Word upWord up
“Avoid swimming in places where you may resemble part of the food chain.” – The Navy SEAL Physical Fitness Guide
Category: Verandah
But they’re such nice peopleBut they’re such nice people
“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a weekend with your parents.” – Bob Walker (quoted by Jean Stein in West of Eden)
EquationEquation
“In proportion as the body grows fat, so does the soul wither away.” – Abba Daniel of Skettis
What’s that buzzing sound?What’s that buzzing sound?
“I’d listen to my conscience if I were sure it was really mine.” – James Richardson, “Vectors 4.2: Everyone Else”
Give it a tryGive it a try
“However far you extend a horizontal, it will not turn vertical.” – Timothy Williamson
Explaining the inexplicableExplaining the inexplicable
“We still are living in the reality of the cosmos and not in the universe of physics, the brainwashing propaganda of our scientistic ideologues notwithstanding.” – Eric Voegelin (quoted by John Bussanich in “Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of Myth”)
Hence the rise of starsHence the rise of stars
“In a very deep sense mythical symbols are unavoidable for humans because reality transcends all types of representation and because our formulations cannot dispense completely with concrete phenomena. . . . Although over time particular symbols and myths may become referentially opaque, the realities symbolized do not cease to exist, which is evidenced by the fact that invalidated myths and symbols are replaced by new or revitalized ones.” – John Bussanich, “Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of Myth”
You gotta be a believerYou gotta be a believer
“No more than the truth of myth can the truth of reason be conveyed by information; it must be acquired by an act of meditative articulation.” – Eric Voegelin (quoted by John Bussanich in “Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of Myth”)
So thereSo there
“Every concrete symbol is true insofar as it envisages the truth, but none is completely true insofar as the truth about being is essentially beyond human reach.” – Eric Voegelin (quoted by John Bussanich in “Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of Myth”)
The man who fell to artThe man who fell to art
“The most interesting thing for an artist is to pick through the debris of a culture, to look at what’s been forgotten or not really taken seriously. Once something is categorized and accepted, it becomes part of the tyranny of the mainstream, and it loses its potency.” – David Bowie (interviewed by Michael Kimmelman in The New York Times)
Transcendence must transcendTranscendence must transcend
“God’s Word is no longer grace, and grace itself is no longer grace, if we ascribe to man a predisposition towards this Word, a possibility of knowledge regarding it, that is intrinsically and independently native to him.” – Karl Barth, The Church Dogmatics
I’d rather not think about itI’d rather not think about it
“Religion’s essence is neither thinking nor acting, but intuition and feeling.” – Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion
Free to be unfreeFree to be unfree
“My being non-alienated cannot be the same thing as what I would naturally do, not at least if what I would naturally do is supposed to mean what I would do anyway. ‘What I would do anyway’ is an incomplete phrase, and therefore, one without determinate sense. ‘Anyway’ means ‘in the absence of preventing factors or influences’, so the sense of ‘what I would do anyway’ depends on which factors or influences we are supposing to be absent. But it is just incoherent to suppose that all factors and influences could be absent; since something like this supposition is nonetheless resiliently an ingredient, albeit often a covert ingredient, of all sorts of thinking about autonomy, freedom, and the voluntary, we might call that supposition ‘the fantasy of freedom an sich’. For the supposition is indeed a fantasy: necessarily and universally, human action always pushes against some resistance. Moreover, it always pushes against some particular resistance: there is no more resistance an sich than there is freedom an sich. In the absence of either, then, there is no such thing as the pure and ahistorical state of unalienated nature, either.” – Sophie-Grace Chappell, “Rôles and Reasons” (footnote omitted; emphases in original)
And that’s the reasonAnd that’s the reason
“To understand a practice is to come to grasp the reasons that that practice gives you—reasons that are not intelligible from outside the practice. Induction into the rôle of participant in the practice entails induction into the reasons characteristic and definitive of the practice. So by adopting the rôle I learn—and before that, commit myself to learn—to have the reasons. Not necessarily quickly or easily, either; induction into a practice can be, indeed usually is, hard work. By such induction I ‘systematically extend’ my own capacities to achieve the various kinds of excellence; and that means, too, that I systematically extend my own repertoire of reasons.” – Sophie-Grace Chappell, “Rôles and Reasons” (emphasis in original)
Better that than the devil’s playgroundBetter that than the devil’s playground
“Work really is the answer to so many problems, and it’s a form of play, too, that you take very seriously and keep trying to expand.” – Diane Keaton (interviewed by Meg Grant in “Diane Keaton Can’t Stop”)
BespokeBespoke
“Fate is definite and there is no altering—the suit always fits.” – Major General Edward F. Witsell, United States Army Air Forces (quoted by Rick Atkinson in The Guns at Last Light)
The winning percentageThe winning percentage
“As long as fifty-one percent of your decisions are right, you’ll succeed.” – Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery (quoted by Rick Atkinson in The Guns at Last Light)
Which one are you?Which one are you?
“Great minds discuss ideas, average ones discuss events, and small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Nothing and everythingNothing and everything
“Nothing is so beautiful, marvelous, ever new, ever surprising, so full of sweet and continual delight, as the good. Nothing is so barren and dismal, monotonous and boring as evil. That is the way with real good and evil. Fictional good and evil are quite the opposite, though. Fictional good is boring and flat. Fictional evil is varied, interesting, attractive, profound, and seductive. This is because in reality, there is a necessity, like gravity, governing us that is missing in fiction.” – Simone Weil, “Literature and Morals”
Nice work if you can get itNice work if you can get it
“Don’t come to work just for the paycheck. You want to be challenged, you want to learn, and you want to grow. Break out of your comfort zone and keep an open mind. As long as you’re in a position where you’re expanding your mind and learning new things, you’re going to be fulfilled.” – Nicole Guyer McMurrian, E-Discovery Project Manager
Tell me about itTell me about it
“Artists do their best work when they’re old or young. Middle age is the enemy of art.” – Orson Welles
Put me in, CoachPut me in, Coach
“I want to fight the champ. If you lose, you’ve lost to the champ and it’s no disgrace. If you win, you’re the new champ.” – General George S. Patton, Jr., USA (quoted by Rick Atkinson in An Army at Dawn)
You do bet your lifeYou do bet your life
“Boundaries on talent exist, but they manifest with reluctance. Dream big. Train hard. Find limits. And don’t bet your life on success.” – Paul Voosen, “Bringing Up Genius”
Light up your scienceLight up your science
“There is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle. There is not a law under which any part of this universe is governed which does not come into play, and is not touched upon, in these phenomena.” – Michael Faraday, “The Chemical History of a Candle”
AssemblageAssemblage
“We become ourselves by wanting other people: not only wanting to have them, but wanting sometimes more urgently to become them, to feel as we imagine they feel, to think or create or whatever else we wish to do as naturally as we imagine they do. We take assignments in being by adopting as our ideals the things other people never were, or failed to become, and then never stop doubting whether what we are is theirs or ours.” – Jedediah Purdy, “Maybe Connect”
So we don’t have to?So we don’t have to?
“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.” – Douglas Adams, “The Salmon of Doubt”
It’s all the sameIt’s all the same
“What is true and beautiful must not be imitated but experienced according to its own individual and superior laws.” – Józef Elsner, composition teacher to Frédéric Chopin (quoted by David Dubal in The Essential Canon of Classical Music)
Take me to the riverTake me to the river
“Our lives are completed at the moment of death: until then we are incessantly becoming, our potential outstanding like a debt. But as soon as we are all that we are ever going to be, we vanish, and it is left up to the living to process the meaning of a life—or, rather, to give it meaning by transmuting being into something that was. . . . It’s our job to finish the dead’s unfinished business, take the whole of a life and house it in our memory, turn present into past. What the body can no longer do, we do for it: we bathe it, dress it, keep it safe.” – C. Morgan Babst, “Death Is a Way to Be”
The best lack all convictionThe best lack all conviction
“We’ve sold people on sure. And we’ve sold people on omniscience, and on the loudest, most declarative voice. That has been damaging just in terms of human civilization. The people who are the most certain are often the ones who lead us in the wrong directions.” – Eric Asimov (interview by Meara Sharma in Guernica)
You never stood a chanceYou never stood a chance
“We don’t think backgrounds mean anything. We don’t want to think that who your parents are should control your chances for success in life, but they do.” – Eric Asimov (interview by Meara Sharma in Guernica)