Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The more contemplative gardener, seeing the garden as a whole, the design of it, and its nature as a still place of delight and refreshment, will wait and hope for the moment when it seems to achieve perfection. Awareness of when such moments are most likely helps to make them happen; they will not be entirely accidental but anticipated; everything will be planned to encourage them.
When King Lear dies in act five, do you know what Shakespeare has written? He has written, 'He dies.' No more. No fanfare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words. The culmination of the most influential piece of dramatic literature is, 'He dies.' Now I am not asking you to be happy at my leaving but all I ask you to do is to turn the page and let the next story begin. -- Mr. Magorium
The same thing can be both good and bad. Whenever you speak of good, bad is also present. The world is a mixture of both. There is not good without bad. They are both sides of the same coin. Both are necessary. We have been given free will and discriminating capacity to select what is beneficial to us and to avoid what is detrimental to us. Even Cobra poison can be used as medicine.
Advance like a hero. Do not be thwarted by anything. How many days will this body last, with its happiness and misery? When you have the human body, then rouse the Atman within and say-I have reached the state of fearlessness!...and then as long as the body endures, speak unto others this message of fearlessness: 'Thou art That', 'Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached'
Imagine how our lives might be if everyone had even a bit more of the Wisdom that comes from seeing clearly. Suppose people everywhere, simultaneously, stopped what they were doing and paid attention for only as long as it took to recognize their shared humanity. Surely the heartbreak of the world's pain, visible to all, would convert everyone to kindness. What a gift that would be.
Dexter thrust a pamphlet into Samuel's hand. "Greenstreet Mission. We're doing a Christmas dinner. You can get a meal and hear the word of God." Samuel smiled in relief. This, finally, he understood. "Which word?" "What?" "Well, God's said a lot of words, you know, and a word like 'it' or 'the' wouldn't be worth hearing again but its always fun listening to Him try and say aluminum.
Polly felt questing eyes boring into her. She was embarrassed, of course. But not for the obvious reason. It was for the other one, the little lesson that life sometimes rams home with a stick: you are not the only one watching the world. Other people are people; while you watch them they watch you, and they think about you while you think about them. The world isn’t just about you.
O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
In the first part of 'Rights of Man' I have endeavoured to show...that there does not exist a right to establish hereditary government...because hereditary government always means a government yet to come, and the case always is, that the people who are to live afterwards, have always the same right to choose a government for themselves, as the people had who have lived before them.
The enclosure of the biological and intellectual commons in this way is a real threat to the future of people everywhere because it creates a situation where common practices that have been part of people's lives for generations become monopolies of a handful of pharmaceutical, agribusiness and agrichemical corporations. People then become incapable of looking after their own needs.
Now, if doctors were aware that medicine was not a science and that they were pulling what is undoubtedly the largest and most successful confidence trick ever tried the damage would be fairly minimal. But the problem is compounded by the fact that the vast majority of doctors believe the lie that they are taught; they believe that they are scientists, practising an applied science.
... Remember in the beginning God created heaven and earth and all that was created was good so that anything that isn't good has come about because of your belief of mind that you are separate from this divinity. You are not what you have. You are not what you do. You are not what others think of you. You are beloved. You are divine. You are a creation that is made into perfection.
Indeed a good quotation hardly ever comes amiss. It is a pleasing break in the thread of a speech or writing, allowing the speaker or writer to retire for an instant while another and greater makes himself heard. And this calling-up of the deathless dead implies also a community of mind with them, which the reader will not grudge the author lest he should seem to deny it to himself.
Halfway down the stairs, is a stair, where I sit. There isn't any, other stair, quite like, it. I'm not at the bottom, I'm not at the top; So this is the stair, where, I always, stop. Halfway up the stairs, isn't up, and isn't down. It isn't in the nursery, it isn't in the town. And all sorts of funny thoughts, run round my head: It isn't really anywhere! It's somewhere else instead!
The idea that God will pardon a rebel who has not given up his rebellion is contrary both to the Scriptures and to common sense. How horrible to contemplate a church full of persons who have been pardoned but who still love sin and hate the ways of righteousness. And how much more horrible to think of heaven as filled with sinners who had not repented nor changed their way of living.
For mines are for men, not for money. And money is not something to go mad about, and throw your hat into the air for. Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children. Money is for security, and for dreams, and for hopes, and for purposes. Money is for buying the fruits of the earth, of the land where you were born.
The earth is for joy, and dancing is a big part of that. And you dance with nature. Nature is always dancing. If you're not harassing it and killing it and mutilating it, nature is dancing. That's what the leaves are doing when the wind blows through them. We live in a magical wonderful universe. And just spoil it while thinking we can at some point go to heaven or some other planet.
If you suspend the Geneva Conventions, give the green light to anything that will get intelligence, round up thousands all over the globe with reckless disregard for guilt or innocence, you are effectively and knowingly issuing orders to seize innocent people and torture them. Any president who decides to do that and then says it was not his intention to do that is a fraud or a fool.
It was the kind of terrified look that reminds you that no matter how rational or grown up a person might seem, some part of him is absolutely sure - knows - that an evil other-world exists just outside of our regular, everyday world. And that although we don't expect that world to collide with our calm, predictable one...well, really, at any moment that is exactly what might happen.
How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can't I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, I can enter the gates to glory. Living in His presence is fullness of joy- and seeing shows the way in.
Ingratitude is the frost that nips the flower even as it opens, that shrivels the generous apple on the branch, that freezes the fountain in mid-flow and numbs the hand, even in the very act of giving. It is a sin of silence, absence and omission, as winter's sin is a lack of light; a sin against charity, which otherwise warms the heart and, in the truest sense, makes the world turn.
One writes not to be read but to breathe...one writes to think, to pray, to analyze. One writes to clear one's mind, to dissipate one's fears, to face one's doubts, to look at one's mistakes--in order to retrieve them. One writes to capture and crystallize one's joy, but also to disperse one's gloom. Like prayer--you go to it in sorrow more than joy, for help, a road back to 'grace'.
Democracy no longer means what it was meant to. It has been taken back into the workshop. Each of its institutions has been hollowed out, and it has been returned to us as a vehicle for the free market, of the corporations. For the corporations, by the corporations. Even if we do vote, we should just spend less time and intellectual energy on our choices and keep our eye on the ball.
When it comes to acid rain or oil spills or depleted fisheries or tainted groundwater or fluorocarbon propellants or radiation leaks or sexually transmitted diseases, national frontiers are simple irrelevant. Toxins don't stop for customs inspections and microbes don't carry passports. North America became a water and free-trade zone long before NAFTA loosened up the market in goods.
The birth control pill, to a great degree, made possible the (hetero)sexual revolution. Yet those who developed oral contraceptives did not intend their work to promote what the majority of Americans at the time called "promiscuity." Doctors generally refused to prescribe the pill to women who were not married; the Supreme Court did not rule this practice unconstitutional until 1972.
Every man who becomes heartily and understandingly a channel of the Divine beneficence is enriched through every league of his life. Perennial satisfaction springs around and within him with perennial verdure. Flowers of gratitude and gladness bloom all along his pathway, and the melodious gurgle of the blessings be bears is echoed back by the melodious waves of the recipient stream.
The inspiration for the book came after a visitation from a spiritual being that materialized before me on two consecutive nights. Although I crumpled into unconsciousness at the outset of each encounter and consciously remembered hearing only an initial word or two from the entity, I awakened on the dawn after the second visit with the ideas for The Divine Fire bubbling in my brain.
[Jesus] matters because of what he brought and what he still brings to ordinary human beings, living their ordinary lives and coping daily with their surroundings. He promises wholeness for their lives. In sharing our weaknesses he gives us strength and and imparts through his companionship a life that has the quality of eternity." (Dallas Willard in Ruthless Trust - Brennan Manning)
It will feel impossible; like you are dying inside this is your soul crying out for life. It may take everything you have; every ounce of will and strength. You will lose a part of yourself trying to save something essential and innocent. And when you have given everything, you will recover and you will be set free, and you will discover there was even more in you than you ever knew.
In one day I had altered my life; my life, therefore, was alterable. This simple axiom did not call out for exegesis; no, it entered my bloodstream directly, as powerful as heroin. I could feel it pump and surge, the way it brightened my veins to a kind of glass. I had wakened that morning to narrowness and predestination and now I was falling asleep in the storm of my own free will.
Alec drew his hand back with a low whistle. "The Inquisitor meant business." "Of course she did. I'm a dangerous criminal. Or hadn't you heard?" Jace heard the acid in his own tone, saw Alec flinch, and was meanly, momentarily, glad. "She didn't call you a criminal, exactly..." "No, I'm just a very naughty boy. I do all sorts of bad things. I kick kittens. I make rude gestures at nun
Realize that the Silence offers an ever available and almost unlimited opportunity for awakening the highest conception of Truth. Try to comprehend that Omnipotence itself is absolute silence; all else is change, activity, limitation. Silent thought concentration is therefore the true method of reaching, awakening and then expressing the wonderful potential power of the world within.
