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Both vessels are equipped with spacious decks for games and sunbathing, even cricket, a field sport, can be played on deck, which shows that for the British Empire nothing is impossible.
Insignificant local transgressions often give rise to resounding and universal consequences.
The great difference between poets and madmen is the destiny of the madness that possesses them.
Having written this, he does not know how to continue. There are such moments. We believe in the importance of what we have just said or written, if for no other reason than that it is impossible to take back the sounds or erase the marks, but the temptation to be silent pervades our body, the fascination of silence, to be silent and immobile like the gods, watching and nothing more.
It never occurs to people that the one who finishes something is never the one who started it, even if both have the same name, for the name is the only thing that remains constant.
That entire day he had spent in ignorance of what was happening in the world. Not that he was an assiduous reader by nature, on the contrary, he found those large pages and verbose articles tiresome, but here, having nothing better to do and in order to avoid being fussed over by Salvador, he made the paper with all its news from abroad serve as a shield against this more immediate and encroaching world. The news of the distant world can be read as insignificant dispatches whose use and destination are questionable.
How typical of newspapers, all they can talk about is what has already happened and nearly always when it is much too late to rectify mistakes, prevent shortages, or avert disasters.
He even left the window ajar to air the room, for he detests nocturnal odors, those exhalations of the body from which not even poets are exempt.
Today is the last day of the year. Throughout the world where this calendar is observed, people amuse themselves by weighing the resolutions they intend to put into practice during the incoming year. They swear that they will be honest, just, and forbearing, that their reformed lips will utter no more words of abuse, deceit, or malice, however much their enemies may deserve them. Clearly we are speaking about the common people. The others, uncommon and superior, have their own good reasons for being and doing quite the opposite whenever it suits or profits them, they do not allow themselves to
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Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is. Once language has said all it has to say and falls silent, I wonder how we will go on living.
It is a miracle that men do not lose their sanity each time they open their mouths to speak.
When such a thing happens, that is to say, when it becomes clear that God is showing no sign of coming soon, man has no choice but to take His place, to leave home and restore order in this poor old world of ours, which belongs to God.
But this is mere conjecture, we must never forget that fate is a casket like no other, open and closed at the same time. We can look inside and see all that has happened, the past transformed into fulfilled destiny, but we have no way of seeing into the future, apart from an occasional presentiment or intuition, as we find in this gospel, which could not have been written were it not for those signs and prodigies forecasting a destiny perhaps greater than life itself.
while we are all made of the same all-too-human substance, the same flesh, bones, blood, skin and laughter, tears and sweat, some of us become cowards and others heroes, some are aggressive and others passive.
God does not forgive the sins He makes us commit.
Between the river Jordan and the sea, widows and orphans weep, an ancient custom, that is why they are widows and orphans, so that they may weep, and when the boys grow up and go to fight a new war, there will be more widows and orphans to take their place, and even if customs change, if black becomes the color of mourning instead of white, or if women wear black mantillas instead of tearing their hair out, tears of sincere grief will never change.
time is not a rope one can measure from knot to knot, time is a pitched and undulating surface which only memory can make accessible.
one can never predict what soldiers will do when they knock on a door and find no one at home.
We do not know what happens to life’s sorrows after death, especially those last moments of suffering, it is possible that everything ends with death, but we cannot be certain that the memory of suffering does not linger at least for several hours in this body we describe as dead, nor can we rule out the possibility that matter uses putrefaction as a last resort to rid itself of the suffering.
Not knowing which of them to comfort, she sank to her knees, exhausted, and her children gathered around her, like a cluster of grapes that did not need to be trampled to release the colorless wine of tears.
How often we find ourselves on the point of crossing a threshold or making a decision, when further consideration causes us to change our mind and turn back.
Yes, I’ve learned that when they are both in agreement, it’s almost impossible to tell the difference between an angel of the Lord and an angel of Satan, he told her.
Silence echoes in his ears like the noise from one of those dead, empty shells which, washed ashore, absorb the vast sound of the waves until some passerby brings it slowly to his ear, listens, and says, The sea.
the circumstances create the need, and the need, when it is great enough, creates the circumstances.
One reflection leads to another, though we often do not notice the connection between them, it is like crossing a river by a covered bridge, we walk without looking where we are going, passing over a river we did not know existed,
words that come from the heart are never spoken, they get caught in the throat and can only be read in one’s eyes.
Truth and falsehood pass through the same lips and leave no mark, the devil does not cease to be the devil just because he may have spoken the truth.
necessity knows no law, and the most effective form of justice, as Cain taught us, is that which we ourselves grab with both hands.
Eyes are fasting when they open in the morning,
most people overlook the fact that the demons of one religion are powerless to act in another, just as any god, confronting another, can neither vanquish him nor be vanquished by him.
man is a piece of wood that can be used for anything, from the moment he is born to the moment he dies, he’s always ready to obey, send him and he goes, tell him to stop and he stops, tell him to withdraw and he withdraws, whether in peace or in war, man generally speaking is the best thing that ever happened to the gods.
Speak more clearly, said Jesus. It’s impossible, said God, human words are like shadows, and shadows cannot explain light, and between shadow and light stands the opaque body from which words are born.
what is blasphemy on your lips is the word of God on mine, replied Jesus.
It is true what people say, the young have the ability, but lack the wisdom, and the old have the wisdom, but lack the ability.
that we would know far more about life’s complexities if we applied ourselves to the close study of its contradictions instead of wasting so much time on similarities and connections, which should, anyway, be self-explanatory.
Life is like that, full of words that are not worth saying or that were worth saying once but not any more, each word that we utter will take up the space of another more deserving word, not deserving in its own right, but because of the possible consequences of saying it.
Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are a malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth.
some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don’t understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they’re there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it’s the other side that matters,
For it is true that however thick and black the clouds over our heads, the sky above the clouds is permanently blue, but then again the rain, hail and lightning always fall downward, and indeed, when faced with such facts, it is hard to know quite what to think.
he has lived long enough to know that the best way of killing a rose is to force it open when it is still only the promise of a bud.
one must understand that in life’s circumnavigations what for some is a gentle breeze, for others is a fatal storm, it all depends on the draft of the ship and on the state of its sails.
anxieties get tangled up together like cherries, one gets caught on another and, in two shakes, the basket’s full,
It is a well-known fact that spiritual contentment is not entirely unrelated to having a well-fed body,
