The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Aristotle - The Eudemian Ethics

However, people are not good at judging what counts as small, because one‘s own good, being close, appears large, while another‘s good, being distant, appears small.

...wanting to perceive oneself is wanting oneself to have certain attributes.

...one always desires to live because one always desires to know, and because one wishes to be oneself the object known.

Perceiving a friend, then, must be in a manner perceiving oneself, and in a manner knowing oneself.

...a man who remembers former prosperity suffers more than if he thought he had always fared badly.

Margery Fish - We Made a Garden

Original:

The house was long and low, in the shape of an L, built of honey-coloured Somerset stone. At one time it must have been thatched hut but, unfortunately, that had been discarded long ago and old red tiles used instead. It stood right in the middle of a little Somerset village, and made the corner where a very minor road turned off from the main street. There was only a narrow strip of garden in front, and not very much behind, but we bought an orchard and outbuildings beyond so that we had about two acres in all. A high stone wall screened us from the village street, and there was a cottage and another orchard on the other side. 

Korean Trans.:

그 집은 길고 좁은, L자 모양의 벌꿀색 Somerset (지역 명칭) 돌로 지어진 건물이었다. 초가지붕은 오래전에 벗겨져버리고 현재는 낡고 빨간 타일로 대체되었다. 이 집은 작은 소머셋 마을의 중심부에 서서 큰 길가에서 벗어나는 코너에 자리하고 있었다. 앞뜰에는 작은 꽃밭이 가로로 나있고, 뒤뜰에는 별건 없었지만 우리는 공간을 만들려 과수원과 별채들을 사들였고, 덕분에 약 두 에이커의 땅을 확보할 수 있게 되었다. 한쪽에선 높은 돌담이 거리로부터 칸막이가 되주었고 반대편에는 오두막 한 채와 또 다른 과수원 하나가 있었다.

Fyodor Dostoevsky - White Nights

Do you know that I love now recall and visit at certain dates the places where I was once happy in my own way? I love to build up my present in harmony with the irrecoverable past.

Trans. of Zhuangzi 2.13 w/ Guo Xiang‘s Comment

2.13

罔兩問景曰：「曩子行，今子止；曩子坐，今子起；何其無特操與？」 

景曰：「吾有待而然者邪？吾所待又有待而然者邪？吾待蛇蚹蜩翼邪？

惡識所以然！惡識所以不然！」

Translation: The Penumbra asked the Shadow, “In the old days, you used to move forward, but now you are at rest. In the old days, you used to sit, but now you are on your feet; why don’t you go about your way on your own?” The Shadow said, “Am I like this because I have something to cling onto? Is it that the thing which I depend on also has something to depend on? Are the things which I depend on akin to that of the scales on a snake or the wings of a cicada? How do I know for what reason is this so? And how do I know for what reason it is not?”

Guo Xiang’s commentary:

世或謂罔兩待景，景待形，形待造物者。請問：夫造物者，有耶無耶？無也？

則胡能造物哉？有也？則不足以物眾形。故明眾形之自物而後始可與言造物耳。

是以涉有物之域，雖復罔兩，未有不獨化於玄冥者也。

Translation: It is said that the Penumbra is to be the Shadow, then the Shadow is to take form, and the form is to be created. Let me ask you - are there any Creators or not? There is not? But what if they can create things? There is one? Then they are not sufficient enough to form a multitude. Therefore, all the individual forms can then be used to speak to things with ears. In the realm of things, although the Penumbra is no more, xuan is not there to be controlled.