Scrapbook 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 !

[mother of sorrows]

hi, hello! this is just a place for me to share quotes out of books, articles and essays that inspire me to write or i really just like! ^^ everyone is welcome to share their own and drop excerpts below! just a note, some of these quotes are from books i haven't read yet, so i might not be fully aware of the context. if so, i'll probably mark those quotes just to make sure! i might also drop different quotes from the same books. but either way, i hope you guys enjoy!

 

[mother of sorrows]

❝ A labyrinth is a metaphor in both senses, carrying you on a brief journey that reminds you that you are always on a journey. You are always in a labyrinth, always a little lost and always feeling your way forward, there is always an unexpected turn ahead, in fact you were born into the labyrinth out of the darkness of the womb and you will only exit in that other darkness of tombs.​

The two paths, literal and metaphorical, become one path on which you know at last that you are a traveler in darkness. But in the labyrinth, you arrive before that finale, and one of the great spiritual uses of a labyrinth is to compress the journey of pilgrimage into a local space, so that you may wander, may know that in order to get to your destination, you must turn away from it, become lost, spin about, and then only after the way has become overwhelming and absorbing, arrive, without having gone far. ❞​

​

𝙍𝙚𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙘𝙖 𝙎𝙤𝙡𝙣𝙞𝙩, “𝙅𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘾𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧: (𝙤𝙣 𝙀𝙡í𝙣 𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙙ó𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙧’𝙨 𝙇𝙖𝙗𝙮𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙝 𝙋𝙖𝙩𝙝),” 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙀𝙣𝙘𝙮𝙘𝙡𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙤𝙛 𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙎𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨.

 

[mother of sorrows]

❝ Strange priests wandered among the pallets of the dying, the attendant fathers of the sick, called fathers of the 'Good Death': servants of God who 'extert themselves in the gain and pursuit of souls', writes Marcello Mansi in the Consigli per aiutare al ben morire. Sinister, black as crows, disliked by the sick, they tried to convince them that since diseases were nothing but 'a royal road to show us the way to Heaven so as to rejoice in the divine essence, they should not reject our attention nor regret it, but should accept and endure it with holy will.' Better dead but saved than vagabond and sinner, was their logic. In many the 'holy will' was late in showing itself, and this was a shame, because in fact the diseases could 'take away the opportunity', continues Mansi, 'of falling into some very grave sin.' ❞​

​

𝙋𝙞𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙤 𝘾𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙞, 𝘽𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝘿𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙨: 𝙁𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙁𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙀𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙮 𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙣 𝙀𝙪𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚. (very interesting book, but WILL make your brain hurt)

 

[AaronMk]

-The Once And Future Sex. By Eleanor Janega

 

[vaipiano]

“ la planète B-612 a été aperçu qu'une fois par télescope en 1909 par un astronome turc. Il avait fait alors une grande démonstration de sa découverte à un congrès international d’asteonomie. Mais personne ne l’avait cru à cause de son costume. Les grandes personnes sont comme ça.

Heureusement pour la réputation de l'astéroïde B-612, un dictateur turc imposa à son peuple, sous peine de mort, de s'habiller à l'européenne. L'astronome refit sa démonstration en 1920, dans un habit très élégant. Et cette fois-ci tout le monde fut de son avis.”

le petit prince.

 

[vaipiano]

“ la planète B-612 a été aperçu qu'une fois par télescope en 1909 par un astronome turc. Il avait fait alors une grande démonstration de sa découverte à un congrès international d’asteonomie. Mais personne ne l’avait cru à cause de son costume. Les grandes personnes sont comme ça.

Heureusement pour la réputation de l'astéroïde B-612, un dictateur turc imposa à son peuple, sous peine de mort, de s'habiller à l'européenne. L'astronome refit sa démonstration en 1920, dans un habit très élégant. Et cette fois-ci tout le monde fut de son avis.”

le petit prince.

 

[mother of sorrows]

❝ I held my life in my hands amongst those keys and, in a moment, would place it between his well-manicured fingers. The evidence of that bloody chamber had showed me I could expect no mercy. Yet, when he raised his head and stared at me with his blind, shuttered eyes as though he did not recogfnize me, I felt a terrified pity for him, for this man that lived in such strange, secret places that, if I loved him enough to follow him, I should have to die.​

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The atrocious loneliness of that monster! ❞​

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𝘼𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡𝙖 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙧, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘽𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙮 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧.

 

[mother of sorrows]

also thank you AaronMk vaipiano for adding quotes! theyre both really interesting, so i'm really glad they got thrown in here!!

