Quotes about eye
page 7

“It is a blessing not yet to have acquired that over-keen, diagnostic, misanthropic eye, and to be able to look at people and things trustfully when one first sees them.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

People

“For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

The Black Cat (1843)

“To contradict. To show one eye full face and one in profile. Nature does many things the way I do, but she hides them! My painting is a series of non-sequiturs. …”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Quoted in: Pierre Cabanne (1977), Pablo Picasso: His Life and Times, p. 268.
Quotes, 1970's

Way, Nature, Painting

“If the vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet; for such things are of the spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Men

“We have, over the centuries, devised a management structure for running things, whether firms or whole countries. This structure depends absolutely on the limitations of the human hand, eye, and brain. The discoveries of management cybernetics, coupled with the techniques of operational research and with the new technology of automation, make possible a new way of running things which is not so limited. Yet we insist on retaining the original structures and automating them. In so doing, we enshrine in steel, glass, and semiconductors those very limitations of hand, eye, and brain that the computer was invented precisely to transcend.”

Anthony Stafford Beer (1926–2002) British theorist, consultant, and professor

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 7, Automation and Such, p. 177.

Way, Dependency, Country

“You're a shooting star I see
A vision of ecstasy
When you hold me, I'm alive
We're like diamonds in the sky
At first sight I felt the energy of sun rays
I saw the life inside your eyes

So shine bright, tonight you and I
We're beautiful like diamonds in the sky
Eye to eye, so alive
We're beautiful like diamonds in the sky

Shine bright like a diamond
Shine bright like a diamond
Shining bright like a diamond
We're beautiful like diamonds in the sky”

Sia (musician) (1975) Australian singer

Diamonds, Unapologetic (2012). Cowritten with Benjamin Levin, Mikkel Eriksen and Tor Hermansen.
Songs

Life, Beauty, Star, Sun

“If you wish to thoroughly accustom yourself to correct and good positions for your fingers, fasten a frame or a loom divided into squares by threads between your eye and the nude figure which you are representing, and then make the same squares upon the paper where you wish to draw the said nude but very faintly. You should then put a pellet of wax on a part of the network to serve as a mark which as you look at your model should always cover the pit of the throat, or if he should have turned his back make it cover one of the vertebrae of the neck. …The squares you draw may be as much smaller than those of the network in proportion as you wish your figure to be less than life size…”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

Life, Parting, Drawing

“Imagination and obsession are the keys to getting a good idea. To help your imagination keep your eyes and ears open. Avoid the "not invented here prejudice."”

Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) American scientist

Essay on Creativity in Science and Engineering

Imagination, Idea, Help

“If a player in the game of Deadman's Catch drops a skittle, he is obliged to suffer a succession of handicaps. First to catch using one hand, then to catch kneeling on one knee, then on two knees, then with one eye closed. If a player finally drops a catch with both eyes closed, then he is out and must take his place in the winding-sheet.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Drowning By Numbers

Game, Suffering, Success

“Eyes so transparent that through them one sees the lucent soul.”

Théophile Gautier Paris

Ils sont si transparents qu'ils laissent voir votre âme.
"À Deux Beaux Yeux", line 12, in Poésies Complètes (Paris: Charpentier, 1845) p. 278; Maturin Murray Ballou (ed.) Notable Thoughts about Women (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1882) p. 398.

Soul

“When you take your case to Washington, D. C., you’re taking it to the criminal who’s responsible; it’s like running from the wolf to the fox. They’re all in cahoots together. They all work political chicanery and make you look like a chump before the eyes of the world. Here you are walking around in America, getting ready to be drafted and sent abroad, like a tin soldier, and when you get over there, people ask you what are you fighting for, and you have to stick your tongue in your cheek. No, take Uncle Sam to court, take him before the world.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

People, World, Wolf, Fight

“There's less in this than meets the eye.”

Tallulah Bankhead (1902–1968) American actress

Tallulah: My Autobiography (1952)

Good Morning

“No, we are not related. No, we are not related. Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move round, and turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. All is usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died. Then I know nothing more.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

“But what, Phaedrus, is the contrary of a dream if not some other dream?… A dream of vigilance and tension dreamt by Reason herself!—And what would such a Reason dream?—If a Reason were to dream—a Reason hard, erect, eyes armed, mouth closed, as though mistress of her lips—would not the dream she dreamt be what we see now—this world of exact forces and studied illusions?—A dream, a dream, but a dream interpenetrated with symmetries, all order, acts and sequences!”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Socrates, p. 35
L'Âme et la danse (1921)

World, Dreams, Study

“Look a'here, some people say we got a lot of malice
Some say it's a lotta nerve
I say we won't quit moving
Til we get what we deserve.
We've been 'buked and we've been scourned
We've been treated bad, talked about
As just as sure as you're born
But just as sure as it take
Two eyes to make a pair, huh
Brother, we can't quit until we get our share.Say it loud,
I'm black and I'm proud.”

James Brown (1933–2006) American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist

Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud, written with Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis (1968)
Song lyrics

People

“Making eye contact during rough sex is roughly the equivalent of trying to read Dostoyevsky on a rollercoaster.”

