The capacity for personal freedom is a rare talent. Talent exists to be used. We do not ask sheep to be wolves; we, the wolves, do not ask ourselves to be sheep. Sheep can make such rules as happen to suit them--but it's foolishly naive to expect wol...
We know there are certain chemicals that are designed to give us a rush of pleasure. But, one of the most amazing things about being human is our capacity to override that pleasure. To either say, 'I don't need that pleasure right now. I'm going to i...
Imagine if all those kings and dukes hadn't commissioned those crazy cathedrals, paintings and music... we'd still be living in sticks and mud. Because none of those things made any economic sense. Human beings' capacity to 'waste time' is a miracle ...
You can't love your mother or father if you don't also have the capacity to grieve their deaths and, perhaps even more so, grieve parts of their lives.
Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it. If you choose a mix of contradictions, it will clog your motor, corrode your transmission and wreck you on your first attempt to move with a machin...
He gives me a little shrug, like, of course, why else? And at this point, I really have no right to be surprised by people's capacity for kindness and generosity, but still, I am. I'm floored every time.
Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes a...
She wanted me to remember that pleasure is political--for the capacity to relax and play renews the spirit and makes it possible for us to come to the work of writing clearer, ready for the journey. (bell hooks about Toni Cade Bambara)
Grandmother walked up over the bare granite and thought about birds in general. It seemed to her no other creature had the same dramatic capacity to underline and perfect events -- the shifts in the seasons and the weather, the changes that run throu...
Life is potentially meaningful under any conditions, even those which are most miserable. And this in turn presupposes the human capacity to creatively turn life’s negative aspects into something positive or constructive. In other words, what matte...
Sufism is experiential. Capacities, even those for learning beyond a certain point, are provoked by Sufis, by one's own efforts and what results from them, and by an element of what is referred to by Sufis as the Divine.
Negative Capacity, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.
A man who needs the unusual to make him "wonder" shows that he has lost the capacity to find the true answer to the wonder of being. The itch for sensation, even though disguised in the mask of Boheme, is a sure indication of a bourgeois mind and a d...
When I corrected her, I told her that in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion...
Tyler. His handsome, lion-eyed ravagement. His capacity for devotion. Which is so sexy. Why do so many gay men lack that? Why are they so distracted, so in love with the idea of more and more and then more, again?
Presence is the capacity to be present for another person with an open heart and to be grounded in our inner being. It is to be present for another person as a supporting light, as a supporting presence – and simply to be present with another perso...
It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect...
If we don't harness their potential for good, their societies will continue to reap their capacity for evil.
Love does not have gender. Love is not exclusive! Our hearts have the capacity to love so many people. The only tragedy is when fear, cultural barriers, ridiculous misunderstandings, or arbitrary numbers prevent us from experiencing the joy we could ...
Without wonder, there's no progress. Nothing gets done, nobody goes anywhere. If you don't exercise your capacity for wonder... well, use it or lose it. A civilization without wonder is a civilization that's starting to atrophy and die.
[C]ontinence is a very important part of yoga. If a handful of people come forward with strong wills, nothing is impossible. One Buddha changed half the globe; one Jesus, three quarters of the world. We all have that capacity. (140)
