Author: Best (195.16.73.---)
Date: 02-07-06 03:37
The former post was removed because it was off topic, and thus a violation of our Great Books & Classics spirit. We are migrating to
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My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to
make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose -
somehow we win out.
Ronald Reagan
CXXV
Were\'t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mix\'d with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.
Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul
When most impeach\'d, stands least in thy control.
--William Shakespeare
The task of art is enormous. Through the influence of real art,
aided by science, guided by religion, that peaceful co-operation of man is
now obtained by external means-by law courts, police, charitable
institutions, factory inspection, etc.-should be obtained by man\'s free
and joyous activity. Art should cause violence to be set aside. And it is
only art that can accomplish this.
Leo N. Tolstoy
CXXIV
If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune\'s bastard be unfather\'d,
As subject to Time\'s love or to Time\'s hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather\'d.
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th\' inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-number\'d hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
To this I witness call the fools of time,
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
--William Shakespeare