Sedulia's Quotations

Genji: the writer so moved that wants to make it known to other people-- even future generations

[Genji] smiled. "...It is a matter of [the writer's] being so moved by things, both good and bad, which he has heard and seen [happen] to men and women that he cannot keep it all to himself but wants to commit it to writing and make it known to other people-- even to those of other generations.

--Murasaki Shikibu (ca 978-ca 1014), Genji Monogotari. Tale of Genji, tr. Arthur Waley

Bismarck on Bavarians

The Bavarian is the link between humans and Austrians.

            --Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)

Der Bayer ist der Übergang vom Menschen zum Österreicher.

T.S. Eliot: Intellectual ability without more human attributes admirable only as a child chess prodigy

Intellectual ability without the more human attributes is admirable only in the same way as the brilliance of a child chess prodigy.

--T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Rita Mae Brown: Seriousness is the refuge of the shallow

Seriousness is the refuge of the shallow. There are events and personal experiences that call forth seriousness but they are fewer than most of us think.

  --Rita Mae Brown (1944), Starting From Scratch (1988)

Primo Levi on the German character

No one can boast of understanding the Germans.

[With the Russians 50 miles away, the Germans at Auschwitz set a date for the beginning of the production of synthetic rubber-- 1st February, 1945:]

What else could they do? They are Germans. This way of behavior is not meditated and deliberate, but follows from their nature and from the destiny they have chosen. They could not act differently....

--Primo Levi (1919-1987), Survival in Auschwitz (tr. Raymond Rosenthal)

Alfred Polgar: the destiny of emigrants

The emigrant's destiny: The foreign country has not become home, but home has become foreign.

Emigranten-Schicksal: Die Fremde ist nicht Heimat geworden. Aber die Heimat Fremde.

  --Alfred Polgar (1873-1955), Der Emigrant und die Heimat

Péguy: It's a nuisance, says God

It's a nuisance, says God. When there are no more of those French people,
some of the things I do, there won't be anyone who understands them.

--Charles Péguy (1873-1914)

C'est embêtant, dit Dieu. Quand il n'y aura plus ces Français,
Il y a des chose que je fais, il n'y aura plus personne pour les comprendre.

Evelyn Waugh: it is better to be narrow-minded than to have no mind

Twenty-five years ago it was the fashion for those who considered themselves enlightened and progressive to cry out against intolerance as the one damning sin of our time.

The agitation was well-founded and it resulted in the elimination from our social system of many elements that are crude and unjust. But in the general revolution that has followed, has not more been lost than gained?

It is better to be narrow-minded than to have no mind, to hold limited and rigid principles than none at all.

That is the danger which faces so many people today-- to have no considered opinions on any subject, to put up with what is wasteful and harmful with the excuse that there is "good in everything" -- which in most cases means inability to distinguish between good and bad.

There are things which are still worth fighting against.

        --Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), 1932
        From Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years 1903-1939 (pub. 1987, Norton), by Martin Stannard.

Allan Bloom agrees:

I once had a debate about education with a professor of psychology. He said that it was his function to get rid of prejudices in his students....I began to wonder what he replaced those prejudices with....I found myself responding... that I personally tried to teach my students prejudices, since nowadays--with the general success of his method-- they had learned to doubt beliefs even before they had any.

      --Allan Bloom (d. 1992, The Closing of the American Mind (pub.1987)

Trotski: Perhaps you are not interested in war, but war is interested in you

Perhaps you are not interested in war, but war is interested in you.

        --Léon Trotski

Peut-être la guerre ne vous intéresse-t-elle pas, mais elle s'intéresse à vous.

Reiner Kunze: We cannot correct our biography

We cannot correct our biography in hindsight, but must live with it. But we can correct our selves.

        --Reiner Kunze, Am Sonnenhang: Tagebuch eines Jahres

Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, quoted this in the introduction to her memoirs. She wrote them down just after World War II and many years later was persuaded to publish them, even though she was now ashamed of her former views.

Wir können unsere Biographie nicht in Nachhinein korrigieren, sondern müssen mit ihr leben. Aber uns selbst können wir korrigieren.