I could reply. I could tell him that a metaphor is inadequate in the face of a bloodbath. That a Platonic inclination for dying doesn't balance out the serious decision to kill. That through the ages there has never been a great historical infamy committed for which there couldn't be found a symbol just as big, to justify it. That, in consequence, we would do well to pay attention to great certainties, to great invocations, to the great 'droughts' and 'rains'. That the temper of our most violent outbursts might benefit from a shade less enthusiasm. I could reply. But what good would it do? I have a simple, resigned, inexplicable sensation that everything that is happening is in the normal order of things and that I am awaiting a season that will come and pass -- because it has come and passed before. Mihail Sebastian
Some Similar Quotes
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  2. You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming. - Pablo Neruda
  3. Time after time have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been, and passed away to be forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of several; for Time eats up the works of man. - H. Rider Haggard
  4. Success sometimes may be defined as a disaster put on hold. Qualified. Has to be. - Nadine Gordimer
  5. I have produced no children of my own and my husband is dead, " she replied, an acid tone in her voice. "Thus I am more to be pitied than revered. I am expected to give up the shop to my nephew, who will then... - Helen Simonson
More Quotes By Mihail Sebastian
  1. For too long I have played on the stage of lucidity, and I have lost. Now I need to accustom my eyes to the falling darkness. I need to contemplate the natural slumber of all things, which the light calls forth, yet also causes to...
  2. I've always believed that the only defeats and victories that matter in life are those you lose or win alone, against yourself.
  3. I have always believed it my right to have a locked door between me and the world, and to hold the key myself. Now look at it, kicked open. The doors are off their hinges, the portals unguarded, every cover blown.
  4. I embraced her and she did not object at all. She let herself be kissed and kissed back, but coolly, without conviction, absently, as if she were smoking a cigarette.
  5. What an odd thing a stranger is. A stranger sleeping next to you. I listen to his breathing as if it were his entire life, with its hidden processes, the pulsing of the blood in the tissues, with thousands of tiny hidden decays and combustions,...
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