Lit Up The Night

a collection of thoughts by a college student reading books.

[lit-up-the-night]

O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.

Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

[lit-up-the-night]

I saw when at his word the formless mass, this world's material mould, came to a heap:  Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled, stood vast i infinitude confined; Till at his second bidding darkness fled,  Light shone, and order from disorder sprung:  Swift to their several quarters hastened them The cumbrous elements, earth, flood, air, fire And this ethereal quintessence of heaven Flew upward, spirited with various forms, That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars Numberless, as thou seest, and how they move; Each had his place appointed, each his course The rest in circuit walls this universe.

John Milton, Paradise Lost

[lit-up-the-night]

Our nature consists in movement. Absolutely stillness is death.

Pascal Pensées, 531. 

[lit-up-the-night]

Time heals pain and quarrels, because we change: we are no longer the same person; neither the offender nor the offended are the same. It is like a people whom we have angered and have come back to see after two generations: they are still French but not the same.

Pascal Pensées, 653. 

[lit-up-the-night]

Truth is so darkened nowadays, and lies so established, that unless we love the truth we will never know it.

Pascal Pensées, 617.

[lit-up-the-night]

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what has to be put first.

Pascal Pensées, 740. 

[lit-up-the-night]

Love is a growing, or full constant light, and his first minute, after noon, is night.

John Donne

[lit-up-the-night]

Beyond compare the Son of God was seen Most glorious, in him all his Father shone Substantially expressed, and in his face Divine compassion visibly appeared Love without end, and without measure grace.

John Milton, Paradise Lost

[lit-up-the-night]

Oh, if thou car’st not whom I love, alas, thou lov’st not me.

John Donne, A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s Last Going into Germany

[lit-up-the-night]

Only rich man can afford to accept positions which ought to be held by the wise.

Thomas More, Utopia

[lit-up-the-night]

The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there.

Jospeh Conrad, Heart of Darkness

[lit-up-the-night]

For God’s sake, hold your tongue and let me love!

John Donne, The Canonization, ll. 1

[lit-up-the-night]

The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, or hell of heaven.

John Milton, Paradise Lost

[lit-up-the-night]

But as evening approached and twilight deepened, my impressions changed and became more confused, as did my thoughts. Something hadn't yet died within me, deep within my heart and conscience; it didn't want to die, and it expressed itself as burning anguish...I couldn't get a hold of myself or puzzle out what was wrong. Something was rising, rising up in my soul continually, painfully, and didn't want to settle down. I returned home completely distraught. It was just as if some crime were weighing on my soul.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

[lit-up-the-night]

Were all thy letters suns, I could not see.

Shakespeare, King Lear

[lit-up-the-night]

For smiles from reason flow...

John Milton, Paradise Lost

[lit-up-the-night]

The single and peculiar life is bound with all the strength and armour of the mind to keep itself from noyance; but much more that spirit upon whose weal depends and rests the lives of many.

Shakespeare, Hamlet