Great Throughts Treasury

"In Ferdydurke, Gombrowicz got at the fundamental shift that occurred during the twentieth century: until then mankind was divided in two--those who defended the status quo and those who sought to change it. Then the acceleration of History took effect: whereas in the past man had lived continuously in the same setting, in a society that changed only very slowly, now the moment arrived when he suddenly began to feel History moving beneath his feet, like a rolling sidewalk: the status quo was in motion! All at once, being comfortable with the status quo was the same thing as being comfortable with History on the move! Which meant that a person could be both progressive and conformist, conservative and rebel, at the same time!"

"In Greek, return ?nostos? said. ?Algos? means suffering. Nostalgia, then, the suffering caused by the unfulfilled desire to return. Most Europeans can use this fundamental notion for a word of Greek origin (nostalgic) and also other words with roots in the national language: in Spanish we say longing, in Portuguese, ?saudade?. In each language these words have a different semantic nuance. Often mean only the sadness caused by the inability to return to the land itself. Wanderlust terroir. Wanderlust home. In English it would homesickness, Heimweh in German, or Dutch Heimwee. But it is a spatial reduction of that great notion. Icelandic, one of the oldest European languages, clearly distinguishes two terms: s”knudur: Nostalgia in its general sense, and heimfra: homesickness terroir. The Czechs, next to the word nostalgia taken from the Greek, have the very notion your own noun: stesk, and its own verb, one of the phrases most poignant Czech love is styska is my po tobe: I long for , and I cannot bear the pain of your absence. In Spanish, nostalgia comes from the verb miss which in turn comes from the Catalan enyorar, derived from the Latin verb ignorare (ignore, not knowing something). In light of this etymology, nostalgia is revealed as the pain of ignorance. You are far away and do not know what it is about you. My country is far away, and who knows what happens in it. Some languages ??have some difficulty with longing: the French can only express by word of Greek origin (nostalgie) and have no verb can mean: je m ennuie de toi (equivalent to 'I miss you or missing? ), but this expression is weak, cold, in any case too mild for such a serious feeling. The Germans rarely use the word nostalgia in its Greek form and prefer to say Sehnsucht: desire for what is absent, but Sehnsucht can refer both to what it was as it has ever been (a new venture), so does not necessarily imply the idea of a nostos, to include in Sehnsucht the obsession of return, should add a supplement: Senhsucht Vergangenheit nach der, der nach verlorenen Kindheit or nach der ersten Liebe (last wish of lost childhood or first love)."

"In order to avoid the agony resort more often to the future Ventsour that there is a watershed time depends on the circuit after suffering from the current to be present."

"In front was intelligible lies, and behind the incomprehensible truth."

"In practical work in physics, any schoolboy can do experiments to test the accuracy of a scientific hypothesis. But man, because he has only one life, has no ability to verify the hypothesis by experiment so it will never know if he was right or wrong to obey his sentiment."

"In Spanish a¤oranza comes from the verb a¤orar (to feel nostalgia), which comes from the Catalan enyorar, itself derived from the Latin word ignorare (to be unaware of, not know, not experience; to lack or miss), In that etymological light nostalgia seems something like the pain of ignorance, of not knowing. You are far away, and I don't know what has become of you. My country is far away, and I don't know what is happening there."

"In Irena?s head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, makes her sensual, and at the same time it dims her memory. She makes love wildly, lasciviously, and at the same time the curtain of oblivion wraps her lewdness in an all-concealing darkness. As if a poet were writing his greatest poem with ink that instantly disappears."

"In her presence I could dare everything: sincerity, emotion, pathos."

"In order to make the novel into a poly-historical illumination of existence, you need to master the technique of ellipsis, the art of condensation. Otherwise, you fall into the trap of endless length."

"In our time art is encrusted with a noisy, opaque, logorrhea of theory that prevents a work from coming into direct, media free, non-interpreted contact with its viewer (its reader, its listener)."

"In languages ??that form the word compassion not from the root 'suffering' but the noun 'feeling', the word is used with a meaning almost identical, but it cannot be said to indicate a feeling bad or mediocre. The hidden strength of its etymology bathes the word in a different light and gives a broader sense: to have compassion (co-feeling) means to live with someone his misfortune, but also try with him any other feeling: joy, anguish, happiness, pain. This compassion then designates the maximum capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy. In the hierarchy of feelings is the supreme feeling."

