#flo

In the midst of the heavy, hot fragrance of summer, and of the clean salty smell of the sea, there was the odor of wounded men, a sickly odor of blood and antiseptics which marked the zone of every military hospital. All Athens quickly took on that odor, as the wounded Greek soldiers were moved out of hospitals and piled into empty warehouses to make way for German wounded. Now every church, every empty lot, every school building in Athens is full of wounded, and on the pathways of Zappion, the park in the heart of Athens, bandaged men in makeshift wheel chairs are to be seen wherever one walks. Zappion is a profusion of flowers, heavy-scented luxurious flowers; but even the flower fragrance is not as strong as that of blood. ↗

— Betty Wason

#blood #flowers #fragrance #military-occupation #odor

Jeb'd said it was harder for a pretty girl to find work; even white men liked flowers, whether red or pink or blue. ↗

— Shannon Celebi

#abolitionist #flowers #pretty-girl #pretty-girls #race-relations

There’s a hurricane coming to Florida, and there will be high winds. I should probably turn off my ceiling fans, to try to mitigate the billions of dollars in damages the storm will incur. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#florida #funny #humor #hurricane #loss

Sometimes I find that music is so much more attractive than love. I don’t know… It’s like some kind of euphoria, that love can’t bring to you. ↗

— Florence Welch

#florence-welch #love #music #love

Come on you target for faraway laughter. Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine! ↗

— Pink Floyd

#music #pink-floyd #music

Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last blockon a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves. ↗

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

#flow #happiness #experience

I stopped in front of a florist's window. Behind me, the screeching and throbbing boulevard vanished. Gone, too, were the voices of newspaper vendors selling their daily poisoned flowers. Facing me, behind the glass curtain, a fairyland. Shining, plump carnations, with the pink voluptuousness of women about to reach maturity, poised for the first step of a sprightly dance; shamelessly lascivious gladioli; virginal branches of white lilac; roses lost in pure meditation, undecided between the metaphysical white and the unreal yellow of a sky after the rain. ↗

— Emil Dorian

#nature #nature

Planning is helpful. If you don’t know what you want, you’ll seldom get it. But, no matter how well you plan, you will fare better if you expect the unexpected. The unexpected, by nature, comes unseen, unthought, unenvisioned. All you can do is plan to go unplanned, prepare to be unprepared, make going with the flow part of your agenda, for the most successful among us envision, plan, and prepare, but cast all aside as needed, while those who are unable to go with the flow often suffer, if they survive. ↗

— David W. Jones

#flexibility #flow #going-with-the-flow #nature

The garden has wrapped itself in autumn haze. An unusual autumn, lacking that thrill of vegetal warmth when the sap is still alive and holds up the trees, drunk on solar gold. It is the sorrowful climax of a summer's drought. Never before was I so struck by the cancerous emaciation in a garden. The leaves started turning yellow in July and began falling, like a dance of prematurely withered bodies. ↗

— Emil Dorian

#garden #nature #nature

Abaddon opened his mouth to continue, but Lucifer waved his hand and a gag appeared over the lesser demon's mouth. "So, you really think that the awful world that the humans have built for themselves would have been better without me? May I remind you that Revelation shows that while me and all of my followers are confined in the eternal abyss, the Almighty has shown himself to the world and proven his existence, and everyone knows for a fact that Jesus died for them, the humans will still hate the Almighty and gladly flock to my banner when I am released. So, Abaddon, look into my eyes and tell me that the awful things of the world wouldn't have happened without me." Abaddon looked into the Demon Lord's eyes and couldn't say it, but that was mostly because of the gag. ↗

— Kenneth Evers

#gag #human-nature #humans #insanity #lies