She likes herself, yet others hates, For that which in herself she prizes; And while she laughs at them, forgets She is the thing that she despises.
William CongreveRead
Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
Interpretation
Music has the power to calm and transform even the most difficult emotions and situations.
This quote suggests that music possesses a unique ability to soothe our deepest emotions and alter our perceptions of the world around us. It implies that music can soften rigid or harsh feelings, much like it can affect physical substances, making it a profound art form that resonates with the human experience.
In practice
In a speech about the power of the arts, one might say, 'As William Congreve noted, music has charms to soothe a savage breast.'
She likes herself, yet others hates, For that which in herself she prizes; And while she laughs at them, forgets She is the thing that she despises.
Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand
But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old.
Grief walks upon the heels of pleasure; married in haste, we repent at leisure.
There is in true beauty, as in courage, something which narrow souls cannot dare to admire.
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
In New York, a 13-year-old Indian girl came up to me crying, saying to everyone nearby, 'This is where I come from.' It's easy to forget that actors have the ability to instill a sense of self in viewers. That's the greatest compliment.
There's nothing worse than an ostentatious shot or some lighting that draws attention to itself, and you might go, 'Oh, wow, that's spectacular.' Or that spectacular shot, a big crane move, or something. But it's not necessarily right for the film β you jump out, you think about the surface, and you don't stay in there with the characters and the story.
I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.
Movies are movies: they take you back in time, and how it still is for some
But I think we are seeing a resurgence of the graphic ghost story like The Others, Devil's Backbone and The Sixth Sense. It is a return to more gothic atmospheric ghost storytelling.
I wanted my dad to be proud of me, and I fell into acting because there wasn't anything else I could do, and in it I found a discipline that I wanted to keep coming back to, that I love and I learn about every day.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.