World Quotes (page 505)
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This perversion of the truth, familiar to the artist though it was, always unnerved him afresh and proved too much for him. What was a consequence of the premature ending of his fast was here presented as the cause of it! To fight against this lack of understanding, against a whole world of nonunderstanding, was impossible.
Franz Kafka
The happy life is not ushered in at any age to the sounds of drums and trumpets. It grows upon us year by year, little by little, until at last we recognize that we have it. It is achieved? by a body of work done so well that we can lift our heads with assurance and look the world in the eye.
Thomas S. Monson
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery Can leave the mother, murdered at her door, To crawl in her own blood, and go scott-free; The night can sweat with terror as before. We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
William Butler Yeats
One of the most unattractive human traits, and so easy to fall into, is resentment at the sudden shared popularity of a previously private pleasure. Which of us hasn't been annoyed when a band, writer, artist or television series that had been a minority interest of ours has suddenly achieved mainstream popularity? When it was at a cult level we moaned at the philistinism of a world that didn't appreciate it, and now that they do appreciate it we're all resentful and dog-in-the-manger about it.
Stephen Fry
And yet viewing several depictions of even an imaginary city, is enlightening in a way," Leibniz said. "Each painter can view the city from only one standpoint at a time, so he will move about the place, and paint it from a hilltop on one side, then a tower on the other, then from a grand intersection in the middle--all in the same canvas. When we look at the canvas, then, we glimpse in a small way how God understands the universe--for he sees it from every point of view at once. By...
Neal Stephenson