On the other hand, like love, laughter heals because it arises through viewing a small context from a larger and more inclusive one, which removes the observer from the victim posture. Every joke reminds us that our reality is transcendent, beyond the specifics of events. Gallows humor, for instance, is based on the juxtaposition of the opposites of a paradox; the relief of basic anxiety then results in a laugh. One of the frequent accompaniments of sudden enlightening realizations is laughter. The cosmic joke is the side-by-side comparison of illusion with reality.
The inference I would draw from this class of phenomena is that a superior intelligence has guided the development of man in a definite direction, and for a special purpose, just as man guides the development of many animal and vegetable forms. The laws of evolution alone would, perhaps, never have produced a grain so well adapted to man’s use as wheat and maize; such fruits as the seedless banana and bread-fruit; or such animals as the Guernsey milk cow, or the London dray-horse. Yet these so closely resemble the unaided productions of nature, that we may well imagine a being who had mastered the laws of development of organic forms through past ages, refusing to believe that any new power had been concerned in their production, and scornfully rejecting the theory (as my theory will be rejected by many who agree with me on other points), that in these few cases a controlling intelligence had directed the action of the laws of variation, multiplication, and survival, for his own purposes. We know, however, that this has been done; and we must therefore admit the possibility that, if we are not the highest intelligences in the universe, some higher intelligence may have directed the process by which the human race was developed, by means of more subtle agencies than we are acquainted with.
Alfred Russel Wallace: Contribution to the Theory of Natural Selection (1871)
Alfred Russel Wallace OM, FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, biologist and social activist. He is best known for proposing a theory of natural selection.
Wallace’s 1904 book Man’s Place in the Universe was the first serious attempt by a biologist to evaluate the likelihood of life on other planets. He was one of the first scientists to write a serious exploration of whether there was life on Mars.
Quote found in Mauro Biglino’s book God’s of the Bible
For Krishna, there is only one meaningful word in life, and that is bliss: Happiness and unhappiness are not meaningful: they have been created by dividing bliss into two. The part that is in accord with you, that you accept, is called happiness, and the part that is discordant to you, that you deny, is called unhappiness. They are our interpretations of bliss, divided – and as long as it agrees with you it is happiness and when it begins to disagree with you it is called unhappiness. Bliss is truth, the whole truth.
It is significant that the word bliss. is anand in Sanskrit, is without an opposite. Happiness has its opposite in unhappiness, love has its opposite in hate, heaven in hell, but bliss has no such opposite. It is so because there is no state opposed to bliss. If there is any such state, it is that of happiness and of misery both. Similarly, the Sanskrit word moksha, which means freedom or liberation, has no opposite. Moksha is the state of bliss. Moksha means that happiness and misery are equally acceptable.
In this series, I’m collecting sayings and ideas in Bhagavad Gita and the Bible that to me seem similar. The Bible is a mishmash of influences from different religions and cultures, including Hinduism and India. I’m not trying to build a scientific case for borrowings in the Bible (I believe that has already been done by many individuals; Dennis R. Macdonald comes to mind as a first example.) This collection of quotes is for my own use as part of my long deconstruction from fundamentalist Christianity and fear of hell (which are really the same thing).
Those who restrain the external organs of action, while continuing to dwell on sense objects in the mind, certainly delude themselves and are to be called hypocrites.
Bhagavad Gita 3:6
You have heard that it was said to the ancients, ‘Do not murder’ and ‘Anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.
Matthew 5:21-22
You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
The individual sense of”I” can only subsist as long as it’s associating with something. You should sever the association between “I” the subject and all the things that it thinks, remembers, perceives. If you can hold on unwaveringly to this inner sense of “I” which is the thinker of your thoughts, the perceiver of your perceptions, it cannot subsist in isolation by itself. It has to subside and go back to its source. When that happens it disappears and reveals the truth of who you are. It only exists because you fail to question its reality, and once it does rise it always associates with things. If you can sever that connection it goes home back to the self and disappears.
Ramana Maharishi, according to David Godman in the documentary Jnani – The Silent Sage of Arunachala
The higher self is all one and the Divine will use whatever window you create it. If you’re praying to Krishna then God will come through that window for you, as Krishna. And if you were praying to Buddha then God will come to you as Buddha. It doesn’t matter to the Divine. It’s a window and it’s going to be used: you created a window and I’m coming through. I have something to say to you.
A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter. The camera lens is a glass eye with no more worth than any other stupid eye unless it transforms what it sees. And I do not mean angles or compositions, but the phenomenon which enables the photographer, by the intermediary of a machine, to consummate the strange wedlock between the conscious and the unconscious, of which the delicious monstrosities of poetry are the issue.
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
(Quoted in Colour Photography by Eric de Maré, Penguin Books, 1968)
Om is the eternal sound of truth that ever abides in God’s heart. From that, the will to speak arose; from will a thought came forth; and thought manifested as word. Thus God’s word of truth was born. His holy word shall not be doubted. For, he who follows it, is rightly guided.
“Sometimes a simple deficiency of vitamin D causes depression. 3,000 I.U./day from all sources can alleviate the problem.”
“3,000 mg/day or more of niacin (vitamin B-3), along with the same quantity of vitamin C, taken in divided doses throughout the day can successfully treat both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”
“Vitamins B-3, B-6, C and the minerals magnesium and zinc frequently produce a good response in ADHD and autistic children.”
“Vitamins B-6, folate, and B-12 taken together lower elevated homocysteine levels in the elderly while improving mental function.”
In the original Grimm version of the [Cinderella] story, the stepsisters are called Ida and Pinga. The deeper spiritual meaning of the story concerns the journey of the soul through its life and the difficulties it will meet. Ida and Pinga represent the distractions (finery and jewels in the story) that the world (the wicked stepmother, the harsh mother, mater, material) will present to be overcome if the soul/Cinderella is to rise up above outer distractions and focus on the inner spiritual life, which would allow sacred energy to rise from the sacral chakra upwards past the ida and pingala nadis towards the crown chakra (the pathway to the royal prince, the Higher Self). In the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, the ida and pingala are key channels, called nadis, which are part of a vast network of energy channels within the subtle energy system of the body. They are known as the two thieves that steal the energy of the soul by diverting attention to enticements of the outer world, instead of allowing the energy to rise from the base chakra up the spine to the crown chakra, in the process of spiritual awakening and spiritual consciousness. Ida, on the left side represents cooling moon energy; while pingala on the right side represents heating solar energy. In the Grimm version, the two stepsisters are blinded by birds which symbolise overcoming worldly enticements and distractions which prevent us from focusing on the inner spiritual life.
The Prince in this story represents the Higher Self/spirit who seeks reunion with his soul (Cinderella) that is dwelling on earth in a physical body. This is the mystical marriage that the soul yearns for.
The stepmother symbolises the earth, the harsh mother, mater, material. The external world experience sets the soul tasks in order to prevent union with the Higher Self, the tasks are duties and obligations in life, leading to loss of sight of the spiritual life.
Cinderella represents either a spiritual person or the spiritual side of a person, the soul. The stepsisters represent either materialistic people, or the materialistic side of a person. Cinderella and the stepsisters together represent the psyche/soul and the body respectively. The stepmother favouring her own children represents the material world, the harsh mother, favouring those who are unspiritual at the expense of those who are spiritual.
The Prince recognises Cinderella as she is in possession of a gold slipper (glass slipper in the case of the Perrault/Disney version). The marriage of the Prince and Cinderella symbolises the mystical marriage in heaven as the Higher Self is reunited with its soul. The spiritual lesson is that the ego/mind must learn to overcome the enticements and entanglements of the material world in order to make spiritual progress.
Jennifer Ann Warters and Sandra Lamb Kilburn: Fairytales, Astrology and Enchantment in Relation to Child Directed Creative Play (2019)
The primary goal of parenting, beyond keeping our children safe and loved, is to convey to them a sense that it is possible to be happy in an uncertain world, to give them hope. We do this, of course, by example more than by anything we say to them. If we can demonstrate in our own lives qualities of commitment, determination, and optimism, then we have done our job and can use our books of child-rearing advice for doorstops or fireplace fuel. What we cannot do is expect that children who are constantly criticized, bullied, and lectured will think well of themselves and their futures.
Gordon Livingston: Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now. (Hatchette Australia, 2008)
“In the beginning was Prajapati [God the Creator], with Him was the Word, and the Word was truly the Supreme Brahman.” (Prajapati vai idam agra asit. Tasyavak dvitiya asit. Vag vai paramam Brahman. Krishna Yajurveda, Kathaka Samhita, 12.5, 27.1; Krishna Yajurveda, Kathakapisthala Samhita, 42.1; Jaiminiya Brahmana II, Samaveda, 2244: circa 1200-800 BCE)
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1: 90-110 CE)
Whenever Ramana Maharishi was asked to comment on Kundalini and what it represents – on several occasions he reinstated that Kundalini is nothing other than Self. Kundalini is Shakti herself. Kundalini is Atman and Kundalini is all there is, in terms of what it exemplifies.
Individual soul is nothing other than absolute in disguise.
When the mind subsides, Kundalini will rise on her own.
As far as awakening proper, there is nothing other than Kundalini that awakens.
Kundalini is nothing other than power behind individuation.
Igor Kufayev (1966 –): Artist, spiritual teacher and founder of the Flowing Wakefulness Foundation
I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.
Tao Te Ching, chapter 67 Translated by Stephen Mitchell
The orthodox God, when clothed in human flesh, told his disciples not to resist evil, to love their enemies, and when smitten on one cheek to turn the other, and yet we are told that this same God, with the same loving lips, uttered these heartless, these fiendish words; “Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
These are the words of “eternal love.”
No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this infinite horror.
All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and famine, in fire and flood—all the pangs and pains of every disease and every death—all this is as nothing compared with the agonies to be endured by one lost soul.
This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the justice of God—the mercy of Christ.
This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor. It founded the Inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the fagots. It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and banished reason from the brain.
Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox creed.
It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge.
Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.
While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.
Most things in the world, as long as their inner parts are hidden, stand upright and live. If they are revealed, they die, as is illustrated by the visible man: as long as the intestines of the man are hidden, the man is alive; when his intestines are exposed and come out of him, the man will die. So also with the tree: while its root is hidden, it sprouts and grows. If its root is exposed, the tree dries up. So it is with every birth that is in the world, not only with the revealed but with the hidden. For so long as the root of wickedness is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved. When it is revealed, it perishes. That is why the Word says, “Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees” (Mt 3:10). It will not merely cut – what is cut sprouts again – but the ax penetrates deeply, until it brings up the root. Jesus pulled out the root of the whole place, while others did it only partially. As for ourselves, let each one of us dig down after the root of evil which is within one, and let one pluck it out of one’s heart from the root. It will be plucked out if we recognize it. But if we are ignorant of it, it takes root in us and produces its fruit in our heart. It masters us. We are its slaves. It takes us captive, to make us do what we do not want; and what we do want, we do not do. It is powerful because we have not recognized it. While it exists it is active. Ignorance is the mother of all evil. Ignorance will result in death, because those who come from ignorance neither were nor are nor shall be. […] will be perfect when all the truth is revealed. For truth is like ignorance: while it is hidden, it rests in itself, but when it is revealed and is recognized, it is praised, inasmuch as it is stronger than ignorance and error. It gives freedom. The Word said, “If you know the truth, the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:32). Ignorance is a slave. Knowledge is freedom. If we know the truth, we shall find the fruits of the truth within us. If we are joined to it, it will bring our fulfillment.
This is not a direct correspondence between the two texts. There is, however, a correlation on the level of ideas.
This is how I see it.
A child makes no distinction between valuable and invaluable. Similarly a man of discipline, in Bhagavad Gita, has become indifferent to a piece of gold, a piece of clay and a piece of stone. These are all of similar value to him. He has become a child, just as a person who desires to see the kingdom of God should – according to Jesus.
– Markus
The child Krishna
Self-contented in knowledge and judgment, his senses subdued, on the summit of existence, impartial to clay, stone, or gold, the man of discipline is disciplined.
Bhagavad Gita 6:8
Saint Anthony of Padua adoring the Christ Child. Oil on canvas, 1622 by Antonio de Pereda.
And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
What thing I am I do not know. I wander secluded, burdened by my mind. When the first-born of Truth has come to me I receive a share in that self-same Word.
The Bhakti of India is not like the western Bhakti. The central idea of ours is that there is no thought of fear. It is always, love God. There is no worship through fear, but always through love, from beginning to end.
Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.
The doctrine of a material hell in its effect was to chill and deaden the sympathies, predispose men to inflict suffering, and to retard the march of civilization.
The soul of the newly born baby is marked for life by the pattern of the stars at the moment it comes into the world, unconsciously remembers it, and remains sensitive to the return of configurations of a similar kind.
(Australian Bush Landscape in the Blue Mountains. Photo copyright Markus Jaaskelainen)
Beliefs seem to be composed of a type of energy or force that naturally resists any other force that would cause them to exist in any form than their present form.
The weird trend of disappearing perfect and past perfect tense can be seen especially among American English speakers… Here’s a few articles on this topic at the Daily Writing Tips blog:
Life is a movement. And because life is a movement, it’s always flowing, it’s always changing. Something is always coming into existence and falling away from existence. Because that’s the nature of life, life really doesn’t lend itself to the final answers that our mind really, really likes. I think it’s better to not even think of it in terms of final answers but rather a response to the moment – a wise, clear, awakened, however you want to think about it – a loving response to the moment, or a response to your life. […] What’s the right response in one moment is not the right response in the next moment. This is of course the nature of life; that it’s impermanent. There’s nothing really to cling to or hold on to. It’s one of the, I think, more challenging lessons of life, not to cling, not to hold on to. We human beings have this tendency to hold onto almost everything.
The society is not happy with mature people. Mature people are dangerous people because a mature person lives according to his own being. He goes on doing his own thing—he does not bother about what people say, what their opinion is. He does not hanker for respectability, for prestige; he does not bother about honor. He lives his own life—he lives it at any cost. He is ready to sacrifice everything, but he is never ready to sacrifice his freedom. Society is afraid of these people; society wants everybody to remain
childish. Everybody should be kept at an age somewhere between seven and fourteen—and that’s where people are.
Osho: Maturity—The Responsibility of Being Oneself
Deeds attach themselves to the mind, and the mind causes physical bondage. Man, thus deceived by ignorance, is forced to by the impulse of past impressions in the mind to repeat evil deeds. When he learns to take delight in practicing meditation and develops love for God, he becomes free.
Jesus said, “It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”
[47]Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
[48]I am that bread of life.
[49]Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
[50]This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
[51]I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Simultaneously with the expansion of his consciousness, the pupil comes to the realisation that everything that lives in time and space is alive because it carries within itself polarity and rhythm. He begins to see the secrets of creation. In that moment when the creative principle leaves the absolute and splits in two, the negative and positive pole, i.e., polarity, is born. Between the two there arises a pulsating connection, rhythm is born, and there begins the manifestation of life.
Selvarajan Yesudian and Elisabeth Haich: Yoga and Health. Unwin, 1953
You might wonder what happened to evidence-based medicine, until you realize that to be accepted as evidence the work has to come from a prestigious institution like Harvard, has to be done by well-established scientists, has to be published in standard journals (whose club of editorial committees keep out really new ideas), has to be accepted by the governing bodies of the traditional medical profession, and, of course, must be double-blind.
The woes of men beyond my ken
Mean nothing more to me.
Behold my world, an Eden hurled
From Heaven to the Sea;
A jeweled home, in fending foam
Tempestuously tossed;
A virgin isle none dare defile,
Far-flung, forgotten, lost.
And here I dwell, where none may tell
Me tales of mortal strife;
Let millions die, immune am I,
And radiant with life.
No echo comes of evil drums,
To vex my dawns divine;
Aloof, alone I hold my throne,
And Majesty is mine.
Ghost ships pass by, and glad am I
They make no sign to me.
The green corn springs, the gilt vine clings,
The net is in the sea.
My paradise around me lies,
Remote from wrath and wrong;
My isle is clean, unsought, unseen,
And innocent with song.
Here let me dwell in beauty’s spell,
As tranquil as a tree;
Here let me bide, where wind and tide
Bourdon that I am free;
Here let me know from human woe
The rapture of release:
The rich caress of Loveliness,
The plenitude of Peace.
Schizophrenic disorders are characterized by perceptual changes (hallucinations) and thought disorder (delusions). These are pellagra syndromes, including Huntington’s disease, some Parkinsonism patients, schizoaffective patients, and LSD induced psychosis. I consider these conditions variants of pellagra. Schizoaffective patients have mood swings, and during their manic states will also have schizophrenic symptoms. These pellagra variants are responsive to vitamin B3 when adequate doses are used. They will not respond to small doses or to other nutrients. They are B3 dependent conditions, and should not be considered as deficiency diseases. —ABRAM HOFFER, M.D., PH.D.
For schizophrenics, the natural recovery rate is 50 percent. With orthomolecular medicine, the recovery rate is 90 percent. With drugs, it is 10 percent. If you use just drugs, you won’t get well.
Death is the inevitable outcome of life, but ageing is a stage or phase of life, not an outcome. This failure to differentiate between ageing and age indicates a regression to concrete literal thinking. This kind of literal, concrete thinking is invariably the sign of an underlying anxiety, and it suggests a failure to be aware of the feelings that may lie behind, or beneath the concretisation. Such a lack of awareness results in poor differentiation of the process of ageing, or indeed any experience, and the end result is a simplistic, stereotyped perception that denies ambiguity and complexity. Thus age comes to equal frailty, sicness and death, not also wisdom, freedom and an opportunity for continuing development.
Peter A. O’Connor: Facing the Fifties: From Denial to Reflection. Allen & Unwin, 2000.
In life, the idea is to be happy. So I believe in calm, simple, low-profile life. You live simple, you train hard and live an honest life. Then you are free.
The danger is in pleasing an immediate public: the immediate public that comes around you and takes you in and accepts you and gives you success and everything. Instead of that, you should wait for fifty years or a hundred years for your true public. That is the only public that interests me.
Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson talking about who started the whole ‘fake news’ saga. (Hint: it’s Obama.)
He insisted in a speech that he too thought somebody needed to step in andcurate informationof this wild, wild West media environment. Nobody in the public had been clamoring for any such thing, yet suddenly the topic of fake news dominates headlines on a daily basis.
It’s as if the media had been given its marching orders. Fake news they insisted was an imminent threat to American democracy.
But as somebody who studied the industry that seeks to manipulate all of us on behalf of paid interests, I know that few themes arise in our environment organically.
A noted propagandist told me, “It’s like a movie,” he said, and it gave me chills at the time.
“Nearly every scene or image that crosses our path in daily life,” he said, “was put there for a reason. Often by someone who paid a lot of money to place it there.”
What if the whole anti-fake news campaign was an effort on somebody’s part to keep us from seeing or believing certain websites or stories by controversializing them or labeling them as fake news?
Still it seems to me that translation from one language into another, if it be not from the queens of languages, the Greek and the Latin, is like looking at Flemish tapestries on the wrong side; for though the figures are visible, they are full of threads that make them indistinct, and they do not show with the smoothness and brightness of the right side; and translation from easy languages argues neither ingenuity nor command of words, any more than transcribing or copying out one document from another. But I do not mean by this to draw the inference that no credit is to be allowed for the work of translating, for a man may employ himself in ways worse and less profitable to himself. This estimate does not include two famous translators, Doctor Cristobal de Figueroa, in his Pastor Fido, and Don Juan de Jauregui, in his Aminta, wherein by their felicity they leave it in doubt which is the translation and which the original.
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low— they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets— before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.
Nature produces [Bernacae] against Nature in the most extraordinary way. They are like marsh geese but somewhat smaller. They are produced from fir timber tossed along the sea, and are at first like gum. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks as if they were a seaweed attached to the timber, and are surrounded by shells in order to grow more freely. Having thus in process of time been clothed with a strong coat of feathers, they either fall into the water or fly freely away into the air. They derived their food and growth from the sap of the wood or from the sea, by a secret and most wonderful process of alimentation. I have frequently seen, with my own eyes, more than a thousand of these small bodies of birds, hanging down on the sea-shore from one piece of timber, enclosed in their shells, and already formed. They do not breed and lay eggs like other birds, nor do they ever hatch any eggs, nor do they seem to build nests in any corner of the earth.
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
And you have nobody and nothing, and you travel through the world with a trunk and a carton of books and truly without curiosity. What kind of life is this: without a house, without inherited Things, without dogs. If at least you had memories. But who has them? If childhood were there: it is as though it had been buried. Perhaps you must be old before you can reach all that. I think it must be good to be old.
Rainer Maria Rilke: The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Translated by Stephen Mitchell.
How blessed is he, who leads a Country Life,
Unvex’d with anxious Cares, and void of Strife!
Who studying Peace, and shunning Civil Rage,
Enjoy’d his Youth, and now enjoys his Age.
Apple itself are perhaps the most unethical business model since the slave trade. They pay almost no taxes and employ slave labour in notorious working conditions. This is how they became the biggest corporation on earth: through exploitation, and starving governments of tax revenue.
[Portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke by Leonid Pasternak]
And I don’t want to write anymore letters. What’s the use of telling someone I’m changing? If I’m no longer who I was; and if I’m something else, it’s obvious that I have no acquaintances. And I can’t possibly write to strangers.
Rainer Maria Rilke: The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Translated by Stephen Mitchell
Quotes and Links 
