Great Throughts Treasury

"Language was a long time without having any other words than the names which had been given to sensible objects, such as these, tree, fruit, water, fire, and others, which they had more frequent occasion to mention." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

"Our inquiries are sometimes more difficult, in proportion as the object of them is more simple. Our very perceptions are an instance of this. What is more easy in appearance than to determine whether the soul takes notice of all those perceptions by which it is affected? Need there anything more than to reflect on one's self? Doubtless all philosophers have done it." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

"The language of song or vocal music is not so familiar to us, as it was to the ancients'; and that of mere instrumental performance has no longer the air of novelty, which alone has so great an effect upon the imagination." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

"To produce harmony, the cadences ought not to be placed indifferently. Sometimes the harmony ought to be suspended, and at other times it ought to terminate with a sensible pause. Consequently in a language, whose prosody is perfect, the succession of sounds should be subordinate to the fall of each period, so that the cadences shall be more or less abrupt, and the ear shall not find a final pause, till the mind be entirely satisfied." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

"We see plainly what were the subjects of the earliest poems. At the first institution of societies, mankind could not as yet employ themselves in matters of amusement; so that the wants which obliged them to unite, at the fame time confined their views to whatever might be useful or necessary to them. Therefore poetry and music were cultivated merely with a design to promote the knowledge of religion and laws, or to preserve the memory of great men, and of the services which they had done to society." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

"Literature is the right use of language irrespective of the subject or reason of utterance." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"As we cleanse the inner vessel, there will have to be changes made in our own personal lives, in our families, and in the Church. The proud do not change to improve, but defend their position by rationalizing. Repentance means change, and it takes a humble person to change. But we can do it." - Ezra Taft Benson

"Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite." - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

"The individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and despised litterati...when their very medium, the very essence of their work, the application of word to thing goes rotten, i.e. becomes slushy and inexact, or excessive or bloated, the whole machinery of social and of individual thought and order goes to pot." - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

"The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation." - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

"Skip the enjoyment that you will regret." - Italian Proverbs

"The world wags on with three things: doing, undoing, and pretending." - Italian Proverbs

"There goes more than one ass to market." - Italian Proverbs

"When a wife sins the husband is never innocent." - Italian Proverbs

"When the danger is past God is cheated." - Italian Proverbs

"When wine enters modesty departs." - Italian Proverbs

"[It's] difficult to engage people in politics when they believe that what really matters is where they personally stand." - Ivan Krastev

"If you are a genius, you'll make your own rules, but if not - and the odds are against it - go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper - write." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

"Our dourest parsons, who followed the nonconformist fashion of long extemporary prayers, always seemed to me to be bent on bullying God." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

"A year shall I endure for every day that passes until you return." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

"Each day before the end of eve she sought her lover, nor would him leave, until the stars were dimmed, and day came glimmering eastward silver-grey. Then trembling-veiled she would appear, and dance before him, half in fear; there flitting just before his feet she gently chid with laughter sweet: 'Come! dance now, Beren, dance with me! For fain thy dancing I would see!" - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien