As quoted in his obituary, in the New York Times, 24 September, 1939
Attributed from posthumous publications
Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
“In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.”
"The Ovidian Elegiac Metre" (translated from Schiller) (1799)
“From the prevalent state of the mind, actions proceed, as water rises from a fountain.”
The Common School Journal Vol. IX, No. 12 (15 June 1847), p. 181
Context: Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals. As childhood advances to manhood, the transition from bad manners to bad morals is almost imperceptible. Vulgar and obscene forms of speech keep vulgar and obscene objects before the mind, engender impure images in the imagination, and make unlawful desires prurient. From the prevalent state of the mind, actions proceed, as water rises from a fountain.
Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough & Time (1954)
Context: Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, is nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain.
“Life without prejudice,” p. 9.
Life Without Prejudice (1965)
“I fall back
dazzled at beholding myself all rosy red,
At having, I myself, caused the sun to rise.”
Je recule
Ébloui de me voir moi même tout vermeil
Et d’avoir, moi, le coq, fait élever le soleil.
Act II, Sc. 3
Chantecler (1910)
“Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.”
Source: Epigrams, p. 369
Source: 1925 - 1940, Unpublished notes' for 'The Sculptor Speaks' (1937), p. 113
Aus unendlichen Sehnsüchten steigen
endliche Taten wie schwache Fontänen,
die sich zeitig und zitternd neigen.
Aber, die sich uns sonst verschweigen,
unsere fröhlichen Kräfte—zeigen
sich in diesen tanzenden Tränen.
Initiale (Initial) (as translated by Cliff Crego)
Das Buch der Bilder (The Book of Images) (1902)
