#hens

I took a few steps toward the kitchen window although I'd already realized I couldn't look through the kitchen window because, as already mentioned, it's covered with filth from top to bottom. Austrian kitchen windows are all totally filthy and we can't look through them and naturally it's to our greatest advantage, I thought, not to be able to look through them because then we find ourselves staring into the mouth of catastrophe, into the chaos of Austrian kitchen filth. ↗

— Thomas Bernhard

#filth #nature

Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse. ↗

— Norman G. Finkelstein

#christopher-hitchens #conversion #politics #rationality #reason

One of the monks was doing something incomprehensible at the altar, and the others would occasionally chant a few phrases of mumbo jumbo. ↗

— Ken Follett

#religion #religion

Philosophy and science have not always been friendly toward the idea of God, the reason being they are dedicated to the task of accounting for things and are impatient with anything that refuses to give an account of itself. The philosopher and the scientist will admit that there is much that they do not know; but that is quite another thing from admitting there is something which they can never know, which indeed they have no technique for discovering. ↗

— A.W. Tozer

#incomprehension #philosophy #science #science

... While much recent historicist criticism has assumed early nineteenth-century readers attuned to subtle ideological nuances in poetry, actual responses from readers often come closer to clulessness. ... It is no surprise that no one understood Blake, but other poets fared not much better. ... Coleridge's 'Christabel' was 'the standing enigma which puzzles the curiosity of literary circles. What is it all about?', while another reviewer asked about Shelley, 'What, in the name of wonder on one side, and of common sense on the other, is the meaning of this metaphysical rhapsody about the unbinding of Prometheus?'. Even Keats was condemned for 'his frequent obscurity and confusion of language' and his 'unintelligible quaintness'. Byron, never to be outdone, boasted in 'Don Juan' that not only did he not understand many of his fellow poets, he did not understand himself either: 'I don't pretend that I quite understand / My own meaning when I would be very fine.' ... ↗

— Andrew Elfenbein

#incomprehensible #poetry #romantic-poets #romantic

Though the task of opening those doors is in no means difficult, Andria finds herself unable to move her shaking legs, as her ankles tremble in her crystal heels, and her fingers, holding gently onto the length of her gorgeous gown, terribly shake in step with the beat of her precious, precious heart. ↗

— Hannah Nikka Bryan

#apprehension #door #fantasy #fear #fiction

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. ↗

— Jane Austen

#ever #incomprehensible #man #marriage #offer

Wisdom is that apprehension of heavenly things to which the spirit rises through love. ↗

— Honore de Balzac

#heavenly #love #rises #spirit #things

I am a beneficiary of the American people's generosity, and I hope we can have comprehensive immigration legislation that allows this country to continue to be enriched by those who were not born here. ↗

— Madeleine Albright

#am #american #born #comprehensive #continue

When I started this project, I was a young architect. I was very apprehensive about any changes to the design. Whether I wanted to or not, I learned that you can accept some changes to its form without compromising its intent. But it's a leap of faith that I didn't want to make initially - to put it mildly. ↗

— Michael Arad

#accept #any #apprehensive #architect #changes