“The basis of all true cosmic horror is violation of the order of nature, and the profoundest violations are always the least concrete and describable.”
― Selected Letters III: 1929-1931
― Selected Letters III: 1929-1931
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
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“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
(Little Gidding)”
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And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
(Little Gidding)”
―
“There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we learn and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life. But some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests; and then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy.”
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The Brainy Betty Society
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— last activity Aug 29, 2025 06:29AM
Welcome to The Brainy Betty Society Book Club! Check out what we've read, are currently reading, and "Betty's Recommendations" for some suggested read ...more
Christine’s 2025 Year in Books
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