When states are democratically governed according to law, there are no demagogues, and the best citizens are securely in the saddle; but where the laws are not sovereign, there you find demagogues. The people become a monarch... such people, in its r...
The desire for glory is no different from that instinct for preservation that is common to all creatures. It is as if we enhance our being if we can gain a place in the memory of others; it is a new life that we acquire, which becomes as precious to ...
Stupid deer," I said, embarrassed about being startled. "We need a ladder." "I think they're easier to shoot with a rifle." "I'm not talking about the deer," I said, hitting Milo on the back of his shoulder. "We need a ladder to look over the wall." ...
[American family court] is a system that is corrupt on his best day. It is like being tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged down a gravel late at night. No one can hear your cries and complaints and it is not over until they say it's over.
I thought that one was going to hit me,” I said, watching the disappointed girl stalk off into the crowd. “Being your girlfriend is dangerous.” “What can I say? I’m a magnificent specimen of manhood. Of course they all want me. But I do app...
As you pray for your children, you will find it to be an unending habit of your heart. Being able to positively affect your children in prayer will keep you in close contact with them and actively involved in their lives, even after they leave home. ...
Really, Mr. Collins,' cried Elizabeth with some warmth, 'you puzzle me exceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as to convince you of its being one.
Truly being authentic is knowing what matters to you, on the deepest level of who you are, and committing always to act from that authentic center.
Was I being groomed for some special mission? What possible purpose could an existence like mine serve? When I wasn’t drinking in crappy bars, I was home by myself reading: a life that was achingly lonely, and yet perversely designed to prevent any...
We're not mindless golems, designed to think exactly the same thing. To try to suppress those thoughts is no better than slavery, and being free to say what you want, write what you want or draw what you want, as long as it doesn't offend anyone... T...
The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from one another. The quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgment to have safely traveled from star to star.
She asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?" He buried his nose in her hair, took a deep breath and sighed. "You help just be being here." "Well, that bit is easy," she told him with a smile. "Because I wouldn't be anywhere else.
Monsieur Josserand died very quietly - a victim of his own honesty. He had lived a useless life, and he went off, worthy to the last, weary of all the petty things in life, done to death by the heartless conduct of the only human beings that he had e...
As time passed from solstice to mild solstice in those occluded zones of my early childhood, I played beneath the distracted majesty of my mother's blue-eyed gaze. With her eyes on me I felt as if I were being studied by flowers.
Perhaps I really was disillusioned; unable to see myself for who, and what, I really was. Maybe I really was an ungrateful wretch who just refused to take responsibility for my own actions. Maybe I was lying to myself because I didn’t want to admit...
It's not about finding ways to avoid God's judgment and feeling like a failure if you don't do everything perfectly. It's about fully experiencing God's love and letting it perfect you. It's not about being somebody you are not. It's about becoming w...
A disciple: I am worried about human suffering all over the world. What is the solution?Spiritual leader: The solution to our miseries lie within central atom of our being, ‘I’. Once this central atom transcends to ‘WE’, human sufferings can ...
so if you love him, why keep him waiting for 13 years?" "Because I was afraid. Afraid of not being worthy, afraid of not knowing how to love him, afraid of waking up one day and not loving him anymore.
In one of his puckish moods Saul talked the president of a university into letting him anonymously take an examination being administered to candidates for a doctorate in community organization. "Three of the questions were on the philosophy of and m...
Today’s generation didn’t want to watch ancient actors reciting the same tired lines. They wanted to see themselves reflected onscreen –rude, raw, entitled. These kids needed to believe that they themselves were only one daring, controversial a...
Chélan had acted as imprudently for Julien as he had for himself. He had given him the habit of reasoning correctly, and of not being put off by empty words, but he had neglected to tell him that this habit was a crime in the person of no importance...
