classes ::: Lucretius, book, Philosophy,
children :::
branches :::
see also :::

Instances - Classes - See Also - Object in Names
Definitions - Quotes - Chapters


object:The Way Things are
class:Lucretius
class:book
subject class:Philosophy


questions, comments, suggestions/feedback, take-down requests, contribute, etc
contact me @ integralyogin@gmail.com or via the comments below
or join the integral discord server (chatrooms)
if the page you visited was empty, it may be noted and I will try to fill it out. cheers



--- OBJECT INSTANCES [0]

TOPICS


AUTH


BOOKS


CHAPTERS

--- PRIMARY CLASS


book
Lucretius

--- SEE ALSO


--- SIMILAR TITLES [0]


The Way Things are
select ::: Being, God, injunctions, media, place, powers, subjects,
favorite ::: cwsa, everyday, grade, mcw, memcards (table), project, project 0001, Savitri, the Temple of Sages, three js, whiteboard,
temp ::: consecration, experiments, knowledge, meditation, psychometrics, remember, responsibility, temp, the Bad, the God object, the Good, the most important, the Ring, the source of inspirations, the Stack, the Tarot, the Word, top priority, whiteboard,

--- DICTIONARIES (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)



--- QUOTES [0 / 0 - 295 / 295] (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)



KEYS (10k)


NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   10 Lao Tzu

   5 Stephen King

   4 Melanie Joy

   4 Kurt Vonnegut

   4 Jack Kornfield

   4 Daniel Handler

   3 Sarah Young

   3 Sam Harris

   3 Octavia E Butler

   3 Laozi

   3 Geneen Roth

   3 Epictetus

   3 David Bohm

   3 Ann Leckie

   2 Zen proverb

   2 Walker Percy

   2 Tanya Lee Stone

   2 Tammy Baldwin

   2 Stephen R Covey

   2 Sophie Kinsella

   2 Sheila Heti

   2 Scott Westerfeld

   2 Sarah Ockler

   2 Robert Kirkman

   2 Rhonda Byrne

   2 Patricia Reilly Giff

   2 Marcus Aurelius

   2 Louis Menand

   2 Joan Tollifson

   2 James Frey

   2 Howard Zinn

   2 Haruki Murakami

   2 Harold Bloom

   2 Glenn Greenwald

   2 Devdutt Pattanaik

   2 David Allen

   2 Anonymous

   2 Alexander McCall Smith

   2 Adyashanti


*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Equanimity arises when we accept the way things are. ~ Jack Kornfield
2:The miracle is the adverbs. The way things are done. ~ Daniel Handler
3:The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done. ~ Daniel Handler
4:Because this is the way things are meant to be.(Press Tilton) ~ D J MacHale
5:Stop talking about the way things are, unless you like them. ~ Esther Hicks
6:"Be content with what you have.Rejoice in the way things are." ~ Zen proverb
7:Be content with what you have. Rejoice in the way things are.' ~ Zen proverb
8:You have to accept the way things are before you can move on. ~ Jack Kornfield
9:The way things are does not determine the way they ought to be ~ Michael J Sandel
10:The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. ~ Jack Kornfield
11:when we choose a belief and act on it, we change the way things are. ~ Louis Menand
12:Defiance of the way things are is the only way to embrace what's coming. ~ Shelly Crane
13:the way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ~ Stephen King
14:It's exciting. But you can't keep fighting the way things are forever. ~ Scott Westerfeld
15:I am not very happy the way things are going out there in New Zealand. ~ Sanath Jayasuriya
16:Maybe this is the way things are supposed to be but it doesn't feel right ~ Stephen Chbosky
17:What concerns me is not the way things are, but the way people think things are. ~ Epictetus
18:Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God. ~ Victor Hugo
19:Good rom-coms have some reflection of the way things are, the sign of the times. ~ Rashida Jones
20:Oh, don't cry, I'm so sorry I cheated so much, but that's the way things are. ~ Vladimir Nabokov
21:Even the people that support Bush aren't happy with the way things are going in Iraq. ~ Kevin Bacon
22:What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are. ~ Epictetus
23:I'm not saying that either Socs or greasers are better; that's just the way things are. ~ S E Hinton
24:The way things are going the faces on next year's bubble-gum cards will be lawyers. ~ Reggie Jackson
25:It's fresh to you because you're too young to know anything but the way things are now. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
26:It's just the way things are." she shrugged. "It's no one's fault."
"Or everyone's. ~ Scott Westerfeld
27:Depression comes from not accepting the way things are - and seeing no way too change them. ~ Chloe Thurlow
28:You can argue with the way things are. You’ll lose, but only 100% of the time. —BYRON KATIE ~ Toni Bernhard
29:maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values. ~ Stephen R Covey
30:All the important things in life lie beyond reason... and that's just the way things are. ~ Alister E McGrath
31:There was no going back to the way things were, because all you ever got was the way things are. ~ Sarah Ockler
32:Photographs are never records of the way things are; they're records of the way things were. ~ John Paul Caponigro
33:You can change the world. Please don't do that, OK? Some of us like the way things are going now. ~ Stephen Colbert
34:That's all science fiction was ever about. Hating the way things are, wanting to make things different. ~ Ray Bradbury
35:Every reminiscence is colored by the way things are today, and therefore by a delusive point of view. ~ Albert Einstein
36:An economist is a scoundrel who tells you the way things are rather than the way you want them to be. ~ William Nordhaus
37:You're only as good as your last fight. It's just the way things are. It's the way that the sport is built. ~ Andre Ward
38:I couldn't stand it. I still can't stand it. I can't stand the way things are. I cannot tolerate this age. ~ Walker Percy
39:It's just the way things are. And you can't dwell on what might have been. You have to look at what is. ~ Sophie Kinsella
40:Live in harmony with the way and you will benefit. Struggle against the way things are and you will suffer. ~ Bernie Clark
41:Well, the way things are going, aside from wheat and auto parts, America's biggest export is now the Oscar. ~ Billy Crystal
42:I’m not sure it’s altogether right to encourage and reward fighting and killing, but that’s the way things are. ~ John Jakes
43:When you do not treat yourself the way you want others to treat you, you can never change the way things are. ~ Rhonda Byrne
44:Oh, sweetheart. What can anyone do? That's just the way things are. You really think you can change the world? ~ Miguel Syjuco
45:great thinkers simply got stuck out of sheer curiosity investigating very general questions about the way things are. ~ Susan Neiman
46:but I suppose it could be considered a necessary evil.” “And you’ve got to admit, with the way things are going ~ William W Johnstone
47:People break up. It's just the way things are. And you can't dwell on what might have been. You have to look at what is. ~ Sophie Kinsella
48:See the world as your self. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self; Then you can care for all things. ~ Stephen Cope
49:That's the way things are, don't you think? It's human nature. We do things for people we know. Everybody does that. ~ Alexander McCall Smith
50:This isn't just 'the way things are.' This is the way you made them. This is the result of your choices, your actions. Yours. ~ Andrew Klavan
51:This is not the way things are done in Boy’s Own Adventure books. I recall no mentions of homosexual gang-rape and cannibalism ~ Robert Rankin
52:A lot of people just capitulate and say, "Well, that's just the way things are." I think that can be deadly for creative people. ~ Seamus Dever
53:Be content with what you have and take joy in the way things are. When you realize you have all you need, the World belongs to you. ~ James Frey
54:Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. ~ Laozi
55:Those of us with too much invested in the way things are will never embrace the revolutionary cause required for wholesale change. ~ Alan Hirsch
56:Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. ~ Lao Tzu
57:I do think the author ought to be able to give a good reason for the way things are in his poem. Not a bad question to ask oneself. ~ James Dickey
58:Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize nothing is lacking,
the whole world belongs to you. ~ Lao Tzu
59:When we aren't collectively imagining hopeful futures, then the way things are going almost invariably seems negative and frightening. ~ Mohsin Hamid
60:The war has become institutionalized. It is no longer a special program or politicized project; it is simply the way things are done. ~ Michelle Alexander
61:Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you. ~ Lao Tzu
62:If a film is not a success, then that's just the way things are. Nothing I can do can make a difference. I have stopped worrying about it. ~ Sandra Bullock
63:Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you. ~ Lao Tzu
64:The way things are going, we are not too far from the day when it will take an hour's labor just to pay for the gasoline to get to the job. ~ Sherwood Boehlert
65:What we need to become happier and to make the world a better place is not more pious illusions but a clearer understanding of the way things are. ~ Sam Harris
66:I was disillusioned by Hollywood at the time, but now I've come to accept that's just the way things are: it's called show business, not show art. ~ Jean Seberg
67:Boots, it’s college. We’re segregated regardless, whether it be by major or class. This is just the way things are here. It keeps everyone safe. ~ Rachel Van Dyken
68:You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed the way things are at school. I’m everyone’s favorite loser. There isn’t anyone more fun to pick on then me. ~ Cindy C Bennett
69:Nearly 100% of innovation-from business to politics-is inspired not by "market analysis" but by people who are supremely pissed off by the way things are. ~ Tom Peters
70:One thing is certain in life. Just when things are going well, soon afterward they are certain to go wrong. It's just the way things are meant to be. ~ Bryce Courtenay
71:Worship is God's way of giving us an opportunity to shift our focus from our own concerns, problems, and circumstances to the way things are in heaven. ~ David Jeremiah
72:I think it's important that we run that tension between the way things are, in terms of the way we're governed, and the way we sort of become complacent. ~ Adrian Grenier
73:Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are. ~ Saint Augustine
74:The whole youth-idolatry oh-god-not-another-birthday thing has to be the most sure-fire way to be unhappy about the way things are progressing in your life. ~ Nat Friedman
75:When you assess something as a problem instead of as something to simply be accepted as the way things are, you are assuming there is a potential resolution. ~ David Allen
76:You kill -- You die." That was probably the most naive thing I've ever said. The fact is -- in most cases, NOW, the way things are -- you kill -- you LIVE. ~ Robert Kirkman
77:I don't think any one person, whether artist or not, has been given permission by anyone to put the responsibility of the way things are on anyone else ~ Robert Rauschenberg
78:While in the past we may have wanted loyal employees, today we need flexible people who are not possessive about “the way things are done around here.” And ~ Spencer Johnson
79:[Rural people] have a different lifestyle, and they don't want to change it. They're happy with the way things are. It's causing the party political problems. ~ Collin Peterson
80:I've always been aware that the image you patiently construct for an entire career can be ruined in a minute. It scares you a bit, but that's the way things are. ~ Roger Federer
81:I don't have any personal upset at the death penalty as an abstraction, What I do realize is how many mistakes can be made with the way things are being done now. ~ Michael Baden
82:People often say that it is easier to predict the way things are going to be 10 to 20 years in the future than to predict how it is going to be 3 years from now. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
83:Biological determinism is a blight on science. It implies that the way things are is the way they must be. [...] This position is wrong, both empirically and morally. ~ John Horgan
84:Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo
85:You kill -- You die."

That was probably the most naive thing I've ever said. The fact is -- in most cases, NOW, the way things are -- you kill -- you LIVE. ~ Robert Kirkman
86:It means he’ll never marry me. He’s happy and satisfied with the way things are, and he’s not compelled to change them.” “And you got all of that from a whistle? ~ Adrienne Thompson
87:I think fashion in motion is going to happen. I think that's the way things are going, but there are people who will still want to see a picture and to be able to hold it. ~ Kate Moss
88:Honest to God, Bill, the way things are going, all I can think of is that I'm a character in a book by somebody who wants to write about somebody who suffers all the time. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
89:Honest to God, Bill, the way things are going, all I can think of is that I’m a character in a book by somebody who wants to write about somebody who suffers all the time. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
90:It's fresh to you because you're too young to know anything but the way things are now.
Actually, it is kind of incredible that things were ever any other way, isn't it? ~ Kurt Vonnegut
91:There is a history that we have to account for. When we don’t, it is easy to assume that things such as tribe, race, and terrorism are natural, or simply the way things are. ~ Soong Chan Rah
92:There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it's now okay to express ourselves publicly. We make that day by doing things publicly until it's simply the way things are. ~ Tammy Baldwin
93:We are the only creatures that both laugh and weep. I think it's because we are the only creatures that see the difference between the way things are and the way they might be. ~ Robert Fulghum
94:There was no going back to the way things were, because all you ever got was the way things are. One moment. Then another. What you did with that moment was up to you. No regrets. ~ Sarah Ockler
95:think about the littler rules. Club rules. Social standards. Values. "The way things are normally done." Opinions, every one. Yet we live our lives as if they're immutable truths. ~ Johnny B Truant
96:The hardest thing in the world is believing someone can change. It's always easier to go along with the way things are than to admit that you might have been wrong in the first place. ~ Jodi Picoult
97:I feel now it's useless to keep hoping. The way things are today, we live in a world that needs laughter, and I've decided if I can make people laugh, I'm making a more important contribution. ~ Paul Lynde
98:Boredom, a certain kind of boredom, is really impatience. You don't like the way things are, they aren't interesting enough for you, so you decide- and boredom is a decision that you are bored. ~ Eric Weiner
99:Conventional wisdom is no wisdom at all. Conventional wisdom is taking somebody else's word for the way things are It's the followers of this world who rely on assumption. Not the leaders. ~ Richard Marcinko
100:It's funny how the music industry is enraged about the Internet and the way things are copied without being paid for. But you know why people steal the music? Because they can't afford the music. ~ Tom Petty
101:When is a problem a project? Always. When you assess something as a problem instead of as something to simply be accepted as the way things are, you are assuming there is a potential resolution. ~ David Allen
102:Belief in one life makes us want to change the world, control it or resign to the way things are. Belief in rebirth enables us to appreciate all three possibilities, without clinging to any. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik
103:Some of the most vocal critics of the way things are being done are people who have done nothing themselves, and whose only contributions to society are their complaints and moral exhibitionism. ~ Thomas Sowell
104:There are so many types of sorrow. Sorrow for a loss. Sorrow for a tragedy. Sorrow for the way things are. Sorrow for the ways things could have been. But the worse sorrow is for what can never be. ~ Dan Skinner
105:Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think. ~ Aaron Swartz
106:In the governor's race, Chris Bell has as good a shot as anybody in a four-way race. If Bell holds on to his base and connects with some people who are tired of the way things are going, he could win. ~ Ed Martin
107:And sometimes what you see is so deep in your head you're not even sure of what you're seeing. But when it's down there on paper, and you look at it, really look, you'll see the way things are. ~ Patricia Reilly Giff
108:It is not the diamonds or the birds, the people or the potatoes, it is not any of the nouns. The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done. It is the way love gets done despite every catastrophe. ~ Daniel Handler
109:It is not the diamonds or the birds, the people or the potatoes; it is not any of the nouns. The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done. It is the way love gets done despite every catastrophe. ~ Daniel Handler
110:Listen cousin, the way things are supposed to work out, one day the struggles of all you screwed up little underdogs will forge a permanent rainbow that'll encircle this entire earth, I should live so long. ~ John Nichols
111:When Christianity is assumed to be an "answer" that makes the world intelligible, it reflects an accommodated church committed to assuring Christians that the way things are is the way things have to be. ~ Stanley Hauerwas
112:How can you construct a morality if there's no morality inherent in the way things are? You might be able to delude yourself into thinking you had 'created' a morality, but that's all it would be, an illusion. ~ John Lennox
113:That is the way things are weighed and disagreements settled — when standards are established. Philosophy aims to test and set such standards. And the wise man is advised to make use of their findings right way. ~ Epictetus
114:You've gotta understand that with branding and the way things are promoted, in our day and age, your older movie stars are not reachable or accessible because they're not a part of the whole social media world. ~ Kevin Hart
115:Technology is very seductive, and it is certainly changing the way things are designed and made and taught. The problem is when technology has seduced you away from thinking about things as deeply as you should. ~ Arthur Ganson
116:Belief is another word for paradigm. It's a synonymous. Your belief of the way things are. Values are the way things should be, it's a paradigm of the way things should be. Beliefs are the paradigms of the way things are. ~ Stephen Covey
117:You must never stop dreaming. Face reality, yes. But don't stop with the way things are; dream of things as they ought to be. Dream of peace. Peace is rational and reasonable. War is irrational in this age and unwinnable. ~ Jesse Jackson
118:You can't be stuck if you're not trying to get anywhere. Which, to me, means that when you stop fighting with the way things are, magic happens. You relax, open, and any action you take comes from alignment with what's true. ~ Geneen Roth
119:Recognizing truth requires selflessness. You have to leave yourself out of it so you can find out the way things are in themselves, not the way they look to you or how you feel about them or how you would like them to be. ~ Harry Frankfurt
120:A categorization implies a hierarchical way of seeing things. Life is really relational, not hierarchical. Hierarchical is a human way of looking at things. Relational is much more the way things are. Everything is connected. ~ Frederick Lenz
121:Don't hate me for wanting to change the way things are. I believe in you, Callum. You can change the world, I know you can. But not like this, I'm not trying to be magnanimous or patronizing. I genuinely want to help but... ~ Malorie Blackman
122:Men are very sensitive, Mma Makutsi. You would not always think it to look at them, but they are. They do not like you to point out that they are wrong, even when they are. That is the way things are, Mma--it just is. ~ Alexander McCall Smith
123:Just that what happens today or next week or next year isn't necessarily the way things are always going to be. As soon as you settle into a routine, life throws you a curveball. Sometimes you hit it, sometimes you don't. ~ Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
124:Revolutions are spiritual acts. They appear first in people, then in politics and the economy. New people form new structures. The transformation we want is first of all spiritual; that will necessarily change the way things are. ~ Joseph Goebbels
125:We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are. ~ Harold Bloom
126:I think the responsibility of pop stars is to liberate the masses. In that everyone can be whatever they wanna be. You can march to your own beat. It's so hard sometimes in our country because conformity is the way things are pushed. ~ Adam Lambert
127:Everything you see comes from inside. People don't see it but inside the dressing room we laugh and joke a lot so it's not just for the cameras. It's the way things are off the pitch too. We are happy for each other, it is all natural. ~ Luis Suarez
128:No humorist is under any obligation to provide answers and probably if you were to delve into the literary history of humour it's probably all about not providing answers because the humorist essentially says: this is the way things are. ~ P J O Rourke
129:Reality is always true to itself. When you're in harmony with it, you experience bliss. As soon as you are not in harmony with it, you experience pain. This is the law of the universe; it is the way things are. Nobody gets out of this law. ~ Adyashanti
130:There’s only one subject for fiction or poetry or even a joke: how it is. In all the arts, the payoff is always the same: recognition. If it works, you say that’s real, that’s truth, that’s life, that’s the way things are. ‘There it is.’ ~ Robert Stone
131:In order for a reality to be created, a quantum wave had to travel out to the future, and a feedback from the hoped-for future event had to return in time to the present. This mixture of waves was responsible for the way things are now. ~ Fred Alan Wolf
132:It's ok for people to go ahead and run from bad things, but just looking away doesn't count as running. No one on the outside can lend you hand while you're consenting to the way things are - so maybe you could start by "speaking up" about it. ~ NisiOisiN
133:Look at the way things are now. Just a set of crab in barrel and all of a sudden one crab just appear with a jacket and tie and telling everybody that he is not a crab any more. Ridiculous little place with ridiculous little people. ~ Rabindranath Maharaj
134:Patience and boredom are closely related. Boredom, a certain kind of boredom, is really impatience. You don't like the way things are, they aren't interesting enough for you, so you deccide- and boredom is a decision-that you are bored. ~ Bertrand Russell
135:There's no guarantee that justice will win out or that a noble sacrifice will make any difference. But when it does, there's something that still swells my chest. There's magic in that.... It tells me that's the way things are supposed to be. ~ Brent Weeks
136:In simple presence with what is right here now, be it joyful or painful, an amazing freedom reveals itself. It cannot be described or explained in words. It is the freedom to be totally, effortlessly the way things are at this moment. ‌—‌Toni Packer ~ Joan Tollifson
137:When you grow up knowing that you deserve to be on top, that the lesser houses exist to serve your house’s glorious destiny, you take such things for granted. You’re born assuming that someone else is paying the cost of your life. It’s just the way things are. ~ Ann Leckie
138:I tell them that if compulsive eating is anything, it’s a way we leave ourselves when life gets hard. When we don’t want to notice what is going on. Compulsive eating is a way we distance ourselves from the way things are when they are not how we want them to be. ~ Geneen Roth
139:One can hardly tell women that washing up saucepans is their divine mission, [so] they are told that bringing up children is their divine mission. But the way things are in the world, bringing up children has a great deal in common with washing up saucepans. ~ Simone de Beauvoir
140:We come to understand the law of casuality - that is, we see that all beings are experiencing what they're experiencing based on their own actions and not by what we wish for them - and therefore we relax in a deep understanding and acceptance of the way things are. ~ Noah Levine
141:I like people to be surprised by the turn of events. I don't want things just to be pat and formulaic. If there's some sort of internal combustion in the character or a desire to change the way things are going, that makes for conflict, which is the essence of drama. ~ Miranda Richardson
142:It's simply the way things are when people come together out of hurt rather than happiness. When you try to use people as band-aids you merely reinfect the wound, and every moment you spend with them is like a speck of glass working itself deeper into your flesh. ~ Michael Marshall Smith
143:And I know you thought a lot of him. I realize I'm hardly the perfect substitute, but like I said, the way things are going maybe it's stupid to wait for perfection." Suddenly he was looking directly at her and Cassie saw something in his mahogany eyes she'd never seen before. ~ L J Smith
144:I can't really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government. ~ Jimmy Carter
145:Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of great relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are ONE. ~ Marcus Aurelius
146:Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of their relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are one. ~ Marcus Aurelius
147:The way things are supposed to work is that we're supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that's why they're called public servants. They're supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that's why we're called private individuals. ~ Glenn Greenwald
148:Heidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world. And if you do the latter, you're not so worried about the everyday trivialities of life, for example, petty concerns about secrecy or privacy. ~ Irvin D Yalom
149:If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. ~ Lao Tzu
150:For us, persecution is like the sun coming up in the east. It happens all the time. It's the way things are. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about it. Persecution for our faith has always been - and probably always will be - a normal part of life. (Spoken by a Russian pastor) ~ Nik Ripken
151:I always enjoy working with an international crew and director. But on the set of a Hollywood action film - now that's a whole other world. The sheer grand scale of the way things are done over there makes me envious; it's just so different from the way things are done in Japan. ~ Tadanobu Asano
152:Awareness by its very nature doesn’t need anything to be other than exactly how it is. It doesn’t go to war with the way things are, it simply exposes them to the light. It allows everything to undo itself. Awareness is unconditional love, absolute devotion. It accepts everything. ~ Joan Tollifson
153:When something bothered me, I didn’t talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that’s just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own. ~ Haruki Murakami
154:The way things are supposed to work is that we're supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that's why they're called public servants. They're supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that's why we're called private individuals. ~ Glenn Greenwald
155:A lot of authority figures want to be good. I sense that, and yet at the same time I sense that authority, after a while, always leads to some kind of oppression. When the minority report comes in, what you do is run the minority out of town with a flaming cross. It's just the way things are. ~ Stephen King
156:When people get this consciousness of the way things are supposed to be in America - that the locus of agency is in them, that they are supposed to be the ones setting the agenda - if people believe this, they get very energized. Yeah, it's annoying to have this extra burden of saving the country. ~ Naomi Wolf
157:There is a norm, there is a model of the way things are supposed to be. When you find yourself outside of that, when you find yourself not fitting the way things are designed to be, it's a simple matter of just learning how you ought to be and working to restore the way things are supposed to be. ~ Scott Lively
158:Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world. ~ Lao Tzu
159:Art at its best draws attention not only to the way things are but also to the way things will be, when the earth is filled with the knowledge of G-D as the waters cover the sea. That remains a surprising hope, and perhaps it will be the artists who are best at conveying both the hope and the surprise. ~ N T Wright
160:We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it's the way things are. When our attitudes and behaviors toward animals are so inconsistent, and this inconsistency is so unexamined, we can safely say we have been fed absurdities. ~ Melanie Joy
161:The Gita does not speak of changing the world. It speaks of appreciating the world that is always changing. Belief in one life makes us want to change the world, control it or resign to the way things are. Belief in rebirth enables us to appreciate all three possibilities, without clinging to any. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik
162:My bad head cannot adjust itself to the way things are.... If I want to depict spring, it has to be in wintertime; if I want to describe a beautiful landscape, I must be enclosed within walls; and I have said a hundred times that if I were put in the Bastille, there I would paint a picture of liberty. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau
163:It’s all in the genes”: an explanation for the way things are that does not threaten the way things are. Why should someone feel unhappy or engage in antisocial behavior when that person is living in the freest and most prosperous nation on earth? It can’t be the system! There must be a flaw in the wiring somewhere. ~ Louis Menand
164:I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world. ~ Lao Tzu
165:When you speak descriptively about a present-tense experience, and it changes, you have spoken the truth. It's okay that it is no longer true. Don't worry about it. It is the way things are, and it is fine that they are that way. It's more fun and less boring than trying to keep track of everything. It's called freedom. ~ Brad Blanton
166:You're dying with the way things are," Della Lee said harshly, causing Josey to lower the handful of popcorn she was about to put in her mouth. "You're going to lose yourself in this, Josey. It's going to happen if you don't change. I know. I lost myself trying to find happiness in things that didn't love me back. ~ Sarah Addison Allen
167:I would be annoyed if I were any more in tune with modern sensibilities. I was shaped differently. The world in which I grew up was Texan and Southern, and it had many, many failings. I think I've gotten rid of most of the bad things in myself from that earlier age, but I don't adjust to the way things are progressing now. ~ John Graves
168:Drawing is what you see of the world, truly see...And sometimes what you see is so deep in your head you're not even sure of what you're seeing. But when it's down there on paper, and you look at it, really look, you'll see the way things are...that's the world, isn't it? You have to keep looking to find the truth. ~ Patricia Reilly Giff
169:The monkey population is definitely on the increase, and I wouldn't be surprised if one day it exceeds the human population. Of course, the way things are going, a time may come when we won't be able to distinguish between monkeys and humans. Monkeys are becoming more human, while humans are becoming more like monkeys. Summer ~ Ruskin Bond
170:We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are. Yet the strongest, most authentic motive for deep reading…is the search for a difficult pleasure. ~ Harold Bloom
171:The promise of spiritual life—indeed, the very thing that makes it “spiritual” in the sense I invoke throughout this book—is that there are truths about the mind that we are better off knowing. What we need to become happier and to make the world a better place is not more pious illusions but a clearer understanding of the way things are. ~ Sam Harris
172:I get very tense working, so I often have to get up and wander around the house. It is very bad on my stomach. I have to be mad to be working well anyway, and then I am mad about the way things are going on the page in addition. My ulcer flourishes and I have to chew lots of pills. When my work is going well, I am usually sort of sick. ~ William H Gass
173:Circumstances do not push or pull. They are daily lessons to be studied and gleaned for new knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom that is applied will bring about a brighter tomorrow. A person who is depressed is spending too much time thinking about the way things are now and not enough time thinking about how he wants things to be. ~ Andy Andrews
174:Perhaps the real point of life is simply to wear us down until we have no choice but to start abandoning our defenses. We learn that the way things are is simply the way they are meant to be right now, and then, suddenly, at long last, we catch a glimpse of the abundance in the moment--abundance even in the face of things falling apart. ~ Katrina Kenison
175:The promise of spiritual life - indeed, the very thing that makes it 'spiritual' in the sense I invoke throughout this book - is that there are truths about the mind that we are better off knowing. What we need to become happier and to make the world a better place is not more pious illusions but a clearer understanding of the way things are. ~ Sam Harris
176:When you grow up knowing that you deserve to be on top, that the lesser houses exist to serve your house’s glorious destiny, you take such things for granted. You’re born assuming that someone else is paying the cost of your life. It’s just the way things are. What happens during annexation—it’s a difference of degree, not a difference of kind. ~ Ann Leckie
177:It was all very strange, Mr. Gray thought, as he wiped the coffee canister clean with a sponge. Very, very mysterious. You were born; you lived a whole life; and at the end, you wound up in a coffee canister.

"Ah, well," he said out loud quietly. "That's just the way things are. Life's a funny business." Death, he supposed, was the punch line. ~ Lauren Oliver
178:I'm not going to Russia and tell them to go to hell and think - that's not the way things are done. You chip away at something and you hope that there will be dialogue and that the situation can get better. You don't just go in there with guns blazing and say well, to hell with you because they're going to say to hell with you and get out of the country. ~ Elton John
179:I'll lay it out straight, then. I don't like the way things are run around here." Oliver's mouth twisted sardonically; he did not comment aloud. He didn't need to. "I'm going to change them," Miles added. "Shit," said Oliver, and rolled back over. "Starting here and now." After a moment's silence Oliver added, "Go away or I'll pound you." Suegar ~ Lois McMaster Bujold
180:There either is or is not, that’s the way things are. The colour of the day. The way it felt to be a child. The saltwater on your sunburnt legs. Sometimes the water is yellow, sometimes it’s red. But what colour it may be in memory, depends on the day. I’m not going to tell you the story the way it happened. I’m going to tell it the way I remember it. ~ Charles Dickens
181:To be a housewife is to be a member of a very peculiar occupation, one with characteristics like no other. The nature of the duties to be performed, the method of payment, the form of supervision, the tenure system, the market in which the workers find jobs, and the physical hazzards are all very different from the way things are in other occupations. ~ Barbara Bergmann
182:He sang of names and words, of the building blocks beneath the real, the worlds that make worlds, the truths beneath the way things are; he sang of appropriate ends and just conclusions for those who would have hurt him and his. He sang the world. It was a good song, and it was his song. Sometimes it had words, and sometimes it didn’t have any words at all. ~ Neil Gaiman
183:Apocalyptic shows us what we're not seeing. It can't be composed or spoken by the powers that be, because they are the sustainers of "the way things are" whose operation justifies itself by crowning itself as "the way things ought to be" and whose greatest virtue is in being "realistic." Thinking through what we mean by "realistic" is where apocalyptic begins. ~ David Dark
184:The world will soon forget about these capitalistic dogs that ruined the world for the last two hundred years. Comrades, we can have all of this, and much more, if we don’t hold back, and let nothing get in our way. All of you have the power to fundamentally change the way things are run. So, I have one thing to ask of you, will you stand with me in our fight? ~ Cliff Ball
185:I'm maybe not so anxious to be a successful pop artist. Of course I want people to like my music, but I know what the price of success can be, too. Basically, I'm happy as long as I can keep my freedom, so I'm so happy with the way things are at the moment. I get to be hands-on with details in every aspect of what I'm doing, but I also get to perform for a big audience. ~ Robyn
186:July 25 Suffering in life is really nothing more than the difference between the way things are and the way you imagine they should be. If you can come to accept the blessings of your present reality without always feeling that your life is hollow as compared to the lives of others, you will have taken a quantum leap toward becoming a happier, more peaceful person. ~ Robin S Sharma
187:Which is more like genocide, I have asked some of my black brothers - this, the way things are, or the conditions I am fighting for in which the full range of family planning services is available to women of all classes and colors, starting with effective contraception and extending to safe, legal terminations of undesired pregnancies at a price they can afford? ~ Shirley Chisholm
188:What Einstein demonstrated in physics is equally true of all other aspects of the cosmos: all reality is relative. Each reality is true only within given limits. It is only one possible version of the way things are. There are always multiple versions of reality. To awaken from any single reality is to recognize its relative nature. Meditation is a device to do just that. ~ Ram Dass
189:The secret of being a good scientist, I believe, lies not in our brain power. We have enough. We simply need to look at reality and think logically and precisely about what we see. The key ingredient is to have the courage to face inconsistencies between what we see and deduce and the way things are done. This challenging of basic assumptions is essential to breakthroughs. ~ Anonymous
190:The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary. Having that real though limited power to put established institutions into question, imaginative literature has also the responsibility of power. The storyteller is the truthteller. ~ Ursula K Le Guin
191:To you your dream is real because all of your thoughts confirm that it is real. But what is is more real than a thousand thoughts about how things should be. Life will conform neither to the story you tell yourself about it nor your interpretation of it. Believe a single thought that runs contrary to the way things are or have been and you suffer because of it. No exceptions! ~ Adyashanti
192:Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave. It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment. It means we stop trying to do the impossible-controlling that which we cannot-and instead, focus on what is possible-which usually means taking care of ourselves. And we do this in gentleness, kindness, and love, as much as possible. ~ Melody Beattie
193:Progress in human affairs, whether in science or in history or in society, has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests ~ Edward Hallett Carr
194:Most often, perishing is a slow, painful process, and if you aren’t paying attention, it will trick you into thinking that this is the way things are supposed to be. By failing to have a vision, you are stripping yourself of every possible blessing, relationship, and opportunity. When you sit by and just let your life perish without a vision, it is the most painful kind of death. ~ Steve Harvey
195:[Common sense] is a spontaneous set of beliefs which together express a conception of the world which takes the social order as ‘the way things are.’ It is apparently the ‘spontaneous feelings’ that people have, the traditional popular conception of the world – what is unimaginatively called “instinct” although it too is in fact a primitive and elementary historical acquisition. ~ Antonio Gramsci
196:We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that’s the way things are. That’s the way things always have been. ~ Octavia E Butler
197:If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand. If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish. If you want to take something, you must first allow it to be given. This is called the subtler perception of the way things are. The soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast. Let your workings remain a mystery. Just show people the results. ~ Laozi
198:If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand. If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish. If you want to take something, you must first allow it to be given. This is called the subtle perception of the way things are. The soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast. Let your workings remain a mystery. Just show people the results. ~ Lao Tzu
199:I'm sad. Pressed down by sorrow. I'm angry. Pissed at God, if there is one, and the way things are. I'm scared. Confused by the whys. Why are we here? Is there, really, some intelligent design? Why do we cry for someone who leaves us if there's some Grand Pearly Gate in the sky? Why worry about how we build our lives if the ultimate ending for all is death, a single breath away? (358) ~ Ellen Hopkins
200:In much of the industrialized world, we eat meat not because we have to; we eat meat because we choose to. We don't need meat to survive or even to be healthy; millions of healthy and long-lived vegetarians have proven this point. We eat animals simply because it's what we've always done, and because we like the way they taste. Most of us eat animals because it's just the way things are. ~ Melanie Joy
201:The only thing I can hope the viewer will get from the work is something about the structure of the work. It would be asking too much, I think, for them to get my exact intention. But if - through the construct of language, the way things are juxtaposed - there is some sort of disruption of the way you would normally go about reaching photographic images... if that is happening, that's fine. ~ Lorna Simpson
202:Forty-four. What is more important, fame or integrity. What is more valuable, money or happiness. What is more dangerous, success or failure. If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy. Be content with what you have and take joy in the way things are. When you realize you have all you need, the World belongs to you. ~ James Frey
203:To some degree, all civilized people are out of touch with reality because we fail to distinguish between the way things are and the way they are described. For politicians this dichotomy has reached extreme proportions, but it affects everyone. We confuse money, which is an abstraction, with real wealth; we confuse the idea of who we are with the actual experience of our organic existence. During ~ Alan W Watts
204:I sense a learning: that much dumber people than you end up in charge. Look at the way things are. I'm no fucken genius or anything, but these
spazzos are in charge of my every twitch. What I'm starting to think is maybe only the dumb are safe in this world, the ones who roam with the herd,
without thinking about every little thing. But see me? I have to think about every little fucken thing. ~ D B C Pierre
205:Accepting things. That’s what the talk was about. About how insane it is to try to pretend something isn’t a certain way, or that you can make it another way, just because you don’t like it. And how that seems to be the one thing that makes addicts use drugs, and pretty much ruins everybody’s lives. This thing about refusing to just accept the way things are when you can’t change them anyway. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde
206:Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success or failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. ~ Laozi
207:Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success or failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. ~ Lao Tzu
208:So someone can ask me what reflects my interpretation of the way things are, and I can tell them where they can get material that looks at the world the way I think it ought to be looked at-but then they have to decide whether or not that's accurate. Ultimately it's your own mind that has to be the arbiter: you've got to rely on your own common sense and intelligence, you can't rely on anyone else for the truth. ~ Noam Chomsky
209:What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did? There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, but because you think I should be. I look back on the way I was. A young, stupid kid that committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him. Tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left. ~ Stephen King
210:And thank goodness that's the way things are, because the day we lose the spark that makes us want to know things, and young people are content with the nonsense dressed in tinsel sold to them by the current popes of bullshittery--be it a miniature electrical appliance or battery-run chamber pot--and become incapable of understanding anything that lies beyond their backsides, we'll return to the age of the slug. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n
211:If you are going to do kaizen continuouslyyou've got to assume that things are a mess. Too many people just assume that things are all right the way they are. Aren't you guys convinced that the way you're doing things is the right way? That's no way to get anything done. Kaizen is about changing the way things are. If you assume that things are all right the way they are, you can't do kaizen. So change something! ~ Taiichi Ohno
212:The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if pretty soon I start wearing ripped-up fishnet stockings and dyeing my hair black. Maybe I'll even start smoking and get my ears double-pierced or something. And then they'll make a TV movie about me and call it Royal Scandal. It will show me going up to Prince William and saying,'Who's the most popular young royal now, huh, punk?' and then headbutting him or something. ~ Meg Cabot
213:Our approach has worked for us. Look at the fun we, our managers, and our shareholders are having. More people should copy us. It's not difficult, but it looks difficult because it's unconventional - it isn't the way things are normally done. We have low overhead, don't have quarterly goals and budgets or a standard personnel system, and our investing is much more concentrated than average. It's simple and common sense. ~ Charlie Munger
214:The Sage
The cat is eating the roses:
that's the way he is.
Don't stop him, don't stop
the world going round,
that's the way things are.
The third of May
was misty; fourth of May
who knows. Sweep
the rose-meat up, throw the bits
out in the rain.
He never eats
every crumb, says
the hearts are bitter.
That's the way he is, he knows
the world and the weather.
~ Denise Levertov
215:At some point, it's time to stop fighting with death, my thighs and the way things are. And to realize that emotional eating in nothing but bolting from multiple versions of the above: the obsession will stop when the bolting stops. And at that point, we might answer, as spiritual teacher Catherine Ingram did, when someone asked how she allowed herself to tolerate deep sorrow, "I live among the brokenhearted. They allow it. ~ Geneen Roth
216:I'm not interested in anybody's guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn't do it, and I didn't do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason... Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we've used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are. ~ James Baldwin
217:I'm not interested in anybody's guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn't do it, and I didn't do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason... Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we've used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are. ~ James A Baldwin
218:Indeed, it is impossible to be neutral. In a world already moving in certain directions, where wealth and power are already distributed in certain ways, neutrality means accepting the way things are now. It is a world of clashing interests – war against peace, nationalism against internationalism, equality against greed, and democracy against elitism – and it seems to me both impossible and undesirable to be neutral in those conflicts. ~ Howard Zinn
219:Many of us spend long minutes in the aisle of the drugstore mulling over what toothpaste to buy. Yet most of us don't spend any time at all thinking about what species of animal we eat and why. Our choices as consumers drive an industry that kills ten billion* animals per year in the United States alone. If we choose to support this industry and the best reason we can come up with is because it's the way things are, clearly something is amiss. ~ Melanie Joy
220:Sometimes you come to a fall and sometimes you come to white water. Your rowing has to adapt to the situation. You can't do the same stroke coming down a small stream as you would coming down Niagara Falls. Even if you're only rowing down a stream, different things happen: maybe the wind changes, maybe the current, and suddenly everything's different. So gently is really important. Don't power yourself or blast through; rock with the way things are. ~ Bernie Glassman
221:The truth is that I feel like a ghost already, and I have to catch my breath each time I think about it. I begin to understand why ghosts go in for so much sighing and hooting. It's not to scare their descendants. It's just that they find it so hard to breathe in a time other than their own.
We don't only have a place in existence. We also have an allotted span.
That's the way things are, and all I can do is extrapolate from what's around me now. ~ Jostein Gaarder
222:When the chips are down, Orwell argued, our workers do not defend their class but their country, and they associate their country with a gentle way of life in which unusual and eccentric habits – such as not killing one another – are accepted as the way things are. In these respects, Orwell also thought, the leftist intellectuals will always misunderstand the workers, who want nothing to do with a self-vaunting disloyalty that only intellectuals can afford. ~ Roger Scruton
223:When you are thinking something, you have the feeling that the thoughts do nothing except inform you the way things are and then you choose to do something and you do it. That's what people generally assume. But actually, the way you think determines the way you're going to do things. Then you don't notice a result comes back, or you don't see it as a result of what you've done, or even less do you see it as a result of how you were thinking. Is that clear? ~ David Bohm
224:In the darkest hour of winter, when the starlings had all flown away, Gretel Samuelson fell in love. It happened the way things are never supposed to happen in real life, like a sledgehammer, like a bolt from out of the blue. One minute she was a seventeen year-old senior in high school waiting for a Sicilian pizza to go; the next one she was someone whose whole world had exploded, leaving her adrift in the Milky Way, so far from earth she was walking on stars. ~ Alice Hoffman
225:If we generally like the way things are now, we must also ask whether our current situation is really so different from the open ages of radio, film, or the telephone. Might it not also have seemed in those times that the orgy of limitless entrepreneurism would never end? The point is that we are near the high end of a pendulum arc that, so far, has aways begun to swing in the opposite direction -toward greater integration and centralization- with a force that can seem inexorable. ~ Tim Wu
226:Learning to be flexible in values takes a very long time...Of course I felt a little uncomfortable during questioning the concept of God, but then reading about the history and evolution of Gods. There were many different Gods: the God of war, the God of peace, the God of love, which was more like the people that invented them. They behaved, they got angry, they made sacrifices, they created floods when they didn't like the way things are going. This didn't come through as superior intelligence. ~ Jacque Fresco
227:Muhammad said that gratitude for the abundance you’ve received is the best insurance that the abundance will continue. Buddha said that you have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy. Lao Tzu said that if you rejoice in the way things are, the whole world will belong to you. Krishna said that whatever he is offered he accepts with joy. King David spoke of giving thanks to the whole world, for everything between the heavens and the Earth. And Jesus said thank you before he performed each miracle. ~ Rhonda Byrne
228:Remember, there are two things that keep us oppressed: them and us. We are half of the equation. There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it's now OK to express ourselves publicly. We must make that day ourselves, by speaking out publicly -- first in small numbers, then in greater numbers, until it's simply the way things are and no one thinks twice. Never doubt that we will create this world, because, my friends, we are fortunate to live in a democracy, and in a democracy, we decide what's possible. ~ Tammy Baldwin
229:Cowardly peace is filled with fear. It avoids conflict by evasion and compromise. Cowardly peace is a great temptation for all of us today. We feel “established” and settled in American life, and we like it. We’d rather not lose our privileges or change the way things are, so we’re ready to follow Christ less zealously in order to hang on to our comforts. But this kind of peace never lasts. It’s a lie. And as our culture grows more hostile to the forms of serious Catholic faith, it will be impossible to maintain. ~ Charles J Chaput
230:After our call, I realized the thing I always do: I try to imagine different futures for myself, what I would most like to occur. I don't know why I do this, when any of the things I've hoped for—whenever I have actually got them—are nothing like what I imagined they'd be. Then why don't I spend time acclimating myself to what actually occurred? Why not make peace with the way things are, given what I know about life from living? Instead I spin fantasies, when the only happiness I have ever known has occurred without my design. ~ Sheila Heti
231:After our call, I realized the thing I always do: I try to imagine different futures for myself, what I would most like to occur. I don't know why I do this, when any of the things I've hoped for-whenever I have actually got them-are nothing like what I imagined they'd be. Then why don't I spend time acclimating myself to what actually occurred? Why not make peace with the way things are, given what I know about life from actually living? Instead I spin fantasies, when the only happiness I have ever known has occurred without my design. ~ Sheila Heti
232:The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. To follow a path with heart, we must understand the whole process of making war within ourselves and without, how it begins and how it ends. War’s roots are in ignorance. Without understanding we can easily become frightened by life’s fleeting changes, the inevitable losses, disappointments, the insecurity of our aging and death. Misunderstanding leads us to fight against life, running from pain or grasping at security and pleasures that by their nature can never be satisfying. ~ Jack Kornfield
233:March presents impressive formulas and graphs showing that when an organization has a greater percentage of people who are incapable, unwilling, or have not yet learned the way things are “supposed to be done around here,” the company is more likely to be innovative. Yet March offers few hints about what kinds of people are likely to be slow learners. Research in personality psychology suggests that three kinds of traits are key: those who are “low self-monitors,” those who avoid contact with coworkers, and those who have very high self-esteem. ~ Robert I Sutton
234:Such terms as 'diagnosis' and 'pathology' are of course used analogically here, but I am using the word 'science' deliberate and unequivocally in its original and broad sense of discovery and knowing, rather than its conventional sense of isolating the secondary causes of natural phenomena. For if I believe anything, it is that the primary business of literature and art is cognitive, a kind of finding out and knowing and telling, both in good times and bad; a celebration of the way things are when they are right, and a diagnostic enterprise when they are wrong. ~ Walker Percy
235:In the book of Job, God says he made everything and he knows everything so no one has any right to question what he does with any of it. Okay. That works. That Old Testament God doesn’t violate the way things are now. But that God sounds a lot like Zeus—a super-powerful man, playing with his toys the way my youngest brothers play with toy soldiers. Bang, bang! Seven toys fall dead. If they’re yours, you make the rules. Who cares what the toys think. Wipe out a toy’s family, then give it a brand new family. Toy children, like Job’s children, are interchangeable. ~ Octavia E Butler
236:STRIVE TO TRUST ME in more and more areas of your life. Anything that tends to make you anxious is a growth opportunity. Instead of running away from these challenges, embrace them, eager to gain all the blessings I have hidden in the difficulties. If you believe that I am sovereign over every aspect of your life, it is possible to trust Me in all situations. Don’t waste energy regretting the way things are or thinking about what might have been. Start at the present moment—accepting things exactly as they are—and search for My way in the midst of those circumstances. ~ Sarah Young
237:Each of us has many, many maps in our head, which can be divided into two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values. We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps. We seldom question their accuracy; we’re usually even unaware that we have them. We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of those assumptions. The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act. Before ~ Stephen R Covey
238:Even today, regardless of the quarrels women may pick in the cause of emancipation, the reality is that, in the present world order, it's the men who eventually grant emancipation, not we women. ... it's the masters who freed the slave of the world, people belonging to the masterclass who fought for the cause. The slaves didn't earn their freedom by wrangling or arguing. That's the way things are. It's the law of the world: the strong emancipate the weak from the bondage of the strong. So also, men alone can liberate women. The responsibility lies with them. ~ Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
239:Yet how much slack do you give to what you believe is a lie, even a lie that holds steady the social order and braces up everything you have become accustomed to your most cherished image of yourself, your country, your loved ones, and the value you place on your work, your hobbies, your possessions, your "way of life"?

