The sinner awaits his future with fear, Any second is his downfall, Any minute is his long awaited punishment.
The Saint carries on with his future with every second linked to the past

>>25511231
He had long taken to talking to himself but that night he said not a word.

>>25511261
God I love books just for shit like this

>I felt I was myself a crawling insect doomed to perish, seized by destruction in the midst of a whole world ready to go to sleep.

>“Whether it comes to a clan, sect or demonic group, whether it is this world or earth, all organizations are like this. The high and low positions are established, making the law of promotion clear, letting those in the organization climb up non-stop from the bottom. Because chasing after profit is the nature of humans, and positions of authority often make people have superiority, creating the illusion that oneself is living a more valuable life than others.”
>“Power is like the carrot dangling in front of a donkey. The desires of humans are stimulated by it, and each of them secure their personal gains with someone with authority for it. After climbing up one level, there will be a higher level. While they are busy currying favour for personal gain, their hard work is squeezed out from them and their value is exploited by the upper position.”
>“In every organization, as long as there is a chain of command, it is to give serve to those at the upper ranks. The so-called class monitor and vice-class monitor position is like the smallest carrot, luring everyone else into the structure of the clan. And to stop those below from realizing the truth, those at the higher positions integrate shared values, clear-cutting the idea of glory, meritorious deeds etc. The establishment of high and low positions are made along with unequal benefits. Sometimes the use of religion is done to dominate people’s hearts.”
>“This is the real truth, yet it is a pity that too many people in the world do not understand; they foolishly work hard for others. And for every organization in the world, the most fundamental of its essence is just one thing, and that is – The redistribution of resources, where the higher the position the more resources they can enjoy.”
>“Thus any organization is just a representation, while the real basis is just one word – resources. Without food resources, one will die of starvation. Without water resources, one will die of thirst. Without cultivation resources, one will become weak and sooner or later, be bullied to death.”

>maybe the real moby dick was the friends that we made along the way
>this journey back home after the war is taking so long, what is this some sort of odyssey?
>isn't the literature teacher acting weird after taking the cancer medication? He looks like a stoner
>we need to remain united during these difficult times, after all we are the brothers karamazov
>i hate staying in the tartar's desert, there is too much sand

>>25511430
>LOOK OUT, THERE IS A CATCHER IN THE RYE!
>europe won history because they had god, germs and steel on their side
>you know, Paul, I think this whole roman legionary thing is not for you, have your ever read the bible?

>>25511231
"Your pride lies shattered with your shield,
Your wrath curls bleeding upon the field,
Now you linger in my shade weeping,
Mourning an honour that is my keeping,
Praying for children who are mine to enslave,
Beseeching lovers who are mine to deprave."

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>>25511231

>Life is sweet, brother.
>Do you think so?
>Think so! There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things. There's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?"

>>25511231
There is a head on a pole behind you.
Brutalities spin and scrape, like leaves blasted in the wind.
He is here … with you … not so much inside me as speaking with your voice.
There is a head on a pole behind you.
And he walks, though there is no ground. And he sees, though his eyes have rolled into his brow. Through and over, around and within, he flees and he assails … For he is here.
*Here.*
They seize him from time to time, the Sons of this place, and he feels the seams tear, hears his scream. But he cannot come apart—for unlike the Countless Dead his heart beats still.
His heart beats still.
There is a head on a pole behind you.
He comes to the shore that is here, always here, gazes without sight across waters that are fire, and sees the Sons swimming, lolling and bloated and bestial, raising babes as wineskins, and drinking deep their shrieks.
There is a head on a pole behind you.
And he sees that these things are *meat*, here. Love is meat. Hope is meat. Courage. Outrage. Anguish. All these things are meat—seared over fire, sucked clean of grease.
There is a head on a pole.
*Taste*, one of the Sons says to him. *Drink*.
It draws down its bladed fingers, and combs the babe apart, plucking him into his infinite strings, laying bare his every inside, so that it might lick his wrack and wretchedness like honey from hair. *Consume* … And he sees them descending as locusts, the Sons, drawn by the lure of his meat.
There is a head … and it cannot be moved.
So he seizes the lake and the thousand babes and the void and the massing-descending Sons and the lamentations-that-are-honey, and he rips them about the pole, transforms here into *here*, *this-place-inside-where-you-sit-now*, where he has always hidden, always watched, where Other Sons, recline, drinking from bowls that are skies, savouring the moaning broth of the Countless, bloating for the sake of bloat, slaking hungers like chasms, pits that eternity had rendered Holy …
*We pondered you*, says the most crocodilian of the Sons.
“But I have never been here.”
*You said this very thing*, it grates, seizing the line of the horizon, wrapping him like a fly. Legs click like machines of war. *Yesss*…
And you refuse to succumb to their sucking mouths, ringed with one million pins of silver. You refuse to drip fear like honey—because you have no fear.
Because you fear *not* damnation.
Because there is a head on a pole behind you.
“And what was your reply?”
*The living shall not haunt the dead.*

>Then Turin sprang about, and strode against him, and the edges of Gurthang shone as with flame; but Glaurung withheld his blast, and opened wide his serpent-eyes and gazed upon Turin. Without fear Turin looked into them as he raised upon the sword; and straightway he fell under the binding spell of the lidless eyes of the dragon, and was halted moveless. Then for a long time he stood as one graven of stone; and they two were alone, silent before the doors of Nargothrond. But Glaurund spoke again, taunting Turin, and he said: 'Evil have been all they ways, son of Hurin. Thankless fosterling, outlaw, slayer of thy friend, thief of love, usurper of Nargothrond, captain foolhardy, and deserter of thy kin. As thralls thy mother and thy sister live in Dor-lomin, in misery and want. Thou art arrayed as a prince, but they go in rags; and for thee they yearn, but tho carest not for that. Glad may thy father be to learn that he hath such a son; as learn he shall.' And Turin being under the spell of Glaurung hearkened to his words, and he say himself as in a mirror misshapen by malice, and loathed that which he saw.

These all make me think that, out of context, writing isn't that great.

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>>25511544
>this small portion of a painting makes me think that painting, without context, isn't that great

>>25511544
>>>/a/
>>>/v/

Perhaps they'll cancel it.
O blow fall out the officers cantcher, like a wet afternoon
or the King's birthday
Or you read it again many times to see if it will come different:
you can't believe the Cup won't pass from
or they wont make a better show
in the Garden

Won't someone forbid the banns
or God himself will stay their hands.
It just can't happen in our family
even though a thousand
and ten thousand at thy right hand.

>>25511231
She boobed very breastily

>>25511504
>somebody else on this board has read lavengro
based

>>25511554
yes exactly.
none of these are particularly striking. They all ring a little hollow. They require context.
And yes, painting requires context. Moreso writing even. Unsure why you would think it wouldn't.

>>25511657
That's a mistranslation. It's actually "breasted very boobily"

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It's cliché at this point but I was never able to appreciate any sort of literature as meaningfully ever since reading Karenina.

>He had got to the bottom of the hill, and, lifting up his eyes, saw the strange changes of the sky. The pale band had broadened into a clear vast space of light, and above, the heavy leaden clouds were breaking apart and driving across the heaven before the wind. He stopped to watch, and looked up at the great mound that jutted out from the hills into mid-valley. It was a natural formation, and always it must have had something of the form of a fort, but its steepness had been increased by Roman art, and there were high banks on the summit which Lucian’s father had told him were the vallum of the camp, and a deep ditch had been dug to the north to sever it from the hillside. On this summit oaks had grown, queer stunted-looking trees with twisted and contorted trunks, and writhing branches; and these now stood out black against the lighted sky. And then the air changed once more; the flush increased, and a spot like blood appeared in the pond by the gate, and all the clouds were touched with fiery spots and dapples of flame; here and there it looked as if awful furnace doors were being opened.
>The wind blew wildly, and it came up through the woods with a noise like a scream, and a great oak by the roadside ground its boughs together with a dismal grating jar. As the red gained in the sky, the earth and all upon it glowed, even the grey winter fields and the bare hillsides crimsoned, the waterpools were cisterns of molten brass, and the very road glittered. He was wonder-struck, almost aghast, before the scarlet magic of the afterglow. The old Roman fort was invested with fire; flames from heaven were smitten about its walls, and above there was a dark floating cloud, like a fume of smoke, and every haggard writhing tree showed as black as midnight against the black of the furnace.

>>25511990
That quote made me want to read it until I saw it's over 900 pages

>"Hell of a world we live in…"
>"That's right," I said, "or even worse, it could be perfect."

>There is nothing very remarkable about being immortal; with the exception of mankind, all creatures are immortal, for they know nothing of death. What is divine, terrible, and incomprehensible is to know oneself immortal.

>There's no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one.

>>25511555
>I'm better than guys who go on /a/ and /v/ because I post philosophy quotes to my instagram stories

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>>25512171
It's 900 pages of that. Wouldn't you be happy that there is more to read of what you like?

>>25511261
What is this from?

>>25513043
last Russian author I tried was Dostoevsky. I gave up less than 100 pages in because it was such a pain keeping track of all the characters and their names.

"There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams."

>>25511231
"Les taxis, c'est bien des pédés ; ils s'arrêtent pas, on peut crever."

Bernard!

>Alkland looked appalled at this until Zenda explained that the delivery girls are only pseudoflesh droids. Pizza firms in some of the seedier Neighbourhoods run a service where a pseudoflesh pizza droid will come round, have sex with you, cook you a pizza and then leave, and all for twenty credits. It was voted ‘Most Tremendous

>As they were conversing in this way, Herr and Frau Samsa were struck almost as one while observing their daughter, who was growing ever more vivacious, by the thought that despite all the torments that had made her cheeks grow pale, she had recently blossomed into a beautiful, voluptuous girl. Growing quieter now and communicating with one another almost unconsciously by an exchange of glances, they thought about how it would soon be time to find her a good husband. And when they arrived at their destination, it seemed to them almost a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions when their daughter swiftly sprang to her feet and stretched her young body.

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>>25511231

Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.

"“The personal, as every one’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here—it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide out from under with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it PERSONAL. Do as much damage as you can. GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference, the ONLY difference in their eyes, between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that IT’S NOTHING PERSONAL. Well, fuck them. Make it personal."

-The only good bit from Altered Carbon, which quotes it from another (fictional) book, written by a character who barely even appears

>>25511231
The more she drank the more she shat.

There's nothing like puking with somebody to make you fast friends.

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>Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But they grieve for many years
yes you can make fun of me