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Benjamin
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I did not take bribes, you see, so I was bound to find a recompense in that, at least. (A poor jest, but I will not scratch it out. I wrote it thinking it would sound very witty; but now that I have seen myself that I only wanted to show
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UM betrays a bizarre rectitude in that he does not withhold his own back from the lash. His spite is universal and therefore equitable.
“To have committed every crime but that of being a father.”
― The Trouble With Being Born
― The Trouble With Being Born
“Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long —
Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.”
― Oedipus: A Tragedy
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long —
Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.”
― Oedipus: A Tragedy
“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”
― The Silver Stallion
― The Silver Stallion
“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”
― The Golden Notebook
― The Golden Notebook
“Look at walls splashed with a number of stains, or stones of various mixed colours. If you have to invent some scene, you can see there resemblances to a number of landscapes, adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys and hills, in various ways. Also you can see various battles, and lively postures of strange figures, expressions on faces, costumes and an infinite number of things, which you can reduce to good integrated form. This happens on such walls and varicoloured stones, (which act) like the sound of bells, in whose peeling you can find every name and word that you can imagine.
Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas. The mind of the painter is
stimulated to new discoveries, the composition of battles of animals and men, various compositions of landscapes and monstrous things, such as devils and similar things, which may bring you honor, because by indistinct things the mind is stimulated to new inventions.”
―
Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas. The mind of the painter is
stimulated to new discoveries, the composition of battles of animals and men, various compositions of landscapes and monstrous things, such as devils and similar things, which may bring you honor, because by indistinct things the mind is stimulated to new inventions.”
―
Benjamin’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Benjamin’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
158 books
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1,982 friends
377 books
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4,939 friends
1,041 books
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55 friends
204 books
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100 friends
228 books
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233 friends
6 books
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114 friends
17 books
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2 friends
708 books
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281 friends
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