Bible
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Boris Pasternak
Portal 2
John Banister Tabb
William Wordsworth
Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Quotes Index
What can I say? I like being organized. Here is a list of all of the quotes I've posted on here, sorted based on the originator of the quote, in alphabetical order.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
JulNo Progress and Quotes!
I had a day off from the library today, so I basically spent my time doing a number of small things. I finished up the backlog of reviews that I needed to write for the books I've read, so those are posted. Then I finished up my calculus studying, and I started reviewing for physics. Yep, I'm counting the review books as things I've read, because I have sunk a lot of time into 'em, and they're books. I'll probably fail even more miserably at the 100 book goal if I don't include them, so there. Nyeh nyeh. ;)
Besides some gross personal things that you--the Internet--don't need to hear about, not much else happened today. What can I say? I'm a slobby, lazy person in the summer. I did, however, spend a bunch of time perusing Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, and that was a lot of fun. It made me remember how much I love Emerson, namely A LOT. But I also found a bunch of quotes I decided to copy down, and some even for my novel!
Probably you know this already, but it's like a tradition with me to do JulNoWriMo every year, each time with a new novel, since 2009. I'm well-aware that I'm a fairly pretentious person. (I love that I say that with a pretentious statement. Heh. :) So it's no understatement when I say that most of what I've written previously for JulNo's and NaNo's has been fairly shitty and overblown. That is why this summer I decided I wanted to do something entirely different. I want to try to break the mold of what I've done before, you know?
But back to Bartlett. I found a ton of quotes that I liked for my novel, to either be integrated or included in the epigraph at the beginning. And, best of all, I found myself a title! Yeah!
I'm going to be calling my piece The Shadow of the Daisy. It's after the following Wordsworth quote:
Besides some gross personal things that you--the Internet--don't need to hear about, not much else happened today. What can I say? I'm a slobby, lazy person in the summer. I did, however, spend a bunch of time perusing Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, and that was a lot of fun. It made me remember how much I love Emerson, namely A LOT. But I also found a bunch of quotes I decided to copy down, and some even for my novel!
Probably you know this already, but it's like a tradition with me to do JulNoWriMo every year, each time with a new novel, since 2009. I'm well-aware that I'm a fairly pretentious person. (I love that I say that with a pretentious statement. Heh. :) So it's no understatement when I say that most of what I've written previously for JulNo's and NaNo's has been fairly shitty and overblown. That is why this summer I decided I wanted to do something entirely different. I want to try to break the mold of what I've done before, you know?
But back to Bartlett. I found a ton of quotes that I liked for my novel, to either be integrated or included in the epigraph at the beginning. And, best of all, I found myself a title! Yeah!
I'm going to be calling my piece The Shadow of the Daisy. It's after the following Wordsworth quote:
What's best about it is that it actually plays fairly well to one of the main aspects of the novel I'm planning. More details on that in a future blog post, I think. But now for more quotes I liked that are related to the novel!Small service is true service while it lasts:
Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.
--Wordsworth, To a Child: Written in Her Album
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
--Ralph W. Emerson, Journal: December 20, 1822
He discovereth deep things out of the darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
--Job 12:22
A corner draft fluttered the flame
And the white fever of temptation
Upswept its angel wings that cast
A cruciform shadow.
--Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
Out of the dusk a shadow,Why, yes, it is a fairly dark piece, why do you ask? Anyway, hope you enjoyed those quotes. If you'll excuse me, I should be getting to bed.
Then a spark;
Out of the clouds a silence,
Then a lark;
Out of the heart a rapture,
Then a pain;
Out of the dead, cold ashes,
Life again.
--John Banister Tabb, Evolution
Sunday, June 19, 2011
On Portal 2 and my nearly non-existent gaming cred
It's been a while now, but Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers recently finished Portal 2 on his gaming channel. I highly recommend watching Hank play both Portal and Portal 2; both are brilliant.
Side note: I actually prefer Hank's gaming channel to the main Vlogbrothers channel because it's more...spontaneous, maybe? I feel like the Vlogbrothers try a little too hard to be profound sometimes. (Maybe that's projection on my part. :D)
I've never really been much of a gamer. My eye-hand coordination leaves a lot to be desired, and I've never really had the time (or, for that matter, the spare cash) necessary to really get into gaming. Mostly, though, I just like watching people play games than actually playing them. That possibly says something profound about me, about me being a spectator who narrates life as a story rather than living it like Andrew on Buffy (speaking of, I just finished S7! :D), but that's probably a subject for another blog post.
And wow. I was so...well, touched by the end of Portal 2. The turret opera was so beautiful and appropriate, and tears were literally streaming down my cheeks, about as much as I bawled at the end of Toy Story 3. That's saying something. And SPAAAAACE. So epic.
Is that weird? Is it weird that a game could be so profound? It must be, to you. Let me give an example.
