The reference is to the ancient legend that an ideal period existed on earth during the reign of Saturn (Greek Cronus). Rules of justice and property did not then exist, and, according to the early poet Hesiod of Boeotia (8th-7th C. BC), men lived like gods in perfect felicity, without women and without fear of suffering, hardship, or death.
(It's better to create than destroy what's unnecessary)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals - pg. 210
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Labels: David Hume, Hesiod of Boeotia
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Perdido Street Station - pg. 56
It was not a purer realm that loomed vastly over the city. Smokestacks punctured the membrane between the land and the air and disgorged tons of poisonous smog into the upper world rooftops, the detritus from a million low chimneys eddied together. Crematoria vented into the airborne ashes of wills burnt by jealous executors, which mixed with coaldust burnt to keep dying lovers warm. Thousands of sordid smoke-ghosts wrapped New Crobuzon in a stench that suffocated like guilt.
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Labels: China Miéville
Perdido Street Station - pg. 55
The city thrust upwards massively, as if inspired by those vast mountains that rose to the west. Blistering square slabs of habitation ten, twenty, thirty storeys high punctuated the skyline. They burst into the air like fat fingers, like fists, like the stumps of limbs waving frantically above the swells of the lower houses. The tons of concrete and tar that constituted the city covered ancient geography, knolls and barrows and verges, undulations that were still visible. Slum houses spilt down the sides of Vaudois Hill, Flyside, Flag Hill, St. Jabber's Mound like scree.
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Labels: China Miéville
Perdido Street Station - pg. 40
And Yagharek told Isaac, to Isaac's growing amazement, of the Cymek library. The great librarian clan who strapped the thousands of volumes into their trunks and carried between them as they flew, following the food and the water in the perpetual, punishing Cymek summer. The enormous tent village that sprung up where they landed, and the garuda bands that congregated on the vast, sprawling centre of learning whenever it was in their reach.
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Labels: China Miéville
An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals - pg. 83
SECTION 3OF JUSTICEPART 1THAT justice is useful to society, and consequently that part of its merit, at least, must arise from that consideration, it would be a superfluous undertaking to prove. That public utility is the sole origin of justice, and that reflections on the beneficial consequences of this virtue are the sole foundation of its merit; this proposition, being more curious and important, will better deserve our examination and enquiry.
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Labels: David Hume
An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals - pg. 81
In all determinations of morality, this circumstance of public utility is ever principally in view; and wherever disputes arise, either in philosophy or common life, concerning the bounds of duty, the question cannot, by any means, be decided with greater certainty, than by ascertaining, on any side, the true interests of mankind. If any false opinion, embraced from appearances, has been found to prevail; as soon as farther experience and sounder reasoning have given us juster notions of human affairs; we retract our first setniment, and adjust anew the boundaries of moral good and evil.
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Labels: David Hume
An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals - pg. 75
The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty; and, by proper representations of the deformity of vice and beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one, and embrace the other. But is this ever to be expected from inferences and conclusions of the understanding, which of themselves have no hold of the affections, nor set in motion the active powers of men? They discover truths: But where the truths which they discover are indifferent, and beget no desire or aversion, they can have no influence on conduct and behavious. What is honourable, what is fair, what is becoming, what is noble, what is generous, takes possession of the heart, and animates us to embrace and maintain it. What is intelligible, what is evident, what is probable, what is true, procures only the cool assent of understanding; and gratifying a speculative curiosity, puts an end to our researches.
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Labels: David Hume
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Marathi Writers
Ravindra Pinge,
PL Deshpande,
Ranjit Desai,
Mangesh Padgaonkar
Poets Kusumagraj,
Vinda Karandikar,
Keshav Pandit,
Arun Kolhatkar,
Namdeo Dhasal
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Labels: Marathi
Monday, July 27, 2009
Book Targets
- Confidence Man (after perdido)
- Summa Theologia (after morals)
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Labels: Book List
Sunday, July 26, 2009
An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals - Opening
SECTION 1
OF THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF MORALS
DISPUTES with men, pertinaciously obstinate in their principles, are, of all others, the most irksome; except, perhaps, those with persons, entirely disingenuous, who really do not believe the opinions they defend, but engage in the controversy, from affectation, from a spirit of opposition, or from a desire of showing wit and ingenuity, superior to the rest of mankind. The same blind adherence to their own arguments is to be expected in both; the same contempt of their antagonists; and the same passionate vehemence, in enforcing sophistry and falsehood. And as reasoning is not the source, when either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles.
Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
Editorial introduction and apparatus Tom L. Beauchamp 1998
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First published in 1998.
Typeset by Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd.
Midsomer Norton, Somerset
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Labels: David Hume, Opening
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Closing
When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
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Labels: Closing, David Hume
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Annotations
The use of Homer and Roman poet Virgil (1st C. BC) as models of storytelling was popular when Hume wrote. By 'oblique narration' Hume means the telling of a story, not through the narrator, but through a character in retrospect. In the Odyssey the story is framed around Odysseus' struggles to return home after the end of the Trojan War. In Virgil's Aeneid the divine origins of the Romans are presented through the adventures and struggles of Aeneas in his attempt to reach home after the Trojan War. The action of both the Odyssey and the Aeneid involves central figures in the midst of their journeys.
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Labels: David Hume, Homer, Phil: Narrative, Publius Vergilius Maro
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 199
There is a species of scepticism, antecedent to all study and philosophy, which is much inculcated by DES CARTES and others, as a sovereign preservative against error and precipitate judgment. It recommends an universal doubt, not only of all our former opinions and principles, but also of our very faculties; of whose veracity, say they, we must assure ourselves, by a chain of reasoning, deduced from some original principle, which cannot possibly be fallacious or deceitful. But neither is there any such original principle, which has a prerogative above others, that are self-evident and convincing: Or if there were, could we advance a step beyond it, but by the use of those very faculties, of which we are supposed to be already diffident. The CARTESIAN doubt, therefore, were it ever possible to be attained by any human creature (as it plainly is not) would be entirely incurable; and no reasoning could ever bring us to a state of assurance and conviction upon any subject.
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Labels: David Hume, Master-quotes, René Descartes
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 175
Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a TULLY or a DEMOSTHENES could scarcely effect over a ROMAN or ATHENIAN audience, every Capuchin, every itnierant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind.
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Labels: David Hume
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 164
The second objection admits not of so easy and satisfactory an answer; nor is it possible to explain distinctly, how the Deity can be the mediate cause of all the actions of men, without being the author of sin and moral turpitude. These are mysteries, which mere natural and unassisted reason is very unfit to handle; and whatever system she embraces, she must find herself involved in inextricable difficulties, and even contradictions, at every step which she takes with regard to such subjects. To reconcile the indifference and contingency of human actions with prescience; or to defend absolute decrees, and yet free the Deity from being the author of sin, has been found hitherto to exceed all the power of philosophy. Happy, if she be thence sensible of her temerity, when she pries into these sublime mysteries; and leaving a scene so full of obscurities and perplexities, return, with suitable modesty, to her true and proper province, the examination of common life; where she will find difficulties enow to employ her enquiries, without launching into so boundless an ocean of doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction!
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Labels: David Hume, Master-quotes
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 163
There are many philosophers, who, after an exact scrutiny of all the phenomena of nature, conclude, that the WHOLE, considered as one system, is, in every period of its existence, ordered with perfect benevolence; and that the utmost possible happiness will, in the end, result to all created beings, without any mixture of positive or absolute ill and misery. Every physical ill, say that, makes an essential part of this benevolent system, and could not possibly be removed, even by the Deity himself, considered as a wise agent, without giving entrance to greater ill, or excluding greater good, which will result from it. From this theory, some philosopher, and the ancient STOICS among the rest, derived a topic of consolation under all afflictions, while they taught their pupils, that those ills, under which they laboured, were, in reality, goods to the universe; and that to an enlarged view, which could comprehend the whole system of nature, every event became an object of joy and exultation.
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Labels: David Hume
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 158
But to proceed in this reconciling project with regard to the question of liberty and necessity; the most contentious question, of metaphysics, the most contentious science; it will not require many words to prove, that all mankind have ever agreed in the doctrine of liberty as welll as in that of necessity, and that the whole dispute, in this respect also, has been hitherto merely verbal. For what is meant byliberty, when applied to voluntary actions? We cannot surely mean, that actions have solittle connexion with motives, inclinations, and circumstances, that one does not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other, and that one affords no inference by which we can conclude the existence of the other. For these are plain and acknowledged matters of fact. By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determination of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to mvoe, we also may. Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one, who is not a prisoner and in chains. Here then is no subject of dispute.
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Labels: David Hume, Master-quotes
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 124
It follows, therefore, that the difference between fiction and belief lies in some sentiment or feeling, which is annexed to the latter, not to the former, and which depends not on the will, nor can be commanded at pleasure. It must be excited by nature, like all other sentiments; and must arise from the particular situation, in which the mind is placed at any particular juncture.
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Labels: David Hume
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 119
SECTION 5THE passion for philosophy, like that for religion, seems liable to this inconvenience, that, though it aims at the correction of our manners, and extirpation of our vices, it may only serve, by imprudent management, to foster a predominant inclination, and push the mind, with more determined resolution, towards that side, which already draws too much, by the biass and propensity of the natural temper. It is certain, that, while we aspire to the magnanimous firmness of the philosophic sage, and endeavour to confine our pleasures altogether within our own minds, we may, at last, render our philosophy like that of EPICTETUS, and other STOICS, only a more refined system of selfishness, and reason ourselves out of all virtue, as well as social enjoyment. While we study with attention the vanity of human life, and turn all our thoughts towards the empty and transitory nature of riches and honours, we are, perhaps, all the while flattering our natural indolence, which, hating the bustle of the world, and drudgery of business, seeks a pretence of reason, to give itself a full and uncontrouled indulgence.
SCEPTICAL SOLUTION
OF THESE DOUBTS
PART 1
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Labels: David Hume, Epictetus
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 108
SECTION 4
SCEPTICAL DOUBTS CONCERNING
THE OPERATIONS OF THE
UNDERSTANDING
PART 1
ALL the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact.. Of the first kind ate the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation, which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypotenues is equal to the square of two sides, is a proposition, which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is any where existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths, demonstrated by EUCLID, would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.
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Labels: David Hume
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 106
To return to the comparison of history and epic poetry, we may conclude, from the foregoing reasonings, that, as a certain unity is requisite in all productions, it cannot be wanting in history more than in any other; that, in history, the connexion among the several events, which unites them into one body, is the relation of cause and effect, the same which takes place in epic poetry and that, in the latter composition, this connexion is only requied to be closer and more sensible, on account of the lively imagination and strong passions, which must be touched by the poet in his narration. The PELOPONNESIAN war is a proper subject for history, the siege of ATHENS for an epic poem, and the death of ALICIBADES for a tragedy.
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Labels: David Hume
Enquiriy Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 103
But the most usual species of connexion among the different events, which enter into any narrative composition, is that of cause and effect; while the historuian traces the series of actions according to their natural order, remounts to thier secret springs and principles, and delineates their most remote consequences. He chooses for his subject a cetain portion of that great chain of events, which compose the history of mankind. Each ling in this chain he endeavours to touch in his narration: Sometimes unavoidable ignorance renders all his attempts fruitless: Somtimes he supplies by conjecture, what is wanting in knowledge: And always, he is sensible, that the more unbroken the chain is, which he presents to his reader, the more perfect is this production. He sees, that the knowledge of causes is not only the most satisfactory; this relation or connexion being the strongest of all others; but also the most instructive; since it is but this knowledge alone, we are enabled to controul events, and govern futurity.
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Labels: David Hume
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 101
Though it be too obvious to escape observation, that different ideas are connected together; I do not find, that any philosopher has attempted to enumerate or class all the principles of association; a subject, however, that seems worth of curiosity. To me, there appear to be only three principles of connexion among ideas, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect.
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An Enrquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 97
The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom.
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An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 96
SECTION 2
OF THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS
EVERY one will readily allow, that there is a considerable difference between the perceptions of the mind, when a man feels the pain of excessive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his memory this sensation, or anticipates it by his imagination. There faculties may mimic or copy the perceptions of the senses; but they never can entirely reach the force and vivacity of the original sentiment. The utmost we say of them, even when they operate with greatest vigour, is, that they represent their object in so lively a manner, that we could almost say we feel or see it: But, except the mond be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such apitch of vivacity, as to render these perceptions altogether undistinguishable. All the colours of poety, however splendid, can never paint natural obkects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landscape. The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.
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Labels: David Hume
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
...
"making love is not just becoming as one, or even two, but becoming as a hundred thousand."
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Labels: Félix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Perdido Street Station - pg. 28
Lin to her mortal horror was running late.It did not help that she was not an afficionado of Bonetown. The cross-bred architecture of that outlandish quarter confused her: a syncresis of industrialism and the gaudy domestic ostentation of the slightly rich, the peeling concrete of forgotten docklands and the stretched skins of shantytown tents. The different forms segued into each other seemingly at random in this low, flat zone, full of urban scrubland and wasteground where wildflowers and thick-stemmed plants pushed through plains of concrete and tar.
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Labels: China Miéville
Monday, July 20, 2009
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 21
In the remaining paragraphs of Section 3 (3.4-18), Hume applies these ideas about association and connection to the connectedness and unity found in literary and historical works. He maintains that the writer os these compositions has a definite plan or object. The events or actions that the writer relates are connected in the imagination; and the work has a 'certain unity' created by a connecting principle (3.6, 10). The connecting principle among the various events forming the subject differs in accordance with the different designs of the writer. Some writers use the connecting principle of resemblance. For example, the events depicted might resemble each other in that they are all miracles. Writers, especially annalists and historians, also employ the connecting principle of contiguity in time and place to connect the depicted events (3.7-8). For example, historians generally structure their accounts so that events immediately follow one another in time, and often in close geographical proximity.
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Labels: David Hume, Master-quotes, Tom L. Beauchamp
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Opening
SECTION 1OF THE DIFFERENT SPECIES OFPHILOSOPHYMORAL philosophy, or the science of human nature, may be treated after two different manners; each of which has its peculiar merit, and may contribute to the entertainment, instruction, and reformation of mankind. The one considers man chiefly as born for action; and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment; pursuing one object, and avoiding another, according to the value which these objects seem to possess, and according to the light in which they present themselves.Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in ...Oxford is the registered trade mark of Oxford University Pressin the UK and in certain other countriesPublished in the United Statesby Oxford University Press Inc., New YorkEditoril Introduction and apparatus Tom L. Beauchamp 1999The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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Labels: David Hume, Opening
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Confessions - Closing
CHAPTER XXXVIII
OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OF MEN, AND OF THE REPOSE WHICH IS TO BE SOUGHT FROM GOD ONLY
We therefore see those things which Thou madest, because they are; but they are because Thou seest them. As we see without that they are, and within that they are good, but Thou didst see them there, when made to do well, after our hearts had conceived of Thy Spirit; but in the former time, forsaking Thee, we were moved to do evil; but Thou, the One, the Good God, hast never ceased to do good. And we also have certain good works, of Thy gift, but not eternal; after these we hope to rest in Thy great hallowing. But Thou, being the Good, needing no good, are ever at rest, because Thou Thyself are Thy rest. And what man will teach man to understand this? Or what angel, an angel? Or what angel, a man? Let it be asked of Thee, sought in Thee, knocked for at Thee; so, even so shall it be received, so shall it be found, so shall it be opened. Amen
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Labels: Closing, Master-quotes, St. Augustine
Confessions - pg. 234
CHAPTER XII
ALLEGORICAL EXPLANATION OF GENESIS, CHAP. I., CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH AND ITS WORSHIP
Proceed in Thy confession, say to the Lord thy God, O my faith, Holy, Holy, Holy, O Lord my God, in Thy name have we been baptized, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in Thy name do we baptize, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, because among us also in His Christ did God make heaven and earth,namely, the spiritual and carnal people of His Church. Yea, and our earth, before it received the form of doctrine, was invisible and formless, and we were covered with the darkness of ignorance. For Thou correctest man for iniquity, and Thy judgments are a great deep. But because Thy Spirit was borne over the waters, Thy mercy forsook not our misery, and Thou saidst, "Let there be light," "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Repent ye, let there be light. And because our soul was troubled within us, we remembered Thee, O Lord, from the land of Jordan, and that mountain equal unto Thyself, but little for our sakes; and upon our being displeased with our darkness, we turned into Thee, and there was light. And behold, we were sometimes darkness, but now light in the Lord.
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Labels: Master-quotes, St. Augustine
Confessions - pg. 154
Great is this power of memory, exceeding great, O my God -- an inner chamber large and boundless! Who has plumbed its depths? Yet it is a power of mine, and appertains unto my nature; nor do I myself grasp all that I am. Therefore is the mind too narrow to contain itself. And where should that be which it does not contain of itself? Is it outside and not in itself? How is it, then, that it does not grasp itself? A great admiration rises upon me; astonishment seizes me. And men go forth to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the extent of the ocean and the courses of the stars, and omit to wonder at themselves; nor do they marvel that when I spoke of all these things, I was not looking on them with my eyes, and yet could not speak of them unless those mountains, and waves, and rivers, and stars which I saw, and that ocean which I believe in, I saw inwardly in my memory, and with the same vast spaces between as when I saw them abroad. But I did not by seeing appropriate them when I looked on them with my eyes; nor are the things themselves with me, but their images. And I knew by what corporeal sense each made impression on me.
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Labels: St. Augustine
Confessions - pg. 151
I love not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light, and sound, and fragrance, food, and embracement of my inner man -- where that light shineth unto my soul which no place can contain, where that soundeth which time snatcheth not away, where there is a fragrance which no breeze disperseth, where there is a food which no eating can diminish, and where that clingeth which no satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my God.
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Labels: St. Augustine
Confessions - pg. 150
CHAPTER V
THAT MAN KNOWETH NOT HIMSELF WHOLLY
For it is Thou, Lord, that judgest me; for although no man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him, yet is there something of man which the spirit of man which is in him itself knoweth not. But Thou, Lord, who hast made him, knowest him wholly. I indeed, though in Thy sight I despise myself, and reckon myself but dust and ashes, yet know something concerning Thee, which I know not concerning myself. And assredly now we see through a glass darkly, not yet face to face. So long, therefore, as I be absent from Thee, I am more present with myself than with Thee; and yet know I that Thou canst not suffer violence; but for myself I know not what temptations I am able to resist, and what I am not able. But there is hope, because Thou are fatihful, who wilt not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but wilt with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it. I would therefore confess what I know concerning myself; I will confess also what I know not concerning myself. And because what I do know of myself, I know by Thee enlightening me; and what I know not of myself, so long I know not until the time when my darkness be as the noonday in Thy sight.
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Labels: St. Augustine
Confessions - pg. 146
May she therefore rest in peace with her husband, before or after whom she married none; whom she obeyed, with patience bringing forth fruit unto Thee, that she might gain him also for Thee. And inspire, O my Lord my God, inspire Thy servants my brethren, Thy sons my masters, who with voice and heart and writings I serve, that so many of them as shall read these confessions may at Thy altar remember Monnica, Thy handmaid, together with Patricius, her sometime husband, by whose flesh Thou introducedst me into his life, in what manner I know not. May they with pious affection be mindful of my parents in this transitory light, of my brethren that are under Thee our Father in our Catholic mother, and of my fellow-citizens in the eternal Jerusalem, which the wandering of Thy people sigheth for from their departues until their return. That so my mother's last entreaty to me may, through my confessions more than through my prayers, be more abundantly fulfilled to her through the prayers of many.
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Labels: Santa Monica, St. Augustine
A Dream
In a deserted place in Iran there is a not very tall stone tower that has neither door nor window. In the only room (with a dirt floor and shaped like a circle) there is a wooden table and a bench. In that circular cell, a man who looks like me is writing in letters I cannot understand a long poem about a man who in another circular cell is writing a poem about a man who in another circular cell . . . The process never ends and no one will be able to read what the prisoners write.
(Translated, from the Spanish, by Suzanne Jill Levine.)
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Labels: Jorge Luis Borges
Confessions - pg. 145
I the, O my Praise and my Life, Thou God of my heart, putting aside for a little her good deeds, for which I joyfully give thanks to Thee, do now beseech Thee for the sins of my mother. Hearken unto me, through that Medicine of our wounds who hung upon the tree, and who, sitting at Thy right hand, maketh intercession for us. I know that she acted mercifully, and from the heart forgave her debtors their debts; do Thou also forgive her debts, whatever she contracted during so many years since the water of salvation. Forgive her, O Lord, forgive her, I beseech Thee; enter not into judgment with her. Let Thy mercy be exalted above Thy justice, because Thy words are true, and Thou hast promised mercy unto the merciful; which thou gavest them to be who wilt have mercy on whom Thou wilt have mercy, and wilt have compassion on whom Thou hast had compassion.
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Labels: Santa Monica, St. Augustine
Confessions - pg. 134
When shall I call to mind all that took place in those holidays? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I be silent about the severity of Thy scourge, and the amazing quickness of Thy mercy. Thou dist at that time torture me with toothache; and when it had become so exceeding great that I was not able to speak, it came into my heart to urge all my friends who were present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of heath. And I wrote it down on wax, and gave it to them to read. Presently, as with submissive desire we bowed our knees, that pain departed. But what pain? Or how did it depart? I confess to being much afraid. my Lord my God, seeing that from my earliest years I had not experienced such pain. And Thy purposes were profoundly impressed upon me; and, rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy name. And that faith suffered me not to be at rest in regard to my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism.
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Labels: St. Augustine
Confessions - pg. 115
CHAPTER IV
HE SHOWS BY THE EXAMPLE OF VITORINUS THAT THERE IS MORE JOY IN THE CONVERSION OF NOBLES
Haste, Lord, and act; stir us up, and call us back; inflame us, and draw us to Thee; stir us up and grow sweet unto us; let us now love Thee, let us run after Thee. Do not many men, out of a deeper hell of blindness than that of Victorinus, return unto Thee, and approach, and are enlightened, receiving that light, which they that receive, receive power from Thee to become Thy sons? But if they be less known among the people, even they that know them joy less for them. For when many rejoice together, the joy of each one is the fuller,in that they are incited and inflamed by one another. Again, because those that are known to many influence by one another. Again, because those that are known to many influence many towards salvation, and take the lead with many to follow them. And, therefore, do they also who preceded them much rejoice in regard to them, because they rejoice not in them alone. May it be averted that in Thy tabernacle the persons of the rich should be accepted before the poor, or the noble before the ignoble; since rather Thous hast chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hast Thou soundest out these words, when Paulus the proconsul - his pride overcome by the apostle's warfare -- was made to pass under the easy yoke of Thy Christ, and became a provincial of the great King -- he also, instead of Saul, his former name desired to be called Paul, in testimony of so great victory.
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Labels: St. Augustine, St. Paul
Confessions - pg. 65
But all my endeavors by which I had concluded to improve in that sect, by acquaintance with that man, came completely to an end; not that I separated myself altogether from them, but, as one who could find nothing better, I determined in the meantime upon contenting myself with what I had in any way lighted upon, unless, by chance, something more desirable should present itself. Thus that Faustus, who had entrapped so many to their death -- neither willing nor writing it -- now began to loosen the snare in which I had been taken. For Thy hands, O my God, in the hidden design of Thy Providence, did not desert my soul.; and out of the blood of my mother's heart, through the tears that she poured out by day and by night, was a sacrifice offered unto Thee for me; and by marvelous ways didst Thou deal with me. It was Thou, O my God, who dist it, for the steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, and He shall dispose his way. Or how can we produce salvation but from Thy hand, remaking what it hath made?
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Labels: St. Augustine
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Confessions - pg. 24
Behold my heart, O my God; behold my heart, which Thou hadst pity
upon when in bottomless pit. Behold, now, let my heart tell Thee what it was
seeking there, that I should be gratuitously wanton, having no inducement to
evil but the evil itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved to perish. I
loved my own error -- not that for which I erred, but the error itself. Base
soul, falling from Thy firmament to utter destruction -- not seeking aught
through the shame but the shame itself!
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Labels: St. Augustine
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Confessions - pg. 18
As if, indeed, any man should feel that an enemy could be more destructive to him than that hatred with which he is excited against him, or that he could destroy more utterly him whom he persecutes than he destroys his own soul by his enmity. And of a truth, there is no scienceof letters more innate than the writing of conscience -- that he is doing unto another when he himself would not suffer. How mysterious art Thou, who in silence dwellest on high, Thou God, the only great, who by an unwearied law dealest out the punishment of blindness to illicit desires! When a man seeking for the reputation of eloquence stands before a human judge while a thronging multitude surrounds him, inveighs against his enemy with the fiercest hatred, he takes most vigilant heed that his tongue slips not into grammatical error, but takes no heed lest through the fury of his spirit he cut off a man from his fellow-men.
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Labels: St. Augustine
Confessions - pg. 16
Great Jove,Who shakes the highest heavens with his thunder,And I, poor mortal man, not do the same!I did it, and with all my heart I did it.Not one whit more easily are the words learnt for this vileness, but by their means is the vileness perpetrated with more confidence. I do not blame the words, they being, as it were, choice and precious vessels, but the wine of error which was drunk in them to us by inebriated teachers; and unless we drank, we were beaten, without liberty of appeal to any sober judge. And yet, O my God -- in whose presence I can now with security recall this -- did I, unhappy one, learn these things willingly, and with delight, and for this was I called a boy of good promise.
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Labels: St. Augustine
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
To Do List
- mail check to rohit
- ins address change
- buy yogurt
- post-test print out
This Week Targets:
- Confessions - Finish - Thursday
- Perdido Street Station - Finished Weekend
- Enquiries Start on Thursday
- Persian Lesson 25- Thursday
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Labels: To Do List
Monday, July 13, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Perdido Street Station - Opening
A window burst open high above the market. A basket flew from it and arced towards the oblivious crowd. It spasmed in mid-air, then spun and continued earthwards at a slower, uneven pace. Dancing precariously as it descended, its wire-mesh caught and skittered on the building's rough hide. It scrabbled at the wall, sending paint and concrete dust plummeting before it.
"I even gave up for a while, stopping by the window of the room to look out at the lights and deep, illuminated streets. That's a form of dying, that losing contact with the city like that."
Philip K. Dick, We Can Build You
to Emma
Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book if coverless, it may have been reported to the published as "unsold or authorized" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.
A Del Rey Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright 2000 by China Miéville
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain by Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London, in 2000.
Perdido Street Station is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the autor's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Labels: China Miéville, Opening, Philip K. Dick
In The Skin Of A Lion - Closing
Hana sat upright, adapting the rear-view mirror to her height. He climbed in, pretending to luxuriate in the passenger seat, making animal-like noises of satisfaction.-- Lights, he said.
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Labels: Closing, Michael Ondaatje
In The Skin Of A Lion - pg.129
These were days that really belonged to the moon.
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Labels: Michael Ondaatje
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
In The Skin Of A Lion - pg. 15
Hazen Lewis was an abashed man, withdrawn from the world around him, uninterested in the habits of civilization outside his own focus. He would step up to his horse and assume it, as if it were a train, as if flesh and blood did not exist.
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Labels: Michael Ondaatje
Pierre, Or The Ambiguities - Closing
"All's o'er, and ye know him not!" came gasping from the wall; and from the fingers of Isabel dropped an empty vial -- as it had been a run-out sand-glass -- and shivered upon the floor; and her whole form sloped sideways, and she fell upon Pierre's heart, and her long hair ran over him, and arbored him in ebon vines.FINIS.7:00 PM
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Labels: Closing, Herman Melville
Pierre, Or The Ambiguities - pg. 380
And the great woe of all was this: that all these things were unsuspected without, and undivulgible from within; the very daggers that stabbed him were joked at by Imbecility, Ignorance, Blockheadedness, Self-Complacency, and the universal Blearedness and Besottedness around him. Now he began to feel that in him, the thews of a Titan were forestallingly cut by the scissors of Fate. He felt as a morose, hamstrung. All things that think, or move, or lie still, seemed as created to mock and torment him. He seemed gifted with loftiness, merely that it might be dragged down to the mud. Still, the profound willfulness in him would not give up. Against the breaking heart, and the bursting head; against all the dismal lassitude, and deathful faintness and sleeplessness, and whirlingness, and craziness, still he like a demi-god bore up. His soul's ship foresaw the inevitable rocks, but resolved to sail on, and make a courageous wreck. Now he gave jeer for jeer, and taunted the apes that jibed him. With the soul of an Atheist, he wrote down the godliest things; with the feeling of misery and death in him, he created forms of gladness and life. For the pangs in his heart, he put down hoots on the paper. And every thing else he disguised under the so conveniently adjustable drapery of all stretchable Philosophy. For the more and the more that he wrote, and the deeper and the deeper that he dived, Pierre saw the everlasting elusiveness of Truth; the universal lurking insincerity of even the greatest and purest written thoughts. Like knavish cards, the leaves of all great books were covertly packed. He was but packing one set the more; and that a very poor jaded set and pack indeed. So that there was nothing he more spurned, than his own aspirations; nothing he more abhorred than the loftiest part of himself. The brightest success, now seemed intolerable to him, sunce he so plainly saw, that the brightest success could not be the sole offspring of Merit; but of Merit for the one thousandth part, and nine hundred and ninety-nine combining and dovetailing accidents for the rest.
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Labels: Herman Melville, Master-quotes
Monday, July 6, 2009
My Three Heroes Of The Day
- Archilochos of Paros
- Eklavya
- Goran Ivanisevic
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Labels: personal
The Changing Light At Sandover - Opening
Admittedly I err by undertakingThis in its present form. That baldest proseReportage was called for, that would reachThe widest public in the shortest time.Time, it had transpired, was of the essence.Time, the very attar of the Rose,Was running out. We, though, were ancient foes,This Is a Borzoi BookPublished by Alfred A. KnopfCopyright 1980, 1982 by James MerrillCompilation copyright 2006 by The Literary Estate of JamesMerrill at Washington UniversityEditors' Note copyright 2006 by J. D. McClatchy and Stephen YenserManufactured in the United States of AmericaFirst Knopf Hardcover Edition published May 8, 1992First Knof Paperback Edition published September 10, 1993Reprinted Six TimesEighth Printing, August 2003Second Knop Hardcover Edition published February 14, 2006
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Labels: James Merrill, Opening
The World And The Child
Letting his wisdom be the whole of love,
The father tiptoes out, backwards. A gleam
Falls on the child awake and wearied of,
Then, as the door clicks shut, is snuffed. The glove-
Gray afterglow appalls him. It would seem
That letting wisdom be the whole of love
Were pastime ever for the bitter grove
Outside, whose owl's white hoot of disesteem
Falls on the child awake and wearied of.
