posted December 20, 2007 11:49 PM            

"...Wilde, all his life, held that Jesus Christ was primarily an artist, and a Gnostic, and Oscar preferred the Gospel of John, on highly heretical grounds, as here in De Profundis:

While in reading the Gospels--particularly that of St. John himself, or whatever early Gnostic took his name and mantle-- I see the continual assertion of the imagination as the basis of all spiritual and material life, I see also that to Christ imagination was simply a form of Love, and that to him Love was Lord in the fullest meaning of the phrase.

Wilde recalled remarking to Gide that everything Christ said could be placed immediately in the realm of Art and there be fulfilled completely. "A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it" is a famous Wildean aphorism... The crucial discussion of Christ by Wilde comes in "The Soul of Man under Socialism," and like the rest of the essay is a hymn to personality, to individual self-development. Here is Wilde at his least ironic, and perhaps least understood:

And so he who would lead a Christ-like life is he who is perfectly and absolutely himself. He may be a great poet, or a great man of science; or a young student at University, or one who watched sheep upon a moor; or a maker of dramas, like Shakespeare, or a thinker about God, like Spinoza; or a child who plays in a garden, or a fisherman who throws his nets into the sea. It does not matter what he is, as long as he realises the perfection of the soul that is within him. All imitation in morals and in life is wrong. Through the streets of Jerusalem at present day crawls one who is mad and carries a wooden cross on his shoulders. He is a symbol of the lives that are marred by imitation. Father Damien was Christ-like when he went out to live with the lepers, because in such service he realised fully what was best in him. But he was not more Christ-like than Wagner, when he realised his soul in music; or than Shelley, when he realised his soul in song. There is no one type for man. There are as many perfections as there are imperfect men. And while to the claims of charity a man may yeild and yet be free, to the claims of conformity no man may yeild and remain free at all.

... Wilde's genius was for paradox... Here is Wilde at his critical best in the essay-dialogue "The Decay of Lying," speaking through his surrogate, Vivian:

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. Take an example from our own day; I know that you are fond of Japanese things. Now, do you really imagine that the Japanese people, as they are presented to us in art, have any existence? If you do, you have never understood Japanese art at all. The Japanese people are the deliberate, self-conscious creation of certain individual artists. If you set a picture by Hokusai, or Hokkei, or any of the great native painters, beside a real Japanese gentleman or lady, you will see that there is not the slightest resemblence between them. The actual people who live in Japan are not unlike the general run of English people; that is to say, they are extremely commonplace, and have nothing curious or extraordinary about them. In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people. One of our most charming painters went recently to the Land of the Chrysanthemum in the foolish hope of seeing the Japanese. All he saw, all he had the chance of painting, were a few lanterns and some fans.

posted December 21, 2007 04:32 PM              

And so he who would lead a Christ-like life is he who is perfectly and absolutely himself. He may be a great poet, or a great man of science; or a young student at University, or one who watched sheep upon a moor; or a maker of dramas, like Shakespeare, or a thinker about God, like Spinoza; or a child who plays in a garden, or a fisherman who throws his nets into the sea. It does not matter what he is, as long as he realises the perfection of the soul that is within him.

posted December 23, 2007 01:13 PM            

"Franz Kafka disputes with Rainer Maria Rilke the bad eminence of having been the most exasperating male literary genius for gifted women to have loved during the entire twentieth century. Rilke must have been the most egocentric poet in European history, while Kafka, hopelessly alienated from himself as from everyone else, evaded his lovers until his final relationship with Dora Dymant, when he was dying of tuberculosis... Kafka's genius was for isolation. He taught us that we have nothing in common with ourselves, let alone with one another."
~ Harold Bloom
'Genius'

posted December 23, 2007 01:22 PM            

"The inferno of the living is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."
~ Italo Calvino
'Invisible Cities'

posted December 23, 2007 01:39 PM            

~ Charles L. Bromley
(Cleric)

posted December 23, 2007 01:49 PM            

quote:

---

"The inferno of the living is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."
~ Italo Calvino
'Invisible Cities'

---

posted December 29, 2007 11:51 PM            

October 31, 1927 Lee Grant:

I've been married to one Marxist and one Fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out.

November 2, 1808 Barbey D'Aurevilly:

Politeness is the best stick there is to keep distance between ourselves and fools, a stick that saves us the trouble of hitting them. To be polite with a fool is to isolate oneself from him. What a good policy!

November 9, 1934 Carl Sagan:

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

November 10, 1925 Richard Burton:

If you can't laugh together in bed, the chances are you are incompatible, anyway. I'd rather hear a girl laugh well than try to turn me on with long, silent, soulful, secret looks. If you can laugh with a woman, everything else falls into place.

November 16, 1861 Arvid Järnefelt:

I used to see the outer world was the only reality. Now when I am older I understand that the only reality is the invisible self.

November 22, 1819 George Eliot:

posted December 30, 2007 12:00 AM            

September 26, 1888 T. S. Eliot:

It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good.

September 27, 1821 Henri-Frederic Amiel:

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.

September 30, 1926 Veikko Sinisalo, Finnish actor:

Through my work, my life, I serve as a builder of bridges between people.

October 3, 1900 Thomas Wolfe:

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

October 5, 1951 Karen Allen:

Eventually you love people - friends or lovers - because of their flaws.

October 7, 1927 R. D. Laing:

When sex comes in the door, love flies out the window. Men are afraid of women and women have good reason to be afraid of men. If I hazarded a guess as to the most endemic, prevalent anxiety among human beings - including fear of death, abandonment, loneliness - nothing is more prevalent than the fear of one another.

October 8, 1915 Bill Vaughan:

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist it's another nonconformist who does not conform to the prevailing standards of non-conformity.

October 11, 1884 Eleanor Roosevelt:

If someone betrays you once, it's his fault. If he betrays you twice, it's your fault.

October 16, 1888 Eugene O'Neill:

Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.

October 18, 1865 Logan Pearsall Smith:

Don't tell your friends their faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you.

October 20, 1928 Joyce Brothers:

Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash.

October 21, 1833 Alfred Nobel:

I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its results.

October 22, 1919 Doris Lessing:

There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best.

October 23, 1925 Johnny Carson:

posted December 30, 2007 12:13 AM            

December 27, 1906 Oscar Levant:

It's not what you are, but what you don't become that hurts.

December 30, 1865 Rudyard Kipling:

People say that what we're all seeking is the meaning of life... I think that what we're really seeking is the experience of being alive.

December 31, -105 Marcus Tullius Cicero:

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

January 1, 1919 J. D. Salinger:

I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect...

January 3, 1945 Markku Siivola, Finnish psychiatrist:

A man with a method has never been real, because for him spiritual development means a process of gradually giving up mistakes and growing towards truthfulness by definite gymnastic exercises and moral methods. He doesn't look for truth, he looks for a method. Thus he becomes a prisoner of external programs ... He becomes a programmed saint, who can keep up his sainthood only through continual exercise of his method.

January 4, 1930 Don Shula, football coach:

I have no magic formula. The only way I know to win is through hard work.

January 5, 1932 Umberto Eco:

Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message.

January 6, 1915 Alan Watts:

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

January 10, 1924 Aila Meriluoto, Finnish poet

Some day
I will totally exist.

January 13, 1884 Sophie Tucker:

From birth to age 18, a girl needs good parents, from 18-35 she needs good looks, from 35 to 55 she needs a good personality, and from 55 on she needs cash.

January 14, 1875 Albert Schweitzer:

A man can only do what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

January 17, 1706 Benjamin Franklin:

Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.

January 19.1.1921 Ken Keyes:

No one who ever lived has ever had enough power, prestige, or knowledge to overcome the basic condition of life: you win some, and you lose some.

January 20, 1896 George Burns:

Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.

posted December 30, 2007 12:28 AM            

March 21, 1905 Phyllis McGinley

God knows that a mother needs fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul. But because I happen to be a parent of almost fiercely maternal nature, I praise casualness. It seems to me the rarest of virtues.

March 21, 1763 Jean Paul Richter:

Only actions give life strength; only moderation gives it charm.

March 25, 1942 Aretha Franklin

If a song's about something I've experienced or that could've happened to me it's good. But if it's alien to me, I couldn't lend anything to it. Because that's what soul is all about.

March 26, 1874 Robert Frost:

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.

March 27, 1950 Ursula Rainio, Miss Finland 1970

I am determined and positive. I have put my trust on success. I have not waited for it, I have acted... You must give your all in order to get all.

March 28, 1944 Alan Oken, astrologer:

Aries people are well liked because they stimulate others to action and sow the seeds which other people may successfully cultivate.

March 30, 1853 Vincent Van Gogh:

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.

