Notizen März 2019
Der tote Baum (März 2019)
Silbrig glänzen die trockenen Äste,
Knorrig, gespreizt wie im Ekel,
Umgeben von dichten Föhren,
Umspielt vom Plätschern des Baches.
Umrauscht vom Dickicht lebendiger Zweige,
Wie von Quaken im Froschteich,
Wie von tausend seichten Meinungen,
Steht er ganz stumm - gezwungen zu hören.
Schöner singen Vögel, unsichtbar,
tief im Dickicht, der Dämmerung.
Den Jäger drängt es zu töten,
Lauernd auf morschem Hochstand,
Doch das verborgene Reh - es zeigt sich ihm nicht.
Dann wird es dunkel und stumm im Wald;
Neben der Ruhe der moosigen Felsen
Glitzert der letzte Schnee des Winters
Und der Baum glänzt im Mondlicht...
Herbst (Okt 2016)
Noch reifen
Schwarze Beeren an den Hängen der Berge
Während im Tal schon die Blätter welken.
Wanderer ziehn durch die Länder -
Ohne Ziel -
Kinder schreien in Träumen auf,
Männer gehen beständig vorwärts,
Entschlossen und gedächtnislos,
Während Frauen in den kalten Nächten
Immer wieder die Zeiten schauen,
Gesichte der Nacht, die wiederkehren
Und die Tage vergiften.
Grillen singen noch spät in der Nacht,
Aussichtslos, stark, doch gegen die Zeit
Wie einst auf der wuchernden Stätte
Zwischen schlafenden Pferden und den jagenden Katzen.
Die nahenden Schritte Trunkener
Verscheuchten die suchenden Igel
Und Lachen hallte
Durch die Nacht der Natur...
Wo heute nur mehr hohe Mauern
Kahl auf den Winter warten -
Nichts ist geblieben.
Herbstnebel (Nov 2012)
Dichter Nebel verwandelt die Landschaft
In ununterscheidbares Grau,
Hin und wieder hört man Vögel,
Die unsichbar bleiben im windstillen Abend.
Hoch ragen die Pfeiler einer jungen Ruine
In den kalten Himmel
Fast nur schwarze Schatten zwischen kahlem Geäst
Ein Plan, der nie verwirklicht wurde -
Und schon vor Vollendung zum Verfall verdammt.
Die Sünden der Ahnen lasten schwer auf den Kindern,
Das Dunkel sinkt früh im November
Und führt uns in graue Träume,
In denen das Leben sich ruhig auflöst
Und ein paar Stunden Ruhe uns schenkt.
Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963)
Point Counter Point (1928)
...fortgesetzt. Ein wirklich wunderbares Werk - aus den, an großartigen Romanen so reichen 1920er Jahren.
Neben der facettenreichen Darstellung der Charaktere, die in ihrem "Herumirren" ein wenig an die Figuren aus Gides "Falschmünzer" erinnern (wenn Huxlex seinen Figuren gegenüber auch etwas weniger Empathie als zynische Distanz aufzubringen scheint), enthält der Roman auch ganz großartige Passagen zu einem breiten Spektrum an Themen, die meines Erachtens auch heute noch die entscheidenden Fragen menschlicher Existenz ausmachen.
In der Gesamtkonzeption wirkt der Roman nicht ganz rund, aber aufgrund seines Reichtums, seiner wunderbaren Sprache (mindestens im engl. Original) ein wahres Lesevergnügen und Stoff zum Nachdenken für Monate...ein Werk, das man immer wieder lesen kann...
Über die Inkonsequenz von materialistisch-szientistischen Weltbildern:
""[...] And when one’s a militant communist and a scientific materialist,
and an admirer of the Russian Revolution, the theory’s
uncommonly queer. You should hear our young friend
talking about murder! Political murder is what especially
interests him, of course; but he doesn’t make much dis-
tinction between the different branches of the profession.
One kind according to him, is as harmless and morally
indifferent as another. Our vanity makes us exaggerate
the importance of human life; the individual is nothing;
Nature cares only for the species. And so on and so forth.
Queer, [...]"
"I discovered not long ago, quite
accidentally, that Illidge has the most touching sense of
family loyalty. He keeps his mother, he pays for his
younger brother’s education, lie gave his sister fifty
pounds when she married."
"What’s wrong in that?"
"Wrong? But it’s disgustingly bourgeois! Theoretically,
he sees no distinction between his mother and any other
aged female. He knows that, in a properly organized
society, she’d be put into the lethal chamber, because of
her arthritis. In spite of which he sends her I don’t know
how much a week to enable her to drag on a useless
existence. I twitted him about it the other day. He blushed
and was terribly upset, as though he’d been caught cheat-
ing at cards.""
Über Huxleys "Point Couter Point" bin ich auf die bemerkenswerte Geschichte von Michael Field (Katherine Harris Bradley (1846–1914) und Edith Emma Cooper (1862–1913)) gestoßen, die mir bisher unbekannt war!
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Field
Das Blau des Himmels (1935, pub. 1957)
Hin und hergerissen war ich bei der Lektüre dieses Werks - als Jugendlicher wäre ich wahrscheinlich begeistert gewesen...mit beinahe 50 überwiegt doch der schale Nachgeschmack dieser bis zum Extrem getriebenen hypochondirschen Ich-Literatur. "Ecce Homo" Pathos eines Suchenden in der Tradition von Lautreamont oder Huysmans À rebours.
Der Ich-Erzähler (Henry Troppmann) leidet an Qualen, die des unfreiwillig Komischen nicht entbehren. Die Anrüchigkeit mancher Szenen mag auf vergangene Generationen stark gewirkt haben (in vielerlei Richtung) - heute holt man damit keinen Hund mehr hinterm Ofen hervor. In seiner grenzenlosen Ich-Orientierung stellen alle weiblichen Figuren für Henry Troppmann ausschließlich als Objekte seiner Begierde dar - der unliebenswürdigste Zug des Ich Erzählers.
Das Aufziehen des Faschismus in Europa - gewissermaßen als Kulisse des sich in Alkoholismus und seiner Suche nach seiner sexuellen Orientierung ringenden Ich-Erzählers - ist einer der interessanteren Aspekte dieses Werks....
Nebenbei bin ich über Batailles "Materialismus" gestoßen - ein Denkmuster, das für französische Schritfsteller - speziell rund um den sogenannten Poststrukturalismus bestimmend geworden ist...bemerkenswert.
Bataille wendet sich zu Recht gegen dualistische Konzepte (ein Mainstream Gedanke des 20ten Jahrunderts, auch in der angloamerikanischen Analytischen Philosophie) - ebenso berechtigt gegen einen naiven Idealismus, der einen Standpunkt "außerhalb" der Welt annehmen müsste...im Materialismus erkennt er eine Form des Idealismus - ebenfalls zu Recht.
Erschreckend und folgenschwer ist seine Konsequenz. Er behauptet einen "grundsätzlicheren" Materialismus...der er scheinbar nur Materialismus nennt, um die Ablehnung jeglicher "Jenseitgkeit" auszudrücken. Diese Materie ist aber genau genommen nur Substanz, ohne Differenzierung und doch auf einen Beobachter bezogen - fast so wie ein inkonsequenter Spinoza.
(Das erinnert an den Begriff einer Substanz, einem naiv aufgefassten Ding an Sich, einem Sein im heideggerischen Sinn, dem dann "phänomenologisch" zu Leibe gerückt wird, wobei man sich allerdings reflexionslos in der Sprache verliert & verlieren muss)
Damit schafft sich Bataille eine Basis, die jegliche philosophische Fragestellung von vornherein diskreditiert, ja unmöglich macht - ihm gleichzeitig aber ermöglicht über Gott und die Welt zu schwatzen - naive Ontologie zu betreiben.
