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Quotes by Belgian Authors
"We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity."
"We don't want protectionism at the heart of the European Union."
"You can be in Tokyo or Alberta at four in the morning in your hotel and you can still practice if you feel like it. A trombone cannot do that at four in the morning."
"Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves."
"Do we not all spend the greater part of our lives under the shadow of an event that has not yet come to pass?"
"Lightness and weightiness are both linked to a philosophy of life. They are choices in life. Heaviness can be the embodiment of a sense of responsibility, the expression of maturity, the result of profound meditation or the emanation of a search for meaning in life. Weightiness, however, may also lead to a feeling of oppression, when it is felt as a burden, an unbearable burden. Then time has come to let loose and things can finally lose their gravity. ['The unbearable heaviness of being']"
"And you cannot have a socialist revolution commandeered from the top, ordered around by some omniscient leader or group of leaders."
"Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means."
"There are no conditions in which we subordinate the interests of the class as a whole to the interests of any sect, any chapel, any separate organization."
"The word survivor suggests someone who has emerged alive from a plane crash or a natural disaster. But the word can also refer to the loved ones of murder victims, and this was the sense in which it was used at a four-day conference in early June at Boston College."
"When grief impounds our thinking and eats our brains, it seeps through all the cracks of our daily living. Only the soothing wind of comforting words may counter the withering twilight and the frostiness of darkness. ['All the words he always wanted to tell her.']"
"We do not believe that the Marxist program, which embodies the continuity of the experience of the actual class struggle and real revolutions of the last one hundred and fifty years, is a definitely closed book."
"A living together becomes a living apart, when the pineal gland has not been able to create a luster of spiritual togetherness and emotional attachment. ['I wonder what went wrong.']"
"When people become prisoners of daily habits and happen to be hostages of choices, which they made in the past, but which they finally do not actually want, they experience the need to abandon their corporeal prison at a certain time in life. ['Corporeal prison']"
"Just don't go to a place where everything is too expensive... it'll put your husband in a bad mood."
"There is a very well-defined procedure that allows the Vatican to raise issues with a particular theologian about something that does not appear in conformity with the Catholic faith. It is not always easy to make this determination."
"Once we get to know where and why the skeletons of the past are buried, we can start wading across our muddled memories into the open plains of a new horizon. ['Going back to yesterday']"
"Trotsky rises to give me his hand, then sits at his desk, gently allowing his regard to light on my person."
"In this kind of situation, we tend to cling to his convictions, we believe that, by magic, we are going to recover. Then we agree to drive less good cars and we are fatally more exposed. It is what finally happened to me with Ensign."
"I guess the line between being paranoid and being a rock star is smaller than one would expect."
"Nevertheless during these two seasons, Chapman impressed me a lot because he had the faculty to pull himself out of the most critical situations."
"This familiarity with a respected physician and my appreciation of his work, or the tragedy I experienced with the long, tormented agony and death of my mother might have influenced me in wanting to study medicine. It was not the case."
"Happiness is rarely absent; it is we that know not of its presence."
"Fashion is like the ashes left behind by the uniquely shaped flames of the fire, the trace alone revealing that a fire actually took place."
"When we fail to reflect on the underlying currents of our life’s circumstances, we risk developing lasting doubts about the accuracy of our interpretations. A clear and honest examination of our actions and desires helps us avoid falling into the frustrating gap between our own expectations and those of others." ['Alors, tout a basculé']
"Since we live in a world of appearances, people are judged by what they seem to be. If the mind can't read the predictable features, it reacts with alarm or aversion. Faces which don't fit in the picture are socially banned. An ugly countenance, a hideous outlook can be considered as a crime and criminals must be inexorably discarded from society. ['Ugly mug offense']"
"When living is too sweet and swanky, it may be very hard to appreciate the simplest things in life. ['Is that all there is?']"
"If we expect to "know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we may have a hard time seeing the whole picture, since the truth is a willful construction that allows us often merely to "guess. ['Hinter der Mattscheibe']"
"I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people's minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing."
"I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and... I believe in miracles."
"For the resolving powers of our scientific instruments decide, at a given moment, of the size and the vision of our Universe, and of the image we then make of ourselves."
"When we allow ourselves to show some patience and take time to listen to the others, we may learn a lot about ourselves. Patience does not endure instant gratification, though, and self-knowledge may take a lifetime. ['I am on my own side, but I can listen ']"
"My talent is such that no undertaking, however vast in size... has ever surpassed my courage."
"In this sport luck and tragedy are only a few hundredths of seconds apart from each other."
"At synods, I usually wait about a week before I speak. First I listen. I feel the temperature. I listen to what has been said, what has not been said, and what I think needs to be said at that point."
"When the past gets its teeth into our daily life, it may get to grips with an astringent reality and adjust our timeline. By recognizing ourselves in the light of our history, we become aware of what we are. ['Going back to yesterday']"
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