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Attaboy Locked account

Miya@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 3 months ago

I can resist everything except temptation.

I read pretty much anything with a halfway interesting title, although mostly SF and technical books about programming.

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2024 Reading Goal

91% complete! Attaboy has read 11 of 12 books.

Edmund Burke: A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (1998, Penguin Books) 2 stars

But let it be considered that hardly any thing can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some sort of approach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to perceive its bounds, is one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea.

A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful by  (The World's classics) (Page 106)

Edmund Burke: A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (1998, Penguin Books) 2 stars

[...] if I was not convinced that nothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled before they can exert their virtues. A man who works beyond the surface of things, though he may be wrong himself, yet he clears the way for others, and may chance to make even his errors subservient to the cause of truth.

A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful by  (The World's classics) (Page 100)

Edmund Burke: A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (1998, Penguin Books) 2 stars

The passions which belong to self-preservation, turn on pain and danger; they are simply painful when their causes immediately affect us; they are delightful when we have an idea of pain and danger, without being actually in such circumstances; this delight I have not called pleasure, because it turns on pain, and because it is different enough from any idea of positive pleasure. Whatever excites this delight, I call sublime. The passions belonging to self-preservation are the strongest of all the passions.

A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful by  (The World's classics) (Page 97)

Edmund Burke: A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (1998, Penguin Books) 2 stars

It may be said perhaps, that the pain in these cases had its rise from the removal of the pleasure which the man enjoyed before, though that pleasure was of so low a degree as to be perceived only by the removal. But this seems to me a subtilty [sic.], that is not discoverable in nature. For if, previous to the pain, I do not feel any actual pleasure, I have no reason to judge that any such thing exists; since pleasure is only pleasure as it is felt. The same may be said of pain, and with equal reason. I can never persuade myself that pleasure and pain are mere relations, which can only exist as they are contrasted: but I think I can discern clearly that there are positive paints and pleasures, which do not at all depend upon each other.

A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful by  (The World's classics) (Page 81)

Edmund Burke: A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (1998, Penguin Books) 2 stars

Edmund Burke: A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (1998, Penguin Books) 2 stars

I am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation, is incomparably the best; since not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew; it tends to set the reader himself in the track of invention, and to direct him into those paths in which the author has made his own discoveries, if he should be so happy as to have made any that are valuable.

A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful by  (The World's classics) (Page 64 - 65)

Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (2001) 3 stars

This book is the earliest and most influential of the Gothic novels. First published pseudonymously …

The injustice of which thou art guilty towards me, said Theodore, convinces me that I have done a good deed in delivering the princess from thy tyranny. May she be happy, whatever becomes of me! --- This is a lover! cried Manfred in a rage: a peasant within sight of death is not animated by such sentiments. Tell me, tell me, rash boy, who thou art, or the rack shall force thy secret from thee. Thou hast threatened me with death already, said the youth, for the truth I have told thee: if that is all the encouragement I am to expect for sincerity, I am not tempted to indulge thy vain curiosity farther. Then thou wilt not speak? said Manfred. I will not, replied he. Bear him away into the court-yard, said Manfred; I will see his head this instant severed from his body.

The Castle of Otranto by  (Page 49)