And could you, from a place of love, actually stand up and, use force, to give someone back, the suffering, they were trying to put on you? Would I do it? Maybe it would even be, an act of fierce compassion, as Enso Roshi sometimes talked about, to n...
To return to love, to get the love we always wanted but never had, to have the love we want but are not prepared to give, we seek romantic relationships. We believe these relationships, more than any other, will rescue and redeem us. True love does h...
It was not enough that food aplenty was within Man’s grasp: he wanted more. It was not enough that prey surrendered themselves to Man according to the natural order: Man wanted to cook his prey. Man had discovered fire when lightning stuck and set ...
A man who aspires to rise above the mediocre, to be something more than the ordinary, surely deserves admiration, even if he fails and loses a fortune on account of his ambitions (...) if one has failed only where others have not had the courage or w...
At the same time, eroticism in the home requires active engagement and willful intent. It is an ongoing resistance to the message that marriage is serious, more work than play; and that passion is for teenagers and the immature. We must unpack our am...
Outside, the sunlight had turned pale lemon, but the studio remained cool. The white walls and white-tiled splashback behind the sink were made more clinical by the metal tables which looked as if they’d originally been intended for use in an opera...
Well, I’ve had my fun; I’ve had it, he thought, looking up at the swinging baskets of pale geraniums. And it was smashed to atoms—his fun, for it was half made up, as he knew very well; invented, this escapade with the girl; made up, as one mak...
A leader is generally not more virtuous than most ordinary people. The opposite is usually true. Because people are reluctant to be led by those perceived as evil, a leader expertly creates a façade, behind which he hides all that may appear dirty. ...
Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through...
Wherever his gaze touched her, she felt as if flames licked at her skin, and the thought of what it might do to her to feel his tongue follow suit had her eyes drifting shut on a moan. Spar chuckled softly and leaned closer until his breath teased th...
What is more, sir," his lordship went on, "I believe I have a good idea of what you mean by 'professionalism.' It appears to mean getting one's way by cheating and manipulating. It appears to mean serving the dictates of greed and advantage rather th...
Emma, if I had to march an eternity in slavery it would be worth it knowing that you are safe. They can bind my wrists and shackle my feet, but they can't take away my memories, my heart. If I had to see you grow old from a distance with someone else...
This, I believe, is the appropriate image of human intercourse -- appropriate because it recognizes the qualities, the diversities, and the proper relationships of human utterances. As civilized human beings, we are the inheritors, neither of an inqu...
Here are two facts that should not both be true: - There is sufficient food produced in the world every year to feed every human being on the planet. - Nearly 800 million people literally go hungry every day, with more than a third of the earth's pop...
In a sense, the recording stylus and its reverse component have defeated time. Up until a little more than a generation ago, the sound of a word once uttered, a violin note once played, were possible treasures dropped into the none too safe repositor...
exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is tru...
How is it that, a full two centuries after Jane Austen finished her manuscript, we come to the world of Pride and Prejudice and find ourselves transcending customs, strictures, time, mores, to arrive at a place that educates, amuses, and enthralls us...
Less than a decade after the Great Exhibition, iron as a structural material was finished—which makes it slightly odd that the most iconic structure of the entire century, about to rise over Paris, was made of that doomed material. I refer of cours...
Today more than ever before, its time to go through with life. Stop thinking so hard about what it is that you want to do. Go out and conquer your dreams! Only you can walk your path. Remember that inner voice and use it to drive yourself straight to...
Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled— to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe th...
Teenage guys are not supposed to be concerned like this. They are supposed to tell fart jokes, and comment on girls' boobs, and not really pay attention when something is bothering a friend. It's really, really difficult when they convince you they c...
