Epigrams from The Picture of Dorian Gray (Part 2)

"The Picture of Dorian Gray" is a novel by Oscar Wilde that explores the themes of vanity, moral corruption, and the consequences of living a hedonistic lifestyle. The story follows Dorian Gray, a young man who wishes to remain forever youthful and beautiful, while his portrait ages and reflects the moral decay of his actions.

In this second batch's epigrams, you'll find it more daring, more thought-provoking, and more seducing to the mind and heart. Lest, you can assure that your collective thoughts are typically intact and couldn't waver, think again, for these illustrious thoughts from Mr. Oscar Wilde are beaters of conscience.

Click here for the first part.

13. To define is to limit

14. Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular, one must be a mediocrity

15. Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

16. I have never searched for happiness, who wants happiness? i have searched for pleasure.

17. There were two cries heard, the cry of a hare in pain, which is dreadful, and the cry of a man in agony, which is worse

18. The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty

19. Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful

20. Civilisation is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt.

21. Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

22. If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart

23. Like the painting of a sorrow. A face without heart

24. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul?

25. The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but one is young.

26. Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.

Othello

Salimbayan

Buwan ng Wika - The month of August is celebrated in the Philippines as the language month. It just dawned on me this evening to accentuate this occasion with a month-long poem of posts composed in the Filipino language. I'm quite excited about it because i was inspired by someone i recently knew who has accomplished a visual delicacy when it comes to poetry and photographs.

Salimbayan

O tinig mo'y aking pilit na inapuhap
sa salimbayan ng pluta'y di ko malasap
Niyang samyo ng 'Yong kabanguhan
anopa't di ko maramdaman




Bakit tila napawi na ang 'yong mga ngiti?
bagama't wala ka namang panaghili
Totoo bang panaho'y nakapagpapabago?
pagkat di tanggap ng isipan kong ika'y di na totoo




O sa saliw ng lagaslas ng hubad na ilog
ang mukha mo'y di ko na maaninag
sa salimbayan ng muntihang mga alon
ika'y pumanaw at lumisan




Anopa't ako'y nasiphayo
pagkat di kita nahango
ni di ka man lang nagpaalam
kahit isang liham ay wala kang iniwan


Sa salimbayan ng aking damdamin
asan kama'y di parin maamin
ng pusong naiwan ng lihim
na di tugma ang panahon natin



Othello

Fried Ice Cream

Forgive me if it never crossed my mind that there is actually a real fried ice-cream. But seriously, my mind is in revolt trying to analyze and reason out the possible output when you fry an ice cream.

I can't help but laugh thinking the process of frying an ice-cream and it's kind of insane to cook it in hot fat or oil, my initial response without blinking adieu is that it will melt, and what good it is to lick and eat that favorite dessert of mine?

With my thoughts being baffled, i checked with my friend who just came from Manila, to my surprise, he had tasted a fried ice-cream and it felt really that good - he mused.

Although i'm the type who easily got convinced esp on verbal communications, i still have second thoughts on this case. Still bewildered, i consulted Mr. G and checked for images of fried ice-cream. There you go, the fried ice-cream is really existing nature-wise.

By the time i get to have the hands-on real experience of this craze, i will definitely post back how was the taste, and to give a conclusion in licking a fried ice-cream.

MAC


(images courtesy of Google Photos)

How to Turn Bad News to Good News for Customers? (call center 101)

Sometimes reverse psychology doesn't always work when blurting out the bad news. One may point out that you have to know the mood of the customer when it comes to telling the negative. But not everyone of us has the psychic ability to read minds especially for those frustrated customers that desperately need a saving grace in the field of customer service, lest in a call center environment.

The challenge is how to turn the bad news to make it sound like more accommodating in the ears of the customer. These phrases would pre-empt the customer that a bomb is coming on their way, making them feel prepared to receive the bad news, and to calm their senses that it's not that bad at all,

1. As it turned out instead of using unfortunately
(example) As it turned out Mrs Jones, your warranty has expired last month, the failure on your device is therefore cannot be covered but i'd like to discuss your options.

2. I hate to break the bad news to you but...
(example) Ms Jones, i hate to break the bad news to you but worry not because we have some alternatives in the solution to your problem.

3. I've good news and bad news for your case, i'll tell you the bad news first...
(example) Mrs Jones, I've good news and bad news for your case, i'll tell you the bad news first... (state the dilemma), and the good news is, you may opt to do this...(state the customer's options)

4. Given the results...
(example) Missus Jones, given the results of your case, we found out that it's kind of a dead-end, however, i was able to squeeze out some options for you.

image: courtesy of SpaceX

A compassionate customer service rep wouldn't go head-on colliding with the customer in telling the negative no matter how small that is, instead, it is psychologically advisable for them to use coaxing words and phrases.

The plebeian keyword here is the Option, it was overrated sometimes but technically and philosophically, you're extending a beneficial effort for the customer when you offer some alternatives, that may or may not directly solve their problems.



MAC

Epigrams from The Picture of Dorian Gray (Part 1)

I just finished the epub version of this book after a month of  stop-resume-stop-resume reading. And it was a delicious treat to the mind who seek comfort with the thoughts about subtle non-conformity. (thanks to Lord Henry)

I got so fond of it that i found it too late to highlight the passages and words of wisdom or may i say, thought-provoking paragraphs scribed by Mr. Oscar Wilde, so, the list below has been lifted out starting from Chapter 1V onward.

1. One could never pay tooo high the price for any sensation

2. People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what i call the depth of generosity

3. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. but inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look.

4. The mere fact of having published a book of second rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. The lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.

5. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes

6. A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her

7. To Cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul

8. One's days were to brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life, and paid his own price for livign it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed.

9. When the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses.

Men and women at such moemnts lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move, Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning-star of evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.

10. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. THat is the reason i hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.It is the only thing he is fit for.

11. I admit that i think that it is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand no one is more ready than i am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.

12. Skepticism is the beginning of Faith


(click here for the part 2)


MAC