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Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.
Vincent van Gogh1853–1890Letter to Theo van Gogh, Cuesmes (c. 22–24 June 1880), letter 155
By the time we awaken faintly to the awareness that we have been socially conditioned, we find ourselves so indoctrinated that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to break the old patterns.
Frank Herbert1920–1986“Science Fiction and a World in Crisis” in Science Fiction: Today and Tomorrow (1974) edited by Reginald Bretnor
- Change
- Thinking
I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it.
Charles Bukowski1920–1994Factotum (1975), Ch. 17
The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.
Doris Lessing1919–2013The Sunday Times (London, 10 May 1992)
- Age
- Change
Myth is the nothing that is everything.
Fernando Pessoa1888–1935Poem “Ulisses”, verse 1
To restore silence is the role of objects.
Samuel Beckett1906–1989Molloy (1951)
I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.
Harper Lee1926–2016To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Pt. 2, Ch. 23 (Scout)
Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending.
George Eliot1819–1880Middlemarch (1871-72)In context
- Change
It is quality rather than quantity that matters.
Seneca the Younger5 BC–AD 65Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLV: On sophistical argumentation, Line 1
Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry1900–1944Vol de Nuit (1931) (translated into English as Night Flight)
- Luck
The free-thinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
Matthew Arnold1822–1888God and the Bible (1875)
- Change
- Thinking
Chaos is rejecting all you have learned. Chaos is being yourself.
ECEmil Cioran1911–1995A Short History of Decay (1949)
People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.
Neil Gaimanborn 1960The Graveyard Book (2008), Ch. 7
The best of my nature reveals itself in play, and play is sacred.
Karen Blixen1885–1962On Modern Marriage and Other Observations (1986)
What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.
Roland Barthes1915–1980Mythologies (1957), “Le monde où l’on catche”
- Entertainment