Und plausibel klingt das für das Alltagsbewusstsein des 20ten Jahrhunderts obendrein.
Damit ist der Weg frei für die rein schriftstellerische Herangehensweise, die besonders unter den französischen Denkern der zweiten Hälfte des 20ten Jahrhunderts furore machte...die unter naiv-ontologischen Voraussetzungen alle möglichen menschlichen bzw. gesellschaftlichen Gegenstände räsonniert - dabei aber alles, was Grundlagenphilosophie zu untersuchen zur Aufgabe hat, außer acht lässt, um den Preis naiver, dogmatischer Grundveraussetzungen....ganz so wie eine Wirtshausdiskussion um das Richtig oder Falsch von Handlungen anderer Menschen, die auf einem stabilen Bau von unhinterfragten Voraussetzungen funktionert.
The Europeans (1878)
durchaus lesenswert, leicht und unterhaltsam - aber ohne wirklich Eindruck zu machen & im letzten Viertel klingt das Zusteuern auf ein 'Happy End' aus heutiger Sicht sehr unplausibel...James' "Portrait of a Lady" ist schon vielschichtiger und tiefer...
"Er war kein ruheloser, besorgter und ehrgeiziger Geist im ständigen Wettlauf mit dem tyrannischen Schicksal, sondern ein argloses Gemüt, das das Unglück überlistete und ihm mit der leichten, natürlichen Bewegung einer im Wind schwankenden Blume auswich und sich entzog."
"Er [...] hatte sich ein paarmal mit der Behauptung, die Passivität von Frauen werde überschätzt, gefährlich nahe am Zynismus bewegt."
"Man muss schon sagen [...], nichts übersteigt die Zügellosigkeit, die sich die Fantasie puritanischer Leute manchmal erlaubt."
"Das Besuchen alter Frauen mochte keine angeborene Vorliebe sein, man konnte sich jedoch, wie man von mancher Schonkost behauptet, daran gewöhnen."
"[...] es gibt keinen liebenswürdigen Mann, der nicht irgendwann bei einer klugen Frau - die wahrscheinlich ein bisschen älter war als er - in die Schule gegangen ist."
"[...] die Vernunft ist deprimierend fade. Das ist eine Suppe ohne Salz."
"[...] unverwüstliche Fröhlichkeit [...] ist für andere lästig, für einen selbst aber erfreulich."
Plot summary von mantex.co.uk:
Chapter I. Baroness Eugenia Munster and her brother Felix Young have travelled from Europe to visit their cousins in Boston, USA. Eugenia has the additional purpose of seeking her fortune, since she knows her German husband wishes to divorce her. In New York she is vexed by what she perceives as the plainness of the New World, whilst her brother is cheerfully enthusiastic about what he finds there.
Chapter II. At her family home in Boston, Gertrude Wentworth feels ‘restless’ and does not wish to go to church, despite the urging of her elder sister Charlotte. The minister Mr Brand calls and wishes to speak to Gertrude in private, but she puts him off. When Felix arrives to present himself she becomes immediately fascinated by his European background and complex family history- particularly that of his sister the Baroness.
Chapter III. Next day Felix describes the visit to his sister Eugenia, who is mainly interested in the wealth and the social caché of the Wentworths and their circle. Eugenia meets and charms the entire family, and wastes no time in asking to be ‘taken care of’.
Chapter IV. There is a great deal of discussion amongst the extended Wentworth family regarding the potential dangers of being exposed to European influences. However, the austere Mr Wentworth finally invites Eugenia and Felix to stay in a separate house on his estate. Eugenia adds decorations to the puritan ‘chalet’ and Felix finds delight in everything, especially the freedom to socialise with young unmarried ladies. Eugenia holds herself aloof, but pretends to feel neglected. Mr Brand and Robert Acton begin to pay her social visits.
