Than Quotes (page 142)
On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.
Albert Camus
The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver - over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a sombre gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur. All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabbered about himself.
Joseph Conrad
One minute you're closer to someone than anyone in the whole world, next minute they need only to say the words 'time apart', 'serious talk' or 'maybe you...' and you're never going to see them again and will have to spend the next six months having imaginary conversations in which they beg to come back, and bursting into tears at the sight of their toothbrush.
Helen Fielding
Here lies a she sun, and a he moon there; She gives the best light to his sphere; Or each is both, and all, and so. They unto one another nothing owe; And yet they do, but are. So just and rich in that coin which they pay, That neither would, nor needs forbear, nor stay; Neither desires to be spared nor to spare. They quickly pay their debt, and then. Take no acquittances, but pay again; They pay, they give, they lend, and so let fall. No such occasion to be liberal. More truth, more courage...
John Donne
He’s like a hero come back from the
war, a poor maimed bastard living out the reality of his dreams.
Wherever he sits himself the chair collapses; whatever door he
enters the room is empty: whatever he puts in his mouth leaves a
bad taste. Everything is just the same as it was before; the
elements are unchanged, the dream is no different than the reality.
Only, between the time he went to sleep and the time he woke up,
his body was stolen.
Henry Miller
Man has been reared by his errors: first he never saw himself other than imperfectly, second he attributed to himself imaginary qualities, third he felt himself in a false order of rank with animal and nature, fourth he continually invented new tables of values and for a time took each of them to be eternal and unconditional...If one deducts the effect of these four errors, one has also deducted away humanity, humaneness, and 'human dignity'.
Friedrich Nietzsche