Quotes from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“if lies can save a man once, truth can save him twice.”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“Altro io non sono che la schiava
del mio ardente desiderio per te...
Chi per questo mi biasima è sicuro
che sia giusto il suo giudizio?”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“Il mio ultimo respiro
darà sfogo alla mia tristezza,
finché le fiamme del mio fuoco
non saranno spente.

Ah, quando giungerà l'ora
dell'incontro generosamente concesso,
dopo il tempo delle tenebre
e dell'implacabile durezza?

Il male allora mi abbandonerà e io dirò:
«Il mio amore ha mantenuto la promessa!»”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“Se un giorno diventassi ricca
al punto di non aver niente da desiderare,
se un giorno possedessi il mondo
e l'autorità dei Cesari,

sappi che per me niente di tutto ciò
peserà più dell'ala di un moscerino,
se i miei occhi non avranno la tua persona
da guardare!”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“Costantemente la mia guancia preme
contro la terra, umida delle mie lacrime;
e le mie lacrime bagnano la terra
come una pioggia che la fecondi.”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“Appena il tuo ricordo accarezza la mia anima,
mi vedo bruciare d'amore per te,
consumato dai rimpianti,
e le lacrime mi imperlano le palpebre.”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“Rosse sono diventate le mie lacrime,
e il mio vino è giunto a maturazione;
i miei occhi si dissetano con una bevanda
che assomiglia a quella della coppa.

E io mi domando: son state le mie palpebre
a lasciar scorrere vino,
oppure è la coppa in cui bevo
a contener le mie lacrime?”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“Muschio, il suo respiro;
rose, la sua guancia;
perle, i suoi denti, e una bevanda
che inebria, l'acqua della sua bocca.

La vita, quella di un ramoscello;
le natiche, dune di sabbia inarcate;
tenebra i capelli e il volto
come un disco lunare luminoso.”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“Un sorriso
su una collana di perle;
una fila di chicchi di grandine,
ghirlanda di garofani bianchi.

Ricciolo arruffato di capelli
quale un fiume di notte;
bellezza che rallegra il cuore, così perfetta
che vedendola l'alba impallidisce di gelosia.”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“she had an elegant belly and a navel that could contain an ounce of unguent.”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

“one is free of envy’ and ‘Injustice lurks in the soul; strength shows it and weakness hides it.”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1

Popular quotes

“He doesn't love me no matter what he believes. He loves that I need him. But I don't. Not really. Because despite what I thought, what I counted on, he has never been there for me. There is no safety with him. I've always been alone. I just didn't know how isolated I was until now.”
― Joelle Charbonneau, quote from Need

“I had let it all grow. I had supposed
It was all OK. Your life
Was a liner I voyaged in.
Costly education had fitted you out.
Financiers and committees and consultants
Effaced themselves in the gleam of your finish.
You trembled with the new life of those engines.

That first morning,
Before your first class at College, you sat there
Sipping coffee. Now I know, as I did not,
What eyes waited at the back of the class
To check your first professional performance
Against their expectations. What assessors
Waited to see you justify the cost
And redeem their gamble. What a furnace
Of eyes waited to prove your metal. I watched
The strange dummy stiffness, the misery,
Of your blue flannel suit, its straitjacket, ugly
Half-approximation to your idea
Of the properties you hoped to ease into,
And your horror in it. And the tanned
Almost green undertinge of your face
Shrunk to its wick, your scar lumpish, your plaited
Head pathetically tiny.

You waited,
Knowing yourself helpless in the tweezers
Of the life that judges you, and I saw
The flayed nerve, the unhealable face-wound
Which was all you had for courage.
I saw that what you gripped, as you sipped,
Were terrors that killed you once already.
Now I see, I saw, sitting, the lonely
Girl who was going to die.

That blue suit.
A mad, execution uniform,
Survived your sentence. But then I sat, stilled,
Unable to fathom what stilled you
As I looked at you, as I am stilled
Permanently now, permanently
Bending so briefly at your open coffin.”
― Ted Hughes, quote from Birthday Letters

“For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!”
― Herman Melville, quote from Moby-Dick

“Landlords took the side streets, typically not in their Saab or Audi but in their “rent collector,” some oil-leaking, rusted-out van or truck that hauled around extension cords, ladders, maybe a loaded pistol, plumbing snakes, toolboxes, a can of Mace, nail guns, and other necessities.”
― Matthew Desmond, quote from Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

“But the righteous one will live by his faith.”
― quote from HCSB: Holman Christian Standard Bible

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