#mit

Simpson, the student of divinity, it was who arranged his conclusions probably with the best, though not most scientific, appearance of order. Out there, in the heart of unreclaimed wilderness, they had surely witnessed something crudely and essentially primitive. Something that had survived somehow the advance of humanity had emerged terrifically, betraying a scale of life monstrous and immature. He envisaged it rather as a glimpse into prehistoric ages, when superstitions, gigantic and uncouth, still oppressed the hearts of men: when the forces of nature were still untamed, the Powers that may have haunted a primeval universe not yet withdrawn. To this day he thinks of what he termed years later in a sermon 'savage and formidable Potencies lurking behind the souls of men, not evil perhaps in themselves, yet instinctively hostile to humanity as it exists.' ("The Wendigo") ↗

— Algernon Blackwood

#monster #monstrous #nature #primeval #primeval-man

A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service: The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible. ↗

— Frederick W. Smith

#concept #delivery #earn #feasible #fred

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up. ↗

— James Baldwin

#expression #james-baldwin #nausea #survival #vomit

Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound. ↗

— Chinua Achebe

#pushing-the-limits #art

You will lose what you value most... It hadn't been me that Rhonda was talking about. It hadn't even been Dimitri's life. What you value most. It had been his soul. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#rose-hathaway #life

Millions of couples out there practiced the art of sadomasochism every day, without even realizing it. They went to work, came back, complained about everything, insulted their wife or were insulted by her, felt wretched, but were, nonetheless, tightly bound to their own unhappiness, not realizing that all it would take was a single gesture, a final goodbye, to free them from that oppression. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#limits #oppression #sadomasochism #sex #sexuality

The Congresswoman was depressed by the fact that a woman of her standing could no longer count on making it to the rest room "in time" during the extensive rehabilitation that followed her shooting. Her husband, commander of a space shuttle crew, encouraged her by identifying with her limitation. Even revered astronauts, he revealed, have bodily limits and have to rely on Huggies during extended launch exercises. ↗

— Gabrielle Giffords

#frailty #limitations #pride #weakness #courage

But secretly I knew I had been transformed, moved by the revelation that human beings create art, that to be an artist was to see what others could not. ↗

— Patti Smith

#patti-smith #robert-mapplethorpe #art

The enmity of such a party towards Socialism does not mean that the members are only prejudiced against it because they do not know it; it means that they are possessed of bourgeois ideas, and wish to determine their policy accordingly. ↗

— Karl Radek

#against #because #bourgeois #determine #does

Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing. I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old. ↗

— Aldo Leopold

#camping #canoeing #primitive-arts #wilderness #art