"A very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions!"
- Nietzsche「凡操千曲而後曉聲，觀千劍而後識器。」
劉勰《文心雕龍‧知音篇》「凡操千曲而后晓声，观千剑而后识器。」
刘勰《文心雕龙·知音篇》"You know, the only thing that matters is that you become yourself."
- Glenn Gould"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."
- Steve Jobs"To become what one is, one must not have the faintest notion what one is."
- Nietzsche「子曰：『君子和而不同，小人同而不和。』」
《論語‧子路》"Impotence infuriates. Anger stupefies."
- CL 1997"In the realm of god, there's no right or wrong: only true or false."
- CL 2001.04.03"Every happy person makes the world a better place."
- CL 2004.05.03"Personal and cultural identity consists in the history and the preferences, professed or practised."
- CL 2008.11.24"Weakness is the root of all evil."
- CL 2007"We have the greatest trouble saving ourselves from these losers. Because of their weak constitution they have the capacity to devastate the people around them..."
- Thomas Bernhard, Der Untergeher (The Loser)「四言敝而有楚辭，楚辭敝而有五言，五言敝而有七言，古詩敝而有律絕，律絕敝而有詞。蓋文體通行既久，染指遂多，豪傑之士，亦難於其中自出新意，故遁而作他體，以自解脫。一切文體所以始盛終衰者，皆由於此。故謂文學後不如前，余未敢信。但就一體論，則此說固無以易也。」
王國維《人間詞話》「優柚幼，尤有佑，泣潑滌。」
- CL「子曰：『見賢思齊焉，見不賢而內自省也。』」
《論語‧里仁》"Punishments and rewards can never be just---deserts are incalculable."
- Walter Kaufmann"It is nobler to blame and resent oneself than to blame and resent others, but it is nobler yet to rise above resentment."
- Walter Kaufmann"In fact, implicit in electronic culture is an acceptance of the idea of multilevel participation in the creative process."
- Glenn Gould 1964.05.30"[...] a critic must be a man of knowledge who is honest, clever, and sensitively responsive. Without these qualities, a critic is no critic, and does not deserve the public's attention. Through his lack of fundamental knowledge such a writer leads the public astray--thus hindering art, not helping it."
- Sergei Rachmaninoff (1915)"The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is---to live dangerously."
- Nietzsche「曾子曰：『孝有三：大孝尊親，其次不辱，其下能養。』」
《大戴禮記‧曾子大孝》"The despotism of money is in no way better than the 'terror' of militarism; the latter is confined to a class of people, the former is general.... The worthiest things, as art and philosophy, love and nature, good taste and inner satisfaction, are independent from it."
- Ferruccio Busoni"The greatest privilege as an artist is not to be well known and not to make a lot of money, but to achieve total independence. The more you grow as an artist, the more independent you can become, and the less you have to try to adjust to public taste. Indeed, you are able, in your independence, and with your knowledge and talent, to influence public taste."
- Daniel Barenboim"I do not believe in my dicta on music, but in music itself. I do not wish to communicate my thoughts on music, but my faith in music...
"The Theme is above all in intuition (in German 'einfall'). It is acquired, not invented. The intuition of a theme constitutes a command. The fulfilment of this command is the principal task of the artist, and in the fulfilment of this task all the powers of the artist himself take part. The more faithful the artist has remained to the theme that appeared to him by intuition, the more artistic is this fulfilment and the more inspired his work... "The theme is the most simple and accessible part of the work, it unifies it, and holds within itself the clue to all the subsequent complexity and variety of the work... The theme is not always, and not only, a melody... it is capable of turning into a continuous melody the most complex construction of form... "Melody, as our favourite and most beautiful form of the 'theme', should actually be viewed only as a form of the theme... "Form (the construction of a musical work) is harmony... Form without contents is nothing but a dead scheme. Contents without form, raw material. Only contents plus form is equal to a work of art... "Time (tempo) is the plane of music, but this plane, in itself, is not rhythm... A neglect of rhythm makes musical form the prose, and not the poetry, of sound... Song, poetry and dance are unthinkable without rhythm, which not only brings them into close relation, but often unites music, poetry and dance into one art, as it were... "Sonority (dynamics, colour, the quality of sounds) can never become a theme. While the other elements appeal to our spirit, soul, feeling, and thought, sonority in itself, being a duality of sound, appeals to our auditory sensation, to the taste of our ear, which in itself is capable merely of increasing, or weakening, our pleasure in the qualities of the object, but can in no way determine its substance or value... "Where thought and feeling confer with each other, you will find the artistic conscience. Inspiration comes, where thought is saturated in emotion, and emotion is imbued with sense..."
- Nikolai Medtner"If a doctor advises the enjoyment of wine, he does not wish his patient to become a drunkard. The state of freedom must not be confused with anarchy, because in anarchy, every individual is threatened by the other. Magnanimity is not the mania of prodigality and free love is not prostitution. Moreover, a good idea is not an artistic creation, someone with talent is not a master; a seed of corn, however strong and fruitful it may be, produces no harvest for a long time."
- Ferruccio Busoni"Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings---always darker, emptier, and simpler."
- Nietzsche"Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free."
- Paul Tillich"If I love you, is that your concern? (Wenn ich dich liebe, was geht's dich an?)"
- Goethe"I have never been able to understand the sentiment of patriotism, the love of empire; it has always seemed to me so empty and intangible an idea, so impersonal and so supremely unimportant as regards the things that really matter --- which are all the common heritage of humanity without distinction of race or nationality. ... It makes one's position very difficult, since unless one follows the line of least resistance and becomes a mere hypocrite, one is cut off, in one's sympathies and mental outlook, from at least nine-tenths of one's fellow-beings."
- Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock) to Delius, October 1914"People need idols."
- CL"Only those with whom you have a feeling of kinship would arouse your jealousy."
- CL"What is intelligence? Preconceptions: we have ideas about what we see or hear, well before we actually see or hear it."
- CL"The true individualist find unique and better ways of doing things."
- CL 2007.05.16"There's no question of exhibitionist display when technique and content are a perfect match."
- CL 2007.05.16"To admire and outgrow---that's the attitude towards idols."
- CL 2007.05.16"The Chinese language is like its time zone---it ought to be a family instead of a single conglomerate."
- CL 2007.04"Sensing he was not loved, he felt no love. Nothing could be more natural..."
- Les Misérables, Victor Hugo"Your own head, or more exactly the point between your eyes, is in the center. No matter how you turn or twist yourself, you can't get out of that central point. You are immovably the focus of your world."
- Maurits Cornelius Escher"...they sang a number of tuneful and reflective songs on the subjects of peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life and the obliteration of all other life forms."
- Douglas Adams"Do we want to look upon our youthful works with disdain?"
- CL"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost."
- JRRT"Man's desire is to play soli sometimes, and tutti other times."
- CL"To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection."
- Jules Henri PoincareOn self-deception: "After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists."
- Richard Feynman"Not so much the ability, but the desire to play around, and to notice."
- Richard Feynman"To love is to derive happiness from someone else's."
- CL 2002.02.10「子曰：『君子之道，或出或處，或默或語。二人同心，其利斷金；同心之言，其臭如蘭。』」
《周易‧繫辭上傳》「子曰：『成事不說，遂事不諫，既往不咎。』」
《論語‧八佾》「子曰：『不患人之不己知，患不知人也。』」
《論語‧學而》「子曰：『人不知而不慍，不亦君子乎。』」
《論語‧學而》「子曰：『人之難成久矣，惟君子能之。是故君子不以其所能者病人，不以人之所不能者愧人。』」
《禮記‧表記》「博聞強識而讓，敦善行而不怠，謂之君子。」
《禮記‧曲禮上》「子曰：『君子周而不比，小人比而不周。』」
《論語‧為政》「孟子曰：『無恆產而有恆心者，惟士為能。』」
《孟子‧梁惠王上》「他山之石，可以攻玉。」
《詩經‧小雅‧ 鶴鳴》「玉不琢，不成器；人不學，不成行。」
《韓詩外傳‧卷二》「好問則裕，自用則小。」
《尚書‧仲虺之誥》「業精於勤荒於嬉，行成於思毀於隨。」
唐韓愈《進學解》「知己知彼，百戰不殆。」
《孫子‧謀攻》「知己知彼，推己及人。」
何文匯《箴言精選》「子貢問：『有一言而可終身行之者乎？』子曰：『其恕乎。己所不欲，勿施於人。』」
《論語‧衛靈公》"The transitoriness of things is essential to their physical being, and not at all sad in itself; it becomes sad by virtue of a sentimental illusion, which makes us imagine that they wish to endure, and that their end is always untimely; but in a healthy nature it is not so. What is truly sad is to have some impulse frustrated in the midst of its career, and robbed of its chosen object; and what is painful is to have an organ lacerated or destroyed when it is still vigorous, and not ready for its natural sleep and dissolution."
- George Santayana"Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young, there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it---so at least it seems to me---is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river---small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and overfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue."
- Bertrand Russell