(click on the link above to access the site.)
I just wanted to share this fantastic site for famous writing. Here a few of the more memorable passages:
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D.H. Lawrence
Fidelity and love are two different things, like a flower and a gem.
Man and woman are like the earth, that brings forth flowers in summer
and love, but underneath is rock.
Older than flowers, older than ferns, older than plasma altogether
is the soul of the human underneath.
And when, throughout all the wild orgasms of love
slowly a gem forms, in the ancient, once-more-molten rocks,
of two human hearts, two ancient rocks,
a man's heart and a woman's heart;
That is the crystal of peace, the slow, hard jewel of trust,
the sapphire of fidelity.
The gem of mutual peace emerging from the wild chaos of love.
Great use of language and imagery here - metaphors of time and rock and flora and minerals all collaborating in nature to create human love and in order to reach this state one must be faithful to oneself and your partner.
And this one is magical, too.
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Rainier Maria Rilke
To love is good; love being difficult.
For one human to love another:
that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate,
the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but a preparation.
For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything,
cannot yet know love; they have to learn it.
With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart,
they must learn to love.
But learning time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving,
for a long while ahead and far on into life, is - solitude,
intensified and deepened aloneness for those who love.
Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over,
uniting with another, for what would a union be of something unclarified,
unfinished, still subordinate?
It is a high inducement to the individual to ripen,
to become something in himself, to become world,
to become world for herself, for another's sake;
it is a great and exacting claim, something that chooses one out,
calls the lover to vast things...
The idea here being that love is a process over a long time that chooses you, not the other way around, and forces you to become something much more than before. D H Lawrence says something like this somewhere else when talking about marriage, something like "marriage requires three things: a man, a woman, and...something else?
This one is amazing as well:
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Goethe on "Commitment"
Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamt would have come one's way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!
In other words, in the very act of just simply "going for it", the very boldness of actually trying something provides a window of opportunity in and of itself that was previously absent. When you create an idea from an initial impulse you set off a train of occurrences and trigger events and happenings around you.
Here's a few more to whet your appetite.
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Psalm 1
Blessed are the man and woman who have grown beyond themselves and have seen through their separations. They delight in the way things are and keep their hearts open, day and night. They are like trees planted near flowing rivers, which bear fruit when they are ready. Their leaves will not fall or wither Everything they do will succeed.
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The Song of Songs by Solomon, Chap. 3, verses 9-11
You have captured my heart, my own, my bride, you have captured my heart with one glance of you eyes, with one coil of your necklace. How sweet is your love, my own, my bride! How much more delightful your love than wine, your ointments more fragrant than any spice! Sweetness drops from your lips, O bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; and the scent of your robes is like the scent of Lebanon
The Tanakh (Old Testament)
