Today’s One-Liner (#126)
Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history…
Category: World Literature
In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
The death-dealing Chancery! The waste of Jarndyce and Jarndyce! The magnanimity of John Jarndyce! The plain loveliness of Esther Summerson! The delusion of Richard Carson! The dignity of George Rouncewell! The lovable hater of Lady…
Today’s One-Liner (#121)
He that has read Shakespeare with attention will perhaps find little new in the crowded world. –Dr. Samuel Johnson, dedication in Mrs. Lennox’ Shakespeare Illustrated, 1753, cited in A Johnson Sampler, edited by Henry Darcy…
Today’s One-Liner (#117)
The more man plans, the harder God laughs. –Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman, translated by Hillel Halkin
Today’s One-Liner (#116)
A true friend will stab you in the front. –Oscar Wilde, via Bob Dylan, Friends and Neighbors, Theme Time Radio Hour, 2006
Something I Came across in “First Things”
Alyosha Karamazov suffers tormenting doubt because the miracle he expected does not occur. But when he finds himself engaged in active love in consoling Grushenka, he discovers a faith that is compatible with uncertainty. That…
Today’s One-Liner (#105)
Be not too hasty to trust, or to admire, the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men. –Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abyssinia
Today’s One-Liner (#103)
I accept the torment of accusation and of my disgrace before all, I want to suffer and be purified by suffering! –Dmitri Karamazov, in Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Today’s One-Liner (#96)
I boasted to Rakitin that I gave an onion, but I’ll say it differently to you: in my whole life I’ve given just one little onion, that’s how much good I’ve done. –Grushenka to Alyosha,…
Today’s One-Liner (#94)
Things that give you pleasure—When someone you don’t like meets with some misfortune, you’re pleased even though you know this is wicked of you. –Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book, translated by Meredith McKinney