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Quote by Ananda Devi

“I read in secret, all the time. I read in the toilets. I read in the middle of the night. I read as if books could loosen the noose tightening around my throat. I read to understand that there is somewhere else. A dimension where possibilities shimmer.”

Quote by Ananda Devi

Book:Eve out of Her Ruins
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Eve out of Her Ruins

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Ananda Devi

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“The sudden and uncalled for coldness with which you treated me just before I left last night, both surprised and deeply hurt me - surprised because I could not have believed that such sullen and inflexible obstinacy could exist in the breast of any girl in whose heart love had found place; and hurt me, because I feel for you more than I have ever professed and feel a slight from you more than I care to tell. My object in writing to you is this: if hasty temper produces this strange behaviour, acknowledge it when I give you the opportunity - not once or twice, but again and again. If a feeling of you know not what - a capricious restlessness of you can't tell what, and a desire to tease, you don't know why, give rise to it - overcome it; it will never make you more amiable, I more fond or either of us, more happy. Depend upon it, whatever be the cause of your unkindness - whatever gives rise to these wayward fancies - that what you do not take the trouble to conceal from a Lover's eyes, will be frequently acted before those of a husband's. I know as well, as if I were by your side at this moment, that your present impulse on reading this letter is one of anger - pride perhaps, or to use a word more current with your sex - 'spirit'. My dear girl, I have not the most remote intention of awakening any such feeling, and I implore you, not to entertain it for an instant.... I have written these few lines in haste, but not anger.... If you knew but half the anxiety with which I watched your recent illness, the joy with which I hailed your recovery, and the eagerness with which I would promote your happiness, you could more readily understand the extent of the pain so easily inflicted, but so difficult to be forgotten. - Excerpts from a letter by Charles Dickens to his fiancee of three weeks, 1835”

SullenCharles DickensLovers SadnessReprimand
Author:Charles Dickens
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“She had thought of literature all these years (her seclusion, her rank, her sex must be her excuse) as something wild as the wind, hot as fire, swift as lightning; something errant, incalculable, abrupt, and behold, literature was an elderly gentleman in a grey suit talking about duchesses… Orlando then came to the conclusion (opening half-a-dozen books)…that it would be impolitic in the extreme to wrap a ten-pound note round the sugar tongs when Miss Christina Rossetti came to tea…next (here were half-a-dozen invitations to celebrate centenaries by dining) that literature since it all these dinners must be growing very corpulent; next (she was invited to a score of lectures on the Influence of this upon that; the Classical revival; the Romantic survival, and other titles of the same engaging kind) that literature since it listened to all these lectures must be growing very dry; next (here she attended a reception given by a peeress) that literature since it wore all those fur tippets must be growing very respectable; next (here she visited Carlyle’s sound-proof room at Chelsea) that genius since it needed all this coddling must be growing very delicate…”

LiteraturePretensions
Book:Orlando
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“A fig for your precious society with its bridge parties, its inane chatter, its cheap mentality; its dances and vulgar banquets; its snobbery and cheap pretension. The humblest library can show you upon a single shelf better society and far more select company than all the drawing-rooms of Europe, America, and South Africa.”

SocietyLibraryPretensionLibrariesPretensionsBibliomania
Book:Round My Library Fire: A Book about Books
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“But what's the point of freedom? Do you think you can change anything?' 'Of course not. We are waiting.' 'For what?' 'Until the world changes on it's own. That is the one truth of history. Everything ends. Civilisations, empires, however powerful and strong. They all end, sooner or later. When it does, we will be there, with all the old ideas and thoughts, preserved and ready to blossom.”

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Book:Arcadia
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“Every new age has at its disposal everything that was fine in all past ages, and its greatness depends on how well it recognizes and preserves and brings to the aid of its own enlightenment whatever worthy and true things the dead have left on earth behind them.”

CultureHistoryGreatnessCivilizationErasHuman HistoryHistory Of MankindEraPreservation Of KnowledgePreserving Wisdom
Book:America Moved: Booth Tarkington's Memoirs of Time and Place, 1869-1928
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