TERMS STARTING WITH
The importance of Arab philosophy has to be evaluated both in regard to the Oriental and the Western world. The latter was influenced, naturally, not by the originals but by the translations which do not always render exactly the spirit of the authors. In the East, theology remained victorious, but incorporated in its own teachings much of the philosophies it condemned. M. Horten, in Ueberweg-Heinze, Geschichte der Philosophie, 3d ed., Berlin, 1928, pp. 287-342. Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, Vol. I, II, Weimar, 1898-1902, Vol. III-VI, Leiden, 1936-1941. The Encyclopedia of Islam, Leiden, 1913-1918. -- R.A.
The importance of Samadbi rests upon the truth that only a small part whether of world being or of our own being comes into our ken or into our action.
The importance of the person in Scholastic thought insured the personalistic concepts until they found expression in the work of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).
TERMS ANYWHERE
abhiprAya. (T. dgongs pa; C. yiqu; J. ishu; K. ŭich'wi 意趣). In Sanskrit, "hidden intention" or "purpose"; a term used in hermeneutics to refer to the concealed intent the Buddha had in mind when he made a statement that was not literally true (see also ABHISAMDHI). In the MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA, there are four abhiprAyas. (1) The Buddha may say that two things are the same when in fact they are similar in only one, albeit important, feature. Thus, sAKYAMUNI Buddha says that he is the past buddha VIPAsYIN, thinking of the fact that there is not the slightest difference in their DHARMAKAYAs. This is called the intention of sameness (samatAbhiprAya). (2) The Buddha may say one thing while intending something else (arthAntarAbhiprAya). This category is often invoked in YOGACARA exegesis to explain why the Buddha proclaimed the nonexistence of all phenomena in the PRAJNAPARAMITA sutras when he in fact did not intend this statement to be taken literally, thinking instead of the three natures (TRILAKsAnA) of all phenomena propounded by the YogAcAra. (3) The buddha may make a statement intending another time (kAlAntarAbhiprAya) than that suggested by his words. For example, he may assure lazy persons who are incapable of any virtuous practice whatsoever that they will be reborn in SUKHAVATĪ, the paradise of AMITABHA, if they will simply call on that buddha. He does this in order to encourage them to accumulate a modest amount of merit, although he knows that they will not be reborn there immediately or even in their next lifetime, but at some other time in the future. (4) The Buddha adjusts his teaching to the capacities of his students based on their dispositions (pudgalAntarAbhiprAya). For example, the Buddha will extol the benefits of the practice of charity (DANA) to a person who is disposed toward the accumulation of merit (PUnYA) but will underplay the importance of charity to a person who becomes complacently attached to that practice. See ABHISAMDHI; SANDHYABHAsA.
Apart from technical innovations in logical theory (notably in the discussion of tautology and probability), Wittgenstein's main contribution to contemporary philosophy has been his demonstration of the importance of a study of language. The Tractatus is concerned chiefly to determine the conditions which any symbolism qua representation of fact, must necessarily satisfy. Such a "language" must consist of elements combined in such ways as to mirror in one-one correspondence the elements and structure of the "world". A crucial distinction is made between "saying" (aussagen) and "showing" (zeigen); a statement is able to assert a certain state of affairs by virtue of having the same structure as that which it represents. The common structure, however, cannot itself be asserted, can only be shown in the symbols. Much philosophy is held to consist of trying to say what can only be shown, a misguided proceeding provoked by failure to understand "the logic of our language". Certain mystical conclusions follow.
Arete; Means "virtue". In Platonic ideal it is a reference to the importance of meaning above technical skill (techne). In other words it denotes mythological value within a literate framework or craft. Later philosophical movements Would refer to this notion as "High Art" vs. "Low Art".
Baizhang qinggui. (J. Hyakujo shingi; K. Paekchang ch'onggyu 百丈清規). In Chinese, "Baizhang's Rules of Purity"; a monastic code distinctive to the CHAN school, attributed to the eminent Tang dynasty monk BAIZHANG HUAIHAI; the text is no longer extant, but it is abridged in the CHANMEN GUISHI. According to later Song-dynasty accounts, Baizhang wrote this QINGGUI ("pure rules") for the new monastery that he had helped establish on Mt. Baizhang. This monastery is considered by the Chan tradition to be the first independent Chan institution, and its unique monastic code is thus a symbol of the school's emancipation from the regulations of the Indian VINAYA tradition. The Baizhang qinggui is said to have emphasized the role of the abbot within monastic administration, the precedence of ordination age over monastic rank, and the importance of communal labor. The code also divides the Chan monastic institution into ten administrative offices and provides a general outline of the daily ritual activities in the monastery. This story of the promulgation of the code can be found in the biography of Baizhang in the SONG GAOSENG ZHUAN and JINGDE CHUANDENG LU, as well as in the preface attributed to Yang Yi (968-1024) in the 1335 edition of the Baizhang guishi. Whether Baizhang's monastic codes were ever compiled in written form, and if so, whether they bore this title, remain matters of scholarly controversy.
Bassui Tokusho. (拔隊得勝) (1327-1387). Japanese monk of the Hotto branch of the RINZAISHu of ZEN; also known as Bassui Zenji. Ordained at the age of twenty-nine, Bassui subsequently began a pilgrimage around the Kanto area of Japan in search of enlightened teachers. He eventually met Koho Kakumyo (1271-1361) of Unjuji in Izumo, and received from him the name Bassui, which means "well above average," lit., "to rise above the rank-and-file." Their relationship, however, remains unclear. After taking leave from Koho, Bassui continued traveling on pilgrimage until he settled down in Kai, where his local patrons established for him the monastery of Kogakuji ("Facing Lofty Peaks Monastery"). Bassui's teachings stress the importance of KoAN (C. GONG'AN) training and especially the notion of doubt (see YIJING; YITUAN). Bassui was also extremely critical of SoTo teachers of his day, despite the fact that his own teacher Koho was once a Soto monk, and he was strongly critical of their use of koan manuals called MONSAN in their training. Although his teacher Koho employed Soto-style "lineage charts" (see KECHIMYAKU SoJo) as a means of attracting lay support, Bassui rejected their use and instead stressed the importance of practice.
bodhisaMbhAra. (T. byang chub kyi tshogs; C. puti ju/puti ziliang; J. bodaigu/bodaishiryo; K. pori ku/pori charyang 菩提具/菩提資糧). In Sanskrit, "collection" of, or "equipment" (SAMBHARA) for, "enlightenment" (BODHI); the term refers to specific sets of spiritual requisites (also called "accumulations") necessary for the attainment of awakening. The BODHISATTVA becomes equipped with these factors during his progress along the path (MARGA) leading to the attainment of buddhahood. In a buddha, the amount of this "enlightenment-collection" is understood to be infinite. These factors are often divided into two major groups: the collection of merit (PUnYASAMBHARA) and the collection of knowledge (JNANASAMBHARA). The collection of merit (PUnYA) entails the strengthening of four perfections (PARAMITA): generosity (DANA), morality (sĪLA), patience (KsANTI), and energy (VĪRYA). The collection of knowledge entails the cultivation of meditative states leading to the realization that emptiness (suNYATA) is the ultimate nature of all things. The bodhisaMbhAra were expounded in the *BodhisaMbhAraka, attributed to the MADHYAMAKA exegete NAGARJUNA, which is now extant only in Dharmagupta's 609 CE Chinese translation, titled the Puti ziliang lun. In this treatise, NAgArjuna explains that the acquisition, development, and fruition of these factors is an essentially interminable process: enlightenment will be achieved when these factors have been developed for as many eons as there are grains of sand in the Ganges River (see GAnGANADĪVALUKA). The text also emphasizes the importance of compassion (KARUnA), calling it the mother of perfect wisdom (PRAJNAPARAMITA). The perfection of wisdom sutras stress that PARInAMANA (turning over [merit]) and ANUMODANA (rejoicing [in the good deeds of others]) are necessary to amass the collection necessary to reach the final goal.
CFL ::: "Causal Feedback Loop". The mechanism through which consciousness came into being from non-experience, evolved in complexity and diverged in form, and filtered back to the cusp of non-experience to ensure its own evolution. This mirrors the evolution and lifecycle of the Universe and is likely intricately related to cosmology. Jason Miller coined this abbrevation from the concept of a "Creation Feedback Loop". I have mistakenly called it a "Causal Feedback Loop", but honestly prefer that term over the original as it highlights the importance of causality in the creation of reality.
CODIL ::: COntext Dependent Information Language.An early language for non-numerical business problems.[CODIL, Part1. The Importance of Flexibility, C.F. Reynolds et al, Computer J 14(3):217-220 (May 1971)]. (1994-12-23)
Cohen, Morris Raphael: (1880-) Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of the College of the City of New York. His contributions have been many in the fields of social, political and legal philosophy. He describes his view in general as realistic rationalism, a view that emphasizes the importance of intellect or reason as applied to what is, rather than in vacuo. He has found the principle of polarity a fruitful means of resolving antinomies. His best known works are Reason and Nature and Law and the Social Order. -- L.E.D.
confessionalism ::: n. --> An exaggerated estimate of the importance of giving full assent to any particular formula of the Christian faith.
COntext Dependent Information Language "language" (CODIL) An early language for non-numerical business problems. ["CODIL, Part1. The Importance of Flexibility", C.F. Reynolds et al, Computer J 14(3):217-220, May 1971]. (1994-12-23)
cultural identity: the influence of one's culture on the development of identity. Individualist cultures stress the importance of personal achievement and independence, while collectivist cultures stress the importance of collective achievement and dependence.
Darumashu. (達摩宗). In Japanese, the "BODHIDHARMA sect"; one of the earliest Japanese Buddhist ZEN sects, established in the tenth century by DAINICHI NoNIN; the sect takes its name from the putative founder of the CHAN tradition, Bodhidharma. Little was known about the teachings of the Darumashu until the late-twentieth century apart from criticisms found in the writings of its contemporary rivals, who considered the school to be heretical. Criticisms focused on issues of the authenticity of Nonin's lineage and antinomian tendencies in Nonin's teachings. A recently discovered Darumashu treatise, the Joto shogakuron ("Treatise on the Attainment of Complete, Perfect Enlightenment"), discusses the prototypical Chan statement "mind is the buddha," demonstrating that a whole range of benefits, both worldly and religious, would accrue to an adept who simply awakens to that truth. As a critique of the Darumashu by Nonin's rival MYoAN EISAI states, however, since the school posits that the mind is already enlightened and the afflictions (KLEsA) do not exist in reality, its adherents claimed that there were therefore no precepts that had to be kept or practices to be followed, for religious cultivation would only serve to hinder the experience of awakening. The Darumashu also emphasized the importance of the transmission of the patriarchs' relics (J. shari; S. sARĪRA) as a mark of legitimacy. Although the Darumashu was influential enough while Nonin was alive to prompt other sects to call for its suppression, it did not survive its founder's death, and most of Nonin's leading disciples affiliated themselves with other prominent teachers, such as DoGEN KIGEN. These Darumashu adherents had a significant influence on early SoToSHu doctrine and self-identity and seem to have constituted the majority of the Sotoshu tradition into its third generation of successors. ¶ Darumashu, as the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese term Damo zong (Bodhidharma lineage), can also refer more generally to the CHAN/SoN/ZEN school, which traces its heritage back to the founder and first Chinese patriarch, Bodhidharma.
De-industrialisation - Occurs when their is a decline in the importance of the secondary sector ( or manufacturing) of an industry in an economy.
dialogical ::: From the word “dialogue.” A descriptor of any approach that acknowledges the importance of culture and intersubjectivity in molding the individual’s perception of phenomena.
Divyāvadāna. In Sanskrit, "Divine Exploits"; a collection of thirty-eight "heroic tales" or "narratives" (AVADĀNA). Avadānas are the tenth of the twelvefold (DVĀDAsĀnGA[PRAVACANA]) categorization of the traditional genres of Buddhist literature and relate the past and present deeds of a person, either lay or ordained, who in some specific fashion exemplifies Buddhist ethics and practice. The present characters in the stories in the Divyāvadāna are often identified as persons whom the Buddha encountered in a former life. Thus, its tales have a narrative structure similar to JĀTAKA stories, in which an event in the present offers an opportunity to recount a story from the past, which in turn illuminates details regarding present circumstances. Themes that run throughout the Divyāvadāna include the realization of positive or negative consequences of action (KARMAN), the importance of moral discipline, and the great merit (PUnYA) that can be accrued through service or reverence offered to the buddhas or to sites related to the buddhas, such as a STuPA. The Divyāvadāna includes thirty-six avadānas and two SuTRAs. Famous stories found in the Divyāvadāna collection include the Purnāvadāna, the story of the monk PuRnA, and the AsOKĀVADĀNA, which recounts the birth, life, and reign of King AsOKA, the monarch whom the Buddhist tradition considers the great protector of the religion. Although the style and language of the works vary tremendously, more than half of the tales also appear in the MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA VINAYA. Given their debt to vinaya literature, it is not surprising that many of the tales in the Divyāvadāna often make reference to points of monastic discipline (VINAYA). This association with the Mulasarvāstivāda vinaya suggests that these stories could date as far back as the beginning of the Common Era. However, the oldest extant manuscript of the Divyāvadāna dates only to the seventeenth century, and there is no reference to a text by that title in a Buddhist source prior to that date. There also is no Tibetan or Chinese translation of the text, although many of its stories are found in the Tibetan and Chinese canons. (For example, twenty-one of the thirty-eight stories of the collection are found in the vinaya section of the Tibetan canon.) This has led some scholars to conclude that, although the stories themselves are quite old, the particular compilation as the Divyāvadāna may be rather late. A number of stories from the Divyāvadāna were translated by EUGÈNE BURNOUF in his 1844 Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme indien. The first Sanskrit edition of the entire text was undertaken in 1866 by Edward B. Cowell and Robert A. Neil. The Divyāvadāna legends had a significant influence on Buddhist art and were often the subject of Buddhist sculptures and paintings. For instance, in the "Sahasodgata" chapter of this collection, the Buddha describes the "wheel of existence" (BHAVACAKRA), which became a popular subject of painting in many of the Buddhist traditions.
Dongshan famen. (J. Tozan homon; K. Tongsan pommun 東山法門). In Chinese, lit. "East Mountain Dharma Gate" or "East Mountain Teachings"; one of the principal early CHAN schools, which is associated with the putative fourth and fifth patriarchs of the tradition, DAOXIN (580-651) and HONGREN (602-675). The name of the school is a toponym for the location of Hongren's monastery, at Huangmei in Qizhou (present-day Hubei province). "East Mountain" refers to the easterly of the "twin peaks" of Mount Shuangfeng, where Hongren taught after the death of his master Daoxin, who had taught on the westerly peak; the term "East Mountain Teachings," however, is typically used to refer to the tradition associated with both masters. The designations Dongshan famen and Dongshan jingmen (East Mountain Pure Gate) first appear in the LENGQIE SHIZI JI ("Records of the Masters and Disciples of the Lankā[vatāra]") and were used in the Northern school of Chan (BEI ZONG) by SHENXIU (606?-706) and his successors to refer to the lineage and teachings that they had inherited from Daoxin and Hongren. ¶ Although later Chan lineage texts list Daoxin and Hongren as respectively the fourth and the fifth Chan patriarchs, succeeding BODHIDHARMA, HUIKE, and SENGCAN, the connection of the East Mountain lineage to these predecessors is tenuous at best and probably nonexistent. The earliest biography of Daoxin, recorded in the XU GAOSENG ZHUAN ("Supplementary Biographies of Eminent Monks"), not only does not posit any connection between Daoxin and the preceding three patriarchs, but does not even mention their names. This connection is first made explicit in the c. 713 CHUAN FABAO JI ("Annals of the Transmission of the Dharma-Jewel"), one of the earliest Chan "transmission of the lamplight" (CHUANDENG LU) lineage texts. Unlike many of the Chan "schools" that were associated with a single charismatic teacher, the "East Mountain Teachings" was unusual in that it had a single, enduring center in Huangmei, which attracted increasing numbers of students. Some five or six names of students who studied with Daoxin survive in the literature, with another twenty-five associated with Hongren. Although Hongren's biography in the Chuan fabao ji certainly exaggerates when it says that eight to nine out of every ten Buddhist practitioners in China studied under Hongren, there is no question that the number of students of the East Mountain Teachings grew significantly over two generations. ¶ The fundamental doctrines and practices of the East Mountain Teachings can be reconstructed on the basis of the two texts: the RUDAO ANXIN YAO FANGBIAN FAMEN ("Essentials of the Teachings of the Expedient Means of Entering the Path and Pacifying the Mind") and the XIUXIN YAO LUN ("Treatise on the Essentials of Cultivating the Mind"), ascribed respectively to Daoxin and Hongren. The Rudao anxin yao fangbian famen, which is included in the Lengqie shizi ji, employs the analogy of a mirror from the Banzhou sanmei jing (S. PRATYUTPANNABUDDHASAMMUKHĀVASTHITASAMĀDHISuTRA) to illustrate the insubstantiality of all phenomena, viz., one's sensory experiences are no more substantial than the reflections in a mirror. The text then presents the "single-practice SAMĀDHI" (YIXING SANMEI) as a practical means of accessing the path leading to NIRVĀnA, based on the Wenshushuo bore jing ("Perfection of Wisdom Sutra Spoken by MANJUsRĪ"). Single-practice samādhi here refers to sitting in meditation, the supreme practice that subsumes all other practices; it is not one samādhi among others, as it is portrayed in the MOHE ZHIGUAN ("Great Calming and Contemplation"). Single-practice samādhi means to contemplate every single aspect of one's mental and physical existence until one realizes they are all empty, just like the reflections in the mirror, and "to guard that one without deviation" (shouyi buyi). The Xiuxin yao lun, which is attributed to Hongren, stresses the importance of "guarding the mind" (SHOUXIN). Here, the relationship between the pure mind and the afflictions (KLEsA) is likened to that between the sun and clouds: the pure mind is obscured by afflictions, just as the sun is covered by layers of clouds, but if one can guard the mind so that it is kept free from false thoughts and delusions, the sun of NIRVĀnA will then appear. The text suggests two specific meditation techniques for realizing this goal: one is continuously to visualize the original, pure mind (viz., the sun) so that it shines without obscuration; the other is to concentrate on one's own deluded thoughts (the clouds) until they disappear. These two techniques purport to "guard the mind" so that delusion can never recur. The East Mountain Teachings laid a firm foundation for the doctrines and practices of later Chan traditions like the Northern school.
Empiricists: (Early English) By the beginning of the 17th century, the wave of search for new foundations of knowledge reached England. The country was fast growing in power and territory. Old beliefs seemed inadequate, and vast new information brought from elsewhere by merchants and scholars had to be assimilated. The feeling was in the air that a new, more practicable and more tangible approach to reality was needed. This new approach was attempted by many thinkers, among whom two, Bacon and Hobbes, were the most outstanding. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), despite his busy political career, found enough enthusiasm and time to outline requirements for the study of natural phenomena. Like Descartes, his younger contemporary in France, he felt the importance of making a clean sweep of countless unverified assumptions obstructing then the progress of knowledge. As the first pre-requisite for the investigation of nature, he advocated, therefore, an overthrow of the idols of the mind, that is, of all the preconceptions and prejudices prevalent in theories, ideas and even language. Only when one's mind is thus prepared for the study of phenomena, can one commence gathering and tabulating facts. Bacon's works, particularly Novum Organum, is full of sagacious thoughts and observations, but he seldom goes beyond general advice. As we realize it today, it was a gross exaggeration to call him "the founder of inductive logic". Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an empiricist of an entirely different kind. He did not attempt to work out an inductive method of investigation, but decided to apply deductive logic to new facts. Like Bacon, he keenly understood the inadequacy of medieval doctrines, particularly of those of "form" and "final cause". He felt the need for taking the study of nature anew, particularly of its three most important aspects, Matter, Man and the State. According to Hobbes, all nature is corporeal and all events have but one cause, motion. Man, in his natural state, is dominated by passion which leads him to a "war of all against all". But, contrary to animals, he is capable of using reason which, in the course of time, made him, for self-protection, to choose a social form of existence. The resulting State is, therefore, built on an implicit social contract. -- R.B.W.
evolutionary psychology: the application of evolutionary ideas, including the importance of behavioural and mental adaptiveness over millions of years, to help explain human behaviour.
First Tier ::: A phrase used to summarize the first six major levels of values development according to Clare Graves and Spiral Dynamics: Survival Sense, Kin Spirits, Power Gods, Truth Force, Strive Drive, and Human Bond. First-Tier stages are characterized by a belief that “my values are the only correct values.” This lies in contrast to Second-Tier levels of development, wherein individuals recognize the importance of all value systems. Integral Theory uses First Tier to refer to the first six degrees or levels of developmental altitude (Infrared, Magenta, Red, Amber, Orange, and Green).
FOOD. ::: The importance of sativic food from the spiritual point of view has been exaggerated. Spiritually, the effect of food depends more on the occult stmosphere and influences that come with it than on anything in the food itself. ■
four noble truths. (S. catvāry āryasatyāni; P. cattāri ariyasaccāni; T. 'phags pa'i bden pa bzhi; C. si shengdi; J. shishodai; K. sa songje 四聖諦). Although the term "four noble truths" is well established in English-language works on Buddhism, it is a misleading translation of the original Sanskrit and Pāli terms. The term translated as "noble" (ĀRYA) refers not to the truths themselves, but to those who understand them; thus, the compound may more accurately, if less euphoniously, be rendered as "four truths [known by the spiritually] noble"; they are four facts known to be true by those "noble ones" with insight into the nature of reality, but not known by ordinary beings (PṚTHAGJANA). The four truths are: suffering (DUḤKHA), origination (SAMUDAYA), cessation (NIRODHA), and path (MĀRGA). The four noble truths are the subject of extensive exegesis in the tradition, but the four terms and the relationships among them may be summarized as follows. Existence in the realms that are subject to rebirth, called SAMSĀRA, is qualified by suffering (duḥkha), the first truth (the Sanskrit term may also be rendered as "sorrow," "pain," or more generally "unsatisfactoriness"). The types of sufferings that beings undergo in the various destinations of rebirth are enumerated at great length in Buddhist texts. In his first sermon delivered after his enlightenment (see DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANASuTRA), the Buddha identifies the following as forms of suffering: birth, aging, sickness, death, encountering what is unpleasant, separation from what is pleasant, not gaining what one desires, and the five SKANDHAs. The second truth is the origination (samudaya), or cause, of suffering. In his first sermon, the Buddha identifies the cause of suffering as craving (TṚsnĀ) or attachment; in his second sermon, the ANATTALAKKHAnASUTTA, said to have been delivered five days later, he suggests that the belief is self (ĀTMAN) is the cause of suffering. In other works, he lists two causes of suffering: unwholesome or unsalutary (AKUsALA) actions (KARMAN) such as killing, stealing, and lying, and the unwholesome mental states (see CAITTA) that motivate unwholesome actions. These unwholesome mental states include greed (LOBHA), hatred (DVEsA), and ignorance (MOHA), with ignorance referring here to an active misperception of the nature of the person and the world or, more technically, to an unsystematic attention (AYONIsOMANASKĀRA) to the true nature of things, leading to the following "inverted views" (VIPARYĀSA): seeing pleasure where there is actually pain, purity where there is impurity, permanence where there is impermanence, and self where there is no self. The third truth is the cessation (nirodha) of suffering, which refers to NIRLĀnA, the "deathless" (AMṚTA) state that transcends all suffering. The fourth and final truth is that of the path (mārga) to the cessation of suffering. The path is delineated in exhaustive detail in Buddhist texts; in his first sermon, the Buddha describes an eightfold path (ĀRLĀstĀnGAMĀRGA). The four truths therefore posit the unsatisfactory nature of existence, identify its causes, hold out the prospect of a state in which suffering and its causes are absent, and set forth a path to that state. Suffering is to be identified, its origin destroyed, its cessation realized, and the path to its cessation followed. The four truths demonstrate the importance of causality (see HETUPRATYAYA) in Buddhist thought and practice. Suffering is the effect of the cause, or origin, viz., "craving." Cessation is the absence of suffering, which results from the destruction of suffering's origin, craving. The path is the means by which one attains that cessation. The Buddha states in his first sermon that when he gained absolute and intuitive knowledge of the four truths, he achieved complete enlightenment and freedom from future rebirth. The four truths are also often described in terms of their sixteen aspects (sodasākāra), which counteract four inverted views (viparyāsa) for each truth. For the truth of suffering, the four aspects are knowledge that the aggregates (SKANDHA) are impermanent, suffering, empty, and selfless; these counteract seeing permanence, pleasure, mine (MAMAKĀRA), and I (AHAMKĀRA), respectively. For the truth of origination, the four aspects are knowledge that KLEsA(affliction) and action (karman) are cause (HETU), origination (samudaya), producer (saMbhava), and condition (PRATYAYA); they counteract the view that there is no cause, that there is a single cause, that the cause is transformation of a fundamental nature, and that the cause is a prior act of divine will, respectively. For the truth of cessation, the four aspects are knowledge that nirvāna is cessation (NIRODHA), peace (sānta), sublime (pranīta), and a definite escape (niryāna); these counteract the view that there is no liberation, that liberation is suffering, that the pleasure of meditative absorption (DHYĀNA) is unmitigated, and that NIRLĀnA is not firmly irreversible. And for the truth of the path, the four aspects are knowledge that the eightfold noble path is a path (mārga), correct method (UPĀYA), practice (PRATIPATTI), and brings a definite escape (nairyānika); these counteract the view that there is no path, that this eightfold noble path is vile, that something else is also a path, and that this path is reversible. Some Mahāyāna sutras say that those who are attached to (ABHINIVEsA) the four noble truths as being essentially true do not understand the purport of the Buddha's doctrine; only the teaching of the third noble truth, NIRLĀnA, is definitive (NĪTĀRTHA), the statements about the other truths require interpretation (NEYĀRTHA). See also DARsANAMĀRGA.
Freud (1856-1939): the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, emphasised the importance of the unconscious mind, childhood experiences and repressed urges. His theory of psychosexual development outlines five stages; oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital, according to the different objects fixated upon at each specific stage. Freud also focused on the structure and development of personality; comprised of three parts - the id, ego and superego. Conflicts between the id and superego are dealt with by the ego that utilizes ?a target="_parent" href="https://www.itseducation.asia/psychology/d.htm
Fukan zazengi. (普勸坐禪儀). In Japanese, "General Advice on the Principles of Seated Meditation," an important meditation manual composed by the eminent Japanese ZEN master DoGEN KIGEN. Although this treatise is traditionally dated to 1227, recent discoveries of a hitherto unknown copy of the Fukan zazengi suggest the date of 1233. The Fukan zazengi is a relatively short treatise on seated meditation (ZAZEN), which is also embedded in Dogen's magnum opus, the SHoBoGENZo. The treatise underscores the need to practice seated meditation as a corrective against excessive indulgence in "words and letters," viz., scholastic interpretations of Buddhist doctrine (cf. BULI WENZI). The explanation of how to perform seated meditation starts with preparing a quiet spot for practice and following a proper diet. The correct posture for meditation is then described. The actual practice of seated meditation begins with the regulation of breathing, which is followed by an injunction to stay aware of all thoughts that arise in the mind. The treatise then briefly explains the psychosomatic effects of meditation and the proper way to rise from seated meditation. The importance of seated meditation is reiterated at the end. Dogen's manual is in large part a revision of the Chinese Chan master CHANGLU ZONGZE's influential primer of meditation, the ZUOCHAN YI.
Gandhāra. (T. Sa 'dzin; C. Jiantuoluo; J. Kendara; K. Kondara 健馱羅). An ancient center of Indic Buddhism, located in the northwest of the subcontinent in the region of present-day northern Pakistan and southeastern Afghanistan. The Gandhāra region included the entire Peshawar valley up to its border along the Indus River to the east and also extended to include the Swat valley and the region around Gandhāra's central city of TAKsAsILA (Taxila), located near what is today Peshawar, Pakistan. For the five centuries bracketing the beginning of the Common Era, Gandhāra was a cosmopolitan cultural center and a crossroads of the major trade routes between Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, China, and the Indian subcontinent (see SILK ROAD). As traders from these various areas moved through Gandhāra, the region became a place of cultural exchange. Four major empires were centered in Gandhāra: the Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian, and KUSHAN. Tradition claims that AsOKA supported Buddhism in the Gandhāra region during the third century BCE, although the first physical evidence of Buddhism in the region dates from the second and first centuries CE. Gandhāra was conquered by Demetrius I of Bactria around 185 BCE and, although Greek rule in the region was brief, Greek art and culture had an enduring effect on the Gandhāran community. Some of the oldest known Buddhist art comes from this region, more specifically the "Greco-Buddhist" style of sculpture that was a product of this period. The earliest iconographic representations of the Buddha, in fact, are thought by some art historians to come from second century BCE Gandhāra. During the first and second centuries CE, Gandhāra became the principal gateway through which Buddhism traveled to Persia, China, and the rest of Asia. Between the years 50 and 320 CE, the KUSHANs were pushed south out of Central Asia and occupied Gandhāra. Gandhāra, along with KASHMIR, supported and housed a large SARVĀSTIVĀDA community, and Gandhāra was long recognized as a principal bastion of this important MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOL. Around the first or second century CE, when the Sarvāstivāda school was at its peak, the fourth Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FIRST) is said to have taken place in Gandhāra, sponsored by KANIsKA I, the third king of the Kushan dynasty. According to traditional accounts, there were 499 monks in attendance, although that large number is probably intended to represent the importance of the convention rather than a literal count of the number of people present. VASUMITRA presided over the fourth council, with the noted poet and scholarly exegete AsVAGHOsA assisting him. In addition to recording a new VINAYA, the council also resulted in the compilation of a massive collection of Sarvāstivāda ABHIDHARMA philosophy, known as the ABHIDHARMAMAHĀVIBHĀsĀ, or "Great Exegesis of Abhidharma," which functions as a virtual encyclopedia of different scholastic perspectives on Buddhism of the time. The VAIBHĀsIKA school of Sarvāstivāda abhidharma exegesis, which based itself on this compilation, was centered in the regions of Gandhāra and Kashmir. The KĀsYAPĪYA and BAHUsRUTĪYA schools added to the significant presence of Buddhism in the region.
Gtsang smyon Heruka. (Tsangnyon Heruka) (1452-1507). Tibetan iconoclast, best known as Gtsang smyon, the "madman of Gtsang"; revered especially for his literary works, including the biography of eleventh-century master MI LA RAS PA. Gtsang smyon Heruka began his career as a monk, receiving Buddhist ordination at the age of seven. He studied various systems of tantra and meditation under his chief guru, the Bka' brgyud master Shes rab 'byams pa, and later under several Sa skya teachers. Discouraged by the limitations of life as a monk and scholar, he adopted the life of a wandering YOGIN, engaging in the unusual behavior for which he earned the appellation smyon pa, "madman." His actions have been interpreted as part of a fifteenth-century reaction and reform movement against the growing wealth and power of elite incarnation lineages and religious institutions of his day. He and other "mad yogins" affiliated with the Bka' brgyud sect, such as 'BRUG BA KUN LEGS, and the lesser known Dbu smyon Kun dga' bzang po (1458-1532), sought to reemphasize the importance of meditation and retreat over strict adherence to monastic discipline or intellectual study-a tradition reaching back to the renowned Bka' brgyud founder, Mi la ras pa. Gtsang smyon Heruka himself spent many years visiting the meditation caves and retreat sites associated with Mi la ras pa. He also attempted to preserve important Bka' brgyud instruction lineages that were in danger of being lost, and toward the end of his life compiled an enormous thirteen-volume synthesis of the aural instructions (snyan brgyud) stemming from three of Mi la ras pa's principal disciples, RAS CHUNG PA RDO RJE GRAGS, SGAM PO PA BSOD NAMS RIN CHEN, and Ngan rdzongs rdo rje rgyal po (late eleventh century). He visited Nepal on several occasions, directing the renovation of SVAYAMBHu STuPA, one of the Kathmandu Valley's principal Buddhist pilgrimage centers. He is perhaps best remembered as the author of the widely read MI LA RAS PA'I RNAM THAR ("Life of Milarepa") and MI LA RAS PA'I MGUR 'BUM ("Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa"), as well as a biography of Milarepa's guru MARPA CHOS KYI BLO GROS.
hedonic relevance: the likelihood of making a dispositional attribution if we are directly involved and the consequences are serious. Therefore, we are likely to overstate the influence of dispositional factors, and underestimate the importance of situational factors.
Hongren. (J. Konin/Gunin; K. Hongin 弘忍) (601-674). Chinese Chan master and the reputed fifth patriarch of the Chan zong. Hongren was a native of Huangmei in Qizhou (present-day Hubei province). Little is known of his early life, but he eventually became the disciple of the fourth patriarch DAOXIN. After Daoxin's death in 651, Hongren succeeded his teacher and moved to Mt. Fengmao (also known as Dongshan or East Mountain), the east peak of Mt. Shuangfeng (Twin Peaks) in Huangmei. Hongren's teachings thus came to be known as the "East Mountain teachings" (DONGSHAN FAMEN), although that term is later applied also to the lineage and teachings of both Daoxin and Hongren. After his move to Mt. Fengmao, disciples began to flock to study under Hongren. Although Hongren's biography in the CHUAN FABAO JI certainly exaggerates when it says that eight to nine out of every ten Buddhist practitioners in China studied under him, there is no question that the number of students of the East Mountain teachings grew significantly over two generations. The twenty-five named disciples of Hongren include such prominent figures as SHENXIU, Zhishen (609-702), Lao'an (d. 708), Faru (638-689), Xuanze (d.u.), and HUINENG, the man who would eventually be recognized by the mature Chan tradition as the sixth, and last, patriarch. The legendary account of Hongren's mind-to-mind transmission (YIXIN CHUANXIN) of the DHARMA to Huineng can be found in the LIUZU TAN JING. Later, Emperor Daizong (r. 762-779) bestowed upon Hongren the title Chan master Daman (Great Abundance). The influential treatise XIUXIN YAO LUN ("Treatise on the Essentials of Cultivating the Mind") is attributed to Hongren; it stresses the importance of "guarding the mind" (SHOUXIN). In that text, the relationship between the pure mind and the afflictions (KLEsA) is likened to that between the sun and the clouds: the pure mind is obscured by afflictions just as the sun is covered by layers of clouds; but if one can guard the mind so that it is kept free from false thoughts and delusions, the sun of NIRVĀnA will then appear. The text suggests two specific meditation techniques for realizing this goal: one is continuously to visualize the original, pure mind (viz., the sun) so that it shines without obscuration; the other is to concentrate on one's own deluded thoughts (the clouds) until they disappear. These two techniques purport to "guard the mind" so that delusion can never recur.
ILLUSIONIST PHILOSOPHY In each world the monad consciousness apprehends reality totally differently. This is what was originally meant by the saying that all apprehension of reality is maya, or &
Indian Philosophy: General name designating a plethora of more or less systematic thinking born and cultivated in the geographic region of India among the Hindus who represent an amalgamation of adventitious and indigenous peoples, but confined at first exclusively to the caste-conscious Indo-germanic conquerors of the lands of the Indus and Ganges. Its beginnings are lost in the dim past, while a distinct emergence in tangible form is demonstrable from about 1000 B.C. Hindu idiosyncrasies are responsible for our inability to date with any degree of accuracy many of the systems, schools, and philosophers, or in some cases even to refer to the latter by name. Inasmuch as memory, not writing, has been universally favored in India, an aphoristic form (cf. sutra), subtended by copious commentaries, give Indian Philosophy its distinctive appearance. The medium is Sanskrit and the dialects derived from it. There are translations in all major Asiatic and European languages. The West became familiar with it when philologists discovered during last century the importance of Sanskrit. As a type of thinking employing unfamiliar conceptions and a terminology fluctuating in meaning (cf., e.g., rasa), it is distinct from Western speculations. Several peaks have been reached in the past, yet Indian Philosophy does not cease to act fructifyingly upon the present mind in India as elsewhere. Various factions advance conflicting claims as to the value of Indian speculation, because interpretations have not as yet become standardized. Textual criticism is now making strides, but with varying successes. Among larger histories of Indian Philosophy may be mentioned those of Deussen, Das Gupta, Bel-valkar and Ranade, and Radhakrishnan.
in'in ekishi. (因院易師). In Japanese, "changing teachers in accordance with the temple." Since the fifteenth century, members of the SoToSHu of the ZEN tradition have participated in the practice of taking the lineage of the monastery where one was appointed abbot, even if that lineage was different from one's own. The practice of inheriting the temple's lineage was known as the "temple dharma lineage" (GARANBo), and the practice of switching lineages was called in'in ekishi. Basing his claims on the teachings found in the SHoBoGENZo, the Soto Zen master MANZAN DoHAKU attempted to reform this practice by asserting the importance of the direct, face-to-face transmission (menju shiho) from one master to his disciple (isshi insho). In 1700, he made a request to the Agency of Temples and Shrine (jisha bugyo) to intervene in the garanbo system. Despite fierce opposition from such figures as TENKEI DENSON (1646-1735), the Tokugawa government banned the practice in 1703.
intellectualism ::: The doctrine about the possibility of deriving knowledge from reason alone, intellectualism can stand for a general approach emphasising the importance of learning and logical thinking. Criticism of this attitude, sometimes summed up as Left Bank, caricatures intellectualism's faith in the mind and puts it in opposition to emotion, instinct, and primitivist values in general.
intellectualist ::: n. --> One who overrates the importance of the understanding.
One who accepts the doctrine of intellectualism.
In the Ethics these basic principles are applied to the solution of the question of human good. The good for man is an actualization, or active exercise, of those faculties distinctive of man, that is the faculties of the rational, as distinct from the vegetative and sensitive souls. But human excellence thus defined shows itself in two forms, In the habitual subordination of sensitive and appetitive tendencies to rational rule and principle, and in the exercise of reason in the search for and contemplation of truth. The former type of excellence is expressed in the moral virtues, the latter in the dianoetic or intellectual virtues. A memorable feature of Aristotle's treatment of the moral virtues is his theory that each of them may be regarded as a mean between excess and defect; courage, for example, is a mean between cowardice and rashness, liberality a mean between stinginess and prodigality. In the Politics Aristotle sets forth the importance of the political community as the source and sustainer of the typically human life. But for Aristotle the highest good for man is found not in the political life, nor in any other form of practical activity, but in theoretical inquiry and contemplation of truth. This alone brings complete and continuous happiness, because it is the activity of the highest part of man's complex nature, and of that part which is least dependent upon externals, viz. the intuitive reason, or nous. In the contemplation of the first principles of knowledge and being man participates in that activity of pure thought which constitutes the eternal perfection of the divine nature.
It is deficiency of psychic perception and spiritual discrimination that makes people to ignore the importance of obedience.
Jingtu lun. (J. Jodoron; K. Chongt'o non 浄土論). In Chinese, "Treatise on the PURE LAND," composed by the Chinese monk Jiacai (fl. c. 627). In the nine chapters of this treatise, Jiacai attempts to reorganize systematically the arguments of DAOZHUO's ANLE JI. Jiacai's own interests in the MAHĀYĀNASAMGRAHA and the teachings of VIJNAPTIMĀTRATĀ and TATHĀGATAGARBHA are also reflected in his treatise. The treatise is largely concerned with the issues of the multiple buddha bodies (BUDDHAKĀYA), types of rebirth in the pure land, and the means of taking rebirth there. In the first chapter, Jiacai contends that there are three types of lands that correspond to the three buddha bodies: DHARMAKĀYA, SAMBHOGAKĀYA, and NIRMĀnAKĀYA. The second chapter is concerned with the rebirth of ordinary beings (PṚTHAGJANA). The third chapter discusses the different methods of attaining rebirth in the pure land: the general cause (e.g., arousing the BODHICITTA) vs. the special cause (e.g., NIANFO). The fourth chapter details the practice of mindfully invoking the buddha AMITĀBHA's name ten times (shinian) before death and the practice of invoking his name for seven days. In chapter 5, Jiacai provides scriptural evidence that it is ordinary beings who are reborn in the pure land, not solely advanced bodhisattvas. Chapter 6 contains the biographies of twenty people who attained rebirth in the pure land; this chapter is the oldest extant collection of rebirth testimonials in East Asia (see JINGTU RUIYING ZHUAN). In chapter 7, Jiacai compares rebirth in a pure land with rebirth in TUsITA heaven. Chapter 8 discusses the benefits of repentance and chapter 9 underscores the importance of practicing the ten repetitions of Amitābha's name (shinian). Jiacai's text should be distinguished from the *Aparimitāyussutropadesa ("Exegesis of the Wuliangshou jing"), commonly known to the pure land tradition as the Jingtu lun (J. Jodoron) and attributed to VASUBANDHU (see WULIANGSHOU JING YOUPOTISHE YUANSHENG JI).
Karma pa. In Tibetan, a title given to the incarnate lama (SPRUL SKU) identified at birth in each generation as the head of the KARMA BKA' BRGYUD subsect of the BKA' RGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is commonly etymologized as "man of [enlightened] action." In the history of Tibetan Buddhism, the lineage of the Karma pas is considered to be the first to institutionalize its succession of incarnate lamas, a practice later adopted by the other sects. According to tradition, at the time of his death, each Karma pa composes a letter that specifies the date and location of his next incarnation. This letter is given to a close disciple, who then reveals its contents upon the death of the Karma pa, with the information in the letter used to locate the child who has been born as the next Karma pa. Among the most famous and sacred possessions of the Karma pa is a black crown, said to be made from the hair of one hundred thousand dĀKINĪS. The actual crown is said to be invisible to persons lacking sufficient merit. However, during the Ming dynasty, the Yongle emperor (r. 1402-1424) presented the fifth Karma pa with a visible physical replica of the crown. The replica itself is said to have great power; the "black hat ceremony," in which the Karma pa dons the crown, is among the most important in the sect. In the ceremony, the Karma pa holds the hat upon his head; otherwise, it is said, it will fly off into space. It is also said that those who see the crown will be liberated from rebirth. Due to the importance of the crown, the Karma pas are sometimes called the "black crowned" (zhwa nag). In the nineteenth century, a Western misunderstanding of this term led to the identification of a sect of Tibetan Buddhism called the "BLACK HATS," a mistake that persists in some accounts of Tibetan Buddhism. Like the DALAI LAMAs, the Karma pas are considered to be emanations of the BODHISATTVA AVALOKITEsVARA. Also like the Dalai Lamas, the Karma pas have been among the most important and revered religious figures in the history of Tibet; they include many great scholars and yogins. Some have also had political power, at times leading to conflicts, sometimes polemical, and sometimes military, with the DGE LUGS PA. Although the main seat of the Karma pas was MTSHUR PHU Monastery in central Tibet, the Karma pas tended to travel widely. Their importance and influence extended throughout the Tibetan cultural domain, including China. The lineage includes:
Kizil. [alt. Qizil]. A complex of some 230 Buddhist caves from the ancient Central Asian kingdom of KUCHA, located about seventy kilometers northwest of the present-day city of Kucha on the bank of the Muzat River in Baicheng County, in the Uighur Autonomous Region of China's Xinjiang province. The Kizil caves represent some of the highest cultural achievements of the ancient Indo-European petty kingdom of Kucha, an important oasis along the northern SILK ROAD connecting China to the bastions of Buddhist culture in the greater Indian cultural sphere. Construction at the site perhaps began as early as the third century CE and lasted for some five hundred years, until the region succumbed in the ninth century to Islamic control. Given the importance of the Kucha region in the development and transmission of Buddhism along the ancient Silk Road, scholars believe that the DUNHUANG murals were influenced by the art of Kizil. Although no statuary remains at the Kizil site, many wall paintings are preserved depicting events from the life of the Buddha; indeed, Kizil is second only to the Mogao caves of Dunhuang in the number of wall paintings it contains. The layout of many of the intact caves includes a central pillar, forming both a front chamber and a rear chamber, which often contains a PARINIRVĀnA scene. The first modern studies of the site were conducted in the early twentieth century by the German explorers Alfred Grünwedel and Alfred von Le Coq. The nearby site of Kumtura contains over a hundred caves, forty of which contain painted murals or inscriptions. Other cave sites near Kucha include Subashi, Kizilgaha, and Simsim.
Kyogyo shinsho. (教行信証). In Japanese, "Teaching, Practice, Faith, and Realization," composed by the Japanese JoDO SHINSHu teacher SHINRAN (1173-1263), also known as the Ken jodo shinjitsu kyogyosho monrui. The Kyogyo shinsho is considered one of the most important texts of the Jodo Shinshu tradition. The exact dates of its compilation are unknown, but it seems to have gradually developed into its current shape over the first half of the thirteenth century. Several other similar works were also composed during this period by disciples of HoNEN, largely in response to the monk MYoE KoBEN's criticism of exclusive nenbutsu (C. NIANFO), the hallmark of the Jodo traditions. The Kyogyo shinsho largely consists of citations of scriptural passages on the practice of nenbutsu or invocation of the name of the buddha AMITĀBHA. Perhaps the most important section of the Kyogyo shinsho is that on faith (shinjin; C. XINXIN), where Shinran attempted to demonstrate that faith is based on the practice of nenbutsu and comes not from the effort made by the practitioner but from Amitābha himself (see TARIKI). Citing the SUKHĀVATĪVYuHASuTRA's teachings on the original vows (hongan) of the BODHISATTVA DHARMĀKARA (the future Amitābha), Shinran also emphasized the importance of the "single nenbutsu" (ĪCHINENGI) in attaining rebirth in the PURE LAND. He also sought to legitimize the practice of nenbutsu through recourse to the notion of the "final age of the DHARMA" (J. mappo, C. MOFA) when other types of Buddhist practice were ineffective.
magnify ::: v. t. --> To make great, or greater; to increase the dimensions of; to amplify; to enlarge, either in fact or in appearance; as, the microscope magnifies the object by a thousand diameters.
To increase the importance of; to augment the esteem or respect in which one is held.
To praise highly; to land; to extol.
To exaggerate; as, to magnify a loss or a difficulty.
Maitreya. (P. Metteya; T. Byams pa; C. Mile; J. Miroku; K. Mirŭk 彌勒). In Sanskrit, "The Benevolent One"; the name of the next buddha, who now abides in TUsITA heaven as a BODHISATTVA, awaiting the proper time for him to take his final rebirth. Buddhists believed that their religion, like all conditioned things, was inevitably impermanent and would eventually vanish from the earth (cf. SADDHARMAVIPRALOPA; MOFA). According to one such calculation, the teachings of the current buddha sĀKYAMUNI would flourish for five hundred years after his death, after which would follow a one-thousand-year period of decline and a three-thousand-year period in which the dharma would be completely forgotten. At the conclusion of this long disappearance, Maitreya would then take his final birth in India (JAMBUDVĪPA) in order to reestablish the Buddhist dispensation anew. According to later calculations, Maitreya will not take rebirth for some time, far longer than the 4,500 years mentioned earlier. He will do so only after the human life span has decreased to ten years and then increased to eighty thousand years. (Stalwart scholiasts have calculated that his rebirth will occur 5.67 billion years after the death of sākyamuni.) Initially a minor figure in early Indian Buddhism, Maitreya (whose name derives from the Indic MAITRĪ, meaning "loving-kindness" or "benevolence") evolved during the early centuries of the Common Era into one of the most popular figures in Buddhism across Asia in both the mainstream and MAHĀYĀNA traditions. He is also known as AJITA, although there are indications that, at some point in history, the two were understood to be different deities. As the first bodhisattva to become a figure of worship, his imagery and cult set standards for the development of later bodhisattvas who became objects of cultic worship, such as AVALOKITEsVARA and MANJUsRĪ. Worship of Maitreya began early in Indian Buddhism and became especially popular in Central and East Asia during the fifth and sixth centuries. Such worship takes several forms, with disciples praying to either meet him when he is reborn on earth or in tusita heaven so that they may then take rebirth with him when he becomes a buddha, a destiny promised in the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra") to those who recite his name. Maitreya is also said to appear on earth, such as in a scene in the Chinese pilgrim XUANZANG's account of his seventh-century travels to India: attacked by pirates as he sailed on the Ganges River, Xuanzang prayed to and was rescued by the bodhisattva. Maitreya also famously appeared to the great Indian commentator ASAnGA in the form of a wounded dog as a means of teaching him the importance of compassion. Devotees across the Buddhist world also attempt to extend their life span in order to be alive when Maitreya comes, or to be reborn at the time of his presence in the world, a worldly paradise that will be known as ketumati. His earliest iconography depicts him standing or sitting, holding a vase (KUndIKĀ), symbolizing his imminent birth into the brāhmana caste, and displaying the ABHAYAMUDRĀ, both features that remain common attributes of his images. In addition, he frequently has a small STuPA in his headdress, believed to represent a prophecy regarding his descent to earth to receive the robes of his predecessor from MAHĀKĀsYAPA. Maitreya is also commonly depicted as a buddha, often shown sitting in "European pose" (BHADRĀSANA; see also MAITREYĀSANA), displaying the DHARMACAKRAMUDRĀ. He is said to sit in a chair in "pensive" posture in order to be able to quickly stand and descend to earth at the appropriate time. Once he is reborn, Maitreya will replicate the deeds of sākyamuni, with certain variations. For example, he will live the life of a householder for eight thousand years, but having seen the four sights (CATURNIMITTA) and renounced the world, he will practice asceticism for only one week before achieving buddhahood. As the Buddha, he will first travel to Mount KUKKUtAPĀDA near BODHGAYĀ where the great ARHAT Mahākāsyapa has been entombed in a state of deep SAMĀDHI, awaiting the advent of Maitreya. Mahākāsyapa has kept the robes of sākyamuni, which the previous buddha had entrusted to him to pass on to his successor. Upon his arrival, the mountain will break open, and Mahākāsyapa will come forth from a stupa and give Maitreya his robes. When Maitreya accepts the robes, it will only cover two fingers of his hands, causing people to comment at how diminutive the past buddha must have been. ¶ The cult of Maitreya entered East Asia with the initial propagation of Buddhism and reached widespread popularity starting in the fourth century CE, a result of the popularity of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra and several other early translations of Maitreya scriptures made in the fourth and fifth centuries. The Saddharmapundarīkasutra describes Maitreya's present abode in the tusita heaven, while other sutras discuss his future rebirth on earth and his present residence in heaven. Three important texts belonging to the latter category were translated into Chinese, starting in the fifth century, with two differing emphases: (1) the Guan Mile pusa shangsheng doushuo tian jing promised sentient beings the prospect of rebirth in tusita heaven together with Maitreya; and (2) the Guan Mile pusa xiasheng jing and (3) the Foshuo Mile da chengfo jing emphasized the rebirth of Maitreya in this world, where he will attain buddhahood under the Dragon Flower Tree (Nāgapuspa) and save numerous sentient beings. These three texts constituted the three principal scriptures of the Maitreya cult in East Asia. In China, Maitreya worship became popular from at least the fourth century: DAO'AN (312-385) and his followers were among the first to propagate the cult of Maitreya and the prospect of rebirth in tusita heaven. With the growing popularity of Maitreya, millenarian movements associated with his cult periodically developed in East Asia, which had both devotional and political dimensions. For example, when the Empress WU ZETIAN usurped the Tang-dynasty throne in 690, her followers attempted to justify the coup by referring to her as Maitreya being reborn on earth. In Korea, Maitreya worship was already popular by the sixth century. The Paekche king Mu (r. 600-641) identified his realm as the world in which Maitreya would be reborn. In Silla, the hwarang, an elite group of male youths, was often identified with Maitreya and such eminent Silla monks as WoNHYO (617-686), WoNCH'ŬK (613-696), and Kyonghŭng (fl. seventh century) composed commentaries on the Maitreya scriptures. Paekche monks transmitted Maitreya worship to Japan in the sixth century, where it became especially popular in the late eighth century. The worship of Maitreya in Japan regained popularity around the eleventh century, but gradually was replaced by devotions to AMITĀBHA and KsITIGARBHA. The worship of Maitreya has continued to exist to the present day in both Korea and Japan. The Maitreya cult was influential in the twentieth century, for example, in the establishment of the Korean new religions of Chŭngsan kyo and Yonghwa kyo. Maitreya also merged in China and Japan with a popular indigenous figure, BUDAI (d. 916)-a monk known for his fat belly-whence he acquired his now popular East Asian form of the "laughing Buddha." This Chinese holy man is said to have been an incarnation of the bodhisattva Maitreya (J. Miroku Bosatsu) and is included among the Japanese indigenous pantheon known as the "seven gods of good fortune"(SHICHIFUKUJIN). Hotei represents contentment and happiness and is often depicted holding a large cloth bag (Hotei literally means "hemp sack"). From this bag, which never empties, he feeds the poor and needy. In some places, he has also become the patron saint of restaurants and bars, since those who drink and eat well are said to be influenced by Hotei. Today, nearly all Chinese Buddhist monasteries (and many restaurants as well) will have an image of this Maitreya at the front entrance; folk belief has it that by rubbing his belly one can establish the potential for wealth.
Materiality - The importance of an event or other information that has an influence on a company's share price.
Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages "processor" (MIPS) A project at {Stanford University} intended to simplify processor design by eliminating hardware {interlocks} between the five {pipeline} stages. This means that only single execution cycle instructions can access the thirty two 32-bit general {registers}, so that the {compiler} can schedule them to avoid conflicts. This also means that LOAD/STORE and branch instructions have a one-cycle delay to account for. However, because of the importance of multiply and divide instructions, a special HI/LO pair of multiply/divide registers exist which do have hardware interlocks, since these take several cycles to execute and complicate {instruction scheduling}. The project eventually lead to the commercial {MIPS R2000} processor. (1995-02-09)
milieu therapy: a humanistic approach to the treatment of psychological disorders that emphasises the importance of an institution in recovery. An environment is created whereby staff and patients are viewed as equal, and an atmosphere is fostered of self-respect.
Mulamadhyamakakārikā. (T. Dbu ma rtsa ba'i tshig le'u byas pa; C. Zhong lun; J. Churon; K. Chung non 中論). In Sanskrit, "Root Verses on the Middle Way"; the magnum opus of the second-century Indian master NĀGĀRJUNA; also known as the PrajNānāmamulamadhyamakakārikā and the Madhyamakasāstra. (The Chinese analogue of this text is the Zhong lun, which renders the title as MADHYAMAKAsĀSTRA. This Chinese version was edited and translated by KUMĀRAJĪVA. Kumārajīva's edition, however, includes not only Nāgārjuna's verses but also Pingala's commentary to the verses.) The most widely cited and commented upon of Nāgārjuna's works in India, the Mulamadhyamakakārikā, was the subject of detailed commentaries by such figures as BUDDHAPĀLITA, BHĀVAVIVEKA, and CANDRAKĪRTI (with Candrakīrti's critique of Bhāvaviveka's criticism of a passage in Buddhapālita's commentary providing the locus classicus for the later Tibetan division of MADHYAMAKA into *SVĀTANTRIKA and *PRĀSAnGIKA). In East Asia, it was one of the three basic texts of the "Three Treatises" school (C. SAN LUN ZONG), and was central to TIANTAI philosophy. Although lost in the original Sanskrit as an independent work, the entire work is preserved within the Sanskrit text of Candrakīrti's commentary, the PRASANNAPADĀ (serving as one reason for the influence of Candrakīrti's commentary in the European reception of the Mulamadhyamakakārikā). The work is composed of 448 verses in twenty-seven chapters. The topics of the chapters (as provided by Candrakīrti) are the analysis of: (1) conditions (PRATYAYA), (2) motion, (3) the eye and the other sense faculties (INDRIYA), (4) aggregates (SKANDHA), (5) elements (DHĀTU), (6) passion and the passionate, (7) the conditioned (in the sense of production, abiding, disintegration), (8) action and agent, (9) prior existence, (10) fire and fuel, (11) the past and future limits of SAMSĀRA, (12) suffering, (13) the conditioned (SAMSKĀRA), (14) contact (saMsarga), (15) intrinsic nature (SVABHĀVA), (16) bondage and liberation, (17) action and effect, (18) self, (19) time, (20) assemblage (sāmagrī), (21) arising and dissolving, (22) the TATHĀGATA, (23) error, (24) the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, (25) NIRVĀnA, (26), the twelve links of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA), and (27) views. The tone of the work is set in its famous homage to the Buddha, which opens the work, "I bow down to the perfect Buddha, the best of teachers, who taught that what is dependently arisen is without cessation, without production, without annihilation, without permanence, without coming, without going, without difference, without sameness, pacified of elaboration, at peace." The Mulamadhyamakakārikā offers a relentless examination of many of the most important categories of Buddhist thought, subjecting them to an analysis that reveals the absurd consequences that follow from imagining any of them to be real in the sense of possessing an independent and intrinsic nature (SVABHĀVA). Nāgārjuna demonstrates repeatedly that these various categories only exist relationally and only function heuristically in a worldly and transactional sense; they do not exist ultimately. Thus, in the first chapter, Nāgārjuna examines production via causes and conditions, one of the hallmarks of Buddhist thought, and declares that a thing is not produced from itself, from something other than itself, from something that is both itself and other, or from something that is neither itself nor the other. He examines the four kinds of conditions, declaring each to lack an intrinsic nature, such that they do not exist because they do not produce anything. In the second chapter, Nāgārjuna examines motion, seeking to determine precisely where motion occurs: on the path already traversed, the path being traversed, or on the path not yet traversed. He concludes that motion is not to be found on any of these three. In the twenty-fifth chapter, he subjects nirvāna to a similar analysis, finding it to be neither existent, nonexistent, both existent and nonexistent, nor neither existent nor nonexistent. (These are the famous CATUsKOtI, the "four alternatives," or tetralemma.) Therefore, nirvāna, like saMsāra and all worldly phenomena, is empty of intrinsic nature, leading Nāgārjuna to declare (at XXV.19), in one of his most famous and widely misinterpreted statements, that there is not the slightest difference between saMsāra and nirvāna. The thoroughgoing negative critique or apophasis in which Nāgārjuna engages leads to charges of nihilism, charges that he faces directly in the text, especially in the twenty-fourth chapter on the four noble truths where he introduces the topic of the two truths (SATYADVAYA)-ultimate truth (PARAMĀRTHASATYA) and conventional truth (SAMVṚTISATYA)-declaring the importance of both in understanding correctly the doctrine of the Buddha. Also in this chapter, he discusses the danger of misunderstanding emptiness (suNYATĀ), and the relation between emptiness and dependent origination ("That which is dependent origination we explain as emptiness. This is a dependent designation; just this is the middle path"). To those who would object that emptiness renders causation and change impossible, he counters that if things existed independently and intrinsically, there could be no transformation; "for whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible." There has been considerable scholarly discussion of Nāgārjuna's target audience for this work, with the consensus being that it is intended for Buddhist monks well versed in ABHIDHARMA literature, especially that associated with the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school; many of the categories to which Nāgārjuna subjects his critique are derived from this school. In the Sarvāstivāda abhidharma, these categories and factors (DHARMA) are posited to be endowed with a certain reality, a reality that Nāgārjuna sees as implying permanence, independence, and autonomy. He seeks to reveal the absurd consequences and hence the impossibility of the substantial existence of these categories and factors. Through his critique, he seeks a new understanding of these fundamental tenets of Buddhist philosophy in light of the doctrine of emptiness as set forth in the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ SuTRAs. He does not cite these sutras directly, however, nor does he mention the MAHĀYĀNA, which he extols regularly in other of his works. Instead, he seeks to demonstrate how the central Buddhist doctrine of causation, expressed as dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), necessarily entails emptiness (sunyatā). The understanding of emptiness is essential in order to abandon false views (MITHYĀDṚstI). Nāgārjuna therefore sees his purpose not to reject the standard categories of Buddhist thought but to reinterpret them in such a way that they become conduits for, rather than impediments to, liberation from suffering, in keeping with the Buddha's intent.
Phra Malai. (P. Māleyya). A legendary arahant (S. ARHAT) and one of the most beloved figures in Thai Buddhist literature. According to legend, Phra Malai lived on the island of Sri Lanka and was known for his great compassion and supramundane abilities, including the power to fly to various realms of the Buddhist universe. On one of his visits to the hells, he alleviated the suffering of hell beings and then returned to the human realm to advise their relatives to make merit on their behalf. One day as he was on his alms round, he encountered a poor man who presented him with eight lotus blossoms. Phra Malai accepted the offering and then took the flowers to tāvatimsa (S. TRĀYASTRIMsA) heaven to present them at the Culāmani cetiya (S. caitya), where the hair relic of the Buddha is enshrined. Phra Malai then met the king of the gods, INDRA, and asked him various questions: why he had built the caitya, when the future buddha Metteya (S. MAITREYA) would come to pay respects to it, and how the other deities coming to worship had made sufficient merit to be reborn at such a high level. The conversation proceeded as one divinity after another arrived, with Indra's explanation of the importance of making merit by practicing DĀNA (generosity), observing the precepts and having faith. Eventually Metteya himself arrived and, after paying reverence to the chedi, asked Phra Malai about the people in the human realm. Phra Malai responded that there is great diversity in their living conditions, health, happiness, and spiritual faculties, but that they all hoped to meet Metteya in the future and hear him preach. Metteya in response told Phra Malai to tell those who wished to meet him to listen to the recitation of the entire VESSANTARA-JĀTAKA over the course of one day and one night, and to bring to the monastery offerings totaling a thousand flowers, candles, incense sticks, balls of rice, and other gifts. In the northern and northeastern parts of Thailand, this legend is recited in the local dialects (Lānnā Thai and Lao, respectively) as a preface to the performance or recitation of the Vessantara-Jātaka at an annual festival. In central and south Thailand, a variant of the legend emphasizing the suffering of the hell denizens was customarily recited at funeral wakes, a practice that is becoming less common in the twenty-first century.
pi: A transcendental number (thus irrational number) that is the ratio of the length of circumference to the length of the diameter for all circles. Owing to it being a transcendental number, there is no easy way to express the number without sacrificing accuracy, thus we commonly use the greek letter pi, π, to represent this number. The importance of this number grows beyond circles as it appears in number theory and probability. While, with the help of modern computers and efficient algorithms, we currently know this number to over a trillion digits, we shall need no more than 100 decimal places for calculating circles that fit within the largest of space that we know (the observable universe) for an accuracy smaller than anything that we know (planck length).
Prajapati: Sanskrit for lord of creatures. A term originally applied to various Vedic gods; it assumed, as early as the Rig Veda, the importance of a first philosophical principle of creation, and later of time as suggestive of gestation and productive periodicity.
Prajapati: (Skr.) "Lord of creatures", originally applied to various Vedic (q.v.) gods, it assumed as early as the Rig Veda the importance of a first philosophical principle of creation, and later of time as suggestive of gestation and productive periodicity. -- K.F.L.
Ratnakutasutra. (T. Dkon mchog brtsegs pa'i mdo; C. Dabaoji jing; J. Daihoshakukyo; K. Taebojok kyong 大寶積經). In Sanskrit, "The Jewel-Heap Sutra"; often known also as the Mahāratnakutasutra, or "The Great Jewel-Heap Sutra." Despite its title, this is actually not one SuTRA but rather an early collection of forty-nine independent MAHĀYĀNA sutras. The texts contained in this collection cover a broad range of important MAHĀYĀNA topics, including detailed discussions of emptiness (suNYATĀ), PURE LAND practices, skillful means (UPĀYA), the importance of cultivating both compassion (KARUnĀ) and wisdom (PRAJÑĀ), and other significant subjects. Many of the texts embedded in the collection are seminal to the Mahāyāna tradition. In this collection, we find treated such influential figures as the buddhas AMITĀBHA and AKsOBHYA, the BODHISATTVA MAÑJUsRĪ, and the ARHAT MAHĀKĀsYAPA. Its KĀsYAPAPARIVARTA chapter was widely cited in MADHYAMAKA treatises. The collections also contain pure land texts, including the longer SUKHĀVATĪVYuHASuTRA as well as the AKsOBHYATATHĀGATASYAVYuHA on the pure land of Aksobhya. The TrisaMvaranirdesaparivarta explains the bodhisattva VINAYA and how it differs from the vinaya of the sRĀVAKAs. Excerpts from the Ratnakutasutra were translated into Chinese as early as the second century CE. While the entire collection is available in Chinese and Tibetan, only portions of it survive in Sanskrit. The Ratnakutasutra occupies six volumes of the Tibetan canon (BKA' 'GYUR) (with fifty-two separate works in the SDE DGE edition, some with the same title but different content). In Chinese, the best-known recension of the Ratnakutasutra is a massive 120-roll translation made by BODHIRUCI between 703 and 716 during the Tang dynasty; it incorporates in the collection some earlier translations of individual texts by DHARMARAKsA, KUMĀRAJĪVA, sIKsĀNANDA, etc. There are also two shorter renderings of portions of the text, one attributed to AN SHIGAO in the latter half of the second century CE, the second to JNānagupta (523-600) in 595 CE, both in only one roll.
Reid, Thomas: (1710-1796) Scotch philosopher. In his An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, he opposed the tradition of Berkeley and Hume and emphasized the common consciousness of mankind as basic. These ideas on the importance of self-evidence were further elaborated in "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man" and "Essays on the Active Powers of Man." He was founder of the so-called Common Sense School, employing that term as here indicated and not in its present acceptation. -- L.E.D.
Resolution adopted in 1967 that established the principle of land for peace. The resolution calls for the “[w]ithdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict,” as well as calling for the Arab states to recognize that “every State in the area” has the “right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” UNSC Resolution 242 also stresses the importance of freedom of navigation through Middle East waterways and “a just settlement of the refugee problem.”
ris med. (ri me). In Tibetan, lit. "unbounded," "unlimited," or "impartial"; often translated as "nonsectarian" or "eclectic" in conjunction with a religious ideal that appears to have gained widespread currency in the early nineteenth century, most famously in the Khams SDE DGE kingdom in eastern Tibet. The origins of the movement are traced to the founding of DPAL SPUNGS monastery, established in 1727 by the eighth TAI SI TU CHOS KYI 'BYUNG GNAS, a great BKA' BRGYUD scholar, historian, and linguist, with support from Sde dge's ruler Bstan pa tshe ring (Tenpa Tsering, 1678-1738), who sponsored the carving and printing of the Sde dge edition of the Tibetan BKA' 'GYUR and BSTAN 'GYUR. Si tu revitalized the study of Sanskrit and stressed the importance of older traditions that had fallen into decline after the rise to power of the DGE LUGS sect. The revitalization of religious learning in Sde dge spread to the Bka' 'brgyud and RNYING MA institutions in the region and reached its peak in the middle of the nineteenth century. When the Dpal spungs-based revitalization began to disturb the traditional SA SKYA affilation of the Sde dge royal family (from the time of 'PHAGS PA,' 1235-1280), such leading figures as 'JAM MGON KONG SPRUL BLO 'GRO MTHA' YAS, 'JAM DBYANG MKHYEN BRTSE DBANG PO, and MCHOG GYUR GLING PA responded to the danger of conflict among powerful Sde dge clans by using impartial liturgies that did not stress one tradition over another. There is some evidence that another great ris med lama, DPAL SPRUL RIN PO CHE, extended the spirit to include even Dge lugs traditions. The frequency of the occurrence of the term ris med in Tibetan literature from that era has given rise in the West to the notion that something akin to a "nonsectarian movement" occurred in eastern Tibet in the nineteenth century, one in which scholars of the Rnying ma, Bka' brgyud, and Sa skya sects not only read and benefited from each other's traditions (as had long been the case), but also studied the works of the politically more powerful Dge lugs sect, which had been at odds with both Rnying ma and Bka' brgyud at various points since the seventeenth century. This idea that such a "movement" occurred has been largely drawn from preliminary studies of 'Jam mgon kong sprul. This Bka' brgyud lama (who was born into a BON family and initially ordained into a Rnying ma monastery) achieved a remarkable breadth and depth in his scholarship. In several collections of liturgical texts and lengthy treatises, he set forth a vision of a nonsectarian ideal in which intersectarian exchanges were valued, yet strict separations between the multiple lineages and orders were carefully upheld. Still, the notion that 'Jam mgon kong sprul, 'Jam dbyang mkhyen brtse, and Dpal sprul Rin po che were at the center of a "nonsectarian movement," in the sense that there was a widespread institutional reformation in their lifetimes, is not historically accurate. It is perhaps better to speak of the nonsectarian ideal and their own lives as models of its expression. That model was indeed much imitated in the early twentieth century, and the ris med ideal appears to have become a standard motif for the social and political unification of the Tibetan exile community since 1959. The current DALAI LAMA, for example, is known to use the metaphor of the five-fingered hand (the four main Buddhist orders and the Bon religion) to describe a Tibetan society as fundamentally united yet respectful of its differences.
Rogers (1902-1987): was one of the original founders of the humanistic perspective. His theories encompassed the importance of unconditional and conditional positive regard in development of the 'self concept' and 'conditions of worth' set by others. His work has been applied to a range of domains, particularly in therapy through his development of 'client-centred' (now class="d-title" named 'person-centred'therapy.
Rohanee (Arabic) Rūhānī. Used by the modern Sufis, in some senses equivalent to the Sanskrit gupta-vidya (secret knowledge); “the Magic of modern Egypt, supposed to proceed from Angels and Spirits, that is Genii, and by the use of the mystery names of Allah; they distinguish two forms — Ilwee, that is the Higher or White Magic; and Suflee and Sheytanee, the Lower or Black Demoniac Magic. There is also Es-Seemuja, which is deception or conjuring. Opinions differ as to the importance of a branch of Magic called Darb el Mendel, or as Barker calls it in English, the Mendal: by this is meant a form of artificial clairvoyance, exhibited by a young boy before puberty, or a virgin, who, as the result of self-fascination by gazing on a pool of ink in the hand, with coincident use of incense and incantation, sees certain scenes of real life passing over its surface” (TG 280).
Sadāparibhuta. (T. Rtag tu mi brnyas pa; C. Changbuqing pusa; J. Jofukyo bosatsu; K. Sangbulgyong posal 常不輕菩薩). In Sanskrit, "Never Disparaging," the name of a BODHISATTVA described in the eponymous nineteenth or twentieth chapter (depending on the version) of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"). The Buddha explains that long ago there was a bodhisattva named Sadāparibhuta who did not study or recite the sutras. Whenever he saw a monk (BHIKsU), nun (BHIKsUnĪ), male lay disciple (UPĀSAKA), or female lay disciple (UPĀSIKĀ), he would say, "I dare not belittle you because you will all become buddhas." Arrogant monks, nuns, and male and female lay disciples began to sarcastically refer to him as "Never Disparaging." When the bodhisattva was about to die, he heard millions of verses of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra in the sky and as a result his life span was increased by many eons, during which he taught the sutra. Those who had mocked him were reborn in AVĪCI hell, but were eventually reborn as his disciples and later became the five hundred bodhisattvas in the assembly of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra. The Buddha reveals that he had been the bodhisattva Sadāparibhuta in a previous life. The bodhisattva's famous statement, "I dare not belittle you because you will all become buddhas," came to be known as the "twenty-four character 'Lotus Sutra'" because in KUMĀRAJĪVA's translation, the line is twenty-four Sinographs long. The chapter was especially important to the Japanese reformer NICHIREN, who noted the importance of developing even a negative relationship with the true teaching, as evidenced by the fact that those who slandered Sadāparibhuta eventually became bodhisattvas themselves.
sambhala. (T. bde 'byung). Often spelled Shambhala. In the texts associated with the KĀLACAKRATANTRA, the kingdom of sambhala is said to be located north of the Himālayan range. It is a land devoted to the practice of the Kālacakratantra, which the Buddha himself had entrusted to sambhala's king SUCANDRA, who had requested that the Buddha set forth the tantra. The kingdom of sambhala is shaped like a giant lotus and is filled with sandalwood forests and lotus lakes, all encircled by a massive range of snowy peaks. In the center of the kingdom is the capital, Kalapa, where the luster of the palaces, made from gold, silver, and jewels, outshines the moon; the walls of the palaces are plated with mirrors that reflect a light so bright that night is like day. In the very center of the city is the MAndALA of the buddha Kālacakra. The inhabitants of the 960 million villages of sambhala are ruled by a beneficent king, called the Kalkin. The laypeople are all beautiful and wealthy, free of sickness and poverty; the monks maintain their precepts without the slightest infraction. They are naturally intelligent and virtuous, devoted to the practice of the VAJRAYĀNA, although all authentic forms of Indian Buddhism are preserved. The majority of those reborn there attain buddhahood during their lifetime in sambhala. The Kālacakratantra also predicts an apocalyptic war. In the year 2425 CE, the barbarians (generally identified as Muslims) and demons who have destroyed Buddhism in India will set out to invade sambhala. The twenty-fifth Kalkin, Raudracakrin, will lead his armies out of his kingdom and into India, where they will meet the forces of evil in a great battle, from which the forces of Buddhism will emerge victorious. The victory will usher in a golden age in which human life span will increase, crops will grow without being cultivated, and the entire population of the earth will devote itself to the practice of Buddhism. Given the importance of the Kālacakratantra in Tibetan Buddhism, sambhala figures heavily in Tibetan Buddhist belief and practice; in the DGE LUGS sect, it is said that the PAn CHEN LAMAs are reborn as kings of sambhala. There is also a genre of guidebooks (lam yig) that provide the route to sambhala. The location of sambhala has long been a subject of fascination in the West. sambhala plays an important role in the Theosophy of HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY, and the Russian Theosophist Nicholas Roerich led two expeditions in search of sambhala. The name sambhala is considered the likely inspiration of "Shangri-La," described in James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizon.
Senchakushu. (選擇集). In Japanese, "Collection of Selections," composed by the Japanese PURE LAND monk HoNEN in 1198; also known as Senjakushu or Senchaku hongan nenbutsushu ("Collection of Selections on Nenbutsu and the Original Vow"). Honen's Senchakushu is one of the most influential texts in Japan on the practice of nenbutsu (see NIANFO), i.e., the invocation of the name of the buddha AMITĀBHA; it is also traditionally regarded as the founding scripture of the JoDOSHu tradition of Japanese pure land. Relying on the three pure land sutras (JINGTU SANBUJING, viz., the longer and shorter SUKHĀVATĪVYuHASuTRA and the GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING) and a number of important commentaries by SHANDAO and TANLUAN, Honen attempted to elucidate the importance of the practice of nenbutsu in the context of Amitābha's original vows as described in the Sukhāvatīvyuhasutra. He first cites DAOCHUO's division of Buddhist practice into that of the sacred path (that is, the traditional Buddhist path) and the pure land path, and then cites SHANDAO's division into proper and miscellaneous. These divisions are used as an argument for the practice of exclusive nenbutsu. Honen then demonstrates that exclusive nenbutsu is the practice advocated by Amitābha in his original vows. In the next few sections of his text, Honen also mentions the benefits of exclusive nenbutsu and explains why this practice is most appropriate for those in the age of the final dharma (J. mappo; see MOFA). The other sections of the Senchakushu provide further scriptural evidence for the importance of nenbutsu and discuss the proper method for practicing it. At Honen's request, the work was not widely circulated until after his death. Numerous commentaries on this text exist in Japanese.
"shadows", and ru ::: means "He who disperses them"&
Shotoku Taishi. (聖德太子) (572-622). Japanese statesman of the Asuka period (593-710) and second son of Emperor Yomei (r. 585-587), who is traditionally assumed to have played an important role in the early dissemination of Buddhism in Japan. He is also known as Umayado no Miko (Prince Stable Door), but by the eighth century, he became known as Shotoku Taishi (lit. Prince Sagacious Virtue). Given that the earliest significant writings on the life of Shotoku Taishi come from two early histories, the Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720), which are both written nearly a century after his death, little can be said definitively about his biography. According to the traditional accounts in these two texts, Suiko (554-628), the aunt of Prince Shotoku and the Japanese monarch, appointed her nephew regent in 593, giving him broad political powers. Thanks to his enlightened leadership, Prince Shotoku is credited with numerous historical achievements. These include the promotion of Buddhism within the court under an edict he issued in 594; promulgation of the Seventeen-Article Constitution in 604, which stresses the importance of the monarchy and lays out basic Buddhist and Confucian principles; sponsorship of trade missions to China; construction of the monasteries of HoRYuJI and SHITENNoJI; authorship of two chronological histories (Tennoko and Kokki); and composition of three of the earliest Buddhist commentaries in Japan, on the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), VIMALAKĪRTINIRDEsA, and sRĪMĀLĀDEVĪSIMHANĀDASuTRA ("Lion's Roar of Queen srīmālā"), which demonstrate his deep familiarity with Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine. The credibility of Prince Shotoku's achievements as described in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki is undermined by fact that both texts were commissioned by the newly empowered monarchy in an attempt to strengthen its political standing. Some scholars have thus argued that because the new royal family wanted to identify itself with the powerful instrument of the new religion, they selected the person of Prince Shotoku, who shared their lineage, to serve as the first political patron of Buddhism in Japan. This historical narrative focused on Prince Shotoku thus denigrated the importance of the defeated SOGA clan's extensive patronage of Buddhism. As early as the Nara period (710-794), Prince Shotoku began taking on legendary, even mythical status, and was eventually transformed into one of Japan's greatest historical figures, representing the quintessence of Buddhist religious virtue and benevolent political leadership. Priests often dedicated temples to him or transferred the merit of religious enterprises to Shotoku. Both SHINRAN (1173-1263) and NICHIREN (1222-82) dedicated written works to his name. Throughout the Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods, what is now referred to as the cult of Shotoku Taishi was widely popular and members of the aristocracy regularly venerated him (a practice referred to as Taishi shinko, lit. devotion to the Prince).
stack "programming" (See below for synonyms) A data structure for storing items which are to be accessed in last-in first-out order. The operations on a stack are to create a new stack, to "push" a new item onto the top of a stack and to "pop" the top item off. Error conditions are raised by attempts to pop an empty stack or to push an item onto a stack which has no room for further items (because of its implementation). Most processors include support for stacks in their {instruction set architectures}. Perhaps the most common use of stacks is to store {subroutine} arguments and return addresses. This is usually supported at the {machine code} level either directly by "jump to subroutine" and "return from subroutine" instructions or by {auto-increment} and auto-decrement {addressing modes}, or both. These allow a contiguous area of memory to be set aside for use as a stack and use either a special-purpose {register} or a general purpose register, chosen by the user, as a {stack pointer}. The use of a stack allows subroutines to be {recursive} since each call can have its own calling context, represented by a stack frame or {activation record}. There are many other uses. The programming language {Forth} uses a data stack in place of variables when possible. Although a stack may be considered an {object} by users, implementations of the object and its access details differ. For example, a stack may be either ascending (top of stack is at highest address) or descending. It may also be "full" (the stack pointer points at the top of stack) or "empty" (the stack pointer points just past the top of stack, where the next element would be pushed). The full/empty terminology is used in the {Acorn Risc Machine} and possibly elsewhere. In a list-based or {functional language}, a stack might be implemented as a {linked list} where a new stack is an empty list, push adds a new element to the head of the list and pop splits the list into its head (the popped element) and tail (the stack in its modified form). At {MIT}, {pdl} used to be a more common synonym for stack, and this may still be true. {Knuth} ("The Art of Computer Programming", second edition, vol. 1, p. 236) says: Many people who realised the importance of stacks and queues independently have given other names to these structures: stacks have been called push-down lists, reversion storages, cellars, dumps, nesting stores, piles, last-in first-out ("LIFO") lists, and even yo-yo lists! [{Jargon File}] (1995-04-10)
stack ::: (programming) (See below for synonyms) A data structure for storing items which are to be accessed in last-in first-out order.The operations on a stack are to create a new stack, to push a new item onto the top of a stack and to pop the top item off. Error conditions are raised by attempts to pop an empty stack or to push an item onto a stack which has no room for further items (because of its implementation).Most processors include support for stacks in their instruction set architectures. Perhaps the most common use of stacks is to store subroutine use either a special-purpose register or a general purpose register, chosen by the user, as a stack pointer.The use of a stack allows subroutines to be recursive since each call can have its own calling context, represented by a stack frame or activation record. There are many other uses. The programming language Forth uses a data stack in place of variables when possible.Although a stack may be considered an object by users, implementations of the object and its access details differ. For example, a stack may be either pushed). The full/empty terminology is used in the Acorn Risc Machine and possibly elsewhere.In a list-based or functional language, a stack might be implemented as a linked list where a new stack is an empty list, push adds a new element to the head of the list and pop splits the list into its head (the popped element) and tail (the stack in its modified form).At MIT, pdl used to be a more common synonym for stack, and this may still be true. Knuth (The Art of Computer Programming, second edition, vol. 1, p. 236) says: Many people who realised the importance of stacks and queues independently have given other names to these structures: (1995-04-10)
stack ::: (programming) (See below for synonyms) A data structure for storing items which are to be accessed in last-in first-out order.The operations on a stack are to create a new stack, to push a new item onto the top of a stack and to pop the top item off. Error conditions are raised by attempts to pop an empty stack or to push an item onto a stack which has no room for further items (because of its implementation).Most processors include support for stacks in their instruction set architectures. Perhaps the most common use of stacks is to store subroutine use either a special-purpose register or a general purpose register, chosen by the user, as a stack pointer.The use of a stack allows subroutines to be recursive since each call can have its own calling context, represented by a stack frame or activation record. There are many other uses. The programming language Forth uses a data stack in place of variables when possible.Although a stack may be considered an object by users, implementations of the object and its access details differ. For example, a stack may be either pushed). The full/empty terminology is used in the Acorn Risc Machine and possibly elsewhere.In a list-based or functional language, a stack might be implemented as a linked list where a new stack is an empty list, push adds a new element to the head of the list and pop splits the list into its head (the popped element) and tail (the stack in its modified form).At MIT, pdl used to be a more common synonym for stack, and this may still be true. Knuth (The Art of Computer Programming, second edition, vol. 1, p. 236) says: Many people who realised the importance of stacks and queuesindependently have given other names to these structures: (1995-04-10)
Subāhuparipṛcchātantra. (T. Dpung bzangs kyis zhus pa'i rgyud; C. Supohu tongzi qingwen jing; J. Sobakodoji shomongyo; K. Sop'aho tongja ch'ongmun kyong 蘇婆呼童子請問經). In Sanskrit, "Tantra Requested by Subāhu," an important Buddhist TANTRA, translated into Chinese by sUBHAKARASIMHA in 726. In the text, the bodhisattva VAJRAPĀnI explains a range of tantric practices at the request of the youth Subāhu. It is one of the earliest tantras to set forth elements that would come to be considered standard in tantric practice, especially of the wrathful variety, including the performance of rituals to obtain magical powers (SIDDHI), the importance of cemeteries and charnel grounds (sMAsĀNA) as a site for tantric practice, the use of human corpses in the MAndALA, the use of bones, and the practice of sexual rites with semi-divine women (yaksinī/yaksī).
The importance of Arab philosophy has to be evaluated both in regard to the Oriental and the Western world. The latter was influenced, naturally, not by the originals but by the translations which do not always render exactly the spirit of the authors. In the East, theology remained victorious, but incorporated in its own teachings much of the philosophies it condemned. M. Horten, in Ueberweg-Heinze, Geschichte der Philosophie, 3d ed., Berlin, 1928, pp. 287-342. Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, Vol. I, II, Weimar, 1898-1902, Vol. III-VI, Leiden, 1936-1941. The Encyclopedia of Islam, Leiden, 1913-1918. -- R.A.
The importance of Samadbi rests upon the truth that only a small part whether of world being or of our own being comes into our ken or into our action.
The importance of the person in Scholastic thought insured the personalistic concepts until they found expression in the work of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).
::: "The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind — to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms — runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
“The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind—to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms—runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
Thomas, Edward Joseph. (1869-1958). British scholar of Pāli and Sanskrit Buddhism. He was the son of a Yorkshire gardener and worked as a gardener himself in his early life before studying at St. Andrews and then Cambridge, where he received his BA in 1905. He spent the remainder of his life at Cambridge, holding various positions at the university library, where he was renowned for his knowledge of languages (along with his work in Indian languages, he also published a book on Danish conversational grammar). He wrote both general works on Buddhist thought and translated Buddhist texts, including a collection of JĀTAKA stories from the Pāli. His most influential work was The Life of the Buddha as Legend and History (1927), in which he focused upon the structure of various biographical fragments and texts, and their role within the wider tradition. Thomas stressed the importance of studying all available language sources and the need to understand the mythic and fabulous elements of the religion as important traditions in their own right.
Tiwei [Boli] jing. (提謂[波利]經). In Chinese, "Book of Trapusa [and Bhallika]"; an indigenous Chinese SuTRA (see APOCRYPHA), written c. 460-464 during the Northern Wei dynasty, which praises the value of lay practice. The scripture is a retelling of the story of the encounter between the merchants TRAPUsA and (in some versions) his brother BHALLIKA, who offered the Buddha his first meal after his enlightenment. Following the meal, the Buddha is said to have taught the brothers and transmitted to them the first two of the three refuges (see TRIsARAnA) (the SAMGHA not yet existing at the incipiency of the religion), rendering them the first lay disciples (UPĀSAKA) of the Buddha. The Chinese text offers an extended account of what the Buddha taught during that first informal discussion of his experience. The Buddha's account of the dharma discusses the Buddhist value of keeping the five precepts (PANCAsĪLA) and the lay practice of giving (DĀNA), but all set within a philosophical framework that draws heavily on indigenous Chinese concepts of the five phases or elements, the five viscera, etc., as well as the importance of karmic cause and effect.
Two aspects of Russell's work are likely to remain of permanent importance, his major part in the twentieth century renaissance of logic, his reiterated attempts to identify the methods of philosophy with those of the sciences. (1) While the primary objective of Principia was to prove that pure mathematics could be derived from logic, the success of this undertaking (as to which hardly any dissenting opinion persists) is overshadowed by the importance of the techniques perfected in the course of its prosecution. Without disrespect to other pioneers in the field, it is sufficient to point out that a knowledge of the symbolic logic of Russell and Whitehead is still a necessary prerequisite for understanding contemporary studies in logic, in the foundations of mathematics, and tht philosophy of science.
Vaisālī. (P. Vesāli; T. Yangs pa can; C. Pisheli; J. Bishari; K. Pisari 毘舍離). A town approximately twenty-five miles (forty km.) to the northwest of modern-day Patna, in the state of Bihar, India. During the Buddha's lifetime, this was the capital of the Licchavis, which was part of the Vṛji republic. The Buddha first visited the city in the fifth year after his enlightenment and spent his last rains retreat (VARsĀ) in the vicinity of Vaisālī. The Buddha preached a number of important sutras and established several rules of discipline in the city. The Buddha accepted the gift of a mango grove (the Āmrapālīvana) from the city's famous courtesan ĀMRAPĀLĪ. When the Buddha was en route from KAPILAVASTU to Vaisālī, his stepmother MAHĀPRAJĀPATĪ and five hundred women shaved their heads and followed him. Upon arriving in the city, they requested and eventually received ordination as nuns (BHIKsUnĪ). Before departing on the journey that would end at KUsINAGARĪ with his passage into PARINIRVĀnA, the Buddha is said to have turned his body like an elephant for one final look at the city. ¶ Vaisālī was also the location of the second Buddhist council (SAMGĪTI; see COUNCIL, SECOND), held approximately one hundred years after the Buddha's PARINIRVĀnA. Some seven hundred monks were said to have attended the council at Vālukārāma monastery, although the number is probably more of a representation of the council's significance rather than an exact number of monks in attendance. The importance of the second council lies in the sectarian division that occurred within the SAMGHA either at the time of that council or directly thereafter. According to the traditional account, the monk YAsAS entered Vaisalī to visit the monks there and found that they were engaging in what he believed to be ten violations of the VINAYA code of conduct. When Yasas criticized the Vaisalī monks for these violations, he was rebuked and expelled from the SAMGHA. Yasas later returned with the monk sĀnAKAVĀSIN, at which point the monk REVATA called the council and presided over it. After the senior monks ruled in Yasas's favor, the saMgha split into the two groups, the STHAVIRANIKĀYA (the "Order of the Elders," which included Revata and Yasas) and the MAHĀSĀMGHIKA (the "Members of the Great Assembly," which included probably the majority of monks, who opposed the ruling). By the beginning of the Common Era, the saMgha had split into what is commonly called the eighteen MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS, in reference to the multiple traditions that developed following the second council at Vaisālī.
worldspace ::: The AQAL configuration at any given moment for a group of holons. Often used to emphasize the importance of intersubjectivity in bringing forth domains of distinctions. A clearing or opening tetra-enacted by the agency of a holon, where holons of similar depth can manifest to each other: agency-in-communion.
Xiangfa jueyi jing. (J. Zobo ketsugikyo; K. Sangpop kyorŭi kyong 像法決疑經). In Chinese, the "Scripture on Resolving Doubts Concerning the Semblance Dharma"; an indigenous Chinese Buddhist scripture (see APOCRYPHA), dating from the mid-sixth century. The Xiangfa jueyi jing is set against the background of the Buddha's PARINIRVĀnA. At the request of a BODHISATTVA named Changshi (Constant Giving), the Buddha offers instructions on the practice of giving (DĀNA), in which he declares charity to be the most appropriate practice during the age of the semblance dharma (XIANGFA; SADDHARMAPRATIRuPAKA). The semblance-dharma period is characterized as an age of degeneration, during which both clergy and laity begin to transgress the precepts and slander the Buddha's teaching. The Xiangfa jueyi jing emphasizes the importance of collective rather than individual giving during this age, and especially giving to the impoverished and underprivileged, rather than just to the three jewels (RATNATRAYA) of Buddhism. These and other ideas from the Xiangfa jueyi jing were especially influential in the teachings of the Third-Stage school (SANJIE JIAO) and that school's emblematic institution, the WUJINZANG YUAN (inexhaustible storehouse cloister). Such eminent monks as TIANTAI ZHIYI, JIZANG, and HoNEN also held the Xiangfa jueyi jing in high regard.
Xuemo lun. [alt. Xuemai lun] (J. Kechimyakuron; K. Hyolmaek non 血脈論). In Chinese, "Treatise on the Blood-Vessel." This short treatise has been traditionally attributed to the legendary Indian monk BODHIDHARMA and is also referred to as the Damo dashi xuemo lun ("Great Master [Bodhi]dharma's Treatise on the Blood-Vessel"). Judging from its style of argumentation and doctrinal content, the treatise was most probably composed by a CHAN adept of the HONGZHOU ZONG or NIUTOU ZONG sometime during the ninth century, long after Bodhidharma's death. The treatise begins with the claim that the three realms of existence (TRAIDHĀTUKA) return to the "one mind" (YIXIN), which was transmitted from one buddha to another without recourse to words or letters (BULI WENZI). From beginning to end, the treatise consistently underscores the importance of the inherent purity of the mind (xin) and claims that the mind is none other than the buddha, DHARMAKĀYA, BODHI, and NIRVĀnA. The treatise also polemically contends that the practice of chanting and being mindful of the buddha AMITĀBHA's name (NIANFO), reading scriptures, and upholding the precepts may guarantee a better rebirth and intelligence but do not ensure the achievement of buddhahood. According to the treatise, only the practice of seeing one's own nature (JIANXING) can lead to buddhahood (see JIANXING CHENGFO). The first known edition of the Xuemo lun was first published in Korea in 1473 and was republished on several subsequent occasions. It is often anthologized in larger compilations such as the SoNMUN CH'WARYO and SHoSHITSU ROKUMON.
yixing sanmei. (S. ekavyuhasamādhi; J. ichigyo zanmai; K. irhaeng sammae 一行三昧). In Chinese, "single-practice SAMĀDHI." The term yixing sanmei seems to first appear in a passage in the Chinese translation of the SAPTAsATIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRA: "The DHARMADHĀTU has only a single mark; to take the dharmadhātu as an object is called one-practice samādhi." Two practices are then recommended by the text for cultivating yixing sanmei, viz, the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ) and recollection of the Buddha's name (S. BUDDHĀNUSMṚTI; C. NIANFO). The concept of yixing sanmei was later incorporated into the apocryphal Chinese treatise DASHENG QIXIN LUN and the influential meditation manual MOHE ZHIGUAN. TIANTAI ZHIYI, the author of the Mohe Zhiguan, identified the practice of constant sitting, the first of the so-called four kinds of samādhi (sizhong sanmei), with yixing sanmei. Famous teachers of the early CHAN community, such as DAOXIN, HUINENG, and HEZE SHENHUI, also emphasized the importance of yixing sanmei, which they identified with seated meditation (ZUOCHAN) and the cultivation of prajNāpāramitā. According to the LIUZU TANJING ("Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch"), Huineng interpreted yixing sanmei as the maintenance of a straightforward mind (yizhi xin) while walking, standing, sitting, and lying. Shenhui identified yixing sanmei with "no mind" (WUXIN; see also WUNIAN).
Yuanming lun. (J. Enmyoron; K. Wonmyong non 圓明論). In Chinese, "Treatise on Perfect Illumination"; attributed to AsVAGHOsA, but almost certainly a transcription of a lecture by a teacher associated with the Northern school (BEI ZONG) in the nascent Chinese CHAN tradition. Several copies of this text have been discovered at DUNHUANG, and a private copy is extant in Japan. The treatise consists of nine chapters written largely in catechistic format. The treatise elucidates the causes and results of the path, the nature of the DHARMADHĀTU as the manifestation of one's own mind, false and correct views, the importance of UPĀYA, and the practice of meditation. The Yuanming lun serves as an important source on the teachings of the early Chan tradition before its coalescence around the mythology of the "sixth patriarch" (LIUZU) HUINENG and the so-called Southern school (NAN ZONG).
