THREE FAMOUS QUOTES FROM PLATO

 

          THREE FAMOUS QUOTES FROM PLATO

Plato was a Greek philosopher born in Athens in the classical  period corresponding to most of the 5^th and 4^th century B.C. The last Athenian period is calculated  as 510 B.C to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.

            He founded an Academy of philosophy, wrote many philosophical texts, one of the most famous being ‘The Republic’.

            The three famous quotes from him are:

1.     All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one workman.

2.     Books give a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.

3.     The measure of a man is what he does with power. The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.

G.R.Kanwal

8^th October 2023

 

   

AT NIGHTFALL

 

          AT NIGHTFALL

 I need so much the quiet of your love

After the day’s loud strife

I need your calm all other things above

After the stress of life.

 

I crave the haven that in your dear heart lies,

After all toil is done;

I need the starshine of your heavenly eyes,

After the day’s great sun.

 

            This very short  poem which makes the difference between the strife of the day and the rest of the night is by the American poet Charles Hanson Towne (1877—1949).  The poet tells his beloved how when he is away from her his day is spent in stressful labour of the day and he waits for the nightfall when there will be her stress-bursting  heavenly eyes.  He will have rest instead of toil and calmness in place of turbulent activities of the day. The night is thus presented as a time of relaxation, and of union with his lover in whose heart he sees a heaven  for himself. This change from day to night is his physical and mental need. The day is a stress breeder without the presence of his lover and the night is stress-buster with her presence.  

 

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G. R. Kanwal

7^th October 2023      

LIVING WITH ANIMALS

 

 

                                                LIVING WITH ANIMALS

This is not the full title of the poem of the American poet Walt Whitman (1819—1892). The title of his poem is I Think I Could Turn And Live With Animals.  This poem occurs in his book “Leaves of Grass”. It is on the basis of this book that he has been called the poet of democracy. Grass being a symbol of minor individuals and leaves of grass of minor poems. Here the readers find ‘celebration of individuality in relation to society and nature’.

            In his poem which is given below Whitman prefers the company of animals to those of human beings. Animals have no artificiality . They live a natural life.  They have no idea of sin and repentance.  They have no artificial manners and false behaviour. They live a simple and uncomplicated life, so they are happy, while human beings lead an unhappy life because of their unrealistic adopted ways and manners. Whitman appreciates the simple natural  life style of animals and says:

            I think I could turn and live with animals, they’re so placid and self-contained.

I stand and look at them long and long.

           

            They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

            They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

            They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.

            Not one is dissatisfied , not one is demented with mania of owning things,

            Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,

            Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

 

So they show their relations to me and I accept them,

They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in

their possession.

 

I wonder where they get those tokens

Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?

 

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G.R.Kanwal

6^th October 2023

 

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AFTER LOVE

 

                                AFTER LOVE

‘AFTER LOVE’ is a short poem by the British poet and critic Arthur Symons (1865-1945). He was a symbolist and a believer in extravagant passion. In ‘After Love’ he talks about the sweet days of his love and the painful days of its termination. He tells his lady love that during the period of love their meetings were sweet, now when love is over, he cannot agree to meet her as a friend.  Becoming a friend from a lover is unacceptable stooping. “It is too hard, too hard to meet/If we must love no more.” The end of love should mean the end of all sorts of future meetings.  

            What follows is the complete poem:-

OH, TO PART now, and, parting now,

Never to meet again;

To have done forever, I and thou,

With joy, and so with pain.

 

It is too hard to meet

If we must love no more;

Those other meetings, were too sweet

That went before.

 

 And I would have, now love is over,

An end to all, an end;

I cannot, having been your lover,

Stoop to become your friend !

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G.R.Kanwal

5^th October 2023

THE CONSTANT LOVER

 

          THE CONSTANT LOVER

“The Constant Lover” is a poem by the English poet Sir John Suckling (1609-1642). A staunch royalist, he was very rich, brilliant, witty, spendthrift and libertine. His love poems are full of fun and frivolity. ‘The Constant Lover’ is slightly different. It tells us that you cannot win the heart of a lady by becoming pale-faced or by becoming morose and silent.   There is no pity for lovers due to these  postures.  Love cannot be created by such devices.  Love is natural. If a lady will not herself be inclined to love , nothing can move her so.  

            Here is the text of the poem:-

Why so pale and wan, fond lover?

Prithee, why so pale?

Will, when looking well can”t move her,

Looking ill prevail?

Prithee, why so pale?

 

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

Prithee, why so mute?

Will, when speaking well can’t win her,

Saying nothing do’t ?

Prithee, why so mute?

 

Quit, quit, for shame! This will not move,

This cannot take her;

If of herself she will not love,

Nothing can make her;

The Devil take her !

                                                            ******

G.R.Kanwal

4^th October 2023

 

GANDHIJI’S THOUGHTS ON LIFE

 

          GANDHIJI’S THOUGHTS ON LIFE

Gandhiji has expressed a lot of thoughts on life. All of them are based on his personal experiences and observations . Here are some of them for the readers’ profit and pleasure.

1.     The aim of life is that we should serve the Power that has created us, and on whose mercy or consent depends our very breath, by heartily serving Its creation.

2.     The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly; the soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.

3.     One’s life is not a single straight line; it is a bundle of duties very often conflicting . And one is called upon continually to make one’s choice between one duty and another.

4.     Life is not for making merry. Rather it is for the realization of God and for the service of humanity.

5.     My own experience has led me to the knowledge that the fullest life is impossible without an immovable belief in a Living Law in obedience to which the whole universe moves. A man without that faith is like a drop thrown out of the ocean bound to perish.

        In these few selected thoughts about life, we hear the illuminating voice of a great teacher and a most respectable mahatma.

                                                            ******

G.R.Kanwal

3^rd October 2023

 

Gandhiji on Communal Harmony

 

Gandhiji on Communal Harmony

Here are two quotations on communal harmony from Gandhiji’s journal Harijan. The first is dated March 16, 1947 when the partition of India was only five months away. It reads as follows:-

            “My experience of India tells me that the Hindus and Muslims know how to live at peace among themselves. I decline to believe that people have said good-bye to their senses, so as to make it impossible to live at peace with each other as they have done for generations. For, I believe with the late poet Iqbal that the Hindus and Muslims, who have lived together long under the shadows of the mighty Himalayas and have drunk the waters of the Ganges and the Jamuna, have a unique message for the world.”

            The second quotation is dated January 18, 1948 when the partition of India  had taken place and Pakistan had been formed from August 15, 1947. In this quotation Gandhiji  says:-

“Before I knew anything of politics in my early youth, I dreamt the dream of communal unity of the heart. I shall jump in the evening of my life like a child to feel that the dream has been realized in this life. The wish for living the full span of life, portrayed by the seers of old, and which they permit us to set down at 125 years, will then revive . Who would not risk sacrificing  his life for the realization  of such a  dream? Then, we shall have real Swaraj. Then, though legally and geographically we may still be two States in daily life no one will think we are separate States. The vista before me seems to me to be glorious to be true. Yet, like a child in a famous picture drawn by a famous painter, I shall not be happy till I have got it. I live and want to live for no lesser goal.”

Gandhiji was shot dead  on 30^th January 1948. He was born on 2^nd October 1869.

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G. R. Kanwal

1^st October 2023