March 31, 1914 Octavio Paz:

Love is to battle, to open doors. The world changes if two can look at each other and see.

March 31, 1934 Shirley Jones

The musicals had a good, happy feeling, saying that the world is a better place. They say it's not reality, but who cares? There's too much reality these days.

April 3, 1924 Doris Day

If it's true that men are such beasts, this must account for the fact that most women are animal lovers.

April 4, 1928 Maya Angelou

...always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

April 5, 1908 Bette Davis

Basically, I believe the world is a jungle, and if it's not a bit of a jungle in the home, a child cannot possibly be fit to enter the outside world.

April 6, 1931 Richard Albert = Ram Dass

Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.

April 7, 1915 Billie Holiday

I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.

April 8, 1894 Mary Pickford

If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for you...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.

April 11, 1941 Ellen Goodman

I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people who are convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference after another.

April 15, 1843 Henry James, Jr.:

I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.

April 16, 1922 Kingsley Amis:

If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.

April 16, 1949 Pirkko Saisio, Finnish writer

The world of fiction became more real for me than the real world. I decided to become a writer, a person who invents realities.

April 18, 1857 Clarence Darrow:

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

April 18, 1959 Susan Faludi

[Feminism] asks that women be free to define themselves instead of having their identity defined for them, time and again, by their culture and their men.

April 20, 1826 Dinah Mulock Craik

posted December 30, 2007 01:04 AM            

June 23, 1936 Richard Bach:

Can miles truly separate us from friends? If we want to be with someone we love, aren't we already there?

June 24, 1908 Toini Havu, Finnish literary critic

When a man makes an exception and behaves the way women do regularly, he is called henpecked.

June 25, 1923 Dorothy Gilman

But she knew that she had encountered one of the more devastating kinds of loneliness in existence: that of being in close contact with someone to whom she was a nonperson, and who thereby rendered her invisible and of no consequence.

June 25, 1937 Roger Elliot

Your Cancer spirit is like a bubbling country river: flowing where it feels wanted ... The great paradox of your spirit is that you want to be a busy, practical person at an everyday level, but are really an introvert with a highly sensitive inner nature that can easily be hurt.

June 27, 1880 Helen Keller:

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

June 29, 1930 Oriana Fallaci

Listening to someone talk isn't at all like listening to their words played over on a machine. What you hear when you have a face before you is never what you hear when you have before you a winding tape.

June 29, 1900 Saint-Exupery:

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

July 1, 1804 George Sand

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one's talent, and one's inner happiness.

July 2, 1869 Hjalmar Söderberg:

I believe in the lust of the body and the souls incurable loneliness.

June 2, 1948 Päikki (Päivikki) Priha, Finnish textile designer

Live music is the best gift you can get. When Hortus Musicus played in the opening of the show I thought that I will never again complain about anything now that I have got the Moon from the heaven.

July 3, 1860 Charlotte Perkins Gilman

But reason has no power against feeling, and feeling older than history is no light matter.

July 3, 1947 Dave Barry:

If you want to take long walks, take long walks. If you want to hit things with a stick, hit things with a stick. But there's no excuse for combining the two and putting the results on TV. Golf is not so much a sport as insult to lawns.

July 4, 1918 Abigail Van Buren:

It is a sad commentary of our times when our young must seek advice and counsel from Dear Abby instead of going to Mom and Dad.

July 8, 1867 Käthe Kollwitz

I do not want to die . . . until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown.

July 12, 1937 Bill Cosby:

'What does your mother do?' I asked a girl of six named Laurie.
'She's in charge of everything,' Laurie said.
'And what does your father do?'
'I can't remember.'
'Isn't he in charge of anything?'
'I'll have to ask my mother.'
'Why not ask him?'
'Oh, he wouldn't know.'"

July 14, 1801 Jane Carlyle:

Not a hundredth part of the thoughts in my head have ever been or ever will be spoken or written as long as I keep my senses, at least.

July 15, 1919 Iris Murdoch:

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

July 16, 1880 Kathleen Norris:

When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot?

July 18, 1811 William Makepeace Thackeray:

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.

July 22, 1890 Rose Kennedy

I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best I could bring to it.

July 22, 1936 Tom Robbins:

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

posted January 04, 2008 12:53 AM            

~ Charles L. Bromley
(Cleric)

posted January 25, 2008 02:26 PM            

~Herbert Otto