η απορια του μη ησυχαζειν — Posts Tagged ‘solitude’

Insomniac passing anhypnic nights in writing, translation, music, mathematics, programming and whatever else captures my attention or alleviates agrypnia.

This consists mostly of quotations of things that stand out to me or reflect what's on my mind; occasionally I also post original, often more personal, content as well, which may be found under the "personal" tag. Anything posted under "translations" is also original work and may broadly be taken as personal as well as I seldom tackle a work that does not speak to or for me in some way.

April 9th, 2013 4:25pm
I live here much in my own manner, that is, alone, for I could not bear the company of my best friend, above a month; there is such a sameness in mankind upon the whole, and they grow so much more disgusting every day, that, were it not for a portion of Ambition, and a conviction that in times like the present we ought to perform our respective duties, I should live here all my life, in unvaried Solitude.
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, in a letter to his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, 14 December 1808.

(Source: laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com)
January 26th, 2013 1:42pm

in hac solitudine careo omnium colloquio, […]. nihil est mihi amicius solitudine. in ea mihi omnis sermo est cum litteris.



In this solitude, I am removed from all dialogue, […]. Nothing is dearer to me than solitude; in it, all my conversation is with literature.

Cicero, Epistulæ ad Atticum, XII.XV, Scr. Asturæ vii Id. Mart. a. 709 (“Letters to Atticus”, 12.15, written in Asturia, March 9, 45 BCE.)
August 5th, 2012 8:08pm
For in spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body. Our life is a sentence of perpetual solitary confinement.
Aldous Huxley, “Sermons in Cats” from Music at Night and Other Essays (1931)

(Source: aalquimista)
April 25th, 2012 12:17am

Começo a conhecer-me. Não existo.
Sou o intervalo entre o que desejo ser e os outros me fizeram,
Ou metade desse intervalo, porque também há vida…
Sou isso, enfim…
Apague a luz, feche a porta e deixe de ter barulho de chinelas no corredor.
Fique eu no quarto só com o grande sossego de mim mesmo.
É um universo barato.



I’m starting to know myself. I don’t exist.
I’m the interval between what I want to be and what others have made of me,
or half that, since there is also life…
Ultimately, that’s all I am.
Turn out the light, close the door and leave the sound of slippers in the hall.
Let me stay in the room alone with the vast silence of myself.
It’s a crappy universe.

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), writing as Álvaro de Campos

(Source: arquivopessoa.net)

η απορια του μη ησυχαζειν

Insomniac passing anhypnic nights in writing, translation, music, mathematics, programming and whatever else captures my attention or alleviates agrypnia.

This consists mostly of quotations of things that stand out to me or reflect what's on my mind; occasionally I also post original, often more personal, content as well, which may be found under the "personal" tag. Anything posted under "translations" is also original work and may broadly be taken as personal as well as I seldom tackle a work that does not speak to or for me in some way.