#tens

It's the time of year when the literati give advice on what we should be reading on our summer holidays. These terrifying lists often leave me appalled at my own ignorance, but also suspicious about the pretension of their advocates. ↗

— Arthur Smith

#advice #also #appalled #give #holidays

I think it matters almost infinitely that we practice one of the authentic religions. But if you mean does it make any difference which. The answer is no, as long as each is followed with equal intensity, sincerity, dedication. ↗

— Huston Smith

#answer #any #authentic #dedication #difference

I listened to Kelley's record with pleasure. Great to hear real music with respect for the righteous roots. Her singing is outstanding - no frills, down to the bone and intense. ↗

— Jerry Wexler

#down #great #hear #her #i

Science fiction is an extension of science. ↗

— Len Wiseman

#fiction #science #science fiction

My sudden, unforeseen capitulation had knocked me backward, and I had nothing to hold on to. My internal weather was eerily calm, as if in a tornado's aftermath, birdsong, sunshine, supersaturated colors, wreckage all around, and myself, dazed and limping. ↗

— Kate Christensen

#kate-christensen #marriage #midle-age #poets #the-astral

Do whatever you do intensely. The artist is the man who leaves the crowd and goes pioneering. With him there is an idea which is his life. ↗

— Robert Henri

#intense-desire #pioneer #art

Look on beauty, And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight; Which therein works a miracle in nature, Making them lightest that wear most of it: So are those crisped snaky golden locks Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, Upon supposed fairness, often known To be the dowry of a second head, The skull that bred them in the sepulchre. Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#beauty #falsehood #ornament #pretense #beauty

I found lines that mirrored an ache and longing I had so often felt when the beauty around my woods cathedral was too intense, when the need to grasp and keep loveliness left me with a sense of desolate frustration. ↗

— Irene Hunt

#feelings #intense #nature #beauty

After we passed a few more houses, the street ceased to mantain any pretense of urbanity, like a man returning to his little village who, piece by piece, strips off his Sunday best, slowly changing back into a peasant as he gets closer to his home. ↗

— Bruno Schulz

#pretense #urbanity #change

Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. Theophrastus was right. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#knowledge #learning #mystery #nature #pretense