#cap

Look, America is no more a democracy than Russia is a Communist state. The governments of the U.S. and Russia are practically the same. There's only a difference of degree. We both have the same basic form of government: economic totalitarianism. In other words, the settlement to all questions, the solutions to all issues are determined not by what will make the people most healthy and happy in the bodies and their minds but by economics. Dollars or rubles. Economy uber alles. Let nothing interfere with economic growth, even though that growth is castrating truth, poisoning beauty, turning a continent into a shit-heap and riving an entire civilization insane. Don't spill the Coca-Cola, boys, and keep those monthly payments coming. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#capitalism #economics #beauty

Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head. ↗

— Paul Auster

#choice #comfort #comsolation #escape #pleasure

She was intelligent, accomplished, beautiful. She was everything I could have asked for in a woman. But she was a king maker. She wanted power. She must have thought her only path to the throne was through Kastor.' 'My honourable barbarian. I wouldn't have picked that as your type.' 'Type?' 'A pretty face, a devious mind and a ruthless nature. ↗

— S.U. Pacat

#damen #jokaste #laurent #beauty

Because like all whores you value propriety. You are creature of capitalism, the ethics of which are so totally corrupt and hypocritical that your beauty is no more than the beauty of gold, which is to say false and cold and useless. ↗

— E.L. Doctorow

#beauty

Together they spent their whole lives waiting for their luck to change, as though luck were some fabulous tide that would one day flood and consecrate the marshes of our island, christening us in the iridescent ointments of a charmed destiny. ↗

— Pat Conroy

#destiny #island #landscape #luck #south-carolina

I prefer to suffer than repent because I stand by my decision and capable enough top pay for it Or reap the beauty later. ↗

— Ravindra Shukla

#character #decisions #strength #youth #beauty

Over the years, one comes to measure a place, too, not just for the beauty it may give, the balminess of its breezes, the insouciance and relaxation it encourages, the sublime pleasures it offers, but for what it teaches. The way in which it alters our perception of the human. It is not so much that you want to return to indifferent or difficult places, but that you want to not forget. ↗

— Barry Lopez

#enlightenment #landscape #learning #meditation #travel

Her first impression had been that he was ugly— huge and gangly with eerie transparent eyes. But when he’d smiled at her, lights danced across those blue eyes like sparkles on a river, and she’d seen beauty in his unfamiliar features. How could anyone with a smile that warm be evil or untrustworthy? After she got over her initial fear, she even found the man’s size appealing and powerfully masculine. Fireflies flitted and glowed in her stomach whenever their eyes met. ↗

— Bonnie Dee

#captive-bride #huiann #beauty

Comely was the town by the curving river that they dismantled in a year's time. Beautiful was Colleton in her last spring as she flung azaleas like a girl throwing rice at a desperate wedding. In dazzling profusion, Colleton ripened in a gauze of sweet gardens and the town ached beneath a canopy of promissory fragrance. ↗

— Pat Conroy

#nostalgia #small-town #south-carolina #spring #beauty

The sky's gray and there's mizzle. It's so soft on my skin--it's nothing like rain. It's even softer than the lightest drizzle! Lift my face up, so it can kiss my skin." The Panopticon ↗

— Jenn Fagan

#landscape #vulnerability #weather #beauty