Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There are television sets in every home, every restaurant, every hotel room, every shopping mall-now they’re even small enough to carry in your pocket like electronic rosaries. It is an unquestioned part of everyday life. Kneeling before the cathode ray God, with our TV Guide concordance in hand, we maintain the illusion of choice by flipping channels (chapters and verses). It doesn’t matter what is flashing on the screen-all that’s important is that the TV stays on.
Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere - be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
And Grace calls out, 'You are not just a disillusioned old man who may die soon, a middle-aged woman stuck in a job and desperately wanting to get out, a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to grow cold. You may be insecure, inadequate, mistaken or potbellied. Death, panic, depression, and disillusionment may be near you. But you are not just that. You are accepted.' Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted.
You knocked the door down." Disbelief rang in his matter-of-fact tone. "I know," she answered,unable to say anything else. Unable to look away from his body. "But it's solid oak." "I know." She felt the solid oak beneath her and a little shocked that she'd done it, too. If it mattered at all, her shoulder felt a little bruised. And it was the slight pain that brought some reality back into the moment. "You don't have any clothes on." Oh, God, did she really say that?
Keep up," said an irritable voice in her ear. It was Jace, who had dropped back to walk beside her. "I don't want to have to keep looking behind me to make sure nothing's happened to you." "So don't bother." "Last time I left you alone, a demon attacked you," he pointed out. "Well, I'd certainly hate to interrupt your pleasant night stroll with my sudden death." He blinked. "There is a fine line between sarcasm and outright hostility, and you seem to have crossed it.
Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say: Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'.
Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human.
We're not gods, Julia. We're helpers. That's all. People have called us terrible things in the past. But that was only because they didn't understand us. That understanding is for the future, a time not long from now. You may live to see it. Then perhaps you can work openly, but for now, keep your gifts to yourself. Never flaunt your abilities. Never think you hold the power of life and death. Only God has that power. When it's a person's time, nothing can save them.
Life is full of physical infirmities that some might see as discriminations - total paralysis or serious mental impairment being two that are relevant to marriage. If we believe in God and believe in His mercy and His justice, it won't do to say that these are discriminations because God wouldn't discriminate. We are in no condition to judge what discrimination is. We rest on our faith in God and our utmost assurance of His mercy and His love for all of His children.
Genuine trust involves allowing another to matter and have an impact in our lives. For that reason, many who hate and do battle with God trust Him more deeply than those whose complacent faith permits an abstract and motionless stance before Him. Those who trust God most are those whose faith permits them to risk wrestling with Him over the deepest questions of life. Good hearts are captured in a divine wrestling match; fearful, doubting hearts stay clear of the mat.
isaac knows how stupid i find these things, and he finds them just as stupid as i do. like lol. now, if there's anything stupider than buddy lists, it's lol. if anyone ever uses lol with me, i rip my computer right out of the wall and smash it over the nearest head. i mean, it's not like anyone's laughing out loud about the things they lol. i think it should be spelled loll, like what a lobotomized person's tongue does. loll. loll. i can't think any more. loll. loll!
Surely people can now see that it is no accident that he, Obama, sat at the feet of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for 20 years, that he is mother was a leftist activist and cultural Marxist, that his main early mentor was radical Frank Marshall Davis, that he was a member of the far-left New Party in Chicago, that his main vocation in life has been street organizing and agitation and that he didn't think the revolutionarily, transformative Warren court was liberal enough.
The question of identity has always been a murky issue in my own life and my writing bounces that right back. My father was adamant that my sisters and I were "Arab," and even though our house was in Syracuse, it was filled with the food, language, music, and overbearing relatives of Jordan. Unlike my gorgeous sisters, though, I inherited my mother's lighter complexion - it really is amazing what a difference a little bit of pigment can make on a person's experience!
Naked girls with the heads of Marx and Malraux prone and helpless in the glare of the headlights, tried to give them a little joie de vivre but maybe it didn't take, their constant bickering and smallness, it's like a stroke of lightning, the world reminds you of its power, tracheotomies right and left, I am spinning, my pretty child, don't scratch, pick up your feet, the long nights, spent most of my time listening, this is a test of the system, this is only a test.
