“The language describing your actions is never the same as the actions themselves. It is a representation and like all representations it is not the thing-in-itself. To be aware of this is to understand that there is always something that is not captured by language.” Read more:

“Aristotle’s arguments in defense of art do not really challenge Plato’s view that all art is an elaborate trompe l’oeil, and therefore a lie. But he does dispute Plato’s idea that art is useless. (1/2)

“We seek beauty because it seems to promise something beyond what we have already seen and what we already are. We seek beauty everywhere we can find it — in art, in literature, in the clouds & stars, in flowers & animals. But perhaps most significantly, we seek beauty in our fellow human beings.”

“It is a bourgeois prejudice to suppose that for something to have worth, there must be a practical application. (1/2)

“You've put too much emphasis on your prediction. You've taken it as a certainty when it's really just a product of your own judgment. You've cut yourself off from potential benefits because of your confidence in the accuracy of your prediction.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/predic...

“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

“She could not bring herself to do something simply because another person told her to do it. The only time she did what someone wanted was when their rules happened to align with what she was already going to do anyway.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/the-re...

“The fascination of sleep, which pits the lure of the void against the obstinacy of an impotent will, is an obstacle that life has perhaps never surmounted.” — Georges Bataille, L'Abbé C

“With broader awareness, I will begin to intuitively see how to act from compassion and not from attachment to particular intentions. But because my intentions are numerous and varied, hidden attachments can easily undermine the freedom of attention necessary for my awareness to expand.” Read more:

“When the writer (or the artist in general) says he has worked without giving any thought to the rules of the process, he simply means he was working without realizing he knew the rules.” — Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose

“To fall in line with the world, to conform to its every facet, is to abandon the self completely. It is to abandon all that makes you a valuable and creative force for compassion. Do not grant the world power over you that it does not possess.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/you-ha...

“You will have to change, but it is because the world must change too. You change by becoming more aware of the self and the world, and by doing so, you begin to improve both through the creative effort of compassion.” Read more: suliqyre.substack.com/p/you-have-t...

“The ancients used to say: mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur — the world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.” — Stanisław Lem, A Blink of an Eye

“You wonder if people understand what you're trying to do. You wonder if you just don't have what it takes. You wonder if you should do something else. Something that could make you some money, for one thing. Something that would feel like less of a dead end.” Read more:

“Against this cosmic background the lifespan of a particular plant or animal appears, not as drama complete in itself, but only as a brief interlude in a panorama of endless change.” — Rachel Carson, Under the Sea Wind

“That there is any goodness in the world means there are people willing to disregard the harm done to them and respond compassionately to it. They choose to absorb the wrongdoing rather than helping to perpetuate it.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/goodne...

“I-love-you is active. It affirms itself as force — against other forces. Which ones? The thousand forces of the world, which are, all of them, disparaging forces (science, doxa, reality, reason, etc.). Or again: against language.” — Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse

“The sound of a horn brought forth by an angry driver. First one small burp, then two more in quick succession, followed by the long, steady shout of total infuriation.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/the-so...

“To be able to give oneself wholly and completely is the greatest luxury that life affords. Real love only begins at this point of dissolution.” — Henry Miller, The Rosy Crucifixion

“When I isolate myself from the world, I become trapped in a kind of false individuality. It is the individuality of the solipsist for whom real life exists only in the self.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/suffer...

“The student of media soon comes to expect the new media of any period whatever to be classed as ‘pseudo’ by those who acquired the patterns of earlier media, whatever they may happen to be.” — Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media

“Even the chance to obtain the things we want can be a powerful intoxicant. We start to seek out those things with a singular focus. All of our efforts are marshalled towards getting what we want. In such a state, we are controlled by attachment, and the end result is guaranteed to be suffering.”

“We cannot stay trapped in the rigidity of strict rules and overbearing systems and also live with the creativity and compassion that will bring us joy.” Read more: suliqyre.substack.com/p/finding-fr...

“My unbalanced words are the wealth of my silence. I write in acrobatics and pirouettes in the air — I write because I so deeply want to speak. Though writing only gives me the full measure of silence.” — Clarice Lispector, Água Viva

“To be passionate is to love life, and to live passionately is also to live compassionately... It is to take on suffering and to transform it into joy, even when it causes you pain and difficulty. It is to apply yourself to everything you do, with vigour, care, and sensitivity.” Read more:

“Thanks to the machinery of the virtual, all your problems are over! You are no longer either subject or object, no longer either free or alienated — and no longer either one or the other: you are the same, and enraptured by the commutations of that sameness. (1/2)

“To devote only a small fraction of our power to compassion would be to unnecessarily perpetuate suffering. When we are aware, the reach of our compassion grows as our power and means grow. But when awareness is limited, there is a strong tendency for the opposite to happen.” Read more:

“The qualities which are intrinsic to the aesthetic experience (disinterestedness, contemplativeness, attentiveness, the awakening of the feelings) and to the aesthetic object (grace, intelligence, expressiveness, energy, sensuousness) are also (1/2)

“His body is in a state of emptiness. It is not this nor that, but also both and neither. It is an emptiness of the body that is similar to the emptiness of the mind in perfect meditation. When he is totally empty, he is what he must be and nothing more.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/empty-...