Zongjing lu. (J. Sugyoroku; K. Chonggyong nok 宗鏡録). In Chinese, "Records of the Mirror of the Source"; composed c. 961 by the Song-dynasty CHAN master YONGMING YANSHOU (904-975), in one hundred rolls; also called "Records of the Mirror of the Mind" (Xinjing lu). The "source" (zong), Yanshou says in the preface to the Zongjing lu, refers to the "one mind" (YIXIN), which functions like a mirror that is able to reflect all dharmas. This comprehensive collection offers an exhaustive elaboration of the Chan teaching of "one mind" by systematizing the doctrinal and meditative positions of the various Chan traditions of past and present. The Zongjing lu consists of three main sections: exemplifications of the source (biaozong zhang), questions and answers (wenda chang), and citations (yinzheng chang). The first section, which comprises much of the first roll, offers a general overview of the treatise, focusing on Chan's "source" in the one mind. The massive second section, corresponding to the second half of the first roll through the ninety-third roll, offers various explanations on the one mind through a question raised at the beginning of each section, followed by Yanshou's detailed response. His explanations are typically accompanied by extensive citations from various sutras and commentaries, such as the YUANJUE JING and the DAZHIDU LUN. Throughout this exhaustive survey and explanation of doctrinal matters, Yanshou underscores the importance of the one mind or one dharma as the underlying source of all external phenomena. The third and final section, which comprises the last seven rolls of the collection, validates the previous explanations through quotations of hundreds of scriptures and sayings of eminent Chan masters; its aim is to help those of inferior spiritual capacity give rise to faith. Many of these quotations are from materials that are no longer extant, thus providing an important overview of Chan during Yanshou's time. Yanshou's goal throughout this work is to present his distinctive vision of Chan as a pansectarian tradition that subsumes not only the different Chan lineages, but also such doctrinal traditions as TIANTAI, HUAYAN, and FAXIANG. Much of the source material that Yanshou compiled in the Zongjing lu may derive from GUIFENG ZONGMI's similarly massive Chanyuan ji ("Chan Collection"), only the prolegomenon to which survives (see CHANYUAN ZHUQUANJI DUXU). The collection was influential not only in China, but also in Koryo-period Korean SoN and the five mountain (GOZAN) schools of Ashikaga-period Japanese ZEN.
KEYS (10k)
2 Howard Gardner
1 Swami Satyananda Saraswati
1 Chamtrul Rinpoche
1 Aleister Crowley?
1 The Mother
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
38 Anonymous
14 Walter Isaacson
14 Paulo Coelho
9 Bren Brown
8 Henry David Thoreau
8 Dalai Lama XIV
8 Dalai Lama
7 Malala Yousafzai
7 Ed Catmull
5 Timothy J Keller
5 Sam Harris
5 Louise L Hay
5 Haruki Murakami
5 Daniel Kahneman
4 Timothy Ferriss
4 Thomas Piketty
4 Thomas Jefferson
4 Sue Klebold
4 Stephen Hawking
4 Simon Sinek
1:Never underestimate the importance of keeping your vows. Just how a castle will protect the king from being attacked by the enemy, the vows will protect your mind from being attacked by your mental afflictions. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #KEYS
2:If we were to abandon concern for what is true, what is false, and what remains indeterminate, the world would be totally chaotic. Even those who deny the importance of truth, on the one hand, are quick to jump on anyone who is caught lying. ~ Howard Gardner, #KEYS
3:To practise black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.
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I have been accused of being a 'black magician'. No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practise it. ~ Aleister Crowley?,#KEYS
4:Freud's convictions about the importance of infantile developments also colored his view of creative activity. Freud was impressed by the parallels between the child at play, the adult daydreamer, and the creative artist. As he once phrased it:
Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him?....The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously-that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion-while separating it sharply from reality. ~ Howard Gardner,#KEYS
5:37 - Some say Krishna never lived, he is a myth. They mean on earth; for if Brindavan existed nowhere, the Bhagavat (6) could not have been written. - Sri Aurobindo
Does Brindavan exist anywhere else than on earth?
The whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifested here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. This is an indispensable condition for the manifestation. And the importance of the manifestation will always depend on the origin of the thing manifested.
In the world of the gods there is an ideal and harmonious Brindavan of which the earthly Brindavan is but a deformation and a caricature.
Those who are developed inwardly, either in their senses or in their minds, perceive these realities which are invisible (to the ordinary man) and receive their inspiration from them.
So the writer or writers of the Bhagavat were certainly in contact with a whole inner world that is well and truly real and existent, where they saw and experienced everything they have described or revealed.
Whether Krishna existed or not in a human form, living on earth, is only of very secondary importance (except perhaps from an exclusively historical point of view), for Krishna is a real, living and active being; and his influence has been one of the great factors in the progress and transformation of the earth.
8 June 1960
(6 The story of Krishna, as related in the Bhagavat Purana.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.60-61),#KEYS
6:He continuously reflected on her image and attributes, day and night. His bhakti was such that he could not stop thinking of her. Eventually, he saw her everywhere and in everything. This was his path to illumination.
He was often asked by people: what is the way to the supreme? His answer was sharp and definite: bhakti yoga. He said time and time again that bhakti yoga is the best sadhana for the Kali Yuga (Dark Age) of the present.
His bhakti is illustrated by the following statement he made to a disciple:
To my divine mother I prayed only for pure love.
At her lotus feet I offered a few flowers and I prayed:
Mother! here is virtue and here is vice;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Mother! here is knowledge and here is ignorance;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Mother! here is purity and impurity;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Ramakrishna, like Kabir, was a practical man.
He said: "So long as passions are directed towards the world and its objects, they are enemies. But when they are directed towards a deity, then they become the best of friends to man, for they take him to illumination. The desire for worldly things must be changed into longing for the supreme; the anger which you feel for fellow man must be directed towards the supreme for not manifesting himself to you . . . and so on, with all other emotions. The passions cannot be eradicated, but they can be turned into new directions."
A disciple once asked him: "How can one conquer the weaknesses within us?" He answered: "When the fruit grows out of the flower, the petals drop off themselves. So when divinity in you increases, the weaknesses of human nature will vanish of their own accord." He emphasized that the aspirant should not give up his practices. "If a single dive into the sea does not bring you a pearl, do not conclude that there are no pearls in the sea. There are countless pearls hidden in the sea.
So if you fail to merge with the supreme during devotional practices, do not lose heart. Go on patiently with the practices, and in time you will invoke divine grace." It does not matter what form you care to worship. He said: "Many are the names of the supreme and infinite are the forms through which he may be approached. In whatever name and form you choose to worship him, through that he will be realized by you." He indicated the importance of surrender on the path of bhakti when he said:
~ Swami Satyananda Saraswati, A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:I have always maintained the importance of Aunts ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 2:Never forget the importance of living with unbridled exhilaration. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 3:We talk a lot about the importance of physical exercise to wake us ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 4:Teach us... ... that we may feel the importance of every day, of every hour, as it passes. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 5:The moment you understand the importance of loving yourself, you will stop hurting others. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 6:Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 7:The importance of coming into God's presence is worth overcoming all obstacles along the way. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 8:Without vitality little can be done, hence the importance of its protection and increase. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 9:The importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated. Repetition is the key to learning. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 10:When I say it doesn't make much difference, I mean in terms of the importance of the piece of literature. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 11:I am far from underestimating the importance of dividends, but I rank dividends below human character. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 12:Side effect of over-emphasizing the importance of personal security in your life is that it can cause you to live reactively. ~ steve-pavlina, @wisdomtrove 13:A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 14:When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 15:By emphasizing the importance of a common language, we safeguard a proud legacy and help to ensure that America's future will be as great as her past. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 16:Each class preaches the importance of those virtues it need not exercise. The rich harp on the value of thrift, the idle grow eloquent over the dignity of labor. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 17:Inside movement there is one moment in which the elements are in balance. Photography must seize the importance of this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it. ~ henri-cartier-bresson, @wisdomtrove 18:When we make the choice to care, we set into motion a snowball effect that touches many people, most of whom we will never know about . . . never underestimate the importance of a kind act. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 19:If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 20:Don’t ever underestimate the importance of money. I know it’s often been said that money won’t make you happy and this is undeniably true, but everything else being equal, it’s a lovely thing to have around the house. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 21:The only important thing is to follow nature. A tiger should be a good tiger; a tree, a good tree. So people should be people. But to know what people are, one must follow nature and go alone, admitting the importance of the unexpected. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 22:It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 23:I didn't really understand the importance of little things. I didn't really understand that it was the little foxes that spoil the vine. And if we're not faithful in little things, that God will never be able to make us ruler over great things. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 24:The importance of detachment from things, the importance of poverty, is that we are supposed to be free from things that we might prefer to people. Wherever things have become more important than people, we are in trouble. That is the crux of the whole matter. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 25:To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say & 26:The big corporations are suddenly taking notice of the web, and their reactions have been slow. Even the computer industry failed to see the importance of the Internet, but that's not saying much. Let's face it, the computer industry failed to see that the century would end. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 27:Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me, Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 28:I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics. Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that's what I wanted to do. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 29:I know the importance of highly trained awareness of the “moment” and the immediate and intuitive response of the photographer. It should be obvious to all that photographers whose images possess character and quality have attained them only by continued practice and total dedication to the medium. ~ amsel-adams, @wisdomtrove 30:As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind - to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of nature in its narrow terms - runs riot here (in psychoanalysis). Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 31:What we are entering is a power age, and the importance of the power age lies in its ability, rightly used with the wage motive behind it, to increase and cheapen production so that all of us may have more of this world's goods. The way to liberty, the way to equality of opportunity, the way from empty phrases to actualities, lies through power ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 32:To point out the importance of circumspection in your conduct, it may be proper to observe that a good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 33:I had come to realize the importance of the Nation, and of shared, communal, social responsibility, to be held as equally important as individual concerns. The elderly, the widowed, newly married couples, the poor, the unemployed, disbanded soldiers and children, who would be required to attend school, must be provided for from state funds. And all this support is not the nature of charity, but of a right. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 34:How is the mind which functions on knowledge how is the brain which is recording all the time to end, to see the importance of recording and not let it move in any other direction? Very simply: you insult me, you hurt me, by word, gesture, by an actual act; that leaves a mark on the brain which is memory. That memory is knowledge, that knowledge is going to interfere in my meeting you next time obviously. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 35:Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, Well, that’s not how I choose to think about water.? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn’t share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 36:I think we need to teach children the importance of others, and that they cannot grow in this world without taking in others. The more worlds they take in, these unique worlds, the more they can become. We need to teach them to trust others again, because we're all frightened to death of each other. We're building higher and higher walls, stronger and stronger locks. Tear down the walls! Every day I see how we're distrusting and it hurts. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 37:As long as we believe that we need things to make us happy, we shall also believe that in their absence we must be miserable. Mind always shapes itself according to its beliefs. Hence the importance of convincing oneself that one need not be prodded into happiness; that, on the contrary, pleasure is a distraction and a nuisance, for it merely increases the false conviction that one needs to have and do things to be happy when in reality it is just the opposite. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 38:Require nothing unreasonable of your officers and men, but see that whatever is required be punctually complied with. Reward and punish every man according to his merit, without partiality or prejudice; hear his complaints; if well founded, redress them; if otherwise, discourage them, in order to prevent frivolous ones. Discourage vice in every shape, and impress upon the mind of every man, from the first to the lowest, the importance of the cause, and what it is they are contending for. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 39:One problem with our current society is that we have an attitude towards education as if it is there to simply make you more clever, make you more ingenious. Even though our society does not emphasize this, the most important use of knowledge and education is to help us understand the importance of engaging in more wholesome actions and bringing about discipline within our minds. The proper utilization of our intelligence and knowledge is to effect changes from within to develop a good heart. ~ dalai-lama, @wisdomtrove 40:In his address of 19 September 1796, given as he prepared to leave office, President George Washington spoke about the importance of morality to the country's well-being: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. . . . Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue? ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 41:So for all that we might speak words in each other's vicinity, this could never develop into anything that could be called a conversation. It was as though we were speaking in different languages. If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one's engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 42:If Christ be a fraud, he was among the most peculiar yet brilliant of frauds in saying that only he was the way, the truth, and the life. This is the importance of grace - some people think that simply being nice and not harming others is morality; others think that following rules and tithing are morality. But without Christ, all moral beliefs ultimately boil down to the one sin which perpetually rails against the concept of grace: man's lawful, religious, and futile attempt at establishing his own righteousness. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 43:I'm still a researcher. The best way to explain it is that I trusted myself deeply as a professional, but I did not have a lot of self-trust personally. When I started learning all of these things about the value and the importance of belonging, vulnerability, connection, self-kindness and self-compassion, I trusted what I was learning - again, I know I'm a good researcher. When those things and wholeheartedness started to emerge with all these different properties, I knew I had to listen. I'd heard these messages before personally but I didn't trust myself there. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 44:Ideas have become far more important to us than action - ideas so cleverly expressed in books by the intellectuals in every field. The more cunning, the more subtle, those ideas are the more we worship them and the books that contain them. We are those books, we are those ideas, so heavily conditioned are we by them. We are forever discussing ideas and ideals and dialectically offering opinions. Every religion has its dogma, its formula, its own scaffold to reach the gods, and when inquiring into the beginning of thought we are questioning the importance of this whole edifice of ideas. We have separated ideas from action because ideas are always of the past and action is always the present - that is, living is always the present. We are afraid of living and therefore the past, as ideas, has become so important to us. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:the importance of spawning new ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
2:CHAPTER 37: The Importance of Jedi Wolverine ~ Sara King, #NFDB
3:He also knows the importance of intuition. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
4:The importance of gratitude is never forgotten. ~ Debra L Lee, #NFDB
5:I have always maintained the importance of Aunts ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
6:GOD - the importance of invisible over tangible ~ Jessie Burton, #NFDB
7:They all overvalued the importance of stability. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
8:Lesson Number One: The Importance of Being Jewish ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
9:They pondered the importance of coffee in silence. ~ Henning Mankell, #NFDB
10:Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun. ~ Randy Pausch, #NFDB
11:It is its absence which defines the importance of a thing. ~ Sarah Hall, #NFDB
12:As governor, I learned the importance of having an agenda. ~ John Engler, #NFDB
13:Do not underestimate the importance of feeling special. ~ Benjamin Carson, #NFDB
14:Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap. ~ Ira Glass, #NFDB
15:I am reminded of the importance of small kindnesses. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, #NFDB
16:The importance of music extends well beyond its performance. ~ Lewis Gordon, #NFDB
17:I cannot emphasize enough the importance of a good teacher. ~ Temple Grandin, #NFDB
18:I trusted the need for risk, the importance of honoring it. ~ Rachel Kushner, #NFDB
19:I've never been one to shortchange the importance of actors. ~ Warren Beatty, #NFDB
20:I will defend the importance of bedtime stories to my last gasp. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
21:We must acknowledge the importance of teachers to the society. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
22:American business has just forgotten the importance of selling. ~ Barry Goldwater, #NFDB
23:Never forget the importance of living with unbridled exhilaration. ~ Robin Sharma, #NFDB
24:The importance of logo into today's fashion is un! be! Lievable! ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
25:Comics definitely embody the importance of practicing free speech. ~ Ted Alexandro, #NFDB
26:We talk a lot about the importance of physical exercise to wake us ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
27:We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
28:We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
29:How valiant to deny the importance of money when it is had in abundance. ~ Astra Taylor, #NFDB
30:If only my emotions would understand the importance of excellent timing. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
31:The importance of the assistant director cannot be overemphasized. ~ John Frankenheimer, #NFDB
32:In regards to my artistry, I've learned the importance of being vulnerable. ~ Rayvon Owen, #NFDB
33:Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child. ~ Dan Quayle, #NFDB
34:He made my truth light and funny without diminishing the importance of it. ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
35:I began to learn the importance of lifting things up and looking underneath. ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB
36:It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit. ~ William James, #NFDB
37:But that was war did. It made people realize the importance of stupid things. ~ Sara Raasch, #NFDB
38:Everything popular is wrong. —OSCAR WILDE, The Importance of Being Earnest ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
39:The only incontrovertible fact of my work is the importance of life. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross, #NFDB
40:Just once in a while, let us exalt the importance of ideas and information. ~ Edward R Murrow, #NFDB
41:Like all trial attorneys, he knew the importance of not dressing too well. ~ Michael Crichton, #NFDB
42:More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies. ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB
43:Ah, Kurosaki, I see you've finally realized the importance of a cape. ~Uryu Ishida ~ Tite Kubo, #NFDB
44:The importance of information is directly proportional to its improbability. ~ Jerry Pournelle, #NFDB
45:The story fails but your faith in the importance of doing the story doesn't fail. ~ Alice Munro, #NFDB
46:demonstrating the importance of being Ernst as the marketing department put it. ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
47:Maybe I should find another doctor; one who realizes the importance of scars. ~ Rasmenia Massoud, #NFDB
48:As a father, I would try to instill the importance of asking questions, always. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
49:The soul is often in the surface, and the importance of 'depth' is overestimated. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
50:One thing I learned from his holiness the Dali Lama is the importance of humor. ~ Marina Abramovic, #NFDB
51:The Depression taught me what frugality means and the importance of not losing money. ~ Irving Kahn, #NFDB
52:The moment you understand the importance of loving yourself, you will stop hurting others. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
53:My journey to the land of the Shuar tribe had taught me the importance of practical gifts. ~ Tahir Shah, #NFDB
54:One thing the gay rights movement taught the world is the importance of being visible. ~ Charles M Blow, #NFDB
55:Teach us...... that we may feel the importance of every day, of every hour, as it passes. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
56:The biggest impact my father had on my life was teaching the importance of literacy. ~ Thomas Steinbeck, #NFDB
57:The uncertainty of life got me thinking about the importance of constants in our lives. ~ Michele Scott, #NFDB
58:No one at this time can duly estimate the importance of Mrs Marcet's scientific works. ~ Mary Somerville, #NFDB
59:The importance of a problem should not be judged by the number of pages devoted to it. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
60:It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy. On the importance of loving what you do. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
61:God has given you two ears--that should tell you something about the importance of listening. ~ Jim George, #NFDB
62:Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by foreign leaders. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu, #NFDB
63:Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down. ~ Dave Grohl, #NFDB
64:Ah, Kurosaki, I see you've finally realized the importance of a cape. ~ Tite KuboUryu Ishida ~ Tite Kubo, #NFDB
65:History is not to be whitewashed "by a screening out of the importance of suffering." ~ Johann Baptist Metz, #NFDB
66:I hope in time N. H. as well as the other States will feel the importance of Sovereignty. ~ William Whipple, #NFDB
67:I understand the importance of giving back, and that's something I definitely want to do. ~ Jacoby Ellsbury, #NFDB
68:Neither one has ever been awkward, clumsy, or hasty. They know the importance of not rushing. ~ Lydia Davis, #NFDB
69:I know the importance of education because my pens and books were taken from me by force, ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
70:The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future. ~ John Maynard Keynes, #NFDB
71:The moment you understand the importance of loving yourself, you will stop hurting others. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
72:Western business people often don't get the importance of establishing human relationships. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
73:Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us. ~ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895., #NFDB
74:The evidence points, first of all, to the importance of developing visions of the future. ~ Williamson Murray, #NFDB
75:the importance of putting your team first, ahead of your personal statistics and recognition. ~ Satya Nadella, #NFDB
76:Don't underestimate the importance of happiness. As long as you're happy, who cares what you do? ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
77:In a healthy culture, all constituencies recognize the importance of balancing competing desires— ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
78:views the importance of time differently (time = preparation; time = relationship; time = money). ~ Chris Voss, #NFDB
79:Its hard to exaggerate the importance of preserving the financial integrity of Social Security. ~ Bill Delahunt, #NFDB
80:The Sufis have said: ‘The importance of something is in inverse proportion to its attractiveness. ~ Idries Shah, #NFDB
81:I am Tessa Gray,” she said in a low, clear voice. “And I believe in the importance of stories. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
82:I hate churches, all of them. But they used to know something about the importance of silence. ~ Ferdinand Mount, #NFDB
83:I'm a vegan. I respect the environment, and I do my best to spread the importance of such an issue. ~ Jared Leto, #NFDB
84:the greatest of their teachings has been the importance of looking to the forest itself for answers. ~ Ray Mears, #NFDB
85:At Oxford he learned that the importance of human beings has been vastly over rated by specialists. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
86:The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it. ~ Mahmoud Darwish, #NFDB
87:Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
88:The importance of failure is that it reminds us that we can do better, be better, and achieve more ~ Asa Don Brown, #NFDB
89:change blindness” highlights the importance of attention: to see an object change, you must attend ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
90:In 'Packing for Mars,' I tried to convey the importance of getting young people interested in science. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
91:The first professional play I ever saw was The Importance Of Being Earnest, and I just fell in love. ~ Kim Cattrall, #NFDB
92:Well, I think that as a country, we've drifted away from appreciating the importance of imagination. ~ Terry Brooks, #NFDB
93:Dedicated to everyone who knows the importance of laughter, and counts it as their workout for the day. ~ Cassie Mae, #NFDB
94:The importance of a journey is not measured by the distance covered, but by the destination reached. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
95:So thank you for reminding me about the importance of being a good mom and a great volunteer as well. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
96:The importance of command leadership. Clear objective and strategy and loyalty to those reporting to you. ~ Peter King, #NFDB
97:The importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated. Repetition is the key to learning. ~ John Wooden, #NFDB
98:We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
99:We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
100:It's not your schedule that keeps you from praying, it's your failure to realize the importance of prayer. ~ Jim George, #NFDB
101:The effort invested in 'getting it right' should be commensurate with the importance of the decision. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
102:The importance of discretion increases with closeness to the top of a hierarchical organization. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter, #NFDB
103:The nature of the Internet and the importance of net neutrality is that innovation can come from everyone. ~ Al Franken, #NFDB
104:There should ne’er be a time
When a duty or dime
Doth outshine
The importance of family. ~ Richelle E Goodrich,#NFDB
105:When I say it doesn't make much difference, I mean in terms of the importance of the piece of literature. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
106:He spotted, for example, the importance of religion, or ‘fear of the gods’, in controlling Roman behaviour, ~ Mary Beard, #NFDB
107:Never underestimate the power of the mind, the importance of love and faith, and never stop dreaming. ~ Martin Pistorius, #NFDB
108:The importance of The Birth of a Nation in relationship to the modern Ku Klux Klan cannot be overstated ~ Ron Stallworth, #NFDB
109:Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions, ~ Joshua Fields Millburn, #NFDB
110:There’s no one in Israel who appreciates more than me the importance of American support for Israel. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu, #NFDB
111:If you want grown-ups to recycle, just tell their kids the importance of recycling, and they'll be all over it. ~ Bill Nye, #NFDB
112:I started doing regional theater. My first job was "The Importance of Being Earnest" at Dallas Theater Center. ~ Anna Camp, #NFDB
113:The importance of certain problems concerning the facts will be inherent in the structure of the system. ~ Talcott Parsons, #NFDB
114:The key is that as the importance of doing things right increases, so does the need to act deliberately. ~ L David Marquet, #NFDB
115:We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
116:Being from a minority culture, I realised the importance of looking at non-Western cultures in a positive way. ~ Ibn Warraq, #NFDB
117:Every effort to make society sensitive to the importance of the family, is a great service to humanity. ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
118:I am far from underestimating the importance of dividends, but I rank dividends below human character. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
119:If there's ever an example of the importance of making bold bets and focusing on what you love, it's Twitter. ~ Dick Costolo, #NFDB
120:I have to give credit to Giorgio Moroder ; among the first to make us realize the importance of music in film. ~ Hans Zimmer, #NFDB
121:Loralee had shown us both the importance of looking up, of seeing the beauty and the good in unexpected places ~ Karen White, #NFDB
122:One idea I taught was the importance of regaining presence and clarity of mind after making a serious error. ~ Josh Waitzkin, #NFDB
123:The importance of prayer rises in proportion to the importance of the things we should give up in order to pray ~ John Piper, #NFDB
124:The importance of this essay is that it sees economic life, not religion, as the chief form of human alienation. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
125:The most crucial use of knowledge and education is to understand the importance of developing a good heart. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
126:I have always maintained that in basketball the importance of the mental to the physical is about four to one. ~ Bobby Knight, #NFDB
127:The difficulties of living in a secular risk culture are compounded by the importance of lifestyle choices. ~ Anthony Giddens, #NFDB
128:"The most crucial use of knowledge and education is to understand the importance of developing a good heart." ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
129:We need, in other words, to know something about what we don’t get, and about the importance of not getting it. ~ Adam Phillips, #NFDB
130:Europeans know the importance of the Resistance; it has been the shining example of the modern conscience. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo, #NFDB
131:the importance of words as “the signs of our thoughts and feelings in all their minutest shades and variations. ~ Megan Marshall, #NFDB
132:Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
133:To nobody’s surprise, Professor Sprout started their lesson by lecturing them about the importance of O.W.L.s. Harry ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
134:with the perky vigor of a man who had sat through one too many free webinars about the importance of networking. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
135:Certainly, it has shown me the importance of inclusivity and acceptance (not merely tolerance) for diverse body types. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
136:Do you understand the importance of His presence and that being there will cause you to live an offensive lifestyle? ~ Beni Johnson, #NFDB
137:I cannot stress the importance of pausing to take a few deep breaths throughout the day. It's simple and effective. ~ Nikki DeLoach, #NFDB
138:I don't like to end my talk with a 700 million dollar loss, even if it shows the importance of Numerical Analysis. ~ Richard A Falk, #NFDB
139:It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
140:One should not exaggerate the importance of trifles. Life, for instance, is much too short to be taken seriously. ~ Nicolas Bentley, #NFDB
141:The importance of the river cannot be overstated in the history of the country, or the development of the nation. ~ Maurice Hinchey, #NFDB
142:As a kid, you dream of winning the Stanley Cup. As you get older, you understand the importance of winning the Olympics. ~ Joe Sakic, #NFDB
143:But pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
144:Children are most impressed with the importance of a moment when they witness a parent breaking the parents' own rule. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
145:My parents taught my sister and me the importance of giving back and making a difference in another person's life. ~ Beyonce Knowles, #NFDB
146:One can measure the importance of a scientific work by the number of earlier publications rendered superfluous by it ~ David Hilbert, #NFDB
147:Ray has learned the importance of restraint in leadership. He knows that less is more, and he never wastes an opinion. ~ Liz Wiseman, #NFDB
148:The World War demonstrated the importance of Field Artillery. The majority of casualties were inflicted by the arm. ~ John J Pershing, #NFDB
149:Spiritually we need to recognize the importance of wanting less in our lives, to the point that we want to disappear. ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
150:The importance of a high moral code, which is at the foundation of the Scout movement, cannot be stressed too highly. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
151:Leaders know the importance of having someone in their lives who will unfailingly and fearlessly tell them the truth. ~ Warren G Bennis, #NFDB
152:Men can learn a lot about the importance of nurturing and being in relation to the life force versus having power over. ~ Peter Buffett, #NFDB
153:I wish every American explored the importance of novel writing, identity, honesty, character and place in fresh-ass ways. ~ Kiese Laymon, #NFDB
154:On Dreams
Only one thing supersedes the importance of thinking about a better tomorrow. It's taking action today. ~ Vincent Lowry,#NFDB
155:I understood the importance of hiring for strength rather than for lack of weakness, and I understood the meaning of “fit. ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
156:Never underestimate the importance of the beginning. Of anything. The beginning has the seeds of everything else to come. ~ Carolyn Coman, #NFDB
157:I've learned the importance of speaking up for myself and voicing my opinions and my ideas. I'm definitely a shy person. ~ Fiona Gubelmann, #NFDB
158:Our vanity makes us exaggerate the importance of human life; the individual is nothing; Nature cares only for the species. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
159:The importance of an artist is to be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced to the language of art. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
160:Our national myths often exaggerate the role of the individual heroes and understate the importance of collective effort. ~ Robert D Putnam, #NFDB
161:I'm basically a dinosaur. I don't use e-mail. But I do recognize the importance of science and the resulting possibilities. ~ Bernard Marcus, #NFDB
162:Islamophobia, in all its guises, seeks to minimize the importance of the individual and maximize the importance of the group. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
163:All of us in the Congress are made fully aware of the importance of party unity (what sins have been committed in that name!) ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
164:Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
165:I am a firm believer in the importance of democracy, not only as the ultimate goal, but also as an essential part of the process. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
166:The moment you understand the importance of loving yourself, you will stop hurting others. ~ Thich Nhat HanhHave a peaceful start of the week!, #NFDB
167:It always disappointed me when mortals put themselves first and failed to see the big picture—the importance of putting me first ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
168:Morrie: And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?
Mitch: Yes?
Morrie: Your belief in the importance of your marriage. ~ Morrie Schwartz,#NFDB
169:We are not apt to think of the importance of events as they transpire with us, but we feel the importance of them afterwards. ~ Wilford Woodruff, #NFDB
170:Aeschylus first introduced a second actor; he diminished the importance of the Chorus, and assigned the leading part to the dialogue. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
171:Easter is all about remembering the importance of change, responsibility, and doing the right thing for the good of our children. ~ David Cameron, #NFDB
172:I also like to get out there to promote a positive message about the importance of family and faith and of doing the right thing. ~ Mark Wahlberg, #NFDB
173:My grandmother was an English teacher for a while. And she stressed to me the importance of reading, being able to articulate well. ~ Kevin Gates, #NFDB
174:The importance of recovering the customs and the institutions of the past thus inaugurating the archaeological approach to art. ~ Raja Ravi Varma, #NFDB
175:The importance of the "New Mathematics" lies mainly in the fact that it has taught us the difference between the disc and the circle. ~ Rene Thom, #NFDB
176:A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence. ~ W Somerset Maugham, #NFDB
177:I don't think you fully appreciate the importance of Illusion in life, the Essential Nature of Lies and Deception of the body politic. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
178:The importance of balance is huge but I think it is for everybody. It's a big issue for at least anyone that I talk to in any career. ~ Emma Stone, #NFDB
179:In any decision situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision. ~ Paul Dickson, #NFDB
180:I try to impress upon my students the importance of looking, listening... paying attention, in other words. You must pay attention. ~ Nikki Giovanni, #NFDB
181:People of deserts cannot know the importance of forests; to know this, one must first have sweet memories spent in the forests! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
182:His life before the triumph that defined his legacy was a reminder of the importance of patience, courage, and the absence of self-pity. ~ Tom Brokaw, #NFDB
183:The importance of 'Dream School' is monumental. Helping to inspire these students to reach their potential is personally gratifying. ~ Curtis Jackson, #NFDB
184:What I love about Monk’s list is his basic message about the importance of awareness, collaboration, and having clearly defined roles, ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
185:A child should learn from early on what kind of activity supported his daily life, and he should appreciate the importance of labor. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
186:I believe that I am very lucky to have close friends who are faithful. From my friends, I have learned the importance of perseverance. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
187:I can't overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
188:I remember someone saying that the importance of any public man can be gauged by the number of mellifluous young men he has about him. ~ Doris Lessing, #NFDB
189:There would have been no Beats deal without the Samsung deal. It showed the number one company the importance of connecting with culture. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
190:I think we Americans, of all people, understand the importance of a good, legal, constitutional framework as the basis of political life. ~ Paul Bremer, #NFDB
191:When the ancients said a work well begun was half done, they meant to impress the importance of always endeavoring to make a good beginning. ~ Polybius, #NFDB
192:The essential element in personal magnetism is a consuming sincerity - an overwhelming faith in the importance of the work one has to do. ~ Bruce Barton, #NFDB
193:Dictators understand the importance of symbols all too well. But in their case, the symbols are usually of them and not of a larger belief. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
194:Medina stated in 1954 that 'it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of investment banking to the national econ- omy.'2 This remark ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
195:My unanticipated success as a sportscaster is a perfect example of the importance of saying yes to yourself, even when you are uncertain. ~ Phyllis George, #NFDB
196:I believe profoundly in the importance of museums; I would go as far as to say that you can judge a society by the quality of its museums. ~ Richard Fortey, #NFDB
197:I learned the importance of being nonjudgmental, taking what happens and trying to make it work.That's something you should apply to life. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
198:You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
199:As a sufferer of depression for many years, I know the importance of trying to find positive experiences in each day, no matter how small. ~ Sharon E Rainey, #NFDB
200:As for what's the most challenging aspect of teaching, it's convincing younger writers of the importance of reading widely and passionately. ~ Chang Rae Lee, #NFDB
201:Being a black artist, the first thing people want to talk about is your blackness, the importance of your blackness and your black presence. ~ Toyin Odutola, #NFDB
202:It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis. ~ James Clear, #NFDB
203:I understood the importance of words. How they had the power to hurt individuals, yet they also had the power to heal if used correctly. ~ Brittainy C Cherry, #NFDB
204:Never underestimate the importance of what a woman says in bed. It's one of the few places they will tell you exactly what they are thinking. ~ Karen Hawkins, #NFDB
205:The singular demand for production has been unable to acknowledge the importance of the sources of production in nature and in human culture. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
206:It's hard to appreciate the importance of the rainforest because it seems so far away, but it's vital to the survival of the planet as we know it. ~ Lily Cole, #NFDB
207:Now, as an adult, I appreciate those memories. Mom taught me the importance of compassion for your waitress, your crossing guard, your mailman. ~ Cate Edwards, #NFDB
208:You cannot compare your athletic achievement to the importance of children and giving them a safe environment in which to grow up and enjoy life. ~ Steffi Graf, #NFDB
209:A guy named Charlie Beacham was my first mentor at Ford. He taught me the importance of the dealers, and he rubbed my nose in the retail business. ~ Lee Iacocca, #NFDB
210:I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maintaining a properly functioning justice system. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
211:My makeup artist, Tonya Brewer, taught me the importance of moisturizing daily. Hydration is a must if you want pretty, dewy skin - which I love. ~ Bella Thorne, #NFDB
212:When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
213:As we each began our journey, we learned the importance of connecting, of laughing with one another (not at one another), of sharing our lives. ~ Sharon E Rainey, #NFDB
214:Teach us almighty father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
215:Failure here is usually associated with underestimating the difficulties in producing change and thus the importance of a strong guiding coalition. ~ John P Kotter, #NFDB
216:My mother ingrained in me the importance of encouraging and inspiring those who appear on my path. "Leave them better for having met you", she taught. ~ Kevin Hall, #NFDB
217:Thanks to the greatly improved possibility of communication, we overrate its importance. Even stronger, we underrate the importance of isolation. ~ Edsger Dijkstra, #NFDB
218:The importance of an individual thinker owes something to chance. For it depends upon the fate of his ideas in the minds of his successors. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
219:The importance of the Bible to a church is to keep the church on track. The role of the Constitution in government is to keep the government on track. ~ Ted Haggard, #NFDB
220:Those engaged in directing the actions of others are always in danger of overlooking the importance of the sequential development of those they direct. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
221:We are human beings, and this is the part of our human nature, that we don't learn the importance of anything until it's snatched from our hands. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
222:We cannot possibly overstate the importance of the Christian Church for its role in preserving, defending, and, ultimately, re-civilizing Europe. ~ Robert Greenberg, #NFDB
223:We hadn't spoken since the day he nearly shoved me off the roof, but we both understood the importance of maintaining the illusion of having friends. ~ Ransom Riggs, #NFDB
224:Although I do not have a family, I have eyes, ears and imagination, and know, as most people know, that the importance of one's children is paramount. ~ Lara St John, #NFDB
225:By emphasizing the importance of a common language, we safeguard a proud legacy and help to ensure that America's future will be as great as her past. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
226:Encourage reflective backtalk: Leaders know the importance of having someone in their lives who will unfailingly and fearlessly tell them the truth. ~ Warren G Bennis, #NFDB
227:Skill in the digital age is confused with mastery of digital tools, masking the importance of understanding materials and mastering the elements of form. ~ John Maeda, #NFDB
228:Such religion as there can be in modern life, every individual will have to salvage from the churches for himself. ~ Lin Yutang The Importance of Living (1937) p. 397, #NFDB
229:When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
230:I can never bring you to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
231:I can never bring you to realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
232:I can't stress the importance of working hard enough, work on all aspects of your game. If you does that and you have the ability, you'll come through. ~ Frank Lampard, #NFDB
233:The budget acknowledges the importance of maintaining our ports and waterways to encourage commercial deep-draft navigation and economic competitiveness. ~ Jeff Landry, #NFDB
234:The Ethical Society, therefore, is like a Church in maintaining, and emphasizing the importance of maintaining the custom of public assemblies on Sunday. ~ Felix Adler, #NFDB
235:The importance of a story doesn't merely lie in the development of its plot and the characters involved in it, but in its exploration of the consciousness ... ~ Gulzar, #NFDB
236:Remember the importance of small actions. They're the building blocks in the architecture of your life, the quiet victories you win for yourself each day. ~ Diane Dreher, #NFDB
237:Still, I had a hunch about it, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my long and stupid career as a man, it’s the importance of listening to my hunches. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
238:To understand fully the importance of music, you must try to image a world without music! Such a world would be a world of hopelessness and boredom! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
239:Good to see a youngster who appreciates the importance of being......Well Armed. But...That's not how we play TAG......Where I come from. ~Train Heartnet ~ Kentaro Yabuki, #NFDB
240:In my recent travels into African countries and others, I was impressed by the importance of having a working unity among all peoples, black as well as white. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
241:I was raised on the values of speaking up and making a positive difference in a very political family that believed in the importance of public service. ~ Scott McClellan, #NFDB
242:My people are at the core of everything I do, and I recognize the importance of giving them the flexibility to balance work around their personal lives. ~ Richard Branson, #NFDB
243:Naturally there should be a few lessons I should learn. The courage not to fear a change in one’s lifestyle, the importance of having time on your side. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
244:The importance of colour is as nothing compared with that of form, chiaroscuro and arrangement. They are the true and enduring bases of pictorial art. ~ Walter J Phillips, #NFDB
245:To understand fully the importance of music, you must try to imagine a world without music! Such a world would be a world of hopelessness and boredom! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
246:we can begin to build up noble principles and teach the importance of choosing, long before children are required to deal with serious decisions themselves. ~ Anne E White, #NFDB
247:If all you did to improve your commercial presence was to train your sales people on the importance of influencers ... how much more effective could they be? ~ Sandy Carter, #NFDB
248:IT professionals have a responsibility to understand the use of standards and the importance of making Web applications that work with any kind of device. ~ Tim Berners Lee, #NFDB
249:We can also reassure our Palestinian partners that we understand the importance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state ... ~ Ariel Sharon, #NFDB
250:Our founders were committed to a belief in the importance of life and liberty, and we must fight to see those rights extended to our children still in the womb. ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB
251:Their mother had always stressed the importance of taking care of yourself first, your family second and everyone else not at all..
darkest surrender ~ Gena Showalter,#NFDB
252:It is difficult to overstate the importance of rice in North Korean culture. It signifies wealth, evokes the closeness of family and sanctifies a proper meal. ~ Blaine Harden, #NFDB
253:It is not the importance of the thing, but the majesty of the Lawgiver, that is to be the standard of obedience. ~ Jerry BridgesAndrew Bonar~ Jerry Bridges ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
254:I would not minimize the digital divide, which separates the computerized world from the rest, nor would I underestimate the importance of traditional books. ~ Robert Darnton, #NFDB
255:The cramped harsh world he portrays is a paradoxically eloquent assertion of the importance of what is so strikingly absent from it: small acts of kindness. ~ Robert Chandler, #NFDB
256:Although it is the biggest time-waster in office life, you must never underrate the importance of the memo. You will be judged by the volume of your paper work. ~ Jilly Cooper, #NFDB
257:Each class preaches the importance of those virtues it need not exercise. The rich harp on the value of thrift, the idle grow eloquent over the dignity of labor. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
258:It wasn’t until after you had a major regret that you understood the importance of not putting things off or being scared to do something about your problems. ~ Mariana Zapata, #NFDB
259:KISS hammered home the importance of high drama...I decided to design my show with the same goal; I wanted my fans to remember my show for the rest of their lives. ~ Rick James, #NFDB
260:Manifold subsequent experience has led to a truer appreciation and a more moderate estimate of the importance of the dependence of one living being upon another. ~ Richard Owen, #NFDB
261:Some major churches overemphasize the importance of preaching as a means to increase membership and fail to reach out with compassion to their neighbors in need. ~ Jimmy Carter, #NFDB
262:The importance of Man, which is the one indispensable dogma of the theologians, receives no support from a scientific view of the future of the solar system. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
263:We wanted to highlight the importance of exposing children to the arts, showing that it’s not a luxury but a necessity to their overall educational experience. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
264:Pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our own species. ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
265:What is necessary is to teach each class and profession the importance of the others. All together form one mighty body; labourer, peasant, and professional man. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
266:When kids are really little, they all look the same. No speech, no social relatedness, cannot emphasize enough the importance of early educational intervention. ~ Temple Grandin, #NFDB
267:Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon - and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war. ~ B H Liddell Hart, #NFDB
268:I came into politics because of a real childhood concern about the Cold War. So to me the importance of the nuclear deterrent is actually really ingrained in me. ~ Andrea Leadsom, #NFDB
269:If I could offer but one helpful hint to young Hoosiers hoping to better their odds for success in life, I would simply note the importance of thoughtful reading. ~ Richard Lugar, #NFDB
270:I think the house call is one of the ways I get an insight into the ways in which people live and the importance of environment in keeping people healthy. ~ Risa J Lavizzo Mourey, #NFDB
271:Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee," Wallander said. "No work would be possible without coffee." They pondered the importance of coffee in silence. ~ Henning Mankell, #NFDB
272:The people cannot be all, and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
273:We didn't know the importance of home computers before the Internet. We had them mostly for fun, then the Internet came along and was enabled by all the PCs out there. ~ Burt Rutan, #NFDB
274:I learned some valuable lessons about the legislative process, the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
275:In the attempt to make scientific discoveries, every problem is an opportunity — and the more difficult the problem, the greater will be the importance of its solution. ~ E O Wilson, #NFDB
276:One cannot understate the importance of eliminating Bin Laden. He was a symbolic head of the organisation and, as we now know, an operational head of the organisation. ~ Eric Holder, #NFDB
277:We must never underestimate the value of libraries, or the urgency of the need to protect them, in a world that often appears to forget the importance of stories. ~ Samantha Shannon, #NFDB
278:A lot of political people, especially people on the left, have forgotten the importance of humor as an incredible weapon, and a vehicle through which to affect change. ~ Michael Moore, #NFDB
279:Then they could discuss the possibilities of social inequity, the way your socks always fall down when you're wearing rubber boots, and the importance of being earnest. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
280:And that is why marriage and family law has emphasized the importance of marriage as the foundation of family, addressing the needs of children in the most positive way. ~ John Boehner, #NFDB
281:I'm thrilled to be joining Gap Inc., a company that understands the importance of integrating technology and retail in ways that improve the lives of its customers. ~ Padmasree Warrior, #NFDB
282:I think that we are starting to get much more conscious about, you know, the importance of the spiritual path, and we are fulfilling it by paying attention to ourselves. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
283:It is strange, is it not, how the more strenuously we deny the importance of race in human affairs, the more obsessed with it and the touchier on the subject we grow. ~ Anthony Daniels, #NFDB
284:Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee," Wallander said.
"No work would be possible without coffee."
They pondered the importance of coffee in silence. ~ Henning Mankell,#NFDB
285:From my father, I learned the importance of working sincerely at things to which I had committed myself, and to persevere untiringly even in the face of little progress. ~ Koichi Tanaka, #NFDB
286:In pointing out the importance of isolation in the treatment of hysterical anorexia, M. Charcot showed that the psychical element plays, in this disease, a predominant part. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
287:I'm big on the importance of science, particularly right now at this point in time when there's sort of a systematic rejection of science by a lot of people in America. ~ Seth MacFarlane, #NFDB
288:Peace is better than war. There’s too much glorification of war and not enough glorification of peace, and especially not enough glorification of the importance of the doves. ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
289:But, yes, I learned everything working in theater. I learned the importance of community - I was constantly going to play readings, stand-up nights, improv. nights. ~ Elizabeth Meriwether, #NFDB
290:I believed in newspapers’ mission, the importance of their role as a watchdog, holding the powerful accountable, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. ~ Jennifer Weiner, #NFDB
291:I was raised in a spirit of the importance of service to your fellow man. My mom is a senator back home in South Africa. My father is a very caring and generous individual. ~ Adhir Kalyan, #NFDB
292:Don't listen to other people's advice unless it is rooted in irrepressible enthusiasm (e.g., "Be afraid but do it anyway"), or about the importance of being a good colleague. ~ Torill Kove, #NFDB
293:Less attention is given to the importance of what might be called style. However, changes in work style can have as big an impact on scientific progress as conventional genius. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
294:The importance of selecting music and sequencing songs - making one song merge into another song. In retrospect, those are the most important lessons I got from DJs. ~ Hans Peter Lindstrom, #NFDB
295:The realistic way to reduce the amount of money in politics is to reduce the amount of politics in money -- the importance of government in allocating wealth and opportunity. ~ George Will, #NFDB
296:To succeed, you will soon learn, as I did, the importance of a solid foundation in the basics of education - literacy, both verbal and numerical, and communication skills. ~ Alan Greenspan, #NFDB
297:Perhaps the single most important point for parents to follow is the importance of giving goals to a child. And the most important goal is that of growing up to be an adult. ~ L Ron Hubbard, #NFDB
298:The American people don't need to just hear about the importance of the Constitution or the Bible. They have to understand that those principles are in their best interests. ~ James Robison, #NFDB
299:G. K. Chesterton compared fantastic fiction to going on holiday—that the importance of your holiday is the moment you return, and you see the place you live through fresh eyes. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
300:How do you explain to an innocent citizen of the free world the importance of a credit default swap on a double-A tranche of a subprime-backed collateralized debt obligation? ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
301:When it is remembered that the greater portion of prana acquired by man comes to him from the air inhaled, the importance of proper breathing is readily understood. ~ William Walker Atkinson, #NFDB
302:Commenting on the importance of Maxwell's equations, Einstein wrote that they are "the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton. ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
303:Inside movement there is one moment in which the elements are in balance. Photography must seize the importance of this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it. ~ Henri Cartier Bresson, #NFDB
304:Meaning drives us from despair to wonder, from confusion to clarity, from hesitance to confidence. And the only place to find meaning is in the importance of small things. ~ Christina Baldwin, #NFDB
305:My childhood was safe and sane. No abuse and no traumas. I was surrounded by a large and loving family who taught me the importance of hard work and a meaningful education. ~ Ronnie James Dio, #NFDB
306:the opening of the Suez Canal shortened the distance from Europe to India, undermining the importance of Muscat and other Omani harbors as Indian Ocean transshipment points. ~ Robert D Kaplan, #NFDB
307:We agree [with the President of Mexico] on the importance of ending the illegal flow of drugs, cash, guns, and people across our border, and to put the cartels out of business. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
308:learn. The courage not to fear a change in one’s lifestyle, the importance of having time on your side. And above all, discovering your own uniquely creative style and themes. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
309:Peace of mind is another way of saying that you've learned how to love, that you have come to appreciate the importance of giving love in order to be worthy of receiving it. ~ Hubert H Humphrey, #NFDB
310:Recent data and research supports the importance of natural climate variability and calls into question the conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate change. ~ Judith Curry, #NFDB
311:The best agencies understood the importance of routines. The worst agencies were headed by people who never thought about it, and then wondered why no one followed their orders. ~ Charles Duhigg, #NFDB
312:The importance of writing in the breakdown of the bicameral voices is tremendously important. What had to be spoken is now silent and carved upon a stone to be taken in visually. ~ Julian Jaynes, #NFDB
313:Justice insists on the importance of Adolf Eichmann... On trial are his deeds, not the sufferings of the Jews, not the German people or mankind, not even anti-Semitism and racism. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
314:For me, the importance of photography is that you can point to something, that you can let other people see things. Ultimately, it is a matter of the specialness of the ordinary. ~ Rineke Dijkstra, #NFDB
315:President Bush is often out there talking about the importance of staying the course, and about the sacrifice, but he has not attended a funeral of a soldier who has fallen in Iraq. ~ Dana Milbank, #NFDB
316:The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what we do; and yet how much is not done by us! ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
317:Diversity of character is due to the unequal time given to values. Only through each other will we see the importance of the qualities we lack and our unfinished soul's potential. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
318:Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
319:I feel it's my duty as a human being, as a person who is trying - like everybody else who thinks about the state of the world - to enhance the importance of multicultural connection. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
320:Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey... ~ Lin Yutang The Importance of Living (1937) p. 36, #NFDB
321:In the past days, she’d come to understand the importance of upheaval. The tallest mountains were created by violence and chaos; like them, a woman’s independence was born of fire. ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
322:How are we affected by an absence of love? Why should being ignored drive us to a "rage and impotent despair" beside which torture itself would be a relief?- The Importance of Love ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
323:my mother would have the same conversation with me every time I came home from a date, about the importance of not falling in love until I’m at an age where I genuinely know myself. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
324:Our new strategic plan emphasizes the importance of providing access to records anytime, anywhere. This is one of many initiatives that we are launching to make our goal a reality. ~ Allen Weinstein, #NFDB
325:Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement ~ John Hancock, #NFDB
326:The Government’s repeated response, however, even after October 1938, was to continue to attack his motives and judgement, and to seek to minimize the importance of his information. ~ Martin Gilbert, #NFDB
327:intergenerational warfare has not replaced class warfare. The very high concentration of capital is explained mainly by the importance of inherited wealth and its cumulative effects: ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
328:I was raised by somebody with the perception of trying to allow me the space and show me the importance of knowing who I was and figuring out who I was and appreciating who I was. ~ Patricia Arquette, #NFDB
329:Leaving a place, a person or a country silently and without any notice is a heroic and a noble way of teaching the importance of your presence to those who ignore your existence! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
330:particularly the importance of setting clear goals for an organization, delegating tasks, and holding people to account. I also gained the confidence to pursue my entrepreneurial urge. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
331:The mere fact of an American being present could help save the lives of innocent people. That's why I believe in the importance of bearing witness, to become a voice for the voiceless. ~ Bianca Jagger, #NFDB
332:Sexism has always been a political stance mediating social domination, enabling white men and black men to share a common sensibility about sex roles and the importance of male domination. ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
333:Shame is real pain. The importance of social acceptance and connection is reinforced by our brain chemistry, and the pain that results from social rejection and disconnection is real pain. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
334:The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
335:Donald Trump has done more for getting people to understand the importance of public policy that respond to public needs in an affirmative way than anything we could have done on our own. ~ Barney Frank, #NFDB
336:This, it seems to me, is the lesson of the Bible: this affirmation of the importance of reflection, and of revision, enough revision to do away with the tired, old, even faulty laws. ~ Chinelo Okparanta, #NFDB
337:Democrats with a good understanding of the need for strong energy policy in our country, especially in these difficult economic times, recognized the importance of the Keystone XL pipeline. ~ John Hoeven, #NFDB
338:The author emphasizes the importance of self-forgetfulness when his statistics were marred by a bad outing. He forgot all of that outing to such an extent that he quipped, "What was my name? ~ Jim Bouton, #NFDB
339:The importance of nature. The feeding it gives the soul. The sense it gives of a whole world out there reminding you that you are but a speck, so pop your worries back into the futile box. ~ Miranda Hart, #NFDB
340:I always try to keep a positive perspective on what's valuable and the importance of restricting that immediate gratification and, most importantly, that who you are isn't the stuff you have. ~ Demi Moore, #NFDB
341:I felt it was vital to stress the importance of national security in this debate and the need for a clear path to our exit from the European Union. I hope I have achieved both these objectives. ~ Liam Fox, #NFDB
342:The most fundamental reason that even businesspeople underestimate the importance of sales is the systematic effort to hide it at every level of every field in a world secretly driven by it. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
343:The doctrine of the importance of hoards for stabilizing the objective exchange-value of money has gradually lost its adherents with the passing of time. Nowadays its supporters are few. ~ Ludwig von Mises, #NFDB
344:We cannot overlook the importance of wild country as source of inspiration, to which we give expression in writing, in poetry, drawing and painting, in mountaineering, or in just being there. ~ Olaus Murie, #NFDB
345:Experience taught me that working families are often just one pay check away from economic disaster. And it showed me first-hand the importance of every family having access to good health care. ~ Dave Obey, #NFDB
346:feminism wasn't a bad word; it was a vital pursuit and would be until girls were raised to believe in themselves and the importance of their contribution to the world the same way boys were ~ Karen Kilgariff, #NFDB
347:Get Inspired: I’m continually inspired by Stuart Brown’s work on play and Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind.4 If you want to learn more about the importance of play and rest, read these books. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
348:if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
349:None of us got to where we are alone. Whether the assistance we received was obvious or subtle, acknowledging someone's help is a big part of understanding the importance of saying thank you. ~ Harvey Mackay, #NFDB
350:What do takumis (artisans), engineers, inventors, and otakus (fans of anime and manga) have in common? They all understand the importance of flowing with their ikigai at all times. ~ Hector Garcia Puigcerver, #NFDB
351:Anyone who minimizes the importance of success to your future has given up on his or her own chances of accomplishment and is spending his or her life trying to convince others to do the same. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
352:I think that science fiction has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
353:The battlefields of World War I established the importance of petroleum as an element of national power when the internal combustion machine overtook the horse and the coal-powered locomotive. ~ Daniel Yergin, #NFDB
354:What's the importance of a photograph if you know the writer's work? But people still want the image, don't they? The writer's face is the surface of the work. It's a clue to the mystery inside. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
355:The gift that has been given to me says much about our capacity for great compassion and generosity, and I hope it sends an inspiring message to others about the importance of organ donation. ~ Steven Cojocaru, #NFDB
356:We discussed politics, but we also talked about the importance of hard work, personal responsibility, living within your means, keeping your word. Those lessons stay with you throughout your life. ~ Bob Ehrlich, #NFDB
357:What is magic? There is the wizard's explanation... wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
358:Mitt Romney understands the importance of Alaska as a leader in our country's energy production and I look forward to working with him on such an important economic and national security matter. ~ Lisa Murkowski, #NFDB
359:Other things being equal, strong demographic growth tends to play an equalizing role because it decreases the importance of inherited wealth: every generation must in some sense construct itself. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
360:There are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage... Your values must be alike. And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?"
Yes?
"Your belief in the importance of your marriage. ~ Mitch Albom,#NFDB
361:There's still a place for marching for instance with the Black Lives Matter movement, we've seen the importance of causing a scene, being on the streets and making your demands and your voice heard. ~ Aldis Hodge, #NFDB
362:What is magic?
There is the wizard's explanation... wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
363:Ive learned a tremendous amount over the years by watching designers work. I now have a good understanding of what sits well on the body, not to mention the importance of a great cut and quality. ~ Claudia Schiffer, #NFDB
364:I want to be clear. No company is too big to be prosecuted. We have zero tolerance for corporate fraud, but we also recognize the importance of avoiding collateral consequences whenever possible. ~ Alberto Gonzales, #NFDB
365:The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions. ~ Michael Tilson Thomas, #NFDB
366:Double Charms was succeeded by double Transfiguration. Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall both spent the first fifteen minutes of their lessons lecturing the class on the importance of O.W.L.s. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
367:The key to any successful plan is buy-in from the public, and what this process has demonstrated is the importance of including citizens in formulating a consensus plan that preserves our beautiful refuge. ~ Ron Kind, #NFDB
368:We needed someone to recognize the importance of check and balances, accountability, transparency. There was a real systemic problem at South Carolina State, a problem that has gone on for 25 or 30 years ~ Gwen Ifill, #NFDB
369:We teach our kids the importance of good dental care, proper nutrition, and financial responsibility. How many of us teach our children to monitor their own brain health, or know how to do it ourselves? ~ Sue Klebold, #NFDB
370:I've just always been a reader. My grandmother just expressed the importance of literacy, if I said that correctly. She just always expressed the importance of being able to write and being able to read. ~ Kevin Gates, #NFDB
371:She suffered a tragedy, but she went on. It was the end of something but the beginning of something else." "Maybe." Her grandmother always talked about the importance of looking forward and not back. ~ Barbara Freethy, #NFDB
372:The future doesn't have to mimic the worst parts of the present. There are new ways of sharing information, and as long as they don't give up on the importance of politics, the future is certainly open. ~ Henry Giroux, #NFDB
373:To the determined, failure is nothing but a temporary setback, which teaches you the importance of not succumbing to stupidity and letting your pride get the better of you en route to your target. ~ Anuja Chandramouli, #NFDB
374:Every artist I suppose has a sense of what they think has been the importance of their work. But to ask them to define it is not really a fair question. My real answer would be, the answer is on the wall. ~ Paul Strand, #NFDB
375:From the earliest days, the Rothschilds appreciated the importance of proximity to politicians, the men who determined not only the extent of budget deficits but also the domestic and foreign policies. ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
376:I know a lot of actors talk about the importance of wardrobe, and it always seems like it's kind of a cop-out, maybe, because it seems like a minor detail to some people. But I think it's hugely important. ~ Anna Faris, #NFDB
377:I realized the importance of archiving. So I save key pieces from my collections, as well as any red-carpet things that become iconic. I always ask for that stuff back. I'm like, "It's going in my archives." ~ Jason Wu, #NFDB
378:The only way we can guarantee our continued survival on earth is to recognise the importance of other non human life forms and stop pretending we're on top of some pyramid of domination over other beings. ~ Rod Coronado, #NFDB
379:When the motives of artists are profound, when they are at their work as a result of deep consideration, when they believe in the importance of what they are doing, their work creates a stir in the world. ~ Robert Henri, #NFDB
380:As we [with Edward Herman] discuss there [in Manufacturing Consent] and elsewhere, recognition of the importance of "manufacturing consent" has become an ever more central theme in the more free societies. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
381:But in reality the brain is about circuits, about the patterns of functional connectivity among regions. The growing myelination of the adolescent brain shows the importance of increased connectivity. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
382:Plato long ago pointed out the importance of being governed by men with sufficient sense of responsibility and comprehension of public duties to be very reluctant to undertake the work of governing. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
383:to the Future: If Michael J. Fox doesn’t get his parents together by the prom, he might not ever be BORN!!!!!!!!! Proving the importance of the prom from both a societal as well as a BIOLOGICAL point of view! ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
384:Have we unwittingly exaggerated the importance of individuals succeeding within pre-existing structures of power, and thereby undermined King’s call for a “complete restructuring” of our society? Have ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
385:In making the assumption that human language = Merge, researchers arguably overestimate the importance of syntax, which plays only a minor role in human language as a means to organise information flow. ~ Daniel L Everett, #NFDB
386:More broadly across time and cultures, it seems, one perennial piece of advice to father has been the importance of acting tenderly toward their children. The New Father, it turns out, is an old story. ~ David Blankenhorn, #NFDB
387:She was too exhausted and downcast to take in the importance of the news- just as a person who has shed so many tears at the bedside of someone who is dying has none left for the actual moment of death. ~ Ir ne N mirovsky, #NFDB
388:When you listen to G. T. Stoop, you understand the importance of being a honorable person, you get charged to fight for the truth, you get angry that so many politicians are playing games with people's trust. ~ Joan Bauer, #NFDB
389:The underlying issues, the psychological motives, in all my movies have been the same, he said. Personal responsibility and friendship, the importance of a compassionate life as opposed to a passionate life. ~ George Lucas, #NFDB
390:To believe in God, faith and the importance of religious practice does not involve an abdication of the intellect, a silencing of critical faculties, or believing in six impossible things before breakfast. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
391:Canadian University of Dubai (CUD) professor Dr. Rami El Khatib, a recognized expert in the field presented an awareness-raising session, which included a talk on the environment and the importance of recycling. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
392:I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
393:I was learning the importance of names - having them, making them - but at the same time I sensed the dangers. Recognition was followed by oblivion, a yawning maw whose victims disappeared without a trace. ~ Josephine Baker, #NFDB
394:The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted...Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
395:This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy. ~ Henry A Wallace, #NFDB
396:We are a testament to the importance of early detection and new treatments. I encourage all women everywhere to advocate for themselves and for their future. See your doctor and be proactive about your health. ~ Sheryl Crow, #NFDB
397:We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
398:Influenced by him, and probably even more so by my brother Theodore a year older than me, I soon became interested in biology and developed a respect for the importance of science and the scientific method. ~ Frederick Sanger, #NFDB
399:One has to bring the multidimensional impact that schooling makes in the lives of people. There's nothing like it, and I think the importance of it has to be shaken into people's understanding and determination. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
400:I smiled back, the importance of manners, my mother always said, is inversely related to how inclined one is to use them, or, in other words, sometimes politeness is all that stands between oneself and madness. ~ Nicole Krauss, #NFDB
401:He must be independent and brave, and sure of himself and of the importance of his work, because if he isn't he will never survive the scorching blasts of derision that will probably greet his first efforts. ~ Robert E Sherwood, #NFDB
402:If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
403:Maddox knew the importance of appearing confident. Never let them see you sweat. That intimidated opponents and bolstered allies. Right about now, his crew needed all the encouragement they could get. Lieutenant ~ Vaughn Heppner, #NFDB
404:I think the media projected the case of Asia Bibi in a right way. They have given the importance of this case and especially how the blasphemy law is being misused for the victimization [of religious minorities]. ~ Shahbaz Bhatti, #NFDB
405:the greater the gender equity of a country, the smaller the gender gap in the importance of the financial resources of a partner (as well as in the importance of other preferences, like chastity and good looks).36 ~ Cordelia Fine, #NFDB
406:The importance of reading, for me, is that it allows you to dream.
Reading not only educates, but is relaxing and allows you to feed your imagination - creating beautiful pictures from carefully chosen words. ~ Eric Ripert,#NFDB
407:The sides of the mountain sustain life, not the peak. This is where things grow, experience is gained, and technologies are mastered. The importance of the peak lies only in the fact that it defines the sides. ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
408:Do not be influenced by the importance of the writer, and whether his learning be great or small, but let the love of pure truth draw you to read. Do not inquire, Who said this? but pay attention to what is said. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
409:If you have a great deal of knowledge, but you're governed by negative emotions, then you tend to use your knowledge in negative ways. Therefore, while you are learning, don't forget the importance of warmheartedness. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
410:I have never found a book that stressed the importance of myself as a caretaker of my ability, of staying healthy mentally and physically, or that gave me an inkling that my courage might be strained to the utmost. ~ Andrew Loomis, #NFDB
411:We have no reason to expect the quality of intuition to improve with the importance of the problem. Perhaps the contrary: high-stake problems are likely to involve powerful emotions and strong impulses to action. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
412:Apparently there is redundancy in memory: You store the same memory in different parts of your brain for accessing at different speeds. That speed would depend on the frequency of use and the importance of the knowledge. ~ Bill Nye, #NFDB
413:From the church I received a spiritual foundation that has kept me balanced. From the gospel music I learned the importance of singing with emotion- authentic emotion- not contrived- which has made my music endearing. ~ Oleta Adams, #NFDB
414:The Emperor decided to make a proclamation to his troops about the importance of compassion in the face of the rising tide of heinous fuckery and political weaselocity in the nearby kingdom of the United States. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
415:The Emperor decided to make a proclamation to the troops about the importance of compassion in the face of the rising tide of heinous fuckery and political weaselocity in the nearby kingdom of the United States. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
416:Don’t ever underestimate the importance of money. I know it’s often been said that money won’t make you happy and this is undeniably true, but everything else being equal, it’s a lovely thing to have around the house. ~ Groucho Marx, #NFDB
417:Drummers haven't managed to develop their individuality quite as well as guitarists have. We can be so focused on the nuts and bolts that we overlook the importance of individuality - the broader picture, if you will. ~ Bill Bruford, #NFDB
418:I always try and tell dudes that are younger than me is that because of the Internet everyone can just be by themselves doing something, but the importance of a group is being able to have some sort of competition. ~ Earl Sweatshirt, #NFDB
419:My parents always stressed the importance of education, working hard in school and learning as much as possible. They also encouraged me to value myself and believe in myself and do what I thought was right for me. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
420:The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments. ~ Bob Woodward, #NFDB
421:Executives will talk about the importance of passion, but what they really mean is finding somebody who will work nights and weekends on their assigned task but predictably and reliably follow orders and just work harder. ~ John Hagel, #NFDB
422:Another way of indicating the importance of immigration to America is to point out that every American who ever lived, with the exception of one group, was either an immigrant himself or a descendant of immigrants. The ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
423:We had to learn that we're beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active ~ Assata Shakur, #NFDB
424:As a child I experienced firsthand the severe effects of poverty and illiteracy, especially upon women and children. My parents taught me the importance of education and that it was a key to improving an individual's life. ~ Naveen Jain, #NFDB
425:I would like to see many times more dollars going into the education for girls. The World Bank has some wonderful statistics in terms of the importance of educating girls as a way of lifting whole societies out of poverty. ~ Swanee Hunt, #NFDB
426:President Kennedy understood the importance of equal pay for equal work and signed historic legislation that gave women around the country hope that one day their wages would be on par with that of their male counterparts. ~ Rosa DeLauro, #NFDB
427:American values as self-reliance, rugged independence, a reverence for the land, a belief in the importance of hard work and self-sacrifice, and a willingness to fight when necessary for home, family, and community. And ~ Harold Schechter, #NFDB
428:What seems most significant to me about our movement is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story. ~ Pierre Auguste Renoir, #NFDB
429:I believe the ultimate aim of all human beings is to obtain happiness and a sense of fulfillment... I have always stressed the importance of combining both the mental and material approach to achieving happiness for humankind. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
430:I caught myself feeling that vile need for others to be grateful to us, to show themselves as small and dependent, because that is what creates our favor, nurtures it, and heightens the importance of our deeds and kindness. ~ Me a Selimovi, #NFDB
431:Land is important everywhere, all kinds of land. But you have lived in cities. There you cannot sense the importance of agricultural land, its the real wealth. Each of these squares and hexagrams could be worth lakhs. ~ Upamanyu Chatterjee, #NFDB
432:Never underestimate the importance of keeping your vows. Just how a castle will protect the king from being attacked by the enemy, the vows will protect your mind from being attacked by your mental afflictions. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #index, #NFDB
433:The failure of protection, the importance of recognizing the ways in which we influence (and infect) each other - the fact that being an "individual" can't protect you - these are issues I've been thinking about for a while. ~ Laura Mullen, #NFDB
434:The mindfulness he spoke of was called nen in Japanese—an acknowledgment, an appreciation, of the importance of small things. The things that make living more worthwhile. And that, in my work, make it more probable, as well. ~ Barry Eisler, #NFDB
435:they always had a word of comfort for me, a reassuring smile, a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. Unless someone has been in prison for a prolonged period, he will not comprehend the importance of such understanding human contact. ~ Various, #NFDB
436:I love the whole world of dance, because dancing is really the emotions through bodily movement. And however you feel, you just bring out the inner feeling through your mood...people don't think about the importance of it. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
437:The importance of art, Jung believed, is to give form to the things unknown, and the function of religion, from the Latin religio ('to bind back to') is to reconnect us to the sustaining forces that the ego does not recognize. ~ David Tacey, #NFDB
438:True internal control — called integrity in this book — consists of adhering to moral values, understanding the importance of obligations and duty, and using reason to determine what is good and right in a given situation. ~ Svend Brinkmann, #NFDB
439:In cultures that recognize the importance of this capacity, this group of people are trained to use their enhanced perceptual capacities for the benefit of the group. there would then be many more holy people among us ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
440:the greater part of our anxieties stems from an exaggerated sense of the importance of our own projects and concerns. We are tortured by our ideals and by a punishingly high-minded sense of the gravity of what we are doing. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
441:The issue of providing women all forms of preventative health care has been and remains very important. The, the importance of protecting religious liberties in this country has been important to the president and will always be. ~ Jacob Lew, #NFDB
442:We realize the importance of light when we see darkness. We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced. In the same way when we were in Swat, we realized the importance of pens and books when we saw the guns. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
443:I think that's a big part of how to stay together as long as possible: learning what to do when things go wrong. And it's particularly hard when you're recording, because the importance of everything you're doing is so magnified. ~ Ira Kaplan, #NFDB
444:My conceptual framework, which basically emphasizes the importance of misconceptions, makes me extremely critical of my own decisions. I know that I am bound to be wrong, and therefore am more likely to correct my own mistakes. ~ George Soros, #NFDB
445:...parents everywhere desire a better life for their children. It's a near constant: They understand the importance of education and crave it for their children, even as they are well aware of the sacrifice they will have to make. ~ John Wood, #NFDB
446:Having a child makes you realize the importance of life - narcissism goes out the window. Heaven on earth is looking at my little boy. The minute he was born, I knew if I never did anything other than being a mom, I'd be fine. ~ Jenny McCarthy, #NFDB
447:I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement. ~ Angela Davis, #NFDB
448:One aspect of play is the importance of laughter, which has physiological and psychological benefits. Did you know that there are thousands of laughter clubs around the world? People get together and laugh for no reason at all! ~ Daniel H Pink, #NFDB
449:I wouldn't overestimate the importance of my popularity in the country and abroad but at the end of the day it's not as important because I believe that my presence here could make some difference and it could encourage people. ~ Garry Kasparov, #NFDB
450:Our new economic approach is rooted in ideas which stress the importance of macro-economics, post neo-classical endogenous growth theory and the symbiotic relationships between growth and investment, and people and infrastructure. ~ Gordon Brown, #NFDB
451:Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person. ~ Naveen Jain, #NFDB
452:If you write literary fiction that’s set partly in the future, you’re apparently a sci-fi writer ... I think of it as being more of a story about what remains after we lose everything and the importance of art in our lives. ~ Emily St John Mandel, #NFDB
453:You can't overestimate the importance of psychology in chess, and as much as some players try to downplay it, I believe that winning requires a constant and strong psychology not just at the board but in every aspect of your life. ~ Garry Kasparov, #NFDB
454:I don't think we should have sex in games. But I think we should have the right to have it. We should have the full range of human experience. It's an art form like any other art form. For me, that's the importance of preserving it. ~ Brenda Romero, #NFDB
455:I had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction! ~ Philip Pullman, #NFDB
456:I have learned that, although I am a good teacher, I am a much better student, and I was blessed to learn valuable lessons from my students on a daily basis. They taught me the importance of teaching to a student - and not to a test. ~ Erin Gruwell, #NFDB
457:Math is supremely important. Do you know how important it is…” and then proceeds to lecture on about the importance of math in life until her children beg her to stop because they would rather just do the math than listen to her. ~ Maya Thiagarajan, #NFDB
458:Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgements; ... But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
459:We strive to teach our children the importance of being caring and compassionate to others. This outpouring of emotion and effort by our children was so gratifying, and what they achieved absolutely exceeded our wildest expectations. ~ Jeff B Davis, #NFDB
460:We were told, no, you don't do. There was this high standard of morals and a sense of responsibility. That didn't mean that everybody stuck to those laws, but we were cognizant of the importance of trying to live up to that code. ~ David C Driskell, #NFDB
461:Yet in a kingdom containing seven constituent parts, which is upheld like the triple staff ,of an ascetic , there is no ,single part more important ,than the others , by reason of the importance of the qualities of each for the others. ~ Guru Nanak, #NFDB
462:Another reason, he said, was that it was important for a father to show his son the type of work he did. A child should learn from early on what kind of activity supported his daily life, and he should appreciate the importance of labor. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
463:He stressed the importance of a liberal arts education but urged her to avoid all courses in writing. “Everyone has to find her own way of writing,” he wrote Scottie, “and the source of finding it is largely out of literature.” Scottie ~ A Scott Berg, #NFDB
464:In every age the church is threatened by heresy, and heresy is bound up in false doctrine. It is the desire of all heretics to minimize the importance of doctrine. When doctrine is minimized, heresy can exercise itself without restraint. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
465:Our history will be what we make of it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge and retribution will not limp in catching up with us. So, just once in a while let us exhault the importance of ideas and information. ~ Edward R Murrow, #NFDB
466:What I was suddenly aware of was the importance of their being whatever each of them was - cocky and contemptuous, or bothered and beaten - as long as it was something they’d come to in their own way: the importance of being human. ~ John Christopher, #NFDB
467:What's with all the running, anyway? I mean, I realize the importance of stamina and all that, but shouldn't I be moving on to something with a little hitting? They're still killing me in group practice.” "Maybe you should hit harder. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
468:Justice Harold R. Medina stated in 1954 that 'it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of investment banking to the national econ- omy.'2 This remark remains true today. Investment banks lie at the heart of the capital allocation ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
469:There's something missing about how we're informing the youngsters coming along about what matters in the world. We teach them the numbers and the letters, but we fail to communicate the importance of our connection to the living world. ~ Sylvia Earle, #NFDB
470:Divorce is not an issue. That's people's lives! So, I don't like to be too puffed up about the importance of family. It's going to be tough and it changes as time goes by. I don't know. I just don't think it should be made an issue. ~ Martha Wainwright, #NFDB
471:I certainly want to portray the importance of friendship. I had noticed in movies and TV shows that friends often treated one another terribly, and my friends, the few I have, are never cruel to me or unkind, so I wanted to convey that. ~ Jonathan Ames, #NFDB
472:It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of reading aloud in the liturgy of the church. In Catholic Christianity of the time, the ‘liturgy of the Word’ ranked alongside the ‘liturgy of the Eucharist’ – as indeed it still does. The ~ David Crystal, #NFDB
473:Nobody doubts the importance of conscious experience; why then should we doubt the significance of unconscious happenings? They also are part of our life, and sometimes more truly a part of it for weal or woe than any happenings of the day. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
474:Playing on the streets of Iraq, or in Israel or the Gaza strip, I'd sing angry protest songs against war. People would say, 'Make us clap, make us dance, and laugh and sing.' It really made me think about the importance of happy music. ~ Michael Franti, #NFDB
475:The irony is that many conservative Christians, most concerned about conserving true and sound doctrine, neglect the importance of prayer and make no effort to experience God, and this can lead to the eventual loss of sound doctrine. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
476:Your favorite author? This was an important question. I'd dated men who had never read a book. Reading was a passion of mine and I couldn't imagine being involved with someone who didn't understand the importance of books and stories. ~ Debbie Macomber, #NFDB
477:After years of not speaking, I understood the importance of words. How they had the power to hurt individuals, yet they also had the power to heal if used correctly. For the rest of my life I’d try my best to use my words carefully. ~ Brittainy C Cherry, #NFDB
478:Although it seemed like such a simple thing, for the first time in my life I realized the importance of an introduction. An introduction by a mutual friend buys instant credibility, especially when the mutual friend was universally liked—as ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
479:The importance of building relationships among colleagues, of trying to create coalitions behind the issues that you are championing, was not something I ever had much insight into until I was elected and started serving in the Senate. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
480:What's with all the running, anyway? I mean, I realize the importance of stamina and all that, but shouldn't I be moving on to something with a little hitting? They're still killing me in group practice.”
"Maybe you should hit harder. ~ Richelle Mead,#NFDB
481:Comparative suffering has taught me not to discount the importance of having a process to navigate everyday hurts and disappointments. They can shape who we are and how we feel just as much as those things that we consider the big events do. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
482:My grandmother had great influence on me. She was secretary of state in the 1970's, and that's when I was born. She showed me the importance of public service, and she was admired by people regardless of their political party. ~ Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, #NFDB
483:The 1989 Children’s Act emphasized an awareness of the birth parents’ involvement and the value of a connection between birth and adoptive parents for the child. There was a recognition of the importance of the contract in adoption. ~ Joyce Maguire Pavao, #NFDB
484:They know the importance of their mission and of America's commitment to combating and defeating terrorism abroad, and they know that they are making a real difference in bringing freedom to a part of the world that has known only tyranny. ~ John Boehner, #NFDB
485:The years I spent in a Steelers uniform & the years I spent in the military stressed the importance of teamwork and the sacrifices you had to make to accomplish the mission. And each emphasized individual responsibility and accountability. ~ Rocky Bleier, #NFDB
486:Throughout Jesus' ministry, He took time away from the crowds and even His disciples to pray by Himself. Jesus modeled the importance of not only serving God with our actions but of being still and drawing close to God to renew our souls. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
487:Being somebody: it's one of the ideas in life, no? That's what my father made clear to me. The importance of being somebody. He wanted to be somebody. And he underlined to me the fate of trying to be somebody and not quite managing to do it. ~ James Salter, #NFDB
488:Knowing the importance of luck, you should be particularly suspicious when highly consistent patterns emerge from the comparison of successful and less successful firms. In the presence of randomness, regular patterns can only be mirages. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
489:One of the biggest lessons I learned from nearly dying of cancer is the importance of loving myself unconditionally. In fact, learning to love and accept myself unconditionally is what healed me and brought me back from the brink of death. ~ Anita Moorjani, #NFDB
490:After eight years of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I had learned so many hard lessons that building the team was easy. I understood the importance of hiring for strength rather than for lack of weakness, and I understood the meaning of “fit. ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
491:In Islam, rules are important, like the Prophet said innal halaala bayyinun, wa innal haraama bayyinun ["what is halal is clear, what is haram is clear"]. The goal is not to diminish the importance of rules, but to have the right priorities. ~ Tariq Ramadan, #NFDB
492:It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
493:The ideal of universal literacy, in the West anyway, was first of all a Protestant idea - that everybody had to be able to read to save their soul. That idea got transposed into an idea of the importance of literacy for democratic citizenship. ~ Robert Hass, #NFDB
494:While the Environmental Genome Project does not seek to assign allele frequencies, we are aware of the importance of accurate allele frequency estimates for future epidemiologic studies and the large sample sizes such estimates will require. ~ Samuel Wilson, #NFDB
495:If we were to abandon concern for what is true, what is false, and what remains indeterminate, the world would be totally chaotic. Even those who deny the importance of truth, on the one hand, are quick to jump on anyone who is caught lying. ~ Howard Gardner, #NFDB
496:If we were to abandon concern for what is true, what is false, and what remains indeterminate, the world would be totally chaotic. Even those who deny the importance of truth, on the one hand, are quick to jump on anyone who is caught lying. ~ Howard Gardner, #NFDB
497:In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
498:Rebellion is not going to go away...What has been unleashed, I think, can't be stopped...The importance of continuing acts of resistance is that it keeps this narrative alive...We speak a fundamental truth about this system that terrifies them. ~ Chris Hedges, #NFDB
499:The importance of a mercantile agent is the good can easily reach the consumer even at the remotest places in the globe. The mercantile agent is the one who actually manages the business transactions on the behalf of the principal or the producer. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
500:The importance of our connection, what it meant to find each other again, the way it made what happened to us and between us not be a waste, not be for nothing. He would know, he had to know, that not saying good-bye would be the worst end of all. ~ Sara Zarr, #NFDB
501:This is pretty simple stuff. But the truth is, the reality of making money and wise decisions isn't very complicated. However, not many people understand the importance of a don't-worry attitude. If you do, you're one step ahead of the game. ~ Richard Carlson, #NFDB
502:We must play music quietly, talk quietly, weep in private, because I am the all-powerful Zahir, who lays down the rules and determines the distance between railway tracks, the meaning of success, the best way to love, the importance of rewards. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
503:Hitler overestimated the importance of [technology]. As a result, he would count on a mere handful of assault-gun detachment or the new Tiger tanks to restore situations where only large bodies of troops could have any prospect of success. ~ Erich von Manstein, #NFDB
504:I think that a lot of dystopian literature tends to be really moralizing and just doesn't tend to give credence to the importance of the sentimental. Maybe it says, "We need love in this world," but it's always this tough, strong statement. ~ How to Dress Well, #NFDB
505:The whole society has to recognize the importance of the value in embracing what science is going into the 21st Century. Otherwise, we might as well start packing and moving back into the cave right now, because that's where we'll end up. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
506:What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good grammar. For example, I could say: Bad grammar is the leading cause of slow, painful death in North America, or Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
507:We must reject the thought that evangelism is to be separated from the importance of standing against evil. We weren't saved just to escape this world and go to Heaven. Transformed people transform the culture while standing boldly against evil. ~ James Robison, #NFDB
508:Nowadays, the process of growth and development almost never seems to manage to create this subtle balance between the importance of the individual parts, and the coherence of the environment as a whole. One or the other always dominates. ~ Christopher Alexander, #NFDB
509:Since ancient times the term awakening has been used as a kind of metaphor that points to the transformation of human consciousness. There are parables in the New Testament that speak of the importance of being awake, of not falling back to sleep. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
510:Were not teaching our students the importance of relationships with other people: how you work with them, what the relational pathology consists of, how you examine your own conscience, how you examine the inner world, how you examine your dreams. ~ Irvin D Yalom, #NFDB
511:we must go on fighting for basic education for all, but also emphasize the importance of the content of education. We have to make sure that sectarian schooling does not convert education into a prison, rather than being a passport to the wide world. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
512:I don't think we really measured the enormity of the whole occasion. I'm very, very surprised. We never expected it. When I set out in May we didn't realise how big this was. Only now have we realised the importance of this. [on the 2005 Ashes win ~ Duncan Fletcher, #NFDB
513:Overscheduled children lose the space to simply be with themselves and learn the art of being alone. In our noisy, busy world, the importance of developing the life skill of solitude, meditation, and quietly being with oneself can not be overstated. ~ Joshua Becker, #NFDB
514:Amongst some of the Old Soul's greatest achievements in life include the ability to live with inner peace, even amid the troubles of life. As all is passing, the Old Soul understands the importance of non-attachment to physical and immaterial things. ~ Aletheia Luna, #NFDB
515:I grew up in a Christian home. The strictness comes with religion in general. Whether you grew up Jewish or Orthodox Jewish or Muslim, there are certain rules and regulations. But my parents instilled in me the importance of defining God for yourself. ~ Vera Farmiga, #NFDB
516:I'm very familiar with the importance of dairy farming in Wisconsin. I've spent the night on a dairy farm here in Wisconsin. If I'm entrusted with the presidency, you'll have someone who is very familiar with what the Wisconsin dairy industry is all about. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
517:One of the things I noticed more in this draft than in any recent drafts was the importance of the character issue. Players who had baggage, like Justice, fell much farther than his talent dictated. But a lot of coaches didn't want to take the chance. ~ Ron Jaworski, #NFDB
518:SOMETIMES THE TRAVELING SYMPHONY thought that what they were doing was noble. There were moments around campfires when someone would say something invigorating about the importance of art, and everyone would find it easier to sleep that night. ~ Emily St John Mandel, #NFDB
519:The problem with being talented and gifted is sometimes you get too smart. My uncle Henry says the importance of eating a good breakfast is because your brain is still growing. But nobody talks about how, sometimes, your brain can get just too big. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
520:Therefore, any human concern that has only to do with this world, no matter how global, no matter how painful, no matter how enduring — if it has only to do with this world — compares to the importance of saving faith as a thimble to the ocean. ~ Thomas R Schreiner, #NFDB
521:If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and make it the object of our game; to turn it into a toy ~ Milan Kundera, #NFDB
522:Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
523:Poetry teaches us things that cannot be learned in prose, such as certain kinds of irony or the importance of the unsaid. The most important element of any poem is the part that is left unsaid. So the poetry frames the experience that lies beyond naming. ~ Sam Hamill, #NFDB
524:the Asian mothers I spoke with all reiterated the importance of “study routines” or “study schedules.” If children assume that they will have to do supplementary math every Saturday morning, then they will accept it as part of their weekly routine. ~ Maya Thiagarajan, #NFDB
525:There was a moral foundation to Walt’s movies that people tapped into—a basic moral foundation. In Disney films, you see strong values and role models. You see the importance of being kind to others, of serving others, of finding joy even in adversity. ~ Pat Williams, #NFDB
526:The unprecedented powers that science now makes available must be accompanied by unprecedented levels of ethical focus and concern by the scientific community—as well as the most broadly based public education into the importance of science and democracy. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
527:as the historian Tom Standage observes, they were “among the first to recognize the importance of trademarks and advertising, of slogans, logos…. Since the remedies themselves usually cost very little to make, it made sense to spend money on marketing. ~ Steven Johnson, #NFDB
528:In explaining the importance of understanding our biology, Dawkins writes; “Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something which no other species has ever aspired to. ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
529:In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus teaches the importance of forgiveness. He knows we’re human and our natural tendency is to seek revenge, to strike back, to condemn those who hurt us, but this is wrong. We’re supposed to forgive, always. ~ John Grisham, #NFDB
530:The fact that books today are mostly a string of words makes it easier to forget the text. With the impact of the iPad and the future of the book being up for re-imagination, I wonder whether we'll rediscover the importance of making texts richer visually. ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB
531:The importance of pedestrian public spaces cannot be measured, but most other important things in life cannot be measured either: Friendship, beauty, love and loyalty are examples. Parks and other pedestrian places are essential to a city's happiness. ~ Enrique Penalosa, #NFDB
532:It is this breathtaking image [of] success that motivates us and motivates kids to follow and understand rocket science: to understand the importance of physics and math and, in many ways, to have that awe at exploration of the frontiers of the unknown. ~ Steve Jurvetson, #NFDB
533:The government and the opposition need to think about their people, if they actually went out and saw the conditions in which their people are living, it might actually mean that they would pause and think again about the importance of peace. ~ Valerie Amos Baroness Amos, #NFDB
534:Acts of honesty are incredibly important for our sense of social morality. And although they are unlikely to make the same sensational news, if we understand social contagion, we must also recognize the importance of publicly promoting outstanding moral acts. ~ Dan Ariely, #NFDB
535:In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even in our own lives. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
536:I offered her the benefit of my company this New Year's Eve, but informed her that as of midnight I should much like to insist that she refers to me as Master Oscar at all times. For that is whom I am, and I can't stress enough the importance of being Oscar. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
537:Again, we can see the importance of imaginal practices such as journals, dream work, poetry, painting, and therapy aimed at exploring images in dream and life. These methods keep us actively engaged in the mythologies that are the stuff of our own lives. The ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
538:Compassion suits our physical condition, whereas anger, fear and distrust are harmful to our well-being. Therefore, just as we learn the importance of physical hygiene to physical health, to ensure healthy minds, we need to learn some kind of emotional hygiene. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
539:Ideally, the CEO will be urgent yet not insane. She will move aggressively and decisively without feeling emotionally culpable. If she can separate the importance of the issues from how she feels about them, she will avoid demonizing her employees or herself. ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
540:Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe. ~ John Polkinghorne, #NFDB
541:The importance of rehearsal is maybe you want to talk about how the scene's going to be designed, how it's going to be staged, all of those things. It's all about preparation, and deciding what mutually you don't want to do, rather than necessarily what you do. ~ Sam Mendes, #NFDB
542:The subjectivist approach to art simply fails to understand that the subjective experience of art in itself is meaningless, and that in order to grasp the importance of art one has to zero in on the artistic object rather than on the fun of the art lover. ~ Theodor W Adorno, #NFDB
543:Three themes surface repeatedly in the book. The first theme centers on the importance of taking actions within the context of an analytically rigorous framework, implemented with discipline and under-girded with thorough analysis of specific opportunities. ~ David F Swensen, #NFDB
544:It had also become harder to discuss this with his colleagues. All too often Sammy’s speeches about the importance of good neighborhoods and schools were met only with dismissive comments. It was self-evident, it was written on every wall, they seemed to say, ~ Kjell Eriksson, #NFDB
545:The importance of detachment from things, the importance of poverty, is that we are supposed to be free from things that we might prefer to people. Wherever things have become more important than people, we are in trouble. That is the crux of the whole matter. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
546:I close my eyes And sink within myself Relive the gift of precious memories In need of a fix called innocence When did it begin?The change to come was undetectable The open wounds expose the importance of Our innocence A high that can never be bought or sold ~ Chuck Schuldiner, #NFDB
547:Regardless of the importance of known evidence to the contrary, the arts are generally regarded as being so much entertaining fluff, a commodity that isn't a priority in the traditional program of learning. This is unacceptable in a so-called 'enlightened' society. ~ Ken Danby, #NFDB
548:We are good citizens, and we cannot protect ourselves because you allow the criminals to run wild. ... I'd like you to come and live in the inner city for a week and see the importance of having a weapon. ... Go after the criminals and not the good people. ~ Jesse Lee Peterson, #NFDB
549:Few are sufficiently sensible of the importance of that economy in reading which selects, almost exclusively, the very first order of books. Why, except for some special reason, read an inferior book, at the very time you might be reading one of the highest order? ~ John Foster, #NFDB
550:It appeared to Harriet that she was always the one who remembered having seen other people. They never remembered having seen her. She did not like to seem (even to herself) so much more caught up in the importance of others when they cared so little for her. ~ Elizabeth Taylor, #NFDB
551:throwing out “I sorry” as if it were confetti, her private little parade of destruction rolling past, leaving Eliza to clean up all of the mess. They had tried hard to teach their children the importance of genuine remorse, what it was to say and mean “I’m sorry. ~ Laura Lippman, #NFDB
552:Agency by agency, we frequently have lost a bit of ground, at least to inflation-but had it not been for the efforts we've made to educate people about the importance of science, technology and advanced education, those predictions very well might have come true. ~ Charles M Vest, #NFDB
553:Her anger, so useful just moments before, was getting the better of her now. She could hear it; she was too loud. Nira had counseled her again and again on the importance of holding her tongue and her peace. Ironic, given the source, but good advice all the same. ~ Brian Staveley, #NFDB
554:He considered the importance of what he was to do, and calmed himself. He felt the dragon’s mood and acknowledged it. It was a willingness to accept whatever fate brought, but without a resignation to defeat. Death might come, but with it might also come victory. ~ Raymond E Feist, #NFDB
555:You don't have to care about children to care about children. One of the things that I talk a lot about is the fact of the importance of third-grade reading level. By the end of third grade, if the child is not at reading level, it'll drop off. They never catch up. ~ Kamala Harris, #NFDB
556:Art indeed in our day has taken on so many honors and emoluments that the recognition of its importance is more than a custom, has become on occasion almost a fury: the line is drawn--especially in the English world--only in the importance of heeding what it may mean. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
557:Later I would understand that modern industrial communities are obsessed with the importance of ‘going somewhere’ and ‘doing something with your life’. The implication is an idea I have come to hate, that staying local and doing physical work doesn’t count for much. ~ James Rebanks, #NFDB
558:To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' ~ Booker T Washington, #NFDB
559:Iraq failed for the same reasons that all conservative public policy efforts fail. Refusing to acknowledge the importance of government while relying on it to achieve your objectives causes the same kind of chaos in foreign policy that it does in matters closer to home. ~ Alan Wolfe, #NFDB
560:the importance of creating large, uninterrupted blocks of time, during which your mind can wander, ponder, and find the signal amidst the noise. If you’re lucky, it might even create a signal, or connect two signals (core ideas) that have never shaken hands before. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
561:The importance of insomnia is so colossal that I am tempted to define man as the animal who cannot sleep. Why call him a rational animal when other animals are equally reasonable? But there is not another animal in the entire creation that wants to sleep yet cannot. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
562:Don’t wait until you’re faced with someone’s absence to acknowledge the importance of their presence. Love them now. Realize that the flaws, irritations, bad habits, and imperfections are all a part of what makes them, and you, unique, special, and rare to this universe. ~ Mandy Hale, #NFDB
563:I cannot understand those so-called 'normal' people who believe that a man should love only a woman, and a woman love only a man. If this were so, then it disregards completely the spirit, the personality, and the mind, and stresses the importance of the physical body. ~ Sarah Prager, #NFDB
564:It's not what happens to us that makes the difference in our lives. What makes the difference is our attitude towards what happens. The idea of luck is a powerful way of illustrating the importance of our basic attitudes in affecting whether or not we find our Element. ~ Ken Robinson, #NFDB
565:The church growth movement has made many lasting contributions to our practice of ministry. But its overemphasis on technique and results can put too much pressure on ministers because it underemphasizes the importance of godly character and the sovereignty of God. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
566:The importance of the Beats is twofold: first, they act out a critique of the organized system that everybody in some sense agrees with. But second-and more important in the long run-they are a kind of major pilot study of the use of leisure in an economy of abundance. ~ Paul Goodman, #NFDB
567:Contemplate the Importance of Mastering the Mind Your mind must deal with every experience. Think about how attaining mastery over the mind will enable you to lose any fear of death. Come to the certainty that you must master your mind in order to die with confidence. ~ Anyen Rinpoche, #NFDB
568:I don't rule anything out, and I couldn't underscore more the importance of what YES! is doing to show that there are people who are pushing the edge of hope, who are stepping into the unknown and taking risks, because that will then enable others to do the same. ~ Frances Moore Lappe, #NFDB
569:One of the many pieces of advice his father had given him—besides the importance of antivenom and the need for a good, sturdy blade—was that field anthropology was ninety percent preparation, and ten percent trying desperately to recover when you didn’t prepare properly. ~ Ben Mezrich, #NFDB
570:Running the company also taught him key management principles. He learned the importance of hiring knowledgeable people and listening to their advice, of delegating responsibility and holding people accountable, and of making tough decisions and accepting the consequences. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
571:Tennis lessons westlake village provide a good coaching for youngest.Because that are very experiance men in tennis.His students on the importance of strength and agility training as well as mental and psychological strength and the roles they play within the game of tennis. ~ Various, #NFDB
572:The chief reason for this shameful defeat was our excessive passion for the ideology of non-violence… I feel the war of 1962 has done good to us because it opened our eyes and [punctured] our fanciful idealism… We soon realized the importance of the army and weapons. ~ Rajmohan Gandhi, #NFDB
573:It was why no sane cat allowed kits to come anywhere near human beings. Humans seemed to feel that it was perfectly acceptable to teach kits to accept food from their hands as a matter of course, rather than teaching them the importance of hunting skill and self-reliance. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
574:Rose Hathaway: "what's with all the running, anyway? I mean, I realize the importance of stamina and all that, but shouldn't I be moving on to something with a little hitting? They're still killing me in group practice.”
