Venus Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Venus. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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He was now in that state of fire that she loved. She wanted to be burnt.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.
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Charles Dickens
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True rebels hate their own rebellion. They know by experience that it is not a cool and glamorous lifestyle; it takes a courageous fool to say things that have not been said and to do things that have not been done.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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Find a purpose to serve, not a lifestyle to live.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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Aphrodite,โ€ [Annabeth] said. โ€œVenus?โ€ Hazel asked in amazement. โ€œMom,โ€ Piper said with no enthusiasm. โ€œGirls!โ€ The goddess spread her arms like she wanted a group hug. The three demigods did not oblige. Hazel backed into a palmetto tree.
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Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
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In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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When a man can listen to a woman's feelings without getting angry and frustrated, he gives her a wonderful gift. He makes it safe for her to express herself. The more she is able to express herself, the more she feels heard and understood, and the more she is able to give a man the loving trust, acceptance, appreciation, admiration, approval, and encouragement that he needs.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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โ€Ž" when men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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You have corrupted my imagination and inflamed my blood...
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
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To be heroic is to be courageous enough to die for something; to be inspirational is to be crazy enough to live a little.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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Confidence is like a dragon where, for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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I had a feeling that Pandora's box contained the mysteries of woman's sensuality, so different from a man's and for which man's language was so inadequate. The language of sex had yet to be invented. The language of the senses was yet to be explored.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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When a poet digs himself into a hole, he doesn't climb out. He digs deeper, enjoys the scenery, and comes out the other side enlightened.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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Love is as simple as the absence of self given to another. God, when invited, fills the void of any unrequited love; hence loving is how one is drawn closer to God no matter its most horrific repercussions.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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Men are motivated when they feel needed while women are motivated when they feel cherished.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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I feel a little like the moon who took possession of you for a moment and then returned your soul to you. You should not love me. One ought not to love the moon. If you come too near me, I will hurt you.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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And in his eyes he had the look of the cat who inspires a desire to caress but loves no one, who never feels he must respond to the impulses he arouses.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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Love knows no virtue, no merit; it loves and forgives and tolerates everything because it must. We are not guided by reason...
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
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I want to fall in love in such a way that the mere sight of a man, even a block away from me, will shake and pierce me, will weaken me, and make me tremble and soften and melt.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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He was jealous of her future, and she of his past.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.
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Martin Amis (House of Meetings)
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In order to share one's true brilliance one initially has to risk looking like a fool: genius is like a wheel that spins so fast, it at first glance appears to be sitting still.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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Alas, woman is faithful as long as she loves, but you demand that she be faithful without love and give herself without enjoyment. Who is cruel then, woman or man?
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
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Showing a lack of self-control is in the same vein granting authority to others: 'Perhaps I need someone else to control me.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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Love brings up our unresolved feelings . One day we are feeling loved , and the next day we are suddenly afraid to trust love . The painful memories of being rejected begin to surface when we are faced with trusting and accepting our partner's love .
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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If we are to feel the positive feelings of love, happiness, trust, and gratitude, we periodically also have to feel anger, sadness, fear, and sorrow.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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Also, I do not like the companionship of women. They are petty and personal. They hang on to their mysteries and secrets, they act and pretend. I like the character of men better.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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Because she is afraid of not being supported, she unknowingly pushes away the support she needs.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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Hey, Venus, I have two words for you,' Aphrodite said. Venus hesitated and glanced over her shoulder at her ex-roommate. Aphrodite smiled her best mean-bitch sneer and said, 'Re. Bound.' She paused and gave a bithy smirk and then said, 'Good luck with that.
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P.C. Cast
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There is a perfection in everything that cannot be owned,
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta Of Venus: Erotica by Anaรฏs Nin)
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The dangerous one was Ren. Innocent though the white tiger he appeared to be, he was a compelling predator. Utterly irresistible -- like a Venus flytrap. So alluring, so tempting, so deadly. Everything he did was seductive and possibly hazardous to my health.
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Colleen Houck (Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, #1))
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Get the love you deserve and gave your partner the love and support he deserves
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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Everyone judges constantly: positively judging one person is the same as negatively judging everyone else; it is to say that that person is superior in some sense.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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Sorry... my mind was wandering... one time it went all the way to Venus and ordered a meal I couldnโ€™t pay for.
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Steven Wright
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That's Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It's nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night.
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Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Fairyland, #2))
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There is a perfection in everything that cannot be owned.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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With a hint of good judgment, to fear nothing, not failure or suffering or even death, indicates that you value life the most. You live to the extreme; you push limits; you spend your time building legacies. Those do not die.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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The rose has told In one simplicity That never life Relinquishes a bloom But to bestow An ancient confidence.
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Nathalia Crane (Venus Invisible and Other Poems)
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Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years.
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Junot Dรญaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)
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I would rather be an artist than a leader. Ironically, a leader has to follow the rules.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly.
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
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I love her passionately with a morbid intensity; madly as one can only love a woman who never responds to our love with anything but an eternally uniform, eternally calm, stony smile.
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
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we are unique individuals with unique experiences
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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You are the drop,and the ocean you are kindness,you are anger, you are sweetness,you are poison. Do not make me more disheartened. you are the chamber of the sun, you are the abode of venus, you are the garden of all hope. Oh, Beloved, let me enter.
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Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (Love: The Joy That Wounds: The Love Poems of Rumi)
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The Venus flytrap, a devouring organism, aptly named for the goddess of love.
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Tennessee Williams (Suddenly Last Summer)
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Love is without a doubt the laziest theory for the meaning of life, but when it actually comes a time to do it we find just enough energy to over-complicate life again. Any devil can love, whom he himself sees as, a good person who has treated him well, but to love also the polar opposite is what separates love from fickle emotions.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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In the age of technology there is constant access to vast amounts of information. The basket overflows; people get overwhelmed; the eye of the storm is not so much what goes on in the world, it is the confusion of how to think, feel, digest, and react to what goes on.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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The truth lies in between the 1st and the 40th drink
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Tori Amos (To Venus and Back)
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If the entire world sought to make itself worthy of happiness rather than make itself happy, then the entire world would be happy.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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The devil's happy when the critics run you off.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
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When she closed her eyes she felt he had many hands, which touched her everywhere, and many mouths, which passed so swiftly over her, and with a wolflike sharpness, his teeth sank into her fleshiest parts. Naked now, he lay his full length over her. She enjoyed his weight on her, enjoyed being crushed under his body. She wanted him soldered to her, from mouth to feet. Shivers passed through her body.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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He unzipped his pants and his brains fell out.
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Rita Mae Brown (Venus Envy)
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Not to be needed is a slow death for a man.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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When a woman's wave rises she feels she has an abundance of love to give, but when it falls she feels her inner emptiness and needs to be filled up with love.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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Secrets. Need to disguise. The novel was born of this.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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Aphrodite," she said. "Venus?" Hazel asked in amazement. "Mom," Piper said, with no enthusiasm.
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Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
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In the land where excellence is commended, not envied, where weakness is aided, not mocked, there is no question as to how its inhabitants are all superhuman.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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We mistakenly assume that if our partners love us they will react and behave in certain waysโ€”the ways we react and behave when we love someone.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Sunday Times Bestsellar and definitive relationship guide (181 POCHE))
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Advice for a human. 90. But know this. Men are not from Mars. Women are not from Venus. Do not fall for categories. Everyone is everything. Every ingredient inside a star is inside you, and every personality that ever existed competes in the theatre of your mind for the main role. 91. You are lucky to be alive. Inhale and take in life's wonders. Never take so much as a single petal of a flower for granted.
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Matt Haig (The Humans)
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When you realize someone is trying to hurt you, it hurts less." "Unless you love them.
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Shirley Hazzard (The Transit of Venus)
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Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth. Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star. But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and glorious than the small, nearby star we call the Sun. And many--perhaps most--of those alien suns have planets circling them. So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first ape-man, his own private, world-sized heaven--or hell. How many of those potential heavens and hells are now inhabited, and by what manner of creatures, we have no way of guessing; the very nearest is a million times farther away than Mars or Venus, those still remote goals of the next generation. But the barriers of distance are crumbling; one day we shall meet our equals, or our masters, among the stars. Men have been slow to face this prospect; some still hope that it may never become reality. Increasing numbers, however are asking; 'Why have such meetings not occurred already, since we ourselves are about to venture into space?' Why not, indeed? Here is one possible answer to that very reasonable question. But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.
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Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1))
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ุงู† ุงูƒุจุฑ ุชุญุฏูŠุงุช ุงู„ุฑุฌู„ ุชุฑุฌู…ุฉ ูƒู„ุงู… ุงู„ู…ุฑุฃุฉ ุงุฐุง ุชุญุฏุซุช ูˆ ู…ุณุงู†ุฏุชู‡ุง ุจุงู„ุชูู‡ู… ูˆุงู„ุชุฃูŠูŠุฏ ุงู„ู…ู†ุงุณุจูŠู† ู„ู„ู…ูˆู‚ู ูˆ ู„ู…ุดุงุนุฑู‡ุง... ูˆ ุงูƒุจุฑ ุชุญุฏูŠุงุช ุงู„ู…ุฑุฃุฉ ุชุฃูˆูŠู„ ุตู…ุช ุงู„ุฑุฌู„ ูˆ ู…ุณุงู†ุฏุชู‡ ุจุชู‚ุจู„ู‡ ูˆ ุฏุนู…ู‡ ุจุงู† ุชุชุฑูƒ ู„ู‡ ุงู„ู…ุณุงุญุฉ ุงู„ุชูŠ ูŠุญุชุงุฌ ุงู„ูŠู‡ุง
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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You have a curious way of arousing one's imagination, stimulating all one's nerves, and making one's pulses beat faster. You put an aureole on vice, provided only if it is honest. Your ideal is a daring courtesan of genius. Oh, you are the kind of man who will corrupt a woman to her very last fiber.
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
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If I seek to fulfill my own needs at the expense of my partner, we are sure to experience unhappiness, resentment, and conflict. The secret of forming a successful relationship is for both partners to win.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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Even when they did not look at each other or speak to each other, he could feel a powerful current between them.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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I never believed in Santa Claus. None of us kids did. Mom and Dad refused to let us. They couldn't afford expensive presents and they didn't want us to think we weren't as good as other kids who, on Christmas morning, found all sorts of fancy toys under the tree that were supposedly left by Santa Claus. Dad had lost his job at the gypsum, and when Christmas came that year, we had no money at all. On Christmas Eve, Dad took each one of us kids out into the desert night one by one. "Pick out your favorite star", Dad said. "I like that one!" I said. Dad grinned, "that's Venus", he said. He explained to me that planets glowed because reflected light was constant and stars twinkled because their light pulsed. "I like it anyway" I said. "What the hell," Dad said. "It's Christmas. You can have a planet if you want." And he gave me Venus. Venus didn't have any moons or satellites or even a magnetic field, but it did have an atmosphere sort of similar to Earth's, except it was super hot-about 500 degrees or more. "So," Dad said, "when the sun starts to burn out and Earth turns cold, everyone might want to move to Venus to get warm. And they'll have to get permission from your descendants first. We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. "Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten," Dad said, "you'll still have your stars.
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Jeannette Walls (The Glass Castle)
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Mental chemistry creates interest, Emotional chemistry Generates Affection, Physical chemistry generates desire, and Spiritual chemistry creates love. A soulmate includes all four...and I will not settle for anything less!
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
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The Devil may take the reckless, but the good will surely die of boredom. Boredom and frustration.
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Sarah Dunant (The Birth of Venus)
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There is a master way with words which is not learned but is instead developed: a deaf man develops exceptional vision, a blind man exceptional hearing, a silent man, when given a piece of paper...
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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[The Old Astronomer to His Pupil] Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then to now. Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete, Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet, And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true, And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you. But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn, You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn, What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles; What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles. You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late, But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate. Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. What, my boy, you are not weeping? You should save your eyes for sight; You will need them, mine observer, yet for many another night. I leave none but you, my pupil, unto whom my plans are known. You 'have none but me,' you murmur, and I 'leave you quite alone'? Well then, kiss me, -- since my mother left her blessing on my brow, There has been a something wanting in my nature until now; I can dimly comprehend it, -- that I might have been more kind, Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind. I 'have never failed in kindness'? No, we lived too high for strife,-- Calmest coldness was the error which has crept into our life; But your spirit is untainted, I can dedicate you still To the service of our science: you will further it? you will! There are certain calculations I should like to make with you, To be sure that your deductions will be logical and true; And remember, 'Patience, Patience,' is the watchword of a sage, Not to-day nor yet to-morrow can complete a perfect age. I have sown, like Tycho Brahe, that a greater man may reap; But if none should do my reaping, 'twill disturb me in my sleep So be careful and be faithful, though, like me, you leave no name; See, my boy, that nothing turn you to the mere pursuit of fame. I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak; Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak: It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,-- God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars.
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Sarah Williams (Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse)
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Men need to remember that women talk about problems to get close and not necessarily to get solutions.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Sunday Times Bestsellar and definitive relationship guide (181 POCHE))
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ุชุดุนุฑ ุงู„ู…ุฑุฃู‡ ุจุงู„ุฏุนู… ูˆุงู„ู…ุณุงู†ุฏู‡ ุงุฐุง ุตุฏู‚ ุงู„ุฑุฌู„ ู…ุดุงุนุฑู‡ุง , ูˆูŠุดุนุฑ ุงู„ุฑุฌู„ ุจุงู„ุฑุนุงูŠุฉ ูˆุงู„ุงู‡ุชู…ุงู… ุงุฐุง ูˆุงูู‚ุชู‡ ุงู„ู…ุฑุฃุฉ ุงููƒุงุฑู‡ุง
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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He had not touched me. He did not need to. His presence had affected me in such a way that I felt as if he had caressed me for a long time.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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words carry colors and sounds into the flesh
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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Houses are really bodies. We connect ourselves with walls, roofs, and objects just as we hang on to our livers, skeletons, flesh and bloodstream. I am no beauty, no mirror is necessary to assure me of this absolute fact. Nevertheless I have a death grip on this haggard frame as if it were the limpid body of Venus herself.
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Leonora Carrington (The Hearing Trumpet)
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ุงู„ู…ุดุงุฑูƒุฉ ููŠ ู…ุดูƒู„ุงุชูƒ ู…ุน ุดุฎุต ุขุฎุฑ ุชุนุชุจุฑ ุนู„ู‰ ุณุทุญ ุงู„ุฒู‡ุฑุฉ ููŠ ุงู„ุญู‚ูŠู‚ุฉ ุนู„ุงู…ุฉ ุญุจ ูˆุซู‚ุฉ ูˆู„ูŠุณ ุนุจุฆุง
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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Desire followed the glance, pleasure followed desire
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
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Sometimes it takes a lowly, title-less man to humble the world. Kings, rulers, CEOs, judges, doctors, pastors, they are already expected to be greater and wiser.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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As Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may think he does, but when he is brought to the test it proves otherwise... For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms.
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C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)
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She is a mortal danger to all men. She is beautiful without knowing it, and possesses charms that she's not even aware of. She is like a trap set by nature - a sweet perfumed rose in whose petals Cupid lurks in ambush! Anyone who has seen her smile has known perfection. She instills grace in every common thing and divinity in every careless gesture. Venus in her shell was never so lovely, and Diana in the forest never so graceful as you.
