"I cannot help thinking that historians, looking back from the far future, will record this age as the Third Renaissance. We who are lost in it, working or looking on, can neither tell what we are doing, nor where standing; but we cannot help observing, that, just as in the Greek Renaissance, worn-out Pagan orthodoxy was penetrated by new philosophy; just as in the Italian Renaissance, Pagan philosophy, reasserting itself, fertilised again an already too inbred Christian creed; so now Orthodoxy fertilised by Science is producing a fresh and fuller conception of life — a love of Perfection, not for hope of reward, not for fear of punishment, but for Perfections sake. Slowly, under our feet, beneath our consciousness, is forming that new philosophy, and it is in times of new philosophies that Art, itself in essence always a discovery, must flourish. Those whose sacred suns and moons are ever in the past, tell us that our Art is going to the dogs; and it is, indeed, true that we are in confusion! The waters are broken, and every nerve and sinew of the artist is strained to discover his own safety. It is an age of stir and change, a season of new wine and old bottles. Yet, assuredly, in spite of breakages and waste, a wine worth the drinking is all the time being made."
John Galsworthy was an English novelist and playwright. He is best known for his trilogy of novels collectively called The Forsyte Saga, and two later trilogies, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature.
"Come! Let us lay a lance in rest, And tilt at windmills under a wild sky! For who would live so petty and unblest That dare not tilt at something ere he die; Rather than, screened by safe majority, Preserve his little life to little end, And never raise a rebel cry!"
"Justice is a machine that, when someone has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself."
"Life was to be lived — not torpidly dozed through in this queer cultured place, where age was in the blood! Life was for love — to be enjoyed!"
"When Man evolved Pity, he did a queer thing — deprived himself of the power of living life as it is without wishing it to become something different."
"It isnt enough to love people because theyre good to you, or because in some way or other youre going to get something by it. We have to love because we love loving."
"To take life," went on the old man in a voice which, though charged with strong emotion, seemed to be speaking to itself, "was the chief mark of the insensate barbarism still prevailing in those days. It sprang from that most irreligious fetish, the belief in the permanence of the individual ego after death. From the worship of that fetish had come all the sorrows of the human race. … They did not stop to love each other in this life; they were so sure they had all eternity to do it in. The doctrine was an invention to enable men to act like dogs with clear consciences. Love could never come to full fruition till it was destroyed."
"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."
Rumi"yes is a pleasant country... love is a deeper season than reason"
E. E. Cummings"true lovers in each happening of their hearts live longer than all which and every who"
E. E. Cummings"What concerns me fundamentaly is a meteoric burlesk melodrama, born of the immemorial adage love will find a way."
E. E. Cummings"Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flower Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge"Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others Wanings shouldst thou fret? Then only mightst thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge