Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
One must be reasonable in one's demands on life. For myself, all that I ask is: (1) accurate information; (2) coherent knowledge; (3) deep understanding; (4) infinite loving wisdom; (5) no more kidney stones, please.
I would give ten years off the beginning of my life to see, only once, Tyrannosaurus rex come rearing up from the elms of Central Park, a Morgan police horse screaming in its jaws. We can never have enough of nature.
Look at the sky. Does its sapphire hue dim when you take a single breath? Are the stars drawn closer when you weep? The sky cannot be diminished so. Thus it is with the spirit: it is a thing without beginning or end.
If you are in a breakup, you might as well go all the way and spend the summer in Samarkand, with no air-conditioning, learning a language you have no use for. At least it adds some romance to a depressing situation.
Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you livein our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation.
If we do anything to further the kingdom of God, we may expect to find what Christ found on that road abuse, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, trouble of some kind. Take it. Why not? To that you were called.
I don't want to live in Maine full time, but the physical beauty is very striking. It is the exact opposite of New York. When you walk through my small town to get a cup of coffee, you bump into five people you know.
When I hear the word 'disruption,' in my mind, I think of all these people in the middle who were earning a living. We will sweep away all that money they were earning, and we will move that to the people at the top.
We tried it again and it didn't work out. Sour milk is always sour milk. When something goes bad it stays bad.You don't put sour milk in the refrigerator one day,and take it out the next and expect it to taste sweet.
Perhaps it's true you can't go back in time, but you can return to the scene of a love, of a crime, of happiness, and of a fateful decision; the places are what remain, are what you can possess, are what is immortal.
I don't think you will ever fully understand how you've touched my life and made me who I am. I don't think you could ever know just how truly special you are that even on the darkest nights you are my brightest star
I don't think there's just one person for everyone. It would be very hard for me to be with a guy who was not bright or funny. And he'd have to see the absurdities of the world, not exactly as I see them necessarily.
Go and don't come back, you can take the catmint. I have no quarrel with ThunderClan; I don't want to see cats suffer, whatever you might think. Just be careful you don't end up like a bully like your kin, Tigerstar.
Find what gave you emotion; what the action was that gave you excitement. Then write it down making it clear so that the reader can see it too. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.
Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing.... For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.
Why waste so much time, energy, and money trying to buy the biggest house that your credit rating will allow? Truth be known, a small house can hold as much happiness as a large one. Sometimes it will hold even more.
Look for good things about where you are, and in your state of appreciation, you lift all self-imposed limitations - and all limitations are self-imposed - and you free yourself for the receiving of wonderful things.
I knew just by reading this guy, Nathanael West, that he was probably one of those icky East Coast guys with glasses who got mad because when he came to L.A., all those starlets preferred producers or cowboys to him.
Fall on your knees and grow there. There is no burden of the spirit but is lighter by kneeling under it. Prayer means not always talking to Him, but waiting before Him till the dust settles and the stream runs clear.
The universalist approach is roughly: 'What is good and right can be defined and always applies.' In particularist cultures far greater attention is given to the obligations of relationships and unique circumstances.
I always make a big effort to make a distinction between what is actually worse or what is just worse about not being 21. Of course, it's much worse not to be 21. This is a given. But there are things that are worse.
Love one another, Jesus said. Sometimes it took a lifetime to learn how. Sometimes it took someone to hit rock bottom to make someone reach up and grasp hold and be lifted from the mire to stand on a firm foundation.
It may be said that the vices await us in the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid them if we were to travel the same road a second time.
Pride has a greater share than goodness in the reproofs we give other people for their faults; and we chide them not so much to make them mend those faults as to make them believe that we ourselves are without fault.
Since science is fashionable today, it allows its fraternity to propose cloddish monstrosities as a solution to man's problems in many fields. Fashion rules and, anyway, who but the experts can even dare to speak up?
Being touched and caressed, being massaged, is food for the infant; food as necessary as minerals, vitamins, and proteins. Deprived of this food, the name of which is love, Babies would rather die. And often they do.
You don't know why, but you know you have to go home. It's an eternal longing. It's Marvell's drop of dew wanting to go back to the sky. We're drawn by a force we don't understand, through worlds, through experience.
Sring is the mantra of beauty. Traditionally it is connected with Lakshmi, the Indian goddess of beauty. Chant "Sring" slowly, elongating each sound. As you do, you will see the consciousness of beauty of everywhere.
The universe is ecstasy. We have many other ways of perceiving infinity. And when you perceive life through these other modes, that's when you see that the universe is ecstasy, That's when you experience its ecstasy.
An enlightened being comes into the world because they can help. They are off the wheel. They will experience different states of mind. They will suffer. They will know joy. But ultimately, they are free of all that.
Selectively pick a teacher, one that you respect, not just someone who can talk with wonderful poetic figures about enlightenment, but someone who has the personal power to bring you into altered states of awareness.
Determine where you are and where you wish to be. Then use all of your self-effort to make that happen, following the guiding principles of all the Buddhas and bohisattvas and seekers of the dharma, of enlightenment.
Every person I've known has had an effect on me, as have people whom I've not met in the physical in this life, but whom I've met inwardly, teachers from other eras - Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna and Lao Tse.
When I meditate, people see manifestations of light when I go into samadhi and through the samadhis. Sometimes the energy of enlightenment is so clear that people don't realize that their attention has been elevated.
Don't judge others. Always be open to them. Avoid the cult mentality, you know, the super-slick, "I'm superior because I meditate, because I'm on the pathway to enlightenment," the subtle ego nonsense, terrible trap.
Power comes from doing meditation, leading a controlled life, being conservative, not wasting all your energy on drugs, alcohol and sex and other pastimes. The guideline for all experience is how you feel afterwards.
Jealousy, anger, fear - these are ridiculous emotions that drain your power. You need to control them by being content, trusting that life knows what is best, accepting with an even mind whatever is presented to you.
Focus your attention on the center of your forehead. Visualize that there is a slow but steady swirl of white light there. Visualize that the white light above your forehead is slowly moving in a clockwise direction.
When you listen to what entities say, the gradually work their way into your thoughts. After a while you will start thinking their thoughts. You won't know they aren't your thoughts. Soon you will be fully possessed.
People are unhappy because they don't understand life; by happy, I mean complete, aware, conscious, poignant, caring, loving, unaffected, cosmic, simplistic, humble, excited, passive - everything. You are everything.
Plants can help you they have a very strong vibrational force. If you've made friends with several of them, they will come and aid you when you've reached that critical moment and you're at a crossroads of knowledge.
Sex is life: The act of creation in pleasure, the loss of oneself in another, the coming together of opposites in a temporary union of yin and yang, that creates something other than either. What is life if not this?
It's fun to go to a supermarket or a park or a shopping mall where human beings convene. They're so caught up in their own personal reality as to not see life, except in terms that add to or detract from their movie.
Many practitioners think there is some giant balance scale, where someone is keeping track, like Santa Claus, and that will determine your allotment of presents. That's a very exoteric understanding of reincarnation.
Learn to control your emotions. Be able to glide through them. By practicing concentration exercises and meditation, you will find that when strong emotions strike, you will gain the ability to not be swayed by them.
Our physical health is dependent upon energy. We have a short lifespan compared with past Yuga's. We are made up of energy lines. The reason people lived longer is because there was less negative energy in the world.
A seasoned woman is spicy. She has been marinated in life experiences. Like a complex wine, she can be alternately sweet, tart, sparkling, mellow. She is both maternal and playful. Assured, alluring, and resourceful.
Career-driven millennials are strategic about working obsessively while they are single and earning enough money to afford advanced education. Most are patient enough to wait until 30 or later to develop their dream.
It was my very good fortune to find a mentor, Clay Felker, who started my career at the 'New York Magazine' as a freelance writer when I had to quit my job at the 'Herald Tribune' to stay home with my young daughter.