The all-new quote thread

[Saturn]

You find sometimes the most beautiful passages in strange places:

"Again Michael felt the shortness of breath, that flooding through his body of something that was not so much desire as an insane possessiveness. He understood for the first time the classical jealousy of the Italian male. He was at that moment ready to kill anyone who touched this girl, who tried to claim her, take her away from him. He wanted to own her as wildly as a miser wants to own gold coins, as hungrily as a sharecropper wants to own his own land. Nothing was going to stop him from owning this girl, possessing he, locking her in a house and keeping her prisoner only for himself. He didn;t want anyone even to see her. When she turned to smile at one of her brothers Michael gave that young man a murderous look without even realizing it."
-Mario Puzo, The Godfather, p340.

Before anyone asks...no...I would not go as far as all that but that feeling I know all too well.

[dks]

So simply stated, yet simply beautiful all the same...

I hide myself within my flower,

That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too --
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.

Emily Dickinson

[Falina]

Well... this has actually nothing to do with the posts before... But I was just listening to one of my favourite songs and thought I'd like to share the lyrics with you . They are full of melancholy and sadness ... The song makes me shiver, gives me the creeps every time I listen to it... (Do you say that in English actually, "it gives me the creeps" *lol*? My dictionary told me so, but somehow it sounds strange to me ) However - I love it... Of course, the melancholy effect is much stronger when you actually listen to the song - but the text itself is so tragically beautiful (I don't know how else to describe it )...

It's actually a German song - so I had to translate it in English. Of course the original version is much better... And I couldn't find adequate rhymes for the verses in English. I've never really translated anything from German into English - so I hope you can forgive me if it sounds strange and not very English in some parts ...


Dead Eyes

I am freezing
The world is grey
It was only yesterday that the sky was blue
But today I’m hopelessly alone
Alone

Even at daytime
There’s night all around me
I woke up
Screaming

That’s how I'm lying in my bed
Alone
And crying
And crying

Tears are running silently
From dead eyes
And I'm asking myself why
In my mind, pictures are moving along
And I despair of looking for the meaning

Your voice is catching my ear
Clearer than ever before
But my dark existence
Now seems in vain to me
In vain

Your hand is comforting me
I feel a little shiver
I fear the end of your efforts
It's haunting me
It's haunting me

Tears are runnig silently
From dead eyes
And I'm asking myself why
In my mind, pictures are moving along
And I despair of looking for the meaning

Tears are running silently
From dead eyes
I'll probably never see you again
Never go with you laughing

The only thing I'm longing for
Is the sun shining again

(Saltatio Mortis)

[Saturn]

Those words are beautiful and moving in any language.

Thank you so much for taking the time to translate that.

[Saturn]

A bit of the 'bard' today. I've subscribed to this site where they send you one of Shakespeare's sonnets every other day. Nice thing to read with your cornflakes in the morning.

XCVII.

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness every where!
And yet this time removed was summer's time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

[Falina]

Those words are beautiful and moving in any language.

Thank you so much for taking the time to translate that.

Thank you very much, Saturn . As I said, it's one of my favourite songs, and it was quite interesting to translate it. It became quite different from the original... But I think it sounds great in English, too .

By the way: Please tell me (anybody) honestly if something in my translation is totally wrong or sounds really strange!!! I need to improve my English .

[Papillon]

Falina,

I think you did an excellent job with the translation of the song. It's always difficult to capture the beauty of one language's poetry in a translation. For example, right now I'm in the process of translating a poem from ASL (American Sign Language) into English, which is proving to be quite the challenge. I applaud you!

Also, yes the phrase is "give me the creeps." I know that we have some weird phrases in our English language!

What about in German? Do you have phrases as strange as our English ones?

[Saturn]

Apologies but I turn once again to the mighty Petrarch:

"An unexpected angel glided down
from heaven among the flowers upon the shore
where I was walking through my destiny.

Since I was there without companion
or any guide, she laid that silken snare
she’d twisted in the grass along the way.

Well I was caught; but this did not displease:
so bright a light I saw shine from her eyes".
'Nova angeletta sovra l’ale accorta'.

And again:

“What water nymph, what woodland goddess ever
loosened such fine gold tresses to the wind?
When were such virtues in one heart combined,
though guilty of my death once brought together?

All that man’s searching is in vain who tries
to find divine attractiveness yet fails
to see the way my lady moves her eyes;
he cannot know Love heals, nor that Love kills,
who does not see what charm is in her sighs,
and how sweetly she speaks, and sweetly smiles.”
'In qual parte del ciel, in quale ydea'. 5-14.

[Saturn]

Sonnet 100.

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life;
So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

[Malia]

I'm having a deja vu that I'd written this one before--probably have, but it really stirs me. . .

One of my favorite leadership quotes from one of my favorite leaders, the Antarctic explorer, Sir Earnest Shackleton:

"Great ships are safe in the harbor. But that's not where great ships are made to be."

[dks]

This one hit me hard...

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Friedrich Nietzsche

[Saturn]

This one hit me hard...

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Good one.

Nietzsche was a very wise man.

[Malia]

This one hit me hard...

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Good one.

Nietzsche was a very wise man.

Nietzche was wacked. Well, I never liked him anyway. All I remember about him from Philosophy class back in undergrad was that, when he went crazy with syphillis, he started spouting depressing philosophical platitudes to horses and cows in fields.

[Saturn]

Hey even depressed people, and mad people can be wise...

[dks]

Nietzche was wacked. Well, I never liked him anyway. All I remember about him from Philosophy class back in undergrad was that, when he went crazy with syphillis, he started spouting depressing philosophical platitudes to horses and cows in fields.

Poor fella...