Richard Dawkins - Dylan Thomas - Paul Tillich - William Shakespeare - Smashing Pumpkins - Philip Roth - Adam Curtis TV - Rudyard Kipling - Upton Sinclair -
God’s monumental rage whenever his chosen people flirted with a rival god resembles nothing so much as sexual jealousy of the worst kind. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion p243
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Boredom is rage spread thin. Paul Tillich
The best sometimes forget ...
As men in rage strike those that wish them best. William Shakespeare, Othello II iii 234&236, Iago
Despite all my rage
I am still just a rat in the cage. Smashing Pumpkins, Bullet with Butterfly Wings
Indeed, during that extended period of rage that goes by the name of my adolescence, what terrified me most about my father was not the violence I expected him momentarily to unleash upon me, but the violence I wished every night at the dinner table to commit upon his ignorant, barbaric carcass. Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint
‘The Panther Party at that time took my rage and channelled it against them, instead of against us. They educated my mind and gave me direction, and with that direction came hope.’ Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head II: Shooting and Fucking are the Same Thing, Alice Feye Williams aka Afeni Shakur, BBCiplayer 2021
One learns more from a good scholar in a rage than from a score of lucid and laborious drudges. Rudyard Kipling, Something of Myself 1937
A new burst of rage swept over him — What did it matter whether it was true or not — whether anything was true or not? What did it matter if anybody had done all the hideous and loathsome things that everybody else said they had done? It was what everybody was saying! It was what everybody believed — what everybody was interested in! It was the measure of a whole society — their ideals and their standards! It was the way they spent their time, repeating nasty scandals about each other; living in an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism, with endless whispering and leering, and gossip of low intrigue. Upton Sinclair, Metropolis, 1908