Oh, back to topic.. cool quotations.
Some quotations which I've used or to which I've alluded in recent offline conversations:
Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher:
"Now you can apply yourself voluntarily to reading and learning, but you cannot really apply yourself to thinking: thinking has to be kindled, as a fire is by a draught, and kept going by some kind of interest in its object, which may be an objective interest or merely a subjective one. The latter is possible only with things that affect us personally, the former only to those heads who think by nature, to whom thinking is as natural as breathing, and these are very rare. That is why most scholars do so little of it."
Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor:
"Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these
things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring,
feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately
arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for some to die, grumbling
about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring consulship,
kingly power. Well then, that life of these people no longer exists
at all. Again, remove to the times of Trajan. Again, all is the same.
Their life too is gone. In like manner view also the other epochs
of time and of whole nations, and see how many after great efforts
soon fell and were resolved into the elements. But chiefly thou shouldst
think of those whom thou hast thyself known distracting themselves
about idle things, neglecting to do what was in accordance with their
proper constitution, and to hold firmly to this and to be content
with it. And herein it is necessary to remember that the attention
given to everything has its proper value and proportion. For thus
thou wilt not be dissatisfied, if thou appliest thyself to smaller
matters no further than is fit."
Santideva, Buddhist sage:
"The person who realizes that hatred is an enemy, since it creates such sufferings as these, and who persistently strikes it down [from his or her thoughts], is happy in this world and the next."
Robert Desnos, French Surrealist poet:
"I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make your dear voice come alive again?
I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many days and years, I would surely become a shadow."
X, L.A. band:
"True love is the Devil's crowbar."
Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. - Bosola, in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi
