Scott Fitzgerald
« The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. »
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
A poem about tea
Hail, Queen of Plants, Pride of Elysian Bow’rs!
How shall we speak thy complicated Pow’rs?
Thou Won’drous Panacea to asswage
The Calentures of Youths’ fermenting rage,
And Animate the freezing Veins of age.
To Bacchus when our Griefs repair for Ease,
The Remedy proves worse than the Disease.
Where Reason we must lose to keep the Round,
And drinking others Health’s, our own confound:
Whilst TEA, our Sorrows to beguile,
Sobriety and Mirth does reconcile:
For to this Nectar we the Blessing owe,
To grow more Wise, as we more Cheerful grow.
Whilst fancy does her brightest beams dispense,
And decent Wit diverts without Offense.
Then in Discourse of Nature’s mystick Pow’rs
And Noblest Themes, we pass the well spent Hours.
Whilst all around the Virtues’ Sacred Band,
And list’ning Graces, pleas’d Attendants, stand.
Thus our Tea-Conversation we employ,
Where with Delight, Instruction we enjoy;
Quaffing, without the waste of Time or Wealth,
The Sov’reign Drink of Pleasure and of Health.
— Nahum Tate, The Tea-Table, from Panacea : a Poem about Tea (1700)
Nahum est aussi le librettiste du Dido & Aeneas de Purcell.
De la différence entre l’égalité et la justice
“La majestueuse égalité des lois interdit aux riches comme aux pauvres de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans la rue et de voler du pain.”— Anatole France
Note de service
Changement de layout et de moteur pour ce site.Les précédents flux RSS et ATOM deviennent obsolètes. Merci de vous abonner au nouveau flux à la place : http://manur.org/guilty/feed/.En m’excusant pour le dérangement.
Montesquieu
« La gravité est le bonheur des imbéciles. »
— Montesquieu
Mais j’ai voulu être ainsi, je te le jure
« Mais j’ai voulu être ainsi, je te le jure, j’étais contaminé par les mots, j’ai continué de l’être longtemps après la fin de mon adolescence, j’ai cru que j’aimais le nomadisme et la solitude parce que c’étaient des mots prestigieux, ornés des majuscules de la littérature. »
— Antonio Muñoz Molina, Le royaume des voix
« La brutalité du langage trompe sur la banalité de la pensée, et (quelques grandes exceptions mises à part) reste facilement compatible avec un certain conformisme. »
— Marguerite Yourcenar, Préface de 1963 à Alexis
« Pope Benedict [XI] sent one of his courtiers into Tuscany to see what sort of a man [Giotto] was and what his works were like, for the Pope was planning to have some paintings made in Saint Peter’s. This courtier, on his way to see Giotto and to find out what other masters of painting and mosaic there were in Florence, spoke with many masters in Sienna, and then, having received some drawings from them, he came to Florence. And one morning going into the workshop of Giotto, who was at his labours, he showed him the mind of the Pope, and at last asked him to give him a little drawing to send to his Holiness. Giotto, who was a man of courteous manners, immediately took a sheet of paper, and with a pen dipped in red, fixing his arm firmly against his side to make a compass of it, with a turn of his hand he made a circle so perfect that it was a marvel to see it. Having done it, he turned smiling to the courtier and said, “Here is the drawing.” But he, thinking he was being laughed at, asked, “Am I to have no other drawing than this?” “This is enough and too much,” replied Giotto, “send it with the others and see if it will be understood.” The messenger, seeing that he could get nothing else, departed ill pleased, not doubting that he had been made a fool of. However, sending the other drawings to the Pope with the names of those who had made them, he sent also Giotto’s, relating how he had made the circle without moving his arm and without compasses, which when the Pope and many of his courtiers understood, they saw that Giotto must surpass greatly all the other painters of his time. »
— Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects
(Je publie celui-là tongue-in-cheek.)
« Un homme de hautes et rares facultés intellectuelles obligé de se livrer à quelque occupation purement utile est comme un vase précieux, orné des plus belles peintures, qu’on emploierait pour le service de la cuisine. »
— Arthur Schopenhauer, Le monde comme volonté et comme représentation
Un meme sympa, pour une fois (via kottke) : aller sur cette page de citations aléatoires et la recharger jusqu’à en avoir extrait cinq passages qui vous parlent ou vous ressemblent :
« I am going to concentrate on what’s important in life. I’m going to strive everyday to be a kind and generous and loving person. I’m going to keep death right here, so that anytime I even think about getting angry at you or anybody else, I’ll see death and I’ll remember. »
— Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Do The Right Thing, 1992« Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them. »
— John Ruskin (1819 – 1900)« One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. »
— Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970), Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 5« He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses. »
— Horace (65 BC – 8 BC)« I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself. »
— Marlene Dietrich (1901 – 1992)
Et en bonus :
« As a scientist, I am not sure anymore that life can be reduced to a class struggle, to dialectical materialism, or any set of formulas. Life is spontaneous and it is unpredictable, it is magical. I think that we have struggled so hard with the tangible that we have forgotten the intangible. »
— Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Zarya, 1994