Seen on a tee-shirt for sale in Key West.
A 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.)
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Our reason to be here
Soon, oh soon the light
Ours to shape for all time, ours the right
The sun will lead us
Our reason to be here
Yes, The Gates of Delirium, (Part Three, "Soon")
Thursday, June 05, 2025
Thinkest thou that now, for the first time in an evil age, Wisdom hath been assailed by peril?…. The host of the wicked is many in number, yet is it contemptible, since it is under no leadership, but is hurried hither and thither at the blind driving of mad error.
Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy
Monday, June 02, 2025
Sunday, June 01, 2025
Friday, May 30, 2025
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
For Time, though in Eternitie, appli'd to motion, measures all things durable by present, past, and future.
John Milton, Paradise Lost
Monday, March 24, 2025
Monday, March 10, 2025
In the end is it not futile to try and follow the course of a quarrel between husband and wife? Such a conversation is sure to meander more than any other. It draws in tributary arguments and grievances from years before – all quite incomprehensible to any but the two people they concern most nearly. Neither party is ever proved right or wrong in such a case, or, if they are, what does it signify?
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Monday, February 03, 2025
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Power
Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
George Orwell, 1984
Friday, January 24, 2025
Nor did He lie asleep before the Word sounded above these waters; ‘before’ and ‘after’ did not exist until His voice was heard. Pure essence, and pure matter, and the two joined into one were shot forth without flaw, like three bright arrows from a three-string bow.
Dante, The Divine Comedy
Sunday, January 19, 2025
The Seven Virtues
Charity, Faith, and Hope. Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance.
Dante, The Divine Comedy
