“Beauty is something that burns the hand when you touch it.”

— Yukio Mishima, from Forbidden Colors (Alfred A. Knopf, 1968)

The Complete Library of Universal Knowledge, 1904

Julie de Graag (1877-1924), ‘Memento Mori’, 1916

"He pained, shifting his attention toward the mirror across the road. Back into his daydream. The spliff burned his fingers the second he drank, and he tossed it toward the gutter. The smoke burned into his eyes, blinding him. As he blinked through the tears, the pain began to recede. Back down the promenade and homeward bound, as he approached the intersection of Brooklyn and Lakeshore, a flock of geese burst from the darkness and flew, shrieking into what was left of the evening."

Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885-1939), Pejzaż nocny / Night landscape, 1901-02.

“If anyone nowadays ventured to say ‘he who is not for me is against me,’ they would at once have everyone against them.”

—Human, All Too Human, “The Wanderer and His Shadow,” §208

Vincent van de Wijngaard

Landscape with a Woman Carrying a Pitcher by Jan Frans van Bloemen

We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor.

- Schopenhauer, Arthur, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer

NGC 7293, Helix Nebula

Stryn, Norway, 1965.

Western City Gate, Belgrade

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.

- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value