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now begins generated list of local instances, definitions, quotes, instances in chapters, wordnet info if available and instances among weblinks


OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
The_Divine_Milieu
The_Imitation_of_Christ
The_Way_of_Perfection
The_Yoga_Sutras
Toward_the_Future

IN CHAPTERS TITLE
1.wby_-_He_Thinks_Of_His_Past_Greatness_When_A_Part_Of_The_Constellations_Of_Heaven
1.wby_-_He_Thinks_Of_Those_Who_Have_Spoken_Evil_Of_His_Beloved

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
0.00_-_INTRODUCTION
0.02_-_Letters_to_a_Sadhak
0.10_-_Letters_to_a_Young_Captain
0_1954-08-25_-_what_is_this_personality?_and_when_will_she_come?
0_1961-06-27
0_1963-12-03
0_1967-10-19
0_1968-05-11
0_1969-07-23
0_1969-10-18
0_1969-10-25
0_1971-06-05
0_1971-07-17
0_1972-04-03
03.05_-_The_Spiritual_Genius_of_India
05.13_-_Darshana_and_Philosophy
07.11_-_The_Problem_of_Evil
08.25_-_Meat-Eating
08.34_-_To_Melt_into_the_Divine
1.01_-_Economy
1.01_-_On_renunciation_of_the_world
1.01_-_SAMADHI_PADA
1.01_-_THE_STUFF_OF_THE_UNIVERSE
1.02_-_MAPS_OF_MEANING_-_THREE_LEVELS_OF_ANALYSIS
1.02_-_The_Pit
1.035_-_The_Recitation_of_Mantra
1.03_-_VISIT_TO_VIDYASAGAR
1.04_-_ADVICE_TO_HOUSEHOLDERS
1.04_-_Sounds
1.04_-_THE_APPEARANCE_OF_ANOMALY_-_CHALLENGE_TO_THE_SHARED_MAP
1.04_-_The_Self
1.05_-_Knowledge_by_Aquaintance_and_Knowledge_by_Description
1.05_-_THE_MASTER_AND_KESHAB
1.06_-_MORTIFICATION,_NON-ATTACHMENT,_RIGHT_LIVELIHOOD
1.06_-_Quieting_the_Vital
1.06_-_THE_MASTER_WITH_THE_BRAHMO_DEVOTEES
1.08_-_The_Depths_of_the_Divine
1.098_-_The_Transformation_from_Human_to_Divine
1.09_-_Concentration_-_Its_Spiritual_Uses
1.09_-_Taras_Ultimate_Nature
1.1.02_-_Sachchidananda
1.107_-_The_Bestowal_of_a_Divine_Gift
1.13_-_THE_MASTER_AND_M.
1.15_-_LAST_VISIT_TO_KESHAB
1.17_-_On_poverty_(that_hastens_heavenwards).
1.19_-_THE_MASTER_AND_HIS_INJURED_ARM
1.2.03_-_The_Interpretation_of_Scripture
12.05_-_Beauty
1.20_-_RULES_FOR_HOUSEHOLDERS_AND_MONKS
1.22_-_ADVICE_TO_AN_ACTOR
1.23_-_FESTIVAL_AT_SURENDRAS_HOUSE
1.240_-_Talks_2
1.300_-_1.400_Talks
1.32_-_Expounds_these_words_of_the_Paternoster__Fiat_voluntas_tua_sicut_in_coelo_et_in_terra._Describes_how_much_is_accomplished_by_those_who_repeat_these_words_with_full_resolution_and_how_well
14.01_-_To_Read_Sri_Aurobindo
1.66_-_The_External_Soul_in_Folk-Tales
19.22_-_Of_Hell
1951-04-02_-_Causes_of_accidents_-_Little_entities,_helpful_or_mischievous-_incidents
1951-05-05_-_Needs_and_desires_-_Discernment_-_sincerity_and_true_perception_-_Mantra_and_its_effects_-_Object_in_action-_to_serve_-_relying_only_on_the_Divine
1953-08-12
1953-10-07
1953-11-25
1954-06-02_-_Learning_how_to_live_-_Work,_studies_and_sadhana_-_Waste_of_the_Energy_and_Consciousness
1954-07-21_-_Mistakes_-_Success_-_Asuras_-_Mental_arrogance_-_Difficulty_turned_into_opportunity_-_Mothers_use_of_flowers_-_Conversion_of_men_governed_by_adverse_forces
1954-07-28_-_Money_-_Ego_and_individuality_-_The_shadow
1954-08-11_-_Division_and_creation_-_The_gods_and_human_formations_-_People_carry_their_desires_around_them
1954-08-25_-_Ananda_aspect_of_the_Mother_-_Changing_conditions_in_the_Ashram_-_Ascetic_discipline_-_Mothers_body
1955-02-23_-_On_the_sense_of_taste,_educating_the_senses_-_Fasting_produces_a_state_of_receptivity,_drawing_energy_-_The_body_and_food
1955-06-29_-_The_true_vital_and_true_physical_-_Time_and_Space_-_The_psychics_memory_of_former_lives_-_The_psychic_organises_ones_life_-_The_psychics_knowledge_and_direction
1955-07-06_-_The_psychic_and_the_central_being_or_jivatman_-_Unity_and_multiplicity_in_the_Divine_-_Having_experiences_and_the_ego_-_Mental,_vital_and_physical_exteriorisation_-_Imagination_has_a_formative_power_-_The_function_of_the_imagination
1956-03-21_-_Identify_with_the_Divine_-_The_Divine,_the_most_important_thing_in_life
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
1957-01-16_-_Seeking_something_without_knowing_it_-_Why_are_we_here?
1958-04-09_-_The_eyes_of_the_soul_-_Perceiving_the_soul
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Man_of_Stone
1.lb_-_Crows_Calling_At_Night
1.pbs_-_Song._To_[Harriet]
1.rb_-_In_A_Gondola
1.rb_-_Paracelsus_-_Part_III_-_Paracelsus
1.sv_-_Song_of_the_Sanyasin
1.wby_-_He_Thinks_Of_His_Past_Greatness_When_A_Part_Of_The_Constellations_Of_Heaven
1.wby_-_He_Thinks_Of_Those_Who_Have_Spoken_Evil_Of_His_Beloved
1.ww_-_The_Farmer_Of_Tilsbury_Vale
2.01_-_The_Yoga_and_Its_Objects
2.03_-_The_Eternal_and_the_Individual
2.03_-_THE_MASTER_IN_VARIOUS_MOODS
2.04_-_ADVICE_TO_ISHAN
2.04_-_The_Forms_of_Love-Manifestation
2.05_-_VISIT_TO_THE_SINTHI_BRAMO_SAMAJ
2.06_-_The_Higher_Knowledge_and_the_Higher_Love_are_one_to_the_true_Lover
2.06_-_The_Synthesis_of_the_Disciplines_of_Knowledge
2.06_-_WITH_VARIOUS_DEVOTEES
2.07_-_BANKIM_CHANDRA
2.08_-_ALICE_IN_WONDERLAND
2.08_-_AT_THE_STAR_THEATRE_(II)
2.09_-_Memory,_Ego_and_Self-Experience
2.1.01_-_The_Central_Process_of_the_Sadhana
2.1.02_-_Love_and_Death
2.10_-_Knowledge_by_Identity_and_Separative_Knowledge
2.10_-_THE_MASTER_AND_NARENDRA
2.11_-_The_Boundaries_of_the_Ignorance
2.11_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_IN_CALCUTTA
2.1.2_-_The_Vital_and_Other_Levels_of_Being
2.14_-_AT_RAMS_HOUSE
2.16_-_VISIT_TO_NANDA_BOSES_HOUSE
2.18_-_SRI_RAMAKRISHNA_AT_SYAMPUKUR
2.2.04_-_Practical_Concerns_in_Work
2.20_-_THE_MASTERS_TRAINING_OF_HIS_DISCIPLES
2.21_-_1940
2.3.08_-_The_Mother's_Help_in_Difficulties
3.00.2_-_Introduction
3.00_-_The_Magical_Theory_of_the_Universe
3.02_-_The_Psychology_of_Rebirth
3.04_-_The_Way_of_Devotion
3.11_-_Spells
3.1.3_-_Difficulties_of_the_Physical_Being
4.04_-_The_Perfection_of_the_Mental_Being
4.04_-_THE_REGENERATION_OF_THE_KING
4.04_-_Weaknesses
6.07_-_THE_MONOCOLUS
7.02_-_Courage
7.07_-_Prudence
7_-_Yoga_of_Sri_Aurobindo
Appendix_4_-_Priest_Spells
Blazing_P1_-_Preconventional_consciousness
BOOK_I._-_Augustine_censures_the_pagans,_who_attributed_the_calamities_of_the_world,_and_especially_the_sack_of_Rome_by_the_Goths,_to_the_Christian_religion_and_its_prohibition_of_the_worship_of_the_gods
BOOK_XIX._-_A_review_of_the_philosophical_opinions_regarding_the_Supreme_Good,_and_a_comparison_of_these_opinions_with_the_Christian_belief_regarding_happiness
DS2
ENNEAD_01.06_-_Of_Beauty.
ENNEAD_02.04a_-_Of_Matter.
ENNEAD_04.03_-_Psychological_Questions.
ENNEAD_05.09_-_Of_Intelligence,_Ideas_and_Essence.
ENNEAD_06.01_-_Of_the_Ten_Aristotelian_and_Four_Stoic_Categories.
ENNEAD_06.02_-_The_Categories_of_Plotinos.
ENNEAD_06.06_-_Of_Numbers.
Gorgias
IS_-_Chapter_1
Liber_46_-_The_Key_of_the_Mysteries
Liber_71_-_The_Voice_of_the_Silence_-_The_Two_Paths_-_The_Seven_Portals
r1912_11_17
r1914_03_24
Sayings_of_Sri_Ramakrishna_(text)
Sophist
Symposium_translated_by_B_Jowett
Talks_026-050
Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_1
The_Act_of_Creation_text
Theaetetus
the_Eternal_Wisdom

PRIMARY CLASS

SIMILAR TITLES
thinks of

DEFINITIONS


TERMS STARTING WITH


TERMS ANYWHERE

sendmail "messaging" The {BSD} Unix {Message Transfer Agent} supporting mail transport via {TCP/IP} using {SMTP}. Sendmail is normally invoked in the {background} via a {Mail User Agent} such as the {mail} command. Sendmail was written by {Eric Allman} at the {University of California at Berkeley} during the late 1970s. He now has his own company, {Sendmail Inc.} Sendmail was one of the first programs to route messages between {networks} and today is still the dominant e-mail transfer software. It thrived despite the awkward {ARPAnet} transition between {NCP} to TCP protocols in the early 1980s and the adoption of the new SMTP Simple Mail Transport Protocol, all of which made the business of mail routing a complex challenge of backward and forward compatibility for several years. There are now over one million copies of Sendmail installed, representing over 75% of all Internet mail servers. Simultaneously with the announcement of the company in November 1997, Sendmail 8.9 was launched, featuring new tools designed to limit {junk e-mail}. SendMail 8.9 is still distributed as {source code} with the rights to modify and distribute. The command sendmail -bv ADDRESS can be used to learn what the local mail system thinks of ADDRESS. You can also talk to the Sendmail {daemon} on a remote host FOO with the command telnet FOO 25 (1998-08-25)



QUOTES [17 / 17 - 764 / 764]


KEYS (10k)

   4 Sri Ramakrishna
   2 Saint Patrick
   2 Swami Vivekananda
   1 Swami Vivekananda?
   1 Swami Turiyananda
   1 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
   1 Nolini Kanta Gupta
   1 Meng-Tse II 5.17
   1 Leo Tolstoy
   1 The Mother
   1 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   1 Sri Aurobindo

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   12 Hermann Hesse
   12 Anonymous
   10 Henry David Thoreau
   8 Leo Tolstoy
   7 Terry Pratchett
   7 George Eliot
   7 C S Lewis
   7 Anthony Doerr
   6 Lisa Kleypas
   6 Jane Austen
   5 Sri Ramakrishna
   5 Jen Sincero
   5 Gustave Flaubert
   5 Elizabeth Gilbert
   5 Confucius
   5 Anthony Trollope
   4 Sri Chinmoy
   4 Shirley Jackson
   4 Peter Watts
   4 Paul Auster

1:Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." ~ Leo Tolstoy,
2:The more I contemplate God, the more God looks on me. The more I pray to him, the more he thinks of me too.
   ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, [T5],
3:One becomes as one thinks. One who constantly thinks of the Bliss Absolute becomes full of bliss. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
4:If a man thinks of the images of gods and goddesses as symbols of the Divine, he reaches Divinity. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
5:Nobility is for each man within him; only he never thinks of seeking for it within. ~ Meng-Tse II 5.17, the Eternal Wisdom
6:When a devotee thinks of 'me' and 'mine,' and separates himself from God, that kind of dualism is harmful to a person's spiritual growth. Such an aspirant remains deluded. A devotee must completely renounce the ego. ~ Swami Turiyananda,
7:Do you meditate? Do you know what one feels in meditation? The mind becomes like a continuous flow of oil — it thinks of one object only, and that is God. It does not think of anything else. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
8:'As oil poured from one vessel to another falls in an unbroken line, so, when the mind in an unbroken stream thinks of the Lord, we have what is called Para-Bhakti or supreme love.' ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. III. 85),
9:A man thinks of God, no doubt, but he has no faith in Him. Again and again he forgets God and becomes attached to the world. It is like giving the elephant a bath; afterwards he covers his body with mud and dirt again. 'The mind is a mad elephant.' ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
10:He is only our Beloved, and we should adore Him devoid all thoughts of fear. A man loves God only when he has no other desire, when he thinks of nothing else and when he is mad after Him. That love which a man has for his beloved can illustrate the love we ought to have for God. ~ Swami Vivekananda?
11:He is only our Beloved, and we should adore Him devoid all thoughts of fear. A man loves God only when he has no other desire, when he thinks of nothing else and when he is mad after Him. That love which a man has for his beloved can illustrate the love we ought to have for God ~ Swami Vivekananda,
12:First of all, each one has a soul, and secondly, we have the luminously strong sup port of the Mother. It is the nature of the Divine that even if you don't think of Him He thinks of you. It is true, very true; because you are part of the Divine. Only you have to concentrate consciously on that part, that portion; then gradually it will increase. ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, To Read Sri Aurobindo,
13:Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down... Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me. ~ Saint Patrick,
14:Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me. ~ Saint Patrick,
15:Even if you fail to do it during your lifetime, you must think of god at least at the time of death, since one becomes what he thinks of
at the time of death. But unless all your life you have been thinking of God, unless you have accustomed yourself to dhyana of 'God
always during life, it would not at all be possible for you think of God at the time of death. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day by Day, 9-3-46,
16:There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration, -for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world, -- so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a Mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised. There are supposed by those who systematise, to be three stages of the seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation. And by these, too, there comes when the accompanying feeling or the concentration is very intense, the Samadhi, the ecstatic trance in which the consciousness passes away from outer objects. But all this is really incidental; the one thing essential is the intense devotion of the thought in the mind to the object of adoration. Although it seems akin to the contemplation of the way of knowledge, it differs from that in its spirit. It is in its real nature not a still, but an ecstatic contemplation; it seeks not to pass into the being of the Divine, but to bring the Divine into ourselves and to lose ourselves in the deep ecstasy of his presence or of his possession; and its bliss is not the peace of unity, but the ecstasy of union. Here, too, there may be the separative self-consecration, which ends in the giving up of all other thought of life for the possession of this ecstasy, eternal afterwards in planes beyond, or the comprehensive consecration in which all the thoughts are full of the Divine and even in the occupations of life every thought remembers him. As in the other Yogas, so in this, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all ones inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported here by the primary force of the emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the spirit and its members.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Way of Devotion [T2],
17:
   Mother, when one imagines something, does it not exist?

When you imagine something, it means that you make a mental formation which may be close to the truth or far from the truth - it also depends upon the quality of your formation. You make a mental formation and there are people who have such a power of formation that they succeed in making what they imagine real. There are not many of these but there are some. They imagine something and their formation is so well made and so powerful that it succeeds in being realised. These are creators; there are not many of them but there are some.

   If one thinks of someone who doesn't exist or who is dead?

Ah! What do you mean? What have you just said? Someone who doesn't exist or someone who is dead? These are two absolutely different things.

   I mean someone who is dead.

Someone who is dead!

   If this person has remained in the mental domain, you can find him immediately. Naturally if he is no longer in the mental domain, if he is in the psychic domain, to think of him is not enough. You must know how to go into the psychic domain to find him. But if he has remained in the mental domain and you think of him, you can find him immediately, and not only that, but you can have a mental contact with him and a kind of mental vision of his existence.

   The mind has a capacity of vision of its own and it is not the same vision as with these eyes, but it is a vision, it is a perception in forms. But this is not imagination. It has nothing to do with imagination.

   Imagination, for instance, is when you begin to picture to yourself an ideal being to whom you apply all your conceptions, and when you tell yourself, "Why, it should be like this, like that, its form should be like this, its thought like that, its character like that," when you see all the details and build up the being. Now, writers do this all the time because when they write a novel, they imagine. There are those who take things from life but there are those who are imaginative, creators; they create a character, a personage and then put him in their book later. This is to imagine. To imagine, for example, a whole concurrence of circumstances, a set of events, this is what I call telling a story to oneself. But it can be put down on paper, and then one becomes a novelist. There are very different kinds of writers. Some imagine everything, some gather all sorts of observations from life and construct their book with them. There are a hundred ways of writing a book. But indeed some writers imagine everything from beginning to end. It all comes out of their head and they construct even their whole story without any support in things physically observed. This truly is imagination. But as I say, if they are very powerful and have a considerable capacity for creation, it is possible that one day or other there will be a physical human being who realises their creation. This too is true.

   What do you suppose imagination is, eh? Have you never imagined anything, you?

   And what happens?

   All that one imagines.


You mean that you imagine something and it happens like that, eh? Or it is in a dream...

   What is the function, the use of the imagination?

If one knows how to use it, as I said, one can create for oneself his own inner and outer life; one can build his own existence with his imagination, if one knows how to use it and has a power. In fact it is an elementary way of creating, of forming things in the world. I have always felt that if one didn't have the capacity of imagination he would not make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of your life. When you think of yourself, usually you imagine what you want to be, don't you, and this goes ahead, then you follow, then it continues to go ahead and you follow. Imagination opens for you the path of realisation. People who are not imaginative - it is very difficult to make them move; they see just what is there before their nose, they feel just what they are moment by moment and they cannot go forward because they are clamped by the immediate thing. It depends a good deal on what one calls imagination. However...

   Men of science must be having imagination!


A lot. Otherwise they would never discover anything. In fact, what is called imagination is a capacity to project oneself outside realised things and towards things realisable, and then to draw them by the projection. One can obviously have progressive and regressive imaginations. There are people who always imagine all the catastrophes possible, and unfortunately they also have the power of making them come. It's like the antennae going into a world that's not yet realised, catching something there and drawing it here. Then naturally it is an addition to the earth atmosphere and these things tend towards manifestation. It is an instrument which can be disciplined, can be used at will; one can discipline it, direct it, orientate it. It is one of the faculties one can develop in himself and render serviceable, that is, use it for definite purposes.

   Sweet Mother, can one imagine the Divine and have the contact?

Certainly if you succeed in imagining the Divine you have the contact, and you can have the contact with what you imagine, in any case. In fact it is absolutely impossible to imagine something which doesn't exist somewhere. You cannot imagine anything at all which doesn't exist somewhere. It is possible that it doesn't exist on the earth, it is possible that it's elsewhere, but it is impossible for you to imagine something which is not already contained in principle in the universe; otherwise it could not occur.

   Then, Sweet Mother, this means that in the created universe nothing new is added?

In the created universe? Yes. The universe is progressive; we said that constantly things manifest, more and more. But for your imagination to be able to go and seek beyond the manifestation something which will be manifested, well, it may happen, in fact it does - I was going to tell you that it is in this way that some beings can cause considerable progress to be made in the world, because they have the capacity of imagining something that's not yet manifested. But there are not many. One must first be capable of going beyond the manifested universe to be able to imagine something which is not there. There are already many things which can be imagined.

   What is our terrestrial world in the universe? A very small thing. Simply to have the capacity of imagining something which does not exist in the terrestrial manifestation is already very difficult, very difficult. For how many billions of years hasn't it existed, this little earth? And there have been no two identical things. That's much. It is very difficult to go out from the earth atmosphere with one's mind; one can, but it is very difficult. And then if one wants to go out, not only from the earth atmosphere but from the universal life!

   To be able simply to enter into contact with the life of the earth in its totality from the formation of the earth until now, what can this mean? And then to go beyond this and enter into contact with universal life from its beginnings up to now... and then again to be able to bring something new into the universe, one must go still farther beyond.

   Not easy!
   That's all?
   (To the child) Convinced?
   ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, [T1],

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:The wise man thinks of fame just enough to avoid being despised. ~ epicurus, @wisdomtrove
2:As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove
3:Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove
4:The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
5:Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove
6:Who loves you most? Who loves you best? Who thinks of you when others rest? ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove
7:Our mind thinks of death. Our heart thinks of life. Our soul thinks of Immortality. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove
8:The opportunist thinks of me and today. The statesman thinks of us and tomorrow. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove
9:No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove
10:To be sure you know no actual good of me, but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove
11:When told that man lives in delusion everyone thinks of himself as the exception; hence his delusion. ~ vernon-howard, @wisdomtrove
12:If one thinks of an enlightened person in a negative way, as it hits their aura, it returns very strongly. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
13:I hate a woman who offers herself because she ought to do so, and cold and dry thinks of her sewing when making love. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove
14:In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics, he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so. ~ immanuel-kant, @wisdomtrove
15:The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not obliged to speak the truth. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove
16:A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove
17:A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove
18:The superior man... does not set his mind either for or against anything, he will pursue whatever is right. The superior man thinks of virtue, the common man of comfort. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
19:Exemplary people concern themselves with virtue, small people concern themselves with territory. The ruling class thinks of punishment, the lower classes hope for benevolence. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
20:Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove
21:The post-office is a wonderful establishment! The regularity and dispatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do, and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing! ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove
22:Christianity thinks of human individuals not as mere members of a group or items in a list, but as organs in a body-different from one another and each contributing what no other could. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
23:I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
24:What is independent, uncreated, timeless and changeless, and yet ever new and fresh, is beyond the mind. When the mind thinks of it, the mind dissolves and only happiness remains. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove
25:Death is not the end Death can never be the end. Death is the road. Life is the traveller. The Soul is the Guide ... Our mind thinks of death. Our heart thinks of life Our soul thinks of Immortality ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove
26:Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. The present was only a bridge and on this bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove
27:I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove
28:The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
29:The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove
30:It is not humility to underrate yourself. Humility is to think of yourself as God thinks of you. It is to feel that if we have talents God has given them to us. And let it be seen that, like freight in a vessel, they tend to sink us low. The more we have, the lower we ought to lie. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
31:A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others... thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people's rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
32:The Master said, A gentleman, in his plans, thinks of the Way; he does not think how he is going to make a living. Even farming sometimes entails 5 times of shortage; and even learning may incidentally lead to high pay. But a gentleman's anxieties concern the progress of the Way; he has no anxiety concerning poverty. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
33:There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove
34:The child thinks of growing old as an almost obscene calamity, which for some mysterious reason will never happen to itself. All who have passed the age of thirty are joyless grotesques, endlessly fussing about things of no importance and staying alive without, so far as the child can see, having anything to live for. Only child life is real life. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove
35:The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know that the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing, that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove
36:The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature!  In some countries we know that the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing, that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove
37:Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove
38:A man must first care for his own household before he can be of use to the state. But no matter how well he cares for his household, he is not a good citizen unless he also takes thought of the state. In the same way, a great nation must think of its own internal affairs; and yet it cannot substantiate its claim to be a great nation unless it also thinks of its position in the world at large. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove
39:Every heat engineer knows he can design his heat engine reliably and accurately on the foundation of the second law [of thermodynamics]. Run alongside one of the molecules, however, and ask it what it thinks of the second law. It will laugh at us. It never heard of the second law. It does what it wants. All the same, a collection of billions upon billions of such molecules obeys the second law with all the accuracy one could want ~ john-wheeler, @wisdomtrove
40:The nobler sort of man emphasizes the good qualities in others, and does not accentuate the bad. The inferior does the reverse. . . . The nobler sort of man pays special attention to nine points. He is anxious to see clearly, to hear distinctly, to be kindly in his looks, respectful in his demeanor, conscientious in his speech, earnest in his affairs. When in doubt, he is careful to inquire; when in anger, he thinks of the consequences; when offered an opportunity for gain, he thinks only of his duty. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
41:Here's how the people live here, in big house-shaped boxes to keep off &
42:[Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks of him, one thinks inevitably of such men as Goethe and Aristotle. For in him there was that rich, incomparable blend of intelligence and character, of colossal knowledge and high adventurousness, of instinctive honesty and indomitable courage which appears in mankind only once in a blue moon. There have been far greater scientists, even in England, but there has never been a scientist who was a greater man. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:The free man never thinks of escape. ~ Jeanette Winterson,
2:You know what he thinks of Cowper and Scott; ~ Jane Austen,
3:As a man thinks of himself, so he is. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
4:No one thinks of how much blood it costs. ~ Dante Alighieri,
5:Nobody thinks of giving an immortal soul to a flea. ~ Voltaire,
6:Who thinks of justice unless he knows injustice? ~ Diane Glancy,
7:everything is ridiculous if one thinks of death ~ Thomas Bernhard,
8:She that paints her Face, thinks of her Tail. ~ Benjamin Franklin,
9:No one thinks of winter when the grass is green. ~ Rudyard Kipling,
10:The brave person thinks of himself last of all. ~ Friedrich Schiller,
11:It is not what a man knows, but what he thinks of in time. ~ Mark Twain,
12:What a woman thinks of women is the test of her nature. ~ George Meredith,
13:The wise man thinks of fame just enough to avoid being despised. ~ Epicurus,
14:Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language. ~ Elmore Leonard,
15:No human walking the earth thinks of himself as a bullshitter. ~ Emily Gould,
16:What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? ~ Anthony Trollope,
17:Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. ~ Hunter S Thompson,
18:A person is really dead only when nobody thinks of him anymore. ~ Bertolt Brecht,
19:One must keep working continuously; otherwise, one thinks of death. ~ Enzo Ferrari,
20:I wonder if anyone thinks of me when they can’t fall asleep at night. ~ Niall Horan,
21:Ultimately, I have no power over what he or any boy thinks of me. ~ Daria Snadowsky,
22:As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking. ~ Virginia Woolf,
23:I am a mere breath of air; a formless thought that thinks of you. ~ Jean Paul Sartre,
24:A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch. ~ James Beard,
25:Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel. ~ Samuel Johnson,
26:She trembles when she thinks of everything her quilrs must know about her ~ Amanda Lee,
27:The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort. ~ Confucius,
28:It doesn't matter what anybody thinks of what I do. The clock doesn't lie. ~ Bonnie Blair,
29:It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
30:Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself ~ Leo Tolstoy,
31:Being the good daughter that everyone thinks of as the bad daughter sucks. ~ Seanan McGuire,
32:Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
33:Legalism is a subtle danger because no one thinks of himself as a legalist. ~ Philip Yancey,
34:How can one avoid despondency if one thinks of the anomalous Zeeman effect? ~ Wolfgang Pauli,
35:I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself. ~ Jack London,
36:The Missional church always thinks of the long haul rather than the quick fix ~ Michael Frost,
37:Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. ~ John C Maxwell,
38:The Englishman respects your opinions, but he never thinks of your feelings. ~ Wilfrid Laurier,
39:When one lies awake in the night one thinks of many things, and I thought now. ~ Louis L Amour,
40:Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. ~ Timothy Ferriss,
41:Never worry what other people think of you, because no one ever thinks of you ~ Brian K Vaughan,
42:Who loves you most? Who loves you best? Who thinks of you when others rest? ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
43:Never worry what other people think of you, because no one ever thinks of you. ~ Brian K Vaughan,
44:Our mind thinks of death. Our heart thinks of life. Our soul thinks of Immortality. ~ Sri Chinmoy,
45:In fact most of what we call anxiety is overconcern about what someone thinks of you. ~ Albert Ellis,
46:A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation. ~ James Freeman Clarke,
47:If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. ~ Dorothy Parker,
48:No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it. ~ Oliver Goldsmith,
49:But why should I read what somebody else thinks of my life when I know the real story? ~ Jimmy Connors,
50:Nobility is for each man within him; only he never thinks of seeking for it within. ~ Meng-Tse II 5.17,
51:The opportunist thinks of me and today. The statesman thinks of us and tomorrow. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower,
52:For one thing, I don't think that anybody in any war thinks of themselves as a hero. ~ Steven Spielberg,
53:don’t let me, she hoped concretely, don’t let me know too surely what he thinks of me. ~ Shirley Jackson,
54:Revenge is a pretty human motivation for a group that thinks of themselves as superior. ~ Jeramey Kraatz,
55:Yet, when one thinks of it, diplomacy without force is a but a rotten reed to lean upon. ~ Joseph Conrad,
56:DO NOT WASTE YOUR PRECIOUS TIME GIVING ONE SINGLE CRAP ABOUT WHAT ANYBODY ELSE THINKS OF YOU. ~ Anonymous,
57:If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you're always going to be disappointed. ~ Madonna,
58:no one thinks of himself as a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong. ~ Christopher Paolini,
59:there is nothing sorer to the spirit than falling below what one's lover thinks of one. ~ Naomi Mitchison,
60:To be sure you know no actual good of me, but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love. ~ Jane Austen,
61:A great nation is like a great man...He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts. ~ Lao Tzu,
62:Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself. ~ Reader s Digest Association,
63:The first thing he thinks of is weaponry, killing his fellow humans. The second thing is power. ~ Ben Bova,
64:Who loves you most, and loves you best, and thinks of you when others rest? 'Tis Emilie. ~ Emily Dickinson,
65:but frankly I don’t care what Alayna thinks of me just as long as she thinks of me at all. ~ Laurelin Paige,
66:DO NOT WASTE YOUR PRECIOUS TIME GIVING ONE SINGLE CRAP ABOUT WHAT ANYBODY ELSE THINKS OF YOU. ~ Jen Sincero,
67:Everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. —Leo Tolstoy ~ Beth Kanter,
68:Good people can't out-think evil, cause evil thinks of things good folks can't think of. ~ Orson Scott Card,
69:You see. He thinks of conversations like a chess game, and I don’t mean that in a good way. ~ Max Gladstone,
70:And do you know, there's less charm in life, when one thinks of death, but there's more peace. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
71:To disregard what the world thinks of us is not only arrogant but utterly shameless. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero,
72:The heart thinks of everything you can give, and the soul thinks of everything you are. ~ Neale Donald Walsch,
73:The man who while he gives thinks of what he will get in return, deserves to be deceived. ~ Seneca the Younger,
74:And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, but nobody thinks of changing himself ~ Leo Tolstoy,
75:Everyone thinks of himself, and he lives most gaily who knows best how to deceive himself. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
76:he thinks of it as playing good cop/bad cop. Except we play bad gang member/worse gang member. ~ Simone Elkeles,
77:What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
78:Why would I care what other people are thinking? I don't care what an audience thinks of me. ~ Bret Easton Ellis,
79:You don’t have to constantly be mulling over what you said or what this person thinks of you. ~ Michael A Singer,
80:If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you're always going to be disappointed. ~ Madonna Ciccone,
81:Perhaps every generation thinks of itself as a lost generation and perhaps every generation is right. ~ Erica Jong,
82:When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks of her attributes–one is conscious of her presence. ~ George Eliot,
83:A dull head thinks of no better way to show himself wise, than by suspecting everything in his way. ~ Philip Sidney,
84:The work of art shows people new directions and thinks of the future. The house thinks of the present. ~ Adolf Loos,
85:Well, Israel, obviously, thinks of the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel. ~ Robert M Gates,
86:When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks of her attributes--one is conscious of her presence. ~ George Eliot,
87:Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he? Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves. ~ Victor LaValle,
88:When told that man lives in delusion everyone thinks of himself as the exception; hence his delusion. ~ Vernon Howard,
89:A lover always thinks of his mistress first and himself second; with a husband it runs the other way. ~ Honor de Balzac,
90:Philippa thinks of you, as she thinks of me, as a rather run-down institution for indigent imbeciles. ~ Dorothy Dunnett,
91:A lover always thinks of his mistress first and himself second; with a husband it runs the other way. ~ Honore de Balzac,
92:He thinks of poverty as a kind of contagion, and he doesn’t want them to hear about it lest they catch it. ~ Nicola Yoon,
93:Wenn Man an den Tod denkt, alles ist lächerlich. (When one thinks of death, everything is ridiculous). ~ Thomas Bernhard,
94:A free man thinks of death least of all things, and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life. ~ Baruch Spinoza,
95:Everyone thinks of God as a man - you can't help it - Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man. ~ Patti Smith,
96:If you would know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom he gives it. ~ Maurice Baring,
97:A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life. ~ Baruch Spinoza,
98:I really can't help what someone thinks of me because they are reading a paper and choosing to believe it. ~ Shenae Grimes,
99:You know your reputation is just what everyone else thinks of you, your character is what you really are. ~ Mariana Zapata,
100:If one thinks of an enlightened person in a negative way, as it hits their aura, it returns very strongly. ~ Frederick Lenz,
101:A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation, not on death, but on life. ~ Baruch Spinoza,
102:I hate a woman who offers herself because she ought to do so, and cold and dry thinks of her sewing when making love. ~ Ovid,
103:Verla says that nobody thinks of himself as a villain. Even the nastiest person thinks that he is in the right. ~ Pat Murphy,
104:Verla says that no one thinks of himself as a villain. Even the nastiest person thinks that he is in the right. ~ Pat Murphy,
105:When a man can't explain a woman's actions, the first thing he thinks of is the condition of her uterus. ~ Clare Boothe Luce,
106:But who thinks of death in the middle of life?"

-Mike Rogers

Endless Night by Agatha Christie ~ Agatha Christie,
107:Revolutionary leaders have to care more about what they think of themselves than what the world thinks of them. ~ Guy Kawasaki,
108:It doesn't matter what people thinks of you as long as you know that your heart and head are in the right place. ~ Steve Kluger,
109:Whoever thinks of stopping the uprising before it achieves its goals, I will give him ten bullets in the chest. ~ Yasser Arafat,
110:Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. ~ George Matthew Adams,
111:What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation ~ Henry David Thoreau,
112:People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people. ~ Charles Kettering,
113:I'm a project-based photographer; I think in narrative terms, the way a writer thinks of a book, or a filmmaker a film. ~ Alec Soth,
114:In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so. ~ Immanuel Kant,
115:A quote hung on the opposite wall: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. ~ Karen Joy Fowler,
116:He thinks of making his fortune. We all know that money sticks to yours hands.
No, It passes through them, alas. ~ Hilary Mantel,
117:A warrior thinks of death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit. ~ Carlos Castaneda,
118:He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
119:If the enemy thinks of the mountains, attack like the sea; and if he thinks of the sea, attack like the mountains. ~ Miyamoto Musashi,
120:The trick is not caring what EVERYBODY thinks of you and just caring about what the RIGHT people think of you. ~ Brian Michael Bendis,
121:All right. “You know your reputation is just what everyone else thinks of you, your character is what you really are. ~ Mariana Zapata,
122:He who never thinks of anything as 'mine' does not feel the lack of anything: he is never worried by a sense of loss. ~ Gautama Buddha,
123:Nothing is more condemnable than selfishness. A man who thinks of himself alone is the most unlucky person of all. ~ Anand Neelakantan,
124:A cop? You married a bloody cop?"

"I married a bloody criminal," Eve muttered, "but nobody ever thinks of that. ~ J D Robb,
125:The more I contemplate God, the more God looks on me. The more I pray to him, the more he thinks of me too. ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux,
126:You arrange your life based on what "everyone" thinks of you or what you think they think of you,whoever everyone is... ~ Esther Verhoef,
127:Donald Trump beat Jeb Bush and beat Hillary Clinton. And when everyone thinks of Donald Trump that's pretty impressive. ~ William Kristol,
128:Yes,” thought Elizabeth, “a summer with so few balls would be miserable indeed for a girl who thinks of little else. ~ Seth Grahame Smith,
129:Everyone always thinks of ghosts as being invisible or like air but they take up so much space in a room, you’ve no idea. ~ Jami Attenberg,
130:The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not obliged to speak the truth. ~ Samuel Johnson,
131:A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru,
132:I've been getting in trouble my whole life and I really don't care what anybody thinks of what I do on stage as a comic. ~ Andrew Dice Clay,
133:Thought's a luxury. Do you think the peasant sits and thinks of God and Democracy when he gets inside his mud hut at night? ~ Graham Greene,
134:There is nothing, the Ice says, but Ice. – But the young volcano there to northward has another word it thinks of saying. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
135:If everybody thinks of something, then it will happen. Your mind is part of the universe. It is connected, you can use its energy. ~ Yoko Ono,
136:Let him be wise, or let me be blind; don't let me, she hoped concretely, don't let me know too surely what he thinks of me. ~ Shirley Jackson,
137:Let him be wise, or let me be blind; don’t let me, she hoped concretely, don’t let me know too surely what he thinks of me. ~ Shirley Jackson,
138:Ask Jesus to show you your beauty. Ask him what he thinks of you as a woman. His words to us let us rest and unveil our beauty. ~ John Eldredge,
139:Look at it this way," Ms. Terwilliger said, after several moments of thought. "The callistana thinks of you two as its parents. ~ Richelle Mead,
140:Personally, I like sex and I don't care what a man thinks of me as long as I get what I want from him -- which is usually sex. ~ Valerie Perrine,
141:The more I contemplate God, the more God looks on me. The more I pray to him, the more he thinks of me too.
   ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, [T5],
142:The neurotic lies awake at night, composing letters to those he hates. He seldom thinks of dropping a line to those he loves. ~ Mignon McLaughlin,
143:Someone who thinks of possessing a fountain made of a winged baby with water shooting out of its mouth must not have too many troubles. ~ Anne Ursu,
144:I don’t want to give somebody my input and get his feedback, though I’d be glad to offer my ideas and hear what he thinks of them. ~ William Zinsser,
145:The trick is not caring what EVERYBODY thinks of you and just caring about what the RIGHT people think of you.” —Brian Michael Bendis ~ Austin Kleon,
146:He thinks of her sleeping now, the rest she needs, thinks of the warmth of her body, the nest-like thing she could be to his tiredness. ~ Cynan Jones,
147:I ain't thinking of tomorrow, tomorrow thinks of me like a garcia, bulk of money on tha counter, I told her, baby I see you as my cashier ~ Lil Wayne,
148:I think there is tribalism is a big deal inside of the church, that the church thinks of themselves as a tribe and not a mission. ~ Tullian Tchividjian,
149:It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks of your life. All that matters is what you think of it, and what you decide to make of it. ~ Bethenny Frankel,
150:It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of. ~ C S Lewis,
151:You're the type who thinks of the glass as being half full, instead of half empty. "No," she said, "I'm just grateful for the glass. ~ Richard Paul Evans,
152:When the movie comes out, what anybody thinks of it doesn't really matter to me. I don't go to the wrap party. I don't go to the premiere. ~ Henry Rollins,
153:Hope rises and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain. ~ Hunter S Thompson,
154:just remember that Dorothy Parker quote. ‘If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to,’” said ~ Elizabeth Spann Craig,
155:Tranquillity is contagious, peace is contagious. One only thinks of the contagiousness of illness, but there is the contagion of serenity and joy. ~ Anais Nin,
156:We must have passed through life unobservantly, if we have never perceived that a man is very much himself what he thinks of others. ~ Frederick William Faber,
157:The slave of the belly ponders the menu with which to celebrate the feast. The servant of God, however, thinks of the graces that may enrich him. ~ John Climacus,
158:I think the more the actor lets you know what he thinks of the character, the less the audience cares - like a comedian who laughs at his own jokes. ~ Neil LaBute,
159:But sometimes things are said and they’re not just words. They are everything that one person thinks of another in a sentence. Just one sentence. ~ Richard Flanagan,
160:The difference between a politician and a statesman is: a politician thinks of the next election and a statesman thinks of the next generation. ~ Maloy Krishna Dhar,
161:If people are like, 'Oh, you're an icon,' then whatever. But who thinks of themselves like that? It's not like I have posters of myself on the wall. ~ Kathleen Hanna,
162:She’s just . . . clueless. She only thinks of herself. I rack my brains, trying to think of a time she might have done or said something that would make ~ Adam Croft,
163:And saying you love him is the same as saying you don’t want to know what he really thinks of you. If you talked to him,’ she said, ‘you would find out. ~ Rachel Cusk,
164:Legalism is a subtle danger because no one thinks of himself as a legalist. My own rules seem necessary; other people’s rules seem excessively strict. ~ Philip Yancey,
165:Strong and healthy, who thinks of sickness until it strikes like lightning? Preoccupied with the world, who thinks of death, until it arrives like thunder? ~ Milarepa,
166:Nobody thinks of themselves as sexy, really. Some days you go, 'Hey, I'm not going too bad today.' But if you try and be sexy, you'll never be sexy. ~ Jennifer Aniston,
167:This is our mercury, our lunary, but whosoever thinks of any other water besides this, is ignorant and foolish, never attaining to the desired effects. ~ George Ripley,
168:Disrespect is a symptom of weakness, of smallness, of an existential problem. By acting rude to me he’s showing me what he really thinks of himself. ~ Patricia Cornwell,
169:Draco's not really a bully. He's not exactly the biggest, strongest guy in the world. He's more a rich, snobby person. He thinks of himself as really cool. ~ Tom Felton,
170:If you do a good act, it cancels the effects of your evil deeds. If one prays, takes the Name of God and thinks of Him, the effects of evil are cancelled. ~ Sarada Devi,
171:Kant thinks of judgment as a special faculty or talent of the mind, not reducible to discursive reasoning but cultivated through experience and practice. ~ Allen W Wood,
172:The subjective actress thinks of clothes only as they apply to her; the objective actress thinks of them only as they affect others, as a tool for the job. ~ Edith Head,
173:I think America, unfortunately, collectively thinks of itself as the 'chosen people.' To my knowledge, there are no chosen people, we are all human beings. ~ Norman Lear,
174:Never trust someone that claims they care nothing of what society thinks of them. Instead of conquering obstacles, they simply pretend they don't exist. ~ Tiffany Madison,
175:New York is essentially national in interest, position, pursuits. No one thinks of the place as belonging to a particular state, but to the United States. ~ James F Cooper,
176:A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future. ~ Oliver Goldsmith,
177:Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. ~ Jef Raskin,
178:A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
179:One never knows how much a family may grow; and when a hive is too full, and it is necessary to form a new swarm, each one thinks of carrying away his own honey. ~ George Sand,
180:The United States is not so strong, the final triumph of the democratic ideal is not so inevitable that we can ignore what the world thinks of us or our record. ~ Harry S Truman,
181:Hollywood, what a place it is! It is so far away from the rest of the world, so narrow. No one thinks of anything but motion pictures or talks of anything else. ~ Dolores del Rio,
182:Certainly she no longer thinks of the future, because every day the future proves itself to be a duplicate of the present. So instead she roots through the past. ~ David R Gillham,
183:It makes me envious of anybody who can say truly that they don't care what anybody thinks of what they do, because I care a lot about the people who like my stuff. ~ John Darnielle,
184:The superior man... does not set his mind either for or against anything, he will pursue whatever is right. The superior man thinks of virtue, the common man of comfort. ~ Confucius,
185:A lot of artists are just really stupid about money, and it's really hard to find somebody who kind of thinks of shuffling money around and doing business as an art. ~ Kathleen Hanna,
186:he thought no more of performing the lesser arts of magic than a bird thinks of flying. Yet a greater, unlearned skill he possessed, which was the art of kindness. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
187:Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
188:Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. what a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
189:But the less one thinks of self's opinions, and the better listener one becomes, greater may be the opportunities for being of help or benefit to those about the entity. ~ Edgar Cayce,
190:What North Europe thinks of as its history is actually quite provincial and of limited interest. Different sorts of Christian killing each other, and that's about it. ~ Thomas Pynchon,
191:You can sometimes tell more by a man's silence and the set of his head than by what he says. By such signs you can tell, for instance, what he thinks of his wife . . . ~ Wendell Berry,
192:Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. ~ Saint Patrick,
193:Jumping down the cliff is a keen sense every person who comes to the edge of the cliff thinks of! The bottom of the abyss often hypnotizes the people who look at it! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
194:As he watches the sun rise, what grieves him is that he failed her. He thinks of the terror she felt. They tell him it was quick, as if that will somehow confine the horror. ~ Nancy Horan,
195:What the Pope thinks of being gay does not matter to the world. It matters to the people who like the Pope and follow the Pope. It is not a reflection of all religious people. ~ Lady Gaga,
196:Because if you base your self-worth on what everyone else thinks of you, you hand all your power over to other people and become dependent on a source outside of yourself for ~ Jen Sincero,
197:Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him. ~ H L Mencken,
198:Umit had never prayed in his life in the way as everyone
considers and thinks of praying. If looking within oneself is
praying, just like you do, he too did that a lot. ~ Raj Doctor,
199:The post-office is a wonderful establishment! The regularity and dispatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do, and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing! ~ Jane Austen,
200:The first rule of black business everywhere is: never let anyone know what you’re thinking. Didier’s corollary to the rule was: always know what the other thinks of you. ~ Gregory David Roberts,
201:Everyone thinks of them in terms of poisoned apples and glass coffins, and forgets that they represent girls who walked into dark forests and remade them into their own reflections. ~ Mira Grant,
202:The childhood scenes [ in The Tree of Life] are tremendous. My favorite moment is when the mother levitate - for three seconds. Of course, this is how a child thinks of his mother. ~ Paul Auster,
203:Christianity thinks of human individuals not as mere members of a group or items in a list, but as organs in a body-different from one another and each contributing what no other could. ~ C S Lewis,
204:He thinks of himself as worthless and either falls into masochistic loneliness or, failing that, ultimately becomes suspicious and pious, forever denouncing the eccentricities of others ~ Anonymous,
205:Everyone thinks of them in terms of poisoned apples and glass coffins, and forgets that they represent girls who walked into dark forests and remade them into their own reflections. ~ Seanan McGuire,
206:Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. ~ George Eliot,
207:When you’re the Woman Upstairs, nobody thinks of you first. Nobody calls you before anyone else, or sends you the first postcard. Once your mother dies, nobody loves you best of all. ~ Claire Messud,
208:I don’t mind looking like I need a good wash and a good meal... Any actor who starts taking ‘sex symbol’ seriously or thinks of themselves as a sex symbol has got some serious problems. ~ Clive Owen,
209:You will become the most proficient in using the various skills in dealing with others when you treat everyone in such a way that he thinks of himself as the most beloved of all people to yourself. ~,
210:Arsenic sticks around and today it's easily found after death if somebody thinks of looking for it, because the problem with arsenic, it isn't looked for in the common tests for drugs. ~ Michael Baden,
211:Because if you base your self-worth on what everyone else thinks of you, you hand all your power over to other people and become dependent on a source outside of yourself for validation. ~ Jen Sincero,
212:Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation ~ Henry David Thoreau,
213:‘As oil poured from one vessel to another falls in an unbroken line, so, when the mind in an unbroken stream thinks of the Lord, we have what is called Para-Bhakti or supreme love.’ ~ Swami Vivekananda,
214:Find me the person who doesn't care a whit what anyone else thinks of them and I'll show ya someone very lonely. The trick, I believe, is to know whose opinion matters and whose doesn't. ~ Mia Sheridan,
215:Maybe he doesn’t really think it now. But sometimes things are said and they’re not just words. They are everything that one person thinks of another in a sentence. Just one sentence. ~ Richard Flanagan,
216:I don't think that anybody in any war thinks of themselves as a hero. The minute anybody presumes that they are heroes, they get their boots taken away from them and buried in the sand. ~ Steven Spielberg,
217:Only he who constantly thinks of God can know His real nature. He alone knows that God reveals Himself in different forms and different ways, that He has attributes and, again, has none. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
218:I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. ~ Dale Carnegie,
219:You must ask God what he thinks of you, and you must stay with the question until you have an answer. The battle will get fierce here. This is the last thing the Evil One wants you to know. ~ John Eldredge,
220:Caleb thinks of Nina’s face when she was carrying Nathaniel, how it was as bright as any star. Maybe that glory faded long ago, maybe it has taken all these light-years to only reach him now. ~ Jodi Picoult,
221:I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. ~ C S Lewis,
222:To kill time - an English phrase that still chills me: time can be killed but only by frivolous matters and purposeless activities. No one thinks of suicide as a courageous endeavor to kill time. ~ Yiyun Li,
223:What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so. ~ Anthony Trollope,
224:Do you meditate? Do you know what one feels in meditation? The mind becomes like a continuous flow of oil — it thinks of one object only, and that is God. It does not think of anything else. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
225:He’s not tactically rude,” his wife explains. “He’s sincerely rude. He knows everyone thinks of him as a character but he doesn’t think of himself that way. Steven lives inside his head.” When ~ Michael Lewis,
226:Do you meditate? Do you know what one feels in meditation? The mind becomes like a continuous flow of oil — it thinks of one object only, and that is God. It does not think of anything else. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
227:Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets the worse she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to drag them into everything, does it? ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery,
228:Wounds are said to emit light under certain conditions - touch them and the brightness will stay on the hands - and as candles burn Rohan thinks of each flame as an injury somewhere in his house. ~ Nadeem Aslam,
229:‘As oil poured from one vessel to another falls in an unbroken line, so, when the mind in an unbroken stream thinks of the Lord, we have what is called Para-Bhakti or supreme love.’ (III. 85) ~ Swami Vivekananda,
230:He thinks of Elienad, lying beneath tables, listening to the inflections of lies. Watching the hesitations, the gestures, the tensed muscles. Learning a language the king was unaware he even spoke. ~ Holly Black,
231:Death is not the end Death can never be the end. Death is the road. Life is the traveller. The Soul is the Guide ... Our mind thinks of death. Our heart thinks of life Our soul thinks of Immortality ~ Sri Chinmoy,
232:No matter how well you know what a person has done and what he thought he was doing when he did it and what he now thinks of what he did, it is impossible to be certain of what he will do next. ~ Orson Scott Card,
233:Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest. ~ Baron de Montesquieu,
234:I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,
235:No matter how well you know what a person has done and what he thought he was doing when he did it and what he now thinks of what he did, it is impossible to be certain of what he will do next. Yet ~ Orson Scott Card,
236:The industry thinks of itself as Procter & Gamble. What gave publishers the idea that this was some big goddam business? It’s not—it’s a tiny little business, selling to a bunch of odd people who read. ~ Anonymous,
237:In the end, the difference between Conservatism and Liberalism seems to be this: the Conservative thinks of liberty as something to be preserved, the Liberal thinks of it as something to be enlarged. ~ Clinton Rossiter,
238:There is one transcending level, and this is the most excellent of all. This person is aware of the endlessness of entering deeply into a certain Way and never thinks of himself as having finished. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo,
239:Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. The present was only a bridge and on this bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge. ~ Henry Miller,
240:Everybody thinks of baseball as a sacred cow. When you have the nerve to challenge it, people look down their noses at you. There are a lot of things wrong with a lot of industries....baseball is one of them. ~ Curt Flood,
241:Well, whatever one thinks of the Roman Church, it is a worthy and powerful foe. I could accept that sort of conversion with grace. But I shall be very disappointed indeed if we lose him to the Presbyterians. ~ Donna Tartt,
242:Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval. ~ Susan B Anthony,
243:Have you ever remarked, that people who live the most by themselves reflect the most upon others; and that he who lives surrounded by the million never thinks of any but the one individual — himself? ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton,
244:Christianity does not think of man finally submitting to the power of God, it thinks of Him as finally surrendering to the love of God. It is not that man's will is crushed, but that man's heart is broken. ~ William Barclay,
245:He grins to himself as he thinks of his little cabal, this great band of warriors consisting of an old woman, a passion-struck fool, and a man with a feeble mind. At least they've all got the loyalty part right. ~ T J Klune,
246:Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
247:One must never comment as an actor, never show that a character is shallow or vindictive, but let that be conveyed. I mean, none of us thinks of ourselves as being vindictive or shallow - perhaps we should. ~ Vanessa Redgrave,
248:Frederick can walk for hours in the woods, can identify warblers fifty yards away simply by hearing their song. Frederick hardly every thinks of himself. Frederick is stronger than he is in every imaginable way. ~ Anthony Doerr,
249:I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin. ~ Antoine de Saint Exupery,
250:He thinks of the rotten parachute they played with as kids in Arcadia: they hurtle through life aging unimaginably fast, but each grasps a silken edge of memory that billows between them and softens the long fall. ~ Lauren Groff,
251:My favourite bit of advice comes from Dr. Daniel Amen’s 18, 40, 60 Rule:

“At 18 you worry about what everyone thinks of you. At 40 you don’t care.
At 60 you realise no one was thinking about you anyway! ~ Daniel G Amen,
252:Never for an instant does God cease to speak; but no one thinks of opening the doors. And yet, with a little watchfulness, it were not difficult to hear the word that God must speak concerning our every act. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck,
253:To think of writing poetry as a "career" is not only ridiculous, it's dangerous. To the imagination. To the way one thinks of art. The reason poetry as a genre is so special is because it cannot be made a commodity. ~ Cate Marvin,
254:For one never thinks of you alone, Cremuel, but in company, studying the faces of other people, as if you yourself mean to paint them. You make other men think, not “what does he look like?” but “what do I look like? ~ Hilary Mantel,
255:I think Donald Trump thinks of Putin as being a strong person, and I think he thinks of himself as being a very strong person. But I don't think in any way that he thinks of the Putin government as a desirable model. ~ Newt Gingrich,
256:Owning your life—your actions and decisions, and their consequences—must begin with a healthy view of yourself that is based on what God thinks of you. Once you listen to His voice, your self-perception will change. ~ Sally Clarkson,
257:Grant that Luke take me at my worth, she thought, or at least let me not see the difference. Let him be wise or let me be blind; don't let me, she hoped completely, don't let me know too surely what he thinks of me. ~ Shirley Jackson,
258:He thinks of all he has seen and learned: that the universe is indifferent to our human endeavors, that what gives our lives meaning is the passion that invades our hearts and burns in us, and maybe even destroys us. ~ Kiana Davenport,
259:He thinks of her perfect feet - how for years after they’d met she’d still kick off her shoes at every opportunity, to be barefoot. When did she stop doing this, he thinks. He did not notice. It gives him a strange guilt. ~ Cynan Jones,
260:Apparently the earth sometimes thinks of the possibility of coming closer to the sun,’ said Sati. ‘But she can’t do that. She is so base and his brilliance so searing, that she will cause destruction if she draws him closer. ~ Anonymous,
261:Much is said about brilliance. Less attention is paid to those who live next to it. Spouses, children, assistants…if anyone thinks of us at all, it’s generally to remark upon how lucky we are to bask in the light of genius. ~ Megan Hart,
262:The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man. ~ Confucius,
263:I have been her greatest foe, and she my biggest protector. Her heart is so pure, like a child’s. She gives without thinking. She longs to have beautiful things, I see it in her eyes, but she always thinks of us first. ~ Tess Uriza Holthe,
264:He often said that he wished that he could be a stone mason like me. He said a stone mason would have time and peace in which to think things out. I did not tell him that a stone mason thinks of little but stones and mortar. ~ Kurt Vonnegut,
265:How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself ~ Leo Tolstoy,
266:I no more thought of style or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and cries for help to save her children from a burning house, thinks of the teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe,
267:Self fulfillment thinks of how something serves me. Self development thinks of how something helps me to serve others. With self fulfillment, feeling good is the product. With self development, feeling good is the by-product. ~ John C Maxwell,
268:The only thing he thinks of is himself, Stoner pointed out. In his deepest heart he does not regard anyone else as truly human; no one except himself. He is the center of his world. Everything and everyone else revolves around him. ~ Ben Bova,
269:When the script for 'The Wrestler' kept coming to me I said, This movie is so good if you put me in the film as a wrestler people are going to say, 'No credibility, Hulk Hogan isn't a good actor,' whatever Hollywood thinks of me. ~ Hulk Hogan,
270:I feel ashamed that the new, nuclear, neo-liberal India thinks of itself as a 'natural ally' of Israel. Ever since India began to call itself an emerging superpower, it has become a slavish, groveling satellite state of the US. ~ Arundhati Roy,
271:...if you're unhappy whenever other people don't picture you exactly the same way you picture yourself, that's already dooming yourself to always be unhappy. No one ever thinks of us just the same way we think of ourselves. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky,
272:Whatever the mind thinks of, that alone it sees. What people call fate or divine will is nothing other than action from the past acting upon itself. Even as motion is inherent in air, manifestation is inherent in consciousness. ~ Deepak Chopra,
273:thanking them for coming, and reminding Con to give the dog a bit of something when he gets home late, she forgets altogether to hand him the letter. Holding it after he has left she thinks of the many crucial things left unsaid. ~ Edna O Brien,
274:It is a strange thing, isn’t it, to have an educational philosophy that thinks of the other students in the classroom with your child as competitors for the attention of the teacher and not allies in the adventure of learning? ~ Malcolm Gladwell,
275:Tender, heartfelt worship is hard for a person who thinks of himself as having arrived. No one celebrates the presence and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ more than the person who has embraced his desperate and daily need of it. ~ Paul David Tripp,
276:A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. And the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes. ~ Woodrow Wilson,
277:He thinks of that ocean house and wishes he were back in his former life or that one could take one moment and remain inside it like an egg inside its shell, instead of constantly being hurried into the future by good luck or bad. ~ Stephen Dobyns,
278:Positive and powerful: Sometimes people won't like me, and it's okay. Positive and powerful: I like me, and that's all that matters. Positive and powerful: It's more important what I think of me than what someone else thinks of me. ~ Beverly Engel,
279:Death is not the end
Death can never be the end.

Death is the road.
Life is the traveller.
The Soul is the Guide

...

Our mind thinks of death.
Our heart thinks of life
Our soul thinks of Immortality ~ Sri Chinmoy,
280:You don’t have to constantly be mulling over what you said or what this person thinks of you. What kind of life are you going to have if you worry about these things all the time? Inner sensitivity is a symptom of non-well-being. ~ Michael A Singer,
281:Her reflection. Her tired face. She touches her dry bottom lip and thinks of how odd it is to experience a secret loss. A loss without a name. The loss of a potential version of her life. Of what she never had, and now never will. ~ Fatima Farheen Mirza,
282:Some nights, alone, he thinks of her, and some nights, alone, she thinks of him. Some night these thoughts, separated by miles and time zones, occur at the same objective moment, and Ray and Mirabelle are connected without ever knowing it. ~ Steve Martin,
283:The you that you think of as you (and that thinks of you as you, and so on) is not you, it’s just the character that the underlying truth of you is dreaming into existence. Enlightenment isn’t in the character, it’s in the underlying truth. ~ Jed McKenna,
284:What Strider thinks of himself "He was too intense, too jaded, too warped and too...everything for most women to take for long. But so what. He was made of awesome. Anyone who couldn't see that wasn't smart enough to be with him, anyway. ~ Gena Showalter,
285:I like Dr. Daniel Amen's 18/40/60 Rule: When you're 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you; when you're 40, you don't give a darn what anybody thinks of you; when you're 60, you realize nobody's been thinking about you at all. ~ Jack Canfield,
286:One of the most influential women of the 20th century? Well, that may be overdoing it. When one thinks of really influential women, my mind turns to Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, ... some of the true political leaders in their own right. ~ William A Rusher,
287:Varya takes the handkerchief and wipes her face, and when she emerges she thinks of what Luke said--'that I'll kill them accidentally'--and laughs until he joins in and she begins to cry again, because she understands exactly what he means. ~ Chloe Benjamin,
288:Well you know I've been in that place too where you worry about what everybody thinks of you, am I popular, do people care, are they looking at me, all that stuff. That's a drag, man. Having to worry about fitting in, am I cool enough to ANYTHING. ~ Joan Jett,
289:Intuition is not clairvoyance. It’s not guesswork either. Intuition is executive summary, that 90 percent of the higher brain that functions subconsciously—but no less rigorously—than the self-aware subroutine that thinks of itself as the person. ~ Peter Watts,
290:18–40–60 rule. It says that when you are eighteen, you worry about what everyone thinks of you; when you are forty, you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about you; and when you’re sixty, you realize no one has been thinking about you at all. ~ Daniel G Amen,
291:always thinks of the other; ego thinks only of oneself. Love is always considerate; ego is absolutely inconsiderate. Ego has only one language and that is of self. Ego always uses the other; love is ready to be used, love is ready to serve. ~ Philip Toshio Sudo,
292:A politician thinks of the next election; a statement of the next generation. A politician looks for the success of his party; a statesman for that of his country. The statesman wishes to steer, while the politician is satisfied to drift. ~ James Freeman Clarke,
293:She thinks of how much more space a being occupies in life than it does in death; how much illusion of size is contained in gestures and movements, in breathing. Dead, we are revealed in our true dimensions, and they are surprisingly modest. ~ Michael Cunningham,
294:She thinks of how much more space a being occupies in life that it does in death; how much illusion of size is contained in gestures and movements, in breathing. Dead, we are revealed in our true dimensions, and they are surprisingly modest. ~ Michael Cunningham,
295:And as long as she lives, as long as she thinks of me with fondness and the memory of our life together brings her comfort, I will honor her for it. I will love her above all else in this world and the next. And there is nothing you can do to stop it. ~ Anonymous,
296:It seems to Werner that the space between whatever has happened already and whatever is to come hovers an invisible borderland, the known on one side and the unknown on the other. He thinks of the girl who may or may not be in the city behind him. ~ Anthony Doerr,
297:The proletarian writer is a writer with a purpose; he thinks no more of art for art's sake than a man on a sinking ship thinks of painting a beautiful picture in the cabin; he thinks of getting ashore - and then there will be time enough for art. ~ Upton Sinclair,
298:The words come out of Helen Justineau in a flat monotone. Parks thinks of Gallagher’s written report, with its proceeding tos and its thereupons. But Justineau’s bowed head and the tightness of her grip on the parapet wall add their own commentary. “I ~ M R Carey,
299:Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband! ~ George Eliot,
300:Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife’s husband! ~ George Eliot,
301:The family uses people, not for what they are, nor for what they are intended to be, but for what it wants them for- its own uses. It thinks of them not as what God has made them, but as the something which it has arranged that they shall be. ~ Florence Nightingale,
302:A man thinks of God, no doubt, but he has no faith in Him. Again and again he forgets God and becomes attached to the world. It is like giving the elephant a bath; afterwards he covers his body with mud and dirt again. 'The mind is a mad elephant.' ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
303:A man thinks of God, no doubt, but he has no faith in Him. Again and again he forgets God and becomes attached to the world. It is like giving the elephant a bath; afterwards he covers his body with mud and dirt again. 'The mind is a mad elephant.' ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
304:You look up for a moment and you're not sure which life is real. You've split yourself into so many honeycombed parts that they barely notice each other---all of them pacing, concurrently, parallel streams of though, and each one thinks of its self as me. ~ Dan Chaon,
305:SETH said: When the intellect is used properly, it thinks of a goal and automatically sets the body in motion toward it, and automatically arouses the other levels of communication unknown to it, so that all forces work together toward the achievement. ~ Jane Roberts,
306:sees or hears or in some other way perceives one thing and not only knows that thing but also thinks of another thing of which the knowledge is not the same but different, are we not right to say that he recollects the second thing that comes into his mind? ~ Anonymous,
307:When any of us thinks of ourselves as a role model - whether thats as a parent being observed by their kids or a leader under the microscope of their followers - it creates a natural stepping up of how we carry ourselves and what we expect from ourselves. ~ Chip Conley,
308:I try never to hear what another person thinks of me. I enjoy life a lot more when I spend as little time as possible hearing or thinking about what other people think about me. I go to the needs behind the thoughts. Then I'm in a different world. ~ Marshall B Rosenberg,
309:Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so. ~ Anthony Trollope,
310:Everyone thinks of Anubis as this super jacked up jackal. I find that amusing. I guess he must work out a lot.” I guess when you think of it, it is kind of funny. No other picture of gods from that time are ripped. I guess Anubis did Egyptian steroids. ~ Jessica Florence,
311:I want a man to love me for no other reason than he believes I’m the most unique creature on the planet,” she said, folding her arms against her chest as she spoke. “When he thinks of living life without me, I want him to get scared and confused.” “That’s ~ Scott Hildreth,
312:All he thinks of amid this loveless dance, all he cares about here on the edge of forever, is her. He does not want to die. Not because he is afraid. Simply because he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind. And there, in that tiny moment, I envy him. ~ Amie Kaufman,
313:I think cookies are sort of the unsung sweet, you know? They're incredibly popular. But everybody thinks of cakes and pies and fancier desserts before they think cookies. A plate of cookies is a great way to end dinner and really nice to share at the holidays. ~ Bobby Flay,
314:no one thinks of himself as a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong. A person may dislike his choice, but he will stand by it because, even in the worst circumstances, he believes that it was the best option available to him at the time. ~ Christopher Paolini,
315:A Creole woman is like a child, she wants to possess everything immediately; like a child, she would set fire to a house in order to fry an egg. In her languor, she thinks of nothing; when passionately aroused, she thinks of any act possible or impossible. ~ Honore de Balzac,
316:I never know what South Carolina thinks of a measure. I never consult her. I act to the best of my judgment, and according to my conscience. If she approves, well and good. If she does not, or wishes any one to take my place, I am ready to vacate. We are even. ~ John C Calhoun,
317:I don't think the audience goes and thinks of the movie as a piece of art - there are some independent people who may go and have a higher appreciation for filmmaking. It is a great art form, but I don't think you look at a painting and a movie with the same eye. ~ Antoine Fuqua,
318:It's strong, Ian. The way she feels about you is something else. She loves this world, but so much of the reason she couldn't leave was really you. She thinks of you as her anchor. You gave her a reason to finally stay in one place after a lifetime of wandering. ~ Stephenie Meyer,
319:...something ELSE set your body in motion, sent an executive summary - almost an afterthought - to the homunculus behind your eyes ...that arrogant subroutine that thinks of itself as The person, mistakes correlation for causality," ...and thinks He moved the finger ~ Peter Watts,
320:The lover thinks oftener of reaching his mistress than the husband thinks of guarding his wife; the prisoner thinks more often of escape than the jailer thinks of locking the doors. Therefore, in spite of every obstacle, the lover and the prisoner are certain to succeed. ~ Stendhal,
321:Ego is very perfectionistic. Ego always wants to be higher and better than others; hence it is perfectionist. But through ego perfection is never possible, so the effort is absurd. Perfection is possible only when the ego is not—but then one never thinks of perfection at all. ~ Osho,
322:Her keeper jersey; she thinks of it now. The number 1 on its back. A lonely number. Only one goalkeeper on the field. Only one player who guards the net. Only one who stands strong and alone behind the other ten players on the field. No place to hide. No way to disappear. ~ Amy Efaw,
323:We never have that thought! The whole object is to bite off more than you can chew. John [Du Prez] always says, Eric thinks of something completely insane and insists we go in that direction. It's the correct way to look at things and the correct place to start, I think. ~ Eric Idle,
324:A great nation is like a great man:When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.Having realized it, he admits it.Having admitted it, he corrects it.He considers those who point out his faultsas his most benevolent teachers.He thinks of his enemyas the shadow that he himself casts. ~ Laozi,
325:Poor Erik,” muttered Anna. “No,” said Ulf. “No. Not poor Erik—fortunate Erik.” Anna gave Ulf a dubious look. “But all he thinks of...” “...is fishing. Yes, but does that make him unhappy? Quite the contrary: Erik is utterly happy. Erik is completely resolved. ~ Alexander McCall Smith,
326:She looks up. She speaks in a whisper.
'The sky is soft today, Max. The clouds are so soft and sad, and...' She looks away and crosses her arms. She thinks of her papa going to war and grabs her jacket at each side of her body.
'And it's cold, Max. It's so cold... ~ Markus Zusak,
327:I've been identified with pink throughout my career, but I'm not as crazy about it as I've led people to believe. My favorite colors are actually neutrals — black and white — but then who thinks of a movie queen in black and white? Everything has to be in living color. ~ Jayne Mansfield,
328:The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: “I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. ~ Dale Carnegie,
329:What couldn't I do now, having already committed such a breach of fashion logic and lived to tell the tale? Why couldn't I pretend to be a woman with a solid core of self-worth, who likes herself no matter what the nearest handsome man or evil mother thinks of her? ~ Laurie Viera Rigler,
330:You must give him time,' said her grandmother;'and you must be content not to be believed for a while. It is very hard to bear; but I have had to bear it, and shall have to bear it yet. I will take care of what Curdie thinks of you in the end. You must let him go now. ~ George MacDonald,
331:Anyone who thinks of Satan as evil should consider all the men, women, children, and animals who have died because it was "God's will." Certainly a person grieving the untimely loss of a loved one would much rather have their loved one with them than in God's hands! ~ Anton Szandor LaVey,
332:As a whole, [changing] is deflation force that is being underestimated. Whether each person thinks of it in the context of the word deflation ... what they think of it is, "Hard to hold my margin. I'm under margin pressure. I'm under sales pressure. I'm under cost pressure." ~ Ken Moelis,
333:Dr. Montessori believes in liberty for the pupil because she thinks of life "as a superb goddess, ever advancing to new conquests." Submission, loyalty, self-sacrifice seem to her, apparently, only incidental necessities of life, not essential elements of its eternal form. ~ Maria Montessori,
334:Tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict. They desire to fit in both at church and outside of church; they care more about what people think of their actions (like church attendance and giving) than what God thinks of their hearts and lives. ~ Francis Chan,
335:Since we don't have a tyrant or a dictator, we can't put people who are burning flag in jail. But Donald Trump is telling you what he thinks of 'em. He's not gonna do anything of the sort. This is where people go off the rails with Trump, with this literal business and so fort ~ Rush Limbaugh,
336:He doesn’t want you for the right reasons,” Kathleen said in concern. “He wants a wife who will advance his ambitions. And no doubt he thinks of you as an aristocratic broodmare.”
Helen smiled slightly. “Isn’t that also how men of our class judge the value of a potential wife? ~ Lisa Kleypas,
337:People don't realize Canada has been very rough on the United States. Everyone thinks of Canada as being wonderful. And so do I. I love Canada. But they have outsmarted our politicians for many years, and you people understand that. So, we did institute a very big tariff on lumber. ~ Donald Trump,
338:No one thinks of Mexico and Peru as black. But Mexico and Peru together got 700,000 Africans in the slave trade. The coast of Acapulco was a black city in the 1870s. And the Veracruz Coast on the gulf of Mexico and the Costa Chica, south of Acapulco are traditional black lands. ~ Henry Louis Gates,
339:He thinks of failure like learning to ride a bike; it isn’t conceivable that you would learn to do this without making mistakes—without toppling over a few times. “Get a bike that’s as low to the ground as you can find, put on elbow and knee pads so you’re not afraid of falling, and go, ~ Ed Catmull,
340:It is not humility to underrate yourself. Humility is to think of yourself as God thinks of you. It is to feel that if we have talents God has given them to us. And let it be seen that, like freight in a vessel, they tend to sink us low. The more we have, the lower we ought to lie. ~ Charles Spurgeon,
341:When a long, long time later, he stares down at the silent blue marble of the earth and thinks of his sister, as he will at every important moment of his life. He doesn't know this yet, but he senses it deep down in his core. So much will happen, he thinks, that I would want to tell you. ~ Celeste Ng,
342:Whilst man is in one location, he thinks of another. Dancing with one woman, he can't help but long to see the quiet curve of another's nude shoulder; to never be satisfied, to never have the mind and body cheerfully stranded in a single location - this is the curse of the human race! ~ Marisha Pessl,
343:I think Trump thinks of himself as pretty important, and now rightfully so - because he's the President of the United States. You gotta dream big, and we're all so proud of what the Donald has been able to accomplish... following through on his dreams of taking fast food dumps on a plane. ~ Nick Kroll,
344:It doesn't matter what he thinks of himself. Sure he's egotistic, so what? It takes that kind of ego to make a man attempt a thing like this. I've seen enough of men like him to know that mixed in with that pompousness and self-assertion is a goddamned good measure of uncertainty and fear. ~ Daniel Keyes,
345:LUKEWARM PEOPLE tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict. They desire to fit in both at church and outside of church; they care more about what people think of their actions (like church attendance and giving) than what God thinks of their hearts and lives. ~ Francis Chan,
346:The American people are not remarkable for moderation. They despise halfness. They will go with him who goes farthest and stay with him who stays longest. What the country thinks of half-men and half-measures is seen by the last election. We repudiate all such men and all such measures. ~ Frederick Douglass,
347:A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others...thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people's rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish. ~ C S Lewis,
348:A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others...thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people’s rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish. ~ C S Lewis,
349:The conservative "thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless. ~ Russell Kirk,
350:I love coming to D.C. I think it's a very unusual city. It's so fascinating that it's this weird place that everything thinks of as the capital of the country, there is so much international business, political stuff that is connected to that part of the country that it has a very charred atmosphere. ~ Joe Rogan,
351:There are some people who state that the exterior, sex, or physique of another person is indifferent to them, that they care only for the communion of mind with mind; but these people need not detain us. There are some statements that no one ever thinks of believing, however often they are made. ~ G K Chesterton,
352:When I write, I fall into the zone many writers, painters, musicians, athletes, and craftsmen of all sorts seem to share: In doing something I enjoy and am expert at, deliberate thought falls aside and it is all just THERE. I think of the next word no more than the composer thinks of the next note. ~ Roger Ebert,
353:A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy
as the shadow that he himself casts. ~ Lao Tzu,
354:They decide all of that in the office. And in their smart little conferences. The teachers, they sit around in this big circle jer-jerk and all they say is Yeah, Yeah, Right, Right. All they give a fuck about is whether you behaved yourself in grammer school and what the town thinks of your family. ~ Stephen King,
355:Children are taught to fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity of parents teaches children economy, arrogance, or submission. They are also encouraged to be imitators, a course to which they are already only too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent. ~ Luc de Clapiers,
356:20 minutes later: a girl on Himmel Street. She looks up. She speaks in whisper. ‘The sky is soft today, Max. The clouds are so soft and sad, and…’ She looks away and crosses her arms. She thinks of her papa going to war and grabs her jacket at each side of her body. ‘And it’s cold, Max. It’s so cold… ~ Markus Zusak,
357:20 minutes later: a girl on Himmel Street. She looks up. She speaks in whisper. 'The sky is soft today, Max. The clouds are so soft and sad, and...' She looks away and crosses her arms. She thinks of her papa going to war and grabs her jacket at each side of her body. 'And it's cold, Max. It's so cold. ~ Markus Zusak,
358:When you begin to understand what you have been given in his right here, right now grace, you quit asking people, places, and things to be your savior. Because you know what he thinks of you, you are free to worry less about what the person next to you thinks. That’s a freedom many of us could use! ~ Paul David Tripp,
359:Would you like to hear the latest news, that colonel we mentioned earlier has gone blind, It'll be interesting to see what he thinks of that bright idea of his now, He already thought, he shot himself in the head, Now that's what I call a consistent attitude, The army is always ready to set an example. ~ Jos Saramago,
360:yoginām api sarveṣāṁ mad-gatenāntar-ātmanā śraddhāvān bhajate yo māṁ sa me yukta-tamo mataḥ “Of all yogīs, the one with great faith who always abides in Me, thinks of Me within himself, and renders transcendental loving service to Me is the most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all. ~ Anonymous,
361:the soul never thinks without a mental picture’,13 ‘the thinking faculty thinks of its forms in mental pictures’,14 ‘no one could ever learn or understand anything, if he had not the faculty of perception; even when he thinks speculatively, he must have some mental picture with which to think.’15 For ~ Frances A Yates,
362:The war was a long way away. Maybe there wasn't any war. There was no war here. Then I realized it was over for me. But I did not have the feeling that it was really over. I had the feeling of a boy who thinks of what is happening at a certain hour at the schoolhouse from which he has played truant. ~ Ernest Hemingway,
363:While I talked about comparisons between Cap and Cable, there's also a parallel with Tony Stark. Iron Man thinks of himself as a 'futurist,' Cable is from the future. Both have been at war with their own bodies. We look for characters with touch points to Cable. Their legacy means an enormous amount to him. ~ Jeph Loeb,
364:An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll,
365:Berkshire has the lowest turnover of any major company in the U.S.The Walton family owns more of Wal-Mart than Buffett owns of Berkshire, so it isn't because of large holdings. It's because we have a really unusual shareholder body that thinks of itself as owners and not holders of little pieces of paper. ~ Charlie Munger,
366:man thinks of war as being won with the loud, sudden violence of swords and battle, but the slow, quiet wars can be lost in peace. It is as if the whole land sleeps. I fear we will awake one day and find that the Dark has crept so close that its face is the face of our neighbor, our loved one, ourselves. ~ Christopher Bunn,
367:Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

Viešoji nuomonė - ne toks baisus tironas kaip savoji. Tai, ką žmogus galvoja apie save, kaip tik ir lemia arba greičiau rodo jo likimą. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
368:It's not surprising, therefore, that the [Bisy] Backson thinks of progress in terms of fighting and overcoming. One of his little idiosyncrasies, you might say. Of course, real progress involves growing and developing, which involves changing inside, but that's something the inflexible Backson is unwilling to do. ~ Benjamin Hoff,
369:The Master said, A gentleman, in his plans, thinks of the Way; he does not think how he is going to make a living. Even farming sometimes entails 5 times of shortage; and even learning may incidentally lead to high pay. But a gentleman's anxieties concern the progress of the Way; he has no anxiety concerning poverty. ~ Confucius,
370:People think that their vote counts. They go to college, and everything gets mixed up. People stop caring, ... They raise the gas prices, but what the Everyman makes and welfare never seem to keep up. The HMO system is so ridiculous. I'm slightly educated. No one wants to hear what Hilary Duff thinks of the economy. ~ Shia LaBeouf,
371:No it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god." "Therefore It Is A Religious Position," said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny. ~ Terry Pratchett,
372:See the difference between the impression a man makes on you when you walk by his side in familiar talk, or look at him in his home, and the figure he makes when seen from a lofty historical level, or even in the eyes of a critical neighbour who thinks of him as an embodied system or opinion rather than as a man. Mr. ~ George Eliot,
373:A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

Человек подобен дроби: в знаменателе - то, что он о себе думает, в числителе - то, что он есть на самом деле. Чем больше знаменатель - тем меньше дробь. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
374:You’re not the villain in this story, you’re the beautifully flawed hero. You’re the dark hero who has been sacrificing himself all along so others would be safe…and you did it all fully understanding that no one could ever know. But I know, and I don’t care what anything thinks of me for giving my heart to you. ~ Tillie Cole,
375:Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals v. 16 (1867): Highlighted section in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 653-54.,
376:There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
377:Werner thinks of her, whether he wishes to or not. Girl with a cane, girl in a gray dress, girl made of mist. That air of otherworldliness in the snarls of her hair and the fearlessness of her step. She takes up residence inside him, a living doppelgänger to face down the dead Viennese girl who haunts him every night. ~ Anthony Doerr,
378:Today when the public thinks of the products of science it is likely to think about environmental problems, an unproductive armament industry, careless or dishonest 'scientific' reports, Livermore cheers for 'nukes forever' and a huge amount of self-serving noise on every subject from global warming to 'the face of God'. ~ Leo Kadanoff,
379:When you are the woman upstairs, nobody thinks of you first. Nobody calls you before anyone else, or sends you the first postcard. Once your mother dies, nobody loves you “best of all.” It’s a small thing, you might think, and maybe it depends on your temperament, maybe for some people it’s a small thing, but for me […] ~ Claire Messud,
380:He had never thought of himself as a warrior of light. The woman seemed to read his thoughts. ‘Everyone is capable of these things. And, though no one thinks of themselves as a warrior of light, we all are.’
He looked at the blank pages in the notebook. The woman smiled again.
‘Write about that warrior,’ she said. ~ Paulo Coelho,
381:I believe that man was created to enjoy himself, indeed, that he can claim it as his legitimate right. In fact, as long as he lives, man cannot help enjoying himself, even if he tries not... . Today the average person, when he hears the word pleasure, immediately thinks of something immoral. But nothing could be more wrong. ~ Kafu Nagai,
382:It's the way I feel about acting. That we are given clues by a writer about someone's essence or persona and it's our job to try to figure out which of those clues are true, which of clues we decide to follow and which of those clues we think are red herrings, or only in the way another character thinks of that character. ~ Kevin Spacey,
383:My identity does not begin when I begin to understand myself. There is something previous to what I think about myself, and it is what God thinks of me. That means that everything I think and feel is by nature a response, and the one to whom I respond is God. I never speak the first word. I never make the first move. ~ Eugene H Peterson,
384:He is mad,” said Kemp; “inhuman. He is pure selfishness. He thinks of nothing but his own advantage, his own safety. I have listened to such a story this morning of brutal self-seeking…. He has wounded men. He will kill them unless we can prevent him. He will create a panic. Nothing can stop him. He is going out now — furious! ~ H G Wells,
385:No it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god."

"Therefore It Is A Religious Position," said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny. ~ Terry Pratchett,
386:One thinks of nothing," he continued, "the hours slip by. Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and our thought, blending with the fiction, playing with the details, follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with the characters, and it seems as if it were ourselves palpitating beneath their costumes. ~ Gustave Flaubert,
387:One thinks of nothing," he continued; "the hours slip by. Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your thought, blending with the fiction, playing with the details, follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with the characters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitating beneath their costumes. ~ Gustave Flaubert,
388:One thinks of nothing,’ he continued; ‘the hours slip by. Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your thought, blinding with the fiction, playing with the details, follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with the characters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitating beneath their costumes. ~ Gustave Flaubert,
389:She’s looking at him with something like wonder. “Why do you weep, Jack?” “The past,” he says. “Isn’t that always what does it?” And thinks of his mother, sitting by the window, smoking a cigarette, and listening while the radio plays “Crazy Arms.” Yes, it’s always the past. That’s where the hurt is, all you can’t get over. ~ Stephen King,
390:In San Francisco - life goes on. Hope rises and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain. The sound of music floats down a dark street. A young girl looks out a window and wishes she were married. A drunk sleeps under a bridge. It is tomorrow. ~ Hunter S Thompson,
391:Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband! Or as if he were bound to provide charms for his posterity in his own person! ~ George Eliot,
392:Let me say only that these vehicles float a few inches off the ground. No animals draw them. No steam or chemical fuels them. Should something, a pet or child perhaps, pass underneath, it will temporarily cease to exist, then resume on the other side, with no interruption of velocity or awareness. No one thinks of this as death. ~ N K Jemisin,
393:Joey being one of my finest performances ever. Matt LeBlanc's basically doing the same thing right now, playing himself on Episodes. When I did Joey, I really leaned on them to make me the biggest ass they possibly could, because, frankly, everyone in their heart of hearts thinks of themselves that way. Or at least I do, anyway. ~ Brent Spiner,
394:The relationship between a brother and sister is peculiar in the sense that it is unique for it is the only one in which the two sexes can meet as equals on a purely personal basis. No brother thinks of his sister as a woman and few sisters can see their brothers as men. For this reason there can be real friendship between them. ~ D E Stevenson,
395:The more closely the author thinks of why he wrote, the more he comes to regard his imagination as a kind of self-generating cement which glued his facts together, and his emotions as a kind of dark and obscure designer of those facts. Reluctantly, he comes to the conclusion that to account for his book is to account for his life. ~ Richard Wright,
396:Trump, no matter what anybody thinks of him, is interesting. And Trump, no matter what anybody thinks of him, is funny. Trump, no matter what anybody thinks of him, is different. Trump, no matter what anybody thinks of him, is drama. Trump, no matter what anybody thinks of him, is unpredictable. All of that means, you can't miss it. ~ Rush Limbaugh,
397:So while the world thinks of you as a real-life Bruce Wayne with hundreds of millions in the bank and models draped across your arm, you’re really Batman, aligned with the Resistance, and you kidnapped me for your own good?”
“Exactly,” he said.
“Isn’t that what an assassin would say in such circumstances?” She batted her eyelashes. ~ Avery Flynn,
398:ask an older woman in a flowery red dress what she thinks of the tape. She takes an uncomfortable breath and then smiles. “What person hasn’t said it?” she says. This is not the answer I am expecting. “I haven’t said it,” I say. “Well, good for you,” she says. “You’ve said you’re going to grab women by the—?” “No. Don’t be stupid,” she says. ~ Katy Tur,
399:A pure soul is like a fine pearl. As long as it is hidden in the shell, at the bottom of the sea, no one thinks of admiring it. But if you bring it into the sunshine, this pearl will shine and attract all eyes. Thus the pure soul, which is hidden from the eyes of the world, will one day shine before the Angels in the sunshine of eternity. ~ John Vianney,
400:The design of the gum is expressed in the flow of it trunk and limbs, and the design of the European tree mainly in its foliage. In Europe great masses of foliage first attract the eye, here the limbs and trunk, which, on account of their proportion and colour, make themselves felt first, and one thinks of the foliage as a secondary matter. ~ Hans Heysen,
401:The twenty first century offers us a new Holy Land Syndrome. There is still the spade in one hand, but the Bible has been replaced with a very selective reading of On the Origin of Species. Science does not consider itself an ideology, as it claims to only deal with what is real. This is, of course, what every ideology thinks of itself. The ~ Gordon White,
402:Books are an amazing thing. Anyone who thinks of them as an escape from reality or as something you should get your nose out of and go outside and play, or as merely a distraction or an amusement or a waste of time is - dead wrong.
Books are the most important
the most powerful
the most beautiful thing
humans have ever created. ~ Connie Willis,
403:When someone is searching then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search. Searching means: having a goal. Finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. ~ Hermann Hesse,
404:Is there such a thing as too much pleasure? When Simon imagines the bathhouses, he thinks of a carnival of gluttony, an underworld so endless it seems possible to stay there forever. What he’s said to Robert isn’t a lie – he is afraid he wouldn’t be able to take it – but he’s also afraid he would, that his greed would have no edges and no end. ~ Chloe Benjamin,
405:She asks to hold the baby, and enjoys the feel of her solid little body, new-minted, ready to grow and to go. She thinks of her own, which is time visible. She is walking proof that time is real, time exists, she is a demonstration of the power of time. And this is a story that will indeed end. But not for a while, she thinks, not for a while. ~ Penelope Lively,
406:See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
407:The child thinks of growing old as an almost obscene calamity, which for some mysterious reason will never happen to itself. All who have passed the age of thirty are joyless grotesques, endlessly fussing about things of no importance and staying alive without, so far as the child can see, having anything to live for. Only child life is real life. ~ George Orwell,
408:When they are married, yes; and every girl who thinks of marrying should know that in very much she must adapt herself to her husband. But I do not think that a woman should be the ivy, to take the direction of every branch of the tree to which she clings. If she does so, what can be her own character? But we must go on, or we shall be too late. ~ Anthony Trollope,
409:The creative personality is always one that looks on the world as fit for change and on himself as an instrument for change. Otherwise, what are you creating for? If the world is perfectly all right the way it is, you have no place in it. The creative personality thinks of the world as a canvas for change and of himself as a divine agent of change. ~ Jacob Bronowski,
410:But I must admit I didn´t like that idea; do the same thing as everyone else. Eating to live, living to eat - that had been the nightmare of my adolescence. If it meant going back to that, if would be just as well to turn on the gas at once. But I suppose everyone thinks of things like that: let´s turn on the gas at once. And you don´t turn it on. ~ Simone de Beauvoir,
411:We have become obsessed with what is good about small classrooms and oblivious about what also can be good about large classes. It’s a strange thing isn't it, to have an educational philosophy that thinks of the other students in the classroom with your child as competitors for the attention of the teacher and not allies in the adventure of learning. ~ Malcolm Gladwell,
412:Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,
And dream about the great and their pride;
They have spoken against you everywhere,
But weigh this song with the great and their pride;
I made it out of a mouthful of air,
Their children's children shall say they have lied.

~ William Butler Yeats, He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved
,
413:See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
414:A person's faith goes at its own pace. The trouble with church is the service. A service is conducted for a mass audience. Just when I start to like the hymn, everyone plops down to pray. Just when I start to hear the prayer, everyone pops up to sing. And what does the stupid sermon have to do with God? Who knows what God thinks of current events? Who cares? ~ John Irving,
415:The mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn. ~ Robert G Ingersoll,
416:Nobody thinks of using improvements in technology and productivity to allow people to work less and require fewer assets to achieve the same standard of living. Instead, while everybody is richer, at least in terms of stuff, no one is any wealthier. Their wealth is "safely" out of reach. If it weren't, how many would still show up for work the next day? ~ Jacob Lund Fisker,
417:The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know that the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing, that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence. ~ Jane Austen,
418:I also like to think that after the slight shock of separation you will not feel any sorrow … and that if you should sometimes happen to think of me you will do so as one thinks of a book one read in childhood. I do not want ever to occupy a different place from that in the hearts of those I love, because then I can be sure of never causing them any unhappiness. ~ Simone Weil,
419:The mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll,
420:I think not everyone can see the whole picture. It has long been said we each see what we look for. You and I, we look at land and think of seed and harvests. A builder looks at the same land and thinks of houses, and a painter of its colors. The priest sees men only as those who need to be saved, and so naturally he sees most clearly those who need to be saved. ~ Pearl S Buck,
421:my experience is that when undergoing severe physical labor the mind is not at all active. One thinks of the particular problem in hand or perhaps the mind just wanders not performing coherent thought. As to missing various phases of civilized life, one has no time to miss anything save food or sleep or rest. In short one becomes little more than a rational animal. ~ David Grann,
422:We have real difficulty here because everyone thinks of changing the world, but where, oh where, are those who think of changing themselves? People may genuinely want to be good, but seldom are they prepared to do what it takes to produce the inward life of goodness that can form the soul. Personal formation into the likeness of Christ is arduous and lifelong. ~ Richard J Foster,
423:Marriage is an effort to legalize love. It is out of fear. It is thinking about the future, about the tomorrows. Man always thinks of the past and the future, and because of this constant thinking about past and future, he destroys the present. And the present is the only reality there is. One has to live in the present. The past has to die and has to be allowed to die. ~ Rajneesh,
424:When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It's a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith,
425:Now, from this night, this coming morning, no matter how many beds I find myself in between now and my final bed, I shall never be able to have any more of those boyish, zestful affairs--which are, really, when one thinks of it, a kind of higher, or, anyway, more pretentious masturbation. People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted. ~ James Baldwin,
426:One world: everybody fucks everybody. When he thinks of all the fucking there's been in the world and all the fucking there's going to be, and none of it for him, here he sits in this stuffy car dying, his heart just sinks. He'll never fuck anybody again in his lifetime except poor Janice Springer, he sees this possibility ahead of him straight and grim as the known road. ~ John Updike,
427:What daughter thinks of her parents in flagrante delicto? Yet, my mother, even after years with him, dropped hints such as, 'You know, your father enjoys his matinees.' I never even saw them go to the movies together. What could she mean? All those afternoons, I thought she was upstairs listening to La Traviata, and those high notes apparently were not coming from the radio. ~ Joy Behar,
428:When he sees little kids sitting in the backseat of cars, in those little car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver's seat. ~ Anne Lamott,
429:You’d think Peterson would be afraid of me, too, but that teacher wouldn’t fear me even if I shoved a live grenade into her hands.
“I don’t got the money,” Blake blurts out.
“That answer ain’t gonna cut it, man,” Paco chimes in from the sidelines. He likes coming with me. He thinks of it as playing good cop/bad cop. Except we play bad gang member/worse gang member. ~ Simone Elkeles,
430:How do ugly men make their way through life? He thinks of Michelotto. When he walks down the street men take half a step back from him. But he, Cesare, wields a different power. His face has always been his first weapon. Look at me, it says. I am what you see: easy on the eye, strong to the taste, a man with substance, someone to admire, for how can beauty this natural lie? ~ Sarah Dunant,
431:She sits down and puts her hand to her chest and rocks. Thinks of all she has lost and will lose. All she has had and will have. It seems to her that life is like gathering berries into an apron with a hole. Why do we keep on? Because the berries are beautiful, and we must eat to survive. We catch what we can. We walk past what we lose for the promise of more, just ahead. ~ Elizabeth Berg,
432:First of all, each one has a soul, and secondly, we have the luminously strong sup port of the Mother. It is the nature of the Divine that even if you don't think of Him He thinks of you. It is true, very true; because you are part of the Divine. Only you have to concentrate consciously on that part, that portion; then gradually it will increase. ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, To Read Sri Aurobindo,
433:Grahamites." She makes a face. "So concerned with niche and nature. So focused on their Noah's ark, after the flood has already happened."

Anderson thinks of Hagg, sweating and distressed at the destruction caused by ivory beetle. "If they could, they'd keep us all on our own continents."

"It is impossible, I think. People like to expand. To fill new niches. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi,
434:Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down... Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me. ~ Saint Patrick,
435:Elise thinks of Denise's laugh cracking like thunder over the Turnbull houses, the paprika in her chili, the way her bra cuts into her back, the powdery heat of her body when they'd lie on the bed in the summertime, the afternoon too hot for anything but gossip and game shows. Her mother played with Elise's hair like it was her own, absentmindedly twirling it as they smoked. ~ Jardine Libaire,
436:Gabby thinks of all the times she and her friends have discussed people who have been caught having affairs. None of the them have ever understood it. Just because you're married doesn't mean you'll never been attracted to anyone else, Gabby has always said. But the point is that you have a choice, and you should choose to do the right thing; you shouldn't act on your attraction. ~ Jane Green,
437:He said that when he sees little kids sitting in the backseat of cars, in those car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver’s seat. ~ Anne Lamott,
438:Living in the same city as Microsoft, I’m only too aware that, even in low-technology businesses like coffee, the Next Big Thing could knock the dominant player into second place tomorrow. I keep pushing to make sure that Starbucks thinks of the Next Big Thing before it has even crossed anybody else’s mind. In fact, Don Valencia is working on it even as I’m writing this book. ~ Howard Schultz,
439:Many Americans have lost confidence in the way our criminal courts assess guilt and innocence. Whatever one thinks of the verdicts, the recent trials of O.J. Simpson, Erik and Lyle Menendez, and various defendants in preschool molestation cases have been lengthy, lawyer-dominated soap operas in which the search for truth has been subordinated to the manipulation of procedures. ~ James Q Wilson,
440:He thinks of the old broken miners he'd see in Zollverein, sitting in chairs or on crates, not moving for hours, waiting to die. To men like that time was a surfeit, a barrel they watched slowly drain. When really, he thinks, it's a glowing puddle you carry in your hands; you should spend all your energy protecting it. Fighting for it. Working so hard not to spill one single drop. ~ Anthony Doerr,
441:It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things. ~ Terry Pratchett,
442:It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things. ~ Terry Pratchett,
443:He thinks of the old broken miners he’d see in Zollverein, sitting in chairs or on crates, not moving for hours, waiting to die. To men like that, time was a surfeit, a barrel they watched slowly drain. When really, he thinks, it’s a glowing puddle you carry in your hands; you should spend all your energy protecting it. Fighting for it. Working so hard not to spill one single drop. ~ Anthony Doerr,
444:Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: “I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. ~ Dale Carnegie,
445:Tanith looked back to Valkyrie. "And Val, relax, OK? We've though of everything."
"Skulduggery told me once that only he thinks of everythings, but he doesn't do it very often because it spoils the surprise."...
"Easy as proverbial pie."
"Unless something goes wrong," Valkyrie said.
"Well, yes. Unless something goes horribly, dreadfully wrong. Which it usually does of course. ~ Derek Landy,
446:I, personally, think Trump improved pretty dramatically and certainly changed pretty dramatically over the last hundred days. He's less of the populist. He's more of the corporatist. He's less incompetent. He's trying to at least turn toward people who can put a decision-making process. And he's trying to adjust to the job. And so whatever one thinks of him, he is certainly a learning creature. ~ David Brooks,
447:Don’t I have a choice in this?” But when she looks behind her, the answer is
clear. There are two guards waiting to make sure that she has no choice at all.
And as they lead her away, she thinks of Mr. Durkin. With a bitter laugh, Risa
realizes that he may get his wish after all. Someday he may see her hands playing
in Carnegie Hall. Unfortunately, the rest of Risa won’t be there. ~ Neal Shusterman,
448:Even if you fail to do it during your lifetime, you must think of god at least at the time of death, since one becomes what he thinks of
at the time of death. But unless all your life you have been thinking of God, unless you have accustomed yourself to dhyana of 'God
always during life, it would not at all be possible for you think of God at the time of death. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day by Day, 9-3-46,
449:To simplify your life, just think of yourself as a four-year-old child. Try to imagine the way he thinks of reality. If you have to talk to someone about a so-called complicated matter, see how you can simplify it.
No matter with whom you are talking, feel that you are a child and that person is also a child. When a childlike quality comes into your life, everything automatically becomes simple. ~ Sri Chinmoy,
450:A man must first care for his own household before he can be of use to the state. But no matter how well he cares for his household, he is not a good citizen unless he also takes thought of the state. In the same way, a great nation must think of its own internal affairs; and yet it cannot substantiate its claim to be a great nation unless it also thinks of its position in the world at large. ~ Theodore Roosevelt,
451:He thinks of his grief over his sister as an entity that is horribly and painfully attached to him, the way a jellyfish might adhere to your skin or a goitre or an abscess. He pictures it as viscid, amorphous, spiked, hideous to behold. He finds it unbelievable that no one else can see it. Don’t mind that, he would say, it’s just my grief. Please ignore it and carry on with what you were saying. ~ Maggie O Farrell,
452:In the end it is nothing other than the loving kindness with which the woman cares for her child that makes the difference. Her concern concentrates on one thing just like the Buddhist practice of concentration. She thinks of nothing but her child, which is similar to Buddhist compassion. That must be why, although she created no other causes to bring about it, she was reborn in the Brahma heaven. ~ Gautama Buddha,
453:The Argo was no longer beached beside the other ships but rocked at anchor some distance from shore.
“The king’s orders,” Iolaus whispered. “He thinks that once the ship’s got all her supplies aboard, she’d be too heavy for us to launch. That shows how little he knows of ships, or how little he thinks of us!”
“Or how eager he is to be sure nothing keeps Prince Jason here,” I murmured. ~ Esther M Friesner,
454:Werner looks at the blue of the walls and thinks of Birds of America, yellow-crowned heron, Kentucky warbler, scarlet tanager, bird after glorious bird, and Frederick’s gaze remains stuck in some terrible middle ground, each eye a stagnant pool into which Werner cannot bear to look. Relapse In late June 1942, for the first time since her fever, Madame Manec is not in the kitchen when Marie-Laure wakes. ~ Anthony Doerr,
455:One can ask why the I has to appear in the cogito {Descartes’ argument “I think therefore I am.}, since the cogito, if used rightly, is the awareness of pure consciousness, not directed at any fact or action. In fact the I is not necessary here, since it is never united directly to consciousness. One can even imagine a pure and self-aware consciousness which thinks of itself as impersonal spontaneity. ~ Jean Paul Sartre,
456:You are not wrong. You fought to protect your world. Isn't that good enough? After all, justice in this world is just a bunch of principles made by those with power to suit themselves. No one really thinks of others, you will lose everything if you cannot keep up. Only two kinds of people exist in this world—those who steal and those who are stolen from. So then, today, I just stole your future. That's all. ~ Yana Toboso,
457:Love's swooning and love's agitation-
for the first time the Demon now
experienced them; in shock and shiver
he thinks of fleeing - but no quiver
stirs in his wing! from his dimmed brow
a heavy teardrop, a slow river...
what a marvel! till today, quite near
that cell, there stands in wondrous fashion
a stone scorched by a tear of passion,
burnt through by an inhuman tear!... ~ Mikhail Lermontov,
458:There are some writers who sweep us along so strongly in their current of energy--Normal mailer, Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison, William F. Buckley, Jr., Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers--that we assume that when they go to work the words just flow. Nobody thinks of the effort they made every morning to turn on the switch. You also have to turn on the switch. Nobody is going to do it for you. ~ William Zinsser,
459:The cells of my body store fear the way others' do fat. Every terrifying and traumatic thing I've ever experienced is still held within my muscle fiber as well as in my brain tissue. It pervades nearly every aspect of my life and influences nearly all my actions. Everyone thinks of me as being so brave, but I recognize my own cowardice in all I do. Sometimes I feel fear building up in my throat like a scream. ~ Damien Echols,
460:I am beginning to feel that I have been wrong.” “I don’t think you have been wrong at all.” “A man is wrong if he attempts to carry a weight too great for his strength.” “A certain nervous sensitiveness, from which you should free yourself as from a disease, is your only source of weakness. Think about your business as a shoemaker thinks of his. Do your best, and then let your customers judge for themselves ~ Anthony Trollope,
461:All these people,” said Japhy, “they all got white-tiled toilets and take big dirty craps like bears in the mountains, but it’s all washed away to convenient supervised sewers and nobody thinks of crap any more or realizes that their origin is shit and civet and scum of the sea. They spend all day washing their hands with creamy soaps they secretly wanta eat in the bathroom.” He had a million ideas, he had ’em all. ~ Jack Kerouac,
462:I don't know why--there are no brick gables,' said Mrs. Prest, 'but this corner has seemed to me before more Dutch than Italian, more like Amsterdam than Venice. It's perversely clean, for reasons of its own; and though you can pass on foot scarcely anyone ever thinks of doing so. It has the air of a Protestant Sunday. Perhaps the people are afraid of the Misses Bordereau. I daresay they have the reputation of witches. ~ Henry James,
463:Is man's destiny determined by the vicissitudes of environment or free will? I argue that it is free will, because what we think, what we dwell upon in our heads, whether it be fears or dreams, has a direct effect upon the physical world. The more you think about your downfall, your ruin, the greater the likelihood that it will occur. And conversely, the more one thinks of victory, the more likely one will achieve it. ~ Marisha Pessl,
464:Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world of the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years... Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart. ~ George Matthew Adams,
465:When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means having a goal, but finding means being free, being open, having no goal. ~ Hermann Hesse,
466:Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as "big bursts" and "little bursts." Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really. ~ Elizabeth Strout,
467:Because if you base your self-worth on what everyone else thinks of you, you hand all your power over to other people and become dependent on a source outside of yourself for validation. Then you wind up chasing after something you have no control over, and should that something suddenly place its focus somewhere else, or change its mind and decide you’re no longer very interesting, you end up with a full-blown identity crisis. ~ Jen Sincero,
468:you must achieve liberation during your life time.
Even if you fail to do it during your lifetime, you must think of god at least at the time of death, since one becomes what he thinks of
at the time of death. But unless all your life you have been thinking of God, unless you have accustomed yourself to dhyana of 'God
always during life, it would not at all be possible for you think of God at the time of death. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
469:That's the big picture, your happiness. And health. You should never care what a man thinks of you -- until he demonstrates to you that he cares about making you happy. If he isn't trying to make you happy, then send him back from "whence" he came because winning him over will have no benefit. At the end of the day, happines, joy...and yes...your emotional stability...those comprise the only measuring stick you really need to have. ~ Sherry Argov,
470:We buy things. We wear them or put them on our walls, or sit on them, but anyone who wants to can take them away from us. Or break them.
...
Long after he's dead, someone else will own those stupid little boxes, and then someone after him, just as someone owned them before he did. But no one ever thinks of that: objects survive us and go on living. It's stupid to believe we own them. And it's sinful for them to be so important. ~ Donna Leon,
471:All this I learned about Julia, bit by bit, from the stories she told, from guesswork, knowing her, from what her friends said, from the odd expressions she now and then let slip, from occasional dreamy monologues of reminiscences; I learnt it as one does learn the former — as it seems at the time, the preparatory — life of a woman one loves, so that one thinks of oneself as part of it, directing it by devious ways, towards oneself. ~ Evelyn Waugh,
472:He uses you as a weapon against himself and not merely because you did. He sits in his car at traffic lights on his way out sometimes and tries to estimate how many times he has sat here, waiting at these traffic lights on his way somewhere without you, hoping to meet someone with the capacity to consign you to an anecdote, to be eventually confused with others. He thinks of you when the woman lying next to him thinks he's asleep. ~ Elliot Perlman,
473:Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less. Unfortunately, there's a style of acting going round, especially with the younger actors, where they talk without even moving their lip. Maybe it's because my hearing probably isn't what it was 40 years ago but I'm sitting there going "What did they say"? ~ Clint Eastwood,
474:Do they talk of dissolving the Union?… Well may the old man tremble, and his heart beat faint and low, When he thinks of the price it cost us some four score years ago!… If God has forsaken our country, the only boon I crave Is that he will delay its ruin till I have gone down to my grave; For I could not breathe with traitors, nor turn my face to the sun, Nor dwell in the land of the living, when the States are no longer one. ~ Michael R Beschloss,
475:He cannot settle his mind. He does not miss her, since she seems so insistently present, in the yellow lichen wrapping the bare beech branches, in the kestrel he once saw skimming the oaks, quivering it's outspread tail. Coming to the green stair -faded now, the carpet muddied - he thinks of her impatient hand on her own shirt's hem and the taste of her, and he comes undone, of course he does ; but that is not the whole or peak of it. ~ Sarah Perry,
476:Adolescents aren’t stupid–rationally, they already understand the risks. But in the heat of the moment, when they’re offered a cigarette or an Ecstasy tablet, many adolescents care far more about what their peer group thinks of them than about the potential health risks of their choice. Often, their decisions are driven by the fear of exclusion by their friends, rather than by a dispassionate consideration of the consequences. ~ Sarah Jayne Blakemore,
477:Every heat engineer knows he can design his heat engine reliably and accurately on the foundation of the second law [of thermodynamics]. Run alongside one of the molecules, however, and ask it what it thinks of the second law. It will laugh at us. It never heard of the second law. It does what it wants. All the same, a collection of billions upon billions of such molecules obeys the second law with all the accuracy one could want ~ John Archibald Wheeler,
478:Jack smiled. “There’re two kinds of environmentalists, Ella. The kind who hugs trees and thinks a single-cell amoeba is as important as a Nova Scotian elk . . . and then there’s my kind, which thinks of regulated hunting as part of responsible wildlife management. And since I like to be out in nature as much as possible, I’m against pollution, overfishing, global warming, deforestation, or anything else that messes with my stomping grounds. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
479:Strange, when one thinks of all the other boys, infinite experimental kisses, test tube infatuations, crushes, pseudo-loves. All through this physical separation, through the testing and the trying of the others, there has been this peculiar rapport, comradeship, of us two so alike, so similar, but for science-boy and humanities-girl - the introspection, self examination, biannual deep summarizing conversations, and then the platonic parting. ~ Sylvia Plath,
480:The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion. We reject the burden of their memory, and have anodynes against them. But the little things, the things of no moment, remain with us. In some tiny ivory cell the brain stores the most delicate, and the most fleeting impressions. ~ Oscar Wilde,
481:She thinks of the way they stood together near the bathroom, how it seemed like they'd been on the brink of something, of everything, like the whole world was changing as they huddled together in the dark. And now here they are, like two polite strangers, like she'd only ever imagined the rest of it. She wishes they could turn around again and fly back in the other direction, circling the globe backward, chasing the night they left behind. ~ Jennifer E Smith,
482:We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we’re so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won’t be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth—nobody was ever thinking about you, anyhow. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
483:Faithiest resonated with me in many ways-not only because, like Chris, I am a gay former-Christian atheist who still thinks of my religious neighbors as fellow truth-seekers-but also because I deeply appreciated the book's nuanced approach to contentious issues. This is an important contribution to current debates, one which should be read not only for its valuable content but also for its exemplary tone: warm, engaging, optimistic, and humble. ~ John Corvino,
484:If he stretches to care about something else – like what the Maestro thinks of him or how he fails at school or what he really wants to do with his life – he’ll be pulled too thin. His skin will part like old paper and the world will see how his skeleton is made of dark wishes and macabre dreams. They’ll know his heart thumps to the beat of the Maestro’s metronome because it’s too scared to do otherwise. But worst? They’ll see the emptiness inside him. ~ C G Drews,
485:We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we’re so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won’t be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth—nobody was ever thinking about you, anyhow.” They ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
486:Because man is born a rebel, he is unaware that he is one. His constant assertion of self, as far as he thinks of it at all, appears to him a perfectly normal things. He is willing to share himself, sometimes even to sacrifice himself for a desired end, but never to dethrone himself. No matter how far down the scale of social acceptance he may slide, he is still in his own eyes a king on a throne, and no one, not even God, can take that throne from him. ~ A W Tozer,
487:Churchill decides from very early on that he will create a political position that is somehow above left and right, embodying the best points of both sides and thereby incarnating the will of the nation. He thinks of himself as a gigantic keystone in the arch, with all the lesser stones logically induced to support his position. He has a kind of semi-ideology to go with it—a leftish Toryism: imperialist, romantic, but on the side of the working man. ~ Boris Johnson,
488:Some are little more than open platforms that glide on a cushion of resonant potential—ah, but you would not understand this. Let me say only that these vehicles float a few inches off the ground. No animals draw them. No steam or chemical fuels them. Should something, a pet or child perhaps, pass underneath, it will temporarily cease to exist, then resume on the other side, with no interruption of velocity or awareness. No one thinks of this as death. ~ N K Jemisin,
489:Yellow clouds beside the walls; crows near the tower.
Flying back, they caw, caw; calling in the boughs.
In the loom she weaves brocade, the Qin river girl.
Made of emerald yarn like mist, the window hides her words.
She stops the shuttle, sorrowful, and thinks of the distant man.
She stays alone in the lonely room, her tears just like the rain.
by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

~ Li Bai, Crows Calling At Night
,
490:Churchill decides from very early on that he will create a political position that is somehow above left and right, embodying the best points of both sides and thereby incarnating the will of the nation. He thinks of himself as a gigantic keystone in the arch, with all the lesser stones logically induced to support his position. He has a kind of semi-ideology to go with it - a leftish Toryism: imperialist, romantic, but on the side of the working man. ~ Boris Johnson,
491:...he knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a camel from whose pack hang wineskins and bags of candies fruit, date wine, tobacco leaves, and already he sees himself as the head of a long caravan taking him away from the desert of the sea, toward oases of fresh water in the palm trees' jagged shade, toward palaces of thick, whitewashed walls, tiled courts where girls are dancing barefoot, moving their arms, half-hidden by their veils, half-revealed. ~ Italo Calvino,
492:She said: “We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we’re so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won’t be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth—nobody was ever thinking about you, anyhow. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
493:Society thinks of violent acts as manifestations of evil or immorality. We're told we have ultimate control over our own behavior, that each and every one of us has the free will to choose not to hurt another human being. But it's not just morality that guides us. Biology does as well. Our frontal lobs helps us integrate thoughts and actions. They help us weight the consequences of those actions. Without such control, we'd give in to every wild impulse. ~ Tess Gerritsen,
494:The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn. ~ Albert Camus,
495:God wants your ministry to flow from the realization that you are a beloved child of God. In that place you don’t worry too much about how people see you. You don’t worry too much about whether they’re nice or mean. You don’t even worry about whether they love you or hate you. You don’t worry because you’re simply going to love them and love Him. This comes from knowing who He is and what He thinks of you. This is what it means to grasp you are a child of God. ~ Heidi Baker,
496:The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn. ~ Antonin Artaud,
497:And all the times I was picking up potatoes, I did have conversations with them. Too, I did have thinks of all their growing days there in the ground, and all the things they did hear. Earth-voices are glad voices, and earth-songs come up from the ground through the plants; and in their flowering, and in the days before these days are come, they do tell the earth-songs to the wind ... I have thinks these potatoes growing here did have knowings of star-songs. ~ Opal Whiteley,
498:A straightforward, open-hearted man like Weston, and a rational, unaffected woman like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their own concerns. You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than good to them, by interference.” “Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others,” rejoined Mr. Woodhouse, understanding but in part. “But, my dear, pray do not make any more matches; they are silly things, and break up one’s family circle grievously. ~ Jane Austen,
499:...she feels a desire to go to the bridge, alone, to throw something over the rail, into the current—a photograph, a hat, anything; she thinks of the pure pleasure of seeing the object lost in the flow, and maybe she thinks, as well, of closing a circle, though she doesn't believe in that myth of closing circles, of the culmination of a process. She believes, instead, that processes don't exist, that the circles we are capable of seeing are never the right ones. ~ Alejandro Zambra,
500:The common man, finding himself in a world so excellent, technically and socially, believes it has been produced by nature, and never thinks of the personal efforts of highly endowed individuals which the creation of this new world presupposed. Still less will he admit the notion that all these facilities still require the support of certain difficult human virtues, the least failure of which would cause the rapid disappearance of the whole magnificent edifice. ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset,
501:I know what that sort thinks of me: a city toff. A great useless peacock who knows nothing about the superior virtues of farm life."
"I don't think they'll judge you severely, so long as they believe that you're not judging them. Just try to be sincere, and you should have no difficulty."
"I have no talent for sincerity," West muttered.
"It's not a talent," Kathleen said. "It's a willingness to speak from your heart, rather than trying to be amusing or evasive. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
502:In the name of truth and common sense, why should not one woman acknowledge that she can take more exercise than another? or, in other words, that she has a sound constitution; and why to damp innocent vivacity, is she darkly to be told, that men will draw conclusions which she little thinks of? Let the libertine draw what inference he pleases; but, I hope, that no sensible mother will restrain the natural frankness of youth, by instilling such indecent cautions. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft,
503:When she thinks of the toxins built up inside of her from so many years of eating carelessly, of the resentment that has grown steadily over fifteen years of marriage, of the stretch marks and the varicose veins that came from two pregnancies, only one of them fulfilled, she thinks the inside of her body must tell a story like a tree. Were she to break open a bone, perhaps it would look like the inside of a coffee mug - riddled with lines, stained with brown blotches. ~ Benjamin Percy,
504:He has no interest in manners. Believe me, I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried.” After she’d brought him home for the first time, her mother had said, “Well, we can’t use him but we can definitely auction him off at UJA.”* Eisman had what amounted to a talent for offending people. “He’s not tactically rude,” his wife explains. “He’s sincerely rude. He knows everyone thinks of him as a character but he doesn’t think of himself that way. Steven lives inside his head. ~ Michael Lewis,
505:The conception of the Holy Spirit as a Divine influence or power that we are somehow to get hold of and use, leads to self-exaltation and self-sufficiency. One who so thinks of the Holy Spirit and who at the same time imagines that he has received the Holy Spirit will almost inevitably be full of spiritual pride and strut about as if he belonged to some superior order of Christians. One frequently hears such persons say, “I am a Holy Ghost man,” or “I am a Holy Ghost woman. ~ R A Torrey,
506:What is a Warrior of the Light?” “You already know that,” she replied with a smile. “He is someone capable of understanding the miracle of life, of fighting to the last for something he believes in—and of hearing the bells that the waves set ringing on the seabed.” He had never thought of himself as a Warrior of the Light. The woman seemed to read his thoughts. “Everyone is capable of these things. And, though no one thinks of himself as a Warrior of the Light, we all are. ~ Paulo Coelho,
507:The privatisation of the symbolic sphere is a strictly relative affair, not least if one thinks of the various Victorian contentions over science and religion, the culture industry, the state regulation of sexuality and the like. Today, one of the most glaring refutations of the case that religion has vanished from public life is known as the United States. Late modernity (or postmodernity, if one prefers) takes some of these symbolic practices back into public ownership. ~ Terry Eagleton,
508:An educator should think of a child as a gardener thinks of a plant, as something to be made to grow by having the right soil and the right amount of water. If your roses fail to bloom, it does not occur to you to whip them, but you try to find out what has been amiss in your treatment of them. ... The important thing is what the children do, and not what they do not do. And what they do, if it is to have value, must be a spontaneous expression of their own vital energy. ~ Bertrand Russell,
509:…it is the public sector I find more interesting, because governments and other non-market institutions have long suffered from the innovation malaise of top-heavy bureaucracies. Today, these institutions have an opportunity to fundamentally alter the way they cultivate and promote good ideas. The more the government thinks of itself as an open platform instead of a centralized bureaucracy, the better it will be for all of us, citizens and activists, and entrepreneurs alike. ~ Steven Johnson,
510:I thank you, too,” she said. “’Tis a comfort to know not everyone hereabout thinks of me as a fil—” “Don’t say it, Sweet Katie.” He interrupted her, not liking even to think of such a thing being spat at her. “You don’t need to hear those words again.” “’Twas a pleasure seeing you again, Tavish.” He smiled. “And here I thought you didn’t like me.” “When did I say I did?” He tipped his head thoughtfully. “Still trying to decide, are you?” She shrugged. “I’m giving it some thought. ~ Sarah M Eden,
511:An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God. The guy who built the Tower of Babel was the first artist. If I had to check out where I was in other centuries, I was his old lady. If I wasn't the guy, I was his chick. He knew that there was more and God got jealous. Even gods get uptight. Women make gods uptight. Everyone thinks of God as a man -- you can't help it -- Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man. But a man comes once. A woman never stops coming. ~ Patti Smith,
512:I agree with Varner and Scruton that the more one thinks of one's life as a story that has chapters still to be written, and the more one hopes for achievements yet to come, the more one has to lose by being killed. For this reason, when there is an irreconcilable conflict between the basic survival needs of animals and of normal humans, it is not speciesist to give priority to the lives of those with a biographical sense of their life and a stronger orientation towards the future. ~ Peter Singer,
513:An interesting difference between new and experienced stage managers is that the new stage manager thinks of running the show as the most difficult and most demanding part of the job, whereas the experienced stage manager thinks of it as the most relaxing part. Perhaps the reason is that experienced stage managers have built up work habits that make then so thoroughly prepared for the production phase that they [can] sit back during performances to watch that preparation pay off. ~ Laurence Sterne,
514:Some people think it's psuedo-science, but it's called morphic resonance. It's when someone thinks of an idea, it makes it easier for someone else to think of the idea. That's why you should do crossword puzzles later in the day, because other people have thought about the answers. That's why you hear about people coming up with inventions almost at the same time, because someone else is thinking about it. That's why whenever I have a really good idea, I'm always worried about theft. ~ Rich Fulcher,
515:We try to evade the question of existence with property, prestige, power, possession, production, fun, and, ultimately, by trying to forget that we- that I- exist. No matter how much he thinks of God or goes to church, or how much he believes in religious ideas , if he, the whole man, is deaf to the question of existence, if he does not have an answer to it, he is marking time, and he lives and dies like one of the million things he produces. He thinks of God, instead of experiencing God. ~ Erich Fromm,
516:Anyway, now she thinks of Estha and Rahel as Them, because, separately, the two of them are no longer what They were or ever thought They would be. Ever. Their lives have a size and a shape now. Estha has his and Rahel hers. Edges, Borders, Boundaries, Brinks and Limits have appeared like a team of trolls on their separate horizons. Short creatures with long shadows, patrolling the Blurry End. Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu was when she died. ~ Arundhati Roy,
517:Now, part of the problem with the climate debate is that so much gas board language like that [the IPCC's language] has been used and there's been too little plain, scientific, and economic thinking. And so, the entire political class has been captured by an idea, which as always with the best bad ideas has a grain of truth in it, which is then exaggerated beyond all reason. This has happened before - one thinks of the Dreyfus case, for instance. ~ Christopher Monckton 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley,
518:I’m an Indian.” She’s never told anyone this except Jack. To Tyler she knows she’s just . . . Goth, if he thinks of her at all. “Penobscot. I was born on Indian Island. And I just want to say that what happened to the Indians is exactly like what happened to the Irish under British rule. It wasn’t a fair fight. Their land was stolen, their religion was forbidden, they were forced to bend to foreign domination. It wasn’t okay for the Irish, and it’s not okay for the Indians.” “Jeez, ~ Christina Baker Kline,
519:said: “We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we’re so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won’t be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth—nobody was ever thinking about you, anyhow.” They aren’t. They weren’t. They never were. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
520:No,” said the cow. “But he’s afraid of me or he wouldn’t call me names. That’s what people always do when they’re scared. Well, I’m scared, too, so that makes us even. I’m going home. I want to think. There’s nothing we can do now. Grover’s got the upper hand, and the thing to do for a while is to go on about our regular business as he told us to. At least we’ll pretend to. If anybody thinks of a plan, talk it over with one or two others. We can’t hold any big meetings, but we don’t need ’em. ~ Walter R Brooks,
521:Anyway, now she thinks of Estha and Rahel as Them, because, separately, the two of them are no longer what They were or ever thought They would be.
Ever.
Their lives have a size and a shape now. Estha has his and Rahel hers.
Edges, Borders, Boundaries, Brinks and Limits have appeared like a team of trolls on their separate horizons. Short creatures with long shadows, patrolling the Blurry End. Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu was when she died. ~ Arundhati Roy,
522:But she needed ice on the roads. She needed her accident to look as accidental as possible. And she just didn’t think she was capable of waiting another three months. Julia, however, knows none of this. She looks down at what remains of her best friend, and she thinks of all the times Liz was quiet and not really there. The times when she was the Liz everyone else knows, all snark and insanity, and the moments when she was the one that stared at invisible things and hadn’t truly smiled in a long time. ~ Amy Zhang,
523:Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . . ~ Marcus Aurelius,
524:Once you decide something put all your petty fears away. Your decision should vanquish them. I will tell you time and time again, the most effective way to live is as a warrior. Worry and think before you make any decision, but once you make it, be on your way free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting you. That's the warrior's way.
A warrior thinks of his death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit. ~ Carlos Castaneda,
525:The nobler sort of man emphasizes the good qualities in others, and does not accentuate the bad. The inferior does the reverse. . . . The nobler sort of man pays special attention to nine points. He is anxious to see clearly, to hear distinctly, to be kindly in his looks, respectful in his demeanor, conscientious in his speech, earnest in his affairs. When in doubt, he is careful to inquire; when in anger, he thinks of the consequences; when offered an opportunity for gain, he thinks only of his duty. ~ Confucius,
526:Blue thinks of this now as he makes his way across the river, watching black ahead of him and remembering his father and his boyhood out in Gravesend. The old man was a cop, later a detective at the 77th precinct, and life would have been good, Blue thinks, except for the bullet that went through his father's brain in 1927. Twenty years ago, he says to himself, suddenly appalled by the time that has past, wondering if there is a heaven, and if so whether or not he will get to see his father after he dies. ~ Paul Auster,
527:Blue thinks of this now as he makes his way across the river, watching black ahead of him and remembering his father and his boyhood out in Gravesend. The old man was a copy, later a detective at the 77th precinct, and life would have been good, Blue thinks, except for the bullet that went through his father's brain in 1927. Twenty years ago, he says to himself, suddenly appalled by the time that has past, wondering if there is a heaven, and if so whether or not he will get to see his father after he dies. ~ Paul Auster,
528:All right. Mae, we have to change how we interact. Every time I see or hear from you, it’s through this filter. You send me links, you quote someone talking about me, you say you saw a picture of me on someone’s wall.… It’s always this third-party assault. Even when I’m talking to you face-to-face you’re telling me what some stranger thinks of me. It becomes like we’re never alone. Every time I see you, there’s a hundred other people in the room. You’re always looking at me through a hundred other people’s eyes. ~ Dave Eggers,
529:If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion. ~ Joseph Brodsky,
530:June, 1915
Who thinks of June's first rose today?
Only some child, perhaps, with shining eyes and
rough bright hair will reach it down.
In a green sunny lane, to us almost as far away
As are the fearless stars from these veiled lamps of town.
What's little June to a great broken world with eyes gone dim
From too much looking on the face of grief, the face of dread?
Or what's the broken world to June and him
Of the small eager hand, the shining eyes, the rough bright head?
~ Charlotte Mary Mew,
531:Olive. . . knows that loneliness can kill people - in different ways can actually make you die. Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as "big bursts" and "little bursts". Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really. ~ Elizabeth Strout,
532:I have only one life story to tell, but Gerda must have several, for although by and large I know her past and know enough people who have known her from a child, when she talks about herself there are an infinite number of deviations, indeed not even deviations, because there is no line from which she could deviate, there are simply a large number of versions and interpretations of her life. When she is in a good mood and becomes talkative, she no sooner thinks of a detail than her life story takes a different turn. ~ Ingeborg Bachmann,
533:Here's how the people live here, in big house-shaped boxes to keep off 'rain' and 'snow,' holes cut in the sides so they can see out. They move around in smaller boxes, painted different colours, with wheels on the corners. They need this box-culture because each person thinks of herself and himself as locked in a box called a 'body,' arms and legs, fingers to move pencils and tools, languages because they've forgotten how to communicate, eyes because they've forgotten how to see. Odd little planet. Wish you were here. Home soon. ~ Richard Bach,
534:Oh, and because I don’t have a dating history as big as your mouth, it doesn’t quite measure up?” he asks.
“I hate to break this to you, but that isn’t the only thing of yours that doesn’t measure up.” She waggles her pinkie at him.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He grins.
“I think I’m all set,” I interrupt, zipping up my bag.
“Don’t forget this.” Still cuddling my sweater, Wes purrs a couple of times before tossing it my way.
“Yeah, I can’t imagine why your dad thinks of you as feminine,” Kimmie mocks. ~ Laurie Faria Stolarz,
535:Everywhere, the orange trees are holding out their arms to one another. The child is twelve years old, with a porcelain heart. At his age, there's so much to love at first sight, and simply because his trust runs as deep as his joy, he thinks of devouring the moon like a fruit, convinced that he need only reach out his hand to gather up the happiness of all the world.... and there, before my eyes.... the boy bounds to his feet, his arms spread like a kestrel's wings, and goes running across the fileds, where every tree is enchanted.... ~ Yasmina Khadra,
536:On a whim, Pisit calls the monk back to ask what he thinks of all this, and Western culture in general. After his drubbing just now he is in a Zen-ish sort of mood, not to say downright sarcastic: 'Actually, the West is Culture of Emergency: Twisters in Texas, earthquakes in California, windchill in Chicago, drought, flood, famine, epidemics, war on everything - watch out for that meteor and how much longer does the sun really have? Of course, if you didn't believe you could control everything, there wouldn't be an emergency, would there? ~ John Burdett,
537:There are no clean victories for black people, nor, perhaps, for any people. The presidency of Barack Obama is no different. One can now say that an African American individual can rise to the same level as a white individual, and yet also say that the number of black individuals who actually qualify for that status will be small. One thinks of Serena Williams, whose dominance and stunning achievements can’t, in and of themselves, ensure equal access to tennis facilities for young black girls. The gate is open and yet so very far away. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates,
538:And indeed, what is better than to sit by one's fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window and the lamp is burning?" "What, indeed?" she said, fixing her large black eyes wide open upon him. "One thinks of nothing," he continued; "the hours slip by. Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your thought, blending with the fiction, playing with the details, follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with the characters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitating beneath their costumes. ~ Gustave Flaubert,
539:To Kim, raising children has many lessons for running a company. Both require a balancing of short-term needs and long-term goals. “First and foremost, your commitment to them is for life,” Kim says. “Ultimately, you want them to become better people.” Kim thinks of his employees exactly the same way. He knows most people would never get rid of their children during hard times, so “how can we lay off our people under the same conditions?” he asks. “Despite how much we may fight with our siblings, we can’t get rid of family. We have to make it work. ~ Simon Sinek,
540:Make a conscious choice. Decide to move your index finger. Too late! The electricity's already halfway down your arm. Your body began to act a full half-second before your conscious self 'chose' to, for the self chose nothing; something else set your body in motion, sent an executive summary—almost an afterthought— to the homunculus behind your eyes. That little man, that arrogant subroutine that thinks of itself as the person, mistakes correlation for causality: it reads the summary and it sees the hand move, and it thinks that one drove the other. ~ Peter Watts,
541:On the leash still, with her hands behind her back and the muzzle over her mouth, she faces Parks like the chieftain of a savage tribe, on her dignity, and Justineau is suddenly aware of the changes in her. She’s out in the world now, her education accelerating from a standing start to some dangerous, unguessable velocity. She thinks of an old painting. And When Did You Last See Your Father? Because Melanie’s stance is exactly the same as the way the kid stands in that picture. For Melanie, though, that would be a completely meaningless question. “You ~ M R Carey,
542:A little rain, a little blood. Black fingernails in August; and going berserk, going bananas. As if entrapped in a tropical heatwave, with dozens of whirlwinds swirling in one’s mind, one thinks of a way out, or a way in: out of the scorching bosom of a volcano, and in – into the centre of a raging hurricane. And tracing the labyrinthine ways of your mind, the haphazard vagaries of your thoughts at ease, the odds and ends of your mental surplus you carelessly throw at the world, one wants to be at a loss, in a maze; amazed, and amazingly unabashed. ~ Adam Zagajewski,
543:As he looks closer at the parade of crepe myrtles down Ledwicke, the carefully tended lawns and proud homes, lived in and loved by settlers, pioneers who, a generation before Jay, had paved the way for everything he has in his life, starting with the power of protest, the example they gracefully laid, brick by brick—and as he thinks of Arlee on her knees, caring for the memorial of a girl she didn’t know—it dawns on him that he may have kept Pleasantville on his desk not for the money, his supposed way out, but for a back way in, a way back to himself. ~ Attica Locke,
544:[Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks of him, one thinks inevitably of such men as Goethe and Aristotle. For in him there was that rich, incomparable blend of intelligence and character, of colossal knowledge and high adventurousness, of instinctive honesty and indomitable courage which appears in mankind only once in a blue moon. There have been far greater scientists, even in England, but there has never been a scientist who was a greater man. ~ H L Mencken,
545:Bureaucracy holds out at least the possibility of dealing with other human beings in ways that do not demand either party has to engage in all those complex and exhausting forms of interpretive labor described in the first essay in this book, where just as you can simply place your money on the counter and not have to worry about what the cashier thinks of how you're dressed, you can also pull out your validated photo ID card without having to explain to the librarian why you are so keen to read about homoerotic themes in eighteenth century British verse. ~ David Graeber,
546:The capacity for loving strangers, whether one thinks of them as fictional beings or stars one will never meet, is a profound reflection on the new consciousness whereby every individual leads his or life while aware of all the billions of other people on Earth. Perhaps it is a fantasy or a fallacy that we can feel for so many strangers. Perhaps it is a mask for selfishness. But no matter the modern stress on special effects, there isn't a sight in movies as momentous as shots of a face as its mind is being changed. And only movies have allowed that. ~ Edward Jay Epstein,
547:There Is A Tavern In The Town
There is a tavern in the town, in the town,
And there my true love sits him down, sits him down,
And drinks his wine 'mid laughter free,
And never, never thinks of me.
Fare thee well, for I must leave thee,
Do not let this parting grieve thee,
And remember that the best of friends must part, must part.
Adieu, adieu, kind friends, adieu, adieu, adieu!
I can no longer stay with you, stay with you,
I'll hang my harp on a weeping willow tree,
And may the world go well with thee.
~ Anonymous Americas,
548:When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it can easily happen that the only thing his eyes see is that for which he is searching. He is then unable to find anything or let any thought enter his mind because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search. He is obsessed by a goal; searching means having a goal. But finding means: being free, open, and having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, because, in striving for your goal, there are many things that you don’t see, even though they are right in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse,
549:Our feelings probably are not less strong at fifty than they were ten or fifteen years before; but they have changed their objects, and dwell on far different prospects. At five-and-thirty a man thinks of what his own existence is; when the maturity of age has grown into its autumn, he is wrapt up in that of others. The loss of wife or child then becomes more deplorable, as being impossible to repair; for no fresh connection can give us back the companion of our earlier years, nor a "new-sprung race" compensate for that, whose career we hoped to see run. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,
550:It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box would you?... Even taking into account the fact that you're dead, it isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off-- I'm going to stuff you in this box now would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all. ~ Tom Stoppard,
551:That night Lance wants to rub his penis as he thinks of Lexi but he refrains. He doesn’t want Lexi to be a masturbatory fantasy in the tradition of Cindy Crawford, Heather Locklear, Kate Hudson and Whoopi Goldberg. No. Hell no! As a matter of fact, hellll no with marshmallows on top. Lance wants Lexi to be his special lady, everything he needs and more. Lance has a gut feeling, an irritable bowel syndrome sensation, that Lexi is his Soul Mate, the one woman God made especially for him to enjoy. Lance wonders if Lexi is allergic to hyacinths. Roses are so common. ~ Misti Rainwater Lites,
552:The physiological advantages of the practice of injection are undeniable, if one thinks of the tremendous waste of human time and energy occasioned by eating and the digestive process. Our bodies are half made up of glands and tubes and organs, occupied in turning heterogeneous food into blood. The digestive processes and their reaction upon the nervous system sap our strength and colour our minds. Men go happy or miserable as they have healthy or unhealthy livers, or sound gastric glands. But the Martians were lifted above all these organic fluctuations of mood and emotion. ~ H G Wells,
553:*   *   * Cat likes to think of herself as a nice person. But right now she is sitting in the back of a taxi snarling every time she thinks of Louise, and the glory now being heaped upon her since she got an exclusive interview with Polly Goldman, in which the soap star talked about her drug bust. “Louise isn’t even a bloody news journalist,” Cat mutters to herself, as the cabby slides the glass panel open, half-turning his head and shouting: “What was that love? Did you say something?” “Nothing.” Cat attempts a bright smile before sinking back in her seat and muttering some ~ Jane Green,
554:First I might say that when a person, when a man separates from his wife, at the out start it's a physical separation but it's not a psychological separation. He still thinks of her in, in probably warm terms. And, but after the physical separation has taken, existed for a period of time, it becomes a psychological separation as well as physical. And he can then look at her more objectively. My split or separation from the Black Muslim movement at first was only a physical separation, but my heart was still there and it was impossible for me to, for me to look at it objectively. ~ Malcolm X,
555:When someone is searching." said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher,because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse,
556:This thought causes Olive to nod her head slowly as she lies on the bed. She knows that loneliness can kill people - in different ways can actually make you die. Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as "big bursts" and "little bursts." Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, uneven currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really. ~ Elizabeth Strout,
557:In Chapter 1, on relativity, I offered some dating advice. I proposed that if you want to go bar-hopping, you should consider taking along someone who looks similar to you but who is slightly less attractive than you are. Because of the relative nature of evaluations, others would perceive you not only as cuter than your decoy, but also as better-looking than other people in the bar. By the same logic, I also pointed out that the flip side of this coin is that if someone invites you to be his or her wingman (or wingwoman), you can easily figure out what your friend really thinks of you. ~ Anonymous,
558:When someone is searching, said Siddhartha, then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse,
559:When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means having a goal, but finding means being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don’t see, which are directly in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse,
560:When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse,
561:When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don’t see, which are directly in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse,
562:It is better to think of Marx as a philosopher – in the broadest sense – rather than as a scientist. We have seen how Marx’s predictions were derived from his application of Hegel’s philosophy to the progress of human history and the economics of capitalism. No one now thinks of Hegel as a scientist, although Hegel, like Marx, described his work as ‘scientific’. The German term they both used includes any serious, systematic study, and in that sense, of course, Marx and Hegel were both scientists; but we now regard Hegel as a philosopher, and we should think of Marx primarily in the same way. ~ Anonymous,
563:This way of thinking—that God is at best a loving tyrant who only thinks of Himself and His means—is like thinking that my children live to serve me and me alone. It would be like me saying to my daughter, “I don’t care that you like to sing and dance; accounting is what I really want you to do, so if you love me, do it, and forget about all that other stuff.” In truth, that first phrase, “I don’t care,” is totally incongruent with a passionately loving God. He does care. He cares immensely. That’s why He made you the way He did. It’s why He gave you the desires and talents that you have. ~ Darren Wilson,
564:Gwen has never been so frightened in her life. There's some comfort in knowing that the others are out here with her, even if she can't see them. It's like she's alone in a dark void. She can't bear to think about David, what the gunshots might mean. Is someone else dead? She wonders if soon there will be no one left at all. She wants to live, but she hopes that if she has to die, she isn't the last one. She doesn't think she could bear it. She is defenseless. She thinks of the small, sharp letter opener that had been lying on the writing desk in their room. She wishes she had it with her now. ~ Shari Lapena,
565:Brian discovers that this first group features two bricklayers, a machinist, a doctor, a gun-store owner, a veterinarian, a plumber, a barber, an auto mechanic, a farmer, a fry cook, and an electrician. The second group—Brian thinks of them as the Dependents—features the sick, the young, and all the white-collar workers with obscure administrative backgrounds. These are the former middle managers and office drones, the paper pushers and corporate executives who once pulled down six-figure incomes running divisions of huge multinationals—now just taking up space, as obsolete as cassette tapes. ~ Robert Kirkman,
566:Shara was already an avid reader by then, but she had never realized until that moment what books meant, the possibility they presented: you could protect them forever, store them up like engineers store water, endless resources of time and knowledge snared in ink, tied down to paper, layered on shelves.... Moments made physical, untouchable, perfect, like preserving a dead hornet in crystal, one drop of venom forever hanging from its stinger.
She felt overwhelmed. It was--she briefly thinks of herself and Vo, reading together in the library--a lot like being in love for the first time. ~ Robert Jackson Bennett,
567:When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still
see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he
always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the
goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh
venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't
see, which are directly in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse,
568:A common response in surveys of religious attitudes is to say something like, 'I don't go to church, but I have my own personal idea of God.' This kind of statement makes me in turn react like a philosopher. Soppy, I cry. You have your own personal idea of God, but does God have His own personal idea of you? Because that's what matters. Whether He's an old man with a white beard sitting in the sky, or a life force, or a disinterested prime mover, or a clockmaker, or a woman, or a nebulous moral force, or nothing at all, what counts is what He, She, It, or Nothing thinks of you rather than you of them. ~ Julian Barnes,
569:After he's gone Greer sits for a long time. She rests her head on her knees and weeps - not because she loved Blake and not because she's lost him. But because she did not care of herself. She knew Blake's nature the moment she met him, just as she knew the philandering fiancé. She knew them and she knew herself. Greer thinks of the story of the scorpion and the frog, and she knows she cannot blame these men for her messy life, they only did what she always knew they would do. No, this is not about crushed hopes and broken dreams. This is about trusting her own heart. Hope doesn't even enter into it. ~ Menna van Praag,
570:On Slavery: The saddest slap in the face is we have NO monument, no real statues or memorials, no special day of Atonement or Remembrance (NOT ONE), no thanks for 400+ years of free labor, forced servitude across the Trans-Atlantic, ass beatings, buying ourselves and families out of slavery, rape and plunder...but everyone else has monuments, special museums, and even movies. This is what America thinks of black people, so-called black president and all, who has been largely silent on this subject...we'll even celebrate Leprechauns, Easter Bunnies, and Secretary's Day before we acknowledge our history. ~ Brandi L Bates,
571:Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this part of philosophy. For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity. But as to what any man shall say or think about him, or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two things: (1) with acting justly in what he now does, and (2) being satisfied with what is now assigned to him. He lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits- and desires nothing else - than to do what is right, and accomplish God's will." [Book X v. 11] ~ Marcus Aurelius,
572:For the serious and dedicated guitarist, learning to play and master the Guitar represents The Path or Way of Enlightenment of which there is no end. Ultimately, playing the Guitar represents the Path to Spiritual Perfection. The guitarist is always a student on this Path. To become a master of the Guitar, relatively speaking, is to always be a student of the Guitar, continually learning and growing with the instrument. The master never thinks of him or herself as a master, but rather as the eternal student on whatever Path he or she is walking in life. We are all students here on this little green earth. ~ David Cherubim,
573:When someone is searching, said Siddhartha, then it might easily
happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches
for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind,
because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search,
because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching
means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having
no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because,
striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are
directly in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse,
574:Now, whenever she thinks of it, she is confused about what she did and didn't cause. She is confused about desire, and her own desirability. She is confused about her own sexuality. It should be hers to wield as she wishes, she knows this, but why—even if she isn't wielding it, exactly, even if she's just being herself—is there the sense of a shameful invitation, or even an invitation at all? She knows she should be able to invite if she wants to invite, to say no if she wants to say no, yes if she wants to say yes, to allure or not allure, to just simply feel good about what her body is and does and how it looks. ~ Deb Caletti,
575:You need to do better… with the jealousy thing, not every guy wants to get in my pants.”
“You’re wrong, every guy does want to get in your pants,” Lee said.
“Tex doesn't.”
“Tex isn't every guy. Tex is a crazy guy and he’s old enough to be your father.”
“Duke doesn't,” I tried.
“Dolores would chop Duke’s dick off if he so much as looked at another woman and he’s old enough to be your father.”
“Hank doesn't,” I persevered.
“Hank doesn't count. He thinks of you as his little sister.”
“Darius doesn't.” I was a dog with a bone.
“Darius doesn't fuck white women.”
Jeez.

rock chick 1 ~ Kristen Ashley,
576:I listen to his heartbeat. Hear him breathe. As though becomes motion and motion becomes all that lies between him and his end. As the black Is burning blue with the light of tiny funeral pyres. As his missiles and bullets take away his enemy. All they were and will ever be. I can taste it in his whispers. See it in the tiny photograph he has taped to his console. All he thinks of amid this loveless dance. All he cares about here on the edge of forever, is her. He does not want to die. Not because he is afraid. Simply because of he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind. And there, in that tiny moment, I envy him. ~ Amie Kaufman,
577:I heard an old man speak once, someone who had been sober for fifty years, a very prominent doctor. He said that he’d finally figured out a few years ago that his profound sense of control, in the world and over his life, is another addiction and a total illusion. He said that when he sees little kids sitting in the back seat of cars, in those car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver's seat. ~ Anne Lamott,
578:An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with state legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. Surely politicians could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the literary reputation of the Jewish God. ~ Robert G Ingersoll,
579:they’ve come here to dance, drawn sideways from their route home by the music and by bravado, and now they are hesitating, unsure of how to begin, unfamiliar with the steps, embarrassed.............they dance, and he smiles and nods and thinks of his wife sleeping at home, and thinks of when they were young and might still have done something like this………… but here, as the dawn sneaks up on the last day of summer, and as a man with tired hands watches a young couple dance in the carpark of his restaurant, there are only these: sparkling eyes, smudged lipstick, fading starlight, the crunching of feet on gravel, laughter, and a slow walk home…… ~ Jon McGregor,
580:Vows
Nay, ask me not. I would not dare pretend
To constant passion and a life-long trust.
They will desert thee, if indeed they must.
How can we guess what Destiny will send Smiles of fair fortune, or black storms to rend
What even now is shaken by a gust?
The fire will burn, or it will die in dust.
We cannot tell until the final end.
And never vow was forged that could confine
Aught but the body of the thing whereon
Its pledge was stamped. The inner soul divine,
That thinks of going, is already gone.
When faith and love need bolts upon the door,
Faith is not faith, and love abides no more.
~ Ada Cambridge,
581:Let me get someone to drive you home,” I say before my fucked-up mind thinks of a million ways I could violate her tonight. I’m buzzed from alcohol and high, too. When I have sex with this girl, I want all my faculties.
She purses her lips and pouts like a kid. “No. I don’t want to go home. Anywhere but home.”
Oh, man.
I’m in trouble. Tengo un problema grande.
She looks up at me, her eyes in the moonlight sparking like rare, expensive jewels. “Colin thinks I want you, you know. He says our bickering is foreplay.”
“Is it?” I ask, holding my breath to hear her response. Please, please let me remember the answer in the morning. ~ Simone Elkeles,
582:Many young men and women join the U.S. forces under the misleading propaganda of the U.S. government, which makes people believe that the Armed Forces are nothing but a big Battle of Honor: if you join the Army, you are a living martyr; you’re defending not only your family, your country, and American democracy but also freedom and oppressed people all around the world. Great, there is nothing wrong with that; it may even be the dream of every young man or woman. But the reality of the U.S. forces is a little tiny bit different. To go directly to the bottom line: the rest of the world thinks of Americans as a bunch of revengeful barbarians. ~ Mohamedou Ould Slahi,
583:And indeed, what is better than to sit by one's fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window and the lamp is burning? One thinks of nothing, the hours slip by. Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your thought, blending with the fiction, playing with the details, follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with the characters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitating beneath their costumes. Has it ever happened to you, to come across some vague idea of one's own in a book, some dim image that comes back to you from afar, and as the completest expression of your own slightest sentiment? ~ Gustave Flaubert,
584:Being a father is a revelatory experience. My son is a complete surprise in terms of how wonderful I find him to be, which is probably what every father, I hope, thinks of his children too. I don’t want to put any burden of expectation on him in terms of what we as Asian Americans are supposed to want from our children, which is an Ivy League education and professional success and all that. That to me is not important. I look at him and I see someone who is happy, and loving, and kind, and a joy, and I want him to retain all those qualities as he grows and lives. That to me is more important than any kind of external success that he might achieve. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen,
585:i listen to his heartbeat. hear him breath.
as thought becomes motion and motion becomes all that lies between him and his end. as the black is burned blue with the light of tiny funeral pyres. as his missiles and bullets take away his enemies, all they were and will ever be. i can taste it in his sweat. hear it in his whispers. see it in the tiny photograph he has taped to his console.
all he thinks of amid this loveless dance,
all he cares about here on the edge of forever,
is her.
he does not want to die. not because he is afraid. simply because he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind.
and there, in that tiny moment, i envy him. ~ Jay Kristoff,
586:The Chinese nation is the most patient in the world; it thinks of centuries as other nations think of decades. It is essentially indestructible, and can afford to wait. The "civilized" nations of the world, with their blockades their poison gases, their bombs submarines and negro armies, will probably destroy each other within the next three hundred years, leaving the stage to those whose pacifism has kept them alive, though poor and powerless. If China can avoid being goaded into war, her oppressors may wear themselves out in the end, and leave the Chinese free to pursue humane ends, instead of war and rapine and destruction which all white nations love. ~ Bertrand Russell,
587:Make a conscious choice. Decide to move your index finger. Too late! The electricity's already halfway down your arm. Your body began to act a full half-second before your conscious self 'chose' to, for the self chose nothing; something else set your body in motion, sent an executive summary—almost an afterthought— to the homunculus behind your eyes. That little man, that arrogant subroutine that thinks of itself as the person, mistakes correlation for causality: it reads the summary and it sees the hand move, and it thinks that one drove the other. But it's not in charge. You're not in charge. If free will even exists, it doesn't share living space with the likes of you. ~ Peter Watts,
588:As soon as a Western man comes into contact with the East -- he's already confused. The West has sort of an international rape mentality towards the East. ...Basically, 'Her mouth says no, but her eyes say yes.' The West thinks of itself as masculine -- big guns, big industry, big money -- so the East is feminine -- weak, delicate, poor...but good at art, and full of inscrutable wisdom -- the feminine mystique. Her mouth says no, but her eyes say yes. The West believes the East, deep down, wants to be dominated -- because a woman can't think for herself. ...You expect Oriental countries to submit to your guns, and you expect Oriental women to be submissive to your men. ~ David Henry Hwang,
589:15. The evil-doer mourns in this world, and he mourns in the next; he mourns in both. He mourns and suffers when he sees the evil of his own work. 16. The virtuous man delights in this world, and he delights in the next; he delights in both. He delights and rejoices, when he sees the purity of his own work. 17. The evil-doer suffers in this world, and he suffers in the next; he suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done; he suffers more when going on the evil path. 18. The virtuous man is happy in this world, and he is happy in the next; he is happy in both. He is happy when he thinks of the good he has done; he is still more happy when going on the good path. ~ Anonymous,
590:Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, lemme tell you. Those are big years. Everybody always thinks of it as a time of adolescence—just getting through to the real part of your life—but it's more than that. Sometimes your whole life happens in those years, and the rest of your life it's just the same story playing out with different characters. I could die tomorrow and have lived the main ups and downs of life. Pain. Loss. Love. And what you all so fondly refer to as wisdom. Wanna know the difference between adult wisdom and young adult wisdom? You have the ability to look back at your past and interpret it. I have the ability to look at my present and live it with my whole body. ~ Lidia Yuknavitch,
591:he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him—the present anxiety and suspense. It is about this that he is to say ‘Thy will be done’, and for the daily task of bearing this that the daily bread will be provided. It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practise fortitude and patience to them all in advance. For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, ~ C S Lewis,
592:Sonnet Lxxii
OFt when my spirit doth spred her bolder winges,
In mind to mount vp to the purest sky:
it down is weighd with thoght of earthly things:
and clogd with burden of mortality,
Where when that souerayne beauty it doth spy,
resembling heauens glory in her light:
drawne with sweet pleasures bayt, it back doth fly,
and vnto heauen forgets her former flight.
There my fraile fancy fed with full delight,
doth bath in blisse and mantleth most at ease:
ne thinks of other heauen, but how it might
her harts desire with most contentment please,
Hart need not with none other happinesse,
but here on earth to haue such heuens blisse.
~ Edmund Spenser,
593:When you’re the Woman Upstairs, nobody thinks of you first. Nobody calls you before anyone else, or sends you the first postcard. Once your mother dies, nobody loves you best of all. It’s a small thing, you might think; and maybe it depends upon your temperament; maybe for some people it’s a small thing. But for me, in that cul-de-sac outside Aunt Baby’s, with my father and aunt done dissecting death and shuffling off to bed behind the crimson farmhouse door, preparing for morning mass as blameless as lambs and as lifeless as the slaughtered—I felt forsaken by hope. I felt I’d been seen, and seen clearly, and discarded, dropped back into the undiscriminated pile like a shell upon the shore. ~ Claire Messud,
594:Doremus was amazed, felt a little apologetic over his failure to have appreciated this new-found paragon, as he sat in American Legion Hall and heard Shad bellowing: “I don’t pretend to be anything but a plain working-stiff, but there’s forty million workers like me, and we know that Senator Windrip is the first statesman in years that thinks of what guys like us need before he thinks one doggone thing about politics. Come on, you bozos! The swell folks tell you to not be selfish! Walt Trowbridge tells you to not be selfish! Well, be selfish, and vote for the one man that’s willing to give you something—give you something!—and not just grab off every cent and every hour of work that he can get! ~ Sinclair Lewis,
595:Form often this good thought, that we are walking in this world between Paradise and Hell, and that our last step will place us in an eternal dwelling. We do not know which step will be our last, and so, in order to make our last step well, we must try to make all the others well.

O holy and unending eternity! Blessed is he who thinks of you. Yes, for what do we play here in this world but a children's game for who knows how many days? It would be nothing whatever, if it were not the passage to eternity.

On this account, therefore, we must pay attention to the time we have to dwell here below, and to all our occupations, so as to employ them in the conquest of the permanent good. ~ Francis de Sales,
596:Which would be more important to Grom-upholding the law by not mating with a Half-Breed, or mating with one to ensure the survival of the Gifts? Galen doesn't know. But even if Grom chooses not to reproduce with Emma, will he allow Galen to take her as his mate? Because if Romul and Atta are right, Emma will never sprout a fin. Which means Galen will have to live with her on land.
Is it worth it? To give up years of my life to be with her? Galen thinks of the curve of her hips, the fullness of her lips, the way she blushes when he catches her looking at him. And he remembers how sick he felt when Dr. Milligan indicated Emma would die before him.
Oh, yes. It's absolutely worth it. ~ Anna Banks,
597:There are big questions science doesn’t answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can’t be a scientific answer to that because it’s the answer that precedes science. There are all sorts of questions like that that which at the periphery of scientic inquiry but which wiggle in the mind like worms: the question “what am I, what is this word ‘I’”? Does it refer to anything? If you try to capture the “I”, you don’t capture it, you capture the object, in which case it’s a nothing, but it’s a nothing on which everything depends. But this nothing on which everything depends thinks of itself as free. This is a philosophical question that worries everyone, but you can’t formulate it. ~ Roger Scruton,
598:Form often this good thought, that we are walking in this world between Paradise and Hell, and that our last step will place us in an eternal dwelling. We do not know which step will be our last, and so, in order to make our last step well, we must try to make all the others well.

O holy and unending eternity! Blessed is he who thinks of you. Yes, for what do we play here in this world but a children's game for who knows how many days? It would be nothing whatever, if it were not the passage to eternity.

On this account, therefore, we must pay attention to the time we have to dwell here below, and to all our occupations, so as to employ them in the conquest of the permanent good. ~ Saint Francis de Sales,
599:Whenever God thinks of you, he has your best interests in mind; he has plans to take you further, deeper, and higher than you ever dreamed. This process begins when you seek God and spend time with him. Look for every opportunity to know God. Consider your daily schedule. What does it include? A workout at the gym? A trip to the post office? A lunch hour? A commute? Look for ways to include God in your activities. Invite God to accompany you by talking together. Look for moments- even if it's only ten or twenty seconds- to steal away with him. God will reward your efforts as you reshape your inner life to be focused around him. As you seek God, you will find yourself abiding in him." -Hungry for God ~ Margaret Feinberg,
600:In the white man's world, language, too -- and the way which the white man thinks of it--has undergone a process of change. The white man takes such things as words and literatures for granted, as indeed he must, for nothing in his world is so commonplace. On every side of him there are words by the millions, an unending succession of pamphlets and papers, letters and books, bills and bulletins, commentaries and conversations. He has diluted and multiplied the Word, and words have begun to close in on him. He is sated and insensitive; his regard for language -- for the Word itself -- as an instrument of creation has diminished nearly to the point of no return. It may be that he will perish by the Word. ~ N Scott Momaday,
601:The Song Of Loved Ones
The father toils at his work all day,
And he hums this song as he plods away:
'Heigho! for the mother and babe of three
Who watch at the window each night for me.
Their smiles are ever before my eyes,
And never the sound of their voices dies,
But ever and ever they seem to say,
'Love waits for you at the close of day.''
At home, a mother is heard to croon
To a little babe, this simple tune:
'Heigho! for the father who toils to-day,
He thinks of us, though he's far away;
He soon will come with a happy tread,
And stooping over your trundle bed,
Your little worries he'll kiss away;
Love comes to us at the close of day.'
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
602:Throughout the Old Testament we see God choosing what is weak and humble to represent him (the stammering Moses, the infant Samuel, Saul from an insignificant family, David confronting Goliath, etc.). Paul tells us that God chooses the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Here, however, we have a striking contradiction. In Constantine God is supposedly choosing an Augustus, a triumphant military leader. This vision and this miracle are totally impossible. But they are not impossible in the context of Christianity that is already off the rails, that thinks of God as the one who directs history and is the motive power in politics. ~ Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity (1982), G. Bromiley, trans. (1986), p. 123,
603:Fine Knacks for Ladies

Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave and new!
Good pennyworths! but money cannot move.
I keep a fair but for the fair to view.
A beggar may be liberal of love,
Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true.

Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again;
My trifles come as treasures from the mind.
It is a precious jewel to be plain;
Sometimes in shell the Orient’s pearls we find.
Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain.

Within this pack pins points laces and gloves,
And diverse toys fitting a country fair.
But in my heart, where duty serves and loves,
Turtles and twins, court’s brood, a heavenly pair.
Happy the heart that thinks of no removes! ~ John Dowland,
604:After reading Burgum, [Patricia Highsmith] wrote in her cahier that, like Kafka, she felt she was a pessimist, unable to formulate a system in which an individual could believe in God, government or self. Again like Kafka, she looked into the great abyss which separated the spiritual and the material and saw the terrifying emptiness, the hollowness, at the heart of every man, a sense of alienation she felt compelled to explore in her fiction. As her next hero, she would take an architect, 'a young man whose authority is art and therefore himself,' who when he murders, 'feels no guilt or even fear when he thinks of legal retribution'. The more she read of Kafka the more she felt afraid as she came to realise, 'I am so similar to him. ~ Andrew Wilson,
605:So long as you have a society with a lot of guns- and America has more guns per capita than any other county in the world- children will be at risk of being shot. The questions are how much risk, and what, if anything, is being done to minimize it? If one thinks of various ways in which commonplace items, from car seats to medicine bottle tops, have been childproofed, it's clear that society's general desire has been to eliminate as many potential dangers from children as possible, even when the number of those who might be harmed is relatively small. If one child's death is preventable, then the proper question isn't "Why should we do this" but rather "Why shouldn't we?" It would be strange for that principle to apple to everything but guns. ~ Gary Younge,
606:So long as you have a society with a lot of guns- and America has more guns per capita than any other county in the world- children will be at risk of being shot. The questions are how much risk, and what, if anything, is being done to minimize it? If one thinks of various ways in which commonplace items, from car seats to medicine bottle tops, have been childproofed, it's clear that society's general desire has been to eliminate as many potential dangers from children as possible, even when the number of those who might be harmed is relatively small. If one child's death is preventable, then the proper question isn't "Why should we do this" but rather "Why shouldn't we?" It would be strange for that principle to apply to everything but guns. ~ Gary Younge,
607:If for instance the sentiment possessing for the moment the empire of our mind is sorrow, will not the genius sharpen the sorrow and the sorrow purify the genius? Together, will they not be like a cut diamond for which language is only the wax on which they stamp their imprint? I believe that genius, thus awakened, has no need to seek out details, that it scarcely pauses to reflect, that it never thinks of unity: I believe that the details come naturally without search by the poet, that inspiration takes the place of reflection and as for unity, I think there is no unity so perfect as that which results from a heart filled with a single idea...The nature of genius is related to that of instinct; it's operation is both simple and marvelous. ~ Charlotte Bront,
608:There is the conversation, for example, where one participant is speaking merely to establish or confirm his place in the dominance hierarchy. One person begins by telling a story about some interesting occurrence, recent or past, that involved something good, bad or surprising enough to make the listening worthwhile. The other person, now concerned with his or her potentially substandard status as less-interesting individual, immediately thinks of something better, worse, or more surprising to relate. This isn’t one of those situations where two conversational participants are genuinely playing off each other, riffing on the same themes, for the mutual enjoyment of both (and everyone else). This is jockeying for position, pure and simple. ~ Jordan Peterson,
609:There is the conversation, for example, where one participant is speaking merely to establish or confirm his place in the dominance hierarchy. One person begins by telling a story about some interesting occurrence, recent or past, that involved something good, bad or surprising enough to make the listening worthwhile. The other person, now concerned with his or her potentially substandard status as less-interesting individual, immediately thinks of something better, worse, or more surprising to relate. This isn’t one of those situations where two conversational participants are genuinely playing off each other, riffing on the same themes, for the mutual enjoyment of both (and everyone else). This is jockeying for position, pure and simple. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
610:Krishna. The mystic who worships the Supersoul within himself is also called Atmarama. Such Atmarama yogis are of two kinds: The one is called sagarbha; the other is called nigarbha. In Srimad Bhagwatam it is stated, in the Second Canto, Second Chapter: "Some of the yogis meditate within the heart on the localized situation of Vishnu, Who is four-handed with four symbols: the conch shell, the wheel, the club and the lotus." The yogi who thinks of the fourhanded Vishnu becomes developed in devotional ecstasy, and attains the different symptoms of that position. Sometimes he cries, sometimes he feels separation. In this way he becomes merged in transcendental bliss. So, as a result of such transcendental bliss, he is practically entrapped like a fish. ~ Anonymous,
611:Barret thinks- he thinks, briefly- of turning around and leaving the park; of being, this time, the vanisher, the man who leaves you wondering, who offers no explanation, not even the sour satisfaction of a real fight; who simply drifts away, because (it seems) there's affection and there's sex but there's no urgency, no little hooks clasping little eyes; no binding, no dogged devotions, no prayers for mercy, not when mercy can be so easily self-administered. What would it be like, Barrett wonders, to be the other, the man who's had the modest portion he thinks of as enough, who slips away before the mess sets in, before he's available to accusation and recrimination, before the authorities start demanding of him When, and Why, and With Whom ~ Michael Cunningham,
612:The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind on God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of God. "When I awake, I am still with thee" (Psalm 139:18). The thoughts are as travelers in the mind. David's thoughts kept heaven-road. "I am still with Thee." God is the treasure, and where the treasure is, there is the heart. By this we may test our love to God. What are our thoughts most upon? Can we say we are ravished with delight when we think on God? Have our thoughts got wings? Are they fled aloft? Do we contemplate Christ and glory?... A sinner crowds God out of his thoughts. He never thinks of God, unless with horror, as the prisoner thinks of the judge. ~ Dallas Willard,
613:The trick is to not only deny the criticism any power over you, but, even more challenging, to not get caught up in the praise. There’s nothing wrong with blushingly accepting a compliment, but if you find yourself always seeking outside approval that you’re good enough or cool enough or talented enough or worthy enough, you’re screwed. Because if you base your self-worth on what everyone else thinks of you, you hand all your power over to other people and become dependent on a source outside of yourself for validation. Then you wind up chasing after something you have no control over, and should that something suddenly place its focus somewhere else, or change its mind and decide you’re no longer very interesting, you end up with a full-blown identity crisis. ~ Jen Sincero,
614:Aristophanes, in Plato's "Symposium", is purported to suggest that human form was not always as it is today:

Originally, humans were spherical, with four arms, four legs, and two faces on either side of a single head. (In evolutionary terms, it's hard to see the advantage of this construction.) Such was their hubris that they dared to challenge the gods themselves. Zeus, in his wisdom, split the upstarts in two, each half becoming a distinct entity.

Since then, men and women have been running around in a panic, searching for their lost counterparts, in a desire to be whole again.

(Plato makes clear what he thinks of this theory by having Socrates casually dismiss it. We should at least give some credit to Aristophanes for originality.) ~ David Mazzucchelli,
615:You could do nothing more important than to wake up every morning of your life and remind yourself that the One who created and controls everything that exists has been made, by grace, to be your Father. He thinks of you with pure and faithful fatherly love. He acts toward you with the giving, providing, instructing, patient, and forgiving love of a perfect father. He is always with you. His hand is always upon you. He never stops watching you. His heart is always for you. He is always at work accomplishing his plans for you and through you. He lifts your burdens and lightens your load. He is your God, your Savior, your Friend—your Father. Nothing can ever be the same again because you now live in the Father’s house, where glorious grace decorates every room. ~ Paul David Tripp,
616:For the fact is that neuroscientists who study memory remain unclear on the question of whether each time we remember something we are accessing a stable “memory fragment”—often called a “trace” or an “engram”—or whether each time we remember something we are literally creating a new “trace” to house the thought. And since no one has yet been able to discern the material of these traces, nor to locate them in the brain, how one thinks of them remains mostly a matter of metaphor: they could be “scribbles,” “holograms,” or “imprints”; they could live in “spirals,” “rooms,” or “storage units.” Personally, when I imagine my mind in the act of remembering, I see Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, roving about in a milky, navy-blue galaxy shot through with twinkling cartoon stars. ~ Maggie Nelson,
617:They’ve been sent to work camps, except I hear they’re not just work camps. They’re slave-labor camps. Supposedly they’re building things for the military, so der Führer has everything he needs to take Germany into another disastrous war.” “Don’t be ridiculous, Avi,” Dr. Weisz said. “This isn’t Egypt under the pharaohs.” “Reuben, don’t you see what’s happening?” Avi asked. “Hitler is turning on the Jews. Haven’t you read Mein Kampf?” “No; why should I?” “Because everyone else in the country has.” “It’s just political propaganda.” “Maybe so, but Herr Hitler is pretty honest about what he thinks of us. You should read it, Reuben. Here, I’ve brought you a copy. Read it, and then promise me you’ll let me help you, Sarah, and Jacob get out of the country while we still can. ~ Joel C Rosenberg,
618:Where’s the training ground?”
He thought he knew my reason for asking. “Oh no you don’t,” he said. “This isn’t Sparta. You heard what Lord Oeneus thinks of women who act like men. You’ll offend him.”
“What offends him is women who do better than men,” I said. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to do sword practice with any of them.” I indicated the still-swaggering hunters. “If one of them beats me, he’ll claim I had twelve arms, six heads, and spat poison. I just want to watch how you’re all preparing for the hunt.”
“Well, well, so you want to watch men exercising?” Castor snickered. “My little sister’s growing up!”
I gave him a hard look. “The boar isn’t the only pig around here.”
That made him laugh outright. “Ah, Helen, I’m only joking. ~ Esther M Friesner,
619:Kirk defined the ideologue as one who “thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature.” Unleashed during the most radical phase of the French Revolution, the spirit of ideology has metastasized over the past two centuries, wreaking horrors. Jacobinism, Anarchism, Marxism, Leninism, Fascism, Stalinism, Nazism, Maoism—all shared the fatal attraction to “political messianism”; all were “inverted religions.” Each of these ideologies preached a dogmatic approach to politics, economics, and culture. Each in its own way endeavored “to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines.” Thus did the ideologue promise “salvation in this world, hotly declaring that there exists no other realm of being.”17 ~ Russell Kirk,
620:Sometimes the social stakes are higher than what a passing stranger thinks of you. If everyone you know finds out that you’ve been cheating on your spouse, you can’t just say “I was driven by sexual urges that were designed by natural selection to maximize genetic legacy.” Then people will go around saying you’re the kind of person who cheats on a spouse. And of course, you’re not that kind of person! So you need to be able to say something more like “But you have to understand: my spouse had grown emotionally distant and wasn’t meeting my deep need for companionship and intimacy.” Then people will say they can’t really blame you. So it helps to have already heard that side of the argument, and watched it carry the day, before you decide to have the dalliance. Then you’re ready. ~ Robert Wright,
621:The last Melnibonean thinks of his people's history and legends, and he tells his human friends some of what he knows and one day a human scribe will write these remembered words which will become in turn the foundation for whole cycles of myths, whole volumes of legend and superstition, so that a grain of a grain of prehuman memory is carried over to us, blood to blood, life to life, And the cycles turn and spin and intersect at unpredictable points in an eternity of possibilities, paradoxes and conjunctions, and one tale feeds another and one anecdote provides others with entire epics. Thus we influence past, present and future and all their possibilities. Thus are we all responsible for one another, through all the myriad dimensions of time and space that make up the multiverse... ~ Michael Moorcock,
622:I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young
And weep because I know all things now:
I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung
The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind:
I became a rush that horses tread:
I became a man, a hater of the wind,
Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head
May not lie on the breast nor his lips on the hair
Of the woman that he loves, until he dies.
O beast of the wilderness, bird of the air,
Must I endure your amorous cries?
In an earlier version of this poem (October 1898) the final two lines read:-

Although the rushes and the fowl of the air
Cry of his love with their pitiful cries.
~ William Butler Yeats, He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The Constellations Of Heaven
,
623:...and when she thinks of that generation of silent men, the boys who lived through the Depression and grew up to become soldiers or not-soldiers in the war, she doesn’t blame them for refusing to talk, for not wanting to go back into the past, but how curious it is, she thinks, how sublimely incoherent that her generation, which doesn’t have much of anything to talk about yet, has produced men who never stop talking, men like Bing, for example, or men like Jake, who talks about himself at the slightest prompting, who has an opinion on every subject, who spews forth words from morning to night, but just because he talks, that doesn’t mean she wants to listen to him, whereas with the silent men, the old men, the ones who are nearly gone now, she would give anything to hear what they have to say. ~ Paul Auster,
624:Quoth Siddhartha: "What should I possibly have to tell you, oh venerable one? Perhaps that you're searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don't find the time for finding?" "How come?" asked Govinda. "When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse,
625:You may as well call it impertinence at once. It was very little less. The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them. Had you not been really amiable, you would have hated me for it; but in spite of the pains you took to disguise yourself, your feelings were always noble and just; and in your heart, you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously courted you. There—I have saved you the trouble of accounting for it; and really, all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly reasonable. To be sure, you knew no actual good of me—but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love." "Was ~ Jane Austen,
626:Three days after a German submarine sank the Lusitania, Wilson addressed an audience of recently naturalized citizens in Philadelphia. "You cannot become thorough Americans", he told them, "if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups, A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American".

"We can have no 'fifty-fifty' allegiance in the country", Theodore Roosevelt said two years later. "Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all". He condemned Americans who saw the world from the standpoint of another nation. "We Americans are children of the crucible", T.R. said. "The crucible does not do its work unless it turns out those cast into it in one national mould". ~ Arthur M Schlesinger Jr,
627:When one thinks of these officers and men, penned together amid the intricate machinery which crammed their steel, cigar-shaped vessels; groping, butting, charging far below the surface at unmeasured, unknown obstructions; surrounded by explosive engines, any one of which might destroy them at a touch; the target of guns and torpedoes if they rose for an instant to the light of day; harried by depth charges, hunted by gunboats and destroyers, stalked by the German U-boat; expecting every moment to be shattered, stifled, or hopelessly starved at the bottom of the sea; and yet in spite of all, enduring cheerfully such ordeals for weeks at a time; returning unflinchingly again and again through the Jaws of Death—it is bitter indeed to remember that their prowess and devotion were uncrowned by victory. ~ Winston S Churchill,
628:All political meetings are very much alike. Somebody gets up and introduces the speaker of the evening, and then the speaker of the evening says at great length what he thinks of the scandalous manner in which the Government is behaving or the iniquitous goings-on of the Opposition. From time to time confederates in the audience rise and ask carefully rehearsed questions, and are answered fully and satisfactorily by the orator. When a genuine heckler interrupts, the orator either ignores him, or says haughtily that he can find him arguments but cannot find him brains. Or, occasionally, when the question is an easy one, he answers it. A quietly conducted political meeting is one of England's most delightful indoor games. When the meeting is rowdy, the audience has more fun, but the speaker a good deal less. ~ P G Wodehouse,
629:An Old Man
At the noisy end of the cafe, head bent
over the table, an old man sits alone,
a newspaper in front of him.
And in the miserable banality of old age
he thinks how little he enjoyed the years
when he had strength, eloquence, and looks.
He knows he's aged a lot: he sees it, feels it.
Yet it seems he was young just yesterday.
So brief an interval, so brief.
And he thinks of Prudence, how it fooled him,
how he always believed - what madness that cheat who said: "Tomorrow. You have plenty of time."
He remembers impulses bridled, the joy
he sacrificed. Every chance he lost
now mocks his senseless caution.
But so much thinking, so much remembering
makes the old man dizzy. He falls asleep,
his head resting on the cafe table.
~ Constantine P. Cavafy,
630:The ideas that the whole human race is, in a sense, one thing- one huge organism, like a tree-must not be confused with the idea that individual difference is not important or that real people, Tom and Nobby and Kate, are some how less important than collective things like classes, races and so forth. Indeed the two ideas are opposites. Things which are parts of a single organism may be very different form one another: things which are not, may be very alike. Six pennies are quite separate and very alike: my nose and my lungs are very different but they are only alive at all because they are parts of my body and share its common life. Christianity thinks of individuals not as mere members of a group or items in a list, but as organs in a body- different from one another and each contributing what no other could. ~ C S Lewis,
631:It was much better to imagine men in some smokey room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told the children bed time stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things. ~ Terry Pratchett,
632:One never thinks of China, but it is there all the time on the tips of your fingers and it makes your nose itchy; and long afterward, when you have forgotten almost what a firecracker smells like, you wake up one day with gold leaf choking you and the broken pieces of punk waft back their pungent odor and the bright red wrappers give you a nostalgia for a people and a soil you have never known, but which is in your blood, mysteriously there in your blood, like the sense of time or space, a fugitive, constant value to which you turn more and more as you get old, which you try to seize with your mind, but ineffectually, because in everything Chinese there is wisdom and mystery and you can never grasp it with two hands or with your mind but you must let it rub off, let it stick to your fingers, let it slowly infiltrate your veins. ~ Henry Miller,
633:The greater part of the world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of Custom is complete. This is the case over the whole East. Custom is there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant intoxicated with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result. Those nations must once have had originality; they did not start out of the ground populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life; they made themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most powerful nations in the world. What are they now? The subjects or dependants of tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when theirs had magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over whom custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress. ~ John Stuart Mill,
634:Can I always be thinking of Jesus? Thank God, you need not always be thinking of Him. You may be the manager of a bank, and your whole attention may be required to carry out the business that you have to do. But thank God, while I have to think of my business, Jesus will think of me, and He will come in and will take charge of me. That little child, three months old, as it sleeps in its mother's arms, lies helplessly there; it hardly knows its mother, it does not think of her, but the mother thinks of the child. And this is the blessed mystery of love, that Jesus the God-man waits to come in to me in the greatness of His love; and as He gets possession of my heart, He embraces me in those divine arms and tells me, "My child, I the Faithful One, I the Mighty One will abide with thee, will watch over thee and keep thee all the days. ~ Andrew Murray,
635:You want to give up and you start thinking maybe it's a good idea because the pain of holding on ... because then it wouldn't hurt anymore. Because holding steady is- is-
There is this bad, really bad, sense of uncertainty, an uncertainty so painful, so asshole-clenching, that it becomes- It's an awful thing to say, but it's easier to let go and be split in half than it is to try and hold on, suffering and not knowing what is going to happen. That is courage. Taking your own fucking life in your own fucking hands when that is the hardest thing you can do. No one thinks of it. Everyone thinks they'd do the right thing, but that's not true. They don't understand how scary it is. How hard it is. No one understands unless they've been there. We're there now, Jacob, and you're gonna do the right thing despite the fear and despite the hurt. ~ Gabriel Tallent,
636:(...) he always thinks of a dinner party as lasting all night; and he always thinks of a night as lasting forever. When the working women in the poor districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to get their husbands home, simple minded “social workers” always imagine that every husband is a tragic drunkard and every wife a broken-hearted saint. It never occurs to them that the poor woman is only doing under coarser conventions exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and gossip over the teacups. These women are not exasperated merely at the amount of money that is wasted in beer; they are exasperated also at the amount of time that is wasted in talk. It is not merely what goeth into the mouth but what cometh out the mouth that, in their opinion, defileth a man. ~ G K Chesterton,
637:He no longer derives any pleasure from the work: he wants everything finished now, at once. And for whom? The paths are to be levelled so that Ottilie can walk in comfort, the seats in place so that Ottilie can rest. On the new pavilion too he does what work he can: it is to be got ready for Ottilie's birthday. Eduard's intentions are, like his actions, no longer ruled by moderation. The consciousness of loving and of being loved drives him beyond all bounds. His rooms, his surroundings have all changed, they all look different. He no longer knows his own house. Ottilie's presence consumes everything: he is utterly lost in her, he thinks of nothing else but only her, the voice of conscience no longer reaches him; everything in his nature that had been restrained, held back, now bursts forth, his whole being flows out towards Ottilie. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
638:He goes to the spectacles which God furnishes gratis; he gazes at the sky, space, the stars, flowers, children, the humanity among which he is suffering, the creation amid which he beams. He gazes so much on humanity that he perceives its soul, he gazes upon creation to such an extent that he beholds God. He dreams, he feels himself great; he dreams on, and feels himself tender. From the egotism of the man who suffers he passes to the compassion of the man who meditates. An admirable sentiment breaks forth in him, forgetfulness of self and pity for all. As he thinks of the innumerable enjoyments which nature offers, gives, and lavishes to souls which stand open, and refuses to souls that are closed, he comes to pity, he the millionaire of the mind, the millionaire of money. All hatred departs from his heart, in proportion as light penetrates his spirit. ~ Victor Hugo,
639:He had the fault of thinking too well of himself--which who has not who thinks of himself at all, apart from his relation to the holy force of life, within yet beyond him? It was the almost unconscious, assuredly the undetected, self-approbation of the ordinarily righteous man, the defect of whose righteousness makes him regard himself as upright, but the virtue of whose uprightness will at length disclose to his astonished view how immeasurably short of rectitude he comes. At the age of thirty, Godfrey Wardour had not yet become so displeased with himself as to turn self-roused energy upon betterment; and until then all growth must be of doubtful result. … His friends notwithstanding gave him credit for great imperturbability; but in such willfully undemonstrative men the evil burrows the more insidiously that it is masked by a constrained exterior. ~ George MacDonald,
640:But usually not. Usually she thinks of the path to his house, whether deer had eaten the tops of the fiddleheads, why they don't eat the peppermint saprophytes sprouting along the creek; or she visualizes the approach to the cabin, its large windows, the fuchsias in front of it where Anna's hummingbirds always hover with dirty green plumage and jeweled throats. Sometimes she thinks about her dream, the one in which her mother wakes up with no hands. The cabin smells of oil paint, but also of pine. The painter's touch is sexual and not sexual, as she herself is....When the memory of that time came to her, it was touched by strangeness because it formed no pattern with the other events in her life. It lay in her memory like one piece of broken tile, salmon-coloured or the deep green of wet leaves, beautiful in itself but unusable in the design she was making ~ Robert Hass,
641:It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things. ~ Terry Pratchett,
642:If one is not altogether sincere in assuring oneself that one does not wish ever to see again her whom one loves, one would not be a whit more sincere in saying that one would like to see her. For no doubt one can endure her absence only when one promises oneself that it shall not be for long, and thinks of the day on which one shall see her again, but at the same time one feels how much less painful are those daily recurring dreams of a meeting immediate and incessantly postponed than would be an interview which might be followed by a spasm of jealousy, with the result that the news that one is shortly to see her whom one loves would cause a disturbance which would be none too pleasant. What one procrastinates now from day to day is no longer the end of the intolerable anxiety caused by separation, it is the dreaded renewal of emotions which can lead to nothing. ~ Marcel Proust,
643:Now there is a modern-day anthropology* for the criminal type: a great number of so-called 'born criminals' have pale faces, large cheekbones, a coarse lower jaw, and deeply shining eyes. How can one not recall this when one thinks of Lenin and thousands like him? How many pale faces, high cheekbones and strikingly asymmetric features mark the soldiers of the Red Army and, generally speaking, also of the common Russian people - how many of them, these savage types, have Mongolian atavism directly in their blood! They are all from Murom, the white-eyed Chud. And it is precisely these individuals, these very Russichi, who gave us so many 'daring pirates', so many vagabonds, escapees, scoundrels and tramps - it is precisely these people whom we have recruited for the glory, pride and hope of the Russian social revolution. So why should we feign surprise at the results? ~ Ivan Bunin,
644:was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things. Around ~ Terry Pratchett,
645:Night shift. Jamey raises his arm, and a hundred arms are raised. He smiles, with thousands of teeth. Jamey thinks of Narcissus bending to the pool. He thinks of how a swan on a calm lake is one with its reflection, and then lifting off, the bird divides from its self, and both parts becomes smaller and smaller. Division is more interesting than duplication, and an ax is a fascinating tool. It makes a fallen tree into wood that will keep your family warm. It does more than separate a whole into pieces; it changes the spirit of the thing, its use. He thinks about Elise checking her compact, and how he looks over her shoulder to catch her outlined eye in the mirror. Her eye, separated from the rest of her, floating. Normally he doesn't let his mind split into pieces, because it frightens him, but he's in a container here. He has so much time to think on the night shift. ~ Jardine Libaire,
646:You make someone into a object of – not so much of pity as of weakness, sickness, stupidity, inefectiveness, do you see what I mean? You hit them for their stupidity and their inability to respond, and when you’ve hurt them, marked them, they’re even more sick and ugly, aren’t they? And they’re afraid and cringing too. Oh, I know this isn’t very pleasant, but you did ask.”
“Go on” he said.
“So you’ve got a frightened, stupid, even disabled person, silenced, made ugly, and what can you do with someone like that, someone who’s unworthy of being treated well? You treat them badly because that’s what they deserve. One thinks of poor little kids that no one love because they’re dirty, sovered in snot and shit, and always screaming. So you beat them because they’re hateful, they’re low, they’re sub-human. That’s all they’re good for, being hit, being reduced even further. ~ Ruth Rendell,
647:With murder, the victim is gone, and not forced to deal with what happened to her. The family must deal with it, but not the victim. But rape is much worse. The victim has a lifetime of coping, trying to understand, of asking questions, and the worst part, of knowing the rapist is still alive and may someday escape or be released. Every hour of every day, the victim thinks of the rape and asks herself a thousand questions. She relives it, step by step, minute by minute, and it hurts just as bad.
Perhaps the most horrible crime of all is the violent rape of a child. A woman who is raped has a pretty good idea why it happened. Some animal was filled with hatred, anger and violence. But a child? A ten-year-old child? Suppose you're a parent. Imagine yourself trying to explain to your child why she was raped. Imagine yourself trying to explain why she cannot bear children. ~ John Grisham,
648:Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still patiently, that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it's not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive one tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks of the master-stroke by which he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it and received payment of three pounds thirteen and six. ~ James Joyce,
649:That night, I startled Andrew by striding right up to him in the attic and shoving my face close to his. For once, I was too angry to be scared of him. “You didn’t tell me Papa beat you!”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean to say you finally earned a whipping?”
“It’s not funny--he hit me with his belt!”
“Oh, horsefeathers. If Papa thought you deserved it, you probably did.” Andrew studied my face. “I hope you didn’t cry.”
“Of course I did. It hurt!”
Andrew cradled his head in his hands. “How will I ever face Theo,” he muttered. “I can’t imagine what he thinks of me.”
Stung by his lack of sympathy, I glared at Andrew. “My dad never hits me. Never! When I do something wrong, we talk about it. Fathers who beat their kids go to jail for child abuse.”
“Truly?” Andrew smiled. “That’s one more reason to keep winning--my rear end could do with a nice, long rest. ~ Mary Downing Hahn,
650:Now, whenever she thinks of it, she is confused about what she did and didn't cause. She is confused about desire, and her own desirability. She is confused about her own sexuality. It should be hers to wield as she wishes, she knows this, but why—even if she isn't wielding it, exactly, even if she's just being herself—is there the sense of a shameful invitation, or even an invitation at all? She knows she should be able to invite if she wants to invite, to say no if she wants to say no, yes if she wants to say yes, to allure or not allure, to just simply feel good about what her body is and does and how it looks. She is supposed to be sure and confident about those things, but how can she possibly be sure and confident about those things? There are so many colliding messages—confidence and shame, power and powerlessness, what she owes others and what is hers—that she can't hear what's true. ~ Deb Caletti,
651:The corridor has twenty doors on the left-hand side and eighteen doors on the right-hand side. Also it has a door at either end. One door is painted red, and it leads to the classroom–so Melanie thinks of that as the classroom end of the corridor. The door at the other end is bare grey steel and it’s really, really thick. Where it leads to is a bit harder to say. Once when Melanie was being taken back to her cell, the door was off its hinges, with some men working on it, and she could see how it had all these bolts and sticking-out bits around the edges of it, so when it’s closed it would be really hard to open. Past the door, there was a long flight of concrete steps going up and up. She wasn’t supposed to see any of that stuff, and Sergeant said, “Little bitch has got way too many eyes on her” as he shoved her chair into her cell and slammed the door shut. But she saw, and she remembers. She ~ M R Carey,
652:And he lived so near at hand because he had no courage, no intelligence, no energy, no independence. That was really it: no independence. He always needed to be near. He always needed to feel their support, their company, very near him. He always lived almost from day to day in the hope that by staying near, by always being on hand if he was needed, by always showing how much he loved them, he might at last be sure he had won their approval, their respect. He did not believe, he couldn't remember, one sober breath he had ever drawn, that he had drawn as if in his own right, feeling, I don't care what anybody thinks of me, this is myself and this is how I do it. Everything he did, every tone his voice took, was controlled by his idea of what would make the best impression on others. He was worse a slave to that, to his dread for other people's opinion of him, than any nigger had ever been a slave. ~ James Agee,
653:As Thomas Watson beautifully wrote long ago: The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of God. “When I awake, I am still with thee” (Ps. 139:18). The thoughts are as travellers in the mind. David’s thoughts kept heaven-road, “I am still with Thee.” God is the treasure, and where the treasure is, there is the heart. By this we may test our love to God. What are our thoughts most upon? Can we say we are ravished with delight when we think on God? Have our thoughts got wings? Are they fled aloft? Do we contemplate Christ and glory? Oh, how far are they from being lovers of God, who scarcely ever think of God! “God is not in all his thoughts” (Ps. 10:4). A sinner crowds God out of his thoughts. He never thinks of God, unless with horror, as the prisoner thinks of the judge. ~ Dallas Willard,
654:Ah! sweet is the moonbeam that sleeps on yon fountain,
And sweet the mild rush of the soft-sighing breeze,
And sweet is the glimpse of yon dimly-seen mountain,
'Neath the verdant arcades of yon shadowy trees.

But sweeter than all was thy tone of affection,
Which scarce seemed to break on the stillness of eve,
Though the time it is past!--yet the dear recollection,
For aye in the heart of thy [Percy] must live.

Yet he hears thy dear voice in the summer winds sighing,
Mild accents of happiness lisp in his ear,
When the hope-winged moments athwart him are flying,
And he thinks of the friend to his bosom so dear.--

And thou dearest friend in his bosom for ever
Must reign unalloyed by the fast rolling year,
He loves thee, and dearest one never, Oh! never
Canst thou cease to be loved by a heart so sincere.

AUGUST, 1810.

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Song. To [Harriet]
,
655:We do take pleasure in one thing that you probably won't be able to guess. Namely, making friends with nature. ... nature is always there at hand to wrap us up, gently: glowing, swaying, bubbling, rustling.

Just by looking at nature, I feel as if I'm being swallowed up into it, and in that moment I get the sensation that my body's now a speck, a speck from long before I was born, a speck that is melting into nature herself. This sensation is so amazing that I forget that I'm a human being, and one with special needs to boot.

Nature calms me down when I'm furious, and laughs with me when I'm happy. You might think that it's not possible that nature could be a friend, not really. But human beings are part of the animal kingdom too, and perhaps us people with autism still have some left-over awareness of this, buried somewhere deep down. I'll always cherish that part of me that thinks of nature as a friend. ~ Naoki Higashida,
656: “Watching my back? Like you watched Chloe’s with those gangbangers?”
“That was a mistake. I was running and I thought she was right behind me.”
“Did you check?”
“What?”
“Did you check?”
he repeated. “One glance over your shoulder to make sure she was still there?”
I didn’t answer.
He shook his head. “I’m not accusing you of letting that girl grab Chloe so you could get away. I’m not accusing you of seeing her in trouble and deciding to do nothing about it. I know you didn’t look back. You never thought of it.”
“I was scared, okay? You want me to admit that? Fine.”
“Chloe would have looked back for you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course she would. Because Chloe is good and perfect.”
“No, because she thinks of others. I would have looked back, too, if you were behind me. Even Derek would have. Why? Because we’re a team now. We need to have each other’s backs. No matter what.
~ Kelley Armstrong,
657:Okay,” I say. “I think I’ve heard of these guys. They’re a cult, right? Like the Satanist Temple, or the Church of Cthulhu?” “No,” Dimitri says. “Unfortunately, the UnAltered are no longer a fringe group, and they are no longer a joke. Over the past five years, their numbers have doubled, and doubled, and doubled again. There are enough of them now to be a serious danger, if they choose to make themselves so.” His face is an expressionless mask now, and I feel a shiver run from the back of my neck to the base of my spine. I may not know exactly what Dimitri does for a living, but I know enough to know that I really, really wouldn’t want him to think of me as a serious danger. Dimitri thinks of himself as a sheepdog, faithfully guarding the flock. And if he decides that you’re a wolf? “Okay,” I say finally. “So what does this have to do with Hagerstown?” He looks down, then back up, and I can almost see him trying to decide how much to tell me. ~ Edward Ashton,
658:A part of Jutta does not want to take the letter. Does not want to hear what this huge man has traveled a long way to say. Weeks go by when Jutta does not allow herself to think of the war, of Frau Elena, of the awful last months in Berlin. Now she can buy pork seven days a week. Now, if the house feels cold she twists a dial in the kitchen, and voilà. She does not want to be one of those middle-aged women who thinks of nothing but her own painful history. Sometimes she looks at the eyes of her older colleagues and wonders what they did when the electricity was out, when there were no candles, when the rain came through the ceiling. What they saw. Only rarely does she loosen the seals enough to allow herself to think of Werner. In many ways, her memories of her brother have become things to lock away. A math teacher at Helmholtz-Gymnasium in 1974 does not bring up a brother who attended the National Political Institute of Education at Schulpforta. ~ Anthony Doerr,
659:Upon hearing them, Eloise turns as well. Paul watches as she stares at them, and he wonders what she’s thinking: if she sees love or a letdown; salvation or inconvenience. Reaching down, she gathers up the train of her dress and begins trudging up to them, working her way across the broad swath of grass. He stays behind for a moment, and as his sisters and his mother vanish behind the abbey’s arches and spires he stares upward, past his blinding hangover, to a point in the distance that he can’t quite grasp. A bit of infinity where blue bleeds to white, where absence and hope collide. He thinks of the beautiful, gut-wrenching future awaiting them, and the claw marks they’ve left in everything they’ve given up. He thinks of all the times they’ve faced the world on two steady feet, and all the times he knows it will knock them over to the ground. Mostly, though, he thinks—he forces himself to think—that for today, at least for today, they’ll all be okay. ~ Grant Ginder,
660:In my experiences, the common critic of Christianity, when he thinks of Christianity, imagines a sort of elementary, Sunday School blunder of elements: fiery Hell, an angry God, 'try not to sin', 'be good so that you can go to Heaven', absurd miracles, hyper-fundamentalist tales, religious hypocrites, and Jesus telling people not to judge. There is no horse more dead than such. I maintain that understanding Christianity and the Bible is quite like painting a piece of art. Let a toddler paint a puppy; then let an adult who is a long-time painter paint the very same puppy. They are both paintings of the puppy, but one is far more detailed, rational, realistic, and believable than the other. One is distorted and comical; the other is proportional and lively. One can write off Theology if he so pleases, but he might not be very wise in using the toddler's painting when it comes time to identify the real puppy or when trying to confront actual men of the Faith. ~ Criss Jami,
661:we were in her big oak
bed
facing south
so much of the rest of the
time
that I memorized
each wrinkle in the
drapes
and especially
all the cracks in the
ceiling.

I used to play games with
her with that ceiling.

"see those cracks up
there?"

"where?"

"look where I'm pointing..."

"o.k."

"now, see those cracks, see the
pattern? it forms and image. do you see
what it is?"

"umm, umm ..."

"go on, what is it?"

"I know! It's a man on top of a woman!"

"wrong. it's a flamingo standing
by a stream."

. . .

we finally got free of
one another.
it's sad but it's
standard operating procedure
(I am constantly confused by
the lack of durability in human
affairs).

I suppose the parting was
unhappy
maybe even ugly.
it's been 3 or 4
years now
and I wonder if she
ever thinks of
me, of what I am doing? ~ Charles Bukowski,
662:Left to their own devices, most people don’t want to fail. But Andrew Stanton isn’t most people. As I’ve mentioned, he’s known around Pixar for repeating the phrases “fail early and fail fast” and “be wrong as fast as you can.” He thinks of failure like learning to ride a bike; it isn’t conceivable that you would learn to do this without making mistakes—without toppling over a few times. “Get a bike that’s as low to the ground as you can find, put on elbow and knee pads so you’re not afraid of falling, and go,” he says. If you apply this mindset to everything new you attempt, you can begin to subvert the negative connotation associated with making mistakes. Says Andrew: “You wouldn’t say to somebody who is first learning to play the guitar, ‘You better think really hard about where you put your fingers on the guitar neck before you strum, because you only get to strum once, and that’s it. And if you get that wrong, we’re going to move on.’ That’s no way to learn, is it? ~ Ed Catmull,
663:Left to their own devices, most people don’t want to fail. But Andrew Stanton isn’t most people. As I’ve mentioned, he’s known around Pixar for repeating the phrases “fail early and fail fast” and “be wrong as fast as you can.” He thinks of failure like learning to ride a bike; it isn’t conceivable that you would learn to do this without making mistakes—without toppling over a few times. “Get a bike that’s as low to the ground as you can find, put on elbow and knee pads so you’re not afraid of falling, and go,” he says. If you apply this mindset to everything new you attempt, you can begin to subvert the negative connotation associated with making mistakes. Says Andrew: “You wouldn’t say to somebody who is first learning to play the guitar, ‘You better think really hard about where you put your fingers on the guitar neck before you strum, because you only get to strum once, and that’s it. And if you get that wrong, we’re going to move on.’ That’s no way to learn, is it?” This ~ Ed Catmull,
664:For the mythological hero is the champion not of things become but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo: Holdfast, the keeper of the past. From obscurity the hero emerges, but the enemy is great and conspicuous in the seat of power; he is enemy, dragon, tyrant, because he turns to his own advantage the authority of his position. He is Holdfast not because he keeps the past but because he keeps. The tyrant is proud, and therein resides his doom. He is proud because he thinks of his strength as his own; thus he is in the clown role, as a mistaker of shadow for substance; it is his destiny to be tricked. The mythological hero, reappearing from the darkness that is the source of the shapes of the day, brings a knowledge of the secret of the tyrant's doom. With a gesture as simple as the pressing of a button, he annihilates the impressive configuration. The hero-deed is a continuous shattering of the crystallizations of the moment ~ Anonymous,
665:The man in this stage of consciousness thinks of his "I" as a mental thing, having a lower companion, the body. He feels that he has advanced, but yet his "I" does not give him the answer to the riddles and questions that perplex him. And he becomes most unhappy. Such men often develop into Pessimists, and consider the whole of life as utterly evil and disappointing—a curse rather than a blessing. Pessimism belongs to this plane, for neither the Physical Plane man or the Spiritual Plane man have this curse of Pessimism. The former man has no such disquieting thoughts, for he is almost entirely absorbed in gratifying his animal nature, while the latter man recognizes his mind as an instrument of himself, rather than as himself, and knows it to be imperfect in its present stage of growth. He knows that he has in himself the key to all knowledge—locked up in the Ego—and which the trained mind, cultivated, developed and guided by the awakened Will, may grasp as it unfolds. ~ William Walker Atkinson,
666:For more than an hour afterward, Kathleen and Helen talked intently in the small anteroom adjacent to the drawing room. To Kathleen’s dismay, Helen seemed not only willing to be courted by Rhys Winterborne, but she was actually resolved to it.
“He doesn’t want you for the right reasons,” Kathleen said in concern. “He wants a wife who will advance his ambitions. And no doubt he thinks of you as an aristocratic broodmare.”
Helen smiled slightly. “Isn’t that also how men of our class judge the value of a potential wife?”
An impatient sigh burst from her lips. “Helen, you must admit that you and he are worlds apart!”
“Yes, he and I are quite different,” Helen admitted. “That’s why I intend to proceed with caution. But I have reasons of my own for agreeing to the courtship. And while I don’t wish to explain all of them…I will tell you that I felt a moment of connection with him when he stayed at Eversby Priory.”
“While you were nursing him through the fever? Because if so, that was pity, not connection. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
667:We lost track of her after that. A cousin said she went to California with a friend. Somebody told us she was right under our noses in Lumberton. I don't know for sure. I do know that she thinks of us. Though I doubt she could afford to spend every single day doing it. No matter what, you have to figure out how to live in the day you have, not the ones you can't get back. Soon, I may look her up, just to let her know things turned out. That she doesn't have to feel bad about anything. That life runs in different speeds depending on the situation and some times and days and moments get away from you before you really know what's what. I'd tell her that I wouldn't mind being her friend. Family ought to be able to be friends, I'd say, hoping I sounded wise and centered, like a woman with her head on straight. I wouldn't talk about missing her or sad old times, or the hours we spent explaining her to ourselves and especially not the quiet nights in the dark trying the best we know how to remember anything she ever did or said that made us laugh. ~ Stephanie Powell Watts,
668:Pete's Error
There’s a new grace up on Boot Hill, where we’ve planted Rowdy Pete;
He died one evenin’, sudden, with his leather on his feet;
He was Cactus Center’s terror with that work of art, the Colt,
But, somehow, without warnin’, he up and missed his holt.
His fav’rite trick in shootin’ was to grab his victim’s right,
Then draw his own revolver — and the rest was jest 'Good-night';
He worked it in succession on nine stout and well-armed men,
But a sickly-lookin’ stranger made Pete’s feet slip up at ten.
Pete had follered out his programme and had passed the fightin’ word;
He grabbed the stranger’s right hand, when a funny thing occurred;
The stranger was left-handed, which Pete hadn’t figgered out,
And, afore he fixed his error, Peter was dead beyond all doubt.
It was jest another instance of a flaw in work of man;
A lefty never figgered in the gunman’s battle plan;
There ain’t no scheme man thinks of that Dame Nature cannot beat —
So his pupils are unlearnin’ that cute trick they got from Pete.
~ Arthur Chapman,
669:Or maybe just apologize, Barrons, for being too young to have my priorities refined, like you, because I haven’t suffered whatever the hell it is you suffered, and then shove you up against a wall and kiss you until you can’t breathe, do what I wanted to do the first day I saw you there in your bloody damned bookstore. Disturb you like you disturbed me, make you see me, make you want me--pink me!—shatter your self-control, bring you crashing to your knees in front of me, even though I told myself I’d never want a man like you, that you were too old, too carnal, more animal than man, with one foot in the swamp and no desire to come all the way out, when the truth was that I was terrified by what you made me feel. It wasn’t what guys make girls feel, dreams of a future with babies and picket fences, but frantic, hard, raw loss of self, like you can’t live without that man inside you, around you, with you all the time, and it only matters what he thinks of you, the rest of the world can go to hell, and even then I knew you could change me! ~ Karen Marie Moning,
670:How dare you!” she cried. “Of all the-- You arrogant, simple-- Oh, never mind! Just you understand this! Amongst my people, a man has one wife, only one, and he looks at no other, thinks of no other, touches no other, until death do they part. I wouldn’t marry you if you got on your knees and begged me!”
Hunter sat up slowly, feeling a little dazed by her fury and wondering what had sparked it. Would he never understand her?
She leaned toward him, her blue eyes flashing. “Even if I would marry you, an announcement by a central fire would not constitute a marriage in my books.” She thumped her chest. “I must make my vows before a priest! And furthermore, when I take a husband, he won’t be a Comanche. You couldn’t be chief husband, second husband, any husband, to me. You’re a barbarian who treats women like chattel!”
Very calmly Hunter inserted, “You are my woman. You will sure enough marry no other.”
“Well, if you think I’m going to marry you, you have another think coming! Never, do you hear me? ~ Catherine Anderson,
671:Islamic art in its many forms is of the greatest import for the understanding of the essence of Islam and a central means of transmitting its message to the contemporary world. When one thinks of Islam, one should go beyond the repetitive scenes on television of wars and battles, which unfortunately abound in today’s world, to behold the peace and harmony of Islamic art seen in the great mosques, traditional urban settings and gardens, and the rhythm and geometry of calligraphy and arabesque designs; read in the poems that sing of the love that permeates all of God’s creation and binds creatures to God; and heard in the strains of melodies that echo what we had experienced in that primordial morn preceding creation and our descent into this lowly world. Today more than ever before, the understanding of Islamic art is an indispensable key for the comprehension of Islam itself. Those who are sensitive to the language of traditional art and the beauty of a paradisal order that emanates from it as well as the intellectual principles conveyed through it can learn much from this art. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
672:When one thinks of 'matrices' and 'codes' it is sometimes helpful to bear these figures in mind. The matrix is the pattern before you, representing the ensemble of permissible moves. The code which governs the matrix can be put into simple mathematical equations which contain the essence of the pattern in a compressed, 'coded' form; or it can be expressed by the word 'diagonals'. The code is the fixed, invariable factor in a skill or habit; the matrix its variable aspect. The two words do not refer to different entities, they refer to different aspects of the same activity. When you sit in front of the chessboard your code is the rule of the game determining which moves are permitted, your matrix is the total of possible choices before you. Lastly, the choice of the actual move among the variety of permissible moves is a matter of strategy, guided by the lie of the land-the 'environment' of other chessmen on the board. We have seen that comic effects are produced by the sudden clash of incompatible matrices: to the experienced chess player a rook moving bishopwise is decidedly 'funny'. ~ Arthur Koestler,
673:Who Is A Christian?
Who is a Christian in this Christian land
Of many churches and of lofty spires?
Not he who sits in soft upholstered pews
Bought by the profits of unholy greed,
And looks devotion, while he thinks of gain.
Not he who sends petitions from the lips
That lie to-morrow in the street and mart.
Not he who fattens on another's toil,
And flings his unearned riches to the poor,
Or aids the heathen with a lessened wage,
And builds cathedrals with an increased rent.
Christ, with Thy great, sweet, simple creed of love,
How must Thou weary of Earth's 'Christian' clans,
Who preach salvation through Thy saving blood
While planning slaughter of their fellow men.
Who is a Christian? It is one whose life
Is built on love, on kindness and on faith;
Who holds his brother as his other self;
Who toils for justice, equity and PEACE,
And hides no aim or purpose in his heart
That will not chord with universal good.
Though he be pagan, heretic or Jew,
That man is Christian and beloved of Christ.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
674:Ask a random kid today if she wants to be popular and she'll tell you no, even if the truth is that if she was in a desert dying of thirst and had the choice between a glass of water and instant popularity, she'd probably choose the latter. See, you can't admit to wanting it, because that makes you less cool. To be truly popular, it has to look like it's something you are, when in reality, it's what you make yourself.

I wonder if any works harder at anything than kids do at being popular. I mean, even air-traffic controllers and the president of the United States take vacations, but look at your average high school student and you'll see someone who's putting in time twenty-four hours a day, for the entire length of the school year.

So how do you crack the inner sanctum? Well, here's the catch: it's not up to you. What's important is what everyone else thinks of how you dress, what you eat for lunch, what shows you TiVo, what music is on your iPod.

I've always sort of wondered though: If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you ever really have one of your own? ~ Jodi Picoult,
675:Japhy and I were kind of outlandish-looking on the campus in our old clothes in fact Japhy was considered an eccentric around the campus, which is the usual thing for campuses and college people to think whenever a real man appears on the scene ― colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middle-class non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness to hear the voice crying in the dark mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization. 'All these people,' said Japhy, 'they all got white-tiled toilets and take big dirty craps like bears in the mountains, but it's all washed away to convenient supervised sewers and nobody thinks of crap any more or realizes their origin is shit and civet and scum of the sea. They spend all day washing their hands with creamy soaps they secretly wanta eat in the bathroom.' He had a million ideas, he had 'em all. ~ Jack Kerouac,
676:It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn. ~ Albert Camus,
677:The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave.
All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy -- making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. ~ Robert G Ingersoll,
678:We need to distinguish between two contrasting narratives of Culture Talk. One thinks of premodern peoples as those who are not yet modern, who are either lagging behind or have yet to embark on the road to modernity. The other depicts the premodern as also the antimodern. Whereas the former conception encourages relations based on philanthropy, the latter notion is productive of fear and preemptive police or military action.
The difference is clear if we contrast earlier depictions of Africans with contemporary talk about Muslims. During the Cold War, Africans were stigmatized as the prime example of peoples not capable of modernity. With the end of the Cold War, Islam and the Middle East have displaced Africa as the hard premodern core in a rapidly globalizing world. The difference in the contemporary perception of black Africa and Middle Eastern Islam is this: whereas Africa is seen as incapable of modernity, hard-core Islam is seen as not only incapable of but also resistant to modernity. Whereas Africans are said to victimize themselves, hard-core Muslims are said to be prone to taking others along to the world beyond. ~ Mahmood Mamdani,
679:Man, sometimes you are clueless. You don’t even see what’s happening.” He perched himself on the arm of the couch so he could look down at Turk. “It’s not just about freaks. I mean, you’re the guy who thinks of ideas and all, but you’re missing it. You don’t even notice that the whole council is either black or Mexican. See, that’s what’s happening: it’s all these minorities hooked up with freaks.”
The wheels in Turk’s mind began to turn slowly. But they were picking up speed. “Jamal’s with us and he’s black.”
“So? We use Jamal. He gets us into Albert’s. You do what you gotta do. All I’m saying is, you and me, we’re normal people. We’re not black or queer or Mexican. And we’re the ones digging toilets. How come?”
Turk knew the answer: because they had failed in their attempt to take over. But he’d never thought about this new angle.
“Astrid’s a normal white person,” Turk argued halfheartedly. “So’s Sam.”
“Sam’s a freak, and I think he might even be a Jew,” Lance said. His eyes were glittering. He was showing his teeth, grinning as he talked. It wasn’t a good look for him. “And Astrid? She’s not even on the council anymore. ~ Michael Grant,
680:Time to go, I think," Gareth said breezily. "But first, let's see if Charlotte's inherited the de Montforte horsiness." "The what?" asked Chilcot. "You know. Horsiness. I want to see what Crusader thinks of her."  Still carrying Charlotte, he walked to his horse and held the baby up to the animal's soft, velvet nose. The big hunter arched his neck and blew softly, his ears and eyes on the baby. Charlotte shrieked at each tickling breath, kicking her feet in excitement. Grinning, Gareth lifted the child high and placed her in the saddle, where she sat smiling down at them like a tiny princess, safe within the cradle of his sure, strong grip. "No!" Juliet cried, alarmed. She ran forward. "Don't worry, I've got her," her husband said easily, his big hands firmly around Charlotte's waist. "Take her down now!  She's too little!" "She's a de Montforte, Juliet. All de Montfortes are horse-mad; it's in the blood." But Juliet pushed him aside and pulled the baby down even as everyone stared at her in dismay. Immediately, Charlotte screwed up her face and started crying. Not just crying. Screaming — fit to blow the glass out of the surrounding buildings. Cokeham ~ Danelle Harmon,
681:Sestina: Here In Katmandu
We have climbed the mountain.
There's nothing more to do.
It is terrible to come down
To the valley
Where, amidst many flowers,
One thinks of snow,
As formerly, amidst snow,
Climbing the mountain,
One thought of flowers,
Tremulous, ruddy with dew,
In the valley.
One caught their scent coming down.
It is difficult to adjust, once down,
To the absense of snow.
Clear days, from the valley,
One looks up at the mountain.
What else is there to do?
Prayer wheels, flowers!
Let the flowers
Fade, the prayer wheels run down.
What have they to do
With us who have stood atop the snow
Atop the mountain,
Flags seen from the valley?
It might be possible to live in the valley,
To bury oneself among flowers,
If one could forget the mountain,
How, never once looking down,
Stiff, blinded with snow,
One knew what to do.
Meanwhile it is not easy here in Katmandu,
Especially when to the valley
That wind which means snow
Elsewhere, but here means flowers,
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Comes down,
As soon it must, from the mountain.
~ Donald Justice,
682:Our world is filled with competition, frenzied ambition in every domain. Each of us is acquainted with the spirit of competition. This spirit is not a bad thing in and of itself. Its influence has long been felt in personal relations within the dominant classes. Subsequently it spread throughout the whole of society, to the point that today it has more or less openly triumphed in every part of the world. In Western nations, and above all in the United States, it animates not only economic and financial life, but scientific research and intellectual life as well. Despite the tension and the unrest it brings, these nations are inclined on the whole to congratulate themselves for having embraced the spirit of competition, for its positive effects are considerable. Not the least of these is the impressive wealth it has brought a large part of the population. No one, or almost no one, any longer thinks of forgoing rivalry, since it allows us to go on dreaming of a still more glittering and prosperous future than the recent past. Our world seems to us the most desirable one there ever was, especially when we compare it to life in nations that have not enjoyed the same prosperity. ~ Ren Girard,
683:His appearance gives no clue to what his profession might be, and yet he doesn't look like a man without a profession either. Consider what he's like: He always knows what to do. He knows how to gaze into a woman's eyes. He can put his mind to any question at any time. He can box. He is gifted, strong-willed, open-minded, fearless, tenacious, dashing, circumspect—why quibble, suppose we grant him all those qualities—yet he has none of them! They have made him what he is, they have set his course for him, and yet they don't belong to him. When he is angry, something in him laughs. When he is sad, he is up to something. When something moves him, he turns against it. He'll always see a good side to every bad action. What he thinks of anything will always depend on some possible context—nothing is, to him, what it is: everything is subject to change, in flux, part of a whole, of an infinite number of wholes presumably adding up to a super-whole that, however, he knows nothing about. So every answer he gives is only a partial answer, every feeling an opinion, and he never cares what something is, only 'how' it is—some extraneous seasoning that somehow goes along with it, that's what interests him. ~ Robert Musil,
684:The Fury Of Hating Eyes
I would like to bury
all the hating eyes
under the sand somewhere off
the North Atlantic and suffocate
them with the awful sand
and put all their colors to sleep
in that soft smother.
Take the brown eyes of my father,
those gun shots, those mean muds.
Bury them.
Take the blue eyes of my mother,
naked as the sea,
waiting to pull you down
where there is no air, no God.
Bury them.
Take the black eyes of my love,
coal eyes like a cruel hog,
wanting to whip you and laugh.
Bury them.
Take the hating eyes of martyrs,
presidents, bus collectors,
bank managers, soldiers.
Bury them.
Take my eyes, half blind
and falling into the air.
Bury them.
Take your eyes.
I come to the center,
where a shark looks up at death
and thinks of my heart
and squeeze it like a doughnut.
They'd like to take my eyes
and poke a hatpin through
their pupils. Not just to bury
but to stab. As for your eyes,
I fold up in front of them
in a baby ball and you send
them to the State Asylum.
Look! Look! Both those
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mice are watching you
from behind the kind bars.
~ Anne Sexton,
685:The general premiss of … belief is: man of himself can know nothing of God; all his knowledge is merely vain, earthly, human. … God is known only by himself. Thus we know nothing of God; for revelation is the word of God … [I]n revelation man … places revelation in opposition to human knowledge … ; here reason must hold its peace. But nevertheless the divine revelation is determined by the human nature. God speaks not to brutes or angels, but to men; hence he uses human speech and human conceptions. … God is … free in will; … but he is not free as to the understanding; he cannot reveal to man whatever he will, but only what is adapted to man, … [W]hat God thinks in relation to man is determined by the idea of man – it has arisen out of reflection on human nature. [H]e thinks of himself, not with his own thinking power, but with man's. … That which comes from God to man, comes to man only from man in God, … only from the ideal nature of man to the phenomenal man, from the species to the individual. Thus, between the divine revelation and the so-called human reason or nature, there is no other than an illusory distinction; … so in revelation man goes out of himself, in order, by a circuitous path, to return to himself! ~ Ludwig Feuerbach,
686:How little man thinks of the possibility of death during his life is a noteworthy fact. And how little he arranges the details of his life in accordance with the experiences that innumerable men before him had to have and which, as such, are all known to him. There are always exceptions who bear this in mind and who, by virtue of their personality, try to force on their fellow men the laws of life that lay at the base of the experiences of past epochs. Hence it is noteworthy that innumerable hygienic measures which perforce redound to the advantage of a Folk, and which individually are uncomfortable, must be formally forced upon the main body of a Folk through the autocratic standing of individual persons, in order however to disappear again when the authority of the personality is extinguished through the mass insanity of democracy. The average man has the greatest fear of death and in reality thinks of it most rarely. The important man concerns himself with it most emphatically, and nevertheless fears it the least. The one lives blindly from day to day, sins heedlessly, in order suddenly to collapse before the inevitable. The other observes its coming most carefully and, to be sure, looks it in the eye with calm and composure. ~ Adolf Hitler,
687:The Path O' Little Children
The path o' little children is the path I want to tread,
Where green is every valley and every rose is red,
Where laughter's always ringing and every smile is real,
And where the hurts are little hurts that just a kiss will heal.
The path o' little children, on the primrose edge o' life,
That leads away from jealousy and bitterness and strife;
The path that leads to gladness—that's the way I want to go,
Where no one speaks unkindly an' where no one keeps a foe.
The path o' little children that winds o'er hill and dale
An' leads us down to gentle seas where tiny vessels sail;
An' leads us through the barnyard an' through the pasture bars
An' brings us home at evening with hearts that know no scars.
The path o' little children, where peaceful dreams come true,
Where sunshine's always streaming, an' every sky is blue;
Where each one loves the other, an' every one is fair,
An' cheeks are pink with beauty, an' singing fills the air.
The path o' little children, it's there I want to tread,
Where innocence is dwelling with not a thing to dread;
Where care is not an ogre and sin is but a name,
An' no one thinks of money an' no one sighs for fame.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
688:Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven.

He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the reef; they are deaf. He beseeches the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the infinite.

Around him darkness, fog, solitude, the stormy and non- sentient tumult, the undefined curling of those wild waters. In him horror and fatigue. Beneath him the depths. Not a point of support. He thinks of the gloomy adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold paralyzes him. His hands contract convulsively; they close, and grasp nothingness. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars! What is to be done? The desperate man gives up; he is weary, he chooses the alternative of death; he resists not; he lets himself go; he abandons his grip; and then he tosses forevermore in the lugubrious dreary depths of engulfment.

Oh, implacable march of human societies! Oh, losses of men and of souls on the way! Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip! Disastrous absence of help! Oh, moral death!

The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness.

The soul, going down stream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall resuscitate it? ~ Victor Hugo,
689:And tomorrow, next month, next year? It will take a long time. Year from now, they will still be arranging the pieces they know, puzzling over her features, redrawing her outlines in their minds. Sure that they've got her right this time, positive in this moment they understand her completely, at last. They will think of her often: when Marilyn opens the curtains in Lydia's room, opens the closet, and begins to take the clothing from the shelves. When their father, one day, enters a party for the first time does not glance, quickly, at all the blond heads in the room. When Hannah begins to stand a little straighter, when she begins to speak a bit clearer, when one day she flicks her hair behind her ear in a familiar gesture and wonders, for a moment, where she got it. And Nath. When at school people ask if he has siblings: two sisters, but one died; when one day, he looks at the small bump that will always mar the bridge of Jack's nose and wants to trace it, gently, with his finger. When a long, long time later, he stares down at the silent blue marble of the earth and thinks of his sister, as he will at every important moment of his life. He doesn't know this yet, but he senses it deep down in his core. So much will happen, he thinks, that I would want to tell you. ~ Celeste Ng,
690:My lord, I suggest you use the same strategy with Massingale that you used with his granddaughter. When you go to ask for her hand in marriage, admit your attraction for her.” “I have never admitted to you that I find her attractive.” “You didn’t have to. It was quite obvious in your voice. That was why I kept warning you of using innocents in your plan.” Christian rubbed a hand over face. “I wish I’d realized how strong that attraction was. I’ve never felt—Reeves, it is the most amazing thing.” The butler nodded. “Love sometimes surprises us.” Christian cut an amazed glance at the butler. “Love?” he snapped. “I didn’t say anything about love!” “No, my lord. You didn’t. I believe that was my contribution.” “I don’t need contributions like that.” “Yes, my lord,” Reeves said obediently. “The duke will be angry with you for what has occurred with his granddaughter, but if you honestly admit your attraction to her, he will have to understand. I daresay he thinks as highly of Lady Elizabeth as she thinks of him.” Christian sighed. “You are right. Damn it! This was not how I’d planned this.” “No, my lord. You are far too intelligent to come up with such a hurly-burly plan.” “Thank you,” Christian allowed a smile to touch his lips, though he knew it was bitter and hard. ~ Karen Hawkins,
691:It seems to be little noticed that this yearning to dragoon and terrify all persons who happen to be lucky is at the bottom of the puerile radicalism now prevailing among us, just as it is at the bottom of Ku Kluxery. The average American radical today likes to think of himself as a profound and somber fellow, privy to arcana not open to the general; he is actually only a poor fish, with distinct overtones of the jackass. What ails him, first and last, is simply envy of his betters. Unable to make any progress against them under the rules in vogue, he proposes to fetch them below the belt by making the rules over. He is no more an altruist than J. Pierpont Morgan is an altruist, or Jim Farley, or, indeed, Al Capone. Every such rescuer of the downtrodden entertains himself with gaudy dreams of power, far beyond his natural fortunes and capacities. He sees himself at the head of an overwhelming legion of morons, marching upon the fellows he envies and hates. He thinks of himself in his private reflections (and gives it away every time he makes a speech or prints an article) as a gorgeous amalgam of Lenin, Mussolini and Genghis Khan, with the Republic under his thumb, his check for any amount good at any bank, and ten million heels clicking every time he winks his eye. ~ H L Mencken,
692:O, Pity The Slave Mother
I pity the slave mother, careworn and weary,
Who sighs as she presses her babe to her breast;
I lament her sad fate, all so hopeless and dreary,
I lament for her woes, and her wrongs unredressed.
O who can imagine her heart's deep emotion,
As she thinks of her children about to be sold;
You may picture the bounds of the rock-girdled ocean,
But the grief of that mother can never be known.
The mildew of slavery has blighted each blossom,
That ever has bloomed in her path-way below;
It has froze every fountain that gushed in her bosom,
And chilled her heart's verdure with pitiless woe;
Her parents, her kindred, all crushed by oppression;
Her husband still doomed in its desert to stay;
No arm to protect from the tyrant's aggressionShe must weep as she treads on her desolate way.
O, slave mother, hope! see-the nation is shaking!
The arm of the Lord is awake to thy wrong!
The slave-holder's heart now with terror is quaking,
Salvation and Mercy to Heaven belong!
Rejoice, O rejoice! for the child thou art rearing,
May one day lift up its unmanacled form,
While hope, to thy heart, like the rain-bow so cheering,
Is born, like the rain-bow, 'mid tempest and storm.
~ Anonymous Americas,
693:The Old Days - And The New
‘Mid wattle scents and sounds of Spring,
The old man, dreaming in his chair,
Is back where skylarks soar and sing
In sunshine, o’er the hills of Clare.
And since all Irishmen have been,
True lovers, since the world began,
A flush still tints his withered cheek
At thoughts of Bessie Quinlevan.
‘Ah Danny, lad, she was the girl,
So fine and straight in all her ways,
The price of every dance and fair,
There’s no such women nowadays!”
Young Danny, plaiting stockwhip thongs,
Smiles o’er his grandsire’s lock of grey,
Rememb’ring with a lovers pride,
The wild-rise grace of Betty Shea.
The old man in his dreams pursues,
Through hurling fields the flying ball,
Where his swift stroke was keen and strong,
And his the fleetest foot of all.
While Danny whistling as he goes,
Thinks of the latest football fray,
Leading the victors down the field,
Beneath the smile of Betty Shea.
Sweet Bessie Quinleven is gone,
In Clare churchyard her body lies,
Her gentle soul has blossomed long
Amid the flowers of Paradise.
But through the sweetness of the Spring,
By winding paths with wattle gay,
Radiant with youth and happy love,
Young Danny rides with Betty Shea.
~ Alice Guerin Crist,
694:Subtlety #1: Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different. Let’s be clear. There’s absolutely nothing admirable or confident about indifference. People who are indifferent are lame and scared. They’re couch potatoes and Internet trolls. In fact, indifferent people often attempt to be indifferent because in reality they give way too many fucks. They give a fuck about what everyone thinks of their hair, so they never bother washing or combing it. They give a fuck about what everyone thinks of their ideas, so they hide behind sarcasm and self-righteous snark. They’re afraid to let anyone get close to them, so they imagine themselves as some special, unique snowflake who has problems that nobody else would ever understand. Indifferent people are afraid of the world and the repercussions of their own choices. That’s why they don’t make any meaningful choices. They hide in a gray, emotionless pit of their own making, self-absorbed and self-pitying, perpetually distracting themselves from this unfortunate thing demanding their time and energy called life. Because here’s a sneaky truth about life. There’s no such thing as not giving a fuck. You must give a fuck about something. It’s part of our biology to always care about something and therefore to always give a fuck. ~ Mark Manson,
695:He nearly called you again last night. Can you imagine that, after all this time? He can. He imagines calling you or running into you by chance. Depending on the weather, he imagines you in one of those cotton dresses of yours with flowers on it or in faded blue jeans and a thick woollen button-up cardigan over a checkered shirt, drinking coffee from a mug, looking through your tortoiseshell glasses at a book of poetry while it rains. He thinks of you with your hair tied back and the characteristic sweet scent on your neck. He imagines you this way when he is on the train, in the supermarket, at his parents' house, at night, alone, and when he is with a woman.

He is wrong, though. You didn't read poetry at all. He had wanted you to read poetry, but you didn't. If pressed, he confesses to an imprecise recollection of what it was you read and, anyway, it wasn't your reading that started this. It was the laughter, the carefree laughter, the three-dimensional Coca-Cola advertisement that you were, the try-anything-once friends, the imperviousness to all that came before you, the chain telephone calls, the in-jokes, the instant music, the sunlight you carried with you, the way he felt when you spoke to his parents, the introductory undergraduate courses, the inevitability of your success, the beach houses, ... ~ Elliot Perlman,
696:We’ve all struggled with this: how to explain the desire to do something most people find pathological at best, selfish at worst, incomprehensible always. We sometimes describe it as a chit we were each handed at birth, a card to get out of jail free if one thinks of her life as jail.

Or we talk about the horizontal light, which is how we refer to the light that sometimes replaces sunlight, the light we see for a brief moment virtually every day, the light that isn’t golden, but is as silver as the nacre inside a seashell, and comes not down from the heavens but from beyond the skyline, oozing and seeping until it lies over the day like an opalescent blanket inviting us to slide beneath it. There’s no telling when we’ll see the horizontal light; it appears at a different time every day, and most days we overlook it—it tends to come and go in an instant—and on other days we see and it lingers, but we manage to ignore it or, at least, after a while, to look away from it.

But then there are the days we can’t look away. “Man, the horizontal light was really strong today,” one of us will say, and the other two will say, “But you resisted,” and the first one will say, “Yeah, well, today I resisted. Who knows about tomorrow?” and we all say, “Who ever knows about tomorrow?” and we refresh our drinks. ~ Judith Claire Mitchell,
697:Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things; he thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources. Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities, which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever. Years later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of the mind, which he wields with worldwide influence and almost unequalled power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities; he speaks, and lo, lives are changed; men and women hang upon his words and remould their characters, and, sunlike, he becomes the fixed and luminous center round which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the Vision of his youth. He has become one with his Ideal. ~ James Allen,
698:In Trouble
It's all for nothing: I've lost im now.
I suppose it ad to be:
But oh I never thought it of im,
Nor e never thought it of me.
And all for a kiss on your evening out
An a field where the grass was down ...
And e as gone to God-knows-where,
And I may go on the town.
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11
12
13
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15
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The worst of all was the thing e said
The night that e went away:
He said e'd a married me right enough
If I adn't a been so gay.
Me, gay! When I'd cried, and I'd asked him not,
But e said e loved me so;
An whatever e wanted seemed right to me ...
An how was a girl to know?
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18
19
20
21
22
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Well, the river is deep, and drowned folk sleep sound,
An it might be the best to do;
But when he made me a light-o-love
He made me a mother too.
I've ad enough sin to last my time,
If twas sin as I got it by,
But it aint no sin to stand by his kid
An work for it till I die.
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26
27
28
29
30
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But oh the long days and the death-long nights
When I feel it move and turn,
And cry alone in my single bed
And count what a girl can earn
To buy the baby the bits of things
He ought to a bought, by rights;
And wonder whether e thinks of Us ...
And if e sleeps sound o' nights.
~ Edith Nesbit,
699:This is the best idea you’ve had all day. And you’ve had a ton of good ones. You are so the idea girl. Quitting your job? Great idea. Getting Lay to give you the latex replica of yourself? Stellar. Just gotta follow through. The excessive drinking? Also masterful. And now we’re going to kick ass in person. I love it. Let’s dress you up, though. We’ll make Hudson’s balls cry big, girly tears when he thinks of all the anal he could have had with you tonight.” “Did I tell you he has his tongue pierced? And his dick pierced?” Verity asked, holding Angie by her face. “Do you know what that means to a vagina? Are you aware of the commitment he’s made to my vagina’s happiness? He slapped his man meat out somewhere…” She waved a boozy hand at the city. “Thought about pleasure, and took a stab in his pee hole. Do you even understand that?” “You did mention that already. And the tongue one is hard to miss.” Angie nodded seriously. “Let’s find the hottest thing you own and pour your boobs in it. Have I told you you have great tits? Your tits are the sweetest friends with my tits.” They proceeded to bump their boobs together. “Okay, let’s go.” Angie dragged Verity to her closet.   Verity Michaels @VerityPics03 I’ve never thunk Fireball was a bad idea. #RageDrinking   Verity Michaels @VerityPics03 Angie made me sexlicious. #GreatTitBuddies   Verity Michaels @VerityPics03 Pierced dicks are fucktacular. #PoundTown ~ Helena Hunting,
700:A Letter To The Same Person
Sure of Success, to You I boldly write,
Whilst Love do's ev'ry tender Line endite;
Love, who is justly President of Verse,
Which all his Servants write, or else rehearse.
Phoebus (howe'er mistaken Poets dream)
Ne'er us'd a Verse, till Love became his Theme.
To his stray'd Son, still as his Passion rose,
He rais'd his hasty Voice in clam'rous Prose:
But when in Daphne he wou'd Love inspire,
He woo'd in Verse, set to his silver Lyre.
The Trojan Prince did pow'rful Numbers join
To sing of War; but Love was the Design:
And sleeping Troy again in Flames was drest,
To light the Fires in pitying Dido's Breast.
Love without Poetry's refining Aid
Is a dull Bargain, and but coarsely made;
Nor e'er cou'd Poetry successful prove,
Or touch the Soul, but when the Sense was Love.
Oh! cou'd they both in Absence now impart
Skill to my Hand, but to describe my Heart;
Then shou'd you see impatient of your Stay
Soft Hopes contend with Fears of sad Delay;
Love in a thousand fond Endearments there,
And lively Images of You appear.
But since the Thoughts of a Poetick Mind
Will never be to Syllables confin'd;
And whilst to fix what is conceiv'd, we try,
The purer Parts evaporate and dye:
You must perform what they want force to do,
And think what your ARDELIA thinks of you.
~ Anne Kingsmill Finch,
701:What is un-Greek in Christianity. The Greeks did not see the Homeric gods above them as masters and themselves below them as servants, as did the Jews. They saw, as it were, only the reflection of the most successful specimens of their own caste, that is, an ideal, not a contrast to their own nature. They felt related to them, there was a reciprocal interest, a kind of symmachia. Man thinks of himself as noble when he gives himself such gods, and puts himself into a relationship similar to that of the lesser nobility to the higher. Whereas the Italic peoples have a regular peasant religion, with continual fearfulness about evil and capricious powers and tormentors. Where the Olympian gods retreated, there Greek life too grew gloomier and more fearful.

Christianity, on the other hand, crushed and shattered man completely, and submerged him as if in deep mire. Then, all at once, into his feeling of complete confusion, it allowed the light of divine compassion to shine, so that the surprised man, stunned by mercy, let out a cry of rapture, and thought for a moment that he carried all of heaven within him. All psychological inventions of Christianity work toward this sick excess of feeling, toward the deep corruption of head and heart necessary for it. Christianity wants to destroy, shatter, stun, intoxicate: there is only one thing it does not want: moderation, and for this reason, it is in its deepest meaning barbaric, Asiatic, ignoble, un-Greek. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
702:My Vision
Wherever my feet may wander
Wherever I chance to be,
There comes, with the coming of even' time
A vision sweet to me.
I see my mother sitting
In the old familiar place,
And she rocks to the tune her needles sing,
And thinks of an absent face.
I can hear the roar of the city
AAbout me now as I write;
But over an hundred miles of snow
My thought-steeds fly tonight,
To the dear little cozy cottage,
And the room where mother sits,
And slowly rocks in her easy chair
And thinks of me as she knits.
Sometimes with the merry dancers
When my feet are keeping time,
And my heart beats high, as young hearts will,
To the music's rhythmic chime.
My spirit slips over the distance
Over the glitter and whirl,
To my mother who sits, and rocks, and knits,
And thinks of her "little girl."
And when I listen to voices that flatter,
And smile, as women do,
To whispered words that may be sweet,
But are not always true;
I think of the sweet, quaint picture
Afar in quiet ways,
And I know one smile of my mother's eyes
Is better than all their praise.
And I know I can never wander
Far from the path of right,
Though snares are set for a woman's feet
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In places that seem most bright.
For the vision is with me always,
Wherever I chance to be,
Of mother sitting, rocking, and knitting,
Thinking and praying for me.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
703:Shall I have the carriage readied in time for you to catch the late morning train?”
“I’m afraid you won’t be that fortunate.” West took a swallow of tea. “I can’t go back to London. I have to stay in Hampshire until I’ve met with all the tenants I had planned to visit.”
“Mr. Ravenel--”
“I have to,” he said doggedly. “My brother never asks anything of me. Which is why I’ll do this even if it kills me.”
Kathleen glanced at him in surprise. “Very well,” she said after a moment. “Shall we send for Mr. Carlow to accompany you?”
“I rather hoped that you would go with me.” Seeing her expression, West added warily, “Only for today.”
“Mr. Carlow is far more familiar with the tenants and their situations--”
“His presence may prove to be inhibiting. I want them to speak to me frankly.” He glared at his plate. “Not that I expect more than a half-dozen words from any of them. I know what that sort thinks of me: a city toff. A great useless peacock who knows nothing about the superior virtues of farm life.”
“I don’t think they’ll judge you severely, so long as they believe that you’re not judging them. Just try to be sincere, and you should have no difficulty.”
“I have no talent for sincerity,” West muttered.
“It’s not a talent,” Kathleen said. “It’s a willingness to speak from your heart, rather than trying to be amusing or evasive.”
“Please,” West said tersely. “I’m already nauseous.” Scowling, he took another bite of the bacon sandwich. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
704:We Catch Glimmers June 26 RELIGION AS A word points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage; where he senses meanings no less overwhelming because they can be only hinted at in myth and ritual; where he glimpses a destination that he can never know fully until he reaches it. We are all of us more mystics than we believe or choose to believe—life is complicated enough as it is, after all. We have seen more than we let on, even to ourselves. Through some moment of beauty or pain, some sudden turning of our lives, we catch glimmers at least of what the saints are blinded by; only then, unlike the saints, we tend to go on as though nothing has happened. To go on as though something has happened, even though we are not sure what it was or just where we are supposed to go with it, is to enter the dimension of life that religion is a word for. Some, of course, go to the typewriter. First the lump in the throat, the stranger’s face unfurling like a flower, and then the clatter of the keys, the ting-a-ling of the right-hand margin. One thinks of Pascal sewing into his jacket, where after his death a servant found it, his “since about half past ten in the evening until about half past midnight. Fire. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace,” stammering it out like a child because he had to. Fire, fire, and then the scratch of pen on paper. There are always some who have to set it down in black and white. ~ Frederick Buechner,
705:Clair De Lune
Powder and scent and silence. The young dwarf
Shoulders his lute. The moon is Levantine.
It settles its pearl in every glass of wine.
Harlequin is already at the wharf.
The gallant is masked. A pressure of his thumb
Communicates cutaneous interest.
On the smooth upward swelling of a breast
A small black heart is fixed with spirit gum.
The thieving moment is now. Deftly, Pierrot
Exits, bearing a tray of fruits and coins.
A monkey, chained by his tiny loins,
Is taken aboard. They let their moorings go.
Silence. Even the god shall soon be gone.
Shadows, in their cool, tidal enterprise,
Have eaten away his muscular stone thighs.
Moonlight edges across the empty lawn.
Taffeta whispers. Someone is staring through
The white ribs of the pergola. She stares
At a small garnet pulse that disappears
Steadily seaward. Ah, my dear, it is you.
But you are not alone. A gardener goes
Through the bone light about the dark estate.
He bows, and, cheerfully inebriate,
Admires the lunar ashes of a rose,
And sings to his imaginary loves.
Wait. You can hear him. The familiar notes
Drift toward the old moss-bottomed fishing boats:
11
“Happy the heart that thinks of no removes.”
This is your nightmare. Those cold hands are yours.
The pain in the drunken singing is your pain.
Morning will taste of bitterness again.
The heart turns to a stone, but it endures.
~ Anthony Evan Hecht,
706:Take for example, the charge that the pro-life witness of the church is compromised if the church does not support extensive gun-control measures. Some ask, “Is gun violence not a pro-life issue?” Of course, gun violence is a pro-life issue. Murder is evil and is a violation of the dignity of the person and of the right to life. That said, what people mean typically when they speak of gun violence as a pro-life issue is not gun violence, directly, but about gun control measures. Many Christians and other pro-lifers support gun control measures, of course, and some support very extensive measures. But the gun control debate isn’t between people who support the right to shoot innocent people and those who don’t. It’s instead a debate about what works in solving the common goal of ending violent criminal behavior. That’s why orange-vested, deer-hunting gun control opponents and sandal-wearing, vegan gun control advocates can exist in the same church without excommunicating one another. Whatever one thinks of gun control, no one in the debate today supports selling guns to those who intend to kill. The question is instead how to prevent guns from being used criminally. Some think gun control measures are a necessary way to do this; others think such laws are ineffective and counterproductive, that we should be enforcing better the laws we already have. That’s a very different question from whether the child in the womb is a person bearing the right to legal protection from direct killing. ~ Russell D Moore,
707:And the fifth aspect of our duty is to God, our Creator, Sustainer, and the Forgiver of our shortcomings. One might say, 'We have not desired to come here. Why were we sent here?' But it is said in a moment of disturbance of mind. If the mind is still, if a person shows good sense he will say, 'Even if there were nothing else given to me in life, to be allowed to live under the sun is the greatest privilege.' One says, 'I toil and I earn money, and that is my living which I make. Who is to be given credit for it?' But it is not the money we eat; what we eat is not made in the bank. It is made by the sun and the moon and the stars and the earth and the water, by nature, which is living before us. If we had not air to breathe, we should die in a moment. These gifts of nature, which are before us, how can we be thankful enough for them? Besides, as a person develops spiritually he will see that it is not only his body that needs food, but also his mind, his heart, his soul; a food that this mechanical world cannot provide. It is the food that God alone can give, and it is therefore that we call God the Sustainer. Furthermore, at a time when there was neither strength in us nor sense enough to earn our livelihood, at that time our food was created. When one thinks of this, and when one realizes that every little creature, a germ or worm that no one ever notices, also receives its sustenance, then one begins to see that there is a Sustainer; and that Sustainer we find in God, and towards Him we have a duty. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan,
708:Location 29-30

[One who buys butcher's meat or poultry violates this gâthâ. For by paying the butcher for meat be has killed, the buyer shares his sin by "sanctioning" his act.]

==========

Location 31-31

A "creature" is something created (by God), but Buddhists regard all living organisms as evolved by due process of natural law.

==========

Location 65-65

Hatred is never quenched by hatred; hatred ceases by [showing] love; this is an old rule.

==========

Location 66-66

Let a man overcome anger by love, evil by good, the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.

==========

Location 131-132

The evil-doer suffers in this world, and he suffers in the next; he suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done; he suffers more when going on the evil path.

==========

Location 132-134

Surely an evil deed does not turn on a sudden like milk [curdling]; it is like fire smouldering in the ashes, which burns the fool. . . . An evil deed [Page 10] kills not instantly, as does a sword, but it follows the evil doer [even] into the next world.

==========

Location 186-187

"He abused me, he reviled me, he beat me, he subdued me"; he who keeps this in his mind, and who feels resentment, will find no peace.

==========

Location 208-208

Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify another.
~~Golden Rules of Buddhism by Henry Steel Olcott ~ Henry Steel Olcott,
709:A Nervous Governor-General
We read in the press that Lord Northcote is here
To take up Lord Tennyson's mission.
'Tis pleasant to find they have sent us a Peer,
And a man of exalted position.
It's his business to see that the Radical horde
From loyalty's path does not swerve us;
But his tastes, and the task, don't seem quite in accord
For they say that His Lordship is nervous.
Does he think that wild animals walk in the street,
Where the wary marsupial is hopping?
Does he think that the snake and the platypus meet
And "bail up" the folk who go shopping?
And the boomerangs fly round the scared passer-by
Who has come all this way to observe us.
While the blackfellow launches a spear at his eye?
-- No wonder His Lordship is nervous.
Does he think that with callers he'll be overtasked,
From a baronet down to a barber?
Does he dream of the number of times he'll be asked
"What he thinks of our Beautiful Harbour?"
Does he sadly reflect on the sorrows that ding
Round his task? (From such sorrows preserve us!)
He must hear John See speak and O'Sullivan sing,
-- It's enough to make any man nervous.
Does he think he'll be waked in the dead of night
From Melbourne to go willy-nilly,
To live in the Federal Capital site
At Tumut or Wagra-go-billy?
Well, the Melbournites may let the Capital go
(Here we wink with one eye, please observe us!)
But not in a hurry! By no means! Oh, no!
He has not the least need to be nervous!
~ Banjo Paterson,
710:Anyone who manages to experience the history of humanity as a whole as his own history will feel in an enormously generalized way all the grief of an invalid who thinks of health, of an old man who thinks of the dream of his youth, of a lover deprived of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is perishing, of the hero on the evening after a battle that has decided nothing but brought him wounds and the loss of his friend. But if one endured, if one could endure this immense sum of grief of all kinds while yet being the hero who, as the second day of battle breaks, welcomes the dawn and his fortune, being a person whose horizon encompasses thousands of years, past and future, being the heir of all the nobility of all past spirit - an heir with a sense of obligation, the most aristocratic of old nobles and at the same time the first of a new nobility - the like of which no age has yet seen or dreamed of; if one could burden one’s soul with all of this - the oldest, the newest, losses, hopes, conquests, and the victories of humanity; if one could finally contain all this in one soul and crowd it into a single feeling - this would surely have to result in a happiness that humanity has not known so far: the happiness of a god full of power and love, full of tears and laughter, a happiness that, like the sun in the evening, continually bestows its inexhaustible riches, pouring them into the sea, feeling richest, as the sun does, only when even the poorest fishermen is still rowing with golden oars! This godlike feeling would then be called - humaneness. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
711:Location 29-30

[One who buys butcher's meat or poultry violates this gâthâ. For by paying the butcher for meat be has killed, the buyer shares his sin by "sanctioning" his act.]

==========

Location 31-31

A "creature" is something created (by God), but Buddhists regard all living organisms as evolved by due process of natural law.

==========

Location 65-65

Hatred is never quenched by hatred; hatred ceases by [showing] love; this is an old rule.

==========

Location 66-66

Let a man overcome anger by love, evil by good, the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.

==========

Location 131-132

The evil-doer suffers in this world, and he suffers in the next; he suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done; he suffers more when going on the evil path.

==========

Location 132-134

Surely an evil deed does not turn on a sudden like milk [curdling]; it is like fire smouldering in the ashes, which burns the fool. . . . An evil deed [Page 10] kills not instantly, as does a sword, but it follows the evil doer [even] into the next world.

==========

Location 186-187

"He abused me, he reviled me, he beat me, he subdued me"; he who keeps this in his mind, and who feels resentment, will find no peace.

==========

Location 208-208

Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify another.
~ Henry Steel Olcott~ Henry Steel OlcottGolden Rules of Buddhism by Henry Steel Olcott ~ Henry Steel Olcott,
712:In the Metro, one evening, I looked closely around me: everyone had come from somewhere else . . . Among us, though, two or three faces from here, embarrassed silhouettes that seemed to be apologising for their presence. The same spectacle in London.
Today’s migrations are no longer made by compact displacements but by successive infiltrations: little by little, individuals insinuate themselves among the “natives,” to anaemic and too distinguished to stoop to the notion of a “territory.” After a thousand years of vigilance, we open the gates . . . When one thinks of the long rivalries between the French and the English, then between the French and the Germans, it seems as if each nation, by weakening one another, had as its task to speed the hour of the common downfall so that other specimens of humanity may relay them. Like its predecessor, the new Völkerwanderung will provoke an ethnic confusion whose phases cannot be distinctly foreseen. Confronted with these disparate profiles, the notion of a community homogeneous to whatever degree is inconceivable. The very possibility of so heteroclite a crowd suggests that in the space it occupies there no longer existed, among the indigenous, any desire to safeguard even the shadow of an identity. At Rome, in the third century of our era, out of a million inhabitants, only sixty thousand were of Latin stock. Once a people has fulfilled the historical idea which was its mission to incarnate, it no longer has any excuse to preserve its difference, to cherish its singularity, to safeguard its features amidst a chaos of faces. ~ Emil M Cioran,
713:In the Metro, one evening, I looked closely around me: everyone had come from somewhere else . . . Among us, though, two or three faces from here, embarrassed silhouettes that seemed to be apologising for their presence. The same spectacle in London.
Today’s migrations are no longer made by compact displacements but by successive infiltrations: little by little, individuals insinuate themselves among the “natives,” too anaemic and too distinguished to stoop to the notion of a “territory.” After a thousand years of vigilance, we open the gates . . . When one thinks of the long rivalries between the French and the English, then between the French and the Germans, it seems as if each nation, by weakening one another, had as its task to speed the hour of the common downfall so that other specimens of humanity may relay them. Like its predecessor, the new Völkerwanderung will provoke an ethnic confusion whose phases cannot be distinctly foreseen. Confronted with these disparate profiles, the notion of a community homogeneous to whatever degree is inconceivable. The very possibility of so heteroclite a crowd suggests that in the space it occupies there no longer existed, among the indigenous, any desire to safeguard even the shadow of an identity. At Rome, in the third century of our era, out of a million inhabitants, only sixty thousand were of Latin stock. Once a people has fulfilled the historical idea which was its mission to incarnate, it no longer has any excuse to preserve its difference, to cherish its singularity, to safeguard its features amidst a chaos of faces. ~ Emil M Cioran,
714:Kelly Ingram
His name was Kelly Ingram; he was Alabama's son,
And he whistled 'Yankee Doodle,' as he stood beside his gun;
There was laughter in his make-up, there was manhood in his face,
And he knew the best traditions and the courage of his race;
Now there's not a heart among us but should swell with loyal pride
When he thinks of Kelly Ingram and the splendid way he died.
On the swift Destroyer Cassin he was merely gunner's mate,
But up there to-day, I fancy, he is standing with the great.
On that grim day last October his position on the craft
Was that portion of the vessel which the sailors christen aft;
There were deep sea bombs beside him to be dropped upon the Hun
Who makes women folks his victims and then gloats o'er what he's done.
From the lookout came a warning; came the cry all sailors fear,
A torpedo was approaching, and the vessel's doom was near;
Ingram saw the streak of danger, but he saw a little more,
A greater menace faced them than that missile had in store;
If those deep sea bombs beside him were not thrown beneath the wave,
Every man aboard the Cassin soon would find a watery grave.
It was death for him to linger, but he figured if he ran
And quit his post of duty, 'twould be death for every man;
So he stood at his position, threw those depth bombs overboard,
And when that torpedo struck them, he went forth to meet his Lord.
Oh, I don't know how to say it, but these whole United States
Should remember Kelly Ingram—he who died to save his mates.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
715:Not the Happiness but the Consequence of Happiness

He wakes up in the silence of the winter woods,
the silence of birds not singing, knowing he will
not hear his voice all day. He remembers what
the brown owl sounded like while he was sleeping.
The man wakes in the frigid morning thinking
about women. Not with desire so much as with a sense
of what is not. The January silence is the sound
of his feet in the snow, a squirrel scolding,
or the scraping calls of a single blue jay.
Something of him dances there, apart and gravely mute.
Many days in the woods he wonders what it is
that he has for so long hunted down. We go hand
in hand, he thinks, into the dark pleasure,
but we are rewarded alone, just as we are married
into aloneness. He walks the paths doing the strange
mathematics of the brain, multiplying the spirit.
He thinks of caressing her feet as she kept dying.
For the last four hours, watching her gradually stop
as the hospital slept. Remembers the stunning
coldness of her head when he kissed her just after.
There is light or more light, darkness and less darkness.
It is, he decides, a quality without definition.
How strange to discover that one lives with the heart
as one lives with a wife. Even after many years,
nobody knows what she is like. The heart has
a life of its own. It gets free of us, escapes,
is ambitiously unfaithful. Dies out unaccountably
after eight years, blooms unnecessarily and too late.
Like the arbitrary silence in the white woods,
leaving tracks in the snow he cannot recognize. ~ Jack Gilbert,
716:Despina can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel. The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea.

When the camel driver sees, at the horizon of the tableland, the pinnacles of the skyscrapers come into view, the radar antennae, the white and red wind-socks flapping, the chimneys belching smoke, he thinks of a ship; he knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a vessel that will take him away from the desert, a windjammer about to cast off, with the breeze already swelling the sails, not yet unfurled, or a steamboat with its boiler vibrating in the iron keel; and he thinks of all the ports, the foreign merchandise the cranes unload on the docks, the taverns where crews of different flags break bottles over one another’s heads, the lighted, ground-floor windows, each with a woman combing her hair.

In the coastline’s haze, the sailor discerns the form of a camel’s withers, an embroidered saddle with glittering fringe between two spotted humps, advancing and swaying; he knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a camel from whose pack hang wine-skins and bags of candied fruit, date wine, tobacco leaves, and already he sees himself at the head of a long caravan taking him away from the desert of the sea, toward oases of fresh water in the palm trees’ jagged shade, toward palaces of thick, whitewashed walls, tiled courts where girls are dancing barefoot, moving their arms, half-hidden by their veils, and half-revealed.

Each city receives its form from the desert it opposes; and so the camel driver and the sailor see Despina, a border city between two deserts. ~ Italo Calvino,
717:Just So You Know

You fall in love with every book you touch. You never break the spine or tear the pages. That would be cruel. You have secret favorites but, when asked, you say that you could never choose. But did you know that books fall in love with you, too?

They watch you from the shelf while you sleep. Are you dreaming of them, they wonder, in that wistful mood books are prone to at night when they’re bored and there’s nothing else to do but tease the cat.

Remember that pale yellow book you read when you were sixteen? It changed your world, that book. It changed your dreams. You carried it around until it was old and thin and sparkles no longer rose from the pages and filled the air when you opened it, like it did when it was new. You should know that it still thinks of you. It would like to get together sometime, maybe over coffee next month, so you can see how much you’ve both changed.

And the book about the donkey your father read to you every night when you were three, it’s still around – older, a little worse for wear. But it still remembers the way your laughter made its pages tremble with joy.

Then there was that book, just last week, in the bookstore. It caught your eye. You looked away quickly, but it was too late. You felt the rush. You picked it up and stroked your hand over its glassy cover. It knew you were The One. But, for whatever reason, you put it back and walked away. Maybe you were trying to be practical. Maybe you thought there wasn’t room enough, time enough, energy enough.

But you’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?
You fall in love so easily.
But just so you know, they do, too. ~ Sarah Addison Allen,
718:Aside from what I feel to be the intrinsic interest of questions that are so fundamental and deep, I would, in this connection, call attention to the general problem of fragmentation of human consciousness, which is discussed in chapter 1. It is proposed there that the widespread and pervasive distinctions between people (race, nation, family, profession, etc., etc.), which are now preventing mankind from working together for the common good, and indeed, even for survival, have one of the key factors of their origin in a kind of thought that treats things as inherently divided, disconnected, and ‘broken up’ into yet smaller constituent parts. Each part is considered to be essentially independent and self-existent. When man thinks of himself in this way, he will inevitably tend to defend the needs of his own ‘Ego’ against those of the others; or, if he identifies with a group of people of the same kind, he will defend this group in a similar way. He cannot seriously think of mankind as the basic reality, whose claims come first. Even if he does try to consider the needs of mankind he tends to regard humanity as separate from nature, and so on. What I am proposing here is that man’s general way of thinking of the totality, i.e. his general world view, is crucial for overall order of the human mind itself. If he thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border (for every border is a division or break) then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole. ~ David Bohm,
719:Fine. Have it your way. But getting back to the theatrical event, do you think Miss Plum would believe me if I told her I was wearing that patch in order to get comfortable with a role?” “I imagine she would, although, now that I think about it, using that as an explanation might turn problematic if the play that’s to be performed doesn’t have a pirate in it.” Stanley frowned. “But pirates aside, sir, why are you so overly concerned about what Miss Plum thinks of you?” “I never said I was overly concerned.” Stanley’s eyes widened. “She’s the lady you hold in high esteem—isn’t she!” Seeing absolutely no benefit in denying it, Bram shrugged. “I might hold her in a bit of esteem.” “Good heavens, sir, I would have never guessed Miss Plum was the lady we were only recently speaking about, and . . . how peculiar that we were just speaking about her and . . . she shows up in your moat.” “It is an odd coincidence to be sure.” Stanley suddenly looked a bit too knowing. “Your affection for the lady certainly explains much, especially your interest in the theater and . . . using that interest to delve into different aspects of your work.” “I’m sure I have no idea what you could be suggesting.” “And I’m sure you know exactly what I’m suggesting, sir. Nevertheless, since you seem unwilling to explain what prompted you to take on work you had little time to take on, we’ll save this discussion for another time.” “Must we?” Stanley sent him a sad shake of his head. “You’re burying yourself in secrets, Mr. Haverstein, and secrets have a way of rising to the surface when we least expect them to do so. You might want to consider divulging a few of those secrets, before they slip out on their own and cause you all sorts of difficulties.” With ~ Jen Turano,
720:Nights with David the Physicist are upsetting,” she said. “And unconnected.” She sighed, took a drag, exhaled. “There is talking, about a thousand things. Laughter. Even some kissing. And then nothing. Nothing inspires him, if you see what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

She shrugged. “Nothing impacts him, I don’t think. His head, maybe his heart, these things are involved in the moment. I believe they are. But then the moment is over and he never thinks of it again. Or chooses not to care.”

I slumped back in my seat. “He cares,” I said. “I mean, I’ve seen him. When he looks at you, it’s like no one else exists.”

“And when he looks away,” Cristina said quietly, “it is as if I don’t exist.” She toyed with her cigarette. “I don’t think he means to be cruel. I think he might think he is being kind instead.” She smiled. “After all, he cannot control what I feel. What the things he does make me feel. Or the things he does not do.”

“I greatly dislike him,” I said.

“I wish I did.” Cristina sighed. “But what would be the point? He is like a storm. You don’t like or dislike something of nature, you just try to survive it and hope for the best. Right?”

“I don’t think he’s a force of nature,” I countered. “I think he’s just a coward. There’s no way he likes anyone more than he likes you.”

“Maybe not,” Cristina agreed. “But that doesn’t mean that everything automatically leads to a happy ending. I don’t think there will be any happy ending with David the Physicist, Alex. I think there will maybe be one or two other nights I will have to survive, and then he will disappear because he’s a coward or because he just will, and I will cry some more and smoke some more and never know why. ~ Megan Crane,
721:Ocean, Mr., Mrs. Blink
Noise near beaches,
'Mid July.
Scampering of thousands of humans who work in factories and
stores; and homes.
Ocean near the scampering citizens and citizenesses.
Citizens go to ocean;
Citizenesses scream coyly.
Hey, ocean, how far you go.
Mr. Blink is on a big wave.
The fat legs of Mrs. Blink are pretty beneath the green, heavy
ocean waves; such a place for Mrs. Blink's fat, old legs.
Brooklyn near, hot Sunday afternoon with trolley-cars going all
around and all around; in hot dust, hot dust, going up to
Brooklyn's hot sky, July, hot sky.
Mr. Blink is on a big, new wave.
Mrs. Blink is getting cold.
She is on the beach now.
Mrs. Blink, mother of three, is walking on the beach now.
Mrs. Blink is not so graceful.
Mrs. Blink's first is called Irving .
Mrs. Blink thinks of late supper.
Mr. Blink is enjoying a big, new wave, near Brooklyn.
Mr. Blink and Mrs. Blink are different.
So are two waves.
Mrs. Blink is a thinking lady.
She thinks all the time.
Her second is called Arthur.
Her third is called Ethel.
Such experience has had Mrs. Blink, housewife of Brooklyn, wife
of a dry-goods man of Brooklyn.
Mrs. Blink doesn't know her Arthur is going to die soon.
Mrs. Blink doesn't know everything.
Look at the fat legs of Mrs. Blink in the sun.
Look at the hair on Mrs. Blink's fat legs, hair on Mrs. Blink's fat
legs in the sun.
Mrs. Blink loves her Irving.
Irving will be a lawyer.
Irving is now at a party.
He likes Irma.
27
Those waves; that ocean.
That ocean, that ocean.
Mrs. Blink's ocean.
Mrs. Blink and Mr. Blink are by and in the great big, blue,
green ocean, near Brooklyn .
~ Eli Siegel,
722:There was little the mainstream auto industry could do to slow Tesla down. But that didn’t stop executives from trying to be difficult whenever possible. Tesla, for example, wanted to call its third-generation car the Model E, so that its lineup of vehicles would be the Model S, E, and X—another playful Musk gag. But Ford’s then CEO, Alan Mulally, blocked Tesla from using Model E, with the threat of a lawsuit. “So I call up Mulally and I was like, ‘Alan, are you just fucking with us or are you really going to do a Model E?’” Musk said. “And I’m not sure which is worse. You know? Like it would actually make more sense if they’re just fucking with us because if they actually come out with a Model E at this point, and we’ve got the Model S and the X and Ford comes out with the Model E, it’s going to look ridiculous. So even though Ford did the Model T a hundred years ago, nobody thinks of ‘Model’ as being a Ford thing anymore. So it would just feel like they stole it. Like why did you go steal Tesla’s E? Like you’re some sort of fascist army marching across the alphabet, some sort of Sesame Street robber. And he was like, ‘No, no, we’re definitely going to use it.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea because people are going to be confused because it’s not going to make sense. People aren’t used to Ford having Model something these days. It’s usually called like the Ford Fusion.’ And he was like, no, his guys really want to use that. That’s terrible.” After that, Tesla registered the trademark for Model Y as another joke. “In fact, Ford called us up deadpan and said, ‘We see you’ve registered Model Y. Is that what you’re going to use instead of the Model E?’” Musk said. “I’m like, ‘No, it’s a joke. S-E-X-Y. What does that spell?’ But trademark law is a dry profession it turns out. ~ Ashlee Vance,
723:God made His Christ wonderful in a number of ways. First, He made Him do miracles and thus repudiated the Jews who denied that this man was from the Lord. Second, His manner of life was opposed to the whole world, namely, that He would flee what the whole world sought above all and would seek what the world fled above all. Thus in the first place “He made foolish the wisdom of the world” (1 Cor. 1:20) by being Himself made foolish to the world; then “He chose what is weak” (that is, sufferings and punishments) “to shame the strong” (that is, agreeable and peaceful things); hence “what is despised and things that are not” (1 Cor. 1:27 f.), such as poverty, contempt, the cross, death, and in general every opinion and “wisdom of the flesh” (Rom. 8:6) and of the world. Thus He is the “holy temple of the Lord,” that is, His humanity, “wonderful in justice” (Ps. 65:4 f.). These things the world and the flesh marvel at as something to be loved and sought after. So also the Jews, who were again offended at Him, fell into blasphemies, because they thought that such things especially must also be sought according to the Law. It is necessary that the fleshly man blaspheme the spiritual, because he regards spiritual goods as false, as follows below: “There are many who say, ‘who will show us the good?’” (v. 6). Third, He made Him wonderful in a superexcellent way in that He who alone is wonderful and the author of wonders made Him to be God. This is a great miracle, that the same person is God and man, dead and alive, mortal and immortal, and almost every contradiction is here resolved in Christ. Therefore the Jews who wanted to regard Christ as a mere man and not as the One made wonderful were in error and guilty of blasphemy. To one who thinks of anyone no more than what he can see in him no one appears wonderful. ~ Martin Luther,
724:In looking at fears, then, it is well to remember that Carl Jung saw this reservoir of the forbidden inside the shadow as a part of the collective unconscious. The term collective unconscious means that everybody has these thoughts and fantasies. There is nothing unique about any of us when it comes to the way we symbolize our emotions. Everybody secretly harbors the fear that they are dumb, ugly, unlovable, and a failure. The unconscious mind is not polite. It thinks in gross concepts. When it thinks of the phrase “Murder the bum!,” the unconscious literally means that. Look deep within yourself the next time somebody cuts you off in traffic, and picture what you would really do to that person if you were strictly honest with yourself and did not censor the image coming to mind. You’d like to run them off the road, wouldn’t you? Pulverize them. Push them off the cliff. Isn’t that right? That’s the way the unconscious thinks. The reason that a sense of humor is useful is because these images are comical once we look at them. There is nothing awful about it; it is just the way the unconscious handles images. It doesn’t mean that you are a rotten person or that you are potentially a criminal. It just means that you have gotten honest and faced how the human animal mind operates in this dimension. There is no point in getting melodramatic, self-critical, or tragic about it. The unconscious is crude and uncivilized. While your intellect went to prep school, your unconscious remained in the jungle where it is still swinging in the trees! Looking at the shadow side is not a time to get prissy or squeamish. It’s not a time to take it literally either, because the symbols of the unconscious are just that: they are symbols, and they are primitive in nature. If worked with consciously, they can empower us rather than inhibit us. ~ David R Hawkins,
725:They landed in a field with a light dusting of snow.
“Middle of nowhere?” Elysia said, looking around. “Interesting choice.”
“No waaaay!” Thrilled, Ferbus broke from the group and started running toward a series of objects on the horizon.
Driggs snickered. “This should be fun.”
As they got closer to Ferbus’s shouts of glee, the forms that had made no sense at a distance began to take shape into something that made even less sense: stacks of old automobiles, seemingly dropped from space but arranged in an undeniable pattern.
“Carhenge!” Ferbus jubilantly danced through the pillars, taking it all in. “Man, you hear about it, you dream about the day you might get to see it, but it’s even better than I imagined!”
Elysia blinked. “What is Carhenge?”
“Don’t you get it?” said Ferbus, the grin still on his face. “It’s like Stonehenge.” He pointed. “But with cars.”
The Juniors stared at him. Bang coughed.
“Well,” said Uncle Mort after a moment, “as riveting as”—he consulted his atlas—“rural Nebraska is, it’s probably best that we keep moving.”
Ferbus’s face fell. “But the gift shop.”
Uncle Mort rubbed his temples. “Tell you what, next time we’re being chased by a murderous criminal, I’ll try to schedule in a little more time for sightseeing.” He formed the Juniors back into a circle. “Let’s not assign a designated driver this time. We’ll scythe, and whoever thinks of something first, somewhere farther east—that’s where we’ll go. Ready?”
***
This time around they were greeted by the stoic faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, all wearing caps of snow. “Ooh, Mount Rushmore,” Ferbus said bitterly. “Because dead presidents are so much more fascinating than the subtle, delicate art of automotive sculpture.”
“East!” Uncle Mort said, exasperated. “Not north! ~ Gina Damico,
726:Christmas Eve
Oh sharp diamond, my mother!
I could not count the cost
of all your faces, your moodsthat present that I lost.
Sweet girl, my deathbed,
my jewel-fingered lady,
your portrait flickered all night
by the bulbs of the tree.
Your face as calm as the moon
over a mannered sea,
presided at the family reunion,
the twelve grandchildren
you used to wear on your wrist,
a three-months-old baby,
a fat check you never wrote,
the red-haired toddler who danced the twist,
your aging daughters, each one a wife,
each one talking to the family cook,
each one avoiding your portrait,
each one aping your life.
Later, after the party,
after the house went to bed,
I sat up drinking the Christmas brandy,
watching your picture,
letting the tree move in and out of focus.
The bulbs vibrated.
They were a halo over your forehead.
Then they were a beehive,
blue, yellow, green, red;
each with its own juice, each hot and alive
stinging your face. But you did not move.
I continued to watch, forcing myself,
waiting, inexhaustible, thirty-five.
I wanted your eyes, like the shadows
of two small birds, to change.
But they did not age.
39
The smile that gathered me in, all wit,
all charm, was invincible.
Hour after hour I looked at your face
but I could not pull the roots out of it.
Then I watched how the sun hit your red sweater, your withered neck,
your badly painted flesh-pink skin.
You who led me by the nose, I saw you as you were.
Then I thought of your body
as one thinks of murderThen I said MaryMary, Mary, forgive me
and then I touched a present for the child,
the last I bred before your death;
and then I touched my breast
and then I touched the floor
and then my breast again as if,
somehow, it were one of yours.
~ Anne Sexton,
727:Even Christ pleased not Himself: He bore the reproaches, with which men reproached and dishonoured God, so patiently, that He might glorify God and save man. Christ pleased not Himself: with reference both to God and man, this word is the key of His life. In this, too, His life is our rule and example; we who are strong ought not to please ourselves. To deny self-this is the opposite of pleasing self. When Peter denied Christ, he said: I know not the man; with Him and His interests I have nothing to do; I do not wish to be counted His friend. In the same way the true Christian denies himself, the old man: I do not know this old man; I will have nothing to do with him and his interests. And when shame and dishonour come upon him, or anything be exacted that is not pleasant to the old nature, be simply says: Do as you like with the old ties of the Adam, I will take no notice of it. Through the cross of Christ I am crucified to the world, and the flesh, and self: to the friendship and interest of this old man I am a stranger; I deny him to be my friend; I deny his every claim and wish; I know him not. The Christian who only thinks of his salvation from curse and condemnation cannot understand this; he finds it impossible to deny self. Although he may sometimes try to do so, his life mainly consists in pleasing himself. The Christian who has taken Christ as his pattern cannot be content with this. He has surrendered himself to seek the most complete fellowship with the cross of Christ. The Holy Spirit has taught him to say, I have been crucified with Christ, and so am dead to sin and self. In fellowship with Christ he sees the old man crucified, a condemned malefactor; he is ashamed to own him as a friend: it is his fixed purpose, and he has received the power for it too, no longer to please his old nature, but to deny it. Because the crucified Christ is his life, self-denial is the law of his life. ~ Andrew Murray,
728:You are angry?”
Her reply was frigid silence.
“Blue Eyes, what wrong words have I said?”
“What have you said?”
Hunter frowned. “It would not please you to marry with me? Better a wife than a slave, yes?”
“I will never play second fiddle, never!”
Hunter studied her, trying to figure out why she had switched the topic of conversation from marriage to making music.
“How dare you!” she cried. “Of all the-- You arrogant, simple-- Oh, never mind! Just you understand this! Amongst my people, a man has one wife, only one, and he looks at no other, thinks of no other, touches no other, until death do they part. I wouldn’t marry you if you got on your knees and begged me!”
Hunter sat up slowly, feeling a little dazed by her fury and wondering what had sparked it. Would he never understand her?
She leaned toward him, her blue eyes flashing. “Even if I would marry you, an announcement by a central fire would not constitute a marriage in my books.” She thumped her chest. “I must make my vows before a priest! And furthermore, when I take a husband, he won’t be a Comanche. You couldn’t be chief husband, second husband, any husband, to me. You’re a barbarian who treats women like chattel!”
Very calmly Hunter inserted, “You are my woman. You will sure enough marry no other.”
“Well, if you think I’m going to marry you, you have another think coming! Never, do you hear me?”
With that, she wrapped her arms around herself and glared at him. Hunter sighed and flopped onto his back, staring upward sightlessly. Minutes passed. When at last he felt her curl up at the foot of the bed, as far away from him as possible, a knowing smile touched his lips. No woman could possibly get that angry over another woman unless she was jealous. And a woman didn’t get jealous unless she was in love. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one with another think coming. ~ Catherine Anderson,
729:[...]however much one may love the poison that is destroying one, when one has compulsorily to do without it, and has had to do without it for some time past, one cannot help attaching a certain value to the peace of mind which one had ceased to know, to the absence of emotion and suffering. If one is not altogether sincere in assuring oneself that one does not wish ever to see again her whom one loves, one would not be a whit more sincere in saying that one would like to see her. For no doubt one can endure her absence only when one promises oneself that it shall not be for long, and thinks of the day on which one shall see her again, but at the same time one feels how much less painful are those daily recurring dreams of a meeting immediate and incessantly postponed than would be an interview which might be followed by a spasm of jealousy, with the result that the news that one is shortly to see her whom one loves would cause a disturbance which would be none too pleasant. What one procrastinates now from day to day is no longer the end of the intolerable anxiety caused by separation, it is the dreaded renewal of emotions which can lead to nothing. How infinitely one prefers to any such interview the docile memory which one can supplement at one’s pleasure with dreams, in which she who in reality does not love one seems, far from that, to be making protestations of her love for one, when one is by oneself; that memory which one can contrive, by blending gradually with it a portion of what one desires, to render as pleasing as one may choose, how infinitely one prefers it to the avoided interview in which one would have to deal with a creature to whom one could no longer dictate at one’s pleasure the words that one would like to hear on her lips, but from whom one would meet with fresh coldness, unlooked-for violence. We know, all of us, when we no longer love, that forgetfulness, that even a vague memory do not cause us so much suffering as an ill-starred love. ~ Marcel Proust,
730:Anthony’s current wealth is 1 million. Betty’s current wealth is 4 million. They are both offered a choice between a gamble and a sure thing. The gamble: equal chances to end up owning 1 million or 4 million OR The sure thing: own 2 million for sure In Bernoulli’s account, Anthony and Betty face the same choice: their expected wealth will be 2.5 million if they take the gamble and 2 million if they prefer the sure-thing option. Bernoulli would therefore expect Anthony and Betty to make the same choice, but this prediction is incorrect. Here again, the theory fails because it does not allow for the different reference points from which Anthony and Betty consider their options. If you imagine yourself in Anthony’s and Betty’s shoes, you will quickly see that current wealth matters a great deal. Here is how they may think: Anthony (who currently owns 1 million): “If I choose the sure thing, my wealth will double with certainty. This is very attractive. Alternatively, I can take a gamble with equal chances to quadruple my wealth or to gain nothing.” Betty (who currently owns 4 million): “If I choose the sure thing, I lose half of my wealth with certainty, which is awful. Alternatively, I can take a gamble with equal chances to lose three-quarters of my wealth or to lose nothing.” You can sense that Anthony and Betty are likely to make different choices because the sure-thing option of owning 2 million makes Anthony happy and makes Betty miserable. Note also how the sure outcome differs from the worst outcome of the gamble: for Anthony, it is the difference between doubling his wealth and gaining nothing; for Betty, it is the difference between losing half her wealth and losing three-quarters of it. Betty is much more likely to take her chances, as others do when faced with very bad options. As I have told their story, neither Anthony nor Betty thinks in terms of states of wealth: Anthony thinks of gains and Betty thinks of losses. The psychological outcomes they assess are entirely different, although the possible states of wealth they face are the same. ~ Daniel Kahneman,
731:And to complicate matters even further, there's Miss Leighton.  She cared for him when he was ill, gave him some sense of independence and worth, and captured his heart, though I daresay he may not realize that, and certainly won't admit it." "Guilt over supposedly betraying Juliet?" "Of course." "And what does she think of him?" "My dear Gareth.  Charles may be broken, but he is still handsome, gallant, and kind — enough to make any young lady sigh with wanting.  As she strove to give him dignity and independence when he had neither, so he strove to give her confidence in herself, and to defend her from a family that, from all accounts, quite despised her.  What do you think she thinks of him?" "Given that she followed him across the Atlantic, I should think she's quite in love with him," Gareth said, wryly.  "I should also think that, because she's a commoner, and because Charles has been engaged since birth to Lady Katharine, you will crush any hopes of a romantic union between them." "On the contrary," Lucien said smoothly.  "For one thing, Lady Katherine has recently accepted an offer from Viscount Bisley, so her engagement to our brother is off.  Furthermore, I have learned a thing or two about American woman since Juliet came into all our lives.  Amy Leighton is exactly what Charles needs, and I will do all in my power to get them together." "The best of luck to you, then.  Charles is smarter than me, and far more perceptive.  He'll know what you're up to when I did not, and he will know immediately." Lucien gave a benign smile.  "My dear Gareth.  Do you have such little faith in me as all that?  He will not discern my hand in this — just as you didn't."  He put down his glass and, hands clasped loosely behind his back, returned to the window, where he stood gazing out over the silent, starlit downs.  "And he will not discern my hand in anything else, either.  It is time for me to play God, I think.  To find some sort of challenge that will restore our brother's confidence in himself and his abilities.  To begin the Restoration . . . of Charles."   ~ Danelle Harmon,
732:Home Cooking: The Comforts of Old Family Favorites."
Easy. Baked macaroni and cheese with crunchy bread crumbs on top; simple mashed potatoes with no garlic and lots of cream and butter; meatloaf with sage and a sweet tomato sauce topping. Not that I experienced these things in my house growing up, but these are the foods everyone thinks of as old family favorites, only improved. If nothing else, my job is to create a dreamlike state for readers in which they feel that everything will be all right if only they find just the right recipe to bring their kids back to the table, seduce their husbands into loving them again, making their friends and neighbors envious.
I'm tapping my keyboard, thinking, what else?, when it hits me like a soft thud in the chest. I want to write about my family's favorites, the strange foods that comforted us in tense moments around the dinner table. Mom's Midwestern "hot dish": layers of browned hamburger, canned vegetable soup, canned sliced potatoes, topped with canned cream of mushroom soup. I haven't tasted it in years. Her lime Jell-O salad with cottage cheese, walnuts, and canned pineapple, her potato salad with French dressing instead of mayo.
I have a craving, too, for Dad's grilling marinade. "Shecret Shauce" he called it in those rare moments of levity when he'd perform the one culinary task he was willing to do. I'd lean shyly against the counter and watch as he poured ingredients into a rectangular cake pan. Vegetable oil, soy sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and then he'd finish it off with the secret ingredient: a can of fruit cocktail. Somehow the sweetness of the syrup was perfect against the salty soy and the biting garlic. Everything he cooked on the grill, save hamburgers and hot dogs, first bathed in this marinade overnight in the refrigerator. Rump roasts, pork chops, chicken legs all seemed more exotic this way, and dinner guests raved at Dad's genius on the grill. They were never the wiser to the secret of his sauce because the fruit bits had been safely washed into the garbage disposal. ~ Jennie Shortridge,
733:PEACETIME CEO/WARTIME CEO Peacetime CEO knows that proper protocol leads to winning. Wartime CEO violates protocol in order to win. Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture and empowers her people to make detailed decisions. Wartime CEO cares about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with the prime directive. Peacetime CEO builds scalable, high-volume recruiting machines. Wartime CEO does that, but also builds HR organizations that can execute layoffs. Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture. Peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Wartime CEO knows that sometimes you gotta roll a hard six. Peacetime CEO knows what to do with a big advantage. Wartime CEO is paranoid. Peacetime CEO strives not to use profanity. Wartime CEO sometimes uses profanity purposefully. Peacetime CEO thinks of the competition as other ships in a big ocean that may never engage. Wartime CEO thinks the competition is sneaking into her house and trying to kidnap her children. Peacetime CEO aims to expand the market. Wartime CEO aims to win the market. Peacetime CEO strives to tolerate deviations from the plan when coupled with effort and creativity. Wartime CEO is completely intolerant. Peacetime CEO does not raise her voice. Wartime CEO rarely speaks in a normal tone. Peacetime CEO works to minimize conflict. Wartime CEO heightens the contradictions. Peacetime CEO strives for broad-based buy-in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus building nor tolerates disagreements. Peacetime CEO sets big, hairy, audacious goals. Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand. Peacetime CEO trains her employees to ensure satisfaction and career development. Wartime CEO trains her employees so they don’t get their asses shot off in the battle. Peacetime CEO has rules like “We’re going to exit all businesses where we’re not number one or two.” Wartime CEO often has no businesses that are number one or two and therefore does not have the luxury of following that rule. ~ Ben Horowitz,
734:When at last she scooted over to him, Hunter experienced a feeling like none he had ever felt. It went beyond satisfaction, beyond contentment. Having her fair head on his shoulder felt perfectly right, as if the Great Ones had hollowed the spot for her long ago, and he had been waiting all his life for her to fill it. He curled his arm around her, his hand on her back.
“It is good, eh?”
She placed a palm lightly on his chest. In a dubious tone she replied, “Yes, it is good.”
Another silence settled over them. He measured the thrums of her heart beneath his hand, pleased that the rhythm no longer reminded him of the frantic wing beats of a trapped bird. Staring at the conical roof, he longed for the weariness he had pretended. It didn’t come. He was relieved when she broke the silence.
“Hunter, what did you mean when you said you had made no talk of marriage because I’m a White Eyes?”
He brushed his lips across the top of her head, loving the flower smell that still clung to her hair. He would never again smell springtime and not think of her. “My chief wife will be a woman of my own blood.” He felt her stiffen and, seeking to mollify her, added, “You can be second wife, eh? Or third?”
To his surprise she bolted upright, shaking again, this time in anger. With an indignant lift of her small chin, she flung herself away from him.
“You are angry?”
Her reply was frigid silence.
“Blue Eyes, what wrong words have I said?”
“What have you said?”
Hunter frowned. “It would not please you to marry with me? Better a wife than a slave, yes?”
“I will never play second fiddle, never!”
Hunter studied her, trying to figure out why she had switched the topic of conversation from marriage to making music.
“How dare you!” she cried. “Of all the-- You arrogant, simple-- Oh, never mind! Just you understand this! Amongst my people, a man has one wife, only one, and he looks at no other, thinks of no other, touches no other, until death do they part. I wouldn’t marry you if you got on your knees and begged me! ~ Catherine Anderson,
735:The House Of Dust: Part 02: 11: Snow Falls. The Sky
Is Grey, And Sullenly Glares
Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares
With purple lights in the canyoned street.
The fiery sign on the dark tower wreathes and flares...
The trodden grass in the park is covered with white,
The streets grow silent beneath our feet...
The city dreams, it forgets its past to-night.
And one, from his high bright window looking down
Over the enchanted whiteness of the town,
Seeing through whirls of white the vague grey towers,
Desires like this to forget what will not pass,
The littered papers, the dust, the tarnished grass,
Grey death, stale ugliness, and sodden hours.
Deep in his heart old bells are beaten again,
Slurred bells of grief and pain,
Dull echoes of hideous times and poisonous places.
He desires to drown in a cold white peace of snow.
He desires to forget a million faces...
In one room breathes a woman who dies of hunger.
The clock ticks slowly and stops. And no one winds it.
In one room fade grey violets in a vase.
Snow flakes faintly hiss and melt on the window.
In one room, minute by minute, the flutist plays
The lamplit page of music, the tireless scales.
His hands are trembling, his short breath fails.
In one room, silently, lover looks upon lover,
And thinks the air is fire.
The drunkard swears and touches the harlot's heartstrings
With the sudden hand of desire.
And
And
And
And
one goes late in the streets, and thinks of murder;
one lies staring, and thinks of death.
one, who has suffered, clenches her hands despairing,
holds her breath...
242
Who are all these, who flow in the veins of the city,
Coil and revolve and dream,
Vanish or gleam?
Some mount up to the brain and flower in fire.
Some are destroyed; some die; some slowly stream.
And
And
And
And
And
the new are born who desire to destroy the old;
fires are kindled and quenched; and dreams are broken,
walls flung down...
the slow night whirls in snow over towers of dreamers,
whiteness hushes the town.
~ Conrad Potter Aiken,
736:The Change-Worker
A feller don't start in to think of himself, an'
the part that he's playin' down here,
When there's nobody lookin' to him fer support,
an' he don't give a thought to next year.
His faults don't seem big an' his habits no worse
than a whole lot of others he knows,
An' he don't seem to care what his neighbors may
say, as heedlessly forward he goes.
He don't stop to think if it's wrong or it's right;
with his speech he is careless or glib,
Till the minute the nurse lets him into the room
to see what's asleep in the crib.
An' then as he looks at that bundle o' red, an' the
wee little fingers an' toes,
An' he knows it's his flesh an' his blood that is there,
an' will be just like him when it grows,
It comes in a flash to a feller right then, there is
more here than pleasure or pelf,
An' the sort of a man his baby will be is the sort
of a man he's himself.
Then he kisses the mother an' kisses the child, an'
goes out determined that he
Will endeavor to be just the sort of a man that
he's wantin' his baby to be.
A feller don't think that it matters so much what
he does till a baby arrives;
He sows his wild oats an' he has his gay fling an'
headlong in pleasure he dives;
An' a drink more or less doesn't matter much
then, for life is a comedy gay,
But the moment a crib is put in the home, an' a
baby has come there to stay,
He thinks of the things he has done in the past,
an' it strikes him as hard as a blow,
That the path he has trod in the past is a path
that he don't want his baby to go.
709
I ain't much to preach, an' I can't just express
in the way that your clever men can
The thoughts that I think, but it seems to me now
that when God wants to rescue a man
From himself an' the follies that harmless appear,
but which, under the surface, are grim,
He summons the angel of infancy sweet, an' sends
down a baby to him.
For in that way He opens his eyes to himself, and
He gives him the vision to see
That his duty's to be just the sort of a man that
he's wantin' his baby to be.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
737:Kahnawake
August 1704
Temperature 75 degrees

“What do you mean--your family?” he said. “Joseph, you do not have a family in this terrible place. You have a master. Do not confuse savages who happen to give you food with family.
Joseph’s face hardened. “They are my family. My father is Great Sky. My mother--”
The minister lost his temper. “Your father is Martin Kellogg,” he shouted, “with whom I just dined in Montreal. You refer to some savage as your father? I am ashamed of you.”
Under his tan, Joseph paled and his Indian calm left him. He was trembling. “My--my father? Alive? You saw him?”
“Your father is a field hand for a French family in Montreal. He works hard, Joseph. He has no choice. But you have choices. Have you chosen to abandon your father?”
Joseph swallowed and wet his lips. “No.” He could barely get the syllable out.
Don’t cry, prayed Mercy. Be an eagle. She fixed her eyes upon him, giving him all her strength, but Mr. Williams continued to destroy whatever strength the thirteen-year-old possessed.
“Your father prays for the day you and he will be ransomed, Joseph. All he thinks of is the moment he can gather his beloved family back under his own roof. Is that not also your prayer, Joseph?”
Joseph stared down the wide St. Lawrence in the direction of Montreal. He was fighting for composure and losing. Each breath shuddered visibly through his ribs.
The Indian men who never seemed to do anything but smoke and lounge around joined them silently. How runty the French looked next to the six-foot Indians; how gaudy and ridiculous their ruffled and buckled clothing.
The Indians were not painted and they wore almost nothing. Neither were they armed. And yet they came as warriors. Two of their children were threatened. It could not be tolerated.
Tannhahorens put one hand on Joseph’s shoulder and the other on Mercy’s. He was not ordering them around, and yet he did not seem to be protecting them.
He was, it dawned on Mercy, comforting them.
In Tannhahorens’s eyes, we are Indian children, thought Mercy. Her hair prickled and her skin turned to gooseflesh. She had spent the summer forgetting to be English--and Tannhahorens had spent the summer forgetting the same thing. ~ Caroline B Cooney,
738:Language ​A mangle and an earthly remnant that the poet leans on more heavily than all others, is language.  At times he can rightly hate, accuse, and curse it—or rather himself, that he is born to work with this wretched tool.  With envy he thinks of the painter, whose language—the colors—speaks just as understandably to all mankind, from the North Pole down to Africa, or the musician, whose tones speak every human language as well, and which from the single-voiced melody to the polyphonic orchestra, from the horn to the clarinet, from the fiddle to the harp, must obey like many new, singular, fine, and differing languages.  ​But for one thing especially he envies the musician deeply and daily: that the musician has his language for himself alone, only for making music!  But for his activity the poet must use the same language in which you hold school and do business, in which you telegraph and hold court.  How poor he is, that for his art he owns no private organ, no personal abode, no private garden, no personal window to look out onto the moon—all and all he must partake in everyday life!  He says “heart” and means the pulsing core of life in man, his innermost capability and weakness; but then the word at the same time signifies a muscle.  He says “power”, then he must fight for the sense of his word with engineers and electricians; he says “bliss”, then something from theology gazes onto his imagination’s expression.  He can use no private word that doesn’t leer at once to another side, that doesn’t with a breath recall foreign, disturbed, hostile imaginations, that isn’t deceive by scruples and shortenings, and broken by narrow walls, from which a voice turns back unsounded and smothered. ​If a knave is someone who gives more than he has, then a poet can never be a knave.  There is not a tenth, not a hundredth of what he would like to give; he is satisfied if the hearer understands him from totally above him, then entirely from far, then completely incidentally, most importantly at least not grossly misunderstands.  He seldom reaches more.  And overall, where a poet reaps praise or criticism, where he makes effects or gets mocked, where someone loves him or rejects him, one speaks not from his thoughts and dreams alone, but only a hundredth that could squeeze through the narrow canal of language and through the no wider comprehension of reading. ~ Hermann Hesse,
739:The Allies
August 14th, 1914
Into the brazen, burnished sky, the cry hurls itself. The zigzagging cry
of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the head
of the serpent to its tail, the long snail-slow serpent of marching men.
Men weighed down with rifles and knapsacks, and parching with war.
The cry jars and splits against the brazen, burnished sky.
This is the war of wars, and the cause? Has this writhing worm of men
a cause?
Crackling against the polished sky is an eagle with a sword. The eagle is red
and its head is flame.
In the shoulder of the worm is a teacher.
His tongue laps the war-sucked air in drought, but he yells defiance
at the red-eyed eagle, and in his ears are the bells of new philosophies,
and their tinkling drowns the sputter of the burning sword. He shrieks,
'God damn you! When you are broken, the word will strike out new shoots.'
His boots are tight, the sun is hot, and he may be shot, but he is in
the shoulder of the worm.
A dust speck in the worm's belly is a poet.
He laughs at the flaring eagle and makes a long nose with his fingers.
He will fight for smooth, white sheets of paper, and uncurdled ink.
The sputtering sword cannot make him blink, and his thoughts are
wet and rippling. They cool his heart.
He will tear the eagle out of the sky and give the earth tranquillity,
and loveliness printed on white paper.
The eye of the serpent is an owner of mills.
238
He looks at the glaring sword which has snapped his machinery
and struck away his men.
But it will all come again, when the sword is broken to a million dying stars,
and there are no more wars.
Bankers, butchers, shop-keepers, painters, farmers - men, sway and sweat.
They will fight for the earth, for the increase of the slow, sure roots
of peace, for the release of hidden forces. They jibe at the eagle
and his scorching sword.
One! Two! - One! Two! - clump the heavy boots. The cry hurtles
against the sky.
Each man pulls his belt a little tighter, and shifts his gun
to make it lighter. Each man thinks of a woman, and slaps out a curse
at the eagle. The sword jumps in the hot sky, and the worm crawls on
to the battle, stubbornly.
This is the war of wars, from eye to tail the serpent has one cause:
PEACE!
~ Amy Lowell,
740:Epistle to Miss Blount, On Her Leaving the Town, After the Coronation"

As some fond virgin, whom her mother’s care
Drags from the town to wholesome country air,
Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh;
From the dear man unwillingly she must sever,
Yet takes one kiss before she parts for ever:
Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
Saw others happy, and with sighs withdrew;
Not that their pleasures caused her discontent,
She sighed not that They stayed, but that She went.
She went, to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks,
She went from Opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day;
To pass her time ‘twixt reading and Bohea,
To muse, and spill her solitary tea,
Or o’er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire;
Up to her godly garret after seven,
There starve and pray, for that’s the way to heaven.
Some Squire, perhaps, you take a delight to rack;
Whose game is Whisk, whose treat a toast in sack,
Who visits with a gun, presents you birds,
Then gives a smacking buss, and cries – No words!
Or with his hound comes hollowing from the stable,
Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table;
Whose laughs are hearty, tho’ his jests are coarse,
And loves you best of all things – but his horse.
In some fair evening, on your elbow laid,
Your dream of triumphs in the rural shade;
In pensive thought recall the fancied scene,
See Coronations rise on every green;
Before you pass th’ imaginary sights
Of Lords, and Earls, and Dukes, and gartered Knights;
While the spread fan o’ershades your closing eyes;
Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies.
Thus vanish scepters, coronets, and balls,
And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls.
So when your slave, at some dear, idle time,
(Not plagued with headaches, or the want of rhyme)
Stands in the streets, abstracted from the crew,
And while he seems to study, thinks of you:
Just when his fancy points your sprightly eyes,
Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia rise,
Gay pats my shoulder, and you vanish quite;
Streets, chairs, and coxcombs rush upon my sight;
Vexed to be still in town, I knit my brow,
Look sour, and hum a tune – as you may now. ~ Alexander Pope,
741:There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration, -for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world, -- so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a Mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised. There are supposed by those who systematise, to be three stages of the seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation. And by these, too, there comes when the accompanying feeling or the concentration is very intense, the Samadhi, the ecstatic trance in which the consciousness passes away from outer objects. But all this is really incidental; the one thing essential is the intense devotion of the thought in the mind to the object of adoration. Although it seems akin to the contemplation of the way of knowledge, it differs from that in its spirit. It is in its real nature not a still, but an ecstatic contemplation; it seeks not to pass into the being of the Divine, but to bring the Divine into ourselves and to lose ourselves in the deep ecstasy of his presence or of his possession; and its bliss is not the peace of unity, but the ecstasy of union. Here, too, there may be the separative self-consecration, which ends in the giving up of all other thought of life for the possession of this ecstasy, eternal afterwards in planes beyond, or the comprehensive consecration in which all the thoughts are full of the Divine and even in the occupations of life every thought remembers him. As in the other Yogas, so in this, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all ones inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported here by the primary force of the emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the spirit and its members.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Way of Devotion [T2],
742:Epistle To Mrs Teresa Blount.[on Her Leaving The
Town After The Coronation]
As some fond virgin, whom her mother's care
Drags from the town to wholesome country air,
Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh;
From the dear man unwilling she must sever,
Yet takes one kiss before she parts for ever:
Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
Saw others happy, and with sighs withdrew;
Not that their pleasures caused her discontent,
She sigh'd not that they staid, but that she went.
She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks:
She went from opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning-walks, and prayers three hours a-day:
To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,
To muse, and spill her solitary tea;
Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the 'squire;
Up to her godly garret after seven,
There starve and pray, for that's the way to heaven.
Some 'squire, perhaps, you take delight to rack;
Whose game is whist, whose treat, a toast in sack;
Who visits with a gun, presents you birds,
Then gives a smacking buss, and cries--No words!
Or with his hound comes hallooing from the stable,
Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table;
Whose laughs are hearty, though his jests are coarse,
And loves you best of all things--but his horse.
In some fair evening, on your elbow laid,
You dream of triumphs in the rural shade;
In pensive thought recall the fancied scene,
See coronations rise on every green;
84
Before you pass the imaginary sights
Of lords, and earls, and dukes, and garter'd knights,
While the spread fan o'ershades your closing eyes;
Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies.
Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls,
And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls!
So when your slave, at some dear idle time,
(Not plagued with headaches, or the want of rhyme)
Stands in the streets, abstracted from the crew,
And while he seems to study, thinks of you;
Just when his fancy paints your sprightly eyes,
Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia rise,
Gay pats my shoulder, and you vanish quite,
Streets, chairs, and coxcombs rush upon my sight;
Vex'd to be still in town, I knit my brow,
Look sour, and hum a tune, as you do now.
~ Alexander Pope,
743:Sometimes we ate raw onions like apples, too, I wanted to tell her. Sometimes, the tin foil held shredded chicken petrified in aspic. A fish head to suck on! I was filled with shame and hateful glee: everything I was feeling turned out at the person next to me.

I was the one with an uncut cow's tongue uncoiling in the refrigerator of his undergraduate quad, my roommates' Gatorades and half-finished pad Thai keeping a nervous distance. I sliced it thinly, and down it went with horseradish and cold vodka like the worry of a long day sloughing off, those little dots of fat between the cold meet like garlic roasted to paste.

I am the one who fried liver. Who brought his own lunch in an old Tupperware to his cubicle in the Conde Nast Building; who accidentally warmed it too long, and now the scent of buckwheat, stewed chicken, and carrots hung like radiation over the floor, few of those inhabitants brought lunch from home, fewer of whom were careless enough to heat it for too long if they did, and none of whom brought a scent bomb in the first place. Fifteen floors below, the storks who staffed the fashion magazines grazed on greens in the Frank Gehry cafeteria.

I was the one who ate mashed potatoes and frankfurters for breakfast. Who ate a sandwich for breakfast. Strange? But Americans ate cereal for dinner. Americans ate cereal, period, that oddment. They had a whole thing called 'breakfast for dinner.' And the only reason they were right and I was wrong was that it was their country.

The problem with my desire to pass for native was that everything in the tinfoil was so f*****g good. When the world thinks of Soviet food, it thinks of all the wrong things. Though it was due to incompetence rather than ideology, we were local, seasonal, and organic long before Chez Panisse opened its doors. You just had to have it in a home instead of a restaurant, like British cooking after the war, as Orwell wrote. For me, the food also had cooked into it the memory of my grandmother's famine; my grandfather's black-marketeering to get us the 'deficit' goods that, in his view, we deserved no less than the political VIPs; all the family arguments that paused while we filled our mouths and our eyes rolled back in our heads. Food was so valuable that it was a kind of currency - and it was how you showed loved. If, as a person on the cusp of thirty, I wished to find sanity, I had to figure out how to temper this hunger without losing hold of what it fed, how to retain a connection to my past without being consumed by its poison. ~ Boris Fishman,
744:Sebastian encountered Cam in the hallway outside the reading room. “Where is he?” he demanded without preamble.
Stopping before him with an expressionless face, Cam said shortly, “He’s gone.”
“Why didn’t you follow him?” White-hot fury blazed in Sebastian’s eyes. This news, added to the frustration of his vow of celibacy, was the last straw.
Cam, who had been exposed to years of Ivo Jenner’s volcanic temper, remained unruffled. “It was unnecessary in my judgment,” he said. “He won’t return.”
“I don’t pay you to act on your own damned judgment. I pay you to act on mine! You should have dragged him here by the throat and then let me decide what was to be done with the bastard.”
Cam remained silent, sliding a quick, subtle glance at Evie, who was inwardly relieved by the turn of events. They were both aware that had Cam brought Bullard back to the club, there was a distinct possibility that Sebastian might actually have killed him— and the last thing Evie wanted was a murder charge on her husband’s head.
“I want him found,” Sebastian said vehemently, pacing back and forth across the reading room. “I want at least two men hired to look for him day and night until he is brought to me. I swear he’ll serve as an example to anyone who even thinks of lifting a finger against my wife.” He raised his arm and pointed to the doorway. “Bring me a list of names within the hour. The best detectives available— private ones. I don’t want some idiot from the New Police, who’ll foul this up as they do everything else. Go.”
Though Cam undoubtedly had a few opinions to offer on the matter, he kept them to himself. “Yes, my lord.” He left the room at once, while Sebastian glared after him.
Seeking to calm his seething temper, Evie ventured, “There is no need to take your anger out on Cam. He—”
“Don’t even try to excuse him,” Sebastian said darkly. “You and I both know that he could have caught that damned gutter rat had he wanted to. And I’ll be damned if I’ll tolerate your calling him by his first name— he is not your brother, nor is he a friend. He’s an employee, and you’ll refer to him as ‘Mr. Rohan’ from now on.”
“He is my friend,” Evie replied in outrage. “He has been for years!”
“Married women don’t have friendships with young unmarried men.”
“Y-you dare to insult my honor with the implication that… that…” Evie could hardly speak for the multitude of protests that jammed inside her. “I’ve done nothing to merit such a lack of tr-tr-trust!”
“I trust you. It’s everyone else that I hold in suspicion. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
745:When I look at this age with the eye of a distant future, I find nothing so remarkable in the man of the present day as his peculiar virtue and sickness called "the historical sense." It is a tendency to something quite new and foreign in history: if this embryo were given several centuries and more, there might finally evolve out of it a marvellous plant, with a smell equally marvellous, on account of which our old earth might be more pleasant to live in than it has been hitherto. We moderns are just beginning to form the chain of a very powerful, future sentiment, link by link, we hardly know what we are doing. It almost seems to us as if it were not the question of a new sentiment, but of the decline of all old sentiments: the historical sense is still something so poor and cold, and many are attacked by it as by a frost, and are made poorer and colder by it. To others it appears as the indication of stealthily approaching age, and our planet is regarded by them as a melancholy invalid, who, in order to forget his present condition, writes the history of his youth. In fact, this is one aspect of the new sentiment He who knows how to regard the history of man in its entirety as his own history, feels in the immense generalisation all the grief of the invalid who thinks of health, of the old man who thinks of the dream of his youth, of the lover who is robbed of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is destroyed, of the hero on the evening of the indecisive battle which has brought him wounds and the loss of a friend. But to bear this immense sum of grief of all kinds, to be able to bear it, and yet still be the hero who at the commencement of a second day of battle greets the dawn and his happiness, as one who has an horizon of centuries before and behind him, as the heir of all nobility, of all past intellect, and the obligatory heir (as the noblest) of all the old nobles; while at the same time the first of a new nobility, the equal of which has never been seen nor even dreamt of: to take all this upon his soul, the oldest, the newest, the losses, hopes, conquests, and victories of mankind: to have all this at last in one soul, and to comprise it in one feeling: this would necessarily furnish a happiness which man has not hitherto known, a God's happiness, full of power and love, full of tears and laughter, a happiness which, like the sun in the evening, continually gives of its inexhaustible riches and empties into the sea, and like the sun, too, feels itself richest when even the poorest fisherman rows with golden oars! This divine feeling might then be called humanity! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
746:The list of correlations to that night is as long as the Jersey coast.
And so is the list of reasons I shouldn't be looking forward to seeing him at school. But I can't help it. He's already texted me three times this morning: Can I pick you up for school? and Do u want 2 have breakfast? and R u getting my texts? My thumbs want to answer "yes" to all of the above, but my dignity demands that I don't answer at all. He called my his student. He stood there alone with me on the beach and told me he thinks of me as a pupil. That our relationship is platonic. And everyone knows what platonic means-rejected.
Well, I might be his student, but I'm about to school, him on a few things. The first lesson of the day is Silent Treatment 101.
So when I see him in the hall, I give him a polite nod and brush right by him. The zap from the slight contact never quite fades, which mean he's following me. I make it to my locker before his hand is on my arm. "Emma." The way he whispers my name sends goose bumps all the way to my baby toes. But I'm still in control.
I nod to him, dial the combination to my locker, then open it in his face. He moves back before contact. Stepping around me, he leans his hand against the locker door and turns me around to face him. "That's not very nice."
I raise my best you-started-this brow.
He sighs. "I guess that means you didn't miss me."
There are so many things I could pop off right now. Things like, "But at least I had Toraf to keep my company" or "You were gone?" Or "Don't feel bad, I didn't miss my calculus teacher either." But the goal is to say nothing. So I turn around.
I transfer books and papers between my locker and backpack. As I stab a pencil into my updo, his breath pushes against my earlobe when he chuckles. "So your phone's not broken; you just didn't respond to my texts."
Since rolling my eyes doesn't make a sound, it's still within the boundaries of Silent Treatment 101. So I do this while I shut my locker. As I push past him, he grabs my arm. And I figure if stomping on his toe doesn't make a sound...
"My grandmother's dying," he blurts.
Commence with the catching-Emma-off-guard crap. How can I continue Silent Treatment 101 after that? He never mentioned his grandmother before, but then again, I never mentioned mine either. "I'm sorry, Galen." I put my hand on his, give it a gentle squeeze.
He laughs. Complete jackass. "Conveniently, she lives in a condo in Destin and her dying request is to meet you. Rachel called your mom. We're flying out Saturday afternoon, coming back Sunday night. I already called Dr. Milligan."
"Un-freaking-believable. ~ Anna Banks,
747:write animal stories. This one was called Dialogues Between a Cow and a Filly; a meditation on ethics, you might say; it had been inspired by a short business trip to Brittany. Here’s a key passage from it: ‘Let us first consider the Breton cow: all year round she thinks of nothing but grazing, her glossy muzzle ascends and descends with impressive regularity, and no shudder of anguish comes to trouble the wistful gaze of her light-brown eyes. All that is as it ought to be, and even appears to indicate a profound existential oneness, a decidedly enviable identity between her being-in-the-world and her being-in-itself. Alas, in this instance the philosopher is found wanting, and his conclusions, while based on a correct and profound intuition, will be rendered invalid if he has not previously taken the trouble of gathering documentary evidence from the naturalist. In fact the Breton cow’s nature is duplicitous. At certain times of the year (precisely determined by the inexorable functioning of genetic programming) an astonishing revolution takes place in her being. Her mooing becomes more strident, prolonged, its very harmonic texture modified to the point of recalling at times, and astonishingly so, certain groans which escape the sons of men. Her movements become more rapid, more nervous, from time to time she breaks into a trot. It is not simply her muzzle, though it seems, in its glossy regularity, conceived for reflecting the abiding presence of a mineral passivity, which contracts and twitches under the painful effect of an assuredly powerful desire. ‘The key to the riddle is extremely simple, and it is that what the Breton cow desires (thus demonstrating, and she must be given credit here, her life’s one desire) is, as the breeders say in their cynical parlance, “to get stuffed”. And stuff her they do, more or less directly; the artificial insemination syringe can in effect, whatever the cost in certain emotional complications, take the place of the bull’s penis in performing this function. In both cases the cow calms down and returns to her original state of earnest meditation, except that a few months later she will give birth to an adorable little calf. Which, let it be said in passing, means profit for the breeder.’ * The breeder, of course, symbolized God. Moved by an irrational sympathy for the filly, he promised her, starting from the next chapter, the everlasting delight of numerous stallions, while the cow, guilty of the sin of pride, was to be gradually condemned to the dismal pleasures of artificial fertilization. The pathetic mooing of the ruminant would prove incapable of swaying the judgment of the Great Architect. A delegation of sheep, formed in solidarity, had no better luck. The God presented in this short story was not, one observes, a merciful God. ~ Michel Houellebecq,
748:What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the chameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as her mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing the cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a modest substance in the funds. He is young Leopold, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old house in Clambrassil street to the high school, his booksatchel on him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a mother's thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in his first hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a fullfledged traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scented handkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas, a thing now of the past!), and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for a budding virgin shyly acknowledging (but the heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile but more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous address brought home at duskfall many a commission to the head of the firm seated with Jacob's pipe after like labours in the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be sure, is aheating), reading through round horned spectacles some paper from the Europe of a month before. But hey, presto, the mirror is breathed on and the young knighterrant recedes, shrivels, to a tiny speck within the mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child of shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget the name, ever remember the night, first night, the bridenight. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, the willer and the willed, and in an instant (fiat!) light shall flood the world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fair reader. In a breath 'twas done but - hold! Back! It must not be! In terror the poor girl flees away through the murk. She is the bride of darkness, a daughter of night. She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe of day. No, Leopold! Name and memory solace thee not. That youthful illusion of thy strength was taken from thee and in vain. No son of thy loins is by thee. There is none to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph. ~ James Joyce,
749:I suspect, however, that the thing that confuses you about Ian is that he’s half Scot. In many ways he’s more Scot than English, which accounts for what you’re calling a ruthless streak. He’ll do what he pleases, when he pleases, and the devil fly with the consequences. He always has. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him or of what he does.”
Pausing, Jordan glanced meaningfully at the couple who’d paused to look at a shrubbery on the front lawn. Ian was listening to Elizabeth intently, an expression of tenderness on his rugged face. “The other night, however, he cared very much what people thought of your lovely friend. In fact, I don’t like to think what he might have done had anyone actually dared to openly insult her in front of him. You’re right when you aren’t deceived by Ian’s civilized veneer. Beneath that he’s a Scot, and he has a temper to go with it, though he usually keeps it in check.”
“I don’t think you’re reassuring me,” Alex said shakily.
“I should be. He’s committed himself completely to her. That commitment is so deep that he even reconciled with his grandfather and then appeared with him in public, which I know was because of Elizabeth.”
“What on earth makes you think that?”
“For one thing, when I saw Ian at the Blackmore he had no plans for the evening until he discovered what Elizabeth was going to do at the Willingtons’. The next I knew, he was walking into that ball with his grandfather at his side. And that, my love, is what we call a show of strength.”
She looked impressed by his powers of deduction, and Jordan grinned. “Don’t admire me too much. I also asked him. So you see, you’re worrying needlessly,” he finished reassuringly. “Scots are a fiercely loyal lot, and Ian will protect her with his life.”
“He certainly didn’t protect her with his life two years ago, when she was ruined.”
Sighing, Jordan looked out the window. “After the Willingtons’ ball he told me a little of what happened that long-ago weekend. He didn’t tell me much-Ian is a very private man-but reading between the lines, I’m guessing that he fell like a rock for her and then got the idea she was playing games with him.”
“Would that have been so terrible?” Alexandra asked, her full sympathy still with Elizabeth.
Jordan smiled ruefully at her. “There’s one thing Scots are besides loyal.”
“What is that?”
“Unforgiving,” he said flatly. “They expect the same loyalty as they give. Moreover, if you betray their loyalty, you’re dead to them. Nothing you do or say will change their heart. That’s why their feuds last from generation to generation.”
“Barbaric,” Alexandra said with a shiver of alarm.
“Perhaps it is. But then let’s not forget Ian is also half English, and we are very civilized.” Leaning down, Jordan nipped her ear. “Except in bed. ~ Judith McNaught,
750:A third assumption: a commitment to monogamy is an admirable consequence of love, stemming from a deep-seated generosity and an intimate interest in the other’s flourishing and well-being. A call for monogamy is a sure indication that one partner has the other’s best interests at heart. To Rabih’s new way of thinking, it seems anything but kind or considerate to insist that a spouse return to his room alone to watch CNN and eat yet another club sandwich while perched on the edge of his bed, when he has perhaps only a few more decades of life left on the planet, an increasingly dishevelled physique, an at best intermittent track record with the opposite sex, and a young woman from California standing before him who sincerely wishes to remove her dress in his honour. If love is to be defined as a genuine concern for the well-being of another person, then it must surely be deemed compatible with granting permission for an often harassed and rather browbeaten husband to step off the elevator on the eighteenth floor, in order to enjoy ten minutes of rejuvenating cunnilingus with a near-stranger. Otherwise it may seem that what we are dealing with is not really love at all but rather a kind of small-minded and hypocritical possessiveness, a desire to make one’s partner happy if, but only if, that happiness involves oneself. It’s past midnight already, yet Rabih is just hitting his stride, knowing there might be objections but sidestepping them nimbly and, in the process, acquiring an ever more brittle sense of self-righteousness. A fourth assumption: monogamy is the natural state of love. A sane person can only ever want to love one other person. Monogamy is the bellwether of emotional health. Is there not, wonders Rabih, an infantile idealism in our wish to find everything in one other being – someone who will be simultaneously a best friend, a lover, a co-parent, a co-chauffeur and a business partner? What a recipe for disappointment and resentment in this notion, upon which millions of otherwise perfectly good marriages regularly founder. What could be more natural than to feel an occasional desire for another person? How can anyone be expected to grow up in hedonistic, liberated circles, experience the sweat and excitement of nightclubs and summer parks, listen to music full of longing and lust and then, immediately upon signing a piece of paper, renounce all outside sexual interest, not in the name of any particular god or higher commandment but merely from an unexplored supposition that it must be very wrong? Is there not instead something inhuman, indeed ‘wrong’, in failing to be tempted, in failing to realize just how short of time we all are and therefore with what urgent curiosity we should want to explore the unique fleshly individuality of more than one of our contemporaries? To moralize against adultery is to deny the legitimacy of a range of sensory high points – Rabih thinks of Lauren’s shoulder blades – in their own way just as worthy of reverence as more acceptable attractions such as the last moments of ‘Hey Jude’ or the ceilings of the Alhambra Palace. Isn’t the rejection of adulterous possibilities tantamount to an infidelity towards the richness of life itself? To turn the equation on its head: would it be rational to trust anyone who wasn’t, under certain circumstances, really pretty interested in being unfaithful? ~ Alain de Botton,
751:Those clothes are Susie's,' my father said calmly when he reached him.
Buckley looked down at my blackwatch dress that he held in his hand.
My father stepped closer, took the dress from my brother, and then, without speaking, he gathered the rest of my clothes, which Buckley had piled on the lawn. As he turned in silence toward the house, hardly breathing, clutching my clothes to him, it sparked.
I was the only one to see the colors. Just near Buckley's ears and on the tips of his cheeks and chin he was a little orange somehow, a little red.
Why can't I use them?' he asked.
It landed in my father's back like a fist.
Why can't I use those clothes to stake my tomatoes?'
My father turned around. He saw his son standing there, behind him the perfect plot of muddy, churned-up earth spotted with tiny seedlings. 'How can you ask me that question?'
You have to choose. It's not fair,' my brother said.
Buck?' My father held my clothes against his chest.
I watched Buckley flare and light. Behind him was the sun of the goldenrod hedge, twice as tall as it had been at my death.
I'm tired of it!' Buckley blared. 'Keesha's dad died and she's okay?'
Is Keesha a girl at school?'
Yes!'
My father was frozen. He could feel the dew that had gathered on his bare ankles and feet, could feel the ground underneath him, cold and moist and stirring with possibility.
I'm sorry. When did this happen?'
That's not the point, Dad! You don't get it.' Buckley turned around on his heel and started stomping the tender tomato shoots with his foot.
Buck, stop!' my father cried.
My brother turned.
You don't get it, Dad,' he said.
I'm sorry,' my father said. These are Susie's clothes and I just... It may not make sense, but they're hers-something she wore.'
...
You act like she was yours only!'
Tell me what you want to say. What's this about your friend Keesha's dad?'
Put the clothes down.'
My father laid them gently on the ground.
It isn't about Keesha's dad.'
Tell me what it is about.' My father was now all immediacy. He went back to the place he had been after his knee surgery, coming up out of the druggie sleep of painkillers to see his then-five-year-old son sitting near him, waiting for his eyes to flicker open so he could say, 'Peek-a-boo, Daddy.'
She's dead.'
It never ceased to hurt. 'I know that.'
But you don't act that way.' Keesha's dad died when she was six. Keesha said she barely even thinks of him.'
She will,' my father said.
But what about us?'
Who?'
Us, Dad. Me and Lindsey. Mom left becasue she couldn't take it.'
Calm down, Buck,' my father said. He was being as generous as he could as the air from his lungs evaporated out into his chest. Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go. 'What?' my father said.
I didn't say anything.'
Let go. Let go. Let go.
I'm sorry,' my father said. 'I'm not feeling very well.' His feet had grown unbelievably cold in the damp grass. His chest felt hollow, bugs flying around an excavated cavity. There was an echo in there, and it drummed up into his ears. Let go.
My father dropped down to his knees. His arm began to tingle on and off as if it had fallen asleep. Pins and needles up and down. My brother rushed to him.
Dad?'
Son.' There was a quaver in his voice and a grasping outward toward my brother.
I'll get Grandma.' And Buckley ran.
My father whispered faintly as he lay on his side with his face twisted in the direction of my old clothes: 'You can never choose. I've loved all three of you. ~ Alice Sebold,
752:Well,” I said, trying to keep my tone light as I walked over to put my arms around his neck, though I had to stand on my toes to do so. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You told me something about yourself that I didn’t know before-that you didn’t, er, care for your family, except for your mother. But that didn’t make me hate you…it made me love you a bit more, because now I know we have even more in common.”
He stared down at him, a wary look in his eyes. “If you knew the truth,” he said, “you wouldn’t be saying that. You’d be running.”
“Where would I go?” I asked, with a laugh I hoped didn’t sound as nervous to him as it did to me. “You bolted all the doors, remember? Now, since you shared something I didn’t know about you, may I share something you don’t know about me?”
Those dark eyebrows rose as he pulled me close. “I can’t even begin to imagine what this could be.”
“It’s just,” I said, “that I’m a little worried about rushing into this consort thing…especially the cohabitation part.”
“Cohabitation?” he echoed. He was clearly unfamiliar with the word.
Cohabitation means living together,” I explained, feeling my cheeks heat up. “Like married people.”
“You said last night that these days no one your age thinks of getting married,” he said, holding me even closer and suddenly looking much more eager to stick around for the conversation, even though I heard the marina horn blow again. “And that your father would never approve it. But if you’ve changed your mind, I’m sure I could convince Mr. Smith to perform the ceremony-“
“No,” I said hastily. Of course Mr. Smith was somehow authorized to marry people in the state of Florida. Why not? I decided not to think about that right now, or how John had come across this piece of information. “That isn’t what I meant. My mom would kill me if I got married before I graduated from high school.”
Not, of course, that my mom was going to know about any of this. Which was probably just as well, since her head would explode at the idea of my moving in with a guy before I’d even applied to college, let alone at the fact that I most likely wasn’t going to college. Not that there was any school that would have accepted me with my grades, not to mention my disciplinary record.
“What I meant was that maybe we should take it more slowly,” I explained. “The past couple years, while all my friends were going out with boys, I was home, trying to figure out how this necklace you gave me worked. I wasn’t exactly dating.”
“Pierce,” he said. He wore a slightly quizzical expression on his face. “Is this the thing you think I didn’t know about you? Because for one thing, I do know it, and for another, I don’t understand why you think I’d have a problem with it.”
I’d forgotten he’d been born in the eighteen hundreds, when the only time proper ladies and gentlemen ever spent together before they were married was at heavily chaperoned balls…and that for most of the past two centuries, he’d been hanging out in a cemetery.
Did he even know that these days, a lot of people hooked up on first dates, or that the average age at which girls-and boys as well-lost their virginity in the United States was seventeen…my age?
Apparently not.
“What I’m trying to say,” I said, my cheeks burning brighter, “is that I’m not very experienced with men. So this morning when I woke up and found you in bed beside me, while it was really, super nice-don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it very much-it kind of freaked me out. Because I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of thing yet.” Or maybe the problem was that I wasn’t prepared for how ready I was… ~ Meg Cabot,
753:Wake up the note! the song that had its birth Far off, where worldly taint could never reach, In mountain caves and glades of forest deep, Whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame Could ever dare to break; where rolled the stream Of knowledge, truth, and bliss that follows both. Sing high that note, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Strike off thy fetters! Bonds that bind thee down, Of shining gold, or darker, baser ore; Love, hate -- good, bad -- and all the dual throng, Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free; For fetters, though of gold, are not less strong to bind; Then off with them, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Let darkness go; the will-o'-the-wisp that leads With blinking light to pile more gloom on gloom. This thirst for life, for ever quench; it drags From birth to death, and death to birth, the soul. He conquers all who conquers self. Know this And never yield, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" "Who sows must reap," they say, "and cause must bring The sure effect; good, good; bad, bad; and none Escape the law. But whoso wears a form Must wear the chain." Too true; but far beyond Both name and form is Atman, ever free. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om! " They know not truth who dream such vacant dreams As father, mother, children, wife, and friend. The sexless Self! whose father He? whose child? Whose friend, whose foe is He who is but One? The Self is all in all, none else exists; And thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" There is but One -- The Free -- The Knower -- Self! Without a name, without a form or stain. In Him is Maya dreaming all this dream. The witness, He appears as nature, soul. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world Nor that can give. In books and temples vain Thy search. Thine only is the hand that holds The rope that drags thee on. Then cease lament, Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Say, "Peace to all: From me no danger be To aught that lives. In those that dwell on high. In those that lowly creep, I am the Self in all! All life both here and there, do I renounce, All heavens and earths and hells, all hopes and fears." Thus cut thy bonds, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Heed then no more how body lives or goes, Its task is done. Let Karma float it down; Let one put garlands on, another kick This frame; say naught. No praise or blame can be Where praiser praised, and blamer blamed are one. Thus be thou calm, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Truth never comes where lust and fame and greed Of gain reside. No man who thinks of woman As his wife can ever perfect be; Nor he who owns the least of things, nor he Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro' Maya's gates. So, give these up, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Have thou no home. What home can hold thee, friend? The sky thy roof, the grass thy bed; and food What chance may bring, well cooked or ill, judge not. No food or drink can taint that noble Self Which knows Itself. Like rolling river free Thou ever be, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Few only know the truth. The rest will hate And laugh at thee, great one; but pay no heed. Go thou, the free, from place to place, and help Them out of darkness, Maya's veil. Without The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go Beyond them both, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Thus, day by day, till Karma's powers spent Release the soul for ever. No more is birth, Nor I, nor thou, nor God, nor man. The "I" Has All become, the All is "I" and Bliss. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!"

~ Swami Vivekananda, Song of the Sanyasin
,
754:Two centuries ago, the United States settled into a permanent political order, after fourteen years of violence and heated debate. Two centuries ago, France fell into ruinous disorder that ran its course for twenty-four years. In both countries there resounded much ardent talk of rights--rights natural, rights prescriptive. . . .

[F]anatic ideology had begun to rage within France, so that not one of the liberties guaranteed by the Declaration of the Rights of Man could be enjoyed by France's citizens. One thinks of the words of Dostoievski: "To begin with unlimited liberty is to end with unlimited despotism." . . .

In striking contrast, the twenty-two senators and fifty-nine representatives who during the summer of 1789 debated the proposed seventeen amendments to the Constitution were men of much experience in representative government, experience acquired within the governments of their several states or, before 1776, in colonial assembles and in the practice of the law. Many had served in the army during the Revolution. They decidedly were political realists, aware of how difficult it is to govern men's passions and self-interest. . . . Among most of them, the term democracy was suspect. The War of Independence had sufficed them by way of revolution. . . .

The purpose of law, they knew, is to keep the peace. To that end, compromises must be made among interests and among states. Both Federalists and Anti-Federalists ranked historical experience higher than novel theory. They suffered from no itch to alter American society radically; they went for sound security. The amendments constituting what is called the Bill of Rights were not innovations, but rather restatements of principles at law long observed in Britain and in the thirteen colonies. . . .

The Americans who approved the first ten amendments to their Constitution were no ideologues. Neither Voltaire nor Rousseau had any substantial following among them. Their political ideas, with few exceptions, were those of English Whigs. The typical textbook in American history used to inform us that Americans of the colonial years and the Revolutionary and Constitutional eras were ardent disciples of John Locke. This notion was the work of Charles A. Beard and Vernon L. Parrington, chiefly. It fitted well enough their liberal convictions, but . . . it has the disadvantage of being erroneous. . . .

They had no set of philosophes inflicted upon them. Their morals they took, most of them, from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Their Bill of Rights made no reference whatever to political abstractions; the Constitution itself is perfectly innocent of speculative or theoretical political arguments, so far as its text is concerned. John Dickinson, James Madison, James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, George Mason, and other thoughtful delegates to the Convention in 1787 knew something of political theory, but they did not put political abstractions into the text of the Constitution. . . .

Probably most members of the First Congress, being Christian communicants of one persuasion or another, would have been dubious about the doctrine that every man should freely indulge himself in whatever is not specifically prohibited by positive law and that the state should restrain only those actions patently "hurtful to society." Nor did Congress then find it necessary or desirable to justify civil liberties by an appeal to a rather vague concept of natural law . . . .

Two centuries later, the provisions of the Bill of Rights endure--if sometimes strangely interpreted. Americans have known liberty under law, ordered liberty, for more than two centuries, while states that have embraced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, with its pompous abstractions, have paid the penalty in blood. ~ Russell Kirk,
755:Kahnawake
August 1704
Temperature 75 degrees

“It’s me! Mercy Carter! Oh, Mr. Williams! Do you have news?” She flung herself on top of him. Oh, his beautiful beard! The beard of a real father, not a pretend Indian father or a French church father. “My brothers,” she begged. “John and Sam and Benny. Have you seen them? Have you heard anything about them? Do you know what happened to the little ones? Daniel? Have you found Daniel?”
Mercy had forgotten that she had taken off her tunic to go swimming. That Joseph did not even have on his breechclout. That Mercy wore earrings and Joseph had been tattooed on his upper arms. That they stank of bear.
Mr. Williams did not recognize Joseph, and Mercy he knew only by the color of her hair. He was stupefied by the two naked slimy children trying to hug him. In ore horror than even Ruth would have mustered, he whispered, “Your parents would be weeping. What have the savages done to you? You are animals.” Despair and shock mottled Mr. Williams’s face.
Mercy stumbled back from him. Her bear grease stained his clothing.
“Mercy,” he said, turning away from her, “go cover yourself.”
Shame covered her first. Red patches flamed on her cheeks. She ran back to the swimmers, fighting sobs. She was aware of her bare feet, hard as leather from no shoes. Savage feet.
Dear Lord in Heaven, thought Mercy, Ruth is right. I have committed terrible sins. My parents would be weeping.
She did not look at Snow Walker but yanked on the deerskin tunic. She had tanned the hide herself, and she and Nistenha had painted the rows of turtles around the neckline and Nistenha had tied tiny tinkling French bells into the fringe. But it was still just animal skin. To be wearing hides in front of Mr. Williams was not much better than being naked.
Snow Walker burst out of the water. “The white man? Was he cruel? I will call Tannhahorens.”
No! Tannhahorens would not let her speak to Mr. Williams. She would never find out about her brothers; never redeem herself in the minister’s eyes. Mercy calmed down with the discipline of living among Indians. Running had shown weakness. “Thank you, Snow Walker,” she said, striving to be gracious, “but he merely wanted me to be clothed like an English girl. There is no need to call Tannhahorens.” She walked back.
On the jetty, Joseph stood with his eyes fixed on the river instead of on his minister. He had not fled like Mercy to cover himself. He was standing his ground. “They aren’t savages, Mr. Williams. And they aren’t just Indians. Those children over there are Abenaki, the boy fishing by the rocks is Pennacook, and my own family is Kahnawake Mohawk.”
Tears sprang into Mr. Williams’s eyes. “What do you mean--your family?” he said. “Joseph, you do not have a family in this terrible place. You have a master. Do not confuse savages who happen to give you food with family.
Joseph’s face hardened. “They are my family. My father is Great Sky. My mother--”
The minister lost his temper. “Your father is Martin Kellogg,” he shouted, “with whom I just dined in Montreal. You refer to some savage as your father? I am ashamed of you.”
Under his tan, Joseph paled and his Indian calm left him. He was trembling. “My--my father? Alive? You saw him?”
“Your father is a field hand for a French family in Montreal. He works hard, Joseph. He has no choice. But you have choices. Have you chosen to abandon your father?”
Joseph swallowed and wet his lips. “No.” He could barely get the syllable out.
Don’t cry, prayed Mercy. Be an eagle. She fixed her eyes upon him, giving him all her strength, but Mr. Williams continued to destroy whatever strength the thirteen-year-old possessed.
“Your father prays for the day you and he will be ransomed, Joseph. All he thinks of is the moment he can gather his beloved family back under his own roof. Is that not also your prayer, Joseph? ~ Caroline B Cooney,
756:The Old Bark Hut
In an old bark hut on a mountainside
In a spot that was lone and drear
A woman whose heart was aching sat
Watching from year to year.
A small boy, Jim, her only child,
Helped her to watch and wait,
But the time never came when they could go free,
Free from the bond of hate.
For McConnel was out on the mountainside
Living without a hope
And seeing nothing before him now
But death by a hangman’s rope.
Hated and chased by his fellow men,
To take him alive or dead,
An outlaw banned by the world was he
With five hundred pounds on his head.
A message had come that evening which said
“Now, Jim, you mustn’t wait,
If you want to save your father, or
By heaven, you’ll be too late.
“He’s out at Mackinnon’s Crossing, they say,
The track is rough, old man,
But if any here can do it—why
It’s you and old Darky can.”
And Jim knew well what the message meant,
As he brought his horse to the door!
While away through the gathering darkness came
The sound of the river’s roar.
But the brave little heart never faltered as
He stooped to kiss her good-bye
And said, “God bless you, Mother dear,
I’ll save Dad tonight or I’ll die.”
The old horse answered the touch of his hand
And galloped away from the door;
He seemed to know ‘twas a journey for life—
Well, he’d done such journey’s before.
Out from the firelight, and through the rails,
Out through the ghastly trees,
While all the time the warning roar
42
Of the river came back on the breeze;
Steadily down the mountainside
He rode, for his course was plain,
Though his heart was heavy, though not with fear,
But because of that brand of Cain.
The boy thinks over his mother’s last words:
“I’ll love him as long as I live!
He must have time for repentance on earth
But surely God will forgive.”
As he glanced back over his shoulder there
She stood by the light of the door
Trying to pierce the darkness in vain,
Thinking she’d see him no more.
Then as he looked she bowed her head
And slowly turned away,
And the boy knew that the noble wife
Had knelt by the bed to pray.
Mile after mile, hour after hour,
And then just ahead, shining and white,
Was the foam of Mackinnon’s Crossing—
What a jump for old Darky tonight!
And then Jim thinks of the long, lone years
And the hopes that are crushed and dead;
And a woman whose heart is as true as steel,
As rue as the day she was wed.
As she loved him then in the years gone by
When the future held promise in store,
So she loved him today when the future held
Naught but death by his country’s law.
Jim pressed his knees to the saddle flap
And tightened his hold on the rein;
They had jumped the river last summertime,
How he hoped they would do it again!
Then a voice rang out through the darkness there,
“Hold, now hold, stand still!
We know you, lad, it’s too late to run;
Hands up or we’ll shoot to kill!”
Then he knew that the police were around him,
In the darkness they moved to and fro;
For an instant he pulled on the bridle-rein,
But he’d promised his mother he’d go.
And he thought of the poor, sad woman alone,
43
Kneeling in prayer by the bed;
So he loosened the reins on old Darky’s neck
And rushed at the river ahead.
Then a volley rang out through the forest dark—
A fall in the roaring flood;
And the darkness hid from all human eyes
The form that was stained with blood.
The horse struggled hard, the waters rushed on;
He sank to rise no more.
But the boy fought the flood in silence, inch
By inch to the other shore.
Slowly and sadly, but bravely on,
Brushing away the tears;
He was leaving behind in the river’s flood
His friend and companion for years.
And all the time the blood trickled down,
O God! what a hot burning pain!
And he knew he was doing is duty clean
He would never come back again.
Staggering in through the yielding door
Into the cold dark room
Where his father lay, and the faint firelight
Showed through the ghostly gloom.
The bushranger sprang to his feet in alarm
And levelled the gun at his head
And his loud voice demanded, “Who are you?
Speak quick, or you are dead.”
And then a weak little voice made answer,
“It’s me; Mother sends you her love;
The police are back at the crossing now,
So clear out and meet Mother above.”
Then McConnel placed his gun by the wall
And knelt on the cold hard floor;
And somehow the tears came rushing down
As they never had before.
His arms went around the brave little lad,
He nursed his head on his breast;
He seemed to know that the end was nigh
And Jim would soon be at rest.
And the boy was speaking feebly at last,
“They shot me back at the creek,
And old Darky is dead and gone, Dad,
44
And oh, I’m so tired and weak.”
Then his voice fell away in a whisper soft,
So faint it could scarce be heard,
“Oh Dad,, clear out, they are coming fast;
Tell Mother, I kept my word.”
Quickly in silence the police gathered around,
They had captured the beast in his lair;
The outlaw sat with his boy in his arms,
He semed not to heed nor to care.
He was thinking now of the seed he had sown,
He was tasting its bitter fruit,
When the sergeant stepped to the door and said,
“McConnel, bail up or I’ll shoot.”
Then the sergeant placed a lamp by the door,
The rifles gleamed out in the light;
But the outlaw said, “Sergeant O’Drady,
Let’s have no more shooting tonight.
“You can take me now to the judgement seat
As God has taken this lad;
You’d die to take my life, you men—
He died to save his dad.
“I want you to help me dig his grave,
And perhaps you will say a prayer;
Then you can take me and hang me dead—
It’s my wife, or I wouldn’t care.
“Carefully now. . . Oh thank you, men,
Lay him as best you can;
The policeman is shown by his coat, of course;
But the tears—well, they show the man.”
Then the party went back to the old bark hut
As the sun was mounting the hill;
No smoke arose from the chimney cold
And all was silent and still.
The sergeant opened the creaky door,
And lifted his cap with a start,
…Ah, McConnel had broken the country’s laws
And broken a woman’s heart.
~ Anonymous Oceania,
757:
   Mother, when one imagines something, does it not exist?

When you imagine something, it means that you make a mental formation which may be close to the truth or far from the truth - it also depends upon the quality of your formation. You make a mental formation and there are people who have such a power of formation that they succeed in making what they imagine real. There are not many of these but there are some. They imagine something and their formation is so well made and so powerful that it succeeds in being realised. These are creators; there are not many of them but there are some.

   If one thinks of someone who doesn't exist or who is dead?

Ah! What do you mean? What have you just said? Someone who doesn't exist or someone who is dead? These are two absolutely different things.

   I mean someone who is dead.

Someone who is dead!

   If this person has remained in the mental domain, you can find him immediately. Naturally if he is no longer in the mental domain, if he is in the psychic domain, to think of him is not enough. You must know how to go into the psychic domain to find him. But if he has remained in the mental domain and you think of him, you can find him immediately, and not only that, but you can have a mental contact with him and a kind of mental vision of his existence.

   The mind has a capacity of vision of its own and it is not the same vision as with these eyes, but it is a vision, it is a perception in forms. But this is not imagination. It has nothing to do with imagination.

   Imagination, for instance, is when you begin to picture to yourself an ideal being to whom you apply all your conceptions, and when you tell yourself, "Why, it should be like this, like that, its form should be like this, its thought like that, its character like that," when you see all the details and build up the being. Now, writers do this all the time because when they write a novel, they imagine. There are those who take things from life but there are those who are imaginative, creators; they create a character, a personage and then put him in their book later. This is to imagine. To imagine, for example, a whole concurrence of circumstances, a set of events, this is what I call telling a story to oneself. But it can be put down on paper, and then one becomes a novelist. There are very different kinds of writers. Some imagine everything, some gather all sorts of observations from life and construct their book with them. There are a hundred ways of writing a book. But indeed some writers imagine everything from beginning to end. It all comes out of their head and they construct even their whole story without any support in things physically observed. This truly is imagination. But as I say, if they are very powerful and have a considerable capacity for creation, it is possible that one day or other there will be a physical human being who realises their creation. This too is true.

   What do you suppose imagination is, eh? Have you never imagined anything, you?

   And what happens?

   All that one imagines.


You mean that you imagine something and it happens like that, eh? Or it is in a dream...

   What is the function, the use of the imagination?

If one knows how to use it, as I said, one can create for oneself his own inner and outer life; one can build his own existence with his imagination, if one knows how to use it and has a power. In fact it is an elementary way of creating, of forming things in the world. I have always felt that if one didn't have the capacity of imagination he would not make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of your life. When you think of yourself, usually you imagine what you want to be, don't you, and this goes ahead, then you follow, then it continues to go ahead and you follow. Imagination opens for you the path of realisation. People who are not imaginative - it is very difficult to make them move; they see just what is there before their nose, they feel just what they are moment by moment and they cannot go forward because they are clamped by the immediate thing. It depends a good deal on what one calls imagination. However...

   Men of science must be having imagination!


A lot. Otherwise they would never discover anything. In fact, what is called imagination is a capacity to project oneself outside realised things and towards things realisable, and then to draw them by the projection. One can obviously have progressive and regressive imaginations. There are people who always imagine all the catastrophes possible, and unfortunately they also have the power of making them come. It's like the antennae going into a world that's not yet realised, catching something there and drawing it here. Then naturally it is an addition to the earth atmosphere and these things tend towards manifestation. It is an instrument which can be disciplined, can be used at will; one can discipline it, direct it, orientate it. It is one of the faculties one can develop in himself and render serviceable, that is, use it for definite purposes.

   Sweet Mother, can one imagine the Divine and have the contact?

Certainly if you succeed in imagining the Divine you have the contact, and you can have the contact with what you imagine, in any case. In fact it is absolutely impossible to imagine something which doesn't exist somewhere. You cannot imagine anything at all which doesn't exist somewhere. It is possible that it doesn't exist on the earth, it is possible that it's elsewhere, but it is impossible for you to imagine something which is not already contained in principle in the universe; otherwise it could not occur.

   Then, Sweet Mother, this means that in the created universe nothing new is added?

In the created universe? Yes. The universe is progressive; we said that constantly things manifest, more and more. But for your imagination to be able to go and seek beyond the manifestation something which will be manifested, well, it may happen, in fact it does - I was going to tell you that it is in this way that some beings can cause considerable progress to be made in the world, because they have the capacity of imagining something that's not yet manifested. But there are not many. One must first be capable of going beyond the manifested universe to be able to imagine something which is not there. There are already many things which can be imagined.

   What is our terrestrial world in the universe? A very small thing. Simply to have the capacity of imagining something which does not exist in the terrestrial manifestation is already very difficult, very difficult. For how many billions of years hasn't it existed, this little earth? And there have been no two identical things. That's much. It is very difficult to go out from the earth atmosphere with one's mind; one can, but it is very difficult. And then if one wants to go out, not only from the earth atmosphere but from the universal life!

   To be able simply to enter into contact with the life of the earth in its totality from the formation of the earth until now, what can this mean? And then to go beyond this and enter into contact with universal life from its beginnings up to now... and then again to be able to bring something new into the universe, one must go still farther beyond.

   Not easy!
   That's all?
   (To the child) Convinced?
   ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, [T1],
758:He sings.

I send my heart up to thee, all my heart
In this my singing.
For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;
The very night is clinging
Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space
Above me, whence thy face
May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.

She speaks.

Say after me, and try to say
My very words, as if each word
Came from you of your own accord,
In your own voice, in your own way:
``This woman's heart and soul and brain
``Are mine as much as this gold chain
``She bids me wear; which'' (say again)
``I choose to make by cherishing
``A precious thing, or choose to fling
``Over the boat-side, ring by ring.''
And yet once more say no word more!
Since words are only words. Give o'er!

Unless you call me, all the same,
Familiarly by my pet name,
Which if the Three should hear you call,
And me reply to, would proclaim
At once our secret to them all.
Ask of me, too, command me, blame-
Do, break down the partition-wall
'Twixt us, the daylight world beholds
Curtained in dusk and splendid folds!
What's left but-all of me to take?
I am the Three's: prevent them, slake
Your thirst! 'Tis said, the Arab sage,
In practising with gems, can loose
Their subtle spirit in his cruce
And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage,
Leave them my ashes when thy use
Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!

He sings.

I.

Past we glide, and past, and past!
What's that poor Agnese doing
Where they make the shutters fast?
Grey Zanobi's just a-wooing
To his couch the purchased bride:
Past we glide!

II.

Past we glide, and past, and past!
Why's the Pucci Palace flaring
Like a beacon to the blast?
Guests by hundreds, not one caring
If the dear host's neck were wried:
Past we glide!

She sings.

I.

The moth's kiss, first!
Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not sure, this eve,
How my face, your flower, had pursed
Its petals up; so, here and there
You brush it, till I grow aware
Who wants me, and wide ope I burst.

II.

The bee's kiss, now!
Kiss me as if you entered gay
My heart at some noonday,
A bud that dares not disallow
The claim, so all is rendered up,
And passively its shattered cup
Over your head to sleep I bow.

He sings.

I.

What are we two?
I am a Jew,
And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,
To a feast of our tribe;
Where they need thee to bribe
The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe
Thy Scatter the vision for ever! And now,
As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

II.

Say again, what we are?
The sprite of a star,
I lure thee above where the destinies bar
My plumes their full play
Till a ruddier ray
Than my pale one announce there is withering away
Some Scatter the vision for ever! And now,
As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

He muses.

Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?
The land's lap or the water's breast?
To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,
Or swim in lucid shallows just
Eluding water-lily leaves,
An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust
To lock you, whom release he must;
Which life were best on Summer eves?

He speaks, musing.

Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?
From this shoulder let there spring
A wing; from this, another wing;
Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!
Snow-white must they spring, to blend
With your flesh, but I intend
They shall deepen to the end,
Broader, into burning gold,
Till both wings crescent-wise enfold
Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet
To o'er your head, where, lo, they meet
As if a million sword-blades hurled
Defiance from you to the world!

Rescue me thou, the only real!
And scare away this mad ideal
That came, nor motions to depart!
Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!

Still he muses.

I.

What if the Three should catch at last
Thy serenader? While there's cast
Paul's cloak about my head, and fast
Gian pinions me, himself has past
His stylet thro' my back; I reel;
And is it thou I feel?

II.

They trail me, these three godless knaves,
Past every church that saints and saves,
Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves
By Lido's wet accursed graves,
They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,
And on thy breast I sink

She replies, musing.

Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep,
As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep,
Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame or steel,
Or poison doubtless; but from water-feel!

Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There!
Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass
To plait in where the foolish jewel was,
I flung away: since you have praised my hair,
'Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.

He speaks.

Row home? must we row home? Too surely
Know I where its front's demurely
Over the Giudecca piled;
Window just with window mating,
Door on door exactly waiting,
All's the set face of a child:
But behind it, where's a trace
Of the staidness and reserve,
And formal lines without a curve,
In the same child's playing-face?
No two windows look one way
O'er the small sea-water thread
Below them. Ah, the autumn day
I, passing, saw you overhead!
First, out a cloud of curtain blew,
Then a sweet cry, and last came you-
To catch your lory that must needs
Escape just then, of all times then,
To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds,
And make me happiest of men.
I scarce could breathe to see you reach
So far back o'er the balcony
To catch him ere he climbed too high
Above you in the Smyrna peach
That quick the round smooth cord of gold,
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake
The Roman girls were wont, of old,
When Rome there was, for coolness' sake
To let lie curling o'er their bosoms.
Dear lory,*
may his beak retain
Ever its delicate rose stain
As if the wounded lotus-blossoms
Had marked their thief to know again!

Stay longer yet, for others' sake
Than mine! What should your chamber do?
-With all its rarities that ache
In silence while day lasts, but wake
At night-time and their life renew,
Suspended just to pleasure you
Who brought against their will together
These objects, and, while day lasts, weave
Around them such a magic tether
That dumb they look: your harp, believe,
With all the sensitive tight strings
Which dare not speak, now to itself
Breathes slumberously, as if some elf
Went in and out the chords, his wings
Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze,
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on
And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon.
And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell
As the dry limpet for the lymph
Come with a tune be knows so well.
And how your statues' hearts must swell!
And how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You'd find Schidone's eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies
To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke!
And, deeper into her rock den,
Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen
You'd find retreated from the ken
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser-
As if the Tizian thinks of her,
And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these, his progeny invent,
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he signed a document
That got him murdered! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up, so, indeed must make
More stay with me, for others' sake.

She speaks.

I.

To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,
Is used to tie the jasmine back
That overfloods my room with sweets,
Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets
My Zanze! If the ribbon's black,
The Three are watching: keep away!

II.

Your gondola-let Zorzi wreathe
A mesh of water-weeds about
its prow, as if he unaware
Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair!
That I may throw a paper out
As you and he go underneath.

There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we.
Only one minute more to-night with me?
Resume your past self of a month ago!
Be you the bashful gallant, I will be
The lady with the colder breast than snow.
Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand
More than I touch yours when I step to land,
And say, ``All thanks, Siora!''-
Heart to heart
And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,
Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art!
[He is surprised, and stabbed.
It was ordained to be so, sweet!-and best
Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast.
Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair
My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn
To death, because they never lived: but I
Have lived indeed, and so-(yet one more kiss)-can die!