Jenna Jameson book How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale

How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale (2004)

Sex, Reading

“America has never come easy. Our freedom, our democracy, has never been easy. Sometimes we stumble; we make mistakes; we get frustrated or discouraged. But for more than two hundred years, we have put those things aside and placed our collective shoulder to the wheel of progress: to create and build and expand the possibilities of individual achievement; to free other nations from tyranny and fear; to promote justice and fairness and equality under the law, so that the words set to paper by our founders are made real for every citizen. The America we want for our kids -- a rising America where honest work is plentiful and communities are strong; where prosperity is widely shared and opportunity for all lets us go as far as our dreams and toil will take us -- none of it is easy. But if we work together; if we summon what is best in us […], with our feet planted firmly in today but our eyes cast towards tomorrow, I know it's within our reach. Believe it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Sixth State of the Union Address (January 2014)

Fear, Justice, Law, Dreams

“The directors of Synthank were eating an enormous luncheon to celebrate the launching of their new product. Some of them wore the plastic face-masks popular at the time. All were elegantly slender, despite the rich food and drink they were putting away. Their wives were elegantly slender, despite the food and drink they too were putting away. An earlier and less sophisticated generation would have regarded them as beautiful people, apart from their eyes.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (1969)

People, Food, Beauty, Drink

“The soul seems to reside in the judgment, and the judgment would seem to be seated in that part where all the senses meet; and this is called the Common Sense and is not all-pervading throughout the body, as many have thought. Rather is it entirely in one part. Because, if it were all-pervading and the same in every part, there would have been no need to make the instruments of the senses meet in one centre and in one single spot; on the contrary it would have sufficed that the eye should fulfil the function of its sensation on its surface only, and not transmit the image of the things seen, to the sense, by means of the optic nerves, so that the soul — for the reason given above — may perceive it in the surface of the eye.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIV Anatomy, Zoology and Physiology

Soul, Sense, Parting

“Valmiki went alone to the clear Ganga waterside and bathed. He washed away the anthill dust and peeled grey bark from a tree and made new fresh clothes. Then he sat back resting against a stone. He watched two small water birds in a tree nearby. The male bird was singing to his mate when before Valmiki’s eyes an arrow hit him, and the little bird fell from the limb. He thrashed on the ground an instant and then lay dead and blood drops strained his feathers.”

Vālmīki Ramayana

Source: Ramayana, p. 7.

Bird, Tree, Water, Singing

“Art furnishes us with eyes and hands and above all the good conscience to be able to turn ourselves into such a phenomenon.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 107
The Gay Science (1882)

Art

“There is no question but that Hitler belongs in the category of the truly mystic medicine man. As somebody commented about him at the last Nürnberg party congress, since the time of Mohammed nothing like it has been seen in this world. His body does not suggest strength. The outstanding characteristic of his physiognomy is its dreamy look. I was especially struck by that when I saw pictures taken of him in the Czechoslovakian crisis; there was in his eyes the look of a seer. This markedly mystic characteristic of Hitler's is what makes him do things which seem to us illogical, inexplicable, and unreasonable. … So you see, Hitler is a medicine man, a spiritual vessel, a demi-deity or, even better, a myth.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

During an interview with H. R. Knickerbocker, first published in Hearst's International Cosmopolitan (January 1939), in which Jung was asked to diagnose Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin, later published in Is Tomorrow Hitler's? (1941), by H. R. Knickerbocker, also published in The Seduction of Unreason : The Intellectual Romance with Fascism (2004) by Richard Wolin, Ch. 2 : Prometheus Unhinged : C. G. Jung and the Temptations of Aryan Religion, p. 75

World, Question, Time

“I wear glasses because I need them; I don't wear them to be the fashion victim, I have to have them because I have a stigma in one eye and I'm blind in another. But I make it fun, I make it acceptable to fit in society; I've always worn crazy, goofy glasses, it's just what I do. This is who I am. Love me or leave me.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

The Time Finally Comes for Anastacia http://www.pauseandplay.com/the-time-finally-comes-for-anastacia/, PauseandPlay.com, April 9, 2000. General Quotes

Love, Fashion

“Very few people are aware that in each of our fingers, located somewhere between the firs phalange, the mesophalange and the metaphalange, there is a tiny brain. […] It should be noted that fingers are without brains, these develop gradually with the passage of time and with the help of what the eyes see…. That is why the fingers have always excelled at uncovering what is concealed.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 64 (Vintage 2003)

People, Time, Help

“The public has lost the habit of movie-going because the cinema no longer possesses the charm, the hypnotic charisma, the authority it once commanded. The image it once held for us all — that of a dream we dreamt with our eyes open — has disappeared. Is it still possible that one thousand people might group together in the dark and experience the dream that a single individual has directed?”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker

"Decline of Cinema"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)

People, Dreams

“I was born to myself between 1946 and 1948, I then opened my eyes on the world, until that moment I have been blind”

Albert Caraco (1919–1971) French-Uruguayan philosopher

Translation from: Albert Carao (1919-1917) http://illusioncity.net/albert-caraco/ at illusioncity.net by Snake June 17, 2012 Ma confession (1975)

World

“My dear Professor, a war would have cost us at least 30,000 brave soldiers, and at best we should have gained nothing by it. Besides, anyone who has once looked into the glassy eyes of a dying warrior on the battle-field would think twice before beginning a war.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Mein lieber Professor, ein solcher Krieg hätte uns wenigstens 30,000 Mann brave Soldaten gekostet, und uns im besten Falle keinen Gewinn gebracht. Wer aber nur ein Mal in das brechende Auge eines sterbenden Kriegers auf dem Schlachtfeld geblickt hat, der besinnt sich, bevor er einen Krieg anfängt.
In June 1867, protecting the Treaty of London
1860s

War, Thinking

“The undulation of these infinite numbers of mountains, whose snowy summits make them look as if covered by foam, recalled to my remembrance the surface of a storm-beaten ocean. If I looked towards the west, the ocean lay before me in all its majestic grandeur, a continuation as it were, of these fleecy hilltops. Where the earth ended and the sea began it was impossible for the eye to distinguish.

