As the end of the century approaches, all our culture is like flies at the beginning of winter. Having lost their agility, dreamy and demented, they turn slowly about the window in the first icy mists of morning,…then they fall down the curtains. – Charles Baudelaire
General jackdaw culture, very little more than a collection of charming miscomprehensions, untargeted enthusiasms, and a general habit of skimming. – William Bolitho
No man has come to true greatness who has not felt that his life belongs to his race, and that which God gives to him, He gives him for mankind. – Phillips Brooks
Situated in some nebulous distance I do what I do so that the universal balance of which I am a part may remain a balance. – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
