#toms

When you trust and you lose— it is because you were wrong to trust and what you believed was merely a phantom. But when you doubt and you lose— it is because in your wanting so much not to be wrong, you lost something that was entirely beautiful for you. More is lost, in the end, by those who doubt. I would rather lose the phantom. ↗

— C. JoyBell C.

#phantoms #the-truth-about-trust #the-truth-will-set-you-free #trust #why-doubt-hurts

The earliest sensation at the onset of illness, often preceding the recognition of identifiable symptoms, is apprehension. Something has gone wrong, and a glimpse of mortality shifts somewhere deep in the mind. It is the most ancient of our fears. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#apprehension #deep #earliest #fears #glimpse

I have reveled in my littleness and irresponsibility. It has relieved me of the harassing desire to live, I feel content to live dangerously, indifferent to my fate; I have discovered I am a fly, that we are all flies, that nothing matters. It’s a great load off my life, for I don’t mind being such a micro-organism—to me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe—such a great universe, so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible—and eternal, so that come what may to my “Soul,” my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part—I shall still have some sort of a finger in the Pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me—but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you. ↗

— W.N.P. Barbellion

#death #life #death

In another world,' he said, lowering his voice; I remember... was it not in another world, in a life which was not in thrall to sleep and its phantoms?... ↗

— Charles Nodier

#phantoms #sleep #dreams

Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art. ↗

— John Updike

#art #change #convictions #customs #facts

Why do you need that thing?" September asked. "None of the airports back home have them." "They do. You just can't see them right," Betsy Basilstalk said with a grin. "All customs agents have them, otherwise, why would people agree to stand in line and be peered at and inspected? We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say, lines on maps are silly. Where you live, the awful machinery is smaller, harder to see. Less honest, that's all. Whereas Rupert here? He's as honest as they come. Does what it says on the box. ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#customs #obedience #travel #truth-telling #home

God, when did Elli go from cute to hot? I mean, I've sensed it coming for a while, but all at once, here she is. Trouble on two legs. Two very nice legs. And now I need to go home and wash my brain out with soap. ↗

— Ingrid Paulson

#home

Yet I pity the poor wretch, though he's my enemy. He's yoked to an evil delusion, but the same fate could be mine. I see clearly: we who live are all phantoms, fleeing shadows. ↗

— Sophocles

#phantoms #pity #life

Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#men

Most men live like raisins in a cake of custom. ↗

— Brand Blanshard

#men