I soon felt that strange and mysterious sensation which is awakened in the mind when looking down from lofty hilltops, and now I was able to do so without any feeling of nervousness, having fortunately hardened myself to that kind of sublime contemplation. I wholly forgot who I was, and where I was. I became intoxicated with a sense of lofty sublimity, without thought of the abysses into which my daring was soon about to plunge me.”

Jules Verne book A Journey to the Center of the Earth

Les ondulations de ces montagnes infinies, que leurs couches de neige semblaient rendre écumantes, rappelaient à mon souvenir la surface d'une mer agitée. Si je me retournais vers l'ouest, l'Océan s'y développait dans sa majestueuse étendue, comme une continuation de ces sommets moutonneux. Où finissait la terre, où commençaient les flots, mon oeil le distinguait à peine.Je me plongeais ainsi dans cette prestigieuse extase que donnent les hautes cimes, et cette fois, sans vertige, car je m'accoutumais enfin à ces sublimes contemplations. Mes regards éblouis se baignaient dans la transparente irradiation des rayons solaires, j'oubliais qui j'étais, où j'étais, pour vivre de la vie des elfes ou des sylphes, imaginaires habitants de la mythologie scandinave; je m'enivrais de la volupté des hauteurs, sans songer aux abîmes dans lesquels ma destinée allait me plonger avant peu.
Source: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Ch. XVI: Boldly down the crater

Feeling, Mountain, Sense, Sea

“When she [Philosophy] saw that the Muses of poetry were present by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely, and said she, "Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man? Never do they support those in sorrow by any healing remedies, but rather do ever foster the sorrow by poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions: they free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them thereto."”
Quae ubi poeticas Musas uidit nostro assistentes toro fletibusque meis uerba dictantes, commota paulisper ac toruis inflammata luminibus: Quis, inquit, has scenicas meretriculas ad hunc aegrum permisit accedere, quae dolores eius non modo nullis remediis fouerent, uerum dulcibus insuper alerent uenenis? Hae sunt enim quae infructuosis affectuum spinis uberem fructibus rationis segetem necant hominumque mentes assuefaciunt morbo, non liberant.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Prose I, lines 7-9; translation by W.V. Cooper
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book I

Men, Disease, Support, Suffering

“That’s what we must pray for, each of us: a new heart. Not a heart of stone, but a heart open to the fears and hopes and challenges of our fellow citizens. […] Because with an open heart, we can learn to stand in each other’s shoes and look at the world through each other’s eyes, so that maybe the police officer sees his own son in that teenager with a hoodie who's kind of goofing off but not dangerous and the teenager -- maybe the teenager will see in the police officer the same words and values and authority of his parents. With an open heart, we can abandon the overheated rhetoric and the oversimplification that reduces whole categories of our fellow Americans not just to opponents, but to enemies. With an open heart, those protesting for change will guard against reckless language going forward, look at the model set by the five officers we mourn today, acknowledge the progress brought about by the sincere efforts of police departments like this one in Dallas, and embark on the hard but necessary work of negotiation, the pursuit of reconciliation. With an open heart, police departments will acknowledge that, just like the rest of us, they are not perfect; that insisting we do better to root out racial bias is not an attack on cops, but an effort to live up to our highest ideals. […] With an open heart, we can worry less about which side has been wronged, and worry more about joining sides to do right. […] We can decide to come together and make our country reflect the good inside us, the hopes and simple dreams we share.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)

World, Fear, Dreams, Hope

“And he continued to travesty the truth, and I was impotent — the truth, that profound thing whose voice was in my ears, whose shadow was in my eyes, and whose taste was in my mouth.
Was I so utterly forsaken? Would no one speak the word I was in search of?”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI

Truth, Search

“Silence is a lawyer who pleads with his eyes.”

Malcolm de Chazal (1902–1981) Mauritian artist

Sens-plastique

Silence

“Nature may reach the same result in many ways. Like a wave in the physical world, in the infinite ocean of the medium which pervades all, so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, may be, with the speed of light, at times, again, so slowly that for ages and ages it seems to stay, passing through processes of a complexity inconceivable to men, but in all its forms, in all its stages, its energy ever and ever integrally present. A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature than when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a universe.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

"On Light And Other High Frequency Phenomena" A lecture delivered before the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia (24 February 1893), and before the National Electric Light Association, St. Louis (1 March 1893), published in The Electrical review (9 June 1893), p. Page 683; also in The Inventions, Researches And Writings of Nikola Tesla (1894)

Life, Men, Age, World

“Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione.”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

Tweet https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/678888094339366914?lang=en quoted in " J.K. Rowling angry about black Hermione complaints https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/06/entertainment/jk-rowling-hermione-cursed-child/index.html" by Lisa Respers France, CNN (June 6, 2016) 2010s

Love

“I'm a keeper of [[sheep.
The sheep are my thoughts. ]]I'm a keeper of sheep.
The sheep are my thoughts
And each thought a sensation.
I think with my eyes and my ears
And with my hands and feet
And with my nose and mouth.To think a flower is to see and smell it,
And to eat a fruit is to know its meaning.That is why on a hot day
When I enjoy it so much I feel sad,
And I lie down in the grass
And close my warm eyes,
Then I feel my whole body lying down in reality,
I know the truth, and I'm happy.</p”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Sou um guardador de rebanhos.
O rebanho é os meus pensamentos
E os meus pensamentos são todos sensações.
Penso com os olhos e com os ouvidos
E com as mãos e os pés
E com o nariz e a boca.
Pensar uma flor é vê-la e cheirá-la
E comer um fruto é saber-lhe o sentido.Por isso quando num dia de calor
Me sinto triste de gozá-lo tanto,
E me deito ao comprido na erva,
E fecho os olhos quentes,
Sinto todo o meu corpo deitado na realidade,
Sei a verdade e sou feliz.
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), O Guardador de Rebanhos ("The Keeper of Sheep"), IX — in A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe, trans. Richard Zenith (Penguin, 2006)

Truth, Lie, Sadness, Feeling

“I wanted to damage every man in the place, and every woman--and not in their bodies or in their estate, but in their vanity--the place where feeble and foolish people are most vulnerable. So I disguised myself and came back and studied you. You were easy game. You had an old and lofty reputation for honesty, and naturally you were proud of it — it was your treasure of treasures, the very apple of your eye. As soon as I found out that you carefully and vigilantly kept yourselves and your children out of temptation, I knew how to proceed. Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.”