Chapter V. Mr Wentworth does not know how to understand Eugenia, and he refuses to have his portrait painted by Felix. Gertrude however falls under the romantic spell of Felix. Mr Brand eventually declares his love for Gertrude, who repudiates him without hesitation.
Chapter VI. Robert Acton is intrigued by Eugenia and her exotic character, but he tries to conceal his interest behind a facade of nonchalance. Eugenia explains to him the complex history of her marriage and its present state. She has a prepared document rejecting the Prince her husband which she only needs to sign to gain her freedom – which she flirtatiously suggests to him that she might do.
Chapter VII. Felix eventually persuades Mr Wentworth to sit for his portrait. Felix has fallen for Gertrude, but as a penniless artist with no prospects he does not wish to take advantage of his hosts by openly paying court to her. Mr Wentworth reveals to Felix that his son Clifford has been sent down from Harvard for drunkenness. Felix suggests that Clifford should pay court to Eugenia – but Mr Wentworth refuses to accept the idea. However, Clifford does visit Eugenia and suggests that Charlotte should marry Mr Brand.
Chapter VIII. Mr Brand oppresses Gertrude with further courtship, which she flatly rejects. She asks her sister Charlotte to marry him instead. Meanwhile, Clifford is given lessons in emotional and social life skills from Eugenia, who suggests that he visit her in Germany when she returns to Europe.
Chapter IX. Robert Acton is not sure if he is in love with Eugenia or not, but cannot stop thinking about her. After returning from Newport he visits her late at night, and asks about her ‘renunciation’ document, about which she refuses to comment. Clifford suddenly appears, at which she becomes difficult and argumentative. Next day Acton challenges Clifford about Eugenia – but they lie to each other about their intentions.
Chapter X. The weather gets worse and Eugenia is bored. She reproaches Felix for his relentless cheerfulness. He hopes to marry Gertrude, and he urges her to accept Acton as a potential husband. Felix reveals to Mr Brand that Charlotte is hopelessly in love with him, which leaves Brand rather perplexed.
Chapter XI. Eugenia visits old Mrs Acton to say a goodbye. Mrs Acton implores her to stay – for her son’s sake. Eugenia meets Robert Acton in the garden as she is leaving. He is in love with her, but suspects her of lying. Meanwhile Felix appeals to Charlotte for assistance in his quest for Gertrude. He wishes to overcome Mr Wentworth’s objections to his Bohemianism.
Chapter XII. Felix pleads his case for marrying Gertrude to her father. The family are united in their plea that Mr Wentworth give his consent. In the middle of this discussion, Mr Brand appears and requests permission to marry the couple. Mr Wentworth finally consents. That same evening it is announced that Clifford and Lizzie Acton will marry at the same time. Eugenia equivocates with Robert Acton one last time, reveals to Felix that she has not signed her release document, and goes back to Europe.
Generation X (1991)
"Tales for an Accelerated Culture" klingt im 21sten Jahrhundert geradezu putzig...1991 erschienen, beschreibt das Werk eine Generation, die ohne Internet, ohne Mobiltelefonie, in einer Epoche aufgewachsen ist, die aus gegenwärtiger Sicht so beschaulich erscheint wie das Dasein eines Försters in seiner Waldhütte.
Die interessante Frage, die sich aus dieser teilweise unfreiwillig komischen Konstellation ergibt, ist, ob es nicht letztlich diese Generation war, die diese Beschleunigung wollte und geschaffen hat (wenn nicht im Arbeitsleben, dann in der Freizeit), die instantane Kommunikation, das permanente Ausfüllen der Lebenszeit mit rastloser Aktivität.
Die andere Seite ist die Lehre: will man - wie Coupland - ganz bewusst ein Zeitzeugnis schaffen, dann erzeugt man etwas, das schon bald keine andere Relevanz mehr hat als eine historische...so ähnlich wie alte Zeitungen, die durchaus lesenswert sein können, weil man eine Stimme aus der Vergangenheit hört, aber ohne tieferen Wert.
