A garland of quotations LXXV

Culled from the finest rivals in literary history, and re-woven every Wednesday

“Ha! Phoebus!” said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. “How does the world go? I’ll tell you what,” he added, in a lower tone, “I shouldn’t wish it to be mentioned, but it’s a”—here he beckoned to me, and put his lips close to my ear—“it’s a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!” said Mr. Dick, taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily.
•Dickens, David Copperfield (1850).

I know more than Apollo,
    For oft when he lies sleeping
I see the stars at bloody wars
    In the wounded welkin weeping.
•“Tom o’ Bedlam” (ca. 1600).

It was an early belief that the moon was the more useful of the two heavenly bodies. Daylight and sunlight were considered separate entities, as though the sun’s rays were unnecessary, for the day was already light. The moon, on the other hand, was the sole source of light in the night sky, awaited with anticipation, and was therefore received with more gratitude.
•Tom Folley, The Book of the Moon (1997).

The Nagas of Upper Burma say that the sun shines by day because, being a woman, it is afraid to venture out at night.
•Principia Discordia (marginalia) 00016 (1963).

Socinianism moonlight—Methodism a Stove! O for some Sun to unite heat & Light!
•Coleridge, notebook (1802).

The pine’s shadow is dark
Exactly as the moonlight is bright.
•Sawaki Kodo, quoted in Taisen Deshimaru. The Zen Way to the Martial Arts (1977).

Behind each thing a shadow lies;
    Beauty hath e’er its cost:
Within the moonlight-flooded skies
    How many stars are lost!
•Clark Ashton Smith, “The Price” (1912).

Pupil: Blockhead! You question my preceptor’s omniscience?
Spy: If your preceptor is omniscient, sir, he should know whom the Moon displeases.
Pupil: What use could there be in knowing that?
Spy: Your preceptor, sir, will know the point of knowing it. As for you, you need only know this much—the Moon displeases the lotuses:
The lotuses, fair though they be,
Belie their looks by their behavior,
For they are the enemy
Of the full-orbed splendor of the Moon.
•Visâkhadatta, Râkshasa’s Ring (C6?).

I know, gentlemen, that all this must appear very strange to you; but I beg anybody who doubts my veracity to go to the moon, and there see for himself, and he will find that I have stuck more closely to the truth than any previous traveller has done.
•Rudolf Erich Raspe, The Adventures of Baron Münchausen (1781?).

See the moon? It hates us.
•Donald Barthelme, “See the Moon?” (1966).

References: Coleridge: Seamus Perry, ed., Coleridge’s Notebooks: A Selection (Oxford UP, 2003); Sawaki: trans. Nancy Amphoux (Arkana, 1991); Smith: The Star-Treader and Other Poems (A.M. Robertson, 1912); Visâkhadatta: trans. Michael Coulson in Three Sanskrit Plays (Penguin, 1981); Barthelme: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts (Farrar, 1968); some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.