Kevin Stilley

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March 23, 2011 by kevinstilley

Euripides – select quotes

Euripides

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The gods have sent medicines for the venom of serpents, but there is no medicine for a bad woman. She is more noxious than the viper, or any fire itself.
~ in Andromache

Man’s greatest tyrants are his wife and children.
~ in Oedipus

Man’s best possession is a sympathetic wife.
~ in Fragments, no. 164

No man is wholly free. He is slave to wealth, or to fortune, or the laws, or the people restrain him from acting according to his will alone.
~ in Hecuba

Plain and unvarnished are the words of truth.
~ in The Phoenissae

The facts speak for themselves.
~ in Fragments

There are three classes of citizens. The first are the rich, who are indolent and yet always crave more. The second are the poor, who have nothing, are full of envy, hate the rich, and are easily led by demagogues. Between the two extremes lie those who make the state secure and uphold the laws.
~ in The Suppliants

Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Better a serpent than a stepmother!

But learn that to die is a debt we must all pay.

Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.

Cleverness is not wisdom.

Danger gleams like sunshine to a brave man’s eyes.

Do not plan for ventures before finishing what’s at hand.

Events will take their course, it is no good being angry at them; he is happiest who wisely turns them to the best account.

Fortune truly helps those who are of good judgment.

Happiness is brief. It will not stay. God batters at its sails.

He is not a lover who does not love forever.

He was a wise man who originated the idea of God.

Human misery must somewhere have a stop; there is no wind that always blows a storm.

I would prefer as friend a good man ignorant than one more clever who is evil too.

Impudence is the worst of all human diseases.

It’s not beauty but fine qualities, my girl, that keep a husband.

Leave no stone unturned.

Life has no blessing like a prudent friend.

New faces have more authority than accustomed ones.

Nothing has more strength than dire necessity.

One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.

Silence is true wisdom’s best reply.

Slight not what’s near through aiming at what’s far.

Some wisdom you must learn from one who’s wise.

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.

The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.

The best of seers is he who guesses well.

The good and the wise lead quiet lives.

The lucky person passes for a genius.

The wisest men follow their own direction.

This is slavery, not to speak one’s thought.

Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes angry.

To a father growing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter.

‘Twas but my tongue, ’twas not my soul that swore.

Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.

Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.

Youth is the best time to be rich, and the best time to be poor.

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Book Cover

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Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, History, Quotes Tagged With: ancient, Ancient Western Civ, Blog, drama, Euripides, literature, Philosophy, plays, Quotes, western civilization, wisdom

February 9, 2011 by kevinstilley

Robert Frost – select quotes

frost

Freedom lies in being bold.

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: American, Humor, literature, poem, poetry, Quotes, Robert Frost, rural

September 18, 2010 by kevinstilley

James Fenimore Cooper – select quotes

“All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.”

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Quotes Tagged With: American literature, Americana, Authors, James Fenimore Cooper, literature

July 9, 2010 by kevinstilley

Have You Read All These Books?

“Have you read all these books?” That is inevitably the question that is asked when we have a group of people into our home. We have thousands of books scattered throughout our home — three sets of bookshelves full of commentaries in the upstairs game-room, three sets of bookshelves in the formal living room full of literature, art, and Christology books, two sets of bookshelves in the master bedroom with books on history and the history of ideas, two sets of bookshelves in the nursery with philosophy and apologetics, books lining the walls in the formal dining room and every nook and cranny of the house. We have lots of books.

“Have you read all these books?” the question was asked once again, this time by one of the students in the medieval history class I am teaching at the seminary this summer. We had the students into our home to hang out, play Wii, and review for their final exam.

I usually try to walk the inquirer through a list of reasons why I have certain books in my personal library. “I use this book as a reference.” “I have read this particular book dozens of times.” “This is a book I bought spontaneously on a recent bookstore visit.” “I read a little Kierkegaard every day.” etc. Probably more information than the inquirer really wanted to know. So, the most recent question gave me an opportunity to use a new response I adapted from a passage in James V. Schall’s A Students Guided to Liberal Learning;

“In this personal library of ours, as I have explained, we ought to have books that we have read, though there is nothing wrong with accumulating in advance books we might never read or read only years later. No serious book-lover will ever die having read every book he has managed to collect. This is not a sign of dilatoriness but of eagerness, anticipation.”

So, I explain, my personal library is not just an indication of where I have been, but of where I am going. Not just of who I am, but of who I want to be. Not just a catalog of my literary friends, but of great minds to whom I hope to be introduced.

Anticipation, eagerness, … Hope.

