work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3542,"","Reading Frederick Kiefer's Writing on the Renaissance Stage: Written Words, Printed Pages, Metaphoric Books. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1996. p. 113.",2006-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,Our conscience ... is a great Ledgier booke wherein are written all our offences,,9136,"",""" It was (as I said) once well agreeing with reason, and there was an excellent consent and harmony between them, but that is now dissolved, they often jar, reason is overborne by passion: Fertur equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas, as so many wild horses run away with a chariot, and will not be curbed.""","",2009-09-14 19:33:59 UTC,""
3568,"",Past Masters,2003-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"From all this I am beginning to have a rather better understanding of what I am. But it still appears - and I cannot stop thinking this - that the corporeal things of which images are formed in my thought, and which the senses investigate, are known with much more distinctness than this puzzling 'I' which cannot be pictured in the imagination. And yet it is surely surprising that I should have a more distinct grasp of things which I realize are doubtful, unknown and foreign to me, than I have of that which is true and known - my own self. But I see what it is: my mind enjoys wandering off and will not yet submit to being restrained within the bounds of truth. Very well then; just this once let us give it a completely free rein, so that after a while, when it is time to tighten the reins, it may more readily submit to being curbed.
(Second Meditation, p. 20)",2013-06-04,9237,"•Note this second anti-metaphorical moment: The ""I"" cannot be pictured in the imagination. See previous entry.
•But then it is described as a horse! INTEREST","""But I see what it is: my mind enjoys wandering off and will not yet submit to being restrained within the bounds of truth. Very well then; just this once let us give it a completely free rein, so that after a while, when it is time to tighten the reins, it may more readily submit to being curbed.""",Animals,2013-06-04 15:57:13 UTC,Second Meditation
3577,"",Past Masters,2003-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"Next, I would have looked at the benefits of this philosophy and shown that it encompasses everything which the human mind is capable of knowing. Thus we should consider that it is this philosophy alone which distinguishes us from the most savage and barbarous peoples, and that a nation's civilization and refinement depends on the superiority of the philosophy which is practised there. Hence the greatest good that a state can enjoy is to possess true philosophers. As for the individual, it is not only beneficial to live with those who apply themselves to this study; it is incomparably better to undertake it oneself. For by the same token it is undoubtedly much better to use one's own eyes to get about, and also to enjoy the beauty of colours and light, than to close one's eyes and be led around by someone else. Yet even the latter is much better than keeping one's eyes closed and having no guide but oneself. Living without philosophizing is exactly like having one's eyes closed without ever trying to open them; and the pleasure of seeing everything which our sight reveals is in no way comparable to the satisfaction accorded by knowledge of the things which philosophy enables us to discover. Lastly, the study of philosophy is more necessary for the regulation of our morals and our conduct in this life than is the use of our eyes to guide our steps. The brute beasts, who have only their bodies to preserve, are continually occupied in looking for food to nourish them; but human beings, whose most important part is the mind, should devote their main efforts to the search for wisdom, which is the true food of the mind. And I am sure that there are many people who would not fail to make the search if they had some hope of success and knew how much they were capable of. No soul, however base, is so strongly attached to the objects of the senses that it does not sometimes turn aside and desire some other, greater good, even though it may often not know what this good consists in. Those who are most favoured by fortune and possess health, honour and riches in abundance are no more exempt from this desire than anyone else. On the contrary, I am convinced that it is just such people who long most ardently for another good--a higher good than all those that they already possess. Now this supreme good, considered by natural reason without the light of faith, is nothing other than the knowledge of the truth through its first causes, that is to say wisdom, of which philosophy is the study. Since all these points are absolutely true, they would easily carry conviction if they were properly argued.
(p. 180)",2012-05-09,9257,"•Some of this is close to the Encyc. article on ""The Philosophe""","""The brute beasts, who have only their bodies to preserve, are continually occupied in looking for food to nourish them; but human beings, whose most important part is the mind, should devote their main efforts to the search for wisdom, which is the true food of the mind.""","",2012-05-09 14:07:32 UTC,Preface to French Edition
6696,"",Reading,2010-04-14 18:41:37 UTC,"The fact is, my son, that the human mind in studying nature becomes big under the impact of things and brings forth a teeming brood of errors. Aristotle stands for the tallest growth of one kind of error, Plato of another, and so on for the rest. Now, you would like me to confute them individually. But verily that would be to sin on the grand scale against the golden future of the human race, to sacrifice its promise of dominion by turning aside to attack transitory shadows. The need is to set up in the midst one bright and radiant light of truth, shedding its beams in all directions and dispelling all errors in a moment. It is pointless to light pale candles and carry them about to every nook and cranny of error and falsehood. I would have you learn to hate that for which you ask. Believe me, it is to sin against the light.
(p. 70)",,17785,"","""The fact is, my son, that the human mind in studying nature becomes big under the impact of things and brings forth a teeming brood of errors.""","",2010-04-14 18:41:37 UTC,Chapter 2
3476,"",Reading,2010-10-09 17:06:00 UTC,"But the poets and writers of histories are the best doctors of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth, with great life, how affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify: how they are enwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and encounter one with another; and other the like particularities. Amongst the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another; even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which otherwise percase we could not so easily recover: upon which foundation is erected that excellent use of praemium and paena, whereby civil states consist: employing the predominant affections of fear and hope, for the suppressing and bridling the rest. For as in the government of states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so it is in the government within.",,17996,"","""Amongst the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another; even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which otherwise percase we could not so easily recover.""","",2010-10-09 17:06:00 UTC,XXII
3479,"","Reading Irvin Ehrenpreis, Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age, 2 vols. (1962, reprinted Harvard UP, 1983), I, 233.",2012-05-11 14:39:19 UTC,"The second which followeth is in nature worse than the former: for as substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so contrariwise vain matter is worse than vain words: wherein it seemeth the reprehension of St. Paul was not only proper for those times, but prophetical for the times following; and not only respective to divinity, but extensive to all knowledge: Devita profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiae. For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected and falsified science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the other, the strictness of positions, which of necessity doth induce oppositions, and so questions and altercations. Surely, like as many substances in nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt into worms;--so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality. This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.
(I.iv.5, pp. 183-4 in Modern Library edition)",,19767,"","""For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.""",Beasts,2012-05-11 14:39:34 UTC,""
7390,"",Reading,2013-05-16 16:25:10 UTC,"Take this my endeauour I pray you in worth, cheerish and foster this deformed brood of my braine, in the lap (if I may so tearme it) of your good liking, and in loue esteeme it faire thogh badly penzeld ouer, to wish as Daphnis said to Dam
[GREEK]
Qui minime sunt pulchra, en pulchra videntur amāt
If the happie Daemon of Vlisses direct not the wandering planet of my witte within the decent orbe of wisedome, my stammering pen seeming far ouergon with superfluitie of phrase, yet wanting matter I answer with the poet one only word inuerted [...]
(Epistle Dedicatory)",,20177,"","""Take this my endeauour I pray you in worth, cheerish and foster this deformed brood of my braine, in the lap (if I may so tearme it) of your good liking.""",Animals,2013-05-16 16:27:00 UTC,Epistle Dedicatory
7390,"",Reading,2013-05-16 16:29:51 UTC,"[...] For if the soule by reason of sympathizing with the body is either made an [Greek] or a [Greek] either a nimble swift-footed Achilles, or a limping slow Odysseus, as hereafter we intend to declare, good reason the body (as the edifice or handmaid of the soule) should be knowne as a part of Teipsum for the good of the soule. Therefore Iulian the Apostata who had flood of inuentiō, although that whole flood could not wash or rinch away that one spot of his atheisme, he (though not knowing him a right) could say the body was the chariot of the soule, which while it was well manag'd by discretion the cunning coachman, the drawing steeds, that is our head-strong and vntamed appetites, being checkt in by the golden bit of temperance, so long the soule should not bee tost in craggy waies by vnequall and tottring motion, much lesse be in danger to bee hurled downe the steepy hils of perditiō. [...]
(Chapter I)",,20180,"","""Therefore Iulian the Apostata who had flood of inuention, although that whole flood could not wash or rinch away that one spot of his atheisme, he (though not knowing him a right) could say the body was the chariot of the soule, which while it was well manag'd by discretion the cunning coachman, the drawing steeds, that is our head-strong and vntamed appetites, being checkt in by the golden bit of temperance, so long the soule should not bee tost in craggy waies by vnequall and tottring motion, much lesse be in danger to bee hurled downe the steepy hils of perdition.""",Animals,2013-05-16 16:29:51 UTC,Chapter I
7855,"",Reading,2014-03-14 17:23:01 UTC,"Secondly, when you have made the heart thus affected with sinne, then take heed that the heart doth not flie off and shake off the yoke. Imagine meditation brings all those sins, and miseries, and vilenesse, all are brought home to the heart, and the soule is made sensible by this meanes: Hold the heart there then, labour to keepe the heart in the same temper, that it is brought into, by the consideration of sinne, for this is our nature, when the strooke is troublesome that lieth upon us, and the sinnes are hainous that lie upon us, and are committed by us, these sinnes, these sorrowes, these judgements, when the heart feeles this, it is weary, and would secretly have the wound healed quickly, and the sorrow removed, and the trouble calmed: Take heede of this, and labour to maintaine that heat of heart, which you finde in your selves by vertue of meditation, this is the pitch of the point: as there must bee subjection unto meditation, the heart must be so affected with sinne, as it conceived it to be, so there must be attention; that is, the soule must hold it selfe to that frame and disposition so wrought as it should be. Looke as it is with a Gold smith that melteth the metall that he is to make a vessell of, if after the melting thereof, there follow a cooling, it had beene as good it had never beene melted, it is as hard, haply harder, as unfit, haply unfitter, then it was before to make vessell of; but after he hath melted it, he must keep it in that frame till he come to the moulding and fashoning of it: So meditation is like fire, the heart is like a vessell, the heart is made for God, and it may be made a vessell of grace here, and of glory hereafter: Now meditation, it is that melts the soule, the drosse must be taken away from the soule, and sinne must bee loosened from the heart: Now meditation doth this, it melts the soule, and affects the soule with the weight of sinne: now when you have your heart in some measure melted, keepe it there, doe not let it grow loose againe, and carelesse againe; for then you had as good never have beene melted: And that is the reason why many a poore sinner that hath sometime beene in a good way, and the Lord hath come kindly and wrought powerfully on the heart, and yet at last it hath grown cold & dumpish, & as hard as ever he was againe, and the worke is to beginne againe. And take notice of it; looke as it is with the cure of the body, if a man have an old wound, and a deepe one; two things are observable; it is not enough to launce the wound, and draw out the corruptions, but it must be tented also, for if the wound be deepe, it must not be healed presently, but it must be kept open with a tent, that it may be healed soundly, and thoroughly: so it is here; meditation when it is set on, doth launce the soule, it launceth the heart of a man, and it will goe downe to the bottome of the belly: When a man seeth his sinne, and weigheth his sinne it will goe downe to the bottom sometime, and when your heart is thus affected, do not heale it too soone, but hold the soule in that blessed frame & disposition: For as meditation doth launce the soule, so attention doth tent the soule; keepe the soule therfore so troublesome and sorrowfull that so you may be healed soundly, thorowly, and comfortably.
(pp. 112-4)",,23702,"","""Secondly, when you have made the heart thus affected with sinne, then take heed that the heart doth not flie off and shake off the yoke.""",Animals,2014-03-14 17:23:01 UTC,""
8354,"",Reading,2022-04-26 21:26:45 UTC,"Hereunto adde thoughtes, and words: if one speake and thinke much of beautie, vaine attire, glory, honour, reputation; if he feele in his heart, that often he desireth to be praised, or to insinuate his owne praise, it is most manifest, that the Passion of Pride pricketh him; and so I meane of all other Affections, because the minde doth thinke, and the tongue will speake according to the Passions of the heart: for, as the Ratte running behinde a paynted cloth, betrayeth her selfe; even so, a Passion lurking in the heart, by thoughts and speech discovereth it selfe, according to the common Proverbe, [end page 78] ex abundantia cordis os loquitur, from the aboundance of heart, the tongue speaketh: for as a River abounding with water, must make an inundation, and runne over the bankes; even so, when the heart is overflowen with affections, it must find some passage by the mouth, minde, or actions. And for this cause, I have divers times heard some persons very passionate affirme, that they thought their hearts would have broken, if they had not vented them in some sort, either with spitefull words, or revenging deeds: and that they could do no otherwise than their Passions inforced them.
(pp. 78-9)",,25306,"","""For, as the Ratte running behinde a paynted cloth, betrayeth her selfe; even so, a Passion lurking in the heart, by thoughts and speech discovereth it selfe, according to the common Proverbe, ex abundantia cordis os loquitur, from the aboundance of heart, the tongue speaketh: for as a River abounding with water, must make an inundation, and runne over the bankes; even so, when the heart is overflowen with affections, it must find some passage by the mouth, minde, or actions.""","",2022-04-26 21:26:45 UTC,""