quotes from classic

What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.

more quotes from Octavio Paz

Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.

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If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.

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Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.

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Man does not speak because he thinks; he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think.

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Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history.

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Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers... What we call art is a game.

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Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two.

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Twilight and evening bell. And after that the dark!...

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

Till last by Philip's farm I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever.

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

Sir Richard cried in his English pride, 'We have fought such a fight for a day and a night...

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

Faith lives in honest doubt.

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

We always compare our labor with its results. We do not devote more effort to a given task if we can accomplish it with less; nor, when confronted with two toilsome tasks, do we choose the greater. We are more inclined to diminish the ratio of effort to result, and if, in so doing, we gain a little leisure, nothing will stop us from using it, for the sake of additional benefits, in enterprises more in keeping with our tastes. Man's universal practice, indeed, is conclusive in this regard. Always and everywhere, we find that he looks upon toil as the disagreeable aspect, and on satisfaction as the compensatory aspect, of his condition. Always and everywhere, we find that, as far as he is able, he places the burden of his toil upon animals, the wind, steam, or other forces of Nature, or, alas! upon his fellow men, if he can gain mastery over them. In this last case, let me repeat, for it is too often forgotten, the labor has not been lessened; it has merely been shifted to other shoulders.

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

more quotes from Alfred Tennyson

By night we lingered on the lawn, For underfoot the herb was dry;...

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In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

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