People From France

"Thought without language, says Lavelle, would not be a purer thought; it would be no more than the intention to think. And his last book offers a theory of expressiveness which makes of expression not “a faithful image of an already realized interior being, but the very means by which it is realized.”"

"Even those who have desired to work out a completely positive philosophy have been philosophers only to the extent that, at the same time, they have refused the right to install themselves in absolute knowledge. They taught not this knowledge, but its becoming in us, not the absolute but, at most, our absolute relation to it, as Kierkegaard said. What makes a philosopher is the movement which leads back without ceasing from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge, and a kind of rest in this movement."

"It is a great good fortune, as Stendhal said, for one “to have his passion as a profession.”"

"The function [of objective thinking] is to reduce all phenomena which bear witness to the union of subject and world, putting in their place the clear idea of the object as in itself and of the subject as pure consciousness. It therefore severs the links which unite the thing and the embodied subject, leaving only sensible qualities to make up our world (to the exclusion of the modes of appearance which we have described), and preferably visual qualities, because these give the impression of being autonomous, and because they are less directly linked to our body and present us with an object rather than introducing us into an atmosphere. But in reality all things are concretions of a setting, and any explicit perception of a thing survives in virtue of a previous communication with a certain atmosphere."

"Language transcends us and yet, we speak."

"Hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness, moonlight and sunlight present themselves in our recollection not preeminently as sensory contents but as certain kinds of symbioses, certain ways outside has of invading us and certain ways we have of meets this invasion..."

"The world is nothing but 'world-as-meaning.'"

"By becoming the pure subject who knows the world objectively, man ultimately realizes that absolute consciousness with respect to which the body and individual existence are no longer anything but objects; death is deprived of meaning. Reduced to the status of object of consciousness, the body could not be conceived as an intermediary between "things" and the consciousness which knows them."

"The accidents of our bodily constitution can always play this revealing role on the condition that they become a means of extending our knowledge by the consciousness which we have of them, instead of being submitted to as pure facts which dominate us. Ultimately, El Greco's supposed visual disorder was conquered by him and so profoundly integrated into his manner of thinking and being that it appears finally as the necessary expression of his being much more than as a peculiarity imposed from the outside. It is no longer a paradox to say that "El Greco was astigmatic because he produced elongated bodies." Everything which was accidental in the individual, that is, everything which revealed partial and independent dialectics without relationship to the total signification of his life, has been assimilated and centered in his deeper life. Bodily events have ceased to constitute autonomous cycles, to follow the abstract patterns of biology and psychology, and have received a new meaning."

"[The sensate body possesses] an art of interrogating the sensible according to its own wishes, an inspired exegesis"

"Montaigne [puts] not self-satisfied understanding but a consciousness astonished at itself at the core of human existence."

"We are not called upon to do all the good possible, but only that which we can do."

"[The Community's] crosses and trials give me confidence. But I derive my hope above all, and most especially, from our utter incapacity, for it is always upon nothingness that God is pleased to rear His works. If at any day we accomplish some good here, the glory will certainly be His alone, since He has employed for this end instruments more capable of spoiling everything than of making it succeed."

"I do not wish to be labeled, at the most I can assure you that I am Aquarian in the sense that I live in the Age of Aquarius, that I am a person similar to the Aquarian type which is seen more and more in the Age of the Water Bearer."

"The beauty of the forests of Indiana in the rich and lovely month of May surpasses all description. The rivers, swollen by the rains, flow through long lanes of verdure, caressing the islands they seem to carry with them in their course and which look like floating nosegays. The trees raise their straight trunks to the height of more than a hundred and twenty feet and are crowned with tops of admirable beauty. The magnolia, the dog-wood, the catalpa, covered with white flowers, the permed snow of the springtime, intermingle with the delicate green of the other trees."

"The most painful sight I saw in New Orleans was the selling of slaves. Every day in the streets at appointed places, negroes and negresses in holiday attire are exposed for this shameful traffic, like the meanest animals at our fairs. This spectacle oppressed my heart. Lo! I said to myself, these Americans, so proud of their liberty, thus make game of the liberty of others. Poor negroes! I would have wished to buy them all that I might say to them, "Go! Bless Providence. You are free!""

"For true hearts there is no separating ocean; or, rather, God is their ocean, in Whom they meet and are united. They love, they lose themselves in Him."

"Every evening at the same hour when the weather was calm, I used to go on deck and bless God for all the wonders of His creation. I loved to consider the care of God's Providence which extends even to the little fishes."

"A bell was rung. All the passengers came on deck. Never shall I forget the scene we then witnessed. It was ten o'clock in the morning. The sky was overspread with thick dark clouds. It looked like a vast temple at night, as the fitful, lurid sun cast a yellowish tinge resembling the pale light of the tapers near a catafalque. The foaming waves opened like immense tombs that seemed avid to swallow their first victim. When all was ready a porthole was opened, and a plank painted black, six feet long and three broad, was suspended over the deep. The body of a child, wrapped in a winding sheet, was placed upon it, with a large stone attached to the feet. For a minute or two the captain read -- I do not know what prayer. Profound silence reigned. The father scarcely shed a tear. The mother seemed quite unmoved. At a word spoken by the captain, the plank was raised in the air, and the next instant the light corpse glided into the waters. I made the Sign of the Cross over it, but alas, I do not know whether the child was even baptized. The passengers withdrew, apparently untouched by the scene, and some even smiled. How impiety deadens the heart!"

"My heart full of gratitude, longed to go to the sanctuary of Mary Immaculate to thank her for having granted this day of consolation to us. Happy to be free, we went straightway to the church of Our Lady of Victory, to pour out our hearts in tears of joy in the presence of our heavenly Protector and Mother."

"It is astonishing that this remote solitude has been chosen for a novitiate and especially for an academy. All appearances are against it."

"As to our garden and yard, we have all the woods. And the wilderness is our only cloister, for our house is like an oak tree planted therein."

"When one has nothing more to lose, the heart is inaccessible to fear."

"Nothing troubled the charm and silence of this solitude. Making the most serious reflections on what we behold, and on our present position, I said to myself: Thus does life also pass away, now calm, now agitated, but at last the end is attained. Happy, ah, thrice happy they who can then look out to the never-ending future with calm and confidence, who can cast themselves on the bosom of God, the Center of our felicity."

"They [Sisters of Charity in Frederick] excel in music, which is an indispensable thing in this country, even for the poor. No piano, no pupils! Such is the spirit of this country -- Music and Steam!"

"The problem is that many of his affirmations cannot be proven."

"The true country of a Christian, but above all of a Religious, is Heaven, towards which we are tending; it is for God that we have made this sacrifice, and, I may add, He has already repaid us, for His protecting hand has assisted us in a visible manner, and we cannot but recognize the attentions of His Providence."

"Come, if we have to die, let us die, but say nothing! … so true it is that misfortune binds hearts together."

"I have already exceeded the amount of work my head can bear."

"...they wish to make us pay taxes, which is contrary to the laws of the State. We refuse positively. It embarrasses them a little to have women resist them and speak to them about the law. Woman in this country is only yet one fourth of the family. I hope that, through the influence of religion and education, she will eventually become at least one half the "better half.""

"We have gone out several times this summer to gather simples and linden blossoms, etc. In each excursion we discover something marvelous, beautiful, and useful in the magnificent forests of Indiana. At each step we can admire the grandeur, the power, the goodness of God. How bountifully He provides for all our wants -- I would even say for our pleasures! I love our woods and solitude very much; …"

"...the Americans must have the Almighty dollar. Their cupidity renders them daring and indifferent to everything else. It is nothing to them to expose their lives and those of others in order to gain money. How materialistic these people are!"

"Let us never forget that if we wish to die like the Saints we must live like them. Let us force ourselves to imitate their virtues, in particular humility and charity."

"I must close now, for I am obliged to go to Terre Haute, where I am called to court to explain my conduct and defend myself against accusations relative to counterfeit money that was said to have been received from me. One has to come to America to be treated thus! Sometimes I am so disheartened with this country that I feel as if I were carrying on my shoulders the weight of its highest mountains, and in my heart all the thorns of its wilderness. Pray for me occasionally that I may not lose courage; nay, more, that I may be brave enough to hold up others who falter sometimes."

"You may have to wait longer than you would like, you may have to bear privations; but, bear and forebear. Have confidence in the Providence that so far has never failed us. The way is not yet clear. Grope along slowly. Do not press matters; be patient, be trustful."

"My main problem with 64-bit binary is that it’s one extra compile to do every time you want to release binaries, so you have to maintain one build system for your 64-bit binary and then every time you have to make a build you have to make sure you get both the 32-bit and 64. Really honestly, there’s not any kind of significant performance increase. If you have good compatibility you’re able to run 32-bit binaries on a 64-bit machine, that’s the performance you get. If you run a 64-bit binary, it’s not going to make much difference. The technology is cool, but there’s really not that much point for doing it."

"Thanks to Id fans everywhere .. special mention to Mac/Linux players and European gamers."

"Releasing Linux versions has always been a matter of higher code quality, good software architecture, and technical interest for the platform."

"I'll be damned if we don't find the time to get Linux builds done."

"It seems very odd to me that content would be removed based on an individual’s personal appreciation of relevance. If the article provides useful information and references, it should at least be valued for the efforts of the contributing individuals."

"Most of the network related programming in games has to do with providing a good interactive experience when playing over the internet. This matter is very different from serving web pages. The primary concern there is to handle connection latency, latency fluctuations, packet loss and bandwidth limitations, and pretty much hide all of that from the player's experience."

"It seems to be really happening. I mean, my parents are using Linux. The setup is still the tricky point, but I set the machine up last time I was in France and they've been actually catching on and start to use it. They like OpenOffice, they like having GAIM and Firefox, they're really happy with that. My brother-in-law, who's really a Windows guy, just decided to install Linux because he was tired of his machine being slow and spyware and everything. He really didn't need that much help from me to get his stuff running, doing mail and chatting and all that basic web stuff, so I guess it's really picking up."

"id is both a technology and an art company, so we try to push the art and the technology to its edge on each game, and when you're into high-tech you want to make sure your game can run on several platforms, and you have some room to experiment with several architectures. We don't want to have a basic product, get it out the door, sell as many copies as we can, and then just do the next one. Everyone's putting a lot of soul into the games, and id has got enough money overhead to decide that they can afford to have game ports to show that technology is good on Linux and on Apple hardware."

"The creature known as man is of course highly intelligent, he's capable of manufacturing almost anything from rumours to test-tube babies and yet he destroys two to three species every day. This is the absurdity of man."

"When God talks to humans he doesn’t want humans to hear his voice."

"In the snow outside my window I see a small green frog, one eye blinking and the other wide open, unmoving, looking at me . I know this is God."

"Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural."

"What is essential is whether it is perceived and not whether it exists. To exist and yet not to be perceived is the same as not exist."

"Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together."

"I hadn't originally intended to do any reading, what if I did read one book more or one book less, whether I read or not wouldn't make a difference, I would still be waiting to get cremated."