“I started at the top and worked my way down.”
-—Orson Welles
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
[Published 1818]
A Flock of Seagulls: And I Ra-a-a-an…
Scientists at the University of Leeds say that humans flock like sheep and birds, subconsciously following a minority of individuals.
“Results from a study at the University of Leeds show that it takes a minority of just five per cent to influence a crowd’s direction – and that the other 95 per cent follow without realising it.”
Immortality
–Woody Allen
The Grapes of Wrath
–Will Rogers