tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50121982012-01-21T15:41:48.992-05:00A Commonplace BookA commonplace book: an old-fashioned literary diary for recording interesting items from reading you've done. I use mine to record snippets from reading, conversation and life in general. (The early 2003 entries are from a period some years ago -- before the blog age -- when I tried an online commonplace book as a straight web page.)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.comBlogger3291100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-73341193071713034562012-01-21T15:41:00.002-05:002012-01-21T15:41:48.999-05:00Most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others.
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-49314905872441061212012-01-20T23:34:00.001-05:002012-01-20T23:34:32.039-05:00They were people who had no doubt whatsoever that the more narrow-minded they became, the closer they got to heaven.
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-78148678415455587922012-01-18T21:54:00.001-05:002012-01-20T23:35:14.098-05:00Nobody's easier to fool than the person who is convinced that he is right.
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-91874316991811732502012-01-16T16:34:00.000-05:002012-01-16T16:34:49.879-05:00He knew that bad premonitions have a far higher accuracy rate than good ones.
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-50239480875423612642011-11-21T08:25:00.000-05:002011-11-21T08:25:42.921-05:00We are such stuff
As dreams are made on,
and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare (The Tempest) as quoted by
Stephen Greenblatt, Will In The WorldGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-20719115650585966852011-10-26T07:36:00.000-04:002011-10-26T07:36:40.449-04:00Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed
Beated and chopp'd with tanned Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-9109031603543361702011-09-15T09:56:00.002-04:002011-09-15T09:56:14.949-04:00Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-33924191994085843822011-08-18T07:36:00.000-04:002011-08-18T07:36:15.476-04:00
How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
That thou art then estranged from thyself?
Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;
For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled thence that drop again
Without Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-76104704504088369942011-07-07T16:59:00.000-04:002011-07-07T16:59:05.853-04:00Not only that anything should be, but that this very thing should be, is mysterious! Philosophy stares, but brings no reasoned solution, for from nothing to being there is no logical bridge.
Wiliam James, as quoted by Geoffrey O'Brien in The New York Review of July 14, 2011Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-50987788862688155942011-06-10T14:33:00.001-04:002011-06-10T14:34:33.958-04:00Ingrate, he had of me all he could have;
I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood,
Though free to fall.
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book III.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-81991720615551926432011-05-06T18:25:00.000-04:002011-05-06T18:25:16.157-04:00Life [has become] that strange experience in which you're zooming along a freeway and suddenly realize that you haven't paid any attention to driving for the last fifteen minutes, yet you're still alive and didn't crash.
Douglas Coupland, as quoted by Pico Iyer in "The McLuhan Galaxy", New York Review of Books (May 26, 2011)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-46060549020774784162011-05-05T08:03:00.000-04:002011-05-05T08:03:07.639-04:00True ambivalence: not feeling unsure, but feeling opposing extremes of conviction at once....ambivalence holds more information than any single emotion.
Rivka Galchen, "Dream Machine" The New Yorker (May 2, 2011)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-27704575749229146152011-03-31T08:42:00.000-04:002011-03-31T08:42:37.954-04:00In attitude and proportion the graceful majesty of the figure is unsurpassed. The effect is completed by the countenance, where on the perfection of youthful godlike beauty there dwells the consciousness of triumphant power.
Thomas Bulfinch, commenting on the Apollo Belvedere in Bulfinch's Mythology.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-432508191320272342011-03-30T10:38:00.000-04:002011-03-30T10:38:19.277-04:00An open mind is okay, but you should fill it first.
JG, said in class.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-11241671017421855792011-03-10T18:33:00.000-05:002011-03-10T18:33:38.595-05:00Old age is the only stage of life we never grow out of, and can never look back on.
Jill Lepore, Twilight, The New Yorker (March 14, 2011)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-3403724256876905522011-03-08T17:40:00.001-05:002011-03-08T17:41:44.810-05:00The coat-of-arms of the human race ought to consist of a man with an axe on his shoulder proceeding toward a grindstone.
