All my life and all my experience, the events that have befallen me, the people I have known, all my memories, dreams, fantasies, everything I have ever read, all of that has been chucked onto the compost heap, where over time it has rotted down to a...
That love, which is the highest joy, which is divine simplicity itself, is not for you moderns, you children of reflection. It works only evil in you. As soon as you wish to be natural, you becomecommon. To you nature seems something hostile; you hav...
We each make our solo voyages to deep, expansive waters. Alone in our contest with the wider world, we test our mettle and seek our trophies, promotions, compliments, and accolades. We strive to be needed and to thereby know that there is a reason fo...
It is impossible to exercise free will as long as we are operating from within the system. Free will requires consciousness, and our pervasive and deep-seated patterns of thought are unconscious; they are outside of our awareness and therefore outsid...
For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man, we must entertain each other in brotherly affection, we must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities for the supply of others' necessities. We must uphold a familiar commer...
I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say. Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it–our life–hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, ...
We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one else can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world....
1. Be Impeccable With Your Word Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. 2. Don't Take Anything Personally N...
J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and class, journeying to war and returning home. I’ve...
Some writers might tell you that writing is like a piece of magic - a process of creating something out of nothing, and I guess I used to think about it that way too a long long time ago. But as I've lived my life and loved and lost friends and famil...
Raoul Duke: [Narrating] Ah, devil ether. It makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel. Total loss of all basic motor skills. Blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue. The mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with th...
Hermione: Victor's gone to get drinks. Would you care to join us? Ron: No, we would not care to join you and *Victor*. Hermione: What's got your wand in a knot? Ron: He's from Durmstrang! You're fraternizing with the enemy! Hermione: The enemy? Who w...
Alan Garner: Hello. How 'bout that ride in? I guess that's why they call it Sin City. [awkward laughter] Alan Garner: You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack. But when my ...
Sharkey: You boys got yourself a real martyr for a friend. Make it work for you. Patrick 'Patsy' Goldberg: Yeah, but what are we going to do with a martyr? Sharkey: Times change. Prohibition won't last much longer. Take it from me, a lot of you will ...
Mama Montana: Son? I wish I had one! He's a bum! He was a bum then and he's a bum now! Who do you think you are, hm? We haven't heard a word from you in five years. Cinco anos. You suddenly show up here and you throw money at us? You think you can *b...
Cleon: I know that a lot of you aren't too happy about going out on patrol. Just just remember this, out of a street family of 120, plus affiliates, you were chosen for this expedition. That makes you special. Now, here's the line up: Swan, second-in...
[Erik corners the President and his men, and makes a speech at the cameras there] Erik Lehnsherr: You built these weapons to destroy us. Why? Because you are afraid of our gifts. Because we are different. Humanity has always feared that which is diff...
Brad Dupree: ...so I'm sure you can understand the need to cut corners around here. Lester Burnham: Sure. Times are tight, and you need to free up cash. Gotta spend money to make money. Brad Dupree: Exactly. Lester Burnham: Like when our editorial di...
We're young. We’re supposed to drink too much. We're supposed to have bad attitudes and shag each other's brains out. We were designed to party. We owe it to ourselves to party hard. We owe it to each other. This is it. This is our time. So a few o...
What all of this suggests is that we need a more complex understanding of identities. If we identify on the basis of race, class, sexuality, or gender alone we cannot make sense of the ways these identifications combine and change over time. The used...
When you think a positive thought, you become positive.