“To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. It is only in that state that one learns and observes. And for this, a great deal of awareness is required, actual awareness of what is going on inside yourself, without correcting it or telling it what it should or should not be, because the moment you correct it you have established another authority, a censor.”
“A man who says, 'I want to change, tell me how to', seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.”
“He causes huge bodies like sun to proclaim His Majesty through His Names the All-Gracious, Great, reciting: ' O Glorious One, O Great One, O Mighty One', while tiny animate creatures like flies and fish proclaim His Mercy, reciting: 'O Gracious One, O Compassionate One, O Generous One”
“Worry is itself an illness, since worry is an accusation against Divine Wisdom, a criticism of Divine Mercy.”
Source: The Gleams: Reflections on Qur'anic Wisdom and Spirituality
“Nothing can describe the withering horror of this. You feel lost, sick at heart before such unmasked hatred, not so much because it threatens you as because it shows humans in such an inhuman light. You see a kind of insanity, something so obscene the very obscenity of it (rather than its threat) terrifies you. It was so new I could not take my eyes from the man's face. I felt like saying: "What in God's name are you doing to yourself?”
Source: Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition
“Great minds that are healthy are never considered geniuses, while this sublime qualification is lavished on brains that are often inferior but are slightly touched by madness.”
Source: Collected Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant: The Necklace + The Piece of String + Boule de Suif + Mademoiselle Fifi + Pierrot + Two Friends + La Maison Tellier + Ghosts and much more: From one of the greatest French writers, widely regarded as the ‘Father of Short Story’ writing, who had influenced W. Somerset Maugham, O. Henry, Anton Chekhov and Henry James
“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.”
Source: Guy de Maupassant – The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more: Original Versions of the Novels and Stories in French, An Interactive Bilingual Edition with Literary Essays on Maupassant by Tolstoy, Joseph Conrad and Henry James
“There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress.”
Source: Maupassant Complete Short Stories: Works of Maupassant
“Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.”
“I want to chase the butterflies.”
Source: Wolfcry