"Let us not overstrain our talents; for if we do we shall do nothing with grace. A clown, whatever he may do, will never pass for a gentleman."
Jean de la Fontaine
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Warning
"Let us not overstrain our talents; for if we do we shall do nothing with grace. A clown, whatever he may do, will never pass for a gentleman."
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Is there a greater gentleman than Mercutio?
ReplyDeleteIs there a greater clown?
@epitimaios
ReplyDeletei agree with you and zefirellis version
May Mercutio's grace always win, and lead us.
ReplyDeleteWho really knows what is his talent? So Let us overstrain our talents until we know what is and what is not our talent
ReplyDelete@cs
ReplyDeleteExactly, Goethe overstrained his painting talent up to the age of 40, until he finally realized that he didn't have this talent.
And he never realized that Newton wasn't wrong and his own theory on colours rubbish.
One could simply say, noone is perfect and obviously even Goethe produced some rubbish. Yet I find very astounding Goethe's insisting on his colour theory which he even considered his greatest accomplishment, or one of his greatest. I find this very astounding, because Goethe's greatest gift is not his immense poetic talent, but his immense capability of penetrative judgements.