Alfred Hitchcock is interviewed by Dick Cavett on TV in 1972:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.”

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude)

“PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom—and of whom only—it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.”

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Sound footage of the presidential inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Power doesn’t have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.”

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

From 2006:

I woke up this morning at nine-thirty, an hour later than my normal get-up-and-go time. As I descended from the loft in which I spend my nights, it struck me that I had nothing whatsoever to do today: no deadlines, no shows to see, no meals with friends, no plans of any kind. For a moment I felt myself revving up, trying to think of culture-related activities with which to fill all those empty hours. Then a new, unfamiliar reflex kicked in. Why not do nothing? I asked myself, and a smile flickered across my face….

Read the whole thing here.

“We have all forgot more than we remember.”

Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli plays the slow movement of Ravel’s G Major Piano Concerto, accompanied by Sergiu Celidibache and the London Symphony: 

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)