There are many, many discrepant views within the Shia theology about what's the proper role of religion in society or in the State, should it rule now, should it claim to govern people in the here and now, or should it wait until the Messiah, the 12th Imam, comes back and would it only be then appropriate for religious rule to bring about a world of universal justice and vindication.
When Arthur Schlesinger Sr. pioneered the 'presidential greatness poll' in 1948, the top five were Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jefferson. Only Wilson appears to be seriously fading, probably because his support for the World War I-era Sedition Act now seems outrageous; in this analogy, Woodrow is like the Doors and the Sedition Act is Oliver Stone.
There are many different types of kisses. There's a passionate kiss of farewell - like the kind Rhett gave Scarlett when he went off to war. The kiss of I-can't-really-be-with-you-but-I-want-to-be - like with Superman and Lois Lane. There's the first kiss - one that is gentle and hesitant, warm and vulnerable. And then there's the kiss of possession - which was how Ren kissed me now.
Here's an idea: eat like an adult. Stop eating fast food, stop eating kid's cereal, knock it off with all the sweets and comfort foods, and ease up on the snacking. And don't act like you don't know this: eat more vegetables and fruits. Really, how difficult is this? Stop with the whining. Stop with the excuses. Act like an adult and stop eating like a television commercial. Grow up.
Remembering how my mother looked before she gave birth to my sister is frightening. But even more frightening is the feeling that I wanted them to catch me and beat me. Why did I want to be punished? Shadows out of the past clutch at my legs and drag me down. I open my mouth to scream, but I am voiceless. My hands are trembling, I feel cold, and there is a distant humming in my ears.
Miracles are commonplace in religious scripture. Our ancient ancestors are said to have felt Jesus' wounds, verified Muhammad's ascent to heaven, and even interacted with their respective deities directly. Today, believers have no such luxury. They are forced to rely on blind faith that these things occurred, that people were at one time able to overcome or render inert natural laws.
In real life during the last decade of the twentieth century, Rumpelstiltskin would probably get the queen's daughter. He would no doubt addict her to heroin, turn her out as a prostitute, confiscate her earnings, beat her for pleasure, hack her to pieces, and escape justice by claiming that society's intolerance for bad-tempered, evil-minded trolls had driven him temporarily insane.
May your rivers flow without end... down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs... where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you-beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.
I've never doubted that you should be our leader. I've always believed that, ever since Firestar took you to the Skyrock to receive your nine lives. I challenged you, yes, so I could be sure of your conviction that you were doing the right thing. What SkyClan needs more than anything else is a leader who has faith in herself. Because only then could other cats have faith in her, too.
All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.
Writing is a weird thing because we can read, we know how to write a sentence. It's not like a trumpet where you have to get some skill before you can even produce a sound. It's misleading because it's hard to make stories. It seems like it should be easy to do but it's not. The more you write, the better you're going to get. Write and write and write. Try not to be hard on yourself.
In recent years our knowledge of modern technology has increased considerably, and as a result we have witnessed remarkable material progress, but there has not been a corresponding increase in human happiness. There is no less suffering in the world today, and there are no fewer problems. Indeed, it might be said that there are now more problems and greater dangers than ever before.
Acoustic ecology is the study of information systems: the shared acoustic environment and how species send and receive messages in this shared acoustic environment. What these messages mean - meaning, what are the consequences and the changes of behavior in any species. And it has as much to do with us individually and biologically as it does with the shaping of cultures and beliefs.
What always attracted me to [Bob] Dylan, and what has sustained me as a Dylan listener, or has always continued to surprise me, is his voice, the way he sings, the way he wraps his voice around certain words, the way he backs off from melodic moments, the way he moves forward to grab something in a song that, were anybody else performing it, they would have no idea it was even there.
For all the gold and silver stolen and shipped to Spain did not make the Spanish people richer. It gave their kings an edge in the balance of power for a time, a chance to hire more mercenary soldiers for their wars. They ended up losing those wars anyway, and all that was left was a deadly inflation, a starving population, the rich richer, the poor poorer, and a ruined peasant class
But sometimes, maybe most times, it isn't that clear. It is dark and you are near the edge of a cliff, but you're moving slowly, not sure which direction you're heading in. Your steps are tentative but they are still blind in the night. You don't realize how close you are to the edge, how the soft earth could give away, how you could just slip a bit and suddenly plunge into the dark.
Ordinarily my mom just sunk deeper into her corner of the couch and ignored it. She had succesfully ignored a quarter of a century of entropy and decay, had sat peacefully crunching popcorn and drinking soda while the house fell down around us. If I had to guess the number of books she read during that time, I would place the number at somewhere in the neighborhood of forty thousand.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.