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.
Gentleman
Gentleman 33 Emma: Compare [Mr. Martin, a farmer’s son] with their [Mr. Knightley and Mr. Weston, gentlemen] manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent...the older a person grows...the more important it is that their manners should not be bad--the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or awkwardness becomes. Austen, Emma34 Emma on Mr. Elton, a clergyman, therefore, gentleman: Mr. Elton is good humored, cheerful, obliging, and gentle. Austen, Emma157 But the merit of the curricle did not all belong to the horses; Henry drove so well—so quietly—without making any disturbance, without parading to her, or swearing at them…and then his hat sat so well, and the innumerable capes of his great coat looked so becomingly important…to be driven by him, next to being dancing with him, was certainly the greatest happiness in the world. Austen, Northanger Abbey. 111 Castiglione’s The Courtier: ..ideal of a gentleman...must not hurt people’s feelings or make them feel inferior by showing off…must be easy and natural.... Clark, Civilization. 231 Gentleman: …a graceful unconcern and gentleman-like ease. Steele, 5/26/1711. The Spectator. 235 Gentleman: A man whose fortune is plentiful, shows an ease in his countenance, and confidence in his behavior which he that is under wants and difficulties cannot assume. Addison, 5/26/1711. [RFS comment: In short, a gentleman is “cool.”] The Spectator. [Definitions of a gentleman.]
Gentleman 33 Emma on Mr. Martin, a farmer’s son: Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt; what will he be at Mr. Weston’s time of life?...a completely gross, vulgar farmer--totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of nothing but profit and loss. Austen, Emma. 149 Mr. Knightley: No, Emma, your amiable young man [Frank Churchill] can be amiable only in French, not in English....He may be very ‘amiable,’ have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people....I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal; that he is well grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners. Austen, Emma. 397 Emma on Frank Churchill after learning that he has been engaged to Miss Jane Fairfax since before coming to Highbury: None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life. Austen, Emma [Definitions of a non-gentleman.]
Gentleman 203 Mr. Frank Churchill on people who are reserved: It is a most repulsive quality...often times very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing....there is safety in reserve, but no attraction....one cannot love a reserved person. Austen, Emma [Someone who is shy and quiet can not be a gentleman]
Gentleman 206 ...liberal allowances were made for the little excesses of such a handsome young man--one who smiled so often and bowed so well. Austen, Emma [Allowances are made for the excesses of handsome men.]
Gentleman 446 Mr. Knightley: My Emma, does not everything serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each other? Austen, Emma [We must honor truth and be sincere in our dealings with others.]
Gentleman 258 …Lydgate was always listened to, bore himself with the careless politeness of conscious superiority, and seemed to have the right clothes on by a certain natural affinity without ever having to think about them. George Eliot, Middlemarch. [He dressed perfectly but appeared to have given no thought to it.]
Gentlewoman 265 …stifling oppression of that gentlewoman’s world, where everything was done for her and none asked for her aid…. George Eliot, Middlemarch. [The gentlewoman’s oppressed world where everything was done for her and she was never asked for assistance.]
George Eliot
George Eliot 322 Middlemarch is a huge, intricate representation of an entire provincial society set in the recent past.... Bloom, Western Canon.
German Dictatorship
German Dictatorship 289 Total rule demands keeping the public under the constant pressure of major events and successes, distracting them from domestic coercion by holding out hope for external expansion, compensating for the loss of freedom by the constant acceleration of the sense of revolution and mission. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Totalitarian rule means keeping the public’s focus on events, successes, hope and sense of mission.]
German Dictatorship 311 Hitler: “We must always ask so much that we cannot be satisfied.” Bracher, The German Dictatorship
German Dictatorship 342 The oppressed became oppressors, the subjugated became the master race which, though unable and not allowed to govern itself, could govern others. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [In Germany, the oppressed became the oppressors.]
German Dictatorship 422 Himmler: “Whether 10,000 Russian women keel over from exhaustion in the construction of an anti-tank ditch interests me only insofar as the ditch for Germany gets finished.” Bracher, The German Dictatorship [I don’t care how many people die completing the project, I am only interested in seeing that the project is completed.]
German Dictatorship 424 On July 16, 1941, Hitler gave as a reason for the mass executions the pacification of the “vast terrain”: “This can best be done by shooting dead anyone who even looks askance.” Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Euphemism for executions: “pacification.”]
German Dictatorship democracy 299 ...the alleged superiority of the dictatorships over the democracies, with their waning prestige and internal conflicts.... Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Dictatorships are superior to democracies because of the latter’s internal conflicts.]
German Dictatorship democracy 501 The German dictatorship has failed, but German democracy has not yet been secured. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [The German dictatorship has failed, but democracy is not yet secure.]
German Dictatorship individual religion 9 …modern dictatorship…calls for the extinction of the individual…forced him into mass organizations and commits him to a political creed which becomes a ‘political religion,’ a binding religious surrogate. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Modern dictatorship calls for the extinction of the individual.]
Germany 498 The Germans--the “northern barbarians,” Santayana calls them--had never really accepted Roman Christianity...non-Christian ethics of valor and honor, a non-Christian fund of superstition, legend and sentiment...Gothic cathedrals were barbaric, not Roman. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Santayana. [The Germans never accepted Roman Christianity.]
Monday, May 21, 2007
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 19, 2007. Genius.