“We have on stage two men, each of whom knows nothing of what he believes the other knows, and to deceive each other reciprocally both speak in allusions, each of the two hoping (in vain) that the other holds the key to his puzzle.” — Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before

“The biggest impediment to honesty is always the self. What I believe and want and fear can have a enormous influence on what I say and do. If I am not aware of these factors and their ability to alter my words then I will always speak something less than the whole truth.” Read more:

“The answer is in the imperfect, the particular, not in heaven, not in the perfect abstract form. ... It is the transitory unique particular which is real, and yet it vanishes... This is where the truth lies.” — Philip K. Dick, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

“Any method you could be given would not do what you need. You'd follow the method, expecting your suffering to vanish, but it would continue to arise. The only solution to your problem is the long and difficult work of expanding your awareness.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/a-meth...

“As your awareness broadens, you will see how your desires operate. You will understand how you become attached and how this produces suffering. You will also begin to feel the suffering of others as your own. This is not a bad thing. Greater empathy is a sign your sensitivity is improving.”

“What we nowadays call ‘growth’ is in reality random, cancerous proliferation.” — Byung-chul Han, Capitalism and the Death Drive

“You're saying something with your work but there's no one listening and no one responding. You know the solution is to share your creations. You cannot continue working in secret. But releasing your creations into the world is daunting. They are your children and you worry about their fate.”

“Poetry leads to the same place as all forms of eroticism — to the blending and fusion of separate objects. It leads us to eternity, it leads us to death, and through death to continuity. Poetry is eternity; the sun matched with the sea.” — Georges Bataille, Erotism

“When our awareness is limited, we can easily become attached to our self-image. We then hide behind our pride and deny, deny, deny all that seems to threaten us. We construct a wall of lies to stand between us and the world, in the vain belief it will keep us safe from the demands of the other.”

“As human beings, we are part of the whole stream of life. [...] Our origins are of the earth. And so there is in us a deeply seated response to the natural universe, which is part of our humanity.” — Rachel Carson, Lost Woods

“She is making something. It's emerging at this very instant. She can't say what it is, only that it exists... Her vision is admittedly more lofty than her ability, but still she presses forward. She has decided she'll accept whatever she ultimately does.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/nothin...

“What I have discovered for myself … is that the books I enjoyed most, no matter what their specific gravity, were the ones that did the most for me … encouraged, inspired, instructed, awakened … whatever you will. What we learn, of value, we get indirectly, largely unconsciously.” — Henry Miller

“When we act wrongly we are not oblivious to what is happening. Deep down we sense that what we are doing is wrong, but this intuition is suppressed. It is suppressed by our attachment to the things we want, hate, and believe, which dangerously narrows our attention.” Read more:

“To read is to struggle to name, to subject the sentences of a text to a semantic transformation. This transformation is erratic; it consists in hesitating among several names…” — Roland Barthes, S/Z

“With my intentions at a distance, I am open to change, to new information, to the world itself and all that is other... It is this openness, this looseness, this freedom, that keeps me from suffering when my intentions go unfulfilled, when things go wrong, or when I am wrong.” Read more:

“To live without intentions would be impossible. I am always setting new intentions because I am always reflecting on my past experience and planning my future actions accordingly. This is part of what it is to be human — a living being endowed with reflective consciousness.” Read more:

“Contact means an exchange of experiences, concepts, or at least results, conditions. But what if there’s nothing to exchange?” — Stanisław Lem, Solaris

“Compassion cannot wait for reciprocation. It must be given without prompting and without any expectation of recompense. This does not mean compassion provides us with nothing in return, but rather that the benefit might not take the form we expect.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/compas...

“If we understand morality in the singular, as a generic decision on the part of consciousness, then it appears that our response to art is “moral” insofar as it is, precisely, the enlivening of our sensibility and consciousness.” — Susan Sontag, “On Style”

“A quotation is only a fragment of a much larger text. To argue against it, you would first need to understand its broader context. On its own, a fragment is always only a provocation.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/a-help...

“I haven't been out in weeks, but it doesn't matter. I want to shut down. I've wasted the entire day, and I feel completely drained. I want to be separate from this infuriating world that is the source of my anguish.” Read more: suliqyre.com/posts/the-ot...