"The trees are better than men, for the trees sigh and are silent- men whisper."- ibid., Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Vol.
It is very hard for most people to keep a secret. Another quote to explain a quote-
"A fool with a secret goes through agony like a woman in childbirth."- The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 19:8-11
This is why there are so many teachings about gossip. While we may be able to restrain ourselves from “big” sins, we can’t wait to share whatever tidbit we learn about someone else.
Kierkegaard gets this. If you want privacy, talk to the trees. If you talk to another person, don’t expect privacy. Confidentiality is hard to come by.
22-29- from, John Barth, The End of the Road
"We are all casting directors a great deal of the time, if not always, and he is wise who realizes that his role assigning is at best an arbitrary distortion of the actor's personalities; but he is even wiser who sees in addition that his arbitrariness is probably inevitable, and at any rate is apparently necessary if one would reach the ends he desires."
Wow- I didn’t recall that this book made such an impression on me- 8 quotes, just about a record!. I’m not certain that I even understand what Barth is saying.
Perhaps that we see each other through a lens of our own definition, and that that may have little to do with who they actually are.
Yet he also implies that this is inevitable and necessary in order for us to move forward. We need to make some judgments, even if they are somewhat arbitrary.
"Almost no man is willing to take any woman's thinking seriously."
Well again- early feminist consciousness and a true fact even today. How many times does a woman- how many times have I- made a statement at a meeting, only to have it roundly ignored.
And then a male participant shares the same thought, and suddenly everyone at the table is captivated.
True then, true now.
"The most a man can ever do is be right from his point of view."
Yes. And- to be right from one’s own point of view AFTER giving serious thought to the perspective of others.
"The world is everything that is the case."
We may wish that this were not so. There are many things we might wish were different, things we’d like to change. And yet- the world persists in being just exactly as it is despite our hoping otherwise.
"Choosing is existence: to the extent that you don't choose, you don't exist."
Another quote to explain a quote- Harvey Cox-“Not to decide is to decide.” Thinking, weighing options, soliciting input. All of these are good and helpful up to a point. But at some point, one needs to make a decision and move forward.
This is the lesson of Nachshon ben Amminadav in the midrash (Jewish folklore.) Standing at the shore of the Red Sea with the Egyptians in hot pursuit of the Israelite slaves, Nachshon chose to plunge into the waters.
According to legend, the waters did not part until they reached his nostrils. Only then did dry land emerge and the Israelites passed through in safety.
They would literally not have continued to exist had they not made a choice in that moment.
"I'm not simply a monster, Peggy: I'm also a monster."
I no longer recall the context of this quote, but I can imagine it. Some guy must have acted like a jerk, and here is his attempt to rationalize his behavior, by citing the complexity of his being.
Yes- capable of being a monster, but also, we are supposed to believe, capable of many other aspects.
I’m not buying it. Once he’s exhibited his monster capability, to me that is definitional of the essence of his being.
"To turn experience into speech- that is, to classify, to categorize, to conceptualize, to grammarize, to syntactify, it is always a betrayal of experience, a falsification of it; but only so betrayed can it be dealt with at all, and only in so dealing with it did I ever feel a man, alive and ticking."
As I re-read these quotes from John Barth, many of them reflect a tension between simply being in the world vs. analyzing the world. And yet also a recognition that both ways of relating are a necessary part of life.
". . . would rather be torn up than falsify the trouble."
Concluding the John Barth series above, he is sharing, here, his truth, that he understands that sometimes his perspective may appear harsh, yet, he feels bound to share the depth of his perspective despite its impact on his own essential self.
"not i think because this place is different from new york, but because i'm different in this place than i am in new york."- Joel Oppenheimer
This writing in all lowercase letters is so reflective of this period of time and reminiscent of e.e. cummings. Joel Oppenheimer writes of a reality that I think we would all acknowledge- that we have our chameleon-like personalities and adapt to the environment in which we find ourselves.
I’m different at home than I am at work, and I’m different in AZ than I am in NY. I certainly walk and talk faster in NY!
About this series-
I love words. I love when a word exactly captures the moment, the feeling. How it precisely describes something that you experienced but didn’t know exactly how to express. It’s like a warm bath or a deeply satisfying meal.
And beyond that- a collection of words. A deeply insightful phrase, thought-provoking and uplifting. A quote to remember.
I started collecting quotes when I was 16 years old. (1972) I’m 68 now, as I write these words, (2024), and there are 472 quotes in my collection. At this precise moment.
That’s not really that many over the course of 52 years. I guess I am fairly discriminating. Sometimes years can go by and the collection lays dormant. In other years there is a great harvest of quotes.
These are not necessarily famous quotes, things you’ll often hear referenced. For the most part, they simply represent words that I read that made me stop for a moment to meditate and bask in their impact. And quotes I enjoy reading and re-reading and quoting myself!
These quotes represent the evolution of my thinking over the course of 52 years. I look forward to pondering what it is that made me find each one meaningful enough to save.
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