Deshalb und aufgrund seiner aufgesetzt poppigen Trendigkeit, seiner frauenmagazinartigen Klischeehaftigkeit stieß mich das Buch bei seinem Erscheinen ab und erst jetzt, aus der Distanz einer wohlwollenden Nostalgie, ist es mir möglich Coupland ohne Widerwillen zu lesen.
Franz List (1811 - 1886)
Winterreise - Klaviertranskriptionen nach Schubert, S.561 (1840)
hier, aber in anderer Reihenfolge!
https://youtu.be/w4yXVfsFP3c
- 1. "Gute Nacht" (S.561/1)
- 4. "Erstarrung" (S.561/5)
- 5. "Der Lindenbaum" (S.561/7)
- 6. "Wasserflut" (S.561/6)
- 13. "Die Post" (S.561/4)
- 17. "Im Dorfe" (S.561/12)
- 18. "Der stürmische Morgen" (S.561/11)
- 19. "Täuschung" (S.561/9)
- 21. "Das Wirtshaus" (S.561/10)
- 22. "Mut!" (S.561/3)
- 23. "Die Nebensonnen" (S.561/2)
- 24. "Der Leiermann" (S.561/8)
Müllerlieder - Klaviertranskriptionen nach Schubert, S.565 (1846)
https://youtu.be/8tk1gCRtWIE
- Das Wandern
- Der Müller und der Bach
- Der Jäger
- Die böse Farbe
- Wohin?
- Ungeduld (2nd version of S.563/5)
Ständchen for piano, aus Schwanengesang, S 560 No. 7 (1838-39)
https://youtu.be/DGvkhl2pi8k
12 Lieder von Schubert, S. 558 (1838, tw. später rev.)
u.a. hier: https://youtu.be/0sHehSxmNws
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)
Notenbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach
again - diesmal am Cembalo interpretiert, z.B.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2FpZPIebE
- Menuet, BWV Anh. 113
- Menuet, BWV Anh. 114 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Menuet, BWV Anh. 115 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Rondeau, Les Bergeries, BWV Anh. 183 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Menuet, BWV Anh. 116
- Polonaise, BWV Anh. 117
- Menuet, BWV Anh. 118
- Polonaise, BWV Anh. 119
- Choral. Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten, BWV 691
- Gib dich zufrieden und sei stille, BWV 510
- Gib dich zufrieden und sei stille, BWV 511
- Gib dich zufrieden und sei stille, BWV 512
- Menuet, BWV Anh. 120
- Menuet, BWV Anh. 121
- Marche, BWV Anh. 122 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Polonaise, BWV Anh. 123 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Marche, BWV Anh. 124 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Polonaise, BWV Anh. 125 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Aria. So oft ich meine Tobackspfeife, BWV 515a
- Menuet, fait par Mons (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Musette, BWV Anh. 126
- Marche, BWV Anh. 127
- Polonaise, BWV Anh. 128
- Bist du bei mir, BWV 508
- Aria, BWV 988 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Solo per il Cembalo, BWV Anh. 129 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Polonaise, BWV Anh. 130 (Arr. J.S. Bach)
- Präludium, BWV 846
- Without Title, BWV Anh. 131
- Aria. Warum betrübst du dich, BWV 516
- Recitative and Aria. Ich habe genug, BWV 82
- Schaff's mit mir, Gott, BWV 514
- Menuet, BWV Anh. 132
- Aria di Giovannini, BWV 518
- Choral. Dir, Dir, Jehova, will ich singen, BWV 299
- Wie wohl ist mir, o Freund der Seelen, BWV 517
- Aria. Gedenke doch, mein Geist, BWV 509
- O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 513
Mehr Erinnerungswürdiges aus Huxleys Point Counter Point:
“One, shouldn’t take art too literally. […] Particularly where love is concerned.”
“[…] silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unhewn marble of great sculpture.”
“Women who believed the world well lost for love were apt to be a terrible nuisance, as he knew only too well by personal experience.”
“‘I must be an idiot,’ he assured himself when he thought of other people’s political enthusiasms and his own indifference. He was too modest to attribute the idiocy to the other people.“
“You deliberately remember to forget.”
“Many people, he had found, are frightened of anger; he cultivated his natural ferocity. It kept people at a distance, saved him from being bothered.”
“Bloodhounds, he pointed out, have the air of learned judges, oxen when they chew the cud seem to meditate the problems of metaphysics, the mantis looks as though it were praying; but these appearances are entirely deceptive. It was the same with women.”
“A pleasure too often repeated produces numbness; it’s no more felt as a pleasure.”
“When a ludicrous thought occurred to her she could never prevent herself from giving utterance to it, even when she was supposed to be serious, or, as in this case, in a rage.”
“‘He’s against democracy.’
‘Because it allows such awful people to get power. He wants the best to rule.’”
“Money breeds a kind of gangrened insensitiveness. It’s inevitable.”
“He was too sensitively quick to see the other person’s point of view. In his anxiety to be just to others he was often prepared to be unjust to himself. He was always ready to sacrifice his own rights rather than run any risk of infringing the rights of others.”
“All the same, it would be good to know what it’s like to believe in something to the point of being prepared to kill people or get yourself killed.”
“All his life long he had walked in a solitude, in a private void, into which nobody, not his mother, not his friends, not his lovers had ever been permitted to enter. Even when he held her thus, pressed close to him, it was by wireless, as she had said, and across an Atlantic that he communicated with her.”
“For in the ordinary daily world of human contacts he was curiously like a foreigner, uneasily not at home among his fellows, finding it difficult or impossible to enter into communication with any but those who could speak his native intellectual language of ideas. Emotionally, he was a foreigner.”
“It’s the disease of modern man. I call it Jesus’s diseases on the analogy of Bright’s disease. Or rather Jesus’s and Newton’s disease; for the scientists are as much responsible as the Christians. So are the big business men, for that matter. It’s Jesus’s and Newton’s and Henry Ford’s disease. Between them, the three have pretty well killed us. Ripped the life out of our bodies and stuffed us with hatred.”
“The Christians, who weren’t sane, told people that they’d got to throw half of themselves in the waste-paper basket. And now the scientists and business men- come and tell us that we must throw away half of what the Christians left us. But I don’t want to be three quarters dead. I prefer to be alive, entirely alive.”
“‘I should have thought this epoch needed no reforming. It’s
the golden age of guzzling, sport, and promiscuous love-
making.’ […]
‘You seem to imagine that the cold, modern, civilized lasciviousness is the same as the healthy — what shall I call it? — phallism […] of the ancients.
[…]It’s just Christianity turned inside out. The ascetic contempt for
the body expressed in a different way. Contempt and hatred. That was what I was saying just now. You hate yourselves, you hate life. Your only alternatives are promiscuity or asceticism. Two forms of death.’”
“‘Don’t talk to me of Shelley.’ […] ‘There’s something very dreadful about Shelley. Not human, not a man. A mixture between a fairy and a white slug.’ […] ‘Oh, exquisite and all that. But what a bloodless kind of slime inside! No blood, no real bones and bowels. Only pulp and a white juice. And oh, that dreadful lie in the soul! The way he was always pretending for the benefit of himself and everybody else that the world wasn’t really the world, but either heaven or hell. And that going to bed with women wasn’t really going to bed with them, but just two angels holding hands.’
“‘Think of his [Shelley’s] treatment of women — shocking, really shocking. The women loved it, of course — for a little. It made them feel so
spiritual — that is, until it made them feel like committing suicide.’”
“Nights are like human beings — never interesting till they’re grown up.”
“It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged. You can see it in their faces. There’s a victim type as well as a criminal type.”
“One should always' be on the side of destiny.”
“There are many' thoughts and feelings, but only a few gestures.”
