#nat

Earlier 18th-century literary language was not supple enough to connect the life of the imagination to that of the street. ↗

— Rebecca Solnit

#language #street #imagination

We say God and the imagination are one . . . How high that highest candle lights the dark. ↗

— Wallace Stevens

#poets #prosody #imagination

Look at a full vivid painting, and look at an empty picture. If you can immediately see an entire universe within the empty picture, and absolutely nothing in the vivid painting, clarity is your friend. If you immediately see a full vivid painting and an empty picture, and see them for what they are, slavery is your friend. ↗

— Lionel Suggs

#imagination #perception #truth #imagination

The criminalization of debt, then, was the criminalization of the very basis of human society. It cannot be overemphasized that in a small community, everyone normally was both a lender and borrower. One can only imagine the tensions and temptations that must have existed in a community—and communities, much though they are based on love, in fact because they are based on love, will always also be full of hatred, rivalry and passion—when it became clear that with sufficiently clever scheming, manipulation, and perhaps a bit of strategic bribery, they could arrange to have almost anyone they hated imprisoned or even hanged. ↗

— David Graeber

#debt #hate #love #society #temptation

Some things are hard to imagine. Can you conceive of excessive contentment, for example? Or an over pleasant evening? Too much happiness? ↗

— Alan Moore

#happiness #pessimism #imagination

You know this is wrong." It isn't a question. When he turns, White is still wrapped snug in the counterpane, motionless, just his gaze pursuing the doctor about the room. "I am wrong to do this." The doctor says it as if instructing himself. White says nothing. With a sigh, Archer sits on the edge of the bed, smoothing White's curls back from his forehead. "Do you know what we did last night?" To admit it, to speak out loud, seems in itself a terrible affront. It might be his imagination, but the doctor fancies he sees a slight lowering of black lashes, the tiniest quirk of a shy smile. He says, wearily but not without affection, "No, I don't suppose you do. ↗

— John T. Fuller

#victorian #imagination

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoast than some people imagine. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#imagination

All around me new love and it makes me sad. All around me feel assured that you'll be back, if I imagine you, body next to another. ↗

— Tegan Quin

#new-love #please-come-back #sainthood #sara-quin #sheets

When somebody speaks a language that we don’t know, we often imagine that some important things are being said! ↗

— Mehmet Murat ildan

#imagination

If having an imagination means imagining all the things you don't have - imagining, in fact, the impossibility of your own happiness - is an imagination a good thing? ↗

— Cathleen Schine

#imagination