Dimitri Belikov: "Maybe you should hit harder. ~ Richelle Mead,#NFDB
575:Those who served, and those who continue to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and we can never forget the importance of their commitment to our Nation. ~ Robin Hayes, #NFDB
576:I didn't appreciate the young woman that I was, or my young beauty, because I was so obsessed with the fact that I felt fat. It's never good to add to anybody else's suffering. It's an important topic to really get the gravity and the importance of - dealing with dignity. ~ Margaret Cho, #NFDB
577:I shall devote only a few lines to the expression of my belief in the importance of science it is by this daily striving after knowledge that man has raised himself to the unique position he occupies on earth, and that his power and well-being have continually increased. ~ Marie Curie, #NFDB
578:I thought I was going to be a ballet dancer for awhile there. I had a good teacher at Interlochen, this arts' academy in Michigan, who taught me the importance of storytelling, and I really responded to that. It seemed like a long shot, but I always play the long odds. ~ Benjamin Walker, #NFDB
579:It pays only three hundred dollars per annum, but Dr. Berwyn said it will lead to a good income as a surgeon. “Never downplay the importance of income,” he told me. “You must remember that the person who complains bitterly about a doctor’s earnings usually is not a doctor. ~ Noah Gordon, #NFDB
580:Many parents think it does. When they want to underscore the importance of a given instruction, they attach some dreadful outcome to it: “Come right home; you don’t want to get kidnapped,” “Don’t go there alone; remember, anyone could be a killer,” and on and on. There ~ Gavin de Becker, #NFDB
581:Everything that occurs in the temple is uplifting and ennobling. It speaks of life here and life beyond the grave. It speaks of the importance of the individual as a child of God. It speaks of the importance of the family and the eternity of the marriage relationship. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
582:The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes their way. Happiness only happens for those who cry and those who hurt, for only then can they appreciate the importance of people who touch their lives. ~ Douglas Clegg, #NFDB
583:The importance of my old life is dimming as I move toward the bright light I've seen once before. It's allowing me to come to it, and this time, I won't be sent back. If only the people I'm leaving behind could understand! There is no sadness where I'm going. Only joy. ~ Lurlene McDaniel, #NFDB
584:The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
585:We live in a world in which it's harder to talk about the American in the singular, so we're a multi. We have several different people who represent the United States, so in that sense whiteness, the salience, the importance of whiteness is kind of tamping down some. ~ Nell Irvin Painter, #NFDB
586:When you get older, I guess you learn the importance of flowers and good food and old friends. That’s called settling down. But I don’t need to be old to know that to look back and realize you didn’t push yourself for something you loved is the greatest regret you can have. ~ Gabe Habash, #NFDB
587:I think the number one thing that I find important is the importance of honesty with your friends and your parents, if you can be. But I think that telling people how you really feel, being who you truly are, being safe and taking care of yourself is the most important thing. ~ Emma Stone, #NFDB
588:My mother has been to Mecca to perform her hajj; my dad hasn't. I come from a very liberal family, so even the people who are outwardly religious tend to subscribe to gender equality, the importance of open-mindedness, all that stuff. My family is generally nonprescriptive. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
589:The intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or false. The importance of the strength of our conviction is only to provide a proportionately strong incentive to find out if the hypothesis will stand up to critical evaluation. ~ Peter Medawar, #NFDB
590:He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. Butwe would not disparage the importance of such calculations as we have described. They are truths in physics because they are true in ethics. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
591:I had fallen in love with a young man... and we were planning to get married. And then he died of subacute bacterial endocarditis... Two years later with the advent of penicillin, he would have been saved. It reinforced in my mind the importance of scientific discovery... ~ Gertrude B Elion, #NFDB
592:Mattis and Gary Cohn had several quiet conversations about The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments. ~ Bob Woodward, #NFDB
593:The big corporations are suddenly taking notice of the web, and their reactions have been slow. Even the computer industry failed to see the importance of the Internet, but that's not saying much. Let's face it, the computer industry failed to see that the century would end. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
594:The single biggest factor determining recovery and remission from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.) at this point is undoubtedly appropriate rest in the early and/or severe stages of the illness.
The importance of avoiding overexertion in M.E. can not be overestimated. ~ Jodi Bassett,#NFDB
595:I had done quite a bit of research about math education when I spoke before Congress in 2000 about the importance of women in mathematics. The session of Congress was all about raising more scholarships for girls in college. I told them I felt that it's too late by college. ~ Danica McKellar, #NFDB
596:If ... we choose a group of social phenomena with no antecedent knowledge of the causation or absence of causation among them, then the calculation of correlation coefficients, total or partial, will not advance us a step toward evaluating the importance of the causes at work. ~ Ronald Fisher, #NFDB
597:I'm fortunate to have some really great people around me, my fiancee being one, my parents being another. Over the last couple of years, I feel like I've figured out the importance of continuing to learn and the development of the brain and how the brain hooks up with the body. ~ Randall Cobb, #NFDB
598:The importance of heart health became very real for me when my father died of heart disease seven years ago. Having experienced the loss first hand, I am inspired to do everything I can to break the cycle and prevent families from losing loved ones to this preventable disease. ~ Monica Potter, #NFDB
599:we learned the importance of picking fresh young people to run our branches. Surprisingly, people without previous work experience of any kind are often best suited for this. Previous work experience distracts new workers from the ideals and unique procedures of Grameen. Many ~ Muhammad Yunus, #NFDB
600:At this point, any scientist, doctor, journalist, or policy maker who denies or minimizes the importance of a whole food, plant-based diet for individual and societal well-being simply isn’t looking clearly at the facts. There’s just too much good evidence to ignore anymore. ~ T Colin Campbell, #NFDB
601:I dream of a society that is continuously creating knowledge, where each individual is a part of this creation, where youngsters can pursue courses with freedom of choice, where technology is used for universal access of education and yet the importance of the Guru is retained. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
602:Sometimes there are ways to minimize the importance of gender in life, or to confuse gender categories so that they no longer have descriptive power. But other times gender can be very important to us, and some people really love the gender that they have claimed for themselves. ~ Judith Butler, #NFDB
603:They were creating a program on contemplative prayer called Be Still. They asked me to be a part of this project that was designed to help Americans see the importance of spending time before God in stillness. I knew immediately that God wanted me to be a part of the project. ~ Priscilla Shirer, #NFDB
604:When Bridget [Jones] does finally get pregnant, she 's bound to mess it up, but what I tried to show is the importance of love and kindness rather than perfection, and the importance of support from friends who help you to laugh at your mistakes and pick yourself up afterwards. ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
605:I'm very, very lucky in that I have a partner who is willing to do it with me in a really collaborative way. Fortunately, even though we couldn't stay in a romantic relationship, our values are very much around the importance of family and the importance of those relationships. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow, #NFDB
606:Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgments; … But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), #NFDB
607:The Dalai Lama once said that he envisions a time when, just as today we accept good diet and exercise as key to physical health, the world will come to recognize the importance of mental care and training for mental health and human flourishing. That time may not be so far away. ~ Thupten Jinpa, #NFDB
608:the importance of ability. The things that make a great job great, I discovered, are rare and valuable. If you want them in your working life, you need something rare and valuable to offer in return. In other words, you need to be good at something before you can expect a good job. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
609:Envy is resentment of good things that happen to other people. Jealousy increases the importance of the person we wish belonged only to us. Envy, as I told you, is poison, and futile - we want to be the other person. But jealousy is generous - we want the other person to be ours. ~ Carlos Fuentes, #NFDB
610:Final Fantasy VII awoke American gaming to the possibilities of narrative dynamism and the importance of relatively developed characters—no small inspiration to take from a series whose beautifully androgynous male characters often appear to be some kind of heterosexual stress test. ~ Tom Bissell, #NFDB
611:We know that children need help to read, and the best time to start them reading is very young. We believe that when children see adults from all walks of life and from throughout the community reading to them, that is another opportunity for children to see the importance of reading. ~ Jane Bown, #NFDB
612:Truth is rarely simple and seldom obvious, which is why mature institutions recognise the importance of conflict and disagreement. Christianity was born in conflict, and it has been characterised by conflict ever since. The Church's obsession with heresy is witness to this fact. ~ Richard Holloway, #NFDB
613:In an unhealthy culture, each group believes that if their objectives trump the goals of the other groups, the company will be better off. In a healthy culture, all constituencies recognize the importance of balancing competing desires—they want to be heard, but they don’t have to win. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
614:My kids are coming up in a different time then me. Interracial couples are of the norm. With me, it's about making sure my kids understand the importance of education and having opportunities that I didn't. My goal as a parent is to make sure they don't take what they have for granted. ~ Kevin Hart, #NFDB
615:Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me, Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. ~ Tom Peters, #NFDB
616:There's no UN resolution that allows the United States to carry out operations in Syria. You'll remember that in Libya in 2011 there was a great hoopla made about the importance of getting a UN resolution. Here there was no attempt to get any resolution. They simply bombed in Syria. ~ Vijay Prashad, #NFDB
617:The story of Jonah shows us the importance of the call of the prophet. Prophets are different. Prophets are unique. Prophets don’t ask to be called or chosen. Prophets are called from the womb. Prophets pay a price for running and hiding. Jonah ended up in the belly of a great fish. ~ John Eckhardt, #NFDB
618:Ahh! Lady Pillows. So much fluffier than mine.” He took a giant whiff. “Why does everything girlie smell so delightful?” “Because we acknowledge the importance of basic hygiene. And periodically clean our bathrooms.” “Brilliant. I should write that down. After all, it takes a village. ~ Kathy Reichs, #NFDB
619:I want to stress again the importance of really living what we claim to believe. That needs to be a priority-not just in our personal and family lives but in our churches, our political choices, our business dealings, our treatment of the poor; in other words, in everything we do. ~ Charles J Chaput, #NFDB
620:My parents grew up in poor families where little English was spoken, they both went to college and became teachers. They believed that anything was possible with hard work, and they particularly stressed the importance of education. They instilled that same belief in my sister and me. ~ Samuel Alito, #NFDB
621:The lens, that allegedly impartial eye, permits all possible distortions of reality... The importance of photography lies not only in the fact that it is a creation, but above all in the fact that it is one of the most effective means of shaping our ideas and influencing our behavior. ~ Gisele Freund, #NFDB
622:I thought it would be lovely to use [pet bulldog] Noelle as an example to teach the importance of being who you are. For me it's important to inspire children in a positive way, and at times they understand more messages through entertainment than when one is talking to them directly. ~ Gloria Estefan, #NFDB
623:Well, if you can't then write in the press or put on television the importance of parents changing what they're doing, then the safe way out is to say, "Look, learning disabilities is probably genes. ADHD, probably genes." And that is the political alternative to not blaming the victim. ~ Jerome Kagan, #NFDB
624:And this speaks to the importance of taking advantage of every tax-advantaged investment opportunity that you can. You should maximize your contributions if you’ve got a 401(k), or a 403(b) if you work for a nonprofit. You should take every opportunity to invest in a tax-deferred way. ~ Anthony Robbins, #NFDB
625:You must not procrastinate. Rather, you should make preparations so that even if you did die tonight, you would have no regrets. If you develop an appreciation for the uncertainty and imminence of death, your sense of the importance of using your time wisely will get stronger and stronger. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
626:Leonardo’s relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling, in both ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
627:• Respect for the importance of the other person’s role in producing high-quality outcomes • Belief in the other’s ability (competence) and willingness to fulfill his or her formal role responsibilities • Care about the other professionally and personally • Consistency between what people ~ Robert Kegan, #NFDB
628:The Renaissance… was based on a new idea of the importance of the individual. But this was a fragile foundation, because individuals depended on constant applause and admiration to sustain them. There is a shortage of applause in the world, and there is not enough respect to go around. ~ Theodore Zeldin, #NFDB
629:Voting, for me, was a habit, a healthy ritual to be done conscientiously and at every opportunity. My parents had taken me to the polls as a kid, and I’d made a practice of bringing Sasha and Malia with me anytime I could, hoping to reinforce both the ease and the importance of the act. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
630:You know, the PTA president who cooks organic, well-balanced meals while reading to her kids in Latin about the importance of helping others, then escorts them to the art museum in the hybrid that plays classical music and mists lavender aromatherapy through the air-conditioning vents. ~ Daniel J Siegel, #NFDB
631:The importance of Liking Yourself is a notion that fell heavily out of favor during the coptic, anti-ego frenzy of the Acid Era--but nobody guessed back then that the experiment might churn up this kind of hangover: a whole subculture of frightened illiterates with no faith in anything. ~ Hunter S Thompson, #NFDB
632:The importance of the question and the availability of an answer are two different things. I'm not willing to state that because the question is fundamental, therefore I possess the answer. And I'm certainly not willing to say that since I don't possess the answer, I'll pretend that I do. ~ George Friedman, #NFDB
633:Family reunification has been an essential aspect of these policies.Many of those who are brought in, in terms of families, have become actively involved. They open small stores, play a significant role in the economy. The families and the importance of family unity are extremely important. ~ Edward Kennedy, #NFDB
634:I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics. Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that's what I wanted to do. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
635:When there’s a history between people, it makes for some serious complications—even in something seemingly as simple as friendship. There is no real starting over. There’s only trying to minimize the importance of things in the past. And some events are just too life altering to trivialize. ~ Megan Thomason, #NFDB
636:Another strand of my writing is the importance of the idea. If you think about fiction writing as a spectrum, where at one end of the spectrum in the infrared, are the story tellers, and the people for whom creation of wonderful characters and telling a good story is the most important thing. ~ Alan Lightman, #NFDB
637:Don't underestimate the importance of having enough room to work. Grilling is much more relaxing when you are not trying to juggle a whole collection of plates and bowls as you do it. If your grill doesn't have enough workspace - and they almost never do - set up a table right next to your grill. ~ Bobby Flay, #NFDB
638:On a very practical level, I've learned the importance of circulation socks for planes. I had this awful experience of getting off a flight to go to an event and my feet had swelled. Try getting into heels then! So you put on the socks for the flight, then you can wear whatever heels you want. ~ Lupita Nyong o, #NFDB
639:Islamophobia, in all its guises, seeks to minimise the importance of the individual and maximise the importance of the group. Yet our instinctive stance ought to be one of suspicion towards such endeavours. For individuals are undeniably real. Groups, on the other hand, are assertions of opinion. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
640:I understand the importance of clearly expressing our goals and purposes in order to achieve them. I am not sure why we need mantras and formal statements in order to make that a reality. Somehow the church survived for almost two thousand years before Malphurs and Barna told us we had to have them. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
641:The importance of immobility and silence to photographic authority, the nonfilmic nature of this authority, leads me to some remarks on the relationship of photography with death. Immobility and silence are not only two objective aspects of death, they are also its main symbols, they figure it. ~ Christian Metz, #NFDB
642:I know the importance of highly trained awareness of the “moment” and the immediate and intuitive response of the photographer. It should be obvious to all that photographers whose images possess character and quality have attained them only by continued practice and total dedication to the medium. ~ Ansel Adams, #NFDB
643:Scientific reductionism has threatened the spiritual aspects of medical practice from within, by denying the existence of the transcendent. The industrialization of health care now threatens the spiritual aspects of medical practice from without, denying the importance of the spiritual.
Yet ~ Daniel P Sulmasy,#NFDB
644:Among the many things that religious tradition holds in store for us is a legacy of wonder. The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
645:And there was no way I could talk about it with Dad. Our version of "the talk" had been him clearing his throat awkwardly for about ten minutes straight as he attempted to explain to me the importance of condoms. I was fourteen, and, needless to say, it was an experience I never wanted to relive. ~ Kody Keplinger, #NFDB
646:I believe the role that people like myself have played in the transformation of public opinion has been by persistently presenting a different point of view, a point of view which stresses the importance of private markets, of individual freedom, and the distorting effect of governmental policy. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
647:I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time. —HERBERT BAYARD SWOPE, American editor and journalist; first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize Everything popular is wrong. —OSCAR WILDE, The Importance of Being Earnest ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
648:The girls were riveted by Georgia’s lecture on the importance of sports bras and the dangers of the uni-boob, double busting, slippage, unsightly bulges, and my personal favorite, head lighting. I thought she made valid points and I would never have guessed that bouncing boobs were so problematic. ~ Ashlan Thomas, #NFDB
649:Twenty-eight years in business and you understand the importance of problem solving and the importance of efficiency, because if you don't become efficient, you don't run a business well, and you are out of business. And I think some of those principles could be applied to leadership in Washington. ~ Steve Daines, #NFDB
650:Above all, Leonardo’s relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling, in both ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
651:Police ought to protect communities as well as individuals.... Just as physicians now recognize the importance of fostering health rather than simply treating illness, so the police - and the rest of us - ought to recognize the importance of maintaining, intact, communities without broken windows. ~ James Q Wilson, #NFDB
652:I really make sure that my girls understand the importance of education. I don't want them to be spoilt and only know private-school kids. I want them to behave well by example. I believe if you are nice to people, children will follow. Likewise, if you are rude to people, children will follow. ~ Wendi Deng Murdoch, #NFDB
653:The importance of patience and communication. Having a child and husband, working crazy and unpredictable times for shows, and traveling to teach dance around America can make life a bit stressful. I have had to learn to communicate with everyone attached to my life no matter what the circumstance. ~ Allison Holker, #NFDB
654:Our chief reason for over-rating the importance of tools and machines is that man's most significant early inventions, in ritual, social organization, morals, and language, left no material remains, while stone tools can be associated with recognizable hominid bones for at least half a million years. ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
655:I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,” he said. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
656:In the theatre, words are eighty to eighty-five percent of the importance of what is happening to you for your comprehension. In film, words are about twenty percent. It's a different figure, but it's almost an opposite ratio. For the words are only a little bit of embroidery, a little bit of lacework. ~ Nicholas Ray, #NFDB
657:I think a lot of people overlook the importance of the menu as a marketing tool and a way of communicating to the customer what the ambition of their restaurant is. Not only the typeface and the design, but what is it printed on? Is it cheap-looking? Is it the right kind of paper for that restaurant? ~ Joe Bastianich, #NFDB
658:[After discussing the importance of the Tuesday workload...] "...'Anyway, I spend a lot of time praying. And my knees are calloused.' ... 'I've spent a lot of time doing the same, ' I said as the light changed. 'That's the only thing that gets me through--on Tuesday's and every other day of the week. ~ Janice Thompson, #NFDB
659:Despite obligatory comments about the importance of the middle class and why it should be helped, America’s ruling class doesn’t really care. They’ve moved on, having successfully created through globalization a world where the middle classes in China and India offer them far more opportunities to get rich. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
660:If people who cherish freedom, who know the importance of mutual respect and are aware of the imperative necessity to establish a constructive and critical debate, if these people are not ready to speak out, to be more committed and visible, then we can expect sad, painful tomorrows. The choice is ours. ~ Tariq Ramadan, #NFDB
661:The Bible is filled with verses on the importance of community. Hebrews 10:25 says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another” (NIV 1984). Galatians 6:2 says, “By helping each other with your troubles, you truly obey the law of Christ” (NCV). ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
662:The demand for equality has two sources; one of them is among the noblest, the other is the basest, of human emotions. The noble source is the desire for fair play. But the other source is the hatred of superiority. At the present moment it would be very unrealistic to overlook the importance of the latter. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
663:Among the many things that religious tradition holds in store for us is a legacy of wonder. The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. Modern ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
664:And she did not miss his presence so much as his voice on the phone. Even being lied to constantly, though hardly like love, was sustained attention; he must care about her to fabricate so elaborately and over such a long stretch of time. His deceit was a form of tribute to the importance of their marriage. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
665:And she did not miss his presence so much as his voice on the phone. Even being lied to constantly, though hardly like love, was sustained attention; he must care about her to fabricate so elaborately and over such a long stretch of time. His deceit was a form of tribute to the importance of their marriage. ~ Ian Mcewan, #NFDB
666:Food is such an important part of our lives, and sometimes we tend to diminish the importance of that, because we rely on conveniences or because our lives are so complicated. We forget about those moments that we can actually share around the table with our family, with our friends, with our loved ones. ~ Thomas Keller, #NFDB
667:She was wearing a hat heavily trimmed with crisp pink ribbons which looked new, bought no doubt as tribute to the importance of the occasion. It would have been more impressive had it not sat atop a bush of bright yellow hair and from time to time she touched it as if unsure whether it was still on her head. ~ P D James, #NFDB
668:The solution is to allow a limited amount of space for sentimental items, such as a single display shelf or limited wall space to display your favorite collectibles. If you want to keep something, there needs to be a designated spot for it. This makes it easier to evaluate the importance of every possession. ~ S J Scott, #NFDB
669:I think journalist is a great profession. It's complicated now. People talk about the demise of investigative reporting.Newspapers play an amazing role in our society, and I still think they are important. I'm sorry newspaper circulation is down. Ultimately, the importance of newspapers can't be replaced. ~ Seymour Hersh, #NFDB
670:There's a gap in perceptions between women and men. Women feel much freer than they did, but still, when alcohol is involved, especially, there's a lot of sexual assault, and a lot of confusion about that. So, we need to focus a lot more on what consent is and on the importance of affirmative consent. ~ Martha C Nussbaum, #NFDB
671:Howard Thurman with my graduate students. It’s always been one of my favorites, but now that I’ve studied the importance of meaningful work, it’s taken on new significance: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
672:I was always interested in science, truth, goodness and fairness. I have always been strongly individualistic and merit-oriented. This is probably because I was adopted and thus have always tended to cavalierly dismiss the importance of "blood ties" and any inherited or "unearned" group characteristics. ~ Stephan Kinsella, #NFDB
673:Westerners often laud their children as 'talented' or 'gifted', while Asian parents highlight the importance of hard work. And in fact, research performed by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has found that the way parents offer approval affects the way children perform, even the way they feel about themselves. ~ Amy Chua, #NFDB
674:What can I tell you further? I once lived among humankind, and found them in their generality to be cruel and cold, and yet could mention the names of three or four that were like angels.
I suppose we measure the importance of our days by those few angels we spy among us, and yet aren't like them. ~ Sebastian Barry,#NFDB
675:Clinton is a big personality who has led a big life, and for some of the media conventional wisdom to boil it down to a view that 'all people are really interested in' are a few moments of madness in the Oval Office gets him, the importance of the presidency, and the significance of his life, all wrong. ~ Alastair Campbell, #NFDB
676:I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,” he said. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
677:My parents were not formally educated. Both were cognizant of the importance of education. The teachers and ministers were the role models, and they would say, you should want to be like Miss Gardiner, you should want to be like Mr. Freeman, or be like your dad. Shun the people who don't value education. ~ David C Driskell, #NFDB
678:Buddhist meditation has two aspects — shamatha and vipashyana. We tend to stress the importance of vipashyana (“looking deeply”) because it can bring us insight and liberate us from suffering and afflictions. But the practice of shamatha (“stopping”) is fundamental. If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
679:The same is true of the misfortune, failures, and disappointments of life. If we understand the importance of manure, we understand that nothing is truly wasted. Everything can be useful if correctly applied. Therefore, even the bad things in life may become fertilizer that will help us grow and become strong. ~ Ming Dao Deng, #NFDB
680:God uses silence to teach us to use words responsibly. He uses tiredness so that we can understand the value of waking up. He uses illness to underline the blessing of good health.
God uses fire to teach us about water. He uses earth to explain the value of air. He uses death to show us the importance of life. ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
681:I have a mathematical certainty that the future will confirm my assertion that aerial warfare will be the most important element in future wars, and that in consequence not only will the importance of the Independent Air Force rapidly increase, but the importance of the army and navy will decrease in proportion. ~ Giulio Douhet, #NFDB
682:The economic philosophy of black nationalism only means that our people need to be re-educated into the importance of controlling the economy of the community in which we live, which means that we won't have to constantly be involved in picketing and boycotting other people in other communities in order to get jobs. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
683:The importance of mirror-reflection symmetry to our perception and aesthetic appreciation, to the mathematical theory of symmetries, to the laws of physics, and to science in general, cannot be overemphasized, and I will return to it several times. Other symmetries do exist, however, and they are equally relevant. ~ Mario Livio, #NFDB
684:This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative; but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a battle. ~ Edward Gibbon, #NFDB
685:If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one’s engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been a touch more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
686:The Count then proceeded to explain the importance of our mission to bring delicious chocolaty breakfast cereal to the children of the world, and how much Franken Berry cereal sucked by comparison. While talking, the Count picked a booger from his nose, tried to flick it away, then smeared it on his jacket lapel. ~ Craig Alanson, #NFDB
687:I think that we're always gonna be in a position as Republicans and as conservatives where we gotta be willing to stand up for our conservative values. And certainly, you know, at the top of that list is a strong national defense, the importance of a United States military that is superior to all others in the world. ~ Liz Cheney, #NFDB
688:Thinking big is essential to extraordinary results. Success requires action, and action requires thought. But here’s the catch—the only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with. Make this connection, and the importance of how big you think begins to sink in. ~ Gary Keller, #NFDB
689:Royce cast a harsh and anxious look at the prince. “What?” Alric asked. “I thought we discussed the importance of keeping a low profile.” “Oh, please.” The prince waved a hand at the thief. “I don’t think it will get me killed if this monk knows I’m the king. Look at him. I’ve seen drowned rats more formidable. ~ Michael J Sullivan, #NFDB
690:The mere fact of being alone with Winterborne could create a scandal that would haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
His face darkened. “From the first moment I met you, you’ve tortured me and everyone else within reach about the importance of propriety. And now it doesn’t matter? ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
691:I know I have been portrayed as a general looking for war. Many other headlines speak of that. That's what people say. But I understand the importance of peace because I saw the horrors of war. That's how I see it. I lost my best friends in battles.. and I had to make decisions of life and death, of others and myself. ~ Ariel Sharon, #NFDB
692:I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it should be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of encouraging it in every way feasible. The possibility of increasing this trade in the Orient, in the Philippines, and in South America is known to everyone who has given the matter attention. ~ William Howard Taft, #NFDB
693:The importance of strengthening Euro-Atlantic security: the growing dangers pile pressure on our rules-based international system, so we need to do more to strengthen NATO, the bedrock of our defense - not just upping spending, but making the alliance more agile and more capable of tackling dangers from all directions. ~ James Mattis, #NFDB
694:We live in a world that teaches the importance of ambition, efficiency, expediency, getting things done to produce the quickest results. It does not teach or encourage us to relax and just be where we are. In fact, if we are not crazy active and doing a million different things, we get labeled as lazy or unambitious. ~ Baron Baptiste, #NFDB
695:What better way could we teach our children the importance of learning to push forward despite failure than to openly embrace in the education system Trial and Learn as our truly only human learning process. In doing so, we eliminate the stigma of failure and view it as an important part of the process of learning. ~ Martha Char Love, #NFDB
696:I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth. ~ Lin Yutang The Importance of Living (1937) p. 407, #NFDB
697:No little boy likes to be called a little man, but any little boy likes to be treated as a little man, and this is what Marian had done for me: at times, and when she had wanted to, she had endowed me with the importance of a grown-up; she had made me feel that she depended on me. She, more than anyone, had puffed me up. ~ L P Hartley, #NFDB
698:To the extent that the financial situation unnerved Musk, he rarely if ever let it show to employees. “Elon did a great job of not burdening people with those worries,” said Spikes. “He always communicated the importance of being lean and of success, but it was never ‘if we fail, we’re done for.’ He was very optimistic. ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
699:By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage, mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made. They pose profound questions about our durability and the importance of our schemes. They induce, I suppose, a modesty in us. ~ Robert Macfarlane, #NFDB
700:The thing I think I have learned from Wittgenstein is the importance of not making things up: philosophers should not invent problems, and they should also be conscious of the risk of inventing pointless 'technical' machinery which do not offer real explanations, but often just re-state the known facts in a more complex way. ~ Tim Crane, #NFDB
701:I've learned the importance of changing people's minds at the grassroots level so that whoever does run will have a much better chance of encountering public opinion that reaches a critical mass and brings about a change not only in White House policies but in the Congress and in the state legislatures and all around the world. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
702:We need myths that will help us to identify with all our fellow-beings, not simply with those who belong to our ethnic, national or ideological tribe. We need myths that help us to realise the importance of compassion, which is not always regarded as sufficiently productive or efficient in our pragmatic, rational world. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
703:As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind - to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of nature in its narrow terms - runs riot here (in psychoanalysis). Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
704:As the years progress one increasingly realises the importance of friendship and human solidarity. And if a 90-year-old may offer some unsolicited advice on this occasion, it would be that you, irrespective of your age, should place human solidarity, the concern for the other, at the centre of the values by which you live. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
705:Doctors should recognise the importance of the five human values; Truth, righteousness, Peace, Love and Non-violence. Love is the basis for all the other values. Doctors can infuse courage in patients by the love they show towards the patients. If doctors carry out their duties with love they will be crowned with success. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
706:He taught me to stand up for what I believe in, to shout it out at the top of my lungs. He taught me to feel—the deep, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, soul-singing kind of emotion I had avoided for so long. He taught me about the importance of life. He taught me about the beauty of death. He also taught me about love. ~ Michelle Leighton, #NFDB
707:It's funny: when people always talk about the importance of role models, I used to think that was so exaggerated, but as I get older, I start to realize I don't feel that way so much anymore. If you see somebody like you who's doing something, an older version of what you are, it does make you feel like it's more possible. ~ Demetri Martin, #NFDB
708:It’s important to be a reader because it can help make you a better person.” Anissa Gray, author of The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls (Berkley, 2019), talks about the importance of reading, offers advice to aspiring writers, and explains why she does not loan out books in this interview for Penguin Random House. ~ Anissa Gray, #NFDB
709:After practice today, Coach pulled me aside and gave me a ten-minute lecture about the importance of keeping my grades up. Well, lecture is too generous a description—his exact words had been “maintain your average or I’ll shove my foot so far up your ass you’ll be able to taste my shoe polish in your mouth for years to come. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
710:As a teenager, I virtually memorized my paperback editions, greedy for insider tips about the literary life. Pound, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, Colette, Waugh—they were all there. What has stuck with me the most over the years is their almost universal insistence on the importance of revision, of revising and revising again. ~ Michael Dirda, #NFDB
711:Even if everyone around you is ditching purity, God will give you the strength to stand strong. Even if all your friends are having sex before marriage, you will know the value of saving it for marriage. Even if the women around you are marrying nonbelievers, you will understand the importance of waiting for a Christian man. ~ Bethany Baird, #NFDB
712:Their successes in our country illustrated the importance of a well-functioning non-corrupt government, a free market, a society that values individuals, including girls and women, a culture that tolerates all religious traditions and an environment free of violence and war. No country in South Asia has yet achieved ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
713:Rick Bass is one of a dwindling handful of American fiction writers still celebrating the importance of place, the natural world, and the struggle of a few brave souls to live and work respectfully in what's left of our western wilderness...The Lives of Rocks is his most lyrical and powerful book to date...a masterwork. ~ Howard Frank Mosher, #NFDB
714:A body is a body." Viscarro shrugged his bony shoulders. "Dead, alive, alive, dead. I fail to see the importance of the distinction."
Yeah? So you'd just as soon fuck a living person as a dead one? What's the point of the distinction? Oh, right-one's normal, and one's called necrophilia."
Viscarro sighed. "Touche, I suppose. ~ Tim Pratt,#NFDB
715:In The Tao of Leadership, John Heider stresses the importance of interfering as little as possible. “Rules reduce freedom and responsibility,” he writes. “Enforcement of rules is coercive and manipulative, which diminishes spontaneity and absorbs group energy. The more coercive you are, the more resistant the group will become. ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
716:The ancient paused for a moment, as if his strength were failing. Yet I sensed that there was more to tell. Looking deep into my eyes, he whispered:
'The Gond kingdoms have fallen, their people live dispersed in poverty: the teak trees and the jungles have been cleared... but the importance of the Gonds must not be forgotten! ~ Tahir Shah,#NFDB
717:Max sent Scottie some literary advice, the same dictum he gave every college student who called on him. He stressed the importance of a liberal arts education but urged her to avoid all courses in writing. "Everyone has to find her own way of writing," he wrote Scottie, "and the source of finding it is largely out of literature. ~ A Scott Berg, #NFDB
718:Red started preparing a short speech for Sophie about the importance of keeping a safe physical distance between herself and her guest. He was just working out a brilliant but poignant closing statement when Sophie walked into the room.
Red's welcoming smile froze,fell, and shattered. "Bloody hell! Ye can't wear that! ~ Karen Hawkins,#NFDB
719:The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do...How vigilant we are! determined not live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
720:How did the Finns build the best readers in the world? By eliminating standardized testing and emphasizing the importance of reading and critical thinking, by nurturing deeper thinking and creativity, and by leading their students away from the drill-and-kill instructional approach that is currently permeating American schools. ~ Kelly Gallagher, #NFDB
721:The basic ground of compassionate action is the importance of working with rather than struggling against, and what I mean by that is working with your own unwanted, unacceptable stuff, so that when the unacceptable and unwanted appears out there, you relate to it based on having worked with loving-kindness for yourself. ~ Shambhala Publications, #NFDB
722:Royce cast a harsh and anxious look at the prince.
“What?” Alric asked.
“I thought we discussed the importance of keeping a low profile.”
“Oh, please.” The prince waved a hand at the thief. “I don’t think it will
get me killed if this monk knows I’m the king. Look at him. I’ve seen
drowned rats more formidable. ~ Michael J Sullivan,#NFDB
723:Taking the donuts is hard for a lot of people. It’s not the act of taking that’s so difficult, it’s more the fear of what other people are going to think when they see us slaving away at our manuscript about the pure transcendence of nature and the importance of self-reliance and simplicity. While munching on someone else’s donut. ~ Amanda Palmer, #NFDB
724:In Europe one generally has the tendency to exaggerate the importance of Buddhism, which is certainly the least interesting of all the Eastern doctrines, but which precisely because it constitutes a deviation and anomaly for the East can seem more accessible to the Western mentality and less foreign to its customary forms of thinking. ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
725:We shall miss Leopardstar. I remember her from all the way back when I was an apprentice in ThunderClan. I always respected her, and, though her loyalty to RiverClan never wavered, she was a leader who understood the importance of keeping every Clan strong. She had the heart, courage, and strength of the mighty cat she was named for. ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
726:Considering the importance of resentment in our lives, and the damage it does, it receives scant attention from psychiatrists and psychologists. Resentment is a great rationalizer: it presents us with selected versions of our own past, so that we do not recognize our own mistakes and avoid the necessity to make painful choices. ~ Theodore Dalrymple, #NFDB
727:Malcolm Fraser, in the marrow of his bones, despised racism. He despised people who discriminated against other people because they were different and in particular because of the colour of their skin, and I don't think there has been a time in Australian politics where there has been more attention to the importance of that value. ~ George Brandis, #NFDB
728:As the Leonardo scholar Charles Hope has pointed out, “He had no real understanding of the way in which the growth of knowledge was a cumulative and collaborative process.”41 Although he would occasionally let visitors glimpse his work, he did not seem to realize or care that the importance of research comes from its dissemination. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
729:I was aesthetically impressed but failed to understand the importance of it. Unfortunately, Braxaná do not express ignorance; therefore I couldn’t ask, “What is it?” as directly as I would have liked. After a moment I looked up at him, the elevation of one eyebrow indicating that I was intrigued enough to hear what he had come to say. ~ C S Friedman, #NFDB
730:A religious myth infuses ordinary aspects of life with enchantment and significance: accidents and coincidences become invested with hidden purposes; our actions in the world acquire the importance of a cosmic mission; our suffering becomes the carrier of critical insights; even objects and people around us acquire a numinous aura. ~ Bernardo Kastrup, #NFDB
731:Harry waxes poetic about magic. He'll go on and on about how it comes from your feelings, and how it's a deep statement about the nature of your soul, and then he'll whip out some kind of half-divine, half-insane philosophy he's cobbled together from the words of saints and comic books about the importance of handling power responsibly. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
732:The reformers define the purpose of education as preparation for global competitiveness, higher education, or the workforce. They view students as “human capital” or “assets.” One seldom sees any reference in their literature or public declarations to the importance of developing full persons to assume the responsibilities of citizenship. ~ Diane Ravitch, #NFDB
733:This is the single most powerful investment we can ever make in life—investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute. We are the instruments of our own performance, and to be effective, we need to recognize the importance of taking time regularly to sharpen the saw in all four ways. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
734:we are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason. but we cannot just walk into the cavern and look around. most of what we think we know about our minds is pseudo-knowledge. we are all such shocking poseurs, so good at inflating the importance of what we think we value. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
735:We got some that were plain and some cinnamon. I liked the cinnamon better. Violet said that it was important to start with the plain, so that the cinnamon seemed more like a change. She said she had a theory that everything was better if you delayed it. She had this whole thing about self-control, okay, and the importance of self-control. ~ M T Anderson, #NFDB
736:Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about this. It doesnt help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes todays intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice. ~ Dan Quayle, #NFDB
737:Practicing meditation is just like breathing. While working we breathe, while sleeping we breathe, while sitting down we breathe... Why do we have time to breathe? Because we see the importance of the breath, we can always find time to breathe. In the same way, if we see the importance of meditation practice we will find the time to practice. ~ Ajahn Chah, #NFDB
738:I was living, growing up in a very traditional household and yet at the same time I was going to school in the United States where I was taught the importance of personal preference, so at home it was all about learning your duties and responsibilities whereas in school it was all about well you get to decide what you want you want to eat. ~ Sheena Iyengar, #NFDB
739:The importance of language in gaining knowledge is doubtless the chief cause of the common notion that knowledge may be passed directly from one to another. It almost seems as if all we have to do to convey an idea into the mind of another is to convey a sound into his ear. Thus imparting knowledge gets assimilated to a purely physical process. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
740:What we are entering is a power age, and the importance of the power age lies in its ability, rightly used with the wage motive behind it, to increase and cheapen production so that all of us may have more of this world's goods. The way to liberty, the way to equality of opportunity, the way from empty phrases to actualities, lies through power ~ Henry Ford, #NFDB
741:To be useful in God’s hand, a man must be properly adjusted with respect to all three: his position, his life and his warfare. He falls short of God’s requirements if he underestimates the importance of any one of them, for each is a sphere in which God would express “the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (1:6). ~ Watchman Nee, #NFDB
742:With "Good Night, and Good Luck," I think it's kind of obvious what [Truman Capote]'s getting at there, and the importance of how it's playing out today, that is journalism doing, are the journalists doing their job, are they being the other checks and balances in our country that the way that obviously Edward R. Murrow was back then. ~ Philip Seymour Hoffman, #NFDB
743:you will never be able to hit a target that you cannot see. People spend their whole lives dreaming of becoming happier, living with more vitality and having an abundance of passion. Yet they do not see the importance of taking even ten minutes a month to write out their goals and to think deeply about the meaning of their lives, their Dharma ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
744:Clearly, one does not have to give up being an academic, retreat from rigorous research, or renounce the importance of specialization in order to address major social issues. I don't think you give up theoretical rigor by writing in a way that addresses major social concerns and is at the same time accessible to wider informed general audiences. ~ Henry Giroux, #NFDB
745:I feel more passionately about the importance of healing from our abuse issues. I feel more passionately. I’ve become more spontaneous, embraced my femininity, and learned new lessons along the way—about boundaries, flexibility, and owning my power. And about love. I’m learning to respect men. My relationships have deepened. Some have changed. ~ Melody Beattie, #NFDB
746:Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity... and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system. ~ Samuel Adams, #NFDB
747:To live only for some unknown future is superficial. It is like climbing a mountain to reach the peak without experiencing its sides. The sides of the mountain sustain life, not the peak. This is where things grow, experience is gained and technologies are mastered. The importance of the peak lies only in the fact that it defines the sides. ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
748:Every sin we commit reinforces the habit of sinning and makes it easier to sin. In the previous chapter we discussed the importance of guarding our minds and emotions, since these faculties are the channels through which the various compelling forces reach our wills. But it is also important that we understand how our habits influence our wills. ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
749:False twin flame relationships help us to understand ourselves better. They are a powerful lesson in the importance of being discerning, self-caring, and aware of our shadows. The reason why we enter false twin flame relationships in the first place is due to the naivety of romanticizing others and being disconnected from the wisdom of our soul. ~ Aletheia Luna, #NFDB
750:Forgery is just the most dramatic example of the importance of origin. Arthur Koestler described a friend who owned a drawing that she first took to be a reproduction. When she later discovered that it was an original by Picasso, she displayed it more prominently, claimed that she saw it differently, and enjoyed it more. For her, its value went up. ~ Paul Bloom, #NFDB
751:It would be fine, if only I knew how to turn the shower off.” Guinzburg laughed. “Perhaps you should ask Miss Redwood to come to your rescue.” “If she did, I’m not sure I’d know how to turn her off.” “Ah, so she’s already subjected you to her lecture on the importance of getting Nothing Ventured on to the bestseller list as quickly as possible. ~ Jeffrey Archer, #NFDB
752:We know the importance of being healthy but only a few of us are able to manage it. We often have other priorities in life which come in the way of our desire to be healthy. We wish to be successful in life, make lots of money and achieve fame and appreciation in the world. Sometimes, we end up fulfilling these desires by sacrificing our health. ~ Awdhesh Singh, #NFDB
753:If Darwin could see what we now see, what we now know about the ocean, about the atmosphere, about the nature of life, as we now understand it, about the importance of microbes - I think he would just beam with joy that many of the thoughts and the glimpses of the majesty of life on Earth that he had during his life, now magnified many times over. ~ Sylvia Earle, #NFDB
754:The broad lesson we take from IPB is the importance of geography in our own competitive situations. What potential sources of power are locked in the geography of the likely battlefield? How does geography potentially enhance or degrade strategy? Can you modify your strategy to take advantage of geography or to prevent it from degrading your strategy? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
755:When we look away from the importance of the erotic in the development and sustenance of our power, or when we look away from ourselves as we satisfy our erotic needs in concert with others, we use each other as objects of satisfaction rather than share our joy in the satisfying, rather than make connection with our similarities and our differences. ~ Audre Lorde, #NFDB
756:If Pauline should see him close his eyes, she would never be offended or suspect boredom. She is fully conscious of her powers, appreciates the importance of good food, knows that books, particularly fiction, form a valuable core of experience, and believes she can trust Cruzzi absolutely to understand and follow the intricacies of her observations. ~ Carol Shields, #NFDB
757:That we can never know," answered the wolf angrily. "That's for the future. But what we can know is the importance of what we owe to the present. Here and now, and nowhere else. For nothing else exists, except in our minds. What we owe to ourselves, and to those we're bound to. And we can at least hope to make a better future, for everything. ~ David Clement Davies, #NFDB
758:Accountability is an important tool that leaders must utilize. However, it should not be the primary tool. It must be balanced with other leadership tools, such as making sure people understand the why, empowering subordinates, and trusting they will do the right thing without direct oversight because they fully understand the importance of doing so. ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
759:A man of genius is not a man who sees more than other men do. On the contrary, it is very often found that he is absentminded andobserves much less than other people.... Why is it that the public have such an exaggerated respect for him--after he is dead? The reason is that the man of genius understands the importance of the few things he sees. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
760:What do toddlers and teenagers have in common? They have not known a world without web access or mobile devices. What does this mean for parents? Mobile manners should be introduced as early as age two, and taught along with other essential etiquette such as table manners, introductions and greetings, and the importance of please and thank-you. ~ Daniel Post Senning, #NFDB
761:The basic ground of compassionate action is the importance of working with rather than struggling against, and what I mean by that is working with your own unwanted, unacceptable stuff, so that when the unacceptable and unwanted appears out there, you relate to it based on having worked with loving-kindness for yourself. Then there is no condescension. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
762:Every semester I share this quote by theologian Howard Thurman with my graduate students. It’s always been one of my favorites, but now that I’ve studied the importance of meaningful work, it’s taken on new significance: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
763:You want a woman who, if needed, will be the CEO of the home. In essence, you want a woman who understands the difference between ambition and busyness. You also want a woman who understands that submission is strength, not weakness. Meaning, she understands the importance of your leadership but she is also strong enough not to allow you to run over her. ~ Tony Gaskins, #NFDB
764:I mean to ask whether there is any way of avoiding the hostility expressed by the division say, of men into "us" (Westerners) and "they" (Orientals). For such divisions are generalities whose use historically and actually has been to press the importance of the distinction between some men and some other men, usually towards not especially admirable ends. ~ Edward W Said, #NFDB
765:Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." (Colossians 3:1) This is a direct command to set our hearts on Heaven. And to make sure we don't miss the importance of a heaven-centered life, the next verse says, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." God commands us to set our hearts and minds on Heaven. ~ Randy Alcorn, #NFDB
766:I’m not denying the importance of achieving one’s goals, maintaining one’s health, or keeping one’s children clothed and fed—but most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
767:what is meant by the phrase “the Word of God.” To us, the Word of God is, first and foremost, Jesus, the Word made flesh. Secondly, the Word of God is any way in which the story of God’s self-revelation in Jesus is told to people (thus the importance of hearing). Thirdly, the Word of God is the way in which the Bible tells us who the Triune God is. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
768:Figuring out how to build a sustainable creative culture—one that didn’t just pay lip service to the importance of things like honesty, excellence, communication, originality, and self-assessment but really committed to them, no matter how uncomfortable that became—wasn’t a singular assignment. It was a day-in-day-out, full-time job. And one that I wanted to do. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
769:And never underestimate the importance of even just a little bit of progress. One of the worst things, among an almost infinite number of shitty things, about depression is that it makes you feel hopeless and worthless and like you can’t do anything at all, let alone anything right. Setting yourself up for even the smallest positive accomplishment is so huge. ~ Rachel Hoffman, #NFDB
770:. . .[B]rain health isn't an 'us versus them' situation. Every one of us has the capacity to suffer in this way, and most of us--at some time in our lives--will. We teach our kids the importance of good dental care, proper nutrition, and financial responsibility. How many of us teach our children to monitor their own brain health, or know how to do it ourselves? ~ Sue Klebold, #NFDB
771:I never went into physics or the astronaut corps to become a role model. But after my first flight, it became clear to me that I was one. And I began to understand the importance of that to people. Young girls need to see role models in whatever careers they may choose, just so they can picture themselves doing those jobs someday. You can't be what you can't see. ~ Sally Ride, #NFDB
772:THE IMPORTANCE OF lethal microbes in human history is well illustrated by Europeans’ conquest and depopulation of the New World. Far more Native Americans died in bed from Eurasian germs than on the battlefield from European guns and swords. Those germs undermined Indian resistance by killing most Indians and their leaders and by sapping the survivors’ morale. ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
773:You cannot be afraid to present yourself. And sometimes that takes practice. If you're not comfortable with public speaking - and nobody starts out comfortable, you have to learn how to be comfortable - practice. I cannot overstate the importance of practicing. Get some close friends or family members to help evaluate you, or somebody at work that you trust. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
774:In 1910, John Dewey published an important essay entitled “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy” (Dewey 1981, pp. 31–41). In a recent unpublished lecture, “The Importance of Darwin for Philosophy,” Philip Kitcher describes Dewey’s essay as “the single best philosophical response to Darwin published in the first century after the appearance of the Origin. ~ Richard J Bernstein, #NFDB
775:In order to make room for more of God in our life, we need to let go of things that are currently filling our heart and reorder the things that are not ordered properly in Him. The importance of an appropriate detachment from the things of the world-or as they sometimes speak of it, the putting of our lives into the right-is stressed by all the spiritual writers. ~ Ralph Martin, #NFDB
776:Manhood isn’t something that simply happens to boys as they get older. It’s an achievement—something a boy accomplishes, something that can easily go awry. If we ignore the importance of this transition, and fail in our duty as parents to guide boys through it, then we will learn the hard way why traditional cultures invest this transition with so much importance. ~ Leonard Sax, #NFDB
777:To treat programming scientifically, it must be possible to specify the required properties of programs precisely. Formality is certainly not an end in itself. The importance of formal specifications must ultimately rest in their utility -in whether or not they are used to improve the quality of software or to reduce the cost of producing and maintaining software. ~ Jim Horning, #NFDB
778:Trout became a fanatic on the importance of ideas as causes and cures for diseases. But nobody would listen to him. He was a dirty old man in the wilderness, crying out among the trees and underbrush, "Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease!" Kilgore Trout became a pioneer in the field of mental health. He advanced his theories disguised as science-fiction. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
779:Most good decisions will involve these steps: Figure out your goal or goals. Evaluate the importance of each goal. Array the options. Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals. Pick the winning option. Later use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign them, and the way you evaluate future possibilities. ~ Barry Schwartz, #NFDB
780:One of the ways in which our culture fosters the narcissistic personality is by its exaggerated emphasis upon the importance of winning. There is a popular slogan that says winning is the only thing that counts. Such an attitude minimizes human values and subordinates the feelings of others to this one overriding goal to win, to be on top, to be number one. But ~ Alexander Lowen, #NFDB
781:What matters in the end in literature, what is always there, is the truly good. And- though played out forms can throw up miraculous sports like The Importance of Being Earnest or Decline and Fall- what is good is always what is new, in both form and content. What is good forgets whatever models it might have had, and is unexpected; we have to catch it on the wing. ~ V S Naipaul, #NFDB
782:But if we play down or ignore the importance of holiness, we are utterly and absolutely wrong. Holiness is in fact commanded: God wills it, Christ requires it, and all the Scriptures—the law, the gospel, the prophets, the wisdom writings, the epistles, the history books that tell of judgments past and the book of Revelation that tells of judgment to come—call for it. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
783:In 1949, UNESCO published a Public Library Manifesto to establish the importance of libraries on the United Nations agenda. The manifesto states, “The library is a prerequisite to let citizens make use of their right to information and freedom of speech. Free access to information is necessary in a democratic society, for open debate and creation of public opinion. ~ Susan Orlean, #NFDB
784:Dr. King kept guns in his home to protect himself and his family. After firebombing and numerous death threats by racists, his application for a permit to carry a gun was denied by the 'may issue' white power structure (Democrat) in that time and place. Let the holiday that celebrates this man’s life include some reflection on the importance of the Second Amendment. ~ Massad Ayoob, #NFDB
785:Feminists have emphasized for a long time the importance of each woman's individual entity and the necessity of economic independence. Perhaps it was necessary. But now I think we need some emphasis on the instinctive side of life, sex and motherhood.... Life isn't all earning your living. Unfortunately we fall in love and Feminism must take that into consideration. ~ Dora Russell, #NFDB
786:I commended Angela [Merkel] for her leadership along with President Hollande in working to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. We continued to stand with the people of Ukraine and for the basic principle that nations have a right to determine their own destiny and we discussed the importance of maintaining sanctions until Russia fully complies with the Minsk Agreement. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
787:The only important thing is to follow nature. A tiger should be a good tiger; a tree, a good tree. So people should be people. But to know what people are, one must follow nature and go alone, admitting the importance of the unexpected. Still, nothing is possible without love. . . . For love puts one in a mood to risk everything, and not to withhold important elements. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
788:When Jesse started to cry, I found that I'd been expecting it. I know a breakdown when I see one. In the kitchenette behind me, my phone flashed into life, but I knew the importance of what Dr. Adil calls full-body listening when someone is trying to unburden. You take your attention away at the wrong moment, you even mistime your blinks, and the trust is gone. ~ Erin Kelly, #NFDB
789:Scientists may study mainly matter but they cannot ignore the human mind, or consciousness: spiritual practitioners may be engaging mainly in developing the mind but they cannot completely ignore their physical needs. It is for this reason that I have always stressed the importance of combining both mental and the material approach to achieving happiness for humankind. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
790:The language they used to talk about the issues showed that they thought of them as their own. “Is there a way, other than Braintrust notes, that we could do a better job of teaching our directors the importance of an emotional arc?” asked one person. “I feel like I should be formally sharing my experience with other people,” said another. I could not have been prouder. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
791:If their solution breaks down because of external interference in the autistic processes, they experience considerable anxiety and their aggression is mobilized to defend their system. This reaction substantiates the importance of the fantasy process in psychosis, a process which acts to reduce anxiety and maintain the psychological equilibrium (homeostasis). An ~ Robert W Firestone, #NFDB
792:Men like Bubba Boyd think the earth owes them a living. They take whatever wealth they can from the mountains and move on. I actually feel sorry for him, I really do. He can’t for the life of him see the simple beauty in a waterfall or understand the importance of history and place. If I have one hope for you, Kevin, it’s that you never become one of those men. ~ Christopher Scotton, #NFDB
793:In our nation’s popular culture, country life in the 1800s has often been portrayed as an idyllic experience, one that cultivated such quintessentially American values as self-reliance, rugged independence, a reverence for the land, a belief in the importance of hard work and self-sacrifice, and a willingness to fight when necessary for home, family, and community. ~ Harold Schechter, #NFDB
794:I learned the importance of a man's chair early in life. I learned that he may love several wives, embrace several cars, be true to more than one political philosophy, and be equally committed to several careers, but he will have only one comfortable chair in his life. I learned it will be an ugly chair. It will match nothing in the entire house. It will never wear out. ~ Erma Bombeck, #NFDB
795:When, however, the Warrior is operating on his own, unrelated to these other archetypes, the results for the mortal man accessing even the positive Warrior (the Warrior in his fullness) can be disastrous. As we have said, the Warrior in his pure form is emotionally detached; his transpersonal loyalty radically relativizes the importance of a man’s human relationships. ~ Robert L Moore, #NFDB
796:Gratitude, therefore, emerged from the data as the antidote to foreboding joy. In fact, every participant who spoke about the ability to stay open to joy also talked about the importance of practicing gratitude. This pattern of association was so thoroughly prevalent in the data that I made a commitment as a researcher not to talk about joy without talking about gratitude. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
797:If we human beings learn to see the intricacies that bind one part of a natural system to another and then to us, we will no longer argue about the importance of wilderness protection, or over the question of saving endangered species, or how human communities must base their economic futures - not on short-term exploitation - but on long-term, sustainable development. ~ Gaylord Nelson, #NFDB
798:Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler — for the liar — than it really is, or ought to be.
In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even within our own lives. ~ Adrienne Rich,#NFDB
799:Millions of people have been lifted from poverty and have gained access to modern education and health care. We have a universal declaration of human rights, and awareness of the importance of such rights has grown tremendously. As a result, the ideals of freedom and democracy have spread around the world, and there is increasing recognition of the oneness of humanity. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
800:As a physician who knows the importance of body image to our overall health, I wanted to have a way to inspire women to love their bodies no matter what size or shape they are. This is possible!!! And I know EXACTLY how to do this because I've done it myself and I've helped thousands of others to do the same thing. It's women's health at its most fundamental level! ~ Christiane Northrup, #NFDB
801:I understood the importance of hiring for strength rather than for lack of weakness, and I understood the meaning of “fit.” There are lots of smart people in the world, but smart is not good enough. I needed people who were great where I needed greatness. I needed people who really wanted to do the jobs they were hired for. And I needed people who believed in the mission— ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
802:Once we understand that our happiness is the result of our life experiences with the world, we will also understand the importance of taking care of both our external and internal world. We can’t be happy if our children are unhappy, our spouse is unfaithful or if our boss hates us. It is futile to focus just on internal changes and hope to attain long-lasting happiness. ~ Awdhesh Singh, #NFDB
803:Germany is a country that has absolutely had to since the Second World War ask itself massive moral questions. And it's reforged its identity based on culture. I mean, the amount of artists living and working in Berlin is unparalleled. It's one of the strongest economies, not only in Europe, but globally, and it's because of its understanding of the importance of culture. ~ Cate Blanchett, #NFDB
804:Such sober warnings in the Word of God should impress upon us the importance of keeping our priorities straight: God first, family second, ministry or career third. Only when a leader’s relationship to God is right, and only when responsibilities as a family member are being properly met, can the leader be fully faithful in exercising the ministry God has given him or her. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
805:I believe in the importance of learning from what has been discovered before. And in how precious health is, and how hard I must work to preserve it in all my Clanmates. The fact that the world of signs, omens, and dreams that have hidden meanings is closed to me doesn't feel like something is missing, Mistystar. I respect what you believe. You must respect what matters to me. ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
806:I believe in the importance of learning from what has been discovered before. And in how precious health is, and how hard I must work to preserve it in all my Clanmates. The fact that the world of signs, omens, and dreams that have hidden meanings is closed to me doesn’t feel like something is missing, Mistystar. I respect what you believe. You must respect what matters to me. ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
807:All is safe where all can read," is a quotation from Thomas Jefferson showing his belief in the importance of everyone knowing how to and being able/allowed to read. I would like to take it one step further.
I would say, "All is BETTER when all can read." No matter what you like to read, the ability to read it, understand it, and enjoy it, truly enriches your life. ~ Thomas Jefferson,#NFDB
808:The importance of elections, transparency, legal procedures, an independent army, and the judicial system is not regarded as highly in China. These core values are the most important evidence of the health of a society, quality of life, and security. A clear understanding of such differences will help the rest of the world understand China and all that is happening to the nation. ~ Ai Weiwei, #NFDB
809:We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intellectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic. ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
810:Another of the qualities of science is that it teaches the value of rational thought, as well as the importance of freedom of thought; the positive results that come from doubting that all the lessons are true... Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. ~ Richard P Feynman, #NFDB
811:I do not understand the difference between a man and a woman, and believing only in the eternal value of love, I cannot understand these so-called ‘normal’ people who believe that a man should love only a woman, and a woman love only a man. If this were so, then it disregards completely the spirit, the personality, and the mind, and stresses the importance of the physical body. ~ Sarah Prager, #NFDB
812:In studying the fate of our forest king, we have thus far considered the action of purely natural causes only; but, unfortunately, man is in the woods, and waste and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If the importance of the forests were even vaguely understood, even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government ~ John Muir, #NFDB
813:The importance of the End of time is as ... a psychological event ... When you have seen the radiance of eternity through all the forms of time ... and it is the function of art to make that visible to you ... then you have really have ended life in the world as it is lived by those who only think only in the historical, concretizing terms. This is the function of mythology. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
814:To point out the importance of circumspection in your conduct, it may be proper to observe that a good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
815:I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to Be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. ~ Louise L Hay, #NFDB
816:Whether it’s your health, wealth, happiness, or any other element of your entire life experience, it is essential to keep in mind the importance of the movement of your attention. You must be obstinate and persistent in not allowing the viewpoints or information of others to alter your inner world. You know what you wish to become and what you would like to manifest for yourself. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
817:I mean people are really crazy about minor decrements down. And then, if you act on them, then you get into reciprocation tendency, because you don't just reciprocate affection, you reciprocate animosity, and the whole thing can escalate. And so huge insanities can come from just subconsciously over-weighing the importance of what you're losing or almost getting and not getting. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
818:Lulled into somnolence by five hundred years of print, literary studies have been slow to wake up to the importance of MSA (media-specific analysis). Literary criticism and theory are shot through with unrecognized assumptions specific to print. Only now, as the new medium of electronic textuality vibrantly asserts its presence, are these assumptions clearly coming into view. ~ N Katherine Hayles, #NFDB
819:If you are in a country that is progressive, the woman is progressive. If you're in a country that reflects the consciousness toward the importance of education, it's because the woman is aware of the importance of education. But in every backward country you'll find the women are backward, and in every country where education is not stressed its because the women don't have education. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
820:More than ten million women march to work every morning side by side with the men. Steadily the importance of women is gaining notonly in the routine tasks of industry but in executive responsibility. I include also the woman who stays at home as the guardian of the welfare of the family. She is a partner in the job and wages. Women constitute a part of our industrial achievement. ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
821:Teach her about privilege and inequality and the importance of giving dignity to everyone who does not mean her harm—teach her that the household help is human just like her, teach her always to greet the driver. Link these expectations to her identity—for example, say to her “In our family, when you are a child, you greet those older than you no matter what job they do. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
822:It was, for him, an object lesson in the importance of the “better out than in” free speech argument—that it was better to allow even the most reprehensible speech than to sweep it under the carpet, better to publicly contest and perhaps deride what was loathsome than to give it the glamour of taboo, and that, for the most part, people could be trusted to tell the good from the bad. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
823:Korzybski argued that language must be viewed as a map, which is useful only insofar as it is similar to the world it describes. He stressed the importance of questioning the unconscious assumptions built into our language, and urged a response to life on the basis of fresh, "first order" experience rather than the old experiences that have been crystallized in words and concepts. ~ Timothy O Reilly, #NFDB
824:The ancient Hebrews had a word for this awareness of the importance of things. They called it kavod. Kavod originally was a business term, referring to the heaviness of something, which was crucial in weights and measures and the maintaining of fairness in transactions. Over time the word began to take on a more figurative meaning, referring to the importance and significance of something. ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
825:The blame instinct makes us exaggerate the importance of individuals or of particular groups. This instinct to find a guilty party derails our ability to develop a true, fact-based understanding of the world: it steals our focus as we obsess about someone to blame, then blocks our learning because once we have decided who to punch in the face we stop looking for explanations elsewhere. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
826:Because of the importance of perceiving the means as morally acceptable, there may be a strong ongoing need for justification in idealistic evil. The person is doing something that would normally be regarded as wrong, such as killing or hurting people. Somehow, the person must sustain the belief that it is right. This is often done by focusing on the goodness of the overriding goal. ~ Roy F Baumeister, #NFDB
827:I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life--always growing and increasing--is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests. ~ Thomas Huxley, #NFDB
828:I believe that it is very difficult in the world of today to continue with G-8 only without taking in account the importance of Brazil, China, India, many in the world economy, because these countries are great consumers, large consumers, and we're also becoming great producers, and also because we were better prepared than the rich countries for the nowadays global crisis. ~ Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, #NFDB
829:Of course, we are a little proud and very happy for whatever good we have been able to do in waking people up to the peril of collectivism and the importance of Freedom under God.” But the battle was far from won. “I do not consider that we can relax our efforts in any way or at any point,” Fifield noted. “It is still a long road back to what was and, please God, will again be America. ~ Kevin M Kruse, #NFDB
830:Florence flourished in the fifteenth century because it was comfortable with such people. Above all, Leonardo’s relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling, in both ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
831: I believe that it is very difficult in the world of today to continue with G-8 only without taking in account the importance of Brazil, China, India, many in the world economy, because these countries are great consumers, large consumers, and we're also becoming great producers, and also because we were better prepared than the rich countries for the nowadays global crisis. ~ Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, #NFDB
832:I believe in the importance of unity among those who know Christ, who profess to be "Christians." . . . I believe there is an important spiritual awakening beginning in the hearts of those truly committed to Christ in the Protestant and Catholic communities. Is it possible that Pope Francis may prove to be an answer not only to the prayers of Catholics, but also those known as Protestants? ~ James Robison, #NFDB
833:We also got lucky in many ways,” muses Sanjeev. “We got the money just before the market meltdown. So, we didn’t get time to spend it foolishly. We just put it in a fixed deposit. And through the meltdown, we spent the money on technology, products, people, offices, the sales team, getting new clients, trying to cut the losses.” This is when the importance of building good teams kicked in. ~ Rashmi Bansal, #NFDB
834:We cannot really understand another human being without understanding his dharma story. And we cannot understand his dharma story without grasping the importance of his dharma mentors. The more I dug into Keats, the more I discovered that one cannot understand Keats without understanding Shakespeare. Mark apparently discovered the same thing. His second major play would be about Shakespeare. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
835:In mechanical terms, humans are quite efficient converters of food into energy, so human slaves were often more valuable than animal slaves, if one could afford them.21 The importance of human beings as a source of energy helps explain why forced labor was so ubiquitous in the premodern world, just as the existence of fossil fuels helps explain why human slavery has largely vanished today. ~ David Christian, #NFDB
836:The importance of English word order is also the reason that the idea that you can't end a sentence with a preposition is utter hogwash. In fact, it would be utter hogwash anyway, and anyone who claims that you can't end a sentence with up, should be told to shut. It is, as Shakespeare put it, such stuff as dreams are made on, but it's one of those silly English beliefs that flesh is heir to. ~ Mark Forsyth, #NFDB
837:The photographs are not illustrative. They, and the text, are coequal, mutually independent, and fully collaborative. By their fewness, and by the importance of the reader’s eye, this will be misunderstood by most of that minority which does not wholly ignore it. In the interests, however, of the history and future of photography, that risk seems irrelevant, and this flat statement necessary. ~ Walker Evans, #NFDB
838:Think of a single problem confronting the world today. Disease, poverty, global warming... If the problem is going to be solved, it is science that is going to solve it. Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do. If anyone ever cures cancer, it will be a guy with a science degree. Or a woman with a science degree. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
839:Wise woman healing teaches the importance of excellent nutrition during pregnancy, understanding that your form your child and yourself from the nourishment you receive in the forty weeks of pregnancy. Excellent nutrition includes pure water, controlled breath, abundant light, loving and respectful relationships, beauty and harmony in daily life, positive, joyous thoughts, and vital foodstuffs. ~ Susun Weed, #NFDB
840:In the Negro world, as in the white world, Negroes who have money band together and try to ignore the existence of their unluckier brothers. That is the way the love of money works. But neither money, nor the love of it, is the root of all evil. The importance of money is simply that power in the world does not exist without it and power in the world is what almost everyone would like to have. ~ James Baldwin, #NFDB
841:The question of real, lasting world peace concerns human beings, so basic human feelings are also at its roots. Through inner peace, genuine world peace can be achieved. In this the importance of individual responsibility is quite clear; an atmosphere of peace must first be created within ourselves, then gradually expanded to include our families, our communities, and ultimately the whole planet. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
842:We conclude this list of thanks by coming full circle:We thank the families of 9/11, whose persistence and dedication helped create the Commission.They have been with us each step of the way, as partners and witnesses.They know better than any of us the importance of the work we have undertaken. We want to note what we have done, and not done.We have endeavored to provide the most complete account ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
843:In brief, I regard love as a more decisive focus of meaning than death. In terms of Heidegger's argument, this is because I think he misdescribes the importance of the deaths of others and focuses exclusively on my relation to my own death. But, in reality, the deaths of others have a more urgent and immediate impact on our lives than the purely notional knowledge that I too will one day die. ~ George Pattison, #NFDB
844:For those who may not yet know Him, my prayer is that the Lord will draw you through this study of His Word and by the truth of the gospel to embrace Christ with your whole heart as Lord and Savior and friend. Regardless of who you are or what circumstances brought you here, may the Spirit of God impress on you the importance of giving your all to Him who freely gave His all for His people. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
845:The Conservatives are demonstrating that they don't understand the importance of cultural industries, of artists, of creators, not just to Canadian identity, but to growing the economy. The fact is, investing in the stories that bind us together as a nation in both official languages, ensuring that Canadians understand each other's lives and experiences is at the heart of the mandate of the CBC. ~ Justin Trudeau, #NFDB
846:The fact that many churches avoid uncomfortable topics, not only in the preaching of the Word but in Bible study as well, leads to the creation of blind spots in the theology of even the most devout Christians. These blind spots can then function as a door through which false teaching is introduced; hence the importance of doing as Paul said, preaching the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27 ESV). ~ James R White, #NFDB
847:Those who propelled our nation to the pinnacle status in a very short period of time also knew the importance of sacrifice. Now it sometimes seems our government leaders do not understand the concept of sacrifice. They have no problem with the populace sacrificing, but our federal government does not seem to know how to tighten its own belt, preferring to simply raise taxes to cover its own excesses ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB
848:In school, whenever I had to do something like memorize the periodic table, my father would say the key to doing boring tasks is to think about not so much what you’re doing but the importance of why you’re doing it. Though when I asked him if slavery wouldn’t have been less psychologically damaging if they’d thought of it as “gardening,” I got a vicious beating that would’ve made Kunta Kinte wince. ~ Paul Beatty, #NFDB
849:What matters in the end in literature, what is always there, is the truly good. And -- though played out forms can throw up miraculous sports like The Importance of Being Earnest or Decline and Fall-- what is good is always what is new, in both form and content. What is good forgets whatever models it might have had, and is unexpected; we have to catch it on the wing. ((p. 62, Reading & Writing) ~ V S Naipaul, #NFDB
850:By denying the importance of that which most people fear or strive for, the ascetic is able not only to absolve himself from their lot of anxieties and disappointments, but also to search for a higher purpose and perspective, reconnect with the timelessness and universality of the human experience, and, paradoxically, receive the respect, admiration, and honours of the very people whom he repudiated. ~ Neel Burton, #NFDB
851:Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28–30). Have you ever heard more beautiful or inviting words? Against the backdrop of a culture that stressed the importance of religious performance, Jesus ~ Will Davis Jr, #NFDB
852:For young Americans in the 1960s, for whom the psychedelic experience was new in every way, the whole idea of involving elders was probably never going to fly. But this is, I think, the great lesson of the 1960s experiment with psychedelics: the importance of finding the proper context, or container, for these powerful chemicals and experiences. Speaking of lines, psychedelics in the 1960s did draw ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
853:Hence the importance of patience in the New Testament, which becomes the basic constituent of Christianity, more central even than humility: the power to wait, to persevere, to hold out, to endure to the end, not to transcend one's own limitations, not to force issues by playing the hero or the titan, but to practice the virtue that lies beyond heroism, the meekness of the Lamb which is led. ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar, #NFDB
854:In the last chapter we discussed the importance of accepting suffering as a natural fact of human existence. While some kinds of suffering are inevitable, other kinds are self-created. We explored, for instance, how the refusal to accept suffering as a natural part of life can lead to viewing oneself as a perpetual victim and blaming others for our problems – a sure-fire recipe for a miserable life. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
855:And so when we talk about intangible values remember that they cannot be separated from the others. The conservation of waters, forests, soils, and wildlife are all involved with the conservation of the human spirit. The goal we all strive toward is happiness, contentment, the dignity of the individual, and the good life. This goal will elude us forever if we forget the importance of the intangibles. ~ Sigurd F Olson, #NFDB
856:I do know people and there are people in my family who have had Alzheimer's and dementia, and I appreciate the importance of communication and having contact with them. Communicating is an interesting thing with a condition like that. Sometimes it's difficult to communicate. If the brain becomes atrophied or certain channels of the brain become atrophied, then contact is what becomes really important. ~ Elliott Gould, #NFDB
857:Or is there something else you'd rather have?" she asked, her voice a little too gentle.
He felt a great dilation in his chest. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed with passion. "Oh, no!"
"Very well then, let's see what we can do about it," she said, more than reassured; and suddenly she suspected in something like its full magnitude the long, careless denial, and the importance of the cap to the child. ~ James Agee,#NFDB
858:The exploration of nature, the seeking of insight, the making of things, the importance of technique and finesse—all these drive both art and science. As natural philosophy, science was considered part of the arts until around 1835, when the term “scientist,” which had been in circulation for a few years, was adopted at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science ~ Shawn Lawrence Otto, #NFDB
859:The Government honoring our treaties and sovereignty is first and foremost. These issues are still the top priority which [Barak] Obama, if elected, has promised us. For us, we should implement the most impor-tant programs right now: they are programs to teach the children a positive sense of dignity, self-worth, and the importance of sustaining their culture, history, language and honor as a people. ~ Leonard Peltier, #NFDB
860:The importance of our relationships has even led to attempts to evaluate them in monetary terms. “Putting a Price Tag on Friends, Relatives, and Neighbors: Using Surveys of Life Satisfaction to Value Social Relationships,” a study undertaken in the United Kingdom in 2008, estimated that an increase in social involvements may produce an increase of life satisfaction equivalent to an extra $110,000 a year. ~ Meik Wiking, #NFDB
861:Treating ourselves like appliances that can be unplugged and plugged in again at will or cars that stop and start with the twist of a key, we have forgotten the importance of fallow time and winter and rests in music. We have abandoned a whole system of dealing with the neutral zone through ritual, and we have tried to deal with personal change as though it were a matter of some kind of readjustment. ~ William Bridges, #NFDB
862:In my public statements I have earnestly urged that there rested upon government many responsibilities which affect the moral and spiritual welfare of our people. The participation of women in elections has produced a keener realization of the importance of these questions and has contributed to higher national ideals. Moreover, it is through them that our national ideals are ingrained in our children. ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
863:In the chapter on study we considered the importance of observing ourselves to see how often our speech is a frantic attempt to explain and justify our actions. Having seen this in ourselves, let's experiment with doing deeds without any words of explanation whatever. We note our sense of fear that people will misunderstand why we have done what we have done. We seek to allow God to be our justifier. ~ Richard J Foster, #NFDB
864:Championships are mythical. The real champions are those who live through what they are taught in their homes and churches. The attitude that 'We've got to win' in sports must be changed. Teach your youngsters, who are the future hope of America, the importance of love, respect, dedication, determination, self-sacrifice, self-discipline and good attitude. That's the road up the ladder to the championships. ~ Jesse Owens, #NFDB
865:Glass emphasizes the importance of the hard work required to develop skill. “All of us who do creative work… you get into this thing, and there’s like a ‘gap.’ What you’re making isn’t so good, okay?… It’s trying to be good but… it’s just not that great,” he explained in an interview about his career.1 “The key thing is to force yourself through the work, force the skills to come; that’s the hardest phase, ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
866:This idea of the importance of stickiness in tipping has enormous implications for the way we regard social epidemics as well. We tend to spend a lot of time thinking about how to make messages more contagious — how to reach as many people as possible with our products or ideas. But the hard part of communication is often figuring out how to make sure a message doesn't go in one ear and out the other. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
867:I had come to realize the importance of the Nation, and of shared, communal, social responsibility, to be held as equally important as individual concerns. The elderly, the widowed, newly married couples, the poor, the unemployed, disbanded soldiers and children, who would be required to attend school, must be provided for from state funds. And all this support is not the nature of charity, but of a right. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
868:Most good decisions will involve these steps:
1. Figure out your goal or goals.
2. Evaluate the importance of each goal.
3. Array the options.
4. Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals.
5. Pick the winning option.
6. Later use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign to them, and the way you evaluate future possibilities. ~ Barry Schwartz,#NFDB
869:The importance of visiting the Boyhood Home of Former President Ronald Reagan to your personal life is clear and unchallenged. Touring the Home will give you a powerful feeling: You will realize that, though none of us are destined for the greatness that awaited 9-year-old Ronald Reagan, we all have a manner of greatness within us, untapped perhaps for many years, but held there in the heart, like a secret. ~ Amelia Gray, #NFDB
870:What I was suddenly aware of was the importance of their being whatever each of them was---cocky and contemptuous, or bothered and beaten---as long as it was something they'd come to in their own way: the importance of being human, in fact. The peace and harmony Uncle Ian and the others claimed to be handing out in fact was death, because without being yourself, an individual, you weren't really alive. ~ John Christopher, #NFDB
871:Purifying the heart is a process. First, one must understand the necessity of having courtesy with God and the importance of fulfilling its requirements, as noted above. Second, one must be aware of the diseases of the heart—aware of their existence, their ailments, and the deleterious complications and troubles that ensue from them, and recognize that these diseases prevent one from attaining this courtesy. ~ Hamza Yusuf, #NFDB
872:the front seat with his alarm again ringing furiously. “Are you all right?” shouted Milo. “Umphh,” grunted Tock. “Sorry to get carried away, but I think you get the point.” As they drove along, Tock continued to explain the importance of time, quoting the old philosophers and poets and illustrating each point with gestures that brought him perilously close to tumbling headlong from the speeding automobile. ~ Norton Juster, #NFDB
873:The importance of these two copies, and of the early editions of the poem beginning with Thorkelin’s in 1815, is profound, as the reading of any page of Frederick Klaeber’s edition of Beowulf will indicate. Though there are some uncertain readings here and there, and a few leaves are badly damaged, a good modern edition presents the poem as about 95 percent sound, a miraculous survivor of the ravages of history. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
874:Vitamin C is the world’s best natural antibiotic, antiviral, antitoxin and antihistamine. This book’s recurring emphasis on vitamin C might suggest that I am offering a song with only one verse. Not so. As English literature concentrates on Shakespeare, so orthomolecular (megavitamin) therapy concentrates on vitamin C. Let the greats be given their due. The importance of vitamin C cannot be overemphasised. ~ Andrew W Saul, #NFDB
875:I believe that the great tragedy of the church in our time has been its failure to recognize the importance of the spiritual gift of leadership. It appears to me that only a fraction of pastors worldwide are exercising the spiritual gift of leadership, organizing the church around it, and deploying church members through it. The results, in terms of church growth and worldwide spiritual impact, are staggering. ~ Bill Hybels, #NFDB
876:I realize the importance of retelling those stories is so that, one, we don't forget what our ancestors had to do so we can be where we are, and two, to just educate the newer generation. I'm being educated by all these films ['Race' and 'Selma'] and the things I've had the opportunity to be a part of, and kids even younger than me are being educated, too. It's important to make sure those stories never die. ~ Stephan James, #NFDB
877:If you don't have true, deep, enduring conviction about the importance of the change you're pursuing, you will be buffeted, worn down, ground down, and diverted at those critical points where leadership is the only force that keeps the change moving. The biggest mistakes that I see come during those points. At root, the mistakes arise from the dissipation of conviction—leadership and management conviction. ~ David S Pottruck, #NFDB
878:I had to sign the paper to shut down the government. It's terrible.... [But] what the shutdown showed many, many people is the importance of the role of government. And as frustrated [as people get with] Washington, there are so many things [the government does] that are so important to people's lives every day. The panda cam, paying small businesses their loans - these are all things that shut down. ~ Sylvia Mathews Burwell, #NFDB
879:There are seven primary types of things that you’ll want to keep track of and manage from an organizational perspective: • A “Projects” list • Project support material • Calendared actions and information • “Next Actions” lists • A “Waiting For” list • Reference material • A “Someday/Maybe” list The Importance of Hard Edges It’s critical that all of these categories be kept pristinely distinct from one another. ~ David Allen, #NFDB
880:How is the mind which functions on knowledge how is the brain which is recording all the time to end, to see the importance of recording and not let it move in any other direction? Very simply: you insult me, you hurt me, by word, gesture, by an actual act; that leaves a mark on the brain which is memory. That memory is knowledge, that knowledge is going to interfere in my meeting you next time obviously. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
881:In terms of my profession, I'm passionate about financial literacy. I want to live in a financially literate society. I want kids to understand the importance of savings and investing. I want to try to replicate the great savers who came out of the Depression, the best savers the country has ever seen. It's crucial that people understand the importance of financial literacy, because it's actually life saving. ~ Mellody Hobson, #NFDB
882:Once I had thought chiefly of the man of letters, the traveler, the poet, the lover; none of that had faded, to be sure, but now for the first time I could see among all those figures, standing out with great clarity of line, the most official and yet the most hidden form of all, that of the emperor. The fact of having lived in a world which is toppling around us had taught me the importance of the Prince. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar, #NFDB
883:We are social creatures, and the importance of this is clearly seen when one compares the satisfaction people feel in relationships with their overall satisfaction with life. The most important social relationships are close relationships in which you experience things together with others, and experience being understood; where you share thoughts and feelings, and both give and receive support. In one word: hygge. ~ Meik Wiking, #NFDB
884:Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord's holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamoring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life - to drive the crowd away from His church. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
885:I achieved an equal understanding of the importance of physical terror toward the individual and the masses… For while in the ranks of their supporters the victory achieved seems a triumph of the justice of their own cause, the defeated adversary in most cases despairs of the success of any further resistance.49 No more precise analysis of Nazi tactics, as Hitler was eventually to develop them, was ever written. ~ William L Shirer, #NFDB
886:The importance of international trade for economic development cannot be overemphasized. But free trade is not the best path to economic development. Trade helps economic development only when the country employs a mixture of protection and open trade, constantly adjusting it according to its changing needs and capabilities. Trade is simply too important for economic development to be left to free trade economists. ~ Ha Joon Chang, #NFDB
887:What advice do you have for writers working on their first novels?If you feel called to write a book, consider it a gift. Look around you. What assistance is the universe offering you as support? I was given an amazing mentor, a poet, Eleanor Drewry Dolan, who taught me the importance of every word. To my utter amazement, there were times she found it necessary to consult three dictionaries to evaluate one word. ~ Kathleen Grissom, #NFDB
888:We endured seemingly endless stretches when global finance was on the edge of collapse, when we had to make monumental decisions in a fog of uncertainty, when our options all looked dismal but we still had to choose. If I had learned one thing from previous crises, it was the importance of humility—about our ability to figure out exactly what was going on, and our ability to parachute in with a simple solution. ~ Timothy F Geithner, #NFDB
889:It is impossible to talk of respect for students for the dignity that is in the process of coming to be, for the identities that are in the process of construction, without taking into consideration the conditions in which they are living and the importance of the knowledge derived from life experience, which they bring with them to school. I can in no way underestimate such knowledge. Or what is worse, ridicule it. ~ Paulo Freire, #NFDB
890:I took care not to be ostentatious (I detest snobs), but my style kind of dazzled my staff at the office. They were eager to follow my examples. I stressed the importance of making a good appearance, wearing a nicely pressed suit, well-polished shoes, hair combed, and nails cleaned. “Look sharp and act sharp,” I told them. “The first thing you have to sell is yourself. When you do that, it will be easy to sell paper cups. ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
891:High as it may be, the number of victims is always measurable; and each one taken one by one is never anything but an individual: yet, through time and space, the triumph of the cause embraces the infinite, it interests the whole collectivity. In order to deny the outrage it is enough to deny the importance of the individual, even though it be at the cost of this collectivity: it is everything, he is only a zero. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
892:I am your mother. Whatever I do, I do for your own good. I do everything in the world for you, and you need to be a good son/ daughter and listen to me. You need to be a good son/daughter and respect your mother. No back-chat. Get to work.” Or, “You are only a child. You don’t understand how important your education is and what you need to do to be successful. I am much older, I know the importance of these skills. ~ Maya Thiagarajan, #NFDB
893:There is a structural difference between the way that Europe views Israel, and America views Israel. The European view is informed by the importance of colonialism in Europe's past. So for Europeans we are like Belgiums in the Congo, or the French in Alger, or the British in India. Strange interlopers in somebody else's land. But in fact, we [Israeli] have been here for 4,000 years. This is our ancestral homeland. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu, #NFDB
894:The teachers of small children are paid more than they were, but still far less than the importance of their work deserves, and they are still regarded by the unenlightened majority as insignificant compared to those who impart information to older children and adolescents, a class of pupils which, in the nature of things, is vastly more able to protect its own individuality from the character of the teacher. ~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher, #NFDB
895:Through my time in the military and my deployments, I have recognized the importance of having a Commander in Chief who will not only go after those who threaten the safety and security of the American people, but who will also exercise good judgment and foresight in stopping these failed interventionist wars of regime change that have cost our country so much in human lives, untold suffering, and trillions of dollars. ~ Tulsi Gabbard, #NFDB
896:Taking the long view, we need to teach our kids street smarts, like the importance of walking with a friend instead of alone, and how to discern bad strangers from the overwhelming majority of good ones. If we prevent our children from learning how to navigate the world beyond our front yard, it will only come back to haunt them later on when they feel frightened, bewildered, lost, or confused out on the streets. ~ Julie Lythcott Haims, #NFDB
897:What about Cathead?” Thomas asked the precis machine.
“Cathead is the cancer that is being excised from this world. It is the cancer because the inhabitants of Cathead regard themselves as individuals and believe in the importance of themselves. Yes, Cathead is quite large, the largest of the cities, larger even than Cosmopolis the capital. We will leave Cathead out of account here since it is not typical of Astrobe. ~ R A Lafferty,#NFDB
898:He read John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding and made an about-face in his approach to the problem of how people think and learn. He came to the conclusion that “knowledge” was not something divorced from the rest of life, but that a man’s senses helped to teach him truth. In other words, sensory experience and thinking must go together. Again, Edwards saw the importance of uniting the mind and the heart. ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
899:I honor my importance and the importance of others. None of us is dispensable, none of us is replacable. In the chorus of life each of us brings a True Note, a perfect pitch that adds to the harmony of the whole. I act creatively and consciously to actively endorse and encourage the expansion of those whose lives I touch. Believing in the goodness of each, I add to the goodness of all. We bless each other even in passing. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
900:For example, consider the importance of insincere compliments. We all know the gold standard of white lies, in which a woman who is less than svelte puts on a slinky new dress and asks her husband, “Do I look fat in this?” The man does a quick cost-benefit analysis; he sees his whole life pass before his eyes if he answers with the brutal truth. So he tells her, “Darling, you look beautiful.” Another evening (marriage) saved. ~ Dan Ariely, #NFDB
901:The women discussed the details of their relationships, trying to reduce their problems to a single word. I had explained the importance of specificity, and the ladies clung to my words. The conversations were sad, and amusing, and strangely hopeful all at the same time. The relentlessness with which these women tried to repair their relationships was foreign to me; I didn't understand why they didn't simply give up. ~ Vanessa Diffenbaugh, #NFDB
902:To work at a remote company demanded great communication skills, and everyone had them. It was one of the great initial delights. Every corporation has the same platitudes for the importance of clear communication yet utterly fails to practice it. There was little jargon at Automattic. No “deprioritized action items” or “catalyzing of cross functional objectives.” People wrote plainly, without pretense and with great charm. ~ Scott Berkun, #NFDB
903:What advice do you have for writers working on their first novels?
If you feel called to write a book, consider it a gift. Look around you. What assistance is the universe offering you as support? I was given an amazing mentor, a poet, Eleanor Drewry Dolan, who taught me the importance of every word. To my utter amazement, there were times she found it necessary to consult three dictionaries to evaluate one word. ~ Kathleen Grissom,#NFDB
904:The Government’s repeated response, however, even after October 1938, was to continue to attack his motives and judgement, and to seek to minimize the importance of his information. ‘No doubt it is not popular to say these things,’ Churchill had written to his wife on 26 September 1935, ‘but I am accustomed to abuse and I expect to have a great deal more of it before I have finished. Somebody has to state the truth.’ During ~ Martin Gilbert, #NFDB
905:To emphasize the importance of beauty is to connect art again to emotion and desire. To find something or someone beautiful is not simply to appreciate what you now see or know about them. It also involves the desire to get to know them better, in the hope that what you will discover will, in some way that you can't know at the time, make your life better, just as your relationship with it so far has also made it better. ~ Alexander Nehamas, #NFDB
906:When the institutional church gives attention to cultural engagement — the fourth and final ministry front — it does so primarily by discipling a community of believers who work as the church organic. By teaching the Christian doctrine of vocation, the goodness of creation, the importance of culture, and the practice of Sabbath, it should be inspiring and encouraging its members to go into the various channels of culture. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
907:keeping with the laconic Mongol traditions, he warned his sons not to talk too much. Only say what needs to be said. A leader should demonstrate his thoughts and opinions through his actions, not through his words: “He can never be happy until his people are happy.” He stressed to them the importance of vision, goals, and a plan. “Without the vision of a goal, a man cannot manage his own life, much less the lives of others, ~ Jack Weatherford, #NFDB
908:if you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you have different set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.Your values must be alike. And the biggest of those values... the belief in the importance of your marriage. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
909:There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his [sic] activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
910:to start anew from Christ means being close to him, being close to Jesus. Jesus stresses the importance of this with the disciples at the Last Supper, as he prepares to give us his own greatest gift of love, his sacrifice on the cross. Jesus uses the image of the vine and the branches and says, Abide in my love, remain attached to me, as the branch is attached to the vine. If we are joined to him, then we are able to bear fruit. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
911:When Edison first started out with his "crazy" idea for the light bulb, skeptics were unmoved. They called Thomas Edison a con man and taunted him to prove his bulb could really work. Despite the naysayers, Edison pushed on, demonstrating the importance of sticking with his "crazy" idea which would go on to turn him into one of the world's most well-known entrepreneurs. The key here is to fan the foolish fire no matter what! ~ Linda Rottenberg, #NFDB
912:Let me put it bluntly: anyone who says that money isn't important doesn't have any! Rich people understand the importance of money and the place it has in our society. On the other hand, poor people validate their financial ineptitude by using irrelevant comparisons. They'll argue, "Well, money isn't important as love." Now, is that comparison dumb or what? What's more important, your arm or your leg? Maybe they're both important. ~ T Harv Eker, #NFDB
913:The older I get, the more I realize the importance of exercising the various dimensions of my body, soul, mind, and heart. Taken together, these aspects give me a sense of wholeness. I want to be a whole human being rather than one who limps on one leg because I don't know how to use all of my parts. Intellectual, emotional, and physical activity are not separate entities. Rather, they are dimensions of the same human being. ~ Robert Fulghum, #NFDB
914:and yet the original Writers at Work volumes, especially the first three, possessed a magic all their own. As a teenager, I virtually memorized my paperback editions, greedy for insider tips about the literary life. Pound, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, Colette, Waugh—they were all there. What has stuck with me the most over the years is their almost universal insistence on the importance of revision, of revising and revising again. ~ Michael Dirda, #NFDB
915:I have always believed that scientific research is another domain where a form of optimism is essential to success: I have yet to meet a successful scientist who lacks the ability to exaggerate the importance of what he or she is doing, and I believe that someone who lacks a delusional sense of significance will wilt in the face of repeated experiences of multiple small failures and rare successes, the fate of most researchers. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
916:true. On more than one occasion I have asked myself: “If I were ninety-five years old, on my deathbed, and looking back over my life, how would I wish I had used this body, this intelligence, and this system of energy? What did I want to do with this lifetime?” These moments make me aware of the importance of using time to consciously accomplish what I feel is valuable, and to experience those things that I am deeply curious about. ~ Jan Spiller, #NFDB
917:We are human behind and this part of our human nature that we don't learn the importance of anything until it's snatched from our hands. In Pakistan, when we were stopped from going to school, and that time I realized that education is very important, and education is the power for women. And that's why the terrorists are afraid of education. They do not want women to get education because then women will become more powerful. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
918:We have to help decision makers realize that women's reproductive health rights are civil rights and that women need to be free to make the same decisions that men are free to make with regard to health care and whether and when to have a family. It's going to be increasingly important for women to speak up not only about being able to make our own decisions, but also about the importance of being trusted to make our own decisions. ~ Maggie Hassan, #NFDB
919:For some reason, these days we tend to downplay the importance of aggression, of taking risks, of barreling forward. It’s probably because it’s been negatively associated with certain notions of violence or masculinity. But of course Earhart shows that that isn’t true. In fact, on the side of her plane she painted the words, “Always think with your stick forward.” That is: You can’t ever let up your flying speed—if you do, you crash. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
920:Fashion is made up of paradoxes. There was a key moment in fashion. When the Japanese first arrived - Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, and all - I have to humbly admit that I didn't understand the importance of it at all. It was Jean-Jacques Picart who explained it to me. They had a huge influence in that they showed that aestheticism could be different from prettiness, that there was beauty and that beauty was beyond pretty. ~ Ines de La Fressange, #NFDB
921:A good friend of mine took me out and had me hit off a tee. He made me understand what was my strike zone and - with my speed - the importance of making contact. So I give him a lot of credit for changing my game and making me the player I became. He showed me how to work on me and my game, and not worry about patterning myself after someone else and focusing on what they were capable of doing rather than what I was capable of doing. ~ Rickey Henderson, #NFDB
922:The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
923:Studies have found similar statistics regarding young men’s belief that they have the right to force a female to have sex if they have spent a substantial amount of money on the evening’s entertainment or if the woman started wanting sex but then changed her mind. These studies point to the importance of focusing on changing the entitled attitudes of abusers, rather than attempting to find something wrong in their individual psychology. ~ Lundy Bancroft, #NFDB
924:I like to think of us as a more European-fit American brand, and invariably, when you go to Savile Row for a suit, you'll find that the suit fits you like a glove. That's how it should fit: form to your body. Especially here in the States, men have to really understand the importance of that fit. If I'm dressing a friend, I'll usually give him a size down from the one he's asked for; he'll think it's too small, but after a while he gets it. ~ Simon Spurr, #NFDB
925:I think East Asian countries, I think they're very fortunate to have Buddhism survive as a strong influence because right from the time when Buddha himself, 2,500 years ago, made the point about the importance of education, and the word "Buddha" also means enlighten[ed] or educated. So all the Buddhist countries, not only Japan and Korea and China and Hong Kong and Thailand but also even Burma and Sri Lanka, had a higher level of education. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
926:Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, “Well, that’s not how I choose to think about water.”? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn’t share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
927:In April 2009, Brendalee and Julieanna Flint traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak to congressional staffers about the importance of vaccines. “Parents need to understand that when they choose not to vaccinate, they are making a decision for other people’s children as well,” said Brendalee. “Someone else chose Julieanna’s path. It doesn’t seem fair that someone like Jenny McCarthy can reach so many people while my little girl has no voice. ~ Paul A Offit, #NFDB
928:Over the years, many Americans have made sacrifices in order to promote freedom and human rights around the globe: the heroic actions of our veterans, the lifesaving work of our scientists and physicians, and generosity of countless individuals who voluntarily give of their time, talents, and energy to help others-all have enriched humankind and affirmed the importance of our Judeo-Christian heritage in shaping our government and values. ~ George H W Bush, #NFDB
929:The prophets make us partners of an existence meant for us. What was revealed to them was not for their sake but intended to inspire us. The word must not freeze into habit; it must remain an event.
To disregard the importance of continuous understanding is an evasion of the living challenge of the prophets, an escape from the urgency of responsible experience of every man, a denial of the deeper meaning of “the oral Torah. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,#NFDB
930:In his history of solitude, Anthony Storr writes about the importance of being able to feel at peace in one's own company. But many find that, trained by the Net, they cannot find solitude even at a lake or beach or on a hike. Stillness makes them anxious. I see the beginnings of a backlash as some young people become disillusioned with social media. There is,. too, the renewed interest in yoga, Eastern religions, meditating, and "slowness. ~ Sherry Turkle, #NFDB
931:Such anti-tobacco animus helps explain a glaring paradox within public-health circles: Many public-health experts avidly embrace harm reduction for other conditions—needle exchange and methadone for heroin addicts, “wet” public housing for people who continue to drink, condom distribution and HPV vaccination for sexually active adolescents—but, for nicotine addiction, they urge abstinence and downplay the importance of a less risky alternative. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
932:We are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason. But we cannot just walk into the cavern and look around. Most of what we think we know about our minds is pseudo-knowledge. We are all such shocking poseurs, so good at inflating the importance of what we think we value. The heroes at Troy fought for a phantom Helen, according to Stesichorus. Vain wars for phantom goods ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
933:Mr. Harley, the headmaster, approached the podium and imparted a brief exordium about the importance of Finals Week, and how the grades they received would constitute another step upon The Great Road of Life. He told them that the school was depending on them, he was depending on them, and their parents were depending on them. He did not tell them that the entire free world was depending on them, but he strongly implied that this might be so. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
934:this takes us to the deepest irony of all. When the probability of error is high, the importance of learning from mistakes is more essential, not less. As Professor James Reason, one of the world’s leading experts on system safety, put it: “This is the paradox in a nutshell: health care by its nature is highly error-provoking—yet health workers stigmatize fallibility and have had little or no training in error management or error detection.”35 ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
935:We dole out lip-service to the importance of education—lip-service and, just occasionally, a little grant of money; we postpone the school-leaving age, and plan to build bigger and better schools; the teachers slave conscientiously in and out of school hours; and yet, as I believe, all this devoted effort is largely frustrated, because we have lost the tools of learning, and in their absence can only make a botched and piecemeal job of it. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
936:When was the last time an American president found it worth his while to write a speech on the importance of art and literature? I cannot recall. And yet at Yan’an, Mao said that art and literature were crucial to revolution. Conversely, he warned, art and literature could also be tools of domination. Art could not be separated from politics, and politics needed art in order to reach the people where they lived, through entertaining them. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
937:Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water."? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
938:As I continued to read the writings of conservative intellectuals, from Edmund Burke in the eighteenth century through Friedrich Hayek and Thomas Sowell in the twentieth, I began to see that they had attained a crucial insight into the sociology of morality that I had never encountered before. They understood the importance of what I’ll call moral capital. (Please note that I am praising conservative intellectuals, not the Republican Party.)36 ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
939:The French Revolution gave us three... powerful ideas, or concepts - liberty, equality and fraternity. But these ideas... are not only right in themselves, but they are so because they come in the proper order. You cannot have equality without liberty, and you certainly cannot have fraternity without equality. The importance of this I learnt from music, because music evolves in time, and therefore the order inevitably determines the content. ~ Daniel Barenboim, #NFDB
940:Again, the importance of personally taking control of the direction of learning from the very first steps cannot be stressed enough. If a person feels coerced to read a certain book, to follow a given course because that is supposed to be the way to do it, learning will go against the grain. But if the decision is to take that same route because of an inner feeling of rightness, the learning will be relatively effortless and enjoyable. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
941:Every campus, of course, also has its rabble of young "liberals," who are forever making a din as they "demonstrate" for "world peash," "snivel rights," and the like, and who, if we may judge from their appearance and their yammering, are as afraid of war as they are of soap. I am sure that every student here present fully understands the importance of staying on the good side of the young "intellectuals" - I mean the windward side, of course. ~ Revilo P Oliver, #NFDB
942:How do you explain to an innocent citizen of the free world the importance of a credit default swap on a double-A tranche of a subprime-backed collateralized debt obligation? He tried, but his English in-laws just looked at him strangely. They understood that someone else had just lost a great deal of money and Ben had just made a great deal of money, but never got much past that. "I can't really talk to them about it," he says. "They're English. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
943:There's a Theodore Roosevelt speech about the importance of being in the arena, whether you fail or you succeed, or you make a complete idiot of yourself, as long as you're doing the best with what you have, using whatever knowledge you have to bring to the table at that moment. And you continue to keep learning. I think my mistakes have made me much stronger. It's nice to know that things don't ultimately break you; that you need to go there to know. ~ Emma Watson, #NFDB
944:Again, the importance of personally taking control of the direction of learning from the very first steps cannot be stressed enough. If a person feels coerced to read a certain book, to follow a given course because that is supposed to be the way to do it, learning will go against the grain. But if the decision is to take that same route because of an inner feeling of rightness, the learning will be relatively effortless and enjoyable. When ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
945:The future?' came the voice sadly...'And do we really pass anything on to the future, except mirrors of ourselves? What if the future is as painful as the past?'
'That we can never know,'answered the wolf angrily. 'That's for the future. But what we can know is the importance of what we owe the present. Here and now...What we owe to ourselves, and to those we're bound to. And we can at least hope to make a better future, for everything. ~ David Clement Davies,#NFDB
946:The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use. ~ Friedrich August von Hayek, #NFDB
947:Among other things, [books by Bruce Doyle III and Mike Hernacki] explain the importance of the "winning attitude" I have been urged to adopt: a positive attitude "attracts" or "fulfils", depending on which author's weird science you go with, postiive results, with little or no action on your part required. Herein, too, lies the answer to the question I once posed ...: would it be enough just to fake a winning attitude? No way, according to Doyle. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich, #NFDB
948:EEG Chairperson Habiba Al Marashi defined sustainability as the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance, and stressed on the importance of sustainability and sustainable living in today’s day and age. Al Marashi also added that a deeper understanding and knowledge was important, as our choices and actions of today could and will affect everything in the future.The ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
949:It's impossible to overvalue the importance of television - both in its serious and less serious functions. It's one of our most important ways of finding out the truth - and also of changing the world, and finding out what in the world needs changing. It's also an immense bringer of joy - I learnt how to laugh through television, and now my children and I, every day of every week, share the joy and stupidity of TV shows - they actually make us HAPPY ~ Richard Curtis, #NFDB
950:What we often take to be family values--the work ethic, honesty, clean living, marital fidelity, and individual responsibility--are in fact social, religious, or cultural values. To be sure, these values are transmitted by parents to their children and are familial in that sense. They do not, however, originate within the family. It is the value of close relationships with other family members, and the importance of these bonds relative to other needs. ~ David Elkind, #NFDB
951:How Musk chooses which streams to explore depends on the relationship between those probabilities and the importance of his objective. “Even if the probability for success is fairly low, if the objective is really important, it’s still worth doing. Conversely, if the objective is less important, then the probability needs to be much greater. How I decide which projects to take on depends on probability multiplied by the importance of the objective. ~ Peter H Diamandis, #NFDB
952:Journalism is a great profession. It's complicated now. People talk about the demise of investigative reporting. I was a judge in some award contest recently, and the stuff that is being done by major newspapers, and local, regional papers around the country, is great. Newspapers play an amazing role in our society, and I still think they are important. I'm sorry newspaper circulation is down. Ultimately, the importance of newspapers can't be replaced. ~ Seymour Hersh, #NFDB
953:Like night, the desert is boundless, comfortless and infinite. Like night, it intrigues the mind and leads it to futility. When you have flown halfway across a desert, you experience the desperation of a sleepless man waiting for dawn which only comes when the importance of it's coming is lost. You fly forever, weary with an invariable scene, and when you are at last released from its monotony, you remember nothing of it because there was nothing there. ~ Beryl Markham, #NFDB
954:Neither the black boy nor the white will ever be educated in the best and broadest sense of the term who seeks an education merely to reach an office, for, as in nature a stream never rises higher than its source, so in life men never rise higher than their ideals. The education that merely seeks an office must of necessity be limited to the dimensions of that office. ~ William H. Crogman, "The Importance of Correct Ideals" (1892), in Talks for the Times (1896), p. 281, #NFDB
955:One's condition on marijuana is always existential. One can feel the importance of each moment and how it is changing one. One feels one's being, one becomes aware of the enormous apparatus of nothingness - the hum of a hi-fi set, the emptiness of a pointless interruption, one becomes aware of the war between each of us, how the nothingness in each of us seeks to attack the being of others, how our being in turn is attacked by the nothingness in others. ~ Norman Mailer, #NFDB
956:Serving my country was a life-changing experience for me. It was during those years that I realized the importance of commitment, dedication, honor, and discipline. I have never laughed so much; nor have I ever prayed so much. I made life-long friends. The leaders and heroes I served with helped shape me into the man I am today. I feel honored to have been a part of such a great tradition and grateful to others who have walked the same path. Thank you! ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
957:To practise black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.
.
I have been accused of being a 'black magician'. No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practise it. ~ Aleister Crowley?,#NFDB
958:you will never be able to hit a target that you cannot see. People spend their whole lives dreaming of becoming happier, living with more vitality and having an abundance of passion. Yet they do not see the importance of taking even ten minutes a month to write out their goals and to think deeply about the meaning of their lives, their Dharma. Goal-setting will make your life magnificent. Your world will become richer, more delightful and more magical. ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
959:My diary entries during this period constantly refer to the importance of learning how to take criticism. If you shut yourself in your own little world, that will be the death of your theory. On the other hand, many of the criticisms you receive are pointless and simply reflect the view that anything new is bad. In such a delicate situation it is crucial to tread gingerly and be careful to appreciate the difference between pertinent and idiotic comments. ~ Joao Magueijo, #NFDB
960:The importance of humor is primarily to puncture fixed ideas—to make us step back and realize that our situation, whatever it may be, is, in the grand scheme of things, always contingent and arbitrary and ephemeral. And that helps us to deal with our emotions and to keep going. Holding on to one perspective, on the other hand, whether it takes the form of grief or anger or a particular political standpoint, is often destructive to us and to those around us ~ Paul Murray, #NFDB
961:Undeniably, character does count for our citizens, out communities, and our Nation, and this week we celebrate the importance of character in our individual lives... core ethical values of trustworthiness, fairness, responsibility, caring, respect, and citizenship form the foundation of our democracy, our economy, and our society... Instilling sound character in our children is essential to maintaining the strength of our Nation into the 21st century. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
962:Free speech is what we all have and is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Academic freedom refers to what happens in the university, particularly in the classroom, and to the importance of the teacher having the right to teach and share what he or she has learned, has proven her competence to teach, having gone through a series of tests and certifications including research and writing to demonstrate her abilities and knowledge. ~ Joan Wallach Scott, #NFDB
963:It makes absolutely no difference in the scheme of things whether all but a handful of people live or die. No more than the importance of a single flower, or blade of grass, or vegetable, or bird. It would make no difference if those men who held that ancient pass or that equally ancient fort had, instead, died of disease or old age or in a saloon fight. But it made a difference that they died where they did. It mattered. It justified their whole existence. ~ Jack L Chalker, #NFDB
964:We try to use obvious Canadian touches whenever we can, and I'm really proud of the way we use Vancouver for its production value. Nobody is pretending that we're not shooting in Canada, which is really important to me. The other wonderful thing is that ABC has bought us, but they air us after CTV has had the full season air on Canadian television. That's another thing that I think is really a nod towards the importance of us acknowledging our own industry. ~ Kristin Lehman, #NFDB
965:Undoubtedly, this way of life is different for each person, because each becomes his true self in relation to others, as well as to himself. Everything becomes filled with purpose, whether it is small or large, ugly or beautiful. In the life of the spirit, there is no small, there is no ugly. Paradoxically, inwardness increases the importance of other people and of one’s surroundings. All five senses are more alert. The feeling is one of completeness. ~ A A World Services Inc, #NFDB
966:If the juices of the body were more chymically examined, especially by a naturalist, that knows the ways of making fixed bodies volatile, and volatile fixed, and knows the power of the open air in promoting the former of those operations; it is not improbable, that both many things relating to the nature of the humours, and to the ways of sweetening, actuating, and otherwise altering them, may be detected, and the importance of such discoveries may be discerned. ~ Robert Boyle, #NFDB
967:Klimt’s work is beautiful and painted with minute attention to detail; but looking at it, don’t you think there’s something kind of crazy about it, too? MURAKAMI: Yes, it’s certainly not what you’d call “normal.” OZAWA: There’s something about it, I don’t know, that tells you about the importance of madness, or that transcends things like morality. And in fact, at the time, morality really was breaking down, and there was a lot of sickness going around. MURAKAMI: ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
968:It was right then, between when I asked about the labyrinth and when she answered me, that I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls' bodies ease from one place to another, from arc to the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to wait to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I'd noticed curves before, of course, but I had never quite apprehended their significance. ~ John Green, #NFDB
969:The question about the Salafi is an important question as I say in Arab Awakening, and have often repeated since. I am really underlining the importance of this, because we really don't have very good memories. Remember - the Taliban in Afghanistan were not at all politicised in the beginning. They were just on about education. And then they were pushed by the Saudi and the Americans to be against the Russian colonisation, and as a result they came to be politicised. ~ Tariq Ramadan, #NFDB
970:You do understand that I must find a way to return to Olympus,” I said. “This will probably involve many harrowing trials with a high chance of death. Can you turn down such glory?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can. Sorry.”
I pursed my lips. It always disappointed me when mortals put themselves first and failed to see the big picture—the importance of putting me first—but I had to remind myself that this young man had helped me out on many previous occasions ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
971:Liang Qichao, one of China’s leading reformers of the early twentieth century, hailed the importance of the individual in national development, but renounced that view after he visited San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1903 and concluded that the competition between separate Chinese clans and families was preventing Chinese people from prospering. “If we were to adopt a democratic system of government now,” he wrote, “it would be nothing less than committing national suicide. ~ Evan Osnos, #NFDB
972:A primary method for gaining a mind full of peace is to practice emptying the mind. This will be emphasized in another chapter, but I mention it here to underscore the importance of a frequent mental catharsis. I recommend a mind-emptying at least twice a day, more often if necessary. Definitely practice emptying your mind of fears, hates, insecurities, regrets, and guilt feelings. The mere fact that you consciously make this effort to empty your mind tends to give relief. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
973:I tried to change the conventional paradigm, for example, by insisting on the reality of mind-body interaction, by stressing the importance of natural therapies, by focusing attention on lifestyle issues, by looking at worthwhile aspects of alternative medicine. Many people have been threatened by that. Doctors especially tend to think that they know everything about the human body, and don't realize that medical education has really omitted many very important subjects. ~ Andrew Weil, #NFDB
974:Log Message Severity Levels Log messages may just tell you about some mundane event, or they may tell you of some critical event. To help you make sense of the importance of each message, IOS assigns each message a severity level (as noted in the same messages in the preceding page or so). Figure 33-3 shows the severity levels: the lower the number, the more severe the event that caused the message. (Note that the values on the left and center are used in IOS commands.) ~ Wendell Odom, #NFDB
975:In proportion to the value of this revolution; in proportion to the importance of instruments, every word of which decides a question between power and liberty; in proportion to the solemnity of acts, proclaiming the will authenticated by the seal of the people, the only earthly source of authority, ought to be the vigilance with which they are guarded by every citizen in private life, and the circumspection with which they are executed by every citizen in public trust. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
976:Take the life issue. This issue requires a president and an administration leading our nation to understand the importance of life. This whole faith-based initiative really ties into a larger cultural issue that we're working on. It begins to affect the life issue, as well as the human dignity issue, because when you're talking about welcoming people of faith to help people who are disadvantaged and are unable to defend themselves, the logical step is also those babies. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
977:There is no longer any question about the importance of fruits and vegetables in our diet. The greater the quantity and assortment of fruits and vegetables consumed, the lower the incidence of heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. There is still some controversy about which foods cause which cancers and whether certain types of fat are the culprits with certain cancers, but there's one thing we know for sure: raw vegetables and fresh fruits have powerful anti-cancer agents. ~ Joel Fuhrman, #NFDB
978:excuse for our negligent attitude. But it is not so. What we call chauvinistic education - in the case of the French people, for example - is only the excessive exaltation of the greatness of France in all spheres of culture or, as the French say, civilization. The French boy is not educated on purely objective principles. Wherever the importance of the political and cultural greatness of his country is concerned he is taught in the most subjective way that one can imagine. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
979:If you are reading this, and feel discouraged by an inability to communicate to others your own feelings about the importance of an active space development effort, comfort yourself with this thought. If you want to be on the leading edge of anything, you have by definition to be a couple of standard deviations away from most people. That makes you an odd-ball. The trick is to learn to accept it, then to like it-and keep on making lots of noise for what you believe in. ~ Charles Sheffield, #NFDB
980:People are the common denominator of progress. So no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills,and the other familiar furniture of economic development. But we are coming to realize that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
981:Wildland firefighters do not enjoy the cultural prestige that structural firefighters do. They do not wax their fire engines and cruise down the local parade route, lights flashing; they are not the subject of countless popular books and movies; major politicians do not honor their sacrifices on the Senate floor or from the Rose Garden; they do not have bagpipe bands, fancy equipment, enduring icons, or other signifiers of honor verifying the importance of their activity. ~ Matthew Desmond, #NFDB
982:In truth, there never was any remarkable lawgiver amongst any people who did not resort to divine authority, as otherwise his laws would not have been accepted by the people; for there are many good laws, the importance of which is known to be the sagacious lawgiver, but the reasons for which are not sufficiently evident to enable him to persuade others to submit to them; and therefore do wise men, for the purpose of removing this difficulty, resort to divine authority. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, #NFDB
983:I will say little of the importance of a good education; nor will I stop to prove that the current one is bad. Countless others have done so before me, and I do not like to fill a book with things everybody knows. I will note that for the longest time there has been nothing but a cry against the established practice without anyone taking it upon himself to propose a better one. The literature and the learning of our age tend much more to destruction than to edification. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau, #NFDB
984:The importance of making sure that the sense of accountability when, in fact, law enforcement is involved in a deadly shooting is something that I think communities across the board are going to need to consider, we have a great opportunity, coming out of some great conflict and tragedy, to really transform how we think about community law enforcement relations so that everybody feels safer and our law enforcement officers feel, rather than being embattled, feel fully supported. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
985:The Warrior of Light knows the importance of intuition. In the midst of battle he has no time to think about the enemy’s blows – so he uses his instinct and obeys his angel. In times of peace he deciphers the signs that God sends him. People say: ‘He’s crazy.’ Or else: ‘He lives in a fantasy world.’ Or even: ‘How can he put his trust in such illogical things?’ But the warrior knows that intuition is God’s alphabet, and so he continues to listen to the wind and talk to the stars. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
986:Today I believe that man cannot escape his destiny to create whatever it is we make - jazz, a wooden spoon, or graffiti on the wall. All of these are expressions of man's creativity, proof that man has not yet been destroyed by technology. But are we making things for the people of our epoch or repeating what has been done before? And finally, is the question itself important? We must ask ourselves that. The most important thing is always to doubt the importance of the question. ~ Orson Welles, #NFDB
987:The obvious and fair solution to the housework problem is to let men do the housework for, say, the next six thousand years, to even things up. The trouble is that men, over the years, have developed an inflated notion of the importance of everything they do, so that before long they would turn housework into just as much of a charade as business is now. They would hire secretaries and buy computers and fly off to housework conferences in Bermuda, but they'd never clean anything. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
988:Images are taking over, and writers are a dying breed. The Norman Mailers of today are reduced to writing pun-filled captions for paparazzi photos. Blogs--which were threatening enough to professional writers--are being replaced by video blogs. We writers need to embraced the Second Commandment as our rallying cry for the importance of words. In a literally biblical world, all publications would look like the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Or the way it used to look, anyway. ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
989:Some adults attempting project-based learning make the same mistake, moving forward relentlessly and forgetting the importance of doubling back. Interests are identified, research is completed, and then there is a big, impressive third act that brings everything to a close. Unfortunately, though appealing in its simplicity, this highly controlled approach cheats children out of the opportunity to lay down multiple layers of learning. The adult is satisfied. Is the child? ~ Lori McWilliam Pickert, #NFDB
990:The fabric of human life is woven with relationships. Once we thematize the importance of dialogue, the multiplicity of ongoing and created situations in which dialogical skills can be nurtured abound. As we have seen, this requires us to slow down and turn toward each other, having a clear sense of the relationship between our current footing in dialogue with one another and the future we are trying to create. The nurture of dialogical capacities is essential to human liberation. ~ Mary Watkins, #NFDB
991:In diminishing the role of the worker's body in the labor process, industrial technology has also tended to diminish the importance of the worker. In creating jobs that require less human effort, industrial technology has also been used to create jobs that require less human talent. In creating jobs that demand less of the body, industrial production has also tended to create jobs that give less to the body, in terms of opportunities to accrue knowledge on the production process. ~ Shoshana Zuboff, #NFDB
992:The warrior of light knows the importance of intuition. In the midst of battle, he does not have time to think of the enemy's blows, and so he uses his instinct and obeys his angel. in times of peace, he deciphers the signs that God sends him. People say, "He's mad." Or, "He lives in a fantasy world." Or even, "How can he possibly believe in such illogical things?" But the warrior knows that intuition is God's alphabet and he continues listening to the wind and talking to the stars. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
993:Today we are apt to downplay or disregard the importance of good thinking to strong faith; and some, disastrously, even regard thinking as opposed to faith. They do not realize that in so doing they are not honoring God, but simply yielding to the deeply anti-intellectualist currents of Western egalitarianism, rooted, in turn, in the romantic idealization of impulse and blind feeling found in David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and their nineteenth- and twentieth-century followers. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
994:I have never gotten into wine. I’m a beer man. What I like about beer is you basically just drink it, then you order another one. You don’t sniff at it, or hold it up to the light and slosh it around, and above all you don’t drone on and on about it, the way people do with wine. Your beer drinker tends to be a straightforward, decent, friendly, down-to-earth person who enjoys talking about the importance of relief pitching, whereas your serious wine fancier tends to be an insufferable snot. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
995:That's where the importance of nurturing comes in; the already sculpted personality is not recast, but refined. Loving, caring families can sand and polish, but they can't chip away at a lawn ornament and turn it into Michelangelo's David. Or vice versa. Want another analogy? Regarding personality, I am convinced that at birth the cake is already baked. Nurture is the nuts or frosting, but if you're a spice cake you're a spice cake, and nothing is going to change you into an angel food. ~ Lorna Landvik, #NFDB
996:It is my deep desire that the topic “How Your Thoughts Work” would be the very first subject taught in school. I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to Be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. ~ Louise L Hay, #NFDB
997:The retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate connection with the catholic party tempted him, whenever the diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert, to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to the discretion of his friends and adherents. ~ Edward Gibbon, #NFDB
998:is my deep desire that the topic “How Your Thoughts Work” would be the very first subject taught in school. I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to Be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can ~ Louise L Hay, #NFDB
999:great deal of stress is placed on the importance of humour in the modern relationship. Everything will be all right, we are led to believe, as long as you can make each other laugh, rendering a successful marriage as, in effect, fifty years of improv. To someone who felt in need of fresh new material, as I did during that long, dehydrated night of the soul, this was a cause for concern. I had always enjoyed making Connie laugh, it was satisfying and reassuring because laughter, I suppose, ~ David Nicholls, #NFDB
1000:The skin cells on your nose might well be “potential human beings,” in the loose sense in which a rubber ball is a “potential eraser.” But a zygote is not a “potential human being” or a “potentially rational animal.” Rather, it is an actual human being and thus an actual rational animal, just one that hasn’t yet fully realized its inherent potentials. Harris and his ilk might want to ignore the importance of this distinction, but that it is a genuine distinction cannot rationally be denied. ~ Edward Feser, #NFDB
1001:Many experts lose the creativity and imagination of the less informed. They are so intimately familiar with known patterns that they may fail to recognize or respect the importance of the new wrinkle. The process of applying expertise is, after all, the editing out of unimportant details in favor of those known to be relevant. Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki said, “The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. ~ Gavin de Becker, #NFDB
1002:One company that did wake up to the importance of employee health was Safeway. The supermarket chain’s former CEO Steve Burd recounts that in 2005 Safeway’s health care bill hit $1 billion and was going up by $100 million a year. “What we discovered was that 70 percent of health care costs are driven by people’s behaviors,” he says. “Now as a business guy, I thought if we could influence the behavior of our 200,000-person workforce, we could have a material effect on health care costs. ~ Arianna Huffington, #NFDB
1003:[of 1933] will be fully justified if it drives the government into the investment banking business. (William 0. Douglas)'
' In correspondence to Felix Frankfurter on February 19, 1934, quoted in Skeel (2001: 123).
Justice Harold R. Medina stated in 1954 that 'it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of investment banking to the national econ- omy.'2 This remark remains true today. Investment banks lie at the heart of the capital allocation process in both America and England, and ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
1004:One problem with our current society is that we have an attitude towards education as if it is there to simply make you more clever, make you more ingenious... Even though our society does not emphasize this, the most important use of knowledge and education is to help us understand the importance of engaging in more wholesome actions and bringing about discipline within our minds. The proper utilization of our intelligence and knowledge is to effect changes from within to develop a good heart. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1005:Require nothing unreasonable of your officers and men, but see that whatever is required be punctually complied with. Reward and punish every man according to his merit, without partiality or prejudice; hear his complaints; if well founded, redress them; if otherwise, discourage them, in order to prevent frivolous ones. Discourage vice in every shape, and impress upon the mind of every man, from the first to the lowest, the importance of the cause, and what it is they are contending for. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
1006:The mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a kind of blind spot in the way we process information. Psychologists call this tendency the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is a fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting other people's behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of situation and context. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1007:People underestimate the importance of dilligence as a virtue. No doubt it has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems. It is defined as "the constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken."... Understood, however, as the prerequisite of great accomplishment, diligence stands as one of the most difficult challenges facing any group of people who take on tasks of risk and consequence. It sets a high, seemingly impossible, expectation for performance and human behavior. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1008:The personal liberty, well-being, and economic prosperity we enjoy in the United States are unique throughout the history of mankind. Man’s life has generally been short, hard, and brutish. The democratic system we have and the importance of individual rights specified by the Constitution are the reasons for our emotional and physical prosperity. It’s an important document, worthy of being defended. You are not alone in deciding this, as many have died defending the Constitution before you. ~ L David Marquet, #NFDB
1009:I am a wordy writer, and often churn out pages on end without advancing the plot a jot. Hence I try to take my cue from a childhood impatience with any device that doesn't get somewhere. Even in his sprightly youth, Clippity had a problem with running in place—just like my first drafts—when the surface was too slick. As a kid, I was ingenious enough to smear green Plasticine on his rear hooves. Thus I discovered the importance of traction, as handy a concept in literature as for wind-up toys. ~ Lionel Shriver, #NFDB
1010:One problem with our current society is that we have an attitude towards education as if it is there to simply make you more clever, make you more ingenious… Even though our society does not emphasize this, the most important use of knowledge and education is to help us understand the importance of engaging in more wholesome actions and bringing about discipline within our minds. The proper utilization of our intelligence and knowledge is to effect changes from within to develop a good heart. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1011:If you have a large bloc of Americans who believe you're trying to keep their ... fellow Hispanics down and deprive them of an opportunity, obviously that's going to have an effect...The Republican Party has failed to understand to a significant degree the importance of this issue to our Hispanic voters. I think the trend will continue of lack of support from Hispanic voters and also as you look at the demographics of states like mine, that means we will go from Republican to Democrat over time. ~ John McCain, #NFDB
1012:I think we underestimate the importance of kindness sometimes. We understand the power of just a little tiny bit of kindness. It could be the catalyst for something so important. Sometimes just a tiny little gesture or an acknowledgment can make all the difference in turning somebody's life around. I think it has a trickle down effect, when you pass on what you receive without even knowing it. We also underestimate our own power to make a difference with the decisions that we make, every day. ~ Renee Zellweger, #NFDB
1013:Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement ... Manners, by which not only the freedom, but the very existence of the republics, are greatly affected, depend much upon the public institutions of religion and the good education of youth; in both these instances our fathers laid wise foundations, for which their posterity have had reason to bless their memory. ~ John Hancock, #NFDB
1014:One problem with our current society is that we have an attitude towards education as if it is there to simply make you more clever, make you more ingenious... Even though our society does not emphasize this, the most important use of knowledge and education is to help us understand the importance of engaging in more wholesome actions and bringing about discipline within our minds. The proper utilization of our intelligence and knowledge is to effect changes from within to develop a good heart. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1015:Perhaps the most foundational of these insights is the importance of maintaining an objective emotional detachment when calculating your position relative to your adversary’s. Being ruled by your emotions, exaggerating your strengths, denying your weaknesses, and wishful thinking can only lead to catastrophe. But maintaining your impartiality will allow you to see your circumstances with clarity and will provide opportunities to make sound decisions and respond to changing circumstances appropriately. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
1016:In his address of 19 September 1796, given as he prepared to leave office, President George Washington spoke about the importance of morality to the country's well-being: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. . . . Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue? ~ George Washington, #NFDB
1017:The importance of the development of the emotional body is hardly recognized today. We are pretty much left to our own devices to come to full adulthood, whether man or woman. Our elders may have become so denatured themselves from a lack of such nurturance that there is no longer a collective knowledge of how to guide the awakening emotional vitality and authenticity of our young people, our children. Mindfulness may contribute to a reawakening of this ancient wisdom in ourselves and in others. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
1018:For instance, in one corner of the Eastern Galactic Arm lies the large forest planet Oglaroon, the entire “intelligent” population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a few extremely minor wars and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches. In ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1019:If doctrinal soundness is not accompanied by heart experience, it will lead eventually to nominal Christianity—that is, in name only—and eventually to nonbelief. The irony is that many conservative Christians, most concerned about conserving true and sound doctrine, neglect the importance of prayer and make no effort to experience God, and this can lead to the eventual loss of sound doctrine. Owen believes that Christianity without real experience of God will eventually be no Christianity at all. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1020:To feel at home. To be at peace. To know one's desires are truly one's own and not inadvertently, unavoidably, just the desires of one's forebears long dead or, worse - worst of all - the manipulations of faceless Habit, Style, Tradition, History. To go somewhere because it would be warmer, to live and just to be. With the right person for the right reason, like this very moment, so that even this place, this historyless little grocery could glow with the importance of the past, right now, tonight. ~ Arthur Phillips, #NFDB
1021:Despite the importance of his mission, Poe found himself conflicted. Not only did he respect Lor San Tekka, he liked him. How could he leave him here? “Sir, if you don’t mind, I—” The older man cut him off. “But I do mind, Poe Dameron. You spoke of your mission.” Both his gaze and his tone hardened. “Now fulfill it. Compared to what is stirring in the galaxy, you and I are little more than motes of dust.” Still, Poe demurred. “With all due respect, some motes are of more importance than others…sir. ~ Alan Dean Foster, #NFDB
1022:No one in the country, or on earth, has given less thought to health insurance than Donald,” said Roger Ailes. Pressed in a campaign interview about the importance of Obamacare repeal and reform, Trump was, to say the least, quite unsure of its place on the agenda: “This is an important subject but there are a lot of important subjects. Maybe it is in the top ten. Probably is. But there is heavy competition. So you can’t be certain. Could be twelve. Or could be fifteen. Definitely top twenty for sure. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
1023:Few people paid much attention to the importance of eyes when it came to seduction, he thought. It took a Bene Gesserit upbringing to make that point. Big breasts in a woman and hard loins in a man (that tightly muscular look to the buttocks) – these were naturally important in sexual matchings. But without the eyes, the rest of it could go for nothing. Eyes were essential. You could drown in the right kind of eyes, he had learned, sink right into them and be unaware of what was being done to you [...]. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
1024:"The true purpose of education," says one, "is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us; to develop to their fullest extent the capacities of every kind with which the God who made us has endowed us." He, therefore, who fixes a limit of any kind to his intellectual attainments dwarfs himself, and cramps the growth of that mind given to us by the Creator, and capable of indefinite expansion. ~ William H. Crogman, "The Importance of Correct Ideals" (1892), in Talks for the Times (1896), p. 282, #NFDB
1025:So for all that we might speak words in each other's vicinity, this could never develop into anything that could be called a conversation. It was as though we were speaking in different languages. If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one's engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1026:The most important gift you can give your children is the importance of standing up to injustice. Children will remember moments spent with you. However, it isn't togetherness that creates humane parents and righteous kids. It is the example of integrity that a parent sets and the on going lessons they teach about compassion toward others throughout their lives. A good father or mother teaches their children that cruelty is not something you cause or ignore, rather it is the moment you suit up for war. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
1027:I taught Dylan, as I had taught his brother before him, to protect himself from lightning strikes, snakebites, and hypothermia. I taught him to floss, to wear sunscreen, and the importance of checking his blind spot twice. As he became a teenager, I talked as openly as I could about the dangers of drinking and drug use, and I educated him about safe and ethical sexual behavior. It never crossed my mind that the gravest danger Dylan faced would not come from an external source at all, but from within himself. ~ Sue Klebold, #NFDB
1028:This litany of disenchantment notwithstanding, I believe there’s an additional layer to our libidinal demise that has to do with our culture’s deep ambivalence around sexuality. While we recognize the importance of sex, we nonetheless vacillate between extremes of excessive license and repressive tactics: “Don’t do it till you’re married.” “Just do it when you feel like it.” “It’s no big deal.” “It’s a huge deal.” “You need love.” “What’s love got to do with it?” It’s an all-or-nothing approach to sex. Porn ~ Esther Perel, #NFDB
1029:It's not my story anymore: whenever I speak about the past now, I feel as if I were talking about something that has nothing to do with me. All that remains in the present are the voice, the presence, and the importance of fulfilling my mission. I don't regret difficulties I experienced; I think they helped me to become the person I am today, I feel the way a warrior must feel after years of training; he doesn't remember the details of everything he learned, but he knows how to strike when the time is right. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1030:My core argument is that most assessments of the Internet fail to ground it in political economy; they fail to understand the importance of capitalism in shaping and, for lack of a better term, domesticating the Internet. When capitalism is mentioned, it is usually as the “free market,” which is taken as a benevolent given, almost a synonym for democracy. The conventional discussion of capitalism often degenerates into a bunch of clichés and is only loosely related to the capitalism that really exists. ~ Robert W McChesney, #NFDB
1031:Solitude is used to teach us how to live with other people. Rage is used to show us the infinite value of peace. Boredom is used to underline the importance of adventure & spontaneity. Silence is used to teach us to use words responsibly. Tiredness is used so that we can understand the value of waking up. Illness is used to underline the blessing of good health. Fire is used to teach us about water. Earth is used so that we can understand the value of air. Death is used to show us the importance of life. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1032:We have been so brainwashed by romantic love that when I talk about the importance of couples continuing to masturbate alone, and learning to share masturbation together, some assume I’m against “regular sex.” Not true. I’m all for any sexual activity that makes both partners happy. What I don’t support is “compulsive intercourse” as the only way to be sexual. Instead of assuming the word sex means a penis inside a vagina, we need to realize that there are an infinite number of ways to express our sexuality. ~ Betty Dodson, #NFDB
1033:The desert landscape is always at its best in the half-light of dawn or dusk. The sense of distance lacks: a ridge nearby can be a far-off mountain range, each small detail can take on the importance of a major variant on the countryside's repetitious theme. The coming of day promises a change; it is only when the day had fully arrived that the watcher suspects it is the same day returned once again--the same day he has been living for a long time, over and over, still blindingly bright and untarnished by time. ~ Paul Bowles, #NFDB
1034:And to me, that is the greatest danger, that people start questioning basic facts and start not understanding the importance of democratic institutions such as the free press. I mean, to call the press the enemy is dangerous and just remarkably bizarre. The press is the only profession protected in the Constitution because of how important the framers viewed the press. But in authoritarian regimes, they control the press. And to me, going down an authoritarian path is the greatest danger that we face as a republic. ~ Ted Lieu, #NFDB
1035:If Christ be a fraud, he was among the most peculiar yet brilliant of frauds in saying that only he was the way, the truth, and the life. This is the importance of grace - some people think that simply being nice and not harming others is morality; others think that following rules and tithing are morality. But without Christ, all moral beliefs ultimately boil down to the one sin which perpetually rails against the concept of grace: man's lawful, religious, and futile attempt at establishing his own righteousness. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
1036:Storytelling is the way knowledge and understanding have been passed down for millennia, since long before the invention of written language. Storytelling is part of what it is to be human. And the best stories share our values and beliefs. Those stories are powerful. Those stories inspire. Those stories are both the source of our WHY and the fuel that keeps our WHY alive. That’s the reason companies that understand the importance of living their WHY make it easy for their teams to fortify themselves with stories. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
1037:This study began in an exact and precise manner only with the labours of Professor Charcot at the Salpetriere, on the traumatic accidents of the hystericals: the paralyses, the contractures, mutisms, or anorexias. Everywhere, as we have seen, he showed the importance of the fixed idea which produced and kept up the accident, the reproduction of identical facts by suggestion, the treatment by isolation, and the moral influences which modified not the physical state, but the mental pathological state of the hysterical. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1038:We have emphasized the importance of applied action research because it allows evidence-based policy and program development and a focus on learning. We are also committed to using a participatory approach in which local people, local program managers and providers, local researchers, women's health activists, and national decision-makers play the leading role. International "experts" from technical assistance agencies or universities can make important contributions, but they certainly don't have all the answers. ~ Ruth Simmons, #NFDB
1039:[Vladimir] Putin spoke unabashedly about the importance of national sovereignty in Syria, a concept apparently near and dear to his heart, unless it comes to the sovereignty of Georgia, Ukraine or any other country in which he intervenes. Then he offered his cooperation, but without making any concrete concessions at all. And he didn't have to, either. He knows what he can rely on. He has assets that are more valuable than words: He has tanks in Ukraine, fighter jets in Syria - and Barack Obama in the White House. ~ Garry Kasparov, #NFDB
1040:Pythagoras is in fact credited with having coined the words "philosophy" ("love of wisdom") and "mathematics" ("that which is learned"). To him, a "philosopher" was someone who "gives himself up to discovering the meaning and purpose of life itself...to uncover the secrets of nature." Pythagoras emphasized the importance of learning above all other activities, because, in his words, "most men and women, by birth or nature, lack the means to advance in wealth and power, but all have the ability to advance in knowledge. ~ Mario Livio, #NFDB
1041:He reached into his jacket pocket. Over the years, people had often commented on his ability to produce exactly the right item from his pockets at exactly the right time. Some had speculated that his pockets were extensions of the TARDIS, others had guessed he was just lucky. But then, they’d never read Yeltstrom’s Karma and Flares: The Importance of Fashion Sense to the Modern Zen Master.
They didn’t appreciate the things a sentient life-form could achieve, if he was totally at one with the lining of his jacket. ~ Lawrence Miles,#NFDB
1042:The importance of the term "genocide" for many Indigenous Peoples is that it is more than a term or an accusation; it is a word created in the wake of the Shoah in Europe to describe what happens when a people are targeted by a government for extermination, as were the Jews of Europe, and which is the term used in the most important international law related to concerned Indigenous Peoples, as the only international human rights law that pertains specifically to collectivities of people rather than individuals. ~ Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, #NFDB
1043:2 Metaphors for a Richer CC2E.COM/ 0278 Understanding of Software Development Contents 2.1 The Importance of Metaphors 2.2 How to Use Software Metaphors 2.3 Common Software Metaphors Related Topic Heuristics in design: “Design is a Heuristic Process” in Section 5.1. Computer science has some of the most colorful language of any field. In what other field can you walk into a sterile room, carefully controlled at 68°F, and find viruses, Trojan horses, worms, bugs, bombs, crashes, flames, twisted sex changers, and fatal errors ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1044:Do we now fight for the kind of passionate belief that I have about sexuality, about the importance of the erotic, of people actually getting to fulfill desire and not be punished because they have it? No, we're nowhere near close to that. We're dealing with an AIDS epidemic that continues out of control globally and in this country, NO, THIS IS NOT the movement that I am fighting to create. Has it succeeded in places that are very significant? Yes it has - and it would be foolish to say that those things don't matter. ~ Amber Hollibaugh, #NFDB
1045:Here is what Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt said about Stegner’s biography of John Wesley Powell: When I first read Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, shortly after it was published in 1954, it was as though someone had thrown a rock through the window. Stegner showed us the limitations of aridity and the need for human institutions to respond in a cooperative way. He provided me in that moment with a way of thinking about the American West, the importance of finding true partnership between human beings and the land. ~ David Gessner, #NFDB
1046:I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects in school along with their regular curriculum? ~ Louise Hay, #NFDB
1047:There are three great taboos in textbook publishing,” an editor at one of the biggest houses told me, “sex, religion, and social class.” While I had been able to guess the first two, the third floored me. Sociologists know the importance of social class, after all. Reviewing American history textbooks convinced me that this editor was right, however. The notion that opportunity might be unequal in America, that not everyone has “the power to rise in the world,” is anathema to textbook authors, and to many teachers as well. ~ James W Loewen, #NFDB
1048:And finally, there is another danger: the emergence of nonideological but very aggressive 'isms,' which are really quite new. Let me at least name them: We all care about human rights, but I am afraid of 'human rightism.' We all want to have a healthy environment, but I see the danger in environmentalism. To put it politically correctly, I admire the second gender, but I fear feminism. We all are enriched by other cultures, but not by multiculturalism. I am aware of the importance of voluntary associations, but I fear NGOism. ~ Vaclav Klaus, #NFDB
1049:As God’s self-knowledge lies in the eternal Spirit, so man’s self-knowledge is by his own spirit, and his knowledge of God is by the direct impression of the Spirit of God upon the spirit of man. The importance of all this cannot be overestimated as we think and study and pray. It reveals the essential spirituality of mankind. It denies that man is a creature having a spirit and declares that he is a spirit having a body. That which makes him a human being is not his body but his spirit, in which the image of God originally lay. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1050:I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects in school along with their regular curriculum? ~ Louise L Hay, #NFDB
1051:Planners, architects of city design, and those they have led along with them in their beliefs are not consciously disdainful of the importance of knowing how things work. On the contrary, they have gone to great pains to learn what saints and sages of modern orthodox planning have said about how cities ought to work and what ought to be good for people and business in them. They take this with such devotion that when contradictory reality intrudes, threatening tho shatter their dearly won learning, they must shrug reality aside. ~ Jane Jacobs, #NFDB
1052:So it is no surprise that Jewish teaching includes frequent reminders of the importance of a broken-open heart, as in this Hasidic tale: A disciple asks the rebbe: “Why does Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts’? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?” The rebbe answers: “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.”38 ~ Parker J Palmer, #NFDB
1053:I learned that Bill himself has long appreciated the importance of competencies other than talent. Back in the days when he had a more direct role in hiring software programmers at Microsoft, for instance, he said he’d give applicants a programming task he knew would require hours and hours of tedious troubleshooting. This wasn’t an IQ test, or a test of programming skills. Rather, it was a test of a person’s ability to muscle through, press on, get to the finish line. Bill only hired programmers who finished what they began. ~ Angela Duckworth, #NFDB
1054:The main reason we don’t know as much about the modern human story in Africa is lack of research. Human history over the last tens of thousands of years in Africa is an integral part of the story of our species. Focusing on Africa as the place where our species originated, while it might seem to highlight the importance of Africa, paradoxically does Africa a disservice by drawing attention away from the question of how populations that remained in Africa got to be the way they are today. With ancient and modern DNA, we can rectify ~ David Reich, #NFDB
1055:In view of the importance of philanthropy in our society, it is surprising that so little attention has been given to it by economic or social theorists. In economic theory, especially, the subject is almost completely ignored. This is not, I think, because economists regard mankind as basically selfish or even because economic man is supposed to act only in his self-interest; it is rather because economics has essentially grown up around the phenomenon of exchange and its theoretical structure rests heavily on this process. ~ Kenneth E Boulding, #NFDB
1056:Good works have always been valued more highly than faith. Of course, it’s true that we should do good works and respect the importance of them. But we should be careful that we don’t elevate good works to such an extent that faith and Christ become secondary. If we esteem them too highly, good works can become the greatest idolatry. This has occurred both inside and outside of Christianity. Some people value good works so much that they overlook faith in Christ. They preach about and praise their own works instead of God’s works. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
1057:In 1778, Jefferson presented to the Virginia legislature "A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge," in which he argued that all forms of government could degenerate into tyranny. The best way of preventing this, he wrote, is "to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large." The study of history could serve as an especially effective bulwark, allowing the people to learn how to defeat tyranny from past examples. Jefferson would return again and again to the importance of education in a democracy. ~ Fareed Zakaria, #NFDB
1058:Too few Christians realize the importance of the Word of God in prayer. We know that faith begins where the will of God is known. And we know that God’s Word is His will. So find scriptures that definitely promise the things you are asking for. If the Scriptures don’t promise you the things you are desiring, you don’t have any business praying for those things. And you shouldn’t want anything that the Word of God says you shouldn’t have. Many believers are trying to pray beyond their faith. But it’s the Word that gives you faith. ~ Kenneth E Hagin, #NFDB
1059:As mamas, papas, grandparents, teachers, and caregivers we have a responsibility to protect these little earth warriors. It's our job to protect and nurture their love, their innocence, their spirits, their imagination, their gifts, their health and wellbeing, their spirituality, their confidence, their character, their freedom of thought, their instincts, their wildness, and their magic! There is nothing we can do in this lifetime that will compare to the importance of this work. These little ones are our future. Guard them well!! ~ Brooke Hampton, #NFDB
1060:He laughingly expressed his surprise at having provoked such anger. Perhaps he said this in the hope of minimising in my eyes the importance of his indiscreet intervention, perhaps because he was of a cowardly nature and lived gaily and idly in an atmosphere of falsehood, as jellyfish float upon the surface of the sea, perhaps because, even if he had been a man of a different kind, other people can never see things from our point of view and therefore do not realise the magnitude of the injury that words uttered at random can do us. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1061:I don't believe, for instance, that evolutionary biology or any scientific endeavor has much to say about love. I'm sure a lot can be learned about the importance of hormones and their effects on our feelings. But do the bleak implications of evolution have any impact on the love I feel for my family? Do they make me more likely to break the law of flaunt society's expectations of me? No. I simply does not follow that human relationships are meaningless just because we live in a godless universe subject to the natural laws of biology. ~ Greg Graffin, #NFDB
1062:Minimizing the importance of transformed feelings makes Christian conversion less supernatural and less radical. It is humanly manageable to make decisions of the will for Christ. No supernatural power is required to pray prayers, sign cards, walk aisles, or even stop sleeping around. Those are good. They just don’t prove that anything spiritual has happened. Christian conversion, on the other hand, is a supernatural, radical thing. The heart is changed. And the evidence of it is not just new decisions, but new affections, new feelings. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1063:A surprising number of Tribal Leaders in our study learned their most important leadership lessons in the military. Gordon Binder, for example, the former CEO of Amgen, credits his time in the navy with learning the importance of values and vision. As he told us, “if you walk on board a ship and the brass is polished, the guns will shoot straight…Walk on a ship where the brass is dirty, and that’s a ship where we have to check the guns.” Stage Four cultures tend to express their values in both big things (guns) and little things (brass). ~ Dave Logan, #NFDB
1064:To live only for some unknown future is superficial. It is like climbing a mountain to reach the peak without experiencing its sides. The sides of the mountain sustain life, not the peak. This is where things grow, experience is gained, and technologies are mastered. The importance of the peak lies only in the fact that it defines the sides. So I went on towards the top, but always experiencing the sides. I had a long way to go but I was in no hurry. I went in little steps—just one step after another—but each step towards the top. ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
1065:When you think about it, it makes sense that tanha would be tied to our outer limits no less than to our core. From a Darwinian perspective, tanha was engineered into us so that we would take care of ourselves—which is to say, so that each of us would take care of the vehicle that contains our genes. And that vehicle stops at the skin, at the bounds of the body. It’s only natural, then, that tanha would reinforce a sense of the importance of those bounds, the bounds that define the zone of concern that natural selection assigned to it. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
1066:He was my teacher, and he had wrapped himself, his elaborate historical self, into this package, and stood in front of the high windows, to teach me my little lesson, which turned out to be not about Poland or fascism or war, borderlines or passion or loyalty, but just about the sentence: the importance of, the sweetness of. And I did long for it, to say one true sentence of my own, to leap into the subject, that sturdy vessel traveling upstream through the axonal predicate possibility; into what little we know of the future, of eternity. ~ Rebecca Lee, #NFDB
1067:The first undeniable reality is that every living thing dies, and the second undeniable reality is that we suffer throughout our lives because we don't understand death. The truth derived from these two points is the importance of clarifying the matter of birth and death. The third undeniable reality is that all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in my head simply arise haphazardly, by chance. And the conclusion we can derive from that is not to hold on to all that comes up in our head. That is what we are doing when we sit zazen. ~ Kosho Uchiyama, #NFDB
1068:Cisco figured out that mergers between similar-sized companies rarely work, as there are frequently struggles about which team will control the combined entity (think Daimler-Chrysler or Dean Witter–Morgan Stanley). Cisco’s leaders also determined that mergers work best when companies are geographically proximate, making integration and collaboration much easier (think Synoptics and Wellfleet Communication, which were not only about equal in size, but 2,500 miles apart), and they also uncovered the importance of organizational cultural ~ Jeffrey Pfeffer, #NFDB
1069:Pastor Larry Reichardt of South Coast Fellowship in Ventura, California, emphasizes the importance of connecting with kids where they are, instead of trying to attract them to church first: “We share Christ with kids on the streets and then we visit the kids’ families at home and pray for them. We start small groups in their area in English or Spanish and minister to their needs. We also do physical things in the neighborhood to demonstrate we care, sharing the love of God where they are and how they are. Eventually, we ask them to church. ~ George Barna, #NFDB
1070:It is not enough for a surgeon to have the textbook knowledge of how to treat trauma victims—to understand the science of penetrating wounds, the damage they cause, the different approaches to diagnosis and treatment, the importance of acting quickly. One must also grasp the clinical reality, with its nuances of timing and sequence. One needs practice to achieve mastery, a body of experience before one achieves real success. And if what we are missing when we fail is individual skill, then what is needed is simply more training and practice. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1071:The importance of C.F. Gauss for the development of modern physical theory and especially for the mathematical fundament of the theory of relativity is overwhelming indeed; also his achievement of the system of absolute measurement in the field of electromagnetism. In my opinion it is impossible to achieve a coherent objective picture of the world on the basis of concepts which are taken more or less from inner psychological experience. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1072:The Russians have been flying long duration crews since the early '70's. And in the early days, they've ended at least two missions early because of conflicts within the crew. So, they learned early on the importance of studying this and making sure you put the right crew together. Since we began our work together on the International Space station with the Russians in the early 2000's, NASA has started to learn the importance of this kind of work. And so, I think it's important work and we are not fully onboard and recognize it as important. ~ Leroy Chiao, #NFDB
1073:You try to predict movements by drawing on patterns in nature. Yes, of course, the mathematical properties of tree rings, sunflower seeds, the limbs of galactic spirals. I learned this. I loved the cross harmonies between nature and data. You taught me this. You made this form of analysis horribly and sadistically precise. But you forgot something along the way."
"What?"
"The importance of the lopsided. The thing that's skewed a little. You were looking for balance - beautiful balance, equals parts, equal sides, I know this. I know you. ~ Don DeLillo,#NFDB
1074:Ah,’ said the Doctor.
He reached into his jacket pocket. Over the years, people had often commented on his ability to produce exactly the right item from his pockets at exactly the right time. Some had speculated that his pockets were extensions of the TARDIS, others had guessed he was just lucky. But then, they’d never read Yeltstrom’s Karma and Flares: The Importance of Fashion Sense to the Modern Zen Master.
They didn’t appreciate the things a sentient life-form could achieve, if he was totally at one with the lining of his jacket. ~ Lawrence Miles,#NFDB
1075:Teachers, who are really good create that environment where you can be very satisfied by the process of learning. If you do something and you find it a very satisfying experience then you want to do more of it. The great teachers somehow convey in their very attitude and their words and their actions and everything they do that this is an important thing you're learning. You end up wanting to do more of it and more of it and more of it. That's a real talent some people have to convey the importance of that and to reflect it back to the students. ~ Jeff Bezos, #NFDB
1076:What crystallized the importance of speaking out like that - of making nonviolence not just a tool or a tactic, but a way of life - was in San Diego [at Comic-Con]. One of the young girls who marched with us was wearing a hijab, and she came up to me afterward because I talked about my beard, and I talked about why I was doing it, and she came up and she gave me a hug, and she was crying. And she said, "Thank you. You have no idea how the other students treat me because they're shown that this is OK by Donald Trump. Thank you for speaking out." ~ Andrew Aydin, #NFDB
1077:It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it - and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief. ~ Peter Medawar, #NFDB
1078:If we live without an eternal perspective, earthly trials become larger than life. Without the hope of heaven or the sense of the importance of a growing character and refinement, there is nothing to prepare for, nothing to look forward to; it is like practicing and practicing but never getting to actually play a game. Life gets boring, tedious, and tiresome. IF WE ARE SEEKING GLORY, HONOR, AND IMMORTALITY BEFORE GOD, THE ROAD TO GET THERE IS DAILY AND QUIET PERSISTENCE, FAITHFULNESS, AND OBEDIENCE. If we are seeking glory, honor, and immortality ~ Gary L Thomas, #NFDB
1079:Kennedy acknowledged the importance of a free press: I think [the press] is invaluable, even though…it is never pleasant to be reading things that are not agreeable news. But I would say that it is an invaluable arm of the Presidency….There is a terrific disadvantage [in] not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily….Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn’t write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn’t any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
1080:That’s to encourage her, in everything she wants courageously to do, but to include in that genuine appreciation the fact of her femininity: to recognize the importance of having a family and children and to forego the temptation to denigrate or devalue that in comparison to accomplishment of personal ambition or career. It’s not for nothing that the Holy Mother and Infant is a divine image—as we just discussed. Societies that cease to honour that image—that cease to see that relationship as of transcendent and fundamental importance—also cease to be. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1081:Dustin Wax says it well: No matter how organized you are, how together your system is, how careful you are about processing your inbox, making a task list, and working your calendar, if you don’t stop every now and again to look at the “big picture,” you’re going to get overwhelmed. You end up simply responding to what’s thrown at you, instead of proactively creating the conditions of your life.16 Find a time for your weekly review, add it to your calendar, and commit to doing it every week. I really can’t over-emphasize the importance of this discipline. ~ Tim Challies, #NFDB
1082:That’s to encourage her, in everything she wants courageously to do, but to include in that genuine appreciation the fact of her femininity: to recognize the importance of having a family and children and to forego the temptation to denigrate or devalue that in comparison to accomplishment of personal ambition or career. It’s not for nothing that the Holy Mother and Infant is a divine image—as we just discussed. Societies that cease to honour that image—that cease to see that relationship as of transcendent and fundamental importance—also cease to be. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1083:The importance of the Industrial Revolution is hard to overstate. Throughout essentially all of human history, economic growth had proceeded at a rate of perhaps 0.1 percent per year, enough to allow for a very gradual increase in population, but not any growth in per capita living standards.26 And then, suddenly, there was progress when there had been none. Economic growth began to zoom upward much faster than the growth rate of the population, as it has continued to do through to the present day, the occasional global financial meltdown notwithstanding.27 ~ Nate Silver, #NFDB
1084:When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing. When people feel like this, they are not in a hurry, they do not precipitate events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen, that what is real always finds a way of revealing itself. When the moment comes, they do not hesitate, they do not miss an opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment, because they respect the importance of each second. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1085:I fancy you give me credit for being a more systematic sort of cove than I really am in the matter of limits of significance. What would actually happen would be that I should make out Pt (normal) and say to myself that would be about 50:1; pretty good but as it may not be normal we'd best not be too certain, or 100:1; even allowing that it may not be normal it seems good enough and whether one would be content with that or would require further work would depend on the importance of the conclusion and the difficulty of obtaining suitable experience. ~ William Sealy Gosset, #NFDB
1086:...the sounds next door served as a kind of trip wire: I seemed to stumble and fall on my face, skinning and bruising myself here and there and scattering my emotional and intellectual possessions. There was no point in pretending that I had not fallen, for when we are stretched out in the dirt we must pick ourselves up and brush off our clothes. This then, in a sense, is what I did, reviewing my considered opinions on marriage, constancy, man's nature, and the importance of love. When I had picked up my possessions and repaired my appearance, I fell asleep. ~ John Cheever, #NFDB
1087:When Baby Boomers grow up and write books to explain why one or another individual is successful, they point to the power of a particular individual’s context as determined by chance. But they miss the even bigger social context for their own preferred explanations: a whole generation learned from childhood to overrate the power of chance and underrate the importance of planning. Gladwell at first appears to be making a contrarian critique of the myth of the self-made businessman, but actually his own account encapsulates the conventional view of a generation. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
1088:It's immoral to parent irresponsibly... And it doesn't help matters any when prime time tv, like "Murphy Brown", a character who is supposed to represent a successful career woman of today, mocks the importance of the father by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice." Marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program there is... Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood, network TV, the national newspapers routinely jeer at [such values] I think most of us in this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong. ~ Dan Quayle, #NFDB
1089:I'm still a researcher. The best way to explain it is that I trusted myself deeply as a professional, but I did not have a lot of self-trust personally. When I started learning all of these things about the value and the importance of belonging, vulnerability, connection, self-kindness and self-compassion, I trusted what I was learning - again, I know I'm a good researcher. When those things and wholeheartedness started to emerge with all these different properties, I knew I had to listen. I'd heard these messages before personally but I didn't trust myself there. ~ Brene Brown, #NFDB
1090:There is behavioral ecology, which looks closely at the difference different ecologies make to behavior and other features of animals and humans. There's evolutionary individual psychology, there's evolutionary social psychology. In Darwin's terms, evolution couldn't exist without variation, and variation is important in behavioral genetics. And so on, and so on. There are so many instances in which evolution actually sharpens the precision, I think, with which one can find out the importance of differences. We're interested in differences as well as commonalities. ~ Brian Boyd, #NFDB
1091:Becoming aware of these habits and understanding the importance of this agreement is the first step. But understanding its importance is not enough. Information or an idea is merely the seed in your mind. What will really make the difference is action. Taking the action over and over again strengthens your will, nurtures the seed, and establishes a solid foundation for the new habit to grow. After many repetitions these new agreements will become second nature, and you will see how the magic of your word transforms you from a black magician into a white magician. A ~ Miguel Ruiz, #NFDB
1092:Based on the balancing act of the golden mean, bourgeois marriage mixed moderate but continuing sexual attraction, a mutual social and economic interest in living together, respect for the wife, a will to create a lineage, significant socio-cultural similarity, hypocrisy for dissimulating and managing adulterous liaisons (hence the importance of legal prostitution), and the building up of a patrimony to be transmitted. When the couple gets old, this leads to a habitual tenderness much stronger than the passionate and ephemeral simulation of today’s young couples. ~ Guillaume Faye, #NFDB
1093:The farther right you go on the curve, the more you will encounter the clients and customers who may need what you have, but don't necessarily believe what you believe. As clients, they are the ones for whom, no matter how hard you work, it's never enough. Everything usually boils down to price with them. They are rarely loyal. They rarely give referrals and sometimes you may even wonder out loud why you still do business with them. "They just don't get it," our gut tells us. The importance of identifying this group is so that you can avoid doing business with them. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
1094:I developed a maturing recognition of the importance of hopefulness in creating justice. I'd started addressing the subject of hopefulness in talks to small groups. I'd grown fond of quoting Vaclav Havel, the great Czech leader who had said that 'hope' was the one thing people struggling in Eastern Europe needed during the era of Soviet domination. The kind of hope that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows one to believe in a better future, even in the face of abusive power. That kind of hope makes one strong. ~ Bryan Stevenson, #NFDB
1095:I was an aspiring writer 15 years ago (I was a zygote. Honest). Since then, the business has changed so dramatically that I hesitate to give advice. But one thing remains constant: the importance of developing your own strong and unique voice. A fresh new voice can electrify readers! Also, I'd do a gut check at the outset of your journey, because this is a tough gig. If you decide to forge ahead, cultivate friendships with other authors who can empathize with the unique ups and downs of this occupation. I don't know what I would have done without my friends' support. ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
1096:The world is full of folly and confusion, the lack of freedom has deep roots, the hope for justice and equality is dwindling, the odds against us are too great, it seems. We should be glad to be as well off as we are, people say, most people are worse off. Then they take a pill for insomnia. Or depression. Or life. When will a new generation come, one that understands the importance of equality, a generation of gardeners and foresters who can fell the big trees that block the light for all the lesser ones, and who can remove the suckers from the tree of knowledge. ~ Kjell Askildsen, #NFDB
1097:The warrior of light has learned that God uses solitude to teach us how to live
with other people.
He uses rage to show us the infinite value of peace. He uses boredom to
underline the importance of adventure and spontaneity.
God uses silence to teach us to use words responsibly. He uses tiredness so
that we can understand the value of waking up. He uses illness to underline the
blessing of good health.
God uses fire to teach us about water. He uses earth so that we can understand
the value of air. He uses death to show us the importance of life ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
1098:This study began in an exact and precise manner only with the labours of Professor Charcot at the Salpetriere, on the traumatic accidents of the hystericals: the paralyses, the contractures, mutisms, or anorexias. Everywhere, as we have seen, he showed the importance of the fixed idea which produced and kept up the accident, the reproduction of identical facts by suggestion, the treatment by isolation, and the moral influences which modified not the physical state, but the mental pathological state of the hysterical. It remained to generalise somewhat more this conception ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1099:Broadly speaking, this research provides a valuable insight into human behavior: An ounce of personalized extra effort is worth a pound of persuasion. The more personalized you make a request, the more likely you’ll be to get someone to agree to that request. More specifically, this research shows that in the office or in the community, a personalized sticky note could highlight the importance of your reports and communications and prevent them from becoming the proverbial needle in a haystack of other reports, letters, and mailings that are also vying for attention. ~ Noah J Goldstein, #NFDB
1100:Good work is no done by "humble" men. It is one of the first duties of a professor, for example, in any subject, to exaggerate a little both the importance of his subject and his own importance in it. A man who is always asking "Is what I do worth while?" and "Am I the right person to do it?" will always be ineffective himself and a discouragement to others. He must shut his eyes a little and think a little more of his subject and himself than they deserve. This is not too difficult: it is harder not to make his subject and himself ridiculous by shutting his eyes too tightly. ~ G H Hardy, #NFDB
1101:Vonnegut did not seem to be saying, as I understood them to be saying, that his terrible event had forever exempted him from the usual human obligations of being kind, attempting to understand, behaving decently. On the contrary, Vonnegut seemed to feel that unkindness - a simple idiotic failure of belief in the human, by men and their systems - has been the cause of his terrible event, and that what he had learned from this experience was not the importance of being tough and hard and untouchable, but the importance of preserving the kindness in ourselves at all costs. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
1102:It is impossible to overestimate the importance of careful training for Indian girls," a U.S. government official had stated, adding, "Of what avail is it that the man be hard-working and industrious, providing by his labor food and clothing for his household, if the wife, unskilled in cookery, unused to the needle, with no habits of order or neatness, makes what might be a cheerful, happy home only a wretched abode of filth and squalor?...It is the women who cling most tenaciously to heathen rites and superstitions, and perpetuate them by their instructions to the children. ~ David Grann, #NFDB
1103:The close-up has no equivalent in a narrative fashioned of words. Literature is totally lacking in any working method to enable it to isolate a single vastly enlarged detail in which one face comes forward to underline a state of mind or stress the importance of a single detail in comparison with the rest. As a narrative device, the ability to vary the distance between the camera and the object may be a small thing indeed, but it makes for a notable difference between cinema and oral or written narrative, in which the distance between language and image is always the same. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
1104:However, taking action based on what a given study recommends would require personal initiative on the part of individual healthcare providers. But as corporate culture goes, so goes medical culture. We live in the age of consensus and groupthink, where otherwise curious and capable professionals avoid being singled out by huddling in the center of the herd. The herd, in turn, waits for an authority figure to lead the way. So if there is no authority figure acknowledging the importance of a given article’s findings, nothing happens. It’s as though it were never written. ~ Catherine Shanahan, #NFDB
1105:To appreciate the importance of fitting every human soul for independent action, think for a moment of the immeasurable solitude of self. We come into the world alone, unlike all who have gone before us; we leave it alone under circumstances peculiar to ourselves...We ask for the complete development of every indicidual, first, for his own benefit and happiness. In fitting out an army we give each soldier his own knapsack, arms, powder, his blanket, cup, knife, fork, and spoon. We provide alike for all their individual necessities, then each man bears his own burden. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht, #NFDB
1106:When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live
each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing.
When people feel like this, they are not in a hurry, they
do not precipitate events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen,
that what is real always
finds a way of revealing itself. When the moment comes, they
do not hesitate, they do not miss an opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment,
because they respect the importance of each second. ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
1107:A recurrent theme throughout the history of the Church is that of creating a loving, caring community. The story of the Early Church recounted in Acts emphasizes the importance of relationships among believers. Jesus’ ministry was a model of commitment to fellow believers: He did everything with the family of faith; He ate, talked, traveled and ministered with His disciples. He did more than simply talk about love for others; Jesus personally modeled it and consistently arranged situations and opportunities for His faith-circle to deepen and demonstrate their love for each other. ~ George Barna, #NFDB
1108:I can't imagine where I'd be without the opportunities provided to me in sports. Sports taught me that gender isn't an issue; in fact, when people talk about me being the first female governor, I'm a little absent from that discussion, because I've never thought of gender as an issue. In sports, you learn self-discipline, healthy competition, to be gracious in victory and defeat, and the importance of being part of a team and understanding what part you play on that team. You all work together to reach a goal, and I think all of those factors come into play in my role as governor. ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
1109:Many people, including myself, thought of Jobs as an inventor, an Edison-like figure, but he wasn't. I did a documentary on James Brown recently; and, oddly, I found a lot in common between Jobs and Brown. Jobs was also a fantastic performer, put on an extraordinary live show at his product launches, but he could also be ruthless, cruel and totally self-aggrandizing. And just as Brown surrounded himself with the very best musicians, Jobs understood the importance of hiring the absolutely most talented people and knew how crucial they were to the success of what he was trying to do. ~ Alex Gibney, #NFDB
1110:the importance of choosing the right words for things, even if those words offended people. She didn’t like it when she heard a friend say that a person who had died had “passed away” or that a staggering drunk at a party was “a bit indisposed.” It was more important to be honest. “We glide over the offensiveness of names and calm down our consciences by eulogistic mellifluous terms, until our very moral senses are dulled,” she wrote. “Let things be shown, let them come forth in their real colors, and humanity will not be so prone to a sin which is glossed over by a dainty public! ~ Jason Fagone, #NFDB
1111:When Dr. James Young Simpson sought to apply anesthesia to a woman in childbirth, the clergymen of his day foamed at the mouth and spat upon him with vituperation and abuse, for attempting to violate God's direct command that 'in pain thou shalt bring forth children,' as based upon the idiotic text of the Bible. But Dr. Simpson persisted despite the ravings of the religious lunatics of his day.
The importance of Dr. Simpson's application of anesthesia to the relief of pain in childbirth, and his open defiance of the religionists, are beyond the measure of words to evaluate. ~ Joseph Lewis,#NFDB
1112:[Faculty...] insisted that the lecture and live demonstration was a sacred space. Faculty talked about the importance of debating with students, responding to questions, and presenting a model for how to argue a point and respect differences. They talked about the sanctity of live demonstrations—the importance of doing science in real time. They wanted students to watch live, imperfect lectures and demonstrations and feel part of an in-person community. They say the classroom as a place where you learned to love the 'as-is' of nature as much as you love the 'as-if' of the virtual. ~ Sherry Turkle, #NFDB
1113:There is no clearer illustration of the importance of ideas to politics than the emergence of an Arab state under the Prophet Muhammad. The Arab tribes played an utterly marginal role in world history until that point; it was only Muhammad’s charismatic authority that allowed them to unify and project their power throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The tribes had no economic base to speak of; they gained economic power through the interaction of religious ideas and military organization, and then were able to take over agricultural societies that did produce surpluses. ~ Francis Fukuyama, #NFDB
1114:Neo-Darwinian language and conceptual structure itself ensures scientific failure: Major questions posed by zoologists cannot be answered from inside the neo-Darwinian straitjacket. Such questions include, for example, 'How do new structures arise in evolution?' 'Why, given so much environmental change, is stasis so prevalent in evolution as seen in the fossil record?' 'How did one group of organisms or set of macromolecules evolve from another?' The importance of these questions is not at issue; it is just that neo-Darwinians, restricted by their resuppositions, cannot answer them. ~ Lynn Margulis, #NFDB
1115:Peace, however, is not merely a gift to be received: it is also a task to be undertaken. In order to be true peacemakers, we must educate ourselves in compassion, solidarity, working together, fraternity, in being active within the community and concerned to raise awareness about national and international issues and the importance of seeking adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth, the promotion of growth, cooperation for development and conflict resolution. 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God', as Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1116:On a long flight, after periods of crisis and many hours of fatigue, mind and body may become disunited until at times they seem completely different elements, as though the body were only a home with which the mind has been associated but by no means bound. Consciousness grows independent of the ordinary senses. You see without assistance from the eyes, over distances beyond the visual horizon. There are moments when existence appears independent even of the mind. The importance of physical desire and immediate surroundings is submerged in the apprehension of universal values. ~ Charles Lindbergh, #NFDB
1117:Over time, as the thinking mind begins to settle [through the practice of meditation], we’ll start to see our patterns and habits far more clearly. Sometimes this can be a painful experience. I can’t overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be. By cultivating nonjudgmental openness to ourselves and to whatever arises, to our surprise and delight we will find ourselves genuinely welcoming the never-pin-downable quality of life, experiencing it as a friend, a teacher, and a support, and no longer as an enemy. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
1118:Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1119:Sanity, as the project of keeping ourselves recognizably human, therefore has to limit the range of human experience. To keep faith with recognition we have to stay recognizable. Sanity, in other words, becomes a pressing preoccupation as soon as we recognize the importance of recognition. When we define ourselves by what we can recognize, by what we can comprehend- rather than, say, by what we can describe- we are continually under threat from what we are unwilling and/or unable to see. We are tyrannized by our blind spots, and by whatever it is about ourselves that we find unacceptable. ~ Adam Phillips, #NFDB
1120:Everything we want to accomplish—to paint the house, learn a new language, find a better job—is something that promises that, if done, it would allow us to finally relax and enjoy our lives in the present. Generally speaking, this is a false hope. I’m not denying the importance of achieving one’s goals, maintaining one’s health, or keeping one’s children clothed and fed—but most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1121:When we were invited to the White House we said we would accept the invitation on one condition. If it’s just a photo session we would not go—but if Obama would listen to what was in our hearts, then we would. The message came back: you are free to say whatever you wish. And so we did! It was quite a serious meeting. We talked about the importance of education. We discussed the United States’ role in supporting dictatorships and drone attacks in countries like Pakistan. I told him that instead of focusing on eradicating terrorism through war, he should focus on eradicating it through education. In ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
1122:What shall I do with a torn nation? Stitch it back together with careful words of truth. The importance of this injunction has, if anything, become clearer over the past few years: we are dividing, and polarizing, and drifting toward chaos. It is necessary, under such conditions, if we are to avoid catastrophe, for each of us to bring forward the truth, as we see it: not the arguments that justify our ideologies, not the machinations that further our ambitions, but the stark pure facts of our existence, revealed for others to see and contemplate, so that we can find common ground and proceed together. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1123:What shall I do with a torn nation? Stitch it back together with careful words of truth. The importance of this injunction has, if anything, become clearer over the past few years: we are dividing, and polarizing, and drifting toward chaos. It is necessary, under such conditions, if we are to avoid catastrophe, for each of us to bring forward the truth, as we see it: not the arguments that justify our ideologies, not the machinations that further our ambitions, but the stark pure facts of our existence, revealed for others to see and contemplate, so that we can find common ground and proceed together. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1124:The importance of the bureaucratic link and the source of power-the divine king-and the actual human machines that performed the works of construction or destruction can hardly be exaggerated: all the more because it was the bureaucracy that collected the annual taxes and tributes that supported the new social pyramid and forcibly assembled the manpower that formed the new mechanical fabric. The bureaucracy was, in fact, the third type of 'invisible machine'-one might call it a communications-machine-co-existing with the military and labor machines, and an integral part of the final totalitarian structure. ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
1125:This book, then, does not consist of academic philosophical musings. Rather, it is a work of oral literature, addressed to people at war. How strange it must have seemed to turn on the radio, which was every day bringing news of death and unspeakable destruction, and hear one man talking, in an intelligent, good-humored, and probing tone, about decent and humane behavior, fair play, and the importance of knowing right from wrong. Asked by the BBC to explain to his fellow Britons what Christians believe, C. S. Lewis proceeded with the task as if it were the simplest thing in the world, and also the most important. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1126:And people have emphasized the importance of compassion, not just because it sounds good, but because it works. People have found that when they have implemented the Golden Rule as Confucius said, "all day and every day," not just a question of doing your good deed for the day and then returning to a life of greed and egotism, but to do it all day and every day, you dethrone yourself from the center of your world, put another there, and you transcend yourself. And it brings you into the presence of what's been called God, Nirvana, Rama, Tao. Something that goes beyond what we know in our ego-bound existence. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1127:By sacrificing the public self, by shunning leaders, and especially by refusing to play the game of self-promotion, Anonymous ensures mystery; this in itself is a radical political act, given a social order based on ubiquitous monitoring and the celebration of runaway individualism and selfishness. Anonymous's iconography — masks and headless suits — visually displays the importance of opacity. The collective may not be the hive it often purports and is purported to be — and it may be marked by internal strife — but Anonymous still manages to leave us with a striking vision of solidarity — e pluribus unum. ~ Gabriella Coleman, #NFDB
1128:The importance of experiences lies not so much in their precise nature as in one's response to them. In part this represents a harkening back to an old principle of discernment...of evaluating an experience in relation to its fruits. More deeply, however, we are speaking of remaining attentive to the mystery and reality of God behind> all phenomena, refusing to allow superficial appearances to distract us from this central concern. We do a disservice to ourselves and others when we allow our interest in the nature of a phenomenon to obscure the mysterious wonder of the very existence of that phenomenon. ~ Gerald G May, #NFDB
1129:In the final months before the 2008 presidential election, Michael Mann, a tenured meteorology and geosciences professor at Penn State University who had become a leading figure in climate change research, told his wife that he would be happy whichever candidate won. Both the Republican and the Democratic presidential nominees had spoken about the importance of addressing global warming, which Mann regarded as the paramount issue of the day. But what he didn’t fully foresee was that the same forces stirring the Tea Party would expertly channel the public outrage at government against scientific experts like himself. ~ Jane Mayer, #NFDB
1130:I was raised by parents who constantly emphasized the importance of resisting the group. A thousand times, in many contexts, my mother said, “If everyone is lined up to jump off the George Washington Bridge, are you just going to get in line?” I gave a speech at my high school graduation about the evils of peer pressure. I carried in my wallet from the age of sixteen a quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. ~ James Comey, #NFDB
1131:The general Council of Nicaea assembled in May, 325 A.D. More than three hundred bishops accompanied by their priests and deacons attended the meetings. The Eastern church was more strongly represented than the Western group as the Bishop of Rome did not attend but sent two legates. [...] As a pagan Constantine made an opening address in which he emphasized the importance of Christian fellowship among the leaders of their churches, and reminded all that were assembled there and were true followers of Christ that they should forgive one another, serve God, and act with charity and love. ~ Manly P Hall, The Bible, the Story of a Book, #NFDB
1132:But the importance of language in Islam went far beyond the production of a telling slogan. Eloquence, the sheer power of the word, as dictated by God and declaimed to all who would listen, played the first role in winning converts for Islam, leaving hearers no explanation for the beauty of Muhammad's words but divine inspiration. The classic example is 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, a contemporary of Muhammad and acknowledged authority on oral poetry, determined to oppose, perhaps even to assasinate, him. Exposed directly to the prophet's words, he could only cry out: 'How fine and noble this speech!' And he was converted. ~ Nicholas Ostler, #NFDB
1133:Warren Buffett, quoting Henry Ford, often talks about the importance of keeping all your eggs in one basket, then watching that basket very carefully. One thing that appalled me and that I’d seen too many times was the Wall Street practice of having many eggs in many baskets. Even the most reputable mutual fund companies have a practice of selling multiple funds. The ones that do well are those that then get the marketing dollars and raise more money from investors. The ones that do poorly are either shut down or merged into the better-performing funds. In the process, the failures are buried as if they’d never existed while ~ Guy Spier, #NFDB
1134:Why, it seemed to me I had lost the most of myself; and there was left only a brain which played with ideas, and a body that went delicately down pleasant ways. And I could not believe as my fellows believed, nor could I love them, nor could I detect anything in aught they said or did save their exceeding folly: for I had lost their cordial common faith of what use they made of half-hours and months and years... I had lost faith in the importance of my own actions, too. There was a little time of which the passing might be made endurable; beyond gaped unpredictable darkness: and that was all there was of certainty anywhere. ~ James Branch Cabell, #NFDB
1135:Under capitalism workers are forced to sell their labour – which Marx regards as the essence of human existence – to the capitalists, who use this labour to accumulate more capital, which further increases the power of the capitalists over the workers. Capitalists become rich, while wages are driven down to the bare minimum needed to keep the workers alive. Yet in reducing so large a class of people to this degraded condition, capitalism creates the material force that will overthrow it. For Marx, the importance of economics lay in the insight it provided into the workings of this alienation and the manner in which it could be overcome. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1136:Belknap replied, “Slavery hath been abolished here by public opinion.” Understanding the importance of public sentiment, abolitionists pioneered the practice of radical agitation in a democracy. They did not put forward a detailed plan of emancipation. Rather, their aim, explained Wendell Phillips, perhaps the movement’s greatest orator, was “to alter public opinion,” to bring about a moral transformation whereby white Americans recognized the humanity and equal rights of blacks. By changing public discourse, by redefining the politically “possible,” the abolitionist movement affected far more Americans than actually joined its ranks.42 ~ Eric Foner, #NFDB
1137:Imprinting isn't a life sentence. Our people thrive with our significant by our side. We all know the importance of what has happened since Maggie came into our lives. The proof of how destiny works and moves is right here in this circle, in these four couples that will be joined today. But more than destiny and purpose is love. The love one feels for his significant is bigger than any ocean, deeper than any well, more powerful than any storm. When we join these significants today, they are telling us that they want no one else, will always be there for each other and will never part from their mate. Not that I have to tell them that. ~ Shelly Crane, #NFDB
1138:Together we'll make magic...
Who had conjured whom?
She seemed to remember Oliver suggesting this once before, but she hadn't really appreciated the importance of his question. Was she the dream? Was Nao the one writing her into being? Agency is a tricky business, Muriel had said. Ruth had always felt substantial enough, but maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was as absent as her name indicated, a homeless and ghostly composite of words that the girl had assembled. She'd never had any cause to doubt her senses. Her empirical experience of herself, seemed trustworthy enough, but now in the dark, at four in the morning, she wasn't so sure. ~ Ruth Ozeki,#NFDB
1139:A planet might deteriorate even if human beings existed upon it, if the society were itself abnormal and did not understand the importance of preserving the environment."
"Surely," said Pelorat, "such a society would quickly be destroyed. I don't think it would be possible for human beings to fail to understand the importance of retaining the very factors that are keeping them alive."
Bliss said, "I don't have your pleasant faith in human reason, Pel. It seems to me to be quite conceivable that when a planetary society consists of Isolates, local and even individual concerns might easily by allowed to overcome planetary concerns. ~ Isaac Asimov,#NFDB
1140:I cannot overstress the importance of the fact that, once gravity is included in our considerations of nature, one is no longer free to define the total energy of a system arbitrarily, nor the fact that there are both positive and negative contributions to this energy…I say this because it have been argued that the statement that the average total Newtonian gravitational energy in a flat, expanding universe is arbitrary, and that any other balue would be just as good, but that scientists ‘define’ the zero point to argue against God. So claimed Dinesh D’Souza, anyway, in his debates with Christopher Hitchens on the existence of God. ~ Lawrence M Krauss, #NFDB
1141:To promote trade along these routes, Mongol authorities distributed an early type of combined passport and credit card. The Mongol paiza was a tablet of gold, silver, or wood larger than a man’s hand, and it would be worn on a chain around the neck or attached to the clothing. Depending on which metal was used and the symbols such as tigers or gyrfalcons, illiterate people could ascertain the importance of the traveler and thereby render the appropriate level of service. The paiza allowed the holder to travel throughout the empire and be assured of protection, accommodations, transportation, and exemption from local taxes or duties. ~ Jack Weatherford, #NFDB
1142:In his book Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, emphasizes the importance of the brain in the forming of connections (the italics are mine): A piece of information is really defined only by what it’s related to, and how it’s related. There really is little else to meaning. The structure is everything. There are billions of neurons in our brains, but what are neurons? Just cells. The brain has no knowledge until connections are made between neurons. All that we know, all that we are, comes from the way our neurons are connected. Berners-Lee ~ Richard Restak, #NFDB
1143:In no other profession do people float ably among specialties, helping to ease babies into being, escorting men and women gently into death, and heroically resurrecting patients in between. There are few other careers in which people are so devoted to a noble purpose that they work twelve, fourteen, sixteen straight hours without eating, sleeping, or taking breaks and often without cmomensurate pay simply because they believe in the importance of their job. They are frequently the first responders on the front lines of malady and contagion, risking their own health to improve someone else's. Nursing is more than a career; it is a calling. ~ Alexandra Robbins, #NFDB
1144:There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest— whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1145:It wasn’t my idea. Gracie is all about saving the world. She’s been lecturing everyone about the importance of saving electricity, recycling, and countless other things that we need to do to be greener.” She shrugged as she turned off the stove and lifted the pot of noodles. “I’m just doing as I was told. First by Gracie and then enforced by Hawk.” I smirked. Of course it would be Gracie. The girl was sweet and full of all kinds of innocence. Hawk was in deep with her. Like the couldn’t eat, sleep…breathe without her kind of deep. I knew all about that. For six weeks Willa had been mine. For four years I’d been unable to draw a deep breath. ~ Terri Anne Browning, #NFDB
1146:Let me put it bluntly: anyone who says money isn’t important doesn’t have any! Rich people understand the importance of money and the place it has in our society. On the other hand, poor people validate their financial ineptitude by using irrelevant comparisons. They’ll argue, “Well, money isn’t as important as love.” Now, is that comparison dumb or what? What’s more important, your arm or your leg? Maybe they’re both important. Listen up, my friends: Money is extremely important in the areas in which it works, and extremely unimportant in the areas in which it doesn’t. And although love may make the world go round, it sure doesn’t pay for the building ~ T Harv Eker, #NFDB
1147:Buddhist teachings have long emphasized the importance of being less “self-involved.” When we are fearful and anxious, we are concerned about our self and its well-being. These are autonoetic thoughts about one’s health, family, friends, wealth, life, death, and so on. Our conscious self, according to Mark Epstein, who is a Buddhist psychoanalyst, will do almost anything to maintain the independence, power, control, or success that it has achieved, even if to do so other people, other cultures, or the world has to suffer.192 A healthier approach, Epstein says, is to let go of the “absolute self” that we construct and recognize our broader role in life. ~ Joseph E LeDoux, #NFDB
1148:Freud's convictions about the importance of infantile developments also colored his view of creative activity. Freud was impressed by the parallels between the child at play, the adult daydreamer, and the creative artist. As he once phrased it:
Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him?....The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously-that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion-while separating it sharply from reality. ~ Howard Gardner,#NFDB
1149:Ignorance leads to exaggerating the importance of beauty, ugliness, and other qualities. Exaggeration of these qualities leads to lust, hatred, jealousy, belligerence, and so on. These destructive emotions lead to actions contaminated by misperception. These actions (karma) lead to powerless birth and rebirth in cyclic existence and repeated entanglement in trouble. Removing ignorance undermines our exaggeration of positive and negative qualities; this undercuts lust, hatred, jealousy, belligerence, and so on, putting an end to actions contaminated by misperception, thereby ceasing powerless birth and rebirth in cyclic existence. Insight is the way out. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1150:Freud's convictions about the importance of infantile developments also colored his view of creative activity. Freud was impressed by the parallels between the child at play, the adult daydreamer, and the creative artist. As he once phrased it:
Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him?....The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously-that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion-while separating it sharply from reality. ~ Howard Gardner,#NFDB
1151:Even after more than ten years as a suicide prevention activist, I still find those numbers—and the general public’s ignorance about them—staggering. I taught Dylan, as I had taught his brother before him, to protect himself from lightning strikes, snakebites, and hypothermia. I taught him to floss, to wear sunscreen, and the importance of checking his blind spot twice. As he became a teenager, I talked as openly as I could about the dangers of drinking and drug use, and I educated him about safe and ethical sexual behavior. It never crossed my mind that the gravest danger Dylan faced would not come from an external source at all, but from within himself. In ~ Sue Klebold, #NFDB
1152:January 26 May the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way. 2 Thessalonians 3:16 I can't overemphasize the importance of peace as a real and practical benefit of our covenant relationship with God. His peace should not be an infrequent surprise but the ongoing rule of our lives. The apostle Paul, in the verse above, underscored the essential nature of peace. Did you notice how crucial he considered peace to be? “Always … in every way.” Peace can be possible in any situation, but we cannot produce it on demand. In fact, we can't produce it at all. It is a fruit of the Spirit. God's peace has already been given to us if we have received Christ. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
1153:Is there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going to work? Morrie smiled. “Things are not that simple, Mitch.” I know. “Still,” he said, “there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike. “And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?” Yes? “Your belief in the importance of your marriage. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
1154:There are certain lesson you pick up gradually as you go, letting them accumulate after a series of similar mistakes or experiences until you finally realize you've been a fool al along. And then there are lessons that are so massive they smack you in the face - you don't reflect on a period of your life and realize, 'Oh, I learned something then'; you know it's happening when it's happening. The importance of kindness - which extends far beyond 'please,' 'thank you,' and 'your hair doesn't look bad today' - is a combination of both: Over and over in my life, I've been bowled over by how kind people can be, and how that kindness can change your outlook. ~ Alyssa Mastromonaco, #NFDB
1155:greatest scientists are artists as well,” said Albert Einstein. Einstein’s own creativity arrived as sudden insight following daydreaming, intuition, and inspiration. “When I examine myself and my methods of thought,” he said, “I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge. . . . All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. I believe in intuition and inspiration. . . . At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.” The importance of creativity to Einstein was encapsulated in his motto, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. ~ Daniel J Levitin, #NFDB
1156:We assent to wifedom because we are so used to having someone to blame and so unused to freedom. We prefer self-punishment to the conquest of our fears. We prefer our anger to our freedom.
If women were totally conscious of the part of themselves that gives away power to men, the prediction of victory might prove true. But we are far from this self-knowledge. And we move further and further away as we retreat from the psychoanalytic model of the self. As long as we disclaim the importance of unconscious motivations, of the existence of the unconscious itself, we cannot root out the slave in ourselves. Freedom is hand to love. Freedom takes away all the excuses. ~ Erica Jong,#NFDB
1157:And then to my surprise in one of them I discovered the original manuscript of On Friendship. Puzzled, I unrolled it, thinking I must have brought it with me by mistake. But when I saw that Cicero had copied out at the top of the roll in his shaking hand a quotation from the text, on the importance of having friends, I realised it was a parting gift: If a man ascended into heaven and gazed upon the whole workings of the universe and the beauty of the stars, the marvellous sight would give him no joy if he had to keep it to himself. And yet, if only there had been someone to describe the spectacle to, it would have filled him with delight. Nature abhors solitude. ~ Robert Harris, #NFDB
1158:In our personal life also, there are many important tasks that are not pleasant. For example, every person knows the importance of fitness in leading a healthy and happy life. One easy way to keep fit is to do a morning walk or workout regularly. These activities are hardly pleasant in the beginning. However, if you follow the routine of doing morning walk and exercise, you gradually train your mind to take the important-but-unpleasant task first and let other interesting activities of the day wait till your difficult but important job is over. If you follow this regime, you will find that even the other daily activities throughout the day become more enjoyable. ~ Awdhesh Singh, #NFDB
1159:The resource of generational history is accorded little attention our society, which seems ever more obsessed with making “new” and “better” synonymous. From my family I became aware of the importance of passing along wisdom from one generation to the next. Yet despite the increasing proliferation of digital recording and other communication technologies, we’re passing on less knowledge today than our parents did through the oral tradition alone. We’re drowning in photographs and videos, capturing every mundane moment of our birthdays, holidays, and vacations. Yet these can be no more than pleasant distraction, only scratching the surface of our real relationships. ~ Ralph Nader, #NFDB
1160:On the question of whether mathematics was discovered or invented, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans had no doubt-mathematics was real, immutable, omnipresent, and more sublime than anything that could conceivably emerge from the feeble human mind. The Pythagoreans literally embedded the universe into mathematics. In fact, to the Pythagoreans, God was not a mathematician-mathematics was God!
The importance of the Pythagorean philosophy lies not only in its actual, intrinsic value. By setting the stage, and to some extent the agenda, for the next generation of philosophers-Plato in particular-the Pythagoreans established a commanding position in Western thought. ~ Mario Livio,#NFDB
1161:I can’t go as far as Barthes in killing off the author, but I’m with him on the importance of the reader. We are the ones, after all, who exist long after the author (the real, physical being) is in the grave, choosing to read the book, deciding if it still has meaning, deciding what it means for us, feeling sympathy or contempt or amusement for its people and their problems. Take just the opening paragraph. If, having read that, we decide the book isn’t worth our time, then the book ceases to exist in any meaningful fashion. Someone else may cause it to live again another day in another reading, but for now, it’s dead. Did you have any idea you held so much power? ~ Thomas C Foster, #NFDB
1162:Soldier and civilian, they died in their tens of thousands because death had been concocted for them, morality hitched like a halter round the warhorse so that we could talk about 'target-rich environments' and 'collateral damage' - that most infantile of attempts to shake off the crime of killing - and report the victory parades, the tearing down of statues and the importance of peace.
Governments like it that way. They want their people to see war as a drama of opposites, good and evil, 'them' and 'us', victory or defeat. But war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents a total failure of the human spirit. ~ Robert Fisk,#NFDB
1163:The Importance of Receiving
Receiving often is harder than giving. Giving is very important: giving insight, giving hope, giving courage, giving advice, giving support, giving money, and, most of all, giving ourselves. Without giving there is no brotherhood and sisterhood.
But receiving is just as important, because by receiving we reveal to the givers that they have gifts to offer. When we say, "Thank you, you gave me hope; thank you, you gave me a reason to live; thank you, you allowed me to realise my dream," we make givers aware of their unique and precious gifts. Sometimes it is only in the eyes of the receivers that givers discover their gifts. ~ Henri J M Nouwen,#NFDB
1164:arguing for a new trial, Hamilton highlighted the principle at stake, the protection of a free press: “The liberty of the press consists, in my idea, in publishing the truth from good motives and for justifiable ends, [even] though it reflect on the government, on magistrates, or individuals.”18 As a victim of repeated press abuse, Hamilton did not endorse a completely unfettered press: “I consider this spirit of abuse and calumny as the pest of society. I know the best of men are not exempt from attacks of slander. . . . Drops of water in long and continued succession will wear out adamant.”19 Hence the importance of truth, fairness, and absence of malice in reportage. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1165:From Mike Markkula he had learned the importance of packaging and presentation. People do judge a book by its cover, so for the box of the Macintosh, Jobs chose a full-color design and kept trying to make it look better. “He got the guys to redo it fifty times,” recalled Alain Rossmann, a member of the Mac team who married Joanna Hoffman. “It was going to be thrown in the trash as soon as the consumer opened it, but he was obsessed by how it looked.” To Rossmann, this showed a lack of balance; money was being spent on expensive packaging while they were trying to save money on the memory chips. But for Jobs, each detail was essential to making the Macintosh amazing. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1166:We lived only to dance. What was the true characteristic of a queen, I wondered later on; and you could argue that forever. “What do we all have in common in this group?” I once asked a friend seriously, when it occurred to me how slender, how immaterial, how ephemeral the bond was that joined us; and he responded, “We all have lips.” Perhaps that is what we all had in common: no one was allowed to be serious, except about the importance of music, the glory of faces seen in the crowd. We had our songs, we had our faces! We had our web belts and painter’s jeans, our dyed tank tops and haircuts, the plaid shirts, bomber jackets, jungle fatigues, the all-important shoes. ~ Andrew Holleran, #NFDB
1167:SOMETIMES THE TRAVELING SYMPHONY thought that what they were doing was noble. There were moments around campfires when someone would say something invigorating about the importance of art, and everyone would find it easier to sleep that night. At other times it seemed a difficult and dangerous way to survive and hardly worth it, especially at times when they had to camp between towns, when they were turned away at gunpoint from hostile places, when they were traveling in snow or rain through dangerous territory, actors and musicians carrying guns and crossbows, the horses exhaling great clouds of steam, times when they were cold and afraid and their feet were wet. ~ Emily St John Mandel, #NFDB
1168:The increased risk for bipolar illness among identical twins is even true if the identical twins are separated at birth and raised by different families. Although the adoption of identical twins by separate families is rare, it does happen on occasion. In some cases, scientists have been able to locate the twins later in life to determine how similar or different they are. These "natural" experiments can tell us a great deal about the relative importance of genes versus environment because the separately raised identical twins have identical genes but their environments are different. Such studies highlight the importance of strong genetic influences in bipolar disorder. ~ David D Burns, #NFDB
1169:And not just beautiful, but hot, too, with her breasts straining against her tight tank top, her curved legs swinging back and forth beneath the swing, flip-flops dangling from her electric-blue-painted toes. It was right then, between when I asked about the labyrinth and when she answered me, that I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls’ bodies ease from one place to another, from arc of the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to waist to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I’d noticed curves before, of course, but I had never quite apprehended their significance. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1170:Fewer and fewer families can afford a roof over their head. This is among the most urgent and pressing issues facing America today, and acknowledging the breadth and depth of the problem changes the way we look at poverty. For decades, we’ve focused mainly on jobs, public assistance, parenting, and mass incarceration. No one can deny the importance of these issues, but something fundamental is missing. We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty. Not everyone living in a distressed neighborhood is associated with gang members, parole officers, employers, social workers, or pastors. But nearly all of them have a landlord. ~ Matthew Desmond, #NFDB
1171:In The Tao of Leadership, John Heider stresses the importance of interfering as little as possible. “Rules reduce freedom and responsibility,” he writes. “Enforcement of rules is coercive and manipulative, which diminishes spontaneity and absorbs group energy. The more coercive you are, the more resistant the group will become.” Heider, whose book is based on Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching, suggests that leaders practice becoming more open. “The wise leader is of service: receptive, yielding, following. The group member’s vibration dominates and leads, while the leader follows. But soon it is the member’s consciousness which is transformed, the member’s vibration which is resolved. ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
1172:Why is it that we constantly parade Christian athletes, media personalities, and pop singers? Why should we think that their opinions or their experiences of grace are of any more significance than those of any other believer? When we tell outsiders about people in our church, do we instantly think of the despised and the lowly who have become Christians, or do we love to impress people with the importance of the men and women who have become Christians? Modern Western evangelicalism is deeply infected with the virus of triumphalism, and the resulting illness destroys humility, minimizes grace, and offers far too much homage to the money and influence and “wisdom” of our day. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1173:I don't know why people start thank you notes with the word 'just'. Just a quick note to thank you for a wonderful time. Just wanted to say thanks for everything. It reduces expecations right from the start. It says: I understand the importance of saying thank you, but I won't be writing a letter. It says: I'd like to follow the best social conventions, but I won't be spending that much time on it. I've even seen stationery that has "Just a note" printed on the front. If you start there, why write the note at all? Consider the synonyms: merely, barely. Would you write: barely a note to thank you for the visit? Merely a hasty parargaph to acknowledge all you did for me? ~ Jessica Francis Kane, #NFDB
1174:Religion asks followers to believe in things nobody can see, however, animal activists ask people to see things they can prove. When Christian animal and environmental activists finally demand that their church be better stewards over the world, we will see change. Until then, one percent of sermons will teach parishioners about the importance of being stewards over our animals in a year. Mega churches and corporate religious empires will continue to own stock in companies that pollute our earth and exploit our animals. Ignorance and hypocrisy will continue to corrupt the pureness of the Gospel. From here, we will not be truly “saved” because we choose not to save ourselves. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
1175:I can’t go as far as Barthes in killing off the author, but I’m with him on the importance of the reader. We are the ones, after all, who exist long after the author (the real, physical being) is in the grave, choosing to read the book, deciding if it still has meaning, deciding what it means for us, feeling sympathy or contempt or amusement for its people and their problems. Take just the opening paragraph. If, having read that, we decide the book isn’t worth our time, then the book ceases to exist in any meaningful fashion. Someone else may cause it to live again another day in another reading, but for now, dead as Jacob Marley. Did you have any idea you held so much power? ~ Thomas C Foster, #NFDB
1176:I've learned much from the land of many gods and many ways to worship. From Buddhism the power to begin to manage my mind, from Jainism the desire to make peace in all aspects of life, while Islam has taught me to desire goodness and to let go of that which cannot be controlled. I thank Judaism for teaching me the power of transcendence in rituals and the Sufis for affirming my ability to find answers within and reconnecting me with the power of music. Here's to the Parsis for teaching me that nature must be touched lightly, and the Sikhs for the importance of spiritual strength....And most of all, I thank Hinduism for showing me that there are millions of paths to the divine. ~ Sarah Macdonald, #NFDB
1177:I too took the plunge - the vow to observe brahmacharya for life. I must confess that I had not then fully realized the magnitude and immensity of the task I undertook. The difficulties are even today staring me in the face. The importance of the vow is being more and more borne in upon me. Life without brahmacharya appears to me to be insipid and animal-like. The brute by nature knows no self-restraint. Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises, self-restraint. What formerly appeared to me to be extravagant praise of brahmacharya in our religious books seems now, with increasing clearness every day, to be absolutely proper and founded on experience. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1178:What worries me is the acceptance of the importance of feelings without any effort to understand their complex biological and sociocultural machinery. The best example of this attitude can be found in the attempt to explain bruised feelings or irrational behavior by appealing to surface social causes or the action of neurotransmitters, two explanations that pervade the social discourse as presented in the visual and printed media; and in the attempt to correct personal and social problems with medical and nonmedical drugs. It is precisely this lack of understanding of the nature of feelings and reason (one of the hallmarks of the "culture of complaint") that is cause for alarm. ~ Ant nio R Dam sio, #NFDB
1179:To be honest, I was uneasy about Steve. He had a forceful personality, whereas I do not, and I felt threatened by him. For all of my talk about the importance of surrounding myself with people smarter than myself, his intensity was at such a different level, I didn’t know how to interpret it. It put me in the mind of an ad campaign that the Maxell cassette tape company released around this time, featuring what would become an iconic image: a guy sitting low in a leather-and-chrome Le Corbusier chair, his long hair being literally blown back by the sound from the stereophonic speaker in front of him. That’s what it was like to be with Steve. He was the speaker. Everyone else was the guy. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
1180:Mothers should tell little girls and boys about the importance of dreams,' Aunt Habiba said. 'They give a sense direction. It is not enough to reject this courtyard--you need to have a vision of the meadows with which you want to replace it.' But how, I asked Aunt Habiba, could you distinguish among all the wishes, all the cravings which besieged you, and find the one on which you ought to focus, the important dream that gave you vision? She said that little children had to be patient, the key dream would emerge and bloom within, and then, from the intense pleasure it gave you, you would know that that it was the genuine little treasure which would give you direction and light. (p. 214) ~ Fatema Mernissi, #NFDB
1181:We need to move beyond Darwinian Theory, which stresses the importance of individuals, to one that stresses the importance of the community. British scientist Timothy Lenton provides evidence that evolution is more dependent on the interaction among species than it is on the interaction of individuals within a species. Evolution becomes a matter of the survival of the fittest groups rather than the survival of the fittest individuals. In a 1998 article in Nature, Lenton wrote that rather than focusing on individuals and their role in evolution “we must consider the totality of organisms and their material environment to fully understand which traits come to persist and dominate.” (Lenton ~ Bruce H Lipton, #NFDB
1182:The mere fact of being alone with Winterborne could create a scandal that would haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
His face darkened. “From the first moment I met you, you’ve tortured me and everyone else within reach about the importance of propriety. And now it doesn’t matter?” He gave her an ominous glance before turning to Winterborne. “You should have turned her away at the door, you conniving bastard. The only reason I haven’t throttled you both is that I can’t decide which one of you to start with.”
