#ty

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it, because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#individuality #invention #beauty

He lay, often, looking at her sleeping face in the new light that fell in through the open walls of the strange house, and he stared at her skin and hair with his mouth open, transfixed by the quick stillness of her, struck dumb with the physical fact of her existence as though she was some careless star-thing that slept on quite unaware of its incandescent power; the casualness and ease with which she slept there amazed him; he couldn't believe that such beauty could survive without some superhumanly intense conscious effort. ↗

— Iain M. Banks

#incandescent-power #love #shias-engin #star-thing #beauty

Learn the discipline of being surprised not by suffering but by joy. As we grow old, there is suffering ahead of us, immense suffering, a suffering that will continue to tempt us to think that we have chosen the wrong road. But don't be surprised by pain. Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain. ↗

— Henri Nouwen

#joy #pain #suffering #water #beauty

In the candle's flickering light, the library's thousands of books emerged from the shadows, and for a moment Nicholas could not help admiring them again. During free time he had almost never looked up from the pages he was reading, but now he saw the books anew, from without rather than from within, and was reminded of how beautiful they were simply as objects. The geometrical wonder of them all, each book on its own and all the books together, row upon row, the infinite patterns and possibilities they presented. They were truly lovely. ↗

— Trenton Lee Stewart

#beauty

Kaderin didn't believe, as a whole, the nymphs were more beautiful than the Valkyrie, but everything about them screamed, "Easy lay! When you don't want to work for it!" And curiously, many males found that more appealing than the Valkyrie's "Do it and die, simian". ↗

— Kresley Cole

#tough-love #beauty

So much between us went unsaid; that is the danger, and beauty, of life without the cure. There is always wilderness and tangle, and the path is never clear. ↗

— Lauren Oliver

#beauty

Doa yang tulus dan dengan cinta, adalah kekuatan besar yang bisa menyelamatkan siapa pun, termasuk orang yang mendoakannya. ↗

— Amanda Inez

#hope #love #prayer #beauty

Call me later, you’d said, so I could call you later, at night, and it is those nights I miss you, Ed, the most, on the phone, you beautiful bastard. ↗

— Daniel Handler

#break-ups #love #pain #beauty

How beautiful would history have been if it could be written beforehand and then acted out like drama! ↗

— Aihebholo-oria Okonoboh

#inspirational-life #beauty

Freedom isn't just about voting and marrying and kissing on the street, although all of these things are important. Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do. ↗

— David Levithan

#lgbt-identity #lgbt-rights #lgbtq #beauty