“Those who work much do not work hard.”
Melancholic feeling
Melancholic Quotes — page 174 of 412
“Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. The present was only a bridge and on this bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge.”
“Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement.”
“The quiet tenderness of Chaucer, where you almost seem to hear the hot tears falling, and the simple choking words sobbed out.”
“It's probably foolish to expect relationships to go on forever and to say that because something only lasts 10 years, it's a failure.”
“Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street.”
“I’m packed with broken glass and memories and it all hurts.”
“O little souls! as pure as white And crystalline as rays of light Direct from heaven, their source divine; Refracted through the mist of years, How red my setting sun appears, How lurid looks this soul of mine!”
“In old age our bodies are worn-out instruments, on which the soul tries in vain to play the melodies of youth. But because the instrument has lost its strings, or is out of tune, it does not follow that the musician has lost his skill.”
“Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!”
“Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom, a shadow on those features fair and thin. And softly, from the hushed and darkened room, two angels issued, where but one went in.”
“If it is true to say of the lazy that they kill time, then it is greatly to be feared that an era which sees its salvation in public opinion, this is to say private laziness, is a time that really will be killed: I mean that it will be struck out of the history of the true liberation of life. How reluctant later generations will be to have anything to do with the relics of an era ruled, not by living men, but by pseudo-men dominated by public opinion.”
“It is regrettable that a Dostoyevsky did not live near this most interesting of all decadents (Jesus Christ) - I mean someone who would have known how to sense the very stirring charm of such a mixture of the sublime, the sickly, and the childlike.”
“To live as I incline, or not to live at all: so do I wish; so wisheth also the holiest. But alas! how have I still - inclination? Have I-still a goal? A haven towards which MY sail is set?A good wind? Ah, he only who knoweth WHITHER he saileth, knoweth what wind is good, and a fair wind for him.What still remaineth to me? A heart weary and flippant; and unstable will; fluttering wings; a broken backbone.This seeking for MY home: O Zarathustra, dost thou know that this seeking hath been MY home-sickening; it eateth me up.”
“No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.”
“I cannot truly imagine a truly great person who hasn't suffered.”
“Extreme torture is mute, and so we sat silent, petrified, like columns of marble buried under the sand of an earthquake. Neither wished to listen to the other because our heart-threads had become weak and even breathing would have broken them.”
“Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow.”
“Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.”
“It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail.”