There is something to be said for losing one's possessions, after nothing can be done about it. I had loved my Nanking home and th...e little treasures it had contained, the lovely garden I had made, my life with friends and students. Well, that was over. I had nothing at all now except the old clothes I stood in. I should have felt sad, and I was quite shocked to realize that I did not feel sad at all. On the contrary, I had a lively sense of adventure merely at being alive and free, even of possessions. No one expected anything of me. I had no obligations, no duties, no tasks. I was nothing but a refugee, someone totally different from the busy young woman I had been.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Slowly, and in spite of anything we Americans do or do not do, it looks a little as if you and some other good people are going to... have to answer the old question of whether you want to keep your country unshackled by taking even more definite steps to do so--even firing shots--or, on the other hand, submitting to be shackled for the sake of not losing one American life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states... All at one cast? to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the... one that is lost until he finds it?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Building up a family's fortune is like moving earth with a needle, but losing a family's fortune can be as swift as a boat rushing... downstream with the current.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"You are bothered, I suppose, by the idea that you can't possibly believe in miracles and mysteries, and therefore can't make a go...od wife for Hazard. You might just as well make yourself unhappy by doubting whether you would make a good wife to me because you can't believe the first axiom in Euclid. There is no science which does not begin by requiring you to believe the incredible."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Words ... are little houses, each with its cellar and garret. Common sense lives on the ground floor, always ready to engage in 'f...oreign commerce' on the same level as the others, as the passers-by, who are never dreamers. To go upstairs in the word house is to withdraw step by step; while to go down to the cellar is to dream, it is losing oneself in the distant corridors of an obscure etymology, looking for treasures that cannot be found in words. To mount and descend in the words themselves--this is a poet's life. To mount too high or descend too low is allowed in the case of poets, who bring earth and sky together.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have to confess that I had gambled on my soul and lost it with heroic insouciance and lightness of touch. The soul is so impalpa...ble, so often useless, and sometimes such a nuisance, that I felt no more emotion on losing it than if, on a stroll, I had mislaid my visiting card.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »