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Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

quote by George Bernard Shaw
Added by Lucian Velea
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Morning Bell / Amnesiac

after years of waiting * nothing came * and as your life flashed before your eyes you realize * i'm a reasonable man, get off, get off, get off my case * i'm a reasonable man, get off my case get off, get off my case * after years of waiting * after years of waiting * nothing came * and as your life flashed before your eyes you realize you were looking the wrong place * i'm a reasonable man, get off my case get off, get off my case * i'm a reasonable man, get off my case get off, get off my case * get off my case * i'm a reasonable man, get off my case get off, get off my case * get off my case * after years of waiting * i'm a reasonable man, get off my case get off, get off my case * get off my case * i'm a reasonable man, get off my case get off, get off my case * get off my case * i'm a reasonable man, get off my case get off, get off my case * get off my case * i'm a reasonable man, get off my case get off, get off my case * get off my case *

song performed by Radiohead
Added by Lucian Velea
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Epitaph on an Unread Verse after William Carlos Williams' Red Wheelbarrow

This is just to play on plum phrases
hibernating in your brainbox,
which your neurones were probably waiting for
to break free fast.

Forgive me their taste is delicious,
so neat and so bold.

An agèd poet with hollow laughter
swiftly sprayed her incisive syllables
in consonant activity and, yearning,
paid [s]lip service:

so much depends
upon lifelong learning's expectations,
an unread verse [s]pokes for comments,
reigns above lily-livered chicken-hearted critics
before a blank screen.

so much more depends
upon monochromatic ash clouds
glazed with silicates
beside Icelandic
eruptions.

Life is verse role-reversing uninclined ignorance
shadowing dis...inclined ink lined page.

(Revised 3 October 2009 and19 Aptil 2010)

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
William Carlos Williams 1883_1963

Variation on a Theme by William Carlos Williams
1 I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer. I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do and its wooden beams were so inviting.

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poem by Jonathan Robin
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Miss Reid's Speed Seeds Misread Red Weed Barrow Greed Screed

Miss Reid's Speed Seeds Misread Red Weed Barrow Greed Screed

So much depends upon callow Monsanto’s
arrow minded rein reign
glazed with gain and, again, phrased with pain,

wheedling sallow farmers who see red
forced to furrow b[l]ushels of transgenic sterile crop seeds
on narrow plain
lots which soon lie fallow
rather than wide marrow
raised with rain
and fertile appetizers

Need greed's speed weed reeds
beside white ants’
terror might nest?

Fazed again, who chickens out of errors?

12 October 2009 robi3_1928_will5_0006 PVW_JNX
Parody William Carlos Williams 1883_1963 The Red Wheelbarrow

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon
a red
wheelbarrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

William Carlos WILLIAMS 1883_1963

WILLIAMS William Carlos 1883_1963 will5_0001_will5_0000 PXX_NXX The Red Wheelbarrow_So Much Depends
__________________

The Yellow Goldfish

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poem by Jonathan Robin
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

classic quote by George Bernard Shaw
Added by Lucian Velea
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

quote by George Bernard Shaw
Added by Lucian Velea
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

quote by George Bernard Shaw
Added by Lucian Velea
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw in Man and Superman (1903)
Added by Lucian Velea
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

quote by George Bernard Shaw
Added by Lucian Velea
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

quote by Robert Anson Heinlein
Added by Lucian Velea
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Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men.

quote by Edwin Louis Cole
Added by Lucian Velea
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Get Some Rest

Getting little rest...
Isn't what's suggested is the best thing.
But...
Once one is committed,
It's difficult to quit.
Like many would would rather sit,
Just to...
Reminisce a bitterness,
Or...
Ignore the taking of those risks,
To...
Excuse the value of it.

And as a bit of a reminder...
Progress isn't made by sitting.
Progress isn't made by quitting.
Progress takes sacrificing,
What is wanted and what one likes.
And...
Progress isn't made by wishing.
Progress isn't made by shrinking...
Away to sneak a taste of cake,
While awaiting for someone else to make.
And...
Progress isn't made by sitting.
No.
Progress isn't made by quitting.
no.
Progress takes sacrificing,
What one wants, prefers and likes.

And,
Getting little rest...
Isn't what's suggested is the best thing.
But...
Once one is committed,
It's difficult to quit.
Like many would would rather sit,
Just to...
Reminisce a bitterness,
Or...
Ignore the taking of those risks,
To...
Excuse the value of it.

And as a bit of a reminder...
Get up and be tough.
Know,
To quit is not the best thing.
But...

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Interpretation of Nature and

I.

MAN, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.


II.

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

III.

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

IV.

Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within.

V.

The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now are) with slight endeavour and scanty success.

VI.

It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

VII.

The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufactures. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known; not in the number of axioms.

VIII.

Moreover the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.

IX.

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this -- that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

X.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it.

XI.

As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.

XII.

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.

XIII.

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poem by Sir Francis Bacon
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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Tell Me Now

Is my,
Loving you unreasonable?
Are my,
Feelings out of touch?
Do I,
Appear to be impossible?
Do you,
Think I clutch too much.

And is my,
Loving you unreasonable?
And are my,
Feelings out of touch?
And do I,
Appear to be impossible?
And do you,
Think I clutch too much.

Tell me now,
'Cause my patience is a keeper.
And you don't know how,
I can tolerate a need.
And this you know by now,
I have love for you forever.
And that somehow,
Is the reason why you think I'm here,
Because we shared a vow?

Is my,
Loving you unreasonable?
Tell me now...
Are my,
Feelings out of touch?
Tell me now...
Do I,
Appear to be impossible?
Tell me now...
Do you,
Think I clutch too much.
And that 'too much' is enough!

Tell me now,
Has that too much been enough?
Tell me now,
Is my loving you unreasonable?
Tell me now,
Has that too much been enough?
Tell me now...
Do you,
Think I clutch too much?

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Song Goes On

I never left at all you were there before
Never let it go now I need some more
But you did confuse me you get it on get it on
And If I had to use me I? be there in the song
And the song goes on
Ah yeah and the song goes on
I?e been by the sides
Would?t you agree with me
Never fought it off kept away oh so bad
Don? like your world or the way you had
You secure your choice your?e around like a voice
Never let you know you were there every word
And the word goes on
Ah yeah and the word goes on
I?e been by the sides
Would?t you agree with me
It depends on whose doorway you walk through
To find the truth
It depends on whose doorway you walk through
To find the truth
Never left at all you were there like before
I never let it go now I need some more
Oh you did confuse me you?e in my way on and on
If I had to use me I? be there in the song
And the song goes on
Ah yeah and the song goes on
It depends on whose doorway you walk through
To find the truth
It depends on whose doorway you walk through
To find the truth
It depends on whose doorway you walk through
To find the truth
It depends on whose doorway you walk through
To find the truth

song performed by Ocean Colour Scene
Added by Lucian Velea
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What You Want

Think once if you want a little bit of fun
Think twice if you think I could be the one
Three times get your game on ready to run
All depends on what you want
I could get you caught up in a spin
Think twice
Is it the real thing you're into
Turn your life back to front
All depends on what you want
Come in baby I'm freezin
Stay a while or just breeze in
Check one one time together
Two for love, real and forever
We're not children anymore no
Can't tell what you're in my life for
Decide before we take the ride
Free fall or a rollercoaster oh oh
Put in a box
Friend or lover or both
Choice A, Choice B Uno, dos
Think once if you want a little bit of fun
Think twice if you think I could be the one
Three times get your game on ready to run
All depends on what you want
I could get you caught up in a spin
Think twice
Is it the real thing you're into
Turn your life back to front
All depends on what you want
Listen up no strings attached dear
Not into pressure, come around here
Let's Play
What do you say
Life's a little game oh oh
And if you want to take it further
Hang out, get a little closer
That's cool, no rules
It's really up to me and you
We'll hang a tag on this
After our first kiss
We can play this any way we want to
Think once if you want a little bit of fun
Think twice if you think I could be the one
Three times get your game on ready to run
All depends on what you want
I could get you caught up in a spin
Think twice
Is it the real thing you're into
Turn your life back to front
All depends on what you want