~ Robert Browning, In A Gondola
,
759:Two Christmas Eves
THE white snow veils the earth's brown face,
Strong frost has bound the veil in place-Under the wide, clear, dark-blue sky
All choked with snow the hollows lie,
Dead-white the fields--once summer sweet-And woodlands where we used to meet:
We don't meet now, we never part.
Ever together, heart to heart,
We've worked, lost often, seldom won,
Seen pleasures ended, pains begun,
Have done our best, and faced, we two,
Almost the worst that Fate could do-Yet not Fate's uttermost of ill,
Since here we are--together still!
For me you left, my dearest, best,
Your girlhood's safe warm sheltered nest;
For me gave up all else that could
Have made your woman-life seem good.
You thought a man's whole heart was worth
Just all the other wealth of earth;
I thought my painter's brush would be
A magic wand for you and me.
What dreams we had of fame and gold,
Of Art-that never could withhold
From me, who loved her so, full powers
To make my love for her serve ours,
To shape and build a palace fair
Of radiant hours, and place you there!
Art turned away her face from us,
And all the dreaming's ended--thus!
Our garret's cold; the wind is keen,
And cuts these rotten boards between.
There is no lock upon the door,
No carpet on the uneven floor,
No curtain to the window where
442
Through frost-blanched panes the moon's cold stare
Fronts us. She's careless--used to see
This world of ours, and misery!
Why, how you shiver! Oh, my sweet,
How cold your hands are, and your feet!
How hot this face of yours I kiss!
How could our love have led to this?
What devil is there over all
That lets such things as this befall?
It was not want of striving. Love,
Bear witness for me how I strove,
Worked till I grew quite sick and faint,
Worked till I could not see to paint
Because my eyes were sore and wet,
Yet never sold one picture yet.
We would have worked--yes, there's the sting-We would have worked at anything!
Our hands asked work. There's work somewhere,
That makes it all more hard to bear;
Yet we could never understand
Where is the work that asks our hand!
There's no more firing, and the cold
Is biting through your shawl's thin fold,
And both the blankets have been sold.
Nestle beside me, in my arm,
And let me try to keep you warm.
We pawned the table and the bed,
To get our last week's fire and bread,
And now the last crust's eaten. Well,
There's nothing left to pawn or sell!
Our rent is due on Monday too,
How can we pay it--I and you?
What shall we do? What shall we do?
And we are--what was that you said?
You are so tired ? Your dearest head
Is burning hot, and aching so?
443
Ah, yes! I know it is--I know!
You're tired and weak and faint and ill,
And fevers burn and shiverings chill
This world of mine I'm holding here.
If I could suffer only, dear-But all the burdens on you fall,
And I sit here, and bear it all!
And other men and other wives,
Who never worked in all their lives-No, nor yet loved as we have, sweet-Are wrapped in furs, warm hands and feet,
And feast to-night in homes made bright
With blazing logs and candle-light;
Not dark like this, where we two sit,
Who chose to work, and starve for it!
Don't go to sleep; you mustn't sleep
Here on the frozen floor! Yes, creep
Closer to me. Oh, if I knew
What is this something left to do!
Listen to me! It's Christmas Eve,
When hearts grow warmer, I believe,
And friends forget and friends forgive.
What if we stifled down my pride,
And put your bitter thoughts aside,
And asked your father's help once more?
True, when we asked for it before,
He turned and cursed us both, and swore
That he disowned you. You and I
Had made our bed, and there must lie;
That he would help us not one whit,
Though we should die for want of it.
Now I shall ask his help again.
It's colder now than it was then;
The cold creeps closer to life's core-Death's nearer to us than before;
And when your father sees how near,
He may relent, and save you, dear.
444
For my sake, love! I am too weak
To bear your tears upon my cheek,
Your sobs against my heart, to bear
Those eyes of yours, and their despair!
Not faltering, my own pain I bore-I cannot bear yours any more!
Stand up. You're stiff? That will not last!
The stairs are dark? They'll soon be passed!
You're tired? My sweet, I know you are;
But try to walk--it isn't far.
Oh, that the Christ they say was born
On that dream-distant Christmas morn
May hear and help us now! Be strong!
Yes, lean on me. Perhaps ere long,
All this, gone by, will only seem
A half-remembered evil dream.
Come; I will help you walk. We'll try
Just this last venture, you and I!
II
Failed! Back again in the ice-gloom
Of our bare, bleak, rat-haunted room!
The moon still looks--what does she care
To see my moon-flower lying there?
My rose, once red and white and fair,
Now white and wan, and pinched and thin,
Cold, through the coat I've wrapped her in,
And shivering, even in her sleep,
To hear how wakeful rats can keep.
We dragged our weary faltering feet
Through the bright noisy crowded street,
And reached the square where, stern in stone,
Her father's town-house sulks alone.
Sick, stupid, helpless, wretched, poor,
We waited at her father's door.
They let us in. Then let us tread
445
Through the warm hall with soft furs spread.
Next, 'Name and business.' Oh, exact
Were the man's orders how to act,
If e'er his master's child should come
To cross the threshold of her home!
I told our name. The man 'would see
If any message was' for me.
We waited there without a word.
How warm the whole house was! We heard
Soft music with soft voices blent,
And smelt sweet flowers with mingled scent,
And heard the wine poured out--that chink
That glass makes as the diners drink-The china clatter. We, at least,
Appreciated that night's feast.
Then some one gave a note to me
With insolent smile. I read: 'When she
Is tired of love and poverty,
And chooses to return to what
She left, the duties she forgot,
And never see again this man,
And be here as before--she can.'
We came away: that much is clear;
I don't know how we got back here-I must have carried her somehow,
And have been strong enough. And now
She lies asleep--and I, awake,
Must do this something for her sake-The only possible thing to do,
Oh, love! to cut our soul in two,
And take 'this man' away from you!
If now I let your father know
My choice is made, and that I go
And you are here--oh, love! oh, wife!
446
I break my heart and save your life.
Doubt what to do? All doubt's about
The deeds that are not worth a doubt!
This deed takes me, and I obey,
And there is nothing left to say.
Good-bye, dear eyes I cannot see-Weep only gently, eyes, for me;
Dear lips, I've kissed and kissed again,
Lose those encircling lines of pain;
Dear face, so thin and faded now,
Win back youth's grace, and light, and glow;
Oh, hands I hold in mine--oh, heart
That holds mine in it--we must part!
When you wake up, and find me fled,
And find your father here instead,
Will you not wonder how my feet
Ever could turn from you, my sweet?
Ah, no! your heart and mine are one;
Our heart will tell you how 'twas done.
No more we meet until I've won
Enough to dare be happy on;
And if I fail--I have known bliss,
And bliss has bred an hour like this.
I am past Fate's harming--all her power
Could mix nought bitterer than this hour.
Good-bye--our room--our marriage life!-Oh, kiss me through your dreams, my wife!
III
I have grown rich! I have found out
The thing men break their hearts about!
I have dug gold, and gold, and sold
My diggings, and reaped in more gold-Sowed that, and reaped again, and played
For stakes, and always won, and made
447
More money than we'll ever spend,
And have forborne one word to send.
It has been easier for her so:
To wait one year, and then to know
How all is well, and how we two
Shall part no more our whole lives through.
It had been harder to have heard
Some incomplete, imperfect word
Of how I prospered, how despaired,
How well I strove, how ill I fared,
Or strove well and fared well, nor know
Each day which way the scale would go;
Rejoice, and grieve, and hope, and fear,
As I have done throughout the year.
The year is over now--the prize
Is--all our lives of Paradise!
Through all the year her lips and hands
Have drawn me on with passion-bands,
Her soul has held my soul, and taught
The way of storming Fortune's fort.
My little love, those days of ours,
Our dear delight, our sacred hours
Have wrapped me round in all the year;
And brought the gold and brought me here,
And brought this hour than all more fair-Our triumph hour! What shall we care
For all the past's most maddening pain
When you are in my arms again?
The yellow dust I loved to hold
Was like your hair's less heavy gold;
The clear, deep sea, that bore me hence,
Was like your eyes' grey innocence;
And not one fair thing could I see
But somehow seemed yourself to me.
The very work I had to do
Easier than rest was, done for you.
448
And through my dreams you walked all night
And filled sleep's byways with delight!
How I have wondered every day
How you would look, and what would say
On that same day! 'Perhaps she paints,
Thinks of our lessons--prays to saints
With my name in her prayers--or goes
Through gardens, heaping rose on rose.
How I love roses! Or mayhap
Sits with some work dropped in her lap,
And dreams and dreams--what could there be
For her to dream about but me?'
This London--how I hated it
A year ago! It now seems fit
Even to be our meeting-place.
It holds the glory of her face,
The wonder of her eyes, the grace
Of lovely lines and curves--in fine,
The soul of sweetness that is mine!
I'll seek her at her father's; say,
'I claim my wife. I will repay
A hundredfold all you have spent
On keeping me in banishment,
On keeping her in affluence,
At her heart's dearest coin's expense!
That is past now, and I have come
To take my wife and sweetheart home,
To show her all my golden store,
My heart, hers to the very core,
And never leave her any more!'
But just before that hour supreme,
Close here our old house is, that dream
And daylight have been showing me
The year through. I would like to see
That room I found so hard to leave,
So hard to keep, last Christmas Eve.
449
Faith's easy now! There is a God
Who trod the earth we two have trod;
He pays me for our pain last year,
For all these months of longing, fear,
Doubt and uncertainty--outright,
By letting me come here to-night
And just contrast that dead despair
With the Earth-Heaven we two shall share!
Just one look at the old room's door,
If I can get no chance of more;
Yet gold will buy most things--may buy
The leave to see that room. We'll try!
May I go up? Just once to see
The room that sheltered her and me?-My God! the rapture of to-day
Has sent me mad;--you did not say
She died the night I went away!
~ Edith Nesbit,
760:Ben Jonson Entertains A Man From Stratford
You are a friend then, as I make it out,
Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us
Will put an ass’s head in Fairyland
As he would add a shilling to more shillings,
All most harmonious,—and out of his
Miraculous inviolable increase
Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like
Of olden time with timeless Englishmen;
And I must wonder what you think of him—
All you down there where your small Avon flows
By Stratford, and where you’re an Alderman.
Some, for a guess, would have him riding back
To be a farrier there, or say a dyer;
Or maybe one of your adept surveyors;
Or like enough the wizard of all tanners.
Not you—no fear of that; for I discern
In you a kindling of the flame that saves—
The nimble element, the true caloric;
I see it, and was told of it, moreover,
By our discriminate friend himself, no other.
Had you been one of the sad average,
As he would have it,—meaning, as I take it,
The sinew and the solvent of our Island,
You’d not be buying beer for this Terpander’s
Approved and estimated friend Ben Jonson;
He’d never foist it as a part of his
Contingent entertainment of a townsman
While he goes off rehearsing, as he must,
If he shall ever be the Duke of Stratford.
And my words are no shadow on your town—
Far from it; for one town’s as like another
As all are unlike London. Oh, he knows it,—
And there’s the Stratford in him; he denies it,
And there’s the Shakespeare in him. So, God help him!
I tell him he needs Greek; but neither God
Nor Greek will help him. Nothing will help that man.
You see the fates have given him so much,
He must have all or perish,—or look out
Of London, where he sees too many lords.
59
They’re part of half what ails him: I suppose
There’s nothing fouler down among the demons
Than what it is he feels when he remembers
The dust and sweat and ointment of his calling
With his lords looking on and laughing at him.
King as he is, he can’t be king de facto,
And that’s as well, because he wouldn’t like it;
He’d frame a lower rating of men then
Than he has now; and after that would come
An abdication or an apoplexy.
He can’t be king, not even king of Stratford,—
Though half the world, if not the whole of it,
May crown him with a crown that fits no king
Save Lord Apollo’s homesick emissary:
Not there on Avon, or on any stream
Where Naiads and their white arms are no more,
Shall he find home again. It’s all too bad.
But there’s a comfort, for he’ll have that House—
The best you ever saw; and he’ll be there
Anon, as you’re an Alderman. Good God!
He makes me lie awake o’nights and laugh.
And you have known him from his origin,
You tell me; and a most uncommon urchin
He must have been to the few seeing ones—
A trifle terrifying, I dare say,
Discovering a world with his man’s eyes,
Quite as another lad might see some finches,
If he looked hard and had an eye for nature.
But this one had his eyes and their foretelling,
And he had you to fare with, and what else?
He must have had a father and a mother—
In fact I’ve heard him say so—and a dog,
As a boy should, I venture; and the dog,
Most likely, was the only man who knew him.
A dog, for all I know, is what he needs
As much as anything right here to-day,
To counsel him about his disillusions,
Old aches, and parturitions of what’s coming,—
A dog of orders, an emeritus,
To wag his tail at him when he comes home,
And then to put his paws up on his knees
60
And say, “For God’s sake, what’s it all about?”
I don’t know whether he needs a dog or not—
Or what he needs. I tell him he needs Greek;
I’ll talk of rules and Aristotle with him,
And if his tongue’s at home he’ll say to that,
“I have your word that Aristotle knows,
And you mine that I don’t know Aristotle.”
He’s all at odds with all the unities,
And what’s yet worse, it doesn’t seem to matter;
He treads along through Time’s old wilderness
As if the tramp of all the centuries
Had left no roads—and there are none, for him;
He doesn’t see them, even with those eyes,—
And that’s a pity, or I say it is.
Accordingly we have him as we have him—
Going his way, the way that he goes best,
A pleasant animal with no great noise
Or nonsense anywhere to set him off—
Save only divers and inclement devils
Have made of late his heart their dwelling place.
A flame half ready to fly out sometimes
At some annoyance may be fanned up in him,
But soon it falls, and when it falls goes out;
He knows how little room there is in there
For crude and futile animosities,
And how much for the joy of being whole,
And how much for long sorrow and old pain.
On our side there are some who may be given
To grow old wondering what he thinks of us
And some above us, who are, in his eyes,
Above himself,—and that’s quite right and English.
Yet here we smile, or disappoint the gods
Who made it so: the gods have always eyes
To see men scratch; and they see one down here
Who itches, manor-bitten to the bone,
Albeit he knows himself—yes, yes, he knows—
The lord of more than England and of more
Than all the seas of England in all time
Shall ever wash. D’ye wonder that I laugh?
He sees me, and he doesn’t seem to care;
And why the devil should he? I can’t tell you.
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I’ll meet him out alone of a bright Sunday,
Trim, rather spruce, and quite the gentleman.
“What ho, my lord!” say I. He doesn’t hear me;
Wherefore I have to pause and look at him.
He’s not enormous, but one looks at him.
A little on the round if you insist,
For now, God save the mark, he’s growing old;
He’s five and forty, and to hear him talk
These days you’d call him eighty; then you’d add
More years to that. He’s old enough to be
The father of a world, and so he is.
“Ben, you’re a scholar, what’s the time of day?”
Says he; and there shines out of him again
An aged light that has no age or station—
The mystery that’s his—a mischievous
Half-mad serenity that laughs at fame
For being won so easy, and at friends
Who laugh at him for what he wants the most,
And for his dukedom down in Warwickshire;—
By which you see we’re all a little jealous.…
Poor Greene! I fear the color of his name
Was even as that of his ascending soul;
And he was one where there are many others,—
Some scrivening to the end against their fate,
Their puppets all in ink and all to die there;
And some with hands that once would shade an eye
That scanned Euripides and Æschylus
Will reach by this time for a pot-house mop
To slush their first and last of royalties.
Poor devils! and they all play to his hand;
For so it was in Athens and old Rome.
But that’s not here or there; I’ve wandered off.
Greene does it, or I’m careful. Where’s that boy?
Yes, he’ll go back to Stratford. And we’ll miss him?
Dear sir, there’ll be no London here without him.
We’ll all be riding, one of these fine days,
Down there to see him—and his wife won’t like us;
And then we’ll think of what he never said
Of women—which, if taken all in all
With what he did say, would buy many horses.
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Though nowadays he’s not so much for women:
“So few of them,” he says, “are worth the guessing.”
But there’s a worm at work when he says that,
And while he says it one feels in the air
A deal of circumambient hocus-pocus.
They’ve had him dancing till his toes were tender,
And he can feel ’em now, come chilly rains.
There’s no long cry for going into it,
However, and we don’t know much about it.
But you in Stratford, like most here in London,
Have more now in the Sonnets than you paid for;
He’s put one there with all her poison on,
To make a singing fiction of a shadow
That’s in his life a fact, and always will be.
But she’s no care of ours, though Time, I fear,
Will have a more reverberant ado
About her than about another one
Who seems to have decoyed him, married him,
And sent him scuttling on his way to London,—
With much already learned, and more to learn,
And more to follow. Lord! how I see him now,
Pretending, maybe trying, to be like us.
Whatever he may have meant, we never had him;
He failed us, or escaped, or what you will,—
And there was that about him (God knows what,—
We’d flayed another had he tried it on us)
That made as many of us as had wits
More fond of all his easy distances
Than one another’s noise and clap-your-shoulder.
But think you not, my friend, he’d never talk!
Talk? He was eldritch at it; and we listened—
Thereby acquiring much we knew before
About ourselves, and hitherto had held
Irrelevant, or not prime to the purpose.
And there were some, of course, and there be now,
Disordered and reduced amazedly
To resignation by the mystic seal
Of young finality the gods had laid
On everything that made him a young demon;
And one or two shot looks at him already
As he had been their executioner;
And once or twice he was, not knowing it,—
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Or knowing, being sorry for poor clay
And saying nothing.… Yet, for all his engines,
You’ll meet a thousand of an afternoon
Who strut and sun themselves and see around ’em
A world made out of more that has a reason
Than his, I swear, that he sees here to-day;
Though he may scarcely give a Fool an exit
But we mark how he sees in everything
A law that, given we flout it once too often,
Brings fire and iron down on our naked heads.
To me it looks as if the power that made him,
For fear of giving all things to one creature,
Left out the first,—faith, innocence, illusion,
Whatever ’tis that keeps us out o’ Bedlam,—
And thereby, for his too consuming vision,
Empowered him out of nature; though to see him,
You’d never guess what’s going on inside him.
He’ll break out some day like a keg of ale
With too much independent frenzy in it;
And all for cellaring what he knows won’t keep,
And what he’d best forget—but that he can’t.
You’ll have it, and have more than I’m foretelling;
And there’ll be such a roaring at the Globe
As never stunned the bleeding gladiators.
He’ll have to change the color of its hair
A bit, for now he calls it Cleopatra.
Black hair would never do for Cleopatra.
But you and I are not yet two old women,
And you’re a man of office. What he does
Is more to you than how it is he does it,—
And that’s what the Lord God has never told him.
They work together, and the Devil helps ’em;
They do it of a morning, or if not,
They do it of a night; in which event
He’s peevish of a morning. He seems old;
He’s not the proper stomach or the sleep—
And they’re two sovran agents to conserve him
Against the fiery art that has no mercy
But what’s in that prodigious grand new House.
I gather something happening in his boyhood
Fulfilled him with a boy’s determination
To make all Stratford ’ware of him. Well, well,
64
I hope at last he’ll have his joy of it,
And all his pigs and sheep and bellowing beeves,
And frogs and owls and unicorns, moreover,
Be less than hell to his attendant ears.
Oh, past a doubt we’ll all go down to see him.
He may be wise. With London two days off,
Down there some wind of heaven may yet revive him;
But there’s no quickening breath from anywhere
Small make of him again the poised young faun
From Warwickshire, who’d made, it seems, already
A legend of himself before I came
To blink before the last of his first lightning.
Whatever there be, there’ll be no more of that;
The coming on of his old monster Time
Has made him a still man; and he has dreams
Were fair to think on once, and all found hollow.
He knows how much of what men paint themselves
Would blister in the light of what they are;
He sees how much of what was great now shares
An eminence transformed and ordinary;
He knows too much of what the world has hushed
In others, to be loud now for himself;
He knows now at what height low enemies
May reach his heart, and high friends let him fall;
But what not even such as he may know
Bedevils him the worst: his lark may sing
At heaven’s gate how he will, and for as long
As joy may listen, but he sees no gate,
Save one whereat the spent clay waits a little
Before the churchyard has it, and the worm.
Not long ago, late in an afternoon,
I came on him unseen down Lambeth way,
And on my life I was afear’d of him:
He gloomed and mumbled like a soul from Tophet,
His hands behind him and his head bent solemn.
“What is it now,” said I,—“another woman?”
That made him sorry for me, and he smiled.
“No, Ben,” he mused; “it’s Nothing. It’s all Nothing.
We come, we go; and when we’re done, we’re done;
Spiders and flies—we’re mostly one or t’other—
We come, we go; and when we’re done, we’re done;
65
“By God, you sing that song as if you knew it!”
Said I, by way of cheering him; “what ails ye?”
“I think I must have come down here to think,”
Says he to that, and pulls his little beard;
“Your fly will serve as well as anybody,
And what’s his hour? He flies, and flies, and flies,
And in his fly’s mind has a brave appearance;
And then your spider gets him in her net,
And eats him out, and hangs him up to dry.
That’s Nature, the kind mother of us all.
And then your slattern housemaid swings her broom,
And where’s your spider? And that’s Nature, also.
It’s Nature, and it’s Nothing. It’s all Nothing.
It’s all a world where bugs and emperors
Go singularly back to the same dust,
Each in his time; and the old, ordered stars
That sang together, Ben, will sing the same
Old stave tomorrow.”
When he talks like that,
There’s nothing for a human man to do
But lead him to some grateful nook like this
Where we be now, and there to make him drink.
He’ll drink, for love of me, and then be sick;
A sad sign always in a man of parts,
And always very ominous. The great
Should be as large in liquor as in love,—
And our great friend is not so large in either:
One disaffects him, and the other fails him;
Whatso he drinks that has an antic in it,
He’s wondering what’s to pay in his insides;
And while his eyes are on the Cyprian
He’s fribbling all the time with that damned House.
We laugh here at his thrift, but after all
It may be thrift that saves him from the devil;
God gave it, anyhow,—and we’ll suppose
He knew the compound of his handiwork.
Today the clouds are with him, but anon
He’ll out of ’em enough to shake the tree
Of life itself and bring down fruit unheard-of,—
And, throwing in the bruised and whole together,
Prepare a wine to make us drunk with wonder;
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And if he live, there’ll be a sunset spell
Thrown over him as over a glassed lake
That yesterday was all a black wild water.
God send he live to give us, if no more,
What now’s a-rampage in him, and exhibit,
With a decent half-allegiance to the ages
An earnest of at least a casual eye
Turned once on what he owes to Gutenberg,
And to the fealty of more centuries
Than are as yet a picture in our vision.
“There’s time enough,—I’ll do it when I’m old,
And we’re immortal men,” he says to that;
And then he says to me, “Ben, what’s ‘immortal’?
Think you by any force of ordination
It may be nothing of a sort more noisy
Than a small oblivion of component ashes
That of a dream-addicted world was once
A moving atomy much like your friend here?”
Nothing will help that man. To make him laugh,
I said then he was a mad mountebank,—
And by the Lord I nearer made him cry.
I could have eat an eft then, on my knees,
Tail, claws, and all of him; for I had stung
The king of men, who had no sting for me,
And I had hurt him in his memories;
And I say now, as I shall say again,
I love the man this side idolatry.
He’ll do it when he’s old, he says. I wonder.
He may not be so ancient as all that.
For such as he, the thing that is to do
Will do itself,—but there’s a reckoning;
The sessions that are now too much his own,
The roiling inward of a stilled outside,
The churning out of all those blood-fed lines,
The nights of many schemes and little sleep,
The full brain hammered hot with too much thinking,
The vexed heart over-worn with too much aching,—
This weary jangling of conjoined affairs
Made out of elements that have no end,
And all confused at once, I understand,
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Is not what makes a man to live forever.
O no, not now! He’ll not be going now:
There’ll be time yet for God knows what explosions
Before he goes. He’ll stay awhile. Just wait:
Just wait a year or two for Cleopatra,
For she’s to be a balsam and a comfort;
And that’s not all a jape of mine now, either.
For granted once the old way of Apollo
Sings in a man, he may then, if he’s able,
Strike unafraid whatever strings he will
Upon the last and wildest of new lyres;
Nor out of his new magic, though it hymn
The shrieks of dungeoned hell, shall he create
A madness or a gloom to shut quite out
A cleaving daylight, and a last great calm
Triumphant over shipwreck and all storms.
He might have given Aristotle creeps,
But surely would have given him his katharsis.
He’ll not be going yet. There’s too much yet
Unsung within the man. But when he goes,
I’d stake ye coin o’ the realm his only care
For a phantom world he sounded and found wanting
Will be a portion here, a portion there,
Of this or that thing or some other thing
That has a patent and intrinsical
Equivalence in those egregious shillings.
And yet he knows, God help him! Tell me, now,
If ever there was anything let loose
On earth by gods or devils heretofore
Like this mad, careful, proud, indifferent Shakespeare!
Where was it, if it ever was? By heaven,
’Twas never yet in Rhodes or Pergamon—
In Thebes or Nineveh, a thing like this!
No thing like this was ever out of England;
And that he knows. I wonder if he cares.
Perhaps he does.… O Lord, that House in Stratford!
~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,
761:Independence
Happy the bard (though few such bards we find)
Who, 'bove controlment, dares to speak his mind;
Dares, unabash'd, in every place appear,
And nothing fears, but what he ought to fear:
Him Fashion cannot tempt, him abject Need
Cannot compel, him Pride cannot mislead
To be the slave of Greatness, to strike sail
When, sweeping onward with her peacock's tail,
Quality in full plumage passes by;
He views her with a fix'd, contemptuous eye,
And mocks the puppet, keeps his own due state,
And is above conversing with the great.
Perish those slaves, those minions of the quill,
Who have conspired to seize that sacred hill
Where the Nine Sisters pour a genuine strain,
And sunk the mountain level with the plain;
Who, with mean, private views, and servile art,
No spark of virtue living in their heart,
Have basely turn'd apostates; have debased
Their dignity of office; have disgraced,
Like Eli's sons, the altars where they stand,
And caused their name to stink through all the land;
Have stoop'd to prostitute their venal pen
For the support of great, but guilty men;
Have made the bard, of their own vile accord,
Inferior to that thing we call a lord.
What is a lord? Doth that plain simple word
Contain some magic spell? As soon as heard,
Like an alarum bell on Night's dull ear,
Doth it strike louder, and more strong appear
Than other words? Whether we will or no,
Through Reason's court doth it unquestion'd go
E'en on the mention, and of course transmit
Notions of something excellent; of wit
Pleasing, though keen; of humour free, though chaste;
Of sterling genius, with sound judgment graced;
Of virtue far above temptation's reach,
And honour, which not malice can impeach?
Believe it not--'twas Nature's first intent,
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Before their rank became their punishment,
They should have pass'd for men, nor blush'd to prize
The blessings she bestow'd; she gave them eyes,
And they could see; she gave them ears--they heard;
The instruments of stirring, and they stirr'd;
Like us, they were design'd to eat, to drink,
To talk, and (every now and then) to think;
Till they, by Pride corrupted, for the sake
Of singularity, disclaim'd that make;
Till they, disdaining Nature's vulgar mode,
Flew off, and struck into another road,
More fitting Quality, and to our view
Came forth a species altogether new,
Something we had not known, and could not know,
Like nothing of God's making here below;
Nature exclaim'd with wonder--'Lords are things,
Which, never made by me, were made by kings.'
A lord (nor let the honest and the brave,
The true old noble, with the fool and knave
Here mix his fame; cursed be that thought of mine,
Which with a B---- and E---- should Grafton join),
A lord (nor here let Censure rashly call

My just contempt of some, abuse of all,
And, as of late, when Sodom was my theme,
Slander my purpose, and my Muse blaspheme,
Because she stops not, rapid in her song,
To make exceptions as she goes along,
Though well she hopes to find, another year,
A whole minority exceptions here),
A mere, mere lord, with nothing but the name,
Wealth all his worth, and title all his fame,
Lives on another man, himself a blank,
Thankless he lives, or must some grandsire thank
For smuggled honours, and ill-gotten pelf;
A bard owes all to Nature, and himself.
Gods! how my soul is burnt up with disdain,
When I see men, whom Phoebus in his train
Might view with pride, lackey the heels of those
Whom Genius ranks among her greatest foes!
And what's the cause? Why, these same sons of Scorn,
No thanks to them, were to a title born,
And could not help it; by chance hither sent,
72
And only deities by accident.
Had Fortune on our getting chanced to shine,
Their birthright honours had been yours or mine,
'Twas a mere random stroke; and should the Throne
Eye thee with favour, proud and lordly grown,
Thou, though a bard, might'st be their fellow yet:
But Felix never can be made a wit.
No, in good faith--that's one of those few things
Which Fate hath placed beyond the reach of kings:
Bards may be lords, but 'tis not in the cards,
Play how we will, to turn lords into bards.
A bard!--a lord!--why, let them, hand in hand,
Go forth as friends, and travel through the land;
Observe which word the people can digest
Most readily, which goes to market best,
Which gets most credit, whether men will trust
A bard, because they think he may be just,
Or on a lord will chose to risk their gains,
Though privilege in that point still remains.
A bard!--a lord!--let Reason take her scales,
And fairly weigh those words, see which prevails,
Which in the balance lightly kicks the beam,
And which, by sinking, we the victor deem.
'Tis done, and Hermes, by command of Jove,
Summons a synod in the sacred grove,
Gods throng with gods to take their chairs on high,
And sit in state, the senate of the sky,
Whilst, in a kind of parliament below,
Men stare at those above, and want to know
What they're transacting: Reason takes her stand
Just in the midst, a balance in her hand,
Which o'er and o'er she tries, and finds it true:
From either side, conducted full in view,
A man comes forth, of figure strange and queer;
We now and then see something like them here.
The first was meagre, flimsy, void of strength,
But Nature kindly had made up in length
What she in breadth denied; erect and proud,
A head and shoulders taller than the crowd,
He deem'd them pigmies all; loose hung his skin
O'er his bare bones; his face so very thin,
So very narrow, and so much beat out,
73
That physiognomists have made a doubt,
Proportion lost, expression quite forgot,
Whether it could be call'd a face or not;
At end of it, howe'er, unbless'd with beard,
Some twenty fathom length of chin appear'd;
With legs, which we might well conceive that Fate
Meant only to support a spider's weight,
Firmly he strove to tread, and with a stride,
Which show'd at once his weakness and his pride,
Shaking himself to pieces, seem'd to cry,
'Observe, good people, how I shake the sky.'
In his right hand a paper did he hold,
On which, at large, in characters of gold,
Distinct, and plain for those who run to see,
Saint Archibald had wrote L, O, R, D.
This, with an air of scorn, he from afar
Twirl'd into Reason's scales, and on that bar,
Which from his soul he hated, yet admired,
Quick turn'd his back, and, as he came, retired.
The judge to all around his name declared;
Each goddess titter'd, each god laugh'd, Jove stared,
And the whole people cried, with one accord,
'Good Heaven bless us all, is that a Lord!'
Such was the first--the second was a man
Whom Nature built on quite a different plan;
A bear, whom, from the moment he was born,
His dam despised, and left unlick'd in scorn;
A Babel, which, the power of Art outdone,
She could not finish when she had begun;
An utter Chaos, out of which no might,
But that of God, could strike one spark of light.
Broad were his shoulders, and from blade to blade
A H---- might at full length have laid;
Vast were his bones, his muscles twisted strong;
His face was short, but broader than 'twas long;
His features, though by Nature they were large,
Contentment had contrived to overcharge,
And bury meaning, save that we might spy
Sense lowering on the penthouse of his eye;
His arms were two twin oaks; his legs so stout
That they might bear a Mansion-house about;
Nor were they, look but at his body there,
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Design'd by Fate a much less weight to bear.
O'er a brown cassock, which had once been black,
Which hung in tatters on his brawny back,
A sight most strange, and awkward to behold,
He threw a covering of blue and gold.
Just at that time of life, when man, by rule,
The fop laid down, takes up the graver fool,
He started up a fop, and, fond of show,
Look'd like another Hercules turn'd beau,
A subject met with only now and then,
Much fitter for the pencil than the pen;
Hogarth would draw him (Envy must allow)
E'en to the life, was Hogarth living now.
With such accoutrements, with such a form,
Much like a porpoise just before a storm,
Onward he roll'd; a laugh prevail'd around;
E'en Jove was seen to simper; at the sound
(Nor was the cause unknown, for from his youth
Himself he studied by the glass of Truth)
He joined their mirth; nor shall the gods condemn,
If, whilst they laugh at him, he laugh'd at them.
Judge Reason view'd him with an eye of grace,
Look'd through his soul, and quite forgot his face,
And, from his hand received, with fair regard
Placed in her other scale the name of Bard.
Then, (for she did as judges ought to do,
She nothing of the case beforehand knew,
Nor wish'd to know; she never stretch'd the laws,
Nor, basely to anticipate a cause,
Compell'd solicitors, no longer free,
To show those briefs she had no right to see)
Then she with equal hand her scales held out,
Nor did the cause one moment hang in doubt;
She held her scales out fair to public view,
The Lord, as sparks fly upwards, upwards flew,
More light than air, deceitful in the weight;
The Bard, preponderating, kept his state;
Reason approved, and with a voice, whose sound
Shook earth, shook heaven, on the clearest ground
Pronouncing for the Bards a full decree,
Cried--'Those must honour them, who honour me;
They from this present day, where'er I reign,
75
In their own right, precedence shall obtain;
Merit rules here: be it enough that Birth
Intoxicates, and sways the fools of earth.'
Nor think that here, in hatred to a lord,
I've forged a tale, or alter'd a record;
Search when you will, (I am not now in sport)
You'll find it register'd in Reason's court.
Nor think that Envy here hath strung my lyre,
That I depreciate what I most admire,
And look on titles with an eye of scorn,
Because I was not to a title born.
By Him that made me, I am much more proud,
More inly satisfied to have a crowd
Point at me as I pass, and cry--'That's he-A poor but honest bard, who dares be free
Amidst corruption,' than to have a train
Of flickering levee slaves, to make me vain
Of things I ought to blush for; to run, fly,
And live but in the motion of my eye;
When I am less than man, my faults to adore,
And make me think that I am something more.
Recall past times, bring back the days of old,
When the great noble bore his honours bold,
And in the face of peril, when he dared
Things which his legal bastard, if declared,
Might well discredit; faithful to his trust,
In the extremest points of justice, just,
Well knowing all, and loved by all he knew,
True to his king, and to his country true;
Honest at court, above the baits of gain,
Plain in his dress, and in his manners plain;
Moderate in wealth, generous, but not profuse,
Well worthy riches, for he knew their use;
Possessing much, and yet deserving more,
Deserving those high honours which he wore
With ease to all, and in return gain'd fame
Which all men paid, because he did not claim.
When the grim war was placed in dread array,
Fierce as the lion roaring for his prey,
Or lioness of royal whelps foredone;
In peace, as mild as the departing sun,
A general blessing wheresoe'er he turn'd,
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Patron of learning, nor himself unlearn'd;
Ever awake at Pity's tender call,
A father of the poor, a friend to all;
Recall such times, and from the grave bring back
A worth like this, my heart shall bend, or crack,
My stubborn pride give way, my tongue proclaim,
And every Muse conspire to swell his fame,
Till Envy shall to him that praise allow
Which she cannot deny to Temple now.
This justice claims, nor shall the bard forget,
Delighted with the task, to pay that debt,
To pay it like a man, and in his lays,
Sounding such worth, prove his own right to praise.
But let not pride and prejudice misdeem,
And think that empty titles are my theme;
Titles, with me, are vain, and nothing worth;
I reverence virtue, but I laugh at birth.
Give me a lord that's honest, frank, and brave,
I am his friend, but cannot be his slave;
Though none, indeed, but blockheads would pretend
To make a slave, where they may make a friend;
I love his virtues, and will make them known,
Confess his rank, but can't forget my own.
Give me a lord, who, to a title born,
Boasts nothing else, I'll pay him scorn with scorn.
What! shall my pride (and pride is virtue here)
Tamely make way if such a wretch appear?
Shall I uncover'd stand, and bend my knee
To such a shadow of nobility,
A shred, a remnant? he might rot unknown
For any real merit of his own,
And never had come forth to public note
Had he not worn, by chance, his father's coat.
To think a M---- worth my least regards,
Is treason to the majesty of bards.
By Nature form'd (when, for her honour's sake,
She something more than common strove to make,
When, overlooking each minute defect,
And all too eager to be quite correct,
In her full heat and vigour she impress'd
Her stamp most strongly on the favour'd breast)
The bard, (nor think too lightly that I mean
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Those little, piddling witlings, who o'erween
Of their small parts, the Murphys of the stage,
The Masons and the Whiteheads of the age,
Who all in raptures their own works rehearse,
And drawl out measured prose, which they call verse)
The real bard, whom native genius fires,
Whom every maid of Castaly inspires,
Let him consider wherefore he was meant,
Let him but answer Nature's great intent,
And fairly weigh himself with other men,
Would ne'er debase the glories of his pen,
Would in full state, like a true monarch, live,
Nor bate one inch of his prerogative.
Methinks I see old Wingate frowning here,
(Wingate may in the season be a peer,
Though now, against his will, of figures sick,
He's forced to diet on arithmetic,
E'en whilst he envies every Jew he meets,
Who cries old clothes to sell about the streets)
Methinks (his mind with future honours big,
His Tyburn bob turn'd to a dress'd bag wig)
I hear him cry--'What doth this jargon mean?
Was ever such a damn'd dull blockhead seen?
Majesty!--Bard!--Prerogative!--Disdain
Hath got into, and turn'd the fellow's brain:
To Bethlem with him--give him whips and straw-I'm very sensible he's mad in law.
A saucy groom, who trades in reason, thus
To set himself upon a par with us;
If this _here's_ suffered, and if that _there_ fool,
May, when he pleases, send us all to school,
Why, then our only business is outright
To take our caps, and bid the world good night.
I've kept a bard myself this twenty years,
But nothing of this kind in him appears;
He, like a thorough true-bred spaniel, licks
The hand which cuffs him, and the foot which kicks;
He fetches and he carries, blacks my shoes,
Nor thinks it a discredit to his Muse;
A creature of the right chameleon hue,
He wears my colours, yellow or true blue,
Just as I wear them: 'tis all one to him
78
Whether I change through conscience, or through whim.
Now this is something like; on such a plan
A bard may find a friend in a great man;
But this proud coxcomb--zounds, I thought that all
Of this queer tribe had been like my old Paul.'
Injurious thought! accursed be the tongue
On which the vile insinuation hung,
The heart where 'twas engender'd; cursed be those,
Those bards, who not themselves alone expose,
But me, but all, and make the very name
By which they're call'd a standing mark of shame.
Talk not of custom--'tis the coward's plea,
Current with fools, but passes not with me;
An old stale trick, which Guilt hath often tried
By numbers to o'erpower the better side.
Why tell me then that from the birth of Rhyme,
No matter when, down to the present time,
As by the original decree of Fate,
Bards have protection sought amongst the great;
Conscious of weakness, have applied to them
As vines to elms, and, twining round their stem,
Flourish'd on high; to gain this wish'd support
E'en Virgil to Maecenas paid his court?
As to the custom, 'tis a point agreed,
But 'twas a foolish diffidence, not need,
From which it rose; had bards but truly known
That strength, which is most properly their own,
Without a lord, unpropp'd they might have stood,
And overtopp'd those giants of the wood.
But why, when present times my care engage,
Must I go back to the Augustan age?
Why, anxious for the living, am I led
Into the mansions of the ancient dead?
Can they find patrons nowhere but at Rome,
And must I seek Maecenas in the tomb?
Name but a Wingate, twenty fools of note
Start up, and from report Maecenas quote;
Under his colours lords are proud to fight,
Forgetting that Maecenas was a knight:
They mention him, as if to use his name
Was, in some measure, to partake his fame,
Though Virgil, was he living, in the street
79
Might rot for them, or perish in the Fleet.
See how they redden, and the charge disclaim-Virgil, and in the Fleet!--forbid it, Shame!
Hence, ye vain boasters! to the Fleet repair,
And ask, with blushes ask, if Lloyd is there!
Patrons in days of yore were men of sense,
Were men of taste, and had a fair pretence
To rule in letters--some of them were heard
To read off-hand, and never spell a word;
Some of them, too, to such a monstrous height
Was learning risen, for themselves could write,
And kept their secretaries, as the great
Do many other foolish things, for state.
Our patrons are of quite a different strain,
With neither sense nor taste; against the grain
They patronise for Fashion's sake--no more-And keep a bard, just as they keep a whore.
Melcombe (on such occasions I am loth
To name the dead) was a rare proof of both.
Some of them would be puzzled e'en to read,
Nor could deserve their clergy by their creed;
Others can write, but such a Pagan hand,
A Willes should always at our elbow stand:
Many, if begg'd, a Chancellor, of right,
Would order into keeping at first sight.
Those who stand fairest to the public view
Take to themselves the praise to others due,
They rob the very spital, and make free
With those, alas! who've least to spare. We see
---- hath not had a word to say,
Since winds and waves bore Singlespeech away.
Patrons, in days of yore, like patrons now,
Expected that the bard should make his bow
At coming in, and every now and then
Hint to the world that they were more than men;
But, like the patrons of the present day,
They never bilk'd the poet of his pay.
Virgil loved rural ease, and, far from harm,
Maecenas fix'd him in a neat, snug farm,
Where he might, free from trouble, pass his days
In his own way, and pay his rent in praise.
Horace loved wine, and, through his friend at court,
80
Could buy it off the quay in every port:
Horace loved mirth, Maecenas loved it too;
They met, they laugh'd, as Goy and I may do,
Nor in those moments paid the least regard
To which was minister, and which was bard.
Not so our patrons--grave as grave can be,
They know themselves, they keep up dignity;
Bards are a forward race, nor is it fit
That men of fortune rank with men of wit:
Wit, if familiar made, will find her strength-'Tis best to keep her weak, and at arm's length.
'Tis well enough for bards, if patrons give,
From hand to mouth, the scanty means to live.
Such is their language, and their practice such;
They promise little, and they give not much.
Let the weak bard, with prostituted strain,
Praise that proud Scot whom all good men disdain;
What's his reward? Why, his own fame undone,
He may obtain a patent for the run
Of his lord's kitchen, and have ample time,
With offal fed, to court the cook in rhyme;
Or (if he strives true patriots to disgrace)
May at the second table get a place;
With somewhat greater slaves allow'd to dine,
And play at crambo o'er his gill of wine.
And are there bards, who, on creation's file,
Stand rank'd as men, who breathe in this fair isle
The air of freedom, with so little gall,
So low a spirit, prostrate thus to fall
Before these idols, and without a groan
Bear wrongs might call forth murmurs from a stone?
Better, and much more noble, to abjure
The sight of men, and in some cave, secure
From all the outrages of Pride, to feast
On Nature's salads, and be free at least.
Better, (though that, to say the truth, is worse
Than almost any other modern curse)
Discard all sense, divorce the thankless Muse,
Critics commence, and write in the Reviews;
Write without tremor, Griffiths cannot read;
No fool can fail, where Langhorne can succeed.
But (not to make a brave and honest pride
81
Try those means first, she must disdain when tried)
There are a thousand ways, a thousand arts,
By which, and fairly, men of real parts
May gain a living, gain what Nature craves;
Let those, who pine for more, live, and be slaves.
Our real wants in a small compass lie,
But lawless appetite, with eager eye,
Kept in a constant fever, more requires,
And we are burnt up with our own desires.
Hence our dependence, hence our slavery springs;
Bards, if contented, are as great as kings.
Ourselves are to ourselves the cause of ill;
We may be independent, if we will.
The man who suits his spirit to his state
Stands on an equal footing with the great;
Moguls themselves are not more rich, and he
Who rules the English nation, not more free.
Chains were not forged more durable and strong
For bards than others, but they've worn them long,
And therefore wear them still; they've quite forgot
What Freedom is, and therefore prize her not.
Could they, though in their sleep, could they but know
The blessings which from Independence flow;
Could they but have a short and transient gleam
Of Liberty, though 'twas but in a dream,
They would no more in bondage bend their knee,
But, once made freemen, would be always free.
The Muse, if she one moment freedom gains,
Can nevermore submit to sing in chains.
Bred in a cage, far from the feather'd throng,
The bird repays his keeper with his song;
But if some playful child sets wide the door,
Abroad he flies, and thinks of home no more,
With love of liberty begins to burn,
And rather starves than to his cage return.
Hail, Independence!--by true reason taught,
How few have known, and prized thee as they ought!
Some give thee up for riot; some, like boys,
Resign thee, in their childish moods, for toys;
Ambition some, some avarice, misleads,
And in both cases Independence bleeds.
Abroad, in quest of thee, how many roam,
82
Nor know they had thee in their reach at home;
Some, though about their paths, their beds about,
Have never had the sense to find thee out:
Others, who know of what they are possess'd,
Like fearful misers, lock thee in a chest,
Nor have the resolution to produce,
In these bad times, and bring thee forth for use.
Hail, Independence!--though thy name's scarce known,
Though thou, alas! art out of fashion grown,
Though all despise thee, I will not despise,
Nor live one moment longer than I prize
Thy presence, and enjoy: by angry Fate
Bow'd down, and almost crush'd, thou cam'st, though late,
Thou cam'st upon me, like a second birth,
And made me know what life was truly worth.
Hail, Independence!--never may my cot,
Till I forget thee, be by thee forgot:
Thither, oh! thither, oftentimes repair;
Cotes, whom thou lovest too, shall meet thee there.
All thoughts but what arise from joy give o'er,
Peace dwells within, and law shall guard the door.
O'erweening Bard! Law guard thy door! What law?
The law of England. To control and awe
Those saucy hopes, to strike that spirit dumb,
Behold, in state, Administration come!
Why, let her come, in all her terrors too;
I dare to suffer all she dares to do.
I know her malice well, and know her pride,
I know her strength, but will not change my side.
This melting mass of flesh she may control
With iron ribs--she cannot chain my soul.
No--to the last resolved her worst to bear,
I'm still at large, and independent there.
Where is this minister? where is the band
Of ready slaves, who at his elbow stand
To hear, and to perform his wicked will?
Why, for the first time, are they slow to ill?
When some grand act 'gainst law is to be done,
Doth ---- sleep; doth blood-hound ---- run
To L----, and worry those small deer,
When he might do more precious mischief here?

Doth Webb turn tail? doth he refuse to draw
83
Illegal warrants, and to call them law?
Doth ----, at Guildford kick'd, from Guildford run,
With that cold lump of unbaked dough, his son,
And, his more honest rival Ketch to cheat,
Purchase a burial-place where three ways meet?
Believe it not; ---- is ---- still,
And never sleeps, when he should wake to ill:

---- doth lesser mischiefs by the by,
The great ones till the term in _petto_ lie:
---- lives, and, to the strictest justice true,
Scorns to defraud the hangman of his due.
O my poor Country!--weak, and overpower'd
By thine own sons--ate to the bone--devour'd
By vipers, which, in thine own entrails bred,
Prey on thy life, and with thy blood are fed,
With unavailing grief thy wrongs I see,
And, for myself not feeling, feel for thee.
I grieve, but can't despair--for, lo! at hand
Freedom presents a choice, but faithful band
Of loyal patriots; men who greatly dare
In such a noble cause; men fit to bear
The weight of empires; Fortune, Rank, and Sense,
Virtue and Knowledge, leagued with Eloquence,
March in their ranks; Freedom from file to file
Darts her delighted eye, and with a smile
Approves her honest sons, whilst down her cheek,
As 'twere by stealth, (her heart too full to speak)
One tear in silence creeps, one honest tear,
And seems to say, Why is not Granby here?'
O ye brave few, in whom we still may find
A love of virtue, freedom, and mankind!
Go forth--in majesty of woe array'd,
See at your feet your Country kneels for aid,
And, (many of her children traitors grown)
Kneels to those sons she still can call her own;
Seeming to breathe her last in every breath,
She kneels for freedom, or she begs for death-Fly, then, each duteous son, each English chief,
And to your drooping parent bring relief.
Go forth--nor let the siren voice of Ease
Tempt ye to sleep, whilst tempests swell the seas;
Go forth--nor let Hypocrisy, whose tongue
84
With many a fair, false, fatal art is hung,
Like Bethel's fawning prophet, cross your way,
When your great errand brooks not of delay;
Nor let vain Fear, who cries to all she meets,
Trembling and pale, 'A lion in the streets,'
Damp your free spirits; let not threats affright,
Nor bribes corrupt, nor flatteries delight:
Be as one man--concord success ensures-There's not an English heart but what is yours.
Go forth--and Virtue, ever in your sight,
Shall be your guide by day, your guard by night-Go forth--the champions of your native land,
And may the battle prosper in your hand-It may, it must--ye cannot be withstood-Be your hearts honest, as your cause is good!
~ Charles Churchill,
762:Scene. Basil; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus. 1526.
Paracelsus, Festus.
Paracelsus.
Heap logs and let the blaze laugh out!
Festus.
                     True, true!
'T is very fit all, time and chance and change
Have wrought since last we sat thus, face to face
And soul to soulall cares, far-looking fears,
Vague apprehensions, all vain fancies bred
By your long absence, should be cast away,
Forgotten in this glad unhoped renewal
Of our affections.
Paracelsus.
         Oh, omit not aught
Which witnesses your own and Michal's own
Affection: spare not that! Only forget
The honours and the glories and what not,
It pleases you to tell profusely out.
Festus.
Nay, even your honours, in a sense, I waive:
The wondrous Paracelsus, life's dispenser,
Fate's commissary, idol of the schools
And courts, shall be no more than Aureole still,
Still Aureole and my friend as when we parted
Some twenty years ago, and I restrained
As best I could the promptings of my spirit
Which secretly advanced you, from the first,
To the pre-eminent rank which, since, your own
Adventurous ardour, nobly triumphing,
Has won for you.
Paracelsus.
         Yes, yes. And Michal's face
Still wears that quiet and peculiar light
Like the dim circlet floating round a pearl?
Festus.
Just so.
Paracelsus.
    And yet her calm sweet countenance,
Though saintly, was not sad; for she would sing
Alone. Does she still sing alone, bird-like,
Not dreaming you are near? Her carols dropt
In flakes through that old leafy bower built under
The sunny wall at Wrzburg, from her lattice
Among the trees above, while I, unseen,
Sat conning some rare scroll from Tritheim's shelves
Much wondering notes so simple could divert
My mind from study. Those were happy days.
Respect all such as sing when all alone!
Festus.
Scarcely alone: her children, you may guess,
Are wild beside her.
Paracelsus.
           Ah, those children quite
Unsettle the pure picture in my mind:
A girl, she was so perfect, so distinct:
No change, no change! Not but this added grace
May blend and harmonize with its compeers,
And Michal may become her motherhood;
But't is a change, and I detest all change,
And most a change in aught I loved long since.
So, Michalyou have said she thinks of me?
Festus.
O very proud will Michal be of you!
Imagine how we sat, long winter-nights,
Scheming and wondering, shaping your presumed
Adventure, or devising its reward;
Shutting out fear with all the strength of hope.
For it was strange how, even when most secure
In our domestic peace, a certain dim
And flitting shade could sadden all; it seemed
A restlessness of heart, a silent yearning,
A sense of something wanting, incomplete
Not to be put in words, perhaps avoided
By mute consentbut, said or unsaid, felt
To point to one so loved and so long lost.
And then the hopes rose and shut out the fears
How you would laugh should I recount them now
I still predicted your return at last
With gifts beyond the greatest of them all,
All Tritheim's wondrous troop; did one of which
Attain renown by any chance, I smiled,
As well aware of who would prove his peer
Michal was sure some woman, long ere this,
As beautiful as you were sage, had loved . . .
Paracelsus.
Far-seeing, truly, to discern so much
In the fantastic projects and day-dreams
Of a raw restless boy!
Festus.
           Oh, no: the sunrise
Well warranted our faith in this full noon!
Can I forget the anxious voice which said
"Festus, have thoughts like these ere shaped themselves
"In other brains than mine? have their possessors
"Existed in like circumstance? were they weak
"As I, or ever constant from the first,
"Despising youth's allurements and rejecting
"As spider-films the shackles I endure?
"Is there hope for me?"and I answered gravely
As an acknowledged elder, calmer, wiser,
More gifted mortal. O you must remember,
For all your glorious . . .
Paracelsus.
               Glorious? ay, this hair,
These handsnay, touch them, they are mine! Recall
With all the said recallings, times when thus
To lay them by your own ne'er turned you pale
As now. Most glorious, are they not?
Festus.
                   Whywhy
Something must be subtracted from success
So wide, no doubt. He would be scrupulous, truly,
Who should object such drawbacks. Still, still, Aureole,
You are changed, very changed! 'T were losing nothing
To look well to it: you must not be stolen
From the enjoyment of your well-won meed.
Paracelsus.
My friend! you seek my pleasure, past a doubt:
You will best gain your point, by talking, not
Of me, but of yourself.
Festus.
            Have I not said
All touching Michal and my children? Sure
You know, by this, full well how Aennchen looks
Gravely, while one disparts her thick brown hair;
And Aureole's glee when some stray gannet builds
Amid the birch-trees by the lake. Small hope
Have I that he will honour (the wild imp)
His namesake. Sigh not! 't is too much to ask
That all we love should reach the same proud fate.
But you are very kind to humour me
By showing interest in my quiet life;
You, who of old could never tame yourself
To tranquil pleasures, must at heart despise . . .
Paracelsus.
Festus, strange secrets are let out by death
Who blabs so oft the follies of this world:
And I am death's familiar, as you know.
I helped a man to die, some few weeks since,
Warped even from his go-cart to one end
The living on princes' smiles, reflected from
A mighty herd of favourites. No mean trick
He left untried, and truly well-nigh wormed
All traces of God's finger out of him:
Then died, grown old. And just an hour before,
Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes,
He sat up suddenly, and with natural voice
Said that in spite of thick air and closed doors
God told him it was June; and he knew well,
Without such telling, harebells grew in June;
And all that kings could ever give or take
Would not be precious as those blooms to him.
Just so, allowing I am passing sage,
It seems to me much worthier argument
Why pansies,[1] eyes that laugh, bear beauty's prize
From violets, eyes that dream(your Michal's choice)
Than all fools find to wonder at in me
Or in my fortunes. And be very sure
I say this from no prurient restlessness,
No self-complacency, itching to turn,
Vary and view its pleasure from all points,
And, in this instance, willing other men
May be at pains, demonstrate to itself
The realness of the very joy it tastes.
What should delight me like the news of friends
Whose memories were a solace to me oft,
As mountain-baths to wild fowls in their flight?
Ofter than you had wasted thought on me
Had you been wise, and rightly valued bliss.
But there's no taming nor repressing hearts:
God knows I need such!So, you heard me speak?
Festus.
Speak? when?
Paracelsus.
      When but this morning at my class?
There was noise and crowd enough. I saw you not.
Surely you know I am engaged to fill
The chair here?that't is part of my proud fate
To lecture to as many thick-skulled youths
As please, each day, to throng the theatre,
To my great reputation, and no small
Danger of Basil's benches long unused
To crack beneath such honour?
Festus.
               I was there;
I mingled with the throng: shall I avow
Small care was mine to listen?too intent
On gathering from the murmurs of the crowd
A full corroboration of my hopes!
What can I learn about your powers? but they
Know, care for nought beyond your actual state,
Your actual value; yet they worship you,
Those various natures whom you sway as one!
But ere I go, be sure I shall attend . . .
Paracelsus.
Stop, o' God's name: the thing's by no means yet
Past remedy! Shall I read this morning's labour
At least in substance? Nought so worth the gaining
As an apt scholar! Thus then, with all due
Precision and emphasisyou, beside, are clearly
Guiltless of understanding more, a whit,
The subject than your stoolallowed to be
A notable advantage.
Festus.
           Surely, Aureole,
You laugh at me!
Paracelsus.
         I laugh? Ha, ha! thank heaven,
I charge you, if't be so! for I forget
Much, and what laughter should be like. No less,
However, I forego that luxury
Since it alarms the friend who brings it back.
True, laughter like my own must echo strangely
To thinking men; a smile were better far;
So, make me smile! If the exulting look
You wore but now be smiling, 't is so long
Since I have smiled! Alas, such smiles are born
Alone of hearts like yours, or herdsmen's souls
Of ancient time, whose eyes, calm as their flocks,
Saw in the stars mere garnishry of heaven,
And in the earth a stage for altars only.
Never change, Festus: I say, never change!
Festus.
My God, if he be wretched after all
Paracelsus.
When last we parted, Festus, you declared,
Or Michal, yes, her soft lips whispered words
I have preserved. She told me she believed
I should succeed (meaning, that in the search
I then engaged in, I should meet success)
And yet be wretched: now, she augured false.
Festus.
Thank heaven! but you spoke strangely: could I venture
To think bare apprehension lest your friend,
Dazzled by your resplendent course, might find
Henceforth less sweetness in his own, could move
Such earnest mood in you? Fear not, dear friend,
That I shall leave you, inwardly repining
Your lot was not my own!
Paracelsus.
             And this for ever!
For ever! gull who may, they will be gulled!
They will not look nor think;'t is nothing new
In them: but surely he is not of them!
My Festus, do you know, I reckoned, you
Though all beside were sand-blindyou, my friend,
Would look at me, once close, with piercing eye
Untroubled by the false glare that confounds
A weaker vision: would remain serene,
Though singular amid a gaping throng.
I feared you, or I had come, sure, long ere this,
To Einsiedeln. Well, error has no end,
And Rhasis is a sage, and Basil boasts
A tribe of wits, and I am wise and blest
Past all dispute! 'T is vain to fret at it.
I have vowed long ago my worshippers
Shall owe to their own deep sagacity
All further information, good or bad.
Small risk indeed my reputation runs,
Unless perchance the glance now searching me
Be fixed much longer; for it seems to spell
Dimly the characters a simpler man
Might read distinct enough. Old Eastern books
Say, the fallen prince of morning some short space
Remained unchanged in semblance; nay, his brow
Was hued with triumph: every spirit then
Praising, his heart on flame the while:a tale!
Well, Festus, what discover you, I pray?
Festus.
Some foul deed sullies then a life which else
Were raised supreme?
Paracelsus.
           Good: I do well, most well
Why strive to make men hear, feel, fret themselves
With what is past their power to comprehend?
I should not strive now: only, having nursed
The faint surmise that one yet walked the earth,
One, at least, not the utter fool of show,
Not absolutely formed to be the dupe
Of shallow plausibilities alone:
One who, in youth, found wise enough to choose
The happiness his riper years approve,
Was yet so anxious for another's sake,
That, ere his friend could rush upon a mad
And ruinous course, the converse of his own,
His gentle spirit essayed, prejudged for him
The perilous path, foresaw its destiny,
And warned the weak one in such tender words,
Such accentshis whole heart in every tone
That oft their memory comforted that friend
When it by right should have increased despair:
Having believed, I say, that this one man
Could never lose the light thus from the first
His portionhow should I refuse to grieve
At even my gain if it disturb our old
Relation, if it make me out more wise?
Therefore, once more reminding him how well
He prophesied, I note the single flaw
That spoils his prophet's title. In plain words,
You were deceived, and thus were you deceived
I have not been successful, and yet am
Most miserable; 't is said at last; nor you
Give credit, lest you force me to concede
That common sense yet lives upon the world!
Festus.
You surely do not mean to banter me?
Paracelsus.
You know, orif you have been wise enough
To cleanse your memory of such mattersknew,
As far as words of mine could make it clear,
That't was my purpose to find joy or grief
Solely in the fulfilment of my plan
Or plot or whatsoe'er it was; rejoicing
Alone as it proceeded prosperously,
Sorrowing then only when mischance retarded
Its progress. That was in those Wrzburg days!
Not to prolong a theme I thoroughly hate,
I have pursued this plan with all my strength;
And having failed therein most signally,
Cannot object to ruin utter and drear
As all-excelling would have been the prize
Had fortune favoured me. I scarce have right
To vex your frank good spirit late so glad
In my supposed prosperity, I know,
And, were I lucky in a glut of friends,
Would well agree to let your error live,
Nay, strengthen it with fables of success.
But mine is no condition to refuse
The transient solace of so rare a godsend,
My solitary luxury, my one friend:
Accordingly I venture to put off
The wearisome vest of falsehood galling me,
Secure when he is by. I lay me bare
Prone at his mercybut he is my friend!
Not that he needs retain his aspect grave;
That answers not my purpose; for't is like,
Some sunny morningBasil being drained
Of its wise population, every corner
Of the amphitheatre crammed with learned clerks,
Here OEcolampadius, looking worlds of wit,
Here Castellanus, as profound as he,
Munsterus here, Frobenius there, all squeezed
And staring,that the zany of the show,
Even Paracelsus, shall put off before them
His trappings with a grace but seldom judged
Expedient in such cases:the grim smile
That will go round! Is it not therefore best
To venture a rehearsal like the present
In a small way? Where are the signs I seek,
The first-fruits and fair sample of the scorn
Due to all quacks? Why, this will never do!
Festus.
These are foul vapours, Aureole; nought beside!
The effect of watching, study, weariness.
Were there a spark of truth in the confusion
Of these wild words, you would not outrage thus
Your youth's companion. I shall ne'er regard
These wanderings, bred of faintness and much study.
'T is not thus you would trust a trouble to me,
To Michal's friend.
Paracelsus.
          I have said it, dearest Festus!
For the manner, 't is ungracious probably;
You may have it told in broken sobs, one day,
And scalding tears, ere long: but I thought best
To keep that off as long as possible.
Do you wonder still?
Festus.
           No; it must oft fall out
That one whose labour perfects any work,
Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he
Of all men least can measure the extent
Of what he has accomplished. He alone
Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary too,
May clearly scan the little he effects:
But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil,
Estimate each aright.
Paracelsus.
           This worthy Festus
Is one of them, at last! 'T is so with all!
First, they set down all progress as a dream;
And next, when he whose quick discomfiture
Was counted on, accomplishes some few
And doubtful steps in his career,behold,
They look for every inch of ground to vanish
Beneath his tread, so sure they spy success!
Festus.
Few doubtful steps? when death retires before
Your presencewhen the noblest of mankind,
Broken in body or subdued in soul,
May through your skill renew their vigour, raise
The shattered frame to pristine stateliness?
When men in racking pain may purchase dreams
Of what delights them most, swooning at once
Into a sea of bliss or rapt along
As in a flying sphere of turbulent light?
When we may look to you as one ordained
To free the flesh from fell disease, as frees
Our Luther's burning tongue the fettered soul?
When . . .
Paracelsus.
     When and where, the devil, did you get
This notable news?
Festus.
         Even from the common voice;
From those whose envy, daring not dispute
The wonders it decries, attributes them
To magic and such folly.
Paracelsus.
             Folly? Why not
To magic, pray? You find a comfort doubtless
In holding, God ne'er troubles him about
Us or our doings: once we were judged worth
The devil's tempting . . . I offend: forgive me,
And rest content. Your prophecy on the whole
Was fair enough as prophesyings go;
At fault a little in detail, but quite
Precise enough in the main; and hereupon
I pay due homage: you guessed long ago
(The prophet!) I should failand I have failed.
Festus.
You mean to tell me, then, the hopes which fed
Your youth have not been realized as yet?
Some obstacle has barred them hitherto?
Or that their innate . . .
Paracelsus.
              As I said but now,
You have a very decent prophet's fame,
So you but shun details here. Little matter
Whether those hopes were mad,the aims they sought,
Safe and secure from all ambitious fools;
Or whether my weak wits are overcome
By what a better spirit would scorn: I fail.
And now methinks't were best to change a theme
I am a sad fool to have stumbled on.
I say confusedly what comes uppermost;
But there are times when patience proves at fault,
As now: this morning's strange encounteryou
Beside me once again! you, whom I guessed
Alive, since hitherto (with Luther's leave)
No friend have I among the saints at peace,
To judge by any good their prayers effect.
I knew you would have helped mewhy not he,
My strange competitor in enterprise,
Bound for the same end by another path,
Arrived, or ill or well, before the time,
At our disastrous journey's doubtful close?
How goes it with Aprile? Ah, they miss
Your lone sad sunny idleness of heaven,
Our martyrs for the world's sake; heaven shuts fast:
The poor mad poet is howling by this time!
Since you are my sole friend then, here or there,
I could not quite repress the varied feelings
This meeting wakens; they have had their vent,
And now forget them. Do the rear-mice still
Hang like a fretwork on the gate (or what
In my time was a gate) fronting the road
From Einsiedeln to Lachen?
Festus.
              Trifle not:
Answer me, for my sake alone! You smiled
Just now, when I supposed some deed, unworthy
Yourself, might blot the else so bright result;
Yet if your motives have continued pure,
Your will unfaltering, and in spite of this,
You have experienced a defeat, why then
I say not you would cheerfully withdraw
From contestmortal hearts are not so fashioned
But surely you would ne'ertheless withdraw.
You sought not fame nor gain nor even love,
No end distinct from knowledge,I repeat
Your very words: once satisfied that knowledge
Is a mere dream, you would announce as much,
Yourself the first. But how is the event?
You are defeatedand I find you here!
Paracelsus.
As though "here" did not signify defeat!
I spoke not of my little labours here,
But of the break-down of my general aims:
For you, aware of their extent and scope,
To look on these sage lecturings, approved
By beardless boys, and bearded dotards worse,
As a fit consummation of such aims,
Is worthy notice. A professorship
At Basil! Since you see so much in it,
And think my life was reasonably drained
Of life's delights to render me a match
For duties arduous as such post demands,
Be it far from me to deny my power
To fill the petty circle lotted out
Of infinite space, or justify the host
Of honours thence accruing. So, take notice,
This jewel dangling from my neck preserves
The features of a prince, my skill restored
To plague his people some few years to come:
And all through a pure whim. He had eased the earth
For me, but that the droll despair which seized
The vermin of his household, tickled me.
I came to see. Here, drivelled the physician,
Whose most infallible nostrum was at fault;
There quaked the astrologer, whose horoscope
Had promised him interminable years;
Here a monk fumbled at the sick man's mouth
With some undoubted relica sudary
Of the Virgin; while another piebald knave
Of the same brotherhood (he loved them ever)
Was actively preparing 'neath his nose
Such a suffumigation as, once fired,
Had stunk the patient dead ere he could groan.
I cursed the doctor and upset the brother,
Brushed past the conjurer, vowed that the first gust
Of stench from the ingredients just alight
Would raise a cross-grained devil in my sword,
Not easily laid: and ere an hour the prince
Slept as he never slept since prince he was.
A dayand I was posting for my life,
Placarded through the town as one whose spite
Had near availed to stop the blessed effects
Of the doctor's nostrum which, well seconded
By the sudary, and most by the costly smoke
Not leaving out the strenuous prayers sent up
Hard by in the abbeyraised the prince to life:
To the great reputation of the seer
Who, confident, expected all along
The glad eventthe doctor's recompense
Much largess from his highness to the monks
And the vast solace of his loving people,
Whose general satisfaction to increase,
The prince was pleased no longer to defer
The burning of some dozen heretics
Remanded till God's mercy should be shown
Touching his sickness: last of all were joined
Ample directions to all loyal folk
To swell the complement by seizing me
Whodoubtless some rank sorcererendeavoured
To thwart these pious offices, obstruct
The prince's cure, and frustrate heaven by help
Of certain devils dwelling in his sword.
By luck, the prince in his first fit of thanks
Had forced this bauble on me as an earnest
Of further favours. This one case may serve
To give sufficient taste of many such,
So, let them pass. Those shelves support a pile
Of patents, licences, diplomas, titles
From Germany, France, Spain, and Italy;
They authorize some honour; ne'ertheless,
I set more store by this Erasmus sent;
He trusts me; our Frobenius is his friend,
And him "I raised" (nay, read it) "from the dead."
I weary you, I see. I merely sought
To show, there's no great wonder after all
That, while I fill the class-room and attract
A crowd to Basil, I get leave to stay,
And therefore need not scruple to accept
The utmost they can offer, if I please:
For't is but right the world should be prepared
To treat with favour e'en fantastic wants
Of one like me, used up in serving her.
Just as the mortal, whom the gods in part
Devoured, received in place of his lost limb
Some virtue or othercured disease, I think;
You mind the fables we have read together.
Festus.
You do not think I comprehend a word.
The time was, Aureole, you were apt enough
To clothe the airiest thoughts in specious breath;
But surely you must feel how vague and strange
These speeches sound.
Paracelsus.
           Well, then: you know my hopes;
I am assured, at length, those hopes were vain;
That truth is just as far from me as ever;
That I have thrown my life away; that sorrow
On that account is idle, and further effort
To mend and patch what's marred beyond repairing,
As useless: and all this was taught your friend
By the convincing good old-fashioned method
Of forceby sheer compulsion. Is that plain?
Festus.
Dear Aureole, can it be my fears were just?
God wills not . . .
Paracelsus.
          Now, 't is this I most admire
The constant talk men of your stamp keep up
Of God's will, as they style it; one would swear
Man had but merely to uplift his eye,
And see the will in question charactered
On the heaven's vault. 'T is hardly wise to moot
Such topics: doubts are many and faith is weak.
I know as much of any will of God
As knows some dumb and tortured brute what Man,
His stern lord, wills from the perplexing blows
That plague him every way; but there, of course,
Where least he suffers, longest he remains
My case; and for such reasons I plod on,
Subdued but not convinced. I know as little
Why I deserve to fail, as why I hoped
Better things in my youth. I simply know
I am no master here, but trained and beaten
Into the path I tread; and here I stay,
Until some further intimation reach me,
Like an obedient drudge. Though I prefer
To view the whole thing as a task imposed
Which, whether dull or pleasant, must be done
Yet, I deny not, there is made provision
Of joys which tastes less jaded might affect;
Nay, some which please me too, for all my pride
Pleasures that once were pains: the iron ring
Festering about a slave's neck grows at length
Into the flesh it eats. I hate no longer
A host of petty vile delights, undreamed of
Or spurned before; such now supply the place
Of my dead aims: as in the autumn woods
Where tall trees used to flourish, from their roots
Springs up a fungous brood sickly and pale,
Chill mushrooms coloured like a corpse's cheek.
Festus.
If I interpret well your words, I own
It troubles me but little that your aims,
Vast in their dawning and most likely grown
Extravagantly since, have baffled you.
Perchance I am glad; you merit greater praise;
Because they are too glorious to be gained,
You do not blindly cling to them and die;
You fell, but have not sullenly refused
To rise, because an angel worsted you
In wrestling, though the world holds not your peer;
And though too harsh and sudden is the change
To yield content as yet, still you pursue
The ungracious path as though't were rosv-strewn.
'T is well: and your reward, or soon or late,
Will come from him whom no man serves in vain.
Paracelsus.
Ah, very fine! For my part, I conceive
The very pausing from all further toil,
Which you find heinous, would become a seal
To the sincerity of all my deeds.
To be consistent I should die at once;
I calculated on no after-life;
Yet (how crept in, how fostered, I know not)
Here am I with as passionate regret
For youth and health and love so vainly lavished,
As if their preservation had been first
And foremost in my thoughts; and this strange fact
Humbled me wondrously, and had due force
In rendering me the less averse to follow
A certain counsel, a mysterious warning
You will not understandbut't was a man
With aims not mine and yet pursued like mine,
With the same fervour and no more success,
Perishing in my sight; who summoned me
As I would shun the ghastly fate I saw,
To serve my race at once; to wait no longer
That God should interfere in my behalf,
But to distrust myself, put pride away,
And give my gains, imperfect as they were,
To men. I have not leisure to explain
How, since, a singular series of events
Has raised me to the station you behold,
Wherein I seem to turn to most account
The mere wreck of the past,perhaps receive
Some feeble glimmering token that God views
And may approve my penance: therefore here
You find me, doing most good or least harm.
And if folks wonder much and profit little
'T is not my fault; only, I shall rejoice
When my part in the farce is shuffled through,
And the curtain falls: I must hold out till then.
Festus.
Till when, dear Aureole?
Paracelsus.
             Till I'm fairly thrust
From my proud eminence. Fortune is fickle
And even professors fall: should that arrive,
I see no sin in ceding to my bent.
You little fancy what rude shocks apprise us
We sin; God's intimations rather fail
In clearness than in energy: 't were well
Did they but indicate the course to take
Like that to be forsaken. I would fain
Be spared a further sample. Here I stand,
And here I stay, be sure, till forced to flit.
Festus.
Be you but firm on that head! long ere then
All I expect will come to pass, I trust:
The cloud that wraps you will have disappeared.
Meantime, I see small chance of such event:
They praise you here as one whose lore, already
Divulged, eclipses all the past can show,
But whose achievements, marvellous as they be,
Are faint anticipations of a glory
About to be revealed. When Basil's crowds
Dismiss their teacher, I shall be content
That he depart.
Paracelsus.
        This favour at their hands
I look for earlier than your view of things
Would warrant. Of the crowd you saw to-day,
Remove the full half sheer amazement draws,
Mere novelty, nought else; and next, the tribe
Whose innate blockish dulness just perceives
That unless miracles (as seem my works)
Be wrought in their behalf, their chance is slight
To puzzle the devil; next, the numerous set
Who bitterly hate established schools, and help
The teacher that oppugns them, till he once
Have planted his own doctrine, when the teacher
May reckon on their rancour in his turn;
Take, too, the sprinkling of sagacious knaves
Whose cunning runs not counter to the vogue
But seeks, by flattery and crafty nursing,
To force my system to a premature
Short-lived development. Why swell the list?
Each has his end to serve, and his best way
Of serving it: remove all these, remains
A scantling, a poor dozen at the best,
Worthy to look for sympathy and service,
And likely to draw profit from my pains.
Festus.
'T is no encouraging picture: still these few
Redeem their fellows. Once the germ implanted,
Its growth, if slow, is sure.
Paracelsus.
               God grant it so!
I would make some amends: but if I fail,
The luckless rogues have this excuse to urge,
That much is in my method and my manner,
My uncouth habits, my impatient spirit,
Which hinders of reception and result
My doctrine: much to say, small skill to speak!
These old aims suffered not a looking-off
Though for an instant; therefore, only when
I thus renounced them and resolved to reap
Some present fruitto teach mankind some truth
So dearly purchasedonly then I found
Such teaching was an art requiring cares
And qualities peculiar to itself:
That to possess was one thingto display
Another. With renown first in my thoughts,
Or popular praise, I had soon discovered it:
One grows but little apt to learn these things.
Festus.
If it be so, which nowise I believe,
There needs no waiting fuller dispensation
To leave a labour of so little use.
Why not throw up the irksome charge at once?
Paracelsus.
A task, a task!
        But wherefore hide the whole
Extent of degradation, once engaged
In the confessing vein? Despite of all
My fine talk of obedience and repugnance,
Docility and what not, 't is yet to learn
If when the task shall really be performed,
My inclination free to choose once more,
I shall do aught but slightly modify
The nature of the hated task I quit.
In plain words, I am spoiled; my life still tends
As first it tended; I am broken and trained
To my old habits: they are part of me.
I know, and none so well, my darling ends
Are proved impossible: no less, no less,
Even now what humours me, fond fool, as when
Their faint ghosts sit with me and flatter me
And send me back content to my dull round?
How can I change this soul?this apparatus
Constructed solely for their purposes,
So well adapted to their every want,
To search out and discover, prove and perfect;
This intricate machine whose most minute
And meanest motions have their charm to me
Though to none elsean aptitude I seize,
An object I perceive, a use, a meaning,
A property, a fitness, I explain
And I alone:how can I change my soul?
And this wronged body, worthless save when tasked
Under that soul's dominionused to care
For its bright master's cares and quite subdue
Its proper cravingsnot to ail nor pine
So he but prosperwhither drag this poor
Tried patient body? God! how I essayed
To live like that mad poet, for a while,
To love alone; and how I felt too warped
And twisted and deformed! What should I do,
Even tho'released from drudgery, but return
Faint, as you see, and halting, blind and sore,
To my old life and die as I began?
I cannot feed on beauty for the sake
Of beauty only, nor can drink in balm
From lovely objects for their loveliness;
My nature cannot lose her first imprint;
I still must hoard and heap and class all truths
With one ulterior purpose: I must know!
Would God translate me to his throne, believe
That I should only listen to his word
To further my own aim! For other men,
Beauty is prodigally strewn around,
And I were happy could I quench as they
This mad and thriveless longing, and content me
With beauty for itself alone: alas,
I have addressed a frock of heavy mail
Yet may not join the troop of sacred knights;
And now the forest-creatures fly from me,
The grass-banks cool, the sunbeams warm no more.
Best follow, dreaming that ere night arrive,
I shall o'ertake the company and ride
Glittering as they!
Festus.
          I think I apprehend
What you would say: if you, in truth, design
To enter once more on the life thus left,
Seek not to hide that all this consciousness
Of failure is assumed!
Paracelsus.
           My friend, my friend,
I toil, you listen; I explain, perhaps
You understand: there our communion ends.
Have you learnt nothing from to-day's discourse?
When we would thoroughly know the sick man's state
We feel awhile the fluttering pulse, press soft
The hot brow, look upon the languid eye,
And thence divine the rest. Must I lay bare
My heart, hideous and beating, or tear up
My vitals for your gaze, ere you will deem
Enough made known? You! who are you, forsooth?
That is the crowning operation claimed
By the arch-demonstratorheaven the hall,
And earth the audience. Let Aprile and you
Secure good places: 't will be worth the while.
Festus.
Are you mad, Aureole? What can I have said
To call for this? I judged from your own words.
Paracelsus.
Oh, doubtless! A sick wretch describes the ape
That mocks him from the bed-foot, and all gravely
You thither turn at once: or he recounts
The perilous journey he has late performed,
And you are puzzled much how that could be!
You find me here, half stupid and half mad;
It makes no part of my delight to search
Into these matters, much less undergo
Another's scrutiny; but so it chances
That I am led to trust my state to you:
And the event is, you combine, contrast
And ponder on my foolish words as though
They thoroughly conveyed all hidden here
Here, loathsome with despair and hate and rage!
Is there no fear, no shrinking and no shame?
Will you guess nothing? will you spare me nothing?
Must I go deeper? Ay or no?
Festus.
               Dear friend . . .
               Paracelsus.
True: I am brutal't is a part of it;
The plague's signyou are not a lazar-haunter,
How should you know? Well then, you think it strange
I should profess to have failed utterly,
And yet propose an ultimate return
To courses void of hope: and this, because
You know not what temptation is, nor how
'T is like to ply men in the sickliest part.
You are to understand that we who make
Sport for the gods, are hunted to the end:
There is not one sharp volley shot at us,
Which 'scaped with life, though hurt, we slacken pace
And gather by the wayside herbs and roots
To staunch our wounds, secure from further harm:
We are assailed to life's extremest verge.
It will be well indeed if I return,
A harmless busy fool, to my old ways!
I would forget hints of another fate,
Significant enough, which silent hours
Have lately scared me with.
Festus.
               Another! and what?
               Paracelsus.
After all, Festus, you say well: I am
A man yet: I need never humble me.
I would have beensomething, I know not what;
But though I cannot soar, I do not crawl.
There are worse portions than this one of mine.
You say well!
Festus.
       Ah!
       Paracelsus.
         And deeper degradation!
If the mean stimulants of vulgar praise,
If vanity should become the chosen food
Of a sunk mind, should stifle even the wish
To find its early aspirations true,
Should teach it to breathe falsehood like life-breath
An atmosphere of craft and trick and lies;
Should make it proud to emulate, surpass
Base natures in the practices which woke
Its most indignant loathing once . . . No, no!
Utter damnation is reserved for hell!
I had immortal feelings; such shall never
Be wholly quenched: no, no!
               My friend, you wear
A melancholy face, and certain't is
There's little cheer in all this dismal work.
But was it my desire to set abroach
Such memories and forebodings? I foresaw
Where they would drive. 'T were better we discuss
News from Lucerne or Zurich; ask and tell
Of Egypt's flaring sky or Spain's cork-groves.
Festus.
I have thought: trust me, this mood will pass away!
I know you and the lofty spirit you bear,
And easily ravel out a clue to all.
These are the trials meet for such as you,
Nor must you hope exemption: to be mortal
Is to be plied with trials manifold.
Look round! The obstacles which kept the rest
From your ambition, have been spurned by you;
Their fears, their doubts, the chains that bind themall,
Were flax before your resolute soul, which nought
Avails to awe save these delusions bred
From its own strength, its selfsame strength disguised,
Mocking itself. Be brave, dear Aureole! Since
The rabbit has his shade to frighten him,
The fawn a rustling bough, mortals their cares,
And higher natures yet would slight and laugh
At these entangling fantasies, as you
At trammels of a weaker intellect,
Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts!
I know you.
Paracelsus.
     And I know you, dearest Festus!
And how you love unworthily; and how
All admiration renders blind.
Festus.
               You hold
That admiration blinds?
Paracelsus.
            Ay and alas!
            Festus.
Nought blinds you less than admiration, friend!
Whether it be that all love renders wise
In its degree; from love which blends with love
Heart answering heartto love which spends itself
In silent mad idolatry of some
Pre-eminent mortal, some great soul of souls,
Which ne'er will know how well it is adored.
I say, such love is never blind; but rather
Alive to every the minutest spot
Which mars its object, and which hate (supposed
So vigilant and searching) dreams not of.
Love broods on such: what then? When first perceived
Is there no sweet strife to forget, to change,
To overflush those blemishes with all
The glow of general goodness they disturb?
To make those very defects an endless source
Of new affection grown from hopes and fears?
And, when all fails, is there no gallant stand
Made even for much proved weak? no shrinking-back
Lest, since all love assimilates the soul
To what it loves, it should at length become
Almost a rival of its idol? Trust me,
If there be fiends who seek to work our hurt,
To ruin and drag down earth's mightiest spirits
Even at God's foot, 't will be from such as love,
Their zeal will gather most to serve their cause;
And least from those who hate, who most essay
By contumely and scorn to blot the light
Which forces entrance even to their hearts:
For thence will our defender tear the veil
And show within each heart, as in a shrine,
The giant image of perfection, grown
In hate's despite, whose calumnies were spawned
In the untroubled presence of its eyes.
True admiration blinds not; nor am I
So blind. I call your sin exceptional;
It springs from one whose life has passed the bounds
Prescribed to life. Compound that fault with God!
I speak of men; to common men like me
The weakness you reveal endears you more,
Like the far traces of decay in suns.
I bid you have good cheer!
Paracelsus.
              Proeclare! Optime!
Think of a quiet mountain-cloistered priest
Instructing Paracelsus! yet't is so.
Come, I will show you where my merit lies.
'T is in the advance of individual minds
That the slow crowd should ground their expectation
Eventually to follow; as the sea
Waits ages in its bed till some one wave
Out of the multitudinous mass, extends
The empire of the whole, some feet perhaps,
Over the strip of sand which could confine
Its fellows so long time: thenceforth the rest,
Even to the meanest, hurry in at once,
And so much is clear gained. I shall be glad
If all my labours, failing of aught else,
Suffice to make such inroad and procure
A wider range for thought: nay, they do this;
For, whatsoe'er my notions of true knowledge
And a legitimate success, may be,
I am not blind to my undoubted rank
When classed with others: I precede my age:
And whoso wills is very free to mount
These labours as a platform whence his own
May have a prosperous outset. But, alas!
My followersthey are noisy as you heard;
But, for intelligence, the best of them
So clumsily wield the weapons I supply
And they extol, that I begin to doubt
Whether their own rude clubs and pebble-stones
Would not do better service than my arms
Thus vilely swayedif error will not fall
Sooner before the old awkward batterings
Than my more subtle warfare, not half learned.
Festus.
I would supply that art, then, or withhold
New arms until you teach their mystery.
Paracelsus.
Content you, 't is my wish; I have recourse
To the simplest training. Day by day I seek
To wake the mood, the spirit which alone
Can make those arms of any use to men.
Of course they are for swaggering forth at once
Graced with Ulysses' bow, Achilles' shield
Flash on us, all in armour, thou Achilles!
Make our hearts dance to thy resounding step!
A proper sight to scare the crows away!
Festus.
Pity you choose not then some other method
Of coming at your point. The marvellous art
At length established in the world bids fair
To remedy all hindrances like these:
Trust to Frobenius' press the precious lore
Obscured by uncouth manner, or unfit
For raw beginners; let his types secure
A deathless monument to after-time;
Meanwhile wait confidently and enjoy
The ultimate effect: sooner or later
You shall be all-revealed.
Paracelsus.
              The old dull question
In a new form; no more. Thus: I possess
Two sorts of knowledge; one,vast, shadowy,
Hints of the unbounded aim I once pursued:
The other consists of many secrets, caught
While bent on nobler prize,perhaps a few
Prime principles which may conduct to much:
These last I offer to my followers here.
Now, bid me chronicle the first of these,
My ancient study, and in effect you bid
Revert to the wild courses just abjured:
I must go find them scattered through the world.
Then, for the principles, they are so simple
(Being chiefly of the overturning sort),
That one time is as proper to propound them
As any otherto-morrow at my class,
Or half a century hence embalmed in print.
For if mankind intend to learn at all,
They must begin by giving faith to them
And acting on them: and I do not see
But that my lectures serve indifferent well:
No doubt these dogmas fall not to the earth,
For all their novelty and rugged setting.
I think my class will not forget the day
I let them know the gods of Israel,
Atius, Oribasius, Galen, Rhasis,
Serapion, Avicenna, Averres,
Were blocks!
Festus.
      And that reminds me, I heard something
About your waywardness: you burned their books,
It seems, instead of answering those sages.
Paracelsus.
And who said that?
Festus.
         Some I met yesternight
With OEcolampadius. As you know, the purpose
Of this short stay at Basil was to learn
His pleasure touching certain missives sent
For our Zuinglius and himself. 'T was he
Apprised me that the famous teacher here
Was my old friend.
Paracelsus.
         Ah, I forgot: you went . . .
         Festus.
From Zurich with advices for the ear
Of Luther, now at Wittenberg(you know,
I make no doubt, the differences of late
With Carolostadius)and returning sought
Basil and . . .
Paracelsus.
        I remember. Here's a case, now,
Will teach you why I answer not, but burn
The books you mention. Pray, does Luther dream
His arguments convince by their own force
The crowds that own his doctrine? No, indeed!
His plain denial of established points
Ages had sanctified and men supposed
Could never be oppugned while earth was under
And heaven above thempoints which chance or time
Affected notdid more than the array
Of argument which followed. Boldly deny!
There is much breath-stopping, hair-stiffening
Awhile; then, amazed glances, mute awaiting
The thunderbolt which does not come: and next,
Reproachful wonder and inquiry: those
Who else had never stirred, are able now
To find the rest out for themselves, perhaps
To outstrip him who set the whole at work,
As never will my wise class its instructor.
And you saw Luther?
Festus.
          'T is a wondrous soul!
          Paracelsus.
True: the so-heavy chain which galled mankind
Is shattered, and the noblest of us all
Must bow to the deliverernay, the worker
Of our own projectwe who long before
Had burst our trammels, but forgot the crowd,
We should have taught, still groaned beneath the load:
This he has done and nobly. Speed that may!
Whatever be my chance or my mischance,
What benefits mankind must glad me too;
And men seem made, though not as I believed,
For something better than the times produce.
Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights
From Suabia have possessed, whom Mnzer leads,
And whom the duke, the landgrave and the elector
Will calm in blood! Well, well; 't is not my world!
Festus.
Hark!
Paracelsus.
   'T is the melancholy wind astir
Within the trees; the embers too are grey:
Morn must be near.
Festus.
         Best ope the casement: see,
The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,
Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops altogether! Like an asp,
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
Paracelsus.
Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree
By the hour, nor count time lost.
Festus.
                 So you shall gaze:
Those happy times will come again.
Paracelsus.
                  Gone, gone,
Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind
Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains
And bartered sleep for them?
Festus.
               It is our trust
That there is yet another world to mend
All error and mischance.
Paracelsus.
             Another world!
And why this world, this common world, to be
A make-shift, a mere foil, how fair soever,
To some fine life to come? Man must be fed
With angels' food, forsooth; and some few traces
Of a diviner nature which look out
Through his corporeal baseness, warrant him
In a supreme contempt of all provision
For his inferior tastessome straggling marks
Which constitute his essence, just as truly
As here and there a gem would constitute
The rock, their barren bed, one diamond.
But were it sowere man all mindhe gains
A station little enviable. From God
Down to the lowest spirit ministrant,
Intelligence exists which casts our mind
Into immeasurable shade. No, no:
Love, hope, fear, faiththese make humanity;
These are its sign and note and character,
And these I have lost!gone, shut from me for ever,
Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more!
See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems
Diluted, grey and clear without the stars;
The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves as if
Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let go
His hold; and from the East, fuller and fuller
Day, like a mighty river, flowing in;
But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold.
Yet see how that broad prickly star-shaped plant,
Half-down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves
All thick and glistering with diamond dew.
And you depart for Einsiedeln this day,
And we have spent all night in talk like this!
If you would have me better for your love,
Revert no more to these sad themes.
Festus.
                   One favour,
And I have done. I leave you, deeply moved;
Unwilling to have fared so well, the while
My friend has changed so sorely. If this mood
Shall pass away, if light once more arise
Where all is darkness now, if you see fit
To hope and trust again, and strive again,
You will remembernot our love alone
But that my faith in God's desire that man
Should trust on his support, (as I must think
You trusted) is obscured and dim through you:
For you are thus, and this is no reward.
Will you not call me to your side, dear Aureole?


~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part III - Paracelsus
,
763: Love and Death

Love and Death
In woodlands of the bright and early world,
When love was to himself yet new and warm
And stainless, played like morning with a flower
Ruru with his young bride Priyumvada.

Fresh-cheeked and dew-eyed white Priyumvada
Opened her budded heart of crimson bloom
To love, to Ruru; Ruru, a happy flood
Of passion round a lotus dancing thrilled,
Blinded with his soul's waves Priyumvada.

To him the earth was a bed for this sole flower,
To her all the world was filled with his embrace.

Wet with new rains the morning earth, released
From her fierce centuries and burning suns,
Lavished her breath in greenness; poignant flowers
Thronged all her eager breast, and her young arms
Cradled a childlike bounding life that played
And would not cease, nor ever weary grew
Of her bright promise; for all was joy and breeze
And perfume, colour and bloom and ardent rays
Of living, and delight desired the world.

Then Earth was quick and pregnant tamelessly;
A free and unwalled race possessed her plains
Whose hearts uncramped by bonds, whose unspoiled thoughts
At once replied to light. Foisoned the fields;
Lonely and rich the forests and the swaying
Of those unnumbered tops affected men
With thoughts to their vast music kin. Undammed
The virgin rivers moved towards the sea,
And mountains yet unseen and peoples vague
Winged young imagination like an eagle
To strange beauty remote. And Ruru felt
The sweetness of the early earth as sap
All through him, and short life an aeon made
By boundless possibility, and love,

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Sweetest of all unfathomable love,
A glory untired. As a bright bird comes flying
From airy extravagance to his own home,
And breasts his mate, and feels her all his goal,
So from boon sunlight and the fresh chill wave
Which swirled and lapped between the slumbering fields,
From forest pools and wanderings mid leaves
Through emerald ever-new discoveries,
Mysterious hillsides ranged and buoyant-swift
Races with our wild brothers in the meads,
Came Ruru back to the white-bosomed girl,
Strong-winged to pleasure. She all fresh and new
Rose to him, and he plunged into her charm.

For neither to her honey and poignancy
Artlessly interchanged, nor any limit
To the sweet physical delight of her
He found. Her eyes like deep and infinite wells
Lured his attracted soul, and her touch thrilled
Not lightly, though so light; the joy prolonged
And sweetness of the lingering of her lips
Was every time a nectar of surprise
To her lover; her smooth-gleaming shoulder bared
In darkness of her hair showed jasmine-bright,
While her kissed bosom by rich tumults stirred
Was a moved sea that rocked beneath his heart.

Then when her lips had made him blind, soft siege
Of all her unseen body to his rule
Betrayed the ravishing realm of her white limbs,
An empire for the glory of a God.

He knew not whether he loved most her smile,
Her causeless tears or little angers swift,
Whether held wet against him from the bath
Among her kindred lotuses, her cheeks
Soft to his lips and dangerous happy breasts
That vanquished all his strength with their desire,
Meeting his absence with her sudden face,
Or when the leaf-hid bird at night complained

Love and Death
Near their wreathed arbour on the moonlit lake,
Sobbing delight out from her heart of bliss,
Or in his clasp of rapture laughing low
Of his close bosom bridal-glad and pleased
With passion and this fiery play of love,
Or breaking off like one who thinks of grief,
Wonderful melancholy in her eyes
Grown liquid and with wayward sorrow large.

Thus he in her found a warm world of sweets,
And lived of ecstasy secure, nor deemed
Any new hour could match that early bliss.

But Love has joys for spirits born divine
More bleeding-lovely than his thornless rose.

That day he had left, while yet the east was dark,
Rising, her bosom and into the river
Swam out, exulting in the sting and swift
Sharp-edged desire around his limbs, and sprang
Wet to the bank, and streamed into the wood.

As a young horse upon the pastures glad
Feels greensward and the wind along his mane
And arches as he goes his neck, so went
In an immense delight of youth the boy
And shook his locks, joy-crested. Boundlessly
He revelled in swift air of life, a creature
Of wide and vigorous morning. Far he strayed
Tempting for flower and fruit branches in heaven,
And plucked, and flung away, and brighter chose,
Seeking comparisons for her bloom; and followed
New streams, and touched new trees, and felt slow beauty
And leafy secret change; for the damp leaves,
Grey-green at first, grew pallid with the light
And warmed with consciousness of sunshine near;
Then the whole daylight wandered in, and made
Hard tracts of splendour, and enriched all hues.

But when a happy sheltered heat he felt
And heard contented voice of living things
Harmonious with the noon, he turned and swiftly

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Went homeward yearning to Priyumvada,
And near his home emerging from green leaves
He laughed towards the sun: "O father Sun,"
He cried, "how good it is to live, to love!
Surely our joy shall never end, nor we
Grow old, but like bright rivers or pure winds
Sweetly continue, or revive with flowers,
Or live at least as long as senseless trees."
He dreamed, and said with a soft smile: "Lo, she!
And she will turn from me with angry tears
Her delicate face more beautiful than storm
Or rainy moonlight. I will follow her,
And soo the her heart with sovereign flatteries;
Or rather all tyranny exhaust and taste
The beauty of her anger like a fruit,
Vexing her soul with helplessness; then soften
Easily with quiet undenied demand
Of heart insisting upon heart; or else
Will reinvest her beauty bright with flowers,
Or with my hands her little feet persuade.

Then will her face be like a sudden dawn,
And flower compelled into reluctant smiles."
He had not ceased when he beheld her. She,
Tearing a jasmine bloom with waiting hands,
Stood drooping, petulant, but heard at once
His footsteps and before she was aware,
A sudden smile of exquisite delight
Leaped to her mouth, and a great blush of joy
Surprised her cheeks. She for a moment stood
Beautiful with her love before she died;
And he laughed towards her. With a pitiful cry
She paled; moaning, her stricken limbs collapsed.

But petrified, in awful dumb surprise,
He gazed; then waking with a bound was by her,
All panic expectation. As he came,
He saw a brilliant flash of coils evade
The sunlight, and with hateful gorgeous hood

Love and Death
Darted into green safety, hissing, death.

Voiceless he sank beside her and stretched out
His arms and desperately touched her face,
As if to attract her soul to live, and sought
Beseeching with his hands her bosom. O, she
Was warm, and cruel hope pierced him; but pale
As jasmines fading on a girl's sweet breast
Her cheek was, and forgot its perfect rose.

Her eyes that clung to sunlight yet, with pain
Were large and feebly round his neck her arms
She lifted and, desiring his pale cheek
Against her bosom, sobbed out piteously,
"Ah, love!" and stopped heart-broken; then, "O Love!
Alas the green dear home that I must leave
So early! I was so glad of love and kisses,
And thought that centuries would not exhaust
The deep embrace. And I have had so little
Of joy and the wild day and throbbing night,
Laughter, and tenderness, and strife and tears.

I have not numbered half the brilliant birds
In one green forest, nor am familiar grown
With sunrise and the progress of the eves,
Nor have with plaintive cries of birds made friends,
Cuckoo and rainlark and love-speak-to-me.

I have not learned the names of half the flowers
Around me; so few trees know me by my name;
Nor have I seen the stars so very often
That I should die. I feel a dreadful hand
Drawing me from the touch of thy warm limbs
Into some cold vague mist, and all black night
Descends towards me. I no more am thine,
But go I know not where, and see pale shapes
And gloomy countries and that terrible stream.

O Love, O Love, they take me from thee far,
And whether we shall find each other ever
In the wide dreadful territory of death,
I know not. Or thou wilt forget me quite,

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And life compel thee into other arms.

Ah, come with me! I cannot bear to wander
In that cold cruel country all alone,
Helpless and terrified, or sob by streams
Denied sweet sunlight and by thee unloved."
Slower her voice came now, and over her cheek
Death paused; then, sobbing like a little child
Too early from her bounding pleasures called,
The lovely discontented spirit stole
From her warm body white. Over her leaned
Ruru, and waited for dead lips to move.

Still in the greenwood lay Priyumvada,
And Ruru rose not from her, but with eyes
Emptied of glory hung above his dead,
Only, without a word, without a tear.

Then the crowned wives of the great forest came,
They who had fed her from maternal breasts,
And grieved over the lovely body cold,
And bore it from him; nor did he entreat
One last look nor one kiss, nor yet denied
What he had loved so well. They the dead girl
Into some distant greenness bore away.

But Ruru, while the stillness of the place
Remembered her, sat without voice. He heard
Through the great silence that was now his soul,
The forest sounds, a squirrel's leap through leaves,
The cheeping of a bird just overhead,
A peacock with his melancholy cry
Complaining far away, and tossings dim
And slight unnoticeable stir of trees.

But all these were to him like distant things
And he alone in his heart's void. And yet
No thought he had of her so lately lost.

Rather far pictures, trivial incidents
Of that old life before her delicate face
Had lived for him, dumbly distinct like thoughts

Love and Death
Of men that die, kept with long pomps his mind
Excluding the dead girl. So still he was,
The birds flashed by him with their swift small wings,
Fanning him. Then he moved, then rigorous
Memory through all his body shuddering
Awoke, and he looked up and knew the place,
And recognised greenness immutable,
And saw old trees and the same flowers still bloom.

He felt the bright indifference of earth
And all the lonely uselessness of pain.

Then lifting up the beauty of his brow
He spoke, with sorrow pale: "O grim cold Death!
But I will not like ordinary men
Satiate thee with cries, and falsely woo thee,
And make my grief thy theatre, who lie
Prostrate beneath thy thunderbolts and make
Night witness of their moans, shuddering and crying
When sudden memories pierce them like swords,
And often starting up as at a thought
Intolerable, pace a little, then
Sink down exhausted by brief agony.

O secrecy terrific, darkness vast,
At which we shudder! Somewhere, I know not where,
Somehow, I know not how, I shall confront
Thy gloom, tremendous spirit, and seize with hands
And prove what thou art and what man." He said,
And slowly to the forest wandered. There
Long months he travelled between grief and grief,
Reliving thoughts of her with every pace,
Measuring vast pain in his immortal mind.

And his heart cried in him as when a fire
Roars through wide forests and the branches cry
Burning towards heaven in torture glorious.

So burned, immense, his grief within him; he raised
His young pure face all solemnised with pain,
Voiceless. Then Fate was shaken, and the Gods
Grieved for him, of his silence grown afraid.
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Therefore from peaks divine came flashing down
Immortal Agni and to the uswutth-tree
Cried in the Voice that slays the world: "O tree
That liftest thy enormous branches able
To shelter armies, more than armies now
Shelter, be famous, house a brilliant God.

For the grief grows in Ruru's breast up-piled,
As wrestles with its anguished barricades
In silence an impending flood, and Gods
Immortal grow afraid. For earth alarmed
Shudders to bear the curse lest her young life
Pale with eclipse and all-creating love
Be to mere pain condemned. Divert the wrath
Into thy boughs, Uswuttha - thou shalt be
My throne - glorious, though in eternal pangs,
Yet worth much pain to harbour divine fire."
So ended the young pure destroyer's voice,
And the dumb god consented silently.

In the same noon came Ruru; his mind had paused,
Lured for a moment by soft wandering gleams
Into forgetfulness of grief; for thoughts
Gentle and near-eyed whispering memories
So sweetly came, his blind heart dreamed she lived.

Slow the uswuttha-tree bent down its leaves,
And smote his cheek, and touched his heavy hair.

And Ruru turned illumined. For a moment,
One blissful moment he had felt 'twas she.

So had she often stolen up and touched
His curls with her enamoured fingers small,
Lingering, while the wind smote him with her hair
And her quick breath came to him like spring. Then he,
Turning, as one surprised with heaven, saw
Ready to his swift passionate grasp her bosom
And body sweet expecting his embrace.

Oh, now saw her not, but the guilty tree
Shrinking; then grief back with a double crown
Arose and stained his face with agony.
Love and Death
Nor silence he endured, but the dumb force
Ascetic and inherited, by sires
Fierce-musing earned, from the boy's bosom blazed.

"O uswutth-tree, wantonly who hast mocked
My anguish with the wind, but thou no more
Have joy of the cool wind nor green delight,
But live thy guilty leaves in fire, so long
As Aryan wheels by thy doomed shadow vast
Thunder to war, nor bless with cool wide waves
Lyric Saruswathi nations impure."
He spoke, and the vast tree groaned through its leaves,
Recognising its fate; then smouldered; lines
Of living fire rushed up the girth and hissed
Serpentine in the unconsuming leaves;
Last, all Hutashan in his chariot armed
Sprang on the boughs and blazed into the sky,
And wailing all the great tormented creature
Stood wide in agony; one half was green
And earthly, the other a weird brilliance
Filled with the speed and cry of endless flame.

But he, with the fierce rushing-out of power
Shaken and that strong grasp of anguish, flung
His hands out to the sun; "Priyumvada!"
He cried, and at that well-loved sound there dawned
With overwhelming sweetness miserable
Upon his mind the old delightful times
When he had called her by her liquid name,
Where the voice loved to linger. He remembered
The chompuc bushes where she turned away
Half-angered, and his speaking of her name
Masterfully as to a lovely slave
Rebellious who has erred; at that the slow
Yielding of her small head, and after a little
Her sliding towards him and beautiful
Propitiating body as she sank down
With timid graspings deprecatingly
In prostrate warm surrender, her flushed cheeks

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Upon his feet and little touches soft;
Or her long name uttered beseechingly,
And the swift leap of all her body to him,
And eyes of large repentance, and the weight
Of her wild bosom and lips unsatisfied;
Or hourly call for little trivial needs,
Or sweet unneeded wanton summoning,
Daily appeal that never staled nor lost
Its sudden music, and her lovely speed,
Sedulous occupation left, quick-breathing,
With great glad eyes and eager parted lips;
Or in deep quiet moments murmuring
That name like a religion in her ear,
And her calm look compelled to ecstasy;
Or to the river luring her, or breathed
Over her dainty slumber, or secret sweet
Bridal outpantings of her broken name.

All these as rush unintermitting waves
Upon a swimmer overborne, broke on him
Relentless, things too happy to be endured,
Till faint with the recalled felicity
Low he moaned out: "O pale Priyumvada!
O dead fair flower! yet living to my grief!
But I could only slay the innocent tree,
Powerless when power should have been. Not such
Was Bhrigu from whose sacred strength I spring,
Nor Bhrigu's son, my father, when he blazed
Out from Puloma's side, and burning, blind,
Fell like a tree the ravisher unjust.

But I degenerate from such sires. O Death
That showest not thy face beneath the stars,
But comest masked, and on our dear ones seizing
Fearest to wrestle equally with love!
Nor from thy gloomy house any come back
To tell thy way. But O, if any strength
In lover's constancy to torture dwell
Earthward to force a helping god and such

Love and Death
Ascetic force be born of lover's pain,
Let my dumb pangs be heard. Whoe'er thou art,
O thou bright enemy of Death, descend
And lead me to that portal dim. For I
Have burned in fires cruel as the fire
And lain upon a sharper couch than swords."
He ceased, and heaven thrilled, and the far blue
Quivered as with invisible downward wings.

But Ruru passioned on, and came with eve
To secret grass and a green opening moist
In a cool lustre. Leaned upon a tree
That bathed in faery air and saw the sky
Through branches, and a single parrot loud
Screamed from its top, there stood a golden boy,
Half-naked, with bright limbs all beautiful -
Delicate they were, in sweetness absolute:
For every gleam and every soft strong curve
Magically compelled the eye, and smote
The heart to weakness. In his hands he swung
A bow - not such as human archers use:
For the string moved and murmured like many bees,
And nameless fragrance made the casual air
A peril. He on Ruru that fair face
Turned, and his steps with lovely gesture chained.

"Who art thou here, in forests wandering,
And thy young exquisite face is solemnised
With pain? Luxuriously the Gods have tortured
Thy heart to see such dreadful glorious beauty
Agonise in thy lips and brilliant eyes:
As tyrants in the fierceness of others' pangs
Joy and feel strong, clothing with brilliant fire,
Tyrants in Titan lands. Needs must her mouth
Have been pure honey and her bosom a charm,
Whom thou desirest seeing not the green
And common lovely sounds hast quite forgot."
And Ruru, mastered by the God, replied:

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"I know thee by thy cruel beauty bright,
Kama, who makest many worlds one fire.

Ah, wherefore wilt thou ask of her to increase
The passion and regret? Thou knowest, great love!
Thy nymph her mother, if thou truly art he
And not a dream of my disastrous soul."
But with the thrilled eternal smile that makes
The spring, the lover of Rathi golden-limbed
Replied to Ruru, "Mortal, I am he;
I am that Madan who inform the stars
With lustre and on life's wide canvas fill
Pictures of light and shade, of joy and tears,
Make ordinary moments wonderful
And common speech a charm: knit life to life
With interfusions of opposing souls
And sudden meetings and slow sorceries:
Wing the boy bridegroom to that panting breast,
Smite Gods with mortal faces, dreadfully
Among great beautiful kings and watched by eyes
That burn, force on the virgin's fainting limbs
And drive her to the one face never seen,
The one breast meant eternally for her.

By me come wedded sweets, by me the wife's
Busy delight and passionate obedience,
And loving eager service never sated,
And happy lips, and worshipping soft eyes:
And mine the husband's hungry arms and use
Unwearying of old tender words and ways,
Joy of her hair, and silent pleasure felt
Of nearness to one dear familiar shape.

Nor only these, but many affections bright
And soft glad things cluster around my name.

I plant fraternal tender yearnings, make
The sister's sweet attractiveness and leap
Of heart towards imperious kindred blood,
And the young mother's passionate deep look,
Earth's high similitude of One not earth,

Love and Death
Teach filial heart-beats strong. These are my gifts
For which men praise me, these my glories calm:
But fiercer shafts I can, wild storms blown down
Shaking fixed minds and melting marble natures,
Tears and dumb bitterness and pain unpitied,
Racked thirsting jealousy and kind hearts made stone:
And in undisciplined huge souls I sow
Dire vengeance and impossible cruelties,
Cold lusts that linger and fierce fickleness,
The loves close kin to hate, brute violence
And mad insatiable longings pale,
And passion blind as death and deaf as swords.

O mortal, all deep-souled desires and all
Yearnings immense are mine, so much I can."
So as he spoke, his face grew wonderful
With vast suggestion, his human-seeming limbs
Brightened with a soft splendour: luminous hints
Of the concealed divinity transpired.

But soon with a slight discontented frown:
"So much I can, as even the great Gods learn.

Only with death I wrestle in vain, until
My passionate godhead all becomes a doubt.

Mortal, I am the light in stars, of flowers
The bloom, the nameless fragrance that pervades
Creation: but behind me, older than me,
He comes with night and cold tremendous shade.

Hard is the way to him, most hard to find,
Harder to tread, for perishable feet
Almost impossible. Yet, O fair youth,
If thou must needs go down, and thou art strong
In passion and in constancy, nor easy
The soul to slay that has survived such grief -
Steel then thyself to venture, armed by Love.

Yet listen first what heavy trade they drive
Who would win back their dead to human arms."
So much the God; but swift, with eager eyes
And panting bosom and glorious flushed face,

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The lover: "O great Love! O beautiful Love!
But if by strength is possible, of body
Or mind, battle of spirit or moving speech,
Sweet speech that makes even cruelty grow kind,
Or yearning melody - for I have heard
That when Saruswathi in heaven her harp
Has smitten, the cruel sweetness terrible
Coils taking no denial through the soul,
And tears burst from the hearts of Gods - then I,
Making great music, or with perfect words,
Will strive, or staying him with desperate hands
Match human strength 'gainst formidable Death.

But if with price, ah God! what easier! Tears
Dreadful, innumerable I will absolve,
Or pay with anguish through the centuries,
Soul's agony and torture physical,
So her small hands about my face at last
I feel, close real hair sting me with life,
And palpable breathing bosom on me press."
Then with a lenient smile the mighty God:
"O ignorant fond lover, not with tears
Shalt thou persuade immitigable Death.

He will not pity all thy pangs: nor know
His stony eyes with music to grow kind,
Nor lovely words accepts. And how wilt thou
Wrestle with that grim shadow, who canst not save
One bloom from fading? A sole thing the Gods
Demand from all men living, sacrifice:
Nor without this shall any crown be grasped.

Yet many sacrifices are there, oxen,
And prayers, and Soma wine, and pious flowers,
Blood and the fierce expense of mind, and pure
Incense of perfect actions, perfect thoughts,
Or liberality wide as the sun's,
Or ruthless labour or disastrous tears,
Exile or death or pain more hard than death,
Absence, a desert, from the faces loved;

Love and Death
Even sin may be a sumptuous sacrifice
Acceptable for unholy fruits. But none
Of these the inexorable shadow asks:
Alone of gods Death loves not gifts: he visits
The pure heart as the stained. Lo, the just man
Bowed helpless over his dead, nor all his virtues
Shall quicken that cold bosom: near him the wild
Marred face and passionate and will not leave
Kissing dead lips that shall not chide him more.

Life the pale ghost requires: with half thy life
Thou mayst protract the thread too early cut
Of that delightful spirit - half sweet life.

O Ruru, lo, thy frail precarious days,
And yet how sweet they are! simply to breathe
How warm and sweet! And ordinary things
How exquisite, thou then shalt learn when lost,
How luminous the daylight was, mere sleep
How soft and friendly clasping tired limbs,
And the deliciousness of common food.

And things indifferent thou then shalt want,
Regret rejected beauty, brightnesses
Bestowed in vain. Wilt thou yield up, O lover,
Half thy sweet portion of this light and gladness,
Thy little insufficient share, and vainly
Give to another? She is not thyself:
Thou dost not feel the gladness in her bosom,
Nor with the torture of thy body will she
Throb and cry out: at most with tender looks
And pitiful attempt to feel move near thee,
And weep how far she is from what she loves.

Men live like stars that see each other in heaven,
But one knows not the pleasure and the grief
The others feel: he lonely rapture has,
Or bears his incommunicable pain.

O Ruru, there are many beautiful faces,
But one thyself. Think then how thou shalt mourn
When thou hast shortened joy and feelst at last

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The shadow that thou hadst for such sweet store."
He ceased with a strange doubtful look. But swift
Came back the lover's voice, like passionate rain.

"O idle words! For what is mere sunlight?
Who would live on into extreme old age,
Burden the impatient world, a weary old man,
And look back on a selfish time ill-spent
Exacting out of prodigal great life
Small separate pleasures like an usurer,
And no rich sacrifice and no large act
Finding oneself in others, nor the sweet
Expense of Nature in her passionate gusts
Of love and giving, first of the soul's needs?
Who is so coldly wise, and does not feel
How wasted were our grandiose human days
In prudent personal unshared delights?
Why dost thou mock me, friend of all the stars?
How canst thou be love's god and know not this,
That love burns down the body's barriers cold
And laughs at difference - playing with it merely
To make joy sweeter? O too deeply I know,
The lover is not different from the loved,
Nor is their silence dumb to each other. He
Contains her heart and feels her body in his,
He flushes with her heat, chills with her cold.

And when she dies, oh! when she dies, oh me,
The emptiness, the maim! the life no life,
The sweet and passionate oneness lost! And if
By shortening of great grief won back, O price
Easy! O glad briefness, aeons may envy!
For we shall live not fearing death, nor feel
As others yearning over the loved at night
When the lamp flickers, sudden chills of dread
Terrible; nor at short absence agonise,
Wrestling with mad imagination. Us
Serenely when the darkening shadow comes,
One common sob shall end and soul clasp soul,

Love and Death
Leaving the body in a long dim kiss.

Then in the joys of heaven we shall consort,
Amid the gladness often touching hands
To make bliss sure; or in the ghastly stream
If we must anguish, yet it shall not part
Our passionate limbs inextricably locked
By one strong agony, but we shall feel
Hell's pain half joy through sweet companionship.

God Love, I weary of words. O wing me rather
To her, my eloquent princess of the spring,
In whatsoever wintry shores she roam."
He ceased with eager forward eyes; once more
A light of beauty immortal through the limbs
Gleaming of the boy-god and soft sweet face,
Glorifying him, flushed, and he replied:
"Go then, O thou dear youth, and bear this flower
In thy hand warily. For thou shalt come
To that high meeting of the Ganges pure
With vague and violent Ocean. There arise
And loudly appeal my brother, the wild sea."
He spoke and stretched out his immortal hand,
And Ruru's met it. All his young limbs yearned
With dreadful rapture shuddering through them. He
Felt in his fingers subtle uncertain bloom,
A quivering magnificence, half fire,
Whose petals changed like flame, and from them breathed
Dangerous attraction and alarmed delight,
As at a peril near. He raised his eyes,
But the green place was empty of the God.

Only the faery tree looked up at heaven
Through branches, and with recent pleasure shook.

Then over fading earth the night was lord.

But from Shatudru and Bipasha, streams
Once holy, and loved Iravathi and swift
Clear Chandrabhaga and Bitosta's toil
For man, went Ruru to bright sumptuous lands

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By