#form

Since nothing but God is eternal, nothing but God is worth the loving. ↗

— Stephen Charnock

#love

What did one see if one looked in any depth into the world of this writer's fiction? Elegant self-control concealing from the world's eyes until the very last moment a state of inner disintegration and biological decay; sallow ugliness, sensuously marred and worsted, which nevertheless is able to fan its smouldering concupiscence to a pallid impotence, which from the glowing depths of the spirit draws strength to cast down a whole proud people at the foot of the Cross and set its own foot upon them as well; gracious poise and composure in the empty austere service of form; the false, dangerous life of the born deceiver, his ambition and his art which lead so soon to exhaustion --- ↗

— Thomas Mann

#decay #deceit #fiction #form #writers

Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose." "Wealthy men can't live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance." "Money is a strange business. People who haven't got it aim it strongly. People who have are full of troubles. ↗

— Ayrton Senna

#business

Here's what I mean by the miracle of language. When you're falling into a good book, exactly as you might fall into a dream, a little conduit opens, a passageway between a reader's heart and a writer's, a connection that transcends the barriers of continents and generations and even death ... And here's the magic. You're different. You can never go back to being exactly the same person you were before you disappeared into that book." [Why Reading is Dangerous, Spirit Magazine (Southwest Airlines), February 2008] ↗

— Anthony Doerr

#reading #transformation #death

So seven new countries, three of them formerly part of the Soviet Union, and the others part of the Warsaw Pact, will become full members of NATO next year. ↗

— Lord Robertson

#countries #formerly #full #members #nato

Love is such a tissue of paradoxes, and exists in such endless variety of forms and shades that you may say almost anything about it that you please, and it is likely to be correct. ↗

— Henry Theophilus Finck

#forms #love #paradoxes #shades #love

(...) Ο Θεός έχει μεταμορφωθεί σ'έναν απομακρυσμένο Γενικό Διευθυντή του Σύμπαντος Α.Ε. Ξέρετε ότι βρίσκεται εκεί, διευθύνει το πρόγραμμα (αν και θα μπορούσε ασφαλώς να εκτελείται και χωρίς αυτόν), ποτέ δεν τον βλέπετε, αλλά αναγνωρίζετε την ηγεσία του ενώ "εκτελείτε το μέρος σας". ↗

— Έριχ Φρομ

#love #transformation #universe #unseen #love

We are all butterflies. Earth is our chrysalis. ↗

— LeeAnn Taylor

#become #becoming #being #butterflies #butterfly

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up. ↗

— Alan Bennett

#briefing #entertainment #expansion #information #inspiration

The Master said of Gong Yechang, “He is marriageable. Although he was once imprisoned and branded as a criminal, he was in fact innocent of any crime.” The Master gave him his daughter in marriage. (Analects 5.1) ↗

— Confucius

#individuality #marriage