Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you observe yourself reacting to what are minor things in your life, you will find that the mechanism is the same as when major things seem to go wrong in your life and there is upset.
How much more intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings of a crowd by the contemplation of human agony, than that brought about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.
I seemed to be upon the verge of comprehension, without the power to comprehend as men, at time, find themselves upon the brink of rememberance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery-in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks.
If children haven't been read to, they don't love books. They need to love books, for books are the basis of literature, composition, history, world events, vocabulary, and everything else.
There is something about guns that inhibits understanding. It is not just that they can put an end to argument. They somehow generate beliefs that are obviously contrary to observable fact.
Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.
When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense.
Passion, sexual passion, may lead to marriage, but cannot sustain marriage. The purpose of marriage is the raising of children, for which patience, not passion, is the necessary foundation.
I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with some obscure race of humanoids on a satellite planet from the world of Betelgeuse.
Quantum mechanics provides us with an approximate, plausible, conjectural explanation of what actually is, or was, or may be taking place inside a cyclotron during a dark night in February.
Nineteen centuries would have been worth very little if we had not made some advance in welcoming the stranger, in feeding the hungry, in clothing the naked, and in caring for the prisoner.
These were our bedtime stories. Tales that haunted our parents and made them laugh at the same time. We never understood them until we were fully grown and they became our sole inheritance.
We're only here for one reason: to wake up... To realize yourself doesn't mean you are perfect as a human being. It means you are willing to bear the imperfections and not sell out to them.
I try really hard to cultivate the pure love of reading, to make time for it, because it would be really sad to still be a writer without remembering why, on some visceral, emotional level.
I write my novels in English first; then they are translated into Turkish by professional translators. Then I take their translation and rewrite. So basically, I write the same novel twice.
We are women, and my plea is Let me be a woman, holy through and through, asking for nothing but what God wants to give me, receiving with both hands and with all my heart whatever that is.
When I start a book, I write a minimum of five pages every day, except weekends. If I'm going on a ski trip, I take my computer with me, get up at six, do my five pages, and then go skiing.
I myself have never been enchanted by the dream of the white wedding, and, heaven help us, the expectation that this exquisitely catered event should be 'the happiest moment' of one's life.
I always thought of deer as solitary animals that weren't very interesting. But my goodness, that was very wrong. The big eye-opener for me was that they're social. They have family groups.
It's only in the act of pushing yourself, challenging yourself to make a contribution to your community, to your family, to your country, that you actually realize your full self, you know?
I see that the greatest thing about getting older is how your judgment changes and how you come to understand the cycles of life. And you keep having these amazing flashes of understanding.
What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find there that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places, other countries, lost long ago.
In a bad marriage, friends are the invisible glue. If we have enough friends, we may go on for years, intending to leave, talking about leaving - instead of actually getting up and leaving.
WindClan has traveled a long time. It's nearly a moon since ShadowClan drove us from our home. The weather is turning colder, and leaf-bare will be here soon. We have no choice but to stay.
Trust not what inspires other members of society to choose as a career. Trust what inspires you. From this decision alone will come over a third of your satisfaction or misery in your life.
I have so much confidence in the reality of Jesus that I feel no pressure to try to make people act or be a certain way. I'm banking everything on the fact that God actually changes people.
Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be - you get a fresh start, your slate's wiped clean. Count yourself lucky - God holds nothing against you and you're holding nothing back from Him.
Boredom is not an end-product, is comparatively rather an early stage in life and art. You've got to go by or past or through boredom, as through a filter, before the clear product emerges.
God has a purpose in every life, and when the soul is completely yielded and acquiescent, He will certainly realize it. Blessed is he who has never thwarted the working of the divine ideal.
Shelter dogs are the most loving, wonderful, sweet pets in the world. They understand being rescued, loved, and protected. The hubs and I have 2 rescued 11-yr-old Pomeranians, who adore us.
It was not one folly that Shakespeare talked about. If Love truly is but a myriad of follies then I have committed them all, that can mean only one thing - I loved her truly, madly, deeply!
I'm such a slow writer I have no need for anything as fast as a word processor. I don't need anything so snappy. I write so slowly that I could write in my own blood without hurting myself.
For envy, like lightning, generally strikes at the top Or any point which sticks out from the ordinary level. LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura Our envy always outlives the felicity of its object.
Be kind, be loving, be generous. Give of yourself, give of your time and you'll be free. It's the oldest secret, the one thats most often forgotten - and that is to have fun through giving.
We can't allow ouselves to be depresses or discouraged. There are people who depend on us, things to accomplish. We only have a little bit of time in this world before death swallows us up.
Angry people, unhappy people, people that seek to injure others, these people all have something in common. They waste energy. They don't conserve it and they don't know how to increase it.
You have to free yourself from your mental conditioning through association with the holy, through doing good works, through meditating, through laughter, through love and through solitude.
Visualize a beautiful rose in the center of your chest. Imagine a soft reddish rose. Imagine that the rose is completely folded up. Visualize the first set of petals is gradually unfolding.
It is important to monitor your mind constantly. This is particularly important if you are studying with an enlightened teacher, because you are absorbing tremendous power from the teacher.
Does power bring happiness? Does it bring refinement? Does it bring humor? Does it bring a good-heartedness, or is it just cold? Power is never cold. Cold people may use power in cold ways.
In meditation the mind stops, thought ceases. When thought stops, the world stops. When the world stops, perception stops. When perception stops, the sense of "I" as a perceiver falls away.
When you could get angry with someone and separate yourself from them, don't do that. If you have people who are difficult to deal with, be neither attracted nor repulsed. Go a step higher.
It is through many lifetimes of shifting the aggregate of the self that one finally reaches a point of maximum velocity whereby one can snap off the circle completely and move into freedom.
Sexuality, I think, is a little bit different, for me, than it is for most people, in that there's almost no body awareness whatsoever. It's just light, but that's how everything is for me.
Throughout the course of my life, I have been very fortunate to have had excellent teachers - not just in meditation, but in martial arts, music, scuba diving, and in my academic education.
In the West people spend most of their time and energy working. The problem is you are so tired from work that you don't have much energy to meditate - unless you use work in a tantric way.
There's no way we can possibly understand anything. But we can see things, we can perceive things, and we can wonder. We can just be in a world of awe and wonder. That's the best we can do.
Work in a place that feels good to you. Select the best of that which is available. The Zen of working is just to do it, not to worry about it. Feel you would be doing it without the money.
Alow immortality to work through you. Be but a mere instrument. And that instrument should be so absorbed in the perfect perfection of existence, that it knows not even that it is absorbed.