In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) Discuss
In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) Discuss
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss
Posted in Educational, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MEMORIES, MY TAKE ON THINGS, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Uncategorized
Tagged 19th Century, American, Arts -Architecture, sculpture, citizen, conscience, Henry David Thoreau, henry thoreau, legislator, Literature, Politics, quotes, Walden, Works, World Literature
Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings.
George Eliot (1819-1880) Discuss
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss
Posted in Educational, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MEMORIES, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Uncategorized
Tagged 19th Century, American, Arts -Architecture, sculpture, Civil disobedience, Henry David Thoreau, Human rights, Literature, Politics, quotes, Religion, theology, unjust laws, Walden, World Literature
Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Discus
John Fitch was a man plagued by misfortune. His first foundry was a failure and his second was destroyed in the American Revolution. During a short-lived career as a surveyor in the early 1780s, he was captured by Native Americans. His luck finally seemed to turn around in 1786, when he built the first steamboat in the US, and in 1787, when he demonstrated his aptly named Perseverance on the Delaware River for an audience from the Constitutional Convention. Was his good fortune to last? More… Discuss
We are as liable to be corrupted by our books as by our companions.
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) Discuss
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Tagged Henry Fielding, Literature, Politics, quotes, society
To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that … imitation is suicide.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Discuss
Hedwig is perhaps best remembered for her diary, which chronicled her life in the Swedish royal court. In 1774, when she was 15 years old, she married her cousin, the future King Charles XIII. The marriage was arranged by Charles’s older brother, King Gustav III, who hoped the union would ensure the continuation of his family’s power. It did not work. Habitually unfaithful, Charles died childless. Hedwig also engaged in affairs—including with the alleged lover of what other queen? More… Discuss
Posted in PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Uncategorized
Tagged gustav iii, History, holstein gottorp, king gustav, Politics, quotes
Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss
Only ignorance! Only ignorance! How can you talk about only ignorance? Don’t you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness?
Anna Sewell (1820-1878) Discuss
Posted in BOOKS, Educational, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Uncategorized
Tagged Government, Human rights, People, Politics, quotes, Religion
When Gökçen was 10 years old, Turkey became a republic. As it Westernized during the presidency of her adoptive father, Kemal Atatürk, Turkish women gained more freedom, securing the right to vote in 1934. A year later, Gökçen enrolled in the Türkkusu Flight School as its first female pupil. After attending the Air Force Academy, she became the first female combat pilot. While with the Turkish Air Force, she logged some 8,000 flight hours, including combat missions. Why had Atatürk adopted her?More… Discuss
Barnum may be best known for the circus he formed with James Bailey in 1881, but this took place late in his life and was neither his first, nor sole, line of work. The splashy showman was also an author and, oddly enough, a politician. Yes, the man who may have said “There’s a sucker born every minute” was elected to office—more than once. Apparently fond of seeing his name in print, Barnum published his autobiography in 1855 and even got a newspaper to oblige him in what way before his death?More… Discuss
Posted in Educational, MEMORIES, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Uncategorized
Tagged anime, Books, illustration, quotes
What men and women need is encouragement … Instead of always harping on a man’s faults, tell him of his virtues … The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town.
