On the Goodness of the Supreme Being

Orpheus, for so the Gentiles call'd thy name,
Israel's sweet Psalmist, who alone couldst wake
Th'inanimate to motion; who alone
The joyful hillocks, the applauding rocks,
And floods with musical persuasion drew;
Thou who to hail and snow gav'st voice and sound,
And mad'st the mute melodious! — greater yet
Was thy divinest skill, and rul'd o'er more
Than art or nature; for thy tuneful touch
Drove trembling Satan from the heart of Saul,
And quell'd the evil Angel: — in this breast
Some portion of thy genuine spirit breathe,
And lift me from myself, each thought impure
Banish; each low idea raise, refine,
Enlarge, and sanctify; — so shall the muse
Above the stars aspire, and aim to praise
Her God on earth, as he is prais'd in heaven. […]

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Honesty

Honesty consists not in never stealing but in knowing where to stop in stealing, and how to make good use of what one does steal. It is only great proprietors who can steal well and wisely. A good stealer, a good user of what he takes, is ipso facto a good inventor. Two men can invent after a fashion to one who knows how to make the best use of what has been done already.

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This article was amended on 16 October 2013 to correct the date for the invention of the cotton gin and remove a reference to Andy Warhol.

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Look, I grew up in a society where I could say 'I ain't' or 'what it be' to my friends. But when I'm out presenting myself to the world as me, who graduated from college, who had family who cared about me, who has a well-read background, I fucking conjugate.

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It was like a welling, congested, sentimental weepiness without an object, as emotions triggered by images of, say, a depressed-looking girl smoking in bed and some unspecific tragedy in a crowded street sought cathartic resolution in vain.

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"He was nice, sympathetic and talented at fighting in plate armour," Sahlin told Associated Press. "A little bit reserved maybe."

Javier Tomeo (1932-2013)

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When Hawks was the preponderant author, as in his adventure movies, all the plots were the same. There was an experienced guy, and his drunken sidekick who had to get his soul back before he could join in the task of mowing down the heavies, and there was a worshipping youngster and a chortling old-timer and a ballsy woman called Feathers and…

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When I was at last in a sitting position I noticed that she was not altogether naked, for round her hips she wore a string of doum palm nuts fastened at the crucial point by a metal disc on which was written in clear print: 'CORNERI & BOGLIASCO, CREMONA - YELLOW PEACH JAM OF THE FINEST QUALITY'.

Smilax

'[...] she had always considered smilax middle-class and vulgar, especially in hanging baskets, because she had been told that the only way to keep them flourishing was to give them diluted human urine. This haunted her, perhaps with some titillation, for I remember her pointing out especially beautiful fountains of smilax on other people's porches and then laughing scornfully.'

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The video's appeal is pretty concentrated to the hipster crowd and was therefore able to avoid severe conservative criticism.

Frederick Rolfe (1860-1913)

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There are no traffic lights and not much traffic at such an hour in the morning, and Feet passes me in a terrible hurry. And about twenty yards behind him comes an old guy with grey whiskers, and I can see it is nobody but Doc Bodeeker. What is more, he has a big long knife in one hand, and he seems to be reaching for Feet at every jump with the knife.

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He is a big guy of maybe thirty-odd, and he has hair blacker than a yard up a chimney, and black eyes, and black eyebrows, and a slow way of looking at people.

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Well, I will say one thing for Ambrose Hammer, and this is that he is at all time very gentlemanly, and he introduces me to the Arabian acrobatic dancer, and I notice that he speaks of her as Miss Cleghorn, although I remember that they bill her in lights in front of the Club Soudan as Illah-Illah, which is maybe her first name.

Class-conscious we are...

To Dickson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in good spirits. He began to sing to a hymn tune a strange ditty.

Class-conscious we are, and class-conscious wull be

Till our fit´s on the neck o' the Boorjoyzee.

'What on earth are you singing?' Dickson inquired.

Dougal grinned. 'Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist Sunday School last winter because he heard they were for fechtin' battles. Ay, and they telled him he was to jine a thing called an International, and Jaikie thought it was a fitba' club. But when he fund out there was no magic lantern or swaree at Christmas he gie'd it the chuck. They learned him a heap o' queer songs. That's one.'

'What does the last word mean?'

'I don't ken. Jaikie thought it was some kind of a draigon.'

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Evidently he had been staring at a shadow; no one was sitting in the corner.

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"I felt her [the baby] kick three or four times during the competition but I just told her to be calm, to be quiet, mummy's shooting," she said afterwards.

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'You mean the mud and lice, the howitzers and chlorine?' Ruprecht prompted him.

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Peering out from beneath her bags and boxes, Mlle Letellier saw Edward Glass in the distance talking to a considerably prettier and more colourful young lady than the one she had just left. 'Husbands,' she chuckled. 'Les maris - ils sont tous les mêmes! But then, if the wife is a little mad, a poor mirror-image of herself, alas, who can blame him?'