That is life. Life is filled with pain and suffering. Hell, life is pain--well, most of the time, anyway. I've realized that recently. Nihilism suggests that the only way to not feel that pain anymore is to die. But then why do we live? Why do we keep going despite that?
Cave Johnson has the answer, a semi-existentialist answer: the point to life is to take all that pain and give it the middle finger, to derive satisfaction from the rejection of pain.
AND I'm being way too pretentiously profound again. I could probably think of more ponderings along those lines, but for now, that's all I've got.
Side note: I actually prefer Hank's gaming channel to the main Vlogbrothers channel because it's more...spontaneous, maybe? I feel like the Vlogbrothers try a little too hard to be profound sometimes. (Maybe that's projection on my part. :D)
I've never really been much of a gamer. My eye-hand coordination leaves a lot to be desired, and I've never really had the time (or, for that matter, the spare cash) necessary to really get into gaming. Mostly, though, I just like watching people play games than actually playing them. That possibly says something profound about me, about me being a spectator who narrates life as a story rather than living it like Andrew on Buffy (speaking of, I just finished S7! :D), but that's probably a subject for another blog post.
And wow. I was so...well, touched by the end of Portal 2. The turret opera was so beautiful and appropriate, and tears were literally streaming down my cheeks, about as much as I bawled at the end of Toy Story 3. That's saying something. And SPAAAAACE. So epic.
Is that weird? Is it weird that a game could be so profound? It must be, to you. Let me give an example.
Cave Johnson: When life gives you lemons? Don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's going to burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!
GLaDOS: Burning people! He says what we're all thinking!
That is life. Life is filled with pain and suffering. Hell, life is pain--well, most of the time, anyway. I've realized that recently. Nihilism suggests that the only way to not feel that pain anymore is to die. But then why do we live? Why do we keep going despite that?
Cave Johnson has the answer, a semi-existentialist answer: the point to life is to take all that pain and give it the middle finger, to derive satisfaction from the rejection of pain.
AND I'm being way too pretentiously profound again. I could probably think of more ponderings along those lines, but for now, that's all I've got.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Internet, meet your newest blogger!
Welcome to my first post here! It's one of many blogs I've started and tried to keep up with, so let's see if I can keep this one better updated. I'll start with a quote, since I do need a better place than my Facebook page to keep track of all the quotes I like.
Read the entirety of Self-Reliance here.
I can remember reading Thoreau's Walden in tenth grade English class and spending all year on it. I hated that book. But it's a little weird, because I do like some Transcendentalist ideas, and I freaking love Emerson. I'd expound on that, but I think I'll save it for a future post.
The reason for this particular quote is, of course, the blog's title. I personally believe in consistency; I try my damnedest in life to be a consistent person in what I do, in how I deal with people, in everything I can. Like everyone else, of course, I can be a hypocrite--it's human nature--but I try not to be. Perhaps it is a foolish consistency, but if I do not hold on to that, how is anything that I do more than just the erratic workings of the universe? Shouldn't I be more purposeful and thus...consistent?
I know, I know, that's not exactly what Emerson was talking about here; I got onto my own little tangent. Regardless, I revel in the idea of being consistent. And that is why this blog is called what it is. (:
Some things to expect in future from this blog:
Until then, good night.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read the entirety of Self-Reliance here.
I can remember reading Thoreau's Walden in tenth grade English class and spending all year on it. I hated that book. But it's a little weird, because I do like some Transcendentalist ideas, and I freaking love Emerson. I'd expound on that, but I think I'll save it for a future post.
The reason for this particular quote is, of course, the blog's title. I personally believe in consistency; I try my damnedest in life to be a consistent person in what I do, in how I deal with people, in everything I can. Like everyone else, of course, I can be a hypocrite--it's human nature--but I try not to be. Perhaps it is a foolish consistency, but if I do not hold on to that, how is anything that I do more than just the erratic workings of the universe? Shouldn't I be more purposeful and thus...consistent?
I know, I know, that's not exactly what Emerson was talking about here; I got onto my own little tangent. Regardless, I revel in the idea of being consistent. And that is why this blog is called what it is. (:
Some things to expect in future from this blog:
- Song analysis! I listen to my iPod too much for my own good, so I read too much into my music. I've never been particularly musically astute, but the words? Heck yeah, you're gonna be ripped apart when I listen to you!
- Book reviews! I'm working on a 100 book meme that I started for another blog that's kind of inactive at the moment, so I might cross-post that.
- School stuff! Next year, I won't have my parents for that kind of ranty goodness at all hours, so it will probably go here next year instead.
- Weird ramblings! See the above post.
- Science! There's so much cool stuff that's going on out there, it just needs to be talked about sometimes.
- Writing! Because I still do this, and I plan on doing JulNo again this summer. I'm working on fanfic again, and I have a brand spankin' new idea for something to write. Entirely new, no longer about the "Clare Arbor" 'verse. It's gonna be awesome!
- And hopefully much, much more!
Until then, good night.
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