18 Quotes by W.N.P. Barbellion

When the sun grew too hot we went into the wood where waves of Bluebells dashed around the foot of the Oak in front of us... I never knew before, the delight of offering oneself up; I even longed for some self sacrifice, to have to give up something for her sake. It intoxicated me to think I was making another happy...

Aunque sea una gran hazaña añadir algo, aunque sólo sea una pizca, a la suma del conocimiento humano, más grande todavía es añadir un pensamiento. Para un hombre, es mejor intentar ser a la vez poeta y naturalista que ser demasiado naturalista y pasar por alto la belleza de las cosas, o demasiado poeta y no entenderlas o no poder ver siquiera las bellezas escondidas que sólo se revelan tras una observación atenta.

Me gusta pensar que en otro tiempo fui un magnífico ejemplar peludo que vivía en los árboles y que mi cuerpo procede, a lo largo de un tiempo geológico, de la medusa, los gusanos y anfioxos, peces, dinosaurios y monos. ¿Quién querría cambiar eso por la pálida pareja del Jardín del Edén?

From the drawing-room window I see pass almost daily an old gentleman with white hair, a firm step, broad shoulders, healthy pink skin, a sunny smile – always singing to himself as he goes – a happy, rosy-cheeked old fellow, with a rosy-cheeked mind I should like to throw mud at him.

As soon as we are born, if we could but get up, bath, dress, shave, breakfast once for all, if we could ‘cut’ these monotonous cycles of routine. If the sun rose it would stay up, or once we were alive we were immortal!

I can remember wondering as a child if I were a young Macaulay or Ruskin and secretly deciding that I was. My infant mind even was bitter with those who insisted on regarding me as a normal child and not as a prodigy.

My confessions are shameless. I confess, but do not repent. The fact is, my confessions are prompted, not by ethical motives, butintellectual. The confessions are to me the interesting records of a self-investigator.

The porter spends his days in the Library keeping strict vigil over this catacomb of books, passing along between the shelves and yet never paying heed to the almost audible susurrus of desire- the desire every book has to be taken down and read, to live, to come into being in somebody’s mind. He even hands the volumes over the counter, seeks them out in their proper places or returns them there without once realising that a Book is a Person and not a Thing.

Civilisation and top hats bore me.