“When she collected a Memory of a person, she was snipping free a bud of their soul, and she cultivated and grew it on the page. Charcoal for sinew, paper pulp for bone, ink for blood, the paper’s texture for skin.”
― The Way of Kings
― The Way of Kings
“So acquire the habit of being present at this activity of the material and moral universe. Learn to look; compare what is before you with your familiar or secret ideas. Do not see in a town merely houses, but human life and history. Let a gallery or a museum show you something more than a collection of objects, let it show you schools of art and of life, conceptions of destiny and of nature, successive or varied tendencies of technique, of inspiration, of feeling. Let a workshop speak to you not only of iron and wood, but of man's estate, of work, of ancient and modern social economy, of class relationships. Let travel tell you of mankind; let scenery remind you of the great laws of the world; let the stars speak to you of measureless duration; let the pebbles on your path be to you the residue of the formation of the earth; let the sight of a family make you think of past generations; and let the least contact with your fellows throw light on the highest conception of man. If you cannot look thus, you will become, or be, a man of only commonplace mind. A thinker is like a filter, in which truths as they pass through leave their best substance behind.”
― THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods - Sertillanges
― THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods - Sertillanges
“Once I have forgotten what I appeared to know, then I can desirously love that which I cannot think.”
― Mysticism
― Mysticism
“Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her but use none. My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.”
― Hamlet
― Hamlet
“Cuando todo tiene carácter de producción los rituales desaparecen.”
― La desaparición de los rituales: Una topología del presente
― La desaparición de los rituales: Una topología del presente
James’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at James’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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