The Art of Tetman Callis

“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoint them.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1774 Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“I like to do things that frighten me.  When I’m afraid, I understand more things.” — David Grossman (from “The Unconsoled,” by George Packer) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“On his attaining to nirvana, Sakyamuni became the Buddha, and had no longer to mourn his being within the circle of transmigration, and could rejoice in an absolute freedom from passion, and a perfect purity. Still he continued to live on for forty-five years, till he attained to pari-nirvana, and had done with all the […]

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“There is a tradition that when Buddha came to North India, he came at once to this country [Udyana], and that here he left a print of his foot, which is long or short according to the ideas of the beholder on the subject. It exists, and the same thing is true about it, at […]

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“Mourning: a cruel country where I am no longer afraid.” — Roland Barthes, 1977. The Center for Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University publishes an annual litmag called The Healing Muse.  In their most recent issue (#10) they included my short piece, “The Take-Out,” which is the story I’m posting this week. Share […]

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“The dream of artists–which is simply the dream of friends and lovers, magnified–is to plant themselves in other people’s heads.” — Tad Friend, “Sleeping with Weapons” Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Science and literature must both occupy a great place in university education. But the former ignores sin, and the latter knows it only too well.” — The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XIV, Ch. 14 Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“All the dreams you show up in are not your own.” — Gil Scott-Heron Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“If a people is to be judged solely by its crimes and its sins, all the people of this planet are utterly damned.  Such judgments can produce only the deepest kind of anarchy.  The civilized judgment, on which depends all the possibilities of a decent human life, requires that men, while condemning and resisting evil […]

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“In the future, to make a fortune will be considered as improper for the head of a big business as for the President of the United States or the mayor of a city.” — Walter Lippmann, 1934 Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“In every State it should be a fundamental maxim that the education of youth should be particularly formed and adapted to the nature and end of its government.” — Thomas Sheridan, 1756 (from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XIV, Ch. 14) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“The history of diplomacy is the history of relations among rival powers, which did not enjoy political intimacy, and did not respond to appeals to common purposes.  Nevertheless, there have been settlements.  Some of them did not last very long.  Some of them did.  For a diplomat to think that rival and unfriendly powers cannot […]

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“Love endures only when the lovers love many things together, and not merely each other.” — Lippmann, A Preface to Morals Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Laissez-faire is dead and the modern state has become responsible for the modern economy as a whole.  The task of insuring the continuity of the standard of life for its people is now as much the fundamental duty of the state as the preservation of national independence.” — Walter Lippmann, Godkin Lectures, 1934. Share this… […]

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The story I’m posting this week, “The Congenital Fiance”, first appeared in Caketrain a couple of years ago.  I wrote it some years back, not long before the Umpteenth World War started.  The world wasn’t any younger or more innocent or necessarily safer or nicer in those days, but part of the world that ended […]

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“In an earlier era men like John Milton and John Stuart Mill had argued that liberty depended on a press free from censorship and intimidation.  They were concerned primarily with freedom of belief and expression.  But in modern democracies the problem was different.  The press could be ‘free’ and still fail to do its job.  […]

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“If the voter cannot grasp the details of the problems of the day because he has not the time, the interest or the knowledge, he will not have a better public opinion because he is asked to express his opinion more often.” — Lippmann, The Phantom Public Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Most political theory assumed that the average man could, if presented with the facts, make reasonable decisions.  But what if access to the facts was blocked by propaganda, ignorance and willful distortion?  How would this affect the assumption that the average man could make intelligent decisions about public issues?” — Steel, Walter Lippmann and the […]

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“Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (from Steel’s Walter Lippmann and the American Century) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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It should be noted here and now (if not earlier) that the Lippmann quotes being posted to this site are sourced from Ronald Steel’s Walter Lippmann and the American Century, published in 1980 by the Atlantic Monthly Press. Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“It is labor organized that alone can stand between America and the creation of a permanent, servile class.” — Lippmann, Drift and Mastery Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“The curse of great fortunes is the degradation of the poor.” — Walter Lippmann Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon.” — Lippmann, A Preface to Politics Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“The decade 1840–1850, preceding the rush to the gold-diggings, was an important period in the history of Australian poetry. The development of New South Wales brought about an increase in the number of newspapers, and the newspapers gave opportunities for the publication of verse.” — from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XIV, […]

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For two years I worked as a criminal defense paralegal.  As with everything I’ve done since I was twelve or thirteen years old, I did the job with one eye on how I could milk it for stories to write.  Some might call that “bearing witness,” which would be a very nice thing to call […]

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“The days and months are passing; and the years do not wait for us.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book XVII (trans. Jennings) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Be clear in vision, quick in hearing, genial in expression, respectful in demeanor, true in word, serious in duty, inquiring in doubt, firmly self-controlled in anger, just and fair when the way to success opens out.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book XVI (trans. Jennings) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Farmers without land, workers without jobs, ordinary men and women without hope, all were fodder for visionaries promising the earth.” – MacMillan, Paris 1919 Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“The man who in his youth could show no humility or subordination, who in his prime misses his opportunity, and who when old age comes upon him will not die—that man is a miscreant.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book XIV (trans. Jennings) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Dying used to be accompanied by a prescribed set of customs.  Guides to ars moriendi, the art of dying, were extraordinarily popular; a 1415 medieval Latin text was reprinted in more than a hundred editions across Europe.  Reaffirming one’s faith, repenting one’s sins, and letting go of one’s worldly possessions and desires were crucial, and […]

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