Friday, January 03, 2025

Only We Mortals

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year.  Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.

-- Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955), German novelist and short story writer, 1929 Nobel laureate in Literature, The Magic Mountain (1924) Ch. 5

Thursday, January 02, 2025

Anger And Jealousy

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.

-- George Eliot (born Mary Ann Evans; 1819 - 1880), English novelist and poet, The Mill on the Floss (1860) Book I, Chapter X

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

To Begin Is Half The Work

Begin; to begin is half the work.  Let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

-- Decimus Magnus Ausonius (c. 310 - c. 395), Gallo-Roman poet, rhetorician, and consul, Epigrams, LXXXI 1