Note: A bold-face statement at the conclusion of a quote is my attempt to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English.
Genius
Genius 106 …for genius is an apex, to which a family builds itself through talent, and through talent in the genius's offspring subsides again towards the mediocrity of man. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Families build toward an apex of genius and then subsides again into mediocrity.] [The theme of Thornton Wilder’s The Eighth Day.]
Genius 297 Hegel: The genius merely places another stone on the pile, as others have done. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel. [The genius adds another stone to the pile built up by other geniuses.]
Genius 297 Hegel: Such individuals had no consciousness of the general idea they were unfolding…but they had an insight into the requirements of the time—what was ripe for development…the very truth for their age, for their world. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel. [Geniuses recognize when the time is ripe for certain ideas to flourish.]
Genius 334 Schopenhauer : Genius is the power of leaving one’s own interests, wishes and aims entirely out of sight, of entirely renouncing one’s own personality for a time, so as to remain pure knowing subject, clear vision of the world…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer. [The real genius is able to forget about himself.]
Genius 18 Genius is the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing. [Genius is the ability to effect what you are thinking.]
Genius 236 Johnson: …a man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [Men of genius are ruined only by themselves.]
Genius 1166 It is true, though somewhat sad, that every fine genius teaches us how to blame himself: Being so much, we cannot forgive him for not being more. Emerson, Uncollected Prose. [Every genius is blamed for not doing more.]
Genius 635 Great geniuses have the shortest biographies…lived in their writings and so their house and street life was trivial and commonplace. Emerson, Representative Men: Plato, or The Philosopher. [Geniuses subordinate living to their work.]
Genius 691 The genius…beholds the design…. Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne, or The Skeptic. [Geniuses see patterns.]
Genius 710 The greatest genius is the most indebted man. Emerson, Representative Men: Shakespeare, or the Poet. [Geniuses borrow from others.]
Genius 761 The secret of genius is…to realize all that we know. Emerson, Representative Men, Goethe, or the Writer. [Geniuses realize what they know.]
Genius 58 Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence. Emerson, The American Scholar. [Geniuses are the enemies of genius because they try to influence other geniuses.]
Genius 259 To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius. Emerson, Self-Reliance. [The genius believes that what he knows others also know but don’t realize it.]
Genius 492 …and the true romance which the world exists to realize, will be the transformation of genius into practical power. Emerson, Experience. [Real romance is the transformation of what the genius knows into practical power.]
Genius 496 There are geniuses in trade, as well as in war, or the state, or letters; and the reason why this or that man is fortunate, is not to be told: it lies in the man—that is all anybody can tell you about it. Emerson, Character. [People cannot tell you, and neither can the genius, why the genius is a genius.]
Genius 82 Genius, he [Ladislaw] held, is necessarily intolerant of fetters: on the one hand it must have the utmost play for its spontaneity; on the other, it may confidently await those messages from the universe which summon it to its peculiar work, only placing itself in an attitude of receptivity towards all sublime chances. George Eliot, Middlemarch. [Genius must be unfettered, needing spontaneity and receptivity.]
Genius and madness 335 Dr. Beatrice Hinkle: Genius and madness have from time immemorial been associated, and the lives of the creative artists and geniuses in all fields do reveal an overwhelming preponderance of erratic conduct, emotional stress, and irrational reactions, coupled with definite psychic disturbances manifested in conflict, struggle and mental disorder. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book. [Genius and madness have always been associated.]
Genius
Genius 106 …for genius is an apex, to which a family builds itself through talent, and through talent in the genius's offspring subsides again towards the mediocrity of man. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Families build toward an apex of genius and then subsides again into mediocrity.] [The theme of Thornton Wilder’s The Eighth Day.]
Genius 297 Hegel: The genius merely places another stone on the pile, as others have done. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel. [The genius adds another stone to the pile built up by other geniuses.]
Genius 297 Hegel: Such individuals had no consciousness of the general idea they were unfolding…but they had an insight into the requirements of the time—what was ripe for development…the very truth for their age, for their world. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel. [Geniuses recognize when the time is ripe for certain ideas to flourish.]
Genius 334 Schopenhauer : Genius is the power of leaving one’s own interests, wishes and aims entirely out of sight, of entirely renouncing one’s own personality for a time, so as to remain pure knowing subject, clear vision of the world…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer. [The real genius is able to forget about himself.]
Genius 18 Genius is the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing. [Genius is the ability to effect what you are thinking.]
Genius 236 Johnson: …a man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [Men of genius are ruined only by themselves.]
Genius 1166 It is true, though somewhat sad, that every fine genius teaches us how to blame himself: Being so much, we cannot forgive him for not being more. Emerson, Uncollected Prose. [Every genius is blamed for not doing more.]
Genius 635 Great geniuses have the shortest biographies…lived in their writings and so their house and street life was trivial and commonplace. Emerson, Representative Men: Plato, or The Philosopher. [Geniuses subordinate living to their work.]
Genius 691 The genius…beholds the design…. Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne, or The Skeptic. [Geniuses see patterns.]
Genius 710 The greatest genius is the most indebted man. Emerson, Representative Men: Shakespeare, or the Poet. [Geniuses borrow from others.]
Genius 761 The secret of genius is…to realize all that we know. Emerson, Representative Men, Goethe, or the Writer. [Geniuses realize what they know.]
Genius 58 Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence. Emerson, The American Scholar. [Geniuses are the enemies of genius because they try to influence other geniuses.]
Genius 259 To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius. Emerson, Self-Reliance. [The genius believes that what he knows others also know but don’t realize it.]
Genius 492 …and the true romance which the world exists to realize, will be the transformation of genius into practical power. Emerson, Experience. [Real romance is the transformation of what the genius knows into practical power.]
Genius 496 There are geniuses in trade, as well as in war, or the state, or letters; and the reason why this or that man is fortunate, is not to be told: it lies in the man—that is all anybody can tell you about it. Emerson, Character. [People cannot tell you, and neither can the genius, why the genius is a genius.]
Genius 82 Genius, he [Ladislaw] held, is necessarily intolerant of fetters: on the one hand it must have the utmost play for its spontaneity; on the other, it may confidently await those messages from the universe which summon it to its peculiar work, only placing itself in an attitude of receptivity towards all sublime chances. George Eliot, Middlemarch. [Genius must be unfettered, needing spontaneity and receptivity.]
Genius and madness 335 Dr. Beatrice Hinkle: Genius and madness have from time immemorial been associated, and the lives of the creative artists and geniuses in all fields do reveal an overwhelming preponderance of erratic conduct, emotional stress, and irrational reactions, coupled with definite psychic disturbances manifested in conflict, struggle and mental disorder. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book. [Genius and madness have always been associated.]
Thursday, May 17, 2007
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.]
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.]
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 15, 2007. Freud. Friendship.
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.
Freud
Freud 437 [Freud] was called…filthy-minded, prurient, a sexual maniac, a dealer in salaciousness and pornography, a defiler of the spiritual qualities of man, indecent, shameless, lecherous, bestial, a disgrace to his profession, and ultimately the anti-Christ. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [The epithets that Freud endured.]
Freud 573 Before Freud began to explore the unconscious we lived in a dark cave as far as understanding human motivation or character was concerned. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Before Freud explored the unconscious, we could not understand human motivation or character.]
Freud 754 Freud…guilty, in Hebbel’s words, of having “disturbed the sleep of the world.” Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Freud “disturbed the sleep of the world.”]
Freud 820 …as Nietzsche said of Schopenhauer, a thinker and investigator who knew how to stand alone and then drew many to him and with him…. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Freud knew how to stand alone and therefore drew many to him and with him.]
Freud 820 …made even his opponents indebted to him through the creative stimulus they derived from him. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Freud made even his opponents creative.]
Friendship
Friends and enemies 124 Bacon goes on to quote Bias, one of the Seven Wise Men of ancient Greece: “Love your friend as if he were to become your enemy, and your enemy as if he were to become your friend.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Treat your friend as if he could become an enemy and your enemy as if he could become your friend.]
Friendship 341 Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. Emerson, Friendship. [We grow increasingly intellectually active when we are with friends.]
Friendship 42 Chorus: It is a strange form of anger, difficult to cure/ When two friends turn upon each other in hatred. Euripides, Medea. [When two friends turn to hate each other, it is difficult to cure.]
Friendship 108 Theseus: Alas! There should have been for men some certain signs to mark their true friends, some way of reading in their minds which one is true and which one not a friend at all. Euripides, Hippolytus. [We wish there were some way to tell who are our true and false friends.]
Friendship 78 "He who has many friends has no friend." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
Friendship 78 …friendship requires equality; for gratitude gives it at best a slippery basis. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Friendship requires equality; gratitude is a weak basis for friendship.]
Friendship 78 "Benefactors are commonly held to have more friendship for the objects of their kindness than these for him." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Benefactors are friendly toward those they benefit; those who benefit are less friendly toward their benefactors.]
Friendship 79 Aristotle's ideal man: …is of a disposition to do men service, though he is ashamed to have a service done to him. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Aristotle’s ideal man does things for others but wants no one to do anything for him.]
Friendship 79 To confer a kindness is a mark of superiority; to receive one is a mark of subordination. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [The benefactor is the superior; the receiver sees himself as subordinate.]
Friendship 116 F. Bacon: A Friend is an ear. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [A friend listens to you.]
Friendship 369 Johnson: Why, there’s Baretti, who is to be tried for his life tomorrow, friends have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [Though many friends support him, if he be executed, none of them will eat the less.]
Friendship 1174 And, must a selfish care for the spotlessness of our own garments keep us from pressing the guilty ones close to our hearts…. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun. [Will pride in our innocence cause us not to embrace the guilty?]
Freud
Freud 437 [Freud] was called…filthy-minded, prurient, a sexual maniac, a dealer in salaciousness and pornography, a defiler of the spiritual qualities of man, indecent, shameless, lecherous, bestial, a disgrace to his profession, and ultimately the anti-Christ. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [The epithets that Freud endured.]
Freud 573 Before Freud began to explore the unconscious we lived in a dark cave as far as understanding human motivation or character was concerned. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Before Freud explored the unconscious, we could not understand human motivation or character.]
Freud 754 Freud…guilty, in Hebbel’s words, of having “disturbed the sleep of the world.” Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Freud “disturbed the sleep of the world.”]
Freud 820 …as Nietzsche said of Schopenhauer, a thinker and investigator who knew how to stand alone and then drew many to him and with him…. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Freud knew how to stand alone and therefore drew many to him and with him.]
