#possession

As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#give #help #help people #imaginary #insecure

Disarm, disarm. The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. ↗

— Julia Ward Howe

#blood #disarm #dishonor #does #indicate

The independence of the United States is not only more precious to ourselves but to the world than any single possession. ↗

— Henry Cabot Lodge

#independence #more #only #ourselves #possession

Culture and possessions, there is the bourgeoisie for you. ↗

— Thomas Mann

#culture #possessions #you

There have been few things in my life which have had a more genial effect on my mind than the possession of a piece of land. ↗

— Harriet Martineau

#effect #few #few things #genial #had

Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, ‘Look at my beautiful home! Isn’t it fine?’ And not, ‘Look at the home so-and-so has built.’ Thus we shouldn’t cry, ‘Look what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!’ But rather, ‘Look at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave? ↗

— Roman Payne

#carpenter #courage #esteem #genius #happiness

He had been violently confused by her real presence in the opposite inaccessible corner. For months he had been possessed by the imagination of her. She had been distant and closed away, a princess in a tower, and his imagination’s work had been all to make her present, all of her, to his mind and senses, the quickness of her and the mystery, the whiteness of her, which was part of her extreme magnetism, and the green look of those piercing or occluded eyes. Her presence had been unimaginable, or more strictly, only to be imagined. Yet here she was, and he was engaged in observing the ways in which she resembled, or differed from, the woman he dreamed, or reached for in sleep, or would fight for. ↗

— A.S. Byatt

#distance #imagination #love #lust #possession

Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it. ↗

— Pericles

#alone #courage #defend #possession #sure

Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen. ↗

— Mort Sahl

#deserve #everything #feel #liberals #possessions

Well, they had a lot of the things they found in his possession. They had the map, you know, that marked the route of the parade. They had statements from the bus driver and the taxicab driver that hauled him somewhere. ↗

— Henry Wade

#bus driver #cab driver #driver #found #had