Pulchrum Declension Quotes

All higher education belongs only to the exception: one must be privileged to have a right to so high a privilege. All great, all beautiful things can never be common property: pulchrum est paucorum hominum. What contributes to the decline of German culture? That "higher education" is no longer a privilege - the democratism of Bildung, which has become "common" - too common. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The true key to the declension of the Roman empire which is not to be found in all Gibbon 's immense work may be stated in two words: the imperial character overlaying, and finally destroying, the national character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In his person, life, death and resurrection, Jesus Christ is the 'form of God'. As presented in the New Testament writings, the words, actions and sufferings of Jesus form an aesthetic unity, held together by the 'style' of unconditional love. Love is always beautiful, because it expresses the self-diffusiveness of being, and so is touched by being's radiance, the pulchrum. But the unconditional, gracious, sacrificial love of Jesus Christ expresses not just the mystery of being - finite being - but the mystery of the Source of being, the transcendent communion of love which we call the Trinity.25 Thus through the Gestalt Christi, the love which God is shines through to the world. This is Balthasar's basic intuition. ~ Hans Urs Von Balthasar

It is pleasing to be pointed at with the finger and to have it said, "There goes the man."
[Lat., At pulchrum est digito monstrari et dicier his est.] ~ Aulus Persius Flaccus

A condition which of declension would indicate a devil, may of growth indicate a saint. ~ George MacDonald

Well Dennis you don't have to hear any
of the mountain music they play here.
Telling the young lies so that they can learn to get old.
Favouring them
with biscuits. "It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to
Danville, declension on a three mile grade." In either case
collision course. You either pick up the music or you don't. ~ Jack Spicer

You ... you've been here quite a long time, haven't you?
What? Oh ... yes. Ever since I married What's-her-name. Uh, Martha. Even before that. Forever. Dashed hopes, and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested. How do you like that for a declension, young man? ~ Edward Albee

The natural term of an apple-pie is but twelve hours. It reaches its highest state about one hour after it comes from the oven, and just before its natural heat has quite departed. But every hour afterward is a declension. And after it is one day old, it is thence-forward but the ghastly corpse of apple-pie. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

We have followed the general practice in referring to the nominative form as a "case" among four other cases. However, some modern grammarians have developed an account which goes back to Aristotle and according to which the term "noun" ('onoma') should be reserved for the nominative form, which names ('onomazein') simply, with no indication of a relation to other elements in the sentence. From its base (or "upright" or "straight" -- 'orthe', 'eutheia') form and function, a noun may undergo a "fall" ('ptosis', Latin 'casus', whence English 'case') or "inclination" ('klisis', from 'klino') towards other elements within the sentence. The roster of such fallings off is called a 'declension'. Although it is convenient to include the nominative form among the "cases," we shall occasionally refer to the other four as the 'oblique' cases. ~ Alfred Mollin

For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers may find their long-awaited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand retrieval. ~ George Eliot

Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book. ~ Samuel Johnson

Nine times out of ten, declension from God begins in the neglect of private prayer. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Terms


BEN MARCUS, THE 1. False map, scroll, caul, or parchment. It is comprised of the first skin. In ancient times, it hung from a pole, where wind and birds inscribed its surface. Every year, it was lowered and the engravings and dents that the wind had introduced were studied. It can be large, although often it is tiny and illegible. Members wring it dry. It is a fitful chart in darkness. When properly decoded (an act in which the rule of opposite perception applies), it indicates only that we should destroy it and look elsewhere for instruction. In four, a chaplain donned the Ben Marcus and drowned in Green River. 2. The garment that is too heavy to allow movement. These cloths are designed as prison structures for bodies, dogs, persons, members. 3. Figure from which the antiperson is derived; or, simply, the antiperson. It must refer uselessly and endlessly and always to weather, food, birds, or cloth, and is produced of an even ratio of skin and hair, with declension of the latter in proportion to expansion of the former. It has been represented in other figures such as Malcolm and Laramie, although aspects of it have been co-opted for uses in John. Other members claim to inhabit its form and are refused entry to the house. The victuals of the antiperson derive from itself, explaining why it is often represented as a partial or incomplete body or system--meaning it is often missing things: a knee, the mouth, shoes, a heart ~ Ben Marcus

It is noble to grant life to the vanquished.
[Lat., Pulchrum est vitam donare minori.] ~ Statius

Maps. I was less clueless about the basics of English, though I didn't realise at the time that I was assuming that English grammar was the same as the Latin grammar I had been taught so well. (I remember that the first week I was there, a boy asked me during prep whether ager was second or third declension and I was able to tell him without pausing for thought that ager - a field - was second declension, so it went like annus, but that it dropped the "e," as opposed to agger - a rampart - which was third declension, and retained the "e." "My God," I thought as he walked away, "Captain Lancaster did a good job." My next thought was, "Lucky the boy didn't ask me what a rampart was. ... ") But given that I was teaching ten-year-olds, Geoffrey Tolson's advice to "stay a page ahead" seemed perfectly sound. So I had no reason to believe, as I strode purposefully into the classroom to teach Form III their first history ~ John Cleese

And from the first declension of the flesh
I learnt man's tongue, to twist the shapes of thoughts
Into the stony idiom of the brain ... ~ Dylan Thomas