"In spite of their love, they had made each other's life a hell. The fact that they loved each other was merely proof that the fault lay not in themselves, in their behavior or inconstancy of feeling, but rather in their incompatibility: he was strong and she was weak."

"In Tereza?s eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood. For she had but a single weapon against the world of crudity surrounding her: the novels. She had read any number of them, from Fielding to Thomas Mann. They not only offered the possibility of an imaginary escape from a life she found unsatisfying; they also had a meaning for her as physical objects: she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane from the dandy a century ago. It differentiated her from others."

"In that etymological light nostalgia seems something like the pain of ignorance, of not knowing. You are far away, and I don?t know what has become of you. My country is far away, and I don?t know what is happening there."

"In the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body."

"In the middle of the night, he woke up and realized to his surprise that he had been having one erotic dream after the other. The only one he could recall with any clarity was the last: an enormous naked woman, at least five times his size, floating on her back in a pool, her belly from crotch to navel covered with thick hair. Looking at her from the side of the pool, he was greatly excited. How could he have been excited when his body was debilitated by a gastric disorder? And how could he be excited by the sight of a woman who would have repelled him had he seen her while conscious? He thought: In the clockwork of the head, two cogwheels turn opposite each other. On the one, images; on the other, the body's reactions. The cog carrying the image of a naked woman meshes with the corresponding erection-command cog. But when, for one reason or another, the wheels go out of phase and the excitement cog meshes with a cog bearing the image of a swallow in flight, the penis rises at the sight of a swallow. Moreover, a study by one of Tomas's colleagues, a specialist in human sleep, claimed that during any kind of dream men have erections, which means that the link between erections and naked women is only one of a thousand ways the Creator can set the clockwork moving in a man's head. And what has love in common with all this? Nothing. If a cogwheel in Tomas's head goes out of phase and he is excited by seeing a swallow, it has absolutely no effect on his love for Tereza. If excitement is a mechanism our Creator uses for His own amusement, love is something that belongs to us alone and enables us to flee the Creator. Love is our freedom. Love lies beyond Es muss sein! Though that is not entirely true. Even if love is something other than a clockwork of sex that the Creator uses for His own amusement, it is still attached to it. It is attached to it like a tender naked woman to the pendulum of an enormous clock. Thomas thought: Attaching love to sex is one of the most bizarre ideas the Creator ever had. He also thought: One way of saving love from the stupidity of sex would be to set the clockwork in our head in such a way as to excite us at the sight of a swallow. And with that sweet thought he started dozing off. But on the very threshold of sleep, in the no-man's-land of muddled concepts, he was suddenly certain he had just discovered the solution to all riddles, the key to all mysteries, a new utopia, a paradise: a world where man is excited by seeing a swallow and Tomas can love Tereza without being disturbed by the aggressive stupidity of sex."

"In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions. It follows, then, that the true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions. A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it."

"In the political jargon of those days, the word intellectual was an insult. It indicated someone who did not understand life and was cut off from the people. All the Communists who were hanged at the time by other Communists were awarded such abuse. Unlike those who had their feet solidly on the ground, they were said to float in the air. So it was fair, in a way that as punishment the ground was permanently pulled out from under their feet, that they remained suspended a little above the floor."

"In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by an aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine."

"In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens."

"In this country people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste. Can you tell me what kind of day can follow a beginning of such violence? What happens to people whose alarm clock daily gives them a small electric shock? Each day they become more used to violence and less used to pleasure. Believe me, it is the mornings that determine a man's character."

"In this unity there was happiness, but it is not far from happiness to suspicion, and the girl was full of suspicions. For instance, it occurred to her that other women (those who weren't anxious) were more attractive and more seductive, and that the young man, who did not conceal the fact that he knew this kind of woman well, would someday leave her for a woman like that. (True, the young man declared that he'd had enough of them to last his whole life, but she knew that he was still much younger than he thought.) She wanted him to be completely hers and herself to be completely his, but it often seemed to her that the more she tried to give him everything, the more she denied him something: the very thing that a light and superficial love or a flirtation gives a person."

"In the kingdom of kitsch you would be a monster."

"In this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore - cynically permitted."

"In this world of youth and beauty's meaning was there; are exactly the spouse, their souls become invisible body filled with an immense concentration camp, something other than it was not the world we live."