Mark Twain book The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", ch. III, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900)

Children, People, Game, Nature

“Interestingly enough, what you do in a relationship that works is that you actually fall in love with what they could be. They could be the person that you project onto them and fall in love with, but it's going to take a hell of a lot of work. Both parties have no shortage of flaws, so you're bringing your flaws together, and that's going to produce a lot of friction, and you are going to have to engage in a lot of dialogue before you reach that level of perfection that you originally had in the other person's eyes. But maybe you can do it. Maybe you can do it. And then you would live happily ever after.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Love, Hell, Personality, Perfection

“Therefore, I will now explain to you how to always behave humbly. Speak gently at all times, with your head bowed, your eyes looking down to the ground and your heart focusing on Hashem. Don't look at the face of the person to whom you are speaking. Consider everyone as greater than yourself. If he is wise or rich, you should give him respect. If he is poor and you are richer -- or wiser -- than he, consider yourself to be more guilty than he, and that he is more worthy than you, since when he sins it is through error, while yours is deliberate and you should know better!”

Ramban (1194–1270) Spanish rabbi and scholar

Iggeres HaRamban, translation by http://www.pirchei.com/specials/ramban/ramban.htm http://www.pirchei.com/specials/ramban/ramban.htm

Error, Time, Heart, Personality

“A kind of music far superior, in my opinion, to that of operas, and which in all Italy has not its equal, nor perhaps in the whole world, is that of the 'scuole'. The 'scuole' are houses of charity, established for the education of young girls without fortune, to whom the republic afterwards gives a portion either in marriage or for the cloister. Amongst talents cultivated in these young girls, music is in the first rank. Every Sunday at the church of each of the four 'scuole', during vespers, motettos or anthems with full choruses, accompanied by a great orchestra, and composed and directed by the best masters in Italy, are sung in the galleries by girls only; not one of whom is more than twenty years of age. I have not an idea of anything so voluptuous and affecting as this music; the richness of the art, the exquisite taste of the vocal part, the excellence of the voices, the justness of the execution, everything in these delightful concerts concurs to produce an impression which certainly is not the mode, but from which I am of opinion no heart is secure. Carrio and I never failed being present at these vespers of the 'Mendicanti', and we were not alone. The church was always full of the lovers of the art, and even the actors of the opera came there to form their tastes after these excellent models. What vexed me was the iron grate, which suffered nothing to escape but sounds, and concealed from me the angels of which they were worthy. I talked of nothing else. One day I spoke of it at Le Blond's; "If you are so desirous," said he, "to see those little girls, it will be an easy matter to satisfy your wishes. I am one of the administrators of the house, I will give you a collation [light meal] with them." I did not let him rest until he had fulfilled his promise. In entering the saloon, which contained these beauties I so much sighed to see, I felt a trembling of love which I had never before experienced. M. le Blond presented to me one after the other, these celebrated female singers, of whom the names and voices were all with which I was acquainted. Come, Sophia, — she was horrid. Come, Cattina, — she had but one eye. Come, Bettina, — the small-pox had entirely disfigured her. Scarcely one of them was without some striking defect.
Le Blond laughed at my surprise; however, two or three of them appeared tolerable; these never sung but in the choruses; I was almost in despair. During the collation we endeavored to excite them, and they soon became enlivened; ugliness does not exclude the graces, and I found they possessed them. I said to myself, they cannot sing in this manner without intelligence and sensibility, they must have both; in fine, my manner of seeing them changed to such a degree that I left the house almost in love with each of these ugly faces. I had scarcely courage enough to return to vespers. But after having seen the girls, the danger was lessened. I still found their singing delightful; and their voices so much embellished their persons that, in spite of my eyes, I obstinately continued to think them beautiful.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), On the musicians of the Ospedale della Pieta (book VII)

Love, Marriage, Age, World

“The murderer smiles palely in wine,
Death's horror grips the sick.
Excoriated and naked, the nun prays
Before the Savior's agony on the cross.

The mother sings quietly in sleep.
Peacefully the child looks into the night
With eyes that are completely truthful.
In the whorehouse laughter rings.

By candlelight down in the cellar hole
The dead one paints with white hand
A grinning silence on the wall.
The sleeper whispers still.”

Georg Trakl (1887–1914) austrian poet

"Romance in the Night"

Death, Truth, Smile, Laughter

“It is a great deal easier to set a story afloat than to stop it. If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on." Nevertheless, it does not injure us; for if light as feather it travels as fast, its effect is just about as tremendous as the effect of down, when it is blown against the walls of a castle; it produces no damage whatever, on account of its lightness and littleness. Fear not, Christian. Let slander fly, let envy send forth its forked tongue, let it hiss at you, your bow shall abide in strength. Oh! shielded warrior, remain quiet, fear no ill; but, like the eagle in its lofty eyrie, look thou down upon the fowlers in the plain, turn thy bold eye upon them and say, "Shoot ye may, but your shots will not reach half-way to the pinnacle where I stand. Waste your powder upon me if ye will; I am beyond your reach."”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Then clap your wings, mount to heaven, and there laugh them to scorn, for ye have made your refuge God, and shall find a most secure abode.
"No. 17: Joseph Attacked by the Archers (Genesis 49:23–24, delivered on Sunday 1855-04-01)" pp.130
Sermons delivered in Exeter Hall, Strand, during the enlargement of New Park Street Chapel, Southmark (1855)

