“The lamp that burns by night dries up his oil to lend the world his light.” – William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
Category: Verandah
“I believe in God in spite of religion, not because of it.” – Nick Cave (interviewed by Jarvis Cocker, Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service)
“Real life opens before you only in the face of death, when you realize that at any moment you will be gone, only at this moment you understand what life is and how beautiful this world is.” – ZOV at Czmyt’s Pubs
“Saloon is a sanctuary. Every man worth the name knows the value of being unreachable.” – David Milch, Deadwood
“I have lived with several Zen masters – all of them cats.” – Eckhart Tolle
“Artificial Intelligence will never catch up to Natural Stupidity.” – Rooster Cogburn, Wonkette, April 26, 2024
“The unleavened bread of knowledge will sustain life, but it is dull fare unless it is leavened with the yeast of personality.” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
“You are not beaten until you admit it.” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
“When a man gets married, he must be just as careful to keep his wife’s love as he was to get it. It would be very sad for both of them if he said to himself, ‘Now that I have you I need not worry about losing you’. Don’t do that, ever!” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
“Follow your discomfort. And listen to it.” – Stephen Colbert, The Late Show
“Change is not an event. It’s a process. It takes time.” Justin King, “The Roads Not Taken, Ep. 29,” March 10, 2024
“Revenge is a dish best served with ice cream.” – Not a troll, Wonkette, February 27, 2024
“A cat sits until it is tired of sitting, then gets up, stretches, and walks away.” – Alan Watts
“There is cruelty and there is viciousness. Viciousness is the attack dog that hasn’t eaten in a week, and is drooling and barking and snarling. Cruelty is the person holding the leash.” – Amanda Long Chu, “I Want a Critic” (interview by Merve Emre)
“I never wanted to let my fear put my dreams to sleep.” – Stevie Wonder, Summer of Soul
“There is nothing lower than the poor stealing from the poor. It’s hard enough as it is. We sure as hell don’t need to make it even harder on each other.” – Bonnie Blanton (as quoted by J. D. Vance in Hillbilly Elegy)
“They often worked under pressure against time. During early periods of the war, many actions were taken without prior precedent in the War Department. One of the foremost requirements seemed to be, ‘get a sound, workable solution’ and apply the lessons learned in meeting subsequent problems of a like nature.” – Lt. Col. J. P. McKnight, U.S. Army (quoted in Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division, United States Army in World War Two)
“God gave you a penis and a brain, and only enough blood to run one at a time.” – Robin Williams, 2002
“The probability of finding a particle exactly at any particular point is zero.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. III
“Remember that the city is a funny place, something like a circus or a sewer. And different people, they’ve got peculiar tastes. And the glory of love just might see you through.” – Lou Reed, “Coney Island Baby”
“Even when I have it I don’t have it.” – Lou Reed, “Temporary Thing,” Take No Prisoners
“There is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to worry; a little goes a long way.” – Averil Dean, “Iceberg,” December 26, 2022
“I spoke on the phone with Elena, an employee at a zoo outside Kharkiv, an area subject to constant onslaught. She is the director of the zoo’s children’s theater, where children perform together with dogs, mice, and rats. Since the war started, employees have been trying to feed and evacuate the animals. But as soon as the Russian army sees any cars, bullets begin to fly. On March 7, Elena tried to reach the zoo one last time in order to bring food to the animals. On the phone she explained to me that many animals remain in their pens: ‘The deer were shot at. Some of them died. Others managed to escape through the ruined fence into the forest. When we arrived by bus, the shelling started. We ran out of the bus with the feed and made it to the pens. Some great apes had been shot. We ran through the damaged rooms trying to distribute as much of the feed as possible. Then we ran to the bus, but the driver was already dead. We tried to get another car to go back and transport his body to the city. Another colleague was fatally injured. Only one other person and I were able to escape. I can’t cry,’ she went on to say. ‘I can’t even believe what happened. I keep seeing the exhibit window where the monkeys were waiting for us. Many of them were standing there with babies pressed against their bodies. They were hoping for food, but we didn’t manage to feed them that day.’ Elena has stopped going to the zoo for the moment, but other staff members are trying to reach the pens so that the animals, the ones still alive, don’t die of hunger. I don’t want to write a ‘last’ sentence. Every day we encounter our choices.” – Yevgenia Belorusets, “Day 27, Tuesday March 22, The Houses That Disappeared,” War Diary (trans. Greg Nissan)
