Rex > Recent Status Updates

Alas, in fripp'ry light and trifling
I've frittered much of life away.
Take balls—for moral growth, they're stifling;
If not, I'd love them still today
I love youth's frenzy and its bluster,
Its joy, its ardor, and its luster,
And ladies' fancy, frilly clothes;
I love their limbs, though I'd suppose
You'll find in Russia three or fewer
Well-tapered pairs of ladies' legs
But there's one special pair that plagues…

I burnt so much of life's brief candle
In levity I now regret!
Still, balls—but for the model scandal
They breed, I should adore them yet.
I thrill to ardent youth's outpouring,
The crush and blaze, the spirit's soaring,
Those beauties artfully arrayed;
I love their feet—though I'm afraid
Throughout our land you won't discover
Three pairs of shapely female feet.
Ah—one I long could not delete
From memory…

Alas, on pleasure 's wild variety
I've wasted too much life away!
But, did they not corrupt society,
I'd still like dances to this day:
the atmosphere of youth and madness,
the crush, the glitter and the gladness,
the ladies' calculated dress:
I love their feet—though I confess
that all of Russia can't contribute
three pairs of handsome ones—yet there
exists for me one special pair!
one pair!…

A man who's active and incisive
can yet keep nail-care much in mind:
why fight what's known to be decisive? custom is despot of mankind.

We've all absorbed, by candles burning,
A jot of this, a tad of that.
So thank the lord, to shine in learning
In our old land is quite old hat.

Brutal! 🤣😂🤣

We all meandered through our schooling
haphazard; so, to God be thanks,
it's easy, without too much fooling,
to pass for cultured in our ranks.

🤣😂🤣

I.5

Since we pick up our education
In bits and pieces here and there,
To earn a brilliant reputation
With us, thank god, is no affair.

I.5

"Oh, if only I could go through all my memories in my mind, just as I run my eyes over all the objects in my room! I know these memories are unhappy and insignificant, but they are all I have."

"When our sufferings reach the point where they make our whole inner being crack and creak like an overloaded cart, they should no longer seem ridiculous to us…But no! Laughter not only accompanies tears to the end, to exhaustion, to the point where it is impossible to shed any more of them—not at all!—it continues to ring and resound even after the tongue has grown mute and every plaintive outcry has died away."

"Generally, people like me expect everything in the world except the very thing that must happen according to the natural flow of events."

"A happy man is like a fly in the sunshine."

While a man is truly living, he has no sensation of his own life; like a sound, it becomes clear to him only a short time later.
…
Emotional outbursts are like licorice root: when you take your first lick of it, it doesn't seem so bad, but then it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Don't be confused by surfaces; in the depths everything becomes law."

"…for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sounds— wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it."

"Things aren't so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable , they happen in the space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life."

"You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure."

"I often think, that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them."

"But, angry people are not always wise."

"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me."

“Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all.”

"You shall not defend her…you shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavor to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger, security for happiness."

”We tolerate the worst portrayal because we are used to seeing even worse originals.”

"I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed."

"Tell me with whom you consort and I will tell you who you are; if I know how you spend your time, then I know what might become of you."

Bonus vir, semper tiro (A good man is always a beginner.)

"I felt the urge many times to start screaming, 'for God's sake, let men remain men! You have defaced them already, fine, now have mercy on their condition. While you are busy trying to make gods out of them, those poor wretches are losing whatever humanity they do have!'"

“Sometimes she felt that, though she had not sold herself, people had slyly bought her anyway.”

— from License

“How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! —When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”