Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
he hardest obstacle for me has been to find a father. I am the product of three fathers, and my connection to each of them has left me wanting. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but I've always been in competition with them in some way.
I now understand the need for faith - pure, blind, fly-in-the-face-of-reason faith - as a small life preserver in the wild and endless sea of a universe ruled by unfeeling laws and totally indifferent to the small, reasoning beings that inhabit it.
I'm very interested in the evolution of technology, and it's really the idea of artificial life which intrigues me, more than just intelligence - a new, evolving life form arising within our datasphere and coming into living relation with humanity.
A lot of white-collar work requires less of the routine, rule-based, what we might call algorithmic set of capabilities, and more of the harder-to-outsource, harder-to-automate, non-routine, creative, juristic - as the scholars call it - abilities.
These days the technology can solve our problems and then some. Solutions may not only erase physical or mental deficits but leave patients better off than "able-bodied" folks. The person who has a disability today may have a superability tomorrow.
These days the technology can solve our problems and then some. Solutions may not only erase physical or mental deficits but leave patients better off than 'able-bodied' folks. The person who has a disability today may have a superability tomorrow.
Life is a matter of choice. Everything we manifest in our day to day lives is the direct result of our choices along the way. Each choice automatically creates a consequence. From our choices other people's lives are influenced for better or worse.
Once a person gave his talent to the world, the world put a stamp upon it. The talent was not a personal possession any more. It was something to be traded, bought and sold. It fetched a high price, or a low one. It was kicked in the common market.
The United States tried, by depressing the clutch of diplomacy and downshifting the gearshift lever of rhetoric, to remain neutral, but it became increasingly obvious that the nation was going to get into a war, especially since it was almost 1812.
For it oft happens that a notion, when it is cloathed with words, seems tedious and operose and hard to be conceived, which yet being striped of that garniture, the ideas shrink into a narrow compass, and are viewed almost by one glance of thought.
It is hard to stop seeing your son as a son and to start seeing him as a human being. It is hard to stop seeing your parents as parents and to start seeing them as human beings. It's a two-sided transition, and very few people manage it gracefully.
When you experience peace of soul, with each breath you are present to the fact that this is a divine moment, a moment to shine like you have never shone before, a moment to hold the whole world in your hands with a gentle thought and a kind heart.
When you are a warrior for your body, you search out every good thing there is to fill it with - every nutrient, every vitamin, every thought, every belief. You love your body, and you thank your body in the morning and bless it throughout the day.
I worked every waking minute, nights and weekends, in order to make enough money to buy those summers off, and even then we wouldn't have made it except that my mother helped out with a yearly check and my father bought me a car when my old one die
It takes as little as 1% of a population to create positive change, and I believe that if 100 million people underwent a personal transformation in the direction of peace, harmony, laughter, love, kindness, and joy...the world would be transformed.
Your conscious brain cannot multitask. If I'm speaking to you and checking my I-Phone at the same time, I'm doing neither. This is why our society is frazzled; this misconception that we can consciously do more than one thing at a time effectively.
Each book develops a strong organic shape. And when that shape is complete, the book is complete. I don't know where the end is. I don't start at the beginning. It's like playing Tetris in my head in a very slow kind of way. All the shapes join up.
The thing is, if you make best-sellerdom your goal, you're going to be in trouble. It's a very nice thing to have happen, but if one makes that a goal like, say, a literary writer has the goal of getting the Pulitzer Prize, that's so unpredictable.
Everybody has a story. It's like families. You might not know who they are, might have lost them, but they exist all the same. You might drift apart or you might turn your back on them, but you can't say you haven't got them. Same goes for stories.
True divine guidance asks you to focus on service. False guidance is more ego-oriented, more about what's in it for you - for example, more focused on making money for its own sake. True guidance may help you make money, but it won't focus on that.
My family always comes first. My world revolves around my husband, Peter, our daughter, Victoria, and our son, William, but not necessarily in that order. Then, it's this fascinating world of publishing that devours most of my days and many nights.
Abundance is the natural state of the universe--of this there can be no doubt. Just as the number of stars in the heavens or drops of water in the ocean is beyond counting, so are the spiritual and material blessings that have been prepared for us.
Let me ask you outright, gentle reader, if there have not been hours, indeed whole days and weeks of your life, during which all your usual activities were painfully repugnant, and everything you believed in and valued seemed foolish and worthless?
To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. Even if there is noise, there is always some silence underneath and in between the sounds. Listening to the silence immediately creates stillness inside you.
Pick up any history book, and I suggest you begin with studying the 20th century, and you will find that a large part of the history of our species has all the characteristics we would normally associate with a nightmare or an insane hallucination.
