Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Karl Barth said it well: "We have to read the Bible in one hand... and the newspaper in the other." Our faith should not cause us to escape this world but to engage it.
The monastic folks have the spirit of being in the world but not of the world, sort of peculiar people who have gone to the desert to live on the margins of the empire.
When you get tired of worrying and mourning your horse and trying not to be afraid, tell me and I'll do it for you a while so you can shut your eyes and sleep peaceful.
We think of ourselves as our titles or our jobs or our position in a family. We depend on being praised by others. But something happens when that praise is undermined.
Fear," the doctor said, "is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it halfway.
If our parents fixed everything for us and did not allow us to do anything on our own, or intervened every single time, we would all grow up to be completely dependent.
Whether individuals or organisations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.
The lives we live are a bit of a straight-hair vs. curly-hair thing. We often want what we don't have. In reality, it's not about better or worse; it's just perception.
My definition of good is that you understand that this is a question of power. That you be willing to give up some power. That you be willing to give up some resources.
When we meditate, what we actually do is enter into the deeper part of our being. At that time, we are able to bring to the fore the wealth that we have deep within us.
When finally I mustered the courage to tell a novelist friend that I was talking to editors about a biography, her reply was, 'Oh, that's okay. That's not a real book.'
What is a memory? Not a storehouse, not a trunk in the attic, but an instrument that constantly refines the past into a narrative, accessible and acceptable to oneself.
People are social beings and want interaction and social learning is the primary form of learning, just as word of mouth advertising is the highest form of advertising.
When we cannot find a way of telling our story, our story tells us-we dream these stories, we develop symptoms, or we find ourselves acting in ways we don’t understand.
You are the grim, goal-oriented ones who will not believe that the joy is in the journey rather than the destination no matter how many times it has been proven to you.
If you've ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you'll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.
You are about to enter the realms of human beings. Be prepared for cruelty and kindness, for friendship and hatred. People are made of all possibilities and conditions.
People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another. -Studs Terkel
For the next century, we've got to put together what we so carelessly tore apart with so little concern for those who were gonna follow us. ... You've got to sound off.
My primary lesson, however, was that I'm a solo writer, happiest when I'm making all the executive decisions. I've always been willing to rise or fall on my own merits.
Periods of change are full of paradoxes. They're difficult but exciting, frightening but freeing. Letting go of old patterns that no longer work for us is exhilarating.
But I should like to take these things on full gallop, instead of dawdling along gaping at them. I get fearfully tired, and a very little Abbey goes a long way with me.
It was tremendously exciting to discover that science was not destroying religion, as people popularly believe, but that it could cast light on theism and Christianity.
Spare me the people who ask, 'Have you thought about ... losing weight, hiring an assistant, buying a Pentium, working with an etiquette specialist, coloring your hair?
It seemed to me that you make magic real by making it a little prosaic, a little difficult and disappointing - never quite as glamorous as the other characters imagine.
Brave, bold men, these are what we want. What we want is vigour in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas.
Jiva (individual soul) is the conscious ruler of this body, in whom the five life principles come into unity, and yet that very Jiva is the Atman, because all is Atman.
My hope of the future lies in the youths of character, intelligent, renouncing all for the service of others, and obedient - good to themselves and the country at large
"Face the brutes." That is a lesson for all life-face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them.
A lot of brainless unicorns swaggering about and calling themselves educated just because they can push each other off a horse with a bit of a stick! It makes me tired.
As for monkeys, I would have five, and they would be named: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Do Pretty Much Whatever The Hell You Want, and Expensive Attorney.
Before you can express love, you must find love. You must know love within yourself before you can express it. You must love yourself before you can give it to another.
Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India's golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else.
It took him forever to get to downtown Vancouver although Tony had to admit that saving the world by public transportation was a particularly Canadian way to do things.
In Speaking Out I do my best to answer those questions I was asked and more, and I provide strategies for how to speak out and keep on speaking out without burning out.
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
There was a man and he had eight sons. Apart from that, he was nothing more than a comma on the page of History. It's sad, but that's all you can say about some people.
My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It's just a matter of joining the dots.
David Burnett was the son of Martha Foley, who edited the Best American Short Stories series. She hired me to work with David and her to read stories for the anthology.
Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. After the listening you become accountable for the sacred knowledge that has been shared.
To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters. Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.
That is the wonderful ecological mind that Gregory Bateson talks about - the patterns that connect, the stories that inform and inspire us and teach us what is possible
Look at your body— A painted puppet, a poor toy Of jointed parts ready to collapse, A diseased and suffering thing With a head full of false imaginings. —The Dhammapada
Thought is a disease of the brain. The mind defends itself against the degenerative process of creativity; it begins to jell; notions solidify into inalterable systems.
"President Monson, I may never see the Prophet. I may never hear the Prophet. But President, far better, now that I am a member of this Church, I can obey the Prophet."
Publishing a protocol under the name Atom that tries to capture all of the prior art in this stage and might provide a good basis for winding down the syndication wars.
A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.
Kellan’s hand found hers, took it into his strong grasp. “There,” he said, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm. “I’ve got you, Mouse.” “Yes, you do,” she replied.
Even when they're not causing injury, human-controlled cars are often driven inefficiently, ineptly, antisocially, or in other ways additive to the sum of human misery.
But there is no obvious reason for holding that some normal adults are entitled to make choices for other normal adults, as paternalists of both left and right believe.