Dead Inspiration #2

 People are so much more inspiring once they're dead...

"The best way to contradict yourself is to let yourself speak."

RIP Sebastian Horsley, timeless dandy of the underworld. You are Inspiration.

<3

Climate Science

"The human population can deal with the climate change problem, but if climate change is to deal with the human population problem, then we're in trouble."

--some biologist on the radio

Rationality + Perspective

Isn't it odd how the strangest self-defeating behaviours seem perfectly sensible at certain moments in time.

Wit

a quote, on John Dunne's Death Be Not Proud, from a stimulating play/movie adaptation.

In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation:

" And Death", capital D...
"shall be no more;" semi-colon.
"Death," capital D, comma...
"thou shalt die!", exclamation mark.

If you go in for this sort of thing, I suggest you take up Shakespeare.
Gardner's edition of the Holy Sonnets returns to the Westmoreland manuscript.
Not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar.
It reads:

" And death shall be no more," comma...
"Death thou shalt die."

Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from life everlasting.
Very simple, really.
With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage with exclamation marks.
It is a comma. A pause.
In this way, the uncompromising way, one learns something from the poem, wouldn't you say?
Life, death, soul, God...
past, present.
Not insuperable barriers.

Not semicolons.

Just a comma.