A Quote by William Empson

Liberal hopefulness Regards death as a mere border to an improving picture. — © William Empson
Liberal hopefulness Regards death as a mere border to an improving picture.
Must love be ever treated with profaneness as a mere illusion? or with coarseness as a mere impulse? or with fear as a mere disease? or with shame as a mere weakness? or with levity as a mere accident? whereas it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness,--mysterious, universal, inevitable as death.
My grandmother was not a U.S. citizen. Growing up along the border, you see the real human side of immigration - not the picture often drawn by politicians far removed from the border.
The ability to look at certain patterns with regards to urban fashion, with regards to swagger, with regards to cultural hegemony, with regards to the ways in which young people look at resistance culture as a pattern that should be mimicked and admired.
As regards the Liberal doctrines, the attitude of Fascism is one of absolute opposition both in the political and in the economical field.
You've really got to keep on improving and improving and improving. It still involves work. It's not like you get to a point, and then you're good and that's it.
Death is not as terrible as you think. It comes to you as a healer. Sleep is nothing but a counterfeit death. What happens in death we can picture in sleep. All our sufferings vanish in sleep. When death comes, all our mortal tortures cease; they cannot go beyond the portals of death.
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
I love borders. August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know. Twilight is the border between day and night, and the shore is the border between sea and land. The border is longing: when both have fallen in love but still haven't said anything. The border is to be on the way. It is the way that is the most important thing.
Death has an opposite, but the opposite is not mere living. It is not courage or faith or human will. The opposite of death is love. How had I missed that? How does anyone miss that? Love is our only weapon. Only love can turn mere life into a miracle, and draw precious meaning from suffering and fear
For a long time I believed the opposite of passion was death. I was wrong. Passion and death are implicit, one in the other. Past the border of a fiery life lies the netherworld. I can trace this road, which took me through places so hot the very air burned the lungs. I did not turn back. I pressed on, and eventually passed over the border, beyond which lies a place that is wordless and cold, so cold that it, like mercury, burns a freezing blue flame.
We may worship a picture as God, but not God as the picture. God in the picture is right, but the picture as God is wrong. God in the image is perfectly right. There is no danger there. This is the real worship of God. But the image-God is a mere Pratika.
A picture was a motionless record of motion. An arrested representation of life. A picture was the kiss of death pretending to possess immutability.
I think education is both using and improving knowledge and that changes the whole picture.
A soul-winner can do nothing without God. He must cast himself on the Invisible, or be a laughing-stock to the devil, who regards with utter disdain all who think to subdue human nature with mere words and arguments.
That's the primary mission of ours: to protect the border, enhance the border, and capitalize on what the border has to offer. It's the source of jobs, source of positive immigration stories.
Ireland regards sex, when she regards it at all, with an entirely primitive and practical eye.
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