God, Truth, Lie, World

“Man is the higher Sense of our Planet; the star which connects it with the upper world; the eye which it turns towards Heaven.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Novalis (1829)

World, Star, Sense

“O crystal well!
Oh that on Thy silvered surface
Thou wouldest mirror forth at once
Those eyes desired
Which are outlined in my heart! ~ 12”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom

Heart

“What does opening your eyes and realizing your vulnerability have to do with the knowledge of good and evil? Here's the key: You know you're vulnerable. No other animal knows that. You know what hurts you, because you're vulnerable. And now that you know what hurts you, you can figure out what hurts someone else. And as soon as you know what can hurt someone as, and you can use that, then you have the knowledge of good and evil. Well it's a pretty good trick that the snake pulled because it doesn't seem like the thing that we would have exactly wanted if we knew what the consequence was going to be. As soon as a human being is self conscious and aware of his nakedness, then he has the capacity for evil. That's introduced into the world right at that point.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

World, Knowledge, Evil, Animals

“We cannot always judge man for only one part of his attitude. If we did so, we would be like the Pharisees in whose eyes Jesus was seen as bad, because He did not respect their rules about the Sabbath. They closed their eyes entirely to what would have lovable in Jesus, even in their sight.”

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 82.

Parting

“The contour should come last, only a very experienced eye can place it rightly.”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

Introduction (p. xxiv)
1815 - 1830, Delacroix' 'Journal' (1822 – 1824)

“The moment eternal — just that and no more —
When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core
While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

"Now", line 12 (1889).

“Somewhere beyond the curtain
Of distorting days
Lives that lonely thing
That shone before these eyes
Targeted, trod like Spring.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

Quarrel In Old Age http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1567/, st. 2 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

Spring

“He who cannot look over a battlefield with a dry eye, causes the death of many men uselessly.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Death, Men

“With those eyes and his intellect, I see no real limit to his potential.
- Lasse Hallström (USA Today, April 19, 1995)”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

About

“I used to look at homeless peopleand try to imagine what they had once looked like. It's not easy. Beneath the grime and degradation is a face once adored by someone. It's a truth that tricks the eye; our glances slide away. But something happened to ruin that life, to strip it bare; and it was something small, something that but for the grace of God could take us, too.”

John Hart (1965) American author with multiple books and awards

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 2.

Life, God, Truth, Imagination

“Does the painter imitate the body correctly if he guides his brush without any method, and if his hand is moved at random and the lines are not drawn with art? In the same way you will not put the sentiment of your mind in front of the others’ eyes unless you use appropriate and distinct words, a fitting arrangement of words and the right order of sentences. For, just as we represent bodies by colours, we represent the sentiment of our mind by speech.”

Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) German reformer

Source: Praise of Eloquence (1523), p. 63

Art, Way

“What is love? For the rabble love is a kind of variety, a transient vulgarity; the rabble's conception of love is best found in their obscene ditties, in prostitution and in the foul idioms they use when they are halfway sober, such as "shoving the donkey's foreleg in mud," or "putting dust on the head." My love for her, however, was of a totally different kind. I knew her from ancient times— strange slanted eyes, a narrow, half-open mouth, a subdued quiet voice. She was the embodiment of all my distant, painful memories among which I sought what I was deprived of, what belonged to me but somehow I was denied. Was I deprived forever?”

Sadegh Hedayat book The Blind Owl

The Blind Owl

Love, Pain, Distant, Memory

“And she arose, and in that darkening room
Stood lonely as a spirit of the night —
Stood calm and fearless in the gathered night —
And raised her eyes to heaven. There were tears
Upon her face, but in her heart was peace.
Peace that the world nor gives nor takes away!”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

The Path of Roses (1856), concluding lines
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

World, Peace, Tear, Heart

“Before your eyes rises the hero of Gogol's story who, in a fit of aberration, imagined that he was the King of Spain. Such is the fate of all megalomaniacs.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Proletariatis Brdzola August 1905, as quoted in Young Stalin (2007) by Simon Sebag Montefiore, p. 376
Contemporary witnesses

Fate, Imagination

“You go up to a man, and you say, ‘How are things going, Joe?’ And he says, ‘Oh fine, fine—couldn’t be better.’ And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 3 “United Hotcake Preferred” (p. 69)

Hell, Time, Help

“Christianity is not satisfied with producing merely the specious guise of virtue. She requires the substantial reality, which may stand the scrutinizing eye of that Being “who searches the heart.” Meaning therefore that the Christian should live and breathe; in an atmosphere, as it were, of benevolence, she forbids whatever can tend to obstruct its diffusion or vitiate its purity. It is on this principle that Emulation is forbidden: for, besides that this passion almost insensibly degenerates into envy, and that it derives its origin chiefly from pride and a desire of self-exaltation; how can we easily love our neighbour as ourselves, if we consider him at the same time our rival, and are intent upon surpassing him in the pursuit of whatever is the subject of our competition?
Christianity, again, teaches us not to set our hearts on earthly possessions and earthly honours; and thereby provides for our really loving, or even cordially forgiving, those who have been more successful than ourselves in the attainment of them, or who have even designedly thwarted us in the pursuit. “Let the rich,” says the Apostle, “rejoice in that he is brought low.” How can he who means to attempt, in any degree, to obey this precept, be irreconcilably hostile towards any one who may have been instrumental in his depression?
Christianity also teaches us not to prize human estimation at a very high rate; and thereby provides for the practice of her injunction, to love from the heart those who, justly or unjustly, may have attacked our reputation, and wounded our character. She commands not the shew, but the reality of meekness and gentleness; and by thus taking away the aliment of anger and the fomenters of discord, she provides for the maintenance of peace, and the restoration of good temper among men, when it may have sustained a temporary interruption.
It is another capital excellence of Christianity, that she values moral attainments at a far higher rate than intellectual acquisitions, and proposes to conduct her followers to the heights of virtue rather than of knowledge. On the contrary, most of the false religious systems which have prevailed in the world, have proposed to reward the labour of their votary, by drawing aside the veil which concealed from the vulgar eye their hidden mysteries, and by introducing him to the knowledge of their deeper and more sacred doctrines.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 257.

