“My soul is not that virgin. It has known despair, and that is the same as having been touched by death.”
— Olga Freidenberg, from a letter to Boris Pasternak c. December 1924
Etikett: poetry
When he puts his mouth against her shoulder
she is uncertain whether her shoulder
had given or received the kiss.
All her flesh is like a mouth.
Leonard Cohen, You Have The Lovers
You’re as close as the heart I call my own.
Anna Akhmatova, tr. by Judith Hemschemeyer, from “I Called Death Down,”
“Goodnight and great love to you. We see the same stars.”
— George Mallory, from a letter to his wife Ruth during the 1921 Everest Reconnaissance Expedition (via archaeologicals)
Comparing yourself to others is an act of violence against your authentic self.
Iyanla Vanzant
Too beautiful. Devastatingy beautiful.
Friedrich Nietzsche, from “Beyond Good and Evil,” (1886)
I am weak, so weak the smell of the roses made me faint, when I went down to the garden, and a simple song carried on the wind, or the afternoon’s last pulsing drop of blood in the sky, disturbs me, flooding me with sadness.
Gabriela Mistral, from Selected Prose & Prose Poems; “Sensitive,”
when florence welch said “i am done with my graceless heart so tonight i’m gonna cut it out and then restart”
“Show respect to every person you meet in your life, even when they did nothing to receive it. It’s a reflection of good character.”
— Nicole Addison @thepowerwithin
“She was like a flaming rose. I thought that she would burn away into perfume in my arms.”
— Heinrich Heine, from The Selected Prose Writings; “Reisebilder,”
beberequin 