Book: The spot on the wall

What is our knowledge? And who are our pundits, if not the direct descendants of witches and hermits, who hid in caves or forest thickets, brewed a potion of herbs, questioned shrews and comprehended the language of the stars.

The male view of the world, it is he who rules our lives, determines the criterion for everything, approves hierarchical tables.

I want to think about something pleasant, and these thoughts should reflect my subconscious faith in myself, because such thoughts are the most pleasant, and they often visit even the most modest, inconspicuous people who are sincerely convinced that they are not at all inclined to admire themselves.

Everything's moving, falling, slipping, vanishing.... There is a vast upheaval of matter.
All racing, scattered, slipping away, not a trace remains... the Endless transformation of matter.

I understand Nature's game-her prompting to take action as a way of ending any thought that threatens to excite or to pain.
I understand the trick of Nature - it advises to act to get rid of the thoughts, fraught with anxiety or pain.

And the less we honour them as our superstitions dwindle and our respect for beauty and health of mind increases....
And the less we [scientists] honor, the more freed from the grip of superstition and worship of beauty and of sound mind...

... English sweet heart all that sets a melancholic mood...

As we face each other in omnibuses and underground railways we are looking into the mirror that accounts for the vagueness, the gleam of glassiness, in our eyes.
Looking at each other in the subway and in the omnibuses, we look in the mirror; that's where this elusiveness and glass gleam in our eyes.

Indeed, it is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed in any longer.
It's amazing how human nature to protect their way of worship, which would have made it funny or too far from the original, and therefore implausible.

Why, if one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour - landing at the other end without a single hairpin in one s hair!
If you look for living a good comparison, it is best to assimilate its flight at a speed of fifty miles an hour in a subway tunnel, which in the end landed without a single hairpin in hair!

What a scraping paring affair it is to be sure!
Truly life is a constant series of losses!

... because once a thing''s done, no one ever knows how it happened. Oh! dear me, the mystery of life; The inaccuracy of thought! The ignorance of humanity!
... we see a result, but we will never comprehend its cause. Oh my God, the mystery of life! Helplessness thoughts! Ignorance of the human!

How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it ...
How readily our thoughts drawn to a new object, picks it up, like busy ants straws, but just as easily directed to another...