John Stuart Mill quote

"there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose ... its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit ... is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism"

Two from Anna Akhmatova

On Reading Hamlet

A barren patch to the right of the cemetary,

behind it a river flashing blue.

You said: " All right then, get thee to a nunnery,

or go get married to a fool..."

It was the sort of thing that princes always say,

but these are words that one remembers.

May they flow a hundred centuries in a row

like an ermine mantle from his shoulders.

Three things enchanted him...

Three things enchanted him:

white peacocks, evensong,

and faded maps of America.

He couldn't stand bawling brats,

or raspberry jam with his tea,

or womanish hysteria.

...And he was tied to me.

--
see Philip Mc Donagh's Irish Times piece

Rilke Sonnet from Sonnets to Orpheus

Don't lay a stone to his memory. The rose

can bloom, if you like, once a year for his sake.

For Orpheus is the rose. His metamorphosis

takes this form, that form. No need to think

about his other names. Once and for all:

when there's singing, it's Orpheus. He comes and goes.

It's enough if sometimes he stays several

days; more, say, than a bowl of roses.

He has to vanish so you can understand.

Even if it frightens him to dissappear.

While his word is transforming our beings here

he's somewhere else, past following.

The lyre's grill doesn't pinch his hands.

Even as he breaks rules, he's obeying.

Hannah Arendt Quote

"A crisis becomes a disaster only when we respond to it with pre-formed judgements, that is, with prejudices"

--
I can't decide if this is a good quote or extremely trite. Maybe I'm robbing it of its meaning by denying it context?

Madonna of the Evening Flowers By Amy Lowell

Madonna of the Evening Flowers

All day long I have been working
Now I am tired.
I call: “Where are you?”
But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you?
I go about searching.

Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes,
You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur,
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud, sweet Te Deums of the Canterbury bells.

---
thanks to http://rinabeana.com/poemoftheday/index.php/category/amy-lowell/

George Orwell on Writing and Thinking

"Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers."

--Politics and the English Language

e.e. cummings 'i like my body..'

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like you body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric furr, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh .... And eyes big love-crumbs,


and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new