“I’ve never agreed to anything in my life […} and never will. Not for more than half an hour at a time, at any rate.”
“‘What shall I do when I’m old?’she suddenly asked.
‘Why not die?’”
"'[...] And when one’s a militant communist and a scientific materialist, and an admirer of the Russian Revolution, the theory’s uncommonly queer. You should hear our young friend talking about murder! Political murder is what especially interests him, of course; but he doesn’t make much distinction between the different branches of the profession. One kind according to him, is as harmless and morally indifferent as another. Our vanity makes us exaggerate the importance of human life; the individual is nothing;
Nature cares only for the species. And so on and so forth. Queer, [...]'
'I discovered not long ago, quite accidentally, that Illidge has the most touching sense of
family loyalty. He keeps his mother, he pays for his younger brother’s education, lie gave his sister fifty
pounds when she married.'
'What’s wrong in that?'
'Wrong? But it’s disgustingly bourgeois! Theoretically, he sees no distinction between his mother and any other
aged female. He knows that, in a properly organized society, she’d be put into the lethal chamber, because of
her arthritis. In spite of which he sends her I don’t know how much a week to enable her to drag on a useless
existence. I twitted him about it the other day. He blushed and was terribly upset, as though he’d been caught cheating at cards.' "
“‘[experiences] could never be very exciting if you didn’t feel they were wrong.’”
“‘[…] some people can only realize goodness by offending against it.’ But when the old offences have ceased to be felt as offences, what then?”
“Feelings are not separate entities that can be stimulated in isolation from the rest of the mind. When a man is emotionally exalted in one direction, he is liable to become emotionally exalted in others.”
“‘Because the essence of the new way of looking is multiplicity. Multiplicity of eyes and multiplicity of aspects seen. For instance, one person interprets events in terms of bishops; another in terms of the price of flannel camisoles; another, like that young lady from Gulmerg, […] thinks of it in terms of good times. And then there’s the biologist, the chemist, the physicist, the historian. Each sees, professionally, a different aspect of the event, a different layer of reality.’”
“Upon the fibres of the spirit bodily fatigue has a softening effect.”
“Sensuality and sentiment, desire and tenderness are as often friends as they are enemies.”
“‘Living modernly’s living quickly, […] You can’t cart a wagon-load of ideals and romanticisms about with you these days. When you travel by airplane, you must leave your heavy baggage behind. The good oldfashioned soul was all right when people lived slowly. But it’s too ponderous nowadays. There’s no room for it in the airplane.’”
“The thing is to know what you want and to be ready to pay for it.”
“[on St. Francis:] Children don’t lick lepers. Only sexually perverted adolescents do that.”
“‘The lizards died of having too much body and too little head, […] at least, the scientists are never tired of telling us. Physical size is a
handicap after a certain point. But what about mental size? These fools seem to forget that they’re just as topheavy and clumsy and disproportioned as any diplodocus.’”
“Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.”
“If I’m no real good, I prefer to be just frankly no good.”
“Actions which at first seem thrilling in their intrinsic wickedness become
after a certain number of repetitions morally neutral. A little disgusting, perhaps, for the practice of most vices is followed by depressing physiological reactions; but no longer wicked, because so ordinary. It is difficult for a routine to seem wicked.”
“One sentence, and I am already involved in history, art, and all the sciences. The whole story of the universe is implicit in any part of it. The meditative eye can look through any single object and see, as through a
window, the entire cosmos.”
“What a comfort […] to live in a world where one can delegate everything tiresome, from governing to making sausages, to somebody else.”
“Making us go through life with a barrowful of tripes! I’ve always resented God’s practical jokes.”
“Descriptions are slow. A face is instantaneously perceived.”
