Silence in the Cairngorms – from Nan Shepherd’s “The Living Mountain”
Having disciplined mind and body to quiescence, I must discipline them also to activity. The senses must be used. For the ear, the most vital thing that can be listened…
Category: commonplace book
Two Views on the Nature of Language: Nietzsche and Auden
Originally posted on anenduringromantic:
“That for which we find words is already dead in our hearts,” says Nietzsche. “There is a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.” Language, then,…
Silence and the limits of language
“That for which we find words in something already dead in our hearts. There always is a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.” – Nietzsche, The Twilight of…
“Shouting about humankind being part of nature may mask a fear that it is nothing of the sort.”
From Peter Reason’s “In Search of Grace”, a passage on a theme that has often occurred to me. Philosophically, one can unpick the concept of “nature” and any separation between…
Schopenhauer on noise
From “A Cabinet of Philosophical Curiosities” by Roy Sorensen: Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) contends that there is no point in arguing about whether noise is annoying. If noise bothers…
“a confidence man, ivory poacher and all-round rogue “
The opening line of John Seabrook’s Wikipedia bio is pretty impressive, but here we find a better: Pseudonym of UK-born author William Lancaster Gribbon (1879-1940), who emigrated to the USA…
“a media to look at rather than to read”
This article from Politico on Robert D’Agostino, the man behind the website Dagospia, is an interesting read on both Italian media/politics and the general mental landscape of the internet. I…
Reading on the bus: a literary bus conductor from Arnold Bax’s Farewell My Youth.
(edit August 30th – (edit 30th August 2018 – (edit 30th August 2018 – for further extracts from Arnold Bax’s “Farewell My Youth”, see here on the forgotten and despised man of…
Séamus Sweeney 