#era

If we fall, we don't need self-recrimination or blame or anger - we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to re-commit, to be whole-hearted once again. ↗

— Sharon Salzberg

#anger

NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even when they are doing good work, they are supposed to maintain the status quo. They are the missionaries of the corporate world. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#corporations #missionaries #neoliberalism #ngos #anger

It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#focus #humility #judgement #judgemental #self

In a vast space left free between the crowd and the fire, a young girl was dancing. Whether this young girl was a human being, a fairy, or an angel, is what Gringoire, sceptical philosopher and ironical poet that he was, could not decide at the first moment, so fascinated was he by this dazzling vision. She was not tall, though she seemed so, so boldly did her slender form dart about. She was swarthy of complexion, but one divined that, by day, her skin must possess that beautiful golden tone of the Andalusians and the Roman women. Her little foot, too, was Andalusian, for it was both pinched and at ease in its graceful shoe. She danced, she turned, she whirled rapidly about on an old Persian rug, spread negligently under her feet; and each time that her radiant face passed before you, as she whirled, her great black eyes darted a flash of lightning at you. All around her, all glances were riveted, all mouths open; and, in fact, when she danced thus, to the humming of the Basque tambourine, which her two pure, rounded arms raised above her head, slender, frail and vivacious as a wasp, with her corsage of gold without a fold, her variegated gown puffing out, her bare shoulders, her delicate limbs, which her petticoat revealed at times, her black hair, her eyes of flame, she was a supernatural creature. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#hunchback-of-notre-dame #beauty

The most beautiful of altars, he said, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thankfing God. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#m-bienvenu #m-welcome #beauty

I realize that I'm generalizing here, but as is often the case when I generalize, I don't care. ↗

— Dave Barry

#case #generalize #generalizing #here #i

It was a privileged existence, but also a cage, beautifully decorated, but locked tight always. ↗

— Amber Newberry

#gothic-romance #beauty

I could not bring myself to hang up the phone or even so much as move it from my ear. The chance that I could hear his voice once again was too great a prospect. ↗

— Jasmine Dubroff

#beauty-in-itself-part-one #jasmine-dubroff #love #mera #soul-mates

It is untrue that fiction is nonutilitarian. The uses of fiction are synonymous with the uses of literature. They include refreshment, clarification of life, self-awareness, expansion of our range of experiences, and enlargement of our sense of understanding and discovery, perception, intensification, expression, beauty , and understanding. Like literature generally, fiction is a form of discovery, perception, intensification, expression, beauty, and understanding. If it is all these things, the question of whether it is a legitimate use of time should not even arise. ↗

— Leland Ryken

#classics #fiction #literature #novels #on-fiction

The Beats and the Pranksters showed us different ways of opting out of society. They were both the personification of countercultural movements. The Beats were trying to change literature, and the Pranksters were trying to change the people and the country. Kesey, in fact, was his own cultural revolution, striving to keep the upbeat, freedom-loving spirit of America alive. ↗

— Sterling Lord

#beat-poetry #ken-kesey #pranksters #change