Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Matuo Basho: The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by.”

Matsuo Basho

The Narrow Road to the Deep North (translation by Nobuyuki Yuasa)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Ivan Illich on the Circumscribed Life

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.”

Ivan Illich

Tools for Conviviality, ch. 3 (1973)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Symbolist Movement

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Symbolist Movement: A literary movement in France (Stephane Mallarme, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine) which got underway about 1885 in reaction to Realism and Impressionism. In painting, Gustave Moreau, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Odilon Redon, and Gustav Klimt produced lyrical dream fantasies, combining mystical elements with an interest in the erotic and decadent.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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William Holmes McGuffey

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“William Holmes McGuffey: (1800-1873) American educator and textbook compiler, College teacher and president, McGuffey was known to thousands of Americans as the author of their first schoolbook. The series began in 1836, with the First and Second Readers. The Primer, Third, and Fourth Readers appeared in 1837, the Speller, and the Rhetorical Guide in 1841, the Fifth and Sixth Readers in 1844 and 1857. He collaborated with his younger brother, Alexander Hamilton McGuffey, on the “Eclectic Series.” The books sold 122 million copies, with new editions issued as late as 1920. McGuffey was a political conservative who supported the Hamiltonians rather than the Jeffersonians; his Readers reflect his point of view.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Inspirational Words from Helen Keller in This Difficult Time

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable”

Helen Keller

Let Us Have Faith (1940)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Bushido

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Bushido: (Japanese, ‘way of the warrior‘) At first an unwritten code of ethics, devised for the moral and spiritual guidance of the entire military class by military leaders during the Kamakura period, bushido was codified during the Tokugawa regime. Emphasis was always placed upon personal and reciprocal loyalty and duty, both among and between samurai and lord. By the Tokugawa period, the code had evolved to incorporate both the aesthetic and ascetic elements that are contained in Zen discipline.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“The Satanic Verses: A novel (1988) by Salman Rushdie (b.1947). Questions of faith and doubt underlie this panoramic vision of the clash of cultures between East and West, which encompasses Britain during the Thatcherite era, India, and the mystical landscape in which the Prophet Mahound does battle. The ‘satanic verses’ are whispered by Shaitan in the ear of Mahound, who then repudiates them:

‘The devil came to him in the guise of the archangel, so that the verses he memorized…were not the real thing but its diabolical opposite, not godly, but satanic.’

The novel gave offense to Muslims for certain remarks put into the mouths of its characters. As a result, a Muslim fatwa (legal ruling) was issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the religious leader of Iran, declaring Rushdie and apostate who should be killed for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. On 24 September 1998, after Rushdie had spent the intervening period in hiding, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran announced that it had no intention, nor would it take any action, to threaten Rushdie’s life or anybody associated with his work, or encourage or assist anybody to do so.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Blank-Verse

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Blank-verse, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters—the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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Ovid’s 4 Ages of Civilization

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Gold * Silver * Bronze * Iron

According to Ovid’s telling of history, our Golden Age was the time when Cronos ruled heaven and when gods lived amongst mankind and no one labored—that time when earth was populated by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The Silver Age was when Zeus ruled over heaven and mankind was taught agriculture and architecture—which we can tie to the inventions of the Neolithic, around 12,000 BC. The Bronze Age was the time of the first great wars, of temple- and empire-building but also of faith and order, which we can directly connect with the ancient civilizations in Iraq, Egypt, Anatolia, China, and India. The Iron Age is our own time, when nation states were forged and mankind learned to mine, navigate, write, and trade. But, as Ovid notes, mankind also became ‘warlike, greedy, and impious. Truth, modesty and loyalty are nowhere to be found.’”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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Term of Art: Substantive

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Substantive: Indicating a noun or a word or phrase functioning as a noun, e.g., ‘running away.’”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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