Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[koffkoff]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Vivid! I've never read Sartre - but if the writing is this grand I may have to! Which English translation is this taken from koffkoff?

[Just said your handle out loud - ] [Welcome to MR]

That was one I cut and paste from the internet as I was initially lazy to type them out LOL.

The version that I have on paperback is Penguin Classics (translated by Robert Baldick) which has some slight variation

"For the moment it's the jazz that's playing; there's no melody, only notes, a host of little jolts. They know no rest, an unchanging order gives birth to them and destroys them, without ever giving them time to recover, to exist for themselves. They run, they hurry, they strike me with a sharp blow in passing and are obliterated. I should quite like to hold them back, but I know that if I managed to stop one, nothing would remain between my fingers but a vulgar, doleful sound. I must accept their death; I must even will it; I know few harsher or stronger impressions."


I remember reading Nausea somewhat 8 years ago. My current paperback is all yellowed. Not an easy read to me at that point of time, but my keen interest in existentialism got me through. I also highly recommend The Stranger by Albert Camus (he and Sartre were good friends). Simple words powerful impression.

[poohbear_nc]

Thanks! I'll look them up this weekend!

[WT Sharpe]

.....Fascism is government by the few and for the few.
.....The United States also has its native Fascists who say they are “100 per cent American.”
..........— The United States Army. Army Orientation Fact Sheet 64 (March 23, 1945). Quoted in The Great Thoughts by George Seldes (1985, Introduction and a new compilation © 1996 by David Laskin).

[WT Sharpe]

.....He held out his glass, but they evidently didn't have that custom. She had a stranger one: she touched the surface of the wine with a fingertip and shook a drop off onto the floor.
.....She smiled at him. "My mother always did that. She said she promised her mother that she would never drink a drop of wine. That was the drop she never drank."
..........— Joe (William) Haldeman (1943 - ), American science fiction author. The Accidental Time Machine (2007).

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.....He held out his glass, but they evidently didn't have that custom. She had a stranger one: she touched the surface of the wine with a fingertip and shook a drop off onto the floor.
.....She smiled at him. "My mother always did that. She said she promised her mother that she would never drink a drop of wine. That was the drop she never drank."
..........— Joe (William) Haldeman (1943 - ), American science fiction author. The Accidental Time Machine (2007).

[BenG]

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. . . . And now abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these is money."

I Corinthians xiii (adapted)


Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

[WT Sharpe]

.....Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Ralph; but, each of them having afterwards wrong'd me greatly without the least compunction, and recollecting Keith's conduct towards me (who was another freethinker), and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, tho' it might be true, was not very useful.
..........— Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American scientist, diplomat, publisher. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (published posthumously).

[WT Sharpe]

.....One culture after another is still running amok and men are still murdering one another in the belief that it is not they but their neighbors who are evil.
..........— Sir Laurens Van der Post (1906 - 1996), South African author, farmer, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer, conservationist. Quoted in Helen Buss Mitchell, Roots of Wisdom: Speaking the Language of Philosophy (Wadsworth 1996), p. 146.

[WT Sharpe]

.....A ioyfull heart causeth good health: but a sorowfull minde dryeth the bones.
..........— Geneva Bible (1599), Proverbs 17:22.

[kennyc]

Thank you Tom for all your wonderful Quotes!

[WT Sharpe]

.....The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.
..........— Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American scientist, diplomat, publisher. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (published posthumously).

[BenG]

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
—Italo Calvino, ‘‘Why Read the Classics?’’ (1981), translated by Patrick Creagh (1987)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by BenG

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
—Italo Calvino, ‘‘Why Read the Classics?’’ (1981), translated by Patrick Creagh (1987)

We need to use that definition the next time the book club Classics month rolls around.

Of course if we did, Jon would still nominate DiscWorld.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by BenG

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
—Italo Calvino, ‘‘Why Read the Classics?’’ (1981), translated by Patrick Creagh (1987)

Excellent quote!

Originally Posted by kennyc

We need to use that definition the next time the book club Classics month rolls around. ...

Indeed we do. A better definition of a classic I've never seen!

[WT Sharpe]

.....Deos fortioribus adesse. ("The gods are on the side of the stronger.")
..........— Cornelius Tacitus (c. 55-117 C.E.), Roman historian. Histories (c. 115-116), Book IV, 17.