Harper's, September 1999.
“Saddle the Hippogriffs, ye Muses nine,
And straight we'll ride to the land of old Romance.”
Christoph Martin Wieland book Oberon
Noch einmahl sattelt mir den Hippogryfen, ihr Musen,<br>Zum Ritt ins alte romantische Land! <br class="br">Oberon, Song 1, st. 1 (1780) http://www.archive.org/stream/oberon02187gut/7ober10.txt; translation from Frederick Metcalfe History of German Literature (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1858) p. 109.
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist
"The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics," Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html (11 December 1965)
“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)
Context: Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country. For myself the originality need be no more than the freshness of a poem run in the way I have described: from delight to wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a petal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.
Harvey Mansfield (1932) Author, professor
How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)
Context: Self-interest, when simple, is universal; I would do the same as you. I would be propelled toward an obvious good, or toward a good I thought obvious. If self-interest is obvious, it is not really your very own; it has been generalized, perhaps artificially.
“People destined to meet will do so, apparently by chance, at precisely the right moment.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“In the shocked aftermath, I said, "We'll give them a second chance."”
Megan Whalen Turner book A Conspiracy of Kings
With my right hand, I reached to the other pocket. I had known as soon as I lifted the false bottom of the gun case and looked underneath what it meant. I had tried without ceasing to find some alternative to Attolia's ruthless advice, and I had failed. Gen's fit reassured me that iI had not failed for lack of trying. He had seen no other solution himself.
I lifted out the matching gun and read the archaic inscription. Realisa onum. Not "The queen made me," but "I make the king."
A Conspiracy of Kings
“Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, we'll ride them some day…”
Mick Jagger (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones
"Wild Horses" (co-written with Keith Richards), on Sticky Fingers (1971).
Lyrics
Context: I know I've dreamed you, a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I don't have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried
Let's do some living, after we die
Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, we'll ride them some day…
“Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride a gallop.”
Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy
Section 2, member 2.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part II
“There's a very good chance we could be riding each other to Russia.”
Chris Pontius (1974) American actor
[Gumball 3000- Jackass Episodes]
