Lorde - Ribs

"The strength of a person's spirit would then be measured by how much 'truth' he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified."

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

[Bookstore in London ruined by and air-raid 1940]

Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882)

Library Görlitz Germany

© J. Hulsch

In exchange for Oscar Wilde to have his pictures taken by the popular photographer Napolean Sarony, he actually signed a contract in 1882, ‘agreeing that he would sit for no other formal portraits, or for any other photographer, while he was in America’.

— David M. Friedman, Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity

Would you have ever learned or discovered anything, if you had not been willing to learn from others?

Socrates, in Plato’s Alcibiades I (via philosophybits)

Bookstore  (Reading Women)   -   Willy  Belinfante

Dutch, 1922-2014

Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm.

Claude Debussy - Suite Bergamasque in F Minor, L 32: III. Clair de lune

Be teachable. You’re not always right.

Study belonging to Albert Einstein, Princeton, NJ, US, Date taken: April 1955, Photographer: Ralph Morse, LIFE Magazine

Albert Einstein on crisis

“Let’s not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things. A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring progress. Creativity is born from anguish. Just like the day is born form the dark night. It’s in crisis that inventive is born, as well as discoveries, and big strategies. He who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome. He who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent, and is more respectful to problems than to solutions. Incompetence is the the true crisis. The greatest inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they attempt to find the solutions to their problems. There’s no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony. There’s no merits without crisis. It’s in the crisis where we can show the very best in us. Without a crisis, any wind becomes a tender touch. To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead. Let us stop, once and for all, the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being willing to overcome it.”

– Albert Einstein,  German-born theoretical physicist who created the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics, Nobel Prize laureate (1879-1955), cited in en Finlandia