"Poetry Black Poetry White"

René Daumal Literature See all quotes by René Daumal →

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“Skin of Light and Last Letter to his Wife”

“There is an art to finding your way in the lower regions by the memory of what you have seen when you were higher up. When you can no longer see, you can at least still know. . .”

“Truth is one, but error proliferates. Man tracks it down and cuts it up into little pieces hoping to turn it into grains of truth. But the ultimate atom will always essentially be an error, a miscalculation.”

“Alpinism is the art of climbing mountains by confronting the greatest dangers with the greatest prudence. Art is used here to mean the accomplishment of knowledge in action.”

“Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are cheques drawn on insufficient funds.”

“You cannot always stay on the summits. You have to come down again . . .”

Resonant Thoughts

"Of every species of pride or expence I abominate and detest that most which is lavished on the dead."

— Joseph Ritson

Social Activism1752–1803

#writing

"The pen is mightier than the sword," you say. Get out your pens and prepare to have your logic tested by steel."

— Simon Munnery

Entertainment1967

#writing

"The rise of Islam offers perhaps the most impressive example in world history of the power of words to alter human behavior in sudden, surprising ways."

— William H. McNeill

Education1917–2016

#writing

"No woman in the world, certainly none in America, has had to battle for her virtue, for her self-respect, for her right to her own children, as has the black mother."

— Richard R. Wright Jr.

Politics1878–1967

#family