Your primary purpose is to be here fully, and to be total in whatever you do so that the preciousness of the present moment does not become reduced to a means to an end. And there you have your life purpose. That's the very foundation of your life.
I have seen cases where people seemed to become totally free of ego, and at some point in their lives the ego came back. It has happened, for example, to some spiritual teachers. At some point in their lives, they began to identify again with form.
If the individuals who make up a group have personal egos, and their identities lie in these egos, then their egoic identities will shift to the group. It might look as if they are losing their personal egos, but the ego simply shifts to the group.
When one child says to another, "I can do this, I bet you can't"; "My dad has a bigger car than yours"; or, "My dad is stronger than yours." Children identify with this or that, trying to build up a sense of self - a mentally defined sense of self.
Yes I now feel that it was then on that evening of sweet dreams- that the very first dawn of human love burst upon the icy night of my spirit. Since that period I have never seen nor heard your name without a shiver half of delight half of anxiety.
As for Republicanism, no analogy could be found for it upon the face of the earth—unless we except the case of the "prairie dogs," an exception which seems to demonstrate, if anything, that democracy is a very admirable form of government—for dogs.
I made a point of always teaching undergraduates because they are not a captive audience. . . . I always tried out my research ideas first in the classroom to get feedback from people who didn't have to listen to me if I didn't make it interesting.
If human nature eventually is going to take the place of nature everywhere, those of us who have been naturalists will have to transpose the faith in nature which is inherent in the profession to a faith in man-if necessary, man alone in the world.
Loneliness itself is material for sacrifice. The very longings themselves can be offered to Him who understands perfectly. The transformation into something He can use for the good of others takes place only when the offering is put into his hands.
I'm drawn to New England because that's where my roots are, and I miss it. I come from many generations of New Englanders, and so, in my writing, I've been drawn back there to the landscape and the light and the type of personality that's revealed.
Let the dream go. Are there not other dreams In vastness of clouds hid from thy sight That yet shall gild with beautiful gold gleams, And shoot the shadows through and through with light? What matters one lost vision of the night? Let the dream go!
I like dialogue in novels. I wanted to avoid laying history on with a trowel - appearing to be lecturing, as opposed to the characters lecturing their children or students. Dialogue can humanise the story and make it go down somewhat more smoothly.
What a thrill to be able to say that you had a contribution in the life of someone - a young person, perhaps, who is trying to take a look at the possibility of their own lives and find out what they are good at and you can help steer their career.
I wonder if he'll ever see the truth in my own heart: that, whatever Dustpelt says, however much Fireheart breaks the warrior code, I love him more that I could imagine loving any other cat. And if Fireheart knew, would he love me, too? - Sandstorm
My latest tendency is to collapse about 11:00 and with the tears flowing from my eyes or the gin rising to their level and leaking over, and tell interested friends or acquaintances that I haven't a friend in the world and likewise care for nobody.
[On stereotyping:] It's the mind's way of processing a lot of information quickly. If we had to sort through every bit of data before making a decision, most folks would still be going out the front door when it was time to come home for the night.
Children ask better questions than adults. "May I have a cookie?" "Why is the sky blue?" and "What does a cow say?" are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than "Where's your manuscript?" "Why haven't you called?" and "Who's your lawyer?"
Think on it, Chani: the princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.
You can go to India and you can see gurus go into samadhi. But when they come out of samadhi, they're nasty. They're egocentric. They don't have a deep regard or understanding of what life is. It's just a little trick they can do, a one-trick pony.
If your parents were strong in one way and weak in another, you will be strong in the same way and weak in the same way. Even though you detest the weakness in them, you will find that you will do exactly the same things because they imprinted you.
In future years a number of you will become spiritual teachers. After many years of study and doing a good job, go out into the world and teach people.You'll reach points of advancement where you'll be able to be of great help to many, many people.
War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed with. ... But it is not only a biological law but a moral obligation and, as such, an indispensable factor in civilization.
The occultist is brought into intelligent communication with the spirits of the air, and can receive any knowledge which they possess, or any false impression they choose to impart...the demons seem permitted to do various wonders at their request.
I am a cheerful man, even in the dark, and it's all thanks to a good Lutheran mother. . . . Mother was well composed, a true Lutheran, and taught me to Cheer up, Make yourself useful, Mind your manners, and above all, Don't feel sorry for yourself.
Expressing love in the right language. We tend to speak our own love language, to express love to others in a language that would make us feel loved. But if it is not his/her primary love language, it will not mean to them what it would mean to us.