make things better. That's why doing the right thing makes you stronger. If we can only remember what we are and what we can do, nobody can bind us or control us
It's all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses
Magic's never what you expect it to be, but it's often what you needCharles de LintCanadian fantasy author and Celtic folk musician (Born this day 1951) Witchery is merely a word for what we are all capable of
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 22, 2013 9:35:10 GMT 10
Poets are the sense, philosophers the intelligence of humanity
Words are all we have
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better
What do I know of man's destiny? I could tell you more about radishes
There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet
If I had the use of my body, I would throw it out the window
We are all born mad. Some remain soSamuel BeckettIrish/French writer ( Waiting for Godot) (Died this day 1989) You're on earth. There's no cure for that
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 23, 2013 8:20:47 GMT 10
Monday’s Quotes:The secret of masonry is to keep a secret
There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it, but when our bodies are purified, we shall see that it is all matter
I am not learned, but I have as good feelings as any man
Never be discouraged. If I were sunk in the lowest pits of Nova Scotia, with the Rocky Mountains piled on me, I would hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, and I would come out on top
If my life is of no value to my friends it is of none to myself
Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion? We have none
An angel of God never has wingsBro. Joseph Smith, Jr.American founder of Mormon church (Born this day 1805) Although I do wrong, I do not the wrongs that I am charged with doing; the wrong that I do is through the frailty of human nature, like other men. No man lives without fault
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 23, 2013 8:21:47 GMT 10
We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery
The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it
Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them
The duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbors
Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession — a property entirely our own
A place for everything, and everything in its placeSamuel SmilesEnglish author ( Self-Help, Thrift), reformer and biographer (Born this day 1812) I'm as happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me!
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 23, 2013 8:24:45 GMT 10
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio
A writer may tell me that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him
I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will ultimately be able to live without food
It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment
Each pursues his own theory, little solicitous to correct or improve it by an attention to what is advanced by his opponents
The histories of mankind are histories only of the higher classes
The rich, by unfair combinations, contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poorThomas MalthusEnglish vicar and economist (moral restraint) (Born this day 1834) The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 23, 2013 8:26:33 GMT 10
I want you to understand that your first duty is to humanity. I want others to look at us and see that we care not just about ourselves but about others
I got my start by giving myself a start. I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations. I have built my own factory on my own ground. I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.
God answered my prayer, for one night I had a dream, and in that dream a big black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up for my hair. Some of the remedy was grown in Africa, but I sent for it, mixed it, put it on my scalp, and in a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it had ever fallen out. I tried it on my friends; it helped them. I made up my mind I would begin to sell it
When we began to make $10 a day, my ex-husband thought that was enough,c thought I ought to be satisfied. But I was convinced that my hair preparation would fill a long-felt want. And when we found it impossible to agree, due to his narrowness of vision, I embarked on business for myself
I am not satisfied in making money for myself. I endeavour to provide employment for hundreds of the women of my race
There is no royal flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it for if I have accomplished anything in life it is because I have been willing to work hard
I am not ashamed of my past. I am not ashamed of my humble beginningSarah Breedlove (Madam C.J. Walker)African-American businesswoman and philanthropist (Born this day 1867) Perseverance is my motto
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 23, 2013 8:27:35 GMT 10
Love. Of course, love. Flames for a year, ashes for thirty
A house of which one knew every room wasn't worth living in
The faculty of self-deception, essential requisite for anyone wanting to guide others
The young feel sorrows much more sharply that the old; the latter are nearer the safety net
For over twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilizations, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own
All this shouldn't last; but it will, always; the human 'always' of course, a century, two centuries ... and after that it will be different, but worse. We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth
To rage and mock is gentlemanly, to grumble and whine is notGiuseppe Tomasi di LampedusaSicilian writer ( Der Leopard) (Born this day 1896) If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change
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