ponderous

 

“Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.”
― Hermann Hesse

quoth the madman

 

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

~Hermann Hesse

quoth the madman

 

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

~Hermann Hesse

quoth the madman

 

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

~Hermann Hesse

There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself. Hermann Hesse
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/hermann_hesse.html

There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself. Hermann Hesse
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/hermann_hesse.html

There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself. Hermann Hesse
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/hermann_hesse.html

ponderous

“Progress is another myth. Progress is fine, but it is not to be confused with success or worth. I wanted to be a great writer, and I might have made some progress toward my goal, but that is not to say that I became a great writer. We cannot infantilize ourselves any longer. Baby steps are fine for a baby. We are no longer babies. Aim high and fail big, but don’t look for the star on your report card or a pat on the back. Instead get back to work and the big goal.

What is progress, anyway? The half of the bottle I didn’t drink? The feeling I didn’t hurt in my travels today? The responsibility I didn’t shirk?

We can only be rewarded by continuing the work–of being artists and being decent humans. We do not deserve a star or a pat on the back. We have earned our place.”

– Tennessee Williams

ponder

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence."

  Ansel Adams

Ponder

“There’s magic in the world. There is. People will tell you there isn’t–they just want you to get back to work and be quiet and not ask questions. These are people who don’t know where to look or who were not blessed with eyes that could see magic. Magical eyes. If you have them, develop them.”

-Tennessee Williams

literacki

 

"Take another drink, brother. You sound like Wuthering Heights."
- Ernest Hemingway, from True At First Light

quoth the madman

 

"But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them."
— David Wong

quoth the madman

“We are always in the space in-between… all the spaces where you are not actually at home. You haven’t arrived yet…. This is where our mind is the most open.
We are alert, we are sensitive, and destiny can happen.
We do not have any barriers and we are vulnerable.
Vulnerability is important. It means we are completely alive and this is an extremely important space. ”
~Marina Abramovic

literacki

Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.
— Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

quoth the madman

 

“I, James, am neither a god nor an angel, but a man like any other. Therefore I act like a man & confess to loving those dear to me more than other men. You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, & more than you who are here assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf & not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, & therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had John, & I have George.”
~King James I (yeah, the one who commissioned what we now call The King James Bible) about his love for hunky George Villiers, whom he later made 1st Duke of Buckingham.

literacki

 

There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another.
Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.
It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live … the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.

— Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

ponder

“I don’t know what to tell you.
A statement is easy, and here it is: Be yourself.
Try to matter.
Be a good friend.
Love freely, even if you are likely–almost guaranteed–to be hurt, betrayed.
Do what you were created to do.
You’ll know what this is, because it is what you keep creeping up to, peering at, dreaming of.
Do it.
If you don’t, you’ll be punching clocks and eating time doing precisely what you shouldn’t, and you’ll become mean and you’ll seek to punish any and all who appear the slightest bit happy, the slightest bit comfortable in their own skin, the slightest bit smart.
Cruelty is a drug, as well, and it’s all around us.
Don’t imbibe.”

- Tennessee Williams

literacki

“The best love is the kind that weakens the soul, that makes us reach for more. That plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds.”
Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife

quoth the madman

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
― Jim Henson

ponder

"The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind"
— Friedrich Nietzsche

pondering

 

The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.

 ~G.C. Lichtenberg

quoth the madman

 

If you think you're free, there's no escape possible. 

~Ram Dass

quoth the madman

Philosophy is life's dry-nurse, who can take care of us — but not suckle us. 
~Søren Kierkegaard

literacki

What you see, yet can not see over, is as good as infinite. 
~Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus

quoth the madman

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. 
~Henri Louis Bergson

quoth the madman

 

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him? 

~Chuang Tzu

quoth the madman

We are all but recent leaves on the same old tree of life and if this life has adapted itself to new functions and conditions, it uses the same old basic principles over and over again. There is no real difference between the grass and the man who mows it. 
~Albert Szent-Györgyi

quoth the madman

Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth. 

~Ludwig Börne

quoth the madman

 

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. 

~Aesop

Literacki

I want to know what passion is. I want to feel something strongly.
~Aldous Huxley,  Brave New World

Ponder

"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity."
  ~Plato

Pondering

 "One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams."

  Salvador Dalí

Pondering

"Around the hero, everything turns into tragedy, around the demigod, everything turns into a satyr play; and around God everything turns into—what? Perhaps “world”?"

  Nietzsche, ‘Beyond Good & Evil’

Ponder

"And yet I adore him. I think he’s quite crazy, and with no place or occupation in life, and far from happy, and philosophically irresponsible – and there is absolutely nobody like him."

  Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

quoth the madman

 

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

ponder

"The ‘unfree will’ is mythology; in real life it is only a matter of strong and weak wills. …In general, the 'unfreedom of the will’ is regarded as a problem from two entirely opposite standpoints, but always in a profoundly personal manner: some will not give their 'responsibility’, their belief in themselves, the personal right to their merits at any price (the vain races belong to this class). Others, on the contrary, do not wish to be answerable for anything, or blamed for anything, and owing to an inward self-contempt, seek to lay the blame for themselves somewhere else."

 - Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘On the Prejudices of Philosophers’ 9 in Beyond Good and Evil, p. 29.

ponderous

"Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit, to become delightful, happiness must be tainted with poison."

— George Bataille

ars poetica

 "The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason."

- Czeslaw Milosz, from The Collected Poems

ponder

‘It is my bad luck that this has happened to me.’ No, you should rather say: 'it is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearful of the future.’ Because such a thing could have happened to any man, but not every man could have borne it without pain. So why see more misfortune in the event than good fortune in your ability to bear it? […] So in all future events which might induce sadness remember to call on this principle: 'this is no misfortune, but to bear it true to yourself is good fortune.’

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

ponder

"The library at Alexandria can be burnt down. There are forces above and beyond papyrus: we may temporarily be deprived of our ability to discover these forces, but their energy will not be suppressed. It is good that our excessive facilities are no longer available, that forms fall into oblivion: a culture without space or time, restrained only by the capacity of our own nerves, will reappear with all the more energy."

 - Antonin Artaud, ‘Preface:Theatre and Culture’.

quoth the madman

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

ponder

 "Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well."
– Richard Siken