Qualia

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"If the Emperor adopts you, no one will be able to put up with your pretension; but knowing that you are the son of God, shouldn't your pride be that much greater?"

- Epictetus

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“–”

—

ぼくたちは　ひかれあう We attract each other

水滴のように　惑星のように like a drop of water, like planets.

ぼくたちは　反発しあう We repel each other

磁石のように　肌の色のように like magnets, like the colors of our skin.

– Tite Kubo, Bleach Vol. 4: QUINCY ARCHER HATES YOU

[melancholicmonkeyme]

“–”

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“僕はついてゆけるだろうか I wonder, can I keep up with it?

君のいない世界のスピードに The speed of the world without you in it.”

–Tite Kubo, Bleach Vol. 49: The Lost Agent

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"Treat your inferiors in the way in which you would like to be treated by your own superiors. Only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his social positions, which after all is only something that we wear like clothing"

— Letter XLVII - Seneca, Letters From a Stoic

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself"

— Seneca

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"It's fortunate that this has happened and I've remained unharmed by it - Not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it"

— Seneca

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"This is our big mistake: To think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death"

— Seneca

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"Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; For men learn as they teach"

— Seneca

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"There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; We suffer more in imagination than in reality"

— Seneca

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"Get rid of self-conceit. It is impossible to learn that which one thinks they already know"

— Epictetus

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"Our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: Externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to what I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices"

— Epictetus

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"I was not, in the true sense of the word, alive. I simply performed the mundane tasks that were handed to me, one after another. I never had one real friend, no human ties with the students in my charge. I never loved anyone. I no longer knew what it meant to love another person [...] Living like an empty shell is not really living, no matter how many years it may go on. The heart and flesh of an empty shell give birth to nothing more than the life of an empty shell"

— Haruki Murakami: The wind-Up bird Chronicle

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"The ability to have complete faith in another human being is one of the finest qualities a person can possess"

— Haruki Murakami: The wind-Up bird Chronicle

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"If anything, my physical death would be, for me, a form of salvation. It would liberate me forever from this hopeless prison, this pain of being me [...] I have come to think that life is a far more limited thing than those in the midst of its maelstrom realize. The light shines into the act of life for only the briefest moment—perhaps only a matter of seconds. Once it is gone and one has failed to grasp its offered revelations, there is no second chance. One may have to live the rest of one's life in hopeless depths of loneliness and remorse. In that twilight world, one can no longer look forward to anything. All that such a person holds in his hands is the withered corpse of what should have been"

— Haruki Murakami: The wind-Up bird Chronicle

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"The reason that people sing songs for other people is because they want to have the power to arouse empathy, to break free of the narrow shell of the self and share their pain and joy with others. this is not an easy thing to do, of course"

— Haruki Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"In the course of life, we experience many kinds of pain. Pains of the body and pains of the heart. I know I have experienced pain in many different forms in my life, and I'm sure you have too. In most cases, though, I'm sure you've found it very difficult to convey the truth of that pain to another person: to explain it in words. People say that only they themselves can understand the pain they are feeling. But is this true? I for one do not believe that it is. If, before our eyes, we see someone who is truly suffering, we do sometimes feel his suffering, and pain as our own. This is the power of empathy."

—Haruki Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

[melancholicmonkeyme]

"Dawn in Mongolia was an amazing thing. In one instant, the horizon became a faint line suspended in the darkness, and then the line was drawn upward, higher and higher. It was as if a giant hand had stretched down from the sky and slowly lifted the curtain of night from the face of the earth. It was a magnificent sight, far greater in scale, as I said earlier, than anything that I, with my limited human faculties, could fully comprehend. As I sat and watched, the feeling overtook me that my very life was slowly dwindling into nothingness. There was no trace here of anything insignificant as human undertakings. This same event had been occurring hundreds of millions—hundreds of billions—of times, from an age long before there had been anything resembling life on earth. Forgetting that I was there to stand guard, I watched the dawning of the day, entranced."

— Lieutenant Mamiya, Haruki Murakami: The Wind-Up Brid Chronicle