Quotes About Connection

I thought that a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets.

All language is a set of symbols whose use among its speakers assumes a share past

I think of reading a book as no less an experience than travelling or falling in love.

Tennyson said that if we could understand a single flower we would know who we are and what the world is. Perhaps he meant that there is no deed, however so humble, which does not implicate universal history and the infinite concatenation of causes and effects. Perhaps he meant that the visible world is implicit, in its entirety, in each manifestation, just as, in the same way, will, according to Schopenhauer, is implicit, in its entirety, in each individual.

I thought that a man might be an enemy of other men, of the differing moments of other men, but never an enemy of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams, or the West wind.

Uno está enamorado cuando se da cuenta de que otra persona es única.

What one man does is something done, in some measure, by all men. For that reason a disobedience committed in a garden contaminates the human race; for that reason it is not unjust that the crucifixion of a single Jew suffices to safe it. Perhaps Schopenhauer is right: I am all others, any men is all men, Shakespeare is in some way the wretched John Vincent Moon.

The exchange of thoughts is a condition necessary for all love, all friendship and all real dialogue. Two men who can speak together can enrich and broaden themselves indefinitely.

I clarified that I myself was Colombian. What is 'being Colombian'? I'm not sure, I replied. It's an act of faith. Like being Norwegian, she said, nodding. I can recall nothing further of what was said that night.

The I feel a contentment in defeat, I reflected, simply because defeat has come, because it is infinitely connected to all the acts that are, that were, and that shall be, because to censure or deplore a single real act is to blaspheme against the universe.

Lo que hace un hombre es como si lo hicieran todos los hombres. Por eso no es injusto que una desobediencia en un jardín contamine al género humano; por eso no es injusto que la crucifixión de un solo judío baste para salvarlo. Acaso Schopenhauer tiene razón: yo soy los otros, cualquier hombre es todos los hombres, Shakespeare es de algún modo el miserable John Vincent Moon.

Buenos Aires] No nos une el amor sino el espanto. Será por eso que la quiero tanto

it is also said that it takes the shape of a man pointing to both heaven and earth, in order to show that the lower world is the map and mirror of the higher

La amistad no es menos misteriosa que el amor o que cualquiera de las otras faces de esta confusión que es la vida. He sospechado alguna vez que la única cosa sin misterio es la felicidad, porque se justifica por sí sola.

Poetry is not the books in the library. Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

Yo agonicé con él, yo morí con él, yo de algún modo me he perdido con él; por eso, fui implacable.

Cada persona que pasa por nuestra vida es única. Siempre deja un poco de sí y se lleva un poco de nosotros. Habrá los que se llevarán mucho, pero no habrá de los que no nos dejarán nada. Esta es la prueba evidente de que dos almas no se encuentran por casualidad.

Por el amor, que nos deja ver a los otros como los ve la divinidad.

La amistad une; también el odio sabe juntar.

It is venturesome to think that a coordination of words (philosophies are nothing more than that) can resemble the universe very much.

Ta?no u tom trenutku ?ovek pomisli: Šta ne bih dao za sre?u da budem pored tebe na Islandu u velikom nepomi?nom danu i da delim sadašnjost kao što se deli muzika ili ukus ploda. Ta?no u tom trenutku ?ovek je bio sa njom na Islandu.

My father and he had cemented (the verb is excessive) one of those English friendships which begin by avoiding intimacies and eventually eliminate speech altogether.

I felt what we always feel when someone dies–the sad awareness, now futile, of how little it would have cost us to have been more loving. One forgets that one is a dead man conversing with dead men.

Il libro non è un ente chiuso alla comunicazione: è una relazione, è un asse di innumerevoli relazioni.