All Quotes

"He who with his whole heart believes in Jesus as the Son of God is thereby committed to much else besides. He is committed to a view of God, to a view of man, to a view of sin, to a view of Redemption, to a view of the purpose of God in creation and history, to a view of human destiny found only in Christianity."

"Sing thy armes (Bellona) and the man's Whose mighty deeds out-did great Tamberlan's."

"Wild mares' milk nurst him on the mountaines' gorse, Which gave him strength and stomach like a horse; Goats' flesh matur'd him, kill'd on craggy tops, Which taught him to mount rampiers like those rocks."

"Thy immortality Neptune thou must resigne, if I come thither: One sea may not containe us both together."

"Nor waves nor winds could fright him with the motion Who thought he could containe and pisse an ocean."

"A beare as black as darknesse, and as fell As tyger, vast as the black dog of hell."

"Hearts of oak."

"Here's no place to fly, Come friends, let's bravely live or bravely die."

"Thou drank'st but what thou pist for thrice seven dayes."

"What is a bore? Maxwell definition: a vacuum cleaner of society, sucking up everything and giving nothing. How do you spot one? Bores are always eager to be seen talking to you."

"Bores put you in a mental cemetery while you are still walking."

"Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church, or robbing a bank, but never to being bores."

"Judgment comes from experience and great judgment comes from bad experience."

"Giordano Bruno represented a break between the pre-modern and modern eras with his thinking. The pre-modern era involved the idea that there is an order in society as in everything else and that this order is vertical: from top to bottom; something, therefore, that clearly takes the form of a hierarchy. What Bruno brings to philosophy is the infinity of the universe. In an infinite universe, there are no absolute centers: every point is relatively a center, with respect to all the others. With Bruno, there is therefore a transition from a hierarchical vision to one that I would not hesitate to define as anarchic!"

"Naples is the city of longevity, it is always the ‘new city’, reborn ‘new’ in the 5th century BC, Greek in blood and spirit, but hybridized by countless cultures, offended by long oppression and never surrendered. Every time 'capta cepit". Its genius is not only concentrated in its extraordinary philosophers, from Bruno of Nola and therefore a fellow countryman to the great Vico, but also in the fabric of popular culture. The Neapolitan has no irony, but sharp wit: thus he defends himself not from life, like the ironic, but in life."

"Naples, in my dream, even if hopping and mocking like Pulcinella, will manage to build self-respect. [...] I have often reproached Naples for its shortcomings, for this bourgeoisie that I have deplored for its lack of unity. In Naples, there are many good bourgeois, but not a class that knows how to elevate the collective life of all through the effort of common dialogue, of a project. :*Quoted in ‘’The dream of Masullo, honorary citizen: ‘I would like Naples to build respect for itself’'‘, ilmattino.it, June 8, 2018."

"This is a theme that we have been pursuing for millennia, asking ourselves what is specific to Naples, if there is anything specific to Naples. From an approximate, empirical point of view, Naples certainly has the singularity of a character among its inhabitants that is very open to relationships with others. This has its historical origins. Those who live in the Basso, a few steps away from each other, are inevitably accustomed to a common custom, and it is this common custom that helps them in times of danger or difficulty. This is the first aspect. And it is on this fundamental, basic aspect that a whole culture develops. Neapolitan culture is a culture of community, of being together, as one might say. It is then a question of analyzing whether this being together is only a superficial attempt to remedy what we lack, that is, something deeper than our living, or whether this being together is itself the profound living that we seek. It is all to be decided, and we have not yet decided it in millennia."

"Among the characters frequently encountered in the great theater of Pulcinella that is Naples, there is not only the “guappo.” There is also the “soul of Purgatory.” On the walls at street corners in authentically working-class Neapolitan neighborhoods, one often finds votive shrines with Madonnas and saints, as well as “souls of Purgatory.” Their artistic value is nil, but their anthropological and cultural significance is very interesting. [...] It is not the devils of Hell or the angels of Heaven that inhabit Naples, but the souls of Purgatory. They are an intermediate population, whose only destiny is to try to save themselves from the worst depths and rise towards a definitive salvation from which they remain fatally distant. And the common people pray for the souls in Purgatory; they have a prominent place in their devotion. [...] The soul in Purgatory represents those who are not completely lost, who have not fallen into Hell, who have not disappeared, swallowed up in the bottomless cavities of the ground in Naples. In one way or another, Neapolitans nestle in these cavities and do not get lost: rather, like the soul in Purgatory, they remain suspended, halfway between high and low, between Paradise and Hell. Vertically, they move without changing place, without ever moving, just as horizontally a cyclist does, who, skillfully exercising their strength on the pedals, neither advances nor retreats: standing still on two wheels, they remain in balance or, as they say, ‘surplace’. [...] In the same way, the Neapolitan, without ever taking a step forward or backward, maintains his balance in his immobility."

"Leopardi argued that modern man no longer feels passion and emotion, that he spends his life in boredom. This state of mind, this fundamental insensitivity to difference, is accentuated today by the wealth of resources at our disposal, which multiply technical possibilities by pursuing quantity for its own sake."

"The inability to perceive differences afflicts all generations today, but it is particularly insidious for young people who have grown up under the banner of “nothing is impossible”: I can go to America in a few hours, dance all night, fill my eyes with hundreds of images in a few minutes, I can, I can, I can... a bulimia of quantity in which quality, that is, meaning, dissolves. In terms of time, speed is dominant."

"The driving force must come from those who can do more, i.e., from politics and institutions. Those who govern society at any level must show what it means to be human. Because example is the only thing that matters, the example set by those at the top makes collective effort possible. Only through example can rulers obtain consent to sacrifices."

"The essence of education is to promote the experience of difference and the exercise of enjoying what is not trivial, thus forming strong personalities."

"One can live there and feel quite at home because one can lose his heart to any country, and it is a commonplace that "home is where the heart is.""

"While China is overrun today with bandits, its coast infected by pirates, and petty larceny frequent — conditions for which unprincipled politicians are largely responsible — the Chinese, as a people, are found honest, industrious, patient, and religious. They are also in many respects far more moral than any realize except those who have lived among them."

"Oh, damn it! I slept with her ass, too."

"Oh, Shakey, I told her I was saving myself for marriage and that it would screw up our friendship, but she got me drunk on red wine and... well..."

"What does that matter? [points gun at himself] None of that matters now..."

"Why, what's the- AAAAAHHH!!"

"No, no, I can't. I'm more of an expert at, uh- EXPOSING the moon. (Chuckles, turns around and moons Drew, unaware that he is transforming into a werewolf) Get out your telescope! See if you'll find, uh, the one crater! (Continues chuckling, but stops and finally notices Drew's transformation) Wait a minute- No, no, no! It's cool! It's all cool here! NO! NO!"

"Whoah! Oh god!"

"Wait a minute. Uh... AAAAAHHHH!!"

"Aren't you tired writing about me? You should meet my niece who studied and worked in New York."

"Never compare yourself with anyone else. Be grateful for whatever you have.Love yourself and the rest will follow."

"Altars covered with streams of dried human blood, the stench of which was awful...huge pits forty to fifty feet deep were found filled with human bodies dead and dying, and a few wretched captives were rescued alive...everywhere sacrificial trees on which were the corpses of the latest victims...everywhere, on each path, were newly sacrificed corpses. On the principal sacrificial tree facing the main gate of the king’s compound there were two crucified bodies and forty-three more in various stages of decomposition. On another tree a wretched woman was found crucified, while at its foot were four more decapitated bodies. To the westward of the king’s house was a large open space, about three hundred yards in length, simply covered with the remains of some hundreds of human sacrifices in all stages of decomposition. The same sights were met with all over the city."

"The impression which the members of the expedition carried away from Benin town, as the City of Blood, was no doubt largely due to the number of corpses seen by them in the Arho Ogiuwu...which they thought were the bodies of slaughtered victims, whereas they were really those of executed criminals and of persons who had died from infectious disease, etc., to whom decent burial was denied. If also, as stated, all the human sacrifices consisted of criminals, these would probably have preferred death as an offering to the gods or ancestors than in any other form....The most abhorrent to modern ideas were the sun and rain sacrifices in which the victims were tied to trees, but it must be remembered that these were always wizards and witches, and so guilty, in native eyes, of the worst possible crime. The idea of Benin rule, therefore, as one of blood-stained despotism appears at variance with the truth."

"Every person who was able...indulged in a human sacrifice, and those who could not, sacrificed some animal and left the remains in front of his house. After a day or so the whole town seemed one huge pest-house."

"Crucifixions, human sacrifices, and every horror the eye could get accustomed to, to a large extent, but the smells no white man's internal economy could stand...Blood was everywhere; smeared over bronzes, ivory, and even the walls."

"Like many West Indians of my generation, I have been reading C. L. R. James’s Black Jacobins over and over for many years. I know many of its passages by heart... I found myself reading The Black Jacobins differently. I found myself wondering about the distance that separated James and me; I found myself looking back at James looking toward me and thinking that I inhabit as a dead-end present the postcolonial future he lived as a fervent expectation and hope... I think that The Black Jacobins offers us a very tantalizing hint, one that has everything to do with modernity. I mean if you compare the story of slavery told in the body of the text (which belongs to 1938) to the one told in the appendix, “From Toussaint L’Ouverture to Fidel Castro” (which belongs to 1963), a very interesting contrast comes into view. Whereas the earlier story belongs to the familiar resistance narrative of slavery-as-repressive-power (remember the great first chapter, “The Property”), the later story underlines something else, namely, the power that produced the subjects of a distinctive civilization—a power, in other words, that didn’t only negate (“demoralize” is the word James uses here) the humanity of the slave, but contributed to structuring and shaping the conditions of a particular form of humanity."

"Formerly this village was very thick and in a manner overcharged with inhabitants, which is yet visible from the ruins of half remaining houses; but at present the houses stand like poor men's corn, widely distant from each other."

"The rise of Benin...is closely connected with the European demand for slaves...The profits from the trade with the Europeans gave the rulers and merchants of Benin an incentive and also, in the form of firearms, the means, to extend their rule...By the end of the seventeenth century, however, the continual warfare was destroying the prosperity and even the structure of the state...Large parts of the city were deserted and left to crumble into ruins. Trade, even the trade in slaves, declined, and, as European traders came ever less frequently to the city, so the purpose of slave-raids became increasingly to provide victims for human sacrifices. Eventually, of all the greatness of Benin, all that survived was the unchecked and self-destructive lust of its rulers for power and human booty."

"...To bring us back to Small Axe, one of the things that we have had to worry about over the course of our existence is the extent to which or the senses in which we are a Caribbean journal with a sense of concern for the regional Caribbean, and not a diaspora journal, as we might have imagined ourselves to be."

"The only possible education is aesthetic education."

"I do think of my work, certainly in Refashioning Futures and Conscripts of Modernity, as work that has grown out of the larger conceptual vision that for me inspired the initiation of the Small Axe project — that is, a sense that the dream of anti-colonialism through which my generation came of age in the Caribbean, and through which the Caribbean was imagined as a space of social transformation and revolutionary change, has now been exhausted. And the end of that dream (and the practices of criticism that accompanied it) has created a demand for us to rethink the project of criticism and social change. This sense of the present infuses both my stewardship of Small Axe and the directions of my own research and writing."

"One of the things that Small Axe has been trying to do over the years is to be self-conscious about criticism as a question."

"There is in the kingdom of Benin an ancient custom, observed to the present day, that when the king dies, the people all assemble in a large field, in the centre of which is a very deep well, wider at the bottom than at the mouth. They cast the body of the dead king into this well, and all his friends and servants gather round, and those who are judged to have been most dear to and favoured by the king (this includes not a few, as all are anxious for the honour) voluntarily go down to keep him company."

"The kingdome of Benin [has] a very proper towne of that name, and an haven called Gurte. The inhabitants live in idolatry, and are a rude and brutish nation; notwithstanding that their prince is served with such high reverence, and never commeth in sight but with great solemnity, and many ceremonies: at whose death his chiefe favorites count it the greatest point of honour to be buried with him, to the end (as they vainly imagine) they may doe him service in another world."

"The ancient Africans were much addicted to idolatrie, even as certain of the Persians are at this day, some of whom worship the sunne, and others the fire, for their gods. For the saide Africans had in times past magnificent and most stately temples built and dedicated, as well to the honour of the sunne as of the fire. In these temples day and night they kept fire kindled, giving diligent heed that it might not at any time be extinguished."

"The fifteene kingdomes of the land of Negros knowen to us, are all situate upon the river of Niger, and upon other rivers which fall thereinto. And all the land of Negros standeth betweene two vast deserts, for on the one side lieth the maine desert betweene Numidia and it, which extendeth it selfe unto this very land: and the south side thereof adjoineth upon another desert, which stretcheth from thence to the maine Ocean: in which desert are infinite nations unknowen to us, both by reason of the huge distance of place, and also in regarde of the diversitie of languages and religions. They have no traffique at all with our people, but we have heard oftentimes of their traffique with the inhabitants of the Ocean sea shore."

"It is impossible at the present time to determine the extent of the Benin empire at any particular period in the past...The frontiers were continually expanding and contracting as new conquests were made and as vassals on the borders rebelled and were reconquered."

"Written accounts of Benin describe periods of fluctuating power and prosperity disturbed by civil wars which appear to have been caused by disputes over the succession to the kingship...Between periods of dissension the kingdom seems to have shown remarkable powers of recovery...The history of Benin, then, is one of alternating periods of territorial expansion and contraction in accordance with the degree of power and authority at the centre."