Favorite poems and quotations.

[wasp]

The North Wind boasted of great strength. The Sun argued that there was great power in gentleness.

"We shall have a contest," said the Sun.

Far below, a man traveled a winding road. He was wearing a warm winter coat.

"As a test of strength," said the Sun, "Let us see which of us can take the coat off that man."

"It will be quite simple for me to force him to remove his coat," bragged the Wind.

The Wind blew so hard, the birds clung to the trees. The world was filled with dust and leaves.

But the harder the Wind blew down the road, the tighter the shivering man clung to his coat.

Then, the Sun came out from behind a cloud, it warmed the air and the frosty ground. The man on the road unbuttoned his coat.

The Sun slowly grew brighter and brighter. Soon the man felt so hot, he took off his coat and sat down in a shady spot.

"How did you do that?" said the Wind.

"It was easy," said the Sun, "I lit the day. Through gentleness I got my way."

[wasp]

Lesley u'll never land a beau with that domineering tone

[Tonatiuh]

Lesley u'll never land a beau with that domineering tone

We now know that to be untrue, dont we?

[Spermatozoa]

"Chance is always powerful; let your hook always be cast in a pool where you least expect there will be fish."
Ovid

“There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.

There are not more than five primary colours, yet in combination
they produce more hues than can ever been seen.

There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of
them yield more flavours than can ever be tasted.”
Sun Tzu

[wasp]

“All right, he thought, take one thing at a time. Just one thing. I poked my leg with an arrow. There. Good. I pulled the arrow out. My leg still works. It must not have been a broadhead because it didn't go in very deep. Good. My tent collapsed. There. Another thing. I'm in a tent and it collapsed. I just have to find the front zipper and get out and climb up the bank. Easy now, easy. Something hit me on the head. What? Something big that thunked. The canoe. The wind picked up the canoe and it hit me.” – Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

[Socionics Is A Cult]

RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.

REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.

REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice.

REASONABLE, adj. Accessible to the infection of our own opinions. Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.

~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

[Tonatiuh]

That's when the cannibalism started.

Jeffrey Dahmer

[wasp]

"For all his good nature, Adara did not like Hal; when Hal was there, it meant that winter was far away. Besides, there had been a night when she was only four, and they thought her long asleep, that she overheard them talking over wine. “A solemn little thing,” Hal said. “You ought to be kinder to her, John. You cannot blame her for what happened.” “Can’t I?” her father replied, his voice thick with wine. “No, I suppose not. But it is hard. She looks like Beth, but she has none of Beth’s warmth. The winter is in her, you know. Whenever I touch her I feel the chill, and I remember that it was for her that Beth had to die.” “You are cold to her. You do not love her as you do the others.” Adara remembered the way her father laughed then. “Love her? Ah, Hal. I loved her best of all, my little winter child. But she has never loved back. There is nothing in her for me, or you, any of us. She is such a cold little girl.” And then he had begun to weep, even though it was summer and Hal was with him. In her bed, Adara listened and wished that Hal would fly away. She did not quite understand all that she had heard, not then, but she remembered it, and the understanding came later."

― George R.R. Martin, The Ice Dragon

[ashlesha]

This book has been on my to-read list forever.

The brain-disease model overlooks four fundamental truths: (1) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being; (2) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning; (3) we have the ability to regulate our own physiology, including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain, through such basic activities as breathing, moving, and touching; and (4) we can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive. When we ignore these quintessential dimensions of humanity, we deprive people of ways to heal from trauma and restore their autonomy. Being a patient, rather than a participant in one’s healing process, separates suffering people from their community and alienates them from an inner sense of self.

Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score

[Guillaine]

WANDERING

I ran away, hands stuck in pockets that seemed
All holes; my jacket was a holey ghost as well.
I followed you, Muse! Beneath your spell,
Oh, la, la, what glorious loves I dreamed!

I tore my shirt; I threw away my tie.
Dreamy Hop o' my Thumb, I made rhymes
As I ran. I slept out most of the time.
The stars above me rustled through the sky.

I heard them on the roadsides where I stopped
Those fine September nights, when the dew dropped
On my face and I licked it to get drunk.

i made up rhymes in dark and scary places,
And like a lyre I plucked the tired laces
Of my worn-out shoes, one foot beneath my heart.


Arthur Rimbaud

[Aster]

“How long does it take for people to untangle themselves from one another or is the idea that I am tied around so many other human beings nothing but an excuse for not wanting to let go But lets imagine I am a ball of thread long and red and easily snapped full of sticks and leaves and other peoples bones all the things I’ve picked up over the years though I don’t know I really meant to they just got too caught to become uncaught I suppose that’s how everything ends up in me We’ve lived here for a year or less and I have wrapped my fingers around a few of you or less I’ve wound myself about you so softly even I didn’t realize it was happening and now here we stand about to tumble or are we already falling I can’t tell And I am wondering how long will I run how much of me is there really how far can I stretch how much can I catch before I’ve lost were I end and where the world begins”

— A.O.A.M. || Thread

[ashlesha]

Who would you change for?

