Comments on Quotations

Here is one I just read:

Quote :

True compassion is more than
flinging a coin to a beggar; it
comes to see that an edifice
which produces beggars
needs restructuring.
MARTIN LUTHER KING,
JR.

I think it is more timely right now than when it was written. What do you think?

Ann

I must go to tutoring, but while I am gone, here is another:

Quote :

...when you find two opposites,
you don’t try to choose between them
but to find a third place that reconciles
them. RAY ANDERSON Mid-Course Correction

Only one problem -- I'm not on opposite sides to Chris. Although I'm a PA author, I set up this forum for the network. Chris associates me with members of the AS forum. I wasn't a member. I only met Chris here. I am neither for nor against any particular form of publishing. I am for freedom of choice.

I do have a problem with anti-PA zealots. On my LinkedIn group, one of the members advised a PA author to hire a lawyer to get her rights back from PA. I thought this was appalling. An author should never be told to spend money to become unpublished when it cost nothing to become published. However, it did show how selfish the PA haters are, and how little real consideration they show for PA authors.

Quote :

To control a nation, you
don’t have to control its
laws or its military, all
you have to do is
control who tells the
nation its stories.
GEORGE GERBNER

So, our stories define our reality. Our job as storytellers is more important today than ever, and we can have more freedom in the telling if we remain independent.

What do you think?

Ann

Quote :

“If we can stay with the
tension of opposites long enough—sustain it,
be true to it—we can sometimes
become vessels within which the divine
opposites come together and give birth
to a new reality.”Jungian psychologist
and scholar,
MARIE-LOUISE Von Franz

I'm not getting many responses, here. I'm reading this stuff that resonates so strongly, and I want to share, to hear what you think about it. Where are you?

Ann

Tension between competing world views, the evolution of paradigms and the role of ideology in holding back that evolution. Its powerful stuff but does it lead to truth? I prefer something along the lines of (I hope I have remembered it correctly):

“We are shaped and formed by the things we love” Goethe

i've got a star!

Quote:

...when you find two opposites, you don’t try to choose between them but to find a third place that reconciles them. RAY ANDERSON Mid-Course Correction

I happen to like this quote, and it's kind of where I usually find myself--sitting in the middle, being able to see both sides of an issue. I used to hate that I couldn't pick a side, but later in life I found it to be a gift.

Congratulations, Mike! The star looks good on you!

My ex used to tell people that I took a firm stand on every issue: Squarely straddling the middle of the fence. After we divorced, I went back to school and learned about Aristotle and the Golden Mean. Then I read Joseph Campbell, and found that we learn compassion when we stop the enantiodromia of running to extremes and focus on the center. Now, like you, I take pride in being able to see both sides.

And yes, Mike. The star is very cool.

Ann

I can’t remember it well enough to quote but Willard Van Orman Quine wrote about bushes which a gardener cut into identical elephantine shapes. He described how all the bushes conformed to the required shape but in each case it was achieved by a unique pattern of twigs and branches.

I don’t know how the bushes felt but this made me think that people with a gift learn to conform but their twigs and branches have to be contorted more than others and they end up left with the feeling that they have been cursed for being different when they ought to be made to feel very lucky.

I like that analogy, Mike. It took me a long time to appreciate my "gift" and I guess I did feel like I was different from other people in a bad way. Today, I feel very lucky.

Here's the quote, Mike:

"Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike."

—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

Mike wrote:

Quote :

Tension between competing world views, the evolution of paradigms and
the role of ideology in holding back that evolution. Its powerful stuff
but does it lead to truth? I prefer something along the lines of (I hope
I have remembered it correctly):

“We are shaped and formed by
the things we love” Goethe

I don’t know how the bushes felt but this made me think that people with
a gift learn to conform but their twigs and branches have to be
contorted more than others and they end up left with the feeling that
they have been cursed for being different when they ought to be made to
feel very lucky.