How much slack do you give to what you believe to be a lie before you say you have had it with lies, before you forsake everything to live with what you really think and feel about the way things are? How much slack? Answer: all the slack in the world. ~ Thomas Ligotti
240:The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to. We'd just make small talk, play soccer together. When something bothered me, I didn't talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that's just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own. ~ Haruki Murakami
241:We get too comfortable with this orphanage universe, though. We sit in our pews, or behind our pulpits, knowing that our children watch "Christian" cartoons instead of slash films. We vote for the right candidates and know all the right "worldview" talking points. And we're content with the world we know, just adjusted a little for our identity as Christians. That's precisely why so many of us are so atrophied in our prayers, why our prayers rarely reach the level of "groanings too deep for words" (Rom 8:26). We are too numbed to be as frustrated as the Spirit is with the way things are. ~ Russell D Moore
242:To get a perfect husband takes a wait That’s just the way things are; and you shall find That virtuous patience is the only bait To land one handsome, wealthy, brave, and kind. And what a sweeter pause has ever been? To sleep a century of peaceful dreams, And then, to better dreams, awake again! Such wait is joy, however long it seems. A long delay brings even greater bliss; The greatest bliss must suffer long delays. The god of marriage oaths has promised this: The love that comes most slowly, longest stays.    This moral’s hard to hear, because it’s true.    To even utter it is hard to do. ~ Charles Perrault
243:I mean No is power. No says, "I'm in charge." Think about how many times you've said yes in the past year, and how many times you would've liked to have said no instead. Maybe being able to say no is the one thing that keeps us sane. Some people go through their whole lives saying yes over and over again--yes to things they don't want to do but feel obliged to; yes to things that allow other people to take advantage of them, just because that's the way things are, the way things have always been. Some people need to learn how to say no. Because every time they say yes, they say no to themselves. ~ Danny Wallace
244:We don’t need to identify concrete solutions to all our problems. We don’t need to create the illusion of control amid uncertain circumstances. We need to accept that our biggest problem is fighting the way things are, and then consciously choose to stop battling ourselves. We have to choose to be in this moment instead of scheming toward something better. This moment is a new opportunity to let go of everything that’s stressing us. This moment is a new chance to take a deep breath so that we don’t feel so overwhelmed. This moment is a tiny lifetime, all in itself, and we have the choice to live it. ~ Lori Deschene
245:Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world."

"There is no greater misfortune
than underestimating your enemy.
Underestimating your enemy
means thinking that he is evil.
Thus you destroy your three treasures
and become an enemy yourself.
When two great forces oppose each other,
the victory will go
to the one that knows how to yield. ~ Lao Tzu
246:Headquarters phoned through about the horses, Herr Hauptmann,’ said the man in white. ‘And they say I am to keep them for the stretcher cases. I know your views on the matter Hauptmann, but I’m afraid you cannot have them. We need them here desperately, and the way things are going I fear we will need more. That was just the first attack – there will be more to come. We expect a sustained offensive – it will be a long battle. We are the same on both sides, once we start something we seem to have to prove a point and that takes time and lives. We’ll need all the ambulance transport we can get, motorised or horse. ~ Michael Morpurgo
247:We're like the teenager who "will die" if he or she can't go to a certain rock concert or see a certain friend. Because we tell ourselves it's absolutely crucial that [things should be a certain way right now] we create turmoil and anxiety. It's not [the way things are] that causes pain, it's the meaning we give to these events and our demand that such things not happen. While we can have preferences, the minute we start insisting that people and situations be different, we create internal turmoil - anger, hostility, sadness, and so on. It's our attachments that lead us to donning a mask, blaming others, or feeling incomplete. ~ Charlotte Kasl
248:Anxiety is always a gap between the way things are and the way we think they ought to be. Anxiety is something that stretches between the real and unreal. Our human desire is to avoid what's real and instead to be with our ideas about the world:

"I'm terrible." "You're terrible." "You're wonderful." The idea is separated from reality and anxiety is the gap between the idea and the reality that things are just as they are.

When we cease to believe in the object that we've created -- which is off to one side of reality, so to speak -- things snap back to the center. That's what being centered means. The anxiety then fades out. ~ Charlotte Joko Beck
249:We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that's the way things are. That's the way things always have been. ~ Octavia E Butler
250:Because Maia now had lunch with the Haltmanns after her music lesson, Miss Minton lunched with the professor in the little café he had shown her. But being friends did not mean blabbing out one’s troubles, and Miss Minton was slow to share with the professor her anxieties about Maia. It was only when he particularly asked about her that she said, “I’m not happy about the way things are going at the Carters. The twins are bullying Maia more openly now and their mother seems to live in a fantasy world. She talks to the portrait of Lady Parsons and sometimes I’m afraid she--”
But Miss Minton stopped there, not liking to admit that her employer was possibly losing her mind. ~ Eva Ibbotson
251:Josie

Now, I have never understood all that
he’s-my-other-half
soul mate stuff
or when people sometimes talk about
having an empty pace inside
or that they’re missing pieces or something.
But then
he walked over
and fit himself
right into my puzzle.

Nicolette

It never occurred to me I couldn’t change
the way things are
whenever I wanted to.
I mean, I’ve always been the one calling the shots…

Avivia

He has a way of sliding out of trouble,
plays the innocent really well.
Grown-ups seem to think he’s such a good boy.
They are so wrong.
This boy gets any girl he wants.
Why does he want me? ~ Tanya Lee Stone
252:Josie

Now, I have never understood all that
he’s-my-other-half
soul mate stuff
or when people sometimes talk about
having an empty pace inside
or that they’re missing pieces or something.
But then
he walked over
and fit himself
right into my puzzle.

Nicolette

It never occurred to me I couldn’t change
the way things are
whenever I wanted to.
I mean, I’ve always been the one calling the shots…

