Prince, je congnois tout en somme,
Je congnois coulourez et blesmes,
Je congnois Mort qui tout consomme,
Je congnois tout, fors que moy mesmes.
"Ballade des Menus Propos (Ballade of Small Talk)", line 25. (1458).
Prince, je congnois tout en somme, Je congnois coulourez et blesmes, Je congnois Mort qui tout consomme, Je congnois tout, fors que moy mesmes.
— Alicia Garza Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter International movement 1981
How the movement that’s changing America was built and where it goes next, By Jamil Smith, Rolling Stone https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/black-lives-matter-jamil-smith-1014442/ (16 June 2020)
— Elvis Presley American singer and actor 1935 - 1977
Interview (March/April 1972), as quoted in The Leading Men of MGM (2006) by Jane Ellen Wayne, p. 406
Context: The first time that I appeared on stage, it scared me to death. I really didn't know what all the yelling was about. I didn't realize that my body was moving. It's a natural thing to me. So to the manager backstage I said, "What'd I do? What'd I do?" And he said, "Whatever it is, go back and do it again."
— Anna Akhmatova Russian modernist poet 1889 - 1966
"This Cruel Age has deflected me..." (1944)
Source: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
— Edward Abbey, book The Monkey Wrench Gang
page 312
The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)
— Mary Oliver American writer 1935 - 2019
"Sometimes", § 1
Red Bird (2008)
— E.M.S Nigerian rapper, singer and record producer 1995
"Hidden"
— Adam Roberts, book Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer
Part 2, “The FTL Murders” Chapter 1, “The Mystery of the Hammered Handservant” (p. 101).
Jack Glass (2012)
— Maurice Thompson American novelist 1844 - 1901
Atalanta’s Race.
— Thomas Merton Priest and author 1915 - 1968
Thoughts in Solitude (1956)
— Zhuangzi classic Chinese philosopher -369 - -286 BC
Context: How do I know that enjoying life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death we are not like people who got lost in early childhood and do not know the way home? Lady Li was the child of a border guard in Ai. When first captured by the state of Jin, she wept so much her clothes were soaked. But after she entered the palace, shared the king's bed, and dined on the finest meats, she regretted her tears. How do I know that the dead do not regret their previous longing for life? One who dreams of drinking wine may in the morning weep; one who dreams weeping may in the morning go out to hunt. During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream. And yet fools think they are awake, presuming to know that they are rulers or herdsmen. How dense! You and Confucius are both dreaming, and I who say you are a dream am also a dream. Such is my tale. It will probably be called preposterous, but after ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night.
— John Donne English poet 1572 - 1631
VI. Metuit. The physician is afraid
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)
— Giordano Bruno Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer 1548 - 1600
As quoted in "Giordano Bruno" by Thomas Davidson, in The Index Vol. VI. No. 36 (4 March 1886), p. 429
Context: That I shall sink in death, I know must be;
But with that death of mine what life will die? Across the air, I hear my heart's voice cry:
Where dost thou bear me reckless one? Descend!
Such rashness seldom ends but bitterly'
"Fear not the lofty fall" I answer "rend
With might the clouds, and be content to die,
If God such a glorious death for us intend."
— Sogyal Rinpoche Tibetan Dzogchen lama of the Nyingma tradition 1947 - 2019
— Paul McCartney English singer-songwriter and composer 1942
— June Jordan Poet, essayist, playwright, feminist and bisexual activist 1936 - 2002
"Many Rivers To Cross" (1981); later published in Some of Us Did Not Die : New and Selected Essays of June Jordan (2002)
Context: I wanted to be strong. I never wanted to be weak again as long as I lived. I thought about my mother and her suicide and I thought about how my father could not tell whether she was dead or alive.
I wanted to get well and what I wanted to do as soon as I was strong, actually, what I wanted to do was I wanted to live my life so that people would know unmistakably that I am alive, so that when I finally die people will know the difference for sure between my living and my death.
And I thought about the idea of my mother as a good woman and I rejected that, because I don't see why it's a good thing when you give up, or when you cooperate with those who hate you or when you polish and iron and mend and endlessly mollify for the sake of the people who love the way that you kill yourself day by day silently.
And I think all of this is really about women and work. Certainly this is all about me as a woman and my life work. I mean I am not sure my mother’s suicide was something extraordinary. Perhaps most women must deal with a similar inheritance, the legacy of a woman whose death you cannot possibly pinpoint because she died so many, many times and because, even before she became my mother, the life of that woman was taken; I say it was taken away.