"In times when history still moved slowly, events were few and far between and easily committed to memory. They formed a commonly accepted backdrop for thrilling scenes of adventure in private life. Nowadays, history moves at a brisk clip. A historical event, though soon forgotten, sparkles the morning after with the dew of novelty. No longer a backdrop, it is now the adventure itself, an adventure enacted before the backdrop of the commonly accepted banality of private life."

"Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool?"

"In Wenceslaus Square, in Prague, a guy is throwing up. Another guy comes up to him, pulls a long face, shakes his head, and says: I know just what you mean."

"Is goodwill so fragile, so precarious a thing, then? (Of course, dear fellow, of course)."

"Inner universe! They were big words these, and Jaromil heard them with extreme satisfaction. He never forgot to eat age of five was already regarded as an exceptional child, different from the other, the behavior of their classmates who mocked briefcase or his shirt, confirmed it, the same way (sometimes hard), in its singularity. But so far, this singularity was not for him more than an empty and uncertain notion; was an incomprehensible hope or an incomprehensible rejection, but now, just received a name: it was a unique inner universe (...) the that suggested his confused idea that the originality of his inner universe was not the result of a laborious effort but was expressed by all that passed mechanically and randomly through your head, which was given to him as a gift."

"Is hate literature which reveals the writer about his private life or the lives of his friends own .. and think that who loses his own life loses everything. And abandon them full of his will, but it is a monster. So do not be distressed that they must hide her love. On the contrary, this is the only means or to live in the truth."

"Indeed, there is something ridiculous in this collective obedience to prescribed regimens sonata or symphony. Imagine how great Symphony Orchestra, including Haydn and Mozart, Schumann and Brahms, after you have cried in the Adagio, the last part is disguised as younger students during recess and rushed into the yard to dance, jumping and shouting as their voice holds that all is well that ends well. This we call stupidity of the music. Beethoven knew that the only way to avoid it is to give the composition absolutely individual character. This is the first point of his artistic testament, valid for all the arts for all artists covenant which I formulated this way: should not considered composition (architectural organization of the whole) as an existing matrix occupied by the author, to fill it with that which is created; composition itself must be creation, creation, which contains all the identity of the author."

"Is a novel anything but a trap set for a hero?"

"Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set limits, describes the boundaries of human existence."

"Is it possible to condemn what is fleeting? The clouds concealed Clockwork give everything Take a nostalgic, even on the Guillotine."

"Is it the real shrinkage of a person abandoning his adult dimensions and starting on the long journey through old age and death toward distances where there is only a nothingness without dimension?"

"Is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about?"

"Is not it necessary? Is not so essential."

"Is not parody the eternal lot of man?"

"Isn't that exactly the definition of biography? An artificial logic imposed on an 'incoherent succession of images'?"

"It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth."

"Is that even the joy that the presence of the man she loves feeling better alone. If the presence outside the continuous, would be present only in its constant passing. Stop is only possible in times of loneliness"

"Isn't beer the holy libation of sincerity? The potion that dispels all hypocrisy, any charade of fine manners? The drink that does nothing worse than incite its fans to urinate in all innocence, to gain weight in all frankness?"

"It can heave senior Atsaraa that even the death of a holy order issues, but bacteria are small and fetid always spend on Monday."

"It has become unable to prospect this incident, which is a trifle if at all. Than live in exile, walked in space above the earth Khao devoid of care network that surround it."

"It follows, then, that the aesthetic ideal of the categorical agreement with being is a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist. This aesthetic ideal is called kitsch."

"It is a naive illusion to believe that our image is nothing more than an appearance which is hidden behind our self as the only true essence, regardless of the world's eyes. The imag¢logos have discovered with cynical radicalism that is precisely the opposite: ours is a mere appearance, elusive nebula, while the only reality, too graspable and describable, is our image in the eyes of others. The worst thing is that you are not your own. First you try to draw it yourself, then at least you want to influence it and control it, but in vain: just a malicious phrase forever and you become a sadly simple cartoon."

"It is a completely selfless love: Tereza did not want anything of Karenin; she did not ever ask him to love her back. Nor had she ever asked herself the questions that plague human couples: Does he love me? Does he love anyone more than me? Does he love me more than I love him? Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company."

"It is also possible the formulation of the question in the following form: Which is better, yelling and revered in our end, or remain silent and the moribund Haouz more slowly?"

"It is a hell of a shock, it's time to do a blind. There is no beauty in the least bit horrified. An event that awaits us all we could see is a temporary light. On the other hand, sadness is an attitude that assumes that we know what will happen. Unbearable Lightness"