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141 " The mysterious Russian soul... Everyone wants to understand it. They read Dostoevsky: what's behind that soul of theirs? Well, behind our soul there's just more soul. "
― Svetlana Alexievich , Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets
142 " Sublimely mysterious and immeasurably powerful, is the stewardship that the sound of music can have over the soul. "
― , Spirit Fed Entrepreneur: Growing Your Business with a Fearless Mindset (Volume 1)
143 " Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity. "
― Leo Tolstoy , What Is Art?
144 " A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line...To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes and in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form, and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth -- disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing moment. In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth, shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to the visible world. "
― Joseph Conrad
145 " I recognized the great monument from the illustration in the copy of /The Jungle Book/ that my mother kept in the top drawer of my bedside table. When I went with Sophia to the Taj Mahal for the first time, I was not as enchanted by the real mausoleum as I had been by its plaster, paint, and paper replica in the studio; the original posed a dreadfully seductive promise in cool marble of a strangely painful loveliness, a lover's lie that death itself might in some mysterious way, because of love, be lovely. "
146 " It is the very essence of art,' she [Hallie Flanagan:] told a group gathered in Washington . . ., 'that it exceed bounds, often including those of tradition, decorum, and that mysterious thing called taste. It is the essence of art that it shatter accepted patterns, advance into unknown territory, challenge the existing order. Art is highly explosive. To be worth its salt it must have in that salt a fair sprinkling of gunpowder. "
― Susan Quinn , Furious Improvisation: How the Wpa and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art Out of Desperate Times
147 " Writing is hard. Writing that is good, writing that is powerful enough to evoke a change or an authentic emotion or even just an idea in another human being is about as mysterious as an alchemical recipe, but there are a few known ingredients. Craft? Yes, absolutely. Devotion? A load - yes! Humility? Not vital, I suppose, but all my favorites include at least a dash. Before those can be added to the cauldron though, you must have a base of Honesty. Honesty is difficult to find in public spaces these days (and getting harder every goddamn day) but if you're quiet, and patient, you can usually find some hidden in your room somewhere. (It helps to turn off the lights, for some reason.) Problem is, Honesty is invariably bound to Vulnerability and the only thing that cuts the bitterness of Vulnerability is Courage. And Courage? Well. Courage is the hardest thing of all. "
― , The Secret Loves of Geek Girls
148 " I thought of the cool, fresh air of the city I'd always dreamed of living in. The art museums and trolleys and the mysterious fog that blanketed it. I could almost smell the cappuccinos I'd planned to drink in bohemian cafes or hear the indie music in the bookstores I would spend my free time in. I pictured the friends I'd make, my kindred art people, and the dorm room I was supposed to move into. "
― Heather Demetrios , I'll Meet You There
149 " There's a mysterious alter ego in everyone. Some call it hallucination, some call it art. "
― Bhavik Sarkhedi , The Weak Point Dealer
150 " What did they want from it? Lechery, smut, confirmation of their worst suspicions. But perhaps some of them wanted, despite themselves, to be seduced. Perhaps they were looking for passion; perhaps they delved into this book as into a mysterious parcel - a gift box at the bottom of which, hidden in layers of rustling tissue paper, lay something they'd always longed for but couldn't ever grasp. "
― Margaret Atwood
151 " A journey deep into the Kingdom of Nature is always a mysterious journey, a Sufistic voyage, a spiritual trip! "
152 " The mysterious Enoch Root meets 8-year-old Benjamin Franklin, Boston, 1713: " Do I look like a schoolmaster to you?" " No, but you talk like one." " You know something of schoolmasters, do you?" " Yes, sir," the boy says, faltering a bit as he sees the jaws of the trap swinging toward his leg. " Yet here it is the middle of Monday—" " The place was empty 'cause of the Hanging. I didn't want to stay and—" " And what?" " Get more ahead of the others than I was already." " If you are ahead, the correct thing is to get used to it—not to make yourself into an imbecile. Come, you belong in school. "
153 " The entire evolutionary record on our planet, particularly the record contained in fossil endocasts, illustrates a progressive tendency toward intelligence. There is nothing mysterious about this:smart organisms by and large survive better and leave more offspring than stupid ones. "
― Carl Sagan