Thank You, Biographers!
Biography is, of the various kinds of narrative writing, that which is most eagerly read, and most easily applied to the purposes of life. –Samuel Johnson, The Idler, 84 in A Johnson Sampler, edited by…
Category: World Literature
Today’s One-Liner (#55)
The meaning of life lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul. –Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, First Things, August/September 2024, p. 70,
Today’s One-Liner (#53)
En réalité, chaque lecteur est quand il lit le propre lecteur de soi-même. —Marcel Proust, Le Temps Retrouvé
Andrew’s Pieces of Proust
It pleases me to read and to share this compilation by my friend Andrew Ivers, Pieces of Proust!
Availability
Not a door in the house had a lock. The door of the dining-room which, we have mentioned, opened into the cathedral grounds, was formerly loaded with bars and bolts like the door of a…
Today’s One-Liner (#47)
When he had money his visits were to the poor; when he had none, he visited the rich. –On Monseigneur Bienvenu, in Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, 1.1.5
Today’s One-Liner (#45)
Tout le monde se plaint de sa mémoire, et personne ne se plaint de son jugement. –La Rochefoucauld, Maxim #89 Everybody complains of his memory, and nobody complains of his judgement. #89 –Translation by…
Today’s One-Liner (#42)
Think, when you look at people, at their recent birth, their childhood, or their imminent death—and you will love them: such frail creatures. –Abram Tertz, A Voice from the Chorus
Know Your Purpose
Every man should, indeed, carefully compare his force with his undertaking; for though we ought not to live only for our own sakes, and though therefore danger or difficulty should not be avoided merely because…
Today’s One-Liner (#41)
With her formidable intellect, her wide-ranging knowledge of languages, literatures, philosophy and science, she was the greatest woman of the century. –Rosemary Ashton, George Eliot: A Life