Preghiera

 

Shakespeare

 

Thy sight is young and thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.

September 26, 2020

Endeavour

 

The other side of the argument was equally trenchant. As Edmund Burke put it in the Commons, few could have envisaged the human miracle that had happened in North America in little more than a century. He asked his fellow MPs to imagine themselves transported to the year 1700. Now, look westwards, across the Atlantic:

There is America -- which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men an uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests and civilizing settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years you shall see as much added to her by America in the course of a single life.

"Endeavour" by Peter Moore (page 282)
Garrard, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2018

San Marco

 

   Gesú :  Vedi qualche cosa?

   Cieco (apri gli occhi e disse) : Scorgo gli oumini, perché vedo come alberi che camminano.

Parapé Tarse

 

Shakespeare

 What is your substance, whereof are you made,

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since everyone hath, every one, one shade,

And you, but one, can every shadow lend.

Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit

Is poorly imitated after you;

On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,

And you in Grecian tires are painted new.

Speak of the spring and foison of the year;

The one doth shadow of your beauty show,

The other as your bounty doth appear,

And you in every blessed shape we know.

   In all external grace you have some part,

   But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

Shakespeare, Sonnets, LIII

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "Wind, Sand and Stars"  -  Prisoner of the Sand