Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

“Ι hereby accept the motto,-”that government is best which governs least” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, -”That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”
“After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the nads of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minoroty, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.”

“If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do anything, resign your office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned from office, then the revolution is accomplished”. 

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)

Nikos Kazantzakis

Nikos Kazantzakis

(Greek novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.)

We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life. As soon as we are born the return begins, at once the setting forth and the coming back; we die in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of life is death! But as soon as we are born we begin the struggle to create, to compose, to turn matter into life; we are born in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of ephemeral life is immortality! In the temporary living organism these two streams collide ... both opposing forces are holy. It is our duty, therefore, to grasp that vision which can embrace and harmonize these two enormous, timeless, and indestructible forces, and with this vision to modulate our thinking and our action.

Nikos Kazantzakis

Nikos Kazantzakis

(Greek novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.)

We are not simple people who believe in happiness; nor weaklings who crumple to the ground in distress at the first reverse; nor skeptics observing the bloody effort of marching humanity from the lofty heights of a mocking, sterile wit. Believing in the fight, though we entertain no illusions about it, we are armed against every disappointment.

Aeschylus

Death is easier than a wretched life; and better never to have born than to live and fare badly.

Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus

And one who is just of his own free will shall not lack for happiness; and he will never come to utter ruin

Aeschylus

Thucydides

“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.”

Thucydides

Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“The only thing he could do to stay alive was not to allow himself the anguish of that memory. He erased it from his mind, although from time to time in the years that were left to him he would feel it revive, with no warning and for no reason, like the sudden pang of an old scar.”

Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any other way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.”

Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores

“The adolescents of my generation, greedy for life, forgot in body and soul about their hopes for the future until reality taught them that tomorrow was not what they had dreamed, and they discovered nostalgia.”

Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.”

Love in the Time of Cholera

Florentino Ariza: Please allow me to wipe the slate clean. Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega. An end in itself. 

For H. 

How much better

How much better it is to laugh at ourselves than to be angry with the world. 

~Dr. Marilyn Arnold

You will

You will discover that, whatever you thought before, you are a child of the Universe and like the stars in the sky or the trees in the forest, you have a right to be here.

~Clotier

Like....

Like a best friend that moved away or a classmate you grew up with, there's just some things that make life important.... people you know are special.... and you KEEP them close! 

~Author Unknown 

Embrace

Embrace 

Too often we underestimate the power

of a touch, a smile, a kind word,

a listening ear, an honest compliment,

or the smallest act of caring,

all of which have the potential

to turn a life around.

People come into our lives for

a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

Embrace all equally!

The only way

The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going beyond them to the impossible. 

Arthur Clarke

If you seek truth

If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.
Epictetus

For everything there is a season

“For everything there is a season, And a time for every matter under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; 

Ecclesiastes 

THE BLUE LOOK

Une Histoire de Bleu / From A Story of Blue
BY JEAN-MICHEL MAULPOIX
TRANSLATED BY DAWN CORRIGAN

LE REGARD BLEU 

Nous connaissons par ouï-dire l'existence de l'amour. 


Assis sur un rocher ou sous un parasol rouge, allongés dans le pré bourdonnant d'insectes, les deux mains sous la nuque, agenouillés dans la fraîcheur et l'obscurité d'une église, ou tassés sur une chaise de paille entre les quatre murs de la chambre, tête basse, les yeux fixés sur un rectangle de papier blanc, nous rêvons à des estuaires, des tumultes, des ressacs, des embellies et des marées. Nous écoutons monter en nous le chant inépuisable de la mer qui dans nos têtes afflue puis se retire, comme revient puis s'éloigne le curieux désir que nous avons du ciel, de l'amour, et de tout ce que nous ne pourrons jamais toucher des mains. 


• 


La mer en nous essaie des phrases. 


Depuis des lustres, la même voix épelle le même alphabet dans le même cerveau d'enfant. Elle balbutie des mots vite envolés, accrochés aux herbes des plages, à la peau brunie des baigneurs, à la proue des barques, aux mâtures. Des mots quelconques, pour rien et pour quiconque. Il n'y est question que de l'amour. C'est pourquoi nous ne savons trop que dire et souffrons que le regard d'autrui s'attarde sur notre visage quand nous voudrions qu'il se pose à même notre cœur. Nos lèvres sont si maladroites, notre corps invisible dans la nuit opaque, et nos mains mal-habiles, des éclairs ou des ailes pourtant au bout des doigts. 




from A Story of Blue




THE BLUE LOOK 


We know through hearsay that love exists. 


Seated on a rock or under a red parasol, lying in the field buzzing with insects, our hands clasped behind our necks, kneeling in the cool darkness of a church, or settled on a straw chair within the four walls of the bedroom, head lowered, eyes fixed on a rectangle of white paper, we dream of estuaries, tumultuous surf, clearing weather and tides. We listen to the inexhaustible chant of the sea within us, as it rises and falls in our heads, like the approach and retreat of the strange desire we have for heaven, for love, and all that we cannot touch with our hands. 


• 


Within us the sea tries out sentences. 


From time immemorial, the same voice spells the same alphabet in the same child's brain. It mutters words which quickly fly off, snagged on the sea grasses, on the bathers' browned skin, on the bows of boats, on the masts. Ordinary words, for nothing and no one in particular. It is only about love. This is why we hardly know what to say and we suffer when someone's gaze fixes on our face, when we would like it to look into our heart. Our lips are so awkward, our body invisible in the opaque night, and our hands inept, yet lightening flashes or wings are at our fingertips.