Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.

( the photo is mine ). Florence, Italy.

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd."

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.

Venus Italica

* 2nd century CE

* Italica (Santiponce)

* Paros marble

* 211 cm

* Archaeological Museum of Seville

http://www.españaescultura.es/es/obras_de_excelencia/museo_arqueologico_de_sevilla/venus_italica.html

-Through cataclysm, Andreas Birath

- Wedding of heaven and hell, Roberto Ferri

"I could kill anyone tonight, Daroga. If the Holy Virgin herself was to appear before me I could put a dagger through her heart without a moment's compunction! I no longer have a foot in either camp; I have made my choice. Like Lucifer, I prefer to reign in hell." (Susan Kay)

- The fallen Angel, Alexander Cabanel

"Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves." (Milan Kundera)

- Fligeroffizier, Karl Alexander Wilke

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel …” (Mary Shelley)

"There, out in the darkness

A fugitive running Fallen from God

Fallen from grace...

...And if you fall as Lucifer fell

You fall in flame!" (Stars)

Godesses of night in paintings

Auguste Raynaud (French, 1854–1937)

Auguste-Alexandre Hirsch (French, 1833-1912)

François-Léon Bénouville (French, 1821-1859)

Louvre Museum in the rain, Paris, France

Daphne transforming into a Laurel Tree

Apollo and Daphne, 1620s, Gian Lorenzo Bernini

“Cheers for spring, for life, for a growing soul.”