For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast - a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil,...
I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, o...
The world was fucking awful. It was a wretched, desolate place, a desert of meaninglessness, a heartless wasteland, where horrific things happened all the time for no reason and nothing good lasted for long. He'd been right about the world, but he wa...
Thanks to our artists, we pretend well, living under canopies of painted clouds and painted gods, in halls of marble floors across which the sung Masses paint hope in deep impatsi of echo. We make of the hollow world a fuller, messier, prettier place...
And what other kind of man would you want leading you into battle?” he says, reading my Noise. “What other kind of man is suitable for war?” A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes monsters of men. “Wrong,” says the...
I discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented b...
Zorro also is part of the tradition, most closely associated with the possibly mythical Joaquin Murrieta and the historical Tiburcio Vasquez. As well as these local California legendary figures, Zorro is an American version of Robin Hood and similar ...
Finally Exi spoke. "There are some important things to remember always, no matter how hard life presses at you. One of these things is that wherever you are, and no matter for how long, there must be a home to hold you. You cannot know who you are un...
Holiness must have a philosophical and theological foundation, namely, Divine truth; otherwise it is sentimentality and emotionalism. Many would say later on, 'We want religion, but no creeds.' This is like saying we want healing, but no science of m...
Language, the unconscious, the parents, the symbolic order: these terms in Lacan are not exactly synonymous, but they are intimately allied. They are sometimes spoken of by him as the ‘Other’ — as that which like language is always anterior to ...
Mistresses, have you ever noticed that when we disagree with a male – I hesitate to say ‘man’ – or find ourselves in a position over males, the first comment they make is always about our reputations or our monthlies?” One of the new women ...
The older Puritans had trampled down all fleshly impulses; these newer Puritans trampled no less self-righteously upon the spiritual cravings. But in the increasingly spiritistic inclination of physics itself, Behaviorism and Fundamentalism had found...
A computer search would have given me a list of pertinent cases, but without that I had to read everything. That is harder by far, but you end up learning a lot more. I was forced to remember cases because making copies of everything was too expensiv...
It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of...
You sneaked into my cabin?” Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Percy, you’ll be seventeen in two months. You can’t seriously be worried about getting in trouble with Coach Hedge.” “Uh, have you seen his baseball bat?” “Besides, Seaweed Brain,...
If someone were to propose that the planets go around the sun because all planet matter has a kind of tendency for movement, a kind of motility, let us call it an ‘oomph,’ this theory could explain a number of other phenomena as well. So this is ...
The deeper I went into the valley, the greater the rewards. First, it was a clump of birches, the bottoms wrapped in thick fog, the uppermost branches clear now, nesting birds waking with bright-eyed songs. Next, I passed under the pines, browned nee...
The Everglades was the only place on earth where alligators (broad snout, fresh water, darker skin) and crocodiles (pointy snout, salt water, toothy grin) lived side by side. It was the only home of the Everglades mink, Okeechobee gourd, and Big Cypr...
Make sure the seaweed lies flat.' 'Okay.' 'Leave an inch below the knee.' 'Okay.' 'It's got to be loose enough to put a finger in the top.' 'Sean Kendrick.' I say it emphatically enough that the stallion's ears prick toward me. (...) Sean doesn't app...
If you surrender your self-worth to someone who doesn’t see your true value, what happens when someone comes along who wants to give you what you’re worth instead of what you’ll settle for? The bottom line is this: You’ve got to know your wor...
Art is by nature aristocratic, and naturally selective in its effect on the audience. For even in its 'collective' manifestations, like theatre or cinema, its effect is bound up with the intimate emotions of each person who comes into contact with a ...
