Asrar-i-Khudi

❝

If one puts forward an idea (…) he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes it one’s self. Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be colored by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.

— The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

3 hours ago

Cloxboy

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❝

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

— The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Sonder

4 hours ago with 15,146 notes

4 hours ago

Gabriel and Satan

Gabriel

Comrade of ancient days ! how fares the world of sight and
sound ?

Satan

In fire and rage and grief and pain and hope and longing
drowned.

Gabriel

No hour goes by in Paradise but your name is spoken there ;
Is it not possible that rent robe be mended that you wear ?

Satan

Ah, Gabriel ! You have never guessed my mystery ; alas—
Maddened for ever I left upon Heaven’s floor my broken glass.
Impossible, oh ! impossible I should dwell here again ;
Silent, how silent all this realm—no palace, no loud lane !
I whose despair is the fire by which the universe is stirred,
What should I do—all hope renounce, or hope yet in God’s
word ?

Gabriel

Your mutiny has put our high estate in Heaven to shame ;
In the Creator’s eye what credit now can angels claim ?

Satan

But in Man’s pinch of dust my daring spirit has breathed
     ambition,
The warp and woof of mind and reason are woven of my
     sedition.
The deeps of good and ill you only see from land’s far verge :
Which of us is it, you or I, that dares the tempest’s scourge ?
Your ministers and your prophets are pale shades : the storms
     I teem
Roll down ocean by ocean, river by river, stream by stream !

Ask this of God, when next you stand alone within His sight—
Whose blood is it has painted Man’s long history so bright ?
In the heart of the Almighty like a pricking thorn I lie ;
You only cry for ever God, oh God, oh God most high !

By Allama Muhammed Iqbal

1 day ago

ileftmyheartinistanbul: Sketch of Istanbul

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