- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.
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- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (7,229)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,859)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,848)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,960)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,875)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,968)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,846)
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- 14-Oct-20 - How far can we deduce that the act of writing poetry was a self-harming manifestation of Sylvia Plath’s mental illness? – Maya Elphick on Problemata, 30.1.
- 6-Oct-20 - Equal Rites (1987) | WIST on “An Essay on Criticism,” Part 2, ll. 15-18 (1711).
- 6-Oct-20 - "On Elemental Instruction in Physiology" (1877) | WIST on “An Essay on Criticism,” Part 2, ll. 15-18 (1711).
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Books have led some to learning and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest.
Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) Italian scholar and poet [a.k.a. Petrarch]
Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul [De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae] [tr. Elton (1893)]
Alt. trans.: "Books have brought some men to knowledge, and some to madness. whilst they drew out of them more than they could digest." [tr. Dobson (1791)]
Alt. trans.: "Books have led some to knowledge and some to madness, who drew from them more than they could hold." [tr. Rawski (1991)]
