“One day I went alone to the river to enjoy myself as usual. When I was a short distance from the masonry, however, I was horrified to observe that the water had risen and was carrying me along swiftly.… The pressure against my chest was great and I was barely able to keep my head above the surface.… Slowly and gradually I became exhausted and unable to withstand the strain longer. Just as I was about to let go, to be dashed against the rocks below, I saw in a flash of light a familiar diagram illustrating the hydraulic principle that the pressure of a fluid in motion is proportionate to the area exposed and automatically I turned on my left side. As if by magic, the pressure was reduced.”

My Inventions (1919)

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Nikola Tesla125

Serbian American inventor 1856–1943

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“And my grandparents became very aware of one thing—that I enjoyed my aloneness. They had seen that I had no desire to go to the village to meet anybody, or to talk with anybody. Even if they wanted to talk, my answers were yes or no; I was not interested in talking either. They became aware of one thing—that I enjoyed my aloneness and it was their sacred duty not to disturb me.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

Source: Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (2000), p. 6

“When I was a young man, I found out that if you hurt somebody bad enough, they'll leave you alone. When I tried to leave everybody alone and just do my own thing, everybody just wanted to hurt me. Until one day I just decided, well, I've had enough of this picking. And there were like six young men still figuring they were going to mess with my head. And we went to war. To their surprise, I was no longer taking the beating, I was giving it.”

Richard Kuklinski (1935–2006) American contract killer

“My back was up against the wall
And you slowly just walked away
You never really heard my call
When I cried out that way
With my face against the sun
You pointed out for me to go
Then you said I was the one
Had to reap what you did sow.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

These Dreams of You
Song lyrics, Moondance (1970)

“I let it go. It's like swimming against the current. It exhausts you. After a while, whoever you are, you just have to let go, and the river brings you home.”

Joanne Harris book Five Quarters of the Orange

Source: Five Quarters of the Orange

“I constructed a machine that I imagined was capable of taking me as high as I wanted to go. I launched myself into the air from the edge of a cliff. But I had miscalculated, and I crashed into the valley below.
I returned to my room, quite rumpled but not discouraged. I took some beef marrow and slathered it all over my body, which was bruised from head to toe. I fortified my courage with a bottle of cordial and went back for my machine.”

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist

The Other World (1657)

“America was different. America was a river, roarng along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

“I went north — I did not try to hide myself. When a god or a demon saw me, then I would die, but meanwhile I was no longer afraid. My hunger for knowledge burned in me — there was so much that I could not understand.”

Stephen Vincent Benét book By the Waters of Babylon

Source: By the Waters of Babylon (1937)

“In the course of some experiments I conducted from 1954 through 1956 I was suspended in water for several hours at a time, and I noticed that my skin gradually became more and more sensitive to tactile stimuli and an intense sense of pleasure resulted. However, if the stimulation was carried too far it became intensely irritating, I reasoned that the dolphin is suspended in water all of his life, twenty four hours a day, and possibly had developed an intensely sensitive skin.”

John Lilly (1915–2001) American physician

Man and Dolphin (1961), p.172; as quoted in The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century (2012), by D. Graham Burnett, p.580

“I usually stay away from being carried away,
But one day I saw a silver horse.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

"Silver Horse" on Season of Glass (1981).
Context: I usually stay away from being carried away,
But one day I saw a silver horse.
I thought he might take me to that somewhere high,
I thought he might take me to that deep blue sky. I came to realize that the horse had no wings.
No wings, well, it wasn't so bad, you know. I learnt to travel the world around
And run on the ground in the morning.
And that's the story of a wandering soul,
A story of a dreamer.

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