Let us see rather that like Janus—or better, like Yama, the Brahmin god of death—religion has two faces, one very friendly, one very gloomy...
This is the grand fiction of tourism, that bringing our bodies somewhere draws that place closer to us, or we to it. It's a quick fix of empathy.
facts are aligned on shelves as well, necessarily chosen and arranged, assigned value by explanations neatly stuck where prices might have been.
To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is pleasure beyond compare.
Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.
You should never put the new antlers of a deer to your nose and smell them. They have little insects that crawl into the nose and devour the brain.
My knowledge of myself is direct, synthetic, from within outwards; my knowledge of other persons is indirect, analytical, from outside inwards. My knowledge of myself starts at the core; that of others at the crust.
We speak of the masculine and the feminine, but they are the wrong labels. It is really more a matter of poetry versus intellectualization.
We do not escape into philosophy, psychology, and art--we go there to restore our shattered selves into whole ones.
Better is not good enough, and it's a shame that anyone would be willing to settle for so little.
When topics are complex and meaty, don't create a never-ending email thread. It's amazing how much time people waste composing and reading carefully-worded essays, when a 5 minute in-person chat would resolve the whole thing.
I continue to write essays about art. The visual is always part of my work, and it gives me immense pleasure to make up the words of art and create them verbally rather than build them.
The principle of neighborhood at home always implies the principle of charity abroad. (pg. 260, The Idea of a Local Economy)
God has certainly not called us to throw our brains out the window as an appropriate response to His Grace". R. Alan Woods [2012]
To deny the existence of a God and more specifically the Creator God of Christianity is not based upon a philosophical issue, but rather a moral one.
Literature suffers because writers give their books to colleagues who will then write glowing reviews or saccharine introductions.
The habit of considering a man’s religious, moral and political opinions before appointing him to a post or giving him a job is the modern form of persecution.
Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.
One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity.
The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. "Everything is permitted" does not mean that nothing is forbidden.
Creating is living doubly. The groping, anxious quest of a Proust, his meticulous collecting of flowers, of wallpapers, and of anxieties, signifies nothing else.
