"In book six he introduced (lines 860-886) a beautiful allusion to the loss of Marcellus, the son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus. On the occasion when he read this passage before the reigning family, Octavia is said to have fainted with emotion. On her recovery she sent him a present of $500 (10,000 sesterces) for each line of the passage."
--1931 New Standard Encyclopedia, 'Vergil"

"Had he lived in any other country, he might have been a power, mighty and permanent, in directing its policy. As it is, his thought will pass mainly as the incoherent cry of a giant struggling against heavy, adverse currents in the vast ocean of Russian life." --op cit, 'Tolstoi'
[But it is something to have had these two disciples: Gandhi & Wittgenstein...!]

If we can't manage to be realists let's at least be cheerful pessimists.

'We should not listen to those who are wont to say "Vox populi, vox Dei," for the noise of the mob is very near to madness.' --Alcuin, Capitulare Admonitionis ad Carolum

"The chastity of Ionia is offended by antediluvian devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt are outstretched upon carpets of gold." --Poe, "The Assignation"

"It's a big war over what's funny and what's not..." --Doug Smith (Church of the Subgenius)

"One can gauge the strength of a group by its capacity for silence." --Robert Fripp on NPR

One for whom solitariness is the norm finds nothing repugnant in either suicide or revolution: they are the same will to power...

   "Sigmoidoscope"

Empires at the first
     amerce.
Empires while they last,
     amass.
Empires when they fall,
     appall.

Empires in the end
     pretend.

01 01 86

I think i'm so wise, but if i had to prove a Laotse and put down all my knowledge at the border, what would i write but the usual platitudes? I have not yet reached where i could even make use of someone else's wisdom. It is just and fitting that the border guards don't let me by. When i'm really ready to leave Ego-land, they won't be able to see me...