Jean-Paul Sartre
Life is a panic in a theatre on fire. – Jean-Paul Sartre
Category: Existentialism
Octavio Paz
Desire turns us into ghosts. — Octavio Paz, from “A Draft of Shadows,” The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz: 1957-1987 (New Directions, 1987)
Octavio Paz
I spell out, not words, but stars : — Octavio Paz, “On the Wing(2),” A Tree Within (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1988)
Octavio Paz
Trees heavy with birds holdthe afternoon up with their hands. — Octavio Paz, from “THE TOMB Of AMIR KHUSRU,” A Tale of Two Gardens (NewDirections, 1997)
Octavio Paz
Human love is the union of two beings subject to time and its accidents: change, sickness, death. Although it does not save us from time, it opens it a crack, so that in a flash love’s contradictory nature is manifest: that vivacity which endlessly destroys itself and is reborn, which is always both now and… Continue reading Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
We are time and cannot escape its dominion. We can transfigure it but not deny it or destroy it. This is what the great artists, poets, philosophers, scientists, and certain men of action have done. Love, too, is an answer: because it is time and made of time, love is at once consciousness of death… Continue reading Octavio Paz
Albert Camus
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. ― Albert Camus
Jean-Paul Sartre
I see the insipid flesh blossoming and palpitating with abandon. ― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea. (New Directions Publishing Corporation January 1, 1975) Originally published 1938.
Octavio Paz
Memory invents another present.As it invents myself. What has been livedblurs with today. — Octavio Paz, from “Preparatory Exercise,” A Tree Within, trans. Eliot Weinberger (New Directions, 1988)
Octavio Paz
To sleep to sleep in youor even better to wake to open my eyesat your center black white blackwhite To be the unsleeping sunyour memory ignites (andthe memory of me in your memory) — Octavio Paz, from “Maithuna,” Selected Poems, ed. Eliot Weinberger (New Directions, 1984) Deserve your dream. — Octavio Paz, from “Toward the… Continue reading Octavio Paz
The Vale of Soul-Making 