posted March 11, 2010 02:58 PM              

given away.

posted March 15, 2010 08:48 PM              

Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence... Someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never.
~ "The Silence of the Sirens" (October 1917)

In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself.
~ Letter to Milena Jesenská (14 September 1920)

The true way is along a rope that is not spanned high in the air, but only just above the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling than to be walked upon.

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

One of the first signs of the beginnings of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one will only in time come to hate.

A cage went in search of a bird.

Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.

~ Aphorisms (1918)

posted March 24, 2010 11:43 AM              

"Follow your bliss." ~ Joseph Campbell

"The watering of your favorite virtue,
brings the flowering of all the virtues."
~ Valus

posted March 27, 2010 11:24 AM              

~ Jonathan Swift

Courage is ripeness of will.

Some won't drink, but want a drunk.

There are more inventors than there are
people who let themselves invent.

Many people have children as a substitute
for releasing their inner child.

If they can control the drugs you take,
they can control the thoughts you think.

posted March 29, 2010 08:04 PM              

In Shakespeare's tomb lies infinitely more than Shakespeare ever wrote. And if I magnify Shakespeare, it is not so much for what he did do as for what he did not do, or refrained from doing. For in this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth -- even though it be covertly and by snatches...

[If] few men have time, or patience, or palate, for the spiritual truth as it is in that great genius, it is then no matter of surprise, that in a contemporaneous age, Nathaniel Hawthorne is a man as yet almost utterly mistaken among men. Here and there, in some quiet armchair in the noisy town, or some deep nook among the noiseless mountains, he may be appreciated for something of what he is...

Shakespeare has been approached. There are minds that have gone as far as Shakespeare into the universe. And hardly a mortal man who, at some time or other, has not felt as great thoughts in him as any you will find in Hamlet. We must not inferentially malign mankind for the sake of any one man, whoever he may be... Believe me, my friends, that men, not very much inferior to Shakespeare, are being born on the banks of the Ohio...

The great mistake seems to be, that even with those Americans who look forward to the coming of a great literary genius among us, they somehow fancy he will come in the costume of Queen Elizabeth's day; be a writer of dramas founded upon old english history or the tales of Boccaccio. Whereas, great geniuses are parts of the times, and possess a corresponding coloring.

It is of a piece with the Jews, who, while their Shiloh was meekly walking in their streets, were still praying for his magnificent coming; looking for him in a chariot, who was already among them on an ass. Nor must we forget that Shakespeare was, in his own lifetime,... looked at as an "upstart crow", beautified "with other bird's feathers". For, mark it well, imitation is often the first charge brought against originality...

Now, I do not say that Nathaniel of Salem is a greater man than William of Avon, or as great. But the difference between the two men is by no means immeasurable. Not a very great deal more, and Nathaniel were verily William... if Shakespeare has not been equalled, give the world time, and he is sure to be surpassed in one hemisphere or another...

The world is as young today as when it was created; and this Vermont morning dew is as wet to my feet, as Eden's dew to Adam's... The trillionth part has not been said; and all that has been said, but multiplies the avenues to what remains to be said. It is not so much paucity as superabundance of material that seems to incapacitate modern authors...

Let America, then, prize and cherish her writers; yea, let her glorify them. They are not so many in number as to exhaust her goodwill... For how great the shame, if other nations should be before her, in crowning her heroes of the pen!... As for patronage, it is the American author who now patronizes his country, and not his country him. And if at times some among them appeal to the people for more recognition, it is not always with selfish motives, but patriotic ones...

And now, my countrymen,... whom better can I commend to you, in the first place, than Nathaniel Hawthorne. He is one of the new, and far better generation of your writers. The smell of young beeches and hemlocks is upon him; your own broad praises are in his soul; and if you travel away inland into his deep and noble nature, you will hear the far roar of his Niagara.

Give not over to future generations the glad duty of acknowledging him for what he is. Take that joy to yourself, in your own generation; and so shall he feel those grateful impulses on him, that may possibly prompt him to the full flower of some still greater achievement in your eyes. And by confessing him you thereby confess others; you brace the whole brotherhood. For genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.

posted March 29, 2010 11:18 PM              

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease.
The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.

Great men have to be lifted upon the shoulders
of the whole world, in order to conceive their great ideas.

Religion and art spring from the same root
and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Happiness is a butterfly which,
when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp,
but which, if you will sit down quietly,
may alight upon you.

It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health,
to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself,
who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities
he must go out of himself to appreciate.

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry,
or look at pictures or statues, who cannot
find a great deal more in them than the poet
or artist has actually expressed.
Their highest merit is suggestiveness.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

There is so much wretchedness in the world,
that we may safely take the word of any mortal
professing to need our assistance.

The ideas of people in general are not
raised higher than the roofs of the houses.
All their interests extend over the earth's
surface in a layer of that thickness.
The meeting-house steeple
reaches out of their sphere.

In youth men are apt to write more wisely
than they really know or feel; and the
remainder of life may be not idly spent
in realizing and convincing themselves
of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.

It needs no earthquake to open the chasm.

The fiend in his own shape is less hideous
than when he rages in the breast of man.

Though we speak nonsense,
God will pick out the meaning of it.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne