Entries categorized as ‘authors’
When I heard the learn’d astronomer by
Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Just wanted to share some genius with you today. Those old poets really knew how to make a point. I had a really tough English teacher two years in a row. A.P. English was perhaps the most difficult class I ever took. But Mrs. H pushed my lazy ass and I wrote. I also got grounded if my grade was below a B and in Mrs. H’s class a C was normal. I got grounded a few times but usually I intercepted the PINK SLIP she would write to alert my mother of my shameful grade. I remember reading this and totally understanding it, I had the best discussion with Mrs. H about this poem. I got an A.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is America’s world poet — a latter-day successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare. In his
Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 and revised and expanded for the rest of his life, he celebrated democracy, nature, love, and friendship. This monumental work chanted praises to the body as well as to the soul, and found beauty and reassurance even in death.
Categories: art · authors · blog · history · icons · literature · people · poetry · writing
Tagged: arts, poetry, writing, famous poets, blog, classics, favorite
I am a lover of quotes. I collect them and dole them out here depending on my mood. So for today here are the quotes that make me feel like one human living my little life, just as everyone else. Veronica
“I think; therefore I am.”
Eighty percent of success is showing up.
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work… I want to achieve it through not dying.
Someone who makes you laugh is a comedian. Someone who makes you think and then laugh is a humorist.
You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything - even poverty - you can survive it.
Quote source
Categories: authors · blog · humor · life · people · quotes · writing
Tagged: blog, humor, quotes, writing
Charles Bukowski said it best.
If it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
Categories: authors · blog · poetry · writing
Tagged: authors, blog, Bukowski, writing
I did my undergrad and grad work in Psychological Counseling and had many opportunities to delve into the mind and theories of Sigmund Freud. There are so many critics of “The Founder of Psychoanalysis” and to them I always say, “Thou doth protest too much.” He was no saint, nor were his theories irrefutable. He was however brave enough to share with the world the ideas he had about our development, society and the human psyche. For that, as the last quote humorously states he was rebuked and shunned by those who came after. For example take Carl Jung being the student who, once he drained from Freud all that he could, betrayed him in a most unseemly way. Why was Freud such a target for mass criticism? My opinion is very simple: He said it first, wrote it first, admitted it first and for this he was envied, and therefore brought out the worst qualities of those who followed. There is more criticism of his theories than the prolific writings of the man himself. I agree that some of his notions were “out there” but they are none the less the back bone of psychoanalysis and psychology. Terms we use casually such as, “he is so anal”, “you are projecting”, and “stop being so defensive” all came from Freud. His terminology is used in our day to day lives, and for that he must be applauded. Here are a few quotes from the man himself on the state of civilization.
Categories: authors · quotes
Tagged: famous writers, psychology, quotes, thoughts, web blog
- Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.
- All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.
No man does. That’s his.
- Men always want to be a woman’s first love - women like to be a man’s last romance.
- A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
- Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
- Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.
- As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
- She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.
- A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.
Oscar Wilde was witty in an one-liner comedian sort of way. These are just a sampling of his views on the fairer sex.
Categories: authors · quotes · relationships · women
Tagged: famous writers, quotes, relationships, thoughts, web blog, women
”It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. “
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born U.S. physicist.
Motto for the astronomy building of Junior College, Pasadena, California.
Einstein Collection.
The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press.
Categories: authors · quotes · teaching
Tagged: Blogs I like, education, famous quotes
