暖冬cool夏
这里一年四季温暖如春，没有酷暑没有严寒......
"The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to salvation is hard."
“The path to Salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge.”
"I couldn't go back now. I’m on the threshold. I see vast lands of the spirit stretching out before me , beckoning, and I’m eager to travel them.”
"Well, love isn’t a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You’ll be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang that before you sailed seemed intolerable.”
“The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water.”
“I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of. I wish I could make you see how exciting the life of the spirit is and how rich in experience. It's illimitable. It's such a happy life. There's only one thing like it, when you're up in a plane by yourself, high, high, and only infinity surrounds you. You're intoxicated by the boundless space.”
“Its a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, few are chosen.”
I suppose it was the end of the world for her when her husband and her baby were killed. I suppose she didn't care what became of her and flung herself into the horrible degradation of drink and promiscuous copulation to get even with life that had treated her so cruelly. She'd lived in heaven and when she lost it she couldn't put up with the common earth of common men, but in despair plunged headlong into hell. I can imagine that if she couldn't drink the nectar of the gods any more she thought she might as well drink bathroom gin.”
“I only wanted to suggest to you that self-confidence is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even lust and hunger are trifling. It whirls its victim to destruction in the highest affirmation of his personality. The object doesn't matter; it may be worth while or it may be worthless. No wine is so intoxicating, no love so shattering, no vice so compelling. When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself? At best he can only sacrifice his only begotten son.”
“You attach more importance to money than I do.'
'I can well believe it . . . You see, you've always had it and I haven't. It's given me what I value almost more than anything else in life - independence. You can't think what a comfort it's been to me to think that if I wanted to I could tell anyone in the world to go to hell.”
“. . . Endless duration makes good no better, nor white any whiter. If the rose at noon has lost the beauty it had at dawn, the beauty it had then was real. Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it to the premise of our philosophy. We can none of us step into the same river twice, but the river flows on and the other river we step into is cool and refreshing too.”
“There are psychologists who think that consciousness accompanies brain processes and is determined by them but doesn't itself exert any influence on them. Something like the reflection of a tree in water; it couldn't exist without the tree, but it doesn't in any way affect he tree. I think it's all stuff and nonsense to say that there can be love without passion; when people say love can endure after passion is dead they're talking of something else, affection, kindliness, community of taste and interest, and habit . . . Of course there can be desire without love. Desire isn't passion. Desire is the natural consequence of the sexual instinct . . . That's why women are foolish to make a song and dance if their husbands have an occasional flutter when the time and place are propitious . . . what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose . . . Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction but impediment . . . When passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honor is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive . . . and if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum.”
“You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for nothing but money. We are nothing for it; the moment we have it we spend it, sometimes well, sometimes ill, but we spend it. Money is nothing to us; it's merely the symbol of success. We are the greatest idealists in the world; I happen to think that we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection".”
【刀锋】这样的书其实是我的最爱。这个世界其实存在着无数超自然的现象，应该确切地说是超人类想象的自然现象。人类难以接受很多解释不了的事是因为人类太习惯于用所学的东西来分析和思考了，从而忽略了人和所有动物都有的一种本能，那就是直觉。思考得越多，人的直觉就越被忽视，久而久之，人的第六感觉也就被废弃了。看看现在，我们对自然的了解太少了，连蝙蝠身上的一个小小的病毒都搞不定。
谢谢书评分享，问好！：））
喜欢暖儿的书评和留言中与网友的互动，里面的许多见解和感悟真是非常精彩。像主人公Larry这样的人，上下求索的结果，最后会不会把自己给绕进去，反倒绕糊涂了呢？:-)
暖冬周末快乐！
居家之后我的生活缺乏规律，锻炼少了，书也没时间听了，关键是还不爱做饭，时间都被我浪费掉了。
我现在对名著敬而远之，因此不读书评了，抱歉。
毛姆的作品都挺喜欢的，放一段我原来写的：
“以高更为原型的 The Moon and Sixpence by W Somerset Maugham 法国名作家毛姆的《月亮和六便士》是我在Book Club 精读书的之一。我们当时好像非常激烈地讨论了在生活中你会不会喜欢里面的男主人Strickland，也就是Paul Gauguin高更？全书以“我”一个旁观者的角度，讲述了Strickland从伦敦证券交易所职员的正常人的生活，到抛妻弃儿去巴黎学画的潦倒及最后远渡重洋到Tahiti世外桃源和当地土著女一起生活作画的人生的三个阶段，有机会一定要去塔希提Tahiti看高更的心愿, 看那副 “我们从何处来？我们是谁？我们向何处去”作画的地方。”
毛姆的《刀锋》也是原来写过的读书会里读的书，现在再回想起来，竟然觉得里面的主人公拉里和《月亮与六便士》Strickland有着惊人的相似，他们离家出走，又都是精神上的流浪者，Strickland去大溪地画画，拉里去印度朝圣，他们都对生活感到迷悯，试图探索人生的终极价值。。。“
zhuc 发表评论于 2020-04-22 16:38:35
这三本书里我倒是最喜欢《刀锋》。
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+1 我也最喜欢刀锋，同时开始追逐维特根斯坦，虽然只是个“据说”的原型
It is said the Indian sage mentioned in the novel is after Ramana Masharshi in real life. I don't know much about him. Throughout the book I don’t think Maugham ever mentioned Buddha, but Yogi(s) a couple of times. Overall the sage gave me an impression of a monk in Tibet. There are more good quotes highlighted in the book, but somehow I could not export them successfully. I also believe you will like this book!
保重！
这三本书里我倒是最喜欢《刀锋》。
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莱蒙托夫的当代英雄，田德里亚科夫的月蚀