The Japanese word for unread books, particularly books that have been bought but not yet read, is tsundoku (積ん読). This term refers to the phenomenon of acquiring books and letting them pile up unread, rather than reading them. — AI Overview at Google
Elsewhere Other-Accessible…
• Tsundoku at Wikipedia
Tsavudz’ gvdjo
Hmorksa ržmju:
Í hmístaghjo,
Í hmůldzva lšju! — Franček Zymosjő (1883-1941)
White butterflies,
On paper wings,
Are mystagogues,
Enchanted things!
• Translation by Elena Nebotsaya in On Paper Wings: Selected Poems and Prose of Franček Zymosjő (Symban Press 1986)
« Si je préfère les chats aux chiens, c’est parce qu’il n’y a pas de chat policier. » — Jean Cocteau
• “If I prefer cats to dogs, it’s because there are no police cats.”
Eh bien, avant-hier 17 mars 1838, cet homme est mort. Des médecins sont venus, et ont embaumé le cadavre. Pour cela, à la manière des Égyptiens, ils ont retiré les entrailles du ventre et le cerveau du crâne. La chose faite, après avoir transformé le prince de Talleyrand en momie et cloué cette momie dans une bière tapissée de satin blanc, ils se sont retirés, laissant sur une table la cervelle, cette cervelle qui avait pensé tant de choses, inspiré tant d’hommes, construit tant d’édifices, conduit deux révolutions, trompé vingt rois, contenu le monde.
Les médecins partis, un valet est entré, il a vu ce qu’ils avaient laissé : Tiens ! ils ont oublié cela. Qu’en faire ? Il s’est souvenu qu’il y avait un égout dans la rue, il y est allé, et a jeté ce cerveau dans cet égout. — Victor Hugo, Choses vues: Talleyrand, 1838
And so, the day before yesterday, March 17, 1838, this man died. Doctors came and embalmed the corpse. They did this like the Egyptians, removing the entrails from the stomach and the brain from the skull. When they were done, having transformed Prince Talleyrand into a mummy and nailing this mummy in a bier lined with white satin, they withdrew, leaving the brain on a table, this brain that had thought so many things, inspired so many men, built so many buildings, led two revolutions, deceived twenty kings, had contained the world.
With the doctors gone, a valet came in and saw what they had left: Hey! they forgot that. What shall I do with it? He remembered that there was a sewer in the street, so he went out and threw the brain into the sewer. — Victor Hugo, Things Seen, 1838
• From Parallinear: 16 European Poets in Prose Translation (Symban Press 1977)
Jorisz Prokata, born Nembutå, Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1901; died Paris, 1943 […]
’Ndra ven ožedigō tranvu
Istahe zesfusna vo kōb
G’va: svas moe’, oxoaz, hežbu
Vem mižurt qocrsiūjy aplouxōb
Veń ġucij doīv.
L’gefq tsiži, xveby, qa indreza:
Kipidi, aūcu mdvo, lkåd’vud
Utcuzu, veń gomfōj’t vgeza
Vqežefq keflozu ven užud
Odzub’za lkåtū sxoīv.
It’s raining and I walk by the river
Watching gulls on the opposite bank.
Then: two ducks, mergansers, I think,
And I take off my glasses to wipe them
And take a closer look.
It’s now I see what the rain has done:
The small drops, pearl-patterns, constellating
The lenses, and so beautiful beneath the dull sky
That I cannot touch them and walk on
My panes full of stars.
Translator’s notes
[…] The paronomasia in the final line rests on the ambiguity of the contracted odzub’za, which could mean either odzubaza, “my pains, my sufferings” or odzupeza, “my lookers, my specs” (otsupa, “look, observe”), with sandhi of p to b before z.
Translation © Caroline Dawkins 1956
Denn in der wahren Natur der Dinge ist, wenn wir recht bedenken, jeder grüne Baum viel herrlicher, als wenn er aus Gold und Silber wäre. — Martin Luther
• “For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.”
Post-Performative Post-Scriptum
I’ve tried to find where — and indeed if — Luther originally wrote this but can’t find anything but “Inspirational Quotes” pages. And some of those attribute it to Martin Luther King. It doesn’t sound like MLK to me and the German doesn’t look translated from English. It’s a good quote whoever first said it and whatever language it was first said in.
Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
regumque turres. — Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Carmina, I, 4
Pale Death knocks with the same bony fist
At the door of paupers’ huts and kingly towers. — Horace, Odes, I, 4
Ma tra tutti gli uomini grandi che sopra tal mirabile effetto di natura hanno filosofato, più mi meraviglio del Keplero che di altri, il quale, d’ingegno libero ed acuto, e che aveva in mano i moti attribuiti alla Terra, abbia poi dato orecchio ed assenso a predominii della Luna sopra l’acqua, ed a proprietà occulte, e simili fanciullezze. — Galileo, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632), Giornata Quarta.
• But among all the great men who have philosophized about this remarkable effect, I am more astonished at Kepler than at any other. Despite his open and acute mind, and though he has at his fingertips the motions attributed to the earth, he has nevertheless lent his ear and his assent to the moon’s dominion over the waters, to occult properties, and to such puerilities. — Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World-Systems, “Fourth Day”
« Que me proposent-ils là, les imprudents ! Parce que j’ai remué quelques grains de sable sur le rivage, suis-je en état de connaître les abîmes océaniques ? La vie a des secrets, insondables. Le savoir humain sera rayé des archives du monde avant que nous ayons le dernier mot d’un moucheron. » — Souvenirs entomologiques de Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915)
— “What do they want from me, those imprudent ones? Because I’ve lifted a few grains of sand on the shore, am I ready to sound the ocean’s depths? Life has secrets, unfathomable secrets. Human knowledge will be erased from the world’s archives before we have the last word on a gnat.”
«У Менделеева две жены, но Менделеев-то у меня один!» — Царь Алекса́ндр II
• “Yes, Mendeleev has two wives, but I have only one Mendeleev!” — Tsar Alexander II responds to a complaint about Mendeleev’s bigamy
Overlord In Terms of Core Issues Around Maximal Engagement with Key Notions of the Über-Feral 