JV > JV's Quotes

“Sófocles, aos 80 anos, deixou uma nota em que dizia que finalmente se livrara da tirania do sexo. Existe no jovem um impulso à tirania emocional (que Freud nos ensinou ser de fundo sexual) que precisa ser resistido, com toda a força. É difícil, é fatalmente doloroso, pois todos descobrimos cedo ou tarde que somos muito menos que desejaríamos e que nossas causas são tão falíveis como a nossa humanidade que as criou.

Era bom crer. Era a aurora da vida. Mas isso de fazer manha quando a realidade e os nossos valores se provam frágeis, não querendo reconhecer que talvez tenham sido um lamentável equívoco da nossa parte, é atrofia da alma, é a condenação à eterna infância do subdesenvolvimento.”
― Paulo Francis, Diário da Corte

“- Kein Operationsplan reicht mit einiger Sicherheit über das erste Zusammentreffen mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht hinaus.

- Erst wägen, dann wagen”
― Generalfeldnarschall Helmuth von Moltke

“You believe it's the year 1999, when in fact it's closer to 2199.”
― The Matrix

“And in her air altogether there is a self-sufficiency without fashion, which is intolerable.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“ἕρπει γὰρ ἄντα τᾧ σιδάρῳ τὸ καλῶς
κιϑαρίσδειν”
― Dito da Grécia antiga

“Tenho visto que toda perfeição tem seu limite; mas o teu mandamento é ilimitado.”
― Salmos 119:96

“The man of the future is he who will have the longest memory.”
― Nietzsche

“The less consciously we drift with the wind, the more willingly we do it; the more consciously, the less willingly.”
― Arthur Koestler, The Yogi and the Commissar, and Other Essays

“ἔθελω und βούλομαι heißen, die Absicht, den Wunsch haben, geneigt sein; βουλή heißt Rat, Plan; zu ἔθελω gibt es überhaupt kein Hauptwort. Voluntas ist kein psychologischer Begriff, sondern in echt römischem Tatschensinne wie potestas und virtus eine Bezeichnung für praktische, äußere, sichtbare Begabung, für die Wucht eines menschlichen Einzelseins. Wir gebrauchen in diesem Falle das Fremdwort Energie. Der >>Wille<< Napoleons und die Energie Napoleons: das ist etwas sehr Verschiedenes, wie etwa Flugkraft und Gewicht. Man verwechsle die nach außen gerichtete Intelligenz, die den Römer als zivilisierten Menschen vor dem hellenischen Kulturmenschen auszeichnet, nicht mit dem, was hier Wille genannt ist. Cäsar ist nicht Willens-mensch im Sinne Napoleons. Bezeichnend ist der Sprachgebrauch im römischen Recht, das der Poesie gegenüber das Grundgefühl der römischen Seele viel ursprünglicher darstellt. Die Absicht heißt hier animus (animus occidendi), der Wunsch, der sich auf Strafbares richtet, dolus im Gegensatz zur ungewollten Rechtsverletzung (culpa). Voluntas kommt als technischer Ausdruck gar nicht vor.”
― Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol 1: Form and Actuality

“Das bedeutsamste Element im abendländischen Gartenbilde ist mithin der point de vue der großen Rokokoparks, auf den sich ihre Alleen und beschnittenen Laubgänge öffnen und durch den sich der Blick in weite schwindende Fernen verliert. Er fehlt selbst der chinesischen Gartenkunst. Aber er hat ein vollkommenes Gegenstück in gewissen hellen, silbernen »Fernfarben« der pastoralen Musik des beginnenden 18. Jahrhunderts, bei Couperin z. B. Erst der point de vue gibt den Schlüssel zum Verständnis dieser seltsamen menschlichen Art, die Natur der symbolischen Formensprache einer Kunst zu unterwerfen. Die Auflösung endlicher Zahlengebilde in unendliche Reihen ist ein verwandtes Prinzip. Wie hier die Formel des Restgliedes den letzten Sinn der Reihe, so ist es dort der Blick ins Grenzenlose, der dem Auge des faustischen Menschen den Sinn der Natur erschließt. Wir waren es und nicht die Hellenen, nicht die Menschen der Hochrenaissance, welche die unbegrenzten Fernsichten vom Hochgebirge aus schätzten und suchten. Das ist eine faustische Sehnsucht. Man will allein mit dem unendlichen Raume sein. Dies Symbol bis zum Äußersten zu steigern, war die große Tat der nordfranzösischen Gartenbaumeister, nach der epochemachenden Schöpfung Fouquets in Vaux-le-Vicomte vor allem Lenôtres. Man vergleiche den Renaissancepark der mediceischen Zeit mit seiner Übersichtlichkeit, seiner heitren Nähe und Rundung, dem Kommensurablen seiner Linien, Umrisse und Baumgruppen, mit diesem geheimen Zug in die Ferne, der alle Wasserkünste, Statuenreihen, Gebüsche, Labyrinthe bewegt, und man findet in diesem Stück Gartengeschichte das Schicksal der abendländischen Ölmalerei wieder.”
― Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol 1: Form and Actuality

“In its practical sense, this axiom was the rule by which Shaker architects and designers found perfect forms. The American broom is a Shaker invention: a flat brush of sedge stems, sturdily bound, and with a long handle.
(...)
As an ideal, that form is the best response to the forces calling it into being has been the genius of good design in our time, as witness Gropius, Le Corbusier, Rietveldt, Mondriaan, Sheeler, Fuller.
(...)
A work of art is a form that articulates forces, making them intelligible.”
― Guy Davenport, Every Force Evolves a Form

“These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being. How these madmen
give themselves away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall. But the God created from human vanity sees
no difference between an eagle and a sparrow.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“All men are mad in some way or the other, and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God’s madmen too, the rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do nor why you do it. You tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may rest, where it may gather its kind around it and breed. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here." He touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself the same way.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“Once upon a time there was a garden, surrounded on all sides by a great, high fence. In that garden, an old demon ruled over thousands upon thousands of slaves. But the surprising thing was that the only sound ever to be heard within those high walls was the sound of merry laughter. Hahaha and hohoho, all year round—because of the laughing magic which the old demon used on his slaves. “Why did he use such magic on them? To conceal his evil mistreatment of them, of course, and also to create a deception, saying, ‘This is how happy the people in our garden are.’ And that’s also why he put the fences up, so that the people in other gardens couldn’t see over or come in. So, well, think about it. Where in the world might you find such a garden, such a den of evil magic, where cries of pain and sadness were wrenched from the mouths of its people and distorted into laughter?” Mrs. Oh began to choke up again, though she herself was not aware of it. The calculation she’d made when she began the tale, that it might offer just a brief moment of respite, had been misguided. The night had deepened; yet another bout of “happy laughter” was spilling out from the loudspeaker, casting into ever-starker relief the plot of that old tale, which was not really old at all.”
― Bandi, The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea

“So I gardened as I could, learning my few plants intimately, handling them, getting to know their likes and dislikes by smell and touch. “Book learning” gave me information, but only physical contact can give any real knowledge and understanding of a live organism. To have “green fingers” or a “green thumb” is an old expression which describes the art of communicating the subtle energies of love to prosper a living plant. Gradually I came to recognise through idiosyncrasies of colour, texture, shape and habit the origin of a plant and its cultural needs.”
― Russel Page - The Education of a Gardener

“Even the best of the confessional writers walk a fine line between self-analysis and self-indulgence. Their books —Mailer’s Advertisements for Myself, Norman Podhoretz’s Making It, Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, Paul Zweig’s Three Journeys, Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes. They try to charm the reader instead of claiming significance for their narrative. The writer thus attempts to charm the reader instead of trying to convince him, counting on the titillation provided by pseudo-revelation to hold the reader’s interest. Undertaken in this evasive mood, confessional writing degenerates into anticonfession.”
― Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations

“As Susan Sontag observes in her study of photography, “Reality has come to seem more and more like what we are shown by cameras.” Bourgeois families in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Sontag points out, posed for portraits in order to proclaim the family’s status, whereas today the family album of photographs verifies the individual’s existence: the camera helps to weaken the older idea of development as moral education and to promote a more passive idea according to which development consists of passing through the stages of life at the right time and in the right order.”
― Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations

“Social conditions today encourage a survival mentality, expressed in its crudest form in disaster movies or in fantasies of space travel, which allow vicarious escape from a doomed planet. People no longer dream of overcoming difficulties but merely of surviving them. In business, according to Jennings, “The struggle is to survive emotionally”—to “preserve or enhance one’s identity or ego.” The ability to manipulate what Gail Sheehy refers to, using a medical metaphor, as “life-support systems” now appears to represent the highest form of wisdom: the knowledge that gets us through, as she puts it, without panic. “The current ideology,” Sheehy writes, “seems a mix of personal survivalism, revivalism, and cynicism”; yet her enormously popular guide to the “predictable crises of adult life,” with its superficially optimistic hymn to growth, development, and “self-actualization,” does not challenge this ideology, merely restates it in more “humanistic” form. “Growth” has become a euphemism for survival.”
― Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations

“Man findet Spuren aller Wissenschaften in den Sprachen, und umgekehrt vieles in den Sprachen das in den Wissenschaften nützen kann.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorismen Eine Auswahl

“Die Metapher ist weit klüger als ihr Verfasser, und so sind es viele Dinge. Alles hat seine Tiefen. Wer Augen hat, der sieht alles in allem”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorismen Eine Auswahl

“Wenn ich im Traum mit jemanden disputiere und der mich widerlegt und belehrt, so bin ich es, des sich selbst belehrt, also nachdenkt. Dieses Nachdenken wird also unter der Form von Gespräch angeschaut.(...) Da wir eigentlich nicht gnau wissen, wo wir denken, so können wir den Gedanken hinversetzen, wo wir wollen. So wie man sprechen kann, daß man glaubt, es komme von einem Dritten, so kann man auch so denken, daß es läßt, als würde es uns gesagt: Genius Sokratispp. Wie erstaunend vieles ließe sich nicht durch die Träume noch entwickeln.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorismen Eine Auswahl

“Vorstellungen sind auch ein Leben und eine Welt”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorismen Eine Auswahl

“Solche Zeilen wie einige in Psalm 4 werden wenige geschrieben. Wie unendlich viel steckt nicht in den Worten: Redet mit euren Herzen auf eurem Lager; opfert Gerechtigkeit und hoffet auf den Herrn. Eine ganze Religion!”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorismen Eine Auswahl

“ὁ δεχόμενος προφήτην εἰς ὄνομα προφήτου μισθὸν προφήτου λήμψεται, καὶ ὁ δεχόμενος δίκαιον εἰς ὄνομα δικαίου, μισθὸν δικαίο λήμψεται.”
― Mateus 10. 41

“Caelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.”
― Quintus Horatius Flaccus Horace,

“Though Earth and Moon were gone
And Sun and Universe ceased to be
And thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed”
― Emily Brontë

“Apparently an aesthetic sense is instinctual. Just as the beauty of a rose exceeds its function in attracting insects to spread pollen, so human skill always flowers in excess, producing beauty beyond need. Nature is not hardheaded, hardhearted, mechanical, pratical, or economical. Neither are we. Our simplest and most practical acts, including the use of language, are likely to be infused with grace and elaboration wich utilitarian purposes cannot explain”
― Judson Jerome, The Poet's Handbook

“A viva flama, o nunca morto lume,
Desejo é só que queima e não consume”
― Camões, Camões Sonetos

“There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd;
The wich observ'd, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, wich in their seeds
and weak beginnings lie intreasured.
Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And, by the necessary form of this,
King Richard might create a perfect guess,
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;
Wich should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.”
― William Shakespeare, Richard II

“Você não deve agir de acordo com o seu entendimento, mas além dele; se você se atirar na insensatez, eu lhe darei meu entendimento. Não entender é o verdadeiro entender; não saber para onde vai, esse é o verdadeiro saber. Meu entendimento faz que você não entenda. Abraão abandonou a terra natal sem saber para onde ia. Ele se entregou à minha sabedoria, abriu mão de sua própria e, dessa maneira, seguiu o caminho certo, chegando ao caminho verdadeiro. Esse é o caminho da cruz, e você não consegue encontrá-lo sozinho; eu tenho de guiá-lo como se você fosse cego; por isso nem você, nem ser humano algum, nem nenhuma outra criatura, somente eu, eu mesmo, por meio de meu Espírito e de minha Palavra, posso ensinar o caminho a ser trilhado. Não é a obra que você escolher, nem o sofrimento que você preferir, mas é o caminho com que você depara não obstante a sua escolha, seu pensamento e seu desejo - e é aí que eu chamo, é aí que você se torna meu discípulo; é a hora oportuna, o seu Mestre chegou.”
― Martin Luther