Freud 820 …made even his opponents indebted to him through the creative stimulus they derived from him. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Freud made even his opponents creative.]
Friendship
Friends and enemies 124 Bacon goes on to quote Bias, one of the Seven Wise Men of ancient Greece: “Love your friend as if he were to become your enemy, and your enemy as if he were to become your friend.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Treat your friend as if he could become an enemy and your enemy as if he could become your friend.]
Friendship 341 Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. Emerson, Friendship. [We grow increasingly intellectually active when we are with friends.]
Friendship 42 Chorus: It is a strange form of anger, difficult to cure/ When two friends turn upon each other in hatred. Euripides, Medea. [When two friends turn to hate each other, it is difficult to cure.]
Friendship 108 Theseus: Alas! There should have been for men some certain signs to mark their true friends, some way of reading in their minds which one is true and which one not a friend at all. Euripides, Hippolytus. [We wish there were some way to tell who are our true and false friends.]
Friendship 78 "He who has many friends has no friend." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
Friendship 78 …friendship requires equality; for gratitude gives it at best a slippery basis. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Friendship requires equality; gratitude is a weak basis for friendship.]
Friendship 78 "Benefactors are commonly held to have more friendship for the objects of their kindness than these for him." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Benefactors are friendly toward those they benefit; those who benefit are less friendly toward their benefactors.]
Friendship 79 Aristotle's ideal man: …is of a disposition to do men service, though he is ashamed to have a service done to him. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Aristotle’s ideal man does things for others but wants no one to do anything for him.]
Friendship 79 To confer a kindness is a mark of superiority; to receive one is a mark of subordination. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [The benefactor is the superior; the receiver sees himself as subordinate.]
Friendship 116 F. Bacon: A Friend is an ear. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [A friend listens to you.]
Friendship 369 Johnson: Why, there’s Baretti, who is to be tried for his life tomorrow, friends have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [Though many friends support him, if he be executed, none of them will eat the less.]
Friendship 1174 And, must a selfish care for the spotlessness of our own garments keep us from pressing the guilty ones close to our hearts…. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun. [Will pride in our innocence cause us not to embrace the guilty?]
Monday, May 14, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 14, 2007. Free Will. Freedom.
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.
Free Will
Free will 179 Spinoza compares the feeling of free will to a stone's thinking, as it travels through space, that it determines its own trajectory and selects the place and time of its fall. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Feeling that one has free will is like a stone’s thinking it controls its flight and its place of landing.]
Free will 322 Schopenhauer : Everyone believes himself…to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and he thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life…but…through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity; that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the very beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer. [People think they are free to change, but they soon realize they cannot change their character.]
Free will 452 Bergson: Free will is a corollary of consciousness; to say that we are free is merely to mean that we know what we are doing. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bergson. [A sense of free will means that we are conscious of what we are doing.]
Free will 525 Dewey: Freedom of the will...is the illumination of conduct by knowledge. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, John Dewey. [Free will means that we know what we are doing.]
Free will 376 Boswell on predestination and free will: …but if a thing be certainly foreseen [by God], it must be fixed, and cannot happen otherwise; and if we apply this consideration to the human mind, there is no free will, nor do I see how prayer can be of any avail. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [Predestination means that God sees all and therefore everything is fixed.]
Freedom
Freedom 177 Freedom strictly limited by self-control--that was the idea of Athens at her greatest. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way. [Freedom requires self-control.]
Freedom 495 The German experience has shown that the idea of internal freedom can be throttled by the striving for national unity and a nationalistic foreign policy. Bracher, The German Dictatorship. [Freedom can be destroyed by striving for national unity.]
Freedom 149 ...the freedom the masses crave is not freedom of self-expression and self-realization, but freedom from the intolerable burden of an autonomous existence. Hoffer, The True Believer [People crave freedom from an autonomous, independent existence.]
Freedom 149 They [the masses] want freedom from “the fearful burden of free choice....” Dostoevsky. Hoffer, The True Believer [People want freedom from the burden of free choice.]
Freedom 710 JFK: “We possess weapons of tremendous power…but they are least effective in combating the weapons most often used by freedom’s foes: subversion, infiltration, guerrilla warfare, civil disorder.” Sorenson, Kennedy [We can’t use our weapons of mass destruction against freedom’s foes who use subversion, infiltration, guerrilla warfare and civil disorder.]
Freedom 581 Isn’t that the broadest road to freedom, the release from the fears and tyrannies imposed upon us before we were capable of judgment? Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [We need to be free from the fears and tyrannies imposed on us when we are young.]
Freedom 29 When you choose an elder, you renounce your own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self-abnegation…this terrible school of abnegation is undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self-conquest, of self-mastery, in order after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, that is, from self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without finding their true selves in themselves. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [You renounce free will, give complete submission to others in order to escape from self, from having to find your true self.]
Freedom 232 And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the terrible gift [freedom] that had brought them such suffering, was, at last, lifted from their hearts. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, free from the suffering that freedom had brought them.]
Freedom 234 Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their freedom to us and submit to us. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [We will persuade them that they can only be free when they renounce their freedom and submit.]
