A Lighthouse of Quotes

A small collection of words.

[alighthouseofwords]

...our ultimate moral principles can become so completely accepted by us, that we treat them, not as universal imperatives but as matters of fact; they have the same obstinate indubitability.

The Language of Morals, R.M. Hare

Reading books by R.M. Hare has reminded me, in an absolutely necessary way, that we live in a time that rewards blind passion, stubborn allegiance, refusals to budge. We live in a time with so much information and very little encouragement to assemble the truth. And I can’t help but feel that we’ve got to do that, stay open, for our sake and for the sake of others.

[alighthouseofwords]

“We prefer to explore the universe by traveling inward, as opposed to outward.”

Binti, Nnedi Okarofor 

[alighthouseofwords]

Whoever loves has wounded eyes. The arrow has torn the pupils. And has forgotten, at the start of the journey, to store in the saddlebags the sandalwood leaves that would heal them. The desert has no end, she thinks. The night summons the devils, seductively they point to the always equivocal roads, the promising landscapes that in the morning will be sand and stones, and stones and sand. There’ll be no piety for these eyes. Condemned to look always at what’s not there, they should have been pulled out by their roots, and like two drops of water, been offered as mirror to the stones.

Ana Becciu, Night Watch (Ronda La Noche)

Even after all this time, I am in love with A. Becciu’s words. There is a free copy of her poetry translated into English for those who are interested in downloading a copy of her text.

[cyberspace-saga]

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (via strange-infatuation)

[booksquoteslove]

Some people ask: ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?’ Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general—but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists (via booksquoteslove)

[thelovejournals]

We all need somebody to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public… The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners… Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark.. And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers.

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being (via thelovejournals)

[existential-celestial]

…metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (translated by Michael Henry Heim). (via existential-celestial)

[a-dance-with-the-absurd]

Human life occurs only once, and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and which bad is that in a given situation we can make only one decision; we are not granted a second, third, or fourth life in which to compare various decisions.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (via a-dance-with-the-absurd)

[thequotejournals]

I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone.

Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (via wordsnquotes)

[alighthouseofwords]

Today, I climb the highest mountain I have ever climbed And I turned to look at ruins I had left behind And you, where were you so far removed from any truth I lost you, didn't I? First I think I lost myself

“Ruins”, First Aid Kit

[lifeinpoetry]

I am healing by mistake. Rome is also built on ruins.

Eliza Griswold, from “Ruins” published in Poetry (via lifeinpoetry)

[wordsnquotes]

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[wordsnquotes]

We must never allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.

Virginia Satir (via wordsnquotes)

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Do not rely on February (…) The sun in this month begets a headache like an angel slapping you in the face.

Anne Sexton, from The Complete Poems; “The Sermon of the Twelve Acknowledgements,” (via violentwavesofemotion)

[lifeinpoetry]

What is a country without an other? What is a poem but a gesture of reaching? Can a poem save a nation? Can a poem survive a nation?

— Claire Schwartz, from “Cross-Examination” published in Bennington Review

[alighthouseofwords]

brilliant.

[my-lovely-dreams]

[alighthouseofwords]

say it again, and again. and again..

[alighthouseofwords]

How many times I said nothing and everything to myself inside me. Emptied by my feelings with nothing left to offer you, and yet, believing I was offering much.

Night Watch (Ronda La Noche), Ana Becciu