[...] Read more

song performed by Debbie Gibson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Dependence

What is this, all of my darkest fears?
Why have they gathered here?
To watch a fool go down.
Go away. why would you waste your time?
Here where the sun wont shine.
Theres nothing left for you.
Chorus:
I cant go on this way
Knowing you dont want me.
I cant go on this way
Knowing you dont need me.
I cant go on this way
When everything I do depends on you.
Depends on you.
I had it all. one of the sunny boys.
Hear my pride and joy.
You were always there by me.
Funny how fast sunny times go by?
And fall to a darkened sky.
And lot of useless toys
I cant go on this way
Knowing you dont want me.
I cant go on this way
Knowing you dont need me.
I can t go on this way
When every step I take depends on you
Depends on you.
I cant go on this way
Knowing you dont want me.
I cant go on this way
Knowing you dont need me.
I cant go on this way
When everything I do depends on you.
Depends on you

song performed by Richard Marx
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Task: Book VI. -- The Winter Walk at Noon

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospect the journey seems,
It seem’d not always short; the rugged path,
And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn,
Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length.
Yet, feeling present evils, while the past
Faintly impress the mind, or not at all,
How readily we wish time spent revoked,
That we might try the ground again, where once
(Through inexperience, as we now perceive)
We miss’d that happiness we might have found!
Some friend is gone, perhaps his son’s best friend,
A father, whose authority, in show
When most severe, and mustering all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love:
Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower,
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a blessing in its darkest frown,
Threatening at once and nourishing the plant.
We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand
That rear’d us. At a thoughtless age, allured
By every gilded folly, we renounced
His sheltering side, and wilfully forewent
That converse, which we now in vain regret.
How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy’s neglected sire! a mother too,
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death.
Sorrow has, since they went, subdued and tamed
The playful humour; he could now endure
(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears)
And feel a parent’s presence no restraint.
But not to understand a treasure’s worth

[...] Read more

poem by William Cowper
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Second Book

TIMES followed one another. Came a morn
I stood upon the brink of twenty years,
And looked before and after, as I stood
Woman and artist,–either incomplete,
Both credulous of completion. There I held
The whole creation in my little cup,
And smiled with thirsty lips before I drank,
'Good health to you and me, sweet neighbour mine
And all these peoples.'
I was glad, that day;
The June was in me, with its multitudes
Of nightingales all singing in the dark,
And rosebuds reddening where the calyx split.
I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God!
So glad, I could not choose be very wise!
And, old at twenty, was inclined to pull
My childhood backward in a childish jest
To see the face of't once more, and farewell!
In which fantastic mood I bounded forth
At early morning,–would not wait so long
As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings,
But, brushing a green trail across the lawn
With my gown in the dew, took will and way
Among the acacias of the shrubberies,
To fly my fancies in the open air
And keep my birthday, till my aunt awoke
To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmured on,
As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves;
'The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned
Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone,
And so with me it must be, unless I prove
Unworthy of the grand adversity,–
And certainly I would not fail so much.
What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day
In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it,
Before my brows be numb as Dante's own
To all the tender pricking of such leaves?
Such leaves? what leaves?'
I pulled the branches down,
To choose from.
'Not the bay! I choose no bay;
The fates deny us if we are overbold:
Nor myrtle–which means chiefly love; and love
Is something awful which one dare not touch
So early o' mornings. This verbena strains
The point of passionate fragrance; and hard by,
This guelder rose, at far too slight a beck
Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples.
Ah–there's my choice,–that ivy on the wall,
That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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