“Passion makes the best observations and draws the most wretched conclusions.” – Richter
I believe the first part, but haven’t figured out why, or if, the second part is true. Explain it to me.
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“He who as the why to live can bear with almost any how.” – Frederich Nietzsche
That sounds simple enough, just find out why to live. However, what struck me as I uploaded this just now is that those people who have to struggle desperately with ‘how’ to live (poverty, war, concentration camps, illness) are the ones that usually find out the ‘why’. Sort of a chicken or the egg type thing I suppose.
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She makes no friends who never made a foe.” – Tennyson
Very simple, very true.
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“Knowledge without sense is double folly.” – Baltasar Gracian
What is the danger of knowledge without sense, anyway? Why is it double folly as opposed to just folly x 1?
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“Without Art, The Crudeness of Reality Would Make The World Unbearable” – George Bernard Shaw
If you think about the most basic definition of art then everywhere around you the world has been designed to look, feel, smell, and taste good. Why is that? Why paint our walls? Why stain concrete? Why not just have dirt in the back yard?
You could say that art is the matrix (see movie for matrix idea) that allows us to think we live in a beautiful world. The difference is that art really does transform our world, it isn’t an illusion as it was in the Matrix. How have you transformed your world through art this week, or year, or day or?
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“Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.” – Horace Mann
So, the key is to find that thread. Where does one find that?
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Our faults are more pardonable than our efforts to hide them.” – La Rochefoucauld
Hiding things makes so much sense, is so compellingly important to the addict, the secret bearer, the flawed one. But in the end the secret will find its way out. It may not show itself directly, but something wrong in the world will. Maybe it will be anger and frustration with family or friends that isn’t deserved and doesn’t make sense. Maybe it will be escapist behavior that threatens yourself and those around you, or it might be an out and out full exposure of the secret when you least expect it. But however the secret comes out, directly or not, holding onto it will affect your life for the worse, not the better in the long run.
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“Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.” – Alexander Pope
My daughter said in response to this: “hmmm, I don’t know about this one. I am wary of people who say that it’s better to get enjoyment out of ‘good’ or ‘intellectual’ things than regular fun things.” And I have to agree with her. but is there some truth in this quote nonetheless?
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“Cut off from the divine, leisure becomes laziness and work inhuman.” – Josef Pieper
I don’t think I agree with this anymore. At least I don’t understand how divinity
ennobles leisure and work exactly. Anyone care to give me their explanation, or do you
also disagree with it?
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“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what she thinks into it.” – Ernest Holmes
I can’t remember know why I drew a B looking in the mirror, maybe I drew an A doing
something the day before, heck if I know, but I do know that I completely believe this
statement, that who you are and what you think makes a big difference in how you think
life is. Life isn’t just one thing, it is many things all at once and we usually see
those things we want to see or are practiced in seeing.
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“It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.” – Margaret Bonanno
I think this is mostly due to the fact there is never any ‘happy’ accept in the moment you are in. You can anticipate future happiness, but you are doing so in the here and now. You can imagine a life of happiness, but you are doing so at the present moment. Without today, without being happy today, you can’t have a happy forever.
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“A mob never rushes to do a needed kindness.” – Anonymous
I think this is a great quote since it really makes you think about the nature of a specific event/idea and snaps it into focus for you. A mob (as opposed to just a large gathering) is a scary thing and they can’t be trusted to be rational or
purposeful or ethical while in the mob mentality.
That is why talk radio can be so cancerous. It sometimes can be a dispersed mob led by a ranting ego. And while it is unlikely that dispersed mob will burn stores and maim people physically, all the sacrifice of care and compassion and ‘needed kindnesses’ are still going to be missing from their heart as they go about their business.
What do you think?
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“There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This would seem to run counter to the idea that imagination is always a good thing. I would have to agree with the napkin, it can be pretty atrocious looking to see the results of someone with a fervent imagination but who is very tacky. Just think of anyone who has a Thomas Kincade print or painting for example. They probably think they are being creative and imaginative in picking the image and hanging it among the precious moment trinkets, right? But they would be wrong. So, let’s all promote good taste today, ok? Let’s start a movement!
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“Every portrait painted with feeling is of the artist not the sitter.” – Oscar Wilde
I think this is true at a deep level but I don’t think that truth denies that the portrait is also about the sitter. I think it is like a crime scene. The obvious fact is the dead body or the car being missing or the house being broken into. But the deeper investigation into the event will usually lead to the person who committed the crime, not the person who the crime was against.
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“The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light it gets, the more it contracts.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
That means you have to shine your light on them. It also means you have to be willing to have light shone on yourself since all of us have something we don’t understand or see correctly. We all have things to learn and areas in which we can grow and the first step in that is being open minded about new ideas and new ways of looking at things.
It is like Jesus said ‘Don’t worry about the speck in your friend’s eye until you get the log out of your own’.
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“The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.” – Lucille Ball
Sounds like as good an explanation as any I have heard so far.
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“Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
What do you think, is this true?
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“Charm is a way of getting the answer ‘Yes’ without asking a clear question.” – Albert Camus
What are the characteristics that make up a ‘charming’ person?
“A wise person gets learning from those who have none themselves.” – Anonymous
So, what is the mechanism by which the person gets the education out of the uneducated? Perhaps by knowing how to ask questions, and having the interest and courage to do so.
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If Everything On Earth Were Rational, Nothing Would Happen – Fyodor Dostoevsky
So, what does this mean? The more I read it, the less I understand it, or agree with it, or don’t. Depending. I mean, sorry, but I am not thinking rationally about it.
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“When a person does not have a good reason to do something, he does have a good reason for not.” – Anonymous
I am torn on this one. I can see it being wise and true, then again I can see the philosophy of ‘who needs a good reason, just go and do something for the pure joy or interest of doing it’. But of course, just in the act of saying that you have your
reason, right?
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“Doing is the great thing. For if, resolutely, people do what is right, in time they come to like doing it.” – John Ruskin
This goes along with the idea that actions lead your thoughts. Do the act and if you repeat it enough you are changed by the acting. I know that is true in forgiveness and I know it is true in love.
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That is why it is so much easier to be wise than virtuous.
“A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.” – Samuel Butler
I remember hearing this idea for the first time and being so struck by the truth and simplicity of it. To define something is to capture it, just like an animal in the zoo. And humans can view it, examine it and admire it when it is captured. But that idea is also now imprisoned and it becomes easy for a person to think that what they see is all that the idea is. It becomes easy for the idea to no longer be able to grow or expand, especially when the idea is codified, like in the Quran or Bible or other sacred texts.
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