Gower Quotes

“[Admiral Sir Erasmus Gower] 'No other contemporary officer approached his accumulated experience...' From Champion of the Quarterdeck: Admiral Sir Erasmus Gower 1742-1814.”

“Gower is the first English writer to use "history" as an English word. He regularly rhymes the term with "memory," for to his way of thinking history and memory are correlative. That is, without history, there can be no memory; and without memory, there can be no history. But the point of historical knowledge is not to enable people to live in the past, or even to understand the past in the way we would expect a modern historian to proceed; rather, it is to enable people to live more vitally in the present.”

“Traps!" he said. "Never in the world! Don't think it! Why, Gower is just a necessary olf bore. Nobody's supposed to know much about him--except instructors and their hapless students.”

“Turning up Gower Street, she was headed to the First Presbyterian Church, not that she had suddenly decided to become born again or some shit. No, there was an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that was about to let out, so she figured she would drop off a little gift by the exit. Nothing big, just the six pack. That was not why she had come, of course, but why pass up the opportunity to lead someone into temptation?”

“There is no deception on the part of the woman, where a man bewilders himself: if he deludes his own wits, I can certainly acquit the women. Whatever man allows his mind to dwell upon the imprint his imagination has foolishly taken of women, is fanning the flames within himself -- and, since the woman knows nothing about it, she is not to blame. For if a man incites himself to drown, and will not restrain himself, it is not the water's fault.”

“If there is method here, it is hard to discern it. Let it be repeated: the use of capitals is a matter not or rules but of taste; but consistency is at least not a mark of bad taste.”