#negation

[A]s though mindful of the wife of Lot, who looked back from behind him, thou deliveredst me first to the sacred garments and monastic profession before thou gavest thyself to God. And for that in this one thing thou shouldst have had little trust in me I vehemently grieved and was ashamed. For I (God [knows]) would without hesitation precede or follow thee to the Vulcanian fires according to thy word. For not with me was my heart, but with thee. But now, more than ever, if it be not with thee, it is nowhere. For without thee it cannot anywhere exist. ↗

— Héloïse d'Argenteuil

#celibacy #convent #dignity #following #grief

Negation is the mind's first freedom, yet a negative habit is fruitful only so long as we exert ourselves to overcome it, adapt it to our needs; once acquired it can imprison us. ↗

— Emile M. Cioran

#adapt #exert #first #freedom #fruitful

The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#happiness #negation #suffering #life

When you care more if someone else lives than you do about yourself- is that what [love is]? ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#self-abnegation #love

An 'unemployed' existence is a worse negation of life than death itself. ↗

— Jose Ortega y Gasset

#existence #itself #life #negation #than

I despise simplicity. It is the negation of all that is beautiful. ↗

— Norman Hartnell

#despise #i #negation #simplicity

Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal. ↗