I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me. I breathe the morning air of the world while the scent of Eden's roses ye...t lingered in it, while it vibrated only to the world's first brood of nightingales, and to the laugh of Eve. I see the pyramids building; I hear the shoutings of the armies of Alexander.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Charles Foster Kane: You always said you wanted to live in a palace. Susan Alexander: Oh, a person could go crazy in this dum...p. Nobody to talk to, nobody to have any fun with. Charles Foster Kane: Susan. Susan Alexander: Forty-nine thousand acres of nothing but scenery and statues. I'm lonely.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sad that our finest aspiration Our freshest dreams and meditations,... In swift succession should decay, Like Autumn leaves that rot away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There yet remains but one concluding tale, And then this chronicle of mine is ended--... Fulfilled, the duty God ordained to me, A sinner. Not without purpose did the Lord Put me to witness much for many years And educate me in the love of books. One day some indefatigable monk Will find my conscientious, unsigned work; Like me, he will light up his ikon-lamp And, shaking from the scroll the age-old dust, He will transcribe these tales in all their truth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
'Tis time, my friend, 'tis time! For rest the heart is aching;... Days follow days in flight, and every day is taking Fragments of being, while together you and I Make plans to live. Look, all is dust, and we shall die.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In a period of a people's life that bears the designation "transitional," the task of a thinking individual, of a sincere citizen ...of his country, is to go forward, despite the dirt and difficulty of the path, to go forward without losing from view even for a moment those fundamental ideals on which the entire existence of the society to which he belongs is built.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, l...ocated at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Tell mother that however dogs and samovars might behave themselves, winter comes after summer, old age after youth, and misfortune... follows happiness (or the other way around). A person can not be healthy and cheerful throughout life. Losses lie waiting and man can not safeguard against death, even if he be Alexander of Macedonia. One must be prepared for anything and consider everything to be inevitably essential, as sad as that may be.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whatever else it may be--stimulus, tranquilizer, aural nipple, too of executives, Muzak is basically trivializing. It is not simpl...y that it relegates music to the province of wallpaper. Background music never need be banal. When it is used in support of drama, it can greatly enhance without harming itself. Mozart was entirely amenable to such films as Elvira Madigan and The French Lieutenant's Woman; Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote aptly for The Invaders, Arnold Bax for Oliver Twist, Sergei Prokofiev for Lieutenant Kije and Alexander Nevsky, Dmitri Shostakovich for others. In such uses, music collaborates with artists, it becomes an art among arts. But Muzak collaborates chiefly with management: it is used as an aural smoke-screen, a form of jamming, a hormone in the henhouse, an emollient in cemeteries.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I thought when I was a young man that I would conquer the world with truth. I thought I would lead an army greater than Alexander ...ever dreamed of. Not to conquer nations, but to liberate mankind with truth, with the golden sound of the word. But only a few of them heard, only a few of you understood. The rest of you put on black and sat in chapel. Why do you come here? Why do you? Dress your hypocrisy in black and parade before your God on Sunday. From love--no. For you've shown that your hearts are too withered to receive the love of your divine father. I know why you've come. I've seen it in your faces, Sunday after Sunday. Fear has brought you here. Horrible, superstitious fear. Fear of divine retribution. A bolt of fire from the skies. The vengeance of the Lord and the justice of God. But you have forgotten the love of Jesus. You disregard His sacrifice. Death. Fear. Flames. Horror. And black clothes. Hold your meeting then, but know if you do this in the name of good and the house of God, against Him and His word you blaspheme.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »