Hardball with Chris Matthews, 11 February 2005
“a good book
can make an almost
impossible
existence,
liveable
( from 'the luck of the word' )”
Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories
“Good" and "Bad" may be alien concepts to him, Ben.”
“Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”
Plutarch Moralia, How the Young Man Should Study Poetry
Variant translation: Base men live to eat and drink, and good men eat and drink to live.
Plutarch
How a Young Man ought to hear Poems, 4
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 3.
“I may be a real bad boy, but baby, I'm a real good man.”
Real Good Man
Song lyrics, Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors (2002)
“I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets.”
Preface.
The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)
Context: I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be distinguish'd by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he can not at first discover it any other way, than by giving way to that prevalent propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken.
Daily Telegraph 26 February 2004
2000s, 2004
“It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London.”
Characters, Ch. 1 : Thoughts About People
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)
Context: It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save himself; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There is a numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment, and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind us to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind, to bring before it associations connected with the friends we have left, the scenes we have beheld too probably for the last time, and the hopes we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however, happily for themselves, have long forgotten such thoughts. Old country friends have died or emigrated; former correspondents have become lost, like themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city; and they have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and endurance.
