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977f03c
|
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
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books
humor
classic
|
Jane Austen |
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10df22b
|
If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.
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love
heathcliff
classic
|
Emily Brontë |
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57ffd8f
|
"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"... "It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine..."
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nature
spring
children
classic
|
Frances Hodgson Burnett |
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a8d8881
|
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
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murder
classic
wit
|
William Shakespeare |
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7a2464e
|
I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.
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loneliness
poem
poetry
people
beauty
superficial-beauty
bukowski
appearance
superficial
superficiality
classics
self
reflection
beautiful
mirror
lonely
self-esteem
soul
ugly
classic
|
Charles Bukowski |
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5e141e5
|
and love is a word used too much and much too soon.
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|
poem
poetry
love
classics
i-love-you
patience
classic
|
Charles Bukowski |
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2e49795
|
He had been held to her by a beautiful thread which it pained him to spoil by breaking, rather than by a chain he could not break.
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fiction
romance
far-from-the-madding-crowd
gabriel-oak
classic
|
Thomas Hardy |
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a38abad
|
"Do you remember what we were speaking of earlier, of how bloody, terrible things are sometimes the most beautiful?" he said. "It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars, 'more like deer than human being.' To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn." --
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murder
history
god
classic-literature
classics
terror
classic
|
Donna Tartt |
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efa9e3f
|
"Do you remember what we were speaking of earlier, of how bloody, terrible things are sometimes the most beautiful?" he said. "It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars, 'more like deer than human being.' To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn."
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|
murder
history
god
classic-literature
classics
terror
classic
|
Donna Tartt |
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af3fca9
|
-But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know? -I believe; I have faith: I am going to God. -Where is God? What is God? -My maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me.
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|
death
religion
friend
classic
|
Charlotte Brontë |
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7df7118
|
"God save King Pendragon, May his reign long drag on, God save the King. Send him most gorious, Great and uproarious,
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|
humor
pendragon
classic
|
T.H. White |
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b9fac40
|
It goes so fast, he thought, they don't tell you that, how fast it goes...
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|
dark
life
mental-hospital
emotional
vampire
classic
|
S.E. Hinton |
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3c079eb
|
"Gormenghast. Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracts. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet beats away from a choked river. Deep in a fist of stone a doll's hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm. A shadow shifts its length. A spider stirs...
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|
literature
gormenghast
gothic
classic
|
Mervyn Peake |
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1bcf163
|
Life streamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until it seemed that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forth generously over the world.
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|
nature
happiness
jack-london
classic-literature
classic
|
Jack London |
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e49fe2c
|
The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.
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|
classic
|
G.K. Chesterton |
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c25585c
|
I know my maker sanctions what I do. For the world's judgement - I wash my hands thereof. For man's opinion- I defy it
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|
romance
inspirational
classic
|
Charlotte Brontë |
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a50f21c
|
"Her gaze wavered towards one of the books on the sales counter beside the register, a hardcover copy of Shakespeare's Hamlet with many of the pages dog-eared and stained with coffee and tea. The store owner caught her looking at it and slid it across the counter towards her. "You ever read Hamlet?" he questioned. "I tried to when I was in high school," said Mandy, picking up the book and flipping it over to read the back. "I mean, it's expected that everyone should like Shakespeare's books and plays, but I just...." her words faltered when she noticed him laughing to himself. "What's so funny, Sir?" she added, slightly offended. "...Oh, I'm not laughing at you, just with you," said the store owner. "Most people who say they love Shakespeare only pretend to love his work. You're honest Ma'am, that's all. You see, the reason you and so many others are put-off by reading Shakespeare is because reading his words on paper, and seeing his words in action, in a play as they were meant to be seen, are two separate things... and if you can find a way to relate his plays to yourself, you'll enjoy them so much more because you'll feel connected to them. Take Hamlet for example - Hamlet himself is grieving over a loss in his life, and everyone is telling him to move on but no matter how hard he tries to, in the end all he can do is to get even with the ones who betrayed him." "...Wow, when you put it that way... sure, I think I'll buy a copy just to try reading, why not?" Mandy replied with a smile."
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|
revenge
shakespeare
grief
loss
reading
diffcult
dog-eared
bookstore
coffee
tea
geek
nerd
hamlet
classic
|
Rebecca McNutt |
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acdcee7
|
Your slave and enemy, D.Karamazov
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|
russian
classic
|
Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
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18cd82a
|
If a man prefers nothing I can give him nothing. But nearly all people I have ever met in this western society in which I live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It is this achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these pages.
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|
classic
|
G.K. Chesterton |
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2746703
|
Of course there must be lots of magic in the world but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen.
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magic
classic
|
Frances Hodgson Burnett |