“Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show,
Or exercise their spite in human woe?”
Aeneis, Book I, lines 17–18.
The Works of Virgil (1697)
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John Dryden 196
English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century 1631–1700Related quotes
“Can such resentment hold the minds of gods?”
Tantaene animis caelestibus irae?
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book I, Line 11 (tr. Allen Mandelbaum)
“The human mind is utterly stupid when it carries, quite willingly, the heavy burden of resentment.”
#16,575, Part 17
Seventy Seven Thousand Service-Trees series 1-50 (1998)
Théâtre des ris et des pleurs
Lit! où je nais, et où je meurs,
Tu nous fais voir comment voisins
Sont nos plaisirs et chagrins.
Translated by Samuel Johnson, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“My exercise consists in a total elevation of the spite above all created and sense-objects.”
From The Exercise of Elevation of the Spirit to God
Context: My exercise consists in a total elevation of the spite above all created and sense-objects. By this exercise I am securely concentrated within myself and gaze steadily at God who in a simple manner draws me to the state of simple unity and nakedness of spirit, which is called “simple idleness.” In this state of simplicity of rest I am passively possessed and held above every sense-image. This rest remains mine, whether I am by myself doing nothing or whether I am engaged in activity that is exterior or interior and mental. This is what I can tell you about my interior life: my condition is simple, naked, darkened and without knowledge even of God, in nakedness and darkness of spirit. I am lifted above every kind of illumination existing below this level; in this state I cannot bring into play my interior faculties. They are all without exception drawn and held under the influence of this unique and simple “image.” This image, in fact, holds them in a state of naked simplicity above vision and essence at the highest level of spirit, beyond spirit. It is there that I find myself in the nakedness and darkness of the all-incomprehensible depths, incomprehensible because of their darkness, where everything of the senses, everything specific and created melts down and blend into the unity of spirit, or rather into the simplicity of essence or spirit.
“And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances and the public show.”
Source: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 57.
“Myself not ignorant of woe,
Compassion I have learned to show.”
Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 31
Source: Aspects of the Novel (1927), Chapter Seven: Prophecy
Context: Most of us will be eclectics to this side or that according to our temperament. The human mind is not a dignified organ, and I do not see how we can exercise it sincerely except through eclecticism. And the only advice I would offer my fellow eclectics is: "Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful."
“No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.”
Source: Cutting for Stone
