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Quotes About Narcissus

Dirait-on Abandon entouré d'abandon, tendresse touchant aux tendresses ... C'est ton intérieur qui sans cesse se caresse, dirait-on; se caresse en soi-même, par son propre reflet éclairé. Ainsi tu inventes le thème du Narcisse exaucé.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
But at the corner I stopped to take my last look at the crew of the Narcissus. They were swaying irresolute and noisy on the broad flagstones before the Mint. They were bound for the Black Horse, where men, in fur caps with brutal faces and in shirt sleeves, dispense out of varnished barrels the illusions of strength, mirth, happiness; the illusion of splendor and poetry of life, to the paid-off crews of southern-going ships.
~ Joseph Conrad
Leo took out a pen and autographed the arm of one of the nymphs. "Narcissus is a loser! He's so weak, he can't bench-press a Kleenex. He's so lame, when you look up lame on Wikipedia, it's got a picture of Narcissus—only the picture's so ugly, no one ever checks it out.
~ Rick Riordan
Narcissus turned and scowled at Leo. "Who are you?" "I'm the Super-sized McShizzle, man!" Leo said. "I'm Leo Valdez, bad boy supreme. And the ladies love a bad boy.
~ Rick Riordan
Dans le calme du jardin, sur une nuit de lune éclairait, vous pourriez être en mesure d'entendre les lamentations durables de narcisses et jonquilles aveugles aveugles - pour le vrai connaisseur de leur beauté, l'élégance et la grâce. Il est de grandes difficultés qu'un aficionado authentique jamais arrive dans le jardin.
~ Deodatta V. Shenai-Khatkhate
En el silencio del jardín en una noche de Luna iluminado, puede ser capaz de oír los lamentos largos duraderos de narcisos ciegos y narcisos ciegos - para el verdadero apreciador de su belleza, elegancia y gracia. Es con grandes dificultades que un aficionado auténtico nunca llega en el jardín. La creación y el cultivo de la belleza sin duda requiere su verdadero apreciador.
~ Deodatta V. Shenai-Khatkhate
Our squalid society rushed, Narcissus to a man, to gaze on its trivial image on a scrap of metal.
~ Charles Baudelaire
We fitted together like the two halves of an oyster-shell. I was Narcissus, embracing the pond in which I was about to drown. However much we had to hide our love, however guarded we had to be about our pleasure, I could not long be miserable about a thing so very sweet. Nor, in my gladness, could I quite believe that anybody would be anything but happy for me if only they knew.
~ Sarah Waters
What if love is made and nothing else? asked Narcissus, leaning over the green iris of water. Nothing else, cried Echo from the green cochlea of the woods. And they were both right. And they were both lonely.
~ Kapka Kassabova
Now we are longtime outcasts, flying through the emptiness of time in a straight line. Yet somewhere deep down a thin thread still ties us to that far-off misty Paradise, where Adam leans over a well and, unlike Narcissus, never even suspects that the pale yellow blotch appearing in it is he himself. The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man.
~ Milan Kundera
deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
~ Herman Melville
Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
~ Herman Melville
Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But the same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
~ Herman Melville
My dear Tristan, to be an artist at all is like living in Switzerland during a world war. To be an artist in Zurich, in 1917, implies a degree of self-absorption that would have glazed over the eyes of Narcissus.
~ Tom Stoppard
Narcissus turned and scowled at Leo. "Who are you?" "I'm the Super-sized McShizzle, man!" Leo said. "I'm Leo Valdez, bad boy supreme. And the ladies love a bad boy.
~ Rick Riordan
But I loved Narcissus because as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.
~ Oscar Wilde
Truth in art is not any correspondence between the essential idea and the accidental existence; it is not the resemblance of shape to shadow, or of the form mirrored in the crystal to the form itself; it is no echo coming from a hollow hill anymore than it is a silver well of water in the valley that shows the moon to the moon and Narcissus to Narcissus.
~ Oscar Wilde
She saw Narcissus roaming through the country, / Saw him, and burned, and followed him in secret / Burning the more she followed, as when sulfur / Smeared on the rim of torches, catches fire / When other fire comes near it. Oh, how often / She wanted to come near with coaxing speeches, / Make soft entreaties to him! / But her nature / Sternly forbids...
~ Ovid
She smiled with so sweet a cheer That had Narcissus seen her as she stood Self-love had never drowned him in the flood
~ William Shakespeare
Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph that liv'st unseen Within thy airy shell By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-imbroider'd vale Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well: Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likest thy Narcissus are?
~ John Milton
He who has two cakes of bread, let him dispose of one of them for some flowers of the narcissus; for bread is the food of the body, and the narcissus is the food of the soul.
~ Galen