"Spread sail! For it is Hope today that like a wind new-risen Doth waft us on a golden wing towards a new horizon, That is the sun before our sight, the beacon for us burning, That is the star in all our night of watching and of yearning."
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy was a British poet and herpetologist. Of Irish descent, he was born in London. He is most remembered for his poem "Ode", from his 1874 collection Music and Moonlight, which begins with the words "We are the music makers, / And we are the dreamers of dreams", and which has been set to music by several composers including Edward Elgar, Zoltán Kodály, Alfred Reed an
"They had no vision amazing Of the goodly house they are raising; They had no divine foreshowing Of the land to which they are going: But on one mans soul it hath broken, A light that doth not depart; And his look, or a word he hath spoken, Wrought flame in another mans heart."
"We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself with our mirth; And oerthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new worlds worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth."
"A breath of our inspiration Is the life of each generation; A wondrous thing of our dreaming Unearthly, impossible seeming — The soldier, the king, and the peasant Are working together in one, Till our dream shall become their present, And their work in the world be done."
"And therefore to-day is thrilling With a past days late fulfilling; And the multitudes are enlisted In the faith that their fathers resisted, And, scorning the dream of to-morrow, Are bringing to pass, as they may, In the world, for its joy or its sorrow, The dream that was scorned yesterday."
"Great hail! we cry to the comers From the dazzling unknown shore; Bring us hither your sun and your summers; And renew our world as of yore; You shall teach us your songs new numbers, And things that we dreamed not before: Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers, And a singer who sings no more."
"The stars are dimly seen among the shadows of the bay, And lights that win are seen in strife with lights that die away."
"[explaining to Ernie how April apologized to him] She just showed up at the factory, took off her coat, and begged me to take her. We made love in a way that Ive only ever seen in nature films."
MouseHunt (film)"All men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things; so that, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the possessors of any sense-perception whatever, the artist wiser than the men of experience, the masterworker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of Wisdom than the productive."
Theory"The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine."
"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances."
"The intimate rapport with nature is one of the most precious things in life. Nature is indeed very close to us; sometimes closer than hands and feet, of which in truth she is but the extension. The emotional appeal of nature is tremendous, sometimes almost more than one can bear."
Jan Smuts"Are people naturally destructive, immoral, predatory and self-seeking, only to be kept in order by harsh laws and fiercely deterrent mandatory sentences? Or are men and women naturally orderly, merciful, humane and bred with a need for justice and mutual aid? Of course these qualities, or defects, are not evenly distributed, and undoubtedly there is much of each in all of us, but when it comes to the law some sort of distinction can be drawn. Are you a Shylock or a Bassanio? Shylock pinned his faith on the words in the contract, the nature of his bond and the duty of the state to uphold the letter of the law regardless of human suffering. Bassanio put another point of view. More important than the sanctity of the law was the plight of the individual parties in the particular case."