Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[poohbear_nc]

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested;

... and some books need a Bromo-seltzer chaser!

Tom - I've always treasured this quotation!

[FlorenceArt]

Reading maketh a full man. I like that

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Reading maketh a full man. I like that

Judging from the bathroom scales, I must have read enormously!

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Judging from the bathroom scales, I must have read enormously!

Just have Florence re-draw your avatar with a thinner pencil!

[FlorenceArt]

I don't have a thinner pencil. I like full men

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

I don't have a thinner pencil. I like full men

You'd love me!

[WT Sharpe]

.....What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.
..........— Augustine of Hippo (13 – 430), Christian theologian, North African bishop, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, philosopher. Confessions (c. 397), XI, 14.

[Susianne]

The first line in Duet by Carol Shields:

"Sunday night. And the thought strikes me that I ought to be happier than I am."

Not particularly profound, but to me it is such a simple, powerful sentence to start the book with.

[kennyc]

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Susianne

The first line in Duet by Carol Shields:

"Sunday night. And the thought strikes me that I ought to be happier than I am."

Not particularly profound, but to me it is such a simple, powerful sentence to start the book with.

That's a great opening line. I already feel sympathy with the character, and I've never read the book.

Originally Posted by kennyc

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.

[WT Sharpe]

.....And since the mind is of a man one part,
.....Which in one fixed place remains, like ears,
.....And eyes, and every sense which pilots life;
.....And just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart,
.....Severed from us, can neither feel nor be,
.....But in the least of time is left to rot,
.....Thus mind alone can never be, without
.....The body and the man himself, which seems,
.....As ‘twere the vessel of the same—or aught
.....Whate’er thou’lt feign as yet more closely joined:
.....Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds.

.....Again, the body’s and the mind’s live powers
.....Only in union prosper and enjoy;
.....For neither can nature of mind, alone of itself
.....Sans body, give the vital motions forth;
.....Nor, then, can body, wanting soul, endure
.....And use the senses.
..........— Lucretius [Titus Lucretius Carus] (c.99-55 B.C.E.), Roman poet. On the Nature of Things (c. 50 B.C.E.), tr. by William Ellery Leonard, Book III, "The Soul Is Mortal."

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Susianne

The first line in Duet by Carol Shields:

"Sunday night. And the thought strikes me that I ought to be happier than I am."

Not particularly profound, but to me it is such a simple, powerful sentence to start the book with.

Excellent opening line!
We already are interested and know something is going to happen, something is going to change....

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Excellent opening line!
We already are interested and know something is going to happen, something is going to change....

......perhaps not, I can imagine the next line says ...."and here I am lying in a coffin being lowered into the ground !"

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

......perhaps not, I can imagine the next line says ...."and here I am lying in a coffin being lowered into the ground !"

That's still something!!!

[WT Sharpe]

.....No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
..........— Nelson (Rolihlahla) Mandela (1918 - ), former resistance leader to the policy of Apartheid, President of South Africa. Long Walk to Freedom (1994). Quoted in The Great Thoughts (1985, Introduction and a new compilation © 1996 by David Laskin) by George Seldes.