#wren

Forgetting! It is a form of suicide, a renunciation of the only good the we truly and ineluctably possess: the past. For if joys alone were forgotten, perhaps oblivion would be justly desired. But we are proud and jealous of our sorrows, we love them, we want to remember them. It is they that comprise the crown of life. ↗

— Igino Ugo Tarchetti

#fosca #memory #sorrow #trans-lawrence-venuti #life

You don’t want to love—your eternal and abnormal craving is to be loved. You aren’t positive, you’re negative. You absorb, absorb, as if you must fill yourself up with love, because you’ve got a shortage somewhere ↗

— Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence

#love #sons-and-lovers #love

Does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person’s true nature? ↗

— Jean-Dominique Bauby

#heart-wrenching #inspirational #inspirational

To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad? ↗

— Edward Abbey

#edward-abbey #fear #freedom #the-monkey-wrench-gang #wilderness

Fool that I was, upon my eagle's wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me. ↗

— John Dryden

#bore #eagle #fool #i #me

There was an old man with a beard, who said: 'It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren have all built their nests in my beard. ↗

— Edward Lear

#built #feared #four #hen #i

There was a project at Lawrence Livermore National Labs where many years ago they went down this path for scripting and controlling very large numerical calculations. ↗

— Guido van Rossum

#calculations #controlling #down #labs #large

In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls...This is the great reward of service. To live far out and on, in the life of others;...to give life's best for such high sake that it should be found again unto eternal life. ↗

— Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

#joshua-lawrence-chamberlain #change

It was true that all Reboots were attractive, in a way. After death, when the virus took hold and the body Rebooted, the skin cleared, the body sharpened, the eyes glowed. It was like pretty with a hint of deranged. Although my hint was more like a generous serving. ↗

— Amy Tintera

#wren #death

I pushed until I felt his [Donovan's] body grow still, the tendons in his neck relaxing. I pushed until I felt the mouth beneath the pillow droop, one last dull groan fading into silence. And I kept pushing, because I couldn't bear to pull the pillow away to see what I'd done. "You're free," I said. I closed my eyes, saw Donovan as he had been. One last smile, then he faded. ↗

— Alexander Gordon Smith

#friendship #heart-wrenching #friendship