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Ulysses
by
God, isn’t he dreadful? He stated frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks you’re now not a gentleman. God, those bloody English! Bursting with money and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You recognise, Dedalus, you've got the real
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I wasn't expecting to laugh so much in this book. It's worth reading the annotated texts to set the context. No one in 2022 would have enough otherwise.
“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”
―
―
“Those born to wealth, and who have the means of gratifying every wish, know not what is the real happiness of life, just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the blessings of fair weather.”
― The Count of Monte Cristo
― The Count of Monte Cristo
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― The Fellowship of the Ring
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― The Fellowship of the Ring
“What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?"
"Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.”
― The Count of Monte Cristo
"Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.”
― The Count of Monte Cristo
“There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas.”
― The Idiot
― The Idiot
J.R.R. Tolkien
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— last activity Dec 26, 2025 03:51AM
Discussion, recommendations, and all-over appreciation for Britain's own myth maker, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien. ...more
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