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Quote by Edward Carpenter

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Edward Carpenter
Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter was an English poet, social reformer, and philosopher, known for his contributions to the socialist movement and his advocacy for social equality and sexual liberation. Born on August 29, 1844, in Leek, Staffordshire, he is recognized for his poetry that often reflected his beliefs in nature and the human spirit, making him a forerunner of the modern environmental movement. Carpenter passed away on June 28, 1929. more

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“For a while, I just sat there in that position, but eventually I gave up and was about to turn the lights off when it hit me. I knew what was stuck in my head. A phrase. Reaching for my desk, I grabbed the new notebook and pencil that were sitting by the edge and flipped the cover, lying flat on my back. Steadying the spine of the notebook with my palm, I took the pencil to the first blank page and wrote the words: “All the lovers in the night.” The phrase had appeared out of nowhere. Through the faint light of the room, I looked over the words, which came together in the strangest way. On the one hand, they felt new to me, like something I’d never heard or seen before, though I also felt like maybe I had read them somewhere, in the title of a movie or a song, which meant it had emerged from someplace inside of me. Hard to say. Seeing my handwriting under the light, I realized that this was the first time I’d written something without having a specific purpose, not a comment in somebody else’s manuscript or galley, but my own words on a blank sheet of paper. I had no clue what to do with these words, no idea what they were for, or what they meant, but I stared at them and felt them reach my heart and linger there.”

“And if one loves me for my judgement, memory, he does not love me, for I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where, then, is this Ego, if it be neither in the body nor in the soul? And how love the body or the soul, except for these qualities which do not constitute me, since they are perishable? For it is impossible and would be unjust to love the soul of a person in the abstract and whatever qualities might be therein. We never, then, love a person, but only qualities. Let us, then, jeer no more at those who are honoured on account of rank and office; for we love a person only on account of borrowed qualities.”