Specular Relations Quotes & Sayings

The Hill
Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old ... " "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips," said I,
- "Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"
"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!" ... Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
- And then you suddenly cried, and turned away. — Rupert Brooke

Just as in matters of seduction, people lend the most to those who need them the least. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I declare and I challenge all mankind to contradict my declaration, that no man can give any account of the order of Freemasonry, of its origin, of its history, of its object, nor any explanation of its mysteries and symbols, which does not leave the mind in total uncertainty on all these points. Every man is entitled therefore, to give any explanation of the symbols and a system of the doctrine that he can render palatable. — Adam Weishaupt

I saw letters he wrote at age 14 before his recent spell of silence: they were perfectly normal and better than average writings, in fact sensitive and better than anything I could have written at 14 when I also was an innocent introverted monster. — Jack Kerouac

Johnson was insulated from reality by his hopes and dreams. — Robert A. Caro

A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system. — Jane Smiley

Jewish Alzheimer's is forgetting everything except a grudge. — Maureen Lipman

Art is not ideology. It is completely impossible to explain art on the basis of the homological relation that it is supposed to maintain with the real of history. The aesthetic process decentres the specular relation with which ideology perpetuates its closed infinity. The aesthetic effect is certainly imaginary; but this imaginary is not the reflection of the real, since it is the real of this reflection. — Alain Badiou

I think 'Gatsby' is hobbled, in part, by its status as a Great American Novel. People kind of roll their eyes before they've even opened it, treat it with a 'been there, done that' attitude. I know I did. It took me years to re-open the novel and see how much I'd missed. — Susan Choi

Your new kitchen should look like it was "born there." That doesn't mean it has to be the exact same style as the house. (You can put a modern kitchen into a Victorian, for example.) It just means that it has to complement the spaces around it. — Jamie Gold

Food does not rank high on my list. I eat to live, and I'm very particular about my diet. It's strictly low fat diet for me. — Terence Lewis

If marriage can be redefined so that it no longer means a man and a woman but two men or two women, why stop there? Why not allow three men or a woman and two men to constitute a marriage? — Keith O'Brien

Teachers are to inspire; librarians are to fulfill. — Ray Bradbury

I think what we have to do is convince people that matter is tacky. — Terence McKenna

I get fans stopping me and telling me what a bad man I am. I got a lot of that at Comic-Con. I'd tell them, 'Sorry, mate.' — David Bradley

If I had played my career hitting singles like Pete (Rose), I'd wear a dress. — Mickey Mantle