The maples change more in an hour of wind than we change.

The aspens shatter light I have felt the leaves in their wind-glittering
strangeness. Let go

the town and its dry river paths the white bellies of the swallows
under the bridge flashing in the last minutes of dusk and I knew I could not
continue as I had been nor did I sense a course.

[…]

What would you give up if you could give up
anything. When were you afraid there is no extreme need that is not
warped by fear. What does the world

require of you have you loved the time you have spent here.
Was it because of the people with you. Or that the silence

was never silence it was always the fan’s white noise in the window
at night and below that the new rain on the grass
and below that the grass as it bends under the water
and night buried under the water and the town
at night under rain and grateful for rain in this dry season.

—Joanna Klink, from “Sorting,” in Raptus

[Aylen]

"It is possible to teach a man mathematics, but an understanding of the truth he conquers for himself. And woe to man, if under the influence of the poison of what seems Truth, and striving after "practical" results without possessing a perfect understanding and knowledge of what must be done and how to do it, he starts experimenting on himself, often doing himself irreparable harm. Harmony is destroyed and it is incomparably better to do nothing at all than to do without possessing the knowledge." Gurdjieff

https://www.endlesssearch.co.uk/philo_enneagramtalk.htm

[ashlesha]

Everybody’s got a story that comes from a sad story that lives in a bad story.

Stop telling it. Perfect

probably isn’t what you think it is.

What are we even aiming at when we use that word?

There will be a lot of shooting.

Most of it won’t be straight. Don’t worry.

You don’t have to be good at everything.

There are so many people here.

If you really want to do something flawless

stay present. Your fate

is just another word for now, just another name for transmute density.

Meditation is critical. And mercy. Have mercy.

These bodies are a sticky hologram.

Being human does not require any further context.

Your expectations of me are not my responsibility.

Those are yours.

Everyone gets the same amount of time to live their lives.

I want to be a reliable narrator for living

so I’ll just tell you the worst of it first and be done with it.

Realizing the transparency of my neediness was dignity well spent.

Forgiveness is a matter of advocating for dignity.

When my body came home from the shame experiment

the first thing I saw was its resolve.

If you still aren’t willing to cut every loss you are not yet prepared to qualify.

Cut the loss. The story of it. I stopped being nostalgic

when I started keeping up.

Seeing a man run as fast as he can still gives me goosebumps.

I’m not scared to die, I just don’t want it to hurt.

I bet the biggest misconception about death is that we won’t care anymore.

I will never not love you.

Trying to hide the absence of your love is a mathematical impossibility.

You were the year I wished my life on other people.

Magnets are incapable of lying.

Darkness is redundant. I wanted us to be the truth.

I meant to do it correctly.

In loving gain of our memory. And mercy.

Do not flake on the blessing.

There is every such thing. We were every such thing.

I may have been grossly underprepared to receive love.

Was it even in this lifetime that we knew each other?

Tonight I painted my apartment and remembered every life I’ve ever lived

including the one where you read this.

Was I really too sensitive, or were you just too unconscious?

Maybe we work our way to the middle.

Maybe we work our way into what we are.

Why don’t you want to know what we are?

I’ll cut your costume loose. Cut you right out of it.

When something is absent it is absolutely not in your way.

Get in my way. Come remind me what we are together. Do it soon.

Soon we will have to say what we have to say to each other’s faces.

Mine is I love you. Mine is Have mercy.

I just wanted to throw something as hard as I could.

I wasn’t paying attention to what it would do when it landed.”

- Buddy Wakefield, from his upcoming 2019 book, A Choir of Honest Killers.

[Spermatozoa]

"When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an Attorney's firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.
(He polished up the handle of the big front door.)
I polished up that handle so carefully
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navy!
(He polished up that handle so carefullee,
That now he is the ruler of the Queen's Navee!)

As office boy I made such a mark
That they gave me the post of a junior clerk.
I served the writs with a smile so bland,
And I copied all the letters in a big round hand.
(He copied all the letters in a big round hand.)
I copied all the letters in a hand so free,
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!
(He copied all the letters in a hand so free,
That now he is the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!)

In serving writs I made such a name
That an articled clerk I soon became;
I wore clean collars and a brand-new suit
For the passed examination at the Institute.
(For the passed examination at the Institute.)
That passed examination did so well for me,
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!
(That passed examination did so well for he,
That now he is the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!)

Of legal knowledge I acquired such a grip
That they took me into the partnership.
And that junior partnership, I ween,
Was the only ship that I ever had seen.
(Was the only ship that he ever had seen.)
But that kind of ship so suited me,
That now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navee!
(But that kind of ship so suited he,
That now he is the ruler of the Queen's Navee!)

I grew so rich that I was sent
By a pocket borough into Parliament.
I always voted at my party's call,
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
(He never thought of thinking for himself at all.)
I thought so little, they rewarded me
By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!
(He thought so little, they rewarded he
By making him the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!)

Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool,
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule.
(Be careful to be guided by this golden rule.)
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!
(Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!)"

From H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert & Sullivan

[Spermatozoa]

My principles

Obey the laws of the land, even if you disagree with some of them. Honour your contracts and do not bear false witness.
Don't take pleasure in another's pain or use their vulnerabilities against them.
Maintain a joyous (and very dirty) sense of humor.
Focus on how you can become better, not on what you think other people are doing wrong.
Be curious, aim to learn something new every day and keep an eye out for the strange and unusual.

[ashlesha]

"The beings I love are creatures. They were born by chance. My meeting with them was also by chance. They will die. What they think, do, and say is limited and is a mixture of good and evil. I have to know this with all my soul and not love them less. I have to imitate God who infinitely loves finite things in that they are finite things. We want everything which has value to be eternal. Now everything which has a value is a product of a meeting, lasts throughout this meeting and ceases when those things which met are separated. That is the central idea of Buddhism (the thought of Heraclitus). It leads straight to God. Meditation on chance which led to the meeting of my father and mother is even more salutary than meditation on death. Is there a single thing in me of which the origin is not to be found in that meeting? Only God. And yet again, my thought of God had its origin in that meeting. Stars and blossoming fruit-trees: utter permanence and extreme fragility give an equal sense of eternity. The theories about progress and the ‘genius which always pierces through’ arise from the fact that it is intolerable to suppose that what is most precious in the world should be given over to chance. It is because it is intolerable that it ought to be contemplated. Creation is this very thing. The only good which is not subject to chance is that which is outside the world. The vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence. The destruction of Troy. The fall of the petals from fruit trees in blossom. To know that what is most precious is not rooted in existence–that is beautiful. Why? It projects the soul beyond time. The woman who wishes for a child white as snow and red as blood gets it, but she dies and the child is given over to a stepmother.”

Simone Weil.

[ashlesha]

““[R]eal love” is not the love that I would call sublime, the love in which we let ourselves be completely dazzled or “blinded” by an abstract dimension of the loved object, so that we no longer see, or can’t bear to see, its concrete existence (and its always somewhat ridiculous, banal aspect). This kind of “sublime love” indeed necessitates and generates a radical inaccessibility of the other (which usually takes the form of eternal preliminaries, of an inaccessible object of choice, or the form of an intermittent relationship that enables us to reintroduce the distance appropriate to the inaccessible, and thereby to “resublimate” the object after each “use”). But neither is real love simply something that takes its object “such as it is,” in the sense of homogeneity and (uninterrupted) continuity of its presence as real. It is only at the moment when we fall in love that a loved object “coincides” with an existing object, and this coincidence marks a break in the continuity of our (and our lover’s) reality. This paradoxical—or, indeed, comical—coincidence is precisely what tears us (and our lover) from the continuity of our presence in reality, and it does so by /(re)installing/ us there, as if for the first time.”
— Zupančič, A., 2017. What Is Sex? Cambridge: MIT Press. p. 137

[Adam Strange]

"Even a hunter cannot kill a bird that flies to him for refuge."
-Samurai maxim

[chriscorey]

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away...

-William Hughes Mearns

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

The trip to inner space [deep sea waters] in many ways is more treacherous than a trip to outer space. The pressures are enormous

[Tonatiuh]

A man who is doing his True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist him.

Aleister Crowley

[timber]

"I assure you I am the book of Fate. Questions are my enemies. For my questions explode. Answers leap up like a frightened flock blackening the sky of my inescapable memories. Not one answer. Not one suffices. What prisms flash when I enter the terrible dead field of my past. What I am, a chip of shattered flint enclosed in a box. The box gyrates and quakes. I am tossed about in storm of mysteries. And when the box opens, I return to this presence like a stranger in a primitive land." -Frank Herbert.

like fuuk, so true.

[ashlesha]

"Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into the change. What is it like, such intensity of pain? If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine. In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses, the meaning discovered there. And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow. To the rushing water, speak: I am.”
— Ranier Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

[Tonatiuh]

"Quiet friend...

Beautiful.

