Poetry and quotable quotes

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I dunno, though we have to remember this was written at the latest in the beginning of the 19th century when many facts how human body works, were still unknown. This could have been a mistake on Goethe's part.

[Florestan]

I dunno, though we have to remember this was written at the latest in the beginning of the 19th century when many facts how human body works, were still unknown. This could have been a mistake on Goethe's part.

It´s a rather strange assertion of his. The only senses that need some contact are taste and feel and I doubt he wasn´t aware of that. 

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Or maybe he was getting senile?

[North Star]

What contact is needed for hearing, I wonder?

Contact with the vibrating medium, usually air... Goethe didn't know about photons. 

[NikF]

Contact with the vibrating medium, usually air... Goethe didn't know about photons. 

I knew you were going to come in with that answer.   

[Florestan]

Contact with the vibrating medium, usually air... Goethe didn't know about photons. 

Photons not, but visible light beams were everywhere in his time as in ours, and they were usually carried and refracted by the same air. Even in the light (pun) of the contemporary level of knowledge the quiote makes no sense. 

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Not the first time Goethe messed up. His Theory of Colours is fascinating, but not exactly scientifically accurate. IIRC, even during his lifetime his views about that were questioned but he was of the opinion that Theory of Colours was his magnum opus.

[Florestan]

Not the first time Goethe messed up. His Theory of Colours is fascinating, but not exactly scientifically accurate. IIRC, even during his lifetime his views about that were questioned but he was of the opinion that Theory of Colours was his magnum opus.

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/ch.html

Goethe's theory of the constitution of colours of the spectrum has not proved to be an unsatisfactory theory, rather it really isn't a theory at all. Nothing can be predicted with it. It is, rather a vague schematic outline of the sort we find in James's psychology. Nor is there any experimentum crucis which could decide for or against the theory.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein

[Jo498]

The Farbenlehre was not meant to be a scientific theory in the narrower sense. The elevation of sight as the most important sense is prevalent in Western thought since Plato's Cave and Sun metaphors and Aristotle (on the first page of the Metaphysics he takes as anecdotal evidence for the thesis that humans are striving for knowledge by their nature the joy even children exhibit when visually perceiving colorful forms). To see and to know has the same root in many indoeuropean languages: *vid*: videre, visio, wissen, eidos, idea, wisdom, wit, evident etc. (Granted, there is also a similar important field of knowledge words based on variants meaning grasp or some other tactile interaction.)
This has often been contrasted with the focus on *hearing/listening* in the Old Testament and the Jewish religion.

So Goethe belongs to a long tradition which is probably more important for this passage than scientific precision.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

"This is the battle between day and night... I see black light." Allegedly Victor Hugo's last words.

[NikF]

The observer is a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes. The lover of life makes the whole world into his family, just as the lover of the fair sex creates his from all the lovely women he has found, from those that could not be found, and those who are impossible to find, just as the picture-lover lives in an enchanted world of dreams painted on canvas.

Baudelaire.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

"He might not have respected my life. But he did what none of my own countrymen had ever done, in all my experience of them — he respected my time."

Wilkie Collins

[Sergeant Rock]

just as the lover of the fair sex creates his [world] from all the lovely women he has found, from those that could not be found, and those who are impossible to find...

Oh yeah...

Sarge

[Spineur]

The observer is a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes. The lover of life makes the whole world into his family, just as the lover of the fair sex creates his from all the lovely women he has found, from those that could not be found, and those who are impossible to find, just as the picture-lover lives in an enchanted world of dreams painted on canvas.

Baudelaire.

I first thought that it wasnt a good translation.  In fact, what makes it a bit awkward is that it is out of its context.

with the full text it becomes clear

http://classes.bnf.fr/atget/antho/30.htm

[Jaakko Keskinen]

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."  John Milton

Cliché to pick this one but I just can't help it: it's too awesome to resist.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Another Goethe quote:

"It is true symbolism when the particular represents the more general."

[bwv 1080]

Been on a Joyce kick over the past couple of days

A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk.

[North Star]

'The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.' - Will Rogers

[Karl Henning]

'The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.' - Will Rogers

Including this most horribly impractical of practical jokes.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Yet another Victor Hugo quote from me, but I couldn't resist, finding this most excellent one from Ninety-Three. Cannot wait to read the book itself.

"Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars."