Dialogues on Metaphysics (1688) Dialogue III
Context: I am unable, when I turn to myself, to recognize any of my faculties or my capacities. The inner sensation which I have of myself informs me that I am, that I think, that I will, that I have sensory awareness, that I suffer, and so on; but it provides me with no knowledge whatever of what I am — of the nature of my thought, my sensations, my passions, or my pain — or the mutual relations that obtain between all these things … I have no idea whatever of my soul.
“In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative.”
"The Tomb" - Written Jun 1917; first published in The Vagrant, No. 14 (March 1922)<!-- p. 50-64 -->
Fiction
Context: In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative. It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism.
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H.P. Lovecraft 203
American author 1890–1937Related quotes
Source: Beauty and mystery: An interview with John Jude Palencar https://vadamagazine.com/entertainment/arts/john-jude-palencar (27 November, 2015)
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”
The Emperor Julian, as portrayed in Emperor and Galilean (1873).
Context: That power which circumstances placed in my hands, and which is an emanation of divinity, I am conscious of having used to the best of my skill. I have never wittingly wronged any one. For this campaign there were good and sufficient reasons; and if some should think that I have not fulfilled all expectations, they ought in justice to reflect that there is a mysterious power without us, which in a great measure governs the issue of human undertakings.
“All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence.”
As quoted in Mishima : A Life in Four Chapters (1985).
Context: All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence. For forty-five years I struggled to resolve this dilemma by writing plays and novels. The more I wrote, the more I realized mere words were not enough. So I found another form of expression.
Mīrābāī, in Indian Religions: A Historical Reader of Spiritual Expression and Experience http://books.google.co.in/books?id=HTepAfJv_6YC&pg=PA351, p. 351
Variant: O my companion, worldly comfort is illusion,
As soon you get it, it goes.
I have chosen the indestructible for my refuge,
Him whom the snake of death will not devour.
My beloved dwells in my heart all day,
I have actually seen that abode of joy.
Meera's lord is Hari, the indestructible.
My lord, I have taken refuge with you, your maidservant.