Why is it,” Jonathan puzzled, “that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d just spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?
[G]iving yourself some loving attention is not selfish. It is sensible. If you feel loved and cherished--even if it is only by yourself--then you will have more love to give to others, too. (83)
Addressing the concept of man made additions to the faith - “These additions- standards, practices, and allegiances supposedly created for our spiritual benefit- have had the opposite effect.
[Janco] paused. His eyes held a distant gleam as if seeing into his past. 'My first practice was a shock. I was a cocky smart aleck--' [Opal] 'Was?' [J] 'Be quiet. I'm telling a story here.
Among other things, neuroplasticity means that emotions such as happiness and compassion can be cultivated in much the same way that a person can learn through repetition to play golf and basketball or master a musical instrument, and that such pract...
I find it strange that practicing law in a comfortable well-heated office is considered too demanding an occupation for women, yet laboring from dawn's first light in crowded, drafty, ill-lit sweatshops is not.
It is a basic idea of practically every war mythology that the enemy is a monster and that in killing him one is protecting the only truly valuable order of human life on earth, which is that, of course, of one's own people.
...if you think the worst you'll get the worst, but if you think the best..." "and then everything will blow up in your face anyway. Don't you get the punchline yet? Its the great cosmic practical joke: Knock knock, who's there? Big kick in the Ass.
Ideas, which grow up within the imagination and appear so lovely to it and of a value beyond whatever men call valuable, are exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical.
I know you better then anyone. You’re practically my son, and I think that it’s the fact that you don’t want to see her leave. You are afraid of change.” He paused; he was right. “You are afraid that she will change.
... for most practical purposes, Tarbean had two parts: Waterside and Hillside. Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicians and courtesans...
What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.
Any decent society has to be built on trust and love and the intelligent use of information and feelings. Education involves being able to practice those things as you struggle to build a decent society that can be nonviolent.
Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judgement, which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every one well knows himself to be fallible, few think it nece...
I think we shall have trouble learning how to lie, having for so long practiced the art of going round and round the truth without ever lying about it, or reaching it either.
Enjoy what you are learning and doing. This is one of the hardest concepts in the entire world to understand. Harder yet to put into practice.
Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves.
Our creed [atheism] is indeed a queer creed. You others, Christians (and similar people), consider our ethics much inferior, indeed abominable. There is that little difference. We adhere to ours in practice, you don't.
The wood nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.
Carnal love: a practical man’s love. A love you can see, touch, and taste if you’re kinky. If you can’t hear it, you’re probably better suited to its more abstract form.
If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase-not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been-what would you take?
