Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, smashing things up is sometimes very pleasant.
Month: October 2008
Jack Prelutsky
The Diatonic Dittymunch
The Diatonic Dittymunch plucked music from the air,
He swallowed scores of symphonies and still had space to spare.
Sonatas and cantatas slithered sweetly down his throat;
He made ballads into salads and consumed them note by note.
He ate marches and mazurkas, he ate rhapsodies and reels,
Minuets and tarantellas were the staples of his meals.
But the Diatonic Dittymunch outdid himself one day:
He ate a three-act opera —
And LOUDLY passed away.
I Ching
Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos. Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish in the crowd.
Dylan Thomas
I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, downthrow and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression.
Henry David Thoreau
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.
Walt Whitman
The Dalliance of the Eagles
Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling
Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.
Hilaire Belloc
How did the party go in Portman Square?
I cannot tell you; Juliet was not there.
And how did Lady Gaster’s party go?
Juliet was next me and I do not know.
Theodore Roosevelt
The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
Judah Benjamin
Response when asked how he was able to maintain his substantial income.
First, I charge a retainer; then I charge a reminder; next I charge a refresher; and then I charge a finisher.
Carl Sandburg
The old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
Sara Teasdale
Wild Asters
In the spring I asked the daisies
If his words were true,
And the clever, clear-eyed daisies
Always knew.
Now the fields are brown and barren,
Bitter autumn blows,
And of all the stupid asters
Not one knows.
Charles Kettering
An inventor is an engineer who doesn’t take his education too seriously.
Dorothy Parker
One Perfect Rose
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet –
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
‘My fragile leaves,’ it said, ‘his heart enclose.’
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
John Donne
Thou art so true that thoughts of you suffice
To make dreams truths and fables histories
Sir Josiah Stamp
Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits.
Sir Josiah Stamp was President of the Bank of England and the 2nd richest man in Britain
Geoffrey Madan
Never refuse a thing till you have the refusal of it.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Heaven’s Haven
A nun takes the veil
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.
Scottish saying
Bad mistakes provide a man wi’ quick experience.
Louis XIV
Every time I fill a vacant position I make ten malcontents and one ingrate.
W H Auden
Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.
Herman Melville
A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.
Walter de la Mare
Autumn
There is wind where the rose was,
Cold rain where sweet grass was,
And clouds like sheep
Stream o’er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.
Nought warm where your hand was,
Nought gold where your hair was,
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was.
Cold wind where your voice was,
Tears, tears where my heart was,
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.
Desiderius Erasmus
Your library is your paradise.
Walter Bagehot
And though the Bank of England certainly do make great advances in time of panic, yet as they do not do so on any distinct principle, they naturally do it hesitatingly, reluctantly, and with misgiving…. ….In fact, to make large advances in this faltering way is to incur the evil of making them without obtaining the advantage. What is wanted and what is necessary to stop a panic is to diffuse the impression, that though money may be dear, still money is to be had. If people could be really convinced that they could have money if they wait a day or two, and that utter ruin is not coming, most likely they would cease to run in such a mad way for money. Either shut the Bank at once, and say it will not lend more than it commonly lends, or lend freely, boldly, and so that the public may feel you mean to go on lending. To lend a great deal, and yet not give the public confidence that you will lend sufficiently and effectually, is the worst of all policies.