Sappho · 416 pages
Rating: (5.2K votes)
“their heart grew cold
they let their wings down”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“someone will remember us
I say
even in another time”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“you came and I was crazy for you
and you cooled my mind that burned with longing”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“In fact she herself once blamed me
Kyprogeneia
because I prayed
this word:
I want.”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“]Sardis
often turning her thoughts here
]
you like a goddess
and in your song most of all she rejoiced.
But now she is conspicuous among Lydian women
as sometimes at sunset
the rosyfingered moon
surpasses all the stars. And her light
stretches over salt sea
equally and flowerdeep fields.
And the beautiful dew is poured out
and roses bloom and frail
chervil and flowering sweetclover.
But she goes back and forth remembering
gentle Atthis and in longing
she bites her tender mind”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful things
and your tongue were not concocting some evil to say
shame would not hold down your eyes
but rather you would speak about what is just”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“I would not think to touch the sky with two arms”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“]sing to us
the one with violets in her lap
]mostly
]goes astray”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“I emphasize the distinction between brackets and no brackets because it will affect your reading experience, if you will allow it. Brackets are exciting. Even though you are approaching Sappho in translation, that is no reason you should miss the drama of trying to read a papyrus torn in half or riddled with holes or smaller than a postage stamp--brackets imply a free space of imaginal adventure.”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“Evening you gather back
all that dazzling dawn has put asunder:
you gather a lamb, gather a kid,
gather a child to its mother.”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“may you sleep on the breast of your delicate friend”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“]
]you will remember
]for we in our youth
did these things
yes many and beautiful things
]
]
]”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“for you beautiful ones my thought
is not changeable”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“Someone will remember us
I say
Even in another time”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“I want to say something but shame
prevents me
yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful things
and your tongue were not concocting some evil to say,
shame would not hold down your eyes
but rather you would speak about what is just”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“gathering flowers so very delicate a girl”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“Eros the melter of limbs (now again) stirs me -
sweetbitter unmanageable creature who steals in”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“but if you love us
choose a younger bed
for I cannot bear
to live with you when I am the older one”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“neither for me honey nor the honey bee”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“For the man who is beautiful is beautiful to see but the good man will at once also beautiful be”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“So the question arose now, as it had in the wake of the Mongol holocaust: if the triumphant expansion of the Muslim project proved the truth of the revelation, what did the impotence of Muslims in the face of these new foreigners signify about the faith?
With this question looming over the Muslim world, movements to revive Islam could not be extricated from the need to resurrect Muslim power. Reformers could not merely offer proposals for achieving more authentic religions experiences. They had to expound on how the authenticity they proposed would get history back on course, how their proposals would restore the dignity and splendor of the Umma, how they would get Muslims moving again toward the proper endpoint of history: perfecting the community of justice and compassion that flourished in Medina in the original golden moment and enlarging it until it included all the world.
Many reformers emerged and many movements bubbled up, but all of them can sorted into three general sorts of responses to the troubling question.
One response was to say that what needed changing was not Islam, but Muslims. Innovation, alterations, and accretions had corrupted the faith, so that no one was practicing the true Islam anymore. What Muslims needed to do was to shut out Western influence and restore Islam to its pristine, original form.
Another response was to say that the West was right. Muslims had gotten mired in obsolete religious ideas; they had ceded control of Islam to ignorant clerics who were out of touch with changing times; they needed to modernize their faith along Western lines by clearing out superstition, renouncing magical thinking, and rethinking Islam as an ethical system compatible with science and secular activities.
A third response was to declare Islam the true religion but concede that Muslims had certain things to learn from the West. In this view, Muslims needed to rediscover and strengthen the essence of their own faith, history and traditions, but absorb Western learning in the fields of science and technology. According to this river of reform, Muslims needed to modernize but could do so in a distinctively Muslim way: science was compatible with the Muslim faith and modernization did not have to mean Westernization.”
― Tamim Ansary, quote from Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
“The dilemma facing Bush and the Republicans was clear. If Marshall left, they could not leave the Supreme Court an all-white institution; at the same time, they had to choose a nominee who would stay true to the conservative cause. The list of plausible candidates who fit both qualifications pretty much began and ended with Clarence Thomas.
… There was awkwardness about the selection from the start. "The fact that he is black and a minority has nothing to do with this," Bush said. "He is the best qualified at this time." The statement was self-evidently preposterous; Thomas had served as a judge for only a year and, before that, displayed few of the customary signs of professional distinction that are the rule for future justices. For example, he had never argued a single case in any federal appeals court, much less in the Supreme Court; he had never written a book, an article, or even a legal brief of any consequence. Worse, Bush's endorsement raised themes that would haunt not only Thomas's confirmation hearings but also his tenure as a justice. Like the contemporary Republican Party as a whole, Bush and Thomas opposed preferential treatment on account of race—and Bush had chosen Thomas in large part because of his race. The contradiction rankled.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“Mas aprendi que estas coisas nos são mandadas para nos pôr à prova e, com cada acontecimento triste e terrível, tornamo-nos um pouco mais fortes.”
― Lesley Pearse, quote from Trust Me
“Perhaps it is like a fever that blows in the air, like cholera, like the plague; it blows in the air and settles on men – or a town – or a nation – and everyone in it, or nearly everyone, falls a victim.’ He”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Black Moon
“I liked the way he handled himself in the kitchen. I like men who cook. Men who cook are generally good lovers.”
― Janice Dickinson, quote from No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel
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