Troubled Water

«The word bibliotheca is used to signify any one of three things: a place in which books are kept, a bookcase, or books themselves. The Greek word, bibliotheca , came into use among the Romans. They also used the word libraria ; but it is more exact to understand by that word a shop where books are kept for sale. Collections of books, bibliothecae , date from the earliest days, and, if I am not mistaken, were established as soon as letters were invented. The art of writing must have arisen almost as soon as man began to learn and to think; and this art would not have been profitable if books had not been preserved and arranged for present and future use. At first these collections were private undertakings, each person gathering for himself and his family; in the course of time kings and dynasties took up the custom and collected books, not only for use, but also to gratify their ambition and to add to their renown. Indeed, it was scarcely within the power of a private person to colle...

«[...]Terminamos pela citação desta página, porque cremos estar nela claramente exemplificada a maneira de conciliar a competencia com a fiscalização pela opinião publica, quer dizer, a competencia com a Democracia. Mas para que a opinião pública fiscalize é necessario que ela exista; e a existencia de uma opinião pública legítima e eficaz depende de um sistema de Educação. É este o foco a que vão ter, finalmente, todos os vectores do pensamento politico, todos os problemas da Democracia.» in "Pela Grei : revista para ressurgimento nacional pela formação de uma opinião pública consciente "  Vol. I, 1.º ano, n.º 1, 1918 Pg.56 «[...]E nós? e os senhores? Nós - os que não pertencemos à instrução pública, não temos influência imediata nos serviços desta instrução? A nós, a nossa independência em relação ao Estado dá-nos a melhor das situações para poder intervir no problema, - criando, e sobretudo, mantendo um movimento de opinião esclarecido e vigoroso. Chegámos a um momento em ...

Kazimir Malevich , "Running man", 1932-1933. Oil, canvas, George Pompidou Art Centre, Paris «Au village de Klénototcha, les gens mouraient, comme dans l’Ukraine entière ; on leur avait pris leur blé et toute nourriture et on les avait condamnés à une mort certaine ; l’État, en ennemi implacable, usant de la force contre eux, leur avait supprimé, outre tout ravitaillement, la possibilité de gagner leur vie en travaillant. Une épidémie de peste aurait été un fléau moins grand. La provision de pommes de terre des Katrannyk touchait à sa fin et le maître de maison parcourait les environs à la recherche de nourriture pour les siens. Partout, le froid et la désolation. La tristesse submergeait son âme dans ce désert de neige ; il lui semblait que le monde s’était refroidi comme une maison abandonnée. Un seul désir enfiévrait son être : trouver à manger.» «Encore quelques pas et il reste cloué sur place ! Devant ses yeux s’étend une clairière et là, près d’un cerisier devenu sauvag...

«[...] In concluding, we should say a few words about the prospects that lie beyond the present study. Our investigation has brought us to the threshold of a problem that is broader, more profound, and still more extraordinary than the problem of thinking. It has brought us to the threshold of the problem of consciousness. In our investigation, we have tried to consistently keep in view that aspect of the word which has been unfamiliar ground for experimental psychology. We have tried to study the word’s relationship to the object, its relationship to reality. We have tried to study the dialectical transition from sensation to thinking and show that reality is reflected in thinking differently than it is reflected in sensation. We have tried to show that the word’s distinguishing feature is a generalized reflection of reality. In the process, however, we have touched on an aspect of the word’s nature whose significance exceeds the limits of thinking as such, an aspect of the word that ...

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kin...

 The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like ( Write it!) like disaster. One Art Here is a coast; here is a harbor; here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery; impractically shaped and—who knows?—self-pitying mountains, sad a...

"Toda a Alemanha chora ou ri perante o espetáculo da desnazificação, esta comédia em que os Spruchkammern desempenham lastimosamente o papel ambíguo do amigo da família, estes tribunais cujos procuradores apresentam desculpas ao acusado antes de ser pronunciada a sentença, estes enormes moinhos de papelada que com frequência oferecem o espetáculo, nesta Alemanha com falta de papel, de um acusado que apresenta uma centena de atestados de irrepreensível conduta e que dedicam um tempo considerável a milhares de casos absurdos e sem importância, ao passo que os casos verdadeiramente graves parecem levar sumiço através dum qualquer alçapão secreto." "Além disso, a fome e o frio não figuravam na escala das penas previstas pela justiça dos homens, pela mesma razão segundo a qual a tortura e os maus tratos nela figuram; e um juízo moral que condenasse os acusados a uma existência humana, quer dizer, a uma existência que rebaixa o valor humano dos condenados, em vez de o elevar,...