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Saul Bellow photo

“It seems hard for the American people to believe that anything could be more exciting than the times themselves. What we read daily and view on the TV has thrust imagined forms into the shadow. We are staggeringly rich in facts, in things, and perhaps, like the nouveau riche of other ages, we want our wealth faithfully reproduced by the artist.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"Facts That Put Fancy to Flight" (1962), p. 67
It All Adds Up (1994)

Saul Bellow photo

“Pointless but intense excitement holds us in TV dramas. We hear threatening music. A killer with a gun steals into the bedroom of a sleeping woman. More subliminal sounds of danger, pointlessly ominous. The woman wakes and runs into the kitchen for a knife. The cops are on the case. We watch as the criminal is pursued through night streets; shots, a death; a body falls from a roof. Then time is up, another drama begins. Now we are in a church. No, we are in a lecture hall; no again — a drawer opens in a morgue. A woman is looking for her kidnapped child. Then that ends, and we are on the veld with zebras and giraffes. Then with Lenin at a mass meeting. And suddenly we flash away to a cooking school; we are shown how to stuff a turkey. Next the Berlin Wall comes down. Or flags are burning. Or a panel is worrying about the rug crisis. More and more public themes, with less and less personal consciousness. Clearly, personal consciousness is shrinking.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"The Distracted Public" (1990), pp. 159-160
It All Adds Up (1994)

Saul Bellow photo

“The university, in a society ruled by public opinion, was to have been an island of intellectual freedom where all views were investigated without restriction. … But by consenting to play an active or “positive,” a participatory role in society, the university has become inundated and saturated with the backflow of society’s “problems.” Preoccupied with questions of Health, Sex, Race, War, academics make their reputations and their fortunes. … Any proposed reforms of liberal education which might bring the university into conflict with the whole of the U. S. A. are unthinkable. Increasingly, the people “inside” are identical in their appetites and motives with the people “outside” the university.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Source: Introduction to The Closing of the American Mind (1988), p. 18

Saul Bellow photo

“As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn’t make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting — the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.”

Saul Bellow book The Adventures of Augie March

Source: The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Ch. 6

Saul Bellow photo

“I want to tell you, don't marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it's adultery.”

Saul Bellow book Seize the Day

Source: Seize the Day

Saul Bellow photo

“In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Saul Bellow photo

“In an age of enormities, the emotions are naturally weakened.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"The Distracted Public" (1990), p. 156
It All Adds Up (1994)
Context: In an age of enormities, the emotions are naturally weakened. We are continually called upon to have feelings — about genocide, for instance, or about famine or the blowing up of passenger planes — and we are all aware that we are incapable of reacting appropriately. A guilty consciousness of emotional inadequacy or impotence makes people doubt their own human weight.

Albertus Magnus photo

“The metals are all essentially identical; they differ only in form. Now, the form brings out accidental causes, which the experimenter must try to discover and remove, as far as possible. Accidental causes impede the regular union of sulphur and mercury; for every metal is a combination of sulphur and mercury. A diseased womb may give birth to a weakly, leprous child, although the seed was good; the same is true of the metals which are generated in the bowels of the earth, which is a womb for them; any cause whatever, or local trouble, may produce an imperfect metal. When pure sulphur comes in contact with pure mercury, after more or less time, and by the permanent action of nature, gold is produced.”

Albertus Magnus (1206–1280) Dominican friar

As quoted by Francis Preston Venable, A Short History of Chemistry (1894) p. 28. https://books.google.com/books?id=fN9YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA28

Mikhail Sholokhov photo

“In this winter night, long and ample for bitter memories, many a widow who lost her husband in the war and is now left alone will press her palms to her ageing face; and in the nocturnal darkness the burning tears, as bitter as wormwood, will scorch her fingers.”

