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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #magi
They that go down to the sea in ships' see strange things, but what they tell is oft-times stranger still. A faculty for romancing is imparted by a seafaring life as readily and surely as a rolling gait and a weather-beaten countenance. A fine imagination is one of the gifts of the ocean-witness the surprising and unlimited power of expression and epithet possessed by the sailor. And a fine imagination will frequently manifest itself in other ways besides swear words. ("The Gorgon's Head") ↗
#sailor #sailors #seamen #ships #imagination
An airplane crossed the sky, and she imagined its interior-people packed in rows like eggs in a carton, the chemical smell of the toilets, pretzels in foil pouches, cans hiss-popping open, black oval of night sky embedded in the rattling walls. How strange that something so drab, so confined, so stifling with sour exhalations and the fumes of indifferent machinery might be mistaken for a star. ↗
#flight #flying #stars #imagination
The reflection, the verisimilitude, of life that shines in the fleshly cells from the soul source is the only cause of man's attachment to his body; obviously he would not pay solicitous homage to a clod of clay. A human being falsely identifies himself with his physical form because the life currents from the soul are breath-conveyed into the flesh with such intense power that man mistakes the effect for a cause, and idolatrously imagines the body to have life of its own. ↗
All those bickering worshippers, each one convinced their version is the right one. Imagine getting prayers from ten million believers, not one of them believing the same thing as the one kneeling beside him or her. Imagine all those Holy Books, not one of them agreeing on anything, yet all of them purporting to be the word of that one god. Imagine two armies annihilating each other, both in that god's name. Who wouldn't be driven mad by that? ↗
[I]f we could imagine a world without slavery and abolish that institution, then we can face the troubles we have now. . . . Who was it that imagined a world where the Nazis could be defeated?There were those who looked upon that war machine and said: this can and must be destroyed.That resistance . . . began with an act of the imagination. Resistance begins with the imagination. ↗
A kind of wonder takes Chaucer over as he pants up Fleet Street and past the walled orchards and gardens of this lovely riverside suburb for princes of kingdom and Church. This isn't mob action, not really, even if there were men back there shouting that they were off to break into Newgate Jail and set the prisoners free. It's something else. Something he's never seen, or imagined. These men don't loot. They aren't trying to get rich, or even just get fed. They're not remotely interested in picking up a few unconsidered trifles from the palaces they're passing, however lovely the houses are, however manicured the gardens. They're here to destroy. And they know their targets. ↗
He imagined over and over the few moments they had together, kiss and touch and stickiness, until those moments congealed to a single kiss, a single touch: a pearl. Then even her face was lost in a blur, only the smallest sensation remained. And then nothing. He was over forty now. He thought of her but the sensuous arousals that once troubled him no longer stirred in him the same seismic memory: he didn't feel hate, or distance, or love, or passion. Only safety. Nothing can touch me now. Only pity. What will you do, whom I cannot save? ↗
He believes, but he does not believe: the impossibility of believing is the impossibility which he accepts most reluctantly, but still it is there with the other impossibilities of this world which is too full of weeping for a child to understand. ↗
Man, my friends,is frail and foolish. We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But in our human foolishness and short-sightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite. For this reason we tremble. We tremble before making our choice in life, and after having made it again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong. But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, brothers, makes no conditions and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty. See! that which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us. Ay, that which we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly. For mercy and truth have met together, and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another! ↗
