“There is only this swarm of dying creatures stricken with longevity, all the more hateful in that they are so good at organizing their agony.”

Source: The Fall Into Time (1964), p. 120, first American edition (1970)

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Emil M. Cioran531

Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911–1995

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 55

“Of all the creatures that were made he [man] is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one — the solitary one — that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices — the most hateful…He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain…Also — in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Vol. II, p. 7
Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924)

“What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VI, 54
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

“This is a tale of the agony of the creative individual, whose nightly rest only resuscitates him so that he can endure his agonies the next day.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: Power and Innocence (1972), Ch. 11 : The Humanity of the Rebel
Context: Civilization begins with a rebellion. Prometheus, one of the Titans, steals fire from the gods on Mount Olympus and brings it as a gift to man, marking the birth of human culture. For this rebellion Zeus sentences him to be chained to Mount Caucasus where vultures consume his liver during the day and at night it grows back only to be again eaten away the next day. This is a tale of the agony of the creative individual, whose nightly rest only resuscitates him so that he can endure his agonies the next day.

“To see the Convulsions, Agonies and Tortures of a poor Fellow-Creature, whom they cannot restore nor recompense, dying to gratify Luxury, and scratch callous and rank Organs, must require a rocky Heart, and a great Degree of Cruelty and Ferocity. I cannot find any great Difference on the Foot of natural Reason and Equity only, between feeding on human Flesh, and feeding on brute animal Flesh, except Custom and Example. I believe some rational Creatures would suffer less in being fairly butcher'd, than a strong Ox, or red Deer; and in natural Morality and Justice, the Degrees of Pain here, make the essential Difference; for as to other Differences, they are relative only, and can be of no Weight with an infinitely perfect Being.”

George Cheyne (physician) (1671–1743) British doctor

Did not Use and Example weaken this Terror, and make the Difference, Reason alone could never do it. <br class="br">An Essay on Regimen (London: C. Rivington, 1740), pp. 70 https://books.google.it/books?id=ezswAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA70-71.

“I hate grate talkers; i had rather hav a swarm of bees lite onto me.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

“All ways of dying are hateful to us poor mortals,
true, but to die of hunger, starve to death—
that's the worst of all.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XII. 342–343 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“Good writing is good conversation, only more so.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“You would think that if you bring oxygen to the organism, the organism lives. But there may be other organisms in there that thrive in darkness and in a more anaerobic environment. Watching those creatures writhe will always be interesting.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

On whether satire would be difficult under an Obama administration
Hartford Advocate Interview (2008)
Context: If someone was to introduce hope and idealism into our political system, I think the tension that would create in other areas would certainly be ripe. You would think that if you bring oxygen to the organism, the organism lives. But there may be other organisms in there that thrive in darkness and in a more anaerobic environment. Watching those creatures writhe will always be interesting.

“Political scientists have long relied on organization theory as their foundation for understanding public bureaucracy. This approach makes good sense, but so far the payoffs have been rather limited. The surface problem is that organization theory, as the creature of sociologists, social psychologists, and, in more recent years, economists, has developed around explanatory concerns having little or nothing to do with government. The more fundamental problem is that political scientists have allowed this to happen by largely abandoning the field of organizations.”

Terry M. Moe (1949) American political scientist

Terry M. Moe, "Toward a Theory of Public Bureaucracy." Oliver E. Williamson ed. Organization theory: From Chester Barnard to the present and beyond (1995): 116.

“There is only this swarm of dying creatures stricken with longevity, all the more hateful in that they are so good at organizing their agony.”

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