treasures found along the way

I'm far too tired and overwhelmed these days to create a full and meaningful post, so I thought I'd share some of the treasures I've found recently -- most of them in odd places:

Opinion has it that a real Roman is generous, outgoing, extremely sociable and a bit of a hedonist, that he enjoys the company of other people, is vehemently passionate about politics, and passes himself off as non-religious while packing his wife and daughters off to church in the belief that there should be at least some people in the family who have a developed relationship with the Almighty.

--Fellini

In 680 AD [the pantheon] was given to the church and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and all the Christian martyrs. The space's sole source of illumination is the light that seeps in, as if it is pouring down from of heaven itself, through the monolithic dome, a masterwork of ancient Roman architecture. Standing under the center of the dome and seeing the clouds is an incredible experience, like being awash in holy light.

--Emel Celibi, from an inflight magazine

Even people whose lives have been made various by learning sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible, nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas -- where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their souls have been nourished. Minds that have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile, in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories.

--George Eliot/MaryAnn Evans, Silas Marner