Yet all men are capable of being raised by piety or by passion, into their region. And no man touches these divine natures, without becoming, in some degree, himself divine. Like a new soul, they renew the body. We become physically nimble and lightsome; we tread on air; life is no longer irksome, and we… Continue reading Ralph Waldo Emerson
We fly to beauty as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: The conduct of life. (Ams Pr Inc June 2004) Originally published 1841.
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time for them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live… Continue reading Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, from “Spiritual Laws,” Essays and Lectures. (Library of America November 15,… Continue reading Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tenderness is the most modest form of love. ……..Tenderness is spontaneous and disinterested; it goes far beyond empathetic fellow feeling. Instead it is the conscious, though perhaps slightly melancholy, common sharing of fate. Tenderness is deep emotional concern about another being, its fragility, its unique nature, and its lack of immunity to suffering and the… Continue reading Olga Tokarczuk
… it is we ourselves who call forth the spirits through our own myth-making. — Pablo Neruda, from “Nobel Lecture,” December 13, 1971
I can’t tell you where a poem comes from, what it is, or what it is for: nor can any other. The reason I can’t tell you is that the purpose of a poem is to go past telling, to be recognized by burning. — A. R. Ammons, “A Poem is a Walk,” Temple Poetry.… Continue reading A. R. Ammons
The poem is lonely. It is lonely and en route. — Paul Celan, from “The Meridian,” Paul Celan: Selections. (University of California Press; 1st edition, March 14, 2005)
The question is how you rearrange the stars above your head, to open up unexpected paths on the ground beneath your feet. — Brian Holmes, “Guattari’s Schizoanalytic Cartographies” or “The Pathic Core at the Heart of Cybernetics,” Continental Drift.
Reading in no way obliges us to understand. — Jacques Lacan, On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX: Encore. Translated by Bruce Fink (W. W. Norton & Company, November 17, 1999) Originally published 1981
The Vale of Soul-Making 