
“Since providence and necessity has cast them upon it, he should pray God to bless their counsels.”
On the trial of Charles I (December 1648)
Your Thought and Mine
Context: Your thought advocates fame and show. Mine counsels me and implores me to cast aside notoriety and treat it like a grain of sand cast upon the shore of eternity. Your thought instills in your heart arrogance and superiority. Mine plants within me love for peace and the desire for independence. Your thought begets dreams of palaces with furniture of sandalwood studded with jewels, and beds made of twisted silk threads. My thought speaks softly in my ears, "Be clean in body and spirit even if you have nowhere to lay your head." Your thought makes you aspire to titles and offices. Mine exhorts me to humble service.
“Since providence and necessity has cast them upon it, he should pray God to bless their counsels.”
On the trial of Charles I (December 1648)
“Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.”
Source: The Princess Bride
“If you cast your burden on me, I shall surely bear it.”
Eleven important sayings
SOURCE https://books.google.com.au/books?id=pA4LF2gD61sC&pg=PA419&lpg=PA419&dq=%E2%80%9CWhat+a+memory+I+shall+leave+behind+me+if+this+lasts!%E2%80%9D+robespierre&source=bl&ots=H7X80hMmtp&sig=ACfU3U0gG5lHCy5wZrS4cArBVcEFLBhyjQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjVjpKnvvPyAhValEsFHS7xABkQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CWhat%20a%20memory%20I%20shall%20leave%20behind%20me%20if%20this%20lasts!%E2%80%9D%20robespierre&f=false
Misc Quotes
“The aim of planning is to minimise, remove and cast aside all the doubts.”
“The bullet that will kill me is not yet cast.”
Statement at Montereau (17 February 1814)
Part One, One
The Dud Avocado (1958)
Context: I stumbled across the Champs Élysées. I know it seems crazy to say, but before I actually stepped onto it (at what turned out to be the Étoile ) I had not even been aware of its existence. No, I swear it. I’d heard the words "Champs Élysées," of course, but I thought it was a park or something. I mean that’s what it sounds like, doesn’t it? All at once I found myself standing there gazing down that enchanted boulevard in the blue, blue evening. Everything seemed to fall into place. Here was all the gaiety and glory and sparkle I knew was going to be life if I could just grasp it.
I began floating down those Elysian Fields three inches off the ground, as easily as a Cocteau character floats through Hell. Luxury and order seemed to be shining from every street lamp along the Avenue; shining from every window of its toyshops and dress-shops and carshops; shining from its cafés and cinemas and theaters; from its bonbonneries and parfumeries and nighteries.… Talk about seeing Eternity in a Grain of Sand and Heaven in a Wild Flower; I really think I was having some sort of mystic revelation then. The whole thing seemed like a memory from the womb. It seemed to have been waiting there for me.
For some people history is a Beach or a Tower or a Graveyard. For me it was this giant primordial Toyshop with all its windows gloriously ablaze. It contained everything I’ve ever wanted that money can buy. It was an enormous Christmas present wrapped in silver and blue tissue paper tied with satin ribbons and bells. Inside would be something to adorn, to amuse, and to dazzle me forever. It was my present for being alive.