Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We live in the midst of invisible forces whose effects alone we perceive. We move among invisible forms whose actions we very often do not perceive at all, though we may be profoundly affected by them.
In the first place, it's surreal to watch filming, to see the little ideas you had in your head and now Taylor Kitsch is doing it, or Salma Hayek. And then to see it loud and bright onscreen is a trip.
Faint equivalents can sometimes be found ... . Or it can be rendered obliquely-an adolescent's mental image of his or her parents making love, which must be something on the order of crocodiles mating.
It is difficult to keep the public interested. The public demands new wonders piled on new wonders. Often we don't know where our next marvel is coming from. The supply of strange ideas is not endless.
It starts in the home environment. If the parents eat bad? Those kids are going to eat bad. If they see their parents stopping at McDonald's or Pizza Hut, then that's what they're going to eat as well.
Dying for something is easy because it is associated with glory. Living for something is the hard thing. Living for something extends beyond fashion, glory, or recognition. We live for what we believe.
Exposing students to lots of books and positive reading experiences while building a network of other readers who support each other provides students with tools that last beyond the classroom setting.
Democratic candidates who run from President Obama in red states where he is unpopular are making a big mistake. Their holding Obama at arm's length deprives voters of a clear choice at the ballot box.
I'm involved with a baroque opera company here in Italy. I write some of their booklet material, comments on operas. I also write for some baroque opera festivals because this music is my real passion.
The report of this made me exceedingly angry, for I could not see why information which a middle-class woman could get from her doctor should be withheld from a poorer woman who might need it far more.
What I have found is that when we get to that still, small voice inside and begin to live by it, we see that that still, small voice doesn't judge us the way we are being judged by others all the time.
Men have never really been encouraged to listen to their intuition, or told that they have an intuition. It's been more of a female thing, at least according to our society, but that's not true at all.
Ego means self-identification with thinking, to be trapped in thought, which means to have a mental image of "me" based on thought and emotions. So ego is there in the absence of a witnessing presence.
When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you're waiting for the elevator - instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence.
Why is old considered useless? Because in old age, the emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: Being? What do you do with it?
Being Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining Biblically sound.
Simply because humankind have the power now to meddle or 'manage' or 'exercise stewardship' in every nook and cranny of the world does not mean that we have a right to do so. Even less, the obligation.
Simply to have all the necessities of life and three meals a day will not bring happiness. Happiness is hidden in the unnecessary and in those impractical things that bring delight to the inner person.
God's willingness to answer our prayers exceeds our willingness to give good and necessary things to our children, just as far as God's ability, goodness and perfection exceed our infirmities and evil.
When we say that prayer puts God to work, it is simply to say that man has it in his power by prayer to move God to work in His own way among men, in which way He would not work if prayer was not made.
In researching 'The Luminaries,' I did read quite a lot of 20th-century crime. My favourites out of that were James M. Cain, Dassiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene and Patricia Highsmith.
There's this idea that if you want to write, you shouldn't study literature because then you're dissecting what you love, and you should keep your love of literature pure. I think that's kind of silly.
Oh, I just want what we all want: a comfortable couch, a nice beverage, a weekend of no distractions and a book that will stop time, lift me out of my quotidian existence and alter my thinking forever.
Internet voting is surely coming. Though online ballots cannot be made secure, though the problems of voter authentication and privacy will remain unsolvable, I suspect we'll go ahead and do it anyway.
I have ne'er been in a chamber with a lawyer when I did not wish either to scream with desperation or else fall into the deepest of sleeps, e'en when the matter concern'd my own future most profoundly.
With the advent of radical and accessible technology, each one of us, for the first time in history, is creating an influential mark forever - we are all mini-digital celebrities and heroes to someone.
His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred.
I think you must remember that a writer is a simple-minded person to begin with and go on that basis. He's not a great mind, he's not a great thinker, he's not a great philosopher, he's a story-teller.
The measure of a friendship is not its physicality but its significance. Good friendships, online or off, urge us toward empathy; they give us comfort and also pull us out of the prisons of our selves.
Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the one you are with; you are not liking the person you have become.
I hate dainty minds,' answered Marjorie. 'But a girl has to be dainty in person. If she looks like a million dollars she can talk about Russia, ping-pong, or the League of Nations and get away with it.
So often we think that to be encouragers we have to produce great words of wisdom when, in fact, a few simple syllables of sympathy and an arm around the shoulder can often provide much needed comfort.
I believe that at birth everyone gets the capacity for a certain amount of drugs and alcohol, everyone the same, you can do it all between 15 and 19 like I did, or you can stretch it out over 70 years.
We hear, "Oh, we need to patent GMOs and develop new strains and new chemicals because Nature can't provide what we need." I have to debate people all the time who say that Nature can't provide enough.
I also believe that it's almost impossible for people to change alone. We need to join with others who will push us in our thinking and challenge us to do things we didn't believe ourselves capable of.
Humans need to feel effective - to feel that we can "make a dent," as he puts it. So the art of living is to find expressions appropriate to our own uniqueness in which we can experience effectiveness.
When you speak to any, especially of quality, look them full in the face; other gestures betraying want of breeding, confidence, or honesty; dejected eyes confessing, to most judgments, guilt or folly.
Love of fame, fear of disgrace, schemes for advancement, desire to make life comfortable and pleasant, and the urge to humiliate others are often at the root of the valour men hold in such high esteem.
Some folks run from the doubt and go backward. You try for all the spiritual Band-Aids you can find... when actually, what you need to do is press forward, to accept those doubts and work through them.
When people get their mind made up about something, then it's: 'Don't bother me with facts.' They've got their minds made up and dismiss you out of hand. Some people don't even give you a fair hearing.
The secular humanist, although he would never dream of committing the social faux pas of calling a black man a negro, feels perfectly free to castigate Christians and their leaders in any way he likes.
As a teenager and a student, I totally cast away the Christian faith. I just believed it was stupid, and only stupid people could believe it. I actually became an anti-Christian, and very antagonistic.
If we look further, we see that we actually contain all of existence. Everyone who has ever been or will ever be, is in some way contained in our awareness. Our awareness is like the sky, it's endless.
If you just keep giving constantly, if you don't really take thought of your own welfare and your own awareness, but just give, beyond exhaustion - then your life will always be a constant progression.
There is something beyond the natural chaos that is woman or the chaos with implied order that is man, and that's the totality. To stay as we are, is not the issue, but to awake from the dream of life.
I used to live in Seattle, as did Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee. I lived near the arboretum. Very often I would take walks late at night by Lake Washington, because I found it very easy to meditate there.
Most people are not in the world of awe and wonder. They're in the world of deadness. Their perceptual fields and bodies are completely self-reflective, and all they see is themselves wherever they go.
Channeling is a practice that is very popular right now. It is very dangerous. It is a process in which you are opening yourself up to astral entities and inviting them to come into you. This is silly.
Dreams are just silly things that pass through your mind at night. "Dreaming" is out-of-the-body experiences where you are traveling through the different dimensions - most of which you don't remember.
In my estimation it's silly to go out and spend your time aiding people if you don't have your own act together yet. So I'd rather you spend the time, get it right, and it'll all work out a lot better.