[Christian Bale]

"A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything." - G. K. Chesterton

[Tearsofaclown]

"A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything." - G. K. Chesterton

"To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god." -Napoleon

[Muddy]

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

“Insanity is everyone expecting you not to fall apart when you find out everything you believed in was a lie.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“When someone you love dies, you are given the gift of "second chances". Their eulogy is a reminder that the living can turn their lives around at any point. You’re not bound by the past; that is who you used to be. You’re reminded that your feelings are not who you are, but how you felt at that moment. Your bad choices defined you yesterday, but they are not who you are today. Your future doesn’t have to travel the same path with the same people. You can start over. You don’t have to apologize to people that won’t listen. You don’t have to justify your feelings or actions, during a difficult time in your life. You don’t have to put up with people that are insecure and want you to fail. All you have to do is walk forward with a positive outlook, and trust that God has a plan that is greater than the sorrow you left behind. The people of quality that were meant to be in your life won’t need you to explain the beauty of your heart. They already understand what being human is----a roller coaster ride of emotions during rainstorms and sunshine, sprinkled with moments when you can almost reach the stars.”
― Shannon L. Alder

[Raver]

"We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man … far too little. His psyche should be studied — because we are the origin of all coming evil."

C.G. Jung

[Tonatiuh]

I myself am strange and unusual.

Lydia, Beetlejuice

[ashlesha]

[Raver]

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[ashlesha]

Mary ruefle

[Tearsofaclown]

I'm a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of napalm
I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb
I am the world's forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroys
Honey gotta help me please
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, detonate for me
Oh
Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology
Ain't got time to make no apology
Soul radiation in the dead of night
Love in the middle of a fire fight
Honey, gotta strike me blind
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, penetrate my mind
And I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searchin', searchin' to destroy
And honey I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searchin', only to destroy

[Tearsofaclown]

One lion is all it takes. Napoleon said something similar. I can see this in Christianity vs Islam. Islam is lead by a lion, Christianity is lead by a lamb. Even ****** said Christianity is weak and wished Germany had a Muslim heritage instead of a Christian one.

[0i0]

LXIX

One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted—
One need not be a House—
The Brain has Corridors—surpassing
Material Place—

Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting
External Ghost
Than its interior Confronting—
That Cooler Host.

Far safer, through an Abbey gallop,
The Stones a’chase—
Than Unarmed, one’s a’self encounter—
In lonesome Place—

Ourself behind ourself, concealed—
Should startle most
Assassin hid in our Apartment
Be Horror’s least.

The Body—borrows a Revolver—
He bolts the Door—
O’erlooking a superior spectre—
Or More—

Emily Dickinson

[Muddy]

[vesstheastralsilky]

Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which the Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.

Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet

[Dauphin]

The Tusks of Blood

My chant must enclose hell
And yet here leave behind
Myself of touch and vow;
My hour has come when gales—
The brief song of Greek—
Have found the inner teeth alone.
Here listen, someone is calling—
Why the ugly praise and fate?
Shall I be a joiner to this
And leave here the good hope?
Not to prank the lucky star
I’ll apologize, wait until
The great way works for woe!
Woe? never, you Parsifal;
Never—and by the trait of love’s
Light shell, sneering outpour.
Not to blame—wait, a travel
For an excuse; a good life lay
In the real actions, the pomped
Horn, and the pardons of a door.
What interfering, cloaked love
Rules my thoughts!
Shall I write: O anger, hast thou
Not treated thy refuging forbear?
Perhaps I can walk a bit
To my truthful veins and relate
The sport of the steeds that trot
The stirring muscles of an earthly
Gait and my hearted glow.
O worm, worm-heated soil,
Peal sad mereing folds
Where cometh a home afar;
And again a slow fainting ghost
Gliding over a path easily seen. . .
God! some voices disturb me
From the inner room;
I catch the subject: Death!
Death, what a careless value
To such aged spirits. Again
A sad remark. Life not valued
By such retired souls, who
Should be apart to believe
Justice . . . Ah, man, not thy boast!
He was a marked lad
Who poorly helped himself.
What should this mean?
Fill your pockets—I’ll let
You know the grass of a grave.
O the pillars of silk and good tea,
Confusion of women, the bare bust—
Embarrassment, carnal filth
Of its justice lacks environment;
O creaking earth, necessity; hell,
No more wise; then the next child—
What can he give?
You pallid stork, gazing—
Who gazed before you, cooled
The summer spray?
Very bad for an apartment Jew to claim
Everlasting renaissance.
What a delivery was this,
Sucked by secret gilded creatures
Who slew gold for a membrane!
O tear, sped into the basin
Of sparkling night aghast in silence,
And the pipes’ swift pain
Of the boiling steam shocks uplifting
You, endless wretch of silver!
—Samuel Greenberg