Self-denial can lock women into a smug and critical condescension to other, less devout women. According to Appel, cult members develop..."an attitude of moral superiority, a contempt for secular laws, rigidity of thought, and the diminution of regar...
History, practical experience, common sense and economic theory all agree: economic competition is probably one of the greatest ideas humans ever came up with. When people compete to achieve the same goal, great things seem to happen that otherwise w...
Desire I think has less to do with possession than with participation, the will to involve oneself in the body of the world, in the principle of things expressing itself in splendid specificity, a handful of images: a lover’s irreplaceable body, th...
In that day every trial borne in patience will be pleasing and the voice of iniquity will be stilled; the devout will be glad; the irreligious will mourn; and the mortified body will rejoice far more than if it had been pampered with every pleasure. ...
All this last day Frodo had not spoken, but had walked half-bowed, often stumbling, as if his eyes no longer saw the way before his feet. Sam guessed that among all their pains he bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on the body a...
Time seemed to stand still as they remained embraced, him holding his body weight on his elbows as he looked down at her and grinned. “Now that’s a vacation.” She laughed and then his grin fell and he shook his head. “Like a couple of horny t...
Tonight, he'd looked broken. She'd been afraid to touch him, as if one brush of skin would send him shattering into a million pieces. But then she , and he'd clung to her as if he'd been afraid to let go. Some people might see it as weakness, but she...
All his court were cast down in slumber, and all the fires faded and were quenched; but the Silmarils in the crown on Morgoth's head blazed forth suddenly with a radiance of white flame; and the burden of that crown and of the jewels bowed down his h...
Camels can go many weeks without drinking anything at all. The notion that they cache water in their humps is pure myth—their humps are made of fat, and water is stored in their body tissues. While other mammals draw water from bloodstreams when fa...
He had never clearly fathomed the true weight of a word of good, truth, and purity cast in the stream of human speech and the deep bend it cut in it. Nor had he thought that a word spoken boldly and loudly, with no hint of false shame, but rather wit...
American whale oil lit the world. It was used in the production of soap, textiles, leather, paints, and varnishes, and it lubricated the tools and machines that drove the Industrial Revolution. The baleen cut from the mouths of whales shaped the cour...
He swallowed and shifted his weight a little uneasily, and then said, very quietly, his lips almost touching hers, 'Promise me you'll marry me. Not now. Someday. Because I need to know." Claier felt a flutter inside, like a bird trying to fly, and a ...
Sorcha took the elevator down to the basement of the fashion house. She glanced at her stunningly beautiful reflection in the mirror and smiled to herself. How fortunate she was to be a vampire - no gray hairs, no wrinkles, no broken nails, no weight...
Oh, there are so many ways to categorize and catalogue things. Alphabetically, numerically, by date, weight, height, color, monetary value, sentimental value, or by Orafoura’s spiritual index. For me, I order things to subdue the overwhelming feeli...
Ant 1: So, uh, do you ever worry that your itsy little neck is just going to snap under the weight of your head? Ant 2: Stop asking me that. You ask me that, like, every five minutes. Ant 1: Sometimes I notice my antennae out of the corner of my eye ...
Then said a teacher , speak to us of teaching . And he said : The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple among his followers gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. The astronomer may spaeak to you of his understand...
We see, surrounding the narrow raft illuminated by the flickering light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling waves we toss for a brief hour; all the loneliness of humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated on the individual soul, w...
How then does light return to the world after the eclipse of the sun? Miraculously. Frailly. In thin stripes. It hangs like a glass cage. It is a hoop to be fractured by a tiny jar. There is a spark there. Next moment a flush of dun. Then a vapour as...
With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can’t start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It’s like quicksand … hope...
The rain is coming down here, but ever so slightly . . . Picture if you will from the heavens above, the tears of a thousand angels falling to the trees below. Causing the leaves to be so heavily burdened down by the weight of their early morning pra...
One of the biggest mistakes that a lot of people make, is that they are in the habit of working out only when they feel out of shape or when the weather is about to warm up. But when they succeed in getting back in shape, they would stop exercising o...
