400. If a man reads a book because it interests him and reads in all directions for the same reason, his reading is pure and interests me.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
500. The poor play a crucial role in the world. They are the ones who really tell us what the world is.
–Pedro Casaldáliga and Jose-Maria Vigil
600. Military occupation is taken as an acceptable given and is scarcely mentioned; Palestinian terrorism becomes the cause, not the effect, of violence, even though one side possesses a modern military arsenal (unconditionally supplied by the United States), the other is stateless, virtually defenseless, savagely persecuted at will, and herded inside 160 little cantons, schools closed, life made impossible.
–Edward Said
700. The masterpieces will tend to figure in one’s personal and individual inventory. Whether they do so by virtue of authentic recognition or whether their authority of acceptance derives from external prestige, from pressures for conformity, from our sloth in the face of proclaimed values and laurels, is an awkward question.
–George Steiner
800. A swift dark glance
and the headstrong runner answered, “Hector, stop!
You unforgivable, you… don’t talk to me of pacts.
There are no binding oaths between men and lions —
wolves and lambs can enjoy no meeting of the minds —
they are all bent on hating each other to the death.
So with you and me. No love between us. No truce
till one or the other falls and gluts with blood
Ares who hacks at men behind his rawhide shield.”
–Homer
