Last week's quotation was, as many of you know, written by Raymond Chandler.
"...who is not himself mean" to me is the key element. He can be tough, even vicious, but this cannot stem from an essential meanness. Chandler, masterful in his word choice, would have been aware that claiming that somone is not mean stops short of claiming that he is nice or kind.
I very much enjoyed your various comments and perspectives. A slumming angel indeed. Please, please, please do not look up the quotations or Google them. It's far more interesting to hear your observations when they come from prior knowledge or guesswork.
Now, here's this week's quotation:
"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."
Have at it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Groucho Marx in his speech at the end of Duck Stew, the little known sequel to Duck Soup.
Now Do I get cookies?
The Edmund Burke line is something like, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," which is another way of saying the same thing... I too think this is Dante, but I'm playing by the rules and not looking it up.
Fred, kind souls give a shit.
I have only seen the quote attributed to Dante and I was actually looking for a more definitive reference when I stumbled across this blog... seems like you have to be careful about these kind of quotes... take that one frequently attributed to Edmund Burke, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph..." it apparently does not appear in that form in any of his works or recorded speeches. Check out the wikipedia entry for Edmund Burke for references.
I think it is Dante, but a friend of mind argues vehemently that it is not a quote that can be directly found in any of his works and is actually a result of JFK's interpretation of Dante's works...
So who is right?
Post a Comment