/lit/ - Literature

"Whether I like it or not, everything that isn’t my soul is no more for me
than scenery and decoration. Through rational thought I can recognize
that a man is a living being just like me, but for my true, involuntary self
he has always had less importance than a tree, if the tree is more
beautiful. That’s why I’ve always seen human events – the great
collective tragedies of history or of what we make of history – as
colourful friezes, with no soul in the figures that appear there. I’ve never
thought twice about anything tragic that has happened in China. It’s just
scenery in the distance, even if painted with blood and disease."

- Fernando Pessoa