“Life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor.”
X. 173–174 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
“Life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor.”
The Iliad of Homer, Rendered into English Prose (1898), Book X
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Samuel Butler 232
novelist 1835–1902Related quotes
“But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth.”
H.L. Mencken
(1880–1956) American journalist and writer
"On Truth" in Damn! A Book of Calumny (1918), p. 53
1910s
Context: The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived. Huxley laughed the devils out of the Gadarene swine. Not the laws of the United States but the mother-in-law joke brought the Mormons to surrender. Not the horror of it but the absurdity of it killed the doctrine of infant damnation. But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth. How loudly the barber-surgeons laughed at Huxley—and how vainly! What clown ever brought down the house like Galileo? Or Columbus? Or Darwin?... They are laughing at Nietzsche yet...
“Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine.”
Bob Dylan
(1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Shelter from the Storm
Vintage, p. 41
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)
“We did not flinch but gave our lives to save Greece when her fate hung on a razor's edge.”
Simonides of Ceos
(-556–-468 BC) Ancient Greek musician and poet
From the Cenotaph at the Isthmos
“Ah, what balance is needed at
the edges of such an abyss.”
R.S. Thomas
(1913–2000) Welsh poet
"Threshold", p. 110
Between Here and Now (1981)
Context: Ah, what balance is needed at
the edges of such an abyss.
I am left alone on the surface
of a turning planet. What to do but, like Michelangelo’s
Adam, put my hand
out into unknown space,
hoping for the reciprocating touch?
“Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life.”
James Clavell
book
Shōgun
Source: Shōgun (1975), Ch. 56
Variant: Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today.
Source: Lord of Chaos
Bill Murray
(1950) American actor and comedian
Rolling Stone Issue 903 (22 August 2002)
Context: I think The Razor's Edge is a pretty good movie. But at the time, it was just as reviled as any other comedian doing a serious thing now. Like The Majestic [with Jim Carrey], movies where comedians go straight, people don't like them.
It angers people, like you're taking something away from them. That's the response I got. I thought, "Well, aren't we all bigger than that?" I wasn't shocked by it, but I thought that the professional critics would be able to say, "OK, we shouldn't rule this out, because the guy normally does other stuff."
Unless it's really despicable, then you have to just jump with both feet on the neck.