Villain
The villain is always the person who strikes the first blow.
Villain 223 You can always spot the villain…in the last resort, it is ultimately the man who strikes the first blow. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Violence
The cave man fondled the ax; today men fondle the machine gun.
Violence 101 The hand that hefted the ax, out of some blind allegiance to the past fondles the machine gun as lovingly. Eiseley, The Immense Journey
Virtue
Without immortality, there is no virtue.
Virtue 67 There is no virtue if there is no immortality. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
People prefer virtue if no strong temptation exists to overlook it.
Virtue 275 Johnson on virtue: Every man prefers virtue when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
Virtue requires dealing with difficulty and contention.
Virtue 168 …virtue presupposes difficulty and contention…. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Conscious virtue masks a secret vice.
Virtue and vice 182 Psychoanalysts: …every conscious virtue is an effort to conceal or correct a secret vice. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
Visual
Images turn viewers into bystanders.
Visual 353 Jerzy Kosinski: The image is…ultimately deadly, because it turns the viewer into a bystander. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Two kinds of visual memory: create an image with your eyes open; replicate images with your eyes closed.
Visual memory 13 There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully create an image in the laboratory of your mind with your eyes open…and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica…. Nabokov, Lolita.
Vocations
It’s not that you can’t do it; it’s that what you want to do is wrong for you.
Vocations 329 Nan: It isn’t so much that people can’t do anything, as that they try to do the wrong things…. Jewett, A Country Doctor.
Volcano
Impressions of a spouting volcano.
Volcano 369 To our left, a hundred yards away, was a river of fire into which the crater was vomiting. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
Volcano 369 [The lava] moved rapidly down the steep slope, enormous red boulders swimming in what resembled liquid fire. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
Voltaire
Tribute to Voltaire: He prepared us for freedom.
Voltaire 252 Tribute to Voltaire: On the funeral car were the words: …he prepared us for freedom. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
Vulgarity
The essence of vulgarity is greed.
Vulgarity 1071 What is vulgar, and the essence of all vulgarity, but the avarice of reward? Source Unknown.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment