#melancholy

I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#maturity #melancholy #suffering #life

Σίμωσε στο πιάνο και πήρε μερικά ακόρντα. Κείνη τη στιγμή΄έσπασε με κρότο μια χορδή κι έσβησε σ' ένα μακρόσυρτο και τρεμάμενο ήχο... -Ακούς Νιέτοτσκα, ακούς; ρώτησε, ξαφνικά με μια εμπνευσμένη φωνή, δείχνοντας το πιάνο. Τεντώσανε πολύ, πάρα πολύ τούτη τη χορδή· δεν μπόρεσε άλλο να βαστάξει και πέθανε. Ακούς, τι λυπητερά που πεθαίνουν οι ήχοι! ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#melancholy #death

Cyrano: The leaves--- Roxane: What color---Perfect Venetian red! Look at them fall. Cyrano: Yes---they know how to die. A little way From the branch to the earth, a little fear Of mingling with the common dust---and yet They go down gracefully---a fall that seems Like flying! ↗

— Edmond Rostand

#grace #melancholy #reflection #death

You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul. ↗

— Yevgeny Zamyatin

#freedom

Stigmata of Love A light which lives on what the flames devour, a grey landscape surrounding me with scorch, a crucifixion by a single wound, a sky and earth that darken by each hour, a sob of blood whose red ribbon adorns a lyre without a pulse, and oils the torch, a tide which stuns and strands me on the reef, a scorpion scrambling, stinging in my chest-- this is the wreath of love, this bed of thorns is where I dream of you stealing my rest, haunting these sunken ribs cargoed with grief. I sought the peak of prudence, but I found the hemlock-brimming valley of your heart, and my own thirst for bitter truth and art. ↗

— Federico García Lorca

#melancholy #pain #art

My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do. ↗

— Anne Stevenson

#because #confusion #contrary #earlier #enjoys

Name me no names for my disease, With uninforming breath; I tell you I am none of these, But homesick unto death —Homesick for hills that I had known, For brooks that I had crossed, ...Before I met this flesh and bone And followed and was lost… .And though they break my heart at last, Yet name no name of ills. Say only, "Here is where he passed, Seeking again those hills. ↗

— Witter Bynner

#melancholy #regret #yearning #death

In such a diversity it was impossible I should be disposed to melancholy. ↗

— Daniel Boone

#diversity #i #impossible #melancholy #should

The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings. ↗

— Rita Dove

#cheerful #comes #curious #double #i

A commencement is a time of joy. It is also a time of melancholy. But then again, so is life. ↗

— Paul Tsongas

#also #commencement #joy #life #melancholy