#veils

When one tears away the veils and shows them naked, people's souls give off such a pungent smell of decay. ↗

— Octave Mirbeau

#decay #give #naked #off #people

Clouds symbolize the veils that shroud God. ↗

— Honore de Balzac

#god #shroud #symbolize #veils

He showed the fineness of his nature by being kinder to me after that misunderstanding than before. Nay, the very incident which, by my theory, must in some degree estrange me and him, changed, indeed, somewhat our relations; but not in the sense I painfully anticipated. An invisible, but a cold something, very slight, very transparent, but very chill: a sort of screen of ice had hitherto, all through our two lives, glazed the medium through which we exchanged intercourse. Those few warm words, though only warm with anger, breathed on that frail frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of dissolution. I think from that day, so long as we continued friends, he never in discourse stood on topics of ceremony with me. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#dr-john-graham-bretton #frankness #friendship #honesty #lucy-snowe

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet. ↗

— Rumi

#each #fall #feet #finally #first

Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied. ↗

— Zadie Smith

#satisfaction #truth #unsatisfaction #veils #writing