Egypt is the mind of the Earth. The heart actually is in Mexico, and some say in Columbia. Tahiti/Morea sits in the feminine South Pole of the Christ grid and that is why they did the nuclear experiments there. The area inside the tube torus that moves up through there enters into the very center of the beam of the Earth. That's why I called it the womb - it goes right into the private personal aspect of the Earth. And they exploded the bombs, right down this center.
More and more people are beginning to feel that there must be another way of thinking, perceiving, and acting. And perhaps the beginning of another way of looking at the world is to re-evaluate all of our beliefs. It is, after all, our beliefs that determine what we are, experience, and expect. When we are willing to take a new look at our own beliefs, we then have an opportunity to begin rediscovering who and what we are and to redetermine our true purpose on Earth.
An acoustic ecologist is a listener who is aware that sound is information. It's information because it's created by events, events produce sound, and that sound has all kinds of data, if you will, that conveys what event occurred, what the materials were, whether it was sudden, slow, loud, in what direction. And because it is information, we can think of it as a message. The acoustic ecologist studies information systems that are both intentional and sometimes wild.
I don't wish to defend everything that has been done in the name of Utopia. But I think many of the attacks misconceive its nature and function. As I have tried to suggest, utopia is not mainly about providing detailed blueprints for social reconstruction. Its concern with ends is about making us think about possible worlds. It is about inventing and imagining worlds for our contemplation and delight. It opens up our minds to the possibilities of the human condition.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. They do not know how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.
With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself--one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad.
What is the biggest obstacle facing the family right now? It is over-commitment; time pressure. There is nothing that will destroy family life more insidiously than hectic schedules and busy lives, where spouses are too exhausted to communicate, too worn out to have sex, too fatigued to talk to the kids. That frantic lifestyle is just as destructive as one involving outbroken sin. If Satan can't make you sin, he'll make you busy, and that's just about the same thing.
... we did decide to trust Christ, but the reason we made that decision is that God had first made us spiritually alive. ... God comes to us when we're spiritually dead, when we don't even realize our condition, and gives us the spiritual ability to see our plight and to see the solution in Christ. God comes all the way, not partway, to meet us in our need. When we were dead, He made us alive in Christ. And the first act of that new life is to turn in faith to Jesus.
I don't have anything against God. Far from it. But I don't understand Him. And I don't trust a lot of the people that go around claiming that they're working in His best interests. Faeries and vampires and whatnot -- those I can fathom. Even demons. Sometimes, even the Fallen. I can understand why they do what they do. But I don't understand God. I don't understand how he could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea
Work ethic is one of the biggest things my father taught me. That man worked like every day, every day, 9 to 5, well 9 to 9 in his case, but he would treat it as if it was a 9 to 5 job. He would clock in. He would put in his hours. That is how you can write those you know incredibly long books that unfortunately there is not much market for anymore, but that is also how you can explore an idea on a deeper level than we get in our media surface these days. It's tough.
COMMITMENT is the first step to every good thing I know, and the only step that matters when it comes to achievement. It inspires and attracts people, shows them you have conviction and goals, that you are focused and determined. And the commitment that is based on values will endure. Any time you make choices based on solid life values, you are in a better position to sustain your level of commitment, because you don't have to continually re-evaluate its importance.
Our ego ideal is precious to us because it repairs a loss of our earlier childhood, the loss of our image of self as perfect and whole, the loss of a major portion of our infantile, limitless, ain't-I-wonderful narcissism which we had to give up in the face of compelling reality. Modified and reshaped into ethical goals and moral standards and a vision of what at our finest we might be, our dream of perfection lives on--our lost narcissism lives on--in our ego ideal.
The awful atrocities of religion happened when people assume that God shares your likes and dislikes. The Crusaders when into battle to kill Muslims and Jews and cried, "God will's it." That was their battle cry. Obviously God willed no such thing. The Crusaders were simply projecting onto a deity they'd created on their own image and likeness, all their hatred and loathing of these faiths and made it endorse some of their most awful prejudices and lethal prejudices.
