A civilization, when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too many chances to endure for long. Could anything postpone for a while the hour of its ruin, it would be precisely the extreme instability of the...
Time takes no holiday. It does not roll idly by, but through our senses works its own wonders in the mind. Time came and went from one day to the next; in its coming and its passing it brought me other hopes and other memories. [quoted in Peter Brown...
Now, a month later, I sit, foggy, a similar state of mind, in a different seafood restaurant with a locals-know-every-secret bar, two happy hour martinis downed, fidgeting with my napkin below the lip of the table, and I barely hear Wendy ask me anot...
He was not utterly unskilled in handling his own lack of training, and he refused to be rashly drawn into a controversy about those matters from which there would be no exit nor easy way of retreat. This was an additional ground for my pleasure. For ...
Perhaps it is weariness that causes seers not to act on what they see; for whereas the wisdom of the world can be vast, it includes the many futilities. Ideas do not have legs with which to run and hands with which to craft. They are wisps of smoke f...
When you become healthy, courageous, and hopeful, following your conscience becomes much easier. When people are healthy, courageous, and hopeful, it's difficult to bend their mind and will. They will speak out what they believe, and stand up and do ...
Something new and unexpected, something hitherto unknown and undreamt of, had taken place in him. He did not so much understand with his mind as feel instinctively with the full force of his emotions that he could never again communicate with these p...
Ultimately — or at the limit — in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes. 'The necessary condition for an image is sight,'Janouch told Kafka; and Kafka smiled and replied: 'We photograph things in order to driv...
Reparations,” said Jem very suddenly, setting down the pen he was holding. Will looked at him in puzzlement. “Is this a game? We just blurt out whatever word comes next to mind? In that case mine is ‘genuphobia’. It means an unreasonable fear...
[...] "oh, dear," said Tessa. "I have that effect on women," Will said. "I probably should have warned you before you agreed to marry me." "I can still change my mind," Tessa said sweetly. "Don't you dare -," He began with a breathless half laugh, [....
When I start a new seminar I tell my students that I will undoubtedly contradict myself, and that I will mean both things. But an acceptance of contradiction is no excuse for fuzzy thinking. We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, ye...
The human animal is a beast that dies and if he's got money he buys and buys and buys and I think the reason he buys everything he can buy is that in the back of his mind he has the crazy hope that one of his purchases will be life everlasting!--Whic...
Ed Welch says that all counseling is a variation on a single theme: knowing and praying for the counselee. Of all the questions the counselor might ask, then, the central guiding question in the counselor's mind is, "How can I pray for you?
Aristocracy naturally leads the human mind to the contemplation of the past, and fixes it there. Democracy, on the contrary, gives men a sort of instinctive distaste for what is ancient. In this respect aristocracy is far more favorable to poetry; fo...
People have their own reasons for dying. It might look simple, but it never is. It's just like a rock. What's above ground is only a small part of it. But if you start pulling, it keeps coming and coming. The human mind dwells deep in darkness. Only ...
He closed his eyes for a moment and pulled at the fragments of the elements to light the torches hanging at the pillars on either side of him. The fire did little to warm the night, but Kaustab found its presence reassuring, the flickering blue flame...
I hugged him without any kind of fear or self-consciousness, fiercely, with a rush of emotion that almost brought tears to my eyes. "I could kiss you!" Chubs cried. "Please don't!" I gasp out, feeling his arms tighten around my ribs to the point of c...
But it must be said that maturity is not merely something you do with your mind. No, maturity is about how you live your life. It is possible to be theologically astute in yet very immature. It is possible be biblically literate and in need of signif...
But hey, what's life without a little adversity?" That had to have been the fakest attempt at optimism since my fourth grade teacher tried reasoning that we were better off without the dead kids in our class because it'd mean more turns on the playgr...
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fe...
After they broke up, Renaldo's ex girlfriend said to never again date an older woman. And he wisely listened to her, because his mother only had his best interest in mind.
