This is a quote from “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf:
Life for both sexes —and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement —is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in [...]
I am currently reading “Fear and Trembling” by Søren Kierkegaard which (more or less) opens with the following passage:
If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable [...]
I am always amazed at the effect the weather can have on people’s moods. This spring/summer time of the year can often bring out the best in people, especially when there has been lots of sunshine (as I have had here recently).
It makes me realise just how many things that we probably don’t even realise [...]
What does it really mean to “experience” something?
I think we can experience events on so many different levels, not just from person to person, but in ourselves as well. Sometimes we might be feeling receptive and get a lot more from an experience than if we were busy or distracted. Similarly, some people skim through [...]
Can we ever really be content?
I always want more or better. I find it almost impossible to live in “the now”. I always am thinking about how I can improve things, what would make things better, which often results in me missing what is good at the moment.
It’s good to have hope, and dreams. But [...]
What does wealth and security give us? If you look at the people who get depressed, or moan about all their problems, they are not always the worst off people, but often the better off. At school, a lot of the people who became depressives were people from “stable” (or at least richer) homes, and [...]
What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams … and we search in vain for their original … [...]