A quote by Salisbury

"Whatever happens will be for the worst and therefore it is in our interests that as little should happen as possible" 

Salisbury 1887 re: British foreign policy

I just wanted to share this beautiful piece of pessimism by a very interesting figure in British foreign and imperial policy.

A quote by Edvard Munch

"We should no longer paint interiors with people reading, and women knitting. We should paint real people, who breathe, feel, suffer and love."

Edvard Munch on painting and the nature of Expressionism, and why despite training with a Naturalist painter he rejected the academic tradition and instead decided to express the internal emotion subjective view of the painter in his work.

A quote by Saint Bernardino of Siena, 15th cent.

"Eternity appears in time, immensity in measurement, the Creator in the creature...the unfigurable in the figure, the unnarratable in discourse, the inexplicable in speech, the uncircumscribable in the place, the invisible in vision."

Saint Bernardino of Siena, quoted in Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration by Georges Didi-Huberman.

This discusses the nature of the paradox of the Incarnation, and the visibility of the 'Divine'. It also shows the thought process painters have/had to go through in considering how to represent holy figures in paintings, conveying the divine and unknowable whilst making it tangible and accessible to worshippers and church-goers.
Renaissance artists (and all artists conveying holy stories from the Bible, Apocrypha or otherwise) conveyed the divine message in different ways; Fra Angelico steps on the thin line between Renaissance and International Gothic, using mathematical perspective, a single light source, cast shadows and pairing this with refinement, detail, decoration. However all of this is only ever used to further the narrative, to form a "spiritual exercise", an "aid to meditation". It's fascinating how his faith is clearly shown through the painting, his desire to convey spiritual calmness and holiness.

Revising Art History can be interesting, or rather can lead to interesting distractions.

A quote from "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats

"With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim"

Keats wishing to transcend the physical, mortal world and "fade away". 
I love the repetition of the plosive 'b' sounds in "beaded bubbles"; it reminds me vaguely of Seamus Heaney's poetry (particularly 'Death of a Naturalist' and 'Blackberry Picking',) although of course creating a rather different effect here of prettiness and playfulness. 
The word "winking" too is playful, suggesting the wine is tempting and inviting the drinker. 
However it's the last two lines which are the most powerful, with the view of death as a calm, peaceful escape from the mortal world. The word "fade" especially expresses this view of death as painless and almost desirable. 

A quote from "The Bloody Chamber" by Angela Carter

"His wedding gift, clasped around my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat."

From 'The Bloody Chamber' by Angela Carter.

Carter's description of the necklace is very powerful, conveying many of the central themes of 'The Bloody Chamber'.

She describes the necklace later as "bright as arterial blood", and a "bloody bandage of rubies". 

I suggest you read the short story to get a sense of the necklace in context, as the husband's gift to the girl as well as a representation of the husband's lavish (but dangerous and visceral) world. It works so powerfully to convey a sense of horror mingled with luxury and excess. I think the last four words in particular with the huge contrast between the words "extraordinarily precious" and the very visceral image of the "slit throat" emphasise this.

Carter also uses the necklace to convey the girl's potentiality for corruption. Initially, it seems to throw into sharper relief her innocence and youth but later it symbolises both the husband's world and her potential for becoming part of that world. 

Anyways, I am studying Bloody Chamber for my English Literature coursework at the moment and I think this just shows Carter's incredible ability to create symbols with about a thousand meanings. 

A quote from 'Hamlet' by Shakespeare

"this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o-erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours...what is this quintessence of dust?"

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2 Hamlet here talks to Rosencratz and Guildenstern whilst in his 'antic disposition'.
I am studying Hamlet this year, and am ashamed to say I have relatively little to say about this passage except for the fact that whilst re-reading the play tonight whilst writing an essay for it I found it particularly brilliant in describing teenage angst and apathy. 
Next time I quote from Hamlet I would like to give a much more prominent quotation which relates to some of the core ideas of the text.
Here the 'foul and pestilent congregation of vapours' refers back to the key idea of promiscuity between his mother and Claudius, her husband(who is her previous husband's brother and who murdered his brother to become king)
It also deals with the notions of perception; Hamlet here despite acting in his 'antic disposition' seems to be voicing his own views (this speech reminds me particularly of his first soliloquy, and the line "oh, that this too too sallied flesh would melt" which I will need to do a whole separate blog post on)
Obviously another theme is the corruption of the court and the idea of surveillance, being able to see through everything that happens at the court so that there is no possibility of privacy.
The 'quintessence of dust', which is a beautiful phrase, asks questions about the nature of death. In context, it shows how Hamlet goes from the knowledge and capabilities of mankind and life to discussing death. 

