In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are at its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of people be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have neve...
As I looked down at him, as I saw his yellow hair pressed against my coat, I had a vision of him from long ago, that tall, stately gentleman in the swirling black cape, with his head thrown back, his rich, flawless voice singing the lilting air of th...
Our life consists not in the pursuit of material success but in the quest for worthy spiritual growth. Our entire earthly existence is but a transitional stage in the movement toward something higher, and we must not stumble and fall, nor must we lin...
What do you think was the first sound to become a word, a meaning?... I imagined two people without words, unable to speak to each other. I imagined the need: The color of the sky that meant 'storm.' The smell of fire taht meant 'Flee.' The sound of ...
Mr. Benedict: "After I woke up and composed myself, however, I realized the flowers must certainly be yours, Constance, to do with as you please. At any rate -- " Mr.Benedict broke off, for just then Constance jumped to her feet, snatched the bouquet...
Thirty two years ago when we started dating, I asked you to be my girlfriend,when you said yes and held my hand tightly to your heart ,I looked into your eyes and made a secret promise to myself that I would never hurt you,humiliate,disrespect or dis...
Marriage [is] not just a bond between two people but a bond between those two people and their forebears, their children, and their neighbors... Lovers must not . . . live for themselves alone. . . . They say their vows to the community as much as to...
We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy cor...
Arms and legs thrashing. The hammer of blood. I’m coming, says Jude. And holds her breath. Orgasm is brief, nonviolent. What color? I say Devastating blue, she says. The pale blue eyes of a murdered boy. Very nice. You remembered, she says. Jude co...
There was a basic harmony between Antonia and her mistress [Mrs. Harling]. They had strong, independent natures, both of them. They knew what they liked, and were not always trying to imitate other people. They loved children and animals and music, a...
No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by the word. It is every individual's individual code of behavior, by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only. Whatev...
I am a feminist because I dislike everything that feminism implies. I desire an end to the whole business, the demands for equality, the suggestion of sex warfare, the very name feminist. I want to be about the work in which my real interests like, t...
You say that Caesar Borgia suffered the just punishment of his crimes. He was destroyed not by his misdeeds, but by circumstances over which he had no control. His wickedness was an irrelevant accident. In this world of sin and sorrow if virtue trium...
It seemed to him that all his life he had followed the ideals that other people, by their words or their writings, had instilled into him, and never the desires of his own heart. Always his course had been swayed by what he thought he should do and n...
Was I still myself? If so, who was I? I wasn’t really interested in knowing that. It had no sort of importance for me anymore. Some moorings had broken, some taboos had fallen, and a world of spells and anathemas was springing up from their ruins. ...
The colonialist's existence is so closely aligned with that of the colonized that he will never be able to overcome the argument which states that misfortune is good for something. With all his power he must disown the colonized while their existence...
A totally nondenominational prayer: Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that I be forgiven for anything I may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not fo...
Is it possible that future generations will regard our present agribuisness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero's entertainments or Mengele's experiments? My own initial reaction is that such a comparison is hysterical, extreme...
To make someone an icon is to make him an abstraction, and abstractions are incapable of vital communication with living people.10 10 One has only to spend a term trying to teach college literature to realize that the quickest way to kill an author's...
I'm going to wake Peeta," I say. "No, wait," says Finnick. "Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his." Well, there's so little opportunity for fun left in my life, I agree. We position ourselves on either side of Peeta, lean over unt...
All the luck in the world has to come every year, in every part of every year, or there is not a harvest and then the luck, the bad luck will come and everything we are, all that we can ever be, all the Einsteins and babies and love and hate, all the...
