Words On Which To Chew

I was going through a school notebook from a few years ago, and I came across my notes for a past literature final. One page of notes was filled with important quotations from classic works my class had read that year. Even a few years later, these quotations are POWERFUL. One could argue that they’re powerful even without reading the books in which they’re found. I could write a long post analyzing each of these, especially regarding the context in which they’re said. I actually wrote an essay two years ago analyzing one from 1984. Read these and really chew on the words. Run over them in your mind. What do they make you think of if you haven’t read any of these works? What about if you have?

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From each according to his ability; to each according to his need. – motto of Communism

Religion is the opiate of the people. – Karl Marx

“…a Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of — oh, of your father.” – Miss Maudie, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

“She would have been a good woman….if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” – The Misfit, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor

Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. – 1984 by George Orwell

Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me. There lie they, and here lie we, under the spreading chestnut tree. – 1984 by George Orwell

“Can’t repeat the past?” [Gatsby] cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!” – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Her voice is full of money,” [Gatsby] said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money — that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it … high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl. – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Let Ahab beware of Ahab.” – Starbuck, Moby Dick by Herman Melville

All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks.” – Captain Ahab, Moby Dick by Herman Melville

“Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.” – Captain Ahab, Moby Dick by Herman Melville

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