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فَلَو كانَ ما بي من حبيبٍ مُقَنَّعٍ عَذَرتُ ولكن من حبيبٍ مُعَمَّمِ رَمى واتّقى رَميِي ومِن دونِ ما اتّقى هوىً كاسِرٌ كَفِّي وقَوسي وأسهُمي — أبو الطيب المتنبي

At the risk of sounding like a show-off, but I really enjoy the way my mind connects all these works and persons together

Advantage of being religious.

– There are sober and industrious people to whom religion adheres like a bordering of higher humanity: such people do well to remain religious, it beautifies them. All men incapable of wielding some kind of weapon or other–mouth and pen included as weapons–become servile: for these Christianity is very useful, for within Christianity servility assumes the appearance of a virtue and is quite astonishingly beautified. People whose daily life appears to them too empty and monotonous easily become religious: this is understandable and forgivable; only they have no right to demand religiosity of those whose daily life is not empty and monotonous.

— Human All Too Human, by Friedrich Nietzsche

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Simply stated: • One can wear a crown, yet still be a slave within. • One must either be his own master only if he's truly worthy of it, or surrender–with gladness–to a higher master in whose service one is exalted.

Simply stated: • One can wear a crown, yet still be a slave within. • One must either be his own master only if he's truly worthy of it, or surrender–with gladness–to a higher master in whose service one is exalted.

Every one had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him; or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals. True, he said. And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of the whole city; and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them a principle analogous to the constitution of a state, and by cultivation of this higher element have set up in their hearts a guardian and ruler like our own, and when this is done they may go their ways. — Plato's Republic (Book IX)

Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean . . . Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent.

Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same rule prevail? his soul is full of meanness and vulgarity—the best elements in him are enslaved; and there is a small ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest. Inevitably. And would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul of a freeman, or of a slave? He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion. — Plato's Republic (Book IX)

Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same rule prevail? his soul is full of meanness and vulgarity—the best elements in him are enslaved; and there is a small ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest. Inevitably. And would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul of a freeman, or of a slave? He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion. — Plato's Republic (Book IX)

— House M.D.

The fisherman and the syren By Frederic Leighton

The painting's subject is the hands, not the faces

The painter's honeymoon By Frederic Leighton

إن من باعثات اليأس من تهذيب البشر مناقشة شخص تربطه علاقة عاطفية مع أفكاره، فليس هناك من حجة تطرحها قادرة على تغيير قناعة الإنسان الذي يحب آرائه أكثر من الحقيقة.

Idleness By John William Godward