Great simplicity is only won by an intense moment or by years of intelligent effort, or both. It represents one of the most arduous conquests of the human spirit: the triumph of feeling and thought over the natural sins of language. T.S Eliot
Our forefathers believed emperors were hardly worthy of being Christians. Things now have changed. We believe that Christian piety is hardly worthy of persons in high places: we are horrified by the baseness of the cross, we want to be applauded and respected. Bousset
The literal meaning of qi is «breath» of «energi» (etymologisk: the written character designates the steam produced by rice being cooked. Qi – noen ganger oversatt med ånd/spirit, noe som kan være villedende, hvis en ikke er klar over at kineserne har en materialistisk oppfatning av ånd og en åndelig oppfatning av materie. Simon Leys […]
Tro du meg! Hvert øyeblikk går det vi kaller «livet» over i «fortiden». Skulle livet være et solid legeme? Skulle «tidens gang» være å betrakte som en mutasjon fra det faste til det flytende? P. Rawics Himmelens blod
Dadaism, surrealism are extreme cases. They expressed the frenzy of the total license, the frenzy which takes hold of the mind when rejecting all considerations of value, it plunges into the immediate. Good is a pole that by necessity attracts the human mind, not only in action, but in every effort, including the effort of […]
An essential feature of the first half of the twentieth century… This is one of those rare phenomena which seem to be really new in the history of mankind. -That phenomenon manifested itself in many fields alien to literature, and even in all fields. It might be observed in the substitution of diplomas for general […]
It is possible to affirm, without any bias or any intention to indulge in paradoxes, that for nearly a hundred years the world has not produced one single poet, I mean, a true poet, deserving to be compared to one of those big rivers equally hospitable to barges and gilded galleys, magnificently carrying in their […]
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises […]
När I nu fån se «förödelsens styggelse», om vilken är talat genom profeten Daniel, stå på helig plats – den som läser detta, han give akt derpå. (Matt. 24.15) Därför, om man säger till Eder, «Se han är i ørknen», så gån icke ditut, eller: «Se, han er inne i huset; så tron det icke. […]
When they are roused Try to guard them, poet However few they are that can be held. The visions of your eroticism. Set them, half hidden, in your phrases. Try to hold them, poet, when they are roused in your mind at night, or in the noon glare. Constantine P. Cavafy (1916)
