Ozgecan

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Ozgecan.

https://www.goodreads.com/the_quibbler

Loading...
Guy de Maupassant
“Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.”
Guy de Maupassant

William Ewart Gladstone
“If you are cold, tea will warm you;
if you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are excited, it will calm you.”
William Ewart Gladstone
tags: tea

Alexis Carrel
“To progress again, man must remake himself. And he cannot remake himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor. In order to uncover his true visage he must shatter his own substance with heavy blows of his hammer.”
Alexis Carrel, Man, The Unknown

Anton Chekhov
“Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria:

1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. (...)

2) They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. (...)

3) They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts.

4) They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. (...)

5) They don't run themselves down in order to provoke the sympathy of others. They don't play on other people's heartstrings to be sighed over and cosseted ... that sort of thing is just cheap striving for effects, it's vulgar, old hat and false. (...)

6) They are not vain. They don't waste time with the fake jewellery of hobnobbing with celebrities, being permitted to shake the hand of a drunken [judicial orator], the exaggerated bonhomie of the first person they meet at the Salon, being the life and soul of the bar ... They regard prases like 'I am a representative of the Press!!' -- the sort of thing one only hears from [very minor journalists] -- as absurd. If they have done a brass farthing's work they don't pass it off as if it were 100 roubles' by swanking about with their portfolios, and they don't boast of being able to gain admission to places other people aren't allowed in (...) True talent always sits in the shade, mingles with the crowd, avoids the limelight ... As Krylov said, the empty barrel makes more noise than the full one. (...)

7) If they do possess talent, they value it ... They take pride in it ... they know they have a responsibility to exert a civilizing influence on [others] rather than aimlessly hanging out with them. And they are fastidious in their habits. (...)

8) They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require mens sana in corpore sano.

And so on. That's what civilized people are like ... Reading Pickwick and learning a speech from Faust by heart is not enough if your aim is to become a truly civilized person and not to sink below the level of your surroundings.

[From a letter to Nikolay Chekhov, March 1886]”
Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters

Charles Baudelaire
“Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man's physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.”
Charles Baudelaire, BAUDELAIRE - the Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays

year in books
Deniz
3,455 books | 521 friends

Ziznase
3,807 books | 4,114 friends

Özen
664 books | 21 friends

Maria
607 books | 1,432 friends

Nilufer
355 books | 124 friends

Ece Arslan
161 books | 85 friends

duygujan
466 books | 43 friends

Mehtap ...
509 books | 119 friends

More friends…
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 1-4 by Laurell K. Hamilton
Best Female Character
1,025 books — 449 voters


Favorite Genres



Polls voted on by Ozgecan

Lists liked by Ozgecan