“All ultimately intermarried to produce a race of many strains, which may account for the paradox that a people famed for stolid, patient, practical common-sense; a nation as Napoleon said, of "shopkeepers", has produced more adventurers, explorers and poets than probably any other in history.” PeopleMaySaidNationsCommonRaceProducePoetAccountsPatientPracticalsCommon SenseParadoxStrainExplorersAdventurerShopkeepers Author:Arthur Bryant
“Why do people speak of great men in terms of nationality? Great Germans, great Englishmen? Goethe always protested against being called a German poet. Great men are simply men and are not to be considered from the point of view of nationality, nor should the environment in which they were brought up be taken into account.” PeopleMenShouldSpeakTermViewsTakenEnvironmentPoetAccountsPoint Of ViewGreat MenNationalityEnglishmen Author:Albert Einstein
“Seeking the Cave is part travelogue, part literary history, and part spiritual journey. James Lenfestey is a lively and entertaining tour guide. Modest, funny, curious, and wide open to the world, he gives us perceptive glimpses of Chinese culture, ancient to contemporary, and into what it means to be a poet, both now and twelve centuries ago. The account of his quest to find Han Shan's cave is a delight from beginning to end.” WorldGivingMeanEndsSpiritualCultureJourneyCenturyPoetAccountsAncientDelightSeekingWideGuidesContemporaryCuriousChineseTwelveEntertainingQuestsModestGlimpseCavesLivelySpiritual JourneyChinese CultureTour Guides Author:Chase Twichell
“A tattered copy of Johnson's large Dictionary was a great delight to me, on account of the specimens of English versifications which I found in the Introduction. I learned them as if they were so many poems. I used to keep this old volume close to my pillow; and I amused myself when I awoke in the morning by reciting its jingling contrasts of iambic and trochaic and dactylic metre, and thinking what a charming occupation it must be to "make up" verses.” IfsThinkingUsedPoetryFoundMorningPoetAccountsDelightCopiesOccupationContrastVersesVolumeCharmingIntroductionDictionaryJohnsonPillowAmusedReciting Book:A New England girlhood Source: A New England girlhood
“When you set about your composing, it may be necessary for your ease, and better distillation of wit, to put on your worst clothes, and the worse the better; for an author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for having a rag about him: besides that, I have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree (which is the surtout of it) to make it bear well; and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad.” MenWellsMayNaturalPovertyCuttingTreeWorstPoetBearsOughtClothesArgumentAccountsIllWitEaseYieldUsualGardenerComposingRagsDistillation Book:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical Source: The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical