“We are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.”
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 373.
“When two spirits recognize each other in memory and future, then love grows.”
The Silence of Trees (2010)
Context: I would add to my mother’s wisdom that the key to love is in the breath. You know you love a man when you can stand his breath in the morning after a night of drinking and cigarettes. When you can kiss him after he finishes a garlic and butter sandwich and still enjoy the feel of his lips. When he looks into your eyes, tells you he loves you—and the pickled herring and onions are stronger than his voice—yet you still smile. You still want to be close to him. Yes, then you have found love. My Baba used to say that the breath is a taste of the spirit. When two spirits recognize each other in memory and future, then love grows.
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified
Source: Son of a Witch
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 137
Bhawani Mandir, 1905
India's Rebirth
Context: We have to create strength where it did not exist before; we have to change our natures, and become new men with new hearts, to be born again... We need a nucleus of men in whom the Shakti is developed to its uttermost extent, in whom it fills every corner of the personality and overflows to fertilise the earth. These, having the fire of Bhawani in their hearts and brains, will go forth and carry the flame to every nook and cranny of our land.
“Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood”
Table-Talk (1857)
Context: Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood; as the Emperors signed their names in green ink when under age, but when of age, in purple.
“He is as loving and tender as a child, but strong and sturdy as a rock.”
Source: Platero and I (1917), Ch. 1 : Platero, as translated by Eloïse Roach (1957).
Context: He is as loving and tender as a child, but strong and sturdy as a rock. When on Sundays I ride him through the lanes in the outskirts of the town, slow-moving countrymen, dressed in their Sunday clean, watch him a while, speculatively:
"He is like steel," they say.
Steel, yes. Steel and moon silver at the same time.
