Ode to words

Oscar Wilde:

- Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither



- I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage



- One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead. I see an intimate connection between the life of Christ and the life of the artist. Christ’s place indeed is with the poets



- I can resist everything except temptation



- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars (this is my favourite because it alludes to the power of thought and vision)



- It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution



- The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it



- There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about



- Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them



- Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner



- In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it



- What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing



- Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes



- What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to use



From George Orwell's Politics and the English Language:

Ecclesiastes 9:11 (KJV)
"I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."

Orwell's translation into "modern English":

"Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."

The link to George Orwell's essay:

http://www.george-orwell.org/Politics_and_the_English_Language/0.html


Ecclesiastes is a book I always return to whenever I want to be reminded of the beauty of words used well.

Have you ever had the moment when someone or something took your breath away? Like a rainbow, a Caravaggio painting, someone beautiful you didn't know smiling and saying "bye bye" to you in the office restroom, a baby gurgling with joy, raindrops falling on the ground, Cavatina, Gabriel's Oboe, the ocean air, freshly baked bread, a home-cooked meal, a new book, a cuddly teddy bear, sunshine, cobbled streets, a hand of comfort, and gosh, I could go on and on. Just closing my eyes to remember the moments. *smile*

I was like that when I first read Ecclesiastes. The book took my breath away and gave me such a revelation of life and God that it has always held a special place in my heart. That's why I was so eager for non-Christians to read the book first before all others of the Bible during my early days of becoming a Christian.

I once photocopied the entire book of Ecclesiastes and passed it on to a colleague, telling her to read it. She read it and told me: "The book is so depressing. In the end, life means nothing." To me, that was the message --- that life was meaningless without God. Suffice to say that I've learnt my lesson, and I've not given anyone else the book of Ecclesiastes as his or her first introduction to the Bible. :-P

Does this make you want to read Ecclesiastes? Ha ha ha!


Recommended movie/read:


V For Vendetta

What V said to Evey when they first met:

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

Beat that!!! I feel like memorising the words just to stun people. Ha ha ha! *smile* How can one not fall in love with the movie or the graphic novel? Or V, for that matter? I'll probably have an entire posting on V for Vendetta as soon as I locate the graphic novel, which is somewhere in my room.

The graphic novel is written by Alan Moore, who also wrote other excellent graphic novels - Watchmen and From Hell (account of Jack the Ripper).