Mikhail Sholokhov (1905–1984) Soviet writer

From A Word on Our Country.
One Man's Destiny (1967)

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“Nobody is enjoying the result of civilization created by atheists like Ravana, Kansa, Aurangzeb, Napoleon or Hitler. Everything is in oblivion and this teaches us the lesson that the materialistic plans of the present age will also meet with the same fate after a lapse of 50 years. Therefore blind materialism does not bring in any permanent relief in the world.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Back to Godhead article by Bhaktivedanta Swami, April 20, 1956. Vanipedia http://vanisource.org/wiki/1956_Back_to_Godhead_vol_3_part_04_-_Godless_Creation <br class="br">Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: False Prophecies

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“How the Ganges water reaches the various planets from the top of the universe is explained herein. Celestial airplanes carry the water from the planets of the sages to other planets. So-called advanced scientists of the modern age are trying to go to the higher planets, but at the same time they are experiencing a power shortage on earth. If they were actually capable scientists, they could personally go by airplane to other planets, but this they are unable to do. Having now given up their Moon excursions, they are attempting to go to other planets, but without success.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 5, Chapter 17, verse 4, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/5/17/4 <br class="br">Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“Actually, it doesn't matter – Krishna or Christ – the name is the same. The main point is to follow the injunctions of the Vedic scriptures that recommend chanting the name of God in this age.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

The Science of Self-Realization http://www.krishna.com/books/the-science-of-self-realization. Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1977. Vanipedia http://vanisource.org/wiki/SSR4a_Krsna_or_Christ_-_The_Name_Is_the_Same

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“As far as the approved method is concerned, it is enjoined in the sastras that intelligent men in this age will take to the sankirtana movement, and by so doing they shall worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Caitanya, whose bodily complexion is golden and who is always accompanied by His confidential devotees to preach this Krishna consciousness movement all over the world. In its present condition, the world can only be saved by introducing this sankirtana, this Krishna consciousness movement. As we have learned from the previous verse, one who is not in Krishna consciousness is considered a thief.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 4, Chapter 18, verse 8, purport. Vedabase http://vedabase.net/sb/4/18/8/en1 <br class="br">Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Religious and Cultural Elitism

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“When a husbandless woman is attacked by an aggressive man, she takes his action to be mercy. A woman is generally very much attracted by a man’s long arms. A serpent’s body is round, and it becomes narrower and thinner at the end. The beautiful arms of a man appear to a woman just like serpents, and she very much desires to be embraced by such arms. The word anatha-varga is very significant in this verse. Natha means “husband,” and a means “without.” A young woman who has no husband is called anatha, meaning “one who is not protected.” As soon as a woman attains the age of puberty, she immediately becomes very much agitated by sexual desire. It is therefore the duty of the father to get his daughter married before she attains puberty. Otherwise she will be very much mortified by not having a husband. Anyone who satisfies her desire for sex at that age becomes a great object of satisfaction. It is a psychological fact that when a woman at the age of puberty meets a man and the man satisfies her sexually, she will love that man for the rest of her life, regardless who he is. Thus so-called love within this material world is nothing but sexual satisfaction.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 4, Chapter 25, verse 42, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/4/25/42 <br class="br">Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women&#x27;s Rights

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach photo

“Old age either transfigures or stultifies.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Das Alter verklärt oder versteinert.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 25.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach photo

“In youth we learn; in age we understand.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

In der Jugend lernt, im Alter versteht man. <br class="br"> p. 13 http://books.google.com/books?id=DOEPAAAAQAAJ&amp;q=%22In+der+Jugend+lernt+im+Alter+versteht+man%22&amp;pg=PA13#v=onepage <br class="br">Aphorisms (1880/1893)

Alice Munro photo

“They were all in their early thirties. An age at which it is sometimes hard to admit that what you are living is your life.”

Alice Munro book The Moons of Jupiter

Source: The Moons of Jupiter

Alice Munro photo

“She was learning, quite late, what many people around her appeared to have known since childhood: that life can be perfectly satisfying without major achievements.”

Alice Munro book Too Much Happiness

Source: "Too Much Happiness", in Too Much Happiness (2009)

José Saramago photo

“If I could repeat my childhood, I would repeat it exactly as it was, with the poverty, the cold, little food, with the flies and pigs, all that.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Interview with Edney Silvestre, 2007.

José Saramago photo

“Age carries with it a double load of guilt”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 69 (Vintage 2003)