Frasi di John Cowper Powys

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John Cowper Powys

Data di nascita: 8. Ottobre 1872
Data di morte: 17. Giugno 1963

John Cowper Powys è stato uno scrittore britannico.

Autori simili

William Ralph Inge17

docente, scrittore, religioso (prete anglicano)

Joseph Addison9

politico, scrittore e drammaturgo britannico

Frasi John Cowper Powys

„Wuthering Heights è un grande libro, non soltanto perché le passioni vi sono intense, ma anche perché queste passioni recano la grave impronta della memoria, torva e tragica, di tutti coloro che, durante le generazioni, hanno abitato gli stessi luoghi ed hanno portato il pesante fardello delle sofferenze delle morti. È un grande libro perché il romanticismo vi emerge in spazi di una immensità serena e si manifesta in vaste forme primitive e grandiose, sdegnose di ogni ornamento frivolo.“

— John Cowper Powys
citato in Emily Brontë – Cime tempestose – Sinossi e commenti http://lafrusta.homestead.com/rec_bronte1.html, lafrusta

„One needs no strange spiritual faith to worship the earth.“

— John Cowper Powys

„The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.“

— John Cowper Powys
Context: This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this obliteration of life by nothingness is what the emotion of malice ultimately desires. The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness. Chapter I

„Even the most purely rational minds who find the universe in "pure thought" are driven against their rational will to visualize this "pure thought" and to give it body and form and shape and movement.“

— John Cowper Powys
Context: One of the curious psychological facts, in connection with the various ways in which various minds function, is the fact that when in these days we seek to visualize, in some pictorial manner, our ultimate view of life, the images which are called up are geometrical or chemical rather than anthropomorphic. It is probable that even the most rational and logical among us as soon as he begins to philosophize at all is compelled by the necessity of things to form in the mind some vague pictorial representation answering to his conception of the universe. Most minds see the universe of their mental conception as something quite different from the actual stellar universe upon which we all gaze. Even the most purely rational minds who find the universe in "pure thought" are driven against their rational will to visualize this "pure thought" and to give it body and form and shape and movement. Chapter I

„We are all creators. We all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless materials.“

— John Cowper Powys
Context: Not the wretchedest man or woman but has a deep secretive mythology with which to wrestle with the material world and to overcome it and pass beyond it. Not the wretchedest human being but has his share in the creative energy that builds the world. We are all creators. We all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless materials. p. 222

„Love, in spite of all rational knowledge to the contrary, is always in the mood of believing in miracles.“

— John Cowper Powys
Context: The influence of friendship upon culture differs from that of love, in that it assumes the basic idiosyncrasies of personal taste to be unalterable. Love, in spite of all rational knowledge to the contrary, is always in the mood of believing in miracles. p. 170

„We philosophize for the same reason that we move and speak and laugh and eat and love. In other words, we philosophize because man is a philosophical animal.… We may be as sceptical as we please. Our very scepticism is the confession of an implicit philosophy.“

— John Cowper Powys
Context: My answer to the question "Why do we philosophize?" is as follows. We philosophize for the same reason that we move and speak and laugh and eat and love. In other words, we philosophize because man is a philosophical animal.… We may be as sceptical as we please. Our very scepticism is the confession of an implicit philosophy. Chapter I

„It is strange how few people make more than a casual cult of enjoying Nature.“

— John Cowper Powys, A Glastonbury Romance
Context: It is strange how few people make more than a casual cult of enjoying Nature. And yet the earth is actually and literally the mother of us all. One needs no strange spiritual faith to worship the earth. p. 178

„The love that interferes and knows not how to leave alone is a love alien to Nature's ways.“

— John Cowper Powys
p. 209

„The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism.“

— John Cowper Powys
pp. 27-28

„Our rulers at the present day, with their machines and their preachers, are all occupied in putting into our heads the preposterous notion that activity rather than contemplation is the object of life.“

— John Cowper Powys
In Defence of Sensuality (1930), p. 136

„Most of the pathetic scenes in almost everybody's life are scenes unnoted by anyone and totally disregarded by the person in question.“

— John Cowper Powys
A Glastonbury Romance (1932; 1955) p. 849

„They are at least proof of the inalienable part played, in the functioning of our complex vision, by sensation as an organ of research. But they have a further interest. They are an illuminating revelation of the inherent character and personal bias of the individual soul who is philosophizing. I suppose to a great many minds what we call "the universe" presents itself as a colossal circle, without any circumference, filled with an innumerable number of material objects floating in some thin attenuated ether. I suppose the centre of this circle with no circumference is generally assumed to be the "self" or "soul" of the person projecting this particular image.“

— John Cowper Powys
Chapter I

„Every day that we allow ourselves to take things for granted, every day that we allow some little physical infirmity or worldly worry to come between us and our obstinate, indignant, defiant exultation, we are weakening our genius for life.“

— John Cowper Powys
pp. 134

„If by the time we're sixty we haven't learned what a knot of paradox and contradiction life is, and how exquisitely the good and the bad are mingled in every action we take, and what a compromising hostess Our Lady of Truth is, we haven't grown old to much purpose.“

— John Cowper Powys
The Art of Growing Old (1944), p. 13

„One always feels that a merely educated man holds his philosophical views as if they were so many pennies in his pocket. They are separate from his life. Whereas with a cultured man there is no gap or lacuna between his opinions and his life. Both are dominated by the same organic, inevitable fatality. They are what he is.“

— John Cowper Powys
p. 19

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cantautore e musicista italiano 1955 - 2015

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Giuseppe Diana2

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Altri 81 anniversari oggi

Frasi di John Cowper Powys

John Cowper Powys

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Tom Hodgkinson1

Michael Breen3

Charles Caleb Colton6

David Lane5

Martin Farquhar Tupper1

Denton Welch1

Thomas Hardy36

William Ralph Inge17

Joseph Addison9

Gerald Brenan5

Frasi John Cowper Powys

„One needs no strange spiritual faith to worship the earth.“

„The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.“

„Even the most purely rational minds who find the universe in "pure thought" are driven against their rational will to visualize this "pure thought" and to give it body and form and shape and movement.“

„We are all creators. We all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless materials.“

„Love, in spite of all rational knowledge to the contrary, is always in the mood of believing in miracles.“

„We philosophize for the same reason that we move and speak and laugh and eat and love. In other words, we philosophize because man is a philosophical animal.… We may be as sceptical as we please. Our very scepticism is the confession of an implicit philosophy.“

„It is strange how few people make more than a casual cult of enjoying Nature.“

„The love that interferes and knows not how to leave alone is a love alien to Nature's ways.“

„The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism.“

„Our rulers at the present day, with their machines and their preachers, are all occupied in putting into our heads the preposterous notion that activity rather than contemplation is the object of life.“

„Most of the pathetic scenes in almost everybody's life are scenes unnoted by anyone and totally disregarded by the person in question.“

„Every day that we allow ourselves to take things for granted, every day that we allow some little physical infirmity or worldly worry to come between us and our obstinate, indignant, defiant exultation, we are weakening our genius for life.“

„If by the time we're sixty we haven't learned what a knot of paradox and contradiction life is, and how exquisitely the good and the bad are mingled in every action we take, and what a compromising hostess Our Lady of Truth is, we haven't grown old to much purpose.“

Anniversari di oggi

Pino Daniele45

Philip Roth82

Ibn Khaldun4

Giuseppe Diana2

Autori simili

Tom Hodgkinson1

Michael Breen3

Charles Caleb Colton6

David Lane5

Martin Farquhar Tupper1