From The Living Races of Mankind. A Popular Illustrated Account of the Customs, Habits, Pursuits, Feats & Ceremonies of the Races of Mankind throughout the World (circa 1900):
In physical characteristics [the Icelander] does not compare favourably with his fellow Scandinavians.
....[they] have thick, clumsy bodies, apparently too long and heavy for the legs...
...the eye ... is nearly always hard, cold and expressionless.
...their directness in criticising and ridiculing other people's weaknesses ... has created an impression that they are boorish and ill-natured.
...of which the latest is by Magnús Magnússon
Ég er búinn ađ henda inn á YouTube sex ţátta seríu frá 1972 um heimspeki viđ Oxford-háskóla. Ţarna má finna löng viđtöl viđ menn á borđ viđ Alfred Ayer, Isaiah Berlin, Peter Strawson, Stuart Hampshire, Gilbert Ryle, Iris Murdoch og David Pears um sögu 20. aldar heimspeki, um ţekkingarfrćđi, málspeki, stjórnspeki o.fl.
...of which the latest is by Siggi Óla
Jahá...ég á ekki orđ...
Smelliđ á plakatiđ til ţess ađ sjá trailerinn.
...of which the latest is by Arnaldur
Ég hef lengi haft mikiđ dálćti á heimspekingnum og hugmyndasagnfrćđingnum Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), og hef eignast og lesiđ flestallar bćkur eftir hann. Um áriđ las ég The Roots of Romanticism, sem fjallar um rćtur rómantísku stefnunnar í evrópsku hugmynda- og menningarlífi. Skilgreining Berlins á rómantíkinni er ein sú rosalegasta sem ég rekist á:
Romanticism is the primitive, the untutored, it is youth, the exuberant sense of life of the natural man, but it is also pallor, fever, disease, decadence, the maladie du sičcle, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the Dance of Death, indeed Death itself. It is Shelley’s dome of many-coloured glass, and it is also his white radiance of eternity. It is the confused teeming fullness and richness of life, Fülle des Lebens, inexhaustible multiplicity, turbulence, violence, conflict, chaos, but also it is peace, oneness with the great ‘I Am’, harmony with the natural order, the music of the spheres, dissolution in the eternal all-containing spirit. It is the strange, the exotic, the grotesque, the mysterious, the supernatural, ruins, moonlight, enchanted castles, hunting horns, elves, giants, griffins, falling water, the old mill on the Floss, darkness and the powers of darkness, phantoms, vampires, nameless terror, the irrational, the unutterable. Also it is the familiar, the sense of one’s unique tradition, joy in the smiling aspect of everyday nature, and the accustomed sights and sounds of contented, simple, rural folk—the sane and happy wisdom of rosy-cheeked sons of the soil. It is the ancient, the historic, it is Gothic cathedrals, mists of antiquity, ancient roots and the old order with its unanalysable qualities, its profound but inexpressible loyalties, the impalpable, the imponderable. Also it is the pursuit of novelty, revolutionary change, concern with the fleeting present, desire to live in the moment, rejection of knowledge, past and future, the pastoral idyll of happy innocence, joy in the passing instant, a sense of timelessness. It is nostalgia, it is reverie, it is intoxicating dreams, it is sweet melancholy and bitter melancholy, solitude, the sufferings of exile, the sense of alienation, roaming in remote places, especially the East, and in remote times, especially the Middle Ages. But also it is happy co-operation in a common creative effort, the sense of forming part of a Church, a class, a party, a tradition, a great and all-containing symmetrical hierarchy, knights and retainers, the ranks of the Church, organic social ties, mystic unity, one faith, one land, one blood, ‘la terre et les morts’, as Barrčs said, the great society of the dead and the living and the yet unborn. It is the the Toryism of Scott and Southey and Wordsworth, and it is the radicalism of Shelley, Büchner and Stendhal. It is Chateaubriand’s aesthetic medievalism, and it is Michelet’s loathing of the Middle Ages. It is Carlyle’s worship of authority, and Hugo’s hatred of authority. It is extreme nature mysticism, and extreme anti-naturalist aestheticism. It is energy, force, will, life étalage du moi; it is also self-torture, self-annihilation, suicide. It is the primitive, the unsophisticated, the bosom of nature, green fields, cow-bells, murmuring brooks, the infinite blue sky. No less, however, it is also dandyism, the desire to dress up, red waistcoats, green wigs, blue hair which the followers of people like Gérard de Nerval wore in Paris at a certain period. It is the lobster which Nerval led about on a string in the streets of Paris. It is wild exhibitionism, eccentricity, it is the battle of Ernani, it is ennui, it is taedium vitae, it is the death of Sardanopolis, whether painted by Delacroix, or written about by Berlioz or Byron. It is the convulsion of great empires, wars, slaughter and the crashing of worlds. It is the romantic hero—the rebel, l’homme fatal, the damned soul, the Corsairs, Manfreds, Giaours, Laras, Cains, all the population of Byron’s heroic poems. It is Melmoth, it is Jean Sbogar, all the outcasts and Ishmaels as well as the golden-hearted courtesans and the noble-hearted convicts of nineteenth-century fiction. It is drinking out of the human skull, it is Berlioz who said he wanted to climb Vesuvius in order to commune with a kindred soul. It is Satanic revels, cynical irony, diabolical laughter, black heroes, but also Blake’s vision of God and his angels, the great Christian society, the eternal order, and ‘the starry heavens which can scarce express the infinite and eternal of the Christian soul’. It is, in short, unity and multiplicity. It is fidelity to the particular, in the paintings of nature for example, and also mysterious tantalising vagueness of outline. It is beauty and ugliness. It is art for art’s sake, and art as an instrument of social salvation. It is strength and weakness, individualism and collectivism, purity and corruption, revolution and reaction, peace and war, love of life and love of death.
...of which the latest is by Siggi Óla
Ţađ er ekki auđvelt ađ heita Sveinbjörn Ţórđarson í enskumćlandi landi. Í gegnum tíđina hef ég veriđ Svienbjorn Thordarsson, Swainburn Thorderson og jafnvel Dr. Svienbjorn Thordarsson. En í dag barst eftirfarandi bréf inn um lúguna hjá mér:
...of which the latest is by Sveinbjörn
Ţrjú og hálft ár hérna í Bretlandi, u.ţ.b. tvö í viđbót til ţess ađ klára doktorinn. Fimm og hálft ár í háskóla hérna, ţrjár gráđur.
Ég hef allavega lćrt eina skýra lexíu (syngist viđ Ísbjarnarblús, í kringum 2:26):
Ég ćtla aldrei, aldrei, aldrei, aldrei, aldrei aftur ađ búa í .... Bretlandi.