Eleanor H. Porter (1868-1920) Discuss
Well, I really don’t advise a woman who wants to have things her own way to get married.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Discuss
Simpson was an American socialite for whom English King Edward VIII voluntarily abdicated the throne. Their relationship caused a furor in England because the Church of England at the time did not allow people with living ex-spouses to marry, and, as king, Edward was also head of the church. Simpson’s two ex-husbands were still alive when she married Edward on June 3, 1937, just six months after he relinquished his title. How did Wallis and Edward spend the rest of their lives together? More… Discuss
Posted in IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MEMORIES, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Uncategorized
Tagged History, Politics, quotes, Wallis Simpson
Part 1 of William Walton‘s arrangement of Bach pieces which form his ballet The Wise Virgins. The pieces are:
Mvt. 1: What God hath done is rightly done – Cantata BWV 99 Opening Chorus – Vivace assai
Mvt. 2: Lord, hear my longing – BWV 727 Chorale Prelude – Adagio
Mvt. 3: See, what his love can do – Cantata BWV 85/Mvt. 5 – Tranquillo
Mvt. 4: Ah! How ephemeral – Cantata BWV 26 Opening Chorus – Vivace
Performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton on 14th august 2010 at the Royal Albert Hall.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
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Tagged bertrand russell, envy is ignorance, Politics, quotes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Winston Churchill
Posted in Educational, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Uncategorized
Tagged folly, fool, joseph conrad, Politics, quotes
Born into slavery in New York, Baumfree had four different masters before escaping with her infant daughter in 1826, one year before the state abolished slavery. She traveled and championed abolition, changing her name in 1843. Her dictated memoirs were published as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. In 1851, she delivered what is now known as the “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the Women’s Rights Convention. How did the first report of the speech differ from later accounts? More… Discuss
From “Letters From The Earth” by Mark Twain
This is a strange place, and extraordinary place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home. The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane. Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at is worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the “noblest work of God.” This is the truth I am telling you. And this is not a new idea with him, he has talked it through all the ages, and believed it. Believed it, and found nobody among all his race to laugh at it.
Moreover — if I may put another strain upon you — he thinks he is the Creator‘s pet. He believes the Creator is proud of him; he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to Him, and thinks He listens. Isn’t it a quaint idea? Fills his prayers with crude and bald and florid flatteries of Him, and thinks He sits and purrs over these extravagancies and enjoys them. He prays for help, and favor, and protection, every day; and does it with hopefulness and confidence, too, although no prayer of his has ever been answered. The daily affront, the daily defeat, do not discourage him, he goes on praying just the same. There is something almost fine about this perseverance. I must put one more strain upon you: he thinks he is going to heaven!
He has salaried teachers who tell him that. They also tell him there is a hell, of everlasting fire, and that he will go to it if he doesn’t keep the Commandments. What are Commandments? They are a curiosity. I will tell you about them by and by.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss
Published on May 1, 2013
Carl Bohm
(* 11. September 1844; † 4. April 1920; andere Namen: Charles Bohm, Henry Cooper [Pseudonym], Karl Bohm) war ein deutscher Komponist.
“Still wie die Nacht”
(op. 326 Nr. 27)
Jacques Urlus
(6. Januar 1867 in Hergenrath bei Aachen; † 6. Juni 1935 in Noordwijk, Niederlande)
Aufnahme 18. April 1916
Tagore was a Bengali poet, philosopher, artist, writer, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His writings, which often exhibit rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, and philosophical contemplation, received worldwide acclaim. He became Asia’s first Nobel laureate when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Knighted by the British government in 1915, Tagore resigned the honor four years later in protest of what? More… Discuss
Brink Of Eternity by Rabindranath TagoreIn desperate hope I go and search for her
in all the corners of my room;
I find her not.My house is small
and what once has gone from it can never be regained.But infinite is thy mansion, my lord,
and seeking her I have to come to thy door.I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky
and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish
—no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean,
plunge it into the deepest fullness.
Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch
in the allness of the universe.
Published on Feb 14, 2013
A poem that bridges the seeking of a beloved person to the finding of God and the immersion into eternity. I am awestruck by this poem. Poem read by Owi Nandi.
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss
“What keeps one busy, keeps one in bondage!”
George-B
We are children of a large family, and must learn, as such children do, not to expect that our hurts will be made much of—to be content with little nurture and caressing, and help each other the more.
George Eliot (1819-1880) Discuss
I have heard men talk of the blessings of freedom, … but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it.
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) Discuss
“He who trust no one, trust not oneself”
Posted in Educational, MY TAKE ON THINGS, Uncategorized
Tagged aviation, God, Politics, quotes, Religion, spirituality