Freedom 234 Freedom, free thought and science will lead them into such straits and will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy themselves, others, rebellious but weak will destroy one another, while the rest, weak and unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet and whine to us: ‘Yes, you were right, you alone possess His Mystery, and we come back to you, save us from ourselves.’ Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Freedom leads people to destroy themselves, to destroy others and eventually crawl to submit in order to save them from themselves. ]
Freedom 284 Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Freedom is interpreted as multiplying and satisfying desires.]
Freedom 245 Voltaire: To be free is to be subject to nothing but the laws. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [Freedom is to be subject to nothing but laws.]
Freedom 277 Kant: In a way which we feel but cannot prove, each of us is free. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant. [We feel that we are free, but can’t prove it.]
Freedom 933 …by this sacredness of individuals, they [the English] have in seven hundred years evolved the principles of freedom. Emerson, English Traits. [By making the individual sacred, the English have evolved the principles of freedom.]
Freedom 522 Never let it be forgotten that Hitler exploited the freedom granted him by the Weimar constitution to destroy the republic. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg. [Hitler exploited the freedoms granted by the constitution in order to destroy the republic.]
Freedom 41 Deny them [the Colonies] this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Edmund Burke, Speech on Conciliation with America, 1775. Hofstadter, ed. Great Issues in American History. Vol. 1. Independence. [Deny the [American] Colonies freedom and you will destroy the bond that unites the Empire.]
Freedom of speech 8 The amazing thing is that plays attacking the war policy when the state was at war could be given under state auspices and that Cleon could be most virulently attacked for bad morals and manners when he was himself in the audience. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes. [The Ancient Greeks had the freedom to criticize public policy in plays that were sponsored by the state and leaders even when the latter were in the audience.]
Freedom of Speech 13 If we are astonished at the temerity of a poet who could say a word for the enemy and many words for pacifism amid the passions of war, we must be amazed at a democracy which permitted and sponsored such a play in time of war, and gave it first prize. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes. The Acharnians. [The playwrights of Ancient Greece could say a good word about the enemy and pacifism in a time of war in a play sponsored by the government and given first prize by the government.]
Freedom responsibility 180 Man is free and therefore responsible. Pope John Paul II, Threshold [Freedom requires responsibility.]
Freedom, liberty 298 Hegel: …order is the first requisite of liberty. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel. [Freedom requires order.]
Freedom, personality 483 Russell: Freedom is the supreme good; for without it personality is impossible. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell. [Without freedom, personality is impossible.]
Free Will
Free will 179 Spinoza compares the feeling of free will to a stone's thinking, as it travels through space, that it determines its own trajectory and selects the place and time of its fall. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Feeling that one has free will is like a stone’s thinking it controls its flight and its place of landing.]
Free will 322 Schopenhauer : Everyone believes himself…to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and he thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life…but…through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity; that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the very beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer. [People think they are free to change, but they soon realize they cannot change their character.]
Free will 452 Bergson: Free will is a corollary of consciousness; to say that we are free is merely to mean that we know what we are doing. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bergson. [A sense of free will means that we are conscious of what we are doing.]
Free will 525 Dewey: Freedom of the will...is the illumination of conduct by knowledge. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, John Dewey. [Free will means that we know what we are doing.]
Free will 376 Boswell on predestination and free will: …but if a thing be certainly foreseen [by God], it must be fixed, and cannot happen otherwise; and if we apply this consideration to the human mind, there is no free will, nor do I see how prayer can be of any avail. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [Predestination means that God sees all and therefore everything is fixed.]
Freedom
Freedom 177 Freedom strictly limited by self-control--that was the idea of Athens at her greatest. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way. [Freedom requires self-control.]
Freedom 495 The German experience has shown that the idea of internal freedom can be throttled by the striving for national unity and a nationalistic foreign policy. Bracher, The German Dictatorship. [Freedom can be destroyed by striving for national unity.]
Freedom 149 ...the freedom the masses crave is not freedom of self-expression and self-realization, but freedom from the intolerable burden of an autonomous existence. Hoffer, The True Believer [People crave freedom from an autonomous, independent existence.]
Freedom 149 They [the masses] want freedom from “the fearful burden of free choice....” Dostoevsky. Hoffer, The True Believer [People want freedom from the burden of free choice.]
Freedom 710 JFK: “We possess weapons of tremendous power…but they are least effective in combating the weapons most often used by freedom’s foes: subversion, infiltration, guerrilla warfare, civil disorder.” Sorenson, Kennedy [We can’t use our weapons of mass destruction against freedom’s foes who use subversion, infiltration, guerrilla warfare and civil disorder.]
Freedom 581 Isn’t that the broadest road to freedom, the release from the fears and tyrannies imposed upon us before we were capable of judgment? Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [We need to be free from the fears and tyrannies imposed on us when we are young.]
Freedom 29 When you choose an elder, you renounce your own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self-abnegation…this terrible school of abnegation is undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self-conquest, of self-mastery, in order after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, that is, from self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without finding their true selves in themselves. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [You renounce free will, give complete submission to others in order to escape from self, from having to find your true self.]
Freedom 232 And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the terrible gift [freedom] that had brought them such suffering, was, at last, lifted from their hearts. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, free from the suffering that freedom had brought them.]
Freedom 234 Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their freedom to us and submit to us. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [We will persuade them that they can only be free when they renounce their freedom and submit.]
Freedom 234 Freedom, free thought and science will lead them into such straits and will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy themselves, others, rebellious but weak will destroy one another, while the rest, weak and unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet and whine to us: ‘Yes, you were right, you alone possess His Mystery, and we come back to you, save us from ourselves.’ Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Freedom leads people to destroy themselves, to destroy others and eventually crawl to submit in order to save them from themselves. ]
Freedom 284 Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Freedom is interpreted as multiplying and satisfying desires.]
Freedom 245 Voltaire: To be free is to be subject to nothing but the laws. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [Freedom is to be subject to nothing but laws.]
Freedom 277 Kant: In a way which we feel but cannot prove, each of us is free. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant. [We feel that we are free, but can’t prove it.]
Freedom 933 …by this sacredness of individuals, they [the English] have in seven hundred years evolved the principles of freedom. Emerson, English Traits. [By making the individual sacred, the English have evolved the principles of freedom.]
Freedom 522 Never let it be forgotten that Hitler exploited the freedom granted him by the Weimar constitution to destroy the republic. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg. [Hitler exploited the freedoms granted by the constitution in order to destroy the republic.]
Freedom 41 Deny them [the Colonies] this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Edmund Burke, Speech on Conciliation with America, 1775. Hofstadter, ed. Great Issues in American History. Vol. 1. Independence. [Deny the [American] Colonies freedom and you will destroy the bond that unites the Empire.]
Freedom of speech 8 The amazing thing is that plays attacking the war policy when the state was at war could be given under state auspices and that Cleon could be most virulently attacked for bad morals and manners when he was himself in the audience. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes. [The Ancient Greeks had the freedom to criticize public policy in plays that were sponsored by the state and leaders even when the latter were in the audience.]
Freedom of Speech 13 If we are astonished at the temerity of a poet who could say a word for the enemy and many words for pacifism amid the passions of war, we must be amazed at a democracy which permitted and sponsored such a play in time of war, and gave it first prize. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes. The Acharnians. [The playwrights of Ancient Greece could say a good word about the enemy and pacifism in a time of war in a play sponsored by the government and given first prize by the government.]
Freedom responsibility 180 Man is free and therefore responsible. Pope John Paul II, Threshold [Freedom requires responsibility.]
Freedom, liberty 298 Hegel: …order is the first requisite of liberty. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel. [Freedom requires order.]
Freedom, personality 483 Russell: Freedom is the supreme good; for without it personality is impossible. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell. [Without freedom, personality is impossible.]
Friday, May 11, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 11, 2007. Fighting. Film. Fire. Food. Fool. Foreshadowing. Fortune. Francis Bacon. Free Speech.
Note: A bold-face statement at the conclusion of a quote is my attempt to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English.
Fighting
Fighting 222 There is one fairly good reason for fighting—and that is, if the other man starts it. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Fighting 623 Man had gone on, through age after age, avenging wrong with wrong, slaughter with slaughter. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Fighting 627 Everybody wants to fight…but nobody knows why. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Film
Film 125 Faulkner: ...because a moving picture is by its nature a collaboration, and any collaboration is compromise because that is what the word means--to give and to take. [Films are a collaborative activity.]
Films and novels 252 John Irving: Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Fire
Fire 525 [Fire as metaphor]: What but my hopes shot upward e’er so bright/What but my fortunes sunk so low in night? Thoreau, Walden. [Like a fire, my hopes shot up during the day, but my fortunes sunk low in the night.]
Food
Food 235 The Viennese will remain happy and carefree because they love so dearly to eat. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [The Viennese will be forever happy because they love to eat.]
Food 254 Sam Weller: "Wery good thing is weal pie, when you know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it an’t kittens." Dickens, Pickwick. [Veal pie is good if you know it was not made with kittens. ]
Fool
Fool 701 JFK: “If they [the Soviets’ testing of nuclear devices] fooled us once, it’s their fault; if they fool us twice, it’s our fault.” Sorenson, Kennedy [If they fool us once, it’s their fault; the second time, it’s our fault.]
Fool xvi It is related of the great Dr. Clarke, that when in one of his leisure hours he was unbending himself with a few friends in the most playful and frolicsome manner, he observed Beau Nash approaching; upon which he suddenly stopped: --“My boys (said he), let us be grave: here comes a fool.” Dedication to sir Joshua Reynolds. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [Gentlemen, let us stop laughing and be grave; here comes a fool.]
Fool 371 Johnson: Sir, he does not make fools of his company; they whom he exposes are fools already; he only brings them into action. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [He does not make the company fools; he is a fool already.]
Fool 597 Seneca: The life of a fool is without contentment, full of alarm, and wholly given to the future. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Fools 21 Only fools are cocksure. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing 835 [Mrs. Lincoln] quoted him as saying, “I never felt so happy in my life,” and a fear crossed her as she replied, “Don’t you remember feeling just so before our little boy died?” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. [Do not express your contentment because it foreshadows disaster.]
Fortune
Fortune 21 ...he [Kennedy] regarded his own good fortune as an obligation: “Of those to whom much is given, much is required.” Sorenson, Kennedy [Having good fortune increases your obligation.]
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon 142 Whenever the spirit of control has overcome the spirit of resignation, Bacon’s influence has been felt. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Bacon believed that control must replace a feeling of resignation.]
Free Speech
Free speech 27 Its [free speech's] exercise must inevitably benefit fools quite as much as sensible men…. Mencken, Minority Report. [Free speech benefits the fool as well as the sensible person.]
Fighting
Fighting 222 There is one fairly good reason for fighting—and that is, if the other man starts it. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Fighting 623 Man had gone on, through age after age, avenging wrong with wrong, slaughter with slaughter. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Fighting 627 Everybody wants to fight…but nobody knows why. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Film
Film 125 Faulkner: ...because a moving picture is by its nature a collaboration, and any collaboration is compromise because that is what the word means--to give and to take. [Films are a collaborative activity.]
Films and novels 252 John Irving: Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Fire
Fire 525 [Fire as metaphor]: What but my hopes shot upward e’er so bright/What but my fortunes sunk so low in night? Thoreau, Walden. [Like a fire, my hopes shot up during the day, but my fortunes sunk low in the night.]
Food
Food 235 The Viennese will remain happy and carefree because they love so dearly to eat. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [The Viennese will be forever happy because they love to eat.]
Food 254 Sam Weller: "Wery good thing is weal pie, when you know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it an’t kittens." Dickens, Pickwick. [Veal pie is good if you know it was not made with kittens. ]
Fool
Fool 701 JFK: “If they [the Soviets’ testing of nuclear devices] fooled us once, it’s their fault; if they fool us twice, it’s our fault.” Sorenson, Kennedy [If they fool us once, it’s their fault; the second time, it’s our fault.]
Fool xvi It is related of the great Dr. Clarke, that when in one of his leisure hours he was unbending himself with a few friends in the most playful and frolicsome manner, he observed Beau Nash approaching; upon which he suddenly stopped: --“My boys (said he), let us be grave: here comes a fool.” Dedication to sir Joshua Reynolds. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [Gentlemen, let us stop laughing and be grave; here comes a fool.]
Fool 371 Johnson: Sir, he does not make fools of his company; they whom he exposes are fools already; he only brings them into action. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [He does not make the company fools; he is a fool already.]
Fool 597 Seneca: The life of a fool is without contentment, full of alarm, and wholly given to the future. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Fools 21 Only fools are cocksure. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing 835 [Mrs. Lincoln] quoted him as saying, “I never felt so happy in my life,” and a fear crossed her as she replied, “Don’t you remember feeling just so before our little boy died?” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. [Do not express your contentment because it foreshadows disaster.]
Fortune
Fortune 21 ...he [Kennedy] regarded his own good fortune as an obligation: “Of those to whom much is given, much is required.” Sorenson, Kennedy [Having good fortune increases your obligation.]
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon 142 Whenever the spirit of control has overcome the spirit of resignation, Bacon’s influence has been felt. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Bacon believed that control must replace a feeling of resignation.]
Free Speech
Free speech 27 Its [free speech's] exercise must inevitably benefit fools quite as much as sensible men…. Mencken, Minority Report. [Free speech benefits the fool as well as the sensible person.]
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 10, 2007. Father, Fear, Feeling, Feminism, Fences, Fiction.
Note: A bold-face statement at the conclusion of a quote is my attempt to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English.
Father
Father 229 “Good-by, my father—good-by, all my fathers.” Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.
Father 487 …the father is the oldest, first, and for children the only authority, and from his autocratic power the other social authorities have developed in the course of the history of human civilization. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [The father is the first authority and all other institutions model themselves on that power.]
Father 659 …an affectionate father who allowed his children to grow up along the lines of their own natures. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [A good father who allows his children to develop their natural abilities.]
Father 720 Freud: …the killing of the father was the wish in the unconscious of every male child…. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Every male child has the unconscious desire to kill his father.]
Father 671 Yes, it’s a fearful thing to shed a father’s blood—the father who has begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over my illnesses from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness, and has lived in my joys, in my successes…to murder such a father is inconceivable. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [To murder a father after all he has done for you is inconceivable.]
Father 673 …the father is not merely who begets the child, but he who begets it and does his duty by it. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [A father is not one who merely begets, but who is also with you as you grow.]
Father 213 Priam: Think me more pitiful by far, since I/ have brought myself to do what no man else/ has done before—to lift to my lips the hand/ of one who killed my son. Homer, Iliad. [I am pitiful because I have made a deal with the man who killed my son.]
Fear
Fear 86 His stomach turned to stone. Childers, Wings of Morning.
Fear 228 [Fear of God]: …constructive, never destructive. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
Fear 14 The Wart found that, although he was frightened of the danger of the forest before it happened, once he was in it he was not frightened any more. T. H. White, The Once and Future King. [He was more afraid when anticipating danger than he felt when he was engaged with it.]
Fear 155 “It always kind of scares me these black nights,” said Mrs. Jake Dyer; “I expect something to clutch at me every minute, and I feel as if some sort of creatur’ was travelin’ right behind me when I am out doors in the dark.” Jewett, A Country Doctor. [When I’m out in the dark, I think somebody is following me.]
Fear 65 Fear always springs from ignorance. Emerson, The American Scholar.
Fear 576 He who fears he will suffer already suffers from his fear. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Fear 1255 …during these last three weeks of the march, he [Pierre] had learned still another new and comforting truth—that there is nothing in the world to be dreaded. Tolstoi, War and Peace [After these experiences, he knew there was nothing to be afraid of in the world.]