Love, Men, Hostility, World

“What is a charitable heart? It is a heart which is burning with love for the whole creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts … for all creatures. He who has such a heart cannot see or call to mind a creature without his eyes being filled with tears by reason of the immense compassion which seizes his heart; a heart which is softened and can no longer bear to see or learn from others of any suffering, even the smallest pain being inflicted upon a creature. That is why such a man never ceases to pray for the animals … [He is] … moved by the infinite pity which reigns in the hearts of those who are becoming united with God.”

Isaac of Nineveh (640–700) Eastern Orthodox saint

Mystic Treatises, cited in Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1976), [//books.google.it/books?id=dxqvWwPSCSwC&pg=PA111 p. 111]; also cited and discussed in A. M. Allchin, The World is a Wedding (1978), p. 85. Quoted in Andrew Linzey, Animal Theology (1994), [//books.google.it/books?id=ESTjQYS_8hMC&pg=PA56 p. 56].

Love, Men, God, Pain

“[Gay Talese's Thy Neighbor's Wife] is for me a secretly deep history of a generation of middle-class American males, my own, which was taught by parents and athletic coaches and scoutmasters and military chaplains and quack doctors and so on to be deeply ashamed of masturbation and wet dreams.
And the hidden plea in the book is one which first appeared in my eyes when I was fourteen, say, and which has not vanished entirely to this day. It is part of the mystery of me. The plea is addressed by old-fashioned males forever full of jism to any pretty human female, on the street, in a magazine, in a movie — anywhere. The plea is this: "Please, pretty lady, don't make me play with my private parts again."”

Kurt Vonnegut book Palm Sunday

"The Sexual Revolution" (ndg)
Palm Sunday (1981)

Books, Dreams, History, Fashion

“Each country whose frontiers are consumed by carnage is seen tearing from its heart ever more warriors of full blood and force. One's eyes follow the flow of these living tributaries to the River of Death. To north and south and west ajar there are battles on every side. Turn where you will, there is war in every corner of that vastness.”

Henri Barbusse book Under Fire

Under Fire (1916), Ch. 1 - The Vision

Death, War, Tear, Heart

“At dinner, he told us that he was much better, and we pointed out to him, about this, that, for some time however, he had not been out, and had been working eight, ten, or twelve hours a day. "That is just it," said he: "work is my element; I was born and made for it. I have found the limits of my legs; I have found the limits of my eyes; but I have never been able to find the limits of my labour."”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

A dîner, il nous disait qu'il se trouvait beaucoup mieux, et nous lui avons fait observer, à ce sujet, que, depuis quelque temps néanmoins, il ne sortait plus, et travaillat huit, dix, douze heures par jour. «C'est cela même,» disait-il: «le travail est mon élément; je suis né et construit pour le travail. J'ai connu les limites de mes jambes, j'ai connu les limites de mes yeux; je n'ai jamais pu connaître celles de mon travail.» Mémorial de Sainte Hélène, Volume 6, p. 272 https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=qSliAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA272 About

Time

“Oh troika, winged troika, tell me who invented you? Surely, nowhere but among a nimble nation could you have been born in a country which has taken itself in earnest and has evenly spread far and wide over half of the globe, so that once you start counting the milestones you may count on till a speckled haze dances before your eyes… Rus, are you not similar in your headlong motion to one of those nimble troikas that none can overtake? The flying road turns into smoke under you, bridges thunder and pass, all fall back and is left behind!… And what does this awesome motion mean? What is the passing strange steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes?… Rus, whither are you speeding to? Answer me. No answer. The middle bell trills out in a dream its liquid soliloquy; the roaring air is torn to pieces and becomes wind; all things on earth fly by and other nations and states gaze askance as they step aside and give her the right of way.”

Nikolai Gogol book Dead Souls

Vol. I, ch. 11
Dead Souls (1842)

Dreams, Way, Home, Dance

“Among all the luminaries shining in the sky, the sun is the chief, and in the Brahma-samhita the sun is accepted as the glowing eye of the Supreme Lord. There are fifty varieties of wind blowing in space, and of these winds the controlling deity, Marici, represents Krishna. Among the stars, the Moon is the most prominent at night, and thus the Moon represents Krishna. It appears from this verse that the Moon is one of the stars; therefore the stars that twinkle in the sky also reflect the light of the sun. The theory that there are many suns within the universe is not accepted by Vedic literature. The sun is one, and as by the reflection of the sun the Moon illuminates, so also do the stars. Since Bhagavad-gita indicates herein that the Moon is one of the stars, the twinkling stars are not suns but are similar to the Moon.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972. Chapter 10, verse 21, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/bg/10/21 Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science

Star, Literature, Light, Universe

“His tired gaze - from passing endless bars -
has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.
To him there seem to be a thousand bars,
and out beyond these bars exists no world. His supple gait, the smoothness of strong strides
that gently turn in ever smaller circles
perform a dance of strength, centered deep within
a will, stunned, but untamed, indomitable. But sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part,
the pupils of his eyes dilate as images
of past encounters enter while through his limbs
a tension strains in silence
only to cease to be, to die within his heart.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book The Panther

