“To be in touch with senses and emotions beyond conquest is to enter the realm of the mysterious.”
Source: Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (2006), Chapter 2, Altars of Sacrifice
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Bell Hooks 112
American author, feminist, and social activist 1952Related quotes
“Such death makes happier end
than conquests of huge realms or infinite gold.”
Felice e cotal morte e scempio,
Via più ch' acquisto di province e d'oro.
Canto VIII, stanza 44 (tr. Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 191
Context: Life is no negative, or superficial or worldly existence. Our steps are evermore haunted with thoughts, far beyond their own range, which some have regarded as the reminiscences of a preesistent state. So it is with us all, in the beaten and worn track of this worldly pilgrimage. There is more here, than the world we live in. It is not all of life to live. An unseen and infinite presence is here; a sense of something greater than we possess; a seeking, through all the void wastes of life, for a good beyond it; a crying out of the heart for interpretation; a memory of the dead, touching continually some vibrating thread in this great tissue of mystery.
Source: The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990), p. 163
“And the talking leads to touching
And the touching leads to sex
And then there is no mystery left”
"Portions for Foxes"
Song lyrics, More Adventurous (2004)
Context: There's blood in my mouth
Cause I've been biting my tongue all week
I keep on talking trash
But I never say anything
And the talking leads to touching
And the touching leads to sex
And then there is no mystery left
“The pure air
is cleansed of lingering lees
And mysteriously,
Heaven's realms are high.”
Written on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month of the Year yi-yu (A.D. 409)
Translated by William Acker
Context: Slowly, slowly,
the autumn draws to its close.
Cruelly cold
the wind congeals the dew.
Vines and grasses
will not be green again—
The trees in my garden
are withering forlorn.
The pure air
is cleansed of lingering lees
And mysteriously,
Heaven's realms are high.
Nothing is left
of the spent cicada's song,
A flock of geese
goes crying down the sky.
The myriad transformations
unravel one another
And human life
how should it not be hard?
From ancient times
there was none but had to die,
Remembering this
scorches my very heart.
What is there I can do
to assuage this mood?
Only enjoy myself
drinking my unstrained wine.
I do not know
about a thousand years,
Rather let me make
this morning last forever.
“Mystery is an emotion which is repugnant to a political animal.”
Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)
