Quotations by Robert Herrick

ROBERT HERRICK (1591–1674) WAS A 17TH-CENTURY ENGLISH CAVALIER POET, WHOSE WORK IS NOTED FOR ITS DIVERSITY OF FORM AND FOR ITS STYLE, MELODY, AND FEELING.

“Here we are all, by day; by night, we're hurled
By dreams, each one, into a several world.”

~ Robert Herrick, Dreams

“A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;”

~ Robert Herrick, Delight in Disorder

“Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
Then to that twenty, add a hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done,
Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.”

~ Robert Herrick, To Anthea: Ah, My Anthea!

“Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.”

~ Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

“Love is a circle that doth restless move
In the same sweet eternity of love.”

~ Robert Herrick, Love, What It Is

“If little labour, little are our gains:
Man's fortunes are according to his pains.”

~ Robert Herrick, No Pains, No Gains

“Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me;
And hast command of every part,
To live and die for thee.”

~ Robert Herrick, To Anthea, who may Command him Anything

“And with our broth, and bread, and bits, sir friend,
You've fared well : pray make an end ;
Two days you've larded here ; a third, ye know,
Makes guests and fish smell strong ; pray go”

~ Robert Herrick, A Panegyric To Sir Lewis Pemberton, 1891

“Then this immensive cup
Of aromatic wine,
Catullus, I quaff up
To that terse muse of thine.”

~ Robert Herrick, To Live Merrily and to Trust to Good Verses

“Attempt the end and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard, but search will find it out.”

~ Robert Herrick, Seek and Find

“HUMBLE we must be, if to heaven we go:  
High is the roof there; but the gate is low.”

~ Robert Herrick, Humility

“But here's the sunset of a tedious day,
These two asleep are; I'll but be undrest,
And so to bed. Pray wish us all good rest.”

~ Robert Herrick, Epitaph on the Tomb of Sir Edward Giles

“Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early-rising Sun
Has not attain'd his noon.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a Spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you, or any thing.”

~ Robert Herrick, To Daffodils

“Tears are the noble language of eye;
 And when true love of words is destitute,
 The eye by tears speak, while the tongue is mute.”

~ Robert Herrick, Tears are Tongues

“Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be,
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.”

~ Robert Herrick, To Anthea Who May Command Him Any Thing

“Bid me despair, and I'll despair,
Under that cypress tree;
Or bid me die, and I will dare
E'en Death, to die for thee.”

~ Robert Herrick, To Anthea Who May Command Him Any Thing

“Thus times do shift, each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.”

~ Robert Herrick, Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve

“'TIS not the food, but the content
That makes the table's merriment.”

~ Robert Herrick, Content, Not Cates

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Quotations by Robert Browning

ROBERT BROWNING (1812 –1889) WAS A POET AND PLAYWRIGHT OF THE VICTORIAN ERA. TODAY HE IS WIDELY RECOGNIZED AS A MASTER OF DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE.

 “How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ     
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!”

~ Robert Browning, David Singing before Saul

“In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power —
And thus we half-men struggle.”

~ Robert Browning, Andrea del Sarto (1855)

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?”

~ Robert Browning, Andrea del Sarto (1855)

“Who hears music, feels his solitude
Peopled at once.”

~ Robert Browning, Balaustion's Adventure (1871)

“God is the perfect poet,
Who in his person acts his own creations.”

~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus (1835)

“Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.”

~ Robert Browning, De Gustibus

“… what's the earth
With all its art, verse, music, worth —
Compared with love, found, gained, and kept?”

~ Robert Browning, Dîs Aliter Visum; or, Le Byron De Nos Jours

“Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things.
The honest thief, the tender murderer,
the superstitious atheist …”

~ Robert Browning, Bishop Blougram's Apology

“Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, "Italy".”

~ Robert Browning, De Gustibus

“Out of your whole life give but one moment!
All of your life that has gone before,
All to come after it, – so you ignore,
So you make perfect the present, – condense,
In a rapture of rage, for perfection’s endowment,
Thought and feeling and soul and sense –”

~ Robert Browning, Now

“Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her—
Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her ”

~ Robert Browning, Love in a Life

“Each life unfulfilled, you see;
It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired,—been happy.”

~ Robert Browning, Youth and Art

“This world's no blot for us,
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink.”

~ Robert Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi

“It is the glory and good of Art
That Art remains the one way possible
Of speaking truth - to mouths like mine, at least.”

~ Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book (1868-69)

“My whole life long I learn’d to love.   
This hour my utmost art I prove            
And speak my passion—heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? ’T is well!”

~ Robert Browning, One Way of Love

“Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''”

~ Robert Browning, One Way of Love, Rabbi Ben Ezra

“A minute’s success pays the failure of years.”

~ Robert Browning, Apollo and the Fates (1887)

“Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devils’-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!”

~ Robert Browning, The Lost Leader

“I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive,—what time, what circuit first,
I ask not; but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In his good time.”

~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus (1835)

“Ignorance is not innocence but sin.”

~ Robert Browning, The Inn Album (1875)

“Womanliness means only motherhood;
All love begins and ends there.”

~ Robert Browning, The Inn Album (1875)

“I find earth not gray but rosy;
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All's blue.”

~ Robert Browning,  At the 'Mermaid'(1876)

“What Youth deemed crystal,
Age finds out was dew.”

~ Robert Browning,  Jochanan Hakkadosh (1883)

“Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!”

~ Robert Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi

“If you get simple beauty and naught else,
You get about the best thing God invents.”

~ Robert Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi

“You should not take a fellow eight years old
And make him swear to never kiss the girls.”

~ Robert Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi

“The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its best to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up and all the cottage warm;”

~ Robert Browning, Porphyria's Lover

“All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, — wonder, wealth, and — how far above them —
Truth, that's brighter than gem,
Trust, that's purer than pearl, —
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe, — all were for me
In the kiss of one girl.”

~ Robert Browning, Summum Bonum (1889)

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Quotations by Ezra Pound

EZRA POUND (1885-1972) WAS AMERICAN POET AND CRITIC AND ONE OF THE SEMINAL FORCES OF MODERNISM.

“The man of understanding can no more sit quiet and resigned while his country lets literature decay than a good doctor could sit quiet and contented while some ignorant child was infecting itself with tuberculosis under the impression that it was merely eating jam tarts.”

~ Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.”

~ Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“No teacher has ever failed from ignorance. That is empiric professional knowledge. Teachers fail because they cannot ‘handle the class’. Real education must ultimately be limited to men how INSIST on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.”

~ Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. It doesn't matter whether the good writer wants to be useful, or whether the good writer wants to be harm.”

~ Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“More writers fail from lack of character than from lack of intelligence.”

~ Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“A people that grows accustomed to sloppy writing is a people in process of losing grip on its empire and on itself.”

~ Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“The critic who doesn't make a personal statement, in remeasurements he himself has made, is merely an unreliable critic. He is not a measurer but a repeater of other men's results. KRINO, to pick out for oneself, to choose. That's what the word means.”

~ Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“A nation which neglects the perceptions of its artists declines. After a while it ceases to act, and merely survives.

“There is probably no use in telling this to people who can't see it without being told.”

~ Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“A great spirit has been amongst us, and a great artist is gone.”

~ Ezra Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir

“Why do you look so eagerly and so curiously into people’s faces,
Will you find your lost dead among them?”

~ Ezra Pound, Coda

“If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him;
And if a man have not order within him
His family will not act with due order;
And if the prince have not order within him
He can not put order in his dominions.”

~ Ezra Pound, Canto XIII

“And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.”

~ Ezra Pound, The Garden

“Let the gods speak softly of us”

~ Ezra Pound, Greek

“If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him;
And if a man have not order within him
His family will not act with due order;
And if the prince have not order within him
He can not put order in his dominions.”

~ Ezra Pound, Canto XIII

“And even I can remember
A day when the historians left blanks in their writings,
I mean, for things they didn't know,
But that time seems to be passing.”

~ Ezra Pound, Canto XIII

“Without character you will
be unable to play on that instrument”

~ Ezra Pound, Canto XIII

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Quotations by William Faulkner

WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) WAS A NOBEL PRIZE WINNING AMERICAN WRITER WHOSE WORKS ARE GREATLY ADMIRED FOR THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL DEPTH. FAULKNER WAS ALSO ONE OF THE STRONGEST EXPONENTS OF THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS TECHNIQUE.

“The saddest thing about love, Joe, is that not only the love cannot last forever, but even the heartbreak is soon forgotten.”

~ William Faulkner, Soldiers’ Pay

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”

~ William Faulkner, Light in August

“War is an episode, a crisis, a fever the purpose of which is to rid the body of fever. So the purpose of a war is to end the war.”

~ William Faulkner, A Fable

“The phenomenon of war is its hermaphroditism: the principles of victory and of defeat inhabit the same body and the necessary opponent, enemy, is merely the bed they self-exhaust each other on.”

~ William Faulkner, A Fable

“That’s what they mean by the womb of time: the agony and the despair of spreading bones, the hard girdle in which lie the outraged entrails of events.”

~ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.”

~ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“…any live man is better than any dead man but no live or dead man is very
much better than any other live or dead man …”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”

~ William Faulkner, The Wild Palms

“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”

~ William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

“Love doesn't die; the men and women do.”

~ William Faulkner, The Wild Palms

“Memory believes before knowing remembers.”

~ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That's how the world is going to end.”

~ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“The reason you will not say it is, when you say it, even to yourself, you will know it is true.”

~ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“The sun, an hour above the horizon, is poised like a bloody egg upon a crest of thunderheads; the light has turned copper: in the eye portentous, in the nose sulphurous, smelling of lightning.”

~ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“I say money has no value; it's just the way you spend it.”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“I'd have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“… clocks slay time ... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“It's not when you realise that nothing can help you - religion, pride, anything - it's when you realise that you don't need any aid.”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired but then time is your misfortune”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“She loved him not only in spite of but because he himself was incapable of love.”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“Caddy got the box and set it on the floor and opened it. It was full of stars. When I was still, they were still. When I moved, they glinted and sparkled. I hushed.”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue...”

~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“If you could just ravel out into time. That would be nice. It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time”

~ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“Though children can accept adults as adults, adults can never accept children as anything but adults too.”

~ William Faulkner, Light in August

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Quotations by James Joyce

JAMES JOYCE (1882 –1941) WAS AN IRISH MODERNIST WRITER WHO IS NOTED FOR HIS EXPERIMENTS WITH THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS TECHNIQUE.

“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“Pride and hope and desire like crushed herbs in his heart sent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind.”

~ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“In woman's womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the postcreation.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“To learn one must be humble. But life is the great teacher.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.”

~ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful. What the beautiful is is another question.”

~ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“To discover the mode of life or of art whereby my spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom.”

~ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours.”

~ James Joyce, Ulysses

“Her lips touched his brain as they touched his lips, as though they were a vehicle of some vague speech and between them he felt an unknown and timid preasure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odor.”

~ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.”

~ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“His heart danced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide. He heard what her eyes said to him from beneath their cowl and knew that in some dim past, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before.”

~ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”

~ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.”

~ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“Why is it that words like these seem dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?”

~ James Joyce, The Dead

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Shaw’s Treatment of Love and War in “Arms and the Man”

The 19^th century plays mostly centred around the idealistic aspects of life, frequently recounting the incredible deeds and exploits of the heroes. However, during the latter half of the very century, George Bernard Shaw came forward and brought about an epoch-making change in the presentation of plays. His technique placed reason over emotion with a view to disillusion humanity of its cherished ideals. Hence, Shaw strongly liberated himself from the infatuation of romanticism and enacted his plays to reform the society. For this reason, Shaw often regarded as an anti-romantic playwright.

George Bernard Shaw applied his anti-romantic technique most brilliantly in his 1894 play Arms and the Man. Shaw was realistic enough to ascertain that people hold an idealized notion about love and war since the society defines these from clichéd standpoint. Therefore, Shaw opted to define love and war from a practical point of view, isolating all their traditional attachments or the romantic glamour.

In practical life, love is full of complexities and is not devoid of blemishes, such as inconstancy, carnality, etc. But in fairy tales or romantic stories, the picture is quite the opposite. In such works love is portrayed ideally, i.e., from Platonic viewpoint, hence it lacks negative sides. On the other hand, in practical life, war stems from unavoidable circumstances and it entails violence, bloodshed, and atrocity. The warriors participated in war are made of flesh and blood like us, possessing all human qualities, especially hunger, fear, and an urge for preserving life. They only battle when it is essential and never exhibit courage unnecessarily. In fairy tales, however, war is a ground for the soldiers to showcase heroism. They are desperate in fighting and reckless in courage. In Arms and the Man, Shaw mainly focused on eliminating the fairy tale or romantic elements from the notions of love and war.

The opening scene confronts us with Raina, the heroine, whose thoughts and attitude are moulded greatly by romanticism since she hovers around the pages of Byron and Pushkin. As a result, her outlook on love and war is illusive.  To her, war is an act of heroism, a deed of glory and patriotism in which the brave soldiers risk their lives for the sake of their country. Her ideals get visible when she becomes a strong enthusiast of her fiancé, Sergius when she was informed about his cavalry charge in the battle at Slivnitza. The incident gives her a faith that the man she is going to marry will be brave and patriotic.

But very soon Shaw shatters Raina’s obsession with the romantic notion about war by introducing an antithetical character, Captain Bluntschli, a runaway Serb officer. With Bluntschli, Shaw has presented a realistic portrait of an average soldier who is of common stature, is ready to fight when he must and is glad to escape when he can. Bluntschli’s character also reveals the truth that a solder is not a superman, he suffers from hunger and fatigue and is roused to action only by danger.

However, observing Bluntschli’s concern about fear and death, Raina considers him to be a coward and proudly claims that in her country there are soldiers like Sergius who can lead to victory. But soon Bluntschli shatters her false ideals by revealing the fact that Sergius’ cavalry charge was not an act of bravery rather was a complete foolish and suicidal attempt. Bluntschli further clarified that Sergius made a heroic charge on the artillery of the Serbs Ignoring the orders of his Russian commander, thereby putting his entire brigade to fight. Pursuant to Bluntschli’s opinion, Sergius’ action was absolutely unprofessional and it was a so serious offence that he should be court-martialed for it. He and his regiment survived since the Serbs couldn’t shoot because of wrong ammunition:

He and his regiment simply committed suicide—only the pistol missed fire, that's all.

With this, Raina could understand that Bluntschli is not a coward, though he likes to save his life as far as possible. Thus Raina is moved by his realistic views on war and she determines to save his life. Afterwards, Sergius himself is also fully disillusioned about the glory of war when he finds that he has not been promoted for his bravery. Even though his country won the battle he still holds the rank of a major. Petkoff remarked that he should not be promoted to put in danger the whole brigade. Thus Sergius realizes that he won the battle by sheer of chance:

Soldiering, my dear madam, is the coward's art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm's way when you are weak. That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a disadvantage; and never, on any account, fight him on equal terms.

After war, Shaw concentrates on the misconceptions of love. Shaw proves that the higher love between Raina and Sergius is tinged with sentiment and deceit. Apparently they glorify each other and are blind to the faults of each other. On his return from the war, Sergius calls her his “Queen” and “goddess” and she calls him her “King” and “hero”, which recalls the legend of the medieval knight. The medieval knight dedicated his life to his beloved and fought his whole life against injustice and evildoers. Like the knight, Sergius fights solely for Raina and risks his life to get applause. He is not ready to accept that someone else desires his beloved. But at the same time he is getting tired of dealing with this higher love which is full of failure, incompleteness, and emptiness:

… do you know what the higher love is? … Very fatiguing thing to keep up for any length of time, Louka. One feels the need of some relief after it.

Hence, Sergius wants a type of love that is compatible with practical life. So he rejects Raina and accepts Louka as his wife.

Coming in contact with Bluntschli, Raina could realize that her love for Sergius is nothing but an illusion. She doesn’t find Sergius fit for her as his character is full of incongruities and contrarieties. On the other hand, she is amazed by Bluntschli’s practicality, wisdom, determination, and strong personality. Although Raina wants to keep her feelings secret, ultimately the fact is exposed to everybody. This love is heart-felt and is devoid of feigned sentiment.

In fine, Arms and the Man is an amazing anti-romantic play exposing the synthetic appearances of love and war. With great comic sense, in this play Shaw endeavours to make his readers aware of the impracticality of romantic ideals.

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