As you release the things you no longer love or use, you call back to yourself the parts of your spirit that have been attached to them, and attached to the emotional needs and memories associated with those objects. In so doing, you bring yourself powerfully into present time. Your energy, instead of being dispersed in a thousand different, unproductive directions, becomes more centered and focused. You feel more spiritually complete and more at peace with yourself.
I’ve worked with volunteers before,” he began. “It’s important not to… not to treat them like servants. We may feel that they are laboring to obtain a heavenly reward, and should therefore work harder than they would for money; but they don’t necessarily take that attitude. They feel they’re working for nothing, and doing a great kindness to us thereby; and if we seem ungrateful they will work slowly and make mistakes. It will be best to rule them with a light touch.
The year of 2004 will be known as the year of fullness. By the close of 2004, all callings will come to fullness. Apostles ministry, prophets ministry, evangelist ministry, pastoral ministries and teaching ministries that will obey me will come into full manifestation. The gifts of the spirit will be manifested in fulness as they were when Jesus was on the earth. ... Families will come into their called places and know the fullness of joy on earth as it is in heaven.
Allowing the pain of personal growth to be a crucible of your spirit-the alchemical grail through which the metal of your former self turns into gold-is one of the highest callings of life. Pain can burn you up and destroy you, or burn you up and redeem you. It can deliver you to an entrenched despair, or deliver you to your higher self. At midlife we decide, consciously or unconsciously, the path of the victim or the path of the phoenix when it is rising up at last.
Love will push every button, try every faith, challenge every strength, trigger every weakness, mock every value, and then leave you there to die. And then you will be ready to be born at last, to become a soul who is strong enough to take love on. You'll be a romantic mystic who has achieved the elements: you endured the flames of love, you were baptized in the waters of love, and now you can soar like only a mystic can through the skies and skin of a lover's heart.
an Autobiography is the truest of all books; for while it inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight truth, the remorseless truth is there, between the lines, where the author-cat is raking dust upon it which hides from the disinterested spectator neither it nor its smell... the result being that the reader knows the author in spite of his wily diligences.
I do not see how astronomers can help feeling exquisitely insignificant, for every new page of the Book of the Heavens they open reveals to them more and more that the world we are so proud of is to the universe of careening globes as is one mosquito to the winged and hoofed flocks and herds that darken the air and populate the plains and forests of all the earth. If you killed the mosquito would it be missed? Verily, What is Man, that he should be considered of God?
I am acquainted with a wife and mother who is chained securely at the present time to a life-style of murmuring and criticism. She is the first to point out faults in her husband or to repeat neighborhood gossip. How damaging is a habit that permits fault-finding, character assassination, and the sharing of malicious rumors! Gossip and caustic comments often create chains of contention. These chains may appear to be very small, but what misery and woe they can cause!
Speak quietly to yourself and promise there will be better days. Whisper gently to yourself and provide assurance that you really are extending your best effort. Console your bruised and tender spirit with reminders of many other successes. Offer comfort in practical and tangible ways - as if you were encouraging your dearest friend. Recognize that on certain days the greatest grace is that the day is over and you get to close your eyes. Tomorrow comes more brightly.
The holiday season promotes a heightened sense of community. It draws our chins up and helps us look above and over the limiting fence of our own events, activities and preoccupations. The opportunity for a heroic gesture can tap you quietly on the shoulder in the midst of a holiday bustle. If you are attentive, you will notice the gentle touch and will be able to respond. Remember... There are no small acts of kindness. Every compassionate act makes large the world.
The reason why nothing sticks to Trump - or very little sticks to Trump - is that Trump created his brand idea that has to do with being the guy who gets away from it. It's this ultimate power through wealth and this dream that represents in an age of tremendous economic precariousness and constrained options for so many people - that watching Trump be able to do whatever he wants to whoever he wants is this obvious vicarious kind of thrill for a certain demographic.
