"MISS PRISM
(...) You must put away your diary, Cecily. I really don't see why you should keep a diary at all.
CECILY
I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should probably forget all about them.
MISS PRISM
Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.
CECILY
Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us.
MISS PRISM
Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days.
CECILY
Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.
MISS PRISM
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Monday, March 31, 2008
The enchanted book
I read often in this book. It is to me as the sea is, or the wind: for like that unseen and homeless creature, which in the beginning God breathed between the lips of Heat and Cold, it is full of unbidden meanings and has sighs and laughters: and, like the sea, it has limits and shallows, but holds the stars, and has depths where light is dim and only the still, breathless soul listens; and has a sudden voice that is old as day and night, and is fed with dews and rain, and is salt and bitter.
Fiona MacLeod
Fiona MacLeod
Forgotten
Aegina, Greece - 2007See how soon everything is forgotten, and look at the chaos of infinite time on each side of [the present], and the emptiness of applause, and the changeableness and want of judgment in those who pretend to give praise, and the narrowness of the space within which it is circumscribed [and be quiet at last]. For the whole earth is a point, and how small a nook in it is this thy dwelling, and how few are there in it, and what kind of people are they who will praise thee.This then remains: Remember to retire into this little territory of thy own, and above all do not distract or strain thyself, but be free, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal. But among the things readiest to thy hand to which thou shalt turn, let there be these, which are two. One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within. The other is that all these things, which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already witnessed. The universe is transformation: life is opinion.
Marcus Aurelius, in 'Meditations'
Marcus Aurelius, in 'Meditations'
Luis Buñuel
Aegina, Greece - 20071. "All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence."
2. "Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether."
3. "God and Country are an unbeatable team: they break all records for oppression and bloodshed."
4. "In any society, the artist has a responsibility. His effectiveness is certainly limited and a painter or writer cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of non-conformity alive. Thanks to them the powerful can never affirm that everyone agrees with their acts. That small difference is important."
5. “You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.”
Unique
Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersct, only once this way, and never again.
Herman Hesse
Herman Hesse
Full
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Thomas Gray.
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Thomas Gray.
True earth
But the true earth is pure and situated in a pure heaven ... and it is the heaven which is commonly spoken by us as ether ... for if any man could arrive at the extreme limit ... he would acknowledge that this other world was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true earth.
Plato, Phaedo
Plato, Phaedo
To live
"To live is to give oneself, perpetuate oneself, and to perpetuate oneself, to give oneself, is to die. Perhaps the supreme delight of procreation is nothing other than foretasting or savoring of death, the spilling of one’s own vital essence. We unite with another, but it is to divide ourselves: that most intimate embrace is naught but a most intimate uprooting. In essence, the delight of sexual love, the genetic spasm, is a sensation of resurrection, of resuscitation in another, for only in others can we resuscitate and perpetuate ourselves"
Miguel de Unamuno
Inalienable
Pleasure and pain alternate. Happiness is unshakable. What you can seek and find is not the real thing. Find what you have never lost, find the inalienable.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Definitions
Suppose you know the definitions of all substances
and their derivatives,
what good is this to you?
Know the true definition of yourself.
That is indispensable.
Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it,
that you may attain to the One who cannot be defined,
O sifter of the dust.
Rumi
and their derivatives,
what good is this to you?
Know the true definition of yourself.
That is indispensable.
Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it,
that you may attain to the One who cannot be defined,
O sifter of the dust.
Rumi
New ideas
New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!
Arthur C Clarke, 1917 - 2008
Arthur C Clarke, 1917 - 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Emily Dickinson
Aegina, Greece - 20071. ”A letter always seemed to me like immortality
because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.”
2. “Ample make this bed. / Make this bed with awe; / In it wait till judgement break / Excellent and fair.”
3. “And then a Plank in Reason broke,
And I dropped down, and down,
And hit a World, at every plunge…”
4. “And so upon this wise I prayed,--
Great Spirit, give to me
A heaven not so large as yours
But large enough for me.”
5. “A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,
His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.
His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;
What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty.
And Sophocles a man;
When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,
He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true;
He lived where dreams were sown.
His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.”
6. “A word is dead,
When it is said;
Some say. I say
It just began
to live that day.”
7. "Beauty is not caused. It is."
8. “Because I could not stop for Death, / He kindly stopped for me; / The carriage held but just ourselves / And Immortality.”
9. “Come slowly, Eden / Lips unused to thee. / Bashful, sip thy jasmines, / As the fainting bee, / Reaching late his flower, / Round her chamber hums, / Counts his nectars -alights, / And is lost in balms!”
10. “Dying is a wild night and a new road.”
11. "Estranged from Beauty--none can be-- / For Beauty is Infinity-- / And power to be finite ceased / Before Identity was leased."
12. “Faith is a fine invention
For gentlemen who see;
But Microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.”
13. “Fame is a bee. / It has a song / It has a sting / Ah, too, it has a wing.”
14. “Forever is composed of nows.”
15. “Had I not seen the Sun
I could have borne the shade
But Light a newer Wilderness
My Wilderness has made.”
16. “He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!”
17. “Heavenly Father" -- take to thee
The supreme iniquity
Fashioned by thy candid Hand
In a moment contraband --
Though to trust us seem to us
More respectful --
"We are Dust" --
We apologize to thee
For thine own Duplicity.”
18. “Hope is a thing with feathers / That perches in the soul, / And sings the tune without words / And never stops at all.”
19. “How dreary to be somebody! / How public, like a frog / To tell your name the livelong day/ To an admiring bog!”
20. “How much can come / And much can go, / And yet abide the world!”
21. “How strange that nature does knock, and yet does not intrude!”
22. "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
23. “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”
24. “I felt it shelter to speak to you.”
25. “Immured in Heaven!
What a Cell!
Let every Bondage be,
Thou sweetest of the Universe,
Like that which ravished thee!”
26. ”I never saw a moor, / I never saw the sea; / Yet know I how the heather looks, / And what a wave must be. / I never spoke with God, / Nor visited in Heaven; / Yet certain am I of the spot, / As if a chart were given.”
27. ”It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.”
28. “It was not death, for I stood up, / And all the dead lie down; / It was not night, for all the bells / Put out their tongues, for noon.”
29. “Luck is not chance / It's Toil / Fortune's expensive smile / Is earned.”
30. “Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,--you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.”
31. “My life closed twice before its close; / It yet remains to see / If Immortality unveil / A third event to me.”
32. “Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.”
33. ”One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.”
34. “Our journey has advanced; / Our feet were almost come / To that odd fork in Being's road,/ Eternity by term.”
35. ”Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed.”
36. “Surgeons must be very careful / When they take the knife! / Underneath their fine incisions / Stirs the Culprit - Life!”
37. “Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Success in circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth's superb surprise
As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.”
38. “That love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love.”
39. “The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul--books.”
40. “The Gleam of an heroic act,
Such strange illumination--
The Possible's slow fuse it lit
By the Imagination.”
41. “The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.”
42. “The Possible's slow fuse is lit
By the Imagination.”
43. “There's a certain slant of light, / On winter afternoons, / That oppresses, like the weight / Of cathedral tunes.”
44. “There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul.”
45. “The soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend
Or the most agonizing spy
An enemy could send.”
46. “They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
47. “This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond --
Invisible, as Music --
But positive, as Sound --
It beckons, and it baffles --
Philosophy -- don't know --
And through a Riddle, at the last --
Sagacity, must go --
To guess it, puzzles scholars --
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown --
Faith slips -- and laughs, and rallies --
Blushes, if any see --
Plucks at a twig of Evidence --
And asks a Vane, the way --
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit --
Strong Hallelujahs roll --
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul --“
48. “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, / One clover, and a bee, / And revery. / The revery alone will do, / If bees are few.”
49. “To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee.”
50. “Unable are the Loved to die
For Love is Immortality.”
51. “We trust in plumed procession / For such the angels go / Rank after Rank, with even feet / And uniforms of Snow.”
52. “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.”
53. “Witchcraft was hung, in history
But history and I
Find all the witchcraft that we need
Around us, every day.”
54. “You cannot put a fire out;
A thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a fan
Upon the slowest night.
You cannot fold a flood
And put it in a drawer, --
Because the winds would find it out,
And tell your cedar floor.”
“'Why do I love' You, Sir?
Because
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.
Because He knows and
Do not You
And We know not
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so
The Lightning never asked an Eye
Wherefore it struck when He was by
Because He knows it cannot speak
And reasons not contained
Of Talk
There be preferred by Daintier Folk
The Sunrise Sir compelleth Me
Because He's Sunrise and I see
Therefore Then
I love Thee”
“Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port-
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
Tonight in thee!”
Mischievous
I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.
Socrates, quoted by Plato, 'The Death of Socrates'
Socrates, quoted by Plato, 'The Death of Socrates'
Highest delight
In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality, 1876
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality, 1876
Outings
Outings are so much more fun when we can savor them through the children's eyes.
Lawana Blackwell, The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter, 1998
Lawana Blackwell, The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter, 1998
An entrance to somewhere else
We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1967)
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1967)
Monday, March 17, 2008
Henry Miller
Aegina, Greece - 20071. “Actors die so loud.”
2. "After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I'd say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you're walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you're not vitally interested in."
3. "All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience."
4. "All the lies and evasions by which man has nourished himself -- civilization, in a word is the fruits of the creative artist. It is the creative nature of man which has refused to let him lapse back into that unconscious unity with life which characterizes the animal world from which he made his escape."
5. "A man of good will with a little effort and belief in his own powers can enjoy a deep, tranquil, rich life -- provided he go his own way. He need not and should not think of making a good living, but rather of creating a good life for himself. To live one's own life is still the best way of life, always was, and always will be."
6. "A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life. He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in."
7. "Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of an evil, which, oddly enough, is consciousness."
8. "And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is
human? Divine, in other words?"
9. “And who is the hero? Primarily one who has conquered his fears. One can be a hero in any realm; we never fail to recognize him when he appears. His singular virtue is that he has become one with life, one with himself. Having ceased to doubt and question, he quickens the flow and the rhythm of life. The coward, par contre, seeks to arrest life's flow. He arrests nothing, to be sure, unless it be himself. Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or as heros. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”
10. “A new world is not made simply by trying to forget the old. A new world is made with a new spirit, with new values. Our world may have begun that way, but today it is caricature. Our world is a world of things. What we dread most, in the face of the impending debacle, is that we shall be obliged to give up our gewgaws, our gadgets, all the little comforts that have made us so uncomfortable. We are not peaceful souls; we are smug, timid, queasy and quaky.”
11. “Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.”
12. "Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself."
13. "Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life."
14. “A toujours.
Memory is the talisman of the sleepwalker on the floor of eternity.
If nothing is lost neither is anything gained.
There is only what endures. I AM.
That covers all experience, all wisdom, all truth.”
15. "Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: it comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur."
16. “Be always ecstatic. Be filled with a devine intoxication.”
17. "Chaos is the score upon which reality is written."
18. “Civilization is drugs, alcohol, engines of war, prostitution, machines and machine slaves, low wages, bad food, bad taste, prisons, reformatories, lunatic asylums, divorce, perversion, brutal sports, suicides, infanticide, cinema, quackery, demagogy, strikes, lockouts, revolutions, putsches, colonization, electric chairs, guillotines, sabotage, floods, famine, disease, gangsters, money barons, horse racing, fashion shows, poodle dogs, chow dogs, Siamese cats, condoms, pessaries, syphilis, gonorrhea, insanity, neuroses, etc., etc.”
19. "Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood."
20. "Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music-the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."
21. ”Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, to discover what is already there.”
22. "Every genuine boy is a rebel and an anarch. If he were allowed to develop according to his own instincts, his own inclinations, society would undergo such a radical transformation as to make the adult revolutionary cower and cringe."
23. “Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.”
24. “Example moves the world more than doctrine. The great exemplars are the poets of action, and it makes little difference whether they be forces for good or forces for evil.”
25. “Fame is an illusive thing -- here today, gone tomorrow. The fickle, shallow mob raises its heroes to the pinnacle of approval today and hurls them into oblivion tomorrow at the slightest whim; cheers today, hisses tomorrow; utter forgetfulness in a few months.”
26. "History is the myth, the true myth, of man's fall made manifest in time."
27. "Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire."
28. "Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions. It's a sort of spiritual clap, I should say."
29. "How different the new order would be if we could consult the veteran instead of the politician."
30. “I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it: we must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and soul. It may be that we are doomed, that there is no hope for us, any of us, but if that is so then let us set up a last agonizing, bloodcurdling howl, a screech of defiance, a war whoop! Away with lamentation! Away with elegies and dirges! Away with biographies and histories, and libraries and museums! Let the dead eat the dead. Let us living ones dance about the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance. But a dance!”
31. "I didn't have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let's say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!"
32. “I don't want to be bitter about life - about love and friendship and all the human, emotional entanglements. I've had more than my share of human disappointments, deprivations, disillusionment. I want to love people and life above all; I want to be able to say always, "if you feel bitter or disillusioned, there is something wrong with yourself, not with people, not with life."
33. “I feel the world should be run by women. It would be the kind of a world - one world - I have often dreamed about.”
34. “If only I could believe in work. I hate work. Creation is not work - it's play. But who believes in that? I know it's true, but now it's one of those distant truths - as remote as the stars. It's treasonable even to think this way.”
35. ”If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.”
36. "If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having."
37. “If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”
38. "I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth."
39. “I haven't the slightest fear about the future because I have learned how to live in the present.”
40. "Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything."
41. “In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.”
42. "Instead of asking -- ''How much damage will the work in question bring about?'' why not ask -- ''How much good? How much joy?''"
43. "In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor."
44. "In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest."
45. "It does me good to write a letter which is not a response to a demand, a gratuitous letter, so to speak, which has accumulated in me like the waters of a reservoir."
46. “It's silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are all brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars, hypocrites, poltroons.”
47. “It is true I swim in a perpetual sea of sex, but the actual excursions are fairly limited.”
48. “Let each one turn his gaze inward and regard himself with awe and wonder, with mystery and reverence; let each one promulgate his own laws, his own theories; let each one work his own influence, his own havoc, his own miracles. Let each one as an individual, assume the roles of artist, healer, prophet, priest, king, warrior, saint.”
49. "Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets."
50. "Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. "
51. "Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such."
52. "Living apart and at peace with myself, I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain, even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with another's way of life - so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands off!"
53. "Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.
54. “Man does not recognize what a gem he has in woman and that through the experience of truly loving her, of giving himself up to her, he learns his greatest lesson in life.”
55. "Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything -- except his own nature."
56. “Man torturing man is a fiend beyond description. You turn a corner in the dark and there he is. You congeal into a bundle of inanimate fear. You become the very soul of anesthesia. But there is no escaping him. It is your turn now...”
57. "Men are not suffering from the lack of good literature, good art, good theatre, good music, but from that which has made it impossible for these to become manifest. In short, they are suffering from the silent shameful conspiracy (the more shameful since it is unacknowledged) which has bound them together as enemies of art and artists."
58. "Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines --these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm."
59. “Most of us imagine that we are travelling in a straight line, whereas the truth is that we are moving in circles. We change direction almost without thinking. Headed for Mexico, we land in China. (And like as not, without the slightest loss of face.) The ambitious ones set out to storm the world, only to end up like so many dead leaves scattered by the wind.”
60. “My books are the books that I am, the confused man, the negligent man, the reckless man, the lusty, obscene, boisterous, scrupulous, lying, diabolically truthful man that I am.”
61. “Nine-tenths of our sickness can be prevented by right thinking plus right hygiene -- nine-tenths of it!”
62. "No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance."
63. "No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man's front embraces the whole universe."
64. “No one asks you to throw Mozart out of the window. Keep Mozart. Cherish him. Keep Moses too, and Buddha and Lao tse and Christ. Keep them in your heart. But make room for the others, the coming ones, the ones who are already scratching on the window-panes.”
65. “Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.”
66. "One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life."
67. "One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things."
68. "One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one."
69. "Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense."
70. "Reality is not protected or defended by laws, proclamations, ukases, cannons and armadas. Reality is that which is sprouting all the time out of death and disintegration."
71. "Remorse is impotence, it will sin again. Only repentance is strong, it can end everything."
72. "Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation.The other eight are unimportant".
73. "Sin, guilt, neurosis --they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge."
74. “. . . that's the only death, that's the real death. Not this death when you depart the body, but being dead while you are alive, that's the real death.”
75. "The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware."
76. ”The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.”
77. "The bulk of my readers, I have often observed, fall into two distinct groups: in the one group those who claim to be repelled or disgusted by the liberal dosage of sex, and in the other those who are delighted to find that this element form such a large ingredient."
78. “The crisis through which we are going . . . is rooted in the fact that we all hold beliefs contrary to our behavior.”
79. "The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal."
80. "The earth is a Paradise, the only one we will ever know. We will realize it the moment we open our eyes. We don't have to make it a Paradise -- it is one. We have only to make ourselves fit to inhabit it."
81. “The gulf between knowledge and truth is infinite. Parents talk a lot about truth but seldom bother to deal in it. It's much simpler to dispense ready-made knowledge. More expedient too, for truth demands patience, endless, endless patience. The happiest expedient of all is to bundle kids off to school just as soon as they can stand the strain. There they not only get "learning," which is a crude substitute for knowledge, but discipline.”
82. "The important thing I learned from making watercolours, was not to worry, not to care too much. We don't have to turn out a masterpiece everyday. To paint is the thing, not to make masterpieces."
83. “The land and the water make numbers joined, a poem written with flesh and stronger than steel or granite. Through endless night the earth whirls toward a creation unknown.”
84. "The life of a creator is not the only life nor perhaps the most interesting which a man leads. There is a time for play and a time for work, a time for creation and a time for lying fallow. And there is a time, glorious too in its own way, when one scarcely exists, when one is a complete void. I mean -- when boredom seems the very stuff of life."
85. "The loss of sex polarity is part and parcel of the larger disintegration, the reflex of the soul's death, and coincident with the disappearance of great men, great deeds, great causes, great wars, etc."
86. ”The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to ahve artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.”
87. “The mission of man on earth is to remember...
To remember, to forget, to decide which it shall be.
We have no choice, we remember everything.
But to forget in order to better remember, ah!
The mission of man on earth is to remember.
To remember to remember.
To taste everything in eternity as once in time.
All happens only once, but that is forever.”
88. “The moment one is on the side of life, "peace and security" drop out of consciousness. The only peace, the only security, is in fulfillment.”
89. "The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself."
90. “The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is, different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive.”
91. “The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.”
92. “The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference.”
93. “The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over.”
94. "The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself."
95. "There are lone figures armed only with ideas, sometimes with just one idea, who blast away whole epochs in which we are enwrapped like mummies. Some are powerful enough to resurrect the dead. Some steal on us unawares and put a spell over us which it takes centuries to throw off. Some put a curse on us, for our stupidity and inertia, and then it seems as if God himself were unable to lift it."
96. “The real leader has no need to lead -- he is content to point the way.”
97. “There is nothing strange about fear: no matter in what guise it presents itself it is something with which we are all so familiar that when a man appears who is without it we are at once enslaved by him.”
98. "There is nothing strange about fear: no matter in what guise it presents itself it is something with which we are all so familiar that when a man appears who is without it we are at once enslaved by him."
99. "There is the happiness which comes from creative effort. The joy of dreaming, creating, building, whether in painting a picture, writing an epic, singing a song, composing a symphony, devising new invention, creating a vast industry."
100. "The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you."
101. "The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not wise, neither can they remain young and vigorous. In order to transmute energy to higher and more subtle levels one must first conserve it."
102. "The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order."
103. “The world isn't kept running because it's a paying proposition. (God doesn't make a cent on the deal.) The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestioningly; they underwrite it with their lives.”
104. "The world is the mirror of myself dying."
105. "The world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure."
106. "This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing."
107. “Until it is kindled by a spirit as lovingly alive as the one which gave it birth, a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs.”
108. "Until we lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves."
109. “Voyages are accomplished inwardly, and the most hazardous ones, needless to say, are made without moving from the spot.”
110. "We are all guilty of crime the great crime of not living life to the full.
But we are all potentially free.
We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power.
What those powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine.
That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything.
Imagination is the voice of daring.”
111. “We are all part of things,
We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians,
We have only to open up, to discover what is already there.”
112. “We cling to memory in order to preserve an identify which, if we but realized it, can never be lost. When we discover this truth, which is an act of remembrance, we forget everything else.”
113. "We do not talk -- we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests."
114. "We have been educated to such a fine -- or dull -- point that we are incapable of enjoying something new, something different, until we are first told what it's all about. We don't trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. In short, the blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way."
115. "We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the streets -- we remember only.
116. ”We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate.”
117. “What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.”
118. "Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge."
119. “Whatever I do I do first for enjoyment.”
120. "Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed."
121. "What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature."
122. "What these powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine. That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything. Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything God-like about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything."
123. “What we all hope in reaching for a book, is to meet a man of our own heart, to experience tragedies and delights which we ourselves lack the courage to invite, to dream dreams which will render life more hallucinating, perhaps also to discover a philosophy of life which will make us more adequate in meeting the trials and ordeals which beset us. To merely add to our store of knowledge or improve our culture, whatever that may mean, seems worthless to me.”
124. "What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?"
125. “Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn't the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us.”
126. “When I say friends, I mean friends. Not anybody and everybody can be your friend. It must be someone as close to you as your skin, someone who imparts color, drama, meaning to your life, however snug and secure it may be.”
127. “When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.”
128. “When you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous.”
129. “Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist.”
130. "Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves."
131. “Yes, and always. Always yes. Am here, was gone, and always, yes always, same man, same spot, same hour, same everything.”
Roots
Aegina, Greece - 2007"We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root in Greece."
[Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792-1822, Hellas]
Comforting convictions
Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), "Dreams and Facts"
Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), "Dreams and Facts"
Sequestered nooks
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 'Morituri Salutamus,' 1875
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 'Morituri Salutamus,' 1875
Daydreamers
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Allan Poe, "Eleonora"
Allan Poe, "Eleonora"
Freedom of thought
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Soren Kierkegaard
Soren Kierkegaard
The sweetness of the rose
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
Hubert H. Humphrey
Hubert H. Humphrey
Friday, March 14, 2008
Khalil Gibran
Aegina, Greece - 2007
1. "A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?"
2. ”A link
Between this world and the hereafter;
A pool of sweet water for the thirsty;
A tree planted
On the banks of the river of beauty,
Bearing ripe fruits for hungry hearts to seek.
A singing bird
Hopping along the branches of speech,
Trilling melodies to fill all bodies with sweetness
and tenderness.
A white cloud in the sky at even,
Rising and expanding to fill the heavens,
And then pour out its bounty upon the flowers of
the fields of Life.
An angel
Sent by the gods to teach man the ways of gods.
A shining light unconquered by the dark,
Unhidden by the bushel
Astarte did fill with oil;
And lighted by Apollo.
Alone,
He is clothed in simplicity
And nourished by tenderness;
He sits in Nature's lap learning to create,
And is awake in the stillness of night
In wait of the spirit's descent.
A husbandman who sows the seeds of his heart in
the garden of feeling,
Where they bring forth yield
To sustain those that garner.
This is the Poet that is unheeded of men in his days,
And is known by them on his quitting the world to
return to his heavenly abode.
This is he who seeks no thing of men save a little
smile;
Whose breath rises and fills the firmament with living
visions of beauty.
Yet do the people withhold from him sustenance
and refuge.
Until when, 0 Man,
Until when, 0 Existence,
Will you build houses of honor
To them that knead the earth with blood
And shun those who give you peace and repose?
Until when will you exalt killing
And those who make bend the neck beneath the
yoke of oppression?
And forget them that pour into the blackness of
night
The light of their eyes to show you the day's
splendor?
Those whose lives are passed in misery
That happiness and delight might not pass you by.
And you, 0 Poets,
Life of this life:
You have conquered the ages
Despite their tyranny,
And gained for you a laurel crown
In the face of delusion's thorns.
You are sovereign over hearts,
And your kingdom is without end.”
3. "A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle."
4. "All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind."
5. "All things in this creation exist within you, and all things in you exist in creation; there is no border between you and the closest things, and there is no distance between you and the farthest things, and all things, from the lowest to the loftiest, from the smallest to the greatest, are within you as equal things. In one atom are found all the elements of the earth; in one motion of the mind are found the motions of all the laws of existence; in one drop of water are found the secrets of all the endless oceans; in one aspect of you are found all the aspects of existence."
6. “A man can be free without being great, but no man can be great without being free.”
7. "Among intelligent people the surest basis for marriage is friendship - the sharing of real interests-the ability to fight out ideas together and understand each other's thoughts and dreams."
8. “And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
9. "An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper."
10. “And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
11. “And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
12. "Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem."
13. "And think not you can guide the course of love. For love, if it finds you worthy, shall guide your course."
14. “An expression of that sacred desire to find this world and behold it naked; and that is the soul of the poetry of Life. Poets are not merely those who write poetry, but those whose hearts are full of the spirit of life.”
15. "A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland."
16. “All things in this creation exist within you and all things in you exist in creation; there is no border between you and the closest things, and there is no distance between you and the farthest things, and all things, from the lowest to the loftiest, from the smallest to the greatest, are within you as equal things.”
17. “Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manefestation of nature agree to find new shapes.”
18. “A true hermit goes to the wilderness to find - not to lose himself.”
19. “Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.”
20. "Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."
21. "Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people."
22. “Do not say, "I follow the one true path of the Spirit," but rather, "I have found the Spirit walking on my path," for the Spirit walks on all paths.”
23. “During my youth, Love will be my teacher; in middle age, my help; and in old age, my delight.”
24. "During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk. When once the risk has really been taken, then the greatest danger is to risk too much."
25. “Each and every one of us, dear Mary, must have a resting place somewhere. The resting place of my soul is a beautiful grove where my knowledge of you lives.”
26. "Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."
27. “Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.”
28. “Follow your heart. Your heart is the right guide in everything big. Mine is so limited. What you want to do is determined by that divine element that is in each of us.”
29. ”Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
30. ”For a person to know if he is really in love, he should try for a while the acid test of separation.”
31. “For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.”
32. "For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?"
33. ”Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.”
34. “Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange.”
35. “He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection.”
36. ”He who stares at the small and near images will have difficulty in seeing and distinguishing those that are great and remote.”
37. “I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.”
38. “If I accept the sunshine and warmth I must also accept the thunder and lightning.”
39. “If I can open a new corner in a man’s own heart to him I have not lived in vain. Life itself is the thing, not joy or pain or happiness or unhappiness. To hate is as good as to love - an enemy may be as good as a friend. Live for yourself - live your life. Then you are most truly the friend of man. - I am different every day - and when I am eighty, I shall still be experimenting and changing. Work that I have done no longer concerns me - it is past. I have too much on hand in life itself.”
40. “If I could take your troubles
I would toss them into the sea,
But all these things I'm finding
Are impossible for me.
I cannot build a mountain
Or catch a rainbow fair,
But let me be what I know best,
A friend that is always there.”
41. “If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.”
42. ” ...if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love 's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.”
43. “If it's a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.”
44. “If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.”
45. “I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us.”
46. “In battling evil, excess is good; for he who is moderate in announcing the truth is presenting half-truth. He conceals the other half out of fear of the people's wrath.”
47. “In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.”
48. “In the depth of my soul there is a wordless song.”
49. ”In time of separation, love becomes a "longing" and a "hope" that inspires the anticipation of unification in the near future.”
50. “I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.”
51. ”It is well go give when asked but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.”
52. "It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations."
53. “I was,
And I am.
So shall I be to the end of time,
For I am without end.”
54. “If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.”
55. “I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”
56. “Imagination sees the complete reality, - it is where past, present and future meet... Imagination is limited neither to the reality which is apparent - nor to one place. It lives everywhere. It is at a centre and feels the vibrations of all the circles within which
east and west are virtually included. Imagination is the life of mental freedom. It realizes what everything is in its many aspects ... Imagination does not uplift: we don’t want to be uplifted, we want to be more completely aware.”
57. “I often picture myself living on a mountain top, in the most stormy country (not the coldest) in the world. Is there such a place ? If there is I shall go to it someday and turn my heart into pictures and poems.”
58. "I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires."
59. “It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.”
60. “I want to do a great deal of walking in the open country. Just think, Mary, of being caught by thunder storms! Is there a sight more wonderful than that of seeing the elements producing life through pure motion?”
61. “I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.”
62. "Keep me from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children."
63. “Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds.”
64. “Knowledge is life with wings.”
65. “Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.”
66. “Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.”
67. “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.”
68. "Life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, and all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, and all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love."
69. “Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”
70. "Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love."
71. “Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.“
72. “Love is a magic ray / emitted from the burning core / of the soul / and illuminating the surrounding earth. // It enables us / to perceive life / as a beautiful dream / between one awakening / and another.”
73. ”Love is not something that you fall in love with. Love is an internal spiritual condition that permeates our whole being.“
74. “Love is stronger than death because love is a gift from God. And God himself is eternal.”
75. “Love is trembling happiness.”
76. ”Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
77. "Love one another but make not a bond of love, let there be a moving seabetween the shores of your souls. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone."
78. “Love outlives the biological death.”
79. "Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love."
80. “Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.”
81. “Love that is cleansed by tears will remain eternally pure and beautiful.”
82. “Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.”
83. ”Luxury: The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.”
84. "March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path."
85. “Mary, what is there in a storm that moves me so ? Why am I so much better and stronger and more certain of life when a storm is passing ? I do not know, and yet I love a storm more, far more, than anything in nature.”
86. "No lower can a man descend than to interpret his dreams into gold and silver."
87. “No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”
88. "Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever."
89. “Oh, heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.”
90. "One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night."
91. "Only the dumb envy the talkative.”
92. "Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the one you miss."
93. "Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge."
94. “Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.”
95. ”Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak,arid desert.”
96. “Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.”
97. ”Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth." Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path." For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”
98. ”Silence is one of the mysteries of love.”
99. “Sometimes you have not even begun to speak - and I am at the end of what you are saying.”
100. "Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions."
101. “That deepest thing, that recognition, that knowledge, that sense of kinship began the first time I saw you, and it is the same now - only a thousand times deeper and tenderer. I shall love you to eternity. I loved you long before we met in this flesh. I knew that when I first saw you. It was destiny. We are together like this and nothing can shake us apart.”
102. “The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements, compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.”
103. "The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is."
104. "The greatest pain that comes from love is loving someone you can never have"
105. "The light of stars that were extinguished centuries ago still reaches us. So it is with the great, who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities."
106. “The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.”
107. ”The magic of love binds the soul to the forces of heaven and earth, the bond that unites all things alive and well.
You dwell in the prism of light that shines from the heart of the universe, blind to the eye who sees only the temporary.
Recall the past before time touched your memory when you knew the connectedness of your being to that of its Maker and its twin, itself, one being.
This is pure desire, to become in one flawless moment, an individual in the nature of all things. The promise of what we are is not forgotten, it is written in our longing and passion. You are the Star, my God, my Blessed One, Who guides my slow steps to the stairway to heaven.
Then, in my time, may it be that You open my eyes once again to see You and, in this Love, perfect and divine, the only fulfillment of this exalted child, your son, your daughter, the jewel of Your heart, meet in the canyons of the stars.
I love like this grand music that sings in my heart and my skin. With Your Love let me light the rest of my days. God help me love You as You love me that I may love the world.”
108. “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.”
109. "The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply."
110. “The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.”
111. "The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say."
112. “There was the Door to which I found no Key:
There was the Veil through which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was - and then no more of Thee and Me.”
113. "The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness; and knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream."
114. “The trees were budding, the birds were singing - the grass was wet - the whole earth was shining. And suddenly I was the trees and the flowers and the birds and the grass - and there was no I at all.”
115. “Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.”
116. “They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.”
117. “Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.”
118. “Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.”
119. “Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”
120. "Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone, and a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse."
121. “We are expression of earth, and of life - not separate individuals only. We cannot get enough away from the earth to see the earth and ourselves as separates. We move with its great movements and our growth is part of its great growth.”
122. "We fear death, yet we long for slumber and beautiful dreams."
123. “We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.”
124. “We were a silent, hidden thought in the folds of oblivion, and we have become a voice that causes the heavens to tremble.”
125. “What difference does it make, whether you live in a big city or in a community of homes? The real life is within.”
126. “What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?”
127. “What is poetry ? "An extension of vision - and music is an extension of hearing." “
128. “What the soul knows is often unknown to the man who has a soul. We are infinitely more than we think.”
129. “What-to-Love is a fundamental human problem. And if we have this solution - Love what may Be- we see that this is the way Reality loves - and that there is no other loving that lasts or understands.”
130. “When I am a stranger in a large city I like to sleep in different rooms, eat in different places, walk through unknown streets, and watch the unknown people who pass. I love to be the solitary traveler!”
131. “When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know
the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge
become a fragment of Life's heart.”
132. “When the hand of Life is heavy and night songless, it is the time for love and trust. And how light the hand life becomes and how songful the night, when one is loving and trusting all.”
133. "When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies."
134. “When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.”
135. ”When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
136. “When you reach the heart of life you shall find beauty in all things, even in the eyes that are blind to beauty.”
137. “When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?”
138. "When you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born. And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret."
139. “Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too self-ful to seek other than itself.”
140. "With you, Mary," he said today, "I want to be just like a blade of grass, that moves as the air moves it -to talk just according to the impulse of the moment. And I do."
141. "Work is love made visible. And if you can't work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy."
142. "Yes, there is Nirvana; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem."
143. “Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness, and knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.”
144. ”You are free before the sun of the day and free before the stars of the night...you are even free when you close your eyes upon all there is. But you are a slave to him whom you love because you love him, and a slave to him who loves you because he loves you.”
145. “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
146. ”You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?”
147. "You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."
148. “You have helped me in my work and in myself. And I have helped you in your work and in yourself. And I am grateful to heaven for this you-and-me.”
149. “You listen to so much more than I can say. You hear consciousness. You go with me where the words I say can’t carry you.”
150. "You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept."
151. "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, and yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward, not tarries with yesterday."
152. “Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.”
153. "Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights."
154. “Your life is an island separated from all other islands and continents. Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness and far away in its compassion and hidden in its secrets and mysteries.”
155. “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
156. “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
157. “You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore . . . but let there be spaces in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.”
As dull as their readers
Aegina, Greece - 2007It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life. Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn liberality.
The solitary hired man on a farm in the outskirts of Concord, who has had his second birth and peculiar religious experience, and is driven as he believes into the silent gravity and exclusiveness by his faith, may think it is not true; but Zoroaster, thousands of years ago, traveled the same road and had the same experience; but he, being wise, knew it to be universal, and treated his neighbors accordingly, and is even said to have invented and established worship among men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster then, and through the liberalizing influence of all the worthies, with Jesus Christ himself, and let "our church" go by the board.
Henry David Thoreau, in 'Walden'
The solitary hired man on a farm in the outskirts of Concord, who has had his second birth and peculiar religious experience, and is driven as he believes into the silent gravity and exclusiveness by his faith, may think it is not true; but Zoroaster, thousands of years ago, traveled the same road and had the same experience; but he, being wise, knew it to be universal, and treated his neighbors accordingly, and is even said to have invented and established worship among men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster then, and through the liberalizing influence of all the worthies, with Jesus Christ himself, and let "our church" go by the board.
Henry David Thoreau, in 'Walden'
Treasure
How we treasure (and admire) the people who acknowledge us!
Julie Morgenstern, O Magazine, Belatedly Yours, January 2004
Julie Morgenstern, O Magazine, Belatedly Yours, January 2004
Leap in the dark
All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.
Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Ordinary people
To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Self-importance
Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.
Carlos Castaneda
Carlos Castaneda
Three-fourths
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
The Nine Woes of Nations
Aegina, Greece - 2007The Nine Woes of Nations
Kahlil Gibran
Woe to the nation that departs from religion to belief, from country lane to
city alley, from wisdom to logic.
Woe to the nation that does not weave what it wears, nor plant what it eats,
nor press the wine that it drinks.
Woe to the conquered nation that sees the victor's pomp as the perfection of
virtue, and in whose eyes the ugliness of the conqueror is beauty.
Woe to the nation that combats injury in its dream but yields to the wrong
in its wakefulness.
Woe to the nation that does not raise its voice save in a funeral, that
shows esteem only at the grave, that waits to rebel until its neck is under
the edge of the sword.
Woe to the nation whose politics is subtlety, whose philosophy is jugglery,
whose industry is patching.
Woe to the nation that greets a conqueror with fife and drum, then hisses
him off to greet another conqueror with trumpet and song.
Woe to the nation whose sage is voiceless, whose champion is blind, whose
advocate is a prattler.
Woe to the nation in which each tribe claims to be a nation.
Erica Jong
Mycenas, Greece -20071. “Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.”
2. ”And the crazy part of it was even if you were clever, even if you spent your adolescence reading John Donne and Shaw, even if you studied history or zoology or physics and hoped to spend your life pursuing some difficult and challenging career, you still had a mind full of all the soupy longings that every high-school girl was awash in... underneath it, all you longed to be was annihilated by love, to be swept off your feet, to be filled up by a giant prick spouting sperm, soapsuds, silk and satins and, of course, money.”
3. “At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.”
4. ”Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it.. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more.”
5. “Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads”.
6. “Friends love misery, in fact. Sometimes, especially if we are too lucky or too successful or too pretty, our misery is the only thing that endears us to our friends.”
7. "Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed."
8. "If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all."
9. “If you don't risk anything, you risk even more.”
10. ”I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change.... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back. “
11. "Isn't that the problem? That women have been swindled for centuries into substituting adornment for love, fashion (as it were) for passion? All the cosmetics names seemed obscenely obvious to me in their promises of sexual bliss. They were all firming or uplifting or invigorating. They made you tingle. Or glow. Or feel young. They were prepared with hormones or placentas or royal jelly. All the juice and joy missing in the lives of these women were to be supplied by the contents of jars and bottles. No wonder they would spend twenty dollars for an ounce of face makeup or thirty for a half-ounce of hormone cream. What price bliss? What price sexual ecstasy?"
12. ”I want to understand the steep thing
that climbs ladders in your throat.
I can't make sense of you.
Everywhere I look you're there--
a vast landmark, a volcano
poking its head through the clouds,
Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput.
I climb into your eyes, looking.
The pupils are black painted stage flats.
They can be pulled down like window shades.
I switch on a light in your iris.
Your brain ticks like a bomb.
In your offhand, mocking way
you've invited me into your chest.
Inside: the blur that poses as your heart.
I'm supposed to go in with a torch
or maybe hot water bottles
& defrost it by hand
as one defrosts an old refrigerator.
It will shudder & sigh
(the icebox to the insomniac).
Oh there's nothing like love between us.
You're the mountain, I am climbing you.
If I fall, you won't be all to blame,
but you'll wait years maybe
for the next doomed expedition.”
13. "Jealousy is all the fun you think they had."
14. "Men and women, women and men; it will never work."
15. “Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared.”
16. “My reaction to porn films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first 20 minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.”
17. "No one to blame! That was why most people led lives they hated, with people they hated. How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one's nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right. You may be fragmented, but you feel absolved of all the blame for it. Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame."
18. “Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.”
19. ”Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.”
20. “There is simply no dignified way for a woman to live alone. Oh, she can get along financially perhaps (though not nearly as well as a man), but emotionally she is never left in peace. Her friends, her family, her fellow workers never let her forget that her husbandlessness, her childlessness -- her selfishness (…)"
21. "The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
22. "To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary. When we take away the right to an individual name, we symbolically take away the right to be an individual. Immigration officials did this to refugees; husbands routinely do it to wives."
23. "True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen."
24. ”Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.”
25. ”You see an awful lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.”
Pleasurably
It is impossible to live pleasurably without living prudently, honorably, and justly; or to live prudently, honorably, and justly, without living pleasurably.
Epicurus
Epicurus
When you talk
When you talk, you repeat what you already know; when you listen, you often learn something.
Jared Sparks
Jared Sparks
The Inner Garment of Love
Mycenas, Greece - 2007The Inner Garment of Love
Rumi
A soul which is not clothed
with the inner garment of Love
should be ashamed of its existence.
Be drunk with Love,
for Love is all that exists.
Where is intimacy found
if not in the give and take of Love.
If they ask what Love is,
say: the sacrifice of will.
If you have not left your will behind,
you have no will at all.
The lover is a king of kings
with both worlds beneath him;
and a king does not regard
what lies at his feet.
Only Love and the lover
can resurrect beyond time.
Give your heart to this;
the rest is second-hand.
How long will you embrace
a lifeless beloved?
Embrace that entity
to which nothing can cling.
What sprouts up every spring
will wither by autumn,
but the rose garden of Love
is always green.
Both the rose and the thorn
appear together in spring,
and the wine of the grape
is not without its headaches.
Don't be an impatient
bystander on this path -
by God there's no death
worse than expectation.
Set your heart on hard cash
if you are not counterfeit,
and listen to this advice
if you are not a slave:
Don't falter on the horse
of the body; go more lightly on foot.
God gives wings to those
who are not content to ride an ass.
Let go of your worries
and be completely clear-hearted,
like the face of a mirror
that contains no images.
When it is empty of forms,
all forms are contained in it.
No face would be ashamed
to be so clear.
If you want a clear mirror,
behold yourself
and see the shameless truth
which the mirror reflects.
If metal can be polished
to a mirror-like finish,
what polishing might the mirror
of the heart require?
Between the mirror and the heart
is this single difference:
the heart conceals secrets,
while the mirror does not.
The past isn't over
You will unconsciously attract into your life
those people and situations which will likely
stimulate the unresolved issues of your childhood.
Life condemns you to repeat whatever it is that
you didn't find the courage to fully complete.
In short, all of your past incompletions in life will
always keep showing up for you.
As somebody once said, "The past isn't over. In
fact, it isn't even past."
Chuck Hillig
those people and situations which will likely
stimulate the unresolved issues of your childhood.
Life condemns you to repeat whatever it is that
you didn't find the courage to fully complete.
In short, all of your past incompletions in life will
always keep showing up for you.
As somebody once said, "The past isn't over. In
fact, it isn't even past."
Chuck Hillig
To exist is to change
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
Friday, March 7, 2008
Fractal
Mycenas, Greece - 2007Fractal
Esther Jansma
In all of its parts a rose is rose
in every petal it is complete
likewise each millimetre in this continent’s outline
always equals the whole of its coast
and the slightest wisp of mist
the biggest skyfilling cloud, so
a rose right down to the tiniest
outline of every single petal
and the space suffused with molecules
of scent between these petals is that rose
and does not know it.
Henri Frederick Amiel
Mycenas, Greece - 20071. "Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt."
2. “Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.”
3. “A lively, disinterested, persistent liking for truth is extraordinarily rare. Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not to be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism or doubt.”
4. “Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.”
5. “An error is the more dangerous the more truth it contains.”
6. "Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves."
7. "Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing."
8. "Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness."
9. "Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life."
10. “Common sense is calculation applied to life.”
11. "Destiny has two ways of crushing us -- by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them."
12. “Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for others is genius.”
13. "Doubt of the reality of love ends by making us doubt everything."
14. "Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence."
15. “Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh, that is to say over fear: fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of illness, of loneliness and of death. There is no real piety without heroism. Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.”
16. "If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion."
17. "In every loving woman there is a priestess of the past -- a pious guardian of some affection, of which the object has disappeared."
18. “In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties.”
19. “It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.”
20. “It is not what he had, or even what he does, which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.”
21. ”Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not. “
22. ”Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make hast to be kind.”
23. "Love is faith, and one faith leads to another."
24. ”Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.”
25. "Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false."
26. "Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life? The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe."
27. “Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.”
28. “Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude.”
29. "Order is a great person's need and their true well being."
30. “Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our powers.”
31. "Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults - a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin."
32. "Our true history is scarcely ever deciphered by others. The chief part of the drama is a monologue, or rather an intimate debate between God, our conscience, and ourselves. Tears, grieves, depressions, disappointments, irritations, good and evil thoughts, decisions, uncertainties, deliberations --all these belong to our secret, and are almost all incommunicable and intransmissible, even when we try to speak of them, and even when we write them down."
33. “Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.”
34. “So as long as a person is capable of self-renewal, they are a living being.”
35. "Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command."
36. "The best path through life is the highway."
37. "The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes."
38. "The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides..."
39. "The obscure only exists that it may cease to exist. In it lies the opportunity of all victory and all progress. Whether it call itself fatality, death, night, or matter, it is the pedestal of life, of light, of liberty and the spirit. For it represents resistance -- that is to say, the fulcrum of all activity, the occasion for its development and its triumph."
40. "The philosopher is like a man fasting in the midst of universal intoxication. He alone perceives the illusion of which all creatures are the willing playthings; he is less duped than his neighbor by his own nature. He judges more sanely, he sees things as they are. It is in this that his liberty consists -- in the ability to see clearly and soberly, in the power of mental record."
41. “The test of every religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal.”
42. "Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists."
43. “To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.”
44. "To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy."
45. "To surrender what is most profound and mysterious in one's being and personality at any price less than that of absolute reciprocity is profanation."
46. “True love is that which ennobles the personality, fortifies the heart, and sanctifies the existence.”
47. "Uncertainty is the refuge of hope."’
48. ”We are free only so far as we are not dupes of ourselves, our pretexts, our instincts, our temperament. We are freed by energy and the critical spirit -- that is to say, by detachment of soul, by self-government. So that we are enslaved, but susceptible of freedom; we are bound, but capable of shaking off our bonds.”
49. “We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves. The consciousness of wrongdoing makes us irritable, and our heart in its cunning quarrels with what is outside it, in order that it may deafen the clamour within.”
50. "We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to."
51. “What governs men is the fear of truth.”
52. "What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution."
53. "Will localizes us; thought universalizes us."
54. “Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.”
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