The earth, the water, the fire, the air, and the void -- these indeed are the five principles by which the entire universe is pervaded.

Abhinavagupta, as quoted by Diana L. Eck in India: a Sacred Geography

Every technology will alienate you from some part of your life.  That is its job.  Your job is to notice.


Michael Harris, as quoted by The Economist (August 16, 2014)

Mammalian minds evolved to track external dangers and opportunities.... Only humans acquired an ability to focus solely on internal thoughts.... [But] people go to surprisingly great lengths to avoid being stranded with their own thoughts.

Science News, People Find Solitude Distressing

Today’s news is always old news. The innocent get slaughtered and someone makes up excuses.

Charles Simic, Portable Hell (NYR)

Shiva, they say, is twofold…. utterly transcendent and … “without parts”.… the source and essence of all…. But Shiva is also “with parts” [and] shows himself visibly in many forms…. The divine expands, evolving as if from seed, and stretching into the immense, indeed infinite reality of the cosmos, which lives and breathes.

From India: A Sacred Geography (Ch 5) by Diana L. Eck

There is no shore on the other side

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I cannot help thinking that liberal civilization—the rule of laws, not men, of argument in place of force, of compromise in place of violence—runs deeply against the human grain and is achieved and sustained only by the most unremitting struggle against human nature. The liberal virtues—tolerance, compromise, reason—remain as valuable as ever, but they cannot be preached to those who are mad with fear or mad with vengeance. In any case, preaching always rings hollow. We must be prepared to defend them by force, and the failure of the sated, cosmopolitan nations to do so has left the hungry nations sick with contempt for us.

Michael Ignatieff

Life should be a fight to the death.

Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

It doesn't have to be understood to be real.

Peter Lanza

When the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.


Attributed to Napoleon