May 2008
21 posts
“When standing before certain men the philosopher regrets that thinkers are but...”
– Thomas Hardy, Return of the Native
“A face may make certain admissions by its outline; but it fully confesses only...”
– Thomas Hardy, Return of the Native
“Be afraid to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
– Horace Mann
“Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into...”
– James Wright, A Blessing
“This is the song of our last meeting.
I looked back at the shape of the dark...”
– Anna Akhmatova
“After Michelangelo died, someone found in his studio a piece of paper on which...”
– Annie Dillard
“I have never held
so hard
to life.”
– Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian poet
“For love is flesh, it is a
flower flooded with blood.
Either love is
A...”
– Marina Tsvetayeva, Russian Poetess
“I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those...”
– Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being
“To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie...”
– Isaac Newton
“What philosophy tries to do, however, is something far more difficult, namely to...”
– Soren Kierkegaard, Johannes Climacus
“The philosopher speaks all his life because he is attempting to say something...”
– Henri Bergson, Thought and Motion
“How small that is, with which we wrestle,
what wrestles with us, how immense.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke, Der Shauende, Das Buch der Bilder
“In order for a voice to be beautiful, it must have in it many voices together.”
– Joseph Joubert
“Our good God only abandons us in order better to secure us; never does he leave...”
– Saint Francois de Sales, Oeuvres, t. XIII, Letter 308
On Doubt
“Doubt wisely; in a strange way
To stand inquiring right, is not to stray;
To sleep, or run wrong, is.”
— John Donne, Satire III
“One must know when it is right to doubt, to affirm, to submit.”
— Blaise Pascal, Pensees
“And thus our good Lord answered to all the questions and doubts I could raise, saying most comfortingly in this fashion: I will...
“I always made an awkward bow.”
– A closing line of John Keats’ last letter
“Reading good books is like having a conversation with the most distinguished men...”
– Rene Descartes, Discourse 1
“Elevated in relation to the caravan that flows below, Jacob and the angel are...”
– Jean-Louis Chretien, How To Wrestle With The Irresistable
