James Abbe, Lillian Gish in The White Sister. 1923
"We do not want merely to see beauty…we want something else which can hardly be put into words; to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it."
—C. S. Lewis
Anne Frank
"I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains."
—Anne Frank, "The Diary."
Bill Brandt, "Stonehenge Under Snow," 1947
“What is by now evident and clear is that neither future nor past exists, and it is inexact language to speak of three times - past, present and future. Perhaps it would be exact to say: there are three times, a present of things past, a present of things present, a present of things to come. In the soul there are these three aspects of time, and I do not see them anywhere else. The present considering the past is memory, the present considering the present is immediate awareness, the present considering the future is expectation.”
—Saint Augustine
Painting Camille Pissarro 1, Brouillard à l’Hermitage, Pontoise. 1879
"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing."
—Camille Pissarro (10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) a French-Danish Impressionist painter.
Photograph: K. Machara, Rabindranath Tagore in Japan, Yokahama, 1916.
68
None lives for ever, brother, and nothing lasts for long. Keep
that in mind and rejoice.
Our life is not the one old burden, our path is not the one long
journey.
One sole poet has not to sing one aged song.
The flower fades and dies; but he who wears the flower has not to
mourn for it for ever.
Brother, keep that in mind and rejoice.
There must come a full pause to weave perfection into music.
Life droops toward its sunset to be drowned in the golden
shadows.
Love must be called from its play to drink sorrow and be borne to
the heaven of tears.
Brother, keep that in mind and rejoice.
We hasten to gather our flowers lest they are plundered by the
passing winds.
It quickens our blood and brightens our eyes to snatch kisses
that would vanish if we delayed.
Our life is eager, our desires are keen, for time tolls the bell
of parting.
Brother, keep that in mind and rejoice.
There is not time for us to clasp a thing and crush it and fling
it away to the dust.
The hours trip rapidly away, hiding their dreams in their skirts.
Our life is short; it yields but a few days for love.
Were it for work and drudgery it would be endlessly long.
Brother, keep that in mind and rejoice.
Beauty is sweet to us, because she dances to the same fleeting
tune with our lives.
Knowledge is precious to us, because we shall never have time to
complete it.
All is done and finished in the eternal Heaven.
But earth's flowers of illusion are kept eternally fresh by
death.
Brother, keep that in mind and rejoice.
from The Gardener. Translated by the author from the original Bengali
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