A garland of quotations LXII

Culled from the finest patriarchs in literary history (postdiluvian edition), and re-woven every Wednesday

It is supposed to be difficult to understand Hegel, but to understand Abraham is a small matter. To go beyond Hegel is a miraculous achievement, but to go beyond Abraham is the easiest of all. I for my part have applied considerable time to understanding Hegelian philosophy and believe that I have understood it fairly well; I am sufficiently brash to think that when I cannot understand particular passages despite all my pains, he himself may not have been entirely clear. All this I do easily, naturally, without any mental strain. Thinking about Abraham is another matter, however; then I am shattered.
•Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843).

Jacob only wrestled with the angel for one night.
•Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862).

Moses wanted to turn a tribe of enslaved Hebrews into free men. You would think that all he had to do was to gather the slaves and tell them that they were free. But Moses knew better. He knew that the transformation of slaves into free man was more difficult and painful than the transformation of free men into slaves. … Moses discovered that no spectacle, no myth, no miracles could turn slaves into free men. It cannot be done. So he led the slaves back into the desert and waited forty years until the slave generation died, and a new generation, desert born and bred, was ready to enter the promised land.
•Eric Hoffer, diary entry 5.20.1959.

Moses hath outgone them all, and left not only the story of his life, but, as some will have it, of his death also.
•Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1643).

WHISKERS LONG
MADE SAMSON STRONG
BUT SAMSON’S GAL
SHE DONE
HIM WRONG
BURMA-SHAVE
•1935 ad.

Disorderly long haire, which was pride and wantonnesse in Absolon, and squallor and horridnes in Nebuchodonozor, was vertue and strength in Samson, and sanctification in Samuel.
•John Donne, Biathanatos (1608).

Though pedantry denies
It’s plain the Bible means
That Solomon grew wise
While talking with his queens.
•Yeats, “On Woman” (1919).

Solomon son of David said, “Tonight I am going to visit seventy women and each will conceive and give birth to a horseman who will fight for God’s cause.” “You should say, ‘God willing,’” said his companion. Since Solomon didn’t add these words, only one of the women became pregnant and she gave birth to a child with half its body missing. If Solomon had said “God willing” they would all have borne him sons who would have fought for God’s cause.
•Muhammad al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari (846).

          Solomon
You can scarcely write less than a column on.
His very song
Was long.
•G.K. Chesterton, “Solomon” (1893).

People who have a preconceived favourite system, try to maintain it ad outrance, and think they see it realized when nothing of the kind in reality exists. Worthy people in America desired me to travel about with them, in order that I might convince the Indians of their extraction from the Jews; but this was putting the argument the wrong way. I wanted the Indians to convince me of their origin, and not to aid in deluding them into this notion, as I perceived many well-intentioned people did. I came across the Mohican tribes near New York and asked them, “Whose descendants are you?” They replied, “We are of Israel.” I asked, “Who told you so?” and expected to learn much ancient tradition. To my great surprise they said “Mr. and Mrs. Simmons, of Scotland.”
•Joseph Wolff, Narrative of a Mission to Bokhara in the Years 1843–1845 to Ascertain the Fate of Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conolly (1845).

References: Kierkegaard: trans. H. V. & E. H. Hong, Fear and Trembling / Repetition (Princeton, 1983); Hoffer: quoted in John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education (Oxford Press, 2000); Burma-Shave: op. cit.; Yeats: The Wild Swans at Coole (Macmillan, 1919); al-Bukhari: from Neal Robinson, ed., The Sayings of Muhammad (Ecco, 1998); Chesterton: in E.C. Bentley et al., The First Clerihews (Oxford UP, 1982); some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.