Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist
"You Should Face Up to Your Death, Says Author".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)
Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist
"You Should Face Up to Your Death, Says Author".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)
Joseph Dare (reverend) (1831–1880) Australian clergyman
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 260.
David Seth Doggett (1810–1880) American bishop
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 211.
Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French writer and philosopher
Introduction, sect. 4
La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960)
Davy Crockett (1786–1836) American politician
As quoted in David Crockett : His Life and Adventures (1875) by John Stevens Cabot Abbott, Ch. 11
Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) French painter
Quote from Boudin's Journal, March 1854; as cited in Eugène Boudin, G. Jean-Aubrey & Robert Schmit, Greenwich, New York graphic society, 1968, p. 24
1850s - 1870s
“Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.”
Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic
Rien ne rehausse l'autorité mieux que le silence, splendeur des forts et refuge des faibles.
in Le Fil de l'épée.
Writings
“The buttercups across the field
Made sunshine rifts of splendor.”
Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet
"A Silly Song"
Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer
Lord Kiely, p. 89
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)
Richard Blackmore (1654–1729) English poet and physician
Preface to King Arthur http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/blackmore-king-arthur-I (1697)
Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator
"An Appeal" (1954), trans. Czesław Miłosz and Robert Hass
From the Rising of the Sun (1974)
Context: Tell me, as you would in the middle of the night
When we face only night, the ticking of a watch,
the whistle of an express train, tell me
Whether you really think that this world
Is your home? That your internal planet
That revolves, red-hot, propelled by the current
Of your warm blood, is really in harmony
With what surrounds you? Probably you know very well
The bitter protest, every day, every hour,
The scream that wells up, stifled by a smile,
The feeling of a prisoner who touches a wall
And knows that beyond it valleys spread,
Oaks stand in summer splendor, a jay flies
And a kingfisher changes a river to a marvel.
Burton Rascoe (1892–1957) American writer
Introduction to Chivalry (1921) by James Branch Cabell, later published in Prometheans : Ancient and Modern (1933), p. 279
Context: It is true, of course, that like the fruit of the tree of life, Mr. Cabell's artistic progeny sprang from a first conceptual germ — "In the beginning was the Word." That animating idea is the assumption that if life may be said to have an aim it must be an aim to terminate in success and splendor. It postulates the high, fine importance of excess, the choice or discovery of an overwhelming impulse in life and a conscientious dedication to its fullest realization. It is the quality and intensity of the dream only which raises men above the biological norm; and it is fidelity to the dream which differentiates the exceptional figure, the man of heroic stature, from the muddling, aimless mediocrities about him. What the dream is, matters not at all — it may be a dream of sainthood, kingship, love, art, asceticism or sensual pleasure — so long as it is fully expressed with all the resources of self. It is this sort of completion which Mr. Cabell has elected to depict in all his work: the complete sensualist in Demetrios, the complete phrase-maker in Felix Kennaston, the complete poet in Marlowe, the complete lover in Perion. In each he has shown that this complete self-expression is achieved at the expense of all other possible selves, and that herein lies the tragedy of the ideal. Perfection is a costly flower and is cultured only by an uncompromising, strict husbandry.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960) American financier and philanthropist
Address to the students of Brown University, quoted in Ida Tarbell (1904) The History of the Standard Oil Company
Context: The American Beauty Rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God.
Joyce Kilmer Trees and Other Poems
Trees and Other Poems (1914), Delicatessen
Context: O Carpenter of Nazareth,
Whose mother was a village maid,
Shall we, Thy children, blow our breath
In scorn on any humble trade?
Have pity on our foolishness
And give us eyes, that we may see
Beneath the shopman's clumsy dress
The splendor of humanity!
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
Independence Day address (1821)
Context: America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet on her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
Plotinus (203–270) Neoplatonist philosopher
First Ennead, Sixth Tractate, Section 9
The First Ennead (c. 250)
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
Independence Day address (1821)
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer
The House (p. 176)
Short fiction, Orsinian Tales (1976)
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: (it) Sei la pura magia di ritrovare la gioia di amare, la fatica di resisterti, lo splendore di un affetto nato giorno dopo giorno nel silenzio della quotidianità, che ora splende di una luce violenta e vitale che si riflette su tutto ciò che mi sta intorno. Tutto questo... è amore per te.
Source: prevale.net
Pierre Loti (1850–1923) French writer
Source: attributed and quoted in Josyer, G R. Sanskrit Civilization, International Academy of Sanskrit Research. Mysore 1966 p. 1
https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Tribute_to_Hinduism.html?id=G3AMAQAAMAAJ A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: (it) La dolcezza del tuo volto emana così tanta luce vitale che il cielo intero si tinge di rosso, imbarazzato dal tuo splendore.
Source: prevale.net
Ben Aaronovitch book Moon Over Soho
Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 9, “The Forcing House” (p. 194)
Pierre Sonnerat (1748–1814) French botanist (1748-1814)
Pierre Sonnerat: Voyage aux Indes orientales et a la Chine, Paris, 1782. Quoted in A Look at India From the Views of Other Scholars, by Stephen Knapp https://www.stephen-knapp.com/a_look_at_india_from_the_views_of_other_scholars.htm <br class="br">Source: quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Tribute_to_Hinduism.html?id=G3AMAQAAMAAJ