We do no benevolences whose first benefit is not for ourselves.
Mark Twain, Reflections on a Letter and a Book, The Autobiography of Mark Twain.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-35095144387948813912011-03-05T17:25:00.001-05:002011-03-08T17:41:03.078-05:00Paige and I always meet on effusively affectionate terms; and yet he knows perfectly well that if I had his nuts in a steel-trap I would shut out all human succor and watch that trap till he died.
Mark Twain, Autobiography of Mark Twain.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-74270812874412555272011-01-31T11:29:00.000-05:002011-01-31T11:29:49.027-05:00I plung'd for life or death. To interknit
One's senses with so dense a breathing stuff
Might seem a work of pain; so not enough
Can I admire how crystal-smooth it felt,
And buoyant round my limbs. At first I dwelt
Whole days and days in sheer astonishment;
Forgetful utterly of self-intent;
Moving but with the mighty ebb and flow.
Then, like a new fledg'd bird that first doth shew
His spreaded Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-86549910407892358832011-01-10T08:02:00.000-05:002011-01-10T08:02:17.919-05:00His superiority over other learned men consisted chiefly in what may be called the art of thinking, the art of using his mind; a certain continual power of seizing the useful substance of all that he knew, and exhibiting it in a clear and forcible manner; so that knowledge, which we often see to be no better than lumber in men of dull understanding, was, in him, true, evident, and actual wisdom.
Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-11462547092004011942011-01-08T10:20:00.000-05:002011-01-08T10:20:08.837-05:00Against inquisitive and perplexing thoughts,
O Lord, my Maker and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which Thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands, and consider the course of thy providence, give me grace Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-62921304782786190462011-01-06T09:16:00.001-05:002011-01-06T09:17:11.584-05:00Sagacity is the eye of the mind, intuition the mind's nose.
Samuel Johnson (1784) in Boswell's Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-80869753568400292532010-12-16T10:09:00.000-05:002010-12-16T10:09:48.188-05:00My dear friend, clear your mind of cant. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble servant." You are not his must humble servant. You may say, "These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved at such times." You don't mind the times. You tell a man, "I am sorry you had such bad weather the last day of your journey, and were so much wet."Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-36985836945313352092010-12-05T16:54:00.000-05:002010-12-05T16:54:59.363-05:00Why do you weep and grieve so sorely when you hear
the fate of the Argives, hear the fall of Troy?
That is the gods' work, spinning threads of death
through the lives of mortal men,
and all to make a song for those to come...
Homer, The Odyssey (Book 8, line 645, as translated by Robert Fagles)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-88685443379880121132010-12-04T18:21:00.000-05:002010-12-04T18:21:05.349-05:00Talking of conversation.... There must, in the first place, be knowledge, there must be materials;--in the second place, there must be a command of words;--in the third place, there must be imagination, to place things in such views as they are not commonly seen in;--and in the fourth place, there must be presence of mind, and a resolution that is not to be overcome by failures...
Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-67418072973207269882010-11-19T08:22:00.000-05:002010-11-19T08:22:29.972-05:00Whatever befalls us, though it is wise to be serious, it is useless and foolish, and perhaps sinful, to be gloomy.
Samuel Johnson (1782) in Boswell's Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-80727397435500977072010-11-15T16:34:00.000-05:002010-11-15T16:34:13.896-05:00Sir, it is driving on the system of life.
Samuel Johnson commenting (1781) on why we continue to try, as quoted in Boswell's Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-60016141724866075202010-11-14T17:02:00.000-05:002010-11-14T17:02:15.307-05:00Be bold, nothing to fear.
In every venture the bold man comes off best.
Homer, The Odyssey (Book 7, line 59, as translated by Robert Fagles)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-5230895938714498592010-11-11T08:25:00.001-05:002010-11-11T08:25:57.041-05:00Sir, a man does not love to go to a place from whence he comes out exactly as he went in.... Every body loves to have good things furnished to them without any trouble.