Avivia

He has a way of sliding out of trouble,
plays the innocent really well.
Grown-ups seem to think he’s such a good boy.
They are so wrong.
This boy gets any girl he wants.
Why does he want me? ~ Tanya Lee Stone
253:I cannot accept that,' said Uriel. 'The destruction of the Emperor's loyal subjects cannot be right.'
'We cannot always do what is right, Uriel. There is often a great gulf in the difference between the way things are and the way we believe they should be. Sometimes we must learn to accept the things we cannot change.'
'No, lord admiral, I believe we must endeavour to change the things we cannot accept. It is by striving against that which is perceived as wrong that makes a great warrior. The primarch himself said that when a warrior makes peace with his fear and stands against it, he becomes a true hero. For if you do not fear a thing, where is the courage in standing against it? ~ Graham McNeill
254:And you don’t like my saying that, but here’s the truth: luxury always comes at someone else’s expense. One of the many advantages of civilization is that one doesn’t generally have to see that, if one doesn’t wish. You’re free to enjoy its benefits without troubling your conscience.” “It doesn’t trouble yours?” Lieutenant Skaaiat laughed, gaily, as though they were discussing something completely different, a game of counters or a good tea shop. “When you grow up knowing that you deserve to be on top, that the lesser houses exist to serve your house’s glorious destiny, you take such things for granted. You’re born assuming that someone else is paying the cost of your life. It’s just the way things are. ~ Ann Leckie
255:[E]verything is fiction. When you tell yourself the story of your life, the story of your day, you edit and rewrite and weave a narrative out of a collection of random experiences and events. Your conversations are fiction. Your friends and loved ones—they are characters you have created. And your arguments with them are like meetings with an editor—please, they beseech you, you beseech them, rewrite me. You have a perception of the way things are, and you impose it on your memory, and in this way you think, in the same way that I think, that you are living something that is describable. When of course, what we actually live, what we actually experience—with our senses and our nerves—is a vast, absurd, beautiful, ridiculous chaos. ~ Keith Ridgway
256:I came here in part to figure out why things are like they are. ... I wanted to know why things are different. ... It's because of the people. Things are different here because the people are different. Not the environment, or the weather, or the geography or anything. The people. If things are going to be better, you have to want them to be better. I'm not sure I see that. They seem to be fine with the way things are. And so, I guess, they're fine. Why do foreign people try to come in and impose on them to advance technologically, economically, medically, morally, whatever, when they just want to be peasants? Or maybe the way to put it is: They are peasants, and they don't have a burning desire to be anything more, or anything else. Maybe 'more' is the wrong word. ~ Dan Morrison
257:Jesus’ throat hurt to speak. “I see you are disguising yourself in more humble appearance these days. Afraid of something?” “The jester from Galilee. I am impressed you can maintain your wits after so many days in my little home away from home.” Belial spread his hands out, gesturing to the dry deadly expanse around them. “I will admit that the advance of civilization has made it somewhat disadvantageous for the Watchers to reveal our true nature or presence. Yes, we are working more behind the veil than we did in primeval days. On the other hand, the way things are going, I can foresee an age when humanity has turned religion into pretty fictions, and blinded themselves to our reality. Imagine the influence we will then have on ignorant fools who no longer believe in us. ~ Brian Godawa
258:The more general difficulty with thought is that thought is very active, it's participatory. And fragmentation is itself a symptom of the more general difficulty. Thought is always doing a great deal, but it tends to say that it hasn't done anything, that it is just telling you the way things are. But thought affects everything. It has created everything we see in this building. It has affected all the trees, it has affected the mountains, the plains and the farms and the factories and science and technology. Even the South Pole has been affected because of the destruction of the ozone layer, which is basically due to thought. People thought that they wanted to have refrigerant—a nice safe refrigerant—and they built that all up by thinking more and more about it. And now we have the ozone layer being destroyed. ~ David Bohm
259:You know, Mr. Lupin," Harry said, "it really takes a baroque interpretation to think that somebody would be walking around, pondering how death is just something we all have to accept, and communicate their state of mind by saying, 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.' Maybe someone else thought it sounded poetic and picked up the phrase and tried to interpret it differently, but whoever said it first didn't like death much." Sometimes it puzzled Harry how most people didn't seem to even notice when they were twisting something around to the 180-degree opposite of its first obvious reading. It couldn't be a raw brainpower thing, people could see the obvious reading of most other English sentences. "Also 'shall be destroyed' refers to a change of future state, so it can't be about the way things are now. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky
260:worrying by following these tips: Don’t spend so much time thinking. Begin experiencing the world without the running commentary in your mind. Don’t take your thoughts as the gospel truth. Think of them like the clouds, drifting across the sky. At times they’re there, and then they’re gone. They have no permanence. Look at each day as a new day, disconnected from the past and future, so you can experience what God has in store for you. Pay attention to your thought life. Are your thoughts drifting, or are you choosing to focus them? Remember, you’re in charge—of your thoughts and actions. Accept the way things are right now, and look for the positive in this moment, rather than assuming positive things are only possible in the future. If your thinking begins moving toward depression, interrupt your thinking process. Go back ~ H Norman Wright
261:My point, then, is that in the real world, for all the difficulties there are in communication from person to person and from culture to culture, we still expect people to say more or less what they mean (and if they don’t, we chide them for it), and we expect mature people to understand what others say, and represent it fairly. The understanding is doubtless never absolutely exhaustive and perfect, but that does not mean the only alternative is to dissociate text from speaker, and then locate all meaning in the reader or hearer. True knowledge of the meaning of a text and even of the thoughts of the author who wrote it is possible, even if perfect and exhaustive knowledge is not. That is the way things are in the real world—and that in turn suggests that any theory that flies in the face of these realities needs to be examined again. ~ D A Carson
262:There are thousands of talented writers at work in America, and only a few of them (I think the number might be as low as five per cent) can support their families and themselves with their work. There’s always some grant money available, but it’s never enough to go around. As for government subsidies for creative writers, perish the thought. Tobacco subsidies, sure. Research grants to study the motility of unpreserved bull sperm, of course. Creative-writing subsidies, never. …America has never much revered her creative people; as a whole, we’re more interested in commemorative plates from the Franklin Mint and Internet greeting-cards. And if you don’t like it, it’s a case of tough titty, said the kitty, ‘cause that’s just the way things are. Americans are a lot more interested in TV quiz shows than in the short fiction of Raymond Carver. ~ Stephen King
263:Writing, too, is 90 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you wrote, it pours out of you. If you can capture that reality around you, your writing needs nothing else. You don't only listen to the air, the chair, and the door. And go beyond the door. Take in the sound of the season, the sound of the color coming in through the windows. Listen to the past, future, and present right where you are. Listen with your whole body, not only with your ears, but with your hands, your face, and the back of your neck.
Listening is receptivity. The deeper you can listen, the better you can write. You can take in the way things are without judgment, and the next day you can write the truth about the way things are."
...If you can capture the way things are that's all the poetry you ever need. ~ Natalie Goldberg
264:The first involves streamlining operations and introducing cost innovations from manufacturing to distribution. Can the product’s or service’s raw materials be replaced by unconventional, less expensive ones—such as switching from metal to plastic or shifting a call center from the UK to Bangalore? Can high-cost, low-value-added activities in your value chain be significantly eliminated, reduced, or outsourced? Can the physical location of your product or service be shifted from prime real estate locations to lower-cost locations, as The Home Depot, IKEA, and Walmart have done in retail or Southwest Airlines has done by shifting from major to secondary airports? Can you truncate the number of parts or steps used in production by shifting the way things are made, as Ford did by introducing the assembly line? Can you digitize activities to reduce costs? By ~ W Chan Kim
265:Renunciation isn't a moral imperative or a form of self-denial. It's simply cooperation with the way things are: for moments do pass away, one after the other. Resisting this natural unfolding doesn't change it; resistance only makes it painful. So we renounce our resistance, our noncooperation, our stubborn refusal to enter life as it is. We renounce our fantasy of a beautiful past and an exciting future we can cherish and hold on to. Life just isn't like this. Life, time, is letting go, moment after moment. Life and time redeem themselves constantly, heal themselves constantly, only we don't know this, and much as we long to be healed and redeemed, we refuse to recognize this truth. This is why the sirens' songs are so attractive and so deadly. They propose a world of indulgence and wishful thinking, an unreal world that is seductive and destructive. (142) ~ Norman Fischer
266:Why should we cherish “objectivity”, as if ideas were innocent, as if they don’t serve one interest or another? Surely, we want to be objective if that means telling the truth as we see it, not concealing information that may be embarrassing to our point of view. But we don’t want to be objective if it means pretending that ideas don’t play a part in the social struggles of our time, that we don’t take sides in those struggles.

Indeed, it is impossible to be neutral. In a world already moving in certain directions, where wealth and power are already distributed in certain ways, neutrality means accepting the way things are now. It is a world of clashing interests – war against peace, nationalism against internationalism, equality against greed, and democracy against elitism – and it seems to me both impossible and undesirable to be neutral in those conflicts. ~ Howard Zinn
267:Fumio to dinner. We look at old photos. I turn up one of [Na­ka­no] Yuji at work—part-time laborer, standing there for forty years now.

I wondered why I still think so much about him, now that I have not seen him for decades, now that he is an old man, if even alive. Fumio said, “Because, he was the last Japanese.”

