A garland of quotations XXVI
Culled from the finest murmurers in literary history, and re-woven every Monday
Age hot is like a monster to be seen:
My hairs are white, and yet my sins are green.
•Thomas Middleton, The Revenger’s Tragedy (1606).
It is said that when Augurello applied to him for a reward, the pope, with great ceremony and much apparent kindness and cordiality, drew an empty purse from his pocket, and presented it to the alchymist, saying that since he was able to make gold, the most appropriate present that could be made him, was a purse to put it in.
•Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841).
O Sea! within your unknown deeps concealed,
When storms are wild, your monsters dream and sleep,
And all their cruelty for the sunlight keep.
•Adam Mickiewicz, “Becalmed” (1826).
We see that free inquiry on mathematical subjects produces unity, and that free inquiry on moral subjects produces discrepancy.
•Lord Macaulay, “Gladstone on Church and State” (1839).
O thou my soull, so sotyll in thy substance,
Alasse, what was thi fortune and thi chaunce
To be assocyat wyth my flesch, that stynkyng dungehyll?
•Mankind (ca. 1465).
Gutei raised a finger whenever he was asked a question about Zen. A boy attendant began to imitate him in this way. When anyone asked the boy what his master had preached about, the boy would raise his finger. ¶ Gutei heard about the boy’s mischief. He seized him and cut off his finger. The boy cried and ran away. Gutei called and stopped him. When the boy turned his head to Gutei, Gutei raised up his own finger. In that instant the boy was enlightened.
•Mumon, The Gateless Gate (1228).
Alas! O goddess, if thou slayest me
What new immortal can I serve but thee?
•William Morris, The Earthly Paradise vol. I (1868).
For there was never worshipful man or worshipful woman, but they loved one better than another.
•Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur (1485).
Flowers in the darkness disgorging poison
Frightening visions night after night
Coming through the leaves snakes swarming
The very bed chastises
So be it! Conceal it from the world.
•Ogai Mori, “Flower Garden” (1907).
“Oh, but it’s good to be alive and to be going home,” breathed Anne.
•Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (1908).
Sources: Mickiewicz: Sonnets from the Crimea (Paul Elder, 1917); Mumon: from Reps & Senzaki, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (Doubleday, 1960); Mori: from J. Thomas Rimer, Mori Ogai (Twayne, 1975); some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.