Quotes from Illuminations

“True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“I shed more tears than God could ever have required.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“What is my nothingness to the stupor that awaits you?”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Quand le monde sera réduit en un seul bois noir pour nos quatre yeux étonnés, - en une plage pour deux enfants fidèles, - en une maison musicale pour notre claire sympathie, - je vous trouverai.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Is it possible to become ecstatic amid destruction, rejuvenate oneself through cruelty?”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“I have stretched ropes from bell-tower to bell-tower; garlands from window to window; chains of gold from star to star, and I dance.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Against snow, a tall Beautiful Being. Whistlings of death and circles of muffled music make this adored body rise, swell and tremble like a ghost; scarlet and black wounds open in the magnificent flesh.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“La musique savante manque à notre désir”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Ho teso corde da campanile a campanile; ghirlande da finestra a finestra; catene d'oro da stella a stella, e danzo.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Peut-on s'extasier dans la destruction, se rajeunir par la cruauté !”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Estendi cordas de campanário a campanário; guirlandas de janela a janela; correntes de ouro de estrela a estrela, e danço.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Je dis qu'il faut être voyant, se faire voyant. Le poète se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“cement in bold relief,—far underground. I lean my elbows on the table, and the lamp lights brightly the newspapers I am fool enough to re-read, and the absurd books.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Tenemos fe en el veneno. Sabemos dar nuestra vida entera, todos los días. He aquí el tiempo de los asesinos.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“AFTER THE DELUGE AS SOON as the idea of the Deluge had subsided, A hare stopped in the clover and swaying flower-bells, and said a prayer to the rainbow, through the spider’s web. Oh! the precious stones that began to hide,—and the flowers that already looked around. In the dirty main street, stalls were set up and boats were hauled toward the sea, high tiered as in old prints. Blood flowed at Blue Beard’s,—through slaughterhouses, in circuses, where the windows were blanched by God’s seal. Blood and milk flowed. Beavers built. “Mazagrans” smoked in the little bars. In the big glass house, still dripping, children in mourning looked at the marvelous pictures. A door banged; and in the village square the little boy waved his arms, understood by weather vanes and cocks on steeples everywhere, in the bursting shower. Madame *** installed a piano in the Alps. Mass and first communions were celebrated at the hundred thousand altars of the cathedral. Caravans set out. And Hotel Splendid was built in the chaos of ice and of the polar night. Ever after the moon heard jackals howling across the deserts of thyme, and eclogues in wooden shoes growling in the orchard. Then in the violet and budding forest, Eucharis told me it was spring. Gush, pond,—Foam, roll on the bridge and over the woods;—black palls and organs, lightning and thunder, rise and roll;—waters and sorrows rise and launch the Floods again. For since they have been dissipated—oh! the precious stones being buried and the opened flowers!—it’s unbearable! and the Queen, the Witch who lights her fire in the earthen pot will never tell us what she knows, and what we do not know.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“O vento Sul me fez lembrar miseráveis incidentes de infância, meus desesperos de verão, a horrível quantidade de força e de ciência que o destino sempre afastou de mim. Não! não passaremos o verão neste país mesquinho onde nada mais seremos que noivos órfãos. Quero que este braço teso não arraste mais uma imagem querida.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“CHILDHOOD I That idol, black eyes and yellow mop, without parents or court, nobler than Mexican and Flemish fables; his domain, insolent azure and verdure, runs over beaches called by the shipless waves, names ferociously Greek, Slav, Celt. At the border of the forest—dream flowers tinkle, flash, and flare,—the girl with orange lips, knees crossed in the clear flood that gushes from the fields, nakedness shaded, traversed, dressed by rainbow, flora, sea. Ladies who stroll on terraces adjacent to the sea; baby girls and giantesses, superb blacks in the verdigris moss, jewels upright on the rich ground of groves and little thawed gardens,—young mothers and big sisters with eyes full of pilgrimages, sultanas, princesses tyrannical of costume and carriage, little foreign misses and young ladies gently unhappy. What boredom, the hour of the “dear body” and “dear heart.” II”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Uyanık geçen geceler
I

