Posted by: Maria Elena Caprara
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Books)
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
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The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when every thing is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives. I could do it, and none could hinder me; but where is the use? I don't care for striking I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case. I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.
Every evening at exactly eleven o'clock, anywhere you are and in any situation, I'll go outside and in the sky I'll look for Sirius. You shall do the same so our thoughts, even if we should be miles away, even if we haven't seen each other in a long time and ignore everything of each other, will meet up there and be close...
Sin is the only real colour element left in modern life.
I, who wasn't able to descend this boat, to save myself I descended from my life. Step after step. And every step was a wish. For every step I took, a wish I was saying goodbye to.
I'm not mad, brother. We're not mad when we find a way of saving each other. We're cunning like hungry animals. Madness has nothing to do with it. That's genius. It's geometry. Perfection. Wishes were tearing my soul apart. I could live them, but I didn't manage.
So I enchanted them. And one by one I left them behind me. Geometry. A perfect job.
I thought we were like the clouds in the sky: they unite, and its almost impossible to say where one starts and the other ends.
The first kiss.
Is the first sip from the cup of life's nectar, that the goddess filled for us. It's the dividing line between doubt that tangles the spirit and saddens the heart, and the certainty that floods the joy of the self. It's the first beginning of the song of life and the first act of the drama of Man considered in his Idea. It's the unifying bond between the extraneousness of the past and the brightness of the future; the link between the silence of feelings and their unfolded song. It's the word expressed by four lips that declare the heart as a throne, love as a king, and loyalty his crown. It's the tender touch of the delicate fingers of a breeze on a rose's lips, that expresses itself with a satisfied smile and a sweet sigh.
It's the beginning of that magic vibration that transports lovers from a weightful and measureful world to that of dreams and revelations.
It's the union of two odorous flowers; and the mixing of their scents towards the creation of a third soul.
As the first look is like a seed that the goddess threw in the human heart's field, so is the first kiss the first flower on the extremity of the branch on the Tree of Life.
No one can hide anything when they look in the eyes. And every woman, with a slight sensibily, can read the eyes of a man in love.
With age, you acquire a certain humility, Alexander. The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything. At your age, you can afford to commit the sin of arrogance, and it doesn't matter much if you look ridiculous.
When you hold things against each other, you're not in a two-way relationship anymore, but in a three-way: you, me and the worm that has started gnawing away at our story. In matter's obscurity, worms work with discretion, digging tunnels for years and, apart from some minor itchiness, you don't realize anything. Then one day you lay a cup on the table and the wood breaks, collapsing and in a moment, the sturdy surface you knew becomes a pile of soft sawdust.