Ampunilah Translated Quotes

A German or a Russian mamaloschen (mother tongue) pedigree made for two wildly different translations of the same verse by the American Yiddish poet H. Leyvik.

"Dos turemdike lebn in der turemdike shtot", translated "The towering life of the towering city" (Yiddish turem, "tower," of German origin) became in another version "The imprisoned life of the prison city" (via turme, "prison", from Russian).

I discovered this old "plot" in a recent lecture, a volume on American Yiddish Poetry, by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav. One of those gentle epiphanies that only apparently obscure footnotes or references could reveal.

In a frivolous gesture, I concocted an improbable rendition based on both translations, a slice of contemporary universal metropolitan spleen:

The imprisoned life of the towering city. ~ Harshav

Over the last several months, public figures from the Pope downwards have bombarded us with the injunctions to fight against the culture of excessive greed and consumption. This disgusting spectacle of cheap moralization is an ideological operation if there ever was one: the compulsion (to expand) inscribed into the system itself is translated into a matter of personal sin, a private psychological propensity. The self-propelling circulation of Capital thus remains more than ever the ultimate Real of our lives, a beast that by definition cannot be controlled, since it itself controls our activity, blinding us to even the most obvious dangers we are courting. ~ Slavoj Zizek

Walt Whitman's proclamation that a leaf of grass was a miracle to confound all atheists did more justice to the findings of science than a positivism that stopped with the breaking down of the chemical reactions between sunlight and chlorophyll. This isolation of science from feeling, emotion, purpose, singular events, historic identity, endeared it to more limited minds. But it is not, perhaps, an accident that most of the great spirits in science, from Kepler and Newton to Faraday and Einstein, kept alive in their thought the presence of God-not as a mode of explaining events, but as a reminder of why they are ultimately as unexplainable today to an honest enquirer as they were to Job. (That thought has been admirably translated in Conrad Aiken's poetic dialogue with 'Thee.') ~ Lewis Mumford

I heard someone say he [Carl Sandburg] was the kind of writer who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by being translated into another language. ~ Robert Frost

My mum translated this in her head to "witchfinder," which was good because like most West Africans, she considered witchfinding a more respectable profession than policeman. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

Merkabah is translated as either meaning the throne of god or chariot. Both definitions imply a means of spiritual ascension, not a physical one. They only have it partly right. ~ L.Z.Marie

Love in the Daytime

My lover
Shines like the sun.
I may be burned
Black as a frying pan,
Sweating buckets
And keeling over
With vertigo,
But why worry?
My lover
Shines like the sun.
She pours over my body
And breathes into my soul.
It feels so good
When she lights
My love on fire
Like dry wood.

Translated from Tigrinya by Charles Cantalupo with Ghirmai Negash ~ Reesom Haile

I just bought two balls which remind me for the Dr.House ball. The ball which he used to play, however I bought one book by Stephen King translated on Bulgarian language it's called Finder Keepers! ~ Deyth Banger

A djinn I am.
My fetters may be broke but
still they wrap round wrist and
ankle:
every djinn's possessed.

The comet they speak of and know
not where it falls,
the love that glows like a lantern
down a road which
means nothing to the fearful:
Those passing see it as a mount,
which keeps you clear of sword
and spike
but holds you up to arrows;
I pass, my shade lashed to my foot,
love eating my soul like an acid;
The dunes change places in the
night without my leave;
The walls around me and their
guards in watches
cannot halt the full moon's com-
ing to my heart
before it's even risen and I've seen
it and
its silver floods my soul.
Here it is with a mattock, shatter-
ing everything inside me.

Translated by Robin Moger ~ Hermes

Less than 10% of the fuel energy burned in automobiles is translated into forward motion of the vehicle and even then most of this energy is needed to move the vehicle itself, which typically weighs 20 times more than its passengers. ~ David Suzuki

Light means knowledge in the Greek language it can also be translated as illumination, knowledge, insight, understanding and wisdom ~ Sunday Adelaja

I learned what research was all about as a research student [with] Stoppani ... Max Perutz, and ... Fred Sanger ... From them, I always received an unspoken message which in my imagination I translated as 'Do good experiments, and don't worry about the rest. ~ Cesar Milstein

You have to help good people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them. All around the world there are those who long to see your human goodness translated into a different, more compassionate way of relating with the rest of this bleeding planet. ~ Peter Storey

LINCKLAEN, JOHN. (Agent of the Holland Land Company.) Journals of Travels into Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont (1791-1792). Translated from French by Helen Lincklaen Fairchild. With biographical sketch and notes. New York, Putnams: 1897. ~ Anonymous

The reality of spirit-matter is inevitably translated into and confirmed by a structure of the spirit. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Atomism was viciously persecuted as heresy throughout the early Christian era, and only one printed manuscript of De Rerum Naturum survived the flames. There are several translations; I have chosen the one translated by my fellow Devonian and Oxonian, W. Hannaford Brown. Brown's own manuscript was almost destroyed during the Nazi bombardment of England in 1943: if a religious book had survived so many vicissitudes we can easily imagine what the faithful would say. But Lucretius teaches us to live without such piffle. ~ Christopher Hitchens

What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do not, after all, love their Friends greatly. I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other's presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man. ~ Henry David Thoreau

[To find a kiss of yours]

translated by Sarah Arvio.

To find a kiss of yours
what would I give
A kiss that strayed from your lips
dead to love

My lips taste
the dirt of shadows

To gaze at your dark eyes
what would I give
Dawns of rainbow garnet
fanning open before God -

The stars blinded them
one morning in May

And to kiss your pure thighs
what would I give
Raw rose crystal
sediment of the sun ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

Van sealed the letter, found his Thunderbolt pistol in the place he had visualized, introduced one cartridge into the magazine, and translated it into its chamber. Then, standing before a closet mirror, he put the automatic to his head, at the point of the pterion, and pressed the comfortably concaved trigger. Nothing happened - or perhaps everything happened, and his destiny simply forked at that instant, as it probably does sometimes at night, especially in a strange bed, at stages of great happiness or great desolation, when we happen to die in our sleep, but continue our normal existence, with no perceptible break in the fakes serialization, on the following, neatly prepared morning, with a spurious past discreetly but firmly attached behind. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

When you have done some programming then you'll know how satisfying it can be to use a program that you made yourself, one that does exactly what you want it to do. Creating a Sugar Activity takes that enjoyment to the next level. A useful Sugar Activity can be translated by volunteers into every language, be downloaded hundreds of times a week and used every day by students all over the world. ~ James D. Simmons

Since the Roman Judeo-Christian heritage is pure Aryan in its origins, its adherents had no clue how to unlock the language contained in the Semitic book (i.e., Bible) that fell into their possession. Whether in Greek or in Latin, the word got translated into 'Unicorn', 'horn' or 'Rhinoceros'in total disregard to the existence of that very same animal which has that name, the Arabian Oryx. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim

I translated the laws which pertain to our people into German and plan to read them aloud in our next community meeting. Whenever impudent people have to be kept in order, they like to refer to English freedom. However, in the future they will be confronted with the actual laws and will be forced to concede that English laws do not encourage undue licence and libertinism. ~ Johann Martin Boltzius

I was at Harvard with a whole bunch of poets, and that was very rare. They published a lot of books because there was an excitement after the war that translated into poetry. ~ Donald Hall

Christianity is not a religion for the masses, let alone for all. Cultivated by few and translated into deeds, it is one of the most splendid blossoms that can grow in the soul of a good man. ~ Joseph Goebbels

Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work. ~ James Lee Burke

If the people in our congregation become other-directed instead of self-directed in the adoption of unwanted children, they are going to be other-directed instead of self-directed in their verbal witness to people in their community. On the other hand, the same self-interest that sears over the joy of birth will sear over the joy of the new birth. The numbness to earthly adoption is easily translated to numbness to spiritual adoption. But if people in our churches learn not to grumble at the blessing of minivans filled with children - some of whom don't look anything alike - they're going to learn not to grumble at the blessing of a congregation filling with new people, some of whom don't look anything alike. If our churches learn to rejoice in newness of life in the church nursery, they'll more easily rejoice at newness of life in the church baptistery, and vice versa. ~ Russell D. Moore

To see how pretty an old woman once was, it is not enough just to look at each feature; they must be translated. ~ Marcel Proust

Physiological stress, then, is the link between personality traits and disease. Certain traits - otherwise known as coping styles - magnify the risk for illness by increasing the likelihood of chronic stress. Common to them all is a diminished capacity for emotional communication. Emotional experiences are translated into potentially damaging biological events when human beings are prevented from learning how to express their feelings effectively. That learning occurs - or fails to occur - during childhood. The way people grow up shapes their relationship with their own bodies and psyches. The emotional contexts of childhood interact with inborn temperament to give rise to personality traits. Much of what we call personality is not a fixed set of traits, only coping mechanisms a person acquired in childhood.

There is an important distinction between an inherent characteristic, rooted in an individual without regard to his environment, and a response to the environment, a pattern of behaviours developed to ensure survival. What we see as indelible traits may be no more than habitual defensive techniques, unconsciously adopted. People often identify with these habituated patterns, believing them to be an indispensable part of the self. They may even harbour self-loathing for certain traits - for example, when a person describes herself as "a control freak." In reality, there is no innate human inclination to be controlling. What there is in a "controlling" ~ Gabor Mate

In order for knowledge to be of value, there must be an internal process of understanding how that knowledge applies to reality. Furthermore, that understanding must be translated into a corresponding change of behavior. This is the process of learning. Learning is the process of adapting knowledge and experience into a change of behavior. ~ C W Newman

Although psychotherapy and writing are distinct in many ways, they are two fields whose great resource is the vast plains of the unconscious mind and how this landscape gets translated into words. As a writer, you are often asking your mind to dream while awake, and if remembering dreams is difficult in general, then it seems to follow that it would be sometimes grueling to conjure up the murky depths on call, eyes open. (Robert M. Young) calls it madness, which is a strong word, but it's not a bad one in exaggeration, because he's talking about creating a safe and bound space in which to explore all sorts of darknesses that collect in the recesses of the mind. He's talking about what we do not understand, or know about, or have control over. And the unconscious, if treated well, is the writer's very good friend. Allowing it room is crucial. Allowing it structure can be the safest way to access it without feeling overwhelmed. ~ Aimee Bender

The entire principle of a blind taste test was ridiculous. They shouldn't have cared so much that they were losing blind taste tests with old Coke, and we shouldn't at all be surprised that Pepsi's dominance in blind taste tests never translated to much in the real world. Why not? Because in the real world, no one ever drinks Coca-Cola blind. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

But then it came time for me to make my journey - into America. [ ... N]o coincidence that my first novel is called Americana. That became my subject, the subject that shaped my work. When I get a French translation of one of my books that says 'translated from the American', I think, 'Yes, that's exactly right. ~ Don DeLillo

Maybe all the secrets of life were written on the surface of leaves, waiting to be translated. If I touched them long enough, I might be given some information no one else had. ~ Silas House

Lex was about to ask what in the dickens that was supposed to mean, but then Uncle Mort nodded at Wicket in a secretive manner, which roughly translated as 'Screw you and your curiosities, Lex. We're telling you NOTHING. ~ Gina Damico

Do you know why I have so patiently translated Poe? Because he resembled me. The first time I opened one of his books, I saw with terror and rapture subjects dreamed by me and described by him, twenty years earlier. CHARLES BAUDELAIRE ~ Otto Rahn

I told myself that in the country of my birth, from which I was disengaged in an increasingly irreversible way, there undoubtedly were many men and women like him, basically decent people who had dreamed all their lives of the economic, social, cultural, and political progress that would transform Peru into a modern, prosperous, democratic society with opportunities open to all, only to find themselves repeatedly frustrated, and, like Uncle Ataulfo, had reached old age - the very brink of death - bewildered, asking themselves why we were moving backward instead of advancing and were worse off now with more discrimination, inequality, violence, and insecurity than when they were starting out ~ Edith Grossman

The ostrich is a bird that lost its ability to fly. So 'unalienable rights' should be translated into 'mutable characteristics'. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Actors are part of a certain percentage of people on this planet who have an emotional vocabulary as a primary experience. It's as if their life is experienced emotionally and then that is translated intellectually or conceptually into the performance. ~ Mary McDonnell