Jasmine

“Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should guard against the encroachment of religion in areas where it has no place, and in particular the control of education by religious authority. The attempts to ban the teaching of evolution or other scientific theories -- a feeble echo of medieval church tyranny and hostility to learning, but an echo nonetheless are serious threats to freedom of inquiry and should be vigorously combated.”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Es ist sicher gut, dass die Welt nur das schöne Werk, nicht auch seine Ursprünge, nicht seine Enstehungsbedingungen kennt; denn die Kenntnis der Quellen, aus denen dem Künstler Eingebung floss, würde sie oftmals verwirren, abschrecken und so die Wirkungen des Vortrefflichen aufheben.”
― Thomas Mann, Death in Venice