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf—. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille—
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
As translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
Der Panther (The Panther) (1907)

World, Strong, Silence, Past

“I see without eyes, and I hear without ears. I feel without feeling and taste without tasting. I know neither form nor measure; for without seeing I yet behold an operation so divine that the words I first used, perfection, purity, and the like, seem to me now mere lies in the presence of truth…. Nor can I any longer say, “My God, my all.” Everything is mine, for all that is God’s seem to be wholly mine. I am mute and lost in God… God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God; and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Source: Life and Doctrine, p. 50

Love, God, Truth, Feeling

“The man raised himself, fell down, and rose again. The wound that he had under his armor of filth was staining the ground, and when he had spoken, his wide-open eyes looked down at all the blood he had given for the healing of the world.”

Henri Barbusse book Under Fire

Under Fire (1916), Ch. 24 - The Dawn

World

“Fly not yet; 't is just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night
And maids who love the moon.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Fly not yet.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love, Pleasure, Flowers, Light

“Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.”

William Shakespeare The Tempest

Ariel, Act I, scene ii.
The Tempest (1611)

Suffering, Change, Sea

“I'll just close my eyes and whisper”

Jon Bon Jovi (1962) American singer and musician

Music, Keep The Faith (1992)

“Soon after my arrival in Moscow I had an hour's conversation with Lenin in English, which he speaks fairly well… I have never met a personage so destitute of self-importance. He looks at his visitors very closely, and screws up one eye, which seems to increase alarmingly the penetrating power of the other. He laughs a great deal; at first his laugh seems merely friendly and jolly, but gradually I came to feel it rather grim. He is dictatorial, calm, incapable of fear, extraordinarily devoid of self-seeking, an embodied theory. The materialist conception of history, one feels, is his life-blood. He resembles a professor in his desire to have the theory understood and in his fury with those who misunderstand or disagree, as also in his love of expounding, I got the impression that he despises a great many people and is an intellectual aristocrat.
…When I suggested that whatever is possible in England can be achieved without bloodshed, he waved aside the suggestion as fantastic… He described the division between rich and poor peasants, and the Government propaganda among the latter against the former, leading to acts of violence which he seemed to find amusing.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Part I, Ch. 3: Lenin, Trotsky and Gorky
1920s, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)

Love, Life, People, Fear

“I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky.”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. I, st. 3
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

“But we have to follow through, even when the politics are hard. Because in the eyes of innocent men and women and children who, through no fault of their own, have had to flee everything that they know, everything that they love, we have to have the empathy to see ourselves. We have to imagine what it would be like for our family, for our children, if the unspeakable happened to us. And we should all understand that, ultimately, our world will be more secure if we are prepared to help those in need and the nations who are carrying the largest burden with respect to accommodating these refugees.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)

Love, Women, Men, Children

“Though I remained insensitive to the subtleties and delicate gradations of colour.... my eyes at least did not deceive me when I drew back and looked at the subject in its broad lines, and this was the starting-point of new compositions... Slowly I tried my strength in innumerable rough sketches which convinced me... I could see as clearly as ever when it came to vivid colours isolated in a mass of dark tones. How was I to put this to use? My intentions gradually became clearer... I said to myself, as I made my sketches, that a series of general impressions, captured at the times of day when I had the best chance of seeing correctly, would not be without interest. I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of the themes to settle themselves in my brain little by little, of their own accord; and the day when I felt I held enough cards to be able to try my luck with a real hope of success, I determined to pass to action, and did so.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

remark by Monet – between 1900 and 1920 – on his 'Water lilies' paintings; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 132
1900 - 1920

Hope, Idea, Chance, Time

“What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over.”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), p. 185

Heart

“That Descartes' Cartesian way of looking at animals, like they're machines… It is outdated, and quite frankly, 100% insane. Because, if we all understand that animals use their eyes to see, ears to hear, noses to smell, mouths to eat, legs to walk, feathers to fly, fins to swim, genitalia to procreate, bowels to defecate.. I'm always perplexed that most people don't believe that they can also use their brains to think, feel, be rational, be aware and be self-aware! Am I supposed to believe, that every body part of an animal functions just like it's supposed to, except the brain?”

Gary Yourofsky (1970) animal rights activist

Part of the speech to the students of the Georgia Institute of Technology, On animal intelligence (Summer 2010)

People, Way, Feeling, Understanding

“Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
That more expected the impossible.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

The Tower http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1700/, I The Tower (1928)

Imagination, Passion

“Judgment of eye, speed and attack are the basis of victory.”

Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800) Russian military commander

Readings in Russian History - Page 694 by Warren Bartlett Walsh - Soviet Union - 1959.

Victory, Speed

“Recently, while I was in the street, my eye was caught by a poulterer's shop; I stared unthinkingly at his piled-up wares, neatly and appetizingly laid out, when I became aware of a man at the side busily plucking a hen, while another man was just putting his hand in a cage, where he seized a live hen and tore its head off. The hideous scream of the animal, and the pitiful, weaker sounds of complaint that it made while being overpowered transfixed my soul with horror. Ever since then I have been unable to rid myself of this impression, although I had experienced it often before. It is dreadful to see how our lives—which, on the whole, remain addicted to pleasure—rest upon such a bottomless pit of the cruellest misery! This has been so self-evident to me from the very beginning, and has become even more central to my thinking as my sensibility has increased … I have observed the way in which I am drawn in the [direction of empathy for misery] with a force that inspires me with sympathy, and that everything touches me deeply only insofar as it arouses fellow-feeling in me, i. e. fellow-suffering. I see in this fellow-suffering the most salient feature of my moral being, and presumably it is this that is the well-spring of my art.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, translated by Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), pp. 422-424 http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/wagner02.htm

