Scented Inspirational Quotes

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Women waste so much time wearing no perfume. As for me, in every step that I have taken in life, I have been accompanied by an exquisite perfume!
C. JoyBell C.
God dances with the outcast.
Steven James (How to Smell Like God: True Stories Burning With the Scent of Heaven)
This isn’t lust. Lust wants, does the obvious, and pads back into the forest. Love is greedier. Love wants round-the-clock care; protection; rings, vows, joint accounts; scented candles on birthdays; life insurance. Babies. Love’s a dictator.
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
For me, you are fresh water that falls from trees when it has stopped raining. For me, you are cinnamon that lingers on the tongue and gives bitter words sweetening. For me, you are the scent of violins and vision of valleys smiling. And still, for me, your loveliness never ends. It traverses the world and finds its way back to me. Only me.
Kamand Kojouri
Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.
Roman Payne
Gloomy room immersed in a scent of modern cowards filled with shapeless creatures sitting in silence because they have nothing to say Fake plastic faces with a grimace of disappointment painted on them Are we stuck on hold expecting our turn in a waiting room of so-called lost generation?
Annette Dabrowska (Train to the Edge of the Moon)
I can't over-emphasize how important an exquisite perfume is, to be wrapped and cradled in an enchanting scent upon your skin is a magic all on its own! The notes in that precious liquid will remind you that you love yourself and will tell other people that they ought to love you because you know that you're worth it. The love affair created by a good perfume between you and other people, you and nature, you and yourself, you and your memories and anticipations and hopes and dreams; it is all too beautiful a thing!
C. JoyBell C.
...Absorbed in the new scents, the sounds, and the sunlight...
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
Ô, Muse of the Heart’s Passion, let me relive my Love’s memory, to remember her body, so brave and so free, and the sound of my Dreameress singing to me, and the scent of my Dreameress sleeping by me, Ô, sing, sweet Muse, my soliloquy!
Roman Payne
I’m barely human. I’m more like a creature; to me, everything gives off a scent! Thoughts, moments, feelings, movements, words left unsaid, words barely spoken; they all have a distinct sense, distinct fragrances! Both a smell and a touch! To inhale is to capture, to experience! I can perceive and I can “touch” in so many odd ways! And so I am made up of all these scents, all these feelings! An illumination of nerve endings!
C. JoyBell C.
Louie found the raft offered an unlikely intellectual refuge. He had never recognized how noisy the civilized world was. Here, drifting in almost total silence, with no scents other than the singed odor of the raft, no flavors on his tongue, nothing moving but the slow porcession of shark fins, every vista empty save water and sky, his time unvaried and unbroken, his mind was freed of an encumbrance that civilization had imposed on it. In his head, he could roam anywhere, and he found that his mind was quick and clear, his imagination unfettered and supple. He could stay with a thought for hours, turning it about.
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
What a strange thing it is to wake up to a milk-white overcast June morning! The sun is hidden by a thick cotton blanket of clouds, and the air is vapor-filled and hazy with a concentration of blooming scent. The world is somnolent and cool, in a temporary reprieve from the normal heat and radiance. But the sensation of illusion is strong. Because the sun can break through the clouds at any moment . . . What a soft thoughtful time. In this illusory gloom, like a night-blooming flower, let your imagination bloom in a riot of color.
Vera Nazarian (The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration)
I want to be intoxicated by the darkened ether of midnight, running through my fingers as sparkling stardust. I crave the taste of the ocean's salty tears, as her temperamental tides crash and break against the rocks. I yearn for the sweet scent of sun on my skin and the earthy musk of dirt giving way under my bare feet. I want to lay naked in golden fields, as i gaze up at an endless sky, dreaming my dreams, as Mother Nature's love washes over me like spiritual sunshine.
Jaeda DeWalt
Time is a funny thing, it can give and it can take away; and a single moment in time can truly change one’s life forever! The best kind of love is unexpected, unexplainable, undeniable, and unimaginable. Your sweet scent will forever be with me, reminding me of the love we once shared. I will breathe in the memories until we meet again. Before you act on what you have been told, consider your source. It may simply be assumption on their part, and that can be far from fact. Why stand back and wait for someone to fail when you can stand up and offer your support? Love is when the sound of your partner’s snoring lulls you to sleep, and it acts as a reminder that they are there by your side. Building a wall around your heart is a voluntary imprisonment to which only you have the key. Open your heart to life’s possibilities!
Donna L. Jones
From his soft fur, golden and brown, Goes out so sweet a scent, one night I might have been embalmed in it By giving him one little pet. He is my household's guardian soul; He judges, he presides, inspires All matters in his royal realm; Might he be fairy? or a god? When my eyes, to this cat I love Drawn as by a magnet's force, Turn tamely back upon that appeal, And when I look within myself, I notice with astonishment The fire of his opal eyes, Clear beacons glowing, living jewels, Taking my measure, steadily.
Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs du Mal)
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands What water lapping the bow And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog What images return O my daughter
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
I thought of myself mixing the fragrance of a certain day – the heavy musk of the hillside after the rain with the lightness of fresh blossoms doused in the downpour. I thought of each little bottle as the essence of a happy day or a sad one. I mixed the scent of a lonely moment – sandalwood and bergamot lingering over a rich, peppery base.
Sara Sheridan (The Secret Mandarin)
Warm familiar scents drift softly from the oven, And imprint forever upon our hearts That this is home and that we are loved.
Arlene Stafford-Wilson (Lanark County Calendar)
Perfume is the scent that pours out of a flower's soul when crushed.
Matshona Dhliwayo
I love the song of the mockingbird, Bird of four hundred voices, I love the color of jade And the intoxicating scent of flowers, But more than all I love my brother, man.
Nezahualcóyotl
A miscreant with coiffed, scented hair, a slender waist, the hips of a woman and the chest of a Prussian officer, with a finely tied cravat, by all girls admired. ~ [introduction of character Montparnasse]
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
If you can think of your lover in six senses, then I'd say you're nailed. They've got themselves wrapped around your heart. And your cock. (...) Six senses? (...) Sight, sound, taste, scent, touch, and the other, that thing you can't figure out that means everything. 
C.M. Stunich (Losing Me, Finding You (Triple M, #1))
A rose’s beautiful scent is extracted only when it is crushed.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Every story begins somewhere, some in the rain of forgotten yesterdays and some in the scent of autumn leaves...
Jayita Bhattacharjee
Over endless crystalline waves travelled the sparkling scent of triumph, of limitless possibilities, of strength and inspiration.
Jan Moran
Stories never told, disappeared in the dawn mist and sunset blaze. Like a movie kiss, not real, but still overwhelms and entices lustfulness, turns me into pleasure and a connoisseur of love. Flying to the heavens above followed by the yearning hope that you will always be close to me, that you will not disperse when we revel in​ one another. Secrets to be kept in one of these terracotta walls that fade away through the dusk, feeling the scented candles of musk, just you and I, two rebels of love, that challenge the logic, the meaning, ​and sense.
Tatjana Ostojic (Baghdad Nights)
I’d loved women who were old and who were young; those extra kilos and large rumps, and others so thin there was barely even skin to pinch, and every time I held them, I worried I would snap them in two. But for all of these: where they had merited my love was in their delicious smell. Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.
Roman Payne
The wild. I have drunk it, deep and raw, and heard it's primal, unforgettable roar. We know it in our dreams, when our mind is off the leash, running wild. 'Outwardly, the equivalent of the unconscious is the wilderness: both of these terms meet, one step even further on, as one,' wrote Gary Snyder. 'It is in vain to dream of a wildness distinct from ourselves. There is none such,' wrote Thoreau. 'It is the bog in our brains and bowls, the primitive vigor of Nature in us, that inspires the dream.' And as dreams are essential to the psyche, wildness is to life. We are animal in our blood and in our skin. We were not born for pavements and escalators but for thunder and mud. More. We are animal not only in body but in spirit. Our minds are the minds of wild animals. Artists, who remember their wildness better than most, are animal artists, lifting their heads to sniff a quick wild scent in the air, and they know it unmistakably, they know the tug of wildness to be followed through your life is buckled by that strange and absolute obedience. ('You must have chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star,' wrote Nietzsche.) Children know it as magic and timeless play. Shamans of all sorts and inveterate misbehavers know it; those who cannot trammel themselves into a sensible job and life in the suburbs know it. What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakeable, unforgettable, unshamable, elemental as earth and ice, water, fire and air, a quitessence, pure spirit, resolving into no contituents. Don't waste your wildness: it is precious and necessary.
Jay Griffiths (Wild: An Elemental Journey)
When you savor life with your senses, every moment feels rich and meaningful. Think about how satisfying it feels to inhale the fresh scent of mown grass or slowly run your hand across a velvet pillow. These sensations are physically pleasurable, but they also provide opportunities for you to sync with your internal wisdom to help you create your ideal life.
Amy Masterman (Sacred Sensual Living: 40 Words for Praying with All Your Senses)
But how wonderful when the tale is told, And the message that is meant for us Opens like the scents of a mountain flower!
Mazisi Kunene
Life is an extraordinary gift some people appear not to appreciate. In every breath and scent, every touch and sight we are gifted by new experience and the chance to feel the richness of experience. Every sound we hear, from the song of a bird to the harshness of an angry voice, is a miracle.
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (Flashes of Thought)
In every single scenario that you step into, in life, it is like stepping into a body of water and you need to stop and really stand there to feel what's going on in that water— the temperature, the direction of the current, the particles in the water that brush up onto your skin, you need to close your eyes and inhale deeply to distinguish the scents that come from it. I have always done this, since I was a small girl, being aware of and feeling every atom that's in there. I'm a Water Bender. I bend the water; the water does not bend me.
C. JoyBell C.
Tomorrow she’d look up tattoo removal. They were doing big things with lasers now. When Cal was just a little more stable, she’d break up with him, gently, and then she’d begin her project of helping everybody she could help, and after that she’d head out on a great long journey to absolutely nowhere and write a gorgeous poem cycle steeped in heavenly lavender-scented closure and also utter despair, a poem cycle you could also actually ride for its aerobic benefits, and she’d pedal that fucker straight across the face of the earth until at some point she’d coast right off the edge, whereupon she’d giggle and say, “Oh, shit.
Sam Lipsyte
I pulled a dirty black sweatshirt from the laundry basket on my son’s floor and tried to drink in his scent, to savor the essence of my sweet boy. I inhaled it long and hard, wanting to permanently implant all of him in my brain, to make him last forever.
Shelley Ramsey (Grief: A Mama's Unwanted Journey)
The Louis XIII style in perfumery, composed of the elements dear to that period - orris-powder, musk, civet and myrtle-water, already known by the name of angel-water - was scarcely adequate to express the cavalierish graces, the rather crude colours of the time which certain sonnets by Saint-Amand have preserved for us. Later on, with the aid of myrrh and frankincense, the potent and austere scents of religion, it became almost possible to render the stately pomp of the age of Louis XIV, the pleonastic artifices of classical oratory, the ample, sustained, wordy style of Bossuet and the other masters of the pulpit. Later still, the blase, sophisticated graces of French society under Louis XV found their interpreters more easily in frangipane and marechale, which offered in a way the very synthesis of the period. And then, after the indifference and incuriosity of the First Empire, which used eau-de-Cologne and rosemary to excess, perfumery followed Victor Hugo and Gautier and went for inspiration to the lands of the sun; it composed its own Oriental verses, its own highly spiced salaams, discovered intonations and audacious antitheses, sorted out and revived forgotten nuances which it complicated, subtilized and paired off, and in short resolutely repudiated the voluntary decrepitude to which it had been reduced by its Malesherbes, its Boileaus, its Andrieux, its Baour-Lormians, the vulgar distillers of its poems.
Joris-Karl Huysmans (Against Nature)
An awfulness was deep inside me, and I couldn't fight it; forced into submission and taken hostage by it, I could only just lie there, let it wash over me, and let myself be consumed by it. If I cooperate, maybe it won't stay too long; maybe it'll let me go free. But if I fight it, it might stay longer just to spite me. So I decided to let The Feeling inhabit me as long as it desired, while I lay still, cautious not to incite me, secretly hoping it would leave me soon and bother someone else, but outwardly, pretending to be its gracious host. The most discouraging element of what I felt was my inability to understand it. Usually when I was filled with an unpleasant feeling, I could make it go away, or at least tame it, by watching a light-hearted film or reading a good book or listening to a feel good album. But this feeling was different. I knew non of those distractions could rid me of it. But I knew nothing else. I couldn't even describe it. Is this depression? Maybe once you ask someone to describe depression, he can't find the words. Maybe I'm part of the official club now. I imagined myself in a room full of people where someone in the crowd, also suffering from depression, immediately noticed me-as if he detected the scent of his own kind-walked over, and looked into my eyes. He knew that I had The Feeling inside me because he, too, da The Feeling inside him. He didn't ask me to talk about it, because he understood that our type of suffering was ineffable. He only nodded at me, and I nodded back; and then, during our moment of silence, we both shared a sad smile of recognition, knowing that we only had each other in a room filled with people who would never understand us, because they didn't have The Feeling inside them.
Nick Miller (Isn't It Pretty To Think So?)
Every one of us, unconsciously, works out a personal philosophy of life, by which we are guided, inspired, and corrected, as time goes on. It is this philosophy by which we measure out our days, and by which we advertise to all about us the man, or woman, that we are... It takes but a brief time to scent the life philosophy of anyone. It is defined in the conversation, in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It's like the perfume of a flower -- unseen, but known almost instantly. It is the possession of the successful, and the happy. And it can be greatly embellished by the absorption of ideas and experiences of the useful of this earth.
George Matthew Adams
They told me to wake up and smell the coffee, but I was too busy following the scent of my dreams.
Matshona Dhliwayo
[...]completed to-do lists and sparkling, lemon-scented floors are wonderful when they appear [...], but that the most important thing of all is that my home to be a place of love.
Hallie Lord (On the Other Side of Fear: How I Found Peace)
After the leave-taking, there is the leaving. And once you have left, you discover the ten thousand things that you still carry - memories of touch, scent and sight.
Omair Ahmad (The Storyteller's Tale)
A single scent takes you to unseen worlds with excitement on every level, to impossible landscapes painted with colors no one has ever seen.
Poncho Civeira (5 Breaths to Freedom)
Do something which arouses happiness in your own bones.
Callre (Scent of an Undiscovered Writer)
Poetry is the scent of a soul who longed to utter the deepest words but remained unuttered on the lips. It is then that the words are released as a scent on the pages..
Jayita Bhattacharjee
The night finds the flowers of light and seasons, the scent of life, for darkness sees the blossom of stars and spring comes to the fields of frost.
Jayita Bhattacharjee
The bell above the door chimed, and magic tingled at my fingertips. The scent of ink and freshly printed paper swirled invitingly in the air as I followed my parents in the bookstore.
Julie Abe (Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch (Eva Evergreen, #1))
The smell of hot coffee is like a pleasant scent of the first rain on dry earth; It is a product favoring Friendship, Love, Affection, and should always be consumed with someone else.
Ruchi Prabhu
Season by season, life unfolds. When winter brings the feast of snow, Joy is slain by the winds that blow, but spring arrives and the scent floats, for petal by petal, the primrose opens.
Jayita Bhattacharjee
She breathed in the scent of lemon blossoms, inspired by how their citrus sweetness mingled with fresh ocean air. Closing her eyes, she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, tasting a faint saltiness in the moisture laden breeze. She imagined how dark, rich chocolate filled with the brightness of a lemon filling and dusted with chunky sea salt might taste. Delicious, she decided.
Jan Moran (The Chocolatier)
As the lilac-scented breeze carries the memories...there remains the lingering reminder of the times we hold in deep...for to love deeply and live deeply.... is to smell the fragrance of life.....
Jayita Bhattacharjee
O heart.... Keep speaking to this drunken breeze...Keep feeling the wild winds that carry the scent of flowers for to be a lover of earth is to be a visionary. Keep believing in the purest of feelings.
Jayita Bhattacharjee
Try telling the boy who’s just had his girlfriend’s name cut into his arm that there’s slippage between the signifier and the signified. Or better yet explain to the girl who watched in the mirror as the tattoo artist stitched the word for her father’s name (on earth as in heaven) across her back that words aren’t made of flesh and blood, that they don’t bite the skin. Language is the animal we’ve trained to pick up the scent of meaning. It’s why when the boy hears his father yelling at the door he sends the dog that he’s kept hungry, that he’s kicked, then loved, to attack the man, to show him that every word has a consequence, that language, when used right, hurts.
Todd Davis
Do you know a Ukraine night? No, you do not know a night in the Ukraine. Gaze your full on it. The moon shines in the midst of the sky; the immeasurable vault of heaven seems to have expanded to infinity; the earth is bathed in silver light; the air is warm, voluptuous, and redolent of innumerable sweet scents. Divine night! Magical night! Motionless, but inspired with divine breath, the forests stand, casting enormous shadows and wrapped in complete darkness. Calmly and placidly sleep the lakes surrounded by dark green thickets. The virginal groves of the hawthorns and cherry-trees stretch their roots timidly into the cool water; only now and then their leaves rustle slumber; but there is a mysterious breath upon the heights. One falls into a weird and unearthly mood, and silvery apparitions rise from the depths. Divine night! Magical night! Suddenly the woods, lakes, and steppes become alive. The nightingales of the Ukraine are singing, and it seems as though the moon itself were listening to their song. The village sleeps as though under a magic spell; the cottages shine in the moonlight against the darkness of the woods behind them. The songs grow silent, and all is still. Only here and there is a glimmer of light in some small window. Some families, sitting up late, are finishing their supper at the threshholds of their houses.
Nikolai Gogol (Village Evenings Near Dikanka and Mirgorod)
Bathing is not negotiable! So is brushing your teeth and washing your underwear, so that you always have a fresh inviting scent around you. People should want to be around you, not avoid you because of unfriendly odours coming out of your mouth, shoes or armpits. Do the best with what you have; even the old can be made clean and hygienic to improve your image.
Archibald Marwizi (Making Success Deliberate)
O Lady. You are the flower of God's garden That God sent on earth to scent this world You are the strength of God's Power. That God Sent on earth to make humans strong You are the dew of God's kindness That God sent on earth to teach humanity You are the masterpiece of his creation. That God sent on earthTo make this world beautiful and worth living Wishing you a very Happy Women's day Thank you for making this world better. Peace and love..
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
Everything about the whimsical inn inspired curiosity instead of fear. In a third-floor bathing room, Evangeline found the most delightful copper tub, reminiscent of the clock in the hall. It had lovely jewelled handles and a faucet that could pout out different-coloured waters in a variety of scents: Pink honeysuckle. Lavender rose. Green pine needle. Silver rain. She'd mixed the rain and honeysuckle, and now she smelled like a sweet and stormy day.
Stephanie Garber (The Ballad of Never After (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #2))
Georgia closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensations of the island--- the bracing, spicy scent of evergreen needles, the briny creaminess of an oyster still in its shell, the chewy, viscous luxury of Star's honey on the comb, the light acidity of a local cider. And then she cooked what she felt, that sense of wonder, the lightness and clean sea salt air. A sprinkle of salt, the crispness of fresh vegetables, the unctuous luxury of good olive oil.
Rachel Linden (Recipe for a Charmed Life)
Inside, there was a bed, and upon the bed there was a woman. More beautiful was she even than the damask rose while her scent, drifting through the open window, was that of the night dew. Her hair was silken as the raven's wing. Quite naked, she lay, so still upon the bed, her eyes closed in reverie. The young man looked first upon her breasts, where her hand rested. And upon each breast, there was a rosebud nipple. Upon each nipple there was a tip most tender. Upon each tip there was a milky drop. Chin lifted, lips parted, she milked her maiden breast. 'What I would give to suckle at that teat,' thought he. from 'Against Faithlessness' in Cautionary Tales
Emmanuelle de Maupassant (Cautionary Tales: a collection of darkly delicious stories)
Here’s what happens when a single mom meets New York City’s hottest fireman… “Then…seductively…as if he received instruction not from the FDNY’s training school but at Chippendale’s…he slowly inches each suspender off his bare shoulders.” “You must know that exhilarating feeling of a man’s body on top of yours, all that power and muscle pressing you into the bed, the glorious taste of his tongue in your mouth, the manly scent that washes over you and makes you want to melt underneath him.” “Let’s not forget about his nine inches of shapely fireman hose dangling so close in front of my face the scent launches me into a blissful fever.” “Every place he touches contradicts his chosen profession, because instead of putting out a fire he surely starts one.” “I’m so darn helpless in the arms of this powerful, young, ripped personification of New York’s Bravest that I feel myself about to erupt in the most earth shattering explosion since Mount Vesuvius last announced her presence.” “I wonder if he could be enticed to show us a few maneuvers on the brass pole.” “He orchestrates his own personal opera, inspiring high notes with kisses and licks along my elongated nipples, and deep moans with hands that caress my belly.” “We are drawn uncontrollably to each other and have no power to resist, only the tremendous desire to experience everything in its most intense form.
Isabella Johns (My Hot Fireman (My Hot, #1))
Rothbury inhaled the familiar lemon-tinged air wafting before him. He remained silent, ignoring the zing of awareness thrumming through him, and listened for the sound of footfalls instead. Whoever had entered the room, it was definitely a young woman. He'd bet one of his prized Arabians on it, but it wasn't Cordelia. She smelled perpetually of pungent roses, which he had been partial to in the beginning of their short love affair, but which now merely reminded him that the woman connected to it was just as clingy and thorny as the flower itself. But this scent- he inhaled deeply as it now surrounded him- inspired contentment, which was a miracle in itself, considering all he wanted to do presently was break free, find Lady Gilton, and throttle her elegant neck. "Who's there?" Rothbury demanded, his tone firm but quiet. He pulled at the twisted silk binds holding his wrists together behind him, noting they were finally starting to tear. "Come now," he said in a tone he used on skittish horses. "Tell me who's there.
Olivia Parker (To Wed a Wicked Earl (Devine & Friends, #2))
They look like glittering golden cubes!" "And they're melting across the chicken breasts?!" "Wait a minute... OH! MORPHING FURIKAKE RICE!" "WELL, WELL! WHAT HAVE WE HERE?!" "The chicken's already savory and robust aroma... ... is growing even richer and stronger!" "A Furikake topping? At a glance, these look like cubes of some variety of aspic..." "The First and Second Seats were already over the moon about this dish." "Are you saying it is now even more delicious?!" "Aah! Unbelievable! Already the rich scent of roasted chicken tickles the nose!" "Hmph..." "This...? This flavor! I can hardly believe it! The warmth of the chicken has caused the aspic cubes to begin melting into a thick jelly... ... adding new and luxuriant layers to both the flavor and the texture of the dish! The salty savoriness of its flavor seeps quietly into the crispy rice crackers... ... while the scrambled-egg sauce is infused with an even more decadently creamy texture! "The sheer perfect balance of the dish is positively divine! Flavors clash and meld, amplifying and accenting each other in complete harmony! What creative originality! Who would have thought that one simple addition would add so much depth and complexity to the entire dish?!
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 30 [Shokugeki no Souma 30] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #30))
He lay under the great bearskin and stared out of the window at the stars of spring, no longer frosty and metallic, but as if they had been new washed and had swollen with the moisture. It was a lovely evening, without rain or cloud. The sky between the stars was of the deepest and fullest velvet. Framed in the thick western window, Alderbaran and Betelgeuse were racing Sirius over the horizon, the hunting dog-star looking back to his master Orion, who had not yet heaved himself above the rim. In at the window came also the unfolding scent of benighted flowers, for the currants, the wild cherries, the plums and the hawthorn were already in bloom, and no less than five nightingales within earshot were holding a contest of beauty among the bowery, the looming trees...He watched out at the stars in a kind of trance. Soon it would be the summer again, when he could sleep on the battlements and watch these stars hovering as close as moths above his face and, in the Milky Way at least, with something of the mothy pollen. They would be at the same time so distant that unutterable thoughts of space and eternity would baffle themselves in his sighing breast, and he would imagine to himself how he was falling upward higher and higher among them, never reaching, never ending, leaving and losing everything in the tranquil speed of space.
TH White
Curaj am. Dar e atat de mare frica.
Giovanni Arpino (Scent of a Woman)
It was the cupcakes that saved her. Leilani Trusdale thought about that as she carefully extracted the center from the final black forest cupcake, then set the corer aside up the pastry bag of raspberry truffle filling. She breathed in the mingled scents of dark chocolate and sweet berries. It was inspiring, really, how much power a single, sweet cup of baked deliciousness could wield. Cupcake salvation.
Donna Kauffman (Sugar Rush (Cupcake Club #1))
There are times when a day from my childhood comes to me, swirls around me, teases me as I try to catch the memory in my hands, as I try to catch the scents, the sounds, the warmth of the sun on my young face. In bare feet, I reach for it, the memory that is. I reach for summer nights, playing chase, reach across a thousand miles to the comfort of my father’s voice, to the rush of heat when my mother opens the oven to check on the baking, reach toward the rush of laughter, toward home, toward the glory days of my youth. The only way to catch an elusive memory is to open my heart and swallow it whole. When I die, I’ll be stuffed full of memories, too many to fit into a casket.
Brenda Sutton Rose
There are times when a time from my childhood comes to me, swirls around me, teases me as I try to catch the memory in my hands, as I try to catch the scents, the sounds, the warmth of the sun on my young face. In bare feet, I reach for it, the memory that is. I reach for summer nights, playing chase, reach across a thousand miles to the comfort of my father’s voice, to the rush of heat when my mother opens the oven to check on the baking, reach toward the rush of laughter, toward home, toward the glory days of my youth. The only way to catch an elusive memory is to open my heart and swallow it whole. When I die, I’ll be stuffed full of memories, too many to fit into a casket.
Brenda Sutton Rose
Nothing that exists must be suppressed, nothing can be dispensed with. Those aspects of life which Christians and other Nihilists reject, belong to an incalculably higher order in the hierarchy of values, than that which the instinct of degeneration calls good, and may call good. In order to understand this, a certain courage is necessary, and, as a prerequisite of this, a certain superfluity of strength: for a man can approach only as near to truth as he has the courage to advance—that is to say, everything depends strictly upon the measure of his strength. Knowledge, and the affirmation of reality, are just as necessary to the strong man as cowardice, the flight from reality—in fact, the "ideal"—are necessary to the weak inspired by weakness.... These people are not at liberty to "know,"—decadents stand in need of lies,—it is one of their self-preservative measures. He who not only understands the word "Dionysian," but understands himself in that term, does not require any refutation of Plato, or of Christianity, or of Schopenhauer—for his nose scents decomposition.
Nietszche
Mauve cream Kabuki actors use conceal dark circles under my eyes. I brush soothing sable bristles of coral blush across high cheekbones, smudge taupe color on eye lids, darken thick lashes, dot ash rose gloss across my lips. Heavy red frame glasses and rose lenses cover grey eyes. I rip the telephone from the wall and stumble, drunk and crying, to the door, batter the facing with the phone handle, counting arrhythmic phlegmatic beats. Splinters and fragments of wood fall to the floor, a lingering catarrh lying among pale turquoise and gold threads. The scent of roses and jasmine lingers. The sky and dot and window refracture. I look into the gold leaf mirror, pleased with the effect: A perfect face reflects no inner turmoil.
Kay Merkel Boruff (Z.O.S.: A Memoir)
She lowered her arms but didn’t move out of his embrace. He should let go, back away, but her eyes were very wide and very blue. He slipped into them, bending his head toward hers, catching the scent of vanilla that whispered of fresh-baked cookies, a loving family, the home he’d never known.
Regina Scott (Frontier Matchmaker Bride (Frontier Bachelors, 8))
The feeling of freedom and scent of sea air are intoxicating. As the wind picks up, I gain speed, holding on to life with a capital L
Laurie Nadel
I highly recommend running through grassy trails in the rain. There is a haven of serenity out in nature, the sound of raindrops and the scent of flowers, the feeling of the water along my skin. Even in the middle of a busy city and an insane world, there is beauty everywhere. All we have to do is pause long enough to notice.
Jacqueline Simon Gunn
I highly recommended running through grassy trails in the rain. There is a haven of serenity out in nature, the sound of raindrops and the scent of flowers, the feeling of the water along my skin. Even in the middle of a busy city and an insane world, there is beauty everywhere. All we have to do is pause long enough to notice.
Jacqueline Simon Gunn
Don’t ever lose your smile. Don’t ever let anything take away the joy from your laugh. You never know when the taste of laughter on the tongue or the scent of happiness in the air might save one’s life.
Emory R. Frie (Wonderland (Realms #1))
Pendragon had been the first person to accept his condition without judgement, but Avenell wanted so much more than acceptance from Lily. The feel of her body in his hands, her skin like warmed silk under his lips, had been intense. He had never experienced a woman's body the way he had Lily's, as though every bit of her was magic. Her softness and quiet strength had inspired him to a tenderness he had not known he possessed. The scent of the sweet jasmine and earthy sandalwood of his perfume mingled flawlessly on her body. On every inhale he had drawn her essence in with his breath, and his blood had heated dangerously.
Amy Sandas (The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2))
Think about this--if you buy a perfume or aftershave because it’s the trendiest scent at the moment, but you don’t really like it, how often will you wear it? With essential oils the same is true. Take some time to find the scents that you like, even if it whittles your list down to only two or three.
Amy Leigh Mercree (The Mood Book: Crystals, Oils, and Rituals to Elevate Your Spirit)
Everything about the whimsical inn inspired curiosity instead of fear. In a third-floor bathing room, Evangeline found the most delightful copper tub, reminiscent of the clock in the hall. It had lovely jewelled handles and a faucet that could pour out different-coloured waters in a variety of scents: Pink honeysuckle. Lavender rose. Green pine needle. Silver rain. She'd mixed the rain and honeysuckle, and now she smelled like a sweet and stormy day.
Stephanie Garber (The Ballad of Never After (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #2))
Stories are the legends we tell ourselves while sitting around campfires early in the morning, steam rising in coils from coffee cups scented with wood smoke dripping fog wet beyond the rim of what we see; the creations of myths told and collective extrapolations remembered limited only by our vision. Yesterday and today blend and twine into one, only to be pulled apart as the dichotomy of their existence is merged. Spiraling ever outward their memories are carried on the winds, carried to the west, the south, over the edge of the world and back. The winds of spirits gone and of those yet to come. What we dream today, we dream tomorrow for their existence is the same. There is no contextual difference. No separate language. And so the winds that blow across the mountains and plains today commingle with those whose existence began before their stories were born, dancing as they do so through the night. A night of songs. A night of dreaming and distance. A night wherein the ghosts of everything commune as one, forever seeking dissolution from the boundaries of the civilized world beyond...
P Edmonds Young
That evening, after the show wrapped up, she needed to drop off her perfumes at a shop in Flatiron, so I decided to walk with her to the train. We decided to keep walking, summer lingered in the air, and we talked about everything—the Middle Eastern–Arab–South Asian–Muslim milieus that inspired us, how the first perfumer in the world was a woman in the Middle East, Tapputi, a chemist in Babylonian Mesopotamia, how the erasure of these histories from the dominant culture valued the noses of white men, how we faced snobbery and struggled to make the outsides of our brands, the packaging, match the quality of our scents, with money we hadn’t inherited.
Tanaïs (In Sensorium: Notes for My People)
I never thought I could be smitten by a human scent. I love the smell of ocean, the wet damp fragrance of earth after rains, the season's first flower but the aroma of you is completely different! Your scent is the arousal of mind & body, it wraps around me & shrouds my fears, insecurities & negativities. It is a spark that lit the hope for love on a candle wick that was broken & frayed among the lies of the world. For some reason that I have been scared to admit, it smelt like time - Mahakal.... That could possibly I don't know but turn into forever, the push of destiny! Your scent is the the call of parallel universe that dreams out for a pseudo intimacy likewise in the same way Krishna did rashlila with gopinis. Lastly, yes I got my answers about how personality can be reformed by love which Bhagawatam wants to narrate but we can't understand residing in the delusions created by lust.... Thanks, Koyena [The divine lady] ❤❤
@lost
In that moment, I was inexplicably overcome with emotion. As I studied Survivor—the little claws that protruded from his paws, the whiskers that jutted from his furry cheeks, the eyes that had adjusted to the artificial scent of a billion blossoms that still hung in the air—the gravity of his name sank in, and I felt a deep connection to that kitten. As a cancer patient, I long to be a survivor, too. This tiny, wobbly-legged, rambunctious kitten is what I want to be.
Jennifer D. James (Feisty Righty: A Cancer Survivor's Journey)
A great perfume can express the intangible, but essential, intentions of a designer and convey the constant, enduring, and driving identity of the fashion house. It was through Marc Rosen's advocacy that I came to realize that the greatest modern perfume bottles were an art reflecting art. They exist as design objects in their own right, but are directly responsive to the composition of the scents they hold. A perfume, based on a series of layers and combinations of scent and composed of "notes" in a system that is at once science and subjectivity, is dependent on the sensory and the intuitive. With evocative qualities that are an amalgam of references framing it conceptually, a perfume can inspire possibilities of representation through graphics and the form of its flacon. Perfume bottles reside at the intersection of aesthetics and technology. They are, at their most artful, the sculptural manifestations of the ideas, emotions, and poetry elicited by a fragrance.
Marc Rosen (Glamour Icons: Perfume Bottle Design by Marc Rosen)
We've done the grilled tomato and peach pizza at Le Papillon Sauvage. We've served the beet and peach soup. And the peach and cucumber salsa over the chicken. The tarts. The cobblers. The homemade ice cream. I don't know. I'm tapped out for ideas." Phillipa rolled a peach on a cutting board, massaging it. "Pork," she said. "Peaches and pork would taste amazing together. Or pan-seared foie gras? What do you think?" "If you can come up with something interesting, I'm all for it." "Me?" she asked. "But you're the chef. And I want to be inspired by you." "That makes two of us," I said. "You're doing amazing things." Phillipa halved a peach, cut into it, and then handed over a slice. "Eat this, savor it. Find your inspiration!" she said, and as I bit into it, I tried, able to focus only on the texture. As the juices from the slice ran across my tongue and down my throat, the sensation transported me to my childhood, to the teachings of my grand-mère in this kitchen, and her recipe for a peach crumble. The way she taught me to knead the flour, butter, and sugar into flaky crumbs, working her gentle hands with mine. I could almost feel her next to me, smell her cinnamon and nutmeg scent.
Samantha Verant (Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars (Sophie Valroux #2))
Losing a child breaks something fundamental in a mother, but it doesn't rob her of her ability to care, connect and love.
Susan Young Oskey (The Scent Of Roses: A Mother and Daughter Bond That Can Never Be Broken, Even After Death)
Mums are plants which spread their scent to love, heal and lead.
Qamar Rafiq
I drank a bitter cup of ale, a cupful of fancy, and thoughts slide beyond the mountain rill; clasping every fairness to the quill, the scent of flowers, the musical choir of birds, o’ air! the Divine here! for a poet’s joy to sigh!
Nithin Purple
To be hanged He was in his cell, Wondering about heaven and hell, Because he was the one due to be hanged, And throughout the night by old demons he was flanked and fanged, He remembered everything, his every act, That had turned him into the man whose conscience was never intact, A victim of many vagaries and a flippant attitude, Always surrounded by them in multitude, But tonight, his last night, when he could dream, when he could imagine, Think of a new hope maybe; and think of a new short battle that he could still win, Because tomorrow by the afternoon he shall be dangling on the noose, Which is already beginning to form a grip around his neck, though loose, He imagined and conversed with his own mind, And there he picked moments of happiness, whichever he could find, And waited for the sun’s rays to enter his dark cell, Where desires, wishes and hopes died and fell, In their midst he held on to few moments of happiness, just a few, To help him walk upto the noose and invent a form courage, totally new, The sun’s rays gradually gathered in his dark cell and brightened it slowly, As he looked at the walls hopelessly, but thoughtfully, He looked perturbed but not demented or lost, He knew it was the end of everything, his walk upto the gallows to be his steps last, But he appeared to struggle with the invisible frost, That had frozen his feelings and cast him in an emotional world where he was lost, He was despondent, yes he was, you can say that, But the man in him had not died yet, he had not allowed that, So he walked with careful but slow steps towards the final knot that would seal everything for him, And push him into the world where there will be nothing and noone except him, For that is the tragedy of dying, you die alone, with no one but you, But he had held on to his moments of happiness, as he approached the hangman, he asked him to do what he ought to do, The look between the two, the one dying and the one to end life forever, was strange, It was like a rose looking at its own scent, but looking at it, it felt it belonged to a different range, Of emotions, of senses, of feelings, of every thought, and as the he let go of his moments of happiness, The hangman covered his face and hanged him for the sake of justice, and then entered the moment of emotional stillness, For he had executed a man whose body dangled on the rope, A sight with which the hangman could not cope, He turned his face around and then forced himself to be the hangman he is always meant to be, Whereas the man who was just now hanged remained hanging forever in his memories, there now forever to be, And in the dark cell where the sun’s rays still try to find him, The man hangs on like the strange scent of the rose, in faint smells of the corners less bright and more dim!
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
In a smell it all came back...that autumn rain, the scent of a love that once was ripe, that immense hunger to touch the tender wound for it is still so raw and fresh. The scent of the quiet evenings still smells in the breeze..Love letters..how they hold the memories of yesterday!..