Samuel Johnson commenting (1781) on the pleasure of mixing ready food and drink with conversation, as quoted in Boswell's Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-1084225096113503682010-11-07T17:07:00.001-05:002010-11-14T17:04:23.766-05:00Zeus is to blame. He deals to each and every laborer on this earth whatever doom he pleases.
Homer, The Odyssey (Book 1, line 401, as translated by Robert Fagles)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-33594468888833282722010-10-31T13:42:00.000-04:002010-10-31T13:42:36.954-04:00A great mind disdains to hold any thing by courtesy, and therefore never usurps what a lawful claimant may take away. He that encroaches on another's dignity, puts himself in his power; he is either repelled with helpless indignation, or endured by clemency and condescension.
Samuel Johnson, from his Lives of the Poets as quoted in Boswell's Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-72214471836708322702010-10-21T14:26:00.000-04:002010-10-21T14:26:21.940-04:00Depend upon it...if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
Samuel Johnson (1780) in Boswell's Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-6102527203814118282010-10-14T11:10:00.000-04:002010-10-14T11:10:09.956-04:00I have sat at home in Bolt-court, all summer, thinking to write the Lives, and a great part of the time only thinking. Several of them, however, are done, and I still think to do the rest....I would have gone to Lichfield if I could have had time, and I might have had the time if I had been active; but I have missed much, and done little.
Samuel Johnson to James Boswell, August 21, 1780 is Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-82262167608910178262010-10-11T13:17:00.000-04:002010-10-11T13:17:11.284-04:00Even a fool learns something once it hits him.
Homer, The IlliadGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-58207776120507190592010-10-10T18:09:00.000-04:002010-10-10T18:09:49.082-04:00There is nothing alive more agonized than man
of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.
Zeus, The Illiad (Book 17, line 514, Robert Fagles' translation)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-17270086829562796232010-09-27T10:44:00.000-04:002010-09-27T10:44:17.168-04:00He had no more learning than what he could not help.
Johnson on a member of the Literati on April 16, 1779 as quoted in Boswell's Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-47832777949270121402010-09-25T11:36:00.000-04:002010-09-25T11:36:06.100-04:00In all pleasure hope is a considerable part.
Johnson on April 7, 1779 as quoted in Boswell's Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-71316717962748063952010-09-16T13:50:00.000-04:002010-09-16T13:50:12.259-04:00…the dream departed, leaving him there, his heart racing with hopes that would not come to pass.
Agamemnon's dream, The Illiad (Book Two, line 40, Robert Fagles' translation)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-2249933327487955432010-09-15T11:52:00.000-04:002010-09-15T11:52:55.520-04:00Force is that X that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing. Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him. Somebody was here, and the next minute there is nobody here at all.
Simone Weil, The Illiad, Or The Poem of ForceGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-32643463043155399072010-09-06T13:31:00.000-04:002010-09-06T13:31:35.535-04:00Hope of salvation must be founded on the terms on which it is promised that the mediation of our Saviour shall be applied to us,--namely obedience; and where obedience has failed, then, as suppletory to it, repentance. But what man can say that his obedience has been such, as he would approve of in another, or even in himself upon close examination, or that his repentance has not been such as toGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-21906207805361709832010-08-31T21:30:00.000-04:002010-08-31T21:30:17.798-04:00Buddha sought "a wholly different way of living as a human being."
In the Chain of Dependent Causation, karma (actions) determine consciousness. Consciousness - "the last idea or impulse of a dying human being" - determines rebirth.
From Karen Armstrong's BuddhaGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-1718203530864400992010-08-14T18:18:00.000-04:002010-08-14T18:18:53.888-04:00For every downhill,
the deeper the easier,
there is an uphill,
the steeper the harder.
A Lesson From BikingGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-10588681453157533272010-08-08T20:59:00.000-04:002010-08-08T20:59:07.700-04:00I dreamed a lot when I was younger
I'm older now and still I hunger
For some understanding,
There's no understanding, now
Was there ever?
Ambrosia, HarveyGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-8144682550933767502010-06-29T14:04:00.000-04:002010-06-29T14:04:23.637-04:00A good man knows when to sacrifice himself.... A bad man survives but loses his soul.
