from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“I read a poem every night, as others read a prayer”
Tahar Ben Jelloun, poet
Author: zdunno03
Written at the Sungting Relay Station by Chang Hu
Hill shapes merge with the far-off sky
east of the mist-covered marshlands
the ocean glows with the day’s first light
the river turns white in the distant wind
steep trails lead to a high plateau
small paths link columns of smoke
why are all my retired friends
not here among the Five Lakes
translated by Red Pine
Chiupu River Song by Li Pai (Li Po)
My white hair extends three miles
the sorrow of parting made it this long
looking in a mirror who would guess
where autumn frost comes from
translated by Red Pine
from of books by Michel de Montaigne
I seek in books only to give myself pleasure by honest amusement; or if I study, I seek only learning that treats of the knowledge of myself and instructs me in how to die well and live well: “This is the goal toward which my sweating horse should strain.” Propertius
translated by Donald M. Frame
from of the education of children by Michel de Montaigne
Let him be asked for an account not merely of the words of his lesson, but of its sense and substance, and let him judge the profit he has made by the testimony not of his memory, but of his life. Let him be made to show what he has just learned in a hundred aspects, and apply it to as many different subjects, to see if he has properly grasped it and made it his own, planning his progress according to the pedagogical method of Plato. It is a sign of rawness and indigestion to disgorge food just as we swallowed it. The stomach has not done its work if it has not changed the condition and form of what has been given it to cook.
translated by Donald M. Frame
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
-Plato, philosopher, Greek
“Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States”
– Walt Whitman, poet, writer
Paulo Freire quote 2
Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information.
translated by Myra Bergman Ramos
Paulo Freire quote
As we attempt to analyze dialogue as a human phenomenon, we discover something which is the essence of dialogue itself: the word. But the word is more than just an instrument which makes dialogue possible; accordingly, we must seek its constitutive elements. Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed–even in part–the other immediately suffers. There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.
translated by Myra Bergman Ramos
Jose Saramago on Carlos Fuentes
Now for a confession. Personally I am not easily intimidated, quite the contrary, but my first encounters with Carlos Fuentes, which of course were always polite, as one would have expected of two well-brought-up people, were not easy, not through any fault of his but because of a kind of resistance on my part to accepting naturally something which in Carlos Fuentes is extremely natural–that is, his style of dress. We all know that Fuentes dresses well, with elegance and good taste, his shirt never wrinkled, but for some mysterious reason I thought that a writer, especially one from that part of the world, should not dress in that way. My mistake. Carlos Fuentes managed to make the greatest critical demands and the greatest ethical rigor–both of which he has–compatible with a well-chosen tie. Believe me, that’s no small thing.
translated by Amanda Hopkinson & Daniel Hahn
Leonard Durso 