TV advertising typically insults or patronizes us. The Union Bank of Switzerland decided, I think in 1999, to pander to our intelligence and produced the most unusual ad campaign I have ever had the pleasure to view on TV. They gave me a few moments of hope that we might change. And if we don't, it's not going to be their fault. Bless you, UBS.
What makes a Classic?
Some poetry about love. Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, Ralph Waldo Emerson's Give All to Love.
On creativity. Martha Graham's Gotta Dance!
On spirituality. William Blake's Auguries of Innocence and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Some Wordsworth.
Here are Henry V's St. Crispen's Speech by Shakespeare and Ulysses by Tennyson. I think they're about manhood, a forgotten virtue in these feminized (in the USA anyway) times. I adore these pieces, they are unbelievably beautiful, in a masculine way! Every man should know them, they will provide understanding when you feel you're crazy for wanting to do something crazy. Every woman should read them too, lest you not understand a big chunk of a man's authentic soul; you negotiate it out of existence at considerable peril.
Here are some GAIA quotes. The Human Race and A Message from Chief Seattle (yes, I know that this speech is fictionalized but it lives on on its own terms).
And Books I've Read, Movies I've Seen