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Richard Siken 54
American poet 1967Related quotes
Source: Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968), p. 223
Context: Only a great fool would call the new political science diabolic: it has no attributes peculiar to fallen angels. It is not even Machiavellian, for Machiavelli's teaching was graceful, subtle, and colorful. Nor is it Neronian. Nevertheless one may say of it that it fiddles while Rome burns. It is excused by two facts: it does not know that it fiddles, and it does not know that Rome burns.

Implying the 2011 London Riots http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=131126

“The essential thing is to WANT to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.”
Source: Tropic of Cancer

“Come, sing now, sing; for I know you sing well;
I see you have a singing face.”
The Wild Goose Chase (c. 1621; published 1652), Act II. 2.

Artemus Ward, His Travels http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/eafbin2/toccer-eaf?id=Weaf483&tag=public&data=/www/data/eaf2/private/texts&part=0, Lecture (1865).

Song lyrics, The Essential Bob Dylan (2000), Maggie's Farm
Variant: Well I tried my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them
“I am a farmer singing at the plow”
Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow, first line of the poem (1934)