#desert

Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance. ↗

— Will Durant

#expanding #ignorance #knowledge #mirage #our

Never thank anybody for anything, except a drink of water in the desert - and then make it brief. ↗

— Gene Fowler

#anything #brief #desert #drink #except

The house was left; the house was deserted. It was left like a shell on a sandhill to fill with dry salt grains now that life had left it. The long life seemed to have set in; the trifling airs, nibbling, the clammy breaths, fumbling, seemed to have triumphed. .. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#english #loneliness #quote #life

Learn the discipline of being surprised not by suffering but by joy. As we grow old, there is suffering ahead of us, immense suffering, a suffering that will continue to tempt us to think that we have chosen the wrong road. But don't be surprised by pain. Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain. ↗

— Henri Nouwen

#joy #pain #suffering #water #beauty

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air. ↗

— Paul Hoffman

#blush #born #cale #desert #die

-I think you are inhuman. If I leave you, who will you go to? Would you find another lover? I said nothing. -Deny it,damn you! ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#love #michael-ondaatje #novel #romance #the-english-patient

And then they were kissing. Something exploded within his chest burning away the tension and confusion and fear. Burning away the hurt of seconds earlier. For a moment it felt like nothing mattered anymore. Like nothing would matter ever again. ↗

— James Dashner

#love #teresa #thomas #love

Everything that ever happened to me that was important happened in the desert. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#love #michael-ondaatje #novels #romance #the-english-patient

The cactus of the high desert is a small grubby, obscure and humble vegetable associated with cattle dung and overgrazing, interesting only when you tangle with it the wrong way. Yet from this nest of thorns, this snare of hooks and fiery spines, is born once each year a splendid flower. It is unpluckable and except to an insect almost unapproachable, yet soft, lovely, sweet, desirable, exemplifying better than the rose among thorns the unity of opposites ↗

— Edward Abbey "Desert Solitaire"

#edward-abbey #john-dunn #love

The cactus thrives in the desert while the fern thrives in the wetland. The fool will try to plant them in the same flowerbox. The florist will sigh and add a wall divider and proper soil to both sides. The grandparent will move the flowerbox halfway out of the sun. The child will turn it around properly so that the fern is in the shade, and not the cactus. The moral of the story? Kids are smart. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#cactus #child #children #clever #desert