And now flutes with many stops breathed forth in sweet accord a Lydian air. But though their strains charmed the hearts of the spectators with their sweetness, Venus was sweeter far; and she began to move gently and to advance with slow and lingering step and body lightly swaying to and fro and softly bowing head, and with delicate gestures she kept time to the sound of the flutes and made signs with eyes now mildly closed, now flashing threats, and sometimes all her dancing was in her glances.
— Apuleius, Metamorphoses
On the whole, I had rather judge men’s minds by comparing their thoughts with my own, than judge of thoughts by knowing who utter them.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
He swoops all-conquering, borne on airy wing,With fire and sword he makes his harvesting;
Trembles before him Jove, whom gods do dread,
And quakes the darksome river of the dead.
— Apuleius, Metamorphoses
Some things are rushing into existence, others hastening to dissolution; and of those which now exist, some parts are already flown off and vanished. The world is renewed by continual change and fluctuation, as time is by perpetual succession. Who then would set any great value on things thus floating down the stream, and of which we cannot for a moment secure the possession? One might as well love a sparrow, which flies by us and is instantly gone out of sight. Such is the life of every man; a mere vapor exhaled from the blood; a momentary breath of air, drawn in by the lungs.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
The first among elegances is idleness.
— Les Miserables
If it is the grandeur of the revolution to gaze steadily upon the dazzling ideal, and to fly to it through the lightning, with blood and fire in its talons, it is the beauty of progress to be without a stain; and there is between them the difference which separates the angel with the wings of a swan, from the angle with the wings of an eagle.
— Les Miserables
He was twice witty, first with his own wit, then with the wit which was attributed to him.
— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
Old books? The devil take them!” Goby said.“Fresh every day must be my books and bread.”
Nature herself approves the Goby rule
And gives us every moment a fresh fool.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
For what matter is it for us to know how high the Pleiades are, how far distant Perseus and Cassiopea from us, how deep the sea, etc.? We are neither wiser, nor modester, nor better, nor richer, nor stronger for the knowledge of it. What is astrology but vain elections, predictions? all magic, but a troublesome error, a pernicious foppery? physic, but intricate rules and prescriptions? philology, but vain criticisms? logic, needless sophisms? metaphysics themselves, but intricate subtleties and fruitless abstractions? alchemy, but a bundle of errors? To what end are such great tomes? why do we spend so many years in their studies? Much better to know nothing at all, as those barbarous Indians are wholly ignorant, than, as some of us, to be so sore vexed about unprofitable toys: stultus labor est ineptiatrum [it is foolish to labor at trifles], to build a house without pins, make a rope of sand, to what end? cui bono?
— Anatomy of Melancholy
The Victor Of Waterloo (assembled from Les Misérables)
A passage from Les Misérables, with some minor aesthetic changes to form it into a shorter, more cohesive essay.
Napoleon’s army has just been scattered.
A few squares of the guard, immovable in the flow of the rout as rocks in running water, held out until night. Night approaching, and death also, they awaited this double shadow, and yielded unfaltering to its embrace. Each regiment, isolated from the others, and having no further communication with the army, which was broken in all directions, was dying alone. They had taken position, for this last struggle, some upon the heights of Rossomme, others in the plain of Mont Saint Jean. There, abandoned, conquered, terrible, these sombre squares suffered formidable martyrdom.
We are unlearning certain things, and we do well, providing that while unlearning one thing we are learning another. No vacuum in the human heart! Certain forms are torn down, and it is well they should be, but on condition that they are followed by reconstructions.In the meantime let us study the things which are no more. It is necessary to understand them, were it only to avoid them. The counterfeits of the past take assumed names, and are fond of calling themselves the future.
— Les Miserables
The people who govern the Brave New World may not be sane (in what may be called the absolute sense of the word); but they are not madmen, and their aim is not anarchy but social stability. It is in order to achieve stability that they carry out, by scientific means, the ultimate, personal, really revolutionary revolution.
— Aldous Huxley
Sape homo de vanae gloriae contemptu vanius gloriatur.A man can be most boastful in expressing his contempt of fame.
— St. Augustine, Confessions
Vivere nolunt, mori nesciunt.They will not die; they dare not live.
— Seneca, Epistulae Morales
Let us not carry flame where light alone will suffice.
— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
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All art, music, words © their original authors.
All art, music, words © their original authors.
