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Quote Me A Piece Of Writing That You Really, Really Love :)

17.

or this: “Two men in a skiff, whom we passed hereabouts, floating buoyantly amid the reflections of the trees, like a feather in midair, or a leaf that is wafted gently from its twig to the water without turning over, seemed still in their element, and to have very delicately availed themselves of the natural laws. Their floating served to ennoble in our eyes the art of navigation: as birds fly and fishes swim, so these men sailed.”


Where's the Moon, There's the Moon (A Story for Children)

Dan Chiasson
 
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
The Great Gatsby, F.S. Fitzgerald
Enough said :p
 
"God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man; without which, buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks; and a man shall ever see, that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection."

Francis Bacon
 
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

...kytnism...:|
 
Zang Tumb Tumb (intro) by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

'No poetry before us
with our wireless imagination
and words in freedom LOOOng live
Futurism finally finally finally finally finally finally finally
Poetry being BORN

and ends with Bombardment;

'1 2 3 4 5 seconds siege guns split the silence in unison tam-tuuumb sudden echoes all the echoes seize it quick smash it scatter it to the infinite winds to the devil

'In the middle these tam-tuuumb flattened 50 square kilometers leap 2-6-8 crashes clubs punches bashes quick-firing batteries. Violence ferocity regularity pendulum play fatality

'...these weights thicknesses sounds smells molecular whirlwinds chains nets and channels of analogies concurrences and synchronisms for my Futurist friends poets painters and musicians zang-tumb-tumb-zang-zang-tuuumb tatatatatatatata picpacpampacpacpicpampampac uuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

ZANG-TUMB
TUMB-TUMB
TUUUUUM
 
I hope, I shall not offend you,
if I state quite frankly and openly,
that you seem to me
to be in every way,
the visible
personification
of
absolute
perfection.

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest


"Throughout history
Every mystery
EVER solved has turned out to be
Not Magic.

Does the idea that there might be truth
Frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon
On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?

Isn’t this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
If you’re so into Shakespeare
Lend me your ear:
“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet… is just fucking silly”
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?!
I see trees of Green,
Red roses too,
And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
That’s ok.
But here’s what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant…
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
With good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties."

From a poem "Storm" by Tim Minchin


"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence...

My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of men is disgusting. My attitude is not derived from any intellectual theory but is based on my deepest antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred."
-Albert Einstein


"Work like you don't need the money;
dance like no one is watching;
sing like no one is listening;
love like you've never been hurt;
and live life every day as if it were your last."
original source unknown
-Albert Einstein

The Kingdom of Heaven is a condition of the heart — not something that comes upon the earth or after death.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

Without music, life would be a mistake
We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature -- is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
 
As soon as it is completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction.

Nikola Tesla on the Wardenclyffe Tower (1908 )
 
^good stuff.

"To beautify thy triumphs, and return
Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke;
But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets
For valiant doing in their countries cause?
O, if to fight for king and commonweal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.
Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge."

Shakespeare / Titus Andronicus
 
Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antheus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes.

Nikola Tesla

"Work like you don't need the money;
dance like no one is watching;
sing like no one is listening;
love like you've never been hurt;
and live life every day as if it were your last."
original source unknown
-Albert Einstein

Without music, life would be a mistake
We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
Friedrich Nietzsche

i like all of those, but these two are something else...
:D

"Dance like no one is watching" has always been one of my favorite thoughts or bits of advice, for many of reasons.
 
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"The Three Stages of Cultivation — The first is the primitive stage. It is a stage of original ignorance in which a person knows nothing about the art of combat. In a fight, he simply blocks and strikes instinctively without a concern for what is right and wrong. Of course, he may not be so-called scientific, but, nevertheless, being himself, his attacks or defenses are fluid.

The second stage — the stage of sophistication, or mechanical stage — begins when a person starts his training. He is taught the different ways of blocking, striking, kicking, standing, breathing, and thinking — unquestionably, he has gained the scientific knowledge of combat, but unfortunately his original self and sense of freedom are lost, and his action no longer flows by itself. His mind tends to freeze at different movements for calculations and analysis, and even worse, he might be called “intellectually bound” and maintain himself outside of the actual reality.

The third stage — the stage of artlessness, or spontaneous stage — occurs when, after years of serious and hard practice, the student realizes that after all, gung fu is nothing special. And instead of trying to impose on his mind, he adjusts himself to his opponent like water pressing on an earthen wall. It flows through the slightest crack. There is nothing to try to do but try to be purposeless and formless, like water. All of his classical techniques and standard styles are minimized, if not wiped out, and nothingness prevails. He is no longer confined"

Bruce Lee
 
The Silesian Weavers:

Dans les yeux noirs il n'y a pas de déchirure. Ils s'asseyent au métier à tisser et grincent les engrenages. L'Allemagne, nous tissons le tissu du mort est Triplement la malédiction
que nous tissons › autour de votre tête que Nous tissons, nous tissons.

