It is quite natural and inevitable that, if we spend sixteen hours daily of our waking lives in thinking about the affairs of the world and five minutes in thinking about God and our souls, this world will seem two hundred times more real to us than ...
What should we suppose must naturally be the consequence of our carrying on a slave trade with Africa? With a country, vast in its extent, not utterly barbarous, but civilized in a very small degree? Does any one suppose a slave trade would help thei...
The adventure of life is to learn. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change. The challenge of life is to overcome. The essence of life is to care. The opportunity of like is to serve. The secret of life is to dare. The spice of...
For many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, “Circumstances have been against me, I was worthy to be something much better than I have been. I admit I have never had a great love or a great friendship; but t...
No, I thought, growing more rebellious, life has its own laws and it is for me to defend myself against whatever comes along, without going snivelling to God about sin, my own or other people's. How would it profit a man if he got into a tight place,...
Have you ever seen someone buy a piece of furniture or clothing from New York, Chicago or London? Even though the exact same product was available right down the street at a local retailer for a fraction of the cost? This kind of phenomenon is referr...
As UC Berkeley economics professor Brad DeLong put it to me: You get famine if the price of food spikes far beyond that of some people's means. This can be because food is short, objectively. This can be because the rich have bid the resources normal...
...it is a different matter entirely to commit military resources to keep peace in such areas, where often no peace can be kept, or to build nations in our own image before they are ready for our freedoms - or even want them. The military need not do...
When the ships had lifted, they returned across the river to the silence of death. Then his grandfather told him, "Many fine things your father had planned for you: learning and useful work and a life of satisfaction and peace. Do you recall this?" "...
Cohn: Do you think they've got any chance at all, sir? Commodore Jensen: Frankly, no. Not a chance in the world. I should be very surprised if they get even halfway to Navarone. Just a waste of six good men. However, I suppose that doesn't matter, co...
Most days I live awed by the world we have still, rather than mourning the worlds we have lost. The bandit mask of a cedar waxwing on a bare branch a few feet away; the clear bright sun of a frozen winter noon; the rise of Orion in the eastern evenin...
Grover Underwood of the satyrs!" Dionysus called. Grover came forward nervously. "Oh, stop chewing your shirt," Dionysus chided. "Honestly, I'm not going to blast you. For your bravery and sacrifice, blah, blah, blah, and since we have an unfortunate...
Give Nature a vacuum and she will try to fill it. Give her localized pressure and she will try to disperse it. She is forever seeking a balance she can never achieve, never happy with what she's got.
At some point along the winding, honeysuckle-lined road of their lives, the love of a child had transformed into the love of a young woman, and the two loves had both been so natural and pure that she hadn’t noticed the difference.
I began to feel that nature itself was nurturing me, reminding me that life still offered beauty and calm, and that I was also made out of these elements.
Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won.
Bosch knew the dawn had nothing on the dusk. Dawn always came up ugly, as if the sun was clumsy and in a hurry. The dusk was smoother, the moon more graceful. Maybe it was because the moon was more patient. In life and nature, Bosch thought, darkness...
To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law—a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their oppo...
I had brought from Paris the national prejudice against Italian music; but I had also received from nature that acute sensibility against which prejudices are powerless. I soon contracted the passion it inspires in all those born to understand it.
Recognizing Nothing as one's true nature, following the guidance of our conscience - having a clear distinction between absolute and relative values, and using the Earth as the external absolute scale that matches the internal absolute truthfulness.
When we acknowledge our greatness and start living it, when we open our hearts to the natural kindness and caring for all beings that resides within us, all these necessary transformations can begin.
