WIST Quotations

McCarthy, Cormac -- No Country for Old Men (2005)

Dave — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 22:51:46 +0000

It’s not about knowin where you are. It’s about thinkin you got there without takin anything with you. Your notions about startin over. Or anybody’s. You dont start over. That’s what it’s about. Every step you take is forever. You cant make it go away. None of it.

Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) American novelist, playwright, screenwriter
No Country for Old Men (2005)
(Source)

Apuleius -- Apologia; or, A Discourse on Magic [Apologia; seu, Pro Se de Magia], ch. 21 [tr. Bohn’s (1853)]

Dave — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 15:24:11 +0000

It is with life just as with swimming; that man is the most expert who is the most disengaged from all encumbrances.

[Ad vivendum velut ad natandum is melior qui onere liberior.]

Apuleius (AD c. 124 - c. 170) Numidian Roman writer, philosopher, rhetorician [Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis]
Apologia; or, A Discourse on Magic [Apologia; seu, Pro Se de Magia], ch. 21 [tr. Bohn’s (1853)]
(Source)

Alt. trans.:

"We live, just as we swim, all the better for being but lightly burdened." [tr. Butler (1909)]
"He is better equipped for life, as for swimming, who has the less to carry."

David, Peter -- Babylon 5: Legions of Fire III – Out of the Darkness (2000)

Dave — Tue, 26 May 2020 22:20:25 +0000

He may have gone quite far in our society, but no matter how far one goes, one cannot avoid bringing oneself along.

Peter David (b. 1956) American writer
Babylon 5: Legions of Fire III – Out of the Darkness (2000)

Lichtenberg, Georg C. -- Aphorisms, Notebook F, #17 (1776-79) [tr. Hollingdale (1990)]

Dave — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:38:43 +0000

A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, an apostle is unlikely to look out.

Georg C. Lichtenberg (1742-1799) German physicist, writer
Aphorisms, Notebook F, #17 (1776-79) [tr. Hollingdale (1990)]
(Source)

This is nearly mirrored by Notebook E, # 49 (1775-76), "A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out."

Alternate translations:

A book is a mirror: when a monkey looks in, no apostle can look out.
[tr. Mautner and Hatfield (1959)]

A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, an apostle is unlikely to look out.
[tr. Tester (2012)]