Quote Digest

[tushantin]

I loved Odyssey, but I never got the chance to finish Iliad. Still, Homer was quite master at what he did.

You will certainly not be able to take the lead in all things yourself, for to one man a god has given deeds of war, and to another the dance, to another lyre and song, and in another wide-sounding Zeus puts a good mind.

There with commutual zeal we both had strove
In acts of dear benevolence and love:
Brothers in peace, not rivals in command.

Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales,
And the good suffers while the bad prevails.

It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize,
And to be swift is less than to be wise.
'T is more by art than force of num'rous strokes.

[Syna]

HOMER, HOMER, HOMER!!!

God, that makes me want to dust off my Classical Greek! I never translated more than passages, but in retrospect it seems so worth all those weekends spent ruining my posture & hunched over a dictionary.

The Iliad has one of the best and most heartbreaking endings of any story I've ever read. It's well worth finishing, tush.

[tushantin]

I never translated more than passages, but in retrospect it seems so worth all those weekends spent ruining my posture & hunched over a dictionary.

XD

You'd rather bask in glory of the masters, in its truest essence, (and ruin your back as a result) rather than accept a ready-translated / aesthetic rewrite, wouldn't you?

[Syna]

Well, I'd rather do that, but the practical difficulty of Ancient Greek more or less forbids it. XD It took us a whole semester to get through one play, and these days I do like to have more fun on my weekends than read dictionaries, as a general rule.

(I'll never forget when my Greek teacher basically admitted to me that like 75% of Greek linguistic scholarship is speculation. D'oh.)

And there's plenty of languages I'll never get to whose literature should be appreciated. A good translator's an artist themself, though.

[Thought]

I'm greatly annoyed that "Ajax" is the name of a missile and a cleaning agent. I would like to name a child that. Both the Greater and the Lesser were among my favorite characters from the Iliad.

The Doctor: Yes, he likes that … Alfie. Though personally, he likes to be called Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All.
Craig: ... how’d you know that?
The Doctor: I speak Baby.

[Lord J Esq]

[Humanity] is a little more than a waste. And yes, fuck you.

What men wish, they like to believe.

~ Julius Caesar

[tushantin]

[Humanity] is a little more than a waste. And yes, fuck you.

What men wish, they like to believe.

~ Julius Caesar

Josh, weren't you just ranting about the "endless stream of mooks who try to elevate themselves by invoking names like Heisenberg, Chomsky, Gödel...and Aristotle, Jesus, Einstein, Gandhi, Aquinas, Mozart, Caesar"? Now you're invoking Caesar's name "all for the futile sake of proving your absurd point"?

And also, that's your childish idea of throwing a vindictive barb at me? Were you so upset by the idea of my frank disagreement that you'd toss away your pretense of magnanimity and go so low? How would anyone even trust you when you make the same errors that you wrongly accuse others of doing so?

What, now you're going to bully me for all this?

[Lord J Esq]

Well, this is a quotations thread, after all. Unless one intends purely to invoke themselves, the whole point is to repeat what others have said. I think you may be having a bad day.

[FaustWolf]

And I think this is a case where it would be helpful to get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
--Maya Angelou

Less time spent on pissing contests gives us more time to write, yar?

[Lord J Esq]

I don't know that I agree with Angelou...or at least it strikes me that the accuracy of her comment is variable from person to person. For as much consternation as it has brought me to have worked on my novel for over a decade and still not be done with the first book of it, I have also discovered a very hearty satisfaction with precisely what she terms an agony. My story is better than I will ever be able to make it on the page. It's a treasure and a delight, and just traveling with it in my life is both gratifying and elevating.

[FaustWolf]

Yeah, it's good to remember that the state of not being published, or otherwise brought to fruition, doesn't prevent a work from existing. All storytellers have that at least! I guess I use it as a carrot to dangle in front of me when the going gets rough: even if I'm in the shit now, I still have a fighting chance of finishing the idea that's churning around in my mind as long as I make it through.

[tushantin]

The destiny of art isn't in the publication office, but with the people, in their hearts.

[Sajainta]

I don't know the context of Angelou's quote, but I interpret it as more than just writing.  An "untold story" could be an actual story idea, but it could also be a painful memory or a beautiful experience or a profound discovery.  Something that you desperately want to share with someone, but for some reason cannot.

[FaustWolf]

Thanks Sajainta, that didn't occur to me until well after I had posted it. I tried to go back and find out a little more about the context, but sadly I'm turning up the usual lists of disembodied quotes. From what I understand her works had a strong autobiographical bent, so I wouldn't be surprised if she meant it precisely as you describe it.

This reminds me of a huge debate my ninth grade English class had, trying to figure out the meaning of "I know why the caged bird sings."

[tushantin]

This reminds me of a huge debate my ninth grade English class had, trying to figure out the meaning of "I know why the caged bird sings."

Are you sure it's not a lament? XD