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Cyrano de Bergerac
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Let's not grow with our roots in the ground.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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ุญุงุฌุงุช ุงู„ู†ุณุงุก ู„ู„ุดุนูˆุฑ ุจุงู„ุชุญุณู† ุนู† ุทุฑูŠู‚ ุงู„ุชุญุฏุซ ุนู† ุงู„ู…ุดูƒู„ุงุช ุฃู…ุง ุงู„ุฑุฌุงู„ ุนู† ุทุฑูŠู‚ ุญู„ ุงู„ู…ุดูƒู„ุงุช
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you?โ€ โ€œIt's purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself, looking at yourself exactly as you look to everyone else?
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Theodore Sturgeon (Venus Plus X)
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Bad luck with women is a determined man's road to success. For every affliction, he makes, out of indignation, yet another advancement in order to exceed the man that the woman chose over him. This goes to show that great men are made great because they once learned how to fight the feeling of rejection.
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known. They have known for thousands of years that to lock a sick person into solitary confinement makes him worse. They have known for thousands of years that a poor man who is frightened of his landlord and of the police is a slave. They have known it. We know it. But do the great enlightened mass of the British people know it? No. It is our task, Ella, yours and mine, to tell them. Because the great men are too great to be bothered. They are already discovering how to colonise Venus and to irrigate the moon. That is what is important for our time. You and I are the boulder-pushers. All our lives, you and I, weโ€™ll put all our energies, all our talents into pushing a great boulder up a mountain. The boulder is the truth that the great men know by instinct, and the mountain is the stupidity of mankind.
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Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook)
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The Dimwit's Guide to the Female Mind might assist your efforts in understanding human females. But it must be pointed out that this subject can be a dangerous adventure and should be undertaken with extreme caution. After all, human males have been trying to understand their females for generations, and most of the time they come away from these encounters looking like someone stuck their tails into an electric socket.
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Anne Bishop (Marked in Flesh (The Others, #4))
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I gathered poets around me and we all wrote beautiful erotica. As we were condemned to focus only on sensuality, we had violent explosions of poetry. Writing erotica became a road to sainthood rather than to debauchery.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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How do I look to him?" she asked herself. She got up and brought a long mirror towards the window. She stood it on the floor against a chair. Then she sat down in front of it on the rug and, facing it, slowly opened her legs. The sight was enchanting. The skin was flawless, the vulva, roseate and full. She thought it was like the gum plant leaf with its secret milk that the pressure of the finger could bring out, the odorous moisture that came like the moisture of the sea shells. So was Venus born of the sea with this little kernel of salty honey in her, which only caresses could bring out of the hidden recesses of her body.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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Dear Collector: We hate you. Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. You have taught us more than anyone I know how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships that change its color, flavor, rhythms, intensities. "You do not know what you are missing by your micro-scopic examination of sexual activity to the exclusion of aspects which are the fuel that ignites it. Intellectual, imaginative, romantic, emotional. This is what gives sex its surprising textures, its subtle transformations, its aphrodisiac elements. You are shrinking your world of sensations. You are withering it, starving it, draining its blood. If you nourished your sexual life with all the excitements and adventures which love injects into sensuality, you would be the most potent man in the world. The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation. Sex does not thrive on monotony. Without feeling, inventions, moods, no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine. How much do you lose by this periscope at the tip of your sex, when you could enjoy a harem of distinct and never-repeated wonders? No two hairs alike, but you will not let us waste words on a description of hair; no two odors, but if we expand on this you cry Cut the poetry. No two skins with the same texture, and never the same light, temperature, shadows, never the same gesture; for a lover, when he is aroused by true love, can run the gamut of centuries of love lore. What a range, what changes of age, what variations of maturity and innocence, perversity and art . . . We have sat around for hours and wondered how you look. If you have closed your senses upon silk, light, color, odor, character, temperament, you must be by now completely shriveled up. There are so many minor senses, all running like tributaries into the mainstream of sex, nourishing it. Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy.
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Anaรฏs Nin (Delta of Venus)
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I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South, No wraith, but utterlyโ€”as still more alone The Southern Cross takes night And lifts her girdles from her, one by oneโ€” High, cool, wide from the slowly smoldering fire Of lower heavens,โ€” vaporous scars! Eve! Magdalene! or Mary, you? Whatever callโ€”falls vainly on the wave. O simian Venus, homeless Eve, Unwedded, stumbling gardenless to grieve Windswept guitars on lonely decks forever; Finally to answer all within one grave! And this long wake of phosphor, iridescent Furrow of all our travelโ€”trailed derision! Eyes crumble at its kiss. Its long-drawn spell Incites a yell. Slid on that backward vision The mind is churned to spittle, whispering hell. I wanted you . . . The embers of the Cross Climbed by aslant and huddling aromatically. It is blood to remember; it is fire To stammer back . . . It is Godโ€”your namelessness. And the washโ€” All night the water combed you with black Insolence. You crept out simmering, accomplished. Water rattled that stinging coil, your Rehearsed hairโ€”docile, alas, from many arms. Yes, Eveโ€”wraith of my unloved seed! The Cross, a phantom, buckledโ€”dropped below the dawn. Light drowned the lithic trillions of your spawn.
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Hart Crane (The Bridge)
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There were moments - when Jeopardy came on, in the car during radio trivia challenges, or for practically any question I couldn't answer in any subject - that Rogerson simply amazed me. I started to seek out facts, just to stump him, but it never worked. He was that sharp. "In physics," I sprung on him as we sat in the Taco Bell drive-through, "what does the capital letter W stand for?" "Energy," he said, handing me my burrito. Sitting in front of my parents' house as he kissed me goodnight: "Which two planets are almost identical in size?" "Duh," he said, smoothing my hair back, "Venus and Earth." "Rogerson," I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, "where would I find the pelagic zone?" "In the open sea," he said. "Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints.
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Sarah Dessen (Dreamland)
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The individual who rebels against the arrangements of society is ostracized, branded, stoned. So be it. I am willing to take the risk; my principles are very pagan. I will live my own life as it pleases me. I am willing to do without your hypocritical respect; I prefer to be happy. The inventors of the Christian marriage have done well, simultaneously to invent immortality. I, however, have no wish to live eternally. When with my last breath everything as far as Wanda von Dunajew is concerned comes to an end here below, what does it profit me whether my pure spirit joins the choirs of angels, or whether my dust goes into the formation of new beings? Shall I belong to one man whom I don't love, merely because I have once loved him? No, I do not renounce; I love everyone who pleases me, and give happiness to everyone who loves me. Is that ugly? No, it is more beautiful by far.
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
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Why not?" she said, "and take note of what I am about to say to you. Never feel secure with the woman you love, for there are more dangers in woman's nature than you imagine. Women are neither as good as their admirers and defenders maintain, nor as bad as their enemies make them out to be. Woman's character is characterlessness. The best woman will momentarily go down into the mire, and the worst unexpectedly rises to deeds of greatness and goodness and puts to shame those that despise her. No woman is so good or so bad, but that at any moment she is capable of the most diabolical as well as of the most divine, of the filthiest as well as of the purest, thoughts, emotions, and actions. In spite of all the advances of civilization, woman has remained as she came out of the hand of nature. She has the nature of a savage, who is faithful or faithless, magnanimous or cruel, according to the impulse that dominates at the moment. Throughout history it has always been a serious deep culture which has produced moral character. Man even when he is selfish or evil always follows principles, woman never follows anything but impulses. Don't ever forget that, and never feel secure with the woman you love.
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus In Furs)
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In the twentieth century, astrophysicists in the United States discovered galaxies, the expanding of the universe, the nature of supernovas, quasars, black holes, gamma-ray bursts, the origin of the elements, the cosmic microwave background, and most of the known planets in orbit around solar systems other than our own. Although the Russians reached one or two places before us, we sent space probes to Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. American probes have also landed on Mars and on the asteroid Eros. And American astronauts have walked on the Moon. Nowadays most Americans take all this for granted, which is practically a working definition of culture: something everyone does or knows about, but no longer actively notices. While shopping at the supermarket, most Americans arenโ€™t surprised to find an entire aisle filled with sugar-loaded, ready-to-eat breakfast cereals. But foreigners notice this kind of thing immediately, just as traveling Americans notice that supermarkets in Italy display vast selections of pasta and that markets in China and Japan offer an astonishing variety of rice. The flip side of not noticing your own culture is one of the great pleasures of foreign travel: realizing what you hadnโ€™t noticed about your own country, and noticing what the people of other countries no longer realize about themselves.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson (Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries)
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I saw thee once - only once - years ago: I must not say how many - but not many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber, Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, Where no wind dared stir, unless on tiptoe - Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That gave out, in return for the love-light, Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death - Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That smiled and died in the parterre, enchanted By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence. Clad all in white, upon a violet bank I saw thee half reclining; while the moon Fell upon the upturn'd faces of the roses, And on thine own, upturn'd - alas, in sorrow! Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight - Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,) That bade me pause before that garden-gate, To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? No footsteps stirred: the hated world all slept, Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven! - oh, G**! How my heart beats in coupling those two words!) Save only thee and me. I paused - I looked - And in an instant all things disappeared. (Ah, bear in mind the garden was enchanted!) The pearly lustre of the moon went out: The mossy banks and the meandering paths, The happy flowers and the repining trees, Were seen no more: the very roses' odors Died in the arms of the adoring airs. All - all expired save thee - save less than thou: Save only divine light in thine eyes - Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. I saw but them - they were the world to me. I saw but them - saw only them for hours - Saw only them until the moon went down. What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres! How dark a wo! yet how sublime a hope! How silently serene a sea of pride! How daring an ambition! yet how deep - How fathomless a capacity for love! But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, Into a western couch of thunder-cloud; And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. They would not go - they never yet have gone. Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. They follow me - they lead me through the years. They are my ministers - yet I their slave. Their office is to illumine and enkindle - My duty, to be saved by their bright fire, And purified in their electric fire, And sanctified in their elysian fire. They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope,) And are far up in Heaven - the stars I kneel to In the sad, silent watches of my night; While even in the meridian glare of day I see them still - two sweetly scintillant Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!
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Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven and Other Poems)
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To Helen I saw thee once-once only-years ago; I must not say how many-but not many. It was a july midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe- Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That gave out, in return for the love-light Thier odorous souls in an ecstatic death- Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted by thee, by the poetry of thy prescence. Clad all in white, upon a violet bank I saw thee half reclining; while the moon Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses And on thine own, upturn'd-alas, in sorrow! Was it not Fate that, on this july midnight- Was it not Fate (whose name is also sorrow) That bade me pause before that garden-gate, To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? No footstep stirred; the hated world all slept, Save only thee and me. (Oh Heaven- oh, God! How my heart beats in coupling those two worlds!) Save only thee and me. I paused- I looked- And in an instant all things disappeared. (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!) The pearly lustre of the moon went out; The mossy banks and the meandering paths, The happy flowers and the repining trees, Were seen no more: the very roses' odors Died in the arms of the adoring airs. All- all expired save thee- save less than thou: Save only the divine light in thine eyes- Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. I saw but them- they were the world to me. I saw but them- saw only them for hours- Saw only them until the moon went down. What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres! How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope! How silently serene a sea of pride! How daring an ambition!yet how deep- How fathomless a capacity for love! But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, Into western couch of thunder-cloud; And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. They would not go- they never yet have gone. Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. They follow me- they lead me through the years. They are my ministers- yet I thier slave Thier office is to illumine and enkindle- My duty, to be saved by thier bright light, And purified in thier electric fire, And sanctified in thier Elysian fire. They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope), And are far up in heaven- the stars I kneel to In the sad, silent watches of my night; While even in the meridian glare of day I see them still- two sweetly scintillant Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!
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Edgar Allan Poe