It’s true. Yuji had all of the old virtues—he saw a connection between himself and nature, the way things are. He believed in authority, though he was sly about evading it; was polite, decent, honest to the extent that he did not get caught; willing to do his best and allow himself to be much imposed on; fond of pleasure, and probably drank himself to death. And, more, he embodied an attitude now extinct—he accepted without bitterness, and made the most of what was left. I don’t know if this defines old-fashioned Japanese-ness, but it defines Yuji. ~ Donald Richie
268:Feminism is itself a challenge. Feminism is a challenge to the way things are in the world. It is by definition an oppositional movement, because it’s trying to accomplish something. I’ve never felt like feminism was a consciousness raising effort in isolation. Everything about feminism is about getting something in the world to get better for women, and to get the world to be less stupid on gender bifurcation terms. I think that feminism over time gets better, or it gets better and worse and better and worse at achieving the goals that it’s trying to achieve, but the overall mission stays the same. I guess I don’t think of it as feminism versus anti-feminism; I sort of think of it as feminism versus the world. I don’t think of it as a competition; there’s no winning. In feminism, you’re always trying to make stuff better. It’s opposition to which you cannot attribute a tally. ~ Rachel Maddow
269:And like the abortion controversy or the jihad against gangsta rap, the battle over evolution seems almost to have been designed to keep Kansas polarized, keep its outrage levels high and its Con pot boiling, while changing the way things are actually done not a bit. The combat was purely symbolic ... The real object of their anti-evolution gambit, I believe, was not getting Kansans right with God but getting themselves reelected. As we have seen, conservatives grandstand eloquently on cultural issues but almost never achieve real-world results. What they're after is cultural turmoil, which serves mainly to solidify their base. By deliberately courting the wrath of the educated world with the evolution issue, the Cons aimed, it seems, to reinforce and to sharpen their followers' peculiar understanding of social class. In a word, it was an exercise in anti-intellectualism. (206-208) ~ Thomas Frank
270:Fat” is just the current catchall word for all the things that we as a culture are afraid of: women’s rights, people refusing to acquiesce to cultural pressures of conformity, fear of mortality. [People who hate fat people] see body love as a move toward people taking charge of their lives and choosing what they want to do, no matter what the culture says. This is really scary to a lot of people. The anger they express is actually toward themselves. A person who hates seeing a happy, liberated person wishes they had the strength to do that, but they are too entrenched or “bought in” to the way things are right now to see it as a beautiful thing. So they see it and they hate it . . . People have invested a lot of time and a lot of resources into this game that says “thin wins.” So when people see exceptions to that rule, they feel personally invalidated, personally stolen from, personally affronted. ~ Jes Baker
271:Whenever you leave cleared land, when you step from some place carved out, plowed, or traced by a human and pass into the woods, you must leave something of yourself behind. It is that sudden loss, I think, even more than the difficulty of walking through undergrowth, that keeps people firmly fixed to paths. In the woods, there is no right way to go, of course, no trail to follow but the law of growth. You must leave behind the notion that things are right. Just look around you. Here is the way things are. Twisted, fallen, split at the root. What grows best does so at the expense of what's beneath. A white birch feeds on the pulp of an old hemlock and supports the grapevine that will slowly throttle it. In the dead wood of another tree grow fungi black as devil's hooves. Overhead the canopy, tall pines that whistle and shudder and choke off light from their own lower branches. (from "Revival Road") ~ Louise Erdrich
272:Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be…someday. Show me you can risk being completely at peace, truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment, and again in the next and the next and the next… Here is the question: Are you willing to be completely at peace with how things are right now in your life? Are you willing for just one moment to let go of all your dissatisfaction, of all your suffering about how things are? Are you willing to let go of all the worry and tension in your body and simply breathe? I think of happiness as the delight I have when I am aware of being completely at peace and fully present with myself and the world just the way it is in this moment. It is a lack of suffering plus a self-reflectivity that makes the peace I am feeling a conscious state of awareness. I am not simply at peace, I am aware that I am at peace—happy. So, are you willing to be happy? ~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer
273:Would you like to talk about it now?” “I’m pretty worn out.” “Would it help to pray about it?” he asked. “I could—” And she laughed a little, shaking her head. “If it’s all the same to you—” “Sometimes it really does help,” he said. “Not today,” she said. Then she sniffed. “Look, I’ll be fine in the morning. I just need some rest. I’m sorry if you were worried.” “I didn’t mean to put that on you—I have no business waiting for you to get home. You’re an adult. I can’t explain—it’s just that I felt for them. The kids. And you—I just wanted to know you were okay.” “Well, I’m okay, Noah. And the kids will get by. We talked about how we had to accept the way things are for a little while longer. We sang songs all the way to Redway in the car, just to keep their minds off things. I only had to put up with Arnie for three or four minutes, just long enough for him to tell me I’d better remember who’s calling the shots here. ~ Robyn Carr
274:Our own happiness, our own peace, can never be complete until we find some way of sharing it with people who the way things are now have no happiness and know no peace. Jesus calls us to show this truth forth, live this truth forth. Be the light of the world, he says. Where there are dark places, be the light especially there. Be the salt of the earth. Bring out the true flavor of what it is to be alive truly. Be truly alive. Be life-givers to others. That is what Jesus tells the disciples to be. That is what Jesus tells his Church, tells us, to be and do. Love each other. Heal the sick, he says. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Cast out demons. That is what loving each other means. If the Church is doing things like that, then it is being what Jesus told it to be. If it is not doing things like that—no matter how many other good and useful things it may be doing instead—then it is not being what Jesus told it to be. It is as simple as that. ~ Frederick Buechner
275:For Chesterton and Tolkien, the goodness, truth, and beauty of fairy stories are to be found in the way they judge the way things are from the perspective of the way things ought to be. The should judges the is. This is the way things ought to be. We do not condone selfishness merely because it is normal, nor should we. A healthy perspective always judges selfishness—most especially our own selfishness—from the perspective of selflessness. In the language of religion, we always judge sin from the perspective of virtue, that which is wrong from the perspective of that which is right. Fairy stories share with religion the belief in objective morality, which is the fruit of the knowledge of the union of the natural with the supernatural and therefore the communion of the one with the other. This moral perspective is condemned by the materialist and the relativist, which is why such people are equally skeptical of the respective value of fairy stories and religion, seeing both as intrinsically untrue. ~ Joseph Pearce
276:Movements are not initiated by revolutionaries. They begin when large numbers of people, having reached the point where they can’t take the way things are anymore, see some hope of improving their daily lives and begin to move on their own. I have also learned that if you want to know what a movement is going to be about, you should keep your ears close to the grassroots to hear the “why” questions that people are asking. For example, during and after World War II when black folks had acquired a new self-confidence from working in the plant and fighting overseas, they began asking, “Why do white folks treat us this way?” with a new urgency, and so the civil rights movement was born. In the 1960s, when white flight to the suburbs made blacks the majority or near-majority in cities like Detroit, people began asking, “Why are all the political leaders in our city still white?” giving rise to the Black Power movement. In the mid-1980s the main questions people in Detroit were asking were about young people and violence. ~ Grace Lee Boggs
277:Danny? You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. There’s some things no six-year-old boy in the world should have to be told, but the way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. The world’s a hard place, Danny. It don’t care. It don’t hate you and me, but it don’t love us, either. Terrible things happen in the world, and they’re things no one can explain. Good people die in bad, painful ways and leave the folks that love them all alone. Sometimes it seems like it’s only the bad people who stay healthy and prosper. The world don’t love you, but your momma does and so do I. You’re a good boy. You grieve for your daddy, and when you feel you have to cry over what happened to him, you go into a closet or under your covers and cry until it’s all out of you again. That’s what a good son has to do. But see that you get on. That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on. ~ Stephen King
278:STRIVE TO TRUST ME in more and more areas of your life. Anything that tends to make you anxious is a growth opportunity. Instead of running away from these challenges, embrace them, eager to gain all the blessings I have hidden in the difficulties. If you believe that I am sovereign over every aspect of your life, it is possible to trust Me in all situations. Don’t waste energy regretting the way things are or thinking about what might have been. Start at the present moment—accepting things exactly as they are— and search for My way in the midst of those circumstances. Trust is like a staff you can lean on, as you journey uphill with Me. If you are trusting in Me consistently, the staff will bear as much of your weight as needed. Lean on, trust, and be confident in Me with all your heart and mind. But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. PSALM 52 : 8 Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or ~ Sarah Young
279:No Use Sighin'
No use frettin' when the rain comes down,
No use grievin' when the gray clouds frown,
No use sighin' when the wind blows strong,
No use wailin' when the world's all wrong;
Only thing that a man can do
Is work an' wait till the sky gets blue.
No use mopin' when you lose the game,
No use sobbin' if you're free from shame,
No use cryin' when the harm is done,
Just keep on tryin' an' workin' on;
Only thing for a man to do,
Is take the loss an' begin anew.
No use weepin' when the milk is spilled,
No use growlin' when your hopes are killed,
No use kickin' when the lightnin' strikes
Or the floods come along an' wreck your dykes;
Only thing for a man right then
Is to grit his teeth an' start again.
For it's how life is an' the way things are
That you've got to face if you travel far;
An' the storms will come an' the failures, too,
An' plans go wrong spite of all you do;
An' the only thing that will help you win,
Is the grit of a man and a stern set chin.
~ Edgar Albert Guest
280:The mind has a tendency to label everything as bad or a problem. If we wake up stiff in the morning, the mind calls that bad and then worries about getting older. If we find out we are being let go at our job, the mind immediately assumes the worst and worries about the future. Even if something good happens, the mind sees the possible downside or worries about losing what it has just gained. The mind sees its job as rejecting what is presently going on in order to bring about a better future. Its logic is that if we are happy now, we won’t do anything to make things better. So it looks for what's wrong with the way things are so that it can figure out what to do to fix or improve things. This keeps the mind very busy and leaves us with an ongoing sense of incompleteness and lack. Because there is always something going on that could be labeled bad, there is always something to fix or improve upon. As a result, we have an ever-expanding to-do list in our minds. We may feel the need to improve our diet, our appearance, our finances, our health, our relationships, our career. ~ Nirmala
281:Not much has been said by critics about the structure of The Lord of the Rings, but it is considerably more complex and at least as carefully-integrated as the multiple narrative of Joseph Conrad, for instance, in Nostromo. One might feel that a more experienced writer, one who wrote novels or fantasies professionally rather than passionately, would have known not to risk such finesses or trust so much to the ingenuity of his readers: but Tolkien knew no better than to try it.
The main effect of his interlacing technique, however, does not lie in surprise and suspense. What it does is to create a profound sense of reality, of that being the way things are. There is a pattern in Tolkien’s story, but his characters can never see it (naturally, because they are in it). To them the whole story seems chaotic, haunted by bad luck; they are lost in a wilderness metaphorically as well as cartographically, indeed in a ‘bewilderment’, sometimes in the dark, sometimes in an enchanted wood, frequently guessing wrong as to the meaning of what happens even to them. ~ Tom Shippey
282:Ah, adventure! Ah, romance! Ah, courtly graces and the noble gestures! Don't you wish you knew people like that? Don't you wish we could still walk around in cloaks and boots and breeches, with leather doublets and flowing white dueling shirts and swords strapped around our waists? Of course, if we did, given the way things are today, there'd be people out there lobbying for sword control, and we'd need a National Sword Association and bumper stickers that would read "Swords don't kill people, knights kill people," and there would be a five-day waiting period and background check before you could buy a rapier. We'd have drive-by lungings and people would be afraid of children carrying broadswords to school. "Milady" would be regard as a sexist term and feminists would go absolutely berserk if any woman called a man "Milord." Ralph Nader would probably get quarter horses banned because they are too small and unsafe in a collision and someone would figure out a way to put seat belts and air bags on our saddles. That's why people join the SCA and read fantasy novels, because the real world sucks. ~ Simon Hawke
283:... schools in many industrialized nations were not, for the most part, designed to produce innovative thinkers or questioners -- their primary purpose was to produce workers. The author Seth Godin writes, "Our grandfathers and great grandfathers built schools to train people to have a lifetime of productive labor as part of the industrialized economy. And it worked."
To create good workers, educations systems put a premium on compliancy and rote memorization of basic knowledge -- excellent qualities in an industrial worker. (Or, as the cartoonist and Simpsons creator Matt Groening puts it, "it seems the main rule that traditional schools teach is how to sit in rows quietly, which is perfect training for grown-up work in a dull office or factory, but not so good for education.")
And not so good for questioning: To the extent a school is like a factory, students who inquire about "the way things are" could be seen as insubordinate. It raises, at least in my mind, a question that may seem extreme: If schools were build on a factory model, were they actually designed to squelch questions? ~ Warren Berger
284:Thought has produced tremendous effects outwardly. And, as we'll discuss further on, it produces tremendous effects inwardly in each person. Yet the general tacit assumption in thought is that it's just telling you the way things are and that is not doing anything—that 'you' are inside there, deciding what to do with the information. But I want to say that you don't decide what to do with the information. The information takes over. It runs you. Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives the false information that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought, whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us. Until thought is understood—better yet, more than understood, perceived—it will actually control us; but it will create the impression that it is our servant, that it is just doing what we want it to do. That's the difficulty. Thought is participating and then saying it's not participating. But it is taking part in everything. Fragmentation is a particular case of that. Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally. ~ David Bohm
285:It's just the way things are. Take a moment to consider this statement. Really think about it. We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it's the way things are. When our attitudes and behaviors towards animals are so inconsistent, and this inconsistency is so unexamined, we can safely say we have been fed absurdities. It is absurd that we eat pigs and love dogs and don't even know why. Many of us spend long minutes in the aisle of the drugstore mulling over what toothpaste to buy. Yet most of don't spend any time at all thinking about what species of animal we eat and why. Our choices as consumers drive an industry that kills ten billion animals per year in the United States alone. If we choose to support this industry and the best reason we can come up with is because it's the way things are, clearly something is amiss. What could cause an entire society of people to check their thinking caps at the door--and to not even realize they're doing so? Though this question is quite complex, the answer is quite simple: carnism. ~ Melanie Joy
286:TO TRUST ME in more and more areas of your life. Anything that tends to make you anxious is a growth opportunity. Instead of running away from these challenges, embrace them, eager to gain all the blessings I have hidden in the difficulties. If you believe that I am sovereign over every aspect of your life, it is possible to trust Me in all situations. Don’t waste energy regretting the way things are or thinking about what might have been. Start at the present moment—accepting things exactly as they are—and search for My way in the midst of those circumstances. Trust is like a staff you can lean on, as you journey uphill with Me. If you are trusting in Me consistently, the staff will bear as much of your weight as needed. Lean on, trust, and be confident in Me with all your heart and mind. But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. —PSALM 52:8 Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. —PROVERBS 3:5–6 AMP ~ Sarah Young
287:Due to some dim but irresistible notion of the way things are, it is simply not possible, out of order, not apprpriate to the situation at hand, if, within the circle of those who are experienced and advanced in years, the young person declaims ethical generalities. Young people will again and again find themselves in a situation that is so irritating, astounding, and incomprehensible to them that their word falls on deaf ears, while the word of an older person is heard and has weight even though its content is no different at all. It will be a sign of maturity or immaturity whether this experience leads them to understand that what is at stake here is not the stubborn self-satisfaction of old age, or the anxious effort to keep youth in their place, but the pereservation or violation of an essential ethical law. Ethical discourse needs authorization, which youth are simply not able to bestow upon themselves, even if they speak out of the purest pathos of their ethical conviction. Ethical discourse does not merely depend on the correct content of what is said, but also on the speaker being authorized to say it. Its validity depends not only on what is said, but also on who says it. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
288:I suppose the attitude of the vast majority of people is 'Whats the hurry to do anything at all?' Most people have a job that gives them money and time off to enjoy it. Take the kids to the country, relax. Whats wrong with the way things are? I mean technology may have caused problems, but it's always solved them, hasn't it? We are healthier, and better off, and better dressed, and cleverer, and having more fun than anyone in history. And it's been good old inventive genius that's given us all this, so lets have more of the same. Tomorrow has always been better than today, so why should things suddenly be any different?... That's fine if your'e prepared to put up with a rate of change that makes today's breakneck pace look like a snail out for a walk. And a world more interdependent than it is now. and a level of specialization even more incomprehensible than it is now. And a growing avalanche of innovations each one competing with the other for the steadily shrinking amount of time there will be to make decisions about them. And a growing number of bureaucrats to process and handle those decisions. And outside this maelstrom, this core of decision making, way outside, cut off, the people who don't understand whats going on, and who wouldn't understand even if they got in to find out. ~ James Burke
289:You see, Bobby knew that when it gets hard we all have two responses to choose from: to moan, or to put our heads down, smile and get on with it.

Remember: no one likes a moaner.

Wouldn’t we all rather work with someone who, when the workload gets insane, simply says: ‘Right, let’s put some music on, divide up the tasks and get cracking. Breakfast is comin’!’

Life is full of rough patches. All big goals, however glamorous on paper, will inevitably involve a load of boring tasks along the way - it’s just the way things are.

Moaning and being miserable doesn’t change the facts - nor does it improve the situation. In fact, it makes a bad situation worse.

When I’m on expeditions, I value cheerfulness almost as much as fresh water. And when you’re in life-and-death situations, it’s priceless.

You can’t always choose your situation, but you can always choose your attitude.

Not only can positive thinking lead to positive outcomes, but there’s another very good reason why cheerfulness is good for survival: people are more likely to want to help you and stick with you.

And in adversity, you’re going to want all the help you can get.

So learn from the Commandos, smile when it is raining, and show cheerfulness in adversity - and look at the hard times as chances to show your mettle.

‘Breakfast is comin’! ~ Bear Grylls
290:Internal Migration: On Being On Tour
As an American traveler I have
to remember not to get actionably mad
about the way things are around here.
Tomorrow I’ll be a thousand miles away
from the way it is around here. I will
keep my temper, I will not kill the dog
next door, nor will I kill the next-door wife,
both of whom are crazy and aggressive
and think they live at the center of culture
like everyone else in this college town.
This is because I’m leaving, I’m taking off
by car, by light plane, by jet, by taxicab,
for some place else a thousand miles away,
so I caution myself: control your rage,
even if it causes a slight heart attack.
Stay out of jail tonight before you leave,
and don’t get obstreperous in transit tomorrow
so as to stay out of jail on arrival tomorrow night.
Think: the new handcuffs are sharp inside
and meant to cut the wrists. You’re not too old
to be raped in their filthy overcrowded jails
and you’ll lose your glasses and false teeth.
How would you eat, study and be
a traveling lecturer if you got out alive and sane?
So remember to leave this place peacefully,
it’s only Asshole State University at Nowheresville,
and remember to get to the next place peacefully,
it’s only Nowhere State University at Assholesville
and you must travel from place to place for food and shelter.
~ Alan Dugan
291:People often seem surprised that I choose to write science fiction and fantasy—I think they expect a history professor to write historical fiction, or literary fiction, associating academia with the kinds of novels that academic lit critics prefer. But I feel that speculative fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, is a lot more like the pre-modern literature I spend most of my time studying than most modern literature is. Ursula Le Guin has described speculative fiction authors as “realists of a larger reality” because we imagine other ways of being, alternatives to how people live now, different worlds, and raise questions about hope and change and possibilities that different worlds contain.

....

Writing for a more distant audience, authors tended to be speculative, using exotic perspectives, fantastic creatures, imaginary lands, allegories, prophecies, stories within stories, techniques which, like science fiction and fantasy, use alternatives rather than one reality in order to ask questions, not about the way things are, but about plural ways things have been and could be. Such works have an empathy across time, expecting and welcoming an audience as alien as the other worlds that they describe. When I read Voltaire responding to Francis Bacon, responding to Petrarch, responding to Boethius, responding to Seneca, responding to Plutarch, I want to respond to them too, to pass it on. So it makes sense to me to answer in the genre people have been using for this conversation since antiquity: speculation. It’s the genre of many worlds, the many worlds that Earth has been, and will be. ~ Ada Palmer
292:When I was a kid, growing up during the 1970s, I used to read a lot of horror and science fiction. I graduated from comic books to paperbacks around the time I first entered my teens. And I want to say that what 99% of that stuff tells you about supposed encounters with the unknown is a formulaic convention. No one faints like a chicken-shit or else reaches for their weapon like Arnie Schwarzenegger in the face of something so utterly terrifying there isn’t even a name for it. What those writers don’t know is what happens in an encounter with the outside is this: that the moment slows down to such an extent that time itself simply stands still in your head. I suppose that fact doesn’t make for good characterisation. It’s incommunicable. I think they call it the numinous.

I once did a semester in creative writing back after graduating, around the decade King was outselling every other author on the planet, but could never make the grade. Still, I read a lot of the best attempts. Maybe that’s why someone like Lovecraft, or Machen, or one of the old-school writers of that stuff I used to read had almost pulled it off. They were no good at characterisation and tended to use ciphers, presenting the phenomenon itself as the main protagonist, because it was the way things are when you encounter it. The thing empties you, draining out any semblance of normalcy, no matter what your history is, or what you think you’re all about. Real horror consists not of the worst thing in the world you can imagine happening, but in encountering some abomination you cannot possibly imagine, something even worse than fear: a shard of absolute outsideness. Human characters become shadows, just shadows. ~ Mark Samuels
293:The left and right sides of the brain also process the imprints of the past in dramatically different ways.2 The left brain remembers facts, statistics, and the vocabulary of events. We call on it to explain our experiences and put them in order. The right brain stores memories of sound, touch, smell, and the emotions they evoke. It reacts automatically to voices, facial features, and gestures and places experienced in the past. What it recalls feels like intuitive truth—the way things are. Even as we enumerate a loved one’s virtues to a friend, our feelings may be more deeply stirred by how her face recalls the aunt we loved at age four.3 Under ordinary circumstances the two sides of the brain work together more or less smoothly, even in people who might be said to favor one side over the other. However, having one side or the other shut down, even temporarily, or having one side cut off entirely (as sometimes happened in early brain surgery) is disabling. Deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. (Broca’s area, which blacks out during flashbacks, is on the left side.) Without sequencing we can’t identify cause and effect, grasp the long-term effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. People who are very upset sometimes say they are “losing their minds.” In technical terms they are experiencing the loss of executive functioning. When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are reexperiencing and reenacting the past—they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen. After the emotional storm passes, they may look for something or somebody to blame for it. They behaved the way they did way because you were ten minutes late, or because you burned the potatoes, or because you “never listen to me.” Of course, most of us have done this from time to time, but when we cool down, we hopefully can admit our mistake. Trauma interferes with this kind of awareness, and, over time, our research demonstrated why. ~ Bessel A van der Kolk
294:a new teaching appointment required that I become familiar with mysticism in Christianity and other religions. That’s when I realized that these were mystical experiences. Especially important was William James’s classic book The Varieties of Religious Experience, published more than a century ago, still in print, and named by a panel of experts in 1999 as the second most important nonfiction book published in English in the twentieth century. The book combines the elements that made up James himself: a psychologist fascinated by the varieties of human consciousness, and a philosopher pondering what all of this might mean.1 Part of his book is about mystical experiences. Based on James’s study of accounts of such experiences, he concluded that their two primary features are “illumination” and “union.” Illumination has a twofold meaning. The experiences often involve light, luminosity, radiance. Moreover, they involve “enlightenment,” a new way of seeing. “Union” (or “communion”) refers to the experience of connectedness and the disappearance or softening of the distinction between self and world. In addition, James names four other common features: Ineffability. The experiences are difficult, even impossible, to express in words. Yet those who have such experiences often try, usually preceded by, “It’s really hard to describe, but it was like . . .” Transiency. They are usually brief; they come and then go. Passivity. One cannot make them happen through active effort. They come upon one—one receives them. Noetic quality. They include a vivid sense of knowing (and not just intense feelings of joy, wonder, amazement)—a nonverbal, nonlinguistic way of knowing marked by a strong sense of seeing more clearly and certainly than one ever has. What is known is “the way things are” when all of our language falls away and we see “what is” without the domestication created by our words and categories. This way of knowing might be called direct cognition, a way of knowing not mediated through language. Reading James and other writers on mysticism was amazing. In colloquial language, I was blown away. I found my experiences described with great precision. Suddenly, I had a way of naming and understanding them. Moreover, they were linked to the experiences of many people. They are a mode of human consciousness. They happen. And ~ Marcus J Borg
295:In families in which parents are overbearing, rigid, and strict, children grow up with fear and anxiety. The threat of guilt, punishment, the withdrawal of love and approval, and, in some cases, abandonment, force children to suppress their own needs to try things out and to make their own mistakes. Instead, they are left with constant doubts about themselves, insecurities, and unwillingness to trust their own feelings. They feel they have no choice and as we have shown, for many, they incorporate the standards and values of their parents and become little parental copies. They follow the prescribed behavior suppressing their individuality and their own creative potentials. After all, criticism is the enemy of creativity. It is a long, hard road away from such repressive and repetitive behavior. The problem is that many of us obtain more gains out of main- taining the status quo than out of changing. We know, we feel, we want to change. We don’t like the way things are, but the prospect of upsetting the stable and the familiar is too frightening. We ob- tain “secondary gains” to our pain and we cannot risk giving them up. I am reminded of a conference I attended on hypnosis. An el- derly couple was presented. The woman walked with a walker and her husband of many years held her arm as she walked. There was nothing physically wrong with her legs or her body to explain her in- ability to walk. The teacher, an experienced expert in psychiatry and hypnosis, attempted to hypnotize her. She entered a trance state and he offered his suggestions that she would be able to walk. But to no avail. When she emerged from the trance, she still could not, would not, walk. The explanation was that there were too many gains to be had by having her husband cater to her, take care of her, do her bidding. Many people use infirmities to perpetuate relationships even at the expense of freedom and autonomy. Satisfactions are derived by being limited and crippled physically or psychologically. This is often one of the greatest deterrents to progress in psychotherapy. It is unconscious, but more gratification is derived by perpetuating this state of affairs than by giving them up. Beatrice, for all of her unhappiness, was fearful of relinquishing her place in the family. She felt needed, and she felt threatened by the thought of achieving anything 30 The Self-Sabotage Cycle that would have contributed to a greater sense of independence and self. The risks were too great, the loss of the known and familiar was too frightening. Residing in all of us is a child who wants to experiment with the new and the different, a child who has a healthy curiosity about the world around him, who wants to learn and to create. In all of us are needs for security, certainty, and stability. Ideally, there develops a balance between the two types of needs. The base of security is present and serves as a foundation which allows the exploration of new ideas and new learning and experimenting. But all too often, the security and dependency needs outweigh the freedom to explore and we stifle, even snuff out, the creative urges, the fantasy, the child in us. We seek the sources that fill our dependency and security needs at the expense of the curious, imaginative child. There are those who take too many risks, who take too many chances and lose, to the detriment of all concerned. But there are others who are risk-averse and do little with their talents and abilities for fear of having to change their view of themselves as being the child, the dependent one, the protected one. Autonomy, independence, success are scary because they mean we can no longer justify our needs to be protected. Success to these people does not breed success. Suc- cess breeds more work, more dependence, more reason to give up the rationales for moving on, away from, and exploring the new and the different. ~ Anonymous

--- IN CHAPTERS (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)



0

   18 Integral Yoga
   2 Integral Theory


   15 The Mother
   14 Satprem


   3 Agenda Vol 11
   3 Agenda Vol 05
   2 Agenda Vol 10
   2 Agenda Vol 04


--- WEBGEN

Wikipedia - The Secret of the Way Things Are
change font "color":
change "background-color":
change "font-family":
change "padding": 103432 site hits