Quote of the Day (Nikos Kazantzakis, on ‘What a Strange Machine Man Is!’)

“What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out come sighs, laughter, and dreams.”— Greek novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek (1946)

The image accompanying this post comes from the 1964 adaptation of Zorba the Greek, with Anthony Quinn in the title role.

(Thanks to my friend Holly for bringing this to my attention.)

Quote of the Day (John Dryden, on ‘Insensible’ Man)

“How dull, and how insensible a beast

Is man, who yet would lord it o'er the rest.” —John Dryden (pictured) and the Earl of Musgrave, Essay on Satire (1679)

Quote of the Day (Vaclav Havel, on ‘The Tragedy of Modern Man’)

“The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.”— Playwright, essayist, dissident, and first President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel (1936-2011), Letters to Olga: June 1979-September 1982 (1988)

Quote of the Day (Benjamin Disraeli, on How Man is a ‘Being Born to Believe’)

“Man is a being born to believe, and if no church comes forward with all the title deeds of truth, he will find altars and idols in his own heart and his own imagination.”—British politician Benjamin Disraeli, speech at Oxford (Meeting for Society for Increasing Endowments of Small Livings in the Diocese of Oxford), November 25, 1864, in Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1886)

Quote of the Day (Walker Percy, on His Hopes for Man and Himself)

“For what do I hope? Short-term goal: that man can survive himself long enough to explore the infinite potential of himself and the world around him. If he can last another fifty years, he might make it. Personal goal: to survive my own bad habits.”—Walker Percy, quoted by Robyn Leary, “Surviving His Own Bad Habits: A Previously Unpublished Interview with Walker Percy,” Doubletake Magazine, Winter 2000

The novelist Walker Percy (The Moviegoer, Lancelot) was born on this date in 1916.