Goethe's way of saying it is lovely (no pun intended). I would have said something like we are formed and shaped by what we pay the most attention to. Sometimes, that is about what we fear. And maybe that fear is what causes us to curse the differences rather than learn from them.

Ann

Shelagh wrote:

Only one problem -- I'm not on opposite sides to Chris. Although I'm a PA author, I set up this forum for the network. Chris associates me with members of the AS forum. I wasn't a member. I only met Chris here. I am neither for nor against any particular form of publishing. I am for freedom of choice.

I do have a problem with anti-PA zealots. On my LinkedIn group, one of the members advised a PA author to hire a lawyer to get her rights back from PA. I thought this was appalling. An author should never be told to spend money to become unpublished when it cost nothing to become published. However, it did show how selfish the PA haters are, and how little real consideration they show for PA authors.

I don't know why he couldn't post it here but, anyway, here's his reply:

"You were appalled? Because someone wanted to get out of their contract with PA? That’s right, you think PA is a commercial publisher. But it’s an author mill, a scam. Hiring an attorney to get out of the clutches of PA is the best investment a PA author can make.
As for paying nothing, PA does charge you. Their prices are much, much higher than any other POD publisher. Compare the price of a PA book to one of comparable size to one from iUniverse, or Booksurge. The price is at least $10 higher. Add to that the fact they charge $4 per book to ship out a book and it becomes evident that you do pay PublishAmerica, only it’s in the price of every book.
You are appalled? Nice! You may hate anti-PA zealots but I hate pro-PA zealots like you. It’s because of people like you that PA is able to keep luring in the naive.
And I find that appalling."

So, you hate me? I suppose I should be flattered (the nearest thing to love is hate, after all). I don't hate you, Chris. I don't even dislike you. I know you're a real person and, if I met you, I might form an opinion about you. As it is, I only have your posts on a forum to go by and that isn't much. Certainly not enough for me to decide about you as a real person.

alj wrote:

Quote :

To control a nation, you
don’t have to control its
laws or its military, all
you have to do is
control who tells the
nation its stories.
GEORGE GERBNER

So, our stories define our reality. Our job as storytellers is more important today than ever, and we can have more freedom in the telling if we remain independent.

What do you think?

Ann

That's very Jungian. The way we define reality, who were are, is something we create and control.

I have always been fascinated by the fact that various disconnected cultures developed the notion of dragons and elfs. Why is this so?

Let me add a quote from one of my favorite poets, Walt Whitman.

"After you have exhausted what there is in business,
politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these
finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains.
"

Kind of like this one, Chris?

Quote :

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became
tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Whitman: "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer"

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-i-heard-the-learned-astronomer/

It's true that the dragon image has shown up in many cultures, but not always with the same meaning. The eastern dragon is very friendly and positive. Campbell, who was strongly influenced by Jung, writes much about the western dragon as our shadow, which we should learn to embrace rather than kill off.

Ann

alj wrote:

Kind of like this one, Chris?

Quote :

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became
tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Whitman: "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer"

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-i-heard-the-learned-astronomer/

It's true that the dragon image has shown up in many cultures, but not always with the same meaning. The eastern dragon is very friendly and positive. Campbell, who was strongly influenced by Jung, writes much about the western dragon as our shadow, which we should learn to embrace rather than kill off.

Ann

I am a huge Walt Whitman fan!

I saw on your website you like Campbell. He's interesting. I can't quite wrap my brain around all his stuff.

This kind of connected Jungian collective conscious has been used to explain sightings of Bigfoot (feet?) and sightings of UFOs.

Speaking of which, here's one from Emily Dickinson:

"A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it
just begins to live that day."

In case not everyone knows, Emily wrote (mostly) in hymn (common) meter. You sing about 70% of her poems to the theme of Gilligan's Island. try it. It's awesome.

From Robert Louis Stevenson 1913

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

(Two more verses)

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

How many times in my life have I felt like a shadow? Too many to mention. I'm not sure this fits with the western dragon being my shadow.


Carol