“Is it possible to condemn me, my city, the people of Mariupol, the people of Melitopol and of all those other cities to death? Is it possible to play this game of annihilation with us, in front of the whole world? I keep thinking about these questions. What happened to us all that this became possible? I think the answer will determine the future of a great many people.” – Yevgenia Belorusets, “Day 25, Sunday March 20, Drones over Kyiv,” War Diary (trans. Greg Nissan)
“Live for the sensation of life, not for the story you tell about your life. But never take anything, including that commandment, too seriously. That’s the great lesson from our feline friends. No animal is more spontaneously playful than cats. Which is why, if they could philosophize, it would be for fun.” – John Gray, quoted by Sean Illing in “Why Cats Rule”
“You have to remember—everything that occurs in war is horrible. Everything.” – Justin King, “Let’s talk about good guys and bad guys in Russia”
“All Indians grow up with drunks. So many drunks on the reservation, so many. But most Indians never drink. Nobody notices the sober Indians.” – Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues
“The Indian world is tiny, every other Indian dancing just a powwow away. Every Indian is a potential lover, friend, or relative dancing over the horizon, only a little beyond sight. Indians need each other that much; they need to be that close, tying themselves to each other and closing their eyes against the storms.” – Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues
“Pythagoras is said to have discovered the fact that two similar strings under the same tension and differing only in length, when sounded together give an effect that is pleasant to the ear if the lengths of the strings are in the ratio of two small integers. If the lengths are as one is to two, they then correspond to the octave in music. If the lengths are as two is to three, they correspond to the interval between C and G, which is called a fifth. These intervals are generally accepted as ‘pleasant’ sounding chords. Pythagoras was so impressed by this discovery that he made it the basis of a school—Pythagoreans they were called—which held mystic beliefs in the great powers of numbers. It was believed that something similar would be found out about the planets—or ‘spheres.’ We sometimes hear the expression: ‘the music of the spheres.’ The idea was that there would be some numerical relationships between the orbits of the planets or between other things in nature. People usually think that this is just a kind of superstition held by the Greeks. But is it so different from our own scientific interest in quantitative relationships? Pythagoras’ discovery was the first example, outside geometry, of any numerical relationship in nature. It must have been very surprising to suddenly discover that there was a fact of nature that involved a simple numerical relationship. Simple measurements of lengths gave a prediction about something which had no apparent connection to geometry—the production of pleasant sounds. This discovery led to the extension that perhaps a good tool for understanding nature would be arithmetic and mathematical analysis. The results of modern science justify that point of view. Pythagoras could only have made his discovery by making an experimental observation. Yet this important aspect does not seem to have impressed him. If it had, physics might have had a much earlier start. (It is always easy to look back at what someone else has done and to decide what he should have done!) We might remark on a third aspect of this very interesting discovery: that the discovery had to do with two notes that sound pleasant to the ear. We may question whether we are any better off than Pythagoras in understanding why only certain sounds are pleasant to our ear. The general theory of aesthetics is probably no further advanced now than in the time of Pythagoras. In this one discovery of the Greeks, there are the three aspects: experiment, mathematical relationships, and aesthetics. Physics has made great progress on only the first two parts.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I (emphases in the original)
“Not to marry a young Woman.
Not to be peevish or morose, or suspicious.
Not to tell the same story over and over to the same People.
Not to be covetous.
Not to be over severe with young People, but give Allowances for their youthfull follyes and weaknesses.
Not to be too free of advise, nor trouble any but those that desire it.
Not to talk much, nor of my self.
Not to boast of my former beauty, or strength, or favor with Ladyes, etc.
Not to hearken to Flatteryes, nor conceive I can be beloved by a young woman.
Not to be positive or opiniative.
Not to sett up for observing all these Rules; for fear I should observe none.
Desire some good Friends to inform me which of these Resolutions I break, or neglect, & wherein; and reform accordingly.” – Jonathan Swift, “Resolutions When I Come to Be Old”