The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen
Elizabeth von Arnim
Top 10 Best Quotes
“[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.”
“There is nothing so absolutely bracing for the soul as the frequent turning of one's back on duties.”
“It was a place to bless God in and cease from vain words.”
“How good it is to look sometimes across great spaces, to lift one’s eyes from narrowness, to feel the large silence that rests on lonely hills!”
“What a place for him who intends to pass an examination, to write a book, or who wants the crumples got by crushing together too long with his fellows to be smoothed out of his soul.”
“Put out? My dear Gertrud, I have been thinking of very serious things. You cannot expect me to frolic along paths of thought that lead to mighty and unpleasant truths. Why should I always smile? I am not a Cheshire cat.’ ‘I trust the gracious one will come in now and enter her bed,’ said Gertrud decidedly, who had never heard of Cheshire cats, and was sure that the mention of them indicated a brain in need of repose.”
“It might have been the entrance to some holy place, so strange and solemn was the quiet; and looking from out of its shadows to the brightness shining at the upper end where the sun was flooding the bracken with happy morning radiance, I felt suddenly that my walk had ceased to be a common thing, and that I was going up into the temple of God to pray.”
“Oh Gertrud,' I cried, intolerably stirred by the bare mention of that bed, 'this is a bleak and mischievous world, isn't it? Do you think we shall ever be warm and comfortable and happy again?”
“I have a peculiar capacity for doing nothing and yet enjoying myself.”
“The guide–book warmly recommends the seashore when the wind is in the east (which it was) as the quickest and firmest route from Göhren to Thiessow; but I chose rather to take the road over the plain because there was a poem in the guide–book about the way along the shore, and the guide–book said it described it extremely well, and I was sure that if that were so I would do better to go the other way. This is the poem — the translation is exact, the original being unrhymed, and the punctuation is the poet’s — Splashing waves Rocking boat Dipping gulls — Dunes. Raging winds Floating froth. Flashing lightning Moon! Fearful hearts Morning grey — Stormy nights Faith! I read it, marvelled, and went the other way.”
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Book Keywords:
recommendations, travel, hackneyed, poetry, travel-guide, nature, walking, open-spaces, doing-nothing, hills, alice-in-wonderland, sky, rügen, cheshire-cat, guidebook, germany, infinity, self-awareness, smiling, path-less-traveled, enjoyment, nothing































