"It is an immense loss to have all robust and sustaining expletives refined away from one! At. moments of trial refinement is a feeble reed to lean upon."
"I wonder, whether, if I had had any education I should have been more, or less, of a fool than I am. It would have deprived me surely of those exquisite moments of mental flatulence which every now and then inflate the cerebral vacuum with a delicious sense of latent possibilities-of stretching oneself to cosmic limits, and who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?"
5 likes
Source: Alice James (1934). “Her Brothers Her Journal”
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Alice James
"One has a greater sense of degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience."
"The difficulty about all this dying, is that you can't tell a fellow anything about it, so where does the fun come in?"
"Destitution and excessive luxury develop apparently the same ideals, the same marauding attitude towards mankind, the intensity of struggle for material goods, -- surely showing how perfect is the meeting of extremes."
"Though I have no productive worth, I have a certain value as an indestructible quantity."
"When will women begin to have the first glimmer that above all other loyalties is the loyalty toTruth, i.e., to yourself, that husband, children, friends and countryare as nothing to that."