It may be said, in broad-brush terms, that the primary purpose of life is the continuation of life. A deep program for survival and reproduction underwrites the complex cycles of life, in which death is the grand equalizer. There is, however, a pecul...
I would have liked to catch hold of sleep at least once, just as I had been resolved to catch hold of death one day, to catch hold of the wings of the angel of sleep when it came for me, to grab it with two fingers like a butterfly after sneaking up ...
The serious writer was aware of a paradox at the heart of his art: his inner world, the place of the strongest stories, was infinite, but it was also embedded in – if this was possible! – an even more infinite universe of all things to write abou...
In Venice, things not always as they first appear. I contemplate this observation from my post on the aft deck of one of Master Fumagalli’s gondolas, taking in the panorama of bridges, domes, bell towers, and quaysides of my native city. I row into...
Why did they believe? Because they saw miracles. Things one man took as chance, a man of faith took as a sign. A loved one recovering from disease, a fortunate business deal, a chance meeting with a long lost friend. It wasn't the grand doctrines or ...
Dos 19 aos 25 anos, Anne. Estes são os "anos de loucura". É a época em que se deve ter loucos casos de amor, longas conversas com alguém que poderia ser mas não é, o grande amor de nossa vida. É quando a gente experimenta usar as roupas mais e...
The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the...
The worst of such stories is that the triumphant romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the very details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy and involuntary story-tellers neglect as insignificant trifles. Oh, they h...
At different times in my life, I've made grand statements like, 'I want these many kids, and I want them by this age.' I think, with every year that goes by, I accept that I don't know when it's going to happen or how it's going to happen. I'll just ...
In realtà il grande problema dell'islam non è la laicità, ma la secolarizzazione, che significa la soggettivizzazione della religione: cioè che la religione diventa un elemento tra tanti altri. Compito della democrazia è di trattare in modo egua...
This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in ...
Throughout history, there have been people who mattered more. Some of them, like Ulysses S. Grant and Winston Churchill and Jonas Salk, changed the course of history in grand strokes. Others, like Reuben Styrlund and Dora Salk, made a meaningful diff...
Night had fallen, and Diane admired the deep sky behind Steve's calm countenance. They looked into each other's eyes again and felt the spark and excitement of discovery. As if to celebrate the perfect, life-enabling distance of the earth from the su...
As we discard a limited mind and a life of limitation to step into the grandness of vastness, we realize infinity itself to be the Guru and all that we do as grace. As we traverse through consciousness that is the Guru, we become the Guru and each th...
Precisava dar ao meu filho um lugar para onde olhar. Precisava dizer a ele, silenciosamente, que as coisas poderiam mudar, crescer ou fenecer, mas que a vida continuaria. Que todos nós éramos parte de um grande ciclo, algum tipo de arranjo cuja fin...
And, conversely, she went on to herself, sneering at the Grand Duke's palace, poverty is wasted on the poor, who never know how to make the best of things, are only the rich without money, are just as useless at looking after themselves, can't handle...
Never be limited by others’ inability to think of you in terms big enough or dreams grand enough. Never allow yourself to define what is possible for you in your life by others’ limited vision of what they believe is possible for them in theirs.
Todo niño es un artista que canta, baila, pinta, cuenta historias y construye castillos. Los grandes artistas son personas extrañas que han logrado preservar en el fondo de su alma esa candidez sagrada de la niñez y de los hombres que llamamos pri...
Le fait est que le gouvernement, comme un bandit de grand chemin, dit à un individu: "La bourse ou la vie." Quantité de taxes, ou même la plupart, sont payées sous la contrainte d'une telle menace.
Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call reality? -- not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is fairer still...All mirrors are...
Presque tous les malheurs de la vie viennent des fausses idées que nous avons sur ce qui nous arrive. Connaître à fond les hommes, juger sainement des événements, est donc un grand pas vers le bonheur." [Journal entry, 10 December 1801]