Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[WT Sharpe]

.....Art is not and has never has been subordinate to moral values. Moral values are social values; aesthetic values are human values. . . . Morality seeks to restrain the feelings; art seeks to define them by externalizing them, by giving them significant form. Morality has only one aim—the ideal good; art has quite another aim—the objective truth . . . art never changes.
..........— Sir Herbert Read (1893-1968), British writer. The Realist Heresy (1952). Quoted in The Great Thoughts (1961) by George Seldes.

[astrangerhere]

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his concurring opinion on Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964).

Contrasted with this quote from one year later in another opinion:

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his dissenting opinion on United States v. Ginzburg, 383 U.S. 463 (1965)

[BenG]

Sometimes
Sheenagh Pugh


Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

[WT Sharpe]

I especially liked these lines:

Originally Posted by BenG

Sometimes
Sheenagh Pugh

[snip]

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.

[snip]

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by BenG

Sometimes
Sheenagh Pugh


Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Wonderful...thanks for posting it....

[WT Sharpe]

.....An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
..........— Albert Camus (1913 – 1960), Algerian-born French novelist, dramatist, and essayist whose philosophy has been labeled existentialist; although he rejected that designation. Notebooks 1935-1942 (1963).

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.....An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
..........— Albert Camus (1913 – 1960), Algerian-born French novelist, dramatist, and essayist whose philosophy has been labeled existentialist; although he rejected that designation. Notebooks 1935-1942 (1963).

Is that with or without a mirror ....

[kennyc]

"The mind IS the mirror of the soul."

[WT Sharpe]

The following quotations are from Anne Rice [born Howard Allen O'Brien; (1941 - )], American author perhaps best known for her books dealing with vampires. They were taken from the transcript for her March 3, 1977 appearance on ABC's broadcast of Politically Incorrect with Bill Mahar. I present them without comment or recommendation simply because they present food for thought, although they could be considered pertinent to a recent thread started by an author here who complained that his book was pulled from Amazon for having the word "Rape" in the title. While the subject matter makes me uncomfortable, the "cathartic" nature of writing on uncomfortable subjects spoken of by Rice brings to mind Aristotle's doctrine that the deplorable events depicted in tragic plays serve the function of purging such negative emotions from the audience. For the record, Plato disagreed, feeling that tragic plays actually encouraged the growth of the negative side of our natures.

<> <> <>

.....I write for both sides; I write for the rapist’s side and the rapee's side. 'Cause there's a great desire in me to rape and well as to be raped. I mean, there is in all of us. So I like to explore it. You know, in a book.

.....We’re talking about the mind, literature and fantasy. There has to be a safety zone in every culture where you can talk about the really transgressive. And women in particular need to read about rape and they need to write about it 'cause they’re scared to death of it. We grow up scared to death from the time we’re little bitty kids of the dirty old man that’s going to come out of the doorway. And so we need to get that out in our writing. Writing is cathartic. You know, I don’t write to recommend.

.....I'm really proud of being a pornographer. I just love it.
.....

[kennyc]

Howard Allen O'Brien

Sheesh, no wonder the woman's messed up!

From wikipedia:

Rice spent most of her early life in New Orleans, Louisiana, which forms the background against which most of her stories take place. She was the second daughter in a Catholic[6] Irish American family; Rice's sister, the late Alice Borchardt, also became a noted genre author. About her unusual given name, Rice said: "My birth name is Howard Allen because apparently my mother thought it was a good idea to name me Howard. My father's name was Howard, she wanted to name me after Howard, and she thought it was a very interesting thing to do."

[screwballl]

Isaac Asimov (who was for all intents and purposes an atheist):

God refrains from destroying this wicked, sinful world only for the sake of the few just men who can be found in it in every generation.

Found in his biography, I. Asimov: A Memoir

[WT Sharpe]

.....One cannot overestimate the power of a good rancorous hatred on the part of the stupid. The stupid have so much more industry and energy to expend on hating. They build it up like coral insects.
..........— Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893 – 1978), English novelist and poet. Diary entry, 26 September 1954.

[WT Sharpe]

While comedian and humorist Jimmy Carr was performing at the Edinburgh Festival, the fire alarm sounded. As people prepared to make their exit, he offered this bit of sage advice:

.....On your way out be aware of women and children — they tend to slow you down.
..........— James Anthony Patrick "Jimmy" Carr (1972 - ), Irish comedian. Reported in the online edition of the Independent on August 23, 2006.

[WT Sharpe]

.....They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.
..........— Sir Philip Sidney (1554 – 1586), poet, courtier and soldier. Arcadia (Full title: The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, late 16th century), Book I.

[maianhvk]

Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel.

Do you recognize this?