96 Quotes by Algernon Blackwood

I searched everywhere for a proof of reality, when all the while I understood quite well that the standard of reality had changed.

All my life,” he said, “I have been strangely, vividly conscious of another region – not far removed from our own world in one sense, yet wholly different in kind – where great things go on unceasingly, where immense and terrible personalities hurry by, intent on vast purposes compared to which earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the destinies of empires, the fate of armies and continents, are all as dust in the balance.

Punk had in him still the instincts of his dying race; his taciturn silence and his endurance survived; also his superstition.

The Gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world.

Ordinary sounds remain ordinary only so long as one is not listening to them; under the influence of intense listening they become unusual, portentous, and therefore extraordinary.

But the wicked passions of men’s hearts alone seem strong enough to leave pictures that persist the good are ever too luke-warm.

Of course, he smothered it in words – odd words, too – melodramatic, poetic, out-of-the-way words that lie just on the edge of frenzy.

Death, according to one’s belief, means either annihilation or release from the limitations of the senses, but it involves no change of character. You don’t suddenly alter just because the body’s gone.

Mountains overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another, somewhere link on intimately with human life and human experience.