squawpaws

@squawpaws, member from Jan. 11, 2021
William Makepeace Thackeray photo

“Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.”

Source: The Virginians (1857-1859), Ch. 4.

William Makepeace Thackeray photo

“How hard it is to make an Englishman acknowledge that he is happy!”

Pendennis. Book ii. Chap. xxxi, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

William Makepeace Thackeray photo
William Makepeace Thackeray photo

“This I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without a positive hump, may marry whom she likes.”

Vol. I, ch. 4. Compare: "I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of", Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast Table; "The whole world is strewn with snares, traps, gins and pitfalls for the capture of men by women", Bernard Shaw, Epistle Dedicatory to Man and Superman.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

Bobby Sands photo

“It comes searing ‘cross the skies. It lights the dark of this prison cell,
It thunders forth its might,
It is "the undauntable thought", my friend,
That thought that says "I'm right!"”

Bobby Sands (1954–1981) Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army

The Rhythm of Time
Context: It is found in every light of hope,
It knows no bounds nor space
It has risen in red and black and white,
It is there in every race. It lies in the hearts of heroes dead,
It screams in tyrants’ eyes,
It has reached the peak of mountains high,
It comes searing ‘cross the skies. It lights the dark of this prison cell,
It thunders forth its might,
It is "the undauntable thought", my friend,
That thought that says "I'm right!"

Bobby Sands photo

“I was only a working-class boy from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom.”

Bobby Sands (1954–1981) Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army

Republican News http://larkspirit.com/hungerstrikes/bios/sands.html, (16 December 1978)
Other writings
Context: I was only a working-class boy from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom. I shall not settle until I achieve liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent socialist republic.

Leonard Bernstein photo
Leonard Bernstein photo

“A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.”

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist

Leonard Bernstein, statement of 1953, quoted in A Wonderful Life : 50 Eulogies to Lift the Spirit (2006) by Cyrus M. Copeland, p. 190

Leonard Bernstein photo
Leonard Bernstein photo

“I've been all over the world and I've never seen a statue of a critic.”

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist
Leonard Bernstein photo
Leonard Bernstein photo

“So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?”

The Unanswered Question (1976)
Context: Einstein said that "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious." So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?

Flannery O’Connor photo

“Not-writing is a good deal worse than writing.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O’Connor photo

“Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren't is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O’Connor photo

“The mind serves best when it's anchored in the Word of God. There is no danger then of becoming an intellectual without integrity…”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O’Connor photo

“I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O’Connor photo

“A working knowledge of the devil can be very well had from resisting him.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O’Connor photo

“Your criticism sounds to me as if you have read too many critical books and are too smart in an artificial, destructive, and very limited way.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor