Et Preacher Quotes

It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit. To the crowd, success ears almost the features of true mastery, and the greatest dupe of this counterfeit talent is History. Juvenal and Tacitus alone mistrust it. In these days an almost official philosophy has come to dwell in the house of Success, wear its livery, receive callers in its ante-chamber. Success in principle and for its own sake. Prosperity presupposes ability. Win a lottery-prize and you are a clever man. Winners are adulated. To be born with a caul is everything; luck is what matters. Be fortunate and you will be thought great. With a handful of tremendous exceptions which constitute the glory of a century, the popular esteem is singularly short-sighted. Gilt is as good as gold. No harm in being a chance arrival provided you arrive. The populace is an aged Narcissus which worships itself and applauds the commonplace. The tremendous qualities of Moses, an Aeschylus, a Dante, a Michelangelo or a Napoleon are readily ascribed by the multitude to any man, in any sphere, who has got what he set out to get - the notary who becomes a deputy, the hack playwright who produces a mock-Corneille, the eunuch who acquires a harem, the journeyman-general who by accident wins the decisive battle of an epoch. The profiteer who supplies the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse with boot-soles of cardboard and earns himself an income of four hundred thousand a year; the huckster who espouses usury and brings her to bed of seven or eight millions; the preacher who becomes bishop by loudly braying; the bailiff of a great estate who so enriches himself that on retirement he is made Minister of Finance - all this is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. The confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.

ET the Hiphop Preacher and Greg Plitt

Vae Victis (en latin dans le texte : Malheur aux vaincus, référence à Tite-Live) variations sur un thème du poète A.E. Baconsky de moins en moins écouteront et même moins comprendront et de plus en plus d'intrigants partisans de Jacob enlèvent l'écorce du peuplier en même temps qu'ils espionnent des prédicateurs de futilité nés de mots volontairement gaspillés c'est ce que son avertissement s'est révélé être comme des paraboles se transforment en rire rauque les frères agitent de grands bâtons des flûtes sans voix se cachent au fond de vieux havresacs et des couteaux triomphants sont aiguisés pour égorger l'agneau en pleurant [Vae Victis variations on a theme by the poet A.E. Baconsky fewer and fewer will listen even fewer will understand and more and more Jacob-minded schemers are peeling poplar bark while spying on silenced preachers of futility born of purposedly wasted words that's what his warning turned out to be as parables work themselves into raucous laughter brothers are swinging high sticks voiceless flutes are hiding out at the bottom of old haversacks and triumphant knives are being whetted to tearfully cut the lamb's throat] (p. 149, "Vae Victis")

A man with a surpassingly excellent voice, who is destitute of a well-informed head and an earnest heart, will be, to use Plutarch’s expression, Vox et praeterea nihil – a voice and nothing else.