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Family Circus, Front Page, Worldview Tagged With: Books, Education, Liberal Arts, library, literature, Philosophy

November 23, 2009 by kevinstilley

Rudyard Kipling – select quotes

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew):
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
~ in The Serving-Men

Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade.

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

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Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, Quotes Tagged With: literature, Rudyard Kipling

August 28, 2009 by kevinstilley

Michel de Montaigne – Select Quotes

We must not mock God. Yet the best of us are not so much afraid to offend Him as to offend our neighbors, kinsmen, or rulers.
~ in Essays. Bk. 1, Ch. 39

I speak truth not as much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.”
~ in Essays, Bk. 3, Ch. 1

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.”
~ in Essays, Bk. 3, Ch. 13

What enriches language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds–not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently though and with ingenuity.
~ in “On Some Lines of Virgil”

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

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Filed Under: Blog, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes Tagged With: Essays, literature, Montaigne, Philosophy, quotations, Quotes, wisdom

June 11, 2009 by kevinstilley

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston; Quotes & Observations

Their Eyes Were Watching God. Zora Neale Hurston. (NY: HarperCollins, [2000 reprint]). 231 pages.

My first exposure to Zora Neale Hurston’s writing was her book Dust Tracks On A Road which I read as part of a PhD course on self-referential anthropology. I immediately fell in love with the unique and vivid way that Hurston uses language.

So along the way I acquired two more of Hurston’s books, Mules and Men and Their Eyes Were Watching God, neither of which I ever got around to reading. Maggie’s Southern Reading Challenge was just the prompting I needed to move Their Eyes Were Watching God to the top of my “books-to-be-read” stack.

I loved the book and highly recommend it to you. If you already own it, move it to the top of your “books-to-be-read” stack. If you don’t own it I recommend that you check it out of your local public library or spend the $10 to purchase it.

Tolle lege!

I share below some quotes from the book:

* * *

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly. (page 1)

* * *

“You know if you pass some people and don’t speak tuh suit ’em dey got tuh go way back in yo’ life and see whut you ever done. They know mo’ ’bout yuh than you do yo’ self. An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They done ‘heard’ ’bout you just what they hope done happened.”

“If God don’t think no mo’ ’bout ’em then Ah do, they’s a lost ball in de high grass.”

“Ah hears what they say ’cause they just will collect round mah porch ’cause it’s on de big road. Mah husband git so sick of ’em sometime he makes ’em all git for home.”

“Sam is right too. They just wearin’ out yo’ sittin’ chairs.”

“Yeah, Sam say most of ’em goes to church so they’ll be sure to rise in Judgment. Dat’s de day dat every secret is s’posed to be made known. They wants to be there and hear it all.”

“Sam is too crazy! You can’t stop laughin’ when youse around him.”

“Uuh hunh. He says he aims to be there hisself so he can find out who stole his corn-cob pipe.” (pages 6-7)

* * *

They sat there in the fresh young darkness close together. Pheoby eager to feel and do through Janie, but hating to show her zest for fear it might be thought mere curiosity, Janie full of that oldest human longing–self-revelation. (page 8 )

* * *

The wife of the Mayor was not just another woman as she had supposed. She slept with authority and so she was part of it in the town mind. She couldn’t get but so close to most of them in spirit. (page 55)

* * *

There was no doubt that the town respected him and even admired him in a way. But any man who walks in the way of power and property is bound to meet hate. So when speakers stood up when the occasion demanded and said “Our beloved Mayor,” it was one of those statements that everybody says but nobody actually believes like “God is everywhere.” It was just a handle to wind up the tongue with. (page 57)

* * *

When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made if even nicer to listen to. (page 60)

* * *

“Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. i god, they sho don’t think none theirselves.”

“Ah knows uh few things, and womenfolks thinks sometimes too!”

“Aw naw they don’t. They just think they’s thinkin’. When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don’t understand one.” (pages 83-84)

* * *

“He wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it….So gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush. The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again. So she put something in there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church. The bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in. It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired. (page 84)

* * *

She got so she received all things with the stolidness of the earth which soaks up urine and perfume with the same indifference. (page 91)

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Filed Under: Blog, Books, Quotes Tagged With: book reviews, literature, quotations, Quotes, Zora Neale Hurston

June 11, 2009 by kevinstilley

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

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Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: American, Blog, Books, Featured Books, Great Depression, Hurston, literature, Quotes

June 11, 2009 by kevinstilley

Nobel Laureates in Literature

  • 2008 – Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
  • 2007 – Doris Lessing
  • 2006 – Orhan Pamuk
  • 2005 – Harold Pinter
  • 2004 – Elfriede Jelinek
  • 2003 – J. M. Coetzee
  • 2002 – Imre Kertész
  • 2001 – V. S. Naipaul
  • 2000 – Gao Xingjian
  • 1999 – Günter Grass
  • 1998 – José Saramago
  • 1997 – Dario Fo
  • 1996 – Wislawa Szymborska
  • 1995 – Seamus Heaney
  • 1994 – Kenzaburo Oe
  • 1993 – Toni Morrison
  • 1992 – Derek Walcott
  • 1991 – Nadine Gordimer
  • 1990 – Octavio Paz
  • 1989 – Camilo José Cela
  • 1988 – Naguib Mahfouz
  • 1987 – Joseph Brodsky
  • 1986 – Wole Soyinka
  • 1985 – Claude Simon
  • 1984 – Jaroslav Seifert
  • 1983 – William Golding
  • 1982 – Gabriel García Márquez
  • 1981 – Elias Canetti
  • 1980 – Czeslaw Milosz
  • 1979 – Odysseus Elytis
  • 1978 – Isaac Bashevis Singer
  • 1977 – Vicente Aleixandre
  • 1976 – Saul Bellow
  • 1975 – Eugenio Montale
  • 1974 – Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson
  • 1973 – Patrick White
  • 1972 – Heinrich Böll
  • 1971 – Pablo Neruda
  • 1970 – Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
  • 1969 – Samuel Beckett
  • 1968 – Yasunari Kawabata
  • 1967 – Miguel Angel Asturias
  • 1966 – Shmuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs
  • 1965 – Mikhail Sholokhov
  • 1964 – Jean-Paul Sartre
  • 1963 – Giorgos Seferis
  • 1962 – John Steinbeck
  • 1961 – Ivo Andric
  • 1960 – Saint-John Perse
  • 1959 – Salvatore Quasimodo
  • 1958 – Boris Pasternak
  • 1957 – Albert Camus
  • 1956 – Juan Ramón Jiménez
  • 1955 – Halldór Laxness
  • 1954 – Ernest Hemingway
  • 1953 – Winston Churchill
  • 1952 – François Mauriac
  • 1951 – Pär Lagerkvist
  • 1950 – Bertrand Russell
  • 1949 – William Faulkner
  • 1948 – T.S. Eliot
  • 1947 – André Gide
  • 1946 – Hermann Hesse
  • 1945 – Gabriela Mistral
  • 1944 – Johannes V. Jensen
  • 1943 – The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
  • 1942 – The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
  • 1941 – The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
  • 1940 – The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
  • 1939 – Frans Eemil Sillanpää
  • 1938 – Pearl Buck
  • 1937 – Roger Martin du Gard
  • 1936 – Eugene O’Neill
  • 1935 – The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
  • 1934 – Luigi Pirandello
  • 1933 – Ivan Bunin
  • 1932 – John Galsworthy
  • 1931 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt
  • 1930 – Sinclair Lewis
  • 1929 – Thomas Mann
  • 1928 – Sigrid Undset
  • 1927 – Henri Bergson
  • 1926 – Grazia Deledda
  • 1925 – George Bernard Shaw
  • 1924 – Wladyslaw Reymont
  • 1923 – William Butler Yeats
  • 1922 – Jacinto Benavente
  • 1921 – Anatole France
  • 1920 – Knut Hamsun
  • 1919 – Carl Spitteler
  • 1918 – The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
  • 1917 – Karl Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan
  • 1916 – Verner von Heidenstam
  • 1915 – Romain Rolland
  • 1914 – The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
  • 1913 – Rabindranath Tagore
  • 1912 – Gerhart Hauptmann
  • 1911 – Maurice Maeterlinck
  • 1910 – Paul Heyse
  • 1909 – Selma Lagerlöf
  • 1908 – Rudolf Eucken
  • 1907 – Rudyard Kipling
  • 1906 – Giosuè Carducci
  • 1905 – Henryk Sienkiewicz
  • 1904 – Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray
  • 1903 – Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
  • 1902 – Theodor Mommsen
  • 1901 – Sully Prudhomme

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: Awards, laureates, literature, nobel, Nobel Prize (Literature)

June 11, 2009 by kevinstilley

Anatole France – Select Quotes

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Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not wish to sign.
~ in Le Jardin d’ epicure

To die for an idea is to place a pretty high price upon conjectures.
~ in La Revotle des anges

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another.

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folk have lent me.

There are no bad books any more than there are ugly women.

To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.

__________

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Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, Quotes Tagged With: Anatole France, Books, literature, quotation, Quotes, wisdom

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