John LeCarre, The Mission SongGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-67161263155547167382010-05-28T02:23:00.000-04:002010-05-28T02:23:43.023-04:00God in the most deeply hidden of His manifestations...is called 'He.' God in the complete unfolding of his Being, Grace and Love, in which He becomes capable of being perceived by the 'reason of the heart'...is called 'You.' But God in His supreme manifestation, where the fullness of His Being finds its final expression in the last and all-embracing of His attributes, is called 'I.'
The ZoharGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-52669516798511148902010-05-14T03:23:00.000-04:002010-05-14T03:23:41.639-04:00You don't ever have to say anything....Always remember that. Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.
Claire Keegan, Foster, The New Yorker (February 15 & 22, 2010)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-69209597318933778892010-05-13T21:52:00.000-04:002010-05-13T21:52:04.682-04:00A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.
William Faulkner
A mule knows its limits. It is characteristic of the breed to have an inviolable commitment to self-preservation, which is often misinterpreted as stubbornness.
Susan Orlean, Riding High: Mules in the military, The New Yorker (February 15 & 22, 2010)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-4076445345993354632010-05-09T23:35:00.000-04:002010-05-09T23:35:23.257-04:00The truly successful businessman...is anything but a risk-taker. He is a predator, and predators seek to incur the least possible risk while hunting....Entrepreneurial spirit could not have less in common with that of the daring risk-taker of popular imagination.
Malcom Gladwell, The Sure Thing: How entrepreneurs really succeed, The New Yorker (January 18, 2010)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-86944949677677804442010-05-04T03:40:00.000-04:002010-05-04T03:40:00.295-04:00Tests have shown that greater diversity in systems from grassland plants to rock-hugging marine invertebrates increases the basic productivity of an ecosystem.
Losing life’s variety, Science News of March 13, 2010Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-72266712584476577972010-04-29T11:18:00.001-04:002010-04-29T11:23:41.219-04:00Marine Corps Rules:
01. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
02. Decide to be aggressive enough, quickly enough.
03. Have a plan.
04. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won't work.
05. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
06. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start with a '4.'
07. Anything worth Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-69138094256532549352010-04-07T21:57:00.000-04:002010-04-07T21:57:55.495-04:00Some speeches are highly analytical, well argued, thought provoking and unproductive, all at the same time.
From a good friend and mentor.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-85018838523340554822010-04-07T02:04:00.000-04:002010-04-07T02:04:51.810-04:00To exist is to have identity; to have identity means one is what one is and one is not what one is not; which means, to have causes and consequences, pain and pleasure, experience and cessation. To exist means to exist within a context. To be defined. To be finite….
Life was matter imbued with meaning; matter aware of itself, and, because of that awareness, aware that it was more than mere Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-64264509237968174762010-04-05T03:15:00.000-04:002010-04-05T03:15:53.676-04:00Chaos has killed me....But the victory of unpredictability is hallow. Men imagine, in their pride, that they can predict life's each event, and govern nature and govern each other with rules of unyielding iron. Not so. There will always be men...who will do the things no one else predicts or can control....For men to be civilized, they must be unlike each other, so that when chaos comes to Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-43727943731498098872010-02-21T22:12:00.000-05:002010-02-21T22:12:11.377-05:00This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me
Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Stacks.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-77920676820917568472010-02-19T20:53:00.000-05:002010-02-19T20:53:37.988-05:00If someone with a sharp axe
hacks off the boughs of a great oak tree,
and spoils its handsome shape;
although its fruit has failed, yet it can give an account of itself
if it come later to a winter fire
or if it rests on the pillars of some palace
and does a sad task among foreign walls
when there is nothing left in the place it comes from.
Pindar's Fourth Pythian Ode as translated by Bernard Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-73106351344316325942010-02-02T04:41:00.001-05:002010-02-02T04:41:18.528-05:00How great the barriers can be between a person and his happiness,
How little it can take to make them seem small.
