Showing posts with label life ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life ideas. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 08, 2022

Eloquence and erudition were the twin prerequisites of greatness ... any effort expended in the cultivation of such gifts would surely be rewarded, if not in this world then in the world to come.

Catherine Nicholson, on Milton in the NYR

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Why has mankind had such a craving to be imposed upon? Why this lust after imposing creeds, imposing deeds, imposing buildings, imposing language, imposing works of art? The thing becomes an imposition and a weariness at last. Give us things that are alive and flexible, which won't last too long and become an obstruction and a weariness….. It is all a question of sensitiveness. Brute force and overbearing may make a terrific effect. But in the end, that which lives lives by delicate sensitiveness. If it were a question of brute force, not a single human baby would survive for a fortnight. It is the grass of the field, most frail of all things, that supports all life all the time. But for the green grass, no empire would rise, no man would eat bread: for grain is grass…. Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor teaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup. 

D. H. Lawrence, Etruscan Places

Thursday, March 25, 2021

A life is not such a tremendous time to learn to express your ideas.

Henry Adams

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

A man's worth is just the worth of that which he pursues....Be upright either by nature or by correction.

Contemplate the courses of the stars, as one should do that revolves along with them. Consider also without ceasing the changes of elements, one into another. Speculations upon such things cleanse away the filth of this earthly life.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Book 7)

Sunday, August 25, 2019

While sitting at the fireside in the winter, at ease on soft couches, well fed, sipping tasty wine and nibbling tidbits, it is then that a host may duly inquire of his guest:  Who are you among men, and whence do you come?

Xenophanes, (per Philip Wheelwright, The PreSocratics)

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine.
 

Michel de Montaigne 


Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Now is now!  There is never more to experience than this single "now", which recurs at an interval exactly one second in length.

Jack Vance, Tales of the Dying Earth


 See also:   http://everythingrum.blogspot.com/2013/09/moments-in-time-and-consciousness.html

Friday, August 18, 2017

No one departs out of life otherwise than if he had but just before entered into it.... We should always, as near as we can, be booted and spurred, and ready to go.

Michel de Montaigne

Friday, May 19, 2017

The only remedy, the only rule, and the sole doctrine for avoiding the evils by which mankind is surrounded, whatever they are, is to resolve to bear them so far as our nature permits, or to put an end to them courageously and promptly.

 Michel de Montaigne

Friday, February 27, 2015

A life is like a garden.  Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.
Live long and prosper.

Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet

Friday, April 19, 2013

At the end we dream of the beginning.

James Church, The Man with the Baltic Stare

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Sooner or later, you learn things.  You don't realize until it's too late that you learned something; and then you don't remember where, or how, or why.  There's no voice that automatically pipes up: ... Attention! Learning Experience!

James Church, Bamboo and Blood

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Sometimes it is not wise to persist in explaining oneself.

Amitay Ghosh, River of Smoke.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.

James Joyce, Ulysses

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Buddha sought "a wholly different way of living as a human being."

In the Chain of Dependent Causation, karma (actions) determine consciousness. Consciousness - "the last idea or impulse of a dying human being" - determines rebirth.

From Karen Armstrong's Buddha

Friday, May 28, 2010

God in the most deeply hidden of His manifestations...is called 'He.' God in the complete unfolding of his Being, Grace and Love, in which He becomes capable of being perceived by the 'reason of the heart'...is called 'You.' But God in His supreme manifestation, where the fullness of His Being finds its final expression in the last and all-embracing of His attributes, is called 'I.'

The Zohar

Friday, May 14, 2010

You don't ever have to say anything....Always remember that. Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

Claire Keegan, Foster, The New Yorker (February 15 & 22, 2010)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Whatever destiny demands of us, we and only we can decide whether to endure with noble fortitude or not. We do not wish for evils, but we can endure them.

John C. Wright, The Golden Age

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Life always sinks downward. It takes effort to avoid that. The idea drags it down because it begins to contradict itself. And then a new idea is developed, an opposing one, and it is good until it begins to be turned into reality. What is, is not good; what is good is what is desired. When people come across a pretty thought they should keep it under glass, so it won’t get dirty.

Mesa Selimovic, Death and the Dervish