The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)
Context: What is beyond the cathedral, outside,
Balances with nuptial song.
So it is to sit and to balance things
To and to and to the point of still,
To say of one mask it is like,
To say of another it is like,
To know that the balance does not quite rest,
That the mask is strange, however like.
“Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.”
Audendo magnus tegitur timor.
Book IV, line 702 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
The Rock That is Higher: Story as Truth (1993)
Context: We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes…
“What strange Dreams disturb my rest?”
The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis
“To throw oneself into strange teachings is quite dangerous.”
The word translated "strange teachings" means literally another end [of textile]. There are two different understandings about "strange teachings" or heretical. One possible understanding is "strange from the authentic teaching", another understanding is simply different subjects, just as two authors or two scholastic fields literature and politics.
Source: The Analects, Chapter II
" Greek finance minister: 'I don't know if we did the right thing' http://www.theguardian.com/business/video/2015/jul/16/greek-bailout-finance-minister-vote-video" (16 July 2015)
“The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand”
Page 10
Invisible Cities (1972)
Context: As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. (di quest'onda che rifluisce dai ricordi la città s'imbeve coma una spugna e si dilata). The city, however, does not tell of its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand...
Saint's Progress (1919)
Context: "I cannot explain. There are things that I can't make clear, because you are wilfully blind to all that I believe in. For what do you imagine we are fighting this great war, if it is not to reestablish the belief in love as the guiding principle of life?"
Laird shook his head. "We are fighting to redress a balance, which was in danger of being lost."
"The balance of power?"
"Heavens! — no! The balance of philosophy."
Pierson smiled. "That sounds very clever, George; but again, I don't follow you."
"The balance between the sayings: 'Might is Right,' and 'Right is Might.' They're both half-truth, but the first was beating the other out of the field. All the rest of it is cant, you know. And by the way, sir, your Church is solid for punishment of the evildoer. Where's mercy there? Either its God is not merciful, or else it doesn't believe in its God.
Letter to her future husband, John Middleton Murry (July 1917), from The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, vol. I
