Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
DMT seems to argue, convincingly I might add, that the world is made entirely of something, for want of a better word, we would have to call magic.
No more do we create cultural artifacts that are simply our furniture, but now it's our thoughts, our values, are embodied in this [digital] stuff.
History is the in-rushing toward what the Buddhists call the realm of the densely packed, a transformational realm where the opposites are unified.
Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.
The scandalous bronze-lacquer age of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotences, and mendacities, will have to run its course, till the pit follow it.
Great men are the inspired texts of that divine Book of Revelations, whereof a chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named History.
At the bottom there is no perfect history; there is none such conceivable. All past centuries have rotted down, and gone confusedly dumb and quiet.
The aristocracy of feudal parchment has passed away with a mighty rushing, and now, by a natural course, we arrive at aristocracy of the money-bag.
We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.
If WE claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp.
Those who follow the Tao are of clear mind. They do not load their mind with anxieties and are flexible in their adjustment to external conditions.
By ethical argument and moral principle the greatest crimes are eventually shown to have been necessary, and, in fact, a signal benefit to mankind.
The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.
Parts exist only for purposes of figuring and describing, and as we figure the world out we become confused if we do not remember this all the time.
The world is in an extremely dangerous situation, and serious diseases often require the risk of a dangerous cure like the Pasteur serum for rabies.
The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is.
So multiverse or not, we still have to come to terms with the origin of the laws of nature. And the only viable explanation here is the divine Mind.
I asked certain rich men if they felt embittered. 'How could we not?' they said. So I asked them what caused this anguish. They blamed their wealth.
If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing.
But is it just then that the few and the wealthy should be the rulers? And what if they, in like manner, rob and plunder the people, - is this just?
Equality is of two kinds, numerical and proportional; by the first I mean sameness of equality in number or size; by the second, equality of ratios.
All food must be capable of being digested, and that what produces digestion is warmth; that is why everything that has soul in it possesses warmth.
A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life; but he can only attain happiness under the opposite conditions
Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
Physics is unable to stand on its own feet, but needs a metaphysics on which to support itself, whatever fine airs it may assume towards the latter.
A man may call to mind the face of his friend, but not his own. Here, then, is an initial difficulty in the way of applying the maxim, Know Thyself.
The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a Pirate.
Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.
The human heart as modern civilization has made it is more prone to hatred than to friendship. And it is prone to hatred because it is dissatisfied.
Thomas Aquinas states parenthetically, as something entirely obvious, that men are more rational than women. For my part, I see no evidence of this.
Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved.
Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men that comes chiefly through their work.
The dictum that human nature cannot be changed is one of those tiresome platitudes that conceal from the ignorant the depths of their own ignorance.
Humanistic ethics is based on the principle that only humans themselves can determine the criterion for virtue and not an authority transcending us.
Law in origin was merely a codification of the power of dominant groups, and did not aim at anything that to a modern man would appear to be justice
The best perfection of a religious man is to do common things in a perfect manner. A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue.
There is no longer any religion when there is no longer any privileged religion. Take from religion its exclusive power and it will no longer exist.
A good soul like a good body should be as unobtrusive as possible; in so far as it functions properly, it should not be noticed for good or for ill.
But if you do not have the Tao yourself, what business have you spending your time in vain efforts to bring corrupt politicians into the right path?
He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.
Poor people and working people have not been the focus of the Obama administration. That for me is not just a disappointment but a kind of betrayal.
Theology is a part of our lives. It's unavoidable. A thoughtless theology guides our lives with just as much force as a thoughtful and informed one.
Sometimes we get caught up in trying to glorify God by praising what He can do and we lose sight of the practical point of what He actually does do.
We renovate the heart by, of course, changing it, but we can't do that, really, without changing the other essential parts of the human personality.
Some of the greatest, most revolutionary advances in science have been given their initial expression in attractively modest terms, with no fanfare.
.. that a rule, which, in speculation, may seem the most advantageous to society, may yet be found, in practice, totally pernicious and destructive.
Do not miss the opportunity of offering even a single drop into the ocean of merit or a grain atop the mountain of the roots of beneficial activity.
Not every difficult and dangerous thing is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to success in achieving the object of our effort.
The unpredictability inherent in human affairs is due largely to the fact that the by-products of a human process are more fateful than the product.
To some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it.