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Emma
by
a great deal better to choose than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it.
“Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits, and
necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
―
necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
―
“This process of assimilation, which takes place in depth, requires a state of relaxation that is becoming rarer and rarer. If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away. His nesting places - the activities that are intimately associated with boredom - are already extinct in the cities and are declining in the country as well. With this the gift for listening is lost and the community of listeners disappears. For storytelling is always the art of repeated stories, and this art is lost when the stories are no longer retained.”
― Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
― Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
“A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land.”
― The Myth of Sisyphus
― The Myth of Sisyphus
Samuel’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Samuel’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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