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Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness.
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead -
I wanted to marry you. It was the only thing I ever really wanted. And that’s the sin that can’t be forgiven - that I hadn’t done what I wanted. It feels so dirty and pointless and monstrous, as one feels about insanity, because there’s no sense to it, no dignity, nothing but pain - and wasted pain…. Katie, why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest thing in the world - to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage.
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead -
And now that destruction was not an event long since past - this was not a comparison between two mutually unmeasurable entities, a building and a play - it was not an accident, nor a matter of persons, of Ike, Fougler, Toohey, herself… and Roark. It was a contest without time, a struggle of two abstractions, the thing that had created the building against the things that made the play possible - two forces, suddenly naked to her in their simple statement - two forces that had fought since the world began - and every religion had known them - and there had always been a God and a Devil - only men had been so mistaken about the shapes of their Devil - he was not single and big, he was many and smutty and small. The Banner had destroyed the Stoddard Temple in order to make room for this play - it could not do otherwise - there was no middle choice, no escape, no neutrality - it was one or the other - it had always been - and the contest had many symbols, but no name and no statement…
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead -
Cantantes licet usque (minus via laedit) eamus.
Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.
Eclogues Book IX, line 64 -
Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanshipThings not to worry about:
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactionsThings to think about:
What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?With dearest love,
Daddy
fsf -
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that ‘s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!She Walks In Beauty, Lord Byron -
Posted on February 7, 2012 via Banana Leaves with 383 notes
Source: christopherschreck
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And if all that is meaningless, I want to be cured
Of a craving for something I cannot find
And of the shame of never finding it.T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party. (via askios)Posted on February 7, 2012 via sans shadow, with 2,310 notes
Source: askios
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(via theodorafitzgerald)
Posted on February 1, 2012 via stuff your eyes with wonder with 3,094 notes
Source: bookshavepores
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Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love’s song,
We are parted too long.Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead,
Could we live it all over again,
Were it worth the pain!I remember we used to meet
By an ivied seat,
And you warbled each pretty word
With the air of a bird;And your voice had a quaver in it,
Just like a linnet,
And shook, as the blackbird’s throat
With its last big note;And your eyes, they were green and grey
Like an April day,
But lit into amethyst
When I stooped and kissed;And your mouth, it would never smile
For a long, long while,
Then it rippled all over with laughter
Five minutes after.You were always afraid of a shower,
Just like a flower:
I remember you started and ran
When the rain began.I remember I never could catch you,
For no one could match you,
You had wonderful, luminous, fleet,
Little wings to your feet.I remember your hair - did I tie it?
For it always ran riot -
Like a tangled sunbeam of gold:
These things are old.I remember so well the room,
And the lilac bloom
That beat at the dripping pane
In the warm June rain;And the colour of your gown,
It was amber-brown,
And two yellow satin bows
From your shoulders rose.And the handkerchief of French lace
Which you held to your face -
Had a small tear left a stain?
Or was it the rain?On your hand as it waved adieu
There were veins of blue;
In your voice as it said good-bye
Was a petulant cry,‘You have only wasted your life.’
(Ah, that was the knife!)
When I rushed through the garden gate
It was all too late.Could we live it over again,
Were it worth the pain,
Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead!Well, if my heart must break,
Dear love, for your sake,
It will break in music, I know,
Poets’ hearts break so.But strange that I was not told
That the brain can hold
In a tiny ivory cell
God’s heaven and hell.Oscar Wilde, Roses and Rue