Jayita Bhattacharjee
n a smell it all came back..that autumn rain, the scent of a love that once was ripe, that immense hunger to touch the tender wound for it is still so raw and fresh. The scent of those quiet evenings still smells in the breeze ...Love letters..how they hold the memories of yesterday!...
Jayita Bhattacharjee
A scented rose is a ruby mine.
Jayita Bhattacharjee
In the tin-covered porch Mr Chawla had constructed at the rear of the house she had set up her outdoor kitchen, spilling over into a grassy patch of ground. Here rows of pickle jars matured in the sun like an army balanced upon the stone wall; roots lay, tortured and contorted, upon a cot as they dried; and tiny wild fruit, scorned by all but the birds, lay cut open, displaying purple-stained hearts. Ginger was buried underground so as to keep it fresh; lemon and pumpkin dried on the roof; all manner of things fermented in tightly sealed tins; chilli peppers and curry leaves hung from the branches of a tree, and so did buffalo curd, dripping from a cloth on its way to becoming paneer. Newly strong with muscles, wiry and tough despite her slenderness, Kulfi sliced and pounded, ground and smashed, cut and chopped in a chaos of ingredients and dishes. ‘Cumin, quail, mustard seeds, pomelo rind,’ she muttered as she cooked. ‘Fennel, coriander, sour mango. Pandanus flour, lichen and perfumed kewra. Colocassia leaves, custard apple, winter melon, bitter gourd. Khas root, sandalwood, ash gourd, fenugreek greens. Snake-gourd, banana flowers, spider leaf, lotus root …’ She was producing meals so intricate, they were cooked sometimes with a hundred ingredients, balanced precariously within a complicated and delicate mesh of spices – marvellous triumphs of the complex and delicate art of seasoning. A single grain of one thing, a bud of another, a moist fingertip dipped lightly into a small vial and then into the bubbling pot; a thimble full, a matchbox full, a coconut shell full of dark crimson and deep violet, of dusty yellow spice, the entire concoction simmered sometimes for a day or two on coals that emitted only a glimmer of faint heat or that roared like a furnace as she fanned them with a palm leaf. The meats were beaten to silk, so spiced and fragrant they clouded the senses; the sauces were full of strange hints and dark undercurrents, leaving you on firm ground one moment, dragging you under the next. There were dishes with an aftertaste that exploded upon you and left you gasping a whole half-hour after you’d eaten them. Some that were delicate, with a haunting flavour that teased like the memory of something you’d once known but could no longer put your finger on. Pickled limes stuffed with cardamom and cumin, crepuscular creatures simmered upon the wood of a scented tree, small river fish baked in green coconuts, rice steamed with nasturtium flowers in the pale hollow of a bamboo stem, mushrooms red – and yellow-gilled, polka-dotted and striped. Desire filled Sampath as he waited for his meals. Spice-laden clouds billowed forth and the clashing cymbals of pots and pans declared the glory of the meal to come, scaring the birds from the trees about him.
Kiran Desai (Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard)
Kulfi was beginning to feel a little tired of what she had been finding in the forest. She looked under a rock, by a tulip tree, along a stream. She needed a new ingredient, she thought, sniffing the air, something exciting and fresh to inspire her to an undiscovered dish, a new invention. She looked up into the sky. Already she had cooked a pigeon and a sparrow, a woodpecker, a hoopoe, a magpie, a shrike, an oriole, a Himalayan nightingale, a parrot … She had cooked a squirrel, a porcupine, a mongoose, all the wildfowl that could be found in those parts, the small fish in the stream, the round-shelled snails that crisscrossed the leaves with silver, the grasshoppers that leapt and jumped, landing with loud raindrop-like plops upon the foliage. Diligently, she searched for a new plant, a new berry, a new mushroom or lichen, fungus or flower, but everything about her looked familiar and dull. No new scents enlivened the air and she wandered farther and farther away.
Kiran Desai (Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard)
Does it seem like things were better when you were younger?" Huck asked. "Did life really make more sense then?" "Yeah," Tress whispered. "I remember...calm nights, watching the spores fall from the moon. Lukewarm cups of honey tea. The thrill of baking something new." "I remember not being afraid," Huck said. "I remember waking each day to familiar scents. I remember thinking I understood how my life would go. Same as my parents'. Simple. Maybe not wonderful, but also not terrifying." "I don't think things were really better though," Tress said softly, still staring at the ceiling. "We just remember it that way because it's comforting." "And because we couldn't see the troubles," Huck agreed. "Maybe we didn't want to see them. When you're young, there's always someone else to deal with the problems." Tress nodded. Beyond that, memories have a way of changing on us. Souring or sweetening over time - like a brew we drink, then recreate later by taste, only getting the ingredients mostly right. You can't taste a memory without tainting it with who you have become. That inspires me. We each make our own lore, our own legends, every day. Our memories are our ballads, and if we tweak them a little with every performance...well, that's all in the name of good drama. The past is boring anyway. We always pretend the ideals and culture of the past have aged like wine, but in truth, the ideas of the past tend to age more like biscuits. They simple get stale.
Brandon Sanderson (Tress of the Emerald Sea)
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sfceww
The human brain is fascinating; we will forget a scent until we smell it again, we will erase a voice from our memory until we hear it again,and even emotions that seemed buried forever will be awakened when we return to the same place.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Are you conscious of the scent or odour emanating from your mouth, arm pits, stockings or elsewhere? Are you friendly to your environment? Is your dressing, hair style and make up in line with your defined mission and values? How can you start managing your image and brand for a consistently good impression all the time? Does your image reflect your aspirations?
