Quotes from Virginia Woolf

No debería la educación buscar y fortalecer más bien las diferencias que no los puntos de semejanza? Porque ya nos parecemos demasiado, y si un explorador volviera con la noticia de otros sexos atisbando por entre las ramas de otros árboles bajo otros cielos, nada podría ser más útil a la Humanidad

the chief glory of a woman is not to be talked of, said Pericles, himself a much-talked-of man)

Woolf was breaking new ground in the way she rendered consciousness and her understanding of human subjectivity.

quién va a exigir juicio crítico a un enfermo o sensatez al postrado en la cama?

For here again we come within range of that very interesting and obscure masculine complex which has had so much influence upon the woman's movement; that deep-seated desire, not so much that she shall be inferior as that he shall be superior, which plants him wherever one looks, not only in front of the arts, but barring the way to politics too, even when the risk to himself seems infinitesimal and the suppliant humble and devoted.

Oh, to awake from dreaming! Look, there is the chest of drawers. Let me pull myself out of these waters. But they heap themselves on me; they sweep me between their great shoulders; I am turned; I am tumbled; I am stretched, among these long lights, these long waves, these endless paths, with people pursuing, pursuing.

E pensai a quanto fosse sgradevole esserne chiusi fuori; e pensai a come, forse, debba essere peggio rimanere chiusi dentro.

How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were? Only like a bee, drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air intangible to touch or taste, one haunted the dome-shaped hive, ranged the wastes of the air over the countries of the world alone, and then haunted the hives with their murmurs and their stirrings; the hives which were people.

It is a profound truth that in 'every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place', as Woolf puts it, but for the writer that change is also a profound source of energy.

I am immensely respectable. All the young ladies in the office acknowledge my entrance. I can dine where I like now, and without vanity may suppose that I shall soon acquire a house in Surrey, two cars, a conservatory and some rare species of melon.

En la enfermedad, parece que las palabras poseen una cualidad mística. Captamos lo que está más allá de su significado superficial, deducimos instintivamente (...)

What one would expect to find would be that rather later perhaps some great lady would take advantage of her comparative freedom and comfort to publish something with her name to it and risk being thought a monster.

Porque una sabia disposición de la naturaleza ha determinado que nuestro espíritu moderno casi pueda prescindir del lenguaje: las expresiones más comunes bastan, ya que ninguna expresión basta; por eso la conversación más vulgar es a menudo la más poética, y la más poética es precisamente la que no se puede escribir. Por esas razones dejamos aquí un gran espacio en blanco, lo que es señal de que el espacio está repleto.

The night is not a tumultuous black ocean in which you sink or sail as a star

Feia vent, i de tant en tant les fulles deixaven a la vista una estrella, i semblava que les estrelles mateixes s'estremissin i projectessin la seva llum per mirar d'esquitllar-se per entre les vores de les fulles.

The human frame being what it is, heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt in another million year, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

Dass eine berühmte Bibliothek von einer Frau verwünscht wird, ist für eine berühmte Bibliothek völlig bedeutungslos. Ehrwürdig und gelassen, mit all ihren Schätzen sicher an ihrem Busen verwahrt, schläft sie selbstzufrieden und wird, was mich angeht, für immer so weiterschlafen.

But if I find myself in company with other people, words at once make smoke rings - see how phrases at once begin to wreathe off my lips.

She came from the most worthless of all classes—the rich, with a smattering of culture.

How he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in' was in ecstasy' in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings... and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.

Never did anybody look so sad.

Mrs. Ramsay did in her own heart infinitely prefer boobies to clever men who wrote dissertations.

Terá o dedo da morte de pousar de vez em quando no tumulto da vida para evitar que ele nos despedace? Tal será a nossa condição que devamos receber, diariamente, a morte, em pequenas doses, para podermos prosseguir na empresa da vida?

Many friends have helped me in writing this book. Some are dead and so illustrious that I scarcely dare name them, yet no one can read or write without being perpetually in the debt of Defoe, Sir Thomas Browne, Sterne, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Macaulay, Emily Bronte, De Quincey, and Walter Pater — to name the first that come to mind. Others are alive, and though perhaps as illustrious in their own way, are less formidable for that very reason.