Thursday, April 21, 2011

Sonnet 116

by
William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose Worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
  

Source of Image: http://images2.layoutsparks.com/1/151793/deadly-red-rose-image-31000.jpg

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Thr Exact Science of Matrimony

Short Tastes - Your personal guide to the world of short stories
 
Writer: O Henry
Year of Publication:1919 (from the anthology 'The Gentle Grafter')
Genre: Comedy

Plot Summary:
Two men get together to do the perfect scam - open a marriage agency, fool unsuspecting suitors out of their money, and then pack up and enjoy their earnings. The plans they employ are foolproof.
 
 
Excerpt:
"We fixed up an advertisement that read about like this:
 
"Charming widow, beautiful, home loving, 32 years, possessing $3,000 cash and owning valuable country property, would remarry. Would prefer a poor man with affectionate disposition to one with means, as she realizes that the solid virtues are oftenest to be found in the humble walks of life. No objection to elderly man or one of homely appearance if faithful and true and competent to manage property and invest money with judgment. Address, with particulars.
Lonely,
Care of Peters & Tucker, agents, Cairo, Ill.

 
"So far, so pernicious,' says I, when we had finished the literary concoction. 'And now,' says I, 'where is the lady.'
Andy gives me one of his looks of calm irritation.
'Jeff,' says he, 'I thought you had lost them ideas of realism in your art. Why should there be a lady? When they sell a lot of watered stock on Wall Street would you expect to find a mermaid in it? What has a matrimonial ad got to do with a lady?'
'Now listen,' says I. 'You know my rule, Andy, that in all my illegitimate inroads against the legal letter of the law the article sold must be existent, visible, producible...'"
 
 

Sunday, April 3, 2011

A Brilliant Wit - Oscar Wilde

Quotes by the literary genius:

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. 


Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.



 
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.



 
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.


 
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. 


We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.