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Robert Hunter

Robert Hunter Biography

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“Of the Russian exiles, Lenin is the last I should have picked as a man of destiny. [Angelica] Balabanoff says that she cannot remember where she first met Lenin and that even when she became conscious of his existence he made no impression upon her. Many others would say the same, but I remember vividly my first meeting with him. It was at dinner in a small Greek restaurant in Soho, not far from the house which bears the tablet commemorating the fact that Karl Marx once lived there. I met him again at Stuttgart, [at the International Socialist Congress] in 1907. In the meantime he had acquired the reputation of being a brilliant student of Marxian economics, a dangerous antagonist in all intra-party controversies and a master of revolutionary tactics and sectarian conspiracies. At the conference he was usually surrounded by a small group of whispering disciples. … Some of Lenin's enemies believed that he was a paid emissary of the Russian police. His tactics and the dissensions which he promoted among the Russian socialists aroused suspicion. He was a fanatic, a disorganizer, a sectarian, who gave no indication in pre-war days of having the qualities of a national leader. He won his battles but they were always directed against his comrades.”

DestinyLondonExileRussian RevolutionKarl MarxLeninFanaticSectarianVladimir LeninBolshevik
Book:Revolution Why, How, When?
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“While making studies of the revolutionary movement, I was aided for a time by Angelica Balabanoff. This restless, diminutive Russian knew almost everyone engaged in socialist and communist activities. Aflame with the spirit of revolt, she spared no effort to infect others with her hatred for the capitalist regime. She was very useful as she not only brought me in contact with everyone I wished to meet, but she also spoke fluently many of the European languages. She would often sit beside me at conferences and in restaurants, translating into my ear, in a soft and to others almost inaudible voice, everything of interest said by the various speakers, no matter from what country they came. She was afterward one of Mussolini's chief aids and became his assistant editor when he took control of *Avanti*. In 1917 she went back to Russia with Lenin and other communists in the train so kindly provided by the German government, which expected them to augment the chaos already paralyzing its enemies on the East. Revolutionists talk fast and are often well educated. In some groups at dinner three or four languages would be spoken and, of course, at all the socialists and labor conferences delegates from many countries delivered their addresses in their native tongues. These different languages were laboriously translated by official interpreters. It was unnecessary to follow these dreary repetitions when Balabanoff sat beside me. She was often the official interpreter at the larger gatherings and her translations were never questioned — although she often excelled the orator in eloquence when he was expressing some of her cherished and more violently revolutionary views. Although she was a valued aid to both Mussolini and Lenin — I believe she brought them together at one time — and the most impassioned revolutionist I have ever met, she left Russia in 1921, ill and thoroughly disillusioned by the Reign of Terror.”

RevolutionCommunistFascismTranslationDisillusionRussian RevolutionLeninMussoliniAngelica BalabanoffBalabanoff
Book:Revolution Why, How, When?
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“Tolstoy was not associated with any revolutionary group but his writings had a tremendous influence. A continuous stream of Utopians, rebels and cranks passed in and out of his doors. When I was a guest at Yasnaya Polyana, his country estate, I was shocked by the depth of his despondency, and after he had forecast, with a foresight given only to genius, the bloody upheavals to come, I left his presence deeply regretting that age, moral distress and spiritual loneliness rendered him incapable of looking joyfully forward to what many believed would be the birth of a great and enduring democratic Russian Republic.”

LiteratureDemocracyRevolutionUtopianMisfitsDisillusionRussian RevolutionRebelsTolstoyLeo Tolstoy
Book:Revolution Why, How, When?
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“Inspiration, move me brightly, light the song with sense and color, hold away despair”

LightInspirationMovingSongColorDespair
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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“Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore. When life looks like Easy Street there is danger at your door.”

FirstsWellsLooksEasyWorryDoorsStreetsDangerHardestEasy Street
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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“Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, but the heart has its beaches, its homeland, and thoughts of its own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings, but the heart has its seasons its evenings, and songs of its own”

WorldHeartEyeSongMorningSeasonsWake UpEveningBeachHomeland
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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“I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools.”

WayPayFoolGoldSlaveShipsJewelsBeggar
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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“The storyteller makes no choice, soon you will not hear his voice, his job is to shed light, and not to master”

LightJobsChoicesVoiceMastersShedStoryteller
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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“Every song falls short of the glory of what a song could be. That's why the urge is there to start again and yet again. Often it's the fault of rhyme. I've discovered a hundred times that there just aren't enough rhymes to say what I wanted to say, so I said something else instead. Sometimes it was a better thing, but the thing I meant to say went unsaid. So there's an opening for another song.”

SaidSometimesEnoughWantedSongFallGloryHundredFaultsOpeningUrgesRhymeUnsaid
Author:Robert Hunter
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“Once in awhile you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look it right”

IfsLifeInspirationalLooksLightLearning
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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“Walk out of any doorway feel your way, feel your way like the day before Maybe you'll find direction around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you.”

WayFeelsSpiritualWaitingWalksCornersDoorways
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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“Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist...and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell like (must I take you by the hand, every so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resoundingbells....By my faith if this be insanity, then for the love of God permit me to remain insane.”

IfsHandsFallMorningBloodSeaTypeInsaneGod LoveInsanitySilverPermitBellsShellsPurpleCrystalsMistCreepsFoamCascade
Author:Robert Hunter
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“When I was just a little young boy, Papa said Son, you'll never get far, I'll tell you the reason if you want to know, 'cause child of mine, there isn't really very far to go.”

IfsKnowsWantChildrenLittlesSaidReasonYoungCausesBoysMinesSonPapa
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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“River gonna take me, Sing me sweet and sleepy, Sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home, It's a far gone lullaby sung many years ago Mama, Mama, many worlds I've come since I first left home”

WorldWayYearsFirstsHomeSongLeftGoneSweetYears AgoRiversTake MeMamaBack HomePopular SongSleepyLullabyWay Back Home
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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“When it seems like the night will last forever, And there's nothing left to do but count the years, When the strings of my harp to sever, And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears... I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And dream me a dream of my own, I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And sing me a song of my own.”

YearsDreamSeemsEyeLastsNightSongFallLeftBlackMy OwnWalksForeverTearsRiversStonesStringsPopular SongMuddyHarps
Author:Robert Hunter
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“There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone.”

IfsMayNightDarkSimpleStepsPathDawnHighways
Book:The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs
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