Yquotes.com

 

Two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There are perfect couples, no doubt — perfection always exists somewhere — but I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know! — the human being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of pleasure.

 

Henri Barbusse

» Henri Barbusse - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

Only the actual conception of the divine nature changes according to the different ideas of perfection which prevail in particular ages and nations. The gods of the remoter ages of Greece and Rome, and those worshipped by our own earliest forefathers, were simply ideals of bodily strength and prowess. As the idea of sensuous beauty arose and gradually became refined, the sensuous personification of beauty was exalted to the throne of deity; and hence arose what we might call the religion of art. When men ascended from the sensuous to the purely spiritual, from the beautiful to the good and true, the sum of all moral and intellectual perfection became the object of their adoration, and religion became the province of philosophy.

 

Wilhelm von Humboldt

 

Being the Avatar, I have come to awaken mankind, and would like the entire world to come to me. Real saints are dearest and nearest to my heart. Perfect Ones and lovers of God adorn the world, and will ever do so. The physical presence of the Perfect Masters throughout eternity is not necessarily confined to any particular or special part of the globe. My salutations to all — the past, present and future Perfect Masters, real saints — known and unknown — lovers of God, and to all other beings, in all of whom I reside, whether consciously felt by them or not.

 

Meher Baba

 

It is usually thought to be very clever to say that Faust finally becomes a Don Juan, but this means very little, since the real question is in what sense he becomes one. Faust is a daemonic figure like a Don Juan, but higher. The sensuous first becomes significant in him only after he has lost the entire preceding world, but the consciousness of this loss is not erased, it is constantly present, and he seeks therefore in the sensuous not so much enjoyment as a diversion of mind. His doubting soul finds nothing in which it can rest, and now he reaches after love, not because he believes in it, but because it has a present element in which there is rest for a moment, and a striving which distracts and diverts his attention from the nothingness of doubt. Hence his enjoyment does not have the cheerful serenity which distinguishes a Don Juan. His countenance is not wreathed in smiles, his brow is not unclouded, and happiness is not his companion; the young women do not dance into his embrace, but he frightens them to him. What he seeks is not merely the pleasure of the sensuous, but what he desires is the immediacy of the spirit. As the shades of the underworld, when they got hold of a living being, sucked his blood, and lived as long as this blood warmed and nourished them, so Faust seeks an immediate life by which he can be renewed and strengthened. And where can this be found better than in a young woman, and how can he absorb it more perfectly than in the embrace of love? As the Middle Ages tell of sorcerers who understood how to prepare an elixir for the renewal of youth, and used the heart of an innocent child for that purpose, so is this the strengthening potion his starved soul needs, the only thing which is able to satisfy him for a moment. His sick soul needs what I might call a young heart’s first green shoots; and with what else shall I compare an innocent feminine soul’s first youth? If I were to call it a blossom, I should say too little, for it is more, it is a flowering: the soundness of hope and faith and trust shoots forth and blossoms in rich variety, and soft impulses move the delicate shoots, and dreams shade their fruitfulness. Thus it affects a Faust, it beckons to his restless soul like a peaceful isle in the quiet sea. That it is transient no one knows better than Faust; he does not believe in it any more than he believes in anything else; but that it exists, of that he convinces himself in the embrace of love. Only the fullness of innocence and childlikeness can for a moment refresh him. 204-205

 

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

 

Perfection, cosmically, was nothing but perfect Equanimity and Harmony; and in human relations, nothing but perfect Love and Justice. And Perfection began to glow before the eyes of the Western world like a new star, whose light touched with glamour all things as they came forth from Mystery, till to Mystery they were ready to return.
This — I thought is surely what the Western world has dimly been rediscovering. There has crept into our minds once more the feeling that the Universe is all of a piece, Equipoise supreme; and all things equally wonderful, and mysterious, and valuable. We have begun, in fact, to have a glimmering of the artist's creed, that nothing may we despise or neglect — that everything is worth the doing well, the making fair — that our God, Perfection, is implicit everywhere, and the revelation of Him the business of our Art.

 

John Galsworthy

 

To prove cannot mean anything other than to bring the other person to my own conviction. The truth lies only in the unification of “I” and “You.” The Other of pure thought, however, is the sensuous intellect in general. In the field of philosophy, proof therefore consists only in the fact that the contradiction between sensuous intellect and pure thought is disposed, so that thought is true not only for itself but also for its opposite.

 

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach