“ The Duc de la Rochefoucault has very well observed, that absence destroys weak passions, but increases strong; as the wind extinguishes a candle, but blows up a fire. Long absence naturally weakens our idea, and diminishes the passion: But where the idea is so strong and lively as to support itself, the uneasiness, arising from absence, increases the passion, and gives it new force and violence.
Hume, Treatise on Human Nature
Soothly We Live in Mighty Years
Funny, my tutor was ranting about how he hates self-conscious artists like beethoven and likes oblivious ones like mozart.
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”—
sylvia plath.
“ One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
Andre Gide
“ The civilized man is distinguished from the savage mainly by prudence, or, to use a slightly wider term, forethought. He is willing to endure present pains for the sake of future pleasures, even if the future pleasures are rather distant… It is evident that this process can be carried too far, as it is, for instance, by the miser. But without going to such extremes, prudence may easily involve the loss of some of the best things in life. The worshipper of Bacchus reacts against prudence. In [mental] intoxication, spiritual or physical, he recovers an intensity of feeling which prudence had destroyed; he finds the world full of delight and beauty, and his imagination is suddenly liberated from the prison of every-day preoccupations…Much of what is greatest in human achievement involves some element of intoxication, some sweeping away of prudence by passion. Without the Bacchic element, life would be uninteresting; with it, it is dangerous. Prudence versus passion is a conflict that runs through history. It is not a conflict in which we ought to side wholly with either party.
Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy
Why Dictators Love Kitsch
Kim Jong Il-Clinton photo op spotlights a style that’s long glorified tyrants
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I love this song because its one of those classic old school rap songs that reflect on life rather than talk about bitches and hoes. Also, I think the jail:womb analogy is sick.