Une malédiction au dieu à que nous nous sommes agenouillés. Par le froid de l'hiver, telle faim s'est sentie. Dans le passé nous avons espéré, nous avons attendu, nous Vous avons pleuré
vous est moqué de nous et poxed nous et nous a lancés de côté Nous tissons, nous tissons.

Une malédiction sur le roi de l'empire, Qui n'apaiserait pas notre feu de la misère. Il a pris chaque sou que
nous avons dûs donner Alors a tiré nous aime les chiens avec aucune droite pour vivre Nous tissons, nous
tissons.

Une malédiction sur le froid, la patrie impitoyable, Où le scandale et la honte pourrissent par votre main, Où les
fleurs sont piétiné sous votre botte, Où pourrir et pourrir sont permis de prendre racine. Nous tissons, nous tissons.

La navette vole, les métiers à tisser de tissage rugissent. Jour et nuit nous tissons avec vous à notre porte. La vieille Allemagne, nous tissons le tissu du mort. Triplement être la malédiction que nous tissons › autour de votre tête. Nous tissons, nous tissons.

NSFW:

In lightless eyes there are not tears.
They sit at the loom and gnash the gears.
Germany, we weave the cloth of the dead
Threefold be the curse we weave ’round your head
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.

A curse to the god to whom we knelt.
Through the winter’s cold, such hunger felt.
In the past we hoped, we waited, we cried
You’ve mocked us and poxed us and cast us aside
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.

A curse on the king of the empire,
Who would not quell our misery’s fire.
He took every penny we had to give
Then shot us like dogs with no right to live
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.

A curse on the cold, ruthless fatherland,
Where outrage and shame fester by your hand,
Where blossoms are trampled under your boot,
Where rot and decay are allowed to take root.
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.

The shuttle is flying, the weaving looms roar.
Day and night we weave with you at our door.
Old Germany, we weave the cloth of the dead.
Threefold be the curse we weave ’round your head.
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.
 
CLOV (fixed gaze, tonelessly, towards auditorium):
They said to me, That's love, yes, yes, not a doubt, now you see how—
HAMM:
Articulate!
CLOV (as before):
How easy it is. They said to me, That's friendship, yes, yes, no question, you've found it. They said to me, Here's the place, stop, raise your head and look at all that beauty. That order! They said to me, Come now, you're not a brute beast, think upon these things and you'll see how all becomes clear. And simple! They said to me, What skilled attention they get, all these dying of their wounds.
HAMM:
Enough!
CLOV (as before):
I say to myself— sometimes, Clov, you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you— one day. I say to myself—sometimes, Clov, you must be better than that if you want them to let you go—one day. But I feel too old, and too far, to form new habits. Good, it'll never end, I'll never go.
(Pause.)
Then one day, suddenly, it ends, it changes, I don't understand, it dies, or it's me, I don't understand that either. I ask the words that remain— sleeping, waking, morning, evening. They have nothing to say.
(Pause.)
I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit.
(Pause.)
It's easy going.
(Pause.)
When I fall I'll weep for happiness.

Samuel Beckett - Endgame
 
Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Doubled-lived in regions new?

Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;

With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;

Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;

Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;

Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;

And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you,
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumber'd, never cloying.

Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.

Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new!

love me some keats.

<3

...kytnism...:|
 
...A bacchant lad asks a madam (as drachmas pass hands): 'what carnal acts can a man transact?' A gal can grab a man's balls and wank a man's shaft; a man can grasp a gal's bra and spank a gal's ass. A clasp snaps apart, and a scant shawl falls.
Hassan wants a catnap, and grabs, as a calmant, hash, grass and smack, khat, ganja and tabac - an amalgam that can spark a pharmacal flashback. Hassan falls slack, arms asprawl, and has a nap that spawns dark phantasmata. Satan stands back, aback a damask arras, and draws a fractal mandala - a charm that can trap what a Cathar savant calls an 'astral avatar' (part man, part bat - all fang and claw) - a phantasm that can snarl and gnash at a carcass. A fantast chants 'abracadabra' as a mantra, wags a wand, and (zap) a sandglass cracks. A hag as mad as Cassandra warns a shah that bad karma attracts phantasmal cataclasms.

From Christian Bök's Eunoia (2001). Link to the entire text here. http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/eunoia/text.html

Edit:

As an exemplar of constrained writing, I thought it incumbent on me to include the constraints used in writing the book. They are as follows:

Each of the chapters must refer to the art of writing.
Each of the chapters have "to describe a culinary banquet, a prurient debauch, a pastoral tableau and a nautical voyage."
All the sentences have to have an "accent internal rhyme through the use of syntactical parallelism."
The text has to include as many possible words in it as it can.
The text must avoid repeating words as much as possible.
The letter "Y" is to be avoided.
 