Pleasure, Art, Way, Feeling

“Take a piece of glass of the size of a half sheet of royal folio paper, and fix it… between your eye and the object you wish to portray. Then move it away until your eye is two-thirds of a braccio away from the piece of glass, and fasten your head by means of an instrument in such a way as to prevent any movement of it whatsoever. Then close or cover up one eye, and with a brush or a piece of red chalk finely ground mark out on the glass what is visible beyond it; afterwards, copy it by tracing on paper from the glass, then prick it out upon paper of a better quality and paint it if you so desire, paying special attention to the aerial perspective.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

Way, Painting

“I say that the eye is not open when it is limited to the passive role of a mirror – even if the water of that mirror offers some interesting peculiarities.... that eye impresses me as no less dead than the eye of a slaughtered steer if it has only the capacity to reflect – what if it reflects the object in one or in many aspects, in repose or in motion, in waking or in dream? The treasure of the eye is elsewhere! Most artists are still for tuning around the hands of the clock.... without having the slightest concern for the spring hidden in the opaque case. The eye-spring.... Arshile Gorky – for me the first painter to whom the secret have been completely revealed.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Breton's quote in the Introduction to the exhibition of Gorky's first show, Julien Levy Gallery, March 1945; as quoted in Arshile Gorky, – Goats on the roof, ed. by Matthew Spender, Ridinghouse, London, 2009, pp. 257-258
after 1930

Secret, Dreams, Spring, Water

“True simplicity regards God alone; it has its eye fixed upon Him, and is not drawn toward self; and it is as pleased to say humble as great things. All our uneasy feelings and reflections arise from self-love, whatever appearance of piety they may assume. The lack of simplicity inflicts many wounds. Go where we will, if we remain in ourselves, we shall carry everywhere our sins and our distresses. If we would live in peace, we must lose sight of self, and rest in the infinite and unchangeable God.”

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) French mystic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 544.

Love, God, Peace, Feeling

“More pain inside of my brain than in the eyes of a little girl inside of a plane aimed at the World Trade!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"My Dad's Gone Crazy"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

Pain, World, Girl

“I idealize my directors. It's true. I need to. I need to. I don't know if idealizing is a bad thing or good thing. But I just want to get up in the morning and work to get a glimpse of thing of his eyes searching things inside of me. For some I want to go to hell and to heaven. It hasn't happened with everybody. There are certain people I idealize. Others are very good, and I want to please them, too, but in a different sense of the word.”

Nastassja Kinski (1961) German actress

As quoted in Denise Worrell (1989), Icons: Intimate Portraits.

People, Search, Hell, Sense

“I have given notice. I am going away to-morrow evening, I with my tremendous memory. Whatever may happen, whatever tragedies may be reserved for me in the future, my thought will not be graver or more important when I shall have lived my life with all its weight.
But my whole body is one pain. I cannot stand on my legs any more. I stagger. I fall back on my bed. My eyes close and fill with smarting tears. I want to be crucified on the wall, but I cannot. My body becomes heavier and heavier and filled with sharper pain. My flesh is enraged against me.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVII

Life, Pain, Tear, Memory

“The second and third Empires, represented by the Bear and Leopard, are again represented by the Ram and He-Goat; but with this difference, that the Ram represents the kingdoms of the Medes and Persians from the beginning of the four Empires, and the Goat represents the kingdom of the Greeks to the end of them. By this means, under the type of the Ram and He-Goat, the times of all the four Empires are again described: I lifted up mine eyes, saith Daniel, and saw, and behold there stood before the river [Ulai] a Ram which had two horns, and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Vol. I, Ch. 9: Of the Kingdoms Represented in Daniel by the Ram and He-Goat
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

Time

“As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk's bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will. But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse's tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white; others with white, others with red, and others with such colors as they can find. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed. I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent. It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

12 October 1492; This entire passage is directly quoted from Columbus in the summary by Bartolomé de Las Casas
Journal of the First Voyage

Women, People, Age, Faith

“There is only one possible route of action, Greenhouse gases have to be radically reduced and it has to happen worldwide. Until now, the US has kept its eyes shut to this emergency. (Americans) make up a mere 4 percent of the population, but are responsible for close to a quarter of emissions.”

Jürgen Trittin (1954) German Green politician

SPIEGEL ONLINE (30 August 2005).

“As the eye naturally seeks the light and vision, and our body naturally desires food and drink, so our mind is possessed with a becoming and natural desire to become acquainted with the truth of God and the causes of things.”

Origen (185–254) Christian scholar in Alexandria

On First Principles, Bk. 2, ch. 11; vol. 1, p. 148
On First Principles

God, Truth, Food, Drink

“Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Cat And The Moon http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1599/ The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

Grass, Change

“No one ever has time to examine himself honestly, and most people look no further than their neighbors' eyes, in which they may see their own reflection.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

People, Time

“He was the chief of all the horses; and when he snorted, it was a flash of lightning and his eyes were like the sunset star.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Star, Horse

“The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Le seul véritable voyage, le seul bain de Jouvence, ce ne serait pas d'aller vers de nouveaux paysages, mais d'avoir d'autres yeux, de voir l'univers avec les yeux d'un autre, de cent autres, de voir les cent univers que chacun d'eux voit, que chacun d'eux est.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. V: The Captive (1923), Ch. II: "The Verdurins Quarrel with M. de Charlus"

Youth, Universe

“With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

The Raven and Other Poems (1845), Preface

Passion

“And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy grey eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams —
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

"To One In Paradise", st. 4; variants of this verse read "where thy dark eye glances".

Dreams, Dance