Miscellaneous Quotations E-F
"The young ones have always a claim to the old to help them forward."
George Eliot, Middlemarch (Harmondsworth, 1985, p.608).
"O Vanity! How little is thy force acknowledged, or thy operations discerned? How
wantonly dost thou deceive mankind under different disguises? Sometimes thou dost wear
the face of pity, sometimes of generosity: nay, thou hast the assurance even to put on
those glorious ornaments which belong only to heroick virtue. Thou odious, deformed monster!
whom priests have railed at, philosophers despised, and poets ridiculed: is there a wretch
so abandoned as to own thee for an acquaintance in publick? yet, how few will refuse to
enjoy thee in private? nay, thou art the pursuit of most men through their lives. The
greatest villanies are daily practised to please thee: nor is the meanest thief below, or
the greatest hero above thy notice. Thy embraces are often the sole aim and sole reward
of the private robbery, and the plundered province. It is, to pamper up thee, thou harlot,
that we attempt to withdraw from others what we do not want, or to with-hold from them what
they do. All our passions are thy slaves. Avarice itself is often no more than thy hand-maid,
and even Lust thy pimp. The bully Fear like a coward, flies before thee, and Joy and Grief
hide their heads in thy presence.
I know thou wilt think, that whilst I abuse thee, I court thee; and that thy love hath inspired me to write this sarcastical panegyrick on thee: but thou art deceived, I value thee not of a farthing; nor will it give me any pain, if thou should'st prevail on the reader to censure this digression as errant nonsense; for know to thy confusion, that I have introduced thee for no other purpose than to lengthen out a short chapter; and so I return to my history."Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews (Harmondsworth, 1977, pp.83/84).
I know thou wilt think, that whilst I abuse thee, I court thee; and that thy love hath inspired me to write this sarcastical panegyrick on thee: but thou art deceived, I value thee not of a farthing; nor will it give me any pain, if thou should'st prevail on the reader to censure this digression as errant nonsense; for know to thy confusion, that I have introduced thee for no other purpose than to lengthen out a short chapter; and so I return to my history."
"We are not always unhappy, even when we
complain. There is a kind of affliction which makes an agreeable state
of mind; and lamentation itself is sometimes an expression of pleasure."
Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Edinburg, 1966, p.43).
Glories
"Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams
And shadows soon decaying."John Ford, The Broken Heart,
III.vi.14-16.
"Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams
And shadows soon decaying."
"'It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a
thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile, and
that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven.That is not imagination.
No, it kills it.'"
E.M. Forster, Howards End
(Harmondsworth, 1973, repr.1985, p.43)./dt>
"'I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet there would be
no more wars.'"
E.M. Forster, Howards End
(Harmondsworth, 1973, repr.1985, p.99).
"All perform a good action, when one is performed, and when an evil action is
performed, all perform it."
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India,
(London and Harmondsworth, 1979, repr. 1988, p.185).
"How indeed is it possible for one human being to be sorry for all the sadness that
meets him on the face of the earth, for the pain that is endured not only by men,
but by animals and plants, and perhaps by the stones? The soul is tired in a moment,
and in fear of losing the little she does understand she retreats to the permanent
lines which habit or chance have dictated, and suffers there."
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, (London and Harmondsworth, 1979, repr. 1988, p.247).
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, (London and Harmondsworth, 1979, repr. 1988, p.247).
"'... mystery has energy. It pours energy into whoever seeks an answer to it. If you
disclose the solution to the mystery you are simply depriving the other seekers [...] of
an important source of energy.'
'No scientific progress?'
'Of course scientific progress. The solution of the phsysical problems that face man - that is a matter of technology. But I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution.'"John Fowles, The Magus,
(London, Sydney, Glenfield 1997, p.235).
'No scientific progress?'
'Of course scientific progress. The solution of the phsysical problems that face man - that is a matter of technology. But I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution.'"
"'... I had an experience that led me to understand what Julie has just said to
you. Just then she paid us the compliment of making God male. But I think she knows, as all
true women do, that all profound definitions of God are essentially definitions of the mother.
Of giving things.'"
John Fowles, The Magus,
(London, Sydney, Glenfield 1997, p.296).
"'Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because they imagine it is the
one thing that stops women laughing at them. In it they can reduce women to the status of
objects. That is the great distinction between the sexes. Men see objects, women see the
relationship between objects. Whether the objects need each other, love each other, match
each other. It is an extra dimension of feeling we men are without and one that makes war
abhorrent to all real women - and absurd. I will tell you what war is. War is a psychosis
caused by an inability to see relationships. Our relationship with our fellowmen. Our
relationship with our economic and historical situation. And above all our relationship to
nothingness. To death.'"
John Fowles, The Magus,
(London, Sydney, Glenfield 1997, p.413).