Perspectives on Ideas. May 17, 2007. Frontier. Frustration. Geese. Generations.

Note: A bold-face statement at the conclusion of a quote is my attempt to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English. RayS.

Frontier
Frontier 33 A saying, “The cowards never started and the weak ones died by the way,” was unfair to the strong ones who died by the way of sudden maladies or long rains, windstorms, howling blizzards. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

Frustration
Frustration 34 The frustrated, oppressed by their shortcomings, blame their failure on existing restraints. Hoffer, The True Believer. [The frustrated because of their own shortcomings blame outside constraints for their failures.]

Frustration 43 Hitler…knew that the chief passion of the frustrated is “to belong….” Hoffer, The True Believer

Geese
Geese 163 [Song of the wild geese]: We wander the sky with many a cronk/ And land in the pasture fields with a plonk. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

Generations
Generations 260 The NSDAP had a youthful leadership corps, had built up strong youth and student organizations, and its propaganda played on the generation problem: “Make room, you old ones,” was an effective battle cry against the Weimar establishment. Bracher, The German Dictatorship.

Generations 255 …the spirit of the past brooding over a new generation…still fed romantically on the mistakes and…dreams of dead statesmen and poets. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise. [The spirit of the past still dominated the younger generation.]

Generations 1103 But, gazing at them [the ruins of Rome], we recognize how undesirable it is to build the tabernacle of our brief lifetime out of permanent materials, with a view to their being occupied by future generations. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun. [Looking over the ruins of Rome, we realize how futile it is to build permanently what will be occupied by future generations.]

Generations 1103 It is beautiful, no doubt, and exceedingly satisfactory to some of our natural instincts, to imagine our far posterity dwelling under the same roof-tree as ourselves. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun. [It is satisfying to think of future generations living in the same house as we ourselves.]

Generations 1103 …we may build almost immortal habitations, it is true; but we cannot keep them from growing old, musty, unwholesome, dreary, full of death-scents, ghosts and murder-stains…. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun. [We can build almost immortal habitations, but we can’t keep them from showing the stains of many lives living there.]

Generations 1103 In [America as opposed to Europe], observed the sculptor to Donatello, …each generation has only its own sins and sorrows to bear. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun. [Each generation has its own sins and sorrows to bear.]

Generations 1103 Here [in Italy] it seems as if all the weary and dreary past were piled upon the back of the present. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun. [In Italy the past weighs on the present.]