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one of my favorite poems. i generally love thomas, although his stuff takes a high level of concentration that i not always possess


Deaths and Entrances

On almost the incendiary eve
Of several near deaths,
When one at the great least of your best loved
And always known must leave
Lions and fires of his flying breath,
Of your immortal friends
Who'd raise the organs of the counted dust
To shoot and sing your praise,
One who called deepest down shall hold his peace
That cannot sink or cease
Endlessly to his wound
In many married London's estranging grief.

On almost the incendiary eve
When at your lips and keys,
Locking, unlocking, the murdered strangers weave,
One who is most unknown,
Your polestar neighbour, sun of another street,
Will dive up to his tears.
He'll bathe his raining blood in the male sea
Who strode for your own dead
And wind his globe out of your water thread
And load the throats of shells
with every cry since light
Flashed first across his thunderclapping eyes.

On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances,
When near and strange wounded on London's waves
Have sought your single grave,
One enemy, of many, who knows well
Your heart is luminous
In the watched dark, quivering through locks and caves,
Will pull the thunderbolts
To shut the sun, plunge, mount your darkened keys
And sear just riders back,
Until that one loved least
Looms the last Samson of your zodiac.
Dylan Thomas

unrelated edit: nikola tesla was badass, and i sometimes wonder how different the world might be today if someone had just given him unlimited funds to do whatever he pleased.
 
The Silesian Weavers:

Dans les yeux noirs il n'y a pas de déchirure. Ils s'asseyent au métier à tisser et grincent les engrenages. L'Allemagne, nous tissons le tissu du mort est Triplement la malédiction
que nous tissons › autour de votre tête que Nous tissons, nous tissons.

Une malédiction au dieu à que nous nous sommes agenouillés. Par le froid de l'hiver, telle faim s'est sentie. Dans le passé nous avons espéré, nous avons attendu, nous Vous avons pleuré
vous est moqué de nous et poxed nous et nous a lancés de côté Nous tissons, nous tissons.

Une malédiction sur le roi de l'empire, Qui n'apaiserait pas notre feu de la misère. Il a pris chaque sou que
nous avons dûs donner Alors a tiré nous aime les chiens avec aucune droite pour vivre Nous tissons, nous
tissons.

Une malédiction sur le froid, la patrie impitoyable, Où le scandale et la honte pourrissent par votre main, Où les
fleurs sont piétiné sous votre botte, Où pourrir et pourrir sont permis de prendre racine. Nous tissons, nous tissons.

La navette vole, les métiers à tisser de tissage rugissent. Jour et nuit nous tissons avec vous à notre porte. La vieille Allemagne, nous tissons le tissu du mort. Triplement être la malédiction que nous tissons › autour de votre tête. Nous tissons, nous tissons.

NSFW:

In lightless eyes there are not tears.
They sit at the loom and gnash the gears.
Germany, we weave the cloth of the dead
Threefold be the curse we weave ’round your head
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.

A curse to the god to whom we knelt.
Through the winter’s cold, such hunger felt.
In the past we hoped, we waited, we cried
You’ve mocked us and poxed us and cast us aside
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.

A curse on the king of the empire,
Who would not quell our misery’s fire.
He took every penny we had to give
Then shot us like dogs with no right to live
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.

A curse on the cold, ruthless fatherland,
Where outrage and shame fester by your hand,
Where blossoms are trampled under your boot,
Where rot and decay are allowed to take root.
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.

The shuttle is flying, the weaving looms roar.
Day and night we weave with you at our door.
Old Germany, we weave the cloth of the dead.
Threefold be the curse we weave ’round your head.
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.

that reminds me of the death fugue by paul celan, which i won't post as it only works in german. i once translated it for a friend, as i absolutely loathed every translation i found, but it's hard to do such a powerful piece of poetry justice.
 
“When I die, I hope to go to heaven -whatever the hell that is – and I want to be able to afford the price of admission.”
“Virtue is the price of admission,” Jim said haughtily.
“That’s what I mean, James. So I want to be prepared to claim the greatest virtue of all – that I was a man who made money."

- Ayn Rand (from Atlas Shrugged)
 
arghhhhh. was there ever a writer more morally corrupt and dispicable than ayn rand? aside from l. ron hubbard that is. i mean apart from her philosophy being the very embodiment of fuck you got mine, she didn't even write competent prose.
sorry, nothing personal, i just have a very deep seated, personal hatred for ayn rand.
 
Luke 5:36

And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.
 
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