People who have come of age from the '80s on have experienced a form of activism that's very sterile and annoying. It's not that much fun to be an activist. That's partly by design. They are sterile protests and anonymous e-mail activism - not the kind of thing where people fall in love, form friendships for life, and see the change they make right in front of them. I've seen that, when people start to experience doing these things together and the power that it has.
This is the process of Self realization about which Eastern mystics have written. It is the process of salvation to which much Western theology has devoted itself. This is a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, moment-to-moment act of supreme consciousness. It is a choosing and a re-choosing every instant. It is ongoing creation. Conscious creation. Creation with a purpose. It is using the tools of creation we have discussed, and using them with awareness and sublime intention.
Sure, some employers are are afraid of letting older workers go because they think they're going to get sued. And they probably will get sued. But the reality is, you could get sued at any time by any kind of worker. I think its incumbent on an employer, if they want to be smart, to figure out what is the benefit of keeping this employee or letting them go. Do the calculation and just go ahead and either keep them or let them go based on what's good for the business.
Deep within the individual is a vast reservoir of untapped power awaiting to be used. no person can have the use of all this potential until he learns to know his or her own self. the trouble with many people is that they got through life thinking and writing themselves off as ordinary commonplace persons. having no proper belief in themselves they live aimless and erratic lives largely because they never realize what their lives really can be or what they can become
Here's the thing about faith: It gives us the strength to go on when we want to give in. It gives us the courage to get up when we want to lie down. It gives us the power to make a way out of no way when there ain't no way. Just as love can't make you strong until love has made you weak, well, faith can't lift you up until life has knocked you down. With faith or without it, we can't stop the waves. But with it, we don't need to. Because with it we can ride the surf.
An institution which is financed by a budget - or which enjoys a monopoly which the customer cannot escape - is rewarded for what it deserves rather than what it earns. It is paid for 'good intentions' and 'programs'. It is paid for not alienating important constituents rather than satisfying any one group. It is misdirected by the way it is being paid into defining performance and results as what will produce the budget rather than as what will produce contribution.
Jennifer to Beth: Ech. I don't like Tom Cruise. Beth to Jennifer: Me neither. But I usually like Tom Cruise movies. Jennifer to Beth: Me too... Huh, maybe I do like Tom Cruise. But I hate feeling pressured to find him attractive. I don't. Beth to Jennifer: Nobody does. It's a lie perpetuated by the American media. Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts. Jennifer to Beth: Men don't like Julia Roberts? Beth to Jennifer: Nope. Her teeth scare them. Jennifer to Beth: Good to know.
Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness
Once in a rare while, you get to read a story of such breathtaking beauty and intelligence that you remember why you love to read. The Anatomy Lesson is just such a novel. In stunning prose, Nina Siegal animates Rembrandt's first masterpiece, spinning a deeply affecting tale of love, loss and redemption as she reveals the secrets of the human soul. It is a gorgeous literary page turner of immense sympathy and elegance, equal in artistic lan to its inspiration. Brava!
Ezra clapped his hands. "all right," he said. "In addition to the books we're reading as a class, I want to do an extra side project on unreliable narrators." Devon Arliss raised her hand. "what does that mean?" Ezra strode around the room. "well, the narrator tells us the story in the book, right? But what if... the narrator isn't telling us the truth? Maybe he's telling us his skewed version of the story to get you on his side. Or to scare you. Or maybe he's crazy!
You may be good, but what are you good for? You've got to be good for something. You've got to be about some project, some task that requires you to be humble and obedient to the universal principles of service. You've got to live a life of complete and total integrity in order to give this kind of service. This integrity enables you to love other people unconditionally, to be courageous and kind at the same time, because you have integratedness inside your own soul.
These self-appointed deacons in the Church of Latter-Day American Literature seem to regard generosity (of words) with suspicion, texture with dislike, and any broad literary stroke with outright hate. The result is a strange and arid literary climate where a meaningless little fingernail paring like Nicholson Baker's Vox becomes an object of fascinated debate and dissection, and a truly ambitious American novel like Matthew's Heart of the Country is all but ignored.