“Our ill-fated and most lamentable friendship has ended in ruin and public infamy for me, yet the memory of our ancient affection is often with me, and the thought that loathing, bitterness and contempt should forever take the place in my heart once held by love is very sad to me.
Regards
Olympus
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dossier surendettement
So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.
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To see an enemy humiliated gives a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared with the highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is a sort of revenge which fills into the scale of virtue ...
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There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a stimulus, and produces an excitement which is transient strength. It is in the slow, changed life that follows - in the time when sorrow has become stale, and has no longer an emotive intensity that counteracts its pain - in the time when day follows day in dull unexpectant sameness, and trial is a dreary routine - it is then that despair threatens; it is then that the peremptory hunger of the soul is felt ...
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'It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.'
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All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality ...
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... what quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?
Last edited by bouquin; 10-17-2009 at 05:44 AM.
"If personality was an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him."
(Nick describing Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby.")
You can learn a lot from Lydia.
Oh Bouquin I haven't read Mill on the Floss in a very long time, but I always remember that it was one of my favorite books. Your quotes makes me want to read the book again.Originally Posted by bouquin
"What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare." W.H. Davies
"That is some outfit you're wearing -- you look like something out of the Arabian Nights. You appear to have an erection, as well."
"Of course I have an erection. I'm in love."
from The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
On a graver note:
"Last line of defence for the honest man.
Free will is what distinguishes us from the animals.
And I have no intention of behaving like a ****ing animal."
-- from Phaedra's Love by Sarah Kane
Last edited by Phaedra's Love; 10-23-2009 at 07:43 AM.
This description from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment really struck me-
"he was uncommonly jovial, a frank fellow, and kind and soft hearted. But under all was was concealed a depthof worth and merit. The best of his comrades knew this, and all loved him. His appearance arrested attention: he was ill shaven and black haired."
Coming up for Air by George Orwell
"The past is a curious thing. It's with you all the time, I suppose an hour never passes without you thinking of things
that happened ten or twenty years ago, and yet most of the time it's got no reality, it's just a set of facts
that you've learned, like a lot of stuff in a history book. Then some chance sight or sound or smell,
especially smell, sets you going, and the past doesn't merely come back to you, you're actually in the past."
"The old English order of life couldn't change. For ever and ever decent God-fearing women would cook
Yorkshire pudding and apple dumplings on enormous coal ranges, wear woolen underclothes and sleep on feathers,
make plumb jam in July and pickles in October, and read Hilda's Home Companion in the afternoons,
with the flies buzzing round, in a sort of cosy little underworld of stewed tea, bad legs, and happy endings."
(Mmm. Reminds me of me gran!)
"I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept." Dylan Thomas
Cider with Rosie: Laurie Lee
They leaned over me – one, two, three – their mouths smeared with red currants and their hands dripping with juice. “There, there, it’s all right, don’t you wail any more. Come down ‘ome and we’ll stuff you with currants.”
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning: Laurie Lee
The stooping figure of my mother, waist – deep in the grass and caught there like a piece of sheep’s wool, was the last I saw of my country home as I left it to discover the world. She stood old and bent at the top of the bank, silently watching me go, one gnarled red hand raised in farewell and blessing, not questioning why I went. At the bend of the road I looked back again and saw the gold light die behind her; then I turned the corner, passed the village school, and closed that part of my life forever.
From Howards End by E.M Forster
The Earth as an artistic cult has had its day, and the literature of the near future will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town. One can understand the reaction. Of Pan and the elemental forces, the public has heard a little too much--they seem Victorian, while London is Georgian--and those who care for the earth with sincerity may wait long ere the pendulum swings back to her again. Certainly London fascinates. One visualizes it as a tract of quivering gray, intelligent without purpose, and excitable without love; as a spirit that has altered before it can be chronicled; as a heart that certainly beats, but with no pulsation of humanity. It lies beyond everything: Nature with all her cruelty, comes nearer to us than do these crowds of men. A friend explains himself: the earth is explicable--from her we came and we must return to her.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
This quote from Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' struck me as it really reminded me of someone close to me-
"He was uncommonly jovial, a frank fellow, and kind and soft hearted. But under all was concealed a depth of worth and merit. The best of his comrades knew this, and all loved him. His apperance arrested attention: he was ill shaven and black haired."
"Lucy was naturally clever; her remarks were often just and amusing; and as a companion for half an hour Elinor frequently found her agreeable; but her powers had received no aid from education, she was ignorant and illiterate, and her deficiency of all mental improvement, her want of information in the most common particulars, could not be concealed from Miss Dashwood, in spite of her constant endeavour to appear to advantage. Elinor saw, and pitied her for, the neglect of abilities which education might have rendered so respectable; but she saw, with less tenderness of feeling, the thorough want of delicacy, of rectitude, and integrity of mind, which her attentions, her assiduities, her flatteries at the Park betrayed; and she could have no lasting satisfaction in the company of a person who joined insincerity with ignorance; whose want of instruction prevented their meeting in conversation on terms of equality, and whose conduct towards others, made every shew of attention and deference towards herself perfectly valueless."
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
I really liked the quote:
"For you, a thousand times over!"
by the character of Hassan in The Kite Runner. For me, that one quote of 6 words had more of an emotional impact than almost any other part of the novel. It made me idolize Hassan as a friend of noble character (and later a quasi-martyr of sorts) and it made me hate Amir for his lack of respect to his friend/brother that would do anything for him.
You can have your cake and eat it; the only trouble is, you get fat.
--------------------------------------------------------The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonourably, foolishly, viciously.
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The despairing are always being urged to abstain from selfishness, to think of others first. This seems unfair. Why load them with responsibility for the welfare of others, when their own already weighs them down?
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When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements - the invention of some new valve or sprocket - while remaining heedless of the world's barbarism. I don't say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn't notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be.
Last edited by bouquin; 10-30-2009 at 05:20 AM.
From Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. I chose to leave the first part out, for the sake of keeping my comments mostly kid-friendly.The big problem is, he's a mate n aw. Whit kin ye dae?
"There is some excitement amidships. The Russians have thrown back a tarp to reveal the chimps, who are covered with vomit, and have also broken into the vodka. Haftung blinks and shudders. Wolfgang is on his back, sucking at a gurgling bottle he is clutching with his feet. Some of the chimps are docile, others are looking for a fight."
-Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
-W.Blake
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