HEROISM UNDER TORTURE. It is said of a certain poet that, though he tortures the English language, he has never yet succeeded in forcing it to reveal his meaning.
Beachcomber
“The universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden…Passions, greed, hatred, and lies; social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering.” (Garden of Tortures)
Octave Mirbeau
Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery, which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the astronomer, the latter the philosopher.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Most English speakers do not have the writer's short fuse about seeing or hearing their language brutalized. This is the main reason, I suspect, that English is becoming the world's universal tongue: English-speaking natives don't care how badly others speak English as long as they speak it. French, once considered likely to become the world's lingua franca, has lost popularity because those who are born speaking it reject this liberal attitude and become depressed, insulted or insufferable when their language is ill used.
Russell Baker
Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.
James Joyce
It is said that he attempted to deliver his country from the tyranny of Nearchus. His plot was discovered, and he was exposed to (he most excruciating torments to reveal the names of his accomplices; but this be bore with unparalleled fortitude, and, not to be at last conquered by tortures, he cut off his tongue with his teeth, and spit it into the face of the tyrant. Some say that he was pounded alive in a mortar, and that in the midst of his torments he called to Nearchus, as if to reveal something of importance; the tyrant approached him, and Zeno, as if willing to whisper to him, caught his ear with his teeth, and bit it off.
Zeno of Elea
Beachcomber
Beals, Jennifer
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z