Category: Thought

Hope is a waking dream.

Aristotle, in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius.

Scientists tell us that the fastest animal on earth, with a top speed of 120 ft/sec, is a cow that has been dropped out of a helicopter.

Kissing don’t last; cookery do!

George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859), chapter 28.

I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Aristotle, in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius.

Perfect simplicity is unconsciously audacious.

George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859).

I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Aristotle, in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius.

What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.

The English language was created by poets, a five-hundred year enterprise of emotion and metaphor, the richest dialogue in world literature. French rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition. Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a Parisian intellectual behind his/her turgid text? The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.

Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, p. 34.

All the genres of philosophy, science, high art, athletics and politics were invented by men. But by the Promethean law of conflict and capture, woman has a right to seize what she will and vie with man on her own terms.

Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, p. 9.

Law is order, and good law is good order.

Aristotle, Politics, Book VII, 1326a.29.