Wings Quotes - page 9
It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful.
H. P. Lovecraft
I thank Our Lord that He let me find nothing but bitterness in human affections. I should have been caught easily, and had my wings clipped...Our Lord knew that I was far too weak to face temptation; He knew that I would certainly have burnt myself in the bewildering light of earthly things, and so He did not let it shine in my eyes. Where stronger souls find joy but remain detached because they are faithful, I found only misery.
Thérèse of Lisieux
Instinctively we both looked for the inscriptions we cut, once upon a time, on trees and on stones, in foolish delight. We sought them like scattered treasure, on the strange cheeks of the old willows, near the tendrils of the fall, on the birches that stand like candles in front of the violet thicket, and on the old fir which so often sheltered us with its dark wings. Many inscriptions have disappeared. Some are worn away because things do; some are covered by a host of other inscriptions or they are distorted and ugly. Nearly all have passed on as if they had been passers-by.
Henri Barbusse
Through it all I learned the value of being humble to the dust, reduced to ashes. Everyone should experience that. Before you can recognize you're somebody, you have to know you're nobody. [-] The butterfly was just a lowly worm in its beginning. The worm didn't live with the moment-to-moment expectation of sprouting wings and taking flight. He lived a useful and productive life, the life of a worm. And he had to die a worm in order to be born as an angel! The spinning of the cocoon is, in and of itself, remarkable. It is as wondrous as the emergence and first flight of the butterfly.
Henry Miller
The doctrine of the cynics is the Ideal reversed, the parody of physical and moral beauty, the crime of mind, the degradation of imagination. I could not take pleasure in it. There was too much enthusiasm within me to permit me to crawl through those sinks of the brain. My nature had wings. The dangers to which I was exposed were above, not below.
Alphonse de Lamartine
