The Tragedy of Errors

"They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance."

Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

Moneymoneymoney

"It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy."

George H. Lorimer, editor (1868-1937)

Q & A

"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions."

Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian writer, Nobel laureate (1911-2006)

Fragment #33

“Have you been in bed with a woman before?”
“What a silly question is this?”
“By woman I mean one whom you have cherished,
One you have considered dying for.
If stolen from you,
you'd pursue the villain to the end of the earth,
to the end of time,
only to catch a glimpse of her faded beauty.
A woman so beautiful
she haunts your living dreams
and fraughts your sight with visions of her.”
My heart pinched. I had, once. It seemed centuries ago.
He asked what had happened.
“She walked away, one day.
She told me she needed space and time.
I'm toxic, apparently. What about you?”

Fragment #20

Trois traînées d'avion comme de longs voiles
de mariées sinuant entre les étoiles –
le bleu est si fin qu'on le croit insubstantiel –
ces trois grandes lames radiales –
un grand coup de griffes dans le ciel.

Step down to step up

 

"There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher."

Henry van Dyke, poet (1852-1933)

 

Redoubtable

"Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue."

Robert King Merton, sociologist (1910-2003)

Fragment #4

Je n'étais pas là, ce n'était pas moi. J'étais hors de moi comme quand on combat on est hors de soi. On ne réfléchit plus, on hurle, on se jette sur un pauvre type et on lui plante un couteau dans le ventre, on regarde son sang et on ne voit rien. Ce n'est pas du sang, ce ne sont pas des entrailles, ni même un homme en train de mourir. Ce n'est que de la boue. De la boue. Je n'étais plus moi et c'était comme si on me volait mes souvenirs à l'instant même où ils naissaient.

Deliver us from evil

"We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us."

Robert Hayden, poet and educator (1913-1980)

Live by the quote

"Bienveillant pour l'humanité en général, et terrible pour chaque individu."

"Benevolent towards humanity in general, and severe to each individual."


"Il faut aimer la nature et les hommes malgré la boue."

"One must love nature and man in spite of the mud."


Jules Renard, écrivain / writer (1864-1910)