“Start with me,” Winterborne invited gently.
The air was charged with masculine hostility.
“Later,” Devon said with barely restrained rage. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
1183:The thought that makes most people the weakest is shame, which produces humiliation. The importance of forgiving yourself cannot be stated strongly enough. If you carry around thoughts of shame about what you’ve done in the past, you’re weakening yourself both physically and emotionally. Similarly, if you use a technique of shame and humiliation on anyone to get them to reform, you’re going to create a weakened person who will never become empowered until those shameful and humiliating thoughts are removed. Removing your own thoughts of shame involves a willingness to let go, to see your past behaviors as lessons you had to learn, and to reconnect to your source through prayer and meditation. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
1184:The Romantic vision of marriage stresses the importance of finding the “right” person, which is taken to mean someone in sympathy with the raft of our interests and values. There is no such person over the long term. We are too varied and peculiar. There cannot be lasting congruence. The partner truly best suited to us is not the one who miraculously happens to share every taste but the one who can negotiate differences in taste with intelligence and good grace.
Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate dissimilarity that is the true marker of the “right” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it shouldn’t be its precondition. ~ Alain de Botton,#NFDB
1185:Imagine so valuing the importance of developing people’s capabilities that you design a culture that itself immersively sweeps every member of the organization into an ongoing developmental journey in the course of working every day. Imagine making the organization itself--and not separate, extra benefits--the incubator of capability...Imagine finding yourself in a trustworthy environment, one that tolerates--even prefers--making your weaknesses public so that your colleagues can support you in the process of overcoming them...You’re imagining an organization that, through its culture, is an incubator or accelerator of people’s growth. In short, you’re imagining a deliberately developmental organization. ~ Robert Kegan, #NFDB
1186:The place-seeker will resort to methods from which self-respecting men would shrink with as much aversion as the ancient Jew shrank from contact with the leper. The true purpose of education is not office. "The true purpose of education," says one, "is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us; to develop to their fullest extent the capacities of every kind with which the God who made us has endowed us." He, therefore, who fixes a limit of any kind to his intellectual attainments dwarfs himself, and cramps the growth of that mind given to us by the Creator, and capable of indefinite expansion. ~ William H. Crogman, "The Importance of Correct Ideals" (1892), in Talks for the Times (1896), p. 282, #NFDB
1187:Ise went on to suggest a general principle of resource pricing: that nonrenewable resources be priced at the cost of the nearest renewable substitute. Therefore, virgin timber should cost at least as much per board foot as replanted timber; petroleum should be priced at its Btu equivalent of sugar or wood alcohol, assuming they are the closest renewable alternatives. In the absence of any renewable substitutes, the price would merely reflect the purely ethical judgment of how fast the resources should be used up—that is, the importance of the wants of future people relative to the wants of present people. Renewable resources are assumed to be exploited on a sustained-yield basis and to be priced accordingly. ~ Herman E Daly, #NFDB
1188:The parable of the spider was not invented by Scott. There is a much older storytelling tradition, spanning many cultures, about their industry and perseverance. Spiders and caves come up again and again, often in tales to comfort children. One old fable has the holy family fleeing Herod’s men soon after Christ’s birth. They take shelter in a cave and a spider, understanding the importance of the child, spins a web across the cave mouth to make it look as if no one has entered in a long time. Overnight the strands are covered by glittering frost and by the time the soldiers arrive, the illusion is complete. Tinsel is hung on Christmas trees in memory of the crucial role played by another spider and another web. ~ Neil Oliver, #NFDB
1189:How else, then, to explain my every effort to tell in a novel as best I could the stories of slave masters, black and white, and how slavery crushed their souls every morning they got up from their beds and thanked their god for their dominion over others. If I knew the importance of telling that, it was because Baldwin and his kind had planted the idea long ago. (I give him so much credit because he was in the minority of all the black writers I was reading who understood the importance of giving white people their due as full-fledged human beings. Even before I knew I would get into this writing thing, Baldwin told me this: You do not have to fully humanize your black characters by dehumanizing the white ones.) ~ James Baldwin, #NFDB
1190:The survivors of that confusion would surely be bemused by the argument that Waterloo really was not that important, that if Napoleon had won then he would have still faced overwhelming enemies and ultimate defeat. That is probably, though not certainly, true. If the Emperor had forced the ridge of Mont St Jean and driven Wellington back into a precipitate retreat, he would still have had to cope with the mighty armies of Austria and Russia that were marching towards France. Yet that did not happen. Napoleon was stopped at Waterloo, and that gives the battle its significance. It is a turning point of history, and to say history would have turned anyway is not to reduce the importance of the moment it happened. ~ Bernard Cornwell, #NFDB
1191:I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,”he said. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”It was as if he were suggesting themes for his biography (and in this instance, at least, the theme turned out to be valid). The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty- first century. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1192:I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,” he said. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.” It was as if he were suggesting themes for his biography (and in this instance, at least, the theme turned out to be valid). The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1193:Unfortunately, that basic sense of fairness and goodwill toward others is under threat in a society like ours that increasingly enriches the richest and abandons the rest to the vagaries of global competition. More and more our media and our school systems emphasize material success and the importance of triumphing over others both athletically and in the classroom. More and more, in an atmosphere of increased competitiveness, middle- and upper-class parents seem driven to greater and greater extremes to give their offspring whatever perceived “edge” they can find. This constant emphasis on competition drowns out the lessons of cooperation, empathy and altruism that are critical for human mental health and social cohesion. ~ Bruce D Perry, #NFDB
1194:I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,” he said. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.” It was as if he were suggesting themes for his biography (and in this instance, at least, the theme turned out to be valid). The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century. I ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1195:At the end of the semester, I’m going to resign from George Mason and go into clinica practice. In Rockville, so we’ll both be close to work.”
“Clinical practice? Even after what you told me about that guy who hanged himself? And--uh--the way our hypnosis session ended?”
“Oh Lord, thank you for reminding me about that. Trainer told me why it happened. Well, he didn’t know the importance of what he was saying.”
“What do you mean?”
“When he had me spread-eagled on that bed, he bragged that you weren’t breathing after the guy hit you on the head in his office. His medic had to revive you.”
He swore under his breath. “Lucky for me he wanted information.”
She moved closer and hugged him tightly. “Lucky for me, too. ~ Rebecca York,#NFDB
1196:later paper, which I wrote with Princeton historian Harold James, supported my interpretation of the Depression in an international context. We looked at the experience of twenty-two countries during the Depression and found, basically, that two factors dictated the severity of the economic downturn in each country. The first was the length of time the country stuck with the gold standard. (Countries that abandoned gold earlier were able to allow their money supplies to grow and thereby escape deflation.) That finding was in keeping with Friedman and Schwartz’s emphasis on the money supply. The second factor was the severity of the country’s banking crisis, consistent with my view of the importance of credit as well as money. ~ Ben S Bernanke, #NFDB
1197:Contemporary observers as well as modern historians have found many reasons that explain Greg's venture, and with it why the much broader Industrial revolution, 'broke out' in this place, in northern England, and at this time, in the 1780s. The genius of British inventors, the size of the British market and its unusually deep integration, the geography of Britain with its easy access to waterborne transport, the importance of religious dissenters for thinking outside the box, and the creation of a state favorable to entrepreneurial initiative have all been cited. While none of these arguments are unimportant, they omit a core part of the story of the Industrial Revolution: its dependence on the globe-spanning system of war capitalism. ~ Sven Beckert, #NFDB
1198:Looking back on all my interviews for this book, how many times in how many different contexts did I hear about the vital importance of having a caring adult or mentor in every young person’s life? How many times did I hear about the value of having a coach—whether you are applying for a job for the first time at Walmart or running Walmart? How many times did I hear people stressing the importance of self-motivation and practice and taking ownership of your own career or education as the real differentiators for success? How interesting was it to learn that the highest-paying jobs in the future will be stempathy jobs—jobs that combine strong science and technology skills with the ability to empathize with another human being? How ~ Thomas L Friedman, #NFDB
1199:These Taoists' ideas have greatly influenced all our theories of action, even to those of fencing and wrestling. Jiu-jitsu, the Japanese art of self-defence, owes its name to a passage in the Tao-teking. In jiu-jitsu one seeks to draw out and exhaust the enemy's strength by non-resistance, vacuum, while conserving one's own strength for victory in the final struggle.
In art the importance of the same principle is illustrated by the value of suggestion. In leaving something unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up the full measure of your aesthetic emotion. ~ Kakuz Okakura,#NFDB
1200:This is a point that our generation cannot afford to ignore. Why is it that we constantly parade Christian athletes, media personalities, and pop singers? Why should we think that their opinions or their experiences of grace are of any more significance than those of any other believer? When we tell outsiders about people in our church, do we instantly think of the despised and the lowly who have become Christians, or do we love to impress people with the importance of the men and women who have become Christians? Modern Western evangelicalism is deeply infected with the virus of triumphalism, and the resulting illness destroys humility, minimizes grace, and offers far too much homage to the money and influence and “wisdom” of our day. Paul ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1201:I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that Kat wound up with another Russian emigre. Her Russianness could not be eradicated no matter how long she spent here. She was the only person our age I knew who brewed coffee in a percolator. But then, it wasn't really about Russia, it was about Russianness. It was about ways of making tea, raising children, the importance of piano lessons, the incompleteness of a home without nice rugs. I wondered if Misha minded the way she kept the original plastic on the seats of the dining-room chairs. It made a small hissing noise whenever you sat down. But maybe his mother had done the same, maybe he found it comforting, maybe together they recoiled at the sight of naked upholstery in other people's homes. ~ Rufi Thorpe, #NFDB
1202:The essence of its failure was that it could not sustain unity. In its early stages its citizens, both patrician and plebeian, had a certain tradition of justice and good faith, and of the loyalty of all citizens to the law, and of the goodness of the law for all citizens; it clung to this idea of the importance of the law and of law-abidingness nearly into the first century B.C. But the unforeseen invention and development of money, the temptations and disruptions of imperial expansion, the entanglement of electoral methods, weakened and swamped this tradition by presenting old issues in new disguises under which the judgment did not recognize them, and by enabling men to be loyal to the professions of citizenship and disloyal to its spirit. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
1203:It's hard to talk about the importance of an imaginary hero. But heroes ARE important: Heroes tell us something about ourselves.
History tells us who we used to be, documentaries tell us who we are now; but heroes tell us who we WANT to be.
And a lot of our heroes depress me.
But when they made this particular hero, they didn't give him a gun--they gave him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn't give him a tank or a warship or an x-wing fighter--they gave him a box from which you can call for help. And they didn't give him a superpower or pointy ears or a heat-ray--they gave him an extra HEART. They gave him two hearts! And that's an extraordinary thing.
There will never come a time when we don't need a hero like the Doctor. ~ Steven Moffat,#NFDB
1204:I asked the Dalai Lama what it was like to wake up with joy, and he shared his experience each morning. 'I think if you are an intensely religious believer, as soon as you wake up, you thank God for another day. And you try to do God’s will. For a nontheist like myself, but who is a Buddhist, as soon as I wake up, I remember Buddha’s teaching: the importance of kindness and compassion, wishing something good for others, or at least to reduce their suffering. Then I remember that everything is interrelated, the teaching of interdependence. So then I set my intention for the day: that this day should be meaningful. Meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. That’s a meaningful day. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1205:It's only in the last few years that I've learned that playing down the exciting stuff doesn't' take the pain away when it doesn't happen. It also creates a lot of isolation. Once you've diminished the importance of something, your friends are not likely to call and say, "I'm sorry that didn't work out. I know you were excited about it."
Now when someone asks me about the potential opportunity that I'm excited about, I'm more likely to practice courage and say, "I'm so excited about the possibility. I'm trying to stay realistic, but I really hope it happens." When things haven't panned out, it's been comforting to be able to call a supportive friend and say, "Remember that event I told you about? It's not going to happen, and I'm so bummed. ~ Bren Brown,#NFDB
1206:Everyone has a need to feel a sense of self-worth and self-actualization – that he or she believes his or her existence is meaningful. Unfortunately, the Industrial Revolution wrongfully instilled a social norm that self-worth should primarily come from work ethic – if you work hard, you will be rewarded. But because of AI, jobs based on repetitive tasks will soon be gone forever.
We need to redefine the idea of work ethic for the new workforce paradigm. The importance of a job should not be solely dependent on its economic value but should also be measured by what it adds to society. We should also reassess our notion that longer work hours are the best way to achieve success and should remove the stigma associated with service professions. ~ Kai Fu Lee,#NFDB
1207:If you can't put magnolia on a wall then there are always a million other colors you can use, if you can't pay your phone bill then just write letters telling them. I'm not playing down the importance of these things, yes you need money for food, yes you need food to survive, but you also need sleep to have energy, to smile to be happy, and to be happy so you can laugh, just so you don't keel over with a heart attack. People forget they have options. And they forget that those things really don't matter. They should concentrate on what they have and not what they don't have. And by the way, wishing and dreaming doesn't mean concentrating on what you don't have, it's positive thinking that encourages hoping and believing, not whining and moaning. ~ Cecelia Ahern, #NFDB
1208:Bree crossed her arms over her protruding belly. “I’m fine. No one has shot at me in the last twenty four hours, and my family is talking to me again. Things are looking up.”
He grimaced at the mention of her family. “How fortunate for you.”
Bree narrowed her eyes at him, picking up on the derogatory tone. “Well, you should know all about the importance of family. You’d do anything for yours, right? Bernardo says jump, you ask ‘how high?’ “
Alessandro felt a sick twist of guilt in his chest, “Well, congratulations, Brianna. You’ve worked very hard for the title of O’Reiley doormat. I hope it’s all you’ve ever wanted. I hope you’re happy.”
“Blissfully,” Bree shot back and turned on her heel, leaving him there filled with anger and regret. ~ E Jamie,#NFDB
1209:Driving to see my childhood home was very significant for me. It taught me the importance of home, especially to children. Your home is more than just a shelter. It is more than just a place to showcase your design skills. It is more than just a means to an end (especially if you would rather live somewhere else). It is the most importance place of your life. It provides you solace and refuge from the harsh world. It provides tangible comforts, like your cozy sofa and warm bed. But it also provides other comforts in the energy it gives off. You will have so many memories in this home. There will be many firsts here, and if you have children, they will remember even the smallest details about your home - especially all of its off-beat character. ~ Jennifer L Scott, #NFDB
1210:The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
1211:One can even imagine that inflation tends to improve the relative position of the wealthiest individuals compared to the least wealthy, in that it enhances the importance of financial managers and intermediaries. A person with 10 or 50 million euros cannot afford the money managers that Harvard has but can nevertheless pay financial advisors and stockbrokers to mitigate the effects of inflation. By contrast, a person with only 10 or 50 thousand euros to invest will not be offered the same choices by her broker (if she has one): contacts with financial advisors are briefer, and many people in this category keep most of their savings in checking accounts that pay little or nothing and/or savings accounts that pay little more than the rate of inflation. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
1212:She had the kind of eyes that predisposed you to supporting her every endeavor. And not just beautiful, but hot, too, with her breasts straining against her tight tank top, her curved legs swinging back and forth beneath the swing, flip-flops dangling from her electric-blue-painted toes. It was right then, between when I asked about the labyrinth and when she answered me, that I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls’ bodies ease from one place to another, from arc of the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to waist to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I’d noticed curves before, of course, but I had never quite apprehended their significance. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1213:The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore. Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do.
For instance, in one corner of the Eastern Galactic Arm lies the large forest planet Oglaroon, the entire "intelligent" population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a few extremely minor wars and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches. ~ Douglas Adams,#NFDB
1214:A central fact about evil is the discrepancy between the importance of the act to the perpetrator and to the victim. This can be called the magnitude gap. The importance of what takes place is almost always much greater for the victim than for the perpetrator. When trying to understand evil, one is always asking, "How could they do such a horrible thing?" But the horror is usually being measured in the victim's terms. To the perpetrator, it is often a very small thing. thing. As we saw earlier, perpetrators generally have less emotion about their acts than do victims. It is almost impossible to submit to rape, pillage, impoverishment, or possible murder without strong emotional reactions, but it is quite possible to perform those crimes without emotion. ~ Roy F Baumeister, #NFDB
1215:To be sure, it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of the intuitive knowledge that everyone acquires about contemporary wealth and income levels, even in the absence of any theoretical framework or statistical analysis. Film and literature, nineteenth-century novels especially, are full of detailed information about the relative wealth and living standards of different social groups, and especially about the deep structure of inequality, the way it is justified, and its impact on individual lives. Indeed, the novels of Jane Austen and Honoré de Balzac paint striking portraits of the distribution of wealth in Britain and France between 1790 and 1830. Both novelists were intimately acquainted with the hierarchy of wealth in their respective societies. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
1216:The importance of experimental proof, on the other hand, does not mean that without new experimental data we cannot make advances. It is often said that science takes steps forward only when there is new experimental data. If this were true, we would have little hope of finding the theory of quantum gravity before measuring something new, but this is patently not the case. Which new data were available to Copernicus? None. He had the same data as Ptolemy. Which new data did Newton have? Almost none. His real ingredients were Kepler's laws and Galileo's results. What new data did Einstein have to discover general relativity? None. His ingredients were special relativity and Newton's theory. It simply isn't true that physics only advances when it is afforded new data. ~ Carlo Rovelli, #NFDB
1217:The success of Liverpool Football Club is no one-man affair. We are a team. We are a working-class team! We have no room for individuals. No room for stars. For fancy footballers or for celebrities. We are workers. A team of workers. A team of workers on the pitch and a team of workers off the pitch. On the pitch and off the pitch. Every man in our organisation, every man in our team. He knows the importance of looking after the small things, he knows how the small things add up to the important things. From the chairman to the groundsman, every man is a cog has functioned perfectly. In the team. Every man has given one hundred per cent. For the team. And so the team has won. The team are champions, a team of champions. We are all a team of champions! We are all a team. ~ David Peace, #NFDB
1218:We have now come to a quite insidious edge in contemporary tolerance discourse. By converting the effects of inequality—for example, institutionalized racism—into a matter of “different practices and beliefs,” this discourse masks the working of inequality and hegemonic culture as that which produces the differences it seeks to protect. As it essentializes difference and reifies sexuality, race, and ethnicity at the level of ideas and practices, contemporary tolerance discourse covers over the workings of power and the importance of history in producing the differences called sexuality, race, and ethnicity. It casts those culturally produced differences as innate or given, as matters of nature that divide the human species rather than as sites of inequality or domination. ~ Wendy Brown, #NFDB
1219:It is hard to talk about the importance of an imaginary hero. But heroes are important. Heroes tell us something about ourselves. History books tell us who we used to be, documentaries tell us who we are now... but heroes, tell us who we want to be. A lot of our heroes depress me. But when they made this particular hero, they didn't give him a gun, they gave him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn't give him a tank or a warship or a X-Wing Fighter, they gave him a phone box from which you can call for help. And they didn't give him a superpower, or pointy ears, or Heat Ray, they gave him an extra heart. They gave him two hearts and that is an extraordinary thing. There will never come a time when we don't need a hero like the Doctor.
- The Day of the Doctor Q&A ~ Steven Moffat,#NFDB
1220:Most of us could easily compile a list of goals we want to achieve or personal problems that need to be solved. But what is the real significance of every item on such a list? Everything we want to accomplish—to paint the house, learn a new language, find a better job—is something that promises that, if done, it would allow us to finally relax and enjoy our lives in the present. Generally speaking, this is a false hope. I’m not denying the importance of achieving one’s goals, maintaining one’s health, or keeping one’s children clothed and fed—but most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
1221:came to understand for the first time ever the importance of being healthy, and I don’t mean the universalizing and troubling concept of “diet conscious” our culture currently prefers, but the kind of healthy that encourages and cultivates a knowledge and awareness of your unique body and what it can be reasonably asked to do, and to never feel shame if your body does not operate by the same rules as someone else’s body. I’m talking about a healthy that is rooted in self-determination and individual autonomy, and is thus applicable to a spectrum of bodies, including professional athletes, cancer survivors, gym rats, the doctor-phobic, the poor, joggers, and folks with a limited supply of spoons, a healthy that excludes no one and that is specific and relative to the individual. ~ Lesley Kinzel, #NFDB
1222:We cannot hope to recapture today the terror that the mounted horse struck into the Middle East and Eastern Europe when it first appeared. That is because there is a difference of scale which I can only compare with the arrival of tanks in Poland in 1939, sweeping all before them. I believe that the importance of the horse in European history has always been underrated. In a sense, warfare was created by the horse, as a nomad activity. That is what the Huns brought, that is what the Phrygians brought, that is what finally the Mongols brought, and brought to a climax under Genghis Khan much later. In particular, the mobile hordes transformed the organisation of battle. They conceived a different strategy of war – a strategy that is like a war game; how, warmakers love to play games! ~ Jacob Bronowski, #NFDB
1223:Although Winnicott wrote extensively about the importance of mother-child attunement, he also came to a profound appreciation of how vital it is for a mother to be able to let her child down. A parent has to be willing to disappoint, he found, because disappointment, as the Buddha also said, is inevitable. In so doing, in letting a child down, in being truthful about one’s inability to meet all of one’s child’s needs, a disappointing parent moves a child toward a capacity to cope with everyday life. In one of his final papers, Winnicott wrote movingly of how a child’s primitive anger at his parent’s imperfections can turn into empathy. The critical ingredient for this transformation is the parent’s ability not to take the child’s anger personally, a Buddhist idea if there ever was one. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
1224:We need myths that will help us to identify with all our fellow-beings, not simply with those who belong to our ethnic, national or ideological tribe. We need myths that help us to realize the importance of compassion, which is not always regarded as sufficiently productive or efficient in our pragmatic, rational world. We need myths that help us to create a spiritual attitude, to see beyond our immediate requirements, and enable us to experience a transcendent value that challenges our solipsistic selfishness. We need myths that help us to venerate the earth as sacred once again, instead of merely using it as a 'resource.' This is crucial, because unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that is able to keep abreast of our technological genius, we will not save our planet. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1225:Flaubert teaches you to gave upon the truth and not blink from its consequences; he teaches you, with Montaigne, to sleep on the pillow of doubt; he teaches you to dissect out the constituent parts of reality, and to observe the Nature is always a mixture of genres; he teaches you the most exact use of language; he teaches you not to approach a book in search of moral or social pills -- literature is not a pharmacopoeia; he teaches the pre-eminence of Truth, Beauty, Feeling and Style. And if you study his private life, he teaches courage, stoicism, friendship; the importance of intelligence, skepticism and wit; the folly of cheap patriotism; the virtue of being able to remain by yourself in your own room; the hatred of hypocrisy; distrust of the doctrinaire; the need for plain speaking. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
1226:mentioned earlier the importance of affirming the local and the particular in the face of forces which would dilute our identity and homogenize our cultures. But I would also note the equally compelling importance of global partnership and universal understanding - in the face of forces that would dangerously fragment our world. In the process of nurturing a healthy sense of identity, we must resist the temptation to normatize any particular culture, to demonize “the other”, and to turn healthy diversity into dangerous discord. This is why the Academies’ curricula, in addition to using English as a connecting language, will emphasize areas of focus such as comparative political systems, global economics, and global cultures, along with the importance of pluralism and a sound ethical foundation ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1227:what does travel ultimately produce if it is not, by a sort of reversal, 'an exploration of the deserted places of my memory,' the return to nearby exoticism by way of a detour through distant places, and the 'discovery' of relics and legends: 'fleeting visions of the French countryside,' 'fragments of music and poetry,' in short, something like an 'uprooting in one's origins (Heidegger)? What this walking exile produces is precisely the body of legends that is currently lacking in one's own vicinity; it is a fiction, which moreover has the double characteristic like dreams or pedestrian rhetoric, or being the effect of displacements and condensations. As a corollary, one can measure the importance of these signifying practices (to tell oneself legends) as practices that invent spaces. ~ Michel de Certeau, #NFDB
1228:But the importance of privacy is evident in the fact that even those who devalue it, who have declared it dead or dispensable, do not believe the things they say. Anti-privacy advocates have often gone to great lengths to maintain control over the visibility of their own behavior and information. The US government itself has used extreme measures to shield its actions from public view, erecting an ever-higher wall of secrecy behind which it operates. As a 2011 report from the ACLU argued, “Today much of our government’s business is conducted in secret.” So secretive is this shadowy world, “so large, so unwieldy,” as the Washington Post reported, that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work. ~ Glenn Greenwald, #NFDB
1229:In fantasy stories we learn to understand the differences of others, we learn compassion for those things we cannot fathom, we learn the importance of keeping our sense of wonder. The strange worlds that exist in the pages of fantastic literature teach us a tolerance of other people and places and engender an openness toward new experience. Fantasy puts the world into perspective in a way that 'realistic' literature rarely does. It is not so much an escape from the here-and-now as an expansion of each reader's horizons."
"A child who can love the oddities of a fantasy book cannot possibly be xenophobic as an adult. What is a different color, a different culture, a different tongue for a child who has already mastered Elvish, respected Puddleglums, or fallen under the spell of dark-skinned Ged? ~ Jane Yolen,#NFDB
1230:I read many books on Russian artists, writers, philosophers, and musicians in an attempt to understand [Vassy, her partner]. I seemed to be concluding that the Russian himself was saying 'We are not to be understood.' It was maddeningly challenging to me. I didn't like not understanding...at least to my satisfaction. Half savage, half saint. That seemed to be the consensus of opinion among the Russians themselves. The communist government appeared to be irrelevant, merely a continuation in a different form of a system which basically denied the importance of the individual. Vassy had told me in the beginning that the Russian people had the government they needed and understood, and in many respects he even claimed they would want Joe Stalin back because he would, in effect, protect them from themselves. ~ Shirley MacLaine, #NFDB
1231:THE FOUR STEPS Step 1: Relabel—Identify your deceptive brain messages and the uncomfortable sensations; call them what they really are. Step 2: Reframe—Change your perception of the importance of the deceptive brain messages; say why these thoughts, urges, and impulses keep bothering you: They are false brain messages (It’s not ME, it’s just my BRAIN!). Step 3: Refocus—Direct your attention toward an activity or mental process that is wholesome and productive—even while the false and deceptive urges, thoughts, impulses, and sensations are still present and bothering you. Step 4: Revalue—Clearly see the thoughts, urges, and impulses for what they are, simply sensations caused by deceptive brain messages that are not true and that have little to no value (they are something to dismiss, not focus on). ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz, #NFDB
1232:As part of an effort to prod college seniors to get tetanus shots, a group of students was given a lecture meant to educate them about the dangers of tetanus and the importance of getting inoculated against it. A large majority of those students reported that they were convinced and planned to get their shots, but in the end only 3 percent got them. Bu another group of students, who were presented with the same lecture, had a 28 percent inoculation rate. The difference? The second group was given a map of the campus and asked to plan their route to the health center and pick a date and time to go. Sometimes, you see, motivation isn't our problem. Rather, we need to identify life's everyday mental obstacles - regret, fatigue, overconfidence, fear, to name just four - and put ourselves into position to hurdle them. ~ Gary Belsky, #NFDB
1233:Our parents had drilled us under the importance of using proper diction, of saying “going” instead of “goin” and “isn’t” instead of “ain’t “. We were taught to finish off words. They bought us a dictionary and a full Encyclopedia Britannica set, which lived on a shelf in the stairwell to our apartment, its titles etched in gold. Any time we had a question about a word, or a concept, or some piece of history, they directed us toward those books. Dandy, too, was an influence, meticulously correcting our grammar and admonishing us to enunciate our words when we went over for dinner. The idea was we were to transcend, to get ourselves further. They’d planned for it. They encouraged it. We were expected not just to be smart but to own our smartness – to inhabit it with pride – and this filtered down to how we spoke. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
1234:A fisherman in the month of May stood angling on the bank of the Thames with an artificial fly. He threw his bait with so much art, that a young trout was rushing toward it, when she was prevented by her mother. “Never,” said she, “my child, be too precipitate, where there is a possibility of danger. Take due time to consider, before you risk an action that may be fatal. How know you whether yon appearance be indeed a fly, or the snare of an enemy? Let someone else make the experiment before you. If it be a fly, he will very probably elude the first attack: and the second may be made, if not with success, at least with safety.” She had no sooner spoken, than a gudgeon seized the pretended fly, and became an example to the giddy daughter of the importance of her mother’s counsel. FABLES, ROBERT DODSLEY, 1703-1764 ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
1235:DL PRESCRIPTION 6: RECOGNIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF PHYSICAL CONTACT The deep limbic system not only is involved in emotional bonding, it is also involved in physical bonding. Actual physical touching is essential to good health. It would probably surprise some people to know that there are couples who can go for ten years and longer without touching each other. I have seen them in my practice, and they invariably show such deep limbic system problems as irritability and depression. It is only after I help them correct their nontouching behavior that their depressive symptoms improve. Physical connection is also a critical element in the parent-infant bonding process. The caressing, kissing, sweet words, and eye contact from the mother and father give the baby the pleasure, love, trust, and security it needs to develop ~ Daniel G Amen, #NFDB
1236:Family-centered parents do not have the emotional freedom, the power, to raise their children with their ultimate welfare truly in mind. If they derive their own security from the family, their need to be popular with their children may override the importance of a long-term investment in their children’s growth and development. Or they may be focused on the proper and correct behavior of the moment. Any behavior that they consider improper threatens their security. They become upset, guided by the emotions of the moment, spontaneously reacting to the immediate concern rather than the long-term growth and development of the child. They may yell or scream. They may overreact and punish out of bad temper. They tend to love their children conditionally, making them emotionally dependent or counterdependent and rebellious. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
1237:A good example of the importance of context and collective action is breast cancer. For many of us, there couldn’t be a more personal issue. But, however personal it is, we still need the big picture. There have been very important advances in breast cancer research over the past ten years. These advances could not have happened without advocates who recognized the political, social and economic contexts of health research. These advocates have pushed breast cancer to the top of the national health agenda, raised millions of dollars and drastically increased federal funding of breast cancer research. We might be able to make individual choices that lower our risks for breast cancer, but without collective action, we wouldn’t know how to manage those risks, and we certainly would not get the level of treatment available today. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
1238:He made a commitment, Eena.”
“And you believe this commitment,” she spoke the word detestably, “is more important than true love?”
“Yes.”
“No,” she stubbornly disagreed.
“Yes,” Ian insisted as he put his finger to her lips, preventing her from arguing any further. “Love grows and wanes, Eena, but honor, duty, and commitment, those things are constant and stable. They define who you are.”
“They define who you are?” she repeated. “You mean miserable?”
“Content,” he retorted.
“Lonely,” she argued.
“Faithful,” he insisted, his eyes widening to emphasize the importance of the word.
“Empty, regretful, and…”
“Hopeful,” Ian whispered in her ear.
This word caught her off guard. At present, hope was probably all any of them could cling to. ~ Richelle E Goodrich,#NFDB
1239:It is important none the less that our remotest identifiable ancestors lived in trees because what survived in the next phase of evolution were genetic strains best suited to the special uncertainties and accidental challenges of the forest. That environment put a premium on the capacity to learn. Those survived whose genetic inheritance could respond and adapt to the surprising, sudden danger of deep shade, confused visual patterns and treacherous handholds. Strains prone to accident in such conditions were wiped out. Among those that prospered (genetically speaking) were some species with long digits which were to develop into fingers and, eventually, the oppositional thumb, and other forerunners of the apes already embarked upon an evolution towards three-dimensional vision and the diminution of the importance of the sense of smell. ~ J M Roberts, #NFDB
1240:Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone. From that point onwards, things change, the man and the woman come into play, but what happens before – the attraction that brought them together – is impossible to explain. It is untouched desire in its purest state. When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing. When people feel like this, they are not in a hurry, they do not precipitate events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen, that what is real always finds a way of revealing itself. When the moment comes, they do not hesitate, they do not miss an opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment, because they respect the importance of each second. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1241:...we do not lend the hearth quite the importance that our ancestors did, Greek or otherwise. Yet, even for us, the word stands for something more than just a fireplace. We speak of 'hearth and home'. The word 'hearth' shares its ancestry with 'heart', just as the modern Greek for 'hearth' is kardia, which also means 'heart'. In Ancient Greece the wider concept of hearth and home was expressed by the oikos, which lives on for us today in economics and ecology. The Latin for hearth is focus - with speaks for itself. It is a strange and wonderful thing that out of the words for fireplace we have spun "cardiologist', 'deep focus' and 'eco-warrior'. The essential meaning of centrality that connects them also reveals the great significance of the hearth to the Greeks and Romans, and consequently the importance of Hestia, its presiding deity. ~ Stephen Fry, #NFDB
1242:Federal intervention to change the institutions in the South started with the decision of the Supreme Court in 1944 that primary elections where only white people could stand were unconstitutional. As we have seen, blacks had been politically disenfranchised in the 1890s with the use of poll taxes and literacy tests (pages 351–357). These tests were routinely manipulated to discriminate against black people, while still allowing poor and illiterate whites to vote. In a famous example from the early 1960s, in Louisiana a white applicant was judged literate after giving the answer “FRDUM FOOF SPETGH” to a question about the state constitution. The Supreme Court decision in 1944 was the opening salvo in the longer battle to open up the political system to blacks, and the Court understood the importance of loosening white control of political parties. ~ Daron Acemo lu, #NFDB
1243:(Florence) Nightingale's passion for statistics enabled her to persuade the government of the importance of a whole series of health reforms. for example, many people had argued that training nurses was a waste of time, because patients cared for by trained nurses actually had a higher mortality rate than those treated by untrained staff. Nightingale, however, pointed out that this was only because more serious cases were being sent to those wards with trained nurses. If the intention is to compare the results from two groups, then it is essential to assign patients randomly to the two groups. Sure enough, when Nightingale set up trials in which patients were randomly assigned to trained and untrained nurses, it became clear that the cohort of patients treated by trained nurses fared much better than their counterparts in wards with untrained nurses. ~ Simon Singh, #NFDB
1244:To husband is to use with care, to keep, to save, to make last, to conserve. Old usage tells us that there is a husbandry also of the land, of the soil, of the domestic plants and animals - obviously because of the importance of these things to the household. And there have been times, one of which is now, when some people have tried to practice a proper human husbandry of the nondomestic creatures in recognition of the dependence of our households and domestic life upon the wild world. Husbandry is the name of all practices that sustain life by connecting us conservingly to our places and our world; it is the art of keeping tied all the strands in the living network that sustains us.
And so it appears that most and perhaps all of industrial agriculture's manifest failures are the result of an attempt to make the land produce without husbandry. ~ Wendell Berry,#NFDB
1245:What can I tell you further? I once lived among humankind, and found them in their generality to be cruel and cold, and yet could mention the names of three or four that were like angels.
I suppose we measure the importance of our days by those few angels we spy among us, and yet aren't like them.
If our suffering is great on account of that, yet at close of day the gift of life is something immense. Something larger than old Sligo mountains, something difficult but oddly bright, that makes equal in their fall the hammers and the feathers [a reference to a scientific experiment her father did for her that comes near the beginning of her account:].
And like the impulse that drives the old maid to make a garden, with a meagre rose and a straggling daffodil, gives a hint of some coming paradise.
All that remains of me now is a rumour of beauty. ~ Sebastian Barry,#NFDB
1246:Total obscurity. Bilbo in Gollum's tunnel.
A mathematician's first steps into unknown territory constitute the first phase of a familiar cycle.
After the darkness comes a faint, faint glimmer of light, just enough to make you think that something is there, almost within reach, waiting to be discovered . . .
Then, after the faint, faint glimmer, if all goes well, you unravel the thread - and suddenly it's broad daylight! You're full of confidence, you want to tell anyone who will listen about what you've found.
And then, after day has broken, after the sun has climbed high into the sky, a phase of depression inevitably follows. You lose all faith in the importance of what you've achieved. Any idiot could have done what you've done, go find yourself a more worthwhile problem and make something of your life. Thus the cycle of mathematical research . . . ~ C dric Villani,#NFDB
1247:The fifteenth century of Leonardo and Columbus and Gutenberg was a time of invention, exploration, and the spread of knowledge by new technologies. In short, it was a time like our own. That is why we have much to learn from Leonardo. His ability to combine art, science, technology, the humanities, and imagination remains an enduring recipe for creativity. So, too, was his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. Florence flourished in the fifteenth century because it was comfortable with such people. Above all, Leonardo’s relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling, in both ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1248:A model for visual recall tasks was presented in terms of visual information storage (VIS), scanning, rehearsal, and auditory information storage (AIS). It was shown first that brief visual stimuli are stored in VIS in a form similar to the sensory input. These visual “images” contain considerably more information than is transmitted later. They can be sampled by scanning for items at high rates of about 10 msec per letter. Recall is based on a verbal receding of the stimulus (rehearsal), which is remembered in AIS. The items retained in AIS are usually rehearsed again to prevent them from decaying. The human limits in immediate-memory (reproduction) tasks are inherent in the AIS-Rehearsal loop. The main implication of the model for human factors is the importance of the auditory coding in visual tasks. ~ Sperling, G (1963). "A Model for Visual Memory Tasks". hfs.sagepub.com. 5 (1): 19–31., #NFDB
1249:Praying to God involves both us and God. God wants us to participate in what he is doing, and for sure one of the main ways we participate in what he is doing is by prayer. We can also participate in what he is doing by feeding the hungry and helping the poor and caring for the sick and giving of our resources to those who have little. God wants us to partner with him. So there is a paradox at work, and a mystery. On the one hand, the Bible says that apart from God we can do nothing. And yet, on the other hand, God invites us to do some things with him. This is at the heart of the mystery of prayer. God wants us to use our faith and to pray. But we can focus so much on the importance of our faith and our prayers that we forget about God and think it is our faith and our prayers that perform the miracle, rather than the God to whom we pray and in whom we have faith as we pray. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
1250:The question then was not what other countries were doing, but why. Why did these countries have this consensus around rigor? In the education superpowers, every child knew the importance of an education. These countries had experienced national failure in recent memory; they knew what an existential crisis felt like. In many U.S. schools, however, the priorities were muddled beyond recognition. Sports were central to American students’ lives and school cultures in a way in which they were not in most education superpowers. Exchange students agreed almost universally on this point. Nine out of ten international students I surveyed said that U.S. kids placed a higher priority on sports, and six out of ten American exchange students agreed with them. Even in middle school, other researchers had found, American students spent double the amount of time playing sports as Koreans. ~ Amanda Ripley, #NFDB
1251:It does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend, as well as preaching, to give a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word, in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of religion, their own misery, the necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; to stir up the pure minds of the saints, quicken their affections by often bringing the great things of religion in their remembrance, and setting them in their proper colours, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1252:Meditation begins with calming the mind and collecting the attention. The importance of this is revealed at the very beginning of our practice—it is often the first insight we gain when we begin to practice meditation. We see for ourselves how difficult the mind is to control. The mind is so slippery. We feel a breath or two, and then the mind wanders. We become seduced or distracted by thoughts, plans, and memories—sometimes not even pleasant ones. We often relive old arguments or hurts. We hop on a train of association not knowing that we’ve hopped on and having no idea where the train is going. Somewhere down the line we wake up from the dream of our thoughts, often in a completely different mental environment. Perhaps we have become entangled in some drama, some strong emotion, contracted in a strong sense of self, of ego. And all the time it is just the play of our minds. ~ Joseph Goldstein, #NFDB
1253:All that has been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity in opinions and
modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education established and
controlled by the State should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among
many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence. ~ John Stuart Mill,#NFDB
1254:If there is anything I’ve learned the last year it is the importance of being clear on what you want. I spent the better part of last year just figuring out what I actually want with my life. What I want to have around me, how I want to spend my days, the people I want in my life, what I want to create, why it’s important to me and most importantly who I need to be in order to create that life for myself. Who do I need to be to have that career I’m dreaming of? When you can see the highest version of yourself crystal clear you will wake up each day striving to walk in new ways. You see that future YOU as a role model and you are filled with energy to grow and level up and take that place. If you want a change, you really do need to let go of how you have done things in the past. It’s the most exciting feeling, stepping into that future vision of myself, a little bit every day. ~ Charlotte Eriksson, #NFDB
1255:I had never seen war, or even talked of it at length with someone who had, but I was young and knew something of violence, and so believed that war would be no more than a new experience for me, as other things—the possession of authority in Thrax, say, or my escape from the House Absolute—had been new experiences. War is not a new experience; it is a new world. Its inhabitants are more different from human beings than Famulimus and her friends. Its laws are new, and even its geography is new, because it is a geography in which insignificant hills and hollows are lifted to the importance of cities. Just as our familiar Urth holds such monstrosities as Erebus, Abaia, and Arioch, so the world of war is stalked by the monsters called battles, whose cells are individuals but who have a life and intelligence of their own, and whom one approaches through an ever-thickening array of portents. ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
1256:You asked if I thought my fiction had changed anything in the culture and the answer is no. Sure, there's been some scandal, but people are scandalized all the time; it's a way of life for them. It doesn't mean a thing. If you ask if I want my fiction to change anything in the culture, the answer is still no. What I want is to possess my readers while they are reading my book--if I can, to possess them in ways that other writers don't. Then let them return, just as they were, to a world where everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt, and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise, to have set loose in them the consciousness that's otherwise conditioned and hemmed in by all that isn't fiction. This is something that every child, smitten by books, understands immediately, though it's not at all a childish idea about the importance of reading. ~ Philip Roth, #NFDB
1257:Conservatives concerned about the “creeping socialism” of the welfare state under Truman were emboldened by the Republican gains in the midterm elections of 1950. In an upbeat letter to Alfred Sloan, the head of General Motors and an ardent supporter of his work, Fifield reflected on the recent returns. “We are having quite a deluge of letters from across the country, indicating the feeling that Spiritual Mobilization has had some part in the awakening which was evidenced by the elections,” he wrote. “Of course, we are a little proud and very happy for whatever good we have been able to do in waking people up to the peril of collectivism and the importance of Freedom under God.” But the battle was far from won. “I do not consider that we can relax our efforts in any way or at any point,” Fifield noted. “It is still a long road back to what was and, please God, will again be America.”47 ~ Kevin M Kruse, #NFDB
1258:The Importance of Language on a Rainy Day “One of the biggest mistakes that I observed in the first year of Jack’s life was parents who have unproductive language around weather being good or bad. Whenever it was raining, you’d hear moms, babysitters, dads say, ‘It’s bad weather. We can’t go out,’ or if it wasn’t, ‘It’s good weather. We can go out.’ That means that, somehow, we’re externally reliant on conditions being perfect in order to be able to go out and have a good time. So, Jack and I never missed a single storm, rain or snow, to go outside and romp in it. Maybe we missed one when he was sick. We’ve developed this language around how beautiful it is. Now, whenever it’s a rainy day, Jack says, ‘Look, Dada, it’s such a beautiful rainy day,’ and we go out and we play in it. I wanted him to have this internal locus of control—to not be reliant on external conditions being just so. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
1259:I was born the 26th of December. . . Arrive by dint of perseverance, but step by step. . . Tenancy to exaggerate the importance of earthly life. Avaricious of self. Constant in their affections and their hatreds. . . Yes, the Capricorn is a beast of solitude. Slow, steady, and persevering. Lives on several levels at once. Thinks in circles. Fascinated by death. Ever climbing, climbing. In search of the edelweiss, presumably. Or could it be immortelle? Knows no mother. Only "the mothers". Laughs little and usually on the wrong side of the face. . . Speaks truthfully instead of kindly. Metaphysics, abstractions, electromagnetic displays. Dives to the depths. Sees stars, comets, and asteroids where others see only moles, warts, and pimples. Feeds on himself when tired of playing the man-eating shark. A paranoiac. An ambulatory paranoiac. But constant in his affections - and his hatreds. Ouais! ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
1260:Some Christians mistrust or de-emphasize the role of the senses in spirituality, considering them to be inferior to reason and cognition. Such a view fails to appreciate the indispensable part of human personhood the senses actually form. It falls into the gnostic error of denying human embodiment. Because Christians affirm the goodness of the physical body and believe in the physicality of the incarnation, we should also affirm the importance of encountering God through our senses. God gave us senses to enrich our lives. They are channels that can be spiritually tuned so as to register the traces of the divine that saturate the world . . . it could be the sight of a child, the sound of birds
singing, the smell of flowers or freshly cut grass, or the feeling of warmth. Any of these things-and many more-can serve as a call to pause and, even if just for a moment, turn our heart toward God. ~ David G Benner,#NFDB
1261:Surely this is an indication of the great perversion of Pharaoh and his being utterly bereft of exercising his wisdom. He did not grasp the importance of the message, that is, the obvious existence and oneness of Allah, communicated by the Prophet Moses (pbuh). Pharaoh, mindlessly, thought that Allah was solely up in the air and in his own opinion, derisively contradicted the Prophet Moses (pbuh). The fact is, however, Allah is beyond time and space. Our Lord Who created Pharaoh and all the fortune he possessed and the Creator of the entire universe and everything in it encompasses everywhere. Throughout the history countless people who possessed the mentality of Pharaoh and did not correct their attitudes lived and each one of them were openly defeated in the face of Allah's superior Might. It was based on this premise of his own foolish mind that he founded his denial of the Prophet Moses (pbuh). ~ Harun Yahya, #NFDB
1262:HYGGE TIP: CREATE A COOKING CLUB A few years ago, I wanted to create some kind of system that would mean I would get to see some of my good friends on a regular basis, so we formed a cooking club. This was in part prompted by my work, as the importance of our relationships always emerges as a key indicator of why some people are happier than others. Furthermore, I wanted to organize the cooking club in a way that maximized the hygge. So instead of taking turns being the host and cooking for the five or six other people, we always cook together. That is where the hygge is. The rules are simple. Each time there is a theme, or a key ingredient—for example, duck or sausages—each person brings ingredients to make a small dish to fit the theme. It creates a very relaxed, informal, egalitarian setting, where no one person has to cater for the guests—or live up to the standards of the last fancy dinner party. ~ Meik Wiking, #NFDB
1263:community ownership doesn’t work in large-scale societies where people operate in anonymity. In The Power of Scale, anthropologist John Bodley wrote: “The size of human societies and cultures matters because larger societies will naturally have more concentrated social power. Larger societies will be less democratic than smaller societies, and they will have an unequal distribution of risks and rewards.”9 Right, because the bigger the society is, the less functional shame becomes. When the Berlin Wall came down, jubilant capitalists announced that the essential flaw of communism had been its failure to account for human nature. Well, yes and no. Marx’s fatal error was his failure to appreciate the importance of context. Human nature functions one way in the context of intimate, interdependent societies, but set loose in anonymity, we become a different creature. Neither beast is more nor less human. ~ Christopher Ryan, #NFDB
1264:It was an extremely hard and discouraging business, for I knew no one whose interests overlapped with mine. I married when I was nineteen, and a wife and child added to the problems. But at least it meant that I got used to working completely and totally alone, and not expecting encouragement. Later on, reviewers and critics were outraged by what one of them called “his stupefying assurance about his own genius.” But it would have been impossible to go on working without some conviction of genius—at least, of certainty about the importance of what I was doing, and the belief that it wouldn’t matter if no other human being ever came to share this certainty. The feeling of alienation had to be totally accepted. Luckily, I’ve always had a fairly cheerful temperament, not much given to self-pity. So I went on working, reading and writing in my total vacuum, without contact with any other writer or thinker. I ~ Colin Wilson, #NFDB
1265:The people who support and defend those accused of child sexual abuse indiscriminately, those who join organizations dedicated to defending people who are accused of child sexual abuse with no screening whatsoever to keep out those who are guilty as charged are likewise not necessarily people engaged in an objective search for the truth. Some of them can and do use deceit, trickery, misstated research, harassment, intimidation, and charges of laundering federal money to silence their opponents.
Those of us who are the recipients of bogus lawsuits and frivolous ethics charges and phony phone calls and pickets outside our offices must know more than the research to survive such tactics. We must know something about endurance and about the importance of refusing to be intimidated.
Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 ~ Anna C Salter,#NFDB
1266:The most solid thing was the light. It smashed through the rows of windows in the south aisle, so that they exploded with colour, it slanted before him from right to left in an exact formation, to hit the bottom yard of the pillars on the north side of the nave. Everywhere, fine dust gave these rods and trunks of light the importance of a dimension. He blinked at them again, seeing, near at hand, how the individual grains of dust turned over each other, or bounced all together, like mayfly in a breath of wind. He saw how further away they drifted cloudily, coiled, or hung in a moment of pause, becoming, in the most distant rods and trunks, nothing but colour, honey-colour slashed across the body of the cathedral. Where the south transept lighted the crossways from a hundred and fifty foot of grisaille, the honey thickened in a pillar that lifted straight as Abel’s from the men working with crows at the pavement. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
1267:Every culture has death rituals with the power to shock the uninitiated and challenge our personal web of significance—from the Wari’ roasting the flesh of their fellow tribesmen to the Tibetan monk torn apart by the beaks of vultures to the long, silver trocar stabbing Cliff’s intestines. But there is a crucial difference between what the Wari’ did and the Tibetans do with their deceased compared to what Bruce did to Cliff. The difference is belief. The Wari’ had belief in the importance of total bodily destruction. Tibetans have the belief that a body can sustain other beings after the soul has left it. North Americans practice embalming, but we do not believe in embalming. It is not a ritual that brings us comfort; it is an additional $900 charge on our funeral bills. If embalming were something a tradesman like Bruce would never perform on his own mother, I wondered why we were performing it on anyone at all. ~ Caitlin Doughty, #NFDB
1268:One. Treating one’s duty in the space force as an ordinary job: despite working with dedication and responsibility, lacking enthusiasm and sense of mission and doubting the ultimate significance of one’s work. “Two. Passive waiting: believing that the outcome of the war depends on scientists and engineers; believing that prior to breakthroughs in basic research and key technologies, the space force is just a pipe dream, and subsequent confusion about the importance of its present work; being satisfied simply with completing tasks related to establishing this military branch; lacking innovation. “Three. Harboring unrealistic fantasies: requesting to use hibernation technology to leap four centuries into the future and take part in the Doomsday Battle directly. A number of younger comrades have already expressed this wish, and one has even submitted a formal application. On the surface, this is a positive state of mind, a ~ Liu Cixin, #NFDB
1269:It is the importance of this quality of generosity in fiction that requires a measure of childishness in the writer. People who have strong mental focus and a sense of purpose in their lives, people who have respect for all that grownups generally respect (earning a good living, the flag, the school system, those who are richer than oneself, those who are beloved and famous, such as movie stars), are unlikely ever to make it through the many revisions it takes to tell a story beautifully, without visible tricks, nor would they be able to tolerate the fame and fortune of those who tell stories stupidly, with hundreds of tricks, all of them old and boring to the discriminating mind. First, with his stubborn churlishness the good writer scoffs at what the grownups are praising, then, with his childish forgetfulness and indifference to what sensible people think, he goes back to his foolish pastime, the making of real art. ~ John Gardner, #NFDB
1270:Mountains seem to answer an increasing imaginative need in the West. More and more people are discovering a desire for them, and a powerful solace in them. At bottom, mountains, like all wildernesses, challenge our complacent conviction - so easy to lapse into - that the world has been made for humans by humans. Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanly arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and orders of existence. Mountains correct this amnesia. By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage, mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made. They pose profound questions about our durability and the importance of our schemes. They induce, I suppose, a modesty in us. ~ Robert Macfarlane, #NFDB
1271:Trade-unionism, the economic arena of the modern gladiator, owes its existence to direct action. It is but recently that law and government have attempted to crush the trade-union movement, and condemned the exponents of man's right to organize to prison as conspirators. Had they sought to assert their cause through begging, pleading, and compromise, trade-unionism would today be a negligible quantity. In France, in Spain, in Italy, in Russia, nay even in England (witness the growing rebellion of English labor unions) direct, revolutionary, economic action has become so strong a force in the battle for industrial liberty as to make the world realize the tremendous importance of labor's power. The General Strike, the supreme expression of the economic consciousness of the workers, was ridiculed in America but a short time ago. Today every great strike, in order to win, must realize the importance of the solidaric general protest. ~ Emma Goldman, #NFDB
1272:suggests that we can choose thoughts that will bring us out of depression. Practically anything that is repeated again and again will work. Remember the importance of repetition?[89] It could be a nursery rhyme. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, I’ve seen the results firsthand. People have kicked out depression simply by repeating phrases such as “blue cat” or “purple dogs” or “pink frog.” It’s true! These new phrases directly initiate activity in the brain, away from the parts that respond to depressed thinking. The new words activate neurons in the thinking part of the brain. Activity in the feeling portion slows. Stress chemicals being poured into the brain diminish. You might choose to short-circuit the cycle of thinking that leads to depression by repeating the phrase, “Yes, praise God.” Or you might pray for yourself or someone else. You could also say, “I can do this!” Any affirmations will work.[90] You also can improve mood and eliminate ~ H Norman Wright, #NFDB
1273:The World Bank has its own term for the phenomenon: they call it "technocratic insulation." So if you read World Bank studies, they talk about the importance of having "technocratic insulation"―meaning a bunch of technocrats,who are essentially employees of the big transnational corporations, have to be working somewhere in "insulation" from the public to design all the policies, because if the public ever gets involved in the process they may have bad ideas, like wanting the kind of economic growth that does things for people instead of profits, all sorts of stupid stuff like that. So therefore what you want to have is insulated technocrats—and once they're insulated enough, then you can have all the "democracy" you like, since it's not going to make any difference. In the international business press, this has all been described pretty frankly as "The New Imperial Age." And that's quite accurate: it's certainly the direction things are going in. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1274:When God brought the first man his spouse, he brought him not just a lover but the friend his heart had been seeking. Proverbs 2:17 speaks of one's spouse as your "'allup," a unique word that the lexicons define as your "special confidant" or "best friend." In an age where women were often seen as the husband's property, and marriages were mainly business deals and transactions seeking to increase the family's social status and security, it was startling for the Bible to describe a spouse in this way. But in today's society, with its emphasis on romance and sex, it is just as radical to insist that your spouse should be your best friend, though for a different reason. In tribal societies, romance doesn't matter as much as social status, and in individualistic Western societies, romance and great sex matter far more than anything else. The Bible, however, without ignoring the importance of romance, puts great emphasis on marriage as companionship. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1275:When people come to you to be married, you tend to put the couple through their paces beforehand, don’t you?’ ‘I give them pastoral advice.’ ‘You tell them what marriage is all about; warn them that it’s not all lovey-dovey and that as soon as you have children it’s a different kettle of fish altogether . . . .’ Knowing that Inspector Keating had three children under the age of seven, Sidney recognised that he had to be careful of his reply: ‘Well, I . . .’ ‘There’s the money worries, and the job worries and you start to grow old. Then you realise that you’ve married someone with whom you have nothing in common. You have nothing left to say to each other. That’s the kind of thing you tell them, isn’t it?’ ‘I wouldn’t put it exactly like that . . .’ ‘But that’s the gist?’ ‘I do like to make it a bit more optimistic, Geordie. How friendship sometimes matters more than passion. The importance of kindness . . .’ ‘Yes, yes, but you know what I’m getting at. ~ James Runcie, #NFDB
1276:This dry definition, accurate as it is, does not fully suggest the importance of what it conveys. Since for us outside events do not exist unless we are aware of them, consciousness corresponds to subjectively experienced reality. While everything we feel, smell, hear, or remember is potentially a candidate for entering consciousness, the experiences that actually do become part of it are much fewer than those left out. Thus, while consciousness is a mirror that reflects what our senses tell us about what happens both outside our bodies and within the nervous system, it reflects those changes selectively, actively shaping events, imposing on them a reality of its own. The reflection consciousness provides is what we call our life: the sum of all we have heard, seen, felt, hoped, and suffered from birth to death. Although we believe that there are “things” outside consciousness, we have direct evidence only of those that find a place in it. As ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1277:Study a gene in only one environment and, by definition, you’ve eliminated the ability to see if it works differently in other environments (in other words, if other environments regulate the gene differently). And thus you’ve artificially inflated the importance of the genetic contribution. The more environments in which you study a genetic trait, the more novel environmental effects will be revealed, decreasing the heritability score. Scientists study things in controlled settings to minimize variation in extraneous factors and thus get cleaner, more interpretable results—for example, making sure that the plants all have their height measured around the same time of year. This inflates heritability scores, because you’ve prevented yourself from ever discovering that some extraneous environmental factor isn’t actually extraneous.fn22 Thus a heritability score tells how much variation in a trait is explained by genes in the environment(s) in which it’s been studied. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
1278:Your practice of psycho-analysis was a mistake. It has, for the time at least, made the work of purification more complicated, not easier. The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind—to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms—runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
1279:there is a persistent emphasis on religious themes, such as the nature of the Islamic warrior, the role of Islam in training, the importance of Islamic ideology for the army, and the salience of jihad. Pakistan’s military journals frequently take as their subjects famous Quranic battles, such as the Battle of Badr. Ironically, the varied Quranic battles are discussed in more analytical detail in Pakistan’s journals than are Pakistan’s own wars with India. A comparable focus on religion in the Indian army (which shares a common heritage with the Pakistan Army) would be quite scandalous. It is difficult to fathom that any Indian military journal would present an appraisal of the Kurukshetra War, which features the Hindu god Vishnu and is described in the Hindu Vedic epic poem the Mahabharata. Judging by the frequency with which articles on such topics appear in Pakistan’s professional publications, religion is clearly acceptable, and perhaps desirable, as a subject of discussion. ~ C Christine Fair, #NFDB
1280:But another type of life review happens to all of us when we die and our consciousness leaves the physical body at the end of each lifetime. This time it is not done with a therapist, but rather with our spiritual guides or other wise beings; it is not a clinical life review but a karmic one. As we are replenished by the beautiful light, our awareness is directed to review the results of our actions while we were on the physical plane. We see the people we have harmed and we feel their emotional reactions, magnified greatly. Similarly, we feel the emotions, again enhanced, of those we have aided and loved. In this manner, we examine all our relationships, and we deeply experience all the anger, hurt, and despair that we have caused—but also all the gratitude, appreciation, love, and hope that we have elicited. This life review is not done in a spirit of punishment or guilt. By truly understanding the result of our behavior, we learn the importance of loving-kindness and compassion. As ~ Brian L Weiss, #NFDB
1281:I have been arguing that Christians recognize the culture-relatedness of all truth, but that this does not jeopardize the objectivity of the revelation God has graciously provided in his Son Jesus Christ and in the Bible; that there are ways of thinking through how people come to know this truth, and the God who is its ultimate source; and that failure to recognize it for what it is—in short, failure to know God—is morally reprehensible, and marks a rebellion against the authority of the one who created us and who governs us. Several times I have hinted at the importance of adopting “the whole counsel of God,” of recognizing the distinctiveness of an entire Christian worldview if the parts within it are to make much sense. That means not less than following and adopting the Bible’s plot-line. In other words (to use the contemporary jargon), the Bible provides us with a metanarrative, a comprehensive “story” that provides the framework for a comprehensive explanation, a comprehensive worldview. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1282:The truth of mimetic theory is unacceptable to the majority of human beings, because it involves Christ. The Christian cannot help but think about the world as it is, and see its extreme fragility. I think that religious faith is the only way to live with this fragility. Otherwise all we're left with is Pascalian diversion and the negation of reality. I've gotten interested in Pascal again, by the way. His notion of diversion, or distraction, is so powerful! But it's clear there was something missing in his life: he never had any trouble getting along with people. And even though his youthful brilliance aroused jealousy, he never experienced rivalry, even in science. As a scientist, he understood the importance of diversion, of distraction. But he never knew rivalry in love, as Shakespeare and Cervantes did, for example; he had no way of seeing, as Racine did, the negation of desire in the very functioning of desire. Bizarrely, this is characteristic of the great French authors of the Renaissance. ~ Ren Girard, #NFDB
1283:have referred to the importance of a high vitamin butter for providing the fat-soluble activators to make possible the utilization of the minerals in the foods. In this connection, it is of interest that butter constitutes the principal source of these essential factors for many primitive groups throughout the world. In the high mountain and plateau district in northern India, and in Tibet, the inhabitants depend largely upon butter made from the milk of the musk ox and the sheep for these activators. The butter is eaten mixed with roasted cereals, is used in tea, and in a porridge made of tea, butter and roasted grains. In Sudan Egypt, I found considerable traffic in high vitamin butter which came from the higher lands a few miles from the Nile Basin. This was being exchanged for and used with varieties of millet grown in other districts. This butter, at the temperature of that area, which ranged from 90° to 110° Fahrenheit, was, of course, always in liquid form. Its brilliant orange color testified ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1284:See the man of business, as he pores over his ledger and account books, and runs his eye over the columns of figures. See the man of pleasure, as he tears over the country with his horses and dogs, or rushes after excitement at the races, the theatre, the card party, or the ball. See the poor thoughtless labourer, as he carries off his hard-earned wages to the public house, and wastes them in ruining both body and soul. See them all, how thoroughly they are in earnest! See them all, how they throw their hearts into what they are doing! And then mark them all at church next Sunday: listless, careless, yawning, sleepy, and indifferent, as if there were no God, and no devil, and no Christ, and no heaven, and no hell! Mark how evident it is that they have left their hearts outside the church! Mark how plain it is that they have no real interest in religion! And then say whether it be not true that many know nothing of the importance of having their sins cleansed away.O, take heed lest this be the case with you! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1285:It was when we had come back from Canada and were living in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs and Miss Stein and I were still good friends that Miss Stein made the remark about the lost generation. She had some ignition trouble with the old Model T Ford she then drove and the young man who worked in the garage and had served in the last year of the war had not been adept, or perhaps had not broken the priority of other vehicles, in repairing Miss Stein's Ford. Perhaps he had not realized the importance of Miss Stein's vehicle having the right of immediate repair. Anyway he had not been sérieux and had been corrected severely by the patron of the garage after Miss Stein's protest. The patron had said to him, 'You are all a génération perdue.'
'That's what you are. That's what you all are,' Miss Stein said. 'All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation.'
'Really?' I said.
'You are,' she insisted. 'You have no respect for anything. You drink yourselves to death ... ~ Ernest Hemingway,#NFDB
1286:I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to Be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects in school along with their regular curriculum? Think how these truths would manifest. We would have happy people who feel good about themselves. We would have people who are comfortable financially and who enrich the economy by investing their money wisely. They would have good relationships with everyone and would be comfortable with the role of parenthood and then go on to create another generation of children who feel good about themselves. Yet within all this, each person would remain an individual expressing his or her own creativity. ~ Louise L Hay, #NFDB
1287:For within the very structure of family life, in families that do or did embrace the male religions, are the almost invisibly accepted social customs and life patterns that reflect the one-time strict adherence to the biblical scriptures. Attitudes towards double-standard premarital virginity, double-standard marital fidelity, the sexual autonomy of women, illegitimacy, abortion, contraception, rape, childbirth, the importance of marriage and children to women, the responsibilities and role of women in marriage, women as sex objects, the sexual identification of passivity and aggressiveness, the roles of women and men in work or social situations, women who express their ideas, female leadership, the intellectual activities of women, the economic activities and needs of women and the automatic assumption of the male as breadwinner and protector have all become so deeply ingrained that feelings and values concerning these subjects are often regarded, by both women and men, as natural tendencies or even human instinct. ~ Merlin Stone, #NFDB
1288:The importance of friends and family in times of need By Renée Sargent
When people feel sad, what they need is attention. Not the kind of attention where they have to be told how amazing they all the time. Just kind of attention where they know that should they need you, you are there. I would like that kind of attention. I don't care about the other kind, even though everyone thinks I do.
When something horrible happens to someone the worst thing anyone can do is tell them off, or accuse them of being mean, or make them feel guilty about stuff they did that they are sorry about, because you can do bad things and be really sorry. They should just listen to them, and talk about things, because when you don't talk about things everything builds up inside you like boiling pan with a lid on. All the water dribbles out the sides but the lid won't come off. It's like that. Life just feels like little dribbles down the side of a pan.
I think friends and families are the ones who can lift the lid off in a good way. ~ Dawn O Porter,#NFDB
1289:It is difficult to overstate the importance of understanding mirror neurons and their function. They may well be central to social learning, imitation, and the cultural transmission of skills and attitudes—perhaps even of the pressed-together sound clusters we call words. By hyperdeveloping the mirror-neuron system, evolution in effect turned culture into the new genome. Armed with culture, humans could adapt to hostile new environments and figure out how to exploit formerly inaccessible or poisonous food sources in just one or two generations—instead of the hundreds or thousands of generations such adaptations would have taken to accomplish through genetic evolution.
Thus culture became a significant new source of evolutionary pressure, which helped select brains that had even better mirror-neuron systems and the imitative learning associated with them. The result was one of the many self-amplifying snowball effects that culminated in Homo sapiens, the ape that looked into its own mind and saw the whole cosmos reflected inside. ~ V S Ramachandran,#NFDB
1290:From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes. ~ Greg Lukianoff, #NFDB
1291:As I have already hinted, one of the directions of work which the realm of ideas of the Macy meetings has suggested concerns the importance of the notion and the technique of communication in the social system. It is certainly true that the social system is an organization like the individual, that it is bound together by a system of communication, and that it has a dynamics in which circular processes of a feedback nature play an important part. This is true, both in the general fields of anthropology and sociology and in the more specific field of economics; and the very important work, which we have already mentioned, of von Neumann and Morgenstern on the theory of games enters into this range of ideas. On this basis, Drs. Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead have urged me, in view of the intensely pressing nature of the sociological and economic problems of the present age of confusion, to devote a large part of my energies to the discussion of this side of cybernetics. ~ Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics - Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948), #NFDB
1292:Stegner’s could sometimes be a grumpy goodness. In a fascinating exchange of letters with the beat poet and environmental guru Gary Snyder, Stegner argues for the less exotic virtues of the cultivated western mind versus the enlightened eastern one. This included the importance of doing what one should and not what one felt like. In a letter dated January 27, 1968, he wrote: “I have spent a lot of days and weeks at the desks and in the meetings that ultimately save redwoods, and I have to say that I never saw on the firing line any of the mystical drop-outs or meditators.” He went to those meetings because it was the right thing to do. An obligation, yes, but one he valued. “The highest thing I can think of doing is literary,” he wrote a friend. “But literature does not exist in a vacuum, or even in a partial vacuum. We are neither detached nor semi-detached, but linked to the world by a million interdependencies. To deny the interdependencies, while living on the comforts and services they make possible, is adolescent when it isn’t downright dishonest. ~ David Gessner, #NFDB
1293:This changing international environment brought to the fore the fundamental cultural differences between Asian and American civilizations. At the broadest level the Confucian ethos pervading many Asian societies stressed the values of authority, hierarchy, the subordination of individual rights and interests, the importance of consensus, the avoidance of confrontation, “saving face,” and, in general, the supremacy of the state over society and of society over the individual. In addition, Asians tended to think of the evolution of their societies in terms of centuries and millennia and to give priority to maximizing long-term gains. These attitudes contrasted with the primacy in American beliefs of liberty, equality, democracy, and individualism, and the American propensity to distrust government, oppose authority, promote checks and balances, encourage competition, sanctify human rights, and to forget the past, ignore the future, and focus on maximizing immediate gains. The sources of conflict are in fundamental differences in society and culture. ~ Samuel P Huntington, #NFDB
1294:suicide and scandal followed in his wake. The British weekly, the Sunday Referee (March 10, 1935) asked the question that over half a century later is only beginning to be answered. Who—and what—is Aleister Crowley? Around few men in contemporary life has been created such a wealth of fantastic fable and rumour as that which attaches to the name of this mysterious personality. Who indeed was this man, and why, if it were true he was guilty of so many unspeakable acts, was he never brought to justice or ever formally charged with any crime? To the modern student of Crowley, the answer to the second part of the question is simple. He was never charged with any crimes because there were no crimes to be charged with. And even if there were, to some, the magnitude and the importance of his work is such as to dwarf to insignificance an entire litany of personal flaws and excesses real or imagined. In the opinion of some of our contemporaries, Crowley was a genius of stellar magnitude. Currently his works enjoy a scrutiny and popularity that never was achieved in his ~ Christopher S Hyatt, #NFDB
1295:In this world man is not meant to toil like hogs. He must be intelligent to realize the importance of human life and refuse to act like an ordinary animal. A human being should realize the aim of his life, and this direction is given in all Vedic literatures, and the essence is given in Bhagavad-gītā. Vedic literature is meant for human beings, not for animals. Animals can kill other living animals, and there is no question of sin on their part, but if a man kills an animal for the satisfaction of his uncontrolled taste, he must be responsible for breaking the laws of nature. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is clearly explained that there are three kinds of activities according to the different modes of nature: the activities of goodness, of passion and of ignorance. Similarly, there are three kinds of eatables also: eatables in goodness, passion and ignorance. All of this is clearly described, and if we properly utilize the instructions of Bhagavad-gītā, then our whole life will become purified, and ultimately we will be able to reach the destination which is beyond this material sky. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1296:As friends or family members and caregivers, we can help a great deal by listening and empathizing with women who are in the thick of it. We can bring them small gifts...and make sure they are invited to get-togethers even if it is unlikely they will make it. When women are homebound caretakers, a daily phone call can be a lifesaver. We can acknowledge both the efforts other women are making and validate the importance of those efforts.
...She cannot help feeling used and bitter. Ardith told me, "I received awards for my art, but nothing for Mom Duty."
"I'm buying you a trophy and a dozen roses." I said.
Ardith laughed and said, "Just buy me the roses. Yellow please."
I brought the roses but, at the same time, I know that Ardith's and all other caregiver' primary validation must be internal. When we do something arduous such as deal with an insurance company all day, we must give ourselves credit for our skill and persistence. At the end of a difficult afternoon, we need to remind ourselves that we perform honorable labor and that there will be better days. ~ Mary Pipher,#NFDB
1297:The humiliation revealed to Yudhishtir the human desire for delusions and the importance of being gentle with the harsh truth. Yudhishtir was so caught up with his honesty that he did not realize the other’s inability to receive it. The ability to communicate with a king with deference and dexterity is known in Sanskrit as sabha-chaturya, which translated literally means ‘tactfulness in court’. It is a trait that ministers and courtiers had to possess if they wished to survive in court and get their jobs done. It is a trait that people who work with leaders must possess. It is a trait that even leaders need to possess if they wish to lead. The foundation for this skill lies in the observation that people are uncomfortable with the truth, especially when it shows them in a bad light or has consequences that could affect them adversely. When confronted with it, they react negatively—with rage or denial. They may get defensive or simply reject the submission. So the work does not get done. One needs strategic communication, also known as diplomacy. One needs sabha-chaturya. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
1298:Because remembered experience is a distortion of actual experience, and because it's difficult to elicit real emotional experience in laboratory studies, some contemporary researchers emphasize the importance of obtaining immediate or on-line evaluations during real emotional episodes (measures of instant utility), especially in natural settings. Though such studies circumvent the errors of remembered utility and the artificiality of laboratory research, they are extremely hard to implement, as well as being time-consuming, and in the end are still subject to the biases and measurement problems inherent in any method that relies on one's introspective evaluation of his or her own mental states. The fallibility and subjectivity of introspection are, after all, what triggered the behaviorist revolution in psychology in the early twentieth century. And recall that the cognitive revolution only succeeded in bringing the mind back to psychology because it figured out how to study the mind without relying on introspection-by focusing on mental processes rather than mental content. ~ Joseph E LeDoux, #NFDB
1299:[On D. W. Griffith]
What he had above all, his ability as a craftsman and artist, would be hard enough—and quite unnecessary—to write of, if we had typical scenes before us, or within recent memory; since we have seen so little of his work in so many years, it is virtually impossible. I can remember very vividly his general spirit and manner-heroic, impetuous, tender, magniloquent, naive, beyond the endowment or daring of anybody since; just as vividly, I can remember the total impression of various major sequences. By my remembrance, his images were nearly always a little larger and wilder than life. The frame was always full, spontaneous, and lively. He knew wonderfully well how to contrast and combine different intensities throughout an immense range of emotion, movement, shadow, and light. Much of the liveliness was not intrinsic to the characters an the screen or their predicament, but was his own vitality and emotion; and much of it—notably in the amazing flickering and vivacity of his women—came of his almost maniacal realization of the importance of expressive movement. ~ James Agee,#NFDB
1300:Anarchism alone stresses the importance of the individual, his possibilities and needs in a free society. Instead of telling him that he must fall down and worship before institutions, live and die for abstractions, break his heart and stunt his life for taboos, Anarchism insists that the center of gravity in society is the individual--that he must think for himself, act freely, and live fully. The aim of Anarchism is that every individual in the world shall be able to do so. If he is to develop freely and fully, he must be relieved from the interference and oppression of others. Freedom is, therefore, the cornerstone of the Anarchist philosophy. Of course, this has nothing in common with a much boasted "rugged individualism." Such predatory individualism is really flabby, not rugged. At the least danger to its safety it runs to cover of the state and wails for protection of armies, navies, or whatever devices for strangulation it has at its command. Their "rugged individualism" is simply one of the many pretenses the ruling class makes to unbridled business and political extortion. ~ Emma Goldman, #NFDB
1301:All schools of Buddhism place great emphasis on the importance of practice. Yet most of them have come to rely on a dogmatic rather than a skeptical foundation for that practice. At the risk of making too broad a generalization, let me suggest that religious Buddhists tend to base their practice on beliefs, whereas secular Buddhists tend to base their practice on questions. If one believes—pace the second noble truth of Buddhism, that craving is the origin of suffering—then your practice will be motivated by the intention to overcome craving in order to eliminate suffering. The practice will be the logical consequence of your belief. But if your experience of birth, sickness, aging, and death raises fundamental questions about your existence, then your practice will be driven by the urgent need to come to terms with those questions, irrespective of any theory about where birth, sickness, aging, and death originate. Such a practice is concerned with finding an authentic and autonomous response to the questions that life poses rather than confirming any doctrinal article of faith. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
1302:What happens in the brain, he asked, if the person carrying out an automatic task suddenly makes a special effort to pay attention to that task? The PET scan kicked out the answer. When the young man again focused on the now-automatic keypad movements, his prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate jerked awake, becoming metabolically active once again. This is a finding of tremendous importance, for it shows that mindful awareness has an activating effect on the brain, lighting it up. The take-home message of Passingham’s studies is that willfully engaging in mindful awareness while performing an automatic task activates the action-monitoring circuitry of the prefrontal cortex. It is this activation that can transform us from automatons to members in good standing of the species Homo sapiens (from Latin sapere, “to be wise”). Given the strong evidence for the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in the willful selection of self-initiated responses, the importance of knowing we can modulate the brain activity in that very area with a healthy dose of mindfulness can’t be overstated. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz, #NFDB
1303:Who works all things according to the counsel of his will is best understood to mean that every single event that occurs is in some sense predestined by God. At the same time, Paul emphasizes the importance of human responsibility, as is evident in all of the moral commands later in Ephesians (chs. 4–6) and in all of Paul’s letters. As Paul demonstrated in all of his remarkable efforts in spreading the gospel (Acts 13–28; cf. 2 Cor. 11:23–28), he believed that doing personal evangelism and making conscious choices to obey God are also absolutely essential in fulfilling God’s plan. God uses human means to fulfill what he has ordained. With regard to tragedies and evil, Paul and the other biblical writers never blame God for them (cf. Rom. 5:12; 2 Tim. 4:14; also Job 1:21–22). Rather, they see the doctrine of God’s sovereignty as a means of comfort and assurance (cf. Rom. 8:28–30), confident that evil will not triumph, and that God’s good plans for his people will be fulfilled. How God’s sovereignty and human responsibility work together in the world is a mystery no one can fully understand. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1304:Whatever science has done to destroy the world, it has unquestionably saved the lives of women and their babies. Nature is not gentle with us when left to her own devices. Now we survive childbirth and face the dilemma turning fifty. Mary Wollstonecraft never trod this path.
Greedy for more and more life, we seldom appreciate what we have. Many of my friends have become mothers in their forties and their babies are beautiful and smart. We have extended the limits of life, yet we dare to rage at growing old.
It seems damned ungrateful. But then we baby boomers are a damned ungrateful bunch. Nobody gave us limits. So we are good at squandering and complaining, bad at gratitude. And when we discover life has limits, we try to wreck ourselves in anger before we learn the importance of surrender. We are the AA kids, the qualification generation. We have to be hurled to the bottom again and again before we come to understand that life is about surrender. And if the bottom doesn't rise to meet us, we dive into it, carrying our loved ones with us.
Only a lucky few swim back up to air and light. ~ Erica Jong,#NFDB
1305:What remained of that Baghdad, I wondered? The Baghdad of fountains of knowledge. The Baghdad at the centre, the fulcrum of a globalized culture that went on to humanize Europe: the Baghdad that taught Europe the distinction between civil society and barbarism, the difference between medicine and magic, and the importance of experimental method; the Baghdad that trained the West in scholastic and philosophic method, drilled it in making surgical instruments, told it how to establish and run hospitals and provided it with the model of a university complete with curriculum and syllabus, terminology and administrative structure; the Baghdad that schooled Europe in the importance of biography, the novella, the history of cities and historical and textual criticism. In short, the Baghdad that gave Europe its most prized possession: liberal humanism. By what intellectual conjuring trick had Europe self-servingly made the reality of its cultural debt disappear into a fairy-tale dream of Sinbad, Aladdin, harem ladies in diaphanous veils, the subject matter of pantomime and other such dissembling misrepresentations? ~ Ziauddin Sardar, #NFDB
1306:Greed subsumes love and compassion; living simply makes room for them. Living simply is the primary way everyone can resist greed every day. All over the world people are becoming more aware of the importance of living simply and sharing resources. While communism has suffered political defeat globally, the politics of communalism continue to matter. We can all resist the temptation of greed. We can work to change public policy, electing leaders who are honest and progressive. We can turn off the television set. We can show respect for love. To save our planet we can stop thoughtless waste. We can recycle and support ecologically advanced survival strategies. We can celebrate and honor communalism and interdependency by sharing resources. All these gestures show a respect and a gratitude for life. When we value the delaying of gratification and take responsibility for our actions, we simplify our emotional universe. Living simply makes loving simple. The choice to live simply necessarily enhances our capacity to love. It is the way we learn to practice compassion, daily affirming our connection to a world community. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
1307:I felt drained and frustrated (not to mention flat-out dirty) operating within a framework that positioned the criminal legal system as the primary remedy for sexual violence. The prison-industrial complex, to which the mainstream rape crisis movement is intimately and often unquestioningly linked, is an embodiment of nonconsent used to reinforce race and class inequality. Prisons take away the rights of people, primarily poor people of color, to control their own lives and bodies. This is glaringly apparent when one sits in a courtroom and observes the ways in which race, class, and power intersect in this space. How, then, do we as a movement whose fundamental principle is consent see this as an appropriate solution? A successful anti-rape movement will focus not only on how rape upholds male supremacy, but also on how it serves as a tool to maintain white supremacy and myriad other oppressive systems. When this is done, the importance of creating alternative ways to address violence becomes more apparent, and the state-sponsored systems that reproduce inequality seem less viable options for true transformative change. ~ Jaclyn Friedman, #NFDB
1308:Having fallen prey to the intellectualism of modernity, both Christian worship and Christian pedagogy have underestimated the importance of this body/story nexus—this inextricable link between imagination, narrative, and embodiment—thereby forgetting the ancient Christian sacramental wisdom carried in the historic practices of Christian worship and the embodied legacies of spiritual and monastic disciplines. Failing to appreciate this, we have neglected formational resources that are indigenous to the Christian tradition, as it were; as a result, we have too often pursued flawed models of discipleship and Christian formation that have focused on convincing the intellect rather than recruiting the imagination. Moreover, because of this neglect and our stunted anthropology, we have failed to recognize the degree and extent to which secular liturgies do implicitly capitalize on our embodied penchant for storied formation. This becomes a way to account for Christian assimilation to consumerism, nationalism, and various stripes of egoisms. These isms have had all the best embodied stories. The devil has had all the best liturgies. ~ James K A Smith, #NFDB
1309:You're Miss F's boyfriend?" Danny looked up in disbelief, his gaze following Jim around the room.
"You're real?" Tommy echoed the same surprise. "Dude, I thought she was some sad old lady like my mom, making up stories about her dead boyfriend."
"Shut up, Tommy."
Jim paused near her desk. "You talked about me? You said I'm your boyfriend?"
"Dead boyfriend," Danny corrected.
"Shut up." Natalie and Jim silenced the frightened vandals in unison.
"We were reading Romeo and Juliet," she explained, trying to diminish the importance of the boys' nervous rambling that had revealed far more than she cared to. "Talking about love and tragedy."
"They were like, from rival gangs," Tom informed Jim unnecessarily.
"Enough, Tommy." The seventeen year-old chose now to remember something she'd taught in class?
"These are the two boneheads who've been giving you grief?"
Natalie nodded."I thought I'd handled it."
Jim holstered his gun and pulled out his phone. "I don't know if I'm flattered to learn that you claimed to love me, or pissed off to hear that you think of us as a tragedy. ~ Julie Miller,#NFDB
1310:Man/Woman, it has always insisted, does not live by bread alone. The weakness of the church is that it has too often accepted the separation between the material and the spiritual … leaving the material to the economic and political power structure.… The crisis of a city like Detroit provides the church with an extraordinary opportunity to develop and practice a vision of a new economy and a new educational system which meets both the material and spiritual needs of human beings.… Churches are … in an excellent position to develop small enterprises that provide models of how to meet the needs of the community and the city and at the same time teach young people the importance of skills, process and respect for Nature. All over the city churches are surrounded by vacant and unused land. If Detroiters, and especially young Detroiters, could see this land being used by churches for organic gardens to supply produce for local needs or to plant Christmas trees for sale at Yuletide or greenhouses where vegetables are grown year round, the idea of a self-reliant living economy to meet the material and spiritual needs of people could come alive.10 ~ Grace Lee Boggs, #NFDB
1311:Women are brought up to conform: all the rules of femininity—dress, behavior, attitude—essentially break the spirit. Women are trained to need men, not sexually but metaphysically. Women are brought up to be the void that needs filling, the absence that needs presence. Women are brought up to fear men and to know that they must please men and to understand that they cannot survive without the help of men richer and stronger than they can be themselves, on their own. Women are brought up to submit to intercourse—and here the strategy is shrewd—by being kept ignorant of it. The rules are taught, but the act is hidden. Girls are taught “love, ” not “fuck. ” Little girls look between their legs to see if “the hole” is there, get scared thinking about what “the hole” is for; no one tells them either. Women use their bodies to attract men; and most women, like the little girls they were, are astonished by the brutality of the fuck. The importance of this ignorance about intercourse cannot be overstated: it is as if no girl would grow up, or accept the hundred million lessons on how to be a girl, or want boys to like her, if she knew what she was for. ~ Andrea Dworkin, #NFDB
1312:One thing he would tell me, though, he said, had to do with babies. Not that he was any kind of expert, but for a brief while, long ago, he had cared for his son, and that experience more than any other had taught him the importance of following your instincts. Tuning in to the situation with all your five senses, and your body, not your brain. A baby cries in the night, and you go to pick him up. Maybe he’s screaming so hard his face is the color of a radish, or he’s gasping for breath, he’s got himself so worked up. What are you going to do, take a book off the shelf, and read what some expert has to say?
You lay your hand against his skin and just rub his back. Blow into his ear. Press that baby up against your own skin and walk outside with him, where the night air will surround him, and moonlight fall on his face. Whistle, maybe. Dance. Hum. Pray.
Sometimes a cool breeze might be just what the doctor ordered. Sometimes a warm hand on the belly. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing is the best. You have to pay attention. Slow things way down. Tune out the rest of the world that really doesn’t matter. Feel what the moment calls for. ~ Joyce Maynard,#NFDB
1313:Maybe (Taoist story)
A classic ancient story illustrates the importance of equanimity and emotional resilience beautifully. Once upon a time, there was a wise old farmer who had worked on the land for over 40 years. One morning, while walking to his stable, he noticed that his horse had run away. His neighbours came to visit and sympathetically said to the farmer, “Such bad luck”.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following morning, however, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “Such good luck,” the neighbours exclaimed.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following afternoon, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses and was thrown off, causing him to break his leg. The neighbours came to visit and tried to show sympathy and said to the farmer, “how unfortunate”.
“Maybe,” answered the farmer. The following morning military officials came to the farmer’s village to draft young men into the army to fight in a new war. Observing that the farmer’s son’s leg was broken, they did not draft him into the war.
The neighbours congratulated him on his good luck and the farmer calmly replied, “Maybe”. ~ Christopher Dines,#NFDB
1314:no matter how intensely we desire certainty, we should understand that whether because of our limits or randomness or future unknowable confluences of events, something will inevitably come, unbidden, through that door. Some of it will be uplifting and inspiring, and some of it will be disastrous. We all know people who eagerly face the unknown; they engage with the seemingly intractable problems of science, engineering, and society; they embrace the complexities of visual or written expression; they are invigorated by uncertainty. That’s because they believe that, through questioning, they can do more than merely look through the door. They can venture across its threshold. There are others who venture into the unknown with surprising success but with little understanding of what they have done. Believing in their cleverness, they revel in their brilliance, telling others about the importance of taking risks. But having stumbled into greatness once, they are not eager for another trip into the unknown. That’s because success makes them warier than ever of failure, so they retreat, content to repeat what they have done before. They stay on the side of the known. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
1315:It it is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and incompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ.... ...Theologically this country is at present is in a state of utter chaos established in the name of religious toleration and rapidly degenerating into flight from reason and the death of hope. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
1316:I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is well adapted to our weakness as our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1317:If we want to
We will become a people, if we want to, when we learn that we are not angels, and that evil is not the prerogative of others
We will become a people when we stop reciting a prayer of thanksgiving to the sacred nation every time a poor man finds something to eat for his dinner
We will become a people when we can sniff out the sultan’s gatekeeper and the sultan without a trial
We will become a people when a poet writes an erotic description of a dancer’s belly
We will become a people when we forget what the tribe tells us, when the individual recognizes the importance of small details
We will become a people when a writer can look up at the stars without saying: ‘Our country is loftier and more beautiful!’
We will become a people when the morality police protect a prostitute from being beaten up in the streets
We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba
We will become a people, if we want to, when the singer is allowed to chant a verse of Surat al-Rahman at a mixed wedding reception
We will become a people when we respect the right, and the wrong. ~ Mahmoud Darwish,#NFDB
1318:The evidence continues to accumulate that not only are dogs sensitive to where humans’ attention is directed, but dogs are also sensitive to the social context. They know when it is appropriate to attend to their human’s attention and when it is not. This means that dogs have more than a theory of behavior. They have a theory of mind. In humans, theory of mind, or ToM, means that we can imagine what another person might be thinking. Reflecting the importance of humans’ social lives, most of our large frontal lobes seem to be concerned with this function. We spend huge amounts of mental energy navigating the complex social structure of human society. Knowing how to read people and how to behave in distinct social settings is the difference between success and failure. And at the extreme, autism may represent a failure of the ToM system in the brain. If dogs have ToM abilities, they are probably simpler than ours. The small frontal lobes in the dogs’ brains are clear evidence of that. But even if dogs have only a rudimentary ToM, that would mean dogs are not just Pavlovian stimulus-response machines. It would mean that dogs might have about the same level of consciousness as a young child. ~ Gregory Berns, #NFDB
1319:In fact, the Nazis did not have a euthanasia program, in the proper sense of the word. Their so-called euthanasia program was not motivated by concern for the suffering of those killed. If it had been, they would not have kept their operations secret, deceived relatives about the cause of death of those killed, or exempted from the program certain privileged classes, such as veterans of the armed services or relatives of the euthanasia staff. Nazi ‘euthanasia’ was never voluntary and often was involuntary rather than nonvoluntary. ‘Doing away with useless mouths’ – a phrase used by those in charge – gives a better idea of the objectives of the program than ‘mercy-killing’. Both racial origin and ability to work were among the factors considered in the selection of patients to be killed. It was the Nazi belief in the importance of maintaining a pure Aryan Volk – a quasi-mystical racist concept that was thought of as more important than mere individuals’ lives – that made both the so-called euthanasia program and later the entire holocaust possible. Proposals for the legalization of euthanasia, on the other hand, are based on respect for autonomy and the goal of avoiding pointless suffering. ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
1320:The questions about frontiers, about material affairs didn't interest us very much. Living ceaselessly face to face with death, we came to understand to an intense degree the importance of spiritual forces. The front held only because at the front there were souls, souls which believed, which burned with ardor, which radiated strength. Our victories were won not only with weapons, but with virtues.
The problems of the post-war period would be identical. Economic victories would not be enough. Political reorganizations would not be enough. A great moral redemption would be necessary, which would cleanse away the blemishes of our time, which would restore our souls with the fresh air of passion and of unconditional service.
National revolution, yes. Social revolution, yes. European revolution, yes. But above all else a spiritual revolution a thousand times more necessary than external order, than external justice, than fraternity in words alone.
The world emerging from the killing and the hatred of the war would need, first, pure hearts, believing in their mission, dedicating themselves to it, pure hearts in whom the masses could believe and to whom they could devote themselves. ~ Leon Degrelle,#NFDB
1321:the modern era, Genesis has been an important baleground as communities have worked to live out ancient faiths in a modern world. For example, much discussion of Genesis, at least among Christians in the West, has focused on whether the stories of Genesis are historically true. Astronomers, biologists, and other scientists have offered accounts of the origins of the cosmos and humanity different from those in Gen 1–2. Some believers, however, insist on the importance of affirming the historical accuracy of every part of Genesis, and have come to see such belief as a defining characteristic of what it means to be truly faithful. This definition is relatively new: the historicity of Genesis was not a significant concern prior to the rise of modern science and the historical method; in fact, in premodern times, the stories of Genesis were oen read metaphorically or allegorically. Moreover, many would argue that an ancient document such as Genesis is not ideally treated as scientific treatise or a modern-style historical source. Instead, its rich store of narratives offer nonscientific, narrative, and poetic perspectives on values and the meaning of the cosmos that pertain to other dimensions of human life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1322:In 2010, the Priesthood quorums and Relief Society used the same manual (Gospel Principles)… Most lessons consist of a few pages of exposition on various themes… studded with scriptural citations and quotations from leaders of the church. These are followed by points of discussion like “Think about what you can do to keep the purpose of the Sabbath in mind as you prepare for the day each week.” Gospel Principles instructs teachers not to substitute outside materials, however interesting they may be. In practice this ensures that a common set of ideas are taught in all Mormon chapels every Sunday. That these ideas are the basic principles of the faith mean that Mormon Sunday schools and other church lessons function quite intentionally as devotional exercises rather than instruction in new concepts. The curriculum encourages teachers to ask questions that encourage catechistic reaffirmation of core beliefs. Further, lessons focus to a great extent on the importance of basic practices like prayer, paying tithing, and reading scripture rather than on doctrinal content… Correlated materials are designed not to promote theological reflection, but to produce Mormons dedicated to living the tenants of their faith. ~ Matthew Bowman, #NFDB
1323:In the present situation of the overt Russian Orthodox Church in the U.S.S.R., which has the bishops and patriarchs and metropolitans, the leadership has to make concessions to the Soviet government. On the other hand, through making those concessions, certain churches in Moscow and Leningrad and Kiev remain open. Beautiful services are made available, the very beautiful words of the Gospels are read aloud. In these matters you have to weigh the relative advantages and disadvantages. You can't take a definitive position about it. The solace of those services is so great, the importance of those words being kept alive and in circulation is so important, that the sacrifices, the compromises that are made must be accepted. But it's a very difficult equation to work out. It's the equation with which our Lord himself left us, that we must render unto God the things that are God's and unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. He neglected to tell us what proportion we owed, so that of course people like myself can hope to get by with offering Caesar very little. [...] The cleverness of that reply was of course that it didn't specify exactly how much was due to Caesar and how much to God. He left us to work out. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge, #NFDB
1324:On the other hand, it is God the Son who performs the commands of the Father.When God the Father said, “Let there be light,” God the Son came and performed it.Then, God the Holy Spirit brought the light. Let me illustrate it this way. If I asked you, “Please turn on the light,” three forces would be involved. First, I would be the one who gave the command. Second, you would be the one who walks to the switch and flips it. In other words, you are the performer of the command. But finally, who brings on the light? It is not me, and it is not you. It is the power—the electricity—that produces light. The Holy Spirit is the power of God. He is the power of the Father and of the Son. He is the one who brings into action the performance of the Son. Yet He is a person. He has emotions which are expressed in a way unique among the Trinity. I’ve been asked,“Benny, aren’t you forgetting the importance of Christ in all of this?” Never! How could I forget the One who loved and died for me? But some people are so focused on the Son that they forget the Father—the one who loved them and sent His Son. I cannot forget the Father nor the Son. But I cannot be in touch with the Father and the Son without the Holy Spirit (see Eph. 2:18). ~ Benny Hinn, #NFDB
1325:Catherine had to treat the church hierarchy carefully. She had always exercised a rational flexibility in matters of religious dogma and policy. Brought up in an atmosphere of strict Lutheranism, she had as a child expressed enough skepticism about religion to worry her deeply conventional father. As a fourteen-year-old in Russia, she had been required to change her religion to Orthodoxy. In public, she scrupulously observed all forms of this faith, attending church services, observing religious holidays, and making pilgrimages. Throughout her reign, she never underestimated the importance of religion. She knew that the name of the autocrat and the power of the throne were embodied in the daily prayers of the faithful, and that the views of the clergy and the piety of the masses were a power to be reckoned with. She understood that the sovereign, whatever his or her private views of religion, must find a way to make this work. When Voltaire was asked how he, who denied God, could take Holy Communion, he replied that he “breakfasted according to the custom of the country.” Having observed the disastrous effect of her husband’s contemptuous public rejection of the Orthodox Church, Catherine chose to emulate Voltaire. ~ Robert K Massie, #NFDB
1326:As to sociology and anthropology, it is manifest that the importance of information and communication as mechanisms of organization proceeds beyond the individual into the community. On the other hand, it is completely impossible to understand social communities such as those of ants without a thorough investigation of their means of communication, and we were fortunate enough to have the aid of Dr. Schneirla in this matter. For the similar problems of human organization, we sought help from the anthropologists Drs. Bateson and Margaret Mead; while Dr. Morgenstern of the Institute for Advanced Study was our adviser in the significant field of social organization belong to economic theory. His very important joint book on games with Dr. von Neumann, by the way, represents a most interesting study of social organization from the point of view of methods closely related to, although distinct from, the subject matter of cybernetics. Dr. Lewin and others represented the newer work on the theory of opinion sampling and the practice of opinion making, and Dr. F. C. S. Northrup was interested in assaying the philosophical significance of our work. ~ Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics - Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948), #NFDB
1327:I also see courage in myself when I'm willing to risk being vulnerable and disappointed. For many years, if I really wanted something to happen-an invitation to speak at a special conference, a promotion, a radio interview-I pretended that it didn't matter that much. If a friend or colleague would ask, "Are you excited about that television interview?" I'd shrug it off and say, "I'm not sure. It's not that big of a deal." Of course, in reality, I was praying that it would happen.
It's only in the last few years that I've learned that playing down the exciting stuff doesn't' take the pain away when it doesn't happen. It also creates a lot of isolation. Once you've diminished the importance of something, your friends are not likely to call and say, "I'm sorry that didn't work out. I know you were excited about it."
Now when someone asks me about the potential opportunity that I'm excited about, I'm more likely to practice courage and say, "I'm so excited about the possibility. I'm trying to stay realistic, but I really hope it happens." When things haven't panned out, it's been comforting to be able to call a supportive friend and say, "Remember that event I told you about? It's not going to happen, and I'm so bummed. ~ Bren Brown,#NFDB
1328:Muslim acknowledgement of the positive aspects of female sexuality has historically coexisted with two views that challenge it in different ways. First, certain elements of the classical Muslim tradition treat female sexuality as dangerous, with potentially disruptive and chaotic effects on society. Historians have demonstrated how anxieties about temptation and female sexuality translated into insistence (never fully achieved in reality) on restricting the appearance of women in public spaces. Muslim worry over fitna – chaos and disorder – has often focused on the sexual temptation caused both by women’s unregulated desires and the troublesome desire that women provoke in men. Second, and in a paradoxical relationship to this view of women as sexually insatiable and thus prone to create social chaos, Muslim authorities have stressed the importance of the fulfillment of male sexual needs, especially in the context of marriage. Drawing particularly on several hadith delineating dire consequences for women who refuse their husbands’ sexual overtures, the insistence on men’s sexual needs and wives’ responsibility to fulfill them has competed for prominence in modern intra-Muslim discourses on sex with the recognition of female sexual needs. ~ Kecia Ali, #NFDB
1329:My prolonged study of these photographs led me to appreciate the importance of preserving certain moments for prosperity, and as time moved forwards I also came to see what a powerful influence these framed scenes exerted over us as we went about our daily lives.
To watch my uncle pose my brother a maths problem, and at the same time to see him in a picture taken thirty-two years earlier; to watch my father scanning the newspaper and trying, with a half-smile, to catch the tail of a joke rippling across the crowded room, and at that very same moment to see a picture of him to me that my grandmother had framed and frozen these memories so that we could weave them into the present.When, in the tones ordinarily preserved for discussing the founding of a nation, my grandmother spoke of my grandfather who had died so young, and pointed at the frames on the tables and the walls, it seemed that she, like me, was pulled in two direction , wanting to get on with life but also longing to capture the moment of perfection, savouring the ordinary life but still honouring the ideal. But even as I pondered these dilemmas-if you plucked a special moment from life and framed it, were you defying death, decay and the passage of time, or were you submitting to them? - I grew very bored with them. ~ Orhan Pamuk,#NFDB
1330:The age of territory was driven by acquisition. Leaders of nations sought to increase their nation’s power by gaining territory—mostly through force. Accumulated military prowess by one drove would-be victims to arm. War was thus inevitable. Lost lives and wasted resources were its currency. And always, one side’s gain was the other’s loss. Today, the importance of land as the primary source of human livelihood has diminished, giving way to science instead. Unlike territory, science has no borders or flags. Science can’t be conquered by tanks or defended by fighter jets. It has no limitations. A nation can increase its scientific achievement without taking anything from somebody else. In fact, great scientific achievement by one nation lifts the fortunes of all nations. It is the first time in history that we can win, without making anyone lose. In the age of science, the traditional power of states and leaders is declining. Rather than politicians, it is innovators that drive the global economy and wield the most influence. The young leaders who created Facebook and Google have sparked a revolution without killing one person. The globalized economy affects every state, yet no single state is powerful enough to determine outcomes. We are participating in the birth of a new world. ~ Shimon Peres, #NFDB
1331:What gets in the way of living with vitality," Tejpal asked.
Everything, I thought to myself.
"Wounds," Tejpal said. She talked about the importance of forgiveness, and how the most important step in forgiveness is to allow yourself to feel the pain of the hurt you received. Only then would the pain begin to heal.
Suddenly, Dracula leaned forward and spoke up. Even though this wasn't really a situation where you were supposed to speak without being called on. "That's not true," she blurted out angrily, her Long Island accent pulling all her vowels downward. "There are some things people do that hurt you forever and that cause scars that will never heal. Just 'cause you think about them doesn't mean they're going away."
All the women in the room turned around to stare at this angry person. This was supposed to be a touchy-feely, self-discovery happy place where Tejpal was in charge. You are not supposed to attack Tejpal. I sensed that people thought she was crazy and normally I would find her as annoying for not getting it as everyone else was, but instead I felt a wave of deep compassion. It was the first time during my visit to Miraval that I felt attuned to how deeply, painfully exposed people can allow themselves to be when there's even a sliver of permission to be honest. ~ Jessi Klein,#NFDB
1332:Gradually, however, subjectivism invaded men's feelings as well as their doctrines. Science was no longer cultivated, and only virtue was thought important. Virtue, as conceived by Plato, involved all that was then possible in the way of mental achievement; but in later centuries it came to be thought of, increasingly, as involving only the virtuous will, and not a desire to understand the physical world or improve the world of human institutions. Christianity, in its ethical doctrines, was not free from this defect, although in practice belief in the importance of spreading the Christian faith gave a practicable object for moral activity, which was no longer confined to the perfecting of self. Plotinus is both an end and a beginning--an end as regards the Greeks, a beginning as regards Christendom. To the ancient world, weary with centuries of disappointment, exhausted by despair, his doctrine might be acceptable, but could not be stimulating. To the cruder barbarian world, where superabundant energy needed to be restrained and regulated rather than stimulated, what could penetrate in his teaching was beneficial, since the evil to be combated was not languor but brutality. The work of transmitting what could survive of his philosophy was performed by the Christian philosophers of the last ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1333:The concept of internal selection, of a hierarchy of controls which eliminate the consequences of harmful gene-mutations and co-ordinates the effects of useful mutations, is the missing link in orthodoxy theory between the 'atoms' of heredity and the living stream of evolution. Without that link, neither of them makes sense. There can be no doubt that random mutations do occur: they can be observed in the laboratory. There can be no doubt that Darwinian selection is a powerful force. But in between these two events, between the chemical changes in a gene and the appearance of the finished product as a newcomer on the evolutionary stage, there is a whole hierarchy of internal processes at work which impose strict limitations on the range of possible mutations and thus considerably reduce the importance of the chance factor. We might say that the monkey works at a typewriter which the manufacturers have programmed to print only syllables which exist in our language, but not nonsense syllables. If a nonsense syllable occurs, the machine will automatically erase it. To pursue the metaphor, we would have to populate the higher levels of the hierarchy with proof-readers and then editors, whose task is no longer elimination, but correction, self-repair and co-ordination-as in the example of the mutated eye. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
1334:In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even in our own lives.
An honourable human relationship—that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love”—is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.
[…]
It isn’t that to have an honourable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you.
It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.
The possibility of life between us. ~ Adrienne Rich,#NFDB
1335:If we are part of nature, then we are synonymous with it at the metaphysical level, every bit as much as the first all-but-inorganic animalcules that ever formed a chain of themselves in the blow hole of a primordial sea vent. There is no magic rod that comes down three hundred thousand years ago and divides our essence from the material world that produced us. This means that we cannot speak in essential terms of nature—neither of its brutality nor of its beauty—and hope to say anything true, if what we say isn’t true of ourselves.
The importance of that proposition becomes clear only when it’s reversed: What’s true of us is true of nature. If we are conscious, as our species seems to have become, then nature is conscious. Nature became conscious in us, perhaps in order to observe itself. It may be holding us out and turning us around like a crab does its eyeball. Whatever the reason, that thing out there, with the black holes and the nebulae and whatnot, is conscious. One cannot look in the mirror and rationally deny this. It experiences love and desire, or thinks it does. The idea is enough to render the Judeo-Christian cosmos sort of quaint. As far as Rafinesque was concerned, it was just hard science. That part is mysterious. “She lives her life not as men or birds,” said Rafinesque, “but as a world. ~ John Jeremiah Sullivan,#NFDB
1336:He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser. (Nietzsche.)
A vain person is always vain about something. He overestimates the importance of some quality or exaggerates the degree to which he possesses it, but the quality has some real importance and he does possess it to some degree. The fantasy of overestimation or exaggeration makes the vain person comic, but the fact that he cannot be vain about nothing makes his vanity a venial sin, because it is always open to correction by appeal to objective fact.
A proud person, on the other hand, is not proud of anything, he is proud, he exists proudly. Pride is neither comic nor venial, but the most mortal of all sins because, lacking any basis in concrete particulars, it is both incorrigible and absolute: one cannot be more or less proud, only proud or humble.
Thus, if a painter tries to portray the Seven Deadly Sins, his experience will furnish him readily enough with images symbolic of Gluttony, Lust, Sloth, Anger, Avarice, and Envy, for all these are qualities of a person’s relations to others and the world, but no experience can provide an image of Pride, for the relation it qualifies is the subjective relation of a person to himself. In the seventh frame, therefore, the painter can only place, in lieu of a canvas, a mirror. ~ W H Auden,#NFDB
1337:[Beware of] the fallacy of misplaced concreteness [mistaking an abstraction for concrete reality, for actuality]
In the inescapable flux, there is something that abides; in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that escapes into flux. Permanence can be snatched only out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence.
Error is the price we pay for progress.
In the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest.
Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact. It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively. It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity.
The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, "Seek simplicity and distrust it."
It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
[From various of Whitehead's books, not only PR] ~ Alfred North Whitehead,#NFDB
1338:My climb took so long that I spent literally only a few minutes on the top. Thunderstorms were brewing all around me, so I made a quick exit to the nearest tree line. (In the opposite direction, I might add, of the trailhead and my car!) While on the ridge, I made a critical decision that I’m sure helped me not only survive the climb but also reach the summit. I decided to rest. On a long, hard climb, sometimes the most important time on the mountain is the time you spend not doing anything. Those brief minutes of rest give your body the necessary breathing time to catch up with your exertion level; they give you time to take in some much-needed food and water; and they allow you to enjoy the view, mark your progress, and remember why you started up the mountain in the first place. Rest on a long, difficult journey is vital. That’s why I believe that one of the most important statements Jesus ever made was about rest. To a group of road-weary spiritual seekers, Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28–30). Have you ever heard more beautiful or inviting words? Against the backdrop of a culture that stressed the importance of ~ Will Davis Jr, #NFDB
1339:HEART ACTION
Plan a tea party to gather together some old or new friends. Even having just one person over for a cup of tea and good conversation will create a time of hospitality and connection. Make it simple so that you enjoy it and can focus on sharing your heart with your guests.
A TEA PARTY HAS ITS OWN MANNERS
Serving tea is a wonderful excuse for sharpening etiquette around the table. Mothers can use this time to teach their young daughters about the importance of learning and practicing good manners.
• The server of teas and all liquids will serve from the right. The person being served will hold their cups in the left hand. You may adjust this if the person receiving is left-handed.
• To prevent from getting lipstick on your teacup, blot your lipstick before you sit down at the serving table.
• Scones and crumpets should be eaten in small bite-sized pieces. If butter, jam, or cream is used, add them to each piece as it is eaten.
• Good manners will dictate proper conversation. The goodies are theatre, museums, fine arts, music, movies, literature, and travel. The baddies are politics, religion, aches and pains, deaths, and negative discussion. Keep the conversation upbeat.
• A knife and fork are usually used with open-faced sandwiches and cakes with icing.
• Milk or cream is always added after the tea is poured. ~ Emilie Barnes,#NFDB
1340:Misha’s and my mission to spend a year on ISS is unprecedented. A normal mission to the space station lasts five to six months, so scientists have a good deal of data about what happens to the human body in space for that length of time. But very little is known about what happens after month six. The symptoms might get precipitously worse in the ninth month, for instance, or they might level off. We don’t know, and there is only one way to find out. Misha and I will collect various types of data for studies on ourselves, which will take a significant amount of our time. Because Mark and I are identical twins, I’m also taking part in an extensive study comparing the two of us throughout the year, down to the genetic level. The International Space Station is a world-class orbiting laboratory, and in addition to the human studies of which I am one of the main subjects, I will also spend a lot of my time this year working on other experiments, like fluid physics, botany, combustion, and Earth observation. When I talk about the International Space Station to audiences, I always share with them the importance of the science being done there. But to me, it’s just as important that the station is serving as a foothold for our species in space. From there, we can learn more about how to push out farther into the cosmos. The costs are high, as are the risks. ~ Scott Kelly, #NFDB
1341:It was good to be gay on Top of the Pops years before it was good to be gay in Parliament, or gay in church, or gay on the rugby pitch. And it’s not just gay progress that happens in this way: 24 had a black president before America did. Jane Eyre was a feminist before Germaine Greer was born. A Trip to the Moon put humans on the Moon in 1902.
This is why recent debates about the importance of the arts contain, at core, an unhappy error of judgment. In both the arts cuts—29 percent of the Arts Council’s funding has now gone—and the presumption that the new, “slimmed down” National Curriculum will “squeeze out” art, drama and music, there lies a subconscious belief that the arts are some kind of . . . social luxury: the national equivalent of buying some overpriced throw pillows and big candle from John Lewis. Policing and defense, of course, remain very much “essentials”—the fridge and duvets in our country’s putative semi-detached house.
But art—painting, poetry, film, TV, music, books, magazines—is a world that runs constant and parallel to ours, where we imagine different futures—millions of them—and try them out for size. Fantasy characters can kiss, and we, as a nation, can all work out how we feel about it, without having to involve real shy teenage lesbians in awful sweaters, to the benefit of everyone’s notion of civility. ~ Caitlin Moran,#NFDB
1342:The importance of Saudi Arabia in the rise and return of al-Qaeda is often misunderstood and understated. Saudi Arabia is influential because its oil and vast wealth make it powerful in the Middle East and beyond. But it is not financial resources alone that make it such an important player. Another factor is its propagating of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist, eighteenth-century version of Islam that imposes sharia law, relegates women to the status of second-class citizens, and regards Shia and Sufi Muslims as non-Muslims to be persecuted along with Christians and Jews. This religious intolerance and political authoritarianism, which in its readiness to use violence has many similarities with European fascism in the 1930s, is getting worse rather than better. For example, in recent years, a Saudi who set up a liberal website on which clerics could be criticized was sentenced to a thousand lashes and seven years in prison. The ideology of al-Qaeda and ISIS draws a great deal from Wahhabism. Critics of this new trend in Islam from elsewhere in the Muslim world do not survive long; they are forced to flee or are murdered. Denouncing jihadi leaders in Kabul in 2003, an Afghan editor described them as “holy fascists” who were misusing Islam as “an instrument to take over power.” Unsurprisingly, he was accused of insulting Islam and had to leave the country. ~ Patrick Cockburn, #NFDB
1343:Factfulness is … recognizing that a single perspective can limit your imagination, and remembering that it is better to look at problems from many angles to get a more accurate understanding and find practical solutions. To control the single perspective instinct, get a toolbox, not a hammer. • Test your ideas. Don’t only collect examples that show how excellent your favorite ideas are. Have people who disagree with you test your ideas and find their weaknesses. • Limited expertise. Don’t claim expertise beyond your field: be humble about what you don’t know. Be aware too of the limits of the expertise of others. • Hammers and nails. If you are good with a tool, you may want to use it too often. If you have analyzed a problem in depth, you can end up exaggerating the importance of that problem or of your solution. Remember that no one tool is good for everything. If your favorite idea is a hammer, look for colleagues with screwdrivers, wrenches, and tape measures. Be open to ideas from other fields. • Numbers, but not only numbers. The world cannot be understood without numbers, and it cannot be understood with numbers alone. Love numbers for what they tell you about real lives. • Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions. History is full of visionaries who used simple utopian visions to justify terrible actions. Welcome complexity. Combine ideas. Compromise. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
1344:the cross itself, the very foundation of all of redemption, is first and foremost the result of the love of the Father for the Son and the love of the Son for the Father. The former guarantees that all will honor the Son; the latter guarantees that the Son perfectly obeys his heavenly Father. Jesus came to complete the work that his Father gave him to do (17:4). We so often think that the ultimate motivation behind the cross is God's love for us. I do not want to downplay the importance of that love; indeed, I shall return to it in a minute. But we must see that in John's Gospel the motivating power behind the entire plan of redemption was the Father's love for his Son and the Son's love for his Father. When Jesus found himself in an agony in Gethsemane, he did not finally resolve to go through with the plan of redemption by saying, "This is awful, but I love those sinners so much I'll go to the cross for them" (though in a sense he might have said that), but "Not my will but yours be done." In other words, the dominating motive that drove him onward to perfect obedience was his resolution, out of love for his Father, to be at one with the Father's will. Though we poor sinners are the unfathomably rich beneficiaries of God's plan of redemption, we are not at the center of everything. At the center was the love of the Father for the Son and the love of the Son for the Father. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1345:I treasure ruefully some memories of W.H. Auden that go back to the middle 1960s, when he arrived in New Haven to give a reading of his poems at Ezra Stiles College. We had met several times before, in New York City and at Yale, but were only acquaintances. The earlier Auden retains my interest, but much of the frequently devotional poetry does not find me. Since our mutual friend John Hollander was abroad, Auden phoned to ask if he might stay with my wife and me, remarking of his dislike of college guest suites.
The poet arrived in a frayed, buttonless overcoat, which my wife insisted on mending. His luggage was an attache case containing a large bottle of gin, a small one of vermouth, a plastic drinking cup, and a sheaf of poems. After being supplied with ice, he requested that I remind him of the amount of his reading fee. A thousand dollars had been the agreed sum, a respectable honorarium more than forty years ago. He shook his head and said that as a prima donna he could not perform, despite the prior arrangement. Charmed by this, I phoned the college master - a good friend - who cursed heartily but doubled the sum when I assured him that the poet was as obdurate as Lady Bracknell in 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. Informed of this yielding, Auden smiled sweetly and was benign and brilliant at dinner, then at the reading, and as he went to bed after we got home. ~ Harold Bloom,#NFDB
1346:Know What You Believe What are your values today with regard to your work and your career? Do you believe in the values of integrity, hard work, dependability, creativity, cooperation, initiative, ambition, and getting along well with people? People who live these values in their work are vastly more successful and more highly esteemed than people who do not. What are your values with regard to your family? Do you believe in the importance of unconditional love, continuous encouragement and reinforcement, patience, forgiveness, generosity, warmth, and attentiveness? People who practice these values consistently with the important people in their lives are much happier than people who do not. What are your values with regard to money and financial success? Do you believe in the importance of honesty, industry, thrift, frugality, education, excellent performance, quality, and persistence? People who practice these values are far more successful in their financial lives than those who do not, and they achieve their financial goals far faster as well. What about your health? Do you believe in the importance of self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-control with regard to diet, exercise, and rest? Do you set high standards for health and fitness and then work every day to live up to those standards? People who practice these values live longer, healthier lives than people who do not. ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
1347:Most people in Europe in 1950 held views that seventy years later would be regarded as anathema. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (arising from their catastrophic breach during the Second World War) had been adopted by the United Nations as recently as December 1948, but there was little popular understanding of what it meant in practice. Racist views and blatant racial discrimination were widely accepted and scarcely seen as remarkable. Few people of skin colours other than white lived in European countries. Capital punishment was still in existence, and executions were routinely carried out for people found guilty of the worst crimes. Homosexuality remained a criminal offence. Abortion was illegal. The influence of the Christian churches was profound, and attendance at church services still relatively high. By the time post-war children approached old age, human rights were taken for granted (however imperfect the practice), holding racist views was among the worst of social stigmas (though less so in Eastern and Southern than in Western Europe), multicultural societies were the norm, capital punishment had disappeared from Europe, gay marriage and legal abortion were widely accepted, and the role of the Christian churches had diminished greatly (though the spread of mosques, a feature of modern European cities almost wholly unknown in 1950, testified to the importance of religion among Muslim minorities). ~ Ian Kershaw, #NFDB
1348:In a similar study conducted at Yale University, undergraduate participants were offered the opportunity to use the same kind of casuistry to maintain the occupational status quo. The students evaluated one of two applicants (Michael or Michelle) for the position of police chief. One applicant was streetwise, a tough risk-taker, popular with other officers, but poorly educated. By contrast, the educated applicant was well schooled, media savvy, and family oriented, but lacked street experience and was less popular with the other officers. The undergraduate participants judged the job applicant on various streetwise and education criteria, and then rated the importance of each criterion for success as a police chief. Participants who rated Michael inflated the importance of being an educated, media-savvy family man when these were qualities Michael possessed, but devalued these qualities when he happened to lack them. No such helpful shifting of criteria took place for Michelle. As a consequence, regardless of whether he was streetwise or educated, the demands of the social world were shaped to ensure that Michael had more of what it took to be a successful police chief. As the authors put it, participants may have ‘felt that they had chosen the right man for the job, when in fact they had chosen the right job criteria for the man.’21 Ironically, the people who were most convinced of their own objectivity discriminated the most. ~ Cordelia Fine, #NFDB
1349:What is the mystery of your opening lines? The first time I read the start of one of your books, it took my breath away. Is it a special element in your writing, something you pay particular attention to? Or do those first sentences write themselves?
Ferrante: I generally need a beginning that gives me the impression of being on the right path. It rarely comes right away, but it happens. Mostly I work and rework for a long time. Sometimes, after several attempts, I may seem to have found the beginning that's useful to me, and I go on. But then I realize that it has led me astray, that I'm struggling. What decides if a beginning is good or not is the energy with which the story starts to flow.
Joos: The Irish writer Anne Enright once told me that the first page is of primary importance. "Read all the classics," she said, "it's all there, right from the start." Do you agree with her? In what sense (or not)? Can the importance of that first sentence be paralyzing for you?
Ferrante: I don't know if everything is in the beginning. Of course, I look for first words as a magic formula that can open the only true door to the story. Often the first sentences are found at the end of a long journey of writing. Then I have to have the strength to throw away everything except those few words, and start again from there. Otherwise readers will have the impression that the truth and the power of the story are coming in too late. ~ Elena Ferrante,#NFDB
1350:In terms of "quiet" bourgeois democracy two fundamental possibilities are open to the industrial worker: identification with the bourgeoisie, which holds a higher position in the social scale, or identification with his own social class, which produces its own anti-reactionary way of life. To pursue the first possibility means to envy the reactionary man, to imitate him, and, if the opportunity arises, to assimilate his habits of life. To pursue the second of these possibilities means to reject the reactionary man's ideologies and habits of life. Due to the simultaneous influence exercised by both social and class habits, these two possibilities are equally strong. The revolutionary movement also failed to appreciate the importance of the seemingly irrelevant everyday habits, indeed, very often turned them to bad account. The lower middle-class bedroom suite, which the "rabble" buys as soon as he has the means, even if he is otherwise revolutionary minded; the consequent suppression of the wife, even if he is a Communist; the "decent" suit of clothes for Sunday; "proper" dance steps and a thousand other "banalities," have an incomparably greater reactionary influence when repeated day after day than thousands of revolutionary rallies and leaflets can ever hope to counterbalance. Narrow conservative life exercises a continuous influence, penetrates every facet of everyday life; whereas factory work and revolutionary leaflets have only a brief effect. ~ Wilhelm Reich, #NFDB
1351:...In 2008, when the United States recognized Kosovo´s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, [Vladimir] Putin was furious; the UN had promised to respect Serbia´s sovereign integrity. Putin argued that the US decision oi disregard what Russia saw as Serbia´s threatened to ¨blow apart the whole system of international relations."The United States and other states opting to recognize Kosovar independence, should understand that their decision was ¨a two-sided stick,¨ warned Putin, ¨and the second end will come back and hit them in the face.¨
That particular two-sided stick has already been deployed by the Russians in the context of Ukraine and Crimea, where Putin greeted US protestations about the importance of respecting Ukrainian sovereignty with little more than a cynical smirk. In Syria too, Putin has highlighted inconsistencies in US actions and legal arguments: if the United States can use military force inside Syria without the consent of the Syrian government, why should Russia be condemned for using force inside Ukraine?
The legal precedents we are setting risk undermining the fragile norms of sovereignty and human rights that help keep our world stable. We should ask ourselves this: Do we want to live in a world in which every state considers itself to have a legal right to kill people in other states, secretly and with no public disclosure or due process, based on its own unilateral assertions of national security prerogatives? ~ Rosa Brooks,#NFDB
1352:Years ago, a Muslim woman called my radio show and asked me why I was not a Muslim. She asked this question with complete sincerity, and I answered her with equal sincerity.
The name of her religion, I told her, is Islam, which in Arabic means submission (to God). The name of the Jewish people is Israel, which in Hebrew means struggle with God. I’d rather struggle with God, I said, than only submit to God.
She thanked me and hung up. The answer apparently satisfied her.
Arguing/struggling with God is not only Jewishly permitted, it is central to the Torah and later Judaism. In this regard, as in others, the Torah is unique. In no other foundational religious text of which I am aware is arguing with God a religious expectation. The very first Jew, Abraham, argues with God, as does the greatest Jew, Moses. (It is worth noting that though Muslims consider Abraham their father as well, arguing with God has no place in the Quran or in normative Islam.)
It is difficult to overstate the importance of this Jewish concept. For one thing, it enabled Jews to believe in the importance of reason — God Himself could be challenged on the basis of reason and morality; one does not have to suspend reason to be a believing Jew. Indeed, it assured Jews that belief in God was itself the apotheosis of reason. For another, it had profound psychological benefits to Jews. We do not have to squelch our questioning of, or even our anger at, God. One can be both religious and real. ~ Dennis Prager,#NFDB
1353:What is education for? And more specifically, what is at stake in a distinctly Christian education? What does the qualifier Christian mean when appended to education? It is usually understood that education is about ideas and information (though it is also too often routinely reduced to credentialing for a career and viewed as a ticket to a job). And so distinctively Christian education is understood to be about Christian ideas--which usually requires a defense of the importance of "the life of the mind." On this account, the goal of a Christian education is the development of a Christian perspective, or more commonly now, a Christian worldview, which is taken to be a system of Christian beliefs, ideas, and doctrines.
But what if this line of thinking gets off on the wrong foot? What if education ... is not primarily about the absorption of ideas and information, but about the formation of hearts and desires? What if we began by appreciating how education not only gets into our head but also (and more fundamentally) grabs us by the gut? What if education was primarily concerned with shaping our hopes and passions - our visions of 'the good life' - and not merely about the dissemination of data and information as inputs to our thinking? What if the primary work of education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect? ...
What if education wasn't first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love? ~ James K A Smith,#NFDB
1354:My conclusion at the time was that finalizing the story before production began was still a worthy goal—we just hadn’t achieved it yet. As we continued to make films, however, I came to believe that my goal was not just impractical but naïve. By insisting on the importance of getting our ducks in a row early, we had come perilously close to embracing a fallacy. Making the process better, easier, and cheaper is an important aspiration, something we continually work on—but it is not the goal. Making something great is the goal. I see this over and over again in other companies: A subversion takes place in which streamlining the process or increasing production supplants the ultimate goal, with each person or group thinking they’re doing the right thing—when, in fact, they have strayed off course. When efficiency or consistency of workflow are not balanced by other equally strong countervailing forces, the result is that new ideas—our ugly babies—aren’t afforded the attention and protection they need to shine and mature. They are abandoned or never conceived of in the first place. Emphasis is placed on doing safer projects that mimic proven money-makers just to keep something—anything!—moving through the pipeline (see The Lion King 1½, a direct-to-video effort that came out in 2004, six years after The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride). This kind of thinking yields predictable, unoriginal fare because it prevents the kind of organic ferment that fuels true inspiration. But it does feed the Beast. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
1355:This was before the importance of set and setting was understood. I was brought to a basement room, given an injection, and left alone.” A recipe for a bad trip, surely, but Richards had precisely the opposite experience. “I felt immersed in this incredibly detailed imagery that looked like Islamic architecture, with Arabic script, about which I knew nothing. And then I somehow became these exquisitely intricate patterns, losing my usual identity. And all I can say is that the eternal brilliance of mystical consciousness manifested itself. My awareness was flooded with love, beauty, and peace beyond anything I ever had known or imagined to be possible. ‘Awe,’ ‘glory,’ and ‘gratitude’ were the only words that remained relevant.” Descriptions of such experiences always sound a little thin, at least when compared with the emotional impact people are trying to convey; for a life-transforming event, the words can seem paltry. When I mentioned this to Richards, he smiled. “You have to imagine a caveman transported into the middle of Manhattan. He sees buses, cell phones, skyscrapers, airplanes. Then zap him back to his cave. What does he say about the experience? ‘It was big, it was impressive, it was loud.’ He doesn’t have the vocabulary for ‘skyscraper,’ ‘elevator,’ ‘cell phone.’ Maybe he has an intuitive sense there was some sort of significance or order to the scene. But there are words we need that don’t yet exist. We’ve got five crayons when we need fifty thousand different shades.” In ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
1356:1 JOHN—NOTE ON 2:15 Do not love the world. Although John often repeats the importance of love and that God is love (4:7–8), he also reveals that God hates a certain type of love: love of the world (John 15:18–20). In this text, John expresses a particular form of the fourth test (i.e., the test of love). Positively, the Christian loves God and fellow Christians. Negatively, an absence of love for the world must habitually characterize the love life of those to be considered genuinely born again. “Love” here signifies affection and devotion. God, not the world, must have the first place in the Christian’s life (Matt. 10:37–39; Phil. 3:20). the world. This is not a reference to the physical, material world but the invisible spiritual system of evil dominated by Satan (see notes on 2 Cor. 10:3–5) and all that it offers in opposition to God, his word, and his people (cf. 1 John 5:19; John 12:31; 1 Cor. 1:21; 2 Cor. 4:4; James 4:4; 2 Pet. 1:4). the love of the Father is not in him. Either one is a genuine Christian marked by love and obedience to God, or one is a non-Christian in rebellion against God, i.e., in love with and enslaved by the satanically controlled world system (Eph. 2:1–3; Col. 1:13; James 4:4). No middle ground between these two alternatives exists for someone claiming to be born again. The false teachers had no such singular love, but were devoted to the world’s philosophy and wisdom, thereby revealing their love for the world and their unsaved state (cf. Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13; 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Pet. 2:12–22). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1357:It was with very great difficulty that Wimsey detached the Colonel’s mind from the events of the Great War and led it back to the subject of razors. Once his attention was captured, however, Colonel Belfridge proved to be a good and reliable witness. He remembered the pair of razors perfectly. Had a lot of trouble with those razors, hr’rm, woof! Razors were not what they had been in his young days. Nothing was, sir, dammit! Steel wouldn’t stand up to the work. What with these damned foreigners and mass-production, our industries were going to the dogs. He remembered, during the Boer War— Wimsey, after a quarter of an hour, mentioned the subject of razors. ‘Ha! yes,’ said the Colonel, smoothing his vast white moustache down and up at the ends with a vast, curving gesture. ‘Ha, hr’rm, yes! The razors, of course. Now, what do you want to know about them?’ ‘Have you still got them, sir?’ ‘No, sir, I have not. I got rid of them, sir. A poor lot they were, too. I told Endicott I was surprised at his stocking such inferior stuff. Wanted re-setting every other week. But it’s the same story with all of ’em. Can’t get a decent blade anywhere nowadays. And we shan’t sir, we shan’t, unless we get a strong Conservative Government—I say, a strong Government, sir, that will have the guts to protect the iron and steel industry. But will they do it? No, damme, sir—they’re afraid of losing their miserable votes. Flapper votes! How can you expect a pack of women to understand the importance of iron and steel? Tell me that, ha, hr’rm! ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
1358:In his final days Bill Bright gave his staff a charge, which ended with these words: “By faith, walk in His light, enjoy His presence, love with His love, and rejoice that you are never alone; He is with you, always to bless!”3 Bill Bright understood that the good life means accepting that our lives ultimately belong to God. He resisted taking sedatives that would have hastened his death. He also talked with Vonette about the importance of yielding to God’s final call. Perhaps as a result of his attitude (and, I have to think, his godliness), his last moments were not the unmitigated horror his doctor had predicted. Right before Bill died, Vonette leaned close and said, “I want you to go to be with Jesus, and Jesus wants you to come to him. Why don’t you let him carry you to heaven?” She looked away, and when she looked back, her husband was no longer breathing. She saw the last pulse in his neck, and with that he was gone. She thought of the psalm “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” and the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi: “For it is in dying, we are born to eternal life.”4 Living the good life means not only living it to the fullest every moment we’re alive but also facing death with equanimity and then dying well. A lot of people have this wrong. They think that you live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment you can, and then when death comes, you simply accept the hard fact. The good time is over. Life is ended. The good life means accepting that our lives ultimately belong to God. ~ Charles W Colson, #NFDB
1359:A Brief Mission Intermission Let’s take a moment to pull together what we’ve learned so far about mission. In the last chapter, I used Pardis Sabeti’s story to emphasize that you need career capital before you can identify a realistic mission for your career. Just because you have a good idea for a mission, however, doesn’t mean that you’ll succeed in its pursuit. With this in mind, in this chapter we studied the life of Kirk French to better understand how you make the leap from identifying a realistic mission to succeeding in making it a reality. Here we discovered the importance of little bets. To maximize your chances of success, you should deploy small, concrete experiments that return concrete feedback. For Chris Rock, such a bet might include telling a joke to an audience and seeing if they laugh, whereas for Kirk, it might mean producing sample footage for a documentary and seeing if it attracts funding. These bets allow you to tentatively explore the specific avenues surrounding your general mission, looking for those with the highest likelihood of leading to outstanding results. If career capital makes it possible to identify a compelling mission, then it’s a strategy of little bets that gives you a good shot of succeeding in this mission. To deploy this career tactic, you need both pieces. As you’ll learn in the next chapter, however, the story of mission is not yet complete. As I continued my study of this topic, I discovered a third and final strategy for helping to integrate this trait into your quest for work you love. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
1360:A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come. ~ Jack Gilbert,#NFDB
1361:Two aspects of thinking in particular are pronounced in both creative and hypomanic thought: fluency, rapidity, and flexibility of thought on the one hand, and the ability to combine ideas or categories of thought in order to form new and original connections on the other. The importance of rapid, fluid, and divergent thought in the creative process has been described by most psychologists and writers who have studied human imagination. The increase in the speed of thinking may exert its influence in different ways. Speed per se, that is, the quantity of thoughts and associations produced in a given period of time, may be enhanced. The increased quantity and speed of thoughts may exert an effect on the qualitative aspects of thought as well; that is, the sheer volume of thought can produce unique ideas and associations. Indeed, Sir Walter Scott, when discussing Byron's mind, commented: "The wheels of a machine to play rapidly must not fit with the utmost exactness else the attrition diminishes the Impetus." The quickness and fire of Byron's mind were not lost on others who knew him. One friend wrote: "The mind of Lord Byron was like a volcano, full of fire and wealth, sometimes calm, often dazzling and playful, but ever threatening. It ran swift as the lightning from one subject to another, and occasionally burst forth in passionate throes of intellect, nearly allied to madness." Byron's mistress, Teresa Guiccoli, noted: "New and striking thoughts followed from him in rapid succession, and the flame of genius lighted up as if winged with wildfire. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, #NFDB
1362:Daniel De Foe possessed very extraordinary talents; as a commercial writer, he is fairly entitled to stand in the foremost rank among his contemporaries, whatever may be their performances or their fame. His distinguishing characteristics are originality, spirit, and a profound knowledge of his subject, and in these particulars he has seldom been surpassed. As the author of Robinson Crusoe he has a claim, not only to the admiration, but to the gratitude of his countrymen; and so long as we have a regard for supereminent merit, and take an interest in the welfare of the rising generation, that gratitude will not cease to exist. But the opinion of the learned and ingenious Dr. Beattie will be the best eulogium that can be pronounced on that celebrated romance: "Robinson Crusoe," says the Doctor, "must be allowed by the most rigid moralist, to be one of those novels which one may read, not only with pleasure, but also with profit. It breathes throughout a spirit of piety and benevolence; it sets in a very striking light the importance of the mechanic arts, which they, who know not what it is to be without them, are so apt to undervalue; it fixes in the mind a lively idea of the horrors of solitude, and, consequently, of the sweets of social life, and of the blessings we derive from conversation and mutual aid; and it shews, how, by labouring with one's own hands, one may secure independence, and open for one's self many sources of health and amusement. I agree, therefore, with Rosseau, that it is one of the best books that can be put into the hands of children." G.D. ~ Daniel Defoe, #NFDB
1363:Our country, as well as the rest of the world, faces an enormous threat from ISIS and other radical Islamic terrorist organizations that aspire to achieve world domination. These were the same aspirations held by the followers of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Our government must recognize the importance of directly and vigorously confronting these forces of evil. We must not make the mistake of avoiding necessary conflict; we did not get involved in World War I or World War II until we felt that American interests were directly threatened, and this proved to be the wrong choice, though we eventually were victorious. If a vicious enemy that is willing to decapitate people, burn people alive, and even crucify children is allowed to grow with only minor to moderate resistance, it will only become a more formidable adversary in the future. If during this period of tepid responses to terrorist expansion the radical Islamists manage to acquire nuclear weapons, providing for the common defense will take on an entirely new different meaning. The longer we wait to eliminate the threat, the more difficult that task will become and the more dangerous the world will be for our children and grandchildren. We must use all necessary resources to protect the lives of our people. Given the existence of enemies who have a stated goal of destroying our nation and our way of life, one way to provide for the common defense is to hide, which in our case would not be possible. A better option is to try to eliminate the threat, and the earlier the threat can be eliminated, the fewer lives will be lost in the conflict. ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB
1364:The Important Thing
He was playing in the garden when we called him in for tea,
But he didn't seem to hear us, so I went out there to see
What the little rogue was up to, and I stooped and asked him why,
When he heard his mother calling, he had made her no reply.
'I am playing war,' he told me, 'and I'm up against defeat,
And until I stop the Germans I can't take the time to eat.'
'Isn't supper so important that you'll quit your round of play?
Don't you want to eat the shortcake mother made for you to-day?'
Then I asked him, but he answered as he shook his little head:
'I don't dare to stop for shortcake, if I do they'll kill me dead!
When I drive them from their trenches, then to supper I'll come in,
But I mustn't stop a minute, 'cause this war I've got to win.'
I left him in his battle, left him there to end his play,
For he'd taught to me a lesson that is needed much to-day;
Not the lure of cake could turn him from the work he had to do;
There was nothing so important as to see his struggle through.
And I wondered all that evening, as he slumbered in his bed
If we'd risen to the meaning of the work that lies ahead?
Are we roused to the importance of the danger in our way?
Are we thinking still of pleasures as we thought but yesterday?
Are our comforts and our riches in our minds still uppermost?
Must we wait, to see our danger, till the foe is on our coast?
Oh, there's nothing so important, nothing now that's worth a pin
Save the war that we are fighting. It's a war we've got to win.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
1365:A Brief for the Defense
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come. ~ Jack Gilbert,#NFDB
1366:We did live in dire poverty. And one of the things that I hated was poverty. Some people hate spiders. Some people hate snakes. I hated poverty. I couldn't stand it. My mother couldn't stand the fact that we were doing poorly in school, and she prayed and she asked God to give her wisdom. What could she do to get her young sons to understand the importance of developing their minds so that they control their own lives? God gave her the wisdom. At least in her opinion. My brother and I didn't think it was that wise. Turn off the TV, let us watch only two or three TV programs during the week. And with all that spare time read two books a piece from the Detroit Public Libraries and submit to her written book reports, which she couldn't read but we didn't know that. I just hated this. My friends were out having a good time. Her friends would criticize her. My mother didn't care. But after a while I actually began to enjoy reading those books. Because we were very poor, but between the covers of those books I could go anywhere. I could be anybody. I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. And as I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that the person who has the most to do with you, and what happens to you in life, is you. You make decisions. You decide how much energy you want to put behind that decision. And I came to understand that I had control of my own destiny. And at that point I didn't hate poverty anymore, because I knew it was only temporary. I knew I could change that. It was incredibly liberating for me. Made all the difference. ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB
1367:A pair of young mothers now became the centre of interest. They had risen from their lying-in much sooner than the doctors would otherwise have allowed. (French doctors are always very good about recognizing the importance of social events, and certainly in this case had the patients been forbidden the ball the might easily have fretted themselves to death.) One came as the Duchesse de Berri with l’Enfant du Miracle, and the other as Madame de Montespan and the Duc du Maine. The two husbands, the ghost of the Duc de Berri, a dagger sticking out of his evening dress, and Louis XIV, were rather embarrassed really by the horrible screams of their so very young heirs, and hurried to the bar together. The noise was indeed terrific, and Albertine said crossly that had she been consulted she would, in this case, have permitted and even encouraged the substitution of dolls. The infants were then dumped down to cry themselves to sleep among the coats on her bed, whence they were presently collected by their mothers’ monthly nannies. Nobody thereafter could feel quite sure that the noble families of Bregendir and Belestat were not hopelessly and for ever interchanged. As their initials and coronets were, unfortunately, the same, and their baby linen came from the same shop, it was impossible to identify the children for certain. The mothers were sent for, but the pleasures of society rediscovered having greatly befogged their maternal instincts, they were obliged to admit they had no idea which was which. With a tremendous amount of guilty giggling they spun a coin for the prettier of the two babies and left it at that. ~ Nancy Mitford, #NFDB
1368:EVERY workman knows the necessity of keeping his tools in a good state of repair, for “if the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength.” If the workman lose the edge from his adze, he knows that there will be a greater draught upon his energies, or his work will be badly done. Michael Angelo, the elect of the fine arts, understood so well the importance of his tools, that he always made his own brushes with his own hands, and in this he gives us an illustration of the God of grace, who with special care fashions for himself all true ministers. It is true that the Lord, like Quintin Matsys in the story of the Antwerp well-cover, can work with the faultiest kind of instrumentality, as he does when he occasionally makes very foolish preaching to be useful in conversion; and he can even work without agents, as he does when he saves men without a preacher at all, applying the word directly by his Holy Spirit; but we cannot regard God’s absolutely sovereign acts as a rule for our action. He may, in His own absoluteness, do as pleases Him best, but we must act as His plainer dispensations instruct us; and one of the facts which is clear enough is this, that the Lord usually adapts means to ends, from which the plain lesson is, that we shall be likely to accomplish most when we are in the best spiritual condition; or in other words, we shall usually do our Lord’s work best when our gifts and graces are in good order, and we shall do worst when they are most out of trim. This is a practical truth for our guidance. When the Lord makes exceptions, they do but prove the rule. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1369:From the looks of it, Devon’s grip on sanity was not at all certain. His eyes gleamed with violence, and the muscles of his jaw were twitching. The infamous Ravenel temper had begun to burn every civilized layer into bright-edged ash, like the pages of a book cast into a fire.
“My lord,” Kathleen began breathlessly, “I thought you’d gone to Hampshire.”
“I did.” His wrathful gaze flickered to her. “I just returned to Ravenel House. The twins said they thought you might be here.”
“I found it necessary to talk to Mr. Winterborne about Helen--”
“You should have left it to me,” Devon said through gritted teeth. “The mere fact of being alone with Winterborne could create a scandal that would haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
His face darkened. “From the first moment I met you, you’ve tortured me and everyone else within reach about the importance of propriety. And now it doesn’t matter?” He gave her an ominous glance before turning to Winterborne. “You should have turned her away at the door, you conniving bastard. The only reason I haven’t throttled you both is that I can’t decide which one of you to start with.”
“Start with me,” Winterborne invited gently.
The air was charged with masculine hostility.
“Later,” Devon said with barely restrained rage. “For now, I’m taking her home. But the next time I see you, I’ll put you in a fucking box.” Turning his attention to Kathleen, he pointed to the doorway.
She didn’t like being commanded as if she were a disobedient poodle. When he was in this state, however, she decided it was better not to provoke him. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
1370:37 - Some say Krishna never lived, he is a myth. They mean on earth; for if Brindavan existed nowhere, the Bhagavat (6) could not have been written. - Sri Aurobindo
Does Brindavan exist anywhere else than on earth?
The whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifested here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. This is an indispensable condition for the manifestation. And the importance of the manifestation will always depend on the origin of the thing manifested.
In the world of the gods there is an ideal and harmonious Brindavan of which the earthly Brindavan is but a deformation and a caricature.
Those who are developed inwardly, either in their senses or in their minds, perceive these realities which are invisible (to the ordinary man) and receive their inspiration from them.
So the writer or writers of the Bhagavat were certainly in contact with a whole inner world that is well and truly real and existent, where they saw and experienced everything they have described or revealed.
Whether Krishna existed or not in a human form, living on earth, is only of very secondary importance (except perhaps from an exclusively historical point of view), for Krishna is a real, living and active being; and his influence has been one of the great factors in the progress and transformation of the earth.
8 June 1960
(6 The story of Krishna, as related in the Bhagavat Purana.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.60-61),#NFDB
1371:Of all the metals there is none more essential to life than iron. It is the
accumulation of iron in the center of a star which triggers a supernova
explosion and the subsequent scattering of the vital atoms of life
throughout the cosmos. It was the drawing by gravity of iron atoms to
the center of the primeval earth that generated the heat which caused the
initial chemical differentiation of the earth, the outgassing of the early
atmosphere, and ultimately the formation of the hydrosphere. It is molten
iron in the center of the earth which, acting like a gigantic dynamo, generates
the earth's magnetic field, which in turn creates the Van Allen radiation
belts that shield the earth's surface from destructive high-energypenetrating
cosmic radiation and preserve the crucial ozone layer from
cosmic ray destruction…
Without the iron atom, there would be no carbon-based life in the cosmos;
no supernovae, no heating of the primitive earth, no atmosphere or
hydrosphere. There would be no protective magnetic field, no Van Allen
radiation belts, no ozone layer, no metal to make hemoglobin [in human
blood], no metal to tame the reactivity of oxygen, and no oxidative
metabolism.
The intriguing and intimate relationship between life and iron, between
the red color of blood and the dying of some distant star, not only indicates
the relevance of metals to biology but also the biocentricity of the
cosmos…
This account clearly indicates the importance of the iron atom. The
fact that particular attention is drawn to iron in the Qur'an also emphasises
the importance of the element. ~ Harun Yahya,#NFDB
1372:Is Willis Carrier an anomaly or not? The question has real political and social stakes, because the doxa of market capitalism as an unparalleled innovation engine has long leaned on stories like Willis Carrier’s miraculous cooling device as a cornerstone of its faith.6 In many respects, these beliefs made sense, because the implicit alternatives were the planned economies of socialism and communism. State-run economies were fundamentally hierarchies, not networks. They consolidated decision-making power in a top-down command system, which meant that new ideas had to be approved by the authorities before they could begin to spread through the society. Markets, by contrast, allowed good ideas to erupt anywhere in the system. In modern tech-speak, markets allowed innovation to flourish at the edges of the network. Planned economies were more like the old mainframe computer systems that predated the Internet, where every participant had to get authorization from a central machine to do new work. When Friedrich von Hayek launched his influential argument in the 1940s about the importance of price signals in market economies, he was observing a related phenomenon: the decentralized pricing mechanism of the marketplace allows an entrepreneur to gauge the relative value of his or her innovation. If you come up with an interesting new contraption, you don’t need to persuade a government commission of its value. You just need to get someone to buy it. Entire institutions and legal frameworks—not to mention a vast tower of conventional wisdom—have been built around the Carrier model of innovation. But what if he’s the exception and not the rule? ~ Steven Johnson, #NFDB
1373:were creating crawlers that would serve as search tools for the Web. These included the WWW Wanderer built by Matthew Gray at MIT, WebCrawler by Brian Pinkerton at the University of Washington, AltaVista by Louis Monier at the Digital Equipment Corporation, Lycos by Michael Mauldin at Carnegie Mellon University, OpenText by a team from Canada’s University of Waterloo, and Excite by six friends from Stanford. All of them used link-hopping robots, or bots, that could dart around the Web like a binge drinker on a pub crawl, scarfing up URLs and information about each site. This would then be tagged, indexed, and placed in a database that could be accessed by a query server. Filo and Yang did not build their own web crawler; instead they decided to license one to add to their home page. Yahoo! continued to emphasize the importance of its directory, which was compiled by humans. When a user typed in a phrase, the Yahoo! computers would see if it related to an entry in the directory, and if so that handcrafted list of sites would pop up. If not, the query would be handed off to the Web-crawling search engine. The Yahoo! team believed, mistakenly, that most users would navigate the Web by exploring rather than seeking something specific. “The shift from exploration and discovery to the intent-based search of today was inconceivable,” recalled Srinija Srinivasan, Yahoo!’s first editor in chief, who oversaw a newsroom of more than sixty young editors and directory compilers.114 This reliance on the human factor meant that Yahoo! would be much better than its rivals over the years (and even to the present) in choosing news stories, although not in providing search tools. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1374:More often than not, these attempts at sociability ended in painful silence. His old friends, who remembered him as a brilliant student and wickedly funny conversationalist, were appalled by what had happened to him. Tom had slipped from the ranks of the anointed, and his downfall seemed to shake their confidence in themselves, to open the door onto a new pessimism about their own prospects in life. It didn't help matters that Tom had gained weight, that his former plumpness now verged on an embarrassing rotundity, but even more disturbing was the fact that he didn't seem to have any plans, that he never spoke about how he was going to undo the damage he'd done to himself and get back on his feet. Whenever he mentioned his new job, he described it in odd, almost religious terms, speculating on such questions as spiritual strength and the importance of finding one's path through patience and humility, and this confused them and made them fidget in their chairs. Tom's intelligence had not been dulled by the job, but no one wanted to hear what he had to say anymore, least of all the women he talked to, who expected young men to be full of brave ideas and clever schemes about how they were going to conquer the world. Tom put them off with his doubts and soul-searchings, his obscure disquisitions on the nature of reality, his hesitant manner. It was bad enough that he drove a taxi for a living, but a philosophical taxi driver who dressed in army-navy clothes and carried a paunch around his middle was a bit too much to ask. He was a pleasant guy, of course, and no one actively disliked him, but he wasn't a legitimate candidate?not for marriage, not even for a crazy fling. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
1375:The tendencies we have mentioned are something new for America. They arose when, under the influence of the two World Wars and the consequent concentration of all forces on a military goal, a predominantly military mentality developed, which with the almost sudden victory became even more accentuated. The characteristic feature of this mentality is that people place the importance of what Bertrand Russell so tellingly terms “naked power” far above all other factors which affect the relations between peoples. The Germans, misled by Bismarck’s successes in particular, underwent just such a transformation of their mentality—in consequence of which they were entirely ruined in less than a hundred years. I must frankly confess that the foreign policy of the United States since the termination of hostilities has reminded me, sometimes irresistibly, of the attitude of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and I know that, independent of me, this analogy has most painfully occurred to others as well. It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts—in short, the psychological factors—are considered as unimportant and secondary. Herein lies a certain resemblance to Marxism, at least insofar as its theoretical side alone is kept in view. The individual is degraded to a mere instrument; he becomes “human materiel.” The normal ends of human aspiration vanish with such a viewpoint. Instead, the military mentality raises “naked power” as a goal in itself—one of the strangest illusions to which men can succumb. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1376:Great societies understand the importance of symbols as a way of reinforcing their values, of capturing their beliefs. Dictators understand the importance of symbols all too well. But in their case, the symbols are usually of them and not of a larger belief. Symbols help us make tangible that which is intangible. And the only reason symbols have meaning is because we infuse them with meaning. That meaning lives in our minds, not in the item itself. Only when the purpose, cause or belief is clear can a symbol command great power. The flag, for example, is nothing more than a symbol of our nation’s values and beliefs. And we follow the flag into battle. That’s some serious power. Ever notice the patch of the American flag on a soldier’s right arm? It’s backward. There was no mistake made, it’s like that on purpose. A flag flying on a staff, as an army was rushing into battle, would appear backward if viewed from the right side. To put it the other way around on the right shoulder would appear as if the soldier were in retreat. Our flag is infused with so much meaning that some have tried to pass laws banning its desecration. It’s not the material out of which the flag is sewn that these patriots aim to protect. The laws they propose have nothing to do with the destruction of property. Their goal is to protect the meaning the symbol represents: the WHY. The laws they drafted tried to protect the intangible set of values and beliefs by protecting the symbol of those values and beliefs. Though the laws have been struck down by the Supreme Court, they have spurred contentious and emotionally charged debates. They pit our desire for freedom of expression with our desire to protect a symbol of that freedom. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
1377:In his Principles of Psychology, James already criticized what he took to be the artificial and deeply misleading traditional empiricist accounts of experience. Experience does not consist of discrete atomic units that simply follow or are associated with each other. This is an intellectualist abstraction of philosophers, not an account of concrete experience as it is lived. James emphasizes the dynamic, flowing quality of the “stream of experience” – what he sometimes called the “muchness” and pluralistic variety of experience. Contrary to Hume and those influenced by him, James argued that we experience “relations,” “continuity,” and “connections” directly. We experience activity – its tensions, resistances, and tendencies. We feel “the tendency, the obstacle, the will, the strain, the triumph, or the passive giving up, just as [we feel] the time, the space, the swiftness or intensity, the movement, the weight and color, the pain and pleasure, the complexity, or whatever remaining characters the situation may involve” (James 1997, p. 282). He does not denigrate or underestimate the importance of our conceptual activity, but concepts are never quite adequate to capture the concreteness of experience. To say this is not to claim that there is something about experience that is in principle knowable, but that we cannot know. Rather, it is to affirm that there is more to experience than knowing. James criticizes the epistemological prejudice, which assumes that the only or primary role that experience plays in our lives is to provide us with knowledge. Paraphrasing Hamlet, James might well have said to his fellow philosophers: “There are more things in experience than are dreamt of in your philosophy. ~ Richard J Bernstein, #NFDB
1378:One summer day when I was about ten, I sat on a stoop, chatting with a group of girls my age. We were all in pigtails and shorts and basically just killing time. What were we discussing? It could have been anything—school, our older brothers, an anthill on the ground. At one point, one of the girls, a second, third, or fourth cousin of mine, gave me a sideways look and said, just a touch hotly, “How come you talk like a white girl?” The question was pointed, meant as an insult or at least a challenge, but it also came from an earnest place. It held a kernel of something that was confusing for both of us. We seemed to be related but of two different worlds. “I don’t,” I said, looking scandalized that she’d even suggest it and mortified by the way the other girls were now staring at me. But I knew what she was getting at. There was no denying it, even if I just had. I did speak differently than some of my relatives, and so did Craig. Our parents had drilled into us the importance of using proper diction, of saying “going” instead of “goin’ ” and “isn’t” instead of “ain’t.” We were taught to finish off our words. They bought us a dictionary and a full Encyclopaedia Britannica set, which lived on a shelf in the stairwell to our apartment, its titles etched in gold. Any time we had a question about a word, or a concept, or some piece of history, they directed us toward those books. Dandy, too, was an influence, meticulously correcting our grammar or admonishing us to enunciate our words when we went over for dinner. The idea was we were to transcend, to get ourselves further. They’d planned for it. They encouraged it. We were expected not just to be smart but to own our smartness—to inhabit it with pride—and this filtered down to how we spoke. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
1379:Instead, the new thought actually creates activity in the neocortex—the thinking part of the brain. Depressive thoughts activate the subcortex, the feeling part of the brain. We have the choice of using either the subcortex (feeling portion) or the neocortex (thinking portion) region of our brain. Remember, your mind will move in the direction of the most current and dominant thought. You can make a thought dominant by saying it over and over again. Even repeatedly saying, “I am depressed” has an effect upon your depression. And when you’re depressed you tend to act in a way that reinforces your depression. You may look depressed. You think defeatist, depressive thoughts. When you’re depressed you’re letting your mind tell you what to feel, think, and do. The author of BrainSwitch Out of Depression suggests that we can choose thoughts that will bring us out of depression. Practically anything that is repeated again and again will work. Remember the importance of repetition?[89] It could be a nursery rhyme. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, I’ve seen the results firsthand. People have kicked out depression simply by repeating phrases such as “blue cat” or “purple dogs” or “pink frog.” It’s true! These new phrases directly initiate activity in the brain, away from the parts that respond to depressed thinking. The new words activate neurons in the thinking part of the brain. Activity in the feeling portion slows. Stress chemicals being poured into the brain diminish. You might choose to short-circuit the cycle of thinking that leads to depression by repeating the phrase, “Yes, praise God.” Or you might pray for yourself or someone else. You could also say, “I can do this!” Any affirmations will work.[90] You also can improve mood and eliminate ~ H Norman Wright, #NFDB
1380:Organizer—Using work breakdown, estimating, and scheduling techniques, determines the complete work effort for the project, the proper sequence of the work activities, when the work will be accomplished, who will do the work, and how much the work will cost. • Point Man—Serves as the central point-of-contact for all oral and written project communications. • Quartermaster—Ensures the project has the resources, materials, and facilities its needs when it needs it. • Facilitator—Ensures that stakeholders and team members who come from different perspectives understand each other and work together to accomplish the project goals. • Persuader—Gains agreement from the stakeholders on project definition, success criteria, and approach; manages stakeholder expectations throughout the project while managing the competing demands of time, cost, and quality; and gains agreement on resource decisions and issue resolution action steps. • Problem Solver—Utilizes root-cause analysis process experience, prior project experiences, and technical knowledge to resolve unforeseen technical issues and to take any necessary corrective actions. • Umbrella—Works to shield the project team from the politics and “noise” surrounding the project, so they can stay focused and productive. • Coach—Determines and communicates the role each team member plays and the importance of that role to the project success, finds ways to motivate each team member, looks for ways to improve the skills of each team member, and provides constructive and timely feedback on individual performances. • Bulldog—Performs the follow-up to ensure that commitments are maintained, issues are resolved, and action items are completed. • Librarian—Manages all information, communications, and documentation involved in the project. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1381:Apparently many professionals do not truly believe that the need to honor our connections is an essential part of family life, as this belief is not reflected in the way that they work with families in stress who are dealing with complex issues of foster care, guardianship, kinship, and adoption. Whether it was a closed or open adoption, an adopted child must learn to integrate at least two distinctly different families—the birth family and the adoptive family. The biracial or other-culture child must also integrate two distinctly different cultures. The challenge to adoptive parents, and to others connected to this child, is to help the child to develop his/her own identity within the framework of both cultures. The challenge to professionals is to help the whole family to see itself as a multicultural family, and to develop its identity while integrating—not ignoring—the distinctively different cultures. How can that happen if the professionals don’t see the importance of respect for culture? How can that happen if the professionals don’t see any difference in culture because the race is the same? The psycho-education and modeling done by the professionals who are initially involved in building these complex families can set a tone, and begin a process of respect and integration. Without this education and modeling, the parents might be so busy with other essential psychological and emotional issues, and with possible trauma management for this child, that they might ignore the very important issues of culture and development of identity. Without that awareness, how will the parents be prepared to model and teach the larger community—the schools, courts, religious institutions, and neighborhoods—thereby creating a holding environment for that child that both honors and respects all of who he/she is? ~ Joyce Maguire Pavao, #NFDB
1382:Despite the popularity of this view, the DeValoises felt it was only a partial truth. To test their assumption they used Fourier's equations to convert plaid and checkerboard patterns into simple wave forms. Then they tested to see how the brain cells in the visual cortex responded to these new wave-form images. What they found was that the brain cells responded not to the original patterns, but to the Fourier translations of the patterns. Only one conclusion could be drawn. The brain was using Fourier mathematics—the same mathematics holography employed—to convert visual images into the Fourier language of wave forms. 12 The DeValoises' discovery was subsequently confirmed by numerous other laboratories around the world, and although it did not provide absolute proof the brain was a hologram, it supplied enough evidence to convince Pribram his theory was correct. Spurred on by the idea that the visual cortex was responding not to patterns but to the frequencies of various wave forms, he began to reassess the role frequency played in the other senses. It didn't take long for him to realize that the importance of this role had perhaps been overlooked by twentieth-century scientists. Over a century before the DeValoises' discovery, the German physiologist and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz had shown that the ear was a frequency analyzer. More recent research revealed that our sense of smell seems to be based on what are called osmic frequencies. Bekesy's work had clearly demonstrated that our skin is sensitive to frequencies of vibration, and he even produced some evidence that taste may involve frequency analysis. Interestingly, Bekesy also discovered that the mathematical equations that enabled him to predict how his subjects would respond to various frequencies of vibration were also of the Fourier genre. ~ Michael Talbot, #NFDB
1383:Things may even be worse than that, however. There’s some reason to think that the rise in ethical consumerism could even be harmful for the world, on balance. Psychologists have discovered a phenomenon that they call moral licensing, which describes how people who perform one good action often compensate by doing fewer good actions in the future. For example, in a recent experiment, participants were told to choose a product from either a selection of mostly “green” items (like an energy-efficient lightbulb) or from a selection of mostly conventional items (like a regular lightbulb). They were then told to perform a supposedly unrelated visual perception task: a square box with a diagonal line across it was displayed on a computer screen, and a pattern of twenty dots would flash up on the screen; the subjects had to press a key to indicate whether there were more dots on the left or right side of the line. It was always obvious which was the correct answer, and the experimenters emphasized the importance of being as accurate as possible, telling the subjects that the results of the test would be used in designing future experiments. However, the subjects were told that, whether or not their answers were correct, they’d be paid five cents every time they indicated there were more dots on the left-hand side of the line and five cents every time they indicated there were more dots on the right-hand side. They therefore had a financial incentive to lie, and they were alone, so they knew they wouldn’t be caught if they did so. Moreover, they were invited to pay themselves out of an envelope, so they had an opportunity to steal as well. What happened? People who had previously purchased a “green” product were significantly more likely to both lie and steal than those who had purchased the conventional product. Their ~ William MacAskill, #NFDB
1384:The break with Maoist orthodoxy, at the same time, revealed the reformer’s dilemma. The revolutionary’s dilemma is that most revolutions occur in opposition to what is perceived as abuse of power. But the more existing obligations are dismantled, the more force must be used to re-create a sense of obligation. Hence the frequent outcome of revolution is an increase in central power; the more sweeping the revolution, the more this is true. The dilemma of reform is the opposite. The more the scope of choice is expanded, the harder it becomes to compartmentalize it. In pursuit of productivity, Deng stressed the importance of “thinking things out for yourself” and advocated the “complete” emancipation of minds. Yet what if those minds, once emancipated, demanded political pluralism? Deng’s vision called for “large numbers of pathbreakers who dare to think, explore new ways and generate new ideas,” but it assumed that these pathbreakers would limit themselves to exploring practical ways to build a prosperous China and stay away from exploration of ultimate political objectives. How did Deng envision reconciling emancipation of thought with the imperative for political stability? Was this a calculated risk, based on the assessment that China had no better alternative? Or did he, following Chinese tradition, reject the likelihood of any challenge to political stability, especially as Deng was making the Chinese people better off and considerably freer? Deng’s vision of economic liberalization and national revitalization did not include a significant move toward what would be recognized in the West as pluralistic democracy. Deng sought to preserve one-party rule not so much because he reveled in the perquisites of power (he famously abjured many of the luxuries of Mao and Jiang Qing), but because he believed the alternative was anarchy. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1385:The discovery of our mind’s largely irrational nature prompted what may be the most radical and influential of the three revolutions in human thought that, as Freud noted, determined how we view ourselves and our place in the universe. The first such revolution, the Copernican revolution of the sixteenth century, revealed that the earth is not the center of the universe, but rather a small satellite orbiting the sun. The second, the Darwinian revolution of the nineteenth century, revealed that we are not created divinely or uniquely but instead evolved from simpler animals by a process of natural selection. The third great revolution, the Freudian revolution of Vienna 1900, revealed that we do not consciously control our own actions but are instead driven by unconscious motives. This third revolution later led to the idea that human creativity—the creativity that led Copernicus and Darwin to their theories—stems from conscious access to underlying, unconscious forces. Unlike the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions, the realization that our mental functioning is largely irrational was arrived at by several thinkers at the same time, including Friedrich Nietzsche in the middle of the nineteenth century. Freud, who was much influenced by both Darwin and Nietzsche, is most frequently identified with the third revolution because he was its most profound and articulate exponent. It was, however, a discovery he did not make in isolation: his contemporaries Schnitzler, Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele also discovered and explored new aspects of our unconscious mental life. They understood women better than Freud, particularly the nature of women’s sexuality and maternal instinct, and they saw more clearly than Freud the importance of an infant’s bonding to its mother. They even realized the significance of the aggressive instinct earlier than Freud did. ~ Eric R Kandel, #NFDB
1386:golden opportunity to learn to cope with criticism and anger effectively. This came as a complete surprise to me; I hadn't realized what good fortune I had. In addition to urging me to use cognitive techniques to reduce and eliminate my own sense of irritation. Dr. Beck proposed I try out an unusual strategy for interacting with Hank when he was in an angry mood. The essence of this method was: (1) Don't turn Hank off by defending yourself. Instead, do the opposite—urge him to say all the worst things he can say about you. (2) Try to find a grain of truth in all his criticisms and then agree with him. (3) After this, point out any areas of disagreement in a straightforward, tactful, nonargumentative manner. (4) Emphasize the importance of sticking together, in spite of these occasional disagreements. I could remind Hank that frustration and fighting might slow down our therapy at times, but this need not destroy the relationship or prevent our work from ultimately becoming fruitful. I applied this strategy the next time Hank started storming around the office screaming at me. Just as I had planned, I urged Hank to keep it up and say all the worst things he could think of about me. The result was immediate and dramatic. Within a few moments, all the wind went out of his sails—all his vengeance seemed to melt away. He began communicating sensibly and calmly, and sat down. In fact, when I agreed with some of his criticisms, he suddenly began to defend me and say some nice things about me! I was so impressed with this result that I began using the same approach with other angry, explosive individuals, and I actually did begin to enjoy his hostile outbursts because I had an effective way to handle them. I also used the double-column technique for recording and talking back to my automatic thoughts after one of Hank's midnight calls (see Figure 16–1, page 415). ~ David D Burns, #NFDB
1387:And yet it seems to me that the thought and activity of those friends who have never given up direct political work and who are always ready to assume direct political responsibility very often suffer from one chronic fault: an insufficient understanding of the historical uniqueness of the posttotalitarian system as a social and political reality. They have little understanding of the specific nature of power that is typical for this system and therefore they overestimate the importance of direct political work in the traditional sense. Moreover, they fail to appreciate the political significance of those "pre-political" events and processes that provide the living humus from which genuine political change usually springs. As political actors-or, rather, as people with political ambitions-they frequently try to pick up where natural political life left off. They maintain models of behavior that may have been appropriate in more normal political circumstances and thus, without really being aware of it, they bring an outmoded way of thinking, old habits, conceptions, categories, and notions to bear on circumstances that are quite new and radically different, without first giving adequate thought to the meaning and substance of such things in the new circumstances, to what politics as such means now, to what sort of thing can have political impact and potential, and in what way- Because such people have been excluded from the structures of power and are no longer able to influence those structures directly (and because they remain faithful to traditional notions of politics established in more or less democratic societies or in classical dictatorships) they frequently, in a sense, lose touch with reality. Why make compromises with reality, they say, when none of our proposals will ever be accepted anyway? Thus they find themselves in a world of genuinely utopian thinking. ~ V clav Havel, #NFDB
1388:In a few minutes the Dawn Treader had come round and everyone could see the black blob in the water which was Reepicheep. He was chattering with the greatest excitement but as his mouth kept on getting filled with water nobody could understand what he was saying.
“He’ll blurt the whole thing out if we don’t shut him up,” cried Drinian. To prevent this he rushed to the side and lowered a rope himself, shouting to the sailors, “All right, all right. Back to your places. I hope I can heave a mouse up without help.” And as Reepicheep began climbing up the rope--not very nimbly because his wet fur made him heavy--Drinian leaned over and whispered to him,
“Don’t tell. Not a word.”
But when the dripping Mouse had reached the deck it turned out not to be at all interested in the Sea People.
“Sweet!” he cheeped. “Sweet, sweet!”
“What are you talking about?” asked Drinian crossly. “And you needn’t shake yourself all over me, either.”
“I tell you the water’s sweet,” said the Mouse. “Sweet, fresh. It isn’t salt.”
For a moment no one quite took in the importance of this. But then Reepicheep once more repeated the old prophecy:
“Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
There is the utter East.”
Then at last everyone understood.
“Let me have a bucket, Rynelf,” said Drinian.
It was handed him and he lowered it and up it came again. The water shone in it like glass.
“Perhaps your Majesty would like to taste it first,” said Drinian to Caspian.
The King took the bucket in both hands, raised it to his lips, sipped, then drank deeply and raised his head. His face was changed. Not only his eyes but everything about him seemed to be brighter.
“Yes,” he said, “it is sweet. That’s real water, that. I’m not sure that it isn’t going to kill me. But it is the death I would have chosen--if I’d known about it till now. ~ C S Lewis,#NFDB
1389:Blake’s was a complex that involved intellect, emotions and even body. For Blake knew the importance of the body as well as Nietzsche; no poet sings the body so frankly (except perhaps Whitman); for, after all, ‘body is only that portion of soul discerned by the five senses’; body has its place in imagination.
And the function of imagination was to look inward. In ‘Jerusalem’ Blake avowed his intention:
To open the eternal worlds, to open the immortal eyes
Of man Inwards, into the worlds of thought, into Eternity.
Imagination is the instrument of self-knowledge.
But what must be grasped about Blake’s conception is that imagination is not purely emotional or intellectual; for Blake, knowledge involved the whole being, body, emotions, intellect.
Los is only a half of Blake’s picture of man’s inner states. The other half is the strange being called ‘the Spectre’:
Each man is in his spectre’s power
Until the arrival of that hour
When his humanity awakes
And casts his spectre into the lake...
The Spectre is the dead form. He is static consciousness.
Los is kinetic, always pushing, expanding. When life recedes, the limits of its activities seem to be alive, just as the dead body looks like the living one. The Spectre is the dead, conscious part of man that he mistakes for himself, the personality, the habits, the identity. ‘Man is not of fixed or enduring form’ Steppenwolf realized, in a moment of insight. But when man is in ‘the Spectre’s power’ (and most of us are, every day) he sees himself and the whole world as of ‘fixed and enduring form’.
Blake has defined the two worlds of Hanno Buddenbrooks and Steppenwolf: one is the world of Los; the other of the Spectre. The Spectre is invisible, like a shadow, but when he has the ascendancy in man, everything is solid, unchangeable, stagnant, unreal. ~ Colin Wilson,#NFDB
1390:These stories are real, the dreams are real, yet the dilemmas each person faces are founded on the presences that haunt from their past. We see again the twin mechanisms present in all relationships: projection and transference. Each of them, meeting any stranger, reflexively scans the data of history for clues, expectations, possibilities. This scanning mechanism is instantaneous, mostly unconscious, and then the lens of history slips over one's eyes. This refractive lens alters the reality of the other and brings to consciousness a necessarily distorted picture. Attached to that particular lens is a particular history, the dynamics, the script, the outcomes of which are part of the transferred package. Freud once humorously speculated that when a couple goes to bed there are six people jammed together because the spectral presences of the parents are unavoidable. One would have to add to this analogy the reminder that those parents also import their own relational complexes from their parents, so we quickly have fourteen underfoot, not to mention the persistence of even more ancestral influences. How could intimate relationships not be congested arenas? As shopworn as the idea seems, we cannot overemphasize the importance of primal imagoes playing a domineering role in our relational patterns. They may be unconscious, which grants them inordinate power, or we may flee them, but they are always present. Thus, for example, wherever the parent is stuck—such as Damon's mother who only equates sexuality with the perverse and the unappealing, and his father who stands de-potentiated and co-opted—so the child will feel similarly constrained or spend his or her life trying to break away (“anything but that”) and still be defined by someone else's journey. How could Damon not feel depressed, then, at his own stuckness, and how could he not approach intimacy with such debilitating ambivalence? ~ James Hollis, #NFDB
1391:Mattis and Gary Cohn had several quiet conversations about The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments. They met for lunch at the Pentagon to develop an action plan. One cause of the problem was the president’s fervent belief that annual trade deficits of about $500 billion harmed the American economy. He was on a crusade to impose tariffs and quotas despite Cohn’s best efforts to educate him about the benefits of free trade. How could they convince and, in their frank view, educate the president? Cohn and Mattis realized they were nowhere close to persuading him. The Groundhog Day–like meetings on trade continued and the acrimony only grew. “Let’s get him over here to the Tank,” Mattis proposed. The Tank is the Pentagon’s secure meeting room for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It might focus him. “Great idea,” Cohn said. “Let’s get him out of the White House.” No press; no TVs; no Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s personal secretary, who worked within shouting distance of the Oval Office. There wouldn’t even be any looking out the window, because there were no windows in the Tank. Getting Trump out of his natural environment could do the trick. The idea was straight from the corporate playbook—a retreat or off-site meeting. They would get Trump to the Tank with his key national security and economic team to discuss worldwide strategic relations. Mattis and Cohn agreed. Together they would fight Trump on this. Trade wars or disruptions in the global markets could savage and undermine the precarious stability in the world. The threat could spill over to the military and intelligence community. Mattis couldn’t understand why the U.S. would want to pick a fight with allies, whether it was NATO, or friends in the Middle East, or Japan—or particularly with South Korea. ~ Bob Woodward, #NFDB
1392:I am in control of myself in every way—at all times and in all situations. Each time I sit down to eat, I reaffirm my determination to achieve my goal. By eating right, and never giving in, I am reaching the weight I want. Whether eating in or eating out, I really enjoy eating less. I never feel the need to finish the food in front of me. I eat only what I should—and never one bite more. One way to weight-loss that’s easy and works, is less food on my plate, and less on my fork! By ordering less when I eat out, and by serving myself smaller portions at home, I keep myself aware of the importance of staying with my goal—each and every day. “Less on my plate means less on my waist.” When I sit down to eat, at no time do I allow anyone else to influence, tempt, or discourage me in any negative way. What I eat, and the goals I reach, is up to me. And I give no one the right to hinder or control my success. Although others may benefit from my success, I am achieving my weight-loss goals for my own personal reasons—for myself, my life, my future, and my own personal well-being. I am never, at any time, tempted to take one bite more than I should. I am strong, I am capable of reaching my goal, and I am doing it! Being in situations which put a lot of food in front of me is not a problem to me now. I simply say “No!” to the food and “Yes!” to my success. I enjoy sitting down to eat. Each time I do I conquer my past, and I create a trimmer, happier, more self-confident future in front of me. When I sit down to eat, I do not need someone else to remind me of my goal, or to keep me from eating something I should not. I take full responsibility for myself, and no one else has to do it for me. Controlling my weight, and my appetite, is easy for me now. I enjoy smaller portions, smaller bites, and a slower, healthier, more relaxed way of eating. I have set my goal and I am staying with it. I have turned mealtime into “achievement time. ~ Shad Helmstetter, #NFDB
1393:If My People Pray If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. —2 CHRONICLES 7:14 Among the many myths associated with Alexander the Great is the tale of a poor Macedonian soldier who was leading before Alexander the Great a mule laden with gold for the king’s use. The mule became so tired that he could no longer carry the load, so the mule driver took it off and carried it himself, with great difficulty, for a considerable distance. Finally Alexander saw him sinking under the burden and about to throw it to the ground, so he cried out, “Friend, do not be weary yet; try to carry it to your tent, for it is now all yours.” This blessing is much better than the lottery. Who says good guys finish last? Humility certainly has its blessings. Ezra, the writer of 1 and 2 Chronicles, certainly knew the importance of humility, because he directed this passage to his people, people whom God called by name. He states that in order for God’s people to receive His blessings, there are four basic requirements: • humility • prayer • devotion • repentance This is an appropriate prayer for all of us. We shake our heads in disbelief at the depravity of mankind. Each day the headlines in the media scream out stabbings, shootings, murder, rape, and betrayal. Where have we gone wrong as a nation? Are our families breaking apart along with the moral fiber of this country? How can we get back on track to recapture the blessings of God? Ezra says we are to humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face, and repent of our sins. Then God will • answer our prayers, • forgive our sins, and • heal our land. As you guide your family spiritually, may you recognize the truths of this passage and come to God with all humility, committing your lives again to the righteousness of God. Make a vow that in your ~ Emilie Barnes, #NFDB
1394:I don’t believe in boundaries, either for what we can do in our personal lives or for what life and intelligence can accomplish in our universe. We stand at a threshold of important discoveries in all areas of science. Without doubt, our world will change enormously in the next fifty years. We will find out what happened at the Big Bang. We will come to understand how life began on Earth. We may even discover whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. While the chances of communicating with an intelligent extra-terrestrial species may be slim, the importance of such a discovery means we must not give up trying. We will continue to explore our cosmic habitat, sending robots and humans into space. We cannot continue to look inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. Through scientific endeavour and technological innovation, we must look outwards to the wider universe, while also striving to fix the problems on Earth. And I am optimistic that we will ultimately create viable habitats for the human race on other planets. We will transcend the Earth and learn to exist in space.
This is not the end of the story, but just the beginning of what I hope will be billions of years of life flourishing in the cosmos.
And one final point—we never really know where the next great scientific discovery will come from, nor who will make it. Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audience possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be.
So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future. ~ Stephen Hawking,#NFDB
1395:Truth changes with the season of our emotions. It is the shadow that moves with the phases of our inner sun. When the nights falls, only our perception can guess where it hides in the dark. Within every solar system of the soul lies a plan of what truth is--- the design God has created, in our own unique story. This is as varying as the constellations, and as turning as the tide. It is not one truth we live to, but many. If we ever hope to determine if there is such a thing as truth, apart from cultural and personal preferences, we must acknowledge that we are then aiming to discover something greater than ourselves, something that transcends culture and individual inclinations. Some say that we must look beyond ourselves and outside of ourselves. However, we don’t need to look farther than what is already in each other. If there was any great plan from a higher power it is a simplistic, repetitious theme found in all religions; the basic core importance to unity comes from shared theological and humanistic virtues. Beyond the synagogue, mosques, temples, churches, missionary work, church positions and religious rituals comes a simple “message of truth” found in all of us, that binds theology---holistic virtues combined with purpose is the foundation of spiritual evolution. The diversity among us all is not divided truth, but the opportunity for unity through these shared values. Truth is the framework and roadmap of positive virtues. It unifies diversity when we choose to see it and use it. It is simple message often lost among the rituals, cultural traditions and socializing that goes on behind the chapel doors of any religion or spiritual theology. As we fight among ourselves about what religion, culture or race is right, we often lose site of the simple message any great orator has whispered through time----a simplistic story explaining the importance of virtues, which magically reemphasizes the importance of loving one another through service. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
1396:Next, comparing children to arrows in the hands of a warrior, Psalm 127:4-5 talks about how parents are to handle their offspring. Wise and skillful parents are to know their children, understand them, and carefully point them in the right direction before shooting them into the world. And, as you may have learned in an archery class, shooting an arrow straight and hitting a target is a lot harder in real life than it looks like in the movies or on TV. Likewise, godly and skillful parenting isn’t easy. The last section of today’s selection teaches the importance of the Lord’s presence in the home. • The Lord blesses a home that follows His ways (Psalm 128:1-2). • A wife who knows the Lord will be a source of beauty and life in the home (Psalm 128:3a). • With the Lord’s blessing, children will flourish like olive trees, which generously provide food, oil, and shelter (Psalm 128:3b). Ask yourself, What can I do to make the Lord’s presence more recognizable in our home? Or a more pointed question, What kind of steward am I being in my home? God has entrusted to you some very special people—your children. You will be held accountable for how you take care of them. But you’re not in it alone. God offers to walk with you today and always. He provides you with guidelines like those we looked at today, plus His wisdom and His love, to help you do the job and do it well.9 Prayer: Father God, forgive me for the ways I shortchange my children. Help me know how to slow down the pace of life. Help me stay very aware that my children will be with me for just a short time, and that how I treat them will affect them and their children’s lives too. Continue to teach me how to be the parent You want me to be. Amen. Action: Give your child/children the gift of time—today and every day. Today’s Wisdom: The Christian home is the Master’s workshop where the processes of character-molding are silently, lovingly, faithfully, and successfully carried on. —RICHARD M. MILNES ~ Emilie Barnes, #NFDB
1397:All scientists, regardless of discipline, need to be prepared to confront the broadest consequences of our work—but we need to communicate its more detailed aspects as well. I was reminded of this at a recent lunch I attended with some of Silicon Valley’s greatest technology gurus. One of them said, “Give me ten to twenty million dollars and a team of smart people, and we can solve virtually any engineering challenge.” This person obviously knew a thing or two about solving technological problems—a long string of successes attested to that—but ironically, such an approach would not have produced the CRISPR-based gene-editing technology, which was inspired by curiosity-driven research into natural phenomena. The technology we ended up creating did not take anywhere near ten to twenty million dollars to develop, but it did require a thorough understanding of the chemistry and biology of bacterial adaptive immunity, a topic that may seem wholly unrelated to gene editing. This is but one example of the importance of fundamental research—the pursuit of science for the sake of understanding our natural world—and its relevance to developing new technologies. Nature, after all, has had a lot more time than humans to conduct experiments! If there’s one overarching point I hope you will take away from this book, it’s that humans need to keep exploring the world around us through open-ended scientific research. The wonders of penicillin would never have been discovered had Alexander Fleming not been conducting simple experiments with Staphylococci bacteria. Recombinant DNA research—the foundation for modern molecular biology—became possible only with the isolation of DNA-cutting and DNA-copying enzymes from gut- and heat-loving bacteria. Rapid DNA sequencing required experiments on the remarkable properties of bacteria from hot springs. And my colleagues and I would never have created a powerful gene-editing tool if we hadn’t tackled the much more fundamental question of how bacteria fight off viral infections. ~ Jennifer A Doudna, #NFDB
1398:We receive a fatal imprint in childhood, at the time of our greatest plasticity, of our passive impressionism, of our helplessness before suggestion. In no period has the role of the parents loomed as immense, because we have recognized the determinism, but at the same time an exaggeration in the size of the Enormous Parent does not need to be permanent and irretrievable. The time has come when, having completed the scientific study of the importance of parents, we now must re-establish our power to revoke their imprint, to reverse our patterns, to kill our fatal downward tendencies. We do not remain smaller in suture than our parents. Nature had intended them to shrink progressively in our eyes to human proportions while we reach for our own maturity. Their fallibilities, their errors, their weaknesses were intended to develop our own capacity for parenthood. We were to discover their human weakness not to overwhelm or humiliate them, but to realize the difficulty of their task and awaken our own human protectiveness toward their failures or a respect for their partial achievement. But to place all responsibilities upon them is wrong too. If they gave us handicaps, they also gave us their courage, their obstinacy, their sacrifices, their moments of strength. We cannot forever await from them the sanction to mature, to impose on them our own truths, to resist or perhaps defeat them in our necessity to gain strength.
We cannot always place responsibility outside of ourselves, on parents, nations, the world, society, race, religion. Long ago it was the gods. If we accepted a part of this responsibility we would simultaneously discover our strength. A handicap is not permanent. We are permitted all the fluctuations, metamorphoses which we all so well understand in our scientific studies of psychology.
Character has ceased to be a mystery and we can no longer refuse our responsibility with the excuse that this is an unformed, chaotic, eyeless, unpredictable force which drives, tosses, breaks us at will. ~ Ana s Nin,#NFDB
1399:The Name "Arthur" The etymology of the Welsh name Arthur is uncertain, though most scholars favour either a derivation from the Roman gens name Artorius (ultimately of Messapic or Etruscan origin), or a native Brittonic compound based on the root *arto- "bear" (which became arth in Medieval and Modern Welsh). Similar "bear" names appear throughout the Celtic-speaking world. Gildas does not give the name Arthur but he does mention a British king Cuneglasus who had been "charioteer to the bear". Those that favor a mythological origin for Arthur point out that a Gaulish bear goddess Artio is attested, but as yet no certain examples of Celtic male bear gods have been detected. John Morris argues that the appearance of the name Arthur, as applied to the Scottish, Welsh and Pennine "Arthurs", and the lack of the name at any time earlier, suggests that in the early 6th century the name became popular amongst the indigenous British for a short time. He proposes that all of these occurrences were due to the importance of another Arthur, who may have ruled temporarily as Emperor of Britain. He suggests on the basis of archaeology that a period of Saxon advance was halted and turned back, before resuming again in the 570s. Morris also suggests that the Roman Camulodunum, modern Colchester, and capital of the Roman province of Britannia, is the origin of the name "Camelot". The name Artúr is frequently attested in southern Scotland and northern England in the 7th and 8th centuries. For example, Artúr mac Conaing, who may have been named after his uncle Artúr mac Áedáin. Artúr son of Bicoir Britone, was another 'Arthur' reported in this period, who slew Morgan mac Fiachna of Ulster in 620/625 in Kintyre. A man named Feradach, apparently the grandson of an 'Artuir', was a signatory at the synod that enacted the Law of Adomnan in 697. Arthur ap Pedr was a prince in Dyfed, born around 570–580. Given the popularity of this name at the time, it is likely that others were named for a figure who was already established in folklore by that time. ~ Roger Lancelyn Green, #NFDB
1400:It was the development of the sugar plantation colonies of the Caribbean beginning in the early seventeenth century that led to a dramatic escalation of the international slave trade and to an unprecedented increase in the importance of slavery within Africa itself. In the sixteenth century, probably about 300,000 slaves were traded in the Atlantic. They came mostly from Central Africa, with heavy involvement of Kongo and the Portuguese based farther south in Luanda, now the capital of Angola. During this time, the trans-Saharan slave trade was still larger, with probably about 550,000 Africans moving north as slaves. In the seventeenth century, the situation reversed. About 1,350,000 Africans were sold as slaves in the Atlantic trade, the majority now being shipped to the Americas. The numbers involved in the Saharan trade were relatively unchanged. The eighteenth century saw another dramatic increase, with about 6,000,000 slaves being shipped across the Atlantic and maybe 700,000 across the Sahara. Adding the figures up over periods and parts of Africa, well over 10,000,000 Africans were shipped out of the continent as slaves. Map 15 (this page) gives some sense of the scale of the slave trade. Using modern country boundaries, it depicts estimates of the cumulative extent of slavery between 1400 and 1900 as a percent of population in 1400. Darker colors show more intense slavery. For example, in Angola, Benin, Ghana, and Togo, total cumulative slave exports amounted to more than the entire population of the country in 1400. The sudden appearance of Europeans all around the coast of Western and Central Africa eager to buy slaves could not but have a transformative impact on African societies. Most slaves who were shipped to the Americas were war captives subsequently transported to the coast. The increase in warfare was fueled by huge imports of guns and ammunition, which the Europeans exchanged for slaves. By 1730 about 180,000 guns were being imported every year just along the West African coast, and between 1750 and the early nineteenth century, the British alone sold between 283,000 and 394,000 guns ~ Daron Acemo lu, #NFDB
1401:FEELING IT It’s useful to think about how emotional feelings emerge in consciousness by way of analogy with the way the flavor of a soup is the product of its ingredients.92 For example, salt, pepper, garlic, and water are common ingredients that go into a chicken soup. The amount of salt and pepper added can intensify the taste of the soup without radically changing its nature. You can add other ingredients, like celery, green peppers, and parsley, and have a variant of a chicken soup. Add roux and it becomes gumbo, whereas curry paste pushes it in a different direction. Substitute shrimp for chicken, and the character again changes. None of these individual items are soup ingredients per se: They are things that exist independent of soup and that would exist if a soup had never been made. The idea that emotions are psychologically constructed states is related to Claude Levi-Strauss’s notion of “bricolage.”93 This is the French word referring to something put together (constructed) from items that happen to be available. Levi-Strauss emphasized the importance of the individual, the “bricoleur,” and his social context, in the construction process. Building on this idea, Shirley Prendergast and Simon Forrest note that “maybe persons, objects, contexts, the sequence and fabric of everyday life are the medium through which emotions come into being, day to day, a kind of emotional bricolage.”94 In the brain, working memory can be thought of as the “bricoleur,” and the content of emotional consciousness resulting from the construction process as the bricolage. Similarly, fear, anxiety, and other emotions arise from intrinsically nonemotional ingredients, things that exist in the brain for other reasons but that create feelings when they coalesce in consciousness. The pot in which the ingredients of conscious feelings are cooked is working memory (Figure 8.9). Different ingredients, or varying amounts of the same ingredients, account for differences between fear and anxiety, and for variations within each category. Although my soup analogy is new, I’ve been promoting the basic idea that conscious feelings are assembled from nonemotional ingredients for quite some time.95 ~ Joseph E LeDoux, #NFDB
1402:Absorbingly articulate and infinitely intelligent . . . There is nothing pop about Kahneman's psychology, no formulaic story arc, no beating you over the head with an artificial, buzzword -encrusted Big Idea. It's just the wisdom that comes from five decades of honest, rigorous scientific work, delivered humbly yet brilliantly, in a way that will forever change the way you think about thinking:' -MARIA POPOVA, The Atlantic "Kahneman's primer adds to recent challenges to economic orthodoxies about rational actors and efficient markets; more than that, it's a lucid, mar- velously readable guide to spotting-and correcting-our biased misunder- standings of the world:' -Publishers Weekly (starred review) "The ramifications of Kahneman's work are wide, extending into education, business, marketing, politics ... and even happiness research. Call his field 'psychonomics: the hidden reasoning behind our choices. Thinking, Fast and Slow is essential reading for anyone with a mind:' -KYLE SMITH,NewYorkPost "A stellar accomplishment, a book for everyone who likes to think and wants to do it better." - E. JAMES LIEBERMAN ,Libraryfournal "Daniel Kahneman demonstrates forcefully in his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, how easy it is for humans to swerve away from rationality:' -CHRISTOPHER SHEA , The Washington Post "A tour de force .. . Kahneman's book is a must-read for anyone interested in either human behavior or investing. He clearly shows that while we like to think of ourselves as rational in our decision making, the truth is we are subject to many biases. At least being aware of them will give you a better chance of avoiding them, or at least making fewer of them:' -LARRY SWEDROE, CBS News "Brilliant .. . It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Daniel Kahne- man's contribution to the understanding of the way we think and choose. He stands among the giants, a weaver of the threads of Charles Darwin, Adam Smith and Sigmund Freud. Arguably the most important psycholo- gist in history, Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of hap pi- ness and well-being ... A magisterial work, stunning in its ambition, infused ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
1403:for ordinary African Americans, coping with hegemonic gender ideology can be so demanding that generating alternatives can seem virtually impossible. But the importance of this task cannot be underestimated because African American survival may depend on it. One important task lies in rejecting dominant gender ideology, in particular, its use of the thesis of "weak men, strong women" as a source of Black social control. Because hegemonic masculinity equates strength with dominance, an antiracist politics must challenge this connection. Within this project, the fundamental premise of any progressive Black gender ideology is that it cannot be based on someone else's subordination. This means that definitions of Black masculinity that rely on the subordination of Black women, poor people, children, LGBT people, or anyone else become invalid. Definitions of Black femininity that do not challenge relations of sexism, economic exploitation, age, heterosexism, and other markers of social inequality also become suspect. Rather than trying to be strong within existing gender ideology, the task lies in rejecting a gender ideology that measures masculinity and femininity using gendered definitions of strength. In this endeavor to craft a more progressive Black gender ideology, African American men and women face similar yet distinctive challenges. The task for African American men lies in developing new definitions of masculinity that uncouple strength from its close ties to male dominance. Good Black men need not rule their families with an iron hand, assault one another, pursue endless booty calls, and always seem to be "in control" in order to avoid the sigma of weakness. The task for African American women lies in redefining strength in ways that simultaneously enable Black women to reclaim historical sources of female power, yet reject the exploitation that has often accompanied that power. Good Black women need not be stoic mules whose primary release from work and responsibility comes once a week on Sunday morning. New definitions of strength would enable Black men and women alike to be seen as needing and worthy of one another's help and support without being stigmatized as either overly weak or unnaturally strong. ~ Patricia Hill Collins, #NFDB
1404:The same thing appears in the nature and design of the sacraments, which God hath appointed. God, considering our frame, hath not only appointed that we should be told of the great things of the gospel, and of the redemption of Christ, and instructed in them by his word; but also that they should be, as it were, exhibited to our view, in sensible representations, in the sacraments, the more to affect us with them. And the impressing divine things on the hearts and affections of men, is evidently one great and main end for which God has ordained that his word delivered in the holy Scriptures, should be opened, applied, and set home upon men, in preaching. And therefore it does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend as well as preaching to give men a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the things of the word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word to men in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of the things of religion, and their own misery, and necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; and to stir up the pure minds of the saints, and quicken their affections, by often bringing the great things of religion to their remembrance, and setting them before them in their proper colors, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already, 2 Pet. 1:12, 13. And particularly, to promote those two affections in them, which are spoken of in the text, love and joy: "Christ gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; that the body of Christ might be edified in love," Eph. 4:11, 12, 16. The apostle in instructing and counseling Timothy concerning the work of the ministry, informs him that the great end of that word which a minister is to preach, is love or charity, 1 Tim. 3, 4, 5. And another affection which God has appointed preaching as a means to promote in the saints, is joy; and therefore ministers are called "helpers of their joy," 2 Cor. 1:24. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1405:5. Although Sanders and especially Pinnock often speak of the importance of faith, they rarely listen to what the New Testament has to say about the content of faith, about the object of faith. Consider, for example, the following statements: “people can receive the gift of salvation without knowing the giver or the precise nature of the gift.”77 Inclusivism “denies that Jesus must be the object of saving faith.”78 “‘Saving faith’…does not necessitate knowledge of Christ in this life. God’s gracious activity is wider than the arena of special revelation. God will accept into his kingdom those who repent and trust him even if they know nothing of Jesus.”79 “Faith in God is what saves, not possessing certain minimum information.”80 “A person is saved by faith, even if the content of faith is deficient (and whose is not?). The Bible does not teach that one must confess the name of Jesus to be saved.”81 “The issue that God cares about is the direction of the heart, not the content of theology.”82 Some of this argument is slanted by the form of the proferred antitheses. For example: “Faith in God is what saves, not possessing certain minimum information.” At one level that is surely correct: merely possessing information, minimal or otherwise, does not save. Christians are not gnostics. On the other hand, the form of the antithesis may allow the unwary to overlook the fact that faith has content, or an object. Does faith in, say, a ouija board save? How about sincere faith in astrology? Pinnock says it is “faith in God” that saves. But which God? The Buddhist impersonal God? And even if we assume we are dealing with the true God, does all faith in this God save, when we are told that even the devils believe? Again: “The issue that God cares about is the direction of the heart, not the content of theology.” At one level, I would strenuously agree. Yet at the same time, I would want to add that if the direction of the heart is truly right, one of the things it will be concerned about is the content of theology. Does Paul sound as if he does not care about the content of theology in Galatians 1:8-9? Does John, in 1 John 4:1-6? Far from resorting to antitheses, John purposely links sound doctrine, transparent obedience, and love for the brothers and sisters in Christ, as being joint marks of the true believer (and thus of true faith!). ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1406:Dan has what amounts to my entire life in the palm of his hand. He’ll see our chats. He’ll see the texts I sent to Beth about him and my plan. And what did I think was going to happen? Did I really think I could pull off some only-works-in-movies shit?
