[quoth] jonathan swift: gulliver's travels

We next went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in consultation upon improving that of their own country.
The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles; because in reality all things imaginable are but nouns.
The other, was a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever: And this was urged as great advantage in point of health as well as brevity. For, it is plain, that every word we speak is in some degree a diminution of our lungs by corrosion; and consequently contributes to the shortening of our lives.

[quoth] laurent tailhade

From the aestheticization of violence to the definition of aesthetics as violence, the sentiment is summed up in Laurent Tailhade's reputed quip, after Auguste Vaillant's bombing of the Chamber of Deputies in 1893:

Qu'importent les victimes, si le geste est beau? [What do the victims matter, so long as the gesture is beautiful?] (quoted from, via j)

[quoth] michelangelo buonarroti: rime 247

Caro m’è ’l sonno, e più l’esser di sasso, mentre che ’l danno e la vergogna dura; non veder, non sentir m’è gran ventura; però non mi destar, deh, parla basso.

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Welcome is sleep, more welcome the sleep of stone Whilst crime and shame continue in the land; My happy fortune, not to see or hear; Waken me not - in mercy, whisper low.

[quoth] ambrose bierce: the devil's dictionary

Siren, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.