Quotes About Contrast

The vision of Christ that thou dost see Is my vision's greatest enemy.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.

Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.

Love seeketh not Itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hells despair. So sang a little Clod of Clay, Trodden with the cattle's feet; But a Pebble of the brook, Warbled out these metres meet. Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to Its delight: Joys in anothers loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heavens despite. - The Clod and the Pebble

Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives it ease, And builds a heaven in hell's despair. So sang a little clod of clay, Trodden with the cattle's feet, But a pebble of the brook Warbled out these metres meet: Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a hell in heaven's despite. THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE

Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night...

Because I was happy upon the heath, And smiled among the winter's snow, They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

THE LILY The modest Rose puts forth a thorn, The humble sheep a threat'ning horn: While the Lily white shall in love delight, Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright. THE GARDEN OF LOVE I laid me down upon a bank, Where Love lay sleeping; I heard among the rushes dank Weeping, weeping.

So I turned to the Garden of Love That so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it was filled with graves, And tombstones where flowers should be; And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires.

Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod? Or Love in a golden bowl?

Roses are planted where thorns grow, and on the barren heath sing the honey bees.

The best often seem the worst

From time to time Eva would venture on deck to gaze at the grey sky,the grey turbulent water and the grey ships with their belching smoke stacks butting and smashing onward through the waves and jagged swells - disappearing in explosions of wintry spume from time to time - gamely making for the British Isles

Real life is never, never as simple as a movie.

Meanwhile, the old man who goes about gathering dog-lime walks in the gutter without looking up and his tread is more majestic than that of the Episcopal minister approaching the pulpit of a Sunday. These things astonish me beyond words.

a crown for her head with castles upon it, skyscrapers filled with nut-chocolates

Dissonance (if you are interested) leads to discovery

New York may be splendidly gay or squalidly gay but prince or pauper, it's gay always...Yes, gay is the word...but frantic. I can't get used to it. They forget death, Basil; they forget death in New York.

Henry James was one of the nicest old ladies I ever met.

When I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a dark place into which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two faces lifted out of the shadow.

Literature has the same impact as a match lit in the middle of a field in the middle of the night. The match illuminates relatively little, but it enables us to see how much darkness surrounds it.

Sex and death: the front door and the back door of the world.

Lo que hace la literatura es lo mismo que una cerilla en medio de un campo en mitad de la noche. Una cerilla no ilumina apenas nada, pero nos permite ver cuánta oscuridad hay a su alrededor.

the young girl who slept waking in some suspension so completely physical as to resemble the state before birth and as far removed from reality's other extreme as Ellen was from hers