“Do you think it could be possible that Dan didn’t mean to hit me with that basketball?” The question flies out of my mouth, and I don’t remember thinking about asking it.
She scowls, looking me up and down. “Are you okay? I mean, I can tell you’re not. Was he that big of a jerk last night?”
I shake my head and pick at my nail polish. It’s not chipping yet, but it’s inevitable, so why not just go ahead and get it over with? “No, I’m fine. He was fine. I just… I don’t know.”
She puts a worried hand on my shoulder. “What happened, Z? Tell me.”
I let my forehead hit the surface of my desk. It hurts. “He has my phone.”
A bit of time passes where she doesn’t say anything. I just wait for the moment of realization to explode from her.
“Holy shit! Don’t tell me your chat is on there!”
There it is.
I nod my head, which probably just looks like I’m rubbing it up and down on my desk.
“Please tell me it’s password protected or something.”
I shake my head, again seemingly nuzzling my desk.
“Zelda, do you have your homework?” Mr. Drew asks from above me.
I pull out my five hundred words on the importance of James Dean in cinema from my backpack without even looking and hand it to him. Mr. Drew has a big thing for James Dean.
“Are you…okay, Zelda?” he asks a bit uncomfortably.
Good old Mr. Drew. Concerned about his students but very much not well versed in actually dealing with them.
I raise a hand and wave him off. “I’m good. As you were, Drew.”
“Right. Okay then.” He moves on.
Beth rubs my back. “It’s going to be all good in the hood, babe. Don’t worry. Dan won’t be interested in your phone. How did he get it, by the way?”
I turn my head just enough to let her see my face fully. I’m not sure if she sees a woman at the end of her rope or a girl who has no idea what to do next, but she pulls her hand back like she just touched a disguised snake. I’m so not in the mood to describe the sequence of events that led up to the worst moment of my life, and she knows it. ~ Leah Rae Miller,#NFDB
1407:On a long flight, after periods of crisis and many hours of fatigue, mind and body may become disunited until at times they seem completely different elements, as though the body were only a home with which the mind has been associated but by no means bound. Consciousness grows independent of the ordinary senses. You see without assistance from the eyes, over distances beyond the visual horizon. There are moments when existence appears independent even of the mind. The importance of physical desire and immediate surroundings is submerged in the apprehension of universal values.
For unmeasurable periods, I seem divorced from my body, as though I were an awareness spreading out through space, over the earth and into the heavens, unhampered by time or substance, free from the gravitation that binds to heavy human problems of the world. My body requires no attention. It's not hungry. It's neither warm or cold. It's resigned to being left undisturbed. Why have I troubled to bring it here? I might better have left it back at Long Island or St. Louis, while the weightless element that has lived within it flashes through the skies and views the planet. This essential consciousness needs no body for its travels. It needs no plane, no engine, no instruments, only the release from flesh which circumstances I've gone through make possible.
Then what am I – the body substance which I can see with my eyes and feel with my hands? Or am I this realization, this greater understanding which dwells within it, yet expands through the universe outside; a part of all existence, powerless but without need for power; immersed in solitude, yet in contact with all creation? There are moments when the two appear inseparable, and others when they could be cut apart by the merest flash of light.
While my hand is on the stick, my feet on the rudder, and my eyes on the compass, this consciousness, like a winged messenger, goes out to visit the waves below, testing the warmth of water, the speed of wind, the thickness of intervening clouds. It goes north to the glacial coasts of Greenland, over the horizon to the edge of dawn, ahead to Ireland, England, and the continent of Europe, away through space to the moon and stars, always returning, unwillingly, to the mortal duty of seeing that the limbs and muscles have attended their routine while it was gone. ~ Charles A Lindbergh,#NFDB
1408:A world where only a tiny super-elite are capable of understanding advanced science and technology and its applications would be, to my mind, a dangerous and limited one. I seriously doubt whether long-range beneficial projects such as cleaning up the oceans or curing diseases in the developing world would be given priority. Worse, we could find that technology is used against us and that we might have no power to stop it. I don’t believe in boundaries, either for what we can do in our personal lives or for what life and intelligence can accomplish in our universe. We stand at a threshold of important discoveries in all areas of science. Without doubt, our world will change enormously in the next fifty years. We will find out what happened at the Big Bang. We will come to understand how life began on Earth. We may even discover whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. While the chances of communicating with an intelligent extra-terrestrial species may be slim, the importance of such a discovery means we must not give up trying. We will continue to explore our cosmic habitat, sending robots and humans into space. We cannot continue to look inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. Through scientific endeavour and technological innovation, we must look outwards to the wider universe, while also striving to fix the problems on Earth. And I am optimistic that we will ultimately create viable habitats for the human race on other planets. We will transcend the Earth and learn to exist in space. This is not the end of the story, but just the beginning of what I hope will be billions of years of life flourishing in the cosmos. And one final point—we never really know where the next great scientific discovery will come from, nor who will make it. Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audience possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be. So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1409:Looking back on all my interviews for this book, how many times in how many different contexts did I hear about the vital importance of having a caring adult or mentor in every young person’s life? How many times did I hear about the value of having a coach—whether you are applying for a job for the first time at Walmart or running Walmart? How many times did I hear people stressing the importance of self-motivation and practice and taking ownership of your own career or education as the real differentiators for success? How interesting was it to learn that the highest-paying jobs in the future will be stempathy jobs—jobs that combine strong science and technology skills with the ability to empathize with another human being? How ironic was it to learn that something as simple as a chicken coop or the basic planting of trees and gardens could be the most important thing we do to stabilize parts of the World of Disorder? Who ever would have thought it would become a national security and personal security imperative for all of us to scale the Golden Rule further and wider than ever? And who can deny that when individuals get so super-empowered and interdependent at the same time, it becomes more vital than ever to be able to look into the face of your neighbor or the stranger or the refugee or the migrant and see in that person a brother or sister? Who can ignore the fact that the key to Tunisia’s success in the Arab Spring was that it had a little bit more “civil society” than any other Arab country—not cell phones or Facebook friends? How many times and in how many different contexts did people mention to me the word “trust” between two human beings as the true enabler of all good things? And whoever thought that the key to building a healthy community would be a dining room table? That’s why I wasn’t surprised that when I asked Surgeon General Murthy what was the biggest disease in America today, without hesitation he answered: “It’s not cancer. It’s not heart disease. It’s isolation. It is the pronounced isolation that so many people are experiencing that is the great pathology of our lives today.” How ironic. We are the most technologically connected generation in human history—and yet more people feel more isolated than ever. This only reinforces Murthy’s earlier point—that the connections that matter most, and are in most short supply today, are the human-to-human ones. ~ Thomas L Friedman, #NFDB
1410:Chris Argyris, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, wrote a lovely article in 1977,191 in which he looked at the performance of Harvard Business School graduates ten years after graduation. By and large, they got stuck in middle management, when they had all hoped to become CEOs and captains of industry. What happened? Argyris found that when they inevitably hit a roadblock, their ability to learn collapsed: What’s more, those members of the organization that many assume to be the best at learning are, in fact, not very good at it. I am talking about the well-educated, high-powered, high-commitment professionals who occupy key leadership positions in the modern corporation.… Put simply, because many professionals are almost always successful at what they do, they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure.… [T]hey become defensive, screen out criticism, and put the “blame” on anyone and everyone but themselves. In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it the most.192 [italics mine] A year or two after Wave, Jeff Huber was running our Ads engineering team. He had a policy that any notable bug or mistake would be discussed at his team meeting in a “What did we learn?” session. He wanted to make sure that bad news was shared as openly as good news, so that he and his leaders were never blind to what was really happening and to reinforce the importance of learning from mistakes. In one session, a mortified engineer confessed, “Jeff, I screwed up a line of code and it cost us a million dollars in revenue.” After leading the team through the postmortem and fixes, Jeff concluded, “Did we get more than a million dollars in learning out of this?” “Yes.” “Then get back to work.”193 And it works in other settings too. A Bay Area public school, the Bullis Charter School in Los Altos, takes this approach to middle school math. If a child misses a question on a math test, they can try the question again for half credit. As their principal, Wanny Hersey, told me, “These are smart kids, but in life they are going to hit walls once in a while. It’s vital they master geometry, algebra one, and algebra two, but it’s just as important that they respond to failure by trying again instead of giving up.” In the 2012–2013 academic year, Bullis was the third-highest-ranked middle school in California.194 ~ Laszlo Bock, #NFDB
1411:Table 3–1. Definitions of Cognitive Distortions 1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water. 4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. a. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out. b. The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact. 6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.” 7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” 8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment. 9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. 10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as me cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for. ~ David D Burns, #NFDB
1412:The intelligent want self-control; children want candy. —RUMI INTRODUCTION Welcome to Willpower 101 Whenever I mention that I teach a course on willpower, the nearly universal response is, “Oh, that’s what I need.” Now more than ever, people realize that willpower—the ability to control their attention, emotions, and desires—influences their physical health, financial security, relationships, and professional success. We all know this. We know we’re supposed to be in control of every aspect of our lives, from what we eat to what we do, say, and buy. And yet, most people feel like willpower failures—in control one moment but overwhelmed and out of control the next. According to the American Psychological Association, Americans name lack of willpower as the number-one reason they struggle to meet their goals. Many feel guilty about letting themselves and others down. Others feel at the mercy of their thoughts, emotions, and cravings, their lives dictated by impulses rather than conscious choices. Even the best-controlled feel a kind of exhaustion at keeping it all together and wonder if life is supposed to be such a struggle. As a health psychologist and educator for the Stanford School of Medicine’s Health Improvement Program, my job is to help people manage stress and make healthy choices. After years of watching people struggle to change their thoughts, emotions, bodies, and habits, I realized that much of what people believed about willpower was sabotaging their success and creating unnecessary stress. Although scientific research had much to say that could help them, it was clear that these insights had not yet become part of public understanding. Instead, people continued to rely on worn-out strategies for self-control. I saw again and again that the strategies most people use weren’t just ineffective—they actually backfired, leading to self-sabotage and losing control. This led me to create “The Science of Willpower,” a class offered to the public through Stanford University’s Continuing Studies program. The course brings together the newest insights about self-control from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine to explain how we can break old habits and create healthy habits, conquer procrastination, find our focus, and manage stress. It illuminates why we give in to temptation and how we can find the strength to resist. It demonstrates the importance of understanding the limits of self-control, ~ Kelly McGonigal, #NFDB
1413:When I visited George Bernard Shaw, in 1948, at his home in Aylot, a suburb of London, he was extremely anxious for me to tell him all that I knew about Ingersoll. During the course of the conversation, he told me that Ingersoll had made a tremendous impression upon him, and had exercised an influence upon him probably greater than that of any other man. He seemed particularly anxious to impress me with the importance of Ingersoll's influence upon his intellectual endeavors and accomplishments.
In view of this admission, what percentage of the greatness of Shaw belongs to Ingersoll? If Ingersoll's influence upon so great an intellect as George Bernard Shaw was that extensive, what must have been his influence upon others?
What seed of wisdom did he plant into the minds of others, and what accomplishments of theirs should be attributed to him? The world will never know.
What about the countless thousands from whom he lifted the clouds of darkness and fear, and who were emancipated from the demoralizing dogmas and creeds of ignorance and superstition?
What will be Ingersoll's influence upon the minds of future generations, who will come under the spell of his magic words, and who will be guided into the channels of human betterment by the unparalleled example of his courageous life?
The debt the world owes Robert G. Ingersoll can never be paid. ~ Joseph Lewis,#NFDB
1414:It is hard to overestimate the importance of the Catholic church’s value for European culture and for the whole world. It Christianized and civilized barbaric peoples and for a long time was the only guardian of science and art. Here the church’s cloisters were preeminent. The Catholic church developed a spiritual power unequaled anywhere, and today we still admire the way it combined the principle of catholicism with the principle of one sanctifying church, as well as tolerance with intolerance. It is a world in itself. Infinite diversity flows together, and this colorful picture gives it its irresistible charm (Complexio oppositorum). A country has seldom produced so many different kinds of people as has the Catholic church. With admirable power, it has understood how to maintain unity in diversity, to gain the love and respect of the masses, and to foster a strong sense of community. . . . But it is exactly because of this greatness that we have serious reservations. Has this world [of the Catholic church] really remained the church of Christ? Has it not perhaps become an obstruction blocking the path to God instead of a road sign on the path to God? Has it not blocked the only path to salvation? Yet no one can ever obstruct the way to God. The church still has the Bible, and as long as she has it we can still believe in the holy Christian church. God’s word will never be denied (Isa. 55:11), whether it be preached by us or by our sister church. We adhere to the same confession of faith, we pray the same Lord’s Prayer, and we share some of the same ancient rites. This binds us together, and as far as we are concerned we would like to live in peace with our disparate sister. We do not, however, want to deny anything that we have recognized as God’s word. The designation Catholic or Protestant is unimportant. The important thing is God’s word. Conversely, we will never violate anyone else’s faith. God does not desire reluctant service, and God has given everyone a conscience. We can and should desire that our sister church search its soul and concentrate on nothing but the word [1 Cor. 2:12– 13]. Until that time, we must have patience. We will have to endure it when, in false darkness, the “only holy church” pronounces upon our church the “anathema” (condemnation). She doesn’t know any better, and she doesn’t hate the heretic, only the heresy. As long as we let the word be our only armor we can look confidently into the future. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
1415:So identified has the State become in the public mind with the provision of these services that an attack on State financing appears to many people as an attack on the service itself. Thus if one maintains that the State should not supply court services, and that private enterprise on the market could supply such service more efficiently as well as more morally, people tend to think of this as denying the importance of courts themselves. The libertarian who wants to replace government by private enterprises in the above areas is thus treated in the same way as he would be if the government had, for various reasons, been supplying shoes as a tax-financed monopoly from time immemorial. If the government and only the government had had a monopoly of the shoe manufacturing and retailing business, how would most of the public treat the libertarian who now came along to advocate that the government get out of the shoe business and throw it open to private enterprise? He would undoubtedly be treated as follows: people would cry, “How could you? You are opposed to the public, and to poor people, wearing shoes! And who would supply shoes to the public if the government got out of the business? Tell us that! Be constructive! It’s easy to be negative and smart-alecky about government; but tell us who would supply shoes? Which people? How many shoe stores would be available in each city and town? How would the shoe firms be capitalized? How many brands would there be? What material would they use? What lasts? What would be the pricing arrangements for shoes? Wouldn’t regulation of the shoe industry be needed to see to it that the product is sound? And who would supply the poor with shoes? Suppose a poor person didn’t have the money to buy a pair?” These questions, ridiculous as they seem to be and are with regard to the shoe business, are just as absurd when applied to the libertarian who advocates a free market in fire, police, postal service, or any other government operation. The point is that the advocate of a free market in anything cannot provide a “constructive” blueprint of such a market in advance. The essence and the glory of the free market is that individual firms and businesses, competing on the market, provide an ever-changing orchestration of efficient and progressive goods and services: continually improving products and markets, advancing technology, cutting costs, and meeting changing consumer demands as swiftly and as efficiently as possible. ~ Murray N Rothbard, #NFDB
1416:Are the religious individuals in a society more moral than the secular ones? Many researchers have looked into this, and the main finding is that there are few interesting findings. There are subtle effects here and there: some studies find, for instance, that the religious are slightly more prejudiced, but this effect is weak when one factors out other considerations, such as age and political attitudes, and exists only when religious belief is measured in certain ways. The only large effect is that religious Americans give more to charity (including nonreligious charities) than atheists do. This holds even when one controls for demographics (religious Americans are more likely than average to be older, female, southern, and African American). To explore why this relationship exists, the political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell asked people about life after death, the importance of God to morality, and various other facets of religious belief. It turns out that none of their answers to such questions were related to behaviors having to do with volunteering and charitable giving. Rather, participation in the religious community was everything. As Putnam and Campbell put it, “Once we know how observant a person is in terms of church attendance, nothing that we can discover about the content of her religious faith adds anything to our understanding or prediction of her good neighborliness.… In fact, the statistics suggest that even an atheist who happened to become involved in the social life of the congregation (perhaps through a spouse) is much more likely to volunteer in a soup kitchen than the most fervent believer who prays alone. It is religious belongingness that matters for neighborliness, not religious believing.” This importance of community, and the irrelevance of belief, extends as well to the nastier effects of religion. The psychologist Jeremy Ginges and his colleagues found a strong relationship between religiosity and support for suicide bombing among Palestinian Muslims, and, again, the key factor was religious community, not religious belief: mosque attendance predicted support for suicide attacks; frequency of prayer did not. Among Indonesian Muslims, Mexican Catholics, British Protestants, Russian Orthodox in Russia, Israeli Jews, and Indian Hindus, frequency of religious attendance (but again, not frequency of prayer) predicts responses to questions such as “I blame people of other religions for much of the trouble in this world. ~ Paul Bloom, #NFDB
1417:To be ridiculously sweeping: baby boomers and their offspring have shifted emphasis from the communal to the individual, from the future to the present, from virtue to personal satisfaction. Increasingly secular, we pledge allegiance to lowercase gods of our private devising. We are concerned with leading less a good life than the good life. In contrast to our predecessors, we seldom ask ourselves whether we serve a greater social purpose; we are more likely to ask ourselves if we are happy. We shun self-sacrifice and duty as the soft spots of suckers. We give little thought to the perpetuation of lineage, culture or nation; we take our heritage for granted. We are ahistorical. We measure the value of our lives within the brackets of our own births and deaths, and we’re not especially bothered by what happens once we’re dead. As we age—oh, so reluctantly!—we are apt to look back on our pasts and question not did I serve family, God and country, but did I ever get to Cuba, or run a marathon? Did I take up landscape painting? Was I fat? We will assess the success of our lives in accordance not with whether they were righteous, but with whether they were interesting and fun.
If that package sounds like one big moral step backward, the Be Here Now mentality that has converted from sixties catchphrase to entrenched gestalt has its upsides. There has to be some value in living for today, since at any given time today is all you’ve got. We justly cherish characters capable of living “in the moment.”…We admire go-getters determined to pack their lives with as much various experience as time and money provide, who never stop learning, engaging, and savoring what every day offers—in contrast to the dour killjoys who are bitter and begrudging in the ceaseless fulfillment of obligation. For the role of humble server, helpmate, and facilitator no longer to constitute the sole model of womanhood surely represents progress for which I am personally grateful. Furthermore, prosperity may naturally lead any well-off citizenry to the final frontier: the self, whose borders are as narrow or infinite as we make them.
Yet the biggest social casualty of Be Here Now is children, who have converted from requirement to option, like heated seats for your car. In deciding what in times past never used to be a choice, we don’t consider the importance of raising another generation of our own people, however we might choose to define them. The question is whether kids will make us happy. ~ Lionel Shriver,#NFDB
1418:The key to preventing this is balance. I see the give and take between different constituencies in a business as central to its success. So when I talk about taming the Beast, what I really mean is that keeping its needs balanced with the needs of other, more creative facets of your company will make you stronger. Let me give you an example of what I mean, drawn from the business I know best. In animation, we have many constituencies: story, art, budget, technology, finance, production, marketing, and consumer products. The people within each constituency have priorities that are important—and often opposing. The writer and director want to tell the most affecting story possible; the production designer wants the film to look beautiful; the technical directors want flawless effects; finance wants to keep the budgets within limits; marketing wants a hook that is easily sold to potential viewers; the consumer products people want appealing characters to turn into plush toys and to plaster on lunchboxes and T-shirts; the production managers try to keep everyone happy—and to keep the whole enterprise from spiraling out of control. And so on. Each group is focused on its own needs, which means that no one has a clear view of how their decisions impact other groups; each group is under pressure to perform well, which means achieving stated goals. Particularly in the early months of a project, these goals—which are subgoals, really, in the making of a film—are often easier to articulate and explain than the film itself. But if the director is able to get everything he or she wants, we will likely end up with a film that’s too long. If the marketing people get their way, we will only make a film that mimics those that have already been “proven” to succeed—in other words, familiar to viewers but in all likelihood a creative failure. Each group, then, is trying to do the right thing, but they’re pulling in different directions. If any one of those groups “wins,” we lose. In an unhealthy culture, each group believes that if their objectives trump the goals of the other groups, the company will be better off. In a healthy culture, all constituencies recognize the importance of balancing competing desires—they want to be heard, but they don’t have to win. Their interaction with one another—the push and pull that occurs naturally when talented people are given clear goals—yields the balance we seek. But that only happens if they understand that achieving balance is a central goal of the company. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
1419:MIRACULOUS!” . . . “Revolutionary!” . . . “Greatest ever!” We are inundated by a flood of extravagant claims as we channel surf the television or flip magazine pages. The messages leap out at us. The products assure that they are new, improved, fantastic, and capable of changing our lives. For only a few dollars, we can have “cleaner clothes,” “whiter teeth,” “glamorous hair,” and “tastier food.” Automobiles, perfume, diet drinks, and mouthwash are guaranteed to bring happiness, friends, and the good life. And just before an election, no one can match the politicians’ promises. But talk is cheap, and too often we soon realize that the boasts were hollow, quite far from the truth. “Jesus is the answer!” . . . “Believe in God!” . . . “Follow me to church!” Christians also make great claims but are often guilty of belying them with their actions. Professing to trust God and to be his people, they cling tightly to the world and its values. Possessing all the right answers, they contradict the gospel with their lives. With energetic style and crisp, well-chosen words, James confronts this conflict head-on. It is not enough to talk the Christian faith, he says; we must live it. “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?” (2:14). The proof of the reality of our faith is a changed life. Genuine faith will inevitably produce good deeds. This is the central theme of James’ letter, around which he supplies practical advice on living the Christian life. James begins his letter by outlining some general characteristics of the Christian life (1:1–27). Next, he exhorts Christians to act justly in society (2:1–13). He follows this practical advice with a theological discourse on the relationship between faith and action (2:14–26). Then James shows the importance of controlling one’s speech (3:1–12). In 3:13–18, James distinguishes two kinds of wisdom—earthly and heavenly. Then he encourages his readers to turn from evil desires and obey God (4:1–12). James reproves those who trust in their own plans and possessions (4:13—5:6). Finally, he exhorts his readers to be patient with each other (5:7–11), to be straightforward in their promises (5:12), to pray for each other (5:13–18), and to help each other remain faithful to God (5:19, 20). This letter could be considered a how-to book on Christian living. Confrontation, challenges, and a call to commitment await you in its pages. Read James and become a doer of the Word (1:22–25). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1420:A wealth of research confirms the importance of face-to-face contact. One experiment performed by two researchers at the University of Michigan challenged groups of six students to play a game in which everyone could earn money by cooperating. One set of groups met for ten minutes face-to-face to discuss strategy before playing. Another set of groups had thirty minutes for electronic interaction. The groups that met in person cooperated well and earned more money. The groups that had only connected electronically fell apart, as members put their personal gains ahead of the group’s needs. This finding resonates well with many other experiments, which have shown that face-to-face contact leads to more trust, generosity, and cooperation than any other sort of interaction.
The very first experiment in social psychology was conducted by a University of Indiana psychologist who was also an avid bicyclist. He noted that “racing men” believe that “the value of a pace,” or competitor, shaves twenty to thirty seconds off the time of a mile. To rigorously test the value of human proximity, he got forty children to compete at spinning fishing reels to pull a cable. In all cases, the kids were supposed to go as fast as they could, but most of them, especially the slower ones, were much quicker when they were paired with another child. Modern statistical evidence finds that young professionals today work longer hours if they live in a metropolitan area with plenty of competitors in their own occupational niche.
Supermarket checkouts provide a particularly striking example of the power of proximity. As anyone who has been to a grocery store knows, checkout clerks differ wildly in their speed and competence. In one major chain, clerks with differing abilities are more or less randomly shuffled across shifts, which enabled two economists to look at the impact of productive peers. It turns out that the productivity of average clerks rises substantially when there is a star clerk working on their shift, and those same average clerks get worse when their shift is filled with below-average clerks.
Statistical evidence also suggests that electronic interactions and face-to-face interactions support one another; in the language of economics, they’re complements rather than substitutes. Telephone calls are disproportionately made among people who are geographically close, presumably because face-to-face relationships increase the demand for talking over the phone. And when countries become more urban, they engage in more electronic communications. ~ Edward L Glaeser,#NFDB
1421:them out if they make dumb choices. Let them struggle; let them learn; let them take responsibility. They need to figure out the importance of working hard, saving money, being smart. For God’s sake, don’t be a damned fool and then go begging the government to save you.” This is not a stupid argument. I come at the issues differently, of course, as someone who supports a strong social safety net. But this more conservative view represents a considered and consistent position, worthy of respect. Lower-income conservatives are making the same kind of argument that rich liberals are making. They are willing to make monetary sacrifices to answer the call of their fundamental values. For liberals, those values are more about the common good and enlightened self-interest. For conservatives, those values are more about the importance of independence and personal responsibility. But both sides rightfully see their voting behavior as needing to reflect more than just a vulgar calculation about their immediate pocketbook needs. If one side deserves respect, then so does the other.*1 Of course, respecting our opponent’s argument doesn’t mean we have to just accept it and give in. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t argue passionately about the best approach to taxes or spending—especially in a society as complex as ours, with the stakes as high as they are. In fact, we should disagree and debate. Debate is the lifeblood of democracy, after all. Disagreement is a good thing—even heated disagreement. Only in a dictatorship does everybody have to agree. In a democracy, nobody has to agree. That’s called freedom. It’s the whole point of America. But at the base of too many of our public discussions sits the same destructive assumption: I’m right. And you’re wrong. We proceed on both sides as if our side is grounded in “the Truth” and the other side is always insane and delusional. And some version of this flawed concept has become the default setting throughout American political discourse. It is one thing to say, “I disagree with you because we have different values and priorities.” It’s quite another to say, “I disagree with you because you are an uneducated idiot—a pawn—and a dupe.” The prevalence of the latter set of arguments is why the Democratic Party stinks of elitism. Here’s another liberal favorite: “How can we argue with conservatives? They don’t believe in facts anymore—only ‘alternative facts.’ At least, liberals believe in science. Right-wingers don’t!” I understand the source of liberal exasperation here. Even though any high school student can reproduce the greenhouse-gas effect in a laboratory beaker, ~ Van Jones, #NFDB
1422:He continuously reflected on her image and attributes, day and night. His bhakti was such that he could not stop thinking of her. Eventually, he saw her everywhere and in everything. This was his path to illumination.
He was often asked by people: what is the way to the supreme? His answer was sharp and definite: bhakti yoga. He said time and time again that bhakti yoga is the best sadhana for the Kali Yuga (Dark Age) of the present.
His bhakti is illustrated by the following statement he made to a disciple:
To my divine mother I prayed only for pure love.
At her lotus feet I offered a few flowers and I prayed:
Mother! here is virtue and here is vice;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Mother! here is knowledge and here is ignorance;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Mother! here is purity and impurity;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Ramakrishna, like Kabir, was a practical man.
He said: "So long as passions are directed towards the world and its objects, they are enemies. But when they are directed towards a deity, then they become the best of friends to man, for they take him to illumination. The desire for worldly things must be changed into longing for the supreme; the anger which you feel for fellow man must be directed towards the supreme for not manifesting himself to you . . . and so on, with all other emotions. The passions cannot be eradicated, but they can be turned into new directions."
A disciple once asked him: "How can one conquer the weaknesses within us?" He answered: "When the fruit grows out of the flower, the petals drop off themselves. So when divinity in you increases, the weaknesses of human nature will vanish of their own accord." He emphasized that the aspirant should not give up his practices. "If a single dive into the sea does not bring you a pearl, do not conclude that there are no pearls in the sea. There are countless pearls hidden in the sea.
So if you fail to merge with the supreme during devotional practices, do not lose heart. Go on patiently with the practices, and in time you will invoke divine grace." It does not matter what form you care to worship. He said: "Many are the names of the supreme and infinite are the forms through which he may be approached. In whatever name and form you choose to worship him, through that he will be realized by you." He indicated the importance of surrender on the path of bhakti when he said:
~ Swami Satyananda Saraswati, A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya,#NFDB
1423:We need to analyze and contemplate the experience of modernity in the Arab and Muslim world, in order to grasp what is happening. Some of us, for example, reject modernity, and yet it’s obvious that these same people are using the products of modernity, even to the extent that when proselytizing their interpretation of Islam, which conflicts with modernity, they’re employing the tools of modernity to do so.
This strange phenomenon can best be understood by contemplating our basic attitude towards modernity, stemming from two centuries ago. If we analyze books written by various Muslim thinkers at the time, concerning modernity and the importance of modernizing our societies, and so forth, we can see that they distinguished between certain aspects of modernity that should be rejected, and others that may be accepted. You can find this distinction in the very earliest books that Muslim intellectuals wrote on the topic of modernity.
To provide a specific example, I’ll cite an important book that is widely regarded as having been the first ever written about modern thought in the Muslim world, namely, a book by the famous Egyptian intellectual, Rifa’ Rafi’ al-Tahtawi (1801–1873), Takhlish al-Ibriz fi Talkhish Baris, whose title may be translated as Mining Gold from Its Surrounding Dross. As you can immediately grasp from its title, the book distinguishes between the “gold” contained within modernity—gold being a highly prized, expensive and rare product of mining—and its so-called “worthless” elements, which Muslims are forbidden to embrace.
Now if we ask ourselves, “What elements of modernity did these early thinkers consider acceptable, and what did they demand that we reject?,” we discover that technology is the “acceptable” element of modernity. We are told that we may adopt as much technology as we want, and exploit these products of modernity to our heart’s content. But what about the modes of thought that give rise to these products, and underlie the very phenomenon of modernity itself? That is, the free exercise of reason, and critical thought? These two principles are rejected and proscribed for Muslims, who may adopt the products of modernity, while its substance, values and foundations, including its philosophical modes of thought, are declared forbidden.
Shaykh Rifa’ Rafi’ al-Tahtawi explained that we may exploit knowledge that is useful for defense, warfare, irrigation, farming, etc., and yet he simultaneously forbade us to study, or utilize, the philosophical sciences that gave rise to modern thought, and the love for scientific methodologies that enlivens the spirit of modern knowledge, because he believed that they harbored religious deviance and infidelity (to God). ~,#NFDB
1424:her that when he had first raised the idea, I hadn’t known he was sick. Almost nobody knew, she said. He had called me right before he was going to be operated on for cancer, and he was still keeping it a secret, she explained. I decided then to write this book. Jobs surprised me by readily acknowledging that he would have no control over it or even the right to see it in advance. “It’s your book,” he said. “I won’t even read it.” But later that fall he seemed to have second thoughts about cooperating and, though I didn’t know it, was hit by another round of cancer complications. He stopped returning my calls, and I put the project aside for a while. Then, unexpectedly, he phoned me late on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve 2009. He was at home in Palo Alto with only his sister, the writer Mona Simpson. His wife and their three children had taken a quick trip to go skiing, but he was not healthy enough to join them. He was in a reflective mood, and we talked for more than an hour. He began by recalling that he had wanted to build a frequency counter when he was twelve, and he was able to look up Bill Hewlett, the founder of HP, in the phone book and call him to get parts. Jobs said that the past twelve years of his life, since his return to Apple, had been his most productive in terms of creating new products. But his more important goal, he said, was to do what Hewlett and his friend David Packard had done, which was create a company that was so imbued with innovative creativity that it would outlive them. “I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,” he said. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.” It was as if he were suggesting themes for his biography (and in this instance, at least, the theme turned out to be valid). The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century. I asked Jobs why he wanted me to be the one to write his biography. “I think you’re good at getting people to talk,” he replied. That was an unexpected answer. I knew that I would have to interview scores of people he had fired, abused, abandoned, or otherwise infuriated, and I feared he would not be comfortable with my getting them to talk. And indeed he did turn out to be skittish when word trickled back to him of people that I was interviewing. But after a couple of months, ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1425:It is a common belief that we breathe with our lungs alone, but in point of fact, the work of breathing is done by the whole body. The lungs play a passive role in the respiratory process. Their expansion is produced by an enlargement, mostly downward, of the thoracic cavity and they collapse when that cavity is reduced. Proper breathing involves the muscles of the head, neck, thorax, and abdomen. It can be shown that chronic tension in any part of the body's musculature interferes with the natural respiratory movements.
Breathing is a rhythmic activity. Normally a person at rest makes approximately 16 to 17 respiratory incursions a minute. The rate is higher in infants and in states of excitation. It is lower in sleep and in depressed persons. The depth of the respiratory wave is another factor which varies with emotional states. Breathing becomes shallow when we are frightened or anxious. It deepens with relaxation, pleasure and sleep. But above all, it is the quality of the respiratory movements that determines whether breathing is pleasurable or not. With each breath a wave can be seen to ascend and descend through the body. The inspiratory wave begins deep in the abdomen with a backward movement of the pelvis. This allows the belly to expand outward. The wave then moves upward as the rest of the body expands. The head moves very slightly forward to suck in the air while the nostrils dilate or the mouth opens. The expiratory wave begins in the upper part of the body and moves downward: the head drops back, the chest and abdomen collapse, and the pelvis rocks forward.
Breathing easily and fully is one of the basic pleasures of being alive. The pleasure is clearly experienced at the end of expiration when the descending wave fills the pelvis with a delicious sensation. In adults this sensation has a sexual quality, though it does not induce any genital feeling. The slight backward and forward movements of the pelvis, similar to the sexual movements, add to the pleasure. Though the rhythm of breathing is pronounced in the pelvic area, it is at the same time experienced by the total body as a feeling of fluidity, softness, lightness and excitement.
The importance of breathing need hardly be stressed. It provides the oxygen for the metabolic processes; literally it supports the fires of life. But breath as "pneuma" is also the spirit or soul. We live in an ocean of air like fish in a body of water. By our breathing we are attuned to our atmosphere. If we inhibit our breathing we isolate ourselves from the medium in which we exist. In all Oriental and mystic philosophies, the breath holds the secret to the highest bliss. That is why breathing is the dominant factor in the practice of Yoga. ~ Alexander Lowen,#NFDB
1426:Thomas (his middle name) is a fifth-grader at the highly competitive P.S. 334, the Anderson School on West 84th in New York City. Slim as they get, Thomas recently had his long sandy-blond hair cut short to look like the new James Bond (he took a photo of Daniel Craig to the barber). Unlike Bond, he prefers a uniform of cargo pants and a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of one of his heroes: Frank Zappa. Thomas hangs out with five friends from the Anderson School. They are “the smart kids.” Thomas is one of them, and he likes belonging. Since Thomas could walk, he has constantly heard that he’s smart. Not just from his parents but from any adult who has come in contact with this precocious child. When he applied to Anderson for kindergarten, his intelligence was statistically confirmed. The school is reserved for the top 1 percent of all applicants, and an IQ test is required. Thomas didn’t just score in the top 1 percent. He scored in the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite. “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’ ” With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t. For instance, in the early grades, Thomas wasn’t very good at spelling, so he simply demurred from spelling out loud. When Thomas took his first look at fractions, he balked. The biggest hurdle came in third grade. He was supposed to learn cursive penmanship, but he wouldn’t even try for weeks. By then, his teacher was demanding homework be completed in cursive. Rather than play catch-up on his penmanship, Thomas refused outright. Thomas’s father tried to reason with him. “Look, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you don’t have to put out some effort.” (Eventually, Thomas mastered cursive, but not without a lot of cajoling from his father.) Why does this child, who is measurably at the very top of the charts, lack confidence about his ability to tackle routine school challenges? Thomas is not alone. For a few decades, it’s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent. ~ Po Bronson, #NFDB
1427:Had she been able to listen to her body, the true Virginia would certainly have spoken up. In order to do so, however, she needed someone to say to her: “Open your eyes! They didn’t protect you when you were in danger of losing your health and your mind, and now they refuse to see what has been done to you. How can you love them so much after all that?” No one offered that kind of support. Nor can anyone stand up to that kind of abuse alone, not even Virginia Woolf. Malcolm Ingram, the noted lecturer in psychological medicine, believed that Woolf’s “mental illness” had nothing to do with her childhood experiences, and her illness was genetically inherited from her family. Here is his opinion as quoted on the Virginia Woolf Web site: As a child she was sexually abused, but the extent and duration is difficult to establish. At worst she may have been sexually harassed and abused from the age of twelve to twenty-one by her [half-]brother George Duckworth, [fourteen] years her senior, and sexually exploited as early as six by her other [half-] brother… It is unlikely that the sexual abuse and her manic-depressive illness are related. However tempting it may be to relate the two, it must be more likely that, whatever her upbringing, her family history and genetic makeup were the determining factors in her mood swings rather than her unhappy childhood [italics added]. More relevant in her childhood experience is the long history of bereavements that punctuated her adolescence and precipitated her first depressions.3 Ingram’s text goes against my own interpretation and ignores a large volume of literature that deals with trauma and the effects of childhood abuse. Here we see how people minimize the importance of information that might cause pain or discomfort—such as childhood abuse—and blame psychiatric disorders on family history instead. Woolf must have felt keen frustration when seemingly intelligent and well-educated people attributed her condition to her mental history, denying the effects of significant childhood experiences. In the eyes of many she remained a woman possessed by “madness.” Nevertheless, the key to her condition lay tantalizingly close to the surface, so easily attainable, and yet neglected. I think that Woolf’s suicide could have been prevented if she had had an enlightened witness with whom she could have shared her feelings about the horrors inflicted on her at such an early age. But there was no one to turn to, and she considered Freud to be the expert on psychic disorders. Here she made a tragic mistake. His writings cast her into a state of severe uncertainty, and she preferred to despair of her own self rather than doubt the great father figure Sigmund Freud, who represented, as did her family, the system of values upheld by society, especially at the time. UNFORTUNATELY, ~ Alice Miller, #NFDB
1428:The all-powerful Zahir seemed to be born with every human being and to gain full strength in childhood, imposing rules that would thereafter always be respected:
People who are different are dangerous; they belong to another tribe; they want our lands and our women.
We must marry, have children, reproduce the species.
Love is only a small thing, enough for one person, and any suggestion that the heart might be larger than this may seem perverse.
When we are married we are authorised to take possession of the other person, body and soul.
We must do jobs we detest because we are part of an organised society, and if everyone did what they wanted to do, the world would come to a standstill.
We must buy jewelry; it identifies us with our tribe.
We must be amusing at all times and sneer at those who express their real feelings; it's dangerous for a tribe to allow its members to show their feelings.
We must at all costs avoid saying no because people prefer those who always say yes, and this allows us to survive in hostile territory.
What other people think is more important than what we feel.
Never make a fuss--it might attract the attention of an enemy tribe.
If you behave differently you will be expelled from the tribe because you could infect others and destroy something that was extremely difficult to organise in the first place.
We must always consider the look of our new cave, and if we don't have a clear idea of our own, then we must call a decorator who will do his best to show others what good taste we have.
We must eat three meals a day, even if we're not hungry, and when we fail to fit the current ideal of beauty we must fast, even if we're starving.
We must dress according to the dictates of fashion, make love whether we feel like it or not, kill in the name of our country, wish time away so that retirement comes more quickly, elect politicians, complain about the cost of living, change our hair-style, criticise anyone who is different, go to a religious service on Sunday, Saturday or Friday, depending on our religion, and there beg forgiveness for our sins and puff ourselves up with pride because we know the truth and despise he other tribe, who worship false gods.
Our children must follow in our footsteps; after all we are older and know more about the world.
We must have a university degree even if we never get a job in the area of knowledge we were forced to study.
We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy.
We must play music quietly, talk quietly, weep in private, because I am the all-powerful Zahir, who lays down the rules and determines the meaning of success, the best way to love, the importance of rewards. ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
1429:When at last he finally hooked one, despite Elizabeth’s best efforts to prevent it, she scrambled to her feet and backed up a step. “You-you’re hurting it!” she cried as he pulled the hook from its mouth.
“Hurting what? The fish?” he asked in disbelief.
“Yes!”
“Nonsense,” said he, looking at her as if she was daft, then he tossed the fish on the bank.
“It can’t breathe, I tell you!” she wailed, her eyes fixed on the flapping fish.
“It doesn’t need to breathe,” he retorted. “We’re going to eat it for lunch.”
“I certainly won’t!” she cried, managing to look at him as if he were a cold-blooded murderer.
“Lady Cameron,” he said sternly, “am I to believe you’ve never eaten a fish?”
“Well, of course I have.”
“And where do you think the fish you’ve eaten came from?” he continued with irate logic.
“It came from a nice tidy package wrapped in paper,” Elizabeth announced with a vacuous look. “They come in nice, tidy paper wrapping.”
“Well, they weren’t born in that tidy paper,” he replied, and Elizabeth had a dreadful time hiding her admiration for his patience as well as for the firm tone he was finally taking with her. He was not, as she had originally thought, a fool or a namby-pamby. “Before that,” he persisted, “where was the fish? How did that fish get to the market in the first place?”
Elizabeth gave her head a haughty toss, glanced sympathetically at the flapping fish, then gazed at him with haughty condemnation in her eyes. “I assume they used nets or something, but I’m perfectly certain they didn’t do it this way.”
“What way?” he demanded.
“The way you have-sneaking up on it in its own little watery home, tricking it by covering up your hook with that poor fuzzy thing, and then jerking the poor fish away from its family and tossing it on the bank to die. It’s quite inhumane!” she said, and she gave her skirts an irate twitch.
Lord Marchman stared at her in frowning disbelief, then he shook his head as if trying to clear it. A few minutes later he escorted her home.
Elizabeth made him carry the basket containing the fish on the opposite side from where she walked. And when that didn’t seem to discomfit the poor man she insisted he hold his arm straight out-to keep the basket even further from her person.
She was not at all surprised when Lord Marchman excused himself until supper, nor when he remained moody and thoughtful throughout their uncomfortable meal. She covered the silence, however, by chattering earnestly about the difference between French and English fashions and the importance of using only the best kid for gloves, and then she regaled him with detailed descriptions of every gown she could remember seeing. By the end of the meal Lord Marchman looked dazed and angry; Elizabeth was a little hoarse and very encouraged. ~ Judith McNaught,#NFDB
1430:Epicurus founded a school of philosophy which placed great emphasis on the importance of pleasure. "Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life," he asserted, confirming what many had long thought, but philosophers had rarely accepted. Vulgar opinion at once imagined that the pleasure Epicurus had in mind involved a lot of money, sex, drink and debauchery (associations that survive in our use of the word 'Epicurean'). But true Epicureanism was more subtle. Epicurus led a very simple life, because after rational analysis, he had come to some striking conclusions about what actually made life pleasurable - and fortunately for those lacking a large income, it seemed that the essential ingredients of pleasure, however elusive, were not very expensive.
The first ingredient was friendship. 'Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship,' he wrote. So he bought a house near Athens where he lived in the company of congenial souls. The desire for riches should perhaps not always be understood as a simple hunger for a luxurious life, a more important motive might be the wish to be appreciated and treated nicely. We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us. Epicurus, discerning our underlying need, recognised that a handful of true friends could deliver the love and respect that even a fortune may not.
Epicurus and his friends located a second secret of happiness: freedom. In order not to have to work for people they didn't like and answer to potentially humiliating whims, they removed themselves from employment in the commercial world of Athens ('We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics'), and began what could best have been described as a commune, accepting a simpler way of life in exchange for independence. They would have less money, but would never again have to follow the commands of odious superiors.
The third ingredient of happiness was, in Epicurus's view, to lead an examined life. Epicurus was concerned that he and his friends learn to analyse their anxieties about money, illness, death and the supernatural. There are few better remedies for anxiety than thought. In writing a problem down or airing it in conversation we let its essential aspects emerge. And by knowing its character, we remove, if not the problem itself, then its secondary, aggravating characteristics: confusion, displacement, surprise. Wealth is of course unlikely ever to make anyone miserable. But the crux of Epicurus's argument is that if we have money without friends, freedom and an analysed life, we will never be truly happy. And if we have them, but are missing the fortune, we will never be unhappy. ~ Alain de Botton,#NFDB
1431:Summary of the Science of Getting Rich There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought. Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created. In order to do this, man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; otherwise he cannot be in harmony with the Formless Intelligence, which is always creative and never competitive in spirit. Man may come into full harmony with the Formless Substance by entertaining a lively and sincere gratitude for the blessings it bestows upon him. Gratitude unifies the mind of man with the intelligence of Substance, so that man’s thoughts are received by the Formless. Man can remain upon the creative plane only by uniting himself with the Formless Intelligence through a deep and continuous feeling of gratitude. Man must form a clear and definite mental image of the things he wishes to have, to do, or to become; and he must hold this mental image in his thoughts, while being deeply grateful to the Supreme that all his desires are granted to him. The man who wishes to get rich must spend his leisure hours in contemplating his Vision, and in earnest thanksgiving that the reality is being given to him. Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of frequent contemplation of the mental image, coupled with unwavering faith and devout gratitude. This is the process by which the impression is given to the Formless, and the creative forces set in motion. The creative energy works through the established channels of natural growth, and of the industrial and social order. All that is included in his mental image will surely be brought to the man who follows the instructions given above, and whose faith does not waver. What he wants will come to him through the ways of established trade and commerce. In order to receive his own when it shall come to him, man must be active; and this activity can only consist in more than filling his present place. He must keep in mind the Purpose to get rich through the realization of his mental image. And he must do, every day, all that can be done that day, taking care to do each act in a successful manner. He must give to every man a use value in excess of the cash value he receives, so that each transaction makes for more life; and he must so hold the Advancing Thought that the impression of increase will be communicated to all with whom he comes in contact. The men and women who practice the foregoing instructions will certainly get rich; and the riches they receive will be in exact proportion to the definiteness of their vision, the fixity of their purpose, the steadiness of their faith, and the depth of their gratitude. ~ Wallace D Wattles, #NFDB
1432:Having a TV—which gives you the ability to receive information—fails to establish any capacity for sending information in the opposite direction. And the odd one-way nature of the primary connection Americans now have to our national conversation has a profound impact on their basic attitude toward democracy itself. If you can receive but not send, what does that do to your basic feelings about the nature of your connection to American self-government? “Attachment theory” is an interesting new branch of developmental psychology that sheds light on the importance of consistent, appropriate, and responsive two-way communication—and why it is essential for an individual’s feeling empowered. First developed by John Bowlby, a British psychiatrist, in 1958, attachment theory was further developed by his protégée Mary Ainsworth and other experts studying the psychological development of infants. Although it applies to individuals, attachment theory is, in my view, a metaphor that illuminates the significance of authentic free-flowing communication in any relationship that requires trust. By using this new approach, psychologists were able to discover that every infant learns a crucial and existential lesson during the first year of life about his or her fundamental relationship to the rest of the world. An infant develops an attachment pathway based on different patterns of care and, according to this theory, learns to adopt one of three basic postures toward the universe: In the best case, the infant learns that he or she has the inherent ability to exert a powerful influence on the world and evoke consistent, appropriate responses by communicating signals of hunger or discomfort, happiness or distress. If the caregiver—more often than not the mother—responds to most signals from the infant consistently and appropriately, the infant begins to assume that he or she has inherent power to affect the world. If the primary caregiver responds inappropriately and/or inconsistently, the infant learns to assume that he or she is powerless to affect the larger world and that his or her signals have no intrinsic significance where the universe is concerned. A child who receives really erratic and inconsistent responses from a primary caregiver, even if those responses are occasionally warm and sensitive, develops “anxious resistant attachment.” This pathway creates children who feature anxiety, dependence, and easy victimization. They are easily manipulated and exploited later in life. In the worst case, infants who receive no emotional response from the person or persons responsible for them are at high risk of learning a deep existential rage that makes them prone to violence and antisocial behavior as they grow up. Chronic unresponsiveness leads to what is called “anxious avoidance attachment,” a life pattern that features unquenchable anger, frustration, and aggressive, violent behavior. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
1433:I slowed my steps as I started up the path toward the front entrance, feeling like I was about to walk on smoldering embers. Had the fire burned down enough that it couldn’t harm me? Or would I be scorched? Reaching the front door, I took a deep breath, aware of the importance of what I was about to do and fearful that I would not succeed. Then I rapped firmly upon the dark wood. This was not the time to practice timidity.
Grayden opened the door himself and our eyes met. For a moment, neither of us moved, equally flustered--he was stunned to find me on his stoop, while I had expected a servant to answer my knock.
“May I come in, my lord?” I inquired, sounding more nervous than I would have liked.
“As you wish.”
He leaned back against the door frame and gestured for me to enter, his manner not entirely hospitable. I stepped inside and glanced around the spacious foyer, then cleared my throat, ready to begin a short, but well-rehearsed, statement of contrition.
“I owe you an apology, Lord Grayden. I’m sorry for failing to attend the dinner to which you were invited at my family’s home. While I do not deserve your kind regard, I hope you will be gracious enough to forgive me.”
“That depends on what you were doing instead.”
“Excuse me?” I squeaked, for this was an unexpected reaction. My mind spun, trying to decide what to do. Did I need to apologize better? Or should I just leave?
He laughed, and I felt even more flustered. “Your mother and sisters kept changing their stories. Makes me think they didn’t know what you were doing. I’d like the mystery solved.”
Taken aback, I surveyed him, noting his dark brown hair that made his skin appear all the more fair, his perfectly proportioned nose, his gorgeous green eyes and his inviting smile. He wanted me to be honest. I decided to risk it, for nothing worse could come of his knowing the truth.
“I forgot you were coming.”
He straightened and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “At least I know you’re not a liar.”
“Not usually,” I blurted, and he laughed once more.
“Well then, I accept your apology.”
“That’s very considerate of you.” I hesitated then gave him another curtsey. “Good day to you, my lord.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “You’re leaving so soon?”
“Yes,” I replied, a grin playing at the corners of my mouth. “You see, I haven’t been invited to stay.”
Before he could respond, I slipped past him and out the door, pleased at his befuddled expression. All in all, things had gone well--I had accomplished my appointed task; at the same time, I was certain I could cross another suitor off the list. After all, even the best impressions Lord Grayden had of me left much to be desired. But I didn’t feel as happy about that outcome as I had expected. Strangely, the young man held more appeal for me now than he had before. I sighed, for my nature did indeed appear to be a fickle one. ~ Cayla Kluver,#NFDB
1434:Since my visit to the Hermitage, I had become more aware of the four figures, two women and two men, who stood around the luminous space where the father welcomed his returning son. Their way of looking leaves you wondering how they think or feel about what they are watching. These bystanders, or observers, allow for all sorts of interpretations. As I reflect on my own journey, I become more and more aware of how long I have played the role of observer. For years I had instructed students on the different aspects of the spiritual life, trying to help them see the importance of living it. But had I, myself, really ever dared to step into the center, kneel down, and let myself be held by a forgiving God?
The simple fact of being able to express an opinion, to set up an argument, to defend a position, and to clarify a vision has given me, and gives me still, a sense of control. And, generally, I feel much safer in experiencing a sense of control over an undefinable situation than in taking the risk of letting that situation control me.
Certainly there were many hours of prayer, many days and months of retreat, and countless conversations with spiritual directors, but I had never fully given up the role of bystander. Even though there has been in me a lifelong desire to be an insider looking out, I nevertheless kept choosing over and over again the position of the outsider looking in. Sometimes this looking-in was a curious looking-in, sometimes a jealous looking-in, sometimes an anxious looking-in, and, once in a while, even a loving looking-in. But giving up the somewhat safe position of the critical observer seemed like a great leap into totally unknown territory. I so much wanted to keep some control over my spiritual journey, to be able to predict at least a part of the outcome, that relinquishing the security of the observer for the vulnerability of the returning son seemed close to impossible. Teaching students, passing on the many explanations given over the centuries to the words and actions of Jesus, and showing them the many spiritual journeys that people have chosen in the past seemed very much like taking the position of one of the four figures surrounding the divine embrace. The two women standing behind the father at different distances the seated man staring into space and looking at no one in particular, and the tall man standing erect and looking critically at the event on the platform in front of him--they all represent different ways of not getting involved. There is indifference, curiosity, daydreaming, and attentive observation; there is staring, gazing, watching, and looking; there is standing in the background, leaning against an arch, sitting with arms crossed, and standing with hands gripping each other. Every one of these inner and outward postures are all too familiar with me. Some are more comfortable than others, but all of them are ways of not getting directly involved," (pp. 12-13). ~ Henri J M Nouwen,#NFDB
1435:Speaking to a foreigner was the dream of every student, and my opportunity came at last. When I got back from my trip down the Yangtze, I learned that my year was being sent in October to a port in the south called Zhanjiang to practice our English with foreign sailors. I was thrilled.
Zhanjiang was about 75 miles from Chengdu, a journey of two days and two nights by rail. It was the southernmost large port in China, and quite near the Vietnamese border.
It felt like a foreign country, with turn-of-the-century colonial-style buildings, pastiche Romanesque arches, rose windows, and large verandas with colorful parasols. The local people spoke Cantonese, which was almost a foreign language. The air smelled of the unfamiliar sea, exotic tropical vegetation, and an altogether bigger world.
But my excitement at being there was constantly doused by frustration. We were accompanied by a political supervisor and three lecturers, who decided that, although we were staying only a mile from the sea, we were not to be allowed anywhere near it. The harbor itself was closed to outsiders, for fear of 'sabotage' or defection. We were told that a student from Guangzhou had managed to stow away once in a cargo steamer, not realizing that the hold would be sealed for weeks, by which time he had perished. We had to restrict our movements to a clearly defined area of a few blocks around our residence.
Regulations like these were part of our daily life, but they never failed to infuriate me. One day I was seized by an absolute compulsion to get out. I faked illness and got permission to go to a hospital in the middle of the city. I wandered the streets desperately trying to spot the sea, without success. The local people were unhelpful: they did not like non-Cantonese speakers, and refused to understand me. We stayed in the port for three weeks, and only once were we allowed, as a special treat, to go to an island to see the ocean.
As the point of being there was to talk to the sailors, we were organized into small groups to take turns working in the two places they were allowed to frequent: the Friendship Store, which sold goods for hard currency, and the Sailors' Club, which had a bar, a restaurant, a billiards room, and a ping-pong room.
There were strict rules about how we could talk to the sailors. We were not allowed to speak to them alone, except for brief exchanges over the counter of the Friendship Store. If we were asked our names and addresses, under no circumstances were we to give our real ones. We all prepared a false name and a nonexistent address. After every conversation, we had to write a detailed report of what had been said which was standard practice for anyone who had contact with foreigners. We were warned over and over again about the importance of observing 'discipline in foreign contacts' (she waifi-lu). Otherwise, we were told, not only would we get into serious trouble, other students would be banned from coming. ~ Jung Chang,#NFDB
1436:When I was growing up it was still acceptable—not to me but in social terms—to say that one was not interested in science and did not see the point in bothering with it. This is no longer the case. Let me be clear. I am not promoting the idea that all young people should grow up to be scientists. I do not see that as an ideal situation, as the world needs people with a wide variety of skills. But I am advocating that all young people should be familiar with and confident around scientific subjects, whatever they choose to do. They need to be scientifically literate, and inspired to engage with developments in science and technology in order to learn more.
A world where only a tiny super-elite are capable of understanding advanced science and technology and its applications would be, to my
mind, a dangerous and limited one. I seriously doubt whether long-range beneficial projects such as cleaning up the oceans or curing diseases in the developing world would be given priority. Worse, we could find that
technology is used against us and that we might have no power to stop it.
I don’t believe in boundaries, either for what we can do in our personal lives or for what life and intelligence can accomplish in our universe. We stand at a threshold of important discoveries in all areas of science. Without doubt, our world will change enormously in the next fifty years. We will find out what happened at the Big Bang. We will come to understand how life began on Earth. We may even discover whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. While the chances of communicating with an intelligent extra-terrestrial species may be slim, the importance of such a discovery means we must not give up trying. We will continue to explore our cosmic habitat, sending robots and humans into space. We cannot continue to look inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. Through scientific endeavour and technological innovation, we must look outwards to the wider universe, while also striving to fix the problems on Earth. And I am optimistic that we will ultimately create viable habitats for the human race on other planets. We will transcend the Earth and learn to exist in space.
This is not the end of the story, but just the beginning of what I hope will be billions of years of life flourishing in the cosmos.
And one final point—we never really know where the next great scientific discovery will come from, nor who will make it. Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audience possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be.
So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future. ~ Stephen Hawking,#NFDB
1437:Responsibility;...the importance of habits,...- a willingness to fail, a willingness to begin again - that are essential to resilience...the single most important habit to build if you want to e resilient: the habit of taking responsibility for your life...The more responsibility people take, the more resilient they are likely to be. The less responsibility people take - for their actions, for their lives, for their happiness - the more likely it is that life will crush them. At the root of resilience is the willingness to take responsibility for results...Life is unfair. You are not responsible for everything that happens to you. You are responsible for how you react to everything that happens to you...The first word out of the mouth of the complainer is always "they"...as soon as we say "I am responsible for...", we take control of something...acceptance of responsibility is a powerful cure for pain. Even when seemingly powerless, the resilient person finds a way to grab hold of something - no matter how small at first - to be responsible for...If you take responsibility for anything in your life, know that you'll feel fear. That fear will manifest itself in many ways: fear of embarrassment, fear of failure, fear of hurt...Every worthy challenge will inspire some fear...Fear is a cor emotion. A life without fear is an unhealthy life...Proper fear is part of the package of responsible, adult living...Focus not on wiping out your anxiety, but on directing your anxiety to worthy ends. Focus not on reducing your fear, but on building your courage - because, as you take more and more responsibility for your life, you'll need more and more courage...Fear is a motivator. It can propel you...Fear works. Fear can make human beings do amazing things. Fear can help you to see your world clearly in a way that you never have before. Fear become destructive when it drives us to do things that are unwise or unhelpful. Fear becomes destructive when it begins to cloud our vision. But like most emotions, fear is destructive only when it runs wild. Embrace the fear that comes from accepting responsibility, and use it to propel yourself to become the person you choose to be...Excellence is difficult. An excuse is seductive. It promises to end hardship, failure, and embarrassment. Excellence requires pain. An excuse promises that you'll be pain-free...Excuses protect you, but they exact a heavy cost. You can't live a full life while you wear them...People who think you weak will offer you an excuse. People who respect you will offer you a challenge...All of these injuries have a hard truth in common. In the long term, the obstacle that stands between us and healing is often not the injury we have received, but ourselves: our decision to keep the injury alive and open long after it should have become a hard-won scar. It is not things which trouble us, but the judgments we bring to bear upon things...In truth, it's not the trauma that's most harmful. The harm comes when we make trauma an excuse to avoid the activities, the relationships, and the purpose that are its only lasting cure. ~ Eric Greitens, #NFDB
1438:Jesus himself remains an enigma. There have been interesting attempts to uncover the figure of the ‘historical’ Jesus, a project that has become something of a scholarly industry. But the fact remains that the only Jesus we really know is the Jesus described in the New Testament, which was not interested in scientifically objective history. There are no other contemporary accounts of his mission and death. We cannot even be certain why he was crucified. The gospel accounts indicate that he was thought to be the king of the Jews. He was said to have predicted the imminent arrival of the kingdom of heaven, but also made it clear that it was not of this world. In the literature of the Late Second Temple period, there had been hints that a few people were expecting a righteous king of the House of David to establish an eternal kingdom, and this idea seems to have become more popular during the tense years leading up to the war. Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius all note the importance of revolutionary religiosity, both before and after the rebellion.2 There was now keen expectation in some circles of a meshiah (in Greek, christos), an ‘anointed’ king of the House of David, who would redeem Israel. We do not know whether Jesus claimed to be this messiah – the gospels are ambiguous on this point.3 Other people rather than Jesus himself may have made this claim on his behalf.4 But after his death some of his followers had seen him in visions that convinced them that he had been raised from the tomb – an event that heralded the general resurrection of all the righteous when God would inaugurate his rule on earth.5 Jesus and his disciples came from Galilee in northern Palestine. After his death they moved to Jerusalem, probably to be on hand when the kingdom arrived, since all the prophecies declared that the temple would be the pivot of the new world order.6 The leaders of their movement were known as ‘the Twelve’: in the kingdom, they would rule the twelve tribes of the reconstituted Israel.7 The members of the Jesus movement worshipped together every day in the temple,8 but they also met for communal meals, in which they affirmed their faith in the kingdom’s imminent arrival.9 They continued to live as devout, orthodox Jews. Like the Essenes, they had no private property, shared their goods equally, and dedicated their lives to the last days.10 It seems that Jesus had recommended voluntary poverty and special care for the poor; that loyalty to the group was to be valued more than family ties; and that evil should be met with non-violence and love.11 Christians should pay their taxes, respect the Roman authorities, and must not even contemplate armed struggle.12 Jesus’s followers continued to revere the Torah,13 keep the Sabbath,14 and the observance of the dietary laws was a matter of extreme importance to them.15 Like the great Pharisee Hillel, Jesus’s older contemporary, they taught a version of the Golden Rule, which they believed to be the bedrock of the Jewish faith: ‘So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the message of the Law and the Prophets. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1439:My concern with democracy is highly specific. It begins in observing the remarkable fact that, while democracy means a government accountable to the electorate, our rulers now make us accountable to them. Most Western governments hate me smoking, or eating the wrong kind of food, or hunting foxes, or drinking too much, and these are merely the surface disapprovals, the ones that provoke legislation or public campaigns. We also borrow too much money for our personal pleasures, and many of us are very bad parents. Ministers of state have been known to instruct us in elementary matters, such as the importance of reading stories to our children. Again, many of us have unsound views about people of other races, cultures, or religions, and the distribution of our friends does not always correspond, as governments think that it ought, to the cultural diversity of our society. We must face up to the grim fact that the rulers we elect are losing patience with us.
No philosopher can contemplate this interesting situation without beginning to reflect on what it can mean. The gap between political realities and their public face is so great that the term “paradox” tends to crop up from sentence to sentence. Our rulers are theoretically “our” representatives, but they are busy turning us into the instruments of the projects they keep dreaming up. The business of governments, one might think, is to supply the framework of law within which we may pursue happiness on our own account. Instead, we are constantly being summoned to reform ourselves. Debt, intemperance, and incompetence in rearing our children are no doubt regrettable, but they are vices, and left alone, they will soon lead to the pain that corrects. Life is a better teacher of virtue than politicians, and most sensible governments in the past left moral faults to the churches. But democratic citizenship in the twenty-first century means receiving a stream of improving “messages” from politicians. Some may forgive these intrusions because they are so well intentioned. Who would defend prejudice, debt, or excessive drinking? The point, however, is that our rulers have no business telling us how to live. They are tiresome enough in their exercise of authority—they are intolerable when they mount the pulpit. Nor should we be in any doubt that nationalizing the moral life is the first step towards totalitarianism.
We might perhaps be more tolerant of rulers turning preachers if they were moral giants. But what citizen looks at the government today thinking how wise and virtuous it is? Public respect for politicians has long been declining, even as the population at large has been seduced into demanding political solutions to social problems. To demand help from officials we rather despise argues for a notable lack of logic in the demos. The statesmen of eras past have been replaced by a set of barely competent social workers eager to take over the risks of our everyday life. The electorates of earlier times would have responded to politicians seeking to bribe us with such promises with derision. Today, the demos votes for them. ~ Kenneth Minogue,#NFDB
1440:[gospel is that the] right and proper judgment of God against our rebellion has not been overturned; it has been exhausted, embraced in full by the eternal Son of God himself. . . . God uses words in the service of his intention to rescue men and women, drawing them into fellowship with him and preparing a new creation as an appropriate venue for the enjoyment of that fellowship. In other words, the knowledge of God that is the goal of God's speaking ought never to be separated from the centerpiece of Christian theology; namely, the salvation of sinners. This is certainly not elementary theologizing, but a grounding of even the very philosophy and understanding of human language in the gospel. The Word of the Lord (as we see in Jonah 1:1) is never abstract theologizing, but is a life-changing message about the severity and mercy of God. Why is this so important? First, in a time in which there is so much ignorance of the basic Christian worldview, we have to get to the core of things, the gospel, every time we speak. Second, the gospel of salvation doesn't really relate to theology like the first steps relate to the rest of the stairway but more like the hub relates through the spokes to the rest of the wheel. The gospel of a glorious, other-oriented triune God giving himself in love to his people in creation and redemption and re-creation is the core of every doctrine--of the Bible, of God, of humanity, of salvation, of ecclesiology, of eschatology. However, third, we must recognize that in a postmodern society where everyone is against abstract speculation, we will be ignored unless we ground all we say in the gospel. Why? The postmodern era has produced in its citizens a hunger for beauty and justice. This is not an abstract culture, but a culture of story and image. The gospel is not less than a set of revealed propositions (God, sin, Christ, faith), but it is more. It is also a narrative (creation, fall, redemption, restoration.) Unfortunately, there are people under the influence of postmodernism who are so obsessed with narrative rather than propositions that they are rejecting inerrancy, are moving toward open theism, and so on. But to some extent they are reacting to abstract theologizing that was not grounded in the gospel and real history. They want to put more emphasis on the actual history of salvation, on the coming of the kingdom, on the importance of community, and on the renewal of the material creation. But we must not pit systematic theology and biblical theology against each other, nor the substitutionary atonement against the kingdom of God. Look again at the above quote from Mark Thompson and you will see a skillful blending of both individual salvation from God's wrath and the creation of a new community and material world. This world is reborn along with us--cleansed, beautified, perfected, and purified of all death, disease, brokenness, injustice, poverty, deformity. It is not just tacked on as a chapter in abstract "eschatology," but is the only appropriate venue for enjoyment of that fellowship with God brought to us by grace through our union with Christ. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1441:ASSERTIVE The Assertive type believes time is money; every wasted minute is a wasted dollar. Their self-image is linked to how many things they can get accomplished in a period of time. For them, getting the solution perfect isn’t as important as getting it done. Assertives are fiery people who love winning above all else, often at the expense of others. Their colleagues and counterparts never question where they stand because they are always direct and candid. They have an aggressive communication style and they don’t worry about future interactions. Their view of business relationships is based on respect, nothing more and nothing less. Most of all, the Assertive wants to be heard. And not only do they want to be heard, but they don’t actually have the ability to listen to you until they know that you’ve heard them. They focus on their own goals rather than people. And they tell rather than ask. When you’re dealing with Assertive types, it’s best to focus on what they have to say, because once they are convinced you understand them, then and only then will they listen for your point of view. To an Assertive, every silence is an opportunity to speak more. Mirrors are a wonderful tool with this type. So are calibrated questions, labels, and summaries. The most important thing to get from an Assertive will be a “that’s right” that may come in the form of a “that’s it exactly” or “you hit it on the head.” When it comes to reciprocity, this type is of the “give an inch/take a mile” mentality. They will have figured they deserve whatever you have given them so they will be oblivious to expectations of owing something in return. They will actually simply be looking for the opportunity to receive more. If they have given some kind of concession, they are surely counting the seconds until they get something in return. If you are an Assertive, be particularly conscious of your tone. You will not intend to be overly harsh but you will often come off that way. Intentionally soften your tone and work to make it more pleasant. Use calibrated questions and labels with your counterpart since that will also make you more approachable and increase the chances for collaboration. We’ve seen how each of these groups views the importance of time differently (time = preparation; time = relationship; time = money). They also have completely different interpretations of silence. I’m definitely an Assertive, and at a conference this Accommodator type told me that he blew up a deal. I thought, What did you do, scream at the other guy and leave? Because that’s me blowing up a deal. But it turned out that he went silent; for an Accommodator type, silence is anger. For Analysts, though, silence means they want to think. And Assertive types interpret your silence as either you don’t have anything to say or you want them to talk. I’m one, so I know: the only time I’m silent is when I’ve run out of things to say. The funny thing is when these cross over. When an Analyst pauses to think, their Accommodator counterpart gets nervous and an Assertive one starts talking, thereby annoying the Analyst, who thinks to herself, Every time I try to think you take that as an opportunity to talk some more. Won’t you ever shut up? ~ Chris Voss, #NFDB
1442:As Allied forces moved into Hitler’s Fortress Europe, Roosevelt and his circle were confronted with new evidence of the Holocaust. In early 1942, he had been given information that Adolf Hitler was quietly fulfilling his threat to “annihilate the Jewish race.” Rabbi Stephen Wise asked the President that December 1942 to inform the world about “the most overwhelming disaster of Jewish history” and “try to stop it.” Although he was willing to warn the world about the impending catastrophe and insisted that there be war crimes commissions when the conflict was over, Roosevelt told Wise that punishment for such crimes would probably have to await the end of the fighting, so his own solution was to “win the war.” The problem with this approach was that by the time of an Allied victory, much of world Jewry might have been annihilated. By June 1944, the Germans had removed more than half of Hungary’s 750,000 Jews, and some Jewish leaders were asking the Allies to bomb railways from Hungary to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. In response, Churchill told his Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, that the murder of the Jews was “probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world,” and ordered him to get “everything” he could out of the British Air Force. But the Prime Minister was told that American bombers were better positioned to do the job. At the Pentagon, Stimson consulted John McCloy, who later insisted, for decades, that he had “never talked” with Roosevelt about the option of bombing the railroad lines or death camps. But in 1986, McCloy changed his story during a taped conversation with Henry Morgenthau’s son, Henry III, who was researching a family history. The ninety-one-year-old McCloy insisted that he had indeed raised the idea with the President, and that Roosevelt became “irate” and “made it very clear” that bombing Auschwitz “wouldn’t have done any good.” By McCloy’s new account, Roosevelt “took it out of my hands” and warned that “if it’s successful, it’ll be more provocative” and “we’ll be accused of participating in this horrible business,” as well as “bombing innocent people.” McCloy went on, “I didn’t want to bomb Auschwitz,” adding that “it seemed to be a bunch of fanatic Jews who seemed to think that if you didn’t bomb, it was an indication of lack of venom against Hitler.” If McCloy’s memory was reliable, then, just as with the Japanese internment, Roosevelt had used the discreet younger man to discuss a decision for which he knew he might be criticized by history, and which might conceivably have become an issue in the 1944 campaign. This approach to the possible bombing of the camps would allow the President to explain, if it became necessary, that the issue had been resolved at a lower level by the military. In retrospect, the President should have considered the bombing proposal more seriously. Approving it might have required him to slightly revise his insistence that the Allies’ sole aim should be winning the war, as he did on at least a few other occasions. But such a decision might have saved lives and shown future generations that, like Churchill, he understood the importance of the Holocaust as a crime unparalleled in world history.* ~ Michael R Beschloss, #NFDB
1443:During this same period of his life Bohm also continued to refine his alternative approach to quantum physics. As he looked more carefully into the meaning of the quantum potential he discovered it had a number of features that implied an even more radical departure from orthodox thinking. One was the importance of wholeness. Classical science had always viewed the state of a system as a whole as merely the result of the interaction of its parts. However, the quantum potential stood this view on its ear and indicated that the behavior of the parts was actually organized by the whole. This not only took Bohr's assertion that subatomic particles are not independent "things, " but are part of an indivisible system one step further, but even suggested that wholeness was in some ways the more primary reality. It also explained how electrons in plasmas (and other specialized states such as superconductivity) could behave like interconnected wholes. As Bohm states, such "electrons are not scattered because, through the action of the quantum potential, the whole system is undergoing a co-ordinated movement more like a ballet dance than like a crowd of unorganized people. " Once again he notes that "such quantum wholeness of activity is closer to the organized unity of functioning of the parts of a living being than it is to the kind of unity that is obtained by putting together the parts of a machine. "6 An even more surprising feature of the quantum potential was its implications for the nature of location. At the level of our everyday lives things have very specific locations, but Bohm's interpretation of quantum physics indicated that at the subquantum level, the level in which the quantum potential operated, location ceased to exist All points in space became equal to all other points in space, and it was meaningless to speak of anything as being separate from anything else. Physicists call this property "nonlocality. " The nonlocal aspect of the quantum potential enabled Bohm to explain the connection between twin particles without violating special relativity's ban against anything traveling faster than the speed of light. To illustrate how, he offers the following analogy: Imagine a fish swimming in an aquarium. Imagine also that you have never seen a fish or an aquarium before and your only knowledge about them comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other at its side. When you look at the two television monitors you might mistakenly assume that the fish on the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch you will eventually realize there is a relationship between the two fish. When one turns, the other makes a slightly different but corresponding turn. When one faces the front, the other faces the side, and so on. If you are unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might wrongly conclude that the fish are instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is not the case. No communication is taking place because at a deeper level of reality, the reality of the aquarium, the two fish are actually one and the same. This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between particles such as the two photons emitted when a positronium atom decays (see fig. 8). ~ Michael Talbot, #NFDB
1444:A famous British writer is revealed to be the author of an obscure mystery novel. An immigrant is granted asylum when authorities verify he wrote anonymous articles critical of his home country. And a man is convicted of murder when he’s connected to messages painted at the crime scene. The common element in these seemingly disparate cases is “forensic linguistics”—an investigative technique that helps experts determine authorship by identifying quirks in a writer’s style. Advances in computer technology can now parse text with ever-finer accuracy. Consider the recent outing of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling as the writer of The Cuckoo’s Calling , a crime novel she published under the pen name Robert Galbraith. England’s Sunday Times , responding to an anonymous tip that Rowling was the book’s real author, hired Duquesne University’s Patrick Juola to analyze the text of Cuckoo , using software that he had spent over a decade refining. One of Juola’s tests examined sequences of adjacent words, while another zoomed in on sequences of characters; a third test tallied the most common words, while a fourth examined the author’s preference for long or short words. Juola wound up with a linguistic fingerprint—hard data on the author’s stylistic quirks. He then ran the same tests on four other books: The Casual Vacancy , Rowling’s first post-Harry Potter novel, plus three stylistically similar crime novels by other female writers. Juola concluded that Rowling was the most likely author of The Cuckoo’s Calling , since she was the only one whose writing style showed up as the closest or second-closest match in each of the tests. After consulting an Oxford linguist and receiving a concurring opinion, the newspaper confronted Rowling, who confessed. Juola completed his analysis in about half an hour. By contrast, in the early 1960s, it had taken a team of two statisticians—using what was then a state-of-the-art, high-speed computer at MIT—three years to complete a project to reveal who wrote 12 unsigned Federalist Papers. Robert Leonard, who heads the forensic linguistics program at Hofstra University, has also made a career out of determining authorship. Certified to serve as an expert witness in 13 states, he has presented evidence in cases such as that of Christopher Coleman, who was arrested in 2009 for murdering his family in Waterloo, Illinois. Leonard testified that Coleman’s writing style matched threats spray-painted at his family’s home (photo, left). Coleman was convicted and is serving a life sentence. Since forensic linguists deal in probabilities, not certainties, it is all the more essential to further refine this field of study, experts say. “There have been cases where it was my impression that the evidence on which people were freed or convicted was iffy in one way or another,” says Edward Finegan, president of the International Association of Forensic Linguists. Vanderbilt law professor Edward Cheng, an expert on the reliability of forensic evidence, says that linguistic analysis is best used when only a handful of people could have written a given text. As forensic linguistics continues to make headlines, criminals may realize the importance of choosing their words carefully. And some worry that software also can be used to obscure distinctive written styles. “Anything that you can identify to analyze,” says Juola, “I can identify and try to hide. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1445:-Teach her that the idea of "gender roles" is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she is a girl. "Because you are a girl" is never a reason for anything. Ever. (page 14)
-Being a feminist is like being pregnant. You either are or you are not. You either believe in the full equality of men and women or you do not. (page 20)
-Because I do not believe that marriage is something we should teach young girls to aspire to. Try not to use words like "misogyny" and "patriarchy" too often with Chizalum. We feminists can sometimes be too jargony, and jargon can sometimes feel too abstract. Don't just label something misogynistic; tell her why it is, and tell her what would make it not be. (page 27)
-Tell Chizalum that women don't actually need to be championed and revered; they just need to be treated as equal human beings. There is a patronizing undertone to the idea of women needing to be "championed" and "revered" because they are women. It makes me think of chivalry, and the premise of chivalry is female weakness. (page 29)
-Never speak of marriage as an achievement. (page 30)
-It feels normal, because it is so common; our world still largely values a woman's marital and maternal roles more than anything else. (page 31)
-Teach her to reject likeability. Her job is not to make herself likeable, her job is to be her full self, a self that is honest and aware of the equal humanity of other people. (page 36)
-Many girls spend too much time trying to be "nice" to people who do them harm. Many girls think of the "feelings" of those who are hurting them. This is the catastrophic consequence of likeability. (page 37)
-So instead of teaching Chizalum to be likeable, teach her to be honest. And kind. And brave. Encourage her to speak her mind, to say what she really thinks, to speak truthfully. And then praise her when she does. Tell her that kindness matters. Praise her when she is kind to other people. But teach her that her kindness must never be taken for granted. Tell her that she, too, deserves the kindness of others. Teach her to stand up for what is hers. Tell her that if someone does not like her, there will be someone else who will. (page 38)
-Teach her about privilege and inequality and the importance of giving dignity to everyone who does not mean her harm-teach her that the household help is human just like her, teach her to always greet the driver. (page 41)
-Feminism and femininity are not mutually exclusive. It is misogynistic to suggest they are. (page 43)
-Teach her that saying no when no feels right is something to be proud of. (page 52)
-Teach her that it is not a man's role to provide. In a healthy relationship, it is the role of whoever can provide to provide. (page 59)
-Saintliness is not a prerequisite for dignity. People who are unkind and dishonest are still human, and still deserve dignity. (page 59)
-Teach her about difference. Make difference ordinary. Make difference normal. Teach her not to attach value to difference. And the reason for this is not to be fair or to be nice, but merely to be human and practical. She must know and understand that people walk different paths in the world, and that as long as those paths do no harm to others, they are valid paths that she must respect. Teach her that we do not know-we cannot know-everything about life. (page 61) ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,#NFDB
1446:New Rule: Democrats must get in touch with their inner asshole. I refer to the case of Van Jones, the man the Obama administration hired to find jobs for Americans in the new green industries. Seems like a smart thing to do in a recession, but Van Jones got fired because he got caught on tape saying Republicans are assholes. And they call it news!
Now, I know I'm supposed to be all reinjected with yes-we-can-fever after the big health-care speech, and it was a great speech--when Black Elvis gets jiggy with his teleprompter, there is none better. But here's the thing: Muhammad Ali also had a way with words, but it helped enormously that he could also punch guys in the face.
It bothers me that Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to. Just like dropped "end-of-life counseling" from health-care reform because Sarah Palin said it meant "death panels" on her Facebook page. Crazy morons make up things for Obama to do, and he does it.
Same thing with the speech to schools this week, where the president attempted merely to tell children to work hard and wash their hands, and Cracker Nation reacted as if he was trying to hire the Black Panthers to hand out grenades in homeroom. Of course, the White House immediately capitulated. "No students will be forced to view the speech" a White House spokesperson assured a panicked nation. Isn't that like admitting that the president might be doing something unseemly? What a bunch of cowards. If the White House had any balls, they'd say, "He's giving a speech on the importance of staying in school, and if you jackasses don't show it to every damn kid, we're cutting off your federal education funding tomorrow."
The Democrats just never learn: Americans don't really care which side of an issue you're on as long as you don't act like pussies When Van Jones called the Republicans assholes, he was paying them a compliment. He was talking about how they can get things done even when they're in the minority, as opposed to the Democrats , who can't seem to get anything done even when they control both houses of Congress, the presidency, and Bruce Springsteen.
I love Obama's civility, his desire to work with his enemies; it's positively Christlike. In college, he was probably the guy at the dorm parties who made sure the stoners shared their pot with the jocks. But we don't need that guy now. We need an asshole.
Mr. President, there are some people who are never going to like you. That's why they voted for the old guy and Carrie's mom. You're not going to win them over. Stand up for the seventy percent of Americans who aren't crazy.
And speaking of that seventy percent, when are we going to actually show up in all this? Tomorrow Glenn Beck's army of zombie retirees descending on Washington. It's the Million Moron March, although they won't get a million, of course, because many will be confused and drive to Washington state--but they will make news. Because people who take to the streets always do. They're at the town hall screaming at the congressman; we're on the couch screaming at the TV. Especially in this age of Twitters and blogs and Snuggies, it's a statement to just leave the house. But leave the house we must, because this is our last best shot for a long time to get the sort of serious health-care reform that would make the United States the envy of several African nations. ~ Bill Maher,#NFDB
1447:Classical liberalism has been reproached with being too obstinate and not ready enough to compromise. It was because of its inflexibility that it was defeated in its struggle with the nascent anticapitalist parties of all kinds. If it had realized, as these other parties did, the importance of compromise and concession to popular slogans in winning the favor of the masses, it would have been able to preserve at least some of its influence. But it has never bothered to build for itself a party organization and a party machine as the anticapitalist parties have done. It has never attached any importance to political tactics in electoral campaigns and parliamentary proceedings. It has never gone in for scheming opportunism or political bargaining.
This unyielding doctrinairism necessarily brought about the decline of liberalism.
The factual assertions contained in these statements are entirely in accordance with the truth, but to believe that they constitute a reproach against liberalism is to reveal a complete misunderstanding of its essential spirit. The ultimate and most profound of the fundamental insights of liberal thought is that it is ideas that constitute the foundation on which the whole edifice of human social cooperation is Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition
constructed and sustained and that a lasting social structure cannot be built on the basis of false and mistaken ideas. Nothing can serve as a substitute for an ideology that enhances human life by fostering social cooperation—least of all lies, whether they be called "tactics," "diplomacy," or "compromise." If men will not, from a recognition of social necessity, voluntarily do what must be done if society is to be maintained and general well-being advanced, no one can lead them to the right path by any cunning stratagem or artifice. If they err and go astray, then one must endeavor to enlighten them by instruction. But if they cannot be enlightened, if they persist in error, then nothing can be done to prevent catastrophe. All the tricks and lies of demagogic politicians may well be suited to promote the cause of those who, whether in good faith or bad, work for the destruction of society. But the cause of social progress, the cause of the further development and intensification of social bonds, cannot be advanced by lies and demagogy. No power on earth, no crafty stratagem or clever deception could succeed in duping mankind into accepting a social doctrine that it not only does not acknowledge, but openly spurns.
The only way open to anyone who wishes to lead the world back to liberalism is to convince his fellow citizens of the necessity of adopting the liberal program. This work of enlightenment is the sole task that the liberal can and must perform in order to avert as much as lies within his power the destruction toward which society is rapidly heading today. There is no place here for concessions to any of the favorite or customary prejudices and errors. In regard to questions that will decide whether or not society is to continue to exist at all, whether millions of people are to prosper or perish, there is no room for compromise either from weakness or from misplaced deference for the sensibilities of others.
If liberal principles once again are allowed to guide the policies of great nations, if a revolution in public opinion could once more give capitalism free rein, the world will be able gradually to raise itself from the condition into which the policies of the combined anticapitalist factions have plunged it. There is no other way out of the political and social chaos of the present age. ~ Ludwig von Mises,#NFDB
1448:History is ending because the dominator culture has led the human species into a blind alley, and as the inevitable chaostrophie approaches, people look for metaphors and answers. Every time a culture gets into trouble it casts itself back into the past looking for the last sane moment it ever knew. And the last sane moment we ever knew was on the plains of Africa 15,000 years ago rocked in the cradle of the Great Horned Mushroom Goddess before history, before standing armies, before slavery and property, before warfare and phonetic alphabets and monotheism, before, before, before. And this is where the future is taking us because the secret faith of the twentieth century is not modernism, the secret faith of the twentieth century is nostalgia for the archaic, nostalgia for the paleolithic, and that gives us body piercing, abstract expressionism, surrealism, jazz, rock-n-roll and catastrophe theory. The 20th century mind is nostalgic for the paradise that once existed on the mushroom dotted plains of Africa where the plant-human symbiosis occurred that pulled us out of the animal body and into the tool-using, culture-making, imagination-exploring creature that we are. And why does this matter? It matters because it shows that the way out is back and that the future is a forward escape into the past. This is what the psychedelic experience means. Its a doorway out of history and into the wiring under the board in eternity. And I tell you this because if the community understands what it is that holds it together the community will be better able to streamline itself for flight into hyperspace because what we need is a new myth, what we need is a new true story that tells us where we're going in the universe and that true story is that the ego is a product of pathology, and when psilocybin is regularly part of the human experience the ego is supressed and the supression of the ego means the defeat of the dominators, the materialists, the product peddlers. Psychedelics return us to the inner worth of the self, to the importance of the feeling of immediate experience - and nobody can sell that to you and nobody can buy it from you, so the dominator culture is not interested in the felt presence of immediate experience, but that's what holds the community together. And as we break out of the silly myths of science, and the infantile obsessions of the marketplace what we discover through the psychedelic experience is that in the body, IN THE BODY, there are Niagaras of beauty, alien beauty, alien dimensions that are part of the self, the richest part of life. I think of going to the grave without having a psychedelic experience like going to the grave without ever having sex. It means that you never figured out what it is all about. The mystery is in the body and the way the body works itself into nature. What the Archaic Revival means is shamanism, ecstacy, orgiastic sexuality, and the defeat of the three enemies of the people. And the three enemies of the people are hegemony, monogamy and monotony! And if you get them on the run you have the dominators sweating folks, because that means your getting it all reconnected, and getting it all reconnected means putting aside the idea of separateness and self-definition through thing-fetish. Getting it all connected means tapping into the Gaian mind, and the Gaian mind is what we're calling the psychedelic experience. Its an experience of the living fact of the entelechy of the planet. And without that experience we wander in a desert of bogus ideologies. But with that experience the compass of the self can be set, and that's the idea; figuring out how to reset the compass of the self through community, through ecstatic dance, through psychedelics, sexuality, intelligence, INTELLIGENCE. This is what we have to have to make the forward escape into hyperspace. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1449:Every ritual repetition of the cosmogony is preceded by a symbolic retrogression to Chaos. In order to be created anew, the old world must first be annihilated. The various rites performed in connection with the New Year can be put in two chief categories: (I) those that signify the return to Chaos (e.g., extinguishing fires, expelling 'evil' and sins, reversal of habitual behavior, orgies, return of the dead); (2) those that symbolize the cosmogony (e.g., lighting new fires, departure of the dead, repetition of the acts by which the Gods created the world, solemn prediction of the weather for the ensuing year). In the scenario of initiatory rites, 'death' corresponds to the temporary return to Chaos; hence it is the paradigmatic expression of the end of a mode of being the mode of ignorance and of the child's irresponsibility. Initiatory death provides the clean slate on which will be written the successive revelations whose end is the formation of a new man. We shall later describe the different modalities of birth to a new, spiritual life. But now we must note that this new life is conceived as the true human existence, for it is open to the values of spirit. What is understood by the generic term 'culture,' comprising all the values of spirit, is accessible only to those who have been initiated. Hence participation in spiritual life is made possible by virtue of the religious experiences released during initiation.
All the rites of rebirth or resurrection, and the symbols that they imply, indicate that the novice has attained to another mode of existence, inaccessible to those who have not undergone the initiatory ordeals, who have not tasted death. We must note this characteristic of the archaic mentality: the belief that a state cannot be changed without first being annihilated-in the present instance, without the child's dying to childhood. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this obsession with beginnings, which, in sum, is the obsession with the absolute beginning, the cosmogony. For a thing to be well done, it must be done as it was done the first time. But the first time, the thing-this class of objects, this animal, this particular behavior-did not exist: when, in the beginning, this object, this animal, this institution, came into existence, it was as if, through the power of the Gods, being arose from nonbeing.
Initiatory death is indispensable for the beginning of spiritual life. Its function must be understood in relation to what it prepares: birth to a higher mode of being. As we shall see farther on, initiatory death is often symbolized, for example, by darkness, by cosmic night, by the telluric womb, the hut, the belly of a monster. All these images express regression to a preformal state, to a latent mode of being (complementary to the precosmogonic Chaos), rather than total annihilation (in the sense in which, for example, a member of the modern societies conceives death). These images and symbols of ritual death are inextricably connected with germination, with embryology; they already indicate a new life in course of preparation. Obviously, as we shall show later, there are other valuations of initiatory death-for example, joining the company of the dead and the Ancestors. But here again we can discern the same symbolism of the beginning: the beginning of spiritual life, made possible in this case by a meeting with spirits.
For archaic thought, then, man is made-he does not make himself all by himself. It is the old initiates, the spiritual masters, who make him. But these masters apply what was revealed to them at the beginning of Time by the Supernatural Beings. They are only the representatives of those Beings; indeed, in many cases they incarnate them. This is as much as to say that in order to become a man, it is necessary to resemble a mythical model. ~ Mircea Eliade,#NFDB
1450:I’ve done you a disservice,” he said at last. “It’s only fair to let you know, but you won’t have a normal life span.”
I bit my lip. “Have you come to take my soul, then?”
“I told you that’s not my jurisdiction. But you’re not going to die soon. In fact, you won’t die for a long time, far longer than I initially thought, I’m afraid. Nor will you age normally.”
“Because I took your qi?”
He inclined his head. “I should have stopped you sooner.”
I thought of the empty years that stretched ahead of me, years of solitude long after everyone I loved had died. Though I might have children or grandchildren. But perhaps they might comment on my strange youthfulness and shun me as unnatural. Whisper of sorcery, like those Javanese women who inserted gold needles in their faces and ate children. In the Chinese tradition, nothing was better than dying old and full of years, a treasure in the bosom of one’s family. To outlive descendants and endure a long span of widowhood could hardly be construed as lucky. Tears filled my eyes, and for some reason this seemed to agitate Er Lang, for he turned away. In profile, he was even more handsome, if that was possible, though I was quite sure he was aware of it.
“It isn’t necessarily a good thing, but you’ll see all of the next century, and I think it will be an interesting one.”
“That’s what Tian Bai said,” I said bitterly. “How long will I outlive him?”
“Long enough,” he said. Then more gently, “You may have a happy marriage, though.”
“I wasn’t thinking about him,” I said. “I was thinking about my mother. By the time I die, she’ll have long since gone on to the courts for reincarnation. I shall never see her again.” I burst into sobs, realizing how much I’d clung to that hope, despite the fact that it might be better for my mother to leave the Plains of the Dead. But then we would never meet in this lifetime. Her memories would be erased and her spirit lost to me in this form.
“Don’t cry.” I felt his arms around me, and I buried my face in his chest. The rain began to fall again, so dense it was like a curtain around us. Yet I did not get wet.
“Listen,” he said. “When everyone around you has died and it becomes too hard to go on pretending, I shall come for you.”
“Do you mean that?” A strange happiness was beginning to grow, twining and tightening around my heart.
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“Can’t I go with you now?”
He shook his head. “Aren’t you getting married? Besides, I’ve always preferred older women. In about fifty years’ time, you should be just right.”
I glared at him. “What if I’d rather not wait?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you mean that you don’t want to marry Tian Bai?”
I dropped my gaze.
“If you go with me, it won’t be easy for you,” he said warningly. “It will bring you closer to the spirit world and you won’t be able to lead a normal life. My work is incognito, so I can’t keep you in style. It will be a little house in some strange town. I shan’t be available most of the time, and you’d have to be ready to move at a moment’s notice.”
I listened with increasing bewilderment. “Are you asking me to be your mistress or an indentured servant?”
