“Πλησιάζεις εύκολα μια ζωντανή ψυχή, και μέσα απ’ το έγκλημα, και μέσα από τα πιο θλιβερά βίτσια, - μα η βλακεία είναι αδιαπέραστη.”
― François Mauriac, quote from Viper's Tangle
“Πόσο είναι παράξενο, σ’ αυτές τις αρχές της ζωής που μας δίνεται λίγη ευτυχία, να μη μας προειδοποιεί καμία φωνή: Όσα χρόνια κι αν ζήσεις, δε θα ‘χεις άλλη χαρά στη ζωή σου απ’ αυτές τις λίγες ώρες. Απόλαυσέ τις ως την στερνή σταγόνα τους, γιατί, ύστερ’ απ’ αυτό, δεν υπάρχει τίποτα για σένα. Αυτή η πρώτη πηγή που βρήκες, είναι και η τελευταία. Σβήσε τη δίψα σου μια για πάντα: δε θα ξαναπιείς πια.”
― François Mauriac, quote from Viper's Tangle
“I felt at one and the same time quite close, within reach of my hand, and yet an infinite distance away, an unknown world of goodness. Often Isa had said to me: 'You, who see nothing but evil.... You, who see evil everywhere....' It was true, and it was not true.”
― François Mauriac, quote from Viper's Tangle
“I remained standing in the middle of the room, swaying on my feet as though I had received a blow. I thought of my life and saw what it had been. No one could swim against such a current of mud. I had been a man so horrible that he could have no friend. But wasn't that, I asked myself, because I had always been incapable of wearing a disguise? If all men went through life with unmasked faces, as I had done for half a century, one might be surprised to find how little difference there was between them. But, in fact, no one lives with his face uncovered, no one. Most men ape greatness or nobility. Though they do not know it, they conform to certain fixed types, literary or other. This the saints know, and they hate and despise themselves because they see themselves with unclouded eyes. I should not have been so universally condemned had I not been so defenseless, so open, and so naked.”
― François Mauriac, quote from Viper's Tangle
“Even the genuinely good cannot, unaided, learn to love. To penetrate beyond the absurdities, the vices, and, above all, the stupidities of human creatures, one must possess the secret of a love which the world has now forgotten. Until that secret shall have been discovered, all betterment in conditions of life will be in vain”
― François Mauriac, quote from Viper's Tangle
“Против некоего определённого вида тупости я бессилен.”
― François Mauriac, quote from Viper's Tangle
“Время, умелый вор, мало-помалу перетаскивает всё на свете на свой огромный пыльный склад.”
― François Mauriac, quote from Viper's Tangle
“Мы никогда не знаем, чего мы в действительности хотим, и вовсе не любим того, что, думается нам, мы любим.”
― François Mauriac, quote from Viper's Tangle
“[...] против некоего определенного вида тупости я бессилен. Нетрудно найти путь к живой душе, увидев ее даже сквозь преступления, сквозь самые плачевные пороки, но вульгарность – непреодолимая преграда.”
― François Mauriac, quote from Viper's Tangle
“I’ve no surety that it is. I know only parts of what I feel; I may be misnaming the whole. You dwell in my mind like a household spirit. All that I think is followed with, ‘I shall tell that thought to Eddi.’ Whatever I see or hear is colored by what I imagine you will say of it. What is amusing is twice so, if you have laughed at it. There is a way you have of turning your head, quickly with a little tilt, that seems more wonderful to me than the practiced movements of dancers. All this, taken together, I’ve come to think of as love, but it may not be.
It is not a comfortable feeling. But I find that, even so, I would wish the same feeling on you. The possibility that I suffer it alone–that frightens me more than all the host of the Unseelie Court.”
― Emma Bull, quote from War for the Oaks
“The sweat of industry would dry and die, But for the end it works to.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Cymbeline
“He had read in it: "Only the unwise think that what has changed is dead." He had asked the teacher what it meant, and the teacher had said that if a flower blooms once, it goes on blooming somewhere forever. It blooms on for whoever has seen it blooming.”
― William H. Armstrong, quote from Sounder
“The popular conception of free will seems to rest on two assumptions: (1) that each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past, and (2) that we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions in the present.”
― Sam Harris, quote from Free Will
“The mighty bosoms of Big-Boobied Bertha had killed many a Warrior in mortal combat.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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