 

[mother of sorrows]

❝“I’ve never in all my life seen any kind of spirit — I’ve heard the sounds they make, but I’ve never seen them with my own eyes,” said the old man who had gone out to investigate the Franklin survivors who had straggled into his camp that day on King William Island.​

​

The figures’ skin was cold but it was not “cold as a fish,” concluded the man. Therefore, he reasoned, they were probably alive.​

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“They were beings but not Inuit,” he said, according to the account by shaman Nicholas Qayutinuaq.​

​

The figures were too weak to be dangerous, so Inuit women tried to comfort the strangers by inviting them into their igloo.​

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But close contact only increased their alienness: The men were timid, untalkative and — despite their obvious starvation — they refused to eat.​

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The men spit out pieces of cooked seal offered to them. They rejected offers of soup. They grabbed jealous hold of their belongings when the Inuit offered to trade.​

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When the Inuit men returned to the camp from their hunt, they constructed an igloo for the strangers, built them a fire and even outfitted the shelter with three whole seals.​

Then, after the white men had gone to sleep, the Inuit quickly packed up their belongings and fled by moonlight.​

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Whether the pale-skinned visitors were qallunaat or “Indians” — the group determined that staying too long around these “strange people” with iron knives could get them all killed.​

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“That night they got all their belongings together and took off towards the southwest,” Qayutinuaq told Dorothy Eber.​

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But the true horror of the encounter wouldn’t be revealed until several months later.​

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The Inuit had left in such a hurry that they had abandoned several belongings. When a small party went back to the camp to retrieve them, they found an igloo filled with corpses.​

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The seals were untouched. Instead, the men had eaten each other. ❞​

𝙏𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣 𝙃𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝙫𝙞𝙖 𝘾𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙙𝙖 𝙋𝙤𝙨𝙩; 𝙃𝙤𝙬 19𝙩𝙝-𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙮 𝙄𝙣𝙪𝙞𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡-𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙫𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 '𝙬𝙖𝙡𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙙'. (this article is TERRIFYING but has very interesting inuit oral history!)

 

[vaipiano]

« “But if I feel, may I never express?”

“Never!” declared Reason.

I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never - never - oh, hard word! This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope; she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination - her soft, bright foe, our sweet Help, our divine Hope. »

villette by charlotte brontë

 

[mother of sorrows]

 

[vaipiano]

« I was reminded of the moment, many years earlier, when the flag of the Portuguese king was hoisted over the fortress tower in Azemmur. I had been only a young boy then, but I still lived with the humiliation of that day, for it had changed my family’s fate, disrupted our lives, and cast me out of my home. Now, halfway across the world, the scene was repeating itself on a different stage, with different people. So I could not help feeling a sense of dread at what was yet to come. »

[…]

« But our ill fortune did not afflict the Portuguese in our town: they still shipped gold and wool to Porto and still sent hanbals, kiswas and other woven goods to Guinea. If anything, the drought and famine we were experiencing had only made their trade more profitable, because the price of the wool had fallen so low that they could purchase larger quantities of it. That year, a strange thing happened. The farmers who had neither the funds to pay the Portoguese tax nor grain to sell at marked had to give their children as payment. Girls of marriagable age were worth two arrobas of wheat; boys twice as that. A custom official of my acquaintance swore that he had seen three Portuguese caravels leave Azzemur, each carrying two hundred girls and women, who would be transported to Seville, where they would be sold as domestics and concubines. From that blighted time came the saying: when bellies speak, reason is lost. »

the moor’s account by laila lalami. a beautiful book inspired by a real historical figure about slavery and parallels between european colonization in the americas and africa.

 

[AaronMk]

Just fully stealing this from my discord's History channel

The greed of Gilles de Rais made him easy prey for bogus alchemists, and he never seemed to learn that he was being conned. His biographers report two instances where he was taken in by tricksters, each rather humorous. In the first, de Rais favorite priest, Blanchet, introduced him to a goldsmith who had discovered the means to convert silver into gold. Gilles and the alchemist met at a local tavern where de Rais gave the man a silver coin. Gilles left the alchemist alone to practice his craft and upon his return found the chemist intoxicated and unconscious. Apparently all the man could do was turn a florin into a flagon of wine.

The second con cost Gilles a little more money. Again, Blanchet produced the magician who claimed to able to summon the Devil. One evening, with a sword and dressed in white armor, the magician, Jean de la Riviere, took Gilles and his party into the woods and had them wait in a clearing while he went off to summon Satan. Blanchet later testified that he heard a great clanging, which he believed to be Riviere banging on his armor, and then an ashen-faced and frightened Riviere appeared saying he had seen the devil in the form of a leopard which crept past him into the woods. After this, Blanchet testified, (de Rais, Riviere, and others) went to Pouzauges and indulged in many pleasures and then slept.

Gilles had been convinced of Rivieres sincerity and skill. He was on the hook, and Riviere knew it. The magician told Gilles that he needed some supplies to continue his evocations and Gilles gave him 20 ecus, telling him to return as soon as he could. Of course, Riviere disappeared with his loot and was never seen in those parts again.

Source: Summoning the Devil — GILLES DE RAIS — Crime Library