This is my oldest extant list. I made it in a text document maybe 10 years ago, then copied it to my iPhone notes app, then a new app I used for a while, then Evernote, and recently back to the (improved) iPhone notes app.
“See how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them.”
One of my favorite lines of all and one I’ve deployed in many conversations.
“Truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast.”
Another favorite and one I tell myself often. To live is to feel in all its varieties.
“The most reliable and useful courage is that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril.”
There’s a lot of wisdom in that line I think.
“A purse is but a rag unless you have something in it.”
True true.
“Any human thing supposed to be complete must for that very reason infallibly be faulty.”
I’m not sure I understand this line. Is it the human association that makes it faulty, or the supposed completeness? Is completeness a fault? The most important thing I get from this dusty line in my virtual notebook is that I should re-read Moby Dick.