Topic: Insights, Snippets, Quotes, Epiphanies & All That Sort of Things

[Geo Dude]

I like this thread and decided to help it float to the top:

 “Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”

--Edward Abbey

"Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks!"

"Where cat is, is Civilization."

"Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse."

"Sit back down — and for God's sake quit trying to be as nasty as I am; you don't have my years of practice. Now let me get something straight: you are not in my debt. You can't be. Impossible — because I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it."

"Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing."

"I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman- which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me."

-- Robert Heinlein

[ibanezmonster]

Just tonight:
Wyatt Earp: Mac, you ever been in love?
Mac: No, I've been a bartender all me life.

-- My Darling Clementine (1946)

Lol, not being a bartender, I still get it.

[Gordo]

I recall one of my oldest ideas. The Czar is the leader and spiritual father of a hundred and fifty million men. An atrocious responsibility which is only apparent. Perhaps he is not responsible to God, but rather to a few human beings. If the poor of his empire are oppressed during his reign, if immense catastrophes result from that reign, who knows if the servant charged with shining his boots is not the real and sole person guilty? In the mysterious dispositions of the Profundity, who is really Czar, who is king, who can boast of being a mere servant?

–- Léon Bloy

[spooky]

A few of may favorites  relating to music.

What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lorded works of our favorite
composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and –
more's the pity – the fashions of time, only that which is good and true will endure like a
rock and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then, let every man do that which is
right, strive with all his might towards the goal which can never be obtained, develop to the
last breath the gifts with which the gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to
learn. For life is short, art eternal.
~ Ludwig van Beethoven
perhaps more succinctly in Latin - Ars longa Vita brevis

Music is a moral law.
It gives a soul to the universe,
wings to the wind, flight to the imagination,
a charm to sadness, gaiety, and life to everything.
It is the essence of order and leads to all that is good,
just and beautiful, of which it is this invisible,
but nevertheless dazzling,
passionate, and eternal form.
Aristocles (Plato)

The man that hath no music in himself.
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds.
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,
The motions of his spirit are dull as the night
And his affections dark as Erebus
Let no such man be trusted Mark the music.
Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice V, 1

There is no truer truth obtainable / By Man than comes of music.
~ Robert Browning

"...when the night came, tortured by the usual melancholy of my thoughts, taking a vihuela,
I went out by a back door to the fields, to put aside my worries, and to enjoy the fresh wind
that was blowing..." Rojas, 1603

Curious if anyone is aware of who we can attribute this lovely quote ?
Let Music Rise Out Of Chant as Life Rises Out of Ashes

And a favourite non-musical quote - likely plato
"Advise in the event of Plaque"
Cito-longe-tarde : Flee quickly, go far away, return slowly

[Xenophanes]

Life is hard, then you die.

[Scots John]

"Per aspera ad astra."  That is what I believe.

And from one of my favorite ever American human beings:

"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is my symphony.”

WE Channing

[Geo Dude]

Lol, not being a bartender, I still get it.

Hmm....Greg friendly version:

"Wyatt Earp: Mac, you ever been in love?
Mac: No, I've been a gamer all me life."

[Florestan]

Hmm....Greg friendly version:

"Wyatt Earp: Mac, you ever been in love?
Mac: No, I've been a gamer all me life."

 

[The new erato]

Conductor Kenneth Kiesler is a fine Ginasterist. Shockingly, the booklet bio ignores his illustrious if brief tenure as conductor of the Johns Hopkins University Glee Club ca. 1980, focusing instead on such relatively inconsequential pit stops as his couple of decades with the Illinois Symphony. His immediate predecessor at Hopkins was the also-not-too-shabby Hugh Wolff, and during his time in Baltimore Ken, I mean Maestro Kiesler, led the Glee Club on its first international tour (of Bermuda), on which, despite several incapacitating mo-ped accidents in the soprano section and some iffy island cooking, he directed a splendid performance of Ginastera’s rarely heard Lamentations of Jeremiah, with yours truly in the tenor section.

The Hurwitzer - here:

http://www.classicstoday.com/review/an-exciting-ginastera-premiere-from-an-unlikely-source/?search=1

[Gordo]

I saw around here the name of Dario Argento. This is the answer of his daughter Asia to the question if her father is a misogynist:

I don't think so. He makes women look very powerful and very beautiful. He said something I loved once: he kills more women in his movies because they scream better and they move better. Women know pain more genetically so they can express that better than a man.

 

[Geo Dude]

For some reason I just knew you would love that.


Hmm...perhaps this qualifies as an insight.  It certainly explains why many of the people one meets are so rude...



 

[Florestan]

(*chortie*)

[Brian]

On revising something you did years ago:

"Something similar may occur if one day you happen to hear a piece of music which was written perhaps decades earlier and which you think still has some validity. Then it may happen that you pull out the score with a view to eliminating some technical errors which are now thought embarrassing and which could easily have been avoided.

"But that is a dangerous business to start, because you are a different person from the one who wrote the music. In individual cases you can perhaps enter into the spirit of an older composition, but it will always be as a guest that you come to the music, and even little technical alterations may affect the work and make its bearing insecure."

- Vagn Holmboe, Music - the Inexplicable, on p. 56 of Experiencing Music: A Composer's Notes from Toccata Press

[k a rl h e nn i ng]

An excellent insight.

[Gordo]

An excellent insight.

Yes, indeed. It vaguely recalls me this paragraph of Cioran:

A work is finished when we can no longer improve it, though we know it to be inadequate and incomplete. We are so over taxed by it that we no longer have the power to add a single comma, however indispensable. What determines the degree to which a work is done is not a requirement of art or of truth, it is exhaustion and, even more, disgust.

Anyway, I think Cioran writes more "nausea" or "repugnance" than simply "disgust".

[Florestan]

Cioran is a treasure trove...

Two OTOMH:

All waters have the color of drowning.

We lost by being born just as much as we'll lose by dying - everything.

[Gordo]

Cioran is a treasure trove...

Yes, one of the greatest aphorists that in the world have been. Someone not unworthy to be listed with Martial, Lichtenberg and all the big ones. 

[Scots John]

Cioran is a treasure trove...

Two OTOMH:

All waters have the color of drowning.

We lost by being born just as much as we'll lose by dying - everything.

I've never heard of Cioran.  I looked him up and read some quotes.  Wow.  He is awesome, helping my ennui to balance itself no end.   

[Florestan]

I've never heard of Cioran.  I looked him up and read some quotes.  Wow.  He is awesome, helping my ennui to balance itself no end.   

TBH, his constant whining and pessimism can be rather boring, but his aphorisms are true gems, and the numerous pages where he vituperates against the modern cult of work and action are a welcome antidote to the platitudes of our hyper-active times. 

[DavidRoss]

Maybe more true than apparent at first glance...?