Great Quotes (page 120)
In a vivid insight, a flash of black lightning, he saw that all life was parallel: that evolution was not vertical, ascending to a perfection, but horizontal. Time was a great fallacy; existence was without history, was always now, was always this being caught in the same fiendish machine. All those painted screens erected by man to shut out reality - history, religion, duty, social position, all were illusions, mere opium fantasies. - The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Fowles
A Childish Prank. Man's and woman's bodies lay without souls. Dully gaping, foolishly staring, inert. On the flowers of Eden. God pondered. The problem was so great, it dragged him asleep. Crow laughed. He bit the Worm, God's only son, Into two writhing halves. He stuffed into man the tail half. With the wounded end hanging out. He stuffed the head half headfirst into woman. And it crept in deeper and up. To peer out through her eyes. Calling it's tail-half to join up quickly, quickly....
Ted Hughes
The reduction of the universe to the compass of a single being, and the extension of a single being until it reaches God - that is love. Love is the salute of the angels to the stars. How sad is the heart when rendered sad by love! How great is the void created by the absence of the being who alone fills the world.
Victor Hugo
The law presumably says that it is finest to keep as quiet as possible in misfortunes and not be irritated, since the good and bad in such things aren't plain, nor does taking it hard get one anywhere, not are any of the human things worthy of great seriousness.... One must accept the fall of the dice and settle one's affairs accordingly-- in whatever way argument declares would be best. One must not behave like children who have stumbled and who hold on to the hurt place and spend their time...
Socrates
Picture a tall, dark figure, surrounded by cornfields... NO, YOU CAN'T RIDE A CAT. WHO EVER HEARD OF THE DEATH OF RATS RIDING A CAT? THE DEATH OF RATS WOULD RIDE SOME KIND OF DOG. Picture more fields, a great horizon-spanning network of fields, rolling in gentle waves... DON'T ASK ME I DON'T KNOW. SOME KIND OF TERRIER, MAYBE.... fields of corn, alive, whispering in the breeze... RIGHT, AND THE DEATH OF FLEAS CAN RIDE IT TOO. THAT WAY YOU KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE.... awaiting the...
Terry Prachett
Let thethings be illusions or not, after all I would then also be an illusion, and thus they are always like me. This is what makes them so dear andworthy of veneration for me: they are like me. Therefore, I can lovethem. And this is now a teaching you will laugh about: love, oh. Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. Tothoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may bethe thing great thinkers do. But I'm only interested in being able tolove the...
Herman Hesse