I got out this diary, & read as one always does read one's own writing, with a kind of guilty intensity. Virginia Woolf More Quotes by Virginia Woolf More Quotes From Virginia Woolf If we didn't live venturously, plucking the wild goat by the beard, and trembling over precipices, we should never be depressed, I've no doubt; but already should be faded, fatalistic and aged. Virginia Woolf goats doubt adventure The chief glory of a woman is not to be talked of, said Pericles, himself a much-talked-of-man. Virginia Woolf motivational inspirational men Clothes are but a symbol of something hid deep beneath. Virginia Woolf symbols clothes In the 18th century we knew how everything was done, but here I rise through the air, I listen to voices in America, I see men flying- but how is it done? I can't even begin to wonder. So my belief in magic returns. Virginia Woolf voice air men There is no doubt in my mind, that I have found out how to begin (at 40) to say something in my own voice. Virginia Woolf voice doubt mind The current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us that we are a free people fighting to defend freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman up into the sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a roof to cover us and a gasmask handy, it is our business to puncture gasbags and discover the seeds of truth. Virginia Woolf fighting clouds war Nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy. Virginia Woolf orlando knives sad It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly. It is fatal for a woman to lay the least stress on any grievance; to plead even with justice any cause; in any way to speak consciously as a woman. And fatal is no figure of speech; for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed to death. It ceases to be fertilized. Virginia Woolf stress simple men At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials. Virginia Woolf essentials age time Jealousy ... survives every other passion of mankind. Virginia Woolf mankind jealousy passion History is too much about wars; biography too much about great men. Virginia Woolf men war history Once you fall, Septimus repeated to himself, human nature is on you. Holmes and Bradshaw are on you. They scour the desert. They fly screaming into the wilderness. The rack and the thumbscrew are applied. Human nature is remorseless. Virginia Woolf desert human-nature fall The first duty of a lecturer: to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks, and keep on the mantelpiece forever. Virginia Woolf women notebook teacher The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman. Virginia Woolf extraordinary depends ordinary and even a tea party means apprehension, breakage Virginia Woolf party tea mean if newspapers were written by people whose sole object in writing was to tell the truth about politics and the truth about art we should not believe in war, and we should believe in art. Virginia Woolf war believe art If people are highly successful in their profession they lose their senses. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. They lose their sense of proportion. Virginia Woolf sight success people If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man; some think even greater. Virginia Woolf women beautiful mean Why is life so tragic; so like a little strip of pavement over an abyss. I look down; I feel giddy; I wonder how I am ever to walk to the end. Virginia Woolf pavement littles looks The waves broke and spread their waters swiftly over the shore. One after another they massed themselves and fell; the spray tossed itself back with the energy of their fall. The waves were steeped deep-blue save for a pattern of diamond-pointed light on their backs which rippled as the backs of great horses ripple with muscles as they move. The waves fell; withdrew and fell again, like the thud of a great beast stamping. Virginia Woolf horse fall moving
