Here are a few things I read at various places and times that stayed with me. Even if most of the words and poems shown here are familiar, they have, in my opinion, value and are worth re-reading. References and comments will be added soon.
Minims
Fortune favors the lucky.
It is difficult to repair a watch while falling from an airplane.
It is better to remain childless than to father an orphan.
Proverbs
Mann tracht un Gott lacht.
Quotes
Every man is born an original, but sadly, most men die copies. .
"Frankenstein's Monster" by Marvin Bell
-"Bigger than Life."
Bigger than the best, but not the best,
who can take history by the throat
and squeeze the steam from the new bread,
turn glass to sand, and grind the gears
of planets to oil and oil to water,
until the earth is rid of that Creator
who dared to make a thing without a soul.
I walked because of Science and a scientist.
I stood because he had it in his thought
that life should come from what is dead,
should turn time back and dry your tears.
I, who was made from brick and mortar,
meant to be inferior, was greater.
Given the parts, I assumed the role.
I am the dark body that cannot rest
free from an hysterical note,
made as I was to symbolize your dread.
Through the magnifying lens of fear
you watch me in your son and by your daughter.
While you disperse in every dark theatre
in streams of light, inside you I am whole.
The last line of "Sonnet 87" by William Shakespeare
In dream a king, but waking no such matter.
A line from "To a Mouse" by Robert Burns
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
The first stanza of "The Second Coming" by Willia Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
"Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
"The Prophecy of Dante" by Lord Byron
CANTO II
Oh! my own beauteous land! so long laid low,
So long the grave of thy own children's hopes,
When there is but required a single blow
To break the chain, yet — yet the Avenger stops,
And Doubt and Discord step 'twixt thine and thee,
And join their strength to that which with thee copes;
What is there wanting then to set thee free,
And show thy beauty in its fullest light,
And make the Alps impassable?
We, Her Sons, may do this with one deed — — Unite.
No comments:
Post a Comment