Marisa Silver (paraphrased)Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-35505890877556917872010-01-18T16:52:00.000-05:002010-01-18T16:52:09.741-05:00After years of waiting nothing came
As your life flashed before your eyes
You realize
I'm a reasonable man
Get off my case
Radiohead, Packt Like SardinesGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-10204346639626137822010-01-14T23:13:00.002-05:002010-01-14T23:13:29.998-05:00Tell us what we did wrong and you can blame us for it.
Andrew Bird, Heretics.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-90562598370779702062010-01-12T22:37:00.000-05:002010-01-12T22:37:12.048-05:00"This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it."
Barack Obama, September 2008 (as quoted in Game Change).Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-76823375313394966202009-12-07T04:46:00.002-05:002009-12-07T04:46:52.577-05:00When you get there, you get there and that's the way it goes.
Otis TaylorGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-36739941649053112432009-11-24T19:16:00.000-05:002009-11-24T19:16:46.494-05:00What experience and history teach is this: people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
G.W.F. HegelGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-10082537641730642742009-11-09T21:42:00.000-05:002009-11-09T21:42:01.105-05:00Can you imagine 4,000 years passing, and you're not even a memory? Think about it, friends. It's not just a possibility. It is a certainty.
Jean ShepherdGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-71292393748990541002009-09-19T00:00:00.005-04:002009-09-19T00:05:16.057-04:00You can only take what you can carry.
Snow PatrolGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-47331378974822974742009-08-25T23:00:00.002-04:002009-08-25T23:06:48.809-04:00The history of the world is the history of a ten-thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time. The poor win a few battles...but of course the rich have won the war for ten thousand years.Aravind Adiga, The White TigerGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-44811531370091529342009-08-11T00:05:00.003-04:002009-08-11T00:14:26.563-04:00[E]veryone wants to be the center of the universe.Colin Negrych as quoted by Nick Palmgarten[A] mortal soul, the non-corporeal essence of ourselves lurking within our flesh...flourishing when we flourish, and dying when we die.Salman Rushdie, "In the South" Both in the May 18, 2009 New Yorker.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-73463913335641378092009-08-02T07:45:00.003-04:002009-08-02T07:53:03.577-04:00From now on, you are you. Mahmoud Darwish, From Now On You Are YouGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-70092681359669352882009-07-23T10:01:00.001-04:002009-07-23T10:02:45.520-04:00Whatever destiny demands of us, we and only we can decide whether to endure with noble fortitude or not. We do not wish for evils, but we can endure them.John C. Wright, The Golden AgeGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-33589394408429547862009-07-08T17:11:00.000-04:002009-07-08T17:13:09.367-04:00And I think it's gonna be a long long timeTill touch down brings me round again to findI'm not the man they think I am at homeOh no no no, I'm a rocket manRocket man burning out his fuse up here aloneAnd I think it's gonna be a long long time...Elton John, Rocket ManGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-69925641591477327102009-06-01T22:37:00.001-04:002009-06-01T22:40:07.820-04:00The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-RelianceGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-60561351079803676442009-05-30T01:38:00.002-04:002009-05-30T01:43:09.275-04:00I do not want this world. I do not like this world. I do not need this world. I do not need to feel sympathetic for this world or its inhabitants. If only they did not need me...A fictional agent of the UN Security Council in Singularity Sky by Charles StrossGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-53727799752201662002009-05-23T05:29:00.002-04:002009-05-23T05:32:34.391-04:00The God of Small Things....If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.Arundhati Roy, The God of Small ThingsGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-47708188190449085192009-05-19T18:42:00.001-04:002009-05-19T18:46:48.433-04:00No beast has essayed the boundless, infinitely inventive art of human hatred. No beast can match its range and power.Arundhati Roy, The God of Small ThingsGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-89312868914069204592009-05-13T08:11:00.000-04:002009-05-13T08:13:28.925-04:00The future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed.William GibsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-45247274275099480882009-05-10T05:47:00.000-04:002009-05-10T05:50:31.789-04:00It's just another day in paradiseAs you stumble to your bedYou'd give anything to silenceThose voices ringing in your headYou thought you could