One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark,
And has the nature of infinity.
Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live. If any love is shown us we should recognise that we are quite unworthy of it. Nobody is worthy to be loved. The fact that God loves man shows us that in the divine order of ideal things it is written that eternal love is to be given to what is eternally unworthy. Or if that phrase seems to be a bitter one to bear, let us say that every one is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he is.
He was the first person who ever said to people that they should live 'flower-like lives.’
imagination is simply a manifestation of love, and it is love and the capacity for it that distinguishes one human being from another.
We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single thing. We have forgotten that water can cleanse, and fire purify, and that the Earth is mother to us all. As a consequence our art is of the moon and plays with shadows, while Greek art is of the sun and deals directly with things.
I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens
Raising consciousness is difficult as consciousness is consciousness of what recedes.
Your eyes, they are just glances, your mouth, it is just kisses, your hand is just a handshake, and I am just another guy. Your motion says that you are in the mood, but what you want is far away. It's plain that I spend my time on you too much.
Love does not lead to an end to difficulties, it provides us with the means to cope with our difficulties in ways that enhance our growth
“The designers and perpetrators of the Holocaust,” Wiesel pointed out, “were the heirs of Kant and Goethe.” Although, “in most respects the Germans were the best educated people on earth, their education did not serve as an adequate barrier to barbarity.” What was wrong with their education?
I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come-what-may places
Where one relaxes on the axis
Of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life
From jazz and cocktails
The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distingué traces
That used to be there
You could see where
They'd been washed away
By too many through the day
Twelve o'clock tales
Then you came along
With your siren song
To tempt me to madness
I thought for awhile
That your poignant smile
Was tinged with the sadness
Of a great love for me
Ah, yes, I was wrong
Again, I was wrong
Life is lonely again
And only last year everything seemed so sure
Now life is awful again
A troughful of hearts could only be a bore
A week in Paris will ease the bite of it
All I care is to smile in spite of it
I'll forget you I will
While yet you are still
Burning inside my brain
Romance is mush
Stifling those who strive
I'll live a lush life
In some small dive
And there I'll be
While I rot with the rest
Of those whose lives are lonely, too
I think of death and heaven, for every time I think of death I think of the stars.
I feel very small next to the infinite and very quickly I give up these reflections. My warm body, which lives, reassures me. I touch my skin with love. I listen to my heart, but I'm careful not to put my hand on my left breast because there is nothing that scares me as this regular beat that I do not control and that could easily stop. I move my joints, and I breathe better by feeling that they do not hurt me.
Ah! solitude, what a beautiful and sad thing! How beautiful she is when we choose her! How sad she is when she has been imposed on us for years!
Some strong men are not alone in solitude, but I, who am weak, am alone when I have no friends.