The entire section from which this quotation is taken shows the mix of idealism and pessimism that Hamlet battles with; his father is constantly idealised as a god-like figure, however here Hamlet voices the pessimistic ideas linking both with the corrupt court and Claudius. He also voices the pessimistic ideas associated with the end of the Renaissance period contrasted with the optimism of the Early Renaissance(voiced in the line "What piece of work is a man"

I hope to quote a lot more from Hamlet in the future, 

A quote by Disraeli, from Robert Blake's biography

"We were absent nearly a fortnight and I find a great difference in the colour of the trees - the limes all golden, the beeches ruddy brown, while the oaks and elms and pines are still dark and green, and contrast well with the brighter tints. But not a leaf has fallen; they want the first whisper of the frost and then they will go out like lamps when the dawn breaks on a long festival..."

Disraeli in one of his letters to Mrs. Brydges Willyams, as quoted in Disraeli by Robert Blake.
I posted this quotation for the last sentence alone, just because I love the simile at the end with its comparison of autumn leaves to bright lamps.

A quote by Bismarck as recalled by Disraeli

"There never will be socialism in England. You are a happy country. You are safe as long as the people are devoted to racing. Here a gentleman cannot ride down the street without twenty persons saying to themselves or each other, ’Why has that fellow a horse, and I have not one?’ In England the more horses a nobleman has, the more popular he is. So long as the English are devoted to racing, Socialism has no chance with you.”

Disraeli  recalling a conversation with Bismarck, in one of his letters to Queen Victoria.
The letter is discussed in this interview with Jonathan Steinberg about Bismarck.
This quote is a little unusual, but I just love the idea that socialism can be avoided through horse-racing.

A quote from "Regeneration" by Pat Barker

"Rivers had often been touched by the way in which young men...spoke about feeling like fathers to their men. Though when you looked at what they did. Worrying about socks, boots, blisters, food, hot drinks. And that perpetually harried expression of their. Rivers had only ever seen that look in one other place: in the public ward of hospitals, on the faces of women who were bringing up large families on very low incomes...it was the look of people who are totally responsible for lives they have no power to save.
One of the paradoxes of war - one of the many- was that this most brutal of conflicts should set up a relationship between officers and men that was...domestic. Caring."

From Regeneration by Pat Barker.

Quite a long one today, but I didn't have the heart to cut it down any more. Here Rivers, an army psychologist treating patients at Craiglockhart hospital during WW1 , reflects on the odd similarities between officers in WW1 and mothers at home, and the domesticity the static nature of warfare created for the men.

I urge you to read this novel; it examines so many paradoxical aspects of the war as well as questioning the relationship between doctors and patients.

A quote from a letter in "The World" periodical

"a disconsolate being, daily contending betwixt pride and poverty; a mournful relic of misspent youth; a walking dial, with two hands pointing to the lost hours"

I found this in an article in the Times Literary Supplement about suicide. It is from an 18th century journal called "The World", by a man called "John Tristman", who describes himself as a gentleman in distress, a 'disconsolate being'. He discusses his failure in holding down a job and would like to make a living by offering his set of apartments as comfortable "receptacles for suicides", allowing people to come and kill themselves in comfort and luxury. I should point out at this point that the journal it was published in is highly satirical. It is a slightly bizarre quote, and the first in this blog not to come from literature, but I enjoy the concept of 'lost hours' nonetheless.

A quote from "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx

"Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night perfume. Some had centres as bitter as gall, some blended honey and poison, some were quickly swallowed. And among the common bulls-eyes and peppermints a few rare ones; one or two with deadly needles at the heart, another that brought calm and gentle pleasure. Were his fingers closing on that one?"

From The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx. This quotation is beautiful in the novel; Quoyle, who has been through an abusive relationship, pondering on whether he has found love again in a small Newfoundland coast. 

The entire book is beautiful, heartwarming. It's just a simple story about a man rediscovering himself in his homeland after being lost and beaten down in a big city.
I would recommend reading the book if only to make this quotation make more sense.

A quote from "Life Class" by Pat Barker

"He seemed to insinuate himself into the room...Tonks was a dark planet whose presence could be deduced only by a deviation in the orbit of other bodies."

This is from Life Class by Pat Barker. It is about art students at the De Slade art school before and during the first World War. Tonks is a rather critical art professor who has just come into the student's life class to look at their work.
I just love the use of the word 'insinuate'. It captures Tonks' character so well.
You can read the first few pages of the book here.