Işıklı bir dinleniş bu, ne hararet ne bitkinlik, yatağın
üzerinde veya çayırların üstünde.
Dost bu, ne ateşli ne zayıf. Dost.
Sevgili bu, ne acı veren ne acı çeken. Sevgili.
Hiç aranmamış hava ve dünya. Hayat.
-Demek bu muydu?
-Ve rüya şiddetleniyor”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“Magical flowers were humming. The turf slopes cradled *him.* Beasts of a fabulous elegance were circulating. Storm clouds were piling up on the rising sea made of an eternity of hot tears.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“From castles of bone unknown music comes

But now, that toil rewarded; you, your calculations,
––you, your fits of impatience––are no more than your dancing and your voice, not fixed and certainly not forced, although an added reason for a double consequence of inventiveness + success, ––in brotherly and discreet humanity throughout the universe devoid of images;––force and justice reflect the
dancing and the voices which are only now esteemed.

The voices of instruction in exile... The body’s ingenuousness bit- terly put in its place... –– Adagio –– Ah! the infinite egotism of adolescence, the studious optimism: how full of flowers the world was that summer! Tunes and forms fading... ––A choir, to calm down impotence and absence! A choir of glass pieces, of nocturnal melodies... Soon, indeed, the nerves will slip their moorings.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

“how full of flowers the world was that summer! Tunes and forms fading... ––A choir, to calm down impotence and absence! A choir of glass pieces, of nocturnal melodies... Soon, indeed, the nerves will slip their moorings.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Illuminations

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“Then Wang Lung turned to the woman and looked at her for the first time. She had a square, honest face, a short, broad nose with large black nostrils, and her mouth was wide as a gash in her face. Her eyes were small and of a dull black in color, and were filled with some sadness that was not clearly expressed. It was a face that seemed habitually silent and unspeaking, as though it could not speak if it would. She bore patiently Wang Lung’s look, without embarrassment or response, simply waiting until he had seen her. He saw that it was true there was not beauty of any kind in her face—a brown, common, patient face. But there were no pock-marks on her dark skin, nor was her lip split. In her ears he saw his rings hanging, the gold-washed rings he had bought, and on her hands were the rings he had given her. He turned away with secret exultation. Well, he had his woman!”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Meanwhile, the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever. The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her pain.

She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly -the thought of the world's concern at her situation- was found on an illusion. She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from Tess of the D'Urbervilles

“أولادكم ليسوا لكم
أولادكم أبناء الحياة المشتاقة إلى نفسها, بكم يأتون إلى العالم, ولكن ليس منكم.
ومع أنهم يعيشون معكم, فهم ليسوا ملكاً لكم.
أنتم تستطيعون أن تمنحوهم محبتكم, ولكنكم لا تقدرون أن تغرسوا فيهم بذور أفكاركم, لأن لهم أفكارأً خاصةً بهم.
وفي طاقتكم أن تصنعوا المساكم لأجسادكم.
ولكن نفوسهم لا تقطن في مساكنكم.
فهي تقطن في مسكن الغد, الذي لا تستطيعون أن تزوروه حتى ولا في أحلامكم.
وإن لكم أن تجاهدوا لكي تصيروا مثلهم.
ولكنكم عبثاً تحاولون أن تجعلوهم مثلكم.
لأن الحياة لا ترجع إلى الوراء, ولا تلذ لها الإقامة في منزل الأمس.
أنتم الأقواس وأولادكم سهام حية قد رمت بها الحياة عن أقواسكم.
فإن رامي السهام ينظر العلامة المنصوبة على طريق اللانهاية, فيلويكم بقدرته لكي تكون سهامه سريعة بعيدة المدى.
لذلك, فليكن التواؤكم بين يدي رامي السهام الحكيم لأجل المسرة والغبطة.
لأنه, كما يحب السهم الذي يطير من قوسه, هكذا يحب القوس الذي يثبت بين يديه.”
― Kahlil Gibran, quote from The Prophet

“So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from A Midsummer Night's Dream

“I am dedicated to the belief that it is God's will that all men should strive for wisdom in themselves, not look to it from some other. Babes, perhaps, must have their food chewed for them by a nurse, but men may drink and eat of wisdom for themselves.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, quote from The Mists of Avalon

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