Category: Quote

“A shade of sorrow passed over Taliesin’s face… (Alexander)

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“A shade of sorrow passed over Taliesin’s face. ‘There are those,’ he said gently, ‘who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Are you one who must follow such a way? This even I cannot know. If you are, take heart nonetheless. Those who reach the end do more than gain wisdom. As rough wool becomes cloth, and crude clay a vessel, so do they change and fashion wisdom for others, and what they give back is greater than what they won.’”

– Lloyd Alexander, from The High King (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968)

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard… (Huxley)

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“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days…Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…to throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…”

– Aldous Huxley, Island

“There were days when she was very happy… (Chopin)

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“There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested.

There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why—when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation.

”

– Kate Chopin, The Awakening

“Music when Soft Voices Die (To –)” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd’s bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

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I remembered Shelley’s poem after Susan S. recently shared the following quote as a personal favorite. I couldn’t find the author–other than that very famous Anonymous–but since it paired so well with the Shelley piece, I thought I’d run them together with a grateful wave to Susan. 

THE TIDE

The tide recedes, but leaves behind
bright seashells on the sand.
The sun goes down, but gentle warmth
still lingers on the land.
The music stops, yet echoes on
in sweet, soulful refrains.
For every joy that passes,
something beautiful remains.

Author: Unknown, found on Scrapbook.com

 

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"Ocean beach at low tide against the sun" by Brocken Inaglory via Wiki Commons
“Ocean beach at low tide against the sun” by Brocken Inaglory via Wiki Commons

“I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place… (Moore)

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“I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you.”

– Alan Moore, V for Vendetta