Quote of the Day for 2016-08-28

"Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail."

— Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) "Life, Art and America," The Seven Arts (February 1917)

The Tree of Forgiveness by Edward Burne Jones (1881-2) based on the story of Phyllis and Demophon

Quote of the Day for 2016-08-24

"It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll, / I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul."

— William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) "Invictus," Book of Verses (1888)

A CIA employee helps U.S. evacuees up a ladder onto an Air America Bell 204B helicopter, on the apartment building roof at 22 Gia Long Street, Saigon, shortly before the city's fall (April 29, 1975) Photo by Hubert van Es

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-30

"All art, which strove to make the sensations of a moment soul-satisfying, was dimly felt to be irreligious. For art performed what religion only promised."

— James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) The Cream of the Jest, chapter 26 (1917)

Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses by John William Waterhouse (1891)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-07

"Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,— / Take, I give it willingly; / For, invisible to thee, / Spirits twain have crossed with me."

— Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862) "The Passage," The Poems of Ludwig Uhland (1831) Translated by Sarah Austin

Charon Ferrying the Shades by Pierre Subleyras (circa 1735-1744)

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-06

"I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

— Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) Up from Slavery, chapter 11 (1901)

Elsheba Khan, at the grave of her son in Arlington National Cemetery (Section 60, grave 8441) Photograph by Platon for The New Yorker (September 29, 2008)

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-05

"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."

— Plato (c. 428-348 BCE) Phaedo, chapter 115 (c. 348 BCE)

CEOs of the seven largest tobacco companies being sworn in at a congressional hearing on the regulation of tobacco products (April 14, 1994) Minutes after this photograph was taken, each of them would lie under oath that nicotine was not addictive. Left to right, Donald Johnston (American Tobacco), Thomas Sandefur (Brown and Williamson), Edward Horrigan (Liggett Group), Andrew Tisch (Lorillard), Joseph Taddeo (US Tobacco), James Johnston (RJ Reynolds), and William Campbell (Philip Morris)

Quote of the Day for 2016-02-24

"One cannot play chess if one becomes aware of the pieces as living souls and of the fact that the Whites and the Blacks have more in common with each other than with the players. Suddenly one loses all interest in who will be champion."

— Anatol Rapoport (1911-2007) Strategy and Conscience

East German border guards carrying the body of Peter Fechter after he'd been wounded and left to die at the Berlin Wall (August 17, 1962)

Quote of the Day for 2016-02-22

"My soul is a canvas stretched across four wooden corners and tacked with copper nails that sink into the edges of timber like teeth."

— Keariene Muizz (1977-    ) "Standing the Test of Time," NY Arts magazine, December 2008

The Offering, part of the Sacred Stones series by Keariene Muizz (2008)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-10

"[A friend is] one soul abiding in two bodies."

— Aristotle (384-322 BCE) Quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, book 5

David Bowie and Tilda Swinton on the set of The Stars (Are Out Tonight), photographed by Floria Sigismondi (2013)

Quote of the Day for 2015-09-18

"The soul, too, has her virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit."

— George Santayana (1863-1952) "Normal Madness," Dialogues in Limbo

The Two Fridas by Frida Kahlo (1939). It was painted the same year she divorced Diego Rivera.

Quote of the Day for 2015-09-05

"I've never met a healthy person who worried much about his health, or a good person who worried much about his soul."

— J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) Attributed

Life Simplified by Matthieu Barrère