Archibald Marwizi (Making Success Deliberate)
For God’s sake, Eve Windham, it was just a kiss under the mistletoe, probably inspired by your papa’s wassail more than anything else.” She had to put her hand on his arm while the feeling of the ground shifting beneath her feet swept over her. “My brothers said it was white rum.” “The occasional tot makes the holiday socializing less tedious. You really do not look well.” The last observation was grudging, almost worried. “I did not mean to swill from your glass, Deene. You should have stopped me.” They had to get to the coach. The night felt like it was closing in, and Deene’s voice—a perfect example of male aristocratic euphony—was swelling and shrinking in the oddest way. “I might have stopped you, except you downed the whole drink before I realized what was afoot, and then you were accosting me in the most passionate—” Eve clutched his arm and swayed into him, breathing shallowly through her mouth. “If you insist on arguing with me, my lord, I will be ill all over these bushes.” “Why didn’t you say so?” He slipped an arm around her waist and promenaded her down the steps. By the time they got to the garden gate, the nausea was subsiding, though Eve was leaning heavily on her escort. She had the notion that the scents of cedar and lavender coming from Deene’s jacket might have helped quiet her stomach. Deene ushered her through the gate, which put them on a quiet, mercifully dark side street. “How often do these headaches befall you?” “Too often. Sometimes I go for months between attacks, sometimes only days. The worst is when it hits on one side, subsides for a day, then strikes on the other.” Deene pulled one of his gloves off with his teeth, then used two fingers to give a piercing, three-blast whistle. “Sorry.” All the while he kept his arm around Eve’s waist, a solid, warm—and quite unexpected—bulwark against complete disability. “The coach will here in moments. Is there anything that helps?” “Absolute quiet, absolute dark, time.” Though her mother used to rub her neck, and that had helped the most. He said nothing more—Deene wasn’t stupid—and Eve just leaned on him. Her grandmother had apparently suffered from these same headaches, though neither Eve’s parents nor her siblings were afflicted. The clip-clop of hooves sounded like so much gunfire in Eve’s head, but it was the sound of privacy, so Eve tried to welcome it. Deene gave the coachy directions to the Windham mansion and climbed in after Eve. “Shall I sit beside you, my lady?” An odd little courtesy, that he would even ask. “Please. The less I move, the less uncomfortable I am.” He settled beside her and looped an arm around her shoulders. Without a single thought for dignity, skirmishes, or propriety, Eve laid her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes, and was grateful. ***
Grace Burrowes (Lady Eve's Indiscretion (The Duke's Daughters, #4; Windham, #7))
Search constantly for people, places, things, pictures, sounds, or scents that inspire you. Your most important responsibility is to keep yourself inspired always.
Mensah Oteh
Lost When my exit came, I left the highway and soon locked the front door behind me as I breathed in the familiar scent of home. I knew I would have a scary story for my parents in the morning, and I knew a cell phone would soon be coming my way. And I will always wonder…Did I see an angel? -Jenny Snow
Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul: Angels Among Us: 101 Inspirational Stories of Miracles, Faith, and Answered Prayers)
Picture her then: Daphne Manners, a big girl (to borrow a none too definite image from Lady Chatterjee) leaning on the balcony outside her bedroom window, gazing with concentration (as one might gaze for two people, one being absent, once deprived, since dead, and now regretted) at a landscape calculated to inspire in the most sympathetic western heart a degree of cultural shock. There is (even from this vantage point above a garden whose blooms will pleasurably convey scent if you bend close enough to them) a pervading redolence, wafting in from the silent, heat-stricken trembling plains; from the vast panorama of fields, from the river, from the complex of human dwellings (with here and there, spiky or bulbous, a church, a mosque, a temple), from the streets and lanes and the sequestered white bungalows, the private houses, the public buildings, the station, from the rear quarters of the MacGregor House.
Paul Scott (The Jewel in the Crown (The Raj Quartet, #1))
As a child, I ate up the image Carl strived to portray: An inspirational rags-to-riches tale of a go-getter emerging the hell of his sulfur-scented, Podunk Texas upbringing. With a community college dropout education, Carl managed to reach six figures as a mobile home lot manager when the trailer park industry boomed in the early nineties. He decorated his accomplishments with a large house, yachts, and weekly morale shindigs for his salesmen bursting with open bars and filet mignon. However, my mother was by far his prettiest accessory.
Magda Young
Here is why the wellbeing economy comes at the right time. At the international level there have been some openings, which can be exploited to turn the wellbeing economy into a political roadmap. The first was the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. The SDGs are a loose list of 17 goals, ranging from good health and personal wellbeing to sustainable cities and communities as well as responsible production and consumption. They are a bit scattered and inconsistent, like most outcomes of international negotiations, but they at least open up space for policy reforms. For the first time in more than a century, the international community has accepted that the simple pursuit of growth presents serious problems. Even when it comes at high speed, its quality is often debatable, producing social inequalities, lack of decent work, environmental destruction, climate change and conflict. Through the SDGs, the UN is calling for a different approach to progress and prosperity. This was made clear in a 2012 speech by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who explicitly connected the three pillars of sustainable development: ‘Social, economic and environmental wellbeing are indivisible.’82 Unlike in the previous century, we now have a host of instruments and indicators that can help politicians devise different policies and monitor results and impacts throughout society. Even in South Africa, a country still plagued by centuries of oppression, colonialism, extractive economic systems and rampant inequality, the debate is shifting. The country’s new National Development Plan has been widely criticised because of the neoliberal character of the main chapters on economic development. Like the SDGs, it was the outcome of negotiations and bargaining, which resulted in inconsistencies and vagueness. Yet, its opening ‘vision statement’ is inspired by a radical approach to transformation. What should South Africa look like in 2030? The language is uplifting: We feel loved, respected and cared for at home, in community and the public institutions we have created. We feel understood. We feel needed. We feel trustful … We learn together. We talk to each other. We share our work … I have a space that I can call my own. This space I share. This space I cherish with others. I maintain it with others. I am not self-sufficient alone. We are self-sufficient in community … We are studious. We are gardeners. We feel a call to serve. We make things. Out of our homes we create objects of value … We are connected by the sounds we hear, the sights we see, the scents we smell, the objects we touch, the food we eat, the liquids we drink, the thoughts we think, the emotions we feel, the dreams we imagine. We are a web of relationships, fashioned in a web of histories, the stories of our lives inescapably shaped by stories of others … The welfare of each of us is the welfare of all … Our land is our home. We sweep and keep clean our yard. We travel through it. We enjoy its varied climate, landscape, and vegetation … We live and work in it, on it with care, preserving it for future generations. We discover it all the time. As it gives life to us, we honour the life in it.83 I could have not found better words to describe the wellbeing economy: caring, sharing, compassion, love for place, human relationships and a profound appreciation of what nature does for us every day. This statement gives us an idea of sufficiency that is not about individualism, but integration; an approach to prosperity that is founded on collaboration rather than competition. Nowhere does the text mention growth. There’s no reference to scale; no pompous images of imposing infrastructure, bridges, stadiums, skyscrapers and multi-lane highways. We make the things we need. We, as people, become producers of our own destiny. The future is not about wealth accumulation, massive
Lorenzo Fioramonti (Wellbeing Economy: Success in a World Without Growth)