...talked itself to the edge of the abyss

And I think we also can appreciate the simple pathos of Heidegger's disenchantment with philosophy. At times, of course, it is little more than the protest of a weary man, perhaps aware of his own moral and intellectual failures, imploring the voices of philosophy and ideology to cease their babbling. Western humanity has talked its way right to the edge of the abyss - so, please, be silent now. Wait. Listen. Let being speak, let the world be a world again, let the divine show itself to us if it will. But stop talking for a while.

—David Bentley Hart, "A Philosopher in the Twilight" (February 2011)

'laughter is always at our elbows'

... laughter for its own sake is never far away from us; in spite of all the misery of our lives quiet laughter is always, so to speak, at our elbows ...

—Franz Kafka, "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" (1924) (trans. Willa & Edwin Muir 1948)

'as many as a thousand shoulders'

Our life is very uneasy, every day brings surprises, apprehensions, hopes and terrors, so that it would be impossible for a single individual to bear it all did he not always have by day and night the support of his fellows; but even so it often becomes very difficult; frequently as many as a thousand shoulders are trembling under a burden that was really meant only for one pair.

—Franz Kafka, "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" (1924) (trans. Willa & Edwin Muir 1948)

'Don't forget the fingers.'

[Ellen Burka] also choreographed part of the long program that helped Dorothy Hamill win the 1976 Olympics, as well as her short program. 

"Don't forget the fingers," Hamill remembers Burka telling her in her autobiography, On and Off the Ice. "The hands. The arms. Feel the music in every part of you. Let it flow out of your fingers."

—Beverly Smith, Talking Figure Skating: Behind the Scenes in the World's Most Glamorous Sport (1997)

'the seductions of variety'

[I]n general it is more satisfactory to proceed by similarity than by contrast. Music thus gains strength in the measure that it does not succumb to the seductions of variety. What it loses in questionable riches it gains in true solidity. 

Contrast produces an immediate effect. Similarity satisfies us only in the long run. Contrast is an element of variety, but it divides our attention. Similarity is born of a striving for unity. The need to seek variety is perfectly legitimate, but we should not forget that the One precedes the Many. ... Variety is valid only as a means of obtaining similarity. Variety surrounds me on every hand. So I need not fear that I shall be lacking in it, for I am constantly confronted by it. Contrast is everywhere. One has only to take note of it. Similarity is hidden; it must be sought out, and it is found only after the most exhaustive efforts. When variety tempts me, I am uneasy about the facile solutions it offers me. Similarity, on the other hand, poses more difficult problems, but also offers results that are more solid and hence more valuable to me.

—Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music (1942) (trans. A. Knodel & I. Dahl 1947)

'to the gifts of nature are added the benefits of artifice'

... I take cognizance of the existence of elemental natural sounds, the raw materials of music, which, pleasing in themselves, may caress the ear and give us a pleasure that may be quite complete. But over and beyond this passive enjoyment we shall discover music, music that will make us participate actively in the working of a mind that orders, gives life, and creates. For at the root of all creation one discovers an appetite that is not an appetite for the fruits of the earth. So that to the gifts of nature are added the benefits of artifice—such is the general significance of art.

—Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music (1942) (trans. A. Knodel & I. Dahl 1947)

'besides the world everyone could see'

... [Vasya] had strikingly keen eyesight. He saw so well that, for him, the dirty brown, empty steppe was always filled with life and content. He had only to peer into the distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some other animal that keeps away from people. It is not hard to see a fleeing hare or a flying bustard—anyone crossing the steppe has seen that—but it not given to everyone to see wild animals in their home life, when they are not fleeing, not hiding or looking around in alarm. But Vasya could see foxes frolicking, hares washing themselves with their forepaws, bustards spreading their wings, kestrels beating their wings "in place." Thanks to such keen eyesight, besides the world everyone could see, Vasya had another world of his own, inaccessible to anyone else, and probably a very nice one, because when he looked and admired, it was hard not to envy him.

—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, "The Steppe" (1888) (trans. Pevear & Volokhonsky 2004)

'the contrary of chaos'

In truth, I should be hard pressed to cite for you a single fact in the history of art that might be qualified as revolutionary. Art is by essence constructive. Revolution implies a disruption of equilibrium. To speak of revolution is to speak of a temporary chaos. Now art is the contrary of chaos. It never gives itself up to chaos without immediately finding its livings works, its very existence, threatened.

—Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music (1942) (trans. A. Knodel & I. Dahl 1947)

'retain in all seasons a temperature of thine own'

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. 

But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick ch. 68 (1851)

'one insular Tahiti'

... consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick ch. 58 (1851)