He lies awake in pain, he does not move,
He will not call. The women, hearing him,
Would let their wisdom be the whole of love.
People have filled the room he lies above.
Their talk, mild variation, chilling theme,
Falls on the child. Awake and wearied of
Mere pain, mere wisdom also, he would have
All the world waking from its winter dream,
Letting its wisdom be. The whole of love
Falls on the child awake and wearied of.
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Labels: James Merrill
Sunday, July 5, 2009
To Do List
- In The Skin Of A Lion
- Grocery
- Confessions
- Enquiries into Human Nature
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Labels: To Do List
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Saint Judas
When I went out to kill myself, I caught Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten, .
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
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Labels: James Wright
Saint Judas
When I went out to kill myself, I caught Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten, .
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
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Labels: James Wright
Pierre, Or The Ambiguities - pg. 317
When arrived in the city, and discovering the heartless neglect of Glen, Pierrem, -- looking about him for whom to apply to in this strait, -- bethought him of his old boy-companion Charlie, and went out to seek him, and found him at last; he saw before him, a tall, well-grown, but rather thin and pale yet strikingly handsome young man of two-and-twenty; occupying a small dusty law-office on the third floor of the older building of the Apostle's; assuming to be doing a very large, and hourly increasing business among empty pigeon-holes, and diectly under the eye of an unbottled of ink; his mother and sisters dwelling in a chamber overhead; and himself, not only following the law for a corporeal living, but likewise interlinked with the peculiar secret, theologico-political-social schemes of the masonic order of the seedy-coated Apostles; and pursuing some crude, transcendental Philosophy, for both a contributory means of support, as well as for his complete intellectual aliment.
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Labels: Herman Melville
The Confessions - Opening
THE THIRTEEN BOOKSOF THECONFESSIONS OF SAINT AUGUSTINEBOOK ONECommencing with the invocation of God, Augustine relates in detail the beginning of his life, his infancy and boyhood, up to his fifteenth year; at which age he acknowledges that he was more inclined to all youthful pleasures and vices than to the study of letters.CHAPTER IHE PROCLAIMS THE GREATNESS OF GOD, WHOM HE DESIRES TO SEEK AND INVOKE, BEING AWAKENED BY HIMGREAT Art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and of Thy wisdom there is no end.
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Labels: Opening, St. Augustine
Friday, July 3, 2009
Pierre, Or The Ambiguities - pg. 303
They are mostly artists of various sorts; painters, or sculptors, or indigent students, or teachers of languages, or poets, or fugitive French politicians, or German philosophers. Their mental tendencies, however heterodox at times, are still very fine and spiritual upon the whole; since the vacuity of their exchequers leads them to reject the coarse materialism of Hobbes, and incline to the airy exaltations of the Berkeleyan philosophy. Often grouping in vain in their pockets, they can not but give in to the Descartian vortices; while the abundance of leisure in their attics (physical and figurative), unite with the leisure in their stomachs, to fit them in an eminent degree for that undivided attention indispensable to the proper digesting of the sublimated Categories of Kant; especially as Kant (can't) is the one great palpable fact in their pervadingly impalpable lives.
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Labels: George Berkeley, Herman Melville, Immanuel Kant, Quotes: Bohemian, René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes
Thursday, July 2, 2009
To Do List
- call delaware tax
- rent check
- post california tax letter
- advanced server
- post activities in faculty portal
- 100 In The Skin Of A Lion
- Lesson 20 Persian
- 350 Pierre
- Friday
- Pierre finish
- In The Skin Of A Lion Finish
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Labels: To Do List
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Pierre, Or The Ambiguities - pg. 287
The simplest of all things is to write in a lady's album. But cui bono? Is there such a dearth of printed reading, that the monkish times must be revived, and ladies' books be in manuscript? What could Pierre write of his own on Love or antyhing else, that surpass what divine Hafiz wrote so many centuries ago? Was there not Anacreon too, and Catullus, and Ovid -- all translated, and readily accessible? And then -- bless all their souls! -- had the dear creaturesforgotten Tom Moore?
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Labels: Anacreon, Gaius Valerius Catullus, Herman Melville, Khwaja Shams-ud-Din Hafiz-e-Shirazi, Publius Ovidius Naso, Thomas Moore