Feeling
Feeling 753 It is a matter which you do not see, but feel, and which, when you try to analyze it, seems to lose its very existence…. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance. [You can’t see it, but can only feel it; when you try to analyze it, it tends to disappear from existence.]
Feminism
Feminism 405 Emma Benn was a militant feminist who resented her subsidiary position in an all-male society; she was particularly incensed over the Germanic concept of kinder, kirche, kuche, children, church, kitchen, as being the only activities proper or permissible to women, to which the more flexible Austrian husbands had added a fourth k: kaffeeklatsch. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [She resented being a second class citizen in an all-male society, relegated to children, church, kitchen and kaffeeklatsch.]
Fences
Fences 105 Chesterton: Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
Fiction
Fiction 118 Among all types of paper documents, narrative fiction is one of the few that will not benefit from electronic organization ....novels are linear...isn’t a technological judgment...an artistic one...linearity is intrinsic to the storytelling process. Gates, The Road Ahead. [The storytelling process is linear.]
Fiction 286 Nabokov: For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere connected with other states of being.... Nabokov, Lolita. [The major benefit of fiction is feeling connected to something outside of me.]
Fiction 287 Nabokov: It is childish to study a work of fiction in order to gain information about a country or about a social class or about the author. Nabokov, Lolita. [You don’t read fiction for information. I respectfully disagree. You learn a lot about whaling from Moby Dick, etc. RayS.]
Fiction 25 John Hersey: [fiction] makes truth plausible. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.
Fiction vi Somerset Maugham: There are three rules for writing the novel: unfortunately, no one knows what they are. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Father
Father 229 “Good-by, my father—good-by, all my fathers.” Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.
Father 487 …the father is the oldest, first, and for children the only authority, and from his autocratic power the other social authorities have developed in the course of the history of human civilization. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [The father is the first authority and all other institutions model themselves on that power.]
Father 659 …an affectionate father who allowed his children to grow up along the lines of their own natures. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [A good father who allows his children to develop their natural abilities.]
Father 720 Freud: …the killing of the father was the wish in the unconscious of every male child…. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Every male child has the unconscious desire to kill his father.]
Father 671 Yes, it’s a fearful thing to shed a father’s blood—the father who has begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over my illnesses from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness, and has lived in my joys, in my successes…to murder such a father is inconceivable. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [To murder a father after all he has done for you is inconceivable.]
Father 673 …the father is not merely who begets the child, but he who begets it and does his duty by it. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [A father is not one who merely begets, but who is also with you as you grow.]
Father 213 Priam: Think me more pitiful by far, since I/ have brought myself to do what no man else/ has done before—to lift to my lips the hand/ of one who killed my son. Homer, Iliad. [I am pitiful because I have made a deal with the man who killed my son.]
Fear
Fear 86 His stomach turned to stone. Childers, Wings of Morning.
Fear 228 [Fear of God]: …constructive, never destructive. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
Fear 14 The Wart found that, although he was frightened of the danger of the forest before it happened, once he was in it he was not frightened any more. T. H. White, The Once and Future King. [He was more afraid when anticipating danger than he felt when he was engaged with it.]
Fear 155 “It always kind of scares me these black nights,” said Mrs. Jake Dyer; “I expect something to clutch at me every minute, and I feel as if some sort of creatur’ was travelin’ right behind me when I am out doors in the dark.” Jewett, A Country Doctor. [When I’m out in the dark, I think somebody is following me.]
Fear 65 Fear always springs from ignorance. Emerson, The American Scholar.
Fear 576 He who fears he will suffer already suffers from his fear. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Fear 1255 …during these last three weeks of the march, he [Pierre] had learned still another new and comforting truth—that there is nothing in the world to be dreaded. Tolstoi, War and Peace [After these experiences, he knew there was nothing to be afraid of in the world.]
Feeling
Feeling 753 It is a matter which you do not see, but feel, and which, when you try to analyze it, seems to lose its very existence…. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance. [You can’t see it, but can only feel it; when you try to analyze it, it tends to disappear from existence.]
Feminism
Feminism 405 Emma Benn was a militant feminist who resented her subsidiary position in an all-male society; she was particularly incensed over the Germanic concept of kinder, kirche, kuche, children, church, kitchen, as being the only activities proper or permissible to women, to which the more flexible Austrian husbands had added a fourth k: kaffeeklatsch. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [She resented being a second class citizen in an all-male society, relegated to children, church, kitchen and kaffeeklatsch.]
Fences
Fences 105 Chesterton: Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
Fiction
Fiction 118 Among all types of paper documents, narrative fiction is one of the few that will not benefit from electronic organization ....novels are linear...isn’t a technological judgment...an artistic one...linearity is intrinsic to the storytelling process. Gates, The Road Ahead. [The storytelling process is linear.]
Fiction 286 Nabokov: For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere connected with other states of being.... Nabokov, Lolita. [The major benefit of fiction is feeling connected to something outside of me.]
Fiction 287 Nabokov: It is childish to study a work of fiction in order to gain information about a country or about a social class or about the author. Nabokov, Lolita. [You don’t read fiction for information. I respectfully disagree. You learn a lot about whaling from Moby Dick, etc. RayS.]
Fiction 25 John Hersey: [fiction] makes truth plausible. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.
Fiction vi Somerset Maugham: There are three rules for writing the novel: unfortunately, no one knows what they are. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
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