find happinessJust over that green hillYou thought you would be satisfiedBut you never will-Learn to be stillWe are like sheep without a shepherdWe don't know how to be aloneSo we wander 'round this desertAnd wind up following the wrong gods homeBut the Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-13792596073541432452009-04-16T00:14:00.001-04:002009-04-16T00:15:36.062-04:00You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.And so become yourself because the past is just a good bye. CSN&Y, Teach Your ChildrenGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-73768891377476948262009-04-09T00:09:00.002-04:002009-04-09T00:13:29.170-04:00The latest findings highlight once again the extent to which obesity is a consequence of Homo sapiens carrying into an era of abundance, leisure and warmth the physiology that humans evolved in a world marked by barely enough food, constant physical activity and dangerous cold. From a Washington Post article on brown fat.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-80447484560143132312009-03-09T04:39:00.000-04:002009-03-09T04:41:08.007-04:00In short, the key to the salvation of the West was the Persian defeat by the Greeks, which required a victory at Salamis, which in turn could not have occurred without the repeated efforts—all against opposition—of a single Athenian statesman. Had he wavered, had he been killed, or had he lacked the moral and intellectual force to press home his arguments, it is likely that Greece would have Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-47185478378491586352009-01-04T22:36:00.000-05:002009-01-04T22:37:52.758-05:00Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.Practice is when everything works but nobody knows why.UnknownGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-9758880432841178252008-11-30T16:29:00.003-05:002008-11-30T16:32:30.364-05:00A man so often only finishes a house by turning it into a tomb.G.K.Chesterton, The Scandal of Father Brown.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-74947886697058004732008-10-23T07:46:00.001-04:002008-10-23T07:48:24.817-04:00Every thing is what it is, and not another thing.Bishop Joseph ButlerGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-50135903953150013902008-08-27T05:10:00.002-04:002008-08-27T05:13:25.671-04:00When you are happy, it's surprising how much you can drink.From a friend from North Mitrovica -- soon to get married -- over coffee at DV.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-4718556237641958892008-08-26T06:30:00.001-04:002008-08-26T06:33:29.257-04:00There are times that we cannot seem to find our center. We have to find someplace to stand at the edges of ourselves. This seems the only place for us to exist and get through day-to-day. We cannot do this for so long but if we had a choice, we'd probably try to get closer in where it is more comfortable.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-4187493793549787712008-06-21T13:57:00.000-04:002008-06-21T13:58:45.723-04:00Travel was pointless. It removed you from the place in which you had a meaning, and to which you gave meaning in return by dedicating your life to it, and spirited you away into fairylands where you were, and looked, frankly absurd.Salman Rushdie, “The Shelter of the World,” The New Yorker of Feb. 25,2008Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-64122719743494328092008-06-09T08:05:00.001-04:002008-06-09T08:06:51.187-04:00Human purpose may be a long-evolved consequence of the thermodynamic tendency to come to equilibrium....the process of life -- complexity building in the area of gradients, and energy flow -- is a natural phenomenon....life's natural purpose.Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and LifeGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-54732637352413750962008-06-04T07:32:00.001-04:002008-06-04T07:33:42.699-04:00In most systems diversity begets stability.Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and LifeGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-81001654845137879722008-05-27T06:10:00.000-04:002008-05-27T06:11:53.966-04:00When the energy available for the formation of complex systems is taken away, these systems revert to a more primitive level of function.Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and LifeGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-88614826133296271122008-05-20T03:14:00.000-04:002008-05-20T03:16:06.299-04:00The sensing selves of the biosphere were brought into being, and are maintained, by thermodynamic potential and the molecular informational complexity necessary to tap it....Organisms may be seen as connectable nodes that transform the environment as they mediate energetic flows....Quickly growing systems -- ones that through evolution, technology, or both. tap into previously unrecognized or Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-5834935071566240552008-05-16T06:25:00.002-04:002008-05-16T06:28:08.828-04:00What we call life is neither a thing apart from matter, nor merely "living matter," but an informational and energetic process...Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and Life Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-62327262304779535512008-05-13T10:55:00.002-04:002008-05-13T10:58:16.438-04:00Whenever a gradient is applied to a system, insofar as constraints allow, the gradient is spontaneously degraded as completely as possible. Constraints, of course, are not trivial. In life they entail extremely complex feedback loops as energy is channeled through chemical kinetics….Constraints regulate dynamic processes, but they don’t cause them. Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-75064701011972690882008-05-06T03:16:00.000-04:002008-05-06T03:17:20.916-04:00Far-from-equilibrium systems pay for their reduced entropy by exporting a concomitant increase in entropy into the surrounding environment….All organisms, not just human technological ones, produce waste. Eric D. Schneider & Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and LifeGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-74607638696120630802008-04-24T09:02:00.002-04:002008-04-24T09:08:43.693-04:00The real purpose of a [cell] phone, as everyone knows, is texting. Only techno-tards make actual phone calls -- unless they need to lie.Patricia Marx, The New Yorker of March 10, 2008.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-40900707616165405382008-04-15T04:51:00.001-04:002008-04-15T04:53:15.192-04:00 …the very origins of life can be traced to the energy flows of an energetic universe…Deep in the chemical cycles of present-day bacteria are metabolic pathways, chemical traces repeating, with variation, the steps by which matter came to life…paints a picture of energy-rich matter maintaining and making more of itself before genes evolved….The bodies and selves we consider living derive from Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-91906917119762483842008-04-12T06:19:00.001-04:002008-04-12T06:22:04.206-04:00I'm not reacting well, am I? Perhaps I should be grateful to still be sane.Greg Bear, Eternity.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-86918870342254204742008-02-11T02:12:00.000-05:002008-02-11T02:13:43.604-05:00No one loves an armed missionary.Robespierre, as quoted by Colin Jones in the NYRB of December 20, 2007.Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-55720168302653672582008-01-29T09:20:00.000-05:002008-01-29T09:22:38.071-05:00Any life that ends in exile cannot have been totally mediocre.Quoted by Simon Leys in the New York Review of December 20, 2008Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-68206788624556712812008-01-11T06:21:00.000-05:002008-01-11T06:26:09.092-05:00Love is not a simple relation to someone else; it is always an attitude, a view of the world, a character trait.Slobodan Selenic, Fathers and ForefathersGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-15781177675920626582008-01-02T17:49:00.000-05:002008-01-02T17:51:58.898-05:00Some men relate what they think, as what they know.Though defective in practice, he was religious in principle.Samuel Johnson, on two separate occasions, to James Boswell in his The Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-88236251092443857792007-12-29T11:22:00.000-05:002007-12-29T11:26:30.086-05:00You must provide yourself with a good deal of extraneous matter, which you are to produce occasionally, so as to fill up the time; for you must consider, that they do not listen much. If you begin with the strength of your cause, it may be lost before they begin to listen. When you catch a moment of attention, press the merits of the question upon them."Samuel Johnson to James Boswell, in his Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-78179086843157825082007-12-28T09:07:00.000-05:002007-12-28T09:12:03.517-05:00The world has few greater pleasures than that which two friends enjoy, in tracing back, at some distant time, those transactions and events through which they have passed together.Samuel Johnson to James Boswell, in his The Life of Samuel JohnsonGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-91172610517470461832007-11-04T06:18:00.000-05:002007-11-04T06:19:33.125-05:00Faced with liesDon't you think that you just lie?The Secret Machines, Faded LinesGerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5012198.post-48613207453651672382007-10-26T10:11:00.000-04:002007-10-26T10:12:56.405-04:00Outsiders find themselves hard pressed to explain the political passions of the Serbs. Having reduced complex political relations to vulgar, petty squabbles, the Serb is not inclined to weigh the contradictions between individual and common interests in the most efficient and just manner. Lust for power, a Byzantine brand of power, in a form limited by no constraints whatsoever, informs the Gerard Galluccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15909722623126534873noreply@blogger.com0