“
Romantic haste in drama brings
tears and sighs when the hero dies
but the curtain fall is final
when in life we take the tragic way
The sunset too is a glorious thing
but with it ends the day.
”
”
C.P. Klapper (The Washington Poems)
“
Days to come stand in front of us
like a row of lighted candles—
golden, warm, and vivid candles.
Days gone by fall behind us,
a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles;
the nearest are smoking still,
cold, melted, and bent.
I don’t want to look at them: their shape saddens me,
and it saddens me to remember their original light.
I look ahead at my lighted candles.
I don’t want to turn for fear of seeing, terrified,
how quickly that dark line gets longer,
how quickly the snuffed-out candles proliferate.
”
”
Constantinos P. Cavafy (The Collected Poems)
“
In these dark rooms I pass
such listless days, I wander up and down
looking for the windows - when a window opens
there will be some relief.
But there are no windows, or at least
I cannot find them. And perhaps it's just as well.
Perhaps the light would prove another torment.
Who knows what new things it would reveal?
("The Windows")
”
”
Constantinos P. Cavafy (Selected Poems)
“
Anyway, those things would not have lasted long.
The experience of the years shows it to me.
But Destiny arrived in some haste and stopped them.
The beautiful life was brief.
But how potent were the perfumes,
On how splendid a bed we lay,
To what sensual delight we gave our bodies.
An echo of the days of pleasure,
An echo of the days drew near me,
A little of the fire of the youth of both of us,
Again I took in my hands a letter,
And I read and reread till the light was gone.
And melancholy, I came out on the balcony
Came out to change my thoughts at least by looking at
A little of the city that I loved,
A little movement on the street and in the shops.
Translated by Rae Dalven
”
”
Constantinos P. Cavafy
“
The landed classes neglected technical education, taking refuge in classical studies; as late as 1930, for example, long after Ernest Rutherford at Cambridge had discovered the atomic nucleus and begun transmuting elements, the physics laboratory at Oxford had not been wired for electricity. Intellectual neglect technical education to this day.
[Describing C.P. Snow's observations on the neglect of technical education.]
”
”
Richard Rhodes (Visions of Technology: A Century of Vital Debate About Machines Systems and the Human World)
“
One day at Fenner's (the university cricket ground at Cambridge), just before the last war, G. H. Hardy and I were talking about Einstein. Hardy had met him several times, and I had recently returned from visiting him. Hardy was saying that in his lifetime there had only been two men in the world, in all the fields of human achievement, science, literature, politics, anything you like, who qualified for the Bradman class. For those not familiar with cricket, or with Hardy's personal idiom, I ought to mention that “the Bradman class” denoted the highest kind of excellence: it would include Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Newton, Archimedes, and maybe a dozen others. Well, said Hardy, there had only been two additions in his lifetime. One was Lenin and the other Einstein.
”
”
C.P. Snow (Variety of Men)
“
Life is short, people say. Live each day likes it’s your last. Those who are young don’t understand the meaning of those words because their whole life is in front of them, their dreams yet to be realized. Those who are old or aging quickly understand it well, for in a blink of an eye their best years are behind them. Those who are dying from some disease that ravages their bodies, shortening what should have been long and fruitful lives, understand those words with every breath they struggle to take. And some, unfortunately, understand it all too well when a heinous monster takes what doesn’t belong to him, ending the life of someone close to them who never hurt a single soul in her entire life.
”
”
C.P. Smith (Property Of)
“
THE WINDOWS
Within these dark chambers, where I live through oppressive days, I pace up and down, trying to find the windows.-When a window opens, it will be a consolation.
But the windows are not to be found, or I am unable to find them. And perhaps it's better that I don't. Perhaps the light will be a new tyranny. Who knows what novel things it will reveal.
”
”
Constantinos P. Cavafy
“
Loth as one is to agree with CP Snow about almost anything, there are two cultures; and this is rather a problem. (Looking at who pass for public men in these days, one suspects there are now three cultures, in fact, as the professional politician appears to possess neither humane learning nor scientific training. They couldn’t possibly commit the manifold and manifest sins against logic that are their stock in trade, were they possessed of either quality.) … Bereft of a liberal education – ‘liberal’ in the true sense: befitting free men and training men to freedom – our Ever So Eminent Scientists nowadays are most of ’em simply technicians. Very skilled ones, commonly, yet technicians nonetheless. And technicians do get things wrong sometimes: a point that need hardly be laboured in the centenary year of the loss of RMS Titanic. Worse far is what the century of totalitarianism just past makes evident: technicians are fatefully and fatally easily led to totalitarian mindsets and totalitarian collaboration. … Aristotle was only the first of many to observe that men do not become dictators to keep warm: that there is a level at which power, influence, is interchangeable with money. Have enough of the one and you don’t want the other; indeed, you will find that you have the other. And of course, in a world of Eminent Scientists who are mere Technicians at heart, pig-ignorant of liberal (in the Classical sense) ideas, ideals, and even instincts, there is exerted upon them a forceful temptation towards totalitarianism – for the good of the rest of us, poor benighted, unwashed laymen as we are. The fact is that, just as original sin, as GKC noted, is the one Christian doctrine that can be confirmed as true by looking at any newspaper, the shading of one’s conclusions to fit one’s pay-packet, grants, politics, and peer pressure is precisely what anyone familiar with public choice economics should expect. And, as [James] Delingpole exhaustively demonstrates, is precisely what has occurred in the ‘Green’ movement and its scientific – or scientistic – auxiliary. They are watermelons: Green without and Red within. (A similar point was made of the SA by Willi Münzenberg, who referred to that shower as beefsteaks, Red within and Brown without.)
”
”
G.M.W. Wemyss
“
In all these battles the Labour right has enormous reserves of political power. The Parliamentary Labour Party is overwhelmingly hostile to Jeremy Corbyn. Of the 232 Labour MPs no more than 20 can be relied on to back him. Back bench revolts, leaks, and public attacks by MPs opposed to the leadership are likely to be frequent.
Some Labour left wingers hope that the patronage that comes with the leader’s position will appeal to the careerism of the right and centre MPs to provide Jeremy with the support he lacks. No doubt this will have some effect, but it will be limited. For a start it’s a mistake to think that all right wingers are venal. Some are. But some believe in their ideas as sincerely as left wingers believe in theirs.
More importantly, the leading figures of the Labour right should not be seen as simply part of the Labour movement. They are also, and this is where their loyalty lies, embedded in the British political establishment. Commentators often talk as if the sociological dividing line in British politics lies between the establishment (the heads of corporations, military, police, civil service, the media, Tory and Liberal parties, etc, etc) on the one hand, and the Labour Party as a whole, the unions and the left on the other. But this is not the case. The dividing line actually runs through the middle of the Labour Party, between its right wing leaders and the left and the bulk of the working class members.
From Ramsey MacDonald (who started on the left of the party) splitting Labour and joining the Tory government in 1931, to the Labour ‘Gang of Four’ splitting the party to form the SDP in 1981, to Neil Kinnock’s refusal to support the 1984-85 Miners Strike, to Blair and Mandelson’s neo-conservative foreign policy and neoliberal economic policy, the main figures of the Labour right have always put their establishment loyalties first and their Labour Party membership second. They do not need Jeremy Corbyn to prefer Cabinet places on them because they will be rewarded with company directorships and places in the Lords by the establishment.
Corbyn is seen as a threat to the establishment and the Labour right will react, as they have always done, to eliminate this threat. And because the Labour right are part of the establishment they will not be acting alone. Even if they were a minority in the PLP, as the SDP founders were, their power would be enormously amplified by the rest of the establishment. In fact the Labour right today is much more powerful than the SDP, and so the amplified dissonance from the right will be even greater.
This is why the argument that a Corbyn leadership must compromise with the right in the name of unity is so mistaken. The Labour right are only interested in unity on their terms. If they can’t get it they will fight until they win. If they can’t win they would rather split the party than unite with the left on the left’s terms.
When Leon Trotsky analysed the defeat of the 1926 General Strike it was the operation of this kind of ‘unity’ which he saw as critical in giving the right the ability to disorganise the left. The collapse of the strike came, argued Trotsky, when the government put pressure on the right wing of the Labour movement, who put pressure on the left wing of the movement, who put pressure on the Minority Movement (an alliance of the Labour left and the Communist Party). And the Minority Movement put pressure on the CP…and thus the whole movement collapsed.
To this day this is the way in which the establishment transmits pressure through the labour movement. The only effective antidote is political and organisational independence on the far left so that it is capable of mobilising beyond the ranks of the Labour Party and trade union bureaucracy. This then provides a counter-power pushing in the opposite direction that can be more powerful than the pressure from the right.
”
”
John Rees
“
Unlike Today, Yesterday has passed and whatever you decide to do Today, will matter Tomorrow. Do something worth your time because every day counts.
~CP
”
”
Cassie Pope
“
A problem shared was a problem halved
”
”
C.P. Ward (Autumn in Sycamore Park (The Warm Days of Autumn, #1))
“
Sometimes you can love someone but not fit with them. It’s the way of the world. And really, there’s no one true person for anyone, despite what the telly might have you believe. There’s a whole host of people who’d line up just fine.
”
”
C.P. Ward (Autumn in Sycamore Park (The Warm Days of Autumn, #1))
“
I was in the middle of a book, but it wasn’t very interesting. There’s no story that can match the intricacy of real life, is there?
”
”
C.P. Ward (Autumn in Sycamore Park (The Warm Days of Autumn, #1))
“
It wasn’t that he had moved on. She was happy for him. It was that the hole her absence from his life had left had been so quickly and efficiently filled and raked over it was as though she had never existed at all.
”
”
C.P. Ward (Autumn in Sycamore Park (The Warm Days of Autumn, #1))
“
(Deut 30:6; cp. Jer 4:4). Indeed, the new covenant promise in Jer 31:33 of the “law written on their hearts” combined with Ezek 36:25–27 pointed forward to the day when the entire covenant community would be circumcised in heart. This emphasis picks up the teaching of the prophets that physical circumcision only availed the one who had been spiritually circumcised (see Rom 2:25–29).
”
”
Shawn D. Wright (Believer's Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ (New American Commentary Studies in Bible and Theology Book 2))
“
God gave me three gifts in this life; one he took too soon, one that makes me proud each day and one I never saw coming until she stumbled into my life and woke me up. I won’t take them for granted another day, and I’ll fight like hell to keep them safe,
”
”
C.P. Smith (Restoring Hope)
“
Because sometimes we lose contact with people and regret it, and then spend the rest of our lives, wondering what it would have been like to have known them better. I woke up one day, and realised that it was silly, always wondering…why not do something about it?" Mary
”
”
Ian C.P. Irvine (London 2012: What If? (What If? #2))
“
If you were to die tomorrow, would you be happy knowing that you had spent the last day of your life doing just what you did today?
”
”
Ian C.P. Irvine (London 2012: What If? (What If? #1))
“
How sad it is that in the day-to-day living of our lives we lose the ability to see each other properly, how security and familiarity blind us, and prevent us from seeing what we really want to see. She
”
”
Ian C.P. Irvine (London 2012: What If? (What If? #2))
“
We’ve been to war together. We’ve been in the trenches, fighting alongside each other, looking out for each other, being the strong one in moments where the other is weak. We get closer each day, and I have no doubt that you’ll be there for me when times get hard, because it can’t get much harder than this, and you haven’t wavered. Not once, beautiful. Not once.
”
”
C.P. Harris (The Caretaker (Infidelity #3))
“
I promise to fall for you hard and fast every day, and I promise to appreciate all the big things, because nothing you say or do will ever be small.
”
”
C.P. Harris (The Caretaker (Infidelity #3))
“
Some, perhaps most, of the IBM decisions about the PC were definitely made on non-technical grounds. Before deciding on MS-DOS, IBM arranged a meeting with Gary Kildall of Digital Research to consider CP/M. On the day of the meeting, so the story runs, the weather was so good that Gary decided to fly his private plane instead. The IBM managers, perhaps annoyed at being stood up, soon cut a deal with Microsoft instead.
”
”
Peter van der Linden (Expert C Programming: Deep Secrets)
“
One day, you’ll grow tired of being broken. You’ll rightfully give up on holding yourself accountable for the worst thing that ever happened to you. And I’ll be there to pick you up,
”
”
C.P. Harris (The Good Liar (Infidelity #1))
“
Autumn was the best season, she thought. Fine weather, beautiful colours, but also a season of change, of fresh starts.
”
”
C.P. Ward (Autumn in Sycamore Park (The Warm Days of Autumn, #1))
“
One day, when the weather changes, when it’s warmer,” he’d said, sneaking in behind me and lacing our fingers together before pressing them against the glass doors. “I’ll fuck you in the rain, angel. I promise.
”
”
C.P. Harris (The Good Liar (Infidelity #1))
“
I pushed the button to lower the window and inhaled the salt-laced breeze. It was a beautiful day to overreact in San Diego.
”
”
C.P. Rider (Summoned (Sundance, #2))
“
Why do we do this to each other? Why can’t we trust anyone anymore?” “Because it is just life. It’s the way things are. We just have to pick ourselves up, and move on. But somewhere out there I really believe that there is an ideal soul-mate for each of us that we will meet one day and fall in love with. It’s just a matter of time. But en-route, we will have a few crashes, get burned a little. It’s inevitable. We just have to make it our duty to survive and get over all the crap that gets in our way, because we owe it to that other person in the future to
”
”
Ian C.P. Irvine (The Sleeping Truth: Book One)
“
Sarcasm was my best friend these days. Fair enough, since Mr. Sarcasm himself was my boyfriend.
”
”
C.P. Rider (Shattered (Sundance, #4))
“
When that mouth, the one that had occupied the last hour of his fantasies opened, and started singing, Max’s lip twitched for the second time that day. He scanned her body puzzled by her attire. Her black locks were up in a high ponytail and she wore a T-shirt with a fuckin’ Care Bear on the front that read, “Cuddle me.
”
”
C.P. Smith (A Reason To Kill (Reason, #2))