An absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all the rest has to do with analysis. We call intuition here the sympathy by ...which one is transported into the interior of an object in order to coincide with what there is unique and consequently inexpressible in it. Analysis, on the contrary, is the operation which reduces the object to elements already known.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Any man which an idea, however subtle and unexpected it may be, finds lacking, is not a writer. The inexpressible does not exist.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Is it the breath, merely, of the performer on a wind- instrument, or the skillful, supple fingers of the performer on a stringed i...nstrument which evoke those tones which lay upon us a spell of such power, and awaken that inexpressible feeling, akin to nothing else on earth--the sense of a distant spirit world, and of our own higher life in it? Is it not, rather, the mind, the soul, the heart, which merely employ those bodily organs to give forth into our external life what we feel in our inner depths?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
That nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which, in every refined and honorable at...tachment, is contemporary with the courtship, and precedes the final banns and the rite; but which, like the bouquet of the costliest German wines, too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is an inexpressible Pleasure to know a little of the World, and be of no Character or Significancy in it. To be ever unconcerne...d, and ever looking on new Objects with an endless Curiosity, is a Delight known only to those who are turned for Speculation: Nay, they who enjoy it, must value things only as they are the Objects of Speculation, without drawing any worldly Advantage to themselves from them, but just as they are what contribute to their Amusement, or the Improvement of the Mind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In all perception of the truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible delirium of joy, as when a youth embraces his betrothed... virgin. The ultimate delights of a true marriage are one with this.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philosophy, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through ...the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle; but if a man sleep soundly, he will forget it all between the sunset and dawn. It is the three-inch swing of a pendulum in a cupboard, which the great pulse of nature vibrates by and through each instant. When we lift our eyelids and open our ears, it disappears with smoke and rattle like the cars on a railroad. When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life,--how silent and unambitious it is.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this... king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I call demonic the restlessness which is innate and essential in every human being ... (that which) drives one beyond one's limits... into the infinite, into the elemental, as though nature had left behind in every individual soul an inexpressible, restless part of its original chaos, a part that wants to return with tension and passion to the super-human super-sensual element. The demon embodies the ferment, that bubbling, torturesome, upsetting ferment, which urges an otherwise calm life to move in the direction of all that is dangerous, towards excesses, ecstasy, selfdenial, selfdestruction; in most human beings, in the mediocre, this precious but dangerous part of the soul is soon absorbed and consumed ... restrained human beings stifle the Faustian drive within them, chloroform it with morality, dull it with work, restrain it with orderliness; the middle class person is always the mortal enemy of the chaotic.... But in superior human beings, especially in those who are productive, creative restlessness prevails in the form of dissatisfaction with everyday accomplishments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »