Tag: Quote

Eternity is the Eve of Something – Chesterton Quote

To sum up the whole matter very simply, if Mr. McCabe asks me why I import frivolity into a discussion of the nature of man, I answer, because frivolity is a part of the nature of man. If he asks me why I introduce what he calls paradoxes into a philosophical problem, I answer, because all philosophical problems tend to become paradoxical. If he objects to my treating of life riotously, I reply that life is a riot. And I say that the Universe as I see it, at any rate, is very much more like the fireworks at the Crystal Palace than it is like his own philosophy. About the whole cosmos there is a tense and secret festivity—like preparations for Guy Fawkes’ day. Eternity is the eve of something. I never look up at the stars without feeling that they are the fires of a schoolboy’s rocket, fixed in their everlasting fall.

Heretics
Gilbert K Chesterton

It’s Just the Day I’m Having

61. “It’s Just the Day I’m Having” . . . . . . the young brother said to me as the wind blew his glasses from the bill of his Burger King ball cap, probably on his way to work, looking exasperatedly at me as he bent over to pick them up, looking at the lenses and then to me and then back to the lenses, and I said, hoping it was not the wrong thing to say, “It’ll get better,” and he said, “Thank you.” (Apr. 9)

The Book of Delights: Essays
Ross Gay

from Amazon book description:
The winner of the National Book Critics Award for Poetry offers up a spirited collection of short lyrical essays, written daily over a tumultuous year, reminding us of the purpose and pleasure of praising, extolling, and celebrating ordinary wonders.

Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2, Verse 47 – With Commentary

BG 2.47: You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.

This is an extremely popular verse of the Bhagavad Gita, so much so that even most school children in India are familiar with it. It offers deep insight into the proper spirit of work and is often quoted whenever the topic of karm yog is discussed. The verse gives four instructions regarding the science of work: 1) Do your duty, but do not concern yourself with the results. 2) The fruits of your actions are not for your enjoyment. 3) Even while working, give up the pride of doership. 4) Do not be attached to inaction.

Do your duty, but do not concern yourself with the results. We have the right to do our duty, but the results are not dependent only upon our efforts. A number of factors come into play in determining the results—our efforts, destiny (our past karmas), the will of God, the efforts of others, the cumulative karmas of the people involved, the place and situation (a matter of luck), etc. Now if we become anxious for results, we will experience anxiety whenever they are not according to our expectations. So Shree Krishna advises Arjun to give up concern for the results and instead focus solely on doing a good job. The fact is that when we are unconcerned about the results, we are able to focus entirely on our efforts, and the result is even better than before.

https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/chapter/2/verse/47/

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares

Google AI Overview:

Hebrews 13:2 encourages believers to practice hospitality, specifically by showing kindness and generosity to strangers. The verse suggests that by doing so, some have unknowingly entertained angels. This emphasizes the importance of extending love and care to those in need, as it may have unexpected and significant spiritual consequences.

The Joke, Milan Kundera – Couple Quotes from

“Do you think demolition can be beautiful?” said Kostka, and I smiled inwardly, recognizing in his response (delivered mildly, but conceived as a challenge) the Kostka (at once likeable and ridiculous) I had first met more than fifteen years before. I replied, “I know you’re a quiet workman on God’s eternal construction site and don’t like hearing about demolition, but what can I do? Myself, I’m not one of God’s bricklayers. Besides, if God’s bricklayers built real walls, I doubt we’d be able to demolish them. But instead of walls all I see is stage sets. And stage sets are made to be demolished.”
…
“What you’ve just said sounds good. But tell me: How can a skeptic like you be so sure he knows how to tell a stage set from a wall? Haven’t you ever doubted that the illusions you ridicule are really nothing but illusions? What if you’re wrong? What if they were genuine values and you were a demolisher of values?” And then: “A value debased and an illusion unmasked have the same pitiful form; they resemble each other and there is nothing easier than to mistake one for the other.”

The Joke
Milan Kundera

Hagakure Quote – Not Perplexed, But You Will Still Get Wet

“There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/56099-there-is-something-to-be-learned-from-a-rainstorm-when“>Tsunetomo Yamamoto, The Hagakure: A code to the way of samurai

God’s Spies – King Lear quote, ChatGPT on

In King Lear there is a speech containing the phrase God’s Spies. Can you elaborate on what this means?
ChatGPT
The phrase “God’s spies” appears in King Lear, Act 5, Scene 3. This is part of Lear’s speech to Cordelia after they are captured and imprisoned. Lear, despite their grim fate, imagines a life of spiritual reflection and connection between himself and Cordelia, insulated from the corruption of the outside world.

Here is the excerpt:
“We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon’s the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,
In a walled prison, packs and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon.”

Interpretation of “God’s spies”:
The phrase has a profound and multi-layered meaning.

Spiritual Insight and Detachment: Lear imagines that he and Cordelia, by being isolated in their prison, will achieve a higher perspective on life, akin to “spies” for God, observing human folly and the mysteries of existence from a distance. This reflects a sense of spiritual transcendence—being able to see the world’s troubles and vanities from an almost divine vantage point, while remaining apart from them.

Reflection and Observation: Spies gather secret knowledge, and by calling themselves “God’s spies,” Lear implies that their suffering and isolation will allow them to perceive deeper truths about life, society, and human nature. They’ll observe the rise and fall of power and the transient nature of worldly concerns as if they were privy to a divine understanding.

Redemptive Suffering: The idea that suffering and imprisonment might bring them closer to God or divine purpose is also present. Shakespeare often explores how suffering can lead to enlightenment or redemption, and Lear’s vision here reflects his longing for peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation after the chaos and betrayal earlier in the play.

Contrast and Irony:
This hopeful vision of Lear’s is deeply poignant because it is tragically short-lived. The audience knows that this imagined life of peace and reflection will not come to pass; Cordelia will soon be killed, and Lear will die in anguish. Thus, the phrase “God’s spies” also carries an ironic undertone, highlighting the contrast between Lear’s idealistic hope and the brutal reality of the play’s conclusion.

In summary, “God’s spies” encapsulates Lear’s yearning for redemption and meaning, his newfound humility, and his desire to rise above worldly concerns through a deeper, almost divine perspective on life. However, this vision is tragically unattainable in the context of the play’s devastating ending.

Connections Making the City Come Alive

I had to admit that I lived for nights like these, moving across the city’s great broken body making connections among its millions of cells. I had a crazy wish or fantasy that some day before I died, if I had all the right neural connections, the city would come all the way alive. Like the Bride of Frankenstein.

Ross Macdonald

Not sure where Macdonald wrote this, but found it as the epigraph from the play, Knuckle, by David Hare.
David Hare Plays 1: Slag; Teeth ‘n’ Smiles; Knuckle; Licking Hitler; Plenty

The most beautiful thing in the world to me is an empty parking lot at night – Harmony Korine Interview

Korine has always seen the world in a visual way. “It’s an affliction,” he says. “I can’t even read books or scripts because I spend the entire time imagining the room or the streets. It’s exhausting.”

Maybe so, but from the moment I first watched Gummo, I’ve been intrigued as to what it’s like living inside his head.

“I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, it’s trippy,” he says with a smile.

Is that why he finds it so hard explaining his motives? Perhaps, but towards the end of our conversation he breaks off from one of his more impenetrable passages and takes a different approach: “The most beautiful thing in the world to me is an empty parking lot at night,” he says. “You know, with the street lamps and an overturned milk crate. It’s mostly me trying to show you that. Do you know what I’m saying?”

And actually, this time, I think I sort of do.

Our time up, Korine heads off to meet the photographer inside the gallery. When I pop over to say goodbye I find him pulling on – what else? – a fluorescent green balaclava for the photoshoot. He is adamant that he shouldn’t be pictured without it. Our photographer is not so sure: “We want people to know that it’s you,” she reasons.

“This is me,” says Korine. And he’s probably right. If, that is, he even exists.

‘I burned out – and started mowing lawns’: a reality-bending chat with Harmony Korine
He rocketed to notoriety at 19 with the shocking film Kids. Now, at 51, he’s smoking two fat cigars for breakfast – and making retina-burning work with acids and infrared cameras. Our writer gets deep with the eternal enfant terrible

Loss of WWI Youth – Chariots of Fire Speech

Master of Caius: I take the war list, and I run down it. Name after name which I cannot read, and which we – who are older than you – cannot hear without emotion. Names which will be only names to you, the new college, but which to us summon up face after face, full of honesty and goodness, zeal and vigor, and intellectual promise. The flower of a generation, the glory of England – and they died for England, and all that England stands for. And now, by tragic necessity, their dreams have become yours. Let me exhort you: Examine yourselves. Let each of you discover where your true chance of greatness lies. For their sakes – for the sake of your college, and your country – seize this chance. Rejoice in it, and let no power or persuasion deter you in your task.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082158/quotes/?ref_=tt_trv_qu

Disillusionment, Pete Townsend on

I had a big, big problem because I had been the big rock idealist and now it was all letting me down. The industry hadn’t fulfilled its promise. Rock ‘n’ roll had changed the length of men’s hair and very little else. I felt like a fool because I’d waved the banner so aggressively. And what was really worse, I felt that I was being used by journalists.

I hated the feeling that I was in a band on the downward slide that was killing people in Cincinnati, killing off its own members, killing its manager. We were into making big money and anybody who got in the way or had a problem, we dropped. Nobody seemed to notice. Nobody seemed to think this was a particularly bad thing, or we pretended it wasn’t, anyway. I felt it start to kill me. Something was getting its teeth into me. I should have stopped doing what I really didn’t want to go on doing. I should have stopped working with the band. I should have stopped and had another look at rock ‘n’ roll, the thing that I loved and cared about so much, which I held above all other things.

Pete Townsend, from the book:
The Courage to Change: Personal Conversations about Alcoholism
Dennis Wholey
Note – the book is from 1984.