.

“So as to give them courage we must teach people to be shocked by themselves.” – analepsis.wordpress.com

“ring out the bells that still can ring
forget your perfect offering
there is a crack in everything
that’s how the light gets in”

– Leonard Cohen

“The way you use the word “God” does not show whom you mean — but, rather, what you mean.” – Wittgenstein

“Don’t for heaven’s sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.” – Wittgenstein

“What is the Absolute? Something that appears to us in fleeting experiences–say, through the gentle smile of a beautiful woman, or even through the warm caring smile of a person who may otherwise seem ugly and rude. In such miraculous but extremely fragile moments, another dimension transpires through our reality. As such, the Absolute is easily corroded;it slips all too easily through our fingers and must be handled as carefully as a butterfly”
— Slavoj Žižek from The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?

“Archaic Torsos of Apollo

We never knew his stupendous head
in which the eye-apples ripened. But
his torso still glows, like a lamp,
in which his gaze, screwed back to low,

holds steady and gleams. Otherwise the curve
of his chest couldn’t dazzle you, nor a smile
run through the slight twist of the loins
toward the center that held procreation.

Otherwise this stone would stand mutilated and too short
below the translucent fall-off of the shoulders,
and wouldn’t shimmer like a predator’s fur;

nor shine out past all its edges
like a star: for in it is no place
that doesn’t see you. You must change your life.”

– Rilke, trans by Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann