Beers & Books CXCVIII – Sebastião Salgado

In GENESIS,
my camera allowed nature to speak to me.
And it was my privilege to listen.

Sebastião Salgado *8 February 1944

Beers & Books CXCVII – Kate Chopin

The artist must possess a courageous soul
that dares and defies.

 

Kate Chopin (8 February 1850 – 22 August 1904)

Today 529 years ago

The American who was the first to discover Columbus made a fatal discovery.

Der Amerikaner, der den Kolumbus zuerst entdeckte,
machte eine böse Entdeckung. [G 183]

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)

Beers & Books CXXXVIII – Flann O'Brien

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say that you need a change,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

Flann O'Brien (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966)

Beers&Books CXXXVII – Denis Diderot

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us,
but we sip only little by little
at a truth we find bitter.
*
Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
*
The Christian religion teaches us
to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous,
and implacable in his wrath.
*
Watch out for the fellow
who talks about putting things in order!
Putting things in order always means
getting other people under your control.
*
No man has received from nature the right
to command his fellow human beings.

Denis Diderot ( 5 October 1713 –  31 July 1784)

Beers & Books CXXXVI – Louis Aragon

We know that the nature of genius is
to provide idiots with ideas twenty years later.

Louis Aragon (3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) 

Beers & Books LXXVIII – Joris Karl Huysmans

A rebours.
*
“There's no doubt about it -
gardeners are the only true artists
these days.”*

Joris Karl Huysmans (5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907)

* Alright, two more:

"Art and prayer are the only decent ejaculations of the soul."

"Only the chaste are truly obscene."

Moments of solitude

Like a great poet,
Nature knows to produce greatest effects
with most limited means.

– Heinrich Heine (13 December 1796 – 17 February 1856) –

If stupidity is joined by power

"Der Ignorant missachtet die Belehrung.
Und wenn zur Dummheit sich noch Macht gesellt,
scheut er kein Mittel der Zerstörung."

The Ignorant disregards the instruction.
And if his stupidity is even joined by power
he does not shy away from any means of destruction.

Ivan Krylov (13 February 1769 – 21 November 1844)

Miserable fools

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.

Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860

Beers & Books XII – Václav Havel

“Man is not
an omnipotent master of the universe,
allowed to do with impunity
whatever he thinks,
or whatever suits him at the moment.
The world we live in is made
of an immensely complex and mysterious tissue
about which we know very little
and which we must treat with utmost humility.”

Václav Havel (5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011)

A blissful repose of nothingness

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.

Wir können unser Leben als nutzlos störende Episode in der seligen Ruhe des Nichts betrachten.

Arthur Schopenhauer (22 Februar 1788 – 21 September 1860)

Beers & Books II

I would give all my fame
for a pot of ale.

Henry V: Act 3, Scene 2

 Shakespeare's sonnets

As for Extremists

"I am against all extremists.
In fact, I think they should be lined up against a wall, and shot."

Chevy Chase (October 8th, 1943)

With a pinch of salt

That should do the trick ... ;-)

Life lived quietly

"The best of life is life lived quietly,
where nothing happens
but our calm journey through the day,
where change is imperceptible
and the precious life is everything."

John Mc Gahern

Georgia O'Keefe

"To create one's world 
in any of the arts
takes courage."

 Georgia O'Keefe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986)

135

"I am today
what I established yesterday."

am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jamesjoyce119807.html

I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_joyce.html

I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_joyce.html

James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941)

I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_joyce.html

Not sure about

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those
who in times of great moral crisis
maintain their neutrality.
Dante Alighieri

  [from my archive)

The Dangerous Vice of a Weak Character

The will for power ... far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly their most dangerous one.
Hannah Arendt