#elle

Mind you, I cannot swear that my story is true. It may have been a dream; or worse, a symptom of some severe mental disorder. But I believe it is true. After all, how are we to know what things there are on earth? Strange monstrosities still exist, and foul, incredible perversions. Every war, each new geographical or scientific discovery, brings to light some new bit of ghastly evidence that the world is not altogether the same place we fondly imagine it to be. Sometimes peculiar incidents occur which hint of utter madness. How can we be sure that our smug conceptions of reality actually exist? To one man in a million dreadful knowledge is revealed, and the rest of us remain mercifully ignorant. There have been travelers who never came back, and research workers who disappeared. Some of those who did return were deemed mad because of what they told, and others sensibly concealed the wisdom that had so horribly been revealed. Blind as we are, we know a little of what lurks beneath our normal life. There have been tales of sea serpents and creatures of the deep; legends of dwarfs and giants; records of queer medical horrors and unnatural births. Stunted nightmares of men's personalities have blossomed into being under the awful stimulus of war, or pestilence, or famine. There have been cannibals, necrophiles, and ghouls; loathsome rites of worship and sacrifice; maniacal murders, and blasphemous crimes. When I think, then, of what I saw and heard, and compare it with certain other grotesque and unbelievable authenticities, I begin to fear for my reason. ("The Mannikin") ↗

— Robert Bloch

#occult #paranormal #rationalism-intellect #rationality #supernatural

Charcoal or gas. Both give excellent results, so choose the one that best suits your style of cooking. ↗

— Bobby Flay

#both #charcoal #choose #cooking #excellent

A best-seller is the golden touch of mediocre talent. ↗

— Cyril Connolly

#golden #mediocre #talent #touch

Although all the good arts serve to draw man's mind away from vices and lead it toward better things, this function can be more fully performed by this art, which also provides extraordinary intellectual pleasure. ↗

— Nicolaus Copernicus

#although #art #arts #away #better

Even Obama's staunchest supporters are starting to leave him. Last week Michelle Obama demanded to see a copy of his birth certificate. ↗

— Ann Coulter

#birth certificate #certificate #copy #demanded #even

In the Arab world, there is no link between the cultural habits of peoples and the ways of thinking and creating of modern intellectuals. They are two separate worlds. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#arab world #between #creating #cultural #habits

Sense is a line, the mind is a circle. Sense is like a line which is the flux of a point running out from itself, but intellect like a circle that keeps within itself. ↗

— Ralph Cudworth

#flux #intellect #itself #keeps #like

The intellectual, the man of thought, doubt and analysis, should give the best of himself. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#best #doubt #give #himself #intellectual

You've just got to focus on excellence and try not to be distracted by the news and the rumors and the absurdities of the stories that were coming out. ↗

— James Daly

#distracted #excellence #focus #got #just

I began demonstrating against serious culture. In hindsight, the actual course of events has been very humiliating for me, because no one picked up on the intellectual critique I made. ↗

— Henry Flynt

#against #because #been #began #course