The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.
Humankind struggles with collective powers for its freedom, the individual struggles with dehumanization for the possession of his soul.
When I didn’t argue he was satisfied he had persuaded me, and was not the first to make that mistake.
If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
Anxiety destroys scale, and suffering makes us lose perspective.
I don’t like to write from a flat, cold position. You must like what you’re doing very much or like the people – either like them or hate them. You can’t be indifferent.
One of the booby traps of freedom – which is bordered on all sides by isolation – is that we think so well of ourselves. I now see that I have helped myself to the best cuts at life’s banquet.
Each man has his own batch of poems.
There is simply too much to think about.
Conquered people tend to be witty.
He believed that he must, that he could and would recover the good things, the happy things, the easy tranquil things of life. He had made mistakes, but he could overlook these. He had been a fool, but that could be forgiven. The time wasted – must be relinquished. What else could one do about it? Things were too complex, but they might be reduced to simplicity again. Recovery was possible.
As long as I could keep improving my mind, I figured, I was doing okay.
You don’t know the meaning of true love if you think it can be deliberately selected. You just love, that’s all. A natural force, irresistible.
But maybe time was invented so that misery might have an end. So that it shouldn’t last forever? There may be something in this. And bliss, just the opposite, is eternal? There is no time in bliss. All the clocks were thrown out of heaven.
It is my childish mind that thinks people are ready to give it just because you need it.
Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I’d be happy to read them.
Some powerful magnificence not human in other words, seemed under me. And it was the same mild pink colour, like the water of a watermelon, that did it. At once I recognised the importance of this, as throughout my life I had known these moments when the dumb begin to speak, when I hear the voices of objects and colours; then the physical universe starts to wrinkle and change and heave and rise and smooth, so it seems even the dogs have to lean against a tree, shivering.
I have begun in old age to understand just how oddly we all are put together. We are so proud of our autonomy that we seldom if ever realize how generous we are to ourselves, and just how stingy with others. One of the booby traps of freedom – which is bordered on all sides by isolation – is that we think so well of ourselves. I now see that I have helped myself to the best cuts at life’s banquet.
It was clear that the man was no fool. But what was the use of not being a fool if you acted like this?
Whatever the man’s age, history, condition, knowledge, culture, development, he had an erection. Good currency anywhere. Recognized by the Bank of England.