His mouth twitched. “I don’t keep mistresses; it’s far too much trouble. I’m offering to marry you, although I might regret it. And if you think the Lim family disapproved of your marriage, wait until you meet mine.”
I tightened my arms around him.
“Speechless at last,” Er Lang said. “Think about your options. Frankly, if I were a woman, I’d take the first one. I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of family.”
“But what would you do for fifty years?”
He was about to speak when I heard a faint call, and through the heavy downpour, saw Yan Hong’s blurred figure emerge between the trees, Tian Bai running beside her. “Give me your answer in a fortnight,” said Er Lang. Then he was gone. ~ Yangsze Choo,#NFDB
32 Integral Yoga
14 Psychology
13 Occultism
11 Philosophy
3 Fiction
3 Christianity
2 Yoga
2 Poetry
2 Education
1 Thelema
1 Science
1 Integral Theory
1 Cybernetics
23 Sri Aurobindo
18 The Mother
15 Carl Jung
11 Satprem
7 Aleister Crowley
4 Plato
4 Aldous Huxley
3 Saint Teresa of Avila
3 Jordan Peterson
3 H P Lovecraft
2 Thubten Chodron
2 Swami Krishnananda
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
2 Ken Wilber
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 A B Purani
6 The Practice of Psycho therapy
5 The Synthesis Of Yoga
4 The Perennial Philosophy
4 Record of Yoga
4 Mysterium Coniunctionis
4 Magick Without Tears
4 Aion
3 The Secret Doctrine
3 Maps of Meaning
3 Lovecraft - Poems
3 Letters On Yoga IV
3 Agenda Vol 08
2 The Way of Perfection
2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
2 Some Answers From The Mother
2 Sex Ecology Spirituality
2 Liber ABA
2 Labyrinths
2 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
2 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
2 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
2 Agenda Vol 09
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Line 8 emphasises the importance of performing
both.
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He can subordinate this aim, but only to physical Nature's other instincts, the reproduction of the individual and the conservation of the type in the family, class or community. Self, domesticity, the accustomed order of the society and of the nation are the constituents of the material existence. Its immense importance in the economy of Nature is self-evident, and commensurate is the importance of the human type which represents it. He assures her of the safety of the framework she has made and of the orderly continuance and conservation of her past gains.
But by that very utility such men and the life they lead are condemned to be limited, irrationally conservative and earthbound. The customary routine, the customary institutions, the inherited or habitual forms of thought, - these things are the life-breath of their nostrils. They admit and jealously defend the changes compelled by the progressive mind in the past, but combat with equal zeal the changes that are being made by it in the present. For to the material man the living progressive thinker is an ideologue, dreamer or madman. The old Semites who stoned the living prophets and adored their memories when dead, were the very incarnation of this instinctive and unintelligent principle in Nature. In the ancient Indian distinction between the once born and the twice born, it is to this material man that the former description can be applied. He does Nature's inferior works; he assures the basis for her higher activities; but not to him easily are opened the glories of her second birth.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
eyes to it, one minimises the importance of the problem
and thus this idea of difference between girls and boys
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You have taught me the importance of awakening the
divine consciousness in the body, and now I pray to You
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Go to Brazil, to this good rich man, make him understand the importance of our work, the extent to which his fortune would be used to the utmost for the good of all and for the earths salvation were he to put it, even partially, at the disposal of our action. Win this victory over the power of money, and by so doing you will be freed from all your personal difficulties. Then you can return here with no apprehension, and you will be ready for the transformation.
Reflect upon this, take your time, tell me very frankly how you feel about it and whether it appears to you, as it does to me, to be a door opening onto a path that will bring you back, free and strong at last to me.
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For example, the importance of the departure2: how he was present the whole time I was away; how he guided my entire life in Japan; how. Of course, it would be seen in the mirror of my own experience, but it would be Sri Aurobindonot me, not my reactions: him; but through my experience because thats all I can speak of.
There would be interesting things even for.
0 1962-01-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Your practice of psycho-analysis was a mistake. It has, for the time at least, made the work of purification more complicated, not easier. The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mindto take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow termsruns riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners,is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of ones way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.
0 1963-07-24, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
the importance of the body is obvious; it is because he has developed or been given a body and brain capable of receiving and serving a progressive mental illumination that man has risen above the animal. Equally, it can only be by developing a body or at least a functioning of the physical instrument capable of receiving and serving a still higher illumination that he will rise above himself and realise, not merely in thought and in his internal being but in life, a perfectly divine manhood. Otherwise either the promise of Life is cancelled, its meaning annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda by abolishing itself, by shedding from it mind, life and body and returning to the pure Infinite, or else man is not the divine instrument, there is a destined limit to the consciously progressive power which distinguishes him from all other terrestrial existences and as he has replaced them in the front of things, so another must eventually replace him and assume his heritage.
(The Life Divine, XVIII.231)
0 1967-04-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the last part, what he calls the cellular level is indeed the descriptionONE descriptionof cellular phenomena and activities on their level of consciousness, and also on the level of consciousness of the infinitesimal. He speaks of great currents and cellular transformations and all that; its quite correct, only.1 Its what is going on at present, but its just the consciousness reduced to the dimension of the infinitesimal. And its a reproduction of what takes place in the other dimensions. But, for example, after all this discipline of the cells that there has been for several years now, his description strikes me as the same thing SEEN THROUGH AN ILLUSION. And the illusion is caused by that very imbalance: the illusion of an absolute reality, while its a quite relative reality. You understand, its the difference between seeing something with a sense of relativity, with a whole immensity of other things, and seeing it all alone as an exclusive and unique reality. Its the sense of the harmony and balance of the Whole that is gone. And so, it becomes dreadful: as he says, some people may find it frightening. And thats precisely because that equilibrium is missing. Its the same thing in a smaller version in an individual: that vision of the whole which gives the proportion of every event, the importance of every event and every thing, changes completely when you have the sense of the Whole, and what appears frightening or catastrophic or marvellous becomes again just a part of the Whole. Its the sense of equilibrium that is gone. When I read the end, it gave me one more confirmation of my experience.
It may be necessary, in certain cases, to disrupt that equilibrium so as to come into contact with something new, but thats always dangerous. And the way of consecration and surrender to the supreme Power is infinitely superiorits slightly more difficult. Its more difficult than swallowing a drug, but infinitely superior.
0 1967-06-24, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
the importance of the body is obvious; it is because he has developed or been given a body and brain capable of receiving and serving a progressive mental illumination that man has risen above the animal. Equally, it can only be by developing a body or at least a functioning of the physical instrument capable of receiving and serving a still higher illumination that he will rise above himself and realise, not merely in thought and in his internal being but in life, a perfectly divine manhood. Otherwise either the promise of Life is cancelled, its meaning annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda by abolishing itself, by shedding from it mind, life and body and returning to the pure Infinite, or else man is not the divine instrument, there is a destined limit to the consciously progressive power which distinguishes him from all other terrestrial existences and as he has replaced them in the front of things, so another must eventually replace him and assume his heritage.
(The Life Divine, XVIII.231)
0 1967-07-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And it makes all the difference, in the sense that Well, its like the difference between an image or a representation or a narration and the thing itselfbetween an image and the thing itself, between the narration and the thing itself. Thats the difference. With the one, it EXISTS; with the other, it may be living, but its superficial and momentary. And as I said the other day, it doesnt at all depend on the importance of what you are doing (importance according to the mental notion, of course), on the importance of what you are doing or the seriousness of the circumstance, none of all that: simply, the psychic is there or it isnt. Thats all.
Which amounts to saying that the CELLS THEMSELVES feel the difference, perceive the difference.
0 1968-07-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a whole series of things. First theres a note from J. whos received a letter from P.L.; she writes this to me: P.L. is fine. Msgr. R. told him he had discovered another world through your book.1 He has come into contact with Mother. He made P.L. see the importance of staying in this milieu for some more time if they want to transform it.
(Mother opens her eyes wide)
0 1968-12-28, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And in that consciousness, the strange thing is the importance of one minute, which to our consciousness is nothing there it has an importance. In one minute, something general can be done. Naturally, all words are stupid, but thats how it is. One minute.
In one minute To such a point that the body perceives that one minute like this (Mother slightly rotates two fingers) is a victory; and one minute like that (Mother rotates her two fingers the other way) is a catastrophe. And not only for itself (for itself, its on a small scale and concentrated, its not the same thing), but its general.
0 1972-03-29b, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
These were the exact words of the attendant, whose name will come up again. Mother would often ask, "Where is Sujata? Where is Sujata?" and the unvarying reply was, "She's not here." Actually, we understand it now, Mother would have liked Sujata to become her personal assistant after Vasudha, but she knew the importance of Sujata's work with Satprem, so she never asked. Had this been otherwise, the subsequent course of events would have changed.
As an illustration we are tempted to publish here a letter Mother wrote to Sujata's father, Prithwi Singh, way back in February 1951. Barely two months after Sri Aurobindo's passing, certain inmates of the Ashram were already showing their true colors: "My dear child," Mother wrote, "I am not aware of having said anything that could give you the slightest painso I advise you not to listen to what people say. Most of them take a very great pleasure in disturbing others, and when they have nothing nasty to repeat they invent."
1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare lorries or no lorries and saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest or your host if he or she should prove ignorant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues.
Like a perfect lady, I have kept the tit bit to the last. It is absolutely essential to begin a magical diary, and keep it up daily. You begin by an account of your life, going back even before your birth to your ancestry. In conformity with the practice which you may perhaps choose to adopt later, given in Liber Thisarb, sub figura CMXIII, paragraphs 27-28, Magick, pp. 420-422, you must find an answer to the question: "How did I come to be in this place at this time, engaged in this particular work?" As you will see from the book, this will start you on the discovery of who you really are, and eventually lead you to your recovering the memory of previous incarnations.
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
And knowledge of them puts the importance of the Auro
bindian revolution in perspective.
1.01 - Economy, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick?
How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge. When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis.
--
beside produce consumed and on hand at the time this estimate was made of the value of $4.50,the amount on hand much more than balancing a little grass which I did not raise. All things considered, that is, considering the importance of a mans soul and of to-day, notwithstanding the short time occupied by my experiment, nay, partly even because of its transient character, I believe that that was doing better than any farmer in Concord did that year.
The next year I did better still, for I spaded up all the land which I required, about a third of an acre, and I learned from the experience of both years, not being in the least awed by many celebrated works on husbandry, Arthur Young among the rest, that if one would live simply and eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and expensive things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground, and that it would be cheaper to spade up that than to use oxen to plough it, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old, and he could do all his necessary farm work as it were with his left hand at odd hours in the summer; and thus he would not be tied to an ox, or horse, or cow, or pig, as at present. I desire to speak impartially on this point, and as one not interested in the success or failure of the present economical and social arrangements. I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment. Beside being better off than they already, if my house had been burned or my crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well off as before.
1.01 - Necessity for knowledge of the whole human being for a genuine education., #The Essentials of Education, #unset, #Zen
Dear friends! Our assignment for this educational conference is to answer the question: What is the role of education and teaching to be for the future in terms of both the individual and society? Anyone who looks with an unbiased eye at modern civilization and its various institutions can hardly question the importance of this theme today (by today I mean the current decade in history). This theme touches on questions deep in the souls and hearts of a great many people.
Knowledge of the Whole Human Being
1.01 - Who is Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
On Taras crown is Amitabha Buddha, peaceful and smiling. As Taras spiritual mentor, he represents the importance of having a fully qualied, wise,
and compassionate guide on the path. By keeping her mentor on her crown,
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
minimize the importance of the orienting reflex, and to misunderstand the nature of its disappearance.
Orienting signifies attention, not terror, in the standard lab situation, and its gradual elimination with
1.02 - The Three European Worlds, #The Ever-Present Origin, #Jean Gebser, #Integral
La cage d'oiseau, and Nature morte la tte de pltre, further manifest his search for concrete time. Picasso himself underscored the importance of these two works by selecting them to appear among the reproductions of nineteen works printed in Sabarts' collection of 1935. In addition we refer the reader to two portraits of 1927, Buste de femme en Rouge and Femme, as well as to the Femme aubonnet rouge of 1932.
With reference to Braque, who by 1939 was at work on his Greek heritage, we can discern distinct early indications of a temporic treatment in his portraits such as the Woman's Head of 1930 and Sao of 1931.There is evidence of his preoccupation and increasing mastery of this temporic treatment after 1936.
1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
childs dying to childhood. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this obsession with
beginnings, which, in sum, is the obsession with the absolute beginning, the cosmogony. For a thing to
1.03 - PERSONALITY, SANCTITY, DIVINE INCARNATION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Paradoxical as it may seem, it is, for very many persons, much easier to behave selflessly in time of crisis than it is when life is taking its normal course in undisturbed tranquillity. When the going is easy, there is nothing to make us forget our precious selfness, nothing (except our own will to mortification and the knowledge of God) to distract our minds from the distractions with which we have chosen to be identified; we are at perfect liberty to wallow in our personality to our hearts content. And how we wallow! It is for this reason that all the masters of the spiritual life insist so strongly upon the importance of little things.
God requires a faithful fulfilment of the merest trifle given us to do, rather than the most ardent aspiration to things to which we are not called.
1.03 - To Layman Ishii, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
Zen teachers who, by giving in to feelings of pity and offering untimely advice to struggling students, end up preventing them from carrying their practice through to completion, ruining their chance of ever reaching the release of final enlightenment. Hakuin contrasts this with the method used by himself, as well as the great Zen figures of the past, of refusing to give any such help until the critical moment is reached and the student is ready to benefit from a teacher's timely intervention. The classic image is that of a mother hen pecking an egg at the exact same time the baby chick is pecking from within the shell to make its way out. Hakuin also stresses the importance of the post-satori training that begins after the original kensh or satori is attained.
This letter is perhaps the earliest written enunciation of these themes, preceding by almost a decade their initial appearance in print, in Talks Introductory to Lectures on the Record of Hsi-keng
1.04 - Magic and Religion, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
primitive magic." Speaking of the importance of magic in the East,
and especially in Egypt, Professor Maspero remarks that "we ought
1.04 - The Aims of Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the man who is sick to death of being a particle. the importance of what
life means to the individual may be denied by those who are socially below
1.04 - The Origin and Development of Poetry., #Poetics, #Aristotle, #Philosophy
Aeschylus first introduced a second actor; he diminished the importance of the Chorus, and assigned the leading part to the dialogue. Sophocles raised the number of actors to three, and added scene-painting.
Moreover, it was not till late that the short plot was discarded for one of greater compass, and the grotesque diction of the earlier satyric form for the stately manner of Tragedy. The iambic measure then replaced the trochaic tetrameter, which was originally employed when the poetry was of the Satyric order, and had greater affinities with dancing. Once dialogue had come in, Nature herself discovered the appropriate measure.
1.04 - The Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
consciousness but also the importance of the ego, especially
when, as usually happens, the ego lacks any critical approach to
1.052 - Yoga Practice - A Series of Positive Steps, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
In the Vedanta Shastras and yoga scriptures we are told that there are at least three types of self: the external, the personal and the Absolute. We are not concerned here with the Absolute Self. This is not the Self that we are going to restrain. It is, on the other hand, the Self that we are going to realise. That is the goal the Absolute Self which is unrelated to any other factor or condition, which stands on its own right and which is called the Infinite, the Eternal, and so on. But the self that is to be restrained is that peculiar feature in consciousness which will not fulfil the conditions of absoluteness at any time. It is always relative. It is the relative self that is to be subjected to restraint for the sake of the realisation of the Absolute Self. The aim of life is the Absolute, and not the relative. The experience of the relative, the attachment of the mind in respect of the relative, and the exclusive emphasis on the importance of relativity in things is the obstructing factor in ones enterprise towards the realisation of the Absolute Self.
The external self is that atmosphere that we create around us which we regard as part of our life and to which we get attached in some manner or the other. This is also a self. A family is a self, for example, to mention a small instance. The head of the family regards the family as his own self, though it is not true that the family is his self. He has got an attachment to the members of the family. The attachment is a movement of his own consciousness in respect of those objects around him known as the members of the family. This permeating of his consciousness around that atmosphere known as the family creates a false, externalised self in his experience. This social self, we may call it, is the external self, inasmuch as this externalised, social self is not the real Self. Because it is conditioned by certain factors which are subject to change, it has to be restrained. That is one of the necessities of self-restraint.
1.05 - Christ, A Symbol of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
marks that are forced on me by the importance of the material
we have been discussing. The standpoint of a psychology whose
1.05 - Computing Machines and the Nervous System, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
discovery of the importance of the zero and the advantage of
a positional system of notation. It is worth retaining when a
--
of the importance of sex and hormones has been made to me by
Dr. J. Lettvin and Mr. Oliver Selfridge, While at present there is
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
experiments, still believed in the transmutation of metals. And we will see the importance of alchemy in the scientific
revolution accomplished by Newton. [Eliade, M. (1985). p. 257, footnote 95].
1.05 - The Universe The 0 = 2 Equation, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Every "act of love under will" has the dual result (1) the creation of a child combining the qualities of its parents, (2) the withdrawal by ecstasy into Nothingness. Please consult what I have elsewhere written on "The Formula of Tetagrammaton;" the importance of this at the moment is to show how 0 and 2 appear constantly in Nature as the common Order of Events.
Love is the law, love under will.
1.06 - Agni and the Truth, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the importance of the sacrificial fire in the outward ritual corresponds to the importance of this inward force of unified Light and Power in the inward rite by which there is communication and interchange between the mortal and the Immortal. Agni is elsewhere frequently described as the envoy, duta, the medium of that communication and interchange.
We see, then, in what capacity Agni is called to the sacrifice.
1.06 - The Objective and Subjective Views of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Subjectivism proceeds from within and regards everything from the point of view of a containing and developing self-consciousness. The law here is within ourselves; life is a self-creating process, a growth and development at first subconscious, then half-conscious and at last more and more fully conscious of that which we are potentially and hold within ourselves; the principle of its progress is an increasing self-recognition, self-realisation and a resultant self-shaping. Reason and will are only effective movements of the self, reason a process in self-recognition, will a force for self-affirmation and self-shaping. Moreover, reason and intellectual will are only a part of the means by which we recognise and realise ourselves. Subjectivism tends to take a large and complex view of our nature and being and to recognise many powers of knowledge, many forces of effectuation. Even, we see it in its first movement away from the external and objective method discount and belittle the importance of the work of the reason and assert the supremacy of the life-impulse or the essential Will-to-be in opposition to the claims of the intellect or else affirm some deeper power of knowledge, called nowadays the intuition, which sees things in the whole, in their truth, in their profundities and harmonies while intellectual reason breaks up, falsifies, affirms superficial appearances and harmonises only by a mechanical adjustment. But substantially we can see that what is meant by this intuition is the self-consciousness feeling, perceiving, grasping in its substance and aspects rather than analysing in its mechanism its own truth and nature and powers. The whole impulse of subjectivism is to get at the self, to live in the self, to see by the self, to live out the truth of the self internally and externally, but always from an internal initiation and centre.
But still there is the question of the truth of the self, what it is, where is its real abiding-place; and here subjectivism has to deal with the same factors as the objective view of life and existence. We may concentrate on the individual life and consciousness as the self and regard its power, freedom, increasing light and satisfaction and joy as the object of living and thus arrive at a subjective individualism. We may, on the other hand, lay stress on the group consciousness, the collective self; we may see man only as an expression of this group-self necessarily incomplete in his individual or separate being, complete only by that larger entity, and we may wish to subordinate the life of the individual man to the growing power, efficiency, knowledge, happiness, self-fulfilment of the race or even sacrifice it and consider it as nothing except in so far as it lends itself to the life and growth of the community or the kind. We may claim to exercise a righteous oppression on the individual and teach him intellectually and practically that he has no claim to exist, no right to fulfil himself except in his relations to the collectivity. These alone then are to determine his thought, action and existence and the claim of the individual to have a law of his own being, a law of his own nature which he has a right to fulfil and his demand for freedom of thought involving necessarily the freedom to err and for freedom of action involving necessarily the freedom to stumble and sin may be regarded as an insolence and a chimera. The collective self-consciousness will then have the right to invade at every point the life of the individual, to refuse to it all privacy and apartness, all self-concentration and isolation, all independence and self-guidance and determine everything for it by what it conceives to be the best thought and highest will and rightly dominant feeling, tendency, sense of need, desire for self-satisfaction of the collectivity.
1.07 - A Song of Longing for Tara, the Infallible, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
always the best students. the importance of examining someone over time
before taking him or her as our spiritual mentor cannot be emphasized
1.07 - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
I could of course describe one to you, but the word will be meaningless unless there are some points of shared experience that will allow you to "call up" in your mind the same signified that I mean with the signifier "dog." (Substitute the word Buddha-nature for dog and you can see the importance of this line of thought for mystical experience, which we will explore in a minute.) The hermeneuticists are quite right in that regard: the same linguistic structures that you and I share are not enough, in themselves, to give you the proper signified. You and I have to share a common lived experience in order to assume identical signification.
Further, the actual experience of seeing a dog is not itself a merely linguistic experience. The signifier, the word dog, is not the actual dog, not the actual referent. Obviously, the total experience of the real dog cannot itself be put into words, put into signifiers. But the fact that the real dog can't be fully captured in words does not mean that the real dog doesn't exist or isn't real. It means only that the signifier has sense only if you and I have had a similar experience, a common shared lifeworld experience, and then I will know what you mean when you say, "That dog scared me."
--
These three strands-injunction, illumination, confirmation-are the major components in any valid knowledge quest.17 One of the great values of Thomas Kuhn's work (and that of the pragmatists before him, and in particular Heidegger's "analytic-pragmatic" side) was to draw attention to the importance of injunctions or actual practices in generating knowledge, and further, in generating the type of knowledge that could be articulated in a given worldspace.
That is, social practices, or social injunctions (and I mean "social" in the broad sense as "sociocultural"), are crucial in creating and disclosing the types of worldspace in which types of subjects and objects appear (and thus the types of knowledge that can unfold). The referents of knowledge, as we saw above, exist only in specific worldspaces, and those worldspaces are not simply given empirically, lying around for all and sundry to perceive.18
1.080 - Pratyahara - The Return of Energy, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
When the inclination for concentration arises in the mind, a great change will be felt in ones own self. A new type of mood will rise within, and it will look like the whole world is changing its colours and relations. There will be a total confirmation of the nature of ones feelings when this inclination to concentration arises in the mind. We have to bear in mind the importance of this sutra, dhrasu ca yogyat manasa (II.53), which means that there should be the minds preparedness or readiness for concentration, as a mere pressure of the will cannot bring about concentration.
Every stage of yoga, every step in its practice, is a healthful growth and not any kind of pressurisation from any source. Therefore, it is a very gradual ascent because the natural inclination does not arise quickly, due to the presence of other impressions in the mind. So, if we properly bear in mind the significance of the earlier steps mentioned right from yama onwards, up to pranayama we will be able to understand the types of preparation that we have to make for this readiness of the mind to concentrate. Most of us are not ready for concentration, and if we ask the mind to concentrate when it is not prepared, how will we take to that practice? We cannot even take our meal when the stomach is not ready for it. Nothing can be done when the system is not prepared. Neither can we walk, nor can we sleep, nor can we eat, nor can we speak if we are not ready for these things. For every action, function or conduct, there should be a readiness of the system a preparedness, a mood, a tendency, an inclination.
1.08 - RELIGION AND TEMPERAMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
With cerebrotonia, the temperament that is correlated with ectomorphic physique, we leave the genial world of Pickwick, the strenuously competitive world of Hotspur, and pass into an entirely different and somewhat disquieting kind of universe that of Hamlet and Ivan Karamazov. The extreme cerebrotonic is the over-alert, over-sensitive introvert, who is more concerned with what goes on behind his eyeswith the constructions of thought and imagination, with the variations of feeling and consciousness than with that external world, to which, in their different ways, the viscerotonic and the somatotonic pay their primary attention and allegiance. Cerebrotonics have little or no desire to dominate, nor do they feel the viscerotonics indiscriminate liking for people as people; on the contrary they want to live and let live, and their passion for privacy is intense. Solitary confinement, the most terrible punishment that can be inflicted on the soft, round, genial person, is, for the cerebrotonic, no punishment at all. For him the ultimate horror is the boarding school and the barracks. In company cerebrotonics are nervous and shy, tensely inhibited and unpredictably moody. (It is a significant fact that no extreme cerebrotonic has ever been a good actor or actress.) Cerebrotonics hate to slam doors or raise their voices, and suffer acutely from the unrestrained bellowing and trampling of the somatotonic. Their manner is restrained, and when it comes to expressing their feelings they are extremely reserved. The emotional gush of the viscerotonic strikes them as offensively shallow and even insincere, nor have they any patience with viscerotonic ceremoniousness and love of luxury and magnificence. They do not easily form habits and find it hard to adapt their lives to the routines, which come so naturally to somatotonics. Owing to their over-sensitiveness, cerebrotonics are often extremely, almost insanely sexual; but they are hardly ever tempted to take to drink for alcohol, which heightens the natural aggressiveness of the somatotonic and increases the relaxed amiability of the viscerotonic, merely makes them feel ill and depressed. Each in his own way, the viscerotonic and the somatotonic are well adapted to the world they live in; but the introverted cerebrotonic is in some sort incommensurable with the things and people and institutions that surround him. Consequently a remarkably high proportion of extreme cerebrotonics fail to make good as normal citizens and average pillars of society. But if many fail, many also become abnormal on the higher side of the average. In universities, monasteries and research laboratorieswherever sheltered conditions are provided for those whose small guts and feeble muscles do not permit them to eat or fight their way through the ordinary rough and tumble the percentage of outstandingly gifted and accomplished cerebrotonics will almost always be very high. Realizing the importance of this extreme, over-evolved and scarcely viable type of human being, all civilizations have provided in one way or another for its protection.
In the light of these descriptions we can understand more clearly the Bhagavad Gitas classification of paths to salvation. The path of devotion is the path naturally followed by the person in whom the viscerotonic component is high. His inborn tendency to externalize the emotions he spontaneously feels in regard to persons can be disciplined and canalized, so that a merely animal gregariousness and a merely human kindliness become transformed into charitydevotion to the personal God and universal good will and compassion towards all sentient beings.
1.09 - To the Students, Young and Old, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Certain beings who, I might say, are in the secret of the gods, are aware of the importance of this moment in the life of the world, and they have taken birth on earth to play their part in whatever way they can. A great luminous consciousness broods over the earth, creating a kind of stir in its atmosphere. All who are open receive a ripple from this eddy, a ray of this light and seek to give form to it, each according to his capacity.
We have here the unique privilege of being at the very centre of this radiating light, at the fount of this force of transformation.
1.11 - Woolly Pomposities of the Pious Teacher, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
One asset in the Audit of a fact is the amount of knowledge which it covers. (2 + 5)2 = 49; (3 + 4)2 = 49; (6 + 2)2 =64; (7 + 1)2 = 64; (9 + 4)2 = 169 are isolated facts, no more; worse, the coincidences of 49 and 64 might start the wildest phantasies in your head "something mysterious about this." But if you write "The sum of the squares of any two numbers is the sum of the square of each plus twice their multiple" (a + b)2 = a2 + b{2} + 2ab you have got a fact which covers every possible case, and exhibits one aspect of the nature of numbers them- selves. the importance of a word increases as its rank, from the particular and concrete to the general and abstract. (It is curious that the highest values of all, the "Laws of Nature," are never exactly "true" for any two persons, for one person can never observe the identical phenomena sensible to another, since two people cannot be in exactly the same place at exactly the same time: yet it is just these facts that are equally true for all men.)
Observe, I pray, the paramount importance of memory. From one point of view (bless your heart!) you are nothing at all but a bundle of memories. When you say "this is happening now," you are a falsifier of God's sacred truth! When I say "I see a horse", the truth is that "I record in those terms my private hieroglyphic interpretation of the unknown and unknowable phenomenon (or 'point-event') which has more or less recently taken place at the other end of my system of receiving impressions."
1.12 - TIME AND ETERNITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
God who is Spirit can only be worshipped in spirit and for his own sake; but God in time is normally worshipped by material means with a view to achieving temporal ends. God in time is manifestly the destroyer as well as the creator; and because this is so, it has seemed proper to worship him by methods which are as terrible as the destructions he himself inflicts. Hence, in India, the blood sacrifices to Kali, in her aspect as Nature-the-Destroyer; hence those offerings of children to the Molochs, denounced by the Hebrew prophets; hence the human sacrifices practised, for example, by the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Druids, the Aztecs. In all such cases the divinity addressed was a god in time, or a personification of Nature, which is nothing else but Time itself, the devourer of its own offspring; and in all cases the purpose of the rite was to obtain a future benefit or to avoid one of the enormous evils which Time and Nature for ever hold in store. For this it was thought to be worth while to pay a high price in that currency of suffering, which the Destroyer so evidently valued. the importance of the temporal end justified the use of means that were intrinsically terrible, because intrinsically time-like. Sublimated traces of these ancient patterns of thought and behaviour are still to be found in certain theories of the Atonement, and in the conception of the Mass as a perpetually repeated sacrifice of the God-Man.
In the modern world the gods to whom human sacrifice is offered are personifications, not of Nature, but of mans own, home-made political ideals. These, of course, all refer to events in timeactual events in the past or the present, fancied events in the future. And here it should be noted that the philosophy which affirms the existence and the immediate realizableness of eternity is related to one kind of political theory and practice; the philosophy which affirms that what goes on in time is the only reality, results in a different kind of theory and justifies quite another kind of political practice. This has been clearly recognized by Marxist writers,* who point out that when Christianity is mainly preoccupied with events in time, it is a revolutionary religion, and that when, under mystical influences, it stresses the Eternal Gospel, of which the historical or pseudo-historical facts recorded in Scripture are but symbols, it becomes politically static and reactionary.
1.14 - The Secret, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Contemporary psychology, too, has become aware of the importance of the subconscient and of the need to cleanse it. But psychologists have seen only half of the picture the subconscient without the superconscient presuming, moreover, that their small mental glimmers would be able to illuminate that den of thieves. They might as well try to find their way through the darkest jungle armed with a flashlight! In fact, in more cases they see the subconscient only as the underside of the small frontal personality, for there is a fundamental psychological law none can escape: descent is commensurate with ascent. One cannot descend farther than one has ascended, because the force necessary for descent is the very same force needed for ascent.
If, by accident, someone descended lower than his capacity for ascent, this would immediately result in some serious accident, possession or madness, because the corresponding power would be missing. The closer we draw to a beginning of Truth down here, the more we uncover an unfathomable wisdom. Mr. Smith's obscure inhibitions are merely a few inches below the surface, we might say, just as his conscious life is merely a few inches above. So unless our psychologists are particularly enlightened, they cannot really go down into the subconscient, and therefore cannot really heal anything, except for a few superficial anomalies (and even then, there is constant risk of seeing these disorders resurface elsewhere, in some other form). One cannot heal unless one has gone all the way to the base, and one cannot go all the way to the base unless one has risen to the heights. The farther one descends, the more powerful the light needed, otherwise one is simply eaten alive.
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
conscious mind has of the unconscious. the importance of con-
sciousness should not be underrated; hence it is advisable to re-
1.15 - Index, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
On the importance of the Unconscious in Psychopathology (1914)
On the Problem of Psychogenesis in Mental Disease (1919)
1.16 - PRAYER, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Psychologically, it is all but impossible for a human being to practise contemplation without preparing for it by some kind of adoration and without feeling the need to revert at more or less frequent intervals to intercession and some form at least of petition. On the other hand, it is both possible and easy to practise petition apart not only from contemplation, but also from adoration and, in rare cases of extreme and unmitigated egotism, even from intercession. Petitionary and intercessory prayer may be used and used, what is more, with what would ordinarily be regarded as successwithout any but the most perfunctory and superficial reference to God in any of his aspects. To acquire the knack of getting his petitions answered, a man does not have to know or love God, or even to know or love the image of God in his own mind. All that he requires is a burning sense of the importance of his own ego and its desires, coupled with a firm conviction that there exists, out there in the universe, something not himself which can be wheedled or dragooned into satisfying those desires. If I repeat My will be done, with the necessary degree of faith and persistency, the chances are that, sooner or later and somehow or other, I shall get what I want. Whether my will coincides with the will of God, and whether in getting what I want I shall get what is spiritually, morally or even materially good for me are questions which I cannot answer in advance. Only time and eternity will show. Meanwhile we shall be well advised to heed the warnings of folk-lore. Those anonymous realists who wrote the worlds fairy stories knew a great deal about wishes and their fulfilment. They knew, first of all, that in certain circumstances petitions actually get themselves answered; but they also knew that God is not the only answerer and that if one asks for something in the wrong spirit, it may in effect be given but given with a vengeance and not by a divine Giver. Getting what one wants by means of self-regarding petition is a form of hubris, which invites its condign and appropriate nemesis. Thus, the folk-lore of the North American Indian is full of stories about people who fast and pray egotistically, in order to get more than a reasonable man ought to have, and who, receiving what they ask for, thereby bring about their own downfall. From the other side of the world come all the tales of the men and women who make use of some kind of magic to get their petitions answeredalways with farcical or catastrophic consequence. Hardly ever do the Three Wishes of our traditional fairy lore lead to anything but a bad end for the successful wisher.
Picture God as saying to you, My son, why is it that day by day you rise and pray, and genuflect, and even strike the ground with your forehead, nay, sometimes even shed tears, while you say to me: My Father, my God, give me wealth! If I were to give it to you, you would think yourself of some importance, you would fancy you had gained something very great. Because you asked for it, you have it. But take care to make good use of it. Before you had it you were humble; now that you have begun to be rich you despise the poor. What kind of a good is that which only makes you worse? For worse you are, since you were bad already. And that it would make you worse you knew not; hence you asked it of Me. I gave it you and I proved you; you have found and you are found out! Ask of Me better things than these, greater things than these-Ask of Me spiritual things. Ask of Me Myself.
1.18 - The Importance of our Conventional Greetings, etc., #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
object:1.18 - the importance of our Conventional Greetings, etc.
class:chapter
1.22 - THE END OF THE SPECIES, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
fully plain the importance of what I have already suggested, that it
is upon its point (or superstructure) of spiritual concentration, and
1.24 - Matter, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:WE HAVE now the rational assurance that Life is neither an inexplicable dream nor an impossible evil that has yet become a dolorous fact, but a mighty pulsation of the divine All-Existence. We see something of its foundation and its principle, we look upward to its high potentiality and ultimate divine out-flowering. But there is one principle below all the others which we have not yet sufficiently considered, the principle of Matter upon which Life stands as upon a pedestal or out of which it evolves like the form of a many-branching tree out of its encasing seed. The mind, life and body of man depend upon this physical principle, and if the out-flowering of Life is the result of Consciousness emerging into Mind, expanding, elevating itself in search of its own truth in the largeness of the supramental existence, yet it seems also to be conditioned by this case of body and by this foundation of Matter. the importance of the body is obvious; it is because he has developed or been given a body and brain capable of receiving and serving a progressive mental illumination that man has risen above the animal. Equally, it can only be by developing a body or at least a functioning of the physical instrument capable of receiving and serving a still higher illumination that he will rise above himself and realise, not merely in thought and in his internal being but in life, a perfectly divine manhood. Otherwise either the promise of Life is cancelled, its meaning annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda by abolishing itself, by shedding
from it mind, life and body and returning to the pure Infinite, or else man is not the divine instrument, there is a destined limit to the consciously progressive power which distinguishes him from all other terrestrial existences and, as he has replaced them in the front of things, so another must eventually replace him and assume his heritage.
1.30 - Describes the importance of understanding what we ask for in prayer. Treats of these words in the Paternoster: Sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum. Applies them to the Prayer of Quiet, and begins the explanation of them., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
object:1.30 - Describes the importance of understanding what we ask for in prayer. Treats of these words in the Paternoster: Sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum. Applies them to the Prayer of Quiet, and begins the explanation of them.
author class:Saint Teresa of Avila
1.4.03 - The Guru, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is a deficiency of psychic perception and spiritual discrimination that makes people speak like that [in a depreciatory way] and ignore the importance of obedience. It is the mind wanting to follow its own way of thinking and the vital seeking freedom for its desires which argue in this manner. If you do not follow the rules laid down by the spiritual guide or obey one who is leading you to the Divine, then what or whom are you to follow? Only the ideas of the individual mind and the desires of the vital: but these things never lead to siddhi in Yoga. The rules are laid down in order to guard against certain influences and their dangers and to keep a right atmosphere in the Asram favourable to spiritual development; the obedience is necessary so as to get away from one's own mind and vital and learn to follow the Truth.
Yes, it [obedience] is difficult, but once achieved it is immensely fruitful.
1.41 - Speaks of the fear of God and of how we must keep ourselves from venial sins., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
not so at present. If you would gain this fear of God, remember the importance of habit and of
starting to realize what a serious thing it is to offend Him. Do your utmost to learn this and to turn
1914 12 10p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Is it not a great folly to become identified with one form of thought, one mental construction, however vast and powerful it may be, to the point of making it the living centre of ones being, ones experience and activity? Truth is eternally beyond all that we can think or say of it. To endeavour to find the most suitable expression, the one best adapted to this truth, is of course a useful task, even an indispensable one for the integrality of ones own development and that of all humanity; but one must always feel free in front of this expression, have ones centre of consciousness above it, in the reality which, despite the grandeur, the beauty, the perfection of a mental formula, always eludes every formula. The world is not what we think it to be. the importance of the idea we have of it lies in its effect on our attitude towards action; and this attitude may come from a much deeper, truer, more unchanging inspiration than that resulting from a mental construction, however powerful it may be. To feel in oneself the will to express for men the eternal Truth in a completer, higher, more exact form than all those which have preceded it, is good; but on condition that one does not identify ones self with this work to the point of being its slave and losing before it all independence and self-control. It is just an activity and nothing more, whatever may be its importance from the earthly point of view; but it must not be forgotten that it is relative like all activities and that we should not allow it to disturb our deep peace and that immutable calm which alone lets the divine forces manifest through us without any deformation.
O Lord, my prayer is not formulated, but Thou hearest it.
1953-07-01, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I knew people who should have really died according to all physical and vital laws; and they refused. They said: No, I will not die, and they lived. There are others who do not need at all to die, but they are of that kind and say: Ah! Well! Yes, so much the better, it will be finished, and it is finished. Even that much, even nothing more than that: you need not have a persistent wish, you have only to say: Well, yes, I have had enough! and it is finished. So it is truly like that. As you say, you may have death standing by your bedside and tell him: I do not want you, go away, and it will be obliged to go away. But usually one gives way, for one must struggle, one must be strong, one must be very courageous and enduring, must have a great faith in the importance of life; like someone, for example, who feels very strongly that he has still something to do and he must absolutely do it. But who is sure he has not within him the least bit of a defeatist, somewhere, who just yields and says: It is all right? It is here, the necessity of unifying oneself.
Whatever the way we follow, the subject we study, we always arrive at the same result. The most important thing for an individual is to unify himself around his divine centre; in that way he becomes a true individual, master of himself and his destiny. Otherwise, he is a plaything of forces that toss him about like a piece of cork on a river. He goes where he does not want to go, he is made to do things he does not want to do, and finally he falls into a hole without having the strength to hold on. But if you are consciously organised, unified around the divine centre, ruled and directed by it, you are master of your destiny. That is worth the trouble of attempting In any case, I find it preferable to be the master rather than the slave. It is a rather unpleasant sensation to feel yourself pulled by the strings and made to do things whether you want to or not that is quite irrelevant but to be compelled to act because something pulls you by the strings, something which you do not even see that is exasperating. However, I do not know, but I found it very annoying, even when I was a little child. At five, it began to seem to me quite intolerable and I sought for a way so that it might be otherwisewithout people getting a chance to scold me. For I knew nobody who could help me and I did not have the chance that you have, someone who can tell you: This is what you have to do! There was nobody to tell me that. I had to find it out all by myself. And I found it. I started at five. And you, you were five long ago Voil.
1954-10-20 - Stand back - Asking questions to Mother - Seeing images in meditation - Berlioz -Music - Mothers organ music - Destiny, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Of course this is not always absolute, because it depends on the importance of the individual in relation to the importance of the surrounding circumstances. That is why I said at the beginning: every predestined being. What I mean by predestined is a being who has come down upon earth to accomplish a precise mission and who, naturally, will be helped in the accomplishment of this mission. It may be a very modest mission but it is a precise one that he has to accomplish upon earth. Well, all these beings their life is organised in this way; but ninety-nine and a half per cent are not aware of it, and they revolt or lament or And then, above all, they pity themselves greatly and lament their own difficulties, their own miseries, their own sufferings, and caress themselves gently: Oh, my poor little one, how unhappy you are! But it is their inner being which has done everything.
There we are.
1956-05-16 - Needs of the body, not true in themselves - Spiritual and supramental law - Aestheticised Paganism - Morality, checks true spiritual effort - Effect of supramental descent - Half-lights and false lights, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Finally, for all these things, it is a question of proportion, of measure. It is obvious that one cant always live without eating. But it is as obvious that the idea people have about the need to eat is not true. Indeed, it is a whole subject for study: the importance of the mental attitude in relation to the body.
Sri Aurobindo does not recognise the needs of the body as things true in themselves. He says: it is not true, it is only an idea you have, an impression, it is not something true which carries its truth in itself.
1960 06 08, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifested here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. This is an indispensable condition for the manifestation. And the importance of the manifestation will always depend on the origin of the thing manifested.
In the world of the gods there is an ideal and harmonious Brindavan of which the earthly Brindavan is but a deformation and a caricature.
1f.lovecraft - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
surer than books, and Ill leave you to judge the importance of what I
can give to history, philosophy, and the arts by reason of the doors I
1f.lovecraft - The Nameless City, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
the importance of these crawling creatures must have been vast, for
they held first place among the wild designs on the frescoed walls and
1f.lovecraft - The Shunned House, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Weighing in his mind the importance of the matter, and the significance
of our relation to it, he insisted that we both testand if possible
1.poe - Eureka - A Prose Poem, #Poe - Poems, #unset, #Zen
In speaking, not long ago, of the repulsive or electrical influence, I remarked that "the important phaenomena of vitality, consciousness, and thought, whether we observe them generally or in detail, seem to proceed at least in the ratio of the heterogeneous. " I mentioned, too, that I would recur to the suggestion: -and this is the proper point at which to do so. Looking at the matter, first, in detail, we perceive that not merely the manifestation of vitality, but its importance, consequences, and elevation of character, keep pace, very closely, with the heterogeneity, or complexity, of the animal structure. Looking at the question, now, in its generality, and referring to the first movements of the atoms towards mass-constitution, we find that heterogeneousness, brought about directly through condensation, is proportional with it forever. We thus reach the proposition that the importance of the development of the terrestrial vitality proceeds equably with the terrestrial condensation.
See previous paragraph, "To electricity -so, for the present, continuing to call it"
1.ww - Book Fourth [Summer Vacation], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Knowing too well the importance of his theme,
But feeling it no longer. Our discourse
2.01 - The Yoga and Its Objects, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
which you can travel widely to all parts of the world and are admitted to the freedom of the infinite. All that you need are the ship, the steering-wheel, the compass, the motive-power and a skilful captain. Your ship is the Brahmavidya, faith is your steering-wheel, self-surrender your compass, the motive-power is she who makes, directs and destroys the worlds at God's comm and and God himself is your captain. But he has his own way of working and his own time for everything. Watch his way and wait for his time. Understand also the importance of accepting the Shastra and submitting to the Guru and do not do like the Europeans who insist on the freedom of the individual intellect to follow its own fancies and preferences which it calls reasonings, even before it is trained to discern or fit to reason. It is much the fashion nowadays to indulge in metaphysical discussions and philosophical subtleties about Maya and Adwaita and put them in the forefront, making them take the place of spiritual experience. Do not follow that fashion or confuse yourself and waste time on the way by questionings which will be amply and luminously answered when the divine knowledge of the vijnana awakes in you. Metaphysical knowledge has its place, but as a handmaid to spiritual experience, showing it the way sometimes but much more dependent on it and living upon its bounty. By itself it is mere pan.d.itya, a dry and barren thing and more often a stumbling-block than a help. Having accepted this path, follow its Shastra without unnecessary doubt and questioning, keeping the mind plastic to the light of the higher knowledge, gripping firmly what is experienced, waiting for light where things are dark to you, taking without pride what help you can from the living guides who have already trod the path, always patient, never hastening to narrow conclusions, but waiting for a more complete experience and a fuller light, relying on the Jagadguru who helps you from within.
It is necessary to say something about the Mayavada and the modern teachings about the Adwaita because they are much in the air at the present moment and, penetrated with ideas from European rationalism and agnosticism for which Shankara would have been astonished to find himself made responsible,
2.01 - War., #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
2.: In this part of the castle are found souls which have begun to practise prayer; they realize the importance of their not remaining in the first mansions, yet often lack determination to quit their present condition by avoiding occasions of sin, which is a very perilous state to be in.
3.: However, it is a great grace that they should sometimes make good their escape from the vipers and poisonous creatures around them and should understand the need of avoiding them. In some way these souls suffer a great deal more than those in the first mansions, although not in such danger, as they begin to understand their peril and there are great hopes of their entering farther into the castle. I say that they suffer a great deal more, for those in an earlier stage are like deaf-mutes and are not so distressed at being unable to speak, while the others, who can hear but cannot talk, find it much harder. At the same time, it is better not to be deaf, and a decided advantage to hear what is said to us.
2.02 - Habit 2 Begin with the End in Mind, #The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, #Stephen Covey, #unset
But it doesn't have to be that way. In the Nazi death camps where Viktor Frankl learned the principle of proactivity, he also learned the importance of purpose, of meaning in life. The essence of
"logotherapy," the philosophy he later developed and taught, is that many so-called mental and emotional illnesses are really symptoms of an underlying sense of meaninglessness or emptiness.
--
Family-centered parents do not have the emotional freedom, the power, to raise their children with their ultimate welfare truly in mind. If they derive their own security from the family, their need to be popular with their children may override the importance of a long-term investment in their children's growth and development. Or they may be focused on the proper and correct behavior of the moment.
Any behavior that they consider improper threatens their security. They become upset, guided by the emotions of the moment, spontaneously reacting to the immediate concern rather than the long-term growth and development of the child. They may overreact and punish out of bad temper. They tend to love their children conditionally, making them emotionally dependent or counterdependent and rebellious.
2.03 - The Supreme Divine, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
from the mortal plane of living, the importance of our then state of consciousness becomes evident. But it is not a deathbed remembrance at variance with or insufficiently prepared by the whole tenor of our life and our past subjectivity that can have this saving power. The thought of the Gita here is not on a par with the indulgences and facilities of popular religion; it has nothing in common with the crude fancies that make the absolution and last unction of the priest, an edifying "Christian" death after an unedifying profane life or the precaution or accident of a death in sacred Benares or holy Ganges a sufficient machinery of salvation. The divine subjective becoming on which the mind has to be fixed firmly in the moment of the physical death, yam smaran bhavam tyajati ante kalevaram, must have been one into which the soul was at each moment growing inwardly during the physical life, sada tad-bhava-bhavitah.. "Therefore," says the divine Teacher, "at all times remember me and fight; for if thy mind and thy understanding are always fixed on and given up to
Me, mayi arpita-mano-buddhih., to Me thou shalt surely come.
2.14 - The Unpacking of God, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
Right-Hand map of systems theory or a Gaia Web of Life, instead of equally emphasizing the importance of interior development from egocentric to sociocentric to worldcentric, then the more we are contri buting to Gaia's demise.
Global problems demand global awareness, and only interior and Left-Hand stages of development-precisely the domain ignored by flatl and Eco approaches-can even begin to handle the problem.
2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: Of course, you can. If something in you can put itself in touch with these planes you can know them and see them. I hope you don't believe that your physical self is the only being in you. These forces have their own plane and they are not all the time busy with your earth-plane. You must not exaggerate the importance of the earth-plane.
Even for us the external, physical life of man does not matter much. Not that the earth-plane is not important. It is important, according to what you can put into it. Otherwise, how is the physical life of man better than that of an ant? In order to bring down any higher spiritual force into the earth-plane you require to sit down to it, you have to call down and hold the Power in you. You have to allow it to organise your being and transform it. Then you can think of action.
2.17 - The Soul and Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The distinction made in the Gita between the Purusha and the prakriti gives us the clue to the various attitudes which the soul can adopt towards Nature in its movement towards perfect freedom and rule. The Purusha is, says the Gita, witness, upholder, source of the sanction, knower, lord, enjoyer; prakriti executes, it is the active principle and must have an operation corresponding to the attitude of the Purusha. The soul may assume, if it wishes, the poise of the pure witness, saksi; it may look on at the action of Nature as a thing from which it stands apart; it watches, but does not itself participate. We have seen the importance of this quietistic capacity; it is the basis of the movement of withdrawal by which we can say of everything, -- body, life, mental action, thought, sensation, emotion, -- "This is prakriti working in the life, mind and body, it is not myself, it is not even mine," and thus come to the soul's separation from these things and to their quiescence. This may, therefore, be an attitude of renunciation or at least of non-participation, tamasika, with a resigned and inert endurance of the natural action so long as it lasts, rajasika, with a disgust, aversion and recoil from it, sattvika, with a luminous intelligence of the soul's separateness and the peace and joy of aloofness and repose; but also it may be attended by an equal and impersonal delight as of a spectator at a show, joyous but unattached and ready to rise up at any moment and as joyfully depart. The attitude of the Witness at its highest is the absolute of unattachment and freedom from affection by the phenomena of the cosmic existence.
As the pure Witness, the soul refuses the function of upholder or sustainer of Nature. The upholder, bharta, is another, God or Force or Maya, but not the soul, which only admits the reflection of the natural action upon its watching consciousness, but not any responsibility for maintaining or continuing it. It does not say "All this is in me and maintained by me, an activity of my being," but at the most "This is imposed on me, but really external to myself." Unless there is a clear and real duality in existence, this cannot be the whole truth of the matter; the soul is the upholder also, it supports in its being the energy which unrolls the spectacle of the cosmos and which conducts its energies. When the Purusha accepts this upholding, it may do it still passively and without attachment, feeling that it contri butes the energy but not that it controls and determines it. The control is another. God or Force or the very nature of Maya; the soul only upholds indifferently so long as it must, so long perhaps as the force of its past sanction and interest in the energy continues and refuses to be exhausted. But if the attitude of the upholder is fully accepted, an important step forward has been taken towards identification with the active Brahman and his joy of cosmic being. For the Purusha has become the active giver of the sanction.
2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The talk was about the report of a military correspondent that the French thought in terms of fortress and positional warfare. They did not believe in the importance of tanks and aeroplanes even though they knew that tanks had decided their victory last time.
Sri Aurobindo: And so Gamelin had to go! He was so much accustomed to the idea of fortress that he did not know what to do when the Germans came in through Flanders! Gamelin and Daladier are both so evidently weak that one is surprised how they were regarded as strong men. Government after government in France appointed Daladier as Foreign Minister, while he did nothing to prepare for war, and nor did Chamberlain. You have only to look at their photographs at the Munich Conference where you can see a fierce, cunning, and crafty Hitler, while Daladier appears like one who can be broken in no time, and Chamberlain looks like a cunning fool who thinks he is winning his point, while really he is not.
--
There was a talk about the music of Bhishmadev. N started the topic by stating that Tagore long ago started a campaign against classical music saying that it was dead. The reason he gave was that classical music was only a performance of mere technique and cleverness; there was no soul in it. Tagore therefore started emphasising the importance of words and their meaning in music. He almost said that words were preferable to notes. Even Dilip strongly supported this argument of Tagore in his articles.
Sri Aurobindo: If it was only the exercise and exhibition of technique and mere skill on the part of the classical musician, then there was no real music in it.
2.3.02 - Opening, Sincerity and the Mother's Grace, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
- a long process of conversion of consciousness compressed into one day's work. Perhaps the Mother said yes to emphasise the importance of sincerity.
By sincerity Mother meant being open to no influence but the
2.3.1 - Ego and Its Forms, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yes, these experiences [of the smallness of the egoistic person] always come when one is opening into the wideness of the cosmic consciousness and your conclusions are correct. The self-importance of the ego has to dissolve the importance of life or the progress of the being can come only from its being a vehicle of the Divines play, evolution, realisation and that is independent of the vastness of Space and Time.
***
3.00.1 - Foreword, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
agreed with Freud that the importance of the transference could hardly be
overestimated, increasing experience has forced me to realize that its
3.02 - King and Queen, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
in accordance with the astrological assumption of the importance of the
suns position for man and the moons for woman. The meeting is
3.02 - The Practice Use of Dream-Analysis, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
thinks it aetiologically insignificant, he will minimize the importance of
dream-analysis. It might be considered regrettable that in this year of grace
3.03 - SULPHUR, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[147] As investigators of nature the alchemists showed their Christian attitude by their pistis in the object of their science, and it was not their fault if in many cases the psyche proved stronger than the chemical substance and its well-guarded secrets by distorting the results. It was only the acuter powers of observation in modern man which showed that weighing and measuring provided the key to the locked doors of chemical combination, after the intuition of the alchemists had stressed for centuries the importance of measure, number, and weight.165 The prime and most immediate experience of matter was that it is animated, which for medieval man was self-evident; indeed every Mass, every rite of the Church, and the miraculous effect of relics all demonstrated for him this natural and obvious fact. The French Enlightenment and the shattering of the metaphysical view of the world were needed before a scientist like Lavoisier had the courage finally to reach out for the scales. To begin with, however, the alchemists were fascinated by the soul of matter, which, unknown to them, it had received from the human psyche by way of projection. For all their intensive preoccupation with matter as a concrete fact they followed this psychic trail, which was to lead them into a region that, to our way of thinking, had not the remotest connection with chemistry. Their mental labours consisted in a predominantly intuitive apprehension of psychic facts, the intellect playing only the modest role of a famulus. The results of this curious method of research proved, however, to be beyond the grasp of any psychology for several centuries. If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool. The misfortune of the alchemists was that they themselves did not know what they were talking about. Nevertheless, we possess witnesses enough to the high esteem in which they held their science and to the wonderment which the mystery of matter instilled into them. For they discoveredto keep to sulphur as our examplein this substance, which was one of the customary attri butes of hell and the devil, as well as in the poisonous, crafty, and treacherous Mercurius, an analogy with the most sacrosanct figure of their religion. They therefore imbued this arcanum with symbols intended to characterize its malicious, dangerous, and uncanny nature, choosing precisely those which in the positive sense were used for Christ in the patristic literature. These were the snake, the lion, the eagle, fire, cloud, shadow, fish, stone, the unicorn and the rhinoceros, the dragon, the night-raven, the man encompassed by a woman, the hen, water, and many others. This strange usage is explained by the fact that the majority of the patristic allegories have in addition to their positive meaning a negative one. Thus in St. Eucherius166 the rapacious wolf in its good part signifies the apostle Paul, but in its bad part the devil.
[148] From this we would have to conclude that the alchemists had discovered the psychological existence of a shadow which opposes and compensates the conscious, positive figure. For them the shadow was in no sense a privatio lucis; it was so real that they even thought they could discern its material density, and this concretism led them to attri bute to it the dignity of being the matrix of an incorruptible and eternal substance. In the religious sphere this psychological discovery is reflected in the historical fact that only with the rise of Christianity did the devil, the eternal counterpart of Christ, assume his true form, and that the figure of Antichrist appears on the scene already in the New Testament. It would have been natural for the alchemists to suppose that they had lured the devil out of the darkness of matter. There were indeed indications of this, as we have seen, but they are exceptions. Far more prevalent and truly characteristic of alchemy was the optimistic notion that this creature of darkness was destined to be the medicina, as is proved by the use of the term medicina et medicus for the untrustworthy sulphur. The very same appellation appears as an allegory of Christ in St. Ambrose.167 The Greek word
3.03 - The Godward Emotions, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A nearer approach to the beginnings of the way of devotion becomes possible when this element of divine Power disengages itself from these crudities and fixes on the idea of a divine ruler, creator of the world and master of the Law who governs the earth and heavens and is the guide and helper and saviour of his creatures. This larger and higher idea of the divine Being long kept many elements and still keeps some elements of the old crudity. The Jews who brought it forward most prominently and from whom it overspread a great part of the world, could believe in a God of righteousness who was exclusive, arbitrary, wrathful, jealous, often cruel and even wantonly sanguinary. Even now it is possible for some to believe in a Creator who has made heaven and hell, an eternal heaven and an eternal hell, the two poles of his creation, and has even according to some religions predestined the souls he has created not only to sin and punishment, but to an eternal damnation. But even apart from these extravagances of a childish religious belief, the idea of the almighty Judge, Legislator, King, is a crude and imperfect idea of the Divine, when taken by itself, because it takes an inferior and an external truth for the main truth and it tends to prevent a higher approach to a more intimate reality. It exaggerates the importance of the sense of sin and thereby prolongs and increases the soul's fear and self-distrust and weakness. It attaches the pursuit of virtue and the shunning of sin to the idea of rewards and punishment, though given in an after life, and makes them dependent on the lower motives of fear and interest instead of the higher spirit which should govern the ethical being. It makes hell and heaven and not the Divine himself the object of the human soul in its religious living. These crudities have served their turn in the slow education of the human mind, but they are of no utility to the Yogin who knows that whatever truth they may represent belongs rather to the external relations of the developing human soul with the external law of the universe than any intimate truth of the inner relations of the human soul with the Divine; but it is these which are the proper field of Yoga.
Still out of this conception there arise certain developments which bring us nearer to the threshold of the Yoga of devotion. First, there can emerge the idea of the Divine as the source and law and aim of our ethical being and from this there can come the knowledge of him as the highest Self to which our active nature aspires, the Will to which we have to assimilate our will, the eternal Right and Purity and Truth and Wisdom into harmony with which our nature has to grow and towards whose being our being is attracted. By this way we arrive at the Yoga of works, and this Yoga has a place for personal devotion to the Divine, for the divine Will appears as the Master of our works to whose voice we must listen, whose divine impulsion we must obey and whose work it is the sole business of our active life and will to do. Secondly, there emerges the idea of the divine Spirit, the father of all who extends his wings of benignant protection and love over all his creatures, and from that grows between the soul and the Divine the relation of father and child, a relation of love, and as a result, the relation of brotherhood with our fellow-beings. These relations of the Divine into the calm pure light of whose nature we have to grow and the Master whom we approach through works and service, the Father who responds to the love of the soul that approaches him as the child, are admitted elements of the Yoga of devotion.
3.03 - THE MODERN EARTH, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
exaggerating the importance of our contemporary existences in
estimating that, upon them, a turn of profound importance is
3.05 - SAL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
mentioned earlier. Just as the numerous synonyms and attri butes of the lapis stress now one and now another of its aspects, so do the symbols of the self. Apart from its preservative quality salt has mainly the metaphorical meaning of sapientia. With regard to this aspect the Tractatus aureus states: It is said in the mystic language of our sages, He who works without salt will never raise dead bodies. . . . He who works without salt draws a bow without a string. For you must know that these sayings refer to a very different kind of salt from the common mineral. . . . Sometimes they call the medicine itself Salt. 652 These words are ambiguous: here salt means wit as well as wisdom. As to the importance of salt in the opus, Johannes Grasseus says of the arcane substance: And this is the Lead of the Philosophers, which they also call the lead of the air. In it is found the shining white dove, named the salt of the metals, wherein is the whole magistery of the work. This [dove] is the pure, chaste, wise, and rich Queen of Sheba.653 Here salt, arcane substance (the paradoxical lead of the air), the white dove (spiritus sapientiae), wisdom, and femininity appear in one figure. The saying from the Gloria mundi is quite clear: No man can understand this Art who does not know the salt and its preparation.654 For the Aquarium sapientum the sal sapientiae comes from the aqua benedicta or aqua pontica, which, itself an extract, is named heart, soul, and spirit. At first the aqua is contained in the prima materia and is of a blood-red colour; but after its preparation it becomes of a bright, clear, transparent white, and is called by the sages the Salt of Wisdom.655 Khunrath boldly summarizes these statements about the salt when he says: Our water cannot be made without the salt of wisdom, for it is the salt of wisdom itself, say the philosophers; a fire, and a salt fire, the true Living Universal Menstruum. Without salt the work has no success.656 Elsewhere he remarks: Not without good reason has salt been adorned by the wise with the name of Wisdom. Salt is the lapis, a mystery to be hidden.657 Vigenerus says that the Redeemer chose his disciples that they might be the salt of men and proclaim to them the pure and incorruptible doctrine of the gospel. He reports the Cabalists as saying that the computatio658 of the Hebrew word for salt (melach) gives the number 78. This number could be divided by any divisor and still give a word that referred to the divine Name. We will not pursue the inferences he draws from this but will only note that for all those reasons salt was used for the service of God in all offerings and sacrifices.659 Glauber calls Christ the sal sapientiae and says that his favourite disciple John was salted with the salt of wisdom.660
[330] Apart from its lunar wetness and its terrestrial nature, the most outstanding properties of salt are bitterness and wisdom. As in the double quaternio of the elements and qualities, earth and water have coldness in common, so bitterness and wisdom would form a pair of opposites with a third thing between. (See diagram on facing page.) The factor common to both, however incommensurable the two ideas may seem, is, psychologically, the function of feeling. Tears, sorrow, and disappointment are bitter, but wisdom is the comforter in all psychic suffering. Indeed, bitterness and wisdom form a pair of alternatives: where there is bitterness wisdom is lacking, and where wisdom is there can be no bitterness. Salt, as the carrier of this fateful alternative, is co-ordinated with the nature of woman. The masculine, solar nature in the right half of the quaternio knows neither coldness, nor a shadow, nor heaviness, melancholy, etc., because, so long as all goes well, it identifies as closely as possible with consciousness, and that as a rule is the idea which one has of oneself. In this idea the shadow is usually missing: first because nobody likes to admit to any inferiority, and second because logic forbids something white to be called black. A good man has good qualities, and only the bad man has bad qualities. For reasons of prestige we pass over the shadow in complete silence. A famous example of masculine prejudice is Nietzsches Superman, who scorns compassion and fights against the Ugliest Man the ordinary man that everyone is. The shadow must not be seen, it must be denied, repressed, or twisted into something quite extraordinary. The sun is always shining and everything smiles back. There is no room for any prestige-diminishing weakness, so the sol niger is never seen. Only in solitary hours is its presence feared.
3.08 - Of Equilibrium, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
South. the importance of this is so great, and the truth of it so
obvious, that no one with the most mediocre capacity for magick [61]
3.08 - Purification, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Consequently they stress the importance of the theoria, i.e., intellectual
understanding as opposed to the practica, which consisted merely of
3.09 - The Return of the Soul, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the special nature of its empirical material, to stress the importance of the
unconscious, that does not in any way diminish the importance of ego-
consciousness. It is merely the one-sided over-valuation of the latter that
3.11 - Of Our Lady Babalon, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
readily understand the importance of what has been said. Those
who are otherwise inclined may reflect that a nod is as good as a
3.2.05 - Our Ideal, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Thought returns to the surface, humanity has its periods of light and of rapid efflorescence, its dawns and splendid springtides; and according to the depth, vitality, truth and self-effective energy of the form of Thought that emerges is the importance of the stride forward that it makes during these Hours of the Gods in our terrestrial manifestation.
There is no greater error than to suppose, as the "practical" man is wont to do, that thought is only a fine flower and ornament of life and that political, economic and personal interests are the important and effective motors of human action. We recognise that this is a world of life and action and developing organism; but the life that seeks to guide itself only by vital and material forces is a slow, dark and blundering growth. It is an attempt to approximate man to the method of vegetable and animal existence. The earth is a world of Life and Matter, but man is not a vegetable nor an animal; he is a spiritual and a thinking being who is set here to shape and use the animal mould for higher purposes, by higher motives, with a more divine instrumentation.
3.2.1 - Food, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I think the importance of sattwic food from the spiritual point of view has been exaggerated. Food is rather a question of hygiene and many of the sanctions and prohibitions laid down in ancient religions had more a hygienic than a spiritual motive. The Gitas definitions seem to point in the same directiontamasic food, it seems to say, is what is stale or rotten with the virtue gone out of it, rajasic food is that which is too acrid, pungent etc., heats the blood and spoils the health, sattwic food is what is pleasing, healthy etc. It may well be that different kinds of food nourish the action of the different gunas and so indirectly are helpful or harmful apart from their physical action. But that is as far as we can confidently go. What particular eatables are or are not sattwic is another question and more difficult to determine. Spiritually, I should say that the effect of food depends more on the occult atmosphere and influences that come with it than on anything in the food itself. Vegetarianism is another question altogether; it stands, as you say, on a will not to do harm to the more conscious forms of life for the satisfaction of the belly.
As to the question of practising to take all kinds of food with equal rasa, it is not necessary to practise nor does it really come by practice. One has to acquire equality within in the consciousness and as this equality grows one can extend it or apply it to the various fields of the activity of the consciousness.
3.4.1 - The Subconscient and the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Your practice of psycho-analysis was a mistake. It has, for the time at least, made the work of purification more complicated, not easier. The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with Yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mindto take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow termsruns riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners,is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of ones way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.
3-5 Full Circle, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
It will be noted that the above factors are all critical in the present historical era. The fact that these are among the weakest outputs in most courses today further underscores the importance of the work in this seminar.
The course was thought to be almost equally valuable for school administrators, teachers, and graduate students. With appropriate modifications in the level of sophistication, it is believed that the seminar would be effective for college freshmen and some talented high school students.
4.04 - THE REGENERATION OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[443] Here Ripley describes the renewal of the king and the birth of the son as the manifestation of a new redeemerwhich sounds very queer indeed in the mouth of a medieval ecclesiastic. The sublimation of Luna (uti Luna) to the imperial place is an unmistakable paraphrase on the one hand of the Assumption of the Virgin and on the other of the marriage of the bride, the Church. The unlocking of paradise means nothing less than the advent of Gods Kingdom on earth. The attri butes of sun and moon make the filius regius into the rearisen Primordial Man, who is the cosmos. It would be wrong to minimize the importance of this jubilee or to declare it is nonsense. One cannot dismiss all the alchemists as insane. It seems to me more advisable to examine the motives that led a cleric, of all people, to postulate a divine revelation outside his credo. If the lapis were nothing but gold the alchemists would have been wealthy folk; if it were the panacea they would have had a remedy for all sickness; if it were the elixir they could have lived a thousand years or more. But all this would not oblige them to make religious statements about it. If nevertheless it is praised as the second coming of the Messiah one must assume that the alchemists really did mean something of the kind. Although they regarded the art as a charisma, a gift of the Holy Ghost or of the Sapientia Dei,243 it was still mans work, and, even though a divine miracle was the decisive factor, the mysterious filius was still concocted artificially in a retort.
[444] In the face of all this one is driven to the conjecture that medieval alchemy, which evolved out of the Arabic tradition sometime in the thirteenth century, and whose most eloquent witness is the Aurora consurgens, was in the last resort a continuation of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, which never came to very much in the Church.244 The Paraclete descends upon the single individual, who is thereby drawn into the Trinitarian process.245 And if the spirit of procreation and life indwells in man, then God can be born in hima thought that has not perished since the time of Meister Eckhart.246 The verses of Angelus Silesius are in this respect quite unequivocal:
4.2.1.01 - The Importance of the Psychic Change, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:4.2.1.01 - the importance of the Psychic Change
author class:Sri Aurobindo
6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
49 1 the importance of such phenomena has made a deep im-
pression on medical psychology, because they give rise to all
--
On the importance of the Unconscious in Psychopathology (1914)
On the Problem of Psychogenesis in Mental Disease (1919)
6.10 - THE SELF AND THE BOUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[778] With the advance towards the psychological a great change sets in, for self-knowledge has certain ethical consequences which are not just impassively recognized but demand to be carried out in practice. This depends of course on ones moral endowment, on which as we know one should not place too much reliance. The self, in its efforts at self-realization, reaches out beyond the ego-personality on all sides; because of its all-encompassing nature it is brighter and darker than the ego, and accordingly confronts it with problems which it would like to avoid. Either ones moral courage fails, or ones insight, or both, until in the end fate decides. The ego never lacks moral and rational counterarguments, which one cannot and should not set aside so long as it is possible to hold on to them. For you only feel yourself on the right road when the conflicts of duty seem to have resolved themselves, and you have become the victim of a decision made over your head or in defiance of the heart. From this we can see the numinous power of the self, which can hardly be experienced in any other way. For this reason the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego. The extraordinary difficulty in this experience is that the self can be distinguished only conceptually from what has always been referred to as God, but not practically. Both concepts apparently rest on an identical numinous factor which is a condition of reality. The ego enters into the picture only so far as it can offer resistance, defend itself, and in the event of defeat still affirm its existence. The prototype of this situation is Jobs encounter with Yahweh. This hint is intended only to give some indication of the nature of the problems involved. From this general statement one should not draw the overhasty conclusion that in every case there is a hybris of ego-consciousness which fully deserves to be overpowered by the unconscious. That is not so at all, because it very often happens that ego-consciousness and the egos sense of responsibility are too weak and need, if anything, streng thening. But these are questions of practical psycho therapy, and I mention them here only because I have been accused of underestimating the importance of the ego and giving undue prominence to the unconscious. This strange insinuation emanates from a theological quarter. Obviously my critic has failed to realize that the mystical experiences of the saints are no different from other effects of the unconscious.
[779] In contrast to the ideal of alchemy, which consisted in the production of a mysterious substance, a man, an anima mundi or a deus terrenus who was expected to be a saviour from all human ills, the psychological interpretation (foreshadowed by the alchemists) points to the concept of human wholeness. This concept has primarily a therapeutic significance in that it attempts to portray the psychic state which results from bridging over a dissociation between conscious and unconscious. The alchemical compensation corresponds to the integration of the unconscious with consciousness, whereby both are altered. Above all, consciousness experiences a widening of its horizon. This certainly brings about a considerable improvement of the whole psychic situation, since the disturbance of consciousness by the counteraction of the unconscious is eliminated. But, because all good things must be paid for dearly, the previously unconscious conflict is brought to the surface instead and imposes on consciousness a heavy responsibility, as it is now expected to solve the conflict. But it seems as badly equipped and prepared for this as was the consciousness of the medieval alchemist. Like him, the modern man needs a special method for investigating and giving shape to the unconscious contents in order to get consciousness out of its fix. As I have shown elsewhere, an experience of the self may be expected as a result of these psycho therapeutic endeavours, and quite often these experiences are numinous. It is not worth the effort to try to describe their totality character. Anyone who has experienced anything of the sort will know what I mean, and anyone who has not had the experience will not be satisfied by any amount of descriptions. Moreover there are countless descriptions of it in world literature. But I know of no case in which the bare description conveyed the experience.
Blazing P3 - Explore the Stages of Postconventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
of extraordinary abilities as a hindrance underscores the importance of motive in noetic
development.
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
be enabled to see at a glance the importance of these divergences; and to perceive, at the same time,
that it is not impossible -- nay, it is most likely -- that further discoveries in geology and the finding of
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
and speculations, which gradually acquired the importance of dogma and inspired tradition. Every one
wanted to explain the verse about the seven-headed dragon with his ten horns and seven crowns,
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
phenomena of human gestation and conception. the importance of the Moon and its influence on the
Earth were recognized in every ancient religion, notably the Jewish, and have been remarked by many
--
For further details as to Saptaparna and the importance of the number seven in occultism, as well as in
symbology, the reader is referred to Part II., Book II., on Symbolism: Sections on "Saptaparna," "The
Conversations with Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
If you succeed in shutting out all thought, in reaching absolute passiveness, three things in fact can happen. Either a profound calm descends and takes hold of one; or the consciousness separates from the outer world and attains another level; or, lastly, the invasion of outside impressions becomes all-powerful. And if the first two are not realised, the third in that case supervenes. Hence the importance of making all quiet whilst remaining attentive to the higher influence, open towards the heights, so to say.
It is difficult for me to keep this attitude and this aspiration when I silence my thought for it is thought which helps me to rouse them.
Diamond Sutra 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Whereas most sutras begin with some miraculous event, such as the quaking of the earth or the radiation of light from the Buddhas brow, the Diamond Sutra begins with the Buddhas everyday routine and stresses the importance of charity, along with its counterpart of forbearance, and the perspective of prajna wisdom in the practice of both. Thus, the Buddha begins his instruction with his own example and uses an example that involves benefit to others as well as oneself.
Textual note: Kumarajiva and Bodhiruci give the time as shih-shih (when it was time to eat).
DS2, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
anyone who ceaselessly seeks unexcelled, perfect enlightenment as well as the happiness and welfare of all beings. This concept underlies the Buddhas teaching throughout this sutra, which only a bodhisattva can understand and only a bodhisattva dares put into practice, for only a bodhisattva possesses the courage to liberate all beings. the importance of this will become clearer in the next chapter.
Hui-neng says, A noble son refers to an even-tempered mind, a perfectly concentrated mind, which can practice all virtues while remaining unobstructed wherever it goes. A noble daughter refers to a truly wise mind, from which all conditioned and unconditioned virtues are produced.
ENNEAD 03.02 - Of Providence., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
But how shall we explain the difference that is observed between the lot of the good and the evil? How can it occur that the former are poor, while others are rich, and possess more than necessary to satisfy their needs, being even powerful, and governing cities and nations? (The Gnostics and Manicheans) think that the sphere of activity of Providence does not extend down to the earth.47 No! For all of the rest (of this world) conforms to (universal) Reason, inasmuch as animals and plants participate in Reason, Life and Soul. (The Gnostic) will answer that if Providence do extend to this earth, it does not predominate therein. As the world is but a single organism, to advance such an1055 objection is the part of somebody who would assert that the head and face of man were produced by Nature, and that reason dominated therein, while the other members were formed by other causes, such as chance or necessity, and that they were evil either on this account, or because of the importance of Nature. Wisdom and piety, however, would forbid the admission that here below not everything was well, blaming the operation of Providence.
HOW SENSE-OBJECTS ARE NOT EVIL.
Meno, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
In Bacon and Locke we have another development in which the mind of man is supposed to receive knowledge by a new method and to work by observation and experience. But we may remark that it is the idea of experience, rather than experience itself, with which the mind is filled. It is a symbol of knowledge rather than the reality which is vouchsafed to us. The Organon of Bacon is not much nearer to actual facts than the Organon of Aristotle or the Platonic idea of good. Many of the old rags and ribbons which defaced the garment of philosophy have been stripped off, but some of them still adhere. A crude conception of the ideas of Plato survives in the 'forms' of Bacon. And on the other hand, there are many passages of Plato in which the importance of the investigation of facts is as much insisted upon as by Bacon. Both are almost equally superior to the illusions of language, and are constantly crying out against them, as against other idols.
Locke cannot be truly regarded as the author of sensationalism any more than of idealism. His system is based upon experience, but with him experience includes reflection as well as sense. His analysis and construction of ideas has no foundation in fact; it is only the dialectic of the mind 'talking to herself.' The philosophy of Berkeley is but the transposition of two words. For objects of sense he would substitute sensations. He imagines himself to have changed the relation of the human mind towards God and nature; they remain the same as before, though he has drawn the imaginary line by which they are divided at a different point. He has annihilated the outward world, but it instantly reappears governed by the same laws and described under the same names.
r1914 03 26, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Trikaldrishti is now being developed on the principle of affirmation, ie everything is accepted as a fact, only the precise incidence & value of the fact has to be disengaged from the rude & inaccurate impression on the sensational mind. the importance of the unfulfilled tendency, intention or impulse physical, vital, mental or supramental, conscious, subconscious or super-conscious, is being emphasised its indispensable importance both in determining the eventual action or result, in fixing its efficient value and chances of permanence or finality & in influencing future eventuality. It is now proved beyond doubt that the mental perception of these unfulfilled energies is not an error, proved by the constant unexpected fulfilment of those that had been put aside as errors; the vulgar test of reality, viz bodily fulfilment, is no longer needed by the mind for sraddha. The perfect trikaldrishti of eventuality will, it is supposed, emerge out of this mahadbhava of the telepathic mind, by the freer play of the higher vijnana in its fourfold quality. At present it is the telepathic trikaldrishti that is active and this, though it has been proved capable of sustained, detailed & complex accuracy, is not firm, but easily descends from the correct appraisement of event & tendency, to a mere mahat perception of tendencies open to false stress & false selection of the event.
Images (In the Clouds).
r1914 10 09, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the importance of the present movement lies in the systematic discouragement of the tapasic stress which mistook telepathy for eventual trikaldrishti.
***
r1915 01 05a, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the waking mind the obstruction creates a conclusion of unfaith in the rapidity of the Siddhi &, consequently, in the importance of the karma.
The element of error in the satyam is temporarily emphasised in order that the resultant truth may be more sure and self-assured.
r1915 01 05b, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This obstruction serves eventually the end of a more entire & solid participation in the siddhi by the whole conscious existence; for the subconscious is being trained through the aspiration towards the light. It is from the subconscious that the responses to the Asiddhi proceed, & the source of these responses is being fortified and purified. But the waking mind derives from the sense of obstruction a conclusion of unfaith in the rapidity of the Siddhi and the importance of the Karma.
***
Sophist, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Leaving the comparison with Plato we may now consider the value of this invention of Hegel. There can be no question of the importance of showing that two contraries or contradictories may in certain cases be both true. The silliness of the so-called laws of thought ('All A = A,' or, in the negative form, 'Nothing can at the same time be both A, and not A') has been well exposed by Hegel himself (Wallace's Hegel), who remarks that 'the form of the maxim is virtually self-contradictory, for a proposition implies a distinction between subject and predicate, whereas the maxim of identity, as it is called, A = A, does not fulfil what its form requires. Nor does any mind ever think or form conceptions in accordance with this law, nor does any existence conform to it.' Wisdom of this sort is well parodied in Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, 'Clown: For as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, "That that is is"...for what is "that" but "that," and "is" but "is"?'). Unless we are willing to admit that two contradictories may be true, many questions which lie at the threshold of mathematics and of morals will be insoluble puzzles to us.
The influence of opposites is felt in practical life. The understanding sees one side of a question onlythe common sense of mankind joins one of two parties in politics, in religion, in philosophy. Yet, as everybody knows, truth is not wholly the possession of either. But the characters of men are one-sided and accept this or that aspect of the truth. The understanding is strong in a single abstract principle and with this lever moves mankind. Few attain to a balance of principles or recognize truly how in all human things there is a thesis and antithesis, a law of action and of reaction. In politics we require order as well as liberty, and have to consider the proportions in which under given circumstances they may be safely combined. In religion there is a tendency to lose sight of morality, to separate goodness from the love of truth, to worship God without attempting to know him. In philosophy again there are two opposite principles, of immediate experience and of those general or a priori truths which are supposed to transcend experience. But the common sense or common opinion of mankind is incapable of apprehending these opposite sides or viewsmen are determined by their natural bent to one or other of them; they go straight on for a time in a single line, and may be many things by turns but not at once.
Hence the importance of familiarizing the mind with forms which will assist us in conceiving or expressing the complex or contrary aspects of life and nature. The danger is that they may be too much for us, and obscure our appreciation of facts. As the complexity of mechanics cannot be understood without mathematics, so neither can the many-sidedness of the mental and moral world be truly apprehended without the assistance of new forms of thought. One of these forms is the unity of opposites. Abstractions have a great power over us, but they are apt to be partial and one-sided, and only when modified by other abstractions do they make an approach to the truth. Many a man has become a fatalist because he has fallen under the dominion of a single idea. He says to himself, for example, that he must be either free or necessaryhe cannot be both. Thus in the ancient world whole schools of philosophy passed away in the vain attempt to solve the problem of the continuity or divisibility of matter. And in comparatively modern times, though in the spirit of an ancient philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, feeling a similar perplexity, is inclined to deny the truth of infinitesimals in mathematics. Many difficulties arise in practical religion from the impossibility of conceiving body and mind at once and in adjusting their movements to one another. There is a border ground between them which seems to belong to both; and there is as much difficulty in conceiving the body without the soul as the soul without the body. To the 'either' and 'or' philosophy ('Everything is either A or not A') should at least be added the clause 'or neither,' 'or both.' The double form makes reflection easier and more conformable to experience, and also more comprehensive. But in order to avoid paradox and the danger of giving offence to the unmetaphysical part of mankind, we may speak of it as due to the imperfection of language or the limitation of human faculties. It is nevertheless a discovery which, in Platonic language, may be termed a 'most gracious aid to thought.'
The doctrine of opposite moments of thought or of progression by antagonism, further assists us in framing a scheme or system of the sciences. The negation of one gives birth to another of them. The double notions are the joints which hold them together. The simple is developed into the complex, the complex returns again into the simple. Beginning with the highest notion of mind or thought, we may descend by a series of negations to the first generalizations of sense. Or again we may begin with the simplest elements of sense and proceed upwards to the highest being or thought. Metaphysic is the negation or absorption of physiologyphysiology of chemistrychemistry of mechanical philosophy. Similarly in mechanics, when we can no further go we arrive at chemistrywhen chemistry becomes organic we arrive at physiology: when we pass from the outward and animal to the inward nature of man we arrive at moral and metaphysical philosophy. These sciences have each of them their own methods and are pursued independently of one another. But to the mind of the thinker they are all onelatent in one anotherdeveloped out of one another.
The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
devouring cockroach. As for science, the importance of learning about
man by the experimental study of animal physiology need not be
--
Hence, once more, the importance of the Unconscious as an anaes-
thetist, who puts reason to sleep, and restores, for a transient moment,
--
By stressing the importance of the interpretation (or reinterpretation)
of facts, I may have given the impression of underestimating the
--
belittle the importance of observation and experiment or wish to
revert to Aristotelian physics which was all speculation and no experi-
--
Lange theory of emotions emphasized the importance of visceral pro-
cesses, but it was nevertheless taken for granted that the 'true* or 'major'
--
To p. 585. the importance of visual clues varies of course with different
species. Adams' cat immediately saw that the piece of liver can be hauled up by
Theaetetus, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
2. The other difficulty is a more subtle, and also a more important one, because bearing on the general character of the Platonic dialogues. On a first reading of them, we are apt to imagine that the truth is only spoken by Socrates, who is never guilty of a fallacy himself, and is the great detector of the errors and fallacies of others. But this natural presumption is disturbed by the discovery that the Sophists are sometimes in the right and Socrates in the wrong. Like the hero of a novel, he is not to be supposed always to represent the sentiments of the author. There are few modern readers who do not side with Protagoras, rather than with Socrates, in the dialogue which is called by his name. The Cratylus presents a similar difficulty: in his etymologies, as in the number of the State, we cannot tell how far Socrates is serious; for the Socratic irony will not allow him to distinguish between his real and his assumed wisdom. No one is the superior of the invincible Socrates in argument (except in the first part of the Parmenides, where he is introduced as a youth); but he is by no means supposed to be in possession of the whole truth. Arguments are often put into his mouth (compare Introduction to the Gorgias) which must have seemed quite as untenable to Plato as to a modern writer. In this dialogue a great part of the answer of Protagoras is just and sound; remarks are made by him on verbal criticism, and on the importance of understanding an opponent's meaning, which are conceived in the true spirit of philosophy. And the distinction which he is supposed to draw between Eristic and Dialectic, is really a criticism of Plato on himself and his own criticism of Protagoras.
The difficulty seems to arise from not attending to the dramatic character of the writings of Plato. There are two, or more, sides to questions; and these are parted among the different speakers. Sometimes one view or aspect of a question is made to predominate over the rest, as in the Gorgias or Sophist; but in other dialogues truth is divided, as in the Laches and Protagoras, and the interest of the piece consists in the contrast of opinions. The confusion caused by the irony of Socrates, who, if he is true to his character, cannot say anything of his own knowledge, is increased by the circumstance that in the Theaetetus and some other dialogues he is occasionally playing both parts himself, and even charging his own arguments with unfairness. In the Theaetetus he is designedly held back from arriving at a conclusion. For we cannot suppose that Plato conceived a definition of knowledge to be impossible. But this is his manner of approaching and surrounding a question. The lights which he throws on his subject are indirect, but they are not the less real for that. He has no intention of proving a thesis by a cut-and-dried argument; nor does he imagine that a great philosophical problem can be tied up within the limits of a definition. If he has analyzed a proposition or notion, even with the severity of an impossible logic, if half-truths have been compared by him with other half-truths, if he has cleared up or advanced popular ideas, or illustrated a new method, his aim has been sufficiently accomplished.
--
The higher truths of philosophy and religion are very far removed from sense. Admitting that, like all other knowledge, they are derived from experience, and that experience is ultimately resolvable into facts which come to us through the eye and ear, still their origin is a mere accident which has nothing to do with their true nature. They are universal and unseen; they belong to all timespast, present, and future. Any worthy notion of mind or reason includes them. The proof of them is, 1st, their comprehensiveness and consistency with one another; 2ndly, their agreement with history and experience. But sensation is of the present only, is isolated, is and is not in successive moments. It takes the passing hour as it comes, following the lead of the eye or ear instead of the comm and of reason. It is a faculty which man has in common with the animals, and in which he is inferior to many of them. the importance of the senses in us is that they are the apertures of the mind, doors and windows through which we take in and make our own the materials of knowledge. Regarded in any other point of view sensation is of all mental acts the most trivial and superficial. Hence the term 'sensational' is rightly used to express what is shallow in thought and feeling.
We propose in what follows, first of all, like Plato in the Theaetetus, to analyse sensation, and secondly to trace the connexion between theories of sensation and a sensational or Epicurean philosophy.
The Anapanasati Sutta A Practical Guide to Mindfullness of Breathing and Tranquil Wisdom Meditation, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
The Lord Buddha also emphasized the importance of
keeping one's moral disciplines (sila). There are five moral
--
Here one can see the importance of developing a mind
that smiles and has joyful interest. There arises a true
--
same time. Also, it shows the importance of jhanas
(meditation stages) to the development of mind and how
--
where we come to understand the importance of the
Buddha's instructions about consciously tranquilizing
The Circular Ruins, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
At first, his dreams were chaotic; then in a short while they became dialectic in nature. The stranger dreamed that he was in the center of a circular amphitheater which was more or less the burnt temple; clouds of taciturn students filled the tiers of seats; the faces of the farthest ones hung at a distance of many centuries and as high as the stars, but their features were completely precise. The man lectured his pupils on anatomy, cosmography, and magic: the faces listened anxiously and tried to answer understandingly, as if they guessed the importance of that examination which would redeem one of them from his condition of empty illusion and interpolate him into the real world. Asleep or awake, the man thought over the answers of his phantoms, did not allow himself to be deceived by imposters, and in certain perplexities he sensed a growing intelligence. He was seeking a soul worthy of participating in the universe.
After nine or ten nights he understood with a certain bitterness that he could expect nothing from those pupils who accepted his doctrine passively, but that he could expect something from those who occasionally dared to oppose him. The former group, although worthy of love and affection, could not ascend to the level of individuals; the latter pre-existed to a slightly greater degree. One afternoon (now afternoons were also given over to sleep, now he was only awake for a couple hours at daybreak) he dismissed the vast illusory student body for good and kept only one pupil. He was a taciturn, sallow boy, at times intractable, and whose sharp features resembled of those of his dreamer. The brusque elimination of his fellow students did not disconcert him for long; after a few private lessons, his progress was enough to astound the teacher. Nevertheless, a catastrophe took place. One day, the man emerged from his sleep as if from a viscous desert, looked at the useless afternoon light which he immediately confused with the dawn, and understood that he had not dreamed. All that night and all day long, the intolerable lucidity of insomnia fell upon him. He tried exploring the forest, to lose his strength; among the hemlock he barely succeeded in experiencing several short snatchs of sleep, veined with fleeting, rudimentary visions that were useless. He tried to assemble the student body but scarcely had he articulated a few brief words of exhortation when it became deformed and was then erased. In his almost perpetual vigil, tears of anger burned his old eyes.
The Essentials of Education, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Stuttgart, April 9, 1924 ::: The demand for proof and the appropriate proof in spiritual matters. The descent of spirit into the body during the first seven years. The small childs natural religious devotion and the corresponding religious element needed in the teacher. After seven the child needs the teacher to be an artist. Humanitys development of materialism. the importance of imagery in teaching. Learning letters. Extremes in education.
LECTURE 3
The Mirror of Enigmas, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
verses or chapters, but the importance of one and the other is indeterminable
and profoundly hidden."
The Riddle of this World, #unknown, #Unknown, #unset
character, which flatter the importance of the sadhak or are agreeable
to his wishes and he accepts them without examination or
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Harry & Son(1984) - They were two men with very little in common...except for the fact they had the same blood in their veins. Widower Harry is a blue-collared construction worker who always believed that to appreciate the importance of working for a living. His son, Howard believes in his own lifestyle which include...
The Importance of Being Earnest (1952) ::: 7.5/10 -- Not Rated | 1h 35min | Comedy, Drama | 15 August 1952 (Ireland) -- When Algernon discovers that his friend, Ernest, has created a fictional brother for whenever he needs a reason to escape dull country life, Algernon poses as the brother, resulting in ever increasing confusion. Director: Anthony Asquith Writer: Oscar Wilde (play)
The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) ::: 6.8/10 -- PG | 1h 37min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 21 June 2002 (USA) -- In 1890s London, two friends use the same pseudonym ("Ernest") for their on-the-sly activities. Hilarity ensues. Director: Oliver Parker Writers: Oscar Wilde (play), Oliver Parker (screenplay)
https://literature.fandom.com/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest
Clannad: After Story -- -- Kyoto Animation -- 24 eps -- Visual novel -- Slice of Life Comedy Supernatural Drama Romance -- Clannad: After Story Clannad: After Story -- Clannad: After Story, the sequel to the critically acclaimed slice-of-life series Clannad, begins after Tomoya Okazaki and Nagisa Furukawa graduate from high school. Together, they experience the emotional rollercoaster of growing up. Unable to decide on a course for his future, Tomoya learns the value of a strong work ethic and discovers the strength of Nagisa's support. Through the couple's dedication and unity of purpose, they push forward to confront their personal problems, deepen their old relationships, and create new bonds. -- -- Time also moves on in the Illusionary World. As the plains grow cold with the approach of winter, the Illusionary Girl and the Garbage Doll are presented with a difficult situation that reveals the World's true purpose. -- -- Based on the visual novel by Key and produced by Kyoto Animation, Clannad: After Story is an impactful drama highlighting the importance of family and the struggles of adulthood. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 946,989 8.96
Kaiba -- -- Madhouse -- 12 eps -- Original -- Adventure Mystery Romance Sci-Fi -- Kaiba Kaiba -- In a world where memories exist in memory chips separate from the body, death of the body no longer means death of the soul. It is possible for memories to be viewed, altered, and transferred between bodies. These memory chips are used by the rich to obtain eternal lives in carefully selected bodies, while for the poor, selling their own bodies and conserving their souls in the chips often become the only way to earn a living. An electrolytic cloud in the sky serves as a barrier between the heavens of the fortunate and the underworld of the destitute, making this social division impregnable. -- -- One day, a man named Kaiba wakes up in an empty room with no memories, a mysterious hole in his chest, and a locket holding the picture of an unknown woman. After escaping an attack and stumbling upon a decrepit village of underworld residents, he begins his adventure across the different planets of this strange universe to find out more about his own identity and the woman he once knew. -- -- Through a journey of self-discovery and acceptance, Kaiba weaves together tales of souls and spirits and explores the importance of memories. -- -- TV - Apr 11, 2008 -- 117,051 8.17
Konjiki no Gash Bell!! -- -- Toei Animation -- 150 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Comedy Demons Supernatural Magic Shounen -- Konjiki no Gash Bell!! Konjiki no Gash Bell!! -- Takamine Kiyomaro, a depressed don't-care-about-the-world guy, was suddenly given a little demon named Gash Bell to take care of. Little does he know that Gash is embroiled into an intense fight to see who is the ruler of the demon world. All of the demons have to pick a master on Earth and duke it out with other demons until one survives. Needless to say, Kiyomaro becomes Gash's master, and through their many battles, Kiyomaro learns the importance of friendship and courage. -- 100,678 7.54
Konjiki no Gash Bell!! -- -- Toei Animation -- 150 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Comedy Demons Supernatural Magic Shounen -- Konjiki no Gash Bell!! Konjiki no Gash Bell!! -- Takamine Kiyomaro, a depressed don't-care-about-the-world guy, was suddenly given a little demon named Gash Bell to take care of. Little does he know that Gash is embroiled into an intense fight to see who is the ruler of the demon world. All of the demons have to pick a master on Earth and duke it out with other demons until one survives. Needless to say, Kiyomaro becomes Gash's master, and through their many battles, Kiyomaro learns the importance of friendship and courage. -- -- Licensor: -- Flatiron Film Company, VIZ Media -- 100,678 7.54
MM! -- -- Xebec -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Harem Comedy Ecchi School -- MM! MM! -- Taro Sado is a high school student who lives his day to day life with a big secret—he's a masochist! Encouraged by his cross-dressing best friend Tatsukichi Hayama, Taro asks the Second Voluntary Club for help with his problem and ends up joining the club after they vow to "fix" him. -- -- However, it turns out that all of the members of the club have some serious issues. The club leader Mio Isurugi is a self-designated god who is afraid of cats, Arashiko Yuuno has a severe fear of men, and the club advisor Michiru Onigawara is a sadist who enjoys making people cosplay. -- -- Together with other wacky characters such as Yumi Mamiya, a talented masseuse and Yuuno's best friend, and Noa Hiiragi, the president of the invention club, they all learn about the importance of acceptance and kindness. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Oct 2, 2010 -- 207,981 7.10
Mokke -- -- Madhouse, Tezuka Productions -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Supernatural Mystery -- Mokke Mokke -- This is a story about two sisters: Shizuru, is a high school student who is able to see ghosts while her younger sister, Mizuki, is haunted by these apparitions. Frustrated by their abilities, their parents decided to entrust the sisters into the care of their grandparents who live in the countryside. As they adapt to life in the countryside, Shizuru and Mizuki begin to learn about the importance of coexisting nature with these apparitions. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- TV - Oct 3, 2007 -- 12,980 7.07
No Littering -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Original -- Comedy Horror -- No Littering No Littering -- While enjoying a date in a park, a man carelessly tosses an empty bottle onto the ground. His selfish littering promptly summons an imposing figure wearing a white hockey mask. The gruesome events that follow tell an admonishing tale about the importance of preserving the outdoors and defending the environment from the ugly menace of litter. -- -- ONA - Oct 26, 2012 -- 3,825 3.53
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest (1932 film)
The Importance of Being Earnest (1957 film)
The Importance of Being Ernest
The Importance of Being Ernie
The Importance of Being Idle
The Importance of Being Idle (song)
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