So the next time you see a person with a compose face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the powers of quiet.
Purification and redemption are such recurrent themes in ritual because there is a clear and ubiquitous need for them: we all do regrettable things as a result of our own circumstances, and new rituals are frequently invented in response to new circu...
Well then," said I, "if God does not forsake me, of what ill consequence can it be, or what matters it, though the world should all forsake me, seeing on the other hand, if I had all the world, and should lose the favour and blessing of God, there wo...
I suspect that scientists are driven by the sense that the world out there - reality - contains a hidden order, and the scientist is trying to elucidate the hidden order in our reality. And that impulse is what the scientist shares with the mystic. T...
My own sense is that the acquisition of self knowledge has been made difficult by the modern world. More and more human beings live in vast urban environments, surrounded by other human beings and the creations of human beings. The natural world, the...
The world needs more laws. I say this only because I believe the world needs more lawyers. If everybody was a lawyer, there’d be no unemployment, because the economy would be like a great lawsuit factory. Farmers in this utopia wouldn’t raise cro...
It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.
Verily, for nine hundred years have I lost. Everyone I knew is dead, the empire gone, and who knows in what state the world is left. Should what thy sister reports prove true, much hath changed in the world." "By the way," Royce mentioned, "No one us...
The idea of a belt holding my pants up seems so 20th century. Imagine a world where your pants are held high by your self-esteem. But it’s a silly notion, really, because in a world such as that, nobody would even wear pants.
Little world, full of little people shouting for recognition, screaming for love, Rolling world, teeming with millions, carousel of the hungry, Is there food enough? Wheat and corn will not do. The fat are the hungriest of all, the skinny the most si...
I believe in the power of imagination. I believe in the unexplained possibilities of the spirit. And I believe that the heart, like any other muscle, grows stiff if it is not exercised regularly. I believe.
It's strange. How hollow i feel. Like there might be echoes inside of me. Like I'm one of those chocolate rabbits they used to sell around Easter, the ones that were nothing more than a sweet shell encapsulating a world of nothing. I'm like that. I e...
We just sat there and watched the plane pass the island, and it never came back," he said. "I could see it on the radar. It makes you feel terrible. Life was cheap in war.
Charm is an elusive quality. Some have it; no teacher can afford to be without it. Teachers who lack charm must resort to violence.” “How much more dignified to retire from the world rather than wait for the world to tire of you.” “Reform, li...
He was terrified he was making the wrong choice. He relied on his instincts in his work but now he didn’t dare trust them. The wound of betrayal still burned raw in his chest and another cut might be the killing blow. But it was the end of the worl...
What keeps all living things busy and in motion is the striving to exist. But when existence is secured, they do not know what to do: that is why the second thing that sets them in motion is a striving to get rid of the burden of existence, not to fe...
To me, patriotism means dedication to the principles on which the country was founded and a willingness to stand firm and fight for these principles regardless of what the government says or does
All happiness is of a negative rather than positive nature, and for this reason cannot give lasting satisfaction and gratification, but rather only ever a release from a pain or lack, which must be followed either by a new pain or by languor, empty y...
MacMillian steepled his fingers on the head of his cane. Anticipation rose in his chest. Lena and Cyrus Alan might have an advantage over him when it came to hunting ghosts, but this was where he excelled. This part of the game was all about patterns...
Your words and deeds are seeds, scattered in the wind... the seeds are light or darkness... they'll break apart or mend... Sow light instead of gloom. Sow faith instead of doubt. Sow truth and love, and hope, and peace. Sow light and darkness rout.
...the pride taken by the Italians in their gifted women is among the most important facts in the history of their Renaissance.
