From: Britannica.com [mailto:movable.type@newsletters.britannica.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 4:35 AM
To: jchen@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Movable Type | July 11, 2000
Movable Type | Britannica.com | July 11, 2000
TODAY IN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | A Lethal Stroke of Genius 


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Britannica.com presents the "dark side of creative passion"
with an essay and image gallery depicting the final days
of artists on the brink of genius and madness.
http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=32179179&i=221049&d=309505  


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"There was never a genius without a tincture of madness."

--Aristotle quoted in Seneca, "De Tranquilitate Anima"

["The Great Thoughts," George Seldes, ed.]


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"Madness, provided it comes as a gift from heaven, is the channel
by which we receive the greatest blessings.... If a man comes to
the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing
that technique alone will make him a great poet, he and his sane
compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by
the performances of the inspired madman."

--Plato in "Phaedrus," quoted by Jeffrey Meyers in "The Greek
Idea of Disease, Madness, and Art"

["The Greek Idea of Disease, Madness, and Art," World and I,
January 1999]


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"In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock
in the morning, day after day."

--F. Scott Fitzgerald in "Esquire"

["The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Quotations"]


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"A book is a postponed suicide." 

--E.M. Cioran, quoted by Will Blythe in the introduction to
"Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction"

["Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction," Will Blythe, ed.]


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"Great wits are sure to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

--"Absalom and Achitophel" by John Dryden

["Familiar Quotations," John Bartlett, ed., Bartleby.com]


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"Promises, promises."

--Dorothy Parker, when told by her doctor "that she would be
dead in a month if she did not stop drinking."

["The Portable Curmudgeon: Dorothy Parker Anecdotes,"
Jon Winokur, ed.]


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Movable Type | Britannica.com | Edited by Jo Rosenbohm
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