“He wished he could paint. Literature couldn’t render it. One could describe it, of course, down to the last wrinkle. But where would one be then? Nowhere. Descriptions are slow. A face is instantaneously perceived. A word, a single phrase — that was what was needed. ‘The glory that was Greece, grown old.’ That, for example, would give you something of the man. Only of course it wouldn’t do. Quotations have something facetiously pedantic about them. ‘A statue in parchment’ would be better. ‘The parchment statue of what had once been Achilles was sitting, crumpled, near the stove.’ That was getting nearer the mark. No longwinded description. But for anyone who had ever seen a cast of the Discobolos, handled a vellum-bound book, heard of Achilles, John Bidlake was in that sentence visible. And for those who had never seen a Greek statue or read about Achilles in a book with a crinkly sheep-skin cover? Well, presumably they could go to the devil.”
“The party system works well enough in cases where the parties are merely two groups of rival oligarchs, belonging to the same class and having fundamentally the same interests and ideals, competing with one another for power. But when parties become identified with classes and develop strict party principles, the system becomes an insanity.”
“Because I sit on one side of the house and you sit on the other, I am compelled to believe in individualism to the exclusion of all state interference, you are compelled to believe in state interference to the exclusion of all individualism; I am compelled to believe in nationalism, even in economic nationalism (which is an imbecility), you are compelled to believe in internationalism, even political internationalism (which is no less of an imbecility); I am compelled to believe in the dictatorship of the' rich (to the exclusion of the intelligent), you are compelled to believe in the dictatorship of the poor (also to the exclusion of the intelligent). All this for the simple and politically irrelevant reason that I am on the Right and you are on the Left.”
“Modesty’s harmful if it’s false.”
“Milton said that ‘nothing profits more than self-esteem founded on just and right.’ I know that mine is founded on just and right. I know, I’m absolutely convinced, that I can do what I want to do. What’s the good of denying the knowledge? I’m going to be master, I’m going to impose my will. I have the determination and the courage. Very soon I shall have the organized strength. And then I shall take control. I know it; why should I pretend that I don’t?”
“‘[…] assuming, as the scientists do, that the simplest hypothesis is the
best — […] I could never for the life of me see what justification, beyond human ineptitude, they had for doing so…’”
‘What justification? […] Only the justification of observed fact, that’s all. It happens to be found experimentally that nature does do things in the simplest way.’
‘Or else, […] that human beings understand only the simplest explanatives. In practice, you couldn’t distinguish between those alternatives.’
‘But if a thing has a simple, natural explanation, it can’t at the same time have a complicated, supernatural one.’
‘Why not? […] You mayn’t be able to understand or measure the supernatural forces behind the superficially natural ones (whatever the difference between natural and supernatural may be). But that doesn’t prove they’re not there. You’re simply raising your stupidity to the rank of a general law.’”
“Everything that happens is intrinsically like the man it happens to.”
“Everything’s incredible, if you can skin off the crust of obviousness our habits put on it. Every object and event contains within itself an infinity of depths within depths. Nothing’s in the least like what it seems — or rather it’s like several million other things at the same time.”
“The chief defect of the novel of ideas is that you must write about people who have ideas to express — which excludes all but about .01 per cent, of the human race. Hence the real, the congenital novelists don’t write such books.”
“[…] when one finds a thing boring, one’s apt to be boring about it.”
“Anger, he always found, was an excellent weapon, so long as you didn’t let yourself be mastered by it.”
“The question for the man of sense is: Do we or do we not want to go to hell? And his answer is: No, we don’t. And if that’s his answer, then he won’t have anything to do with any of the politicians. Because they all
want to land us in hell. All, without exception. Lenin and Mussolini, MacDonald and Baldwin. All equally anxious to take us to hell and only squabbling about the means of taking us.”
“[…] mechanical progress means more specialization and standardization of
work, means more ready-made and unindividual amusements, means diminution of initiative and creativeness, means more intellectualism and the progressive atrophy of all the vital and fundamental things in human nature, means increased boredom and restlessness, means finally a kind of individual madness that can only result in social revolution.”
“Nothing like modern art for sterilizing the life out of things.”
