“behind the mask of ice that people wear, there beats a heart of fire.”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
Source: Warrior of the Light
The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: "Fire is the first and final mask of my God. We dance and weep between two enormous pyres."
Our thoughts and our bodies flash and glitter with reflected light. Between the two pyres I stand serenely, my brain unshaken amid the vertigo, and I say:
"Time is most short and space most narrow between these two pyres, the rhythm of this life is most sluggish, and I have no time, nor a place to dance in. I cannot wait."
Then all at once the rhythm of the earth becomes a vertigo, time disappears, the moment whirls, becomes eternity, and every point in space — insect or star or idea — turns into dance.
“behind the mask of ice that people wear, there beats a heart of fire.”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
Source: Warrior of the Light
Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer
Thus I became a madman.
And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.
Introduction
The Madman (1918)
Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States
Letter written the night before his duel with Aaron Burr (10 July 1804)
“Our first and final task will be to meditate upon the truest name of God.”
Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations
“All things are but masks at God's beck and call,
They are symbols that instruct us that God is all.”
Attar of Nishapur book The Conference of the Birds
As translated by Raficq Abdulla
The Conference of the Birds (1177)
Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer
Press Conference, September 1 1992 http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/92fs$$.htm <br class="br">1990s
“I was the first woman to burn my bra - it took the fire department four days to put it out.”
Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress