We think of mortality so little these days... I thought of the stern Victorian determination to keep death in mind, the uncompromising tombstones. Remember, pilgrim, as you pass by, As you are now so once was I: As I am so will you be...
There is something called positive thinking that people often confuse with hope. But it is different. Positive thinking is a state of mind, while hope is a useless state of the heart. Positive thinking is about doing and hope is about feeling. So, po...
Many gardeners will agree that hand-weeding is not the terrible drudgery that it is often made out to be. Some people find in it a kind of soothing monotony. It leaves their minds free to develop the plot for their next novel or to perfect the brilli...
In our minds we can proceed without hesitation to the place we might never go in our own lives. There is an opportunity to taste the forbidden and savor its sweet delights. It is only within our imaginations that we can enter into these situations wi...
We will not wake up ten years from now and find we have passively taken on the character of God.
I was angry at myself for my inclination to vice. I longed for the day when a state of frenzy would lead my mind to sober pasture, just as it had for Saint Augustine. I longed for the day when the love of one woman would be sacred enough to forget al...
I don't pay no mind to rules. Seems to me, rules are things made up by scared people too afraid to die, so they can't live. Or too lazy to make their own decisions. Rules are for breakin', as far as I'm concerned.
You cannot do what's important now for you if your mind cannot accept what is happening in this present moment.
I cut the wood however I like, but it's the grain that decides the strength and shape of it. You can add and subtract memories from people, but it isn't just your memory that makes you who you are. There's something in the grain of the mind.
I'd never had a mind for math. ... It was a logic that made little sense to me. In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or a formula or an equation. It was a story.
Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin; when nothing is unabsorbed, and I could fancy that we might blow so vast a bubble that the sun might set and rise in it and we might take the blue of midday and the black of midnight and be ...
Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives.
You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel—a hunger and thirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been a whirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughts leading nowhere, spinning round swift and st...
I had a dream about you. We spoke as though we shared one mind. And we did, though you got to use the brain on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while I got it the other days of the week.
The rain fluctuates between drizzle and torrential. It messes with your mind. It makes you think things will always be like this, never getting better, always letting you down right when you though the worst was over.
I keep my eyes closed as tightly as I can, but in my mind, everyone in the square looks like my father and they all have his voice. I imagine my hands at their throats, choking, silencing them, one by one.
If you are surrounded by people who not only don't believe in your goals and your positive outlook on life, but who also continually try to tear you down, it will be extremely challenging for you to hold firmly in mind that you will succeed and that ...
The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.
Mark Hopkins was one of the truest and best men that ever lived. He had a keen analytical mind; was thoroughly accurate, and took general supervision of the books, contracts, etc. He was strictly the office man, and never bought or sold anything. I a...
Kids take work, effort, love, blood, sweat and tears and are a full time job. You have to commit, for better or worse and then give your all and hope for the best. The one thing you can never, ever do is give up and say, 'Oooops, never mind, my bad, ...
Those golden minutes before you are completely awake, when your mind is just drifting, you have no censorship; you are ready to develop any kind of idea. That's when I come up with the best and worst ideas. That is the privilege of being a writer - t...
