#story

The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars. ↗

— Bertolt Brecht

#history #humanity #kiss #life #mankind

The world of shadows and superstition that was Victorian England, so well depicted in this 1871 tale, was unique. While the foundations of so much of our present knowledge of subjects like medicine, public health, electricity, chemistry and agriculture, were being, if not laid, at least mapped out, people could still believe in the existence of devils and demons. And why not? A good ghost story is pure entertainment. It was not until well into the twentieth century that ghost stories began to have a deeper significance and to become allegorical; in fact, to lose their charm. No mental effort is required to read 'The Weird Woman', no seeking for hidden meanings; there are no complexities of plot, no allegory on the state of the world. And so it should be. At what other point in literary history could a man, standing over the body of his fiancee, say such a line as this: 'Speak, hound! Or, by heaven, this night shall witness two murders instead of one!' Those were the days. (introduction to "The Weird Woman") ↗

— Hugh Lamb

#ghost-story #horror #victorian #victorian-age #victorian-era

Look, I can appreciate this. I was young too, I felt just like you. Hated authority, hated all my bosses, thought they were full of shit. Look, it's like they say, if you're not a rebel by the age of 20, you got no heart, but if you haven't turned establishment by 30, you've got no brains. Because there are no story-book romances, no fairy-tale endings. So before you run out and change the world, ask yourself, "What do you really want? ↗

— George Huang

#establishment #fairy-tale #romance #storybook #want

My first reaction, every time I delve into an episode of history that I don’t know very much about, is anger that my teachers never taught me about it. ↗

— Steven Spielberg

#anger

Sophisticated readers understand that writers work out their anger, their conflicts, their endless grief and rolling list of loss, through their stories. That however mean-spirited or diabolical, it's only a story. That the darkness in the soul is shaped into type and lies there, brooding and inert, black on the page, and active, dangerous, only in the reader's mind. Actually, harmless. I am not harmless. ↗

— Amy Bloom

#writers #writing #anger

Throughout my career, when I was finished with the drawing for one film I would go up to the story department and help develop sequences. Sometimes these were for scenes that I would animate later on. ↗

— Marc Davis

#career #department #develop #drawing #film

precious laughing time is wasted, because I have to put up with Satan's stupid minions who smile without attempting to anger somebody else - leave us alone already. ↗

— A Gentlemen

#history #inspirational #madness #philosophy #sadness

Before anyone could be delivered, everybody betrayed everybody. The Jews no longer knew which current to swim, and brother turned against brother. It seems that Josephus was quick in putting all the blame on the Zealots, himself having deserted the mission. He was a turncoat, and nothing he said can be taken at face value without carefully reading between the lines. Josephus did not recognize that the same guys he cursed in failure would have been his heroes in success. But then, the failure might have come about through those who abandoned the mission—those like himself. It is the age-old question: has the freedom fighter turned terrorist, or has the terrorist turned freedom fighter? ↗

— A.J. Deus

#age

Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century, who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing... and the Gospel according to St. Thomas... was a new thrust like the titanic thrust of Gothic engineering; and its strength was in a God that makes all things new. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#civilization #culture #europe #history #renaissance

南イタリアには、一度この地を知ると、虜になってしまう不思議な魅力がある。それもそのはずで、地中海に突き出た南イタリアは、古くから多くの民族が行き交い、さまざまな文化が交錯する地域であり、都市を探訪するにはもってこいの宝庫なのだ。世界広しといえども、都市の在り方がこれほど多彩で、感動的な風景と出会える場所も珍しい。 南イタリアの都市風景の多様性を生むうえで、ここに繰り広げられた歴史のドラマがそのベースになっているのはいうまでもない。古代のギリシア、ローマをはじめ、中世のビザンツ、イスラーム、そしてノルマン、さらにはフランスやスペインの支配下で、多様な文化が培われた。 そして、南イタリア都市の変化に富んだ迫力ある形態は、その古さと明らかに結びついている。中北部のイタリアよりも、中世の早い時期に都市を形成し、あるいは古代都市を復興したから、骨格となる層が古く、それだけ複雑な都市構造が生まれたのだ。しかも、南には、重厚な石づくりの文化を発展させた地方が多く、建物の持続性がそれだけ大きい。「イタリアの都市は歴史が重なっている」とよく言われるが、南イタリアを巡ると、それをいっそう強く感じる。ここでは、古い時代の建物の壁がよく残り、歴史の重なりがそのまま視覚化されているのである。 同時にまた、いかにも地中海世界らしい自然条件、気候風土が、独特の民家や都市・集落の姿をつくり出した。変化に富んだ地形とあいまって、都市や集落はさまざまな立地の在り方を見せている。 心地よい戸外での生活が活発なのも、南イタリアの大きな特徴で、それだけ近隣所のコミュニティの共有空間も発達した。人々の生活ドラマが繰り広げられる舞台としての都市空間は、我々の心を打つ。 南イタリアには、このように個性的で魅力ある都市が各地にあるのに、ほとんど調査もされず、眠っていることが多い。イタリアには歴史的価値のある建築や都市が多過ぎて、南部の小さな田舎町にまで、とても専門家の目が届かないのだ。[4〜5ページ] ↗

— 陣内 秀信

#history #italy #architecture