When I converse with a profound mind, or if at any time being alone I have good thoughts, I do not at once arrive at satisfactions..., as when, being thirsty, I drink water, or go to the fire, being cold: no! but I am first apprised of my vicinity to a new and excellent region of life. By persisting to read or to think, this region gives further sign of itself, as it were in flashes of light, in sudden discoveries of its profound beauty and repose, as if the clouds that covered it parted at intervals, and showed the approaching traveller the inland mountains, with the tranquil eternal meadows spread at their base, whereon flocks graze, and shepherds pipe and dance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant assoc...iations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential--there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost.... It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And yet, and yet ... Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are obvious acts of despera...tion and secret consolation. Our fate (unlike the hell of Swedenborg or the hell of Tibetan mythology) is not frightful because it is unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and ironclad. Time is the thing I am made of. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that tears me apart, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I will take it all: tongs, molten lead, prongs, garrotes, all that burns, all that tears, I want to truly suffer. Better one hundr...ed bites, better the whip, vitriol, than this suffering in the head, this ghost of suffering which grazes and caresses and never hurts enough.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Then let us pray that come it may,-- As come it will for a' that,--... That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, an' a' that. For a' that, and a' that, It's comin' yet, for a' that-- That man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brithers be for a' that.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Somebody said that it couldn't be done, But he with a chuckle replied... That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is my wish, and may it be the wish of all, that this great building may continue to be to all your population that which it sho...uld be--an edifice opening its doors from night to night, calling your people here away from the care of business to those enjoyments, and pursuits, and entertainments which develop the souls of men, which will have power to inspire those whose lives are heavy with daily toil, and in its magnificent and enchanting presence lift them for a time out of these dull things into those higher things where men should live.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Listen, that's the one that done it. The dusters. They started it anyways. Blowin' like this year after year. Blowin' the land awa...y. Blowin' the crops away. Blowin' us away now.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »