Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
I think what I was after was a unifying story that could bring everything together, that could give me a sense of the whole of history.
If the Philippines must remain under the control of Spain, they will necessarily have to be transformed in a political sense, for the course of their history and the needs of their inhabitants so require.
Just touching that old tree was truly moving to me because when you touch these trees, you have such a sense of the passage of time, of history. It's like you're touching the essence, the very substance of life.
I don't much like Singapore. It's very big, very modern and very urbanised. As a rule, I prefer older places where you get a sense of the history.
History resembles a guest list in that sense of the invited and the gatecrashers: the people for whom we have been waiting, and those whose presence takes us unawares.
Gay writers now have both a sense of history and the fables that allows them to dwell in the realms of the ridiculous and at the same time talk seriously about things.
I like a twisted sense of humour. On 'A History of Violence,' David Cronenberg and I would be doing the grimmest scenes and laugh a lot.
It's extremely difficult to say what one actually means by 'sculpture' other than, in a provisional sense, it's something that goes on the floor or a pedestal, and loosely applies to a certain history of the use of that term.
I don't think nostalgia is a healthy modality. But nostalgia and a sense of history are not the same thing. Nostalgia is a dysfunction of the historical impulse, or a corruption of the historical impulse.
It was 100 feet of 16 mm black-and-white film of a car coming to a stop sign, and driving off. I had to decide how to frame and light it. It was magic. There was a sense of mystery.
I've done movies I'm very proud of, but there's always a sense of: 'Come see this shiny new car!' The question I hate the most is: 'Why should people see it?'
On Christmas, my family and I see a movie and go out for Chinese food. We don't celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense, in that we do not actually celebrate Christmas.
My dad died when I was young; my mom remarried with more haste than sense to a fellow... he wasn't evil or anything, but he was worthless.
Becoming a parent gives you access to a whole world of feeling. It gives you a much stronger sense of life and death: becoming a father made me realise my own mortality.
Her death contributed to my later interest in studying biochemistry, an interest that has not been fulfilled in the sense that my accomplishments remain more at the basic than the applied level.
Justifying conscription to promote the cause of liberty is one of the most bizarre notions ever conceived by man! Forced servitude, with the risk of death and serious injury as a price to live free, makes no sense.
I was not born in a home where there were stereotypes. So that was very useful because it gave me the sense of possibilities, of flying, if I may say, of making my hopes and dreams a reality.
As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.
Supremely, spiritual directors/mentors/pastors are persons who have a sense of being 'established' in God. Otherwise they are too dangerous to be allowed into the soul space of others.
It should be pursued as in the presence of God, and under the solemn sanctions created by a lively sense of his omniscience, and of our accountability to him for the right use of the faculties which he has bestowed.
