Nature, sentimentalized Nature, sentimentalized and considered as the antithesis of cities, is apparently assumed to consist of grass, fresh air and little else, and this ludicrous disrespect results in the devastation of nature even formally and publicly preserved in the form of a pet. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities respectnature
Think better of it This is, of course, the best way to salvage any kind of sorted-out project, up to the time it is actually built: Think better of it. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities respect
The assumption of equality Classic writing, with its assumption of equality between writer and reader, makes the reader feel like a genius. Bad writing makes the reader feel like a dunce. Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style Long, unwieldy sentences respect
Prometheus A Poem by Lord Byron www.poetryfoundation.org The lightnings trembledThe sum of human wretchednessMaking Death a Victory Subjected to some great trialA hierarchical system of senseYou find reasons to keep living deathsufferingpain
The lightnings trembled And in thy Silence was his Sentence, And in his Soul a vain repentance, And evil dread so ill dissembled, That in his hand the lightnings trembled. idefiancesilence
The sum of human wretchedness Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind; But baffled as thou wert from high, Still in thy patient energy, In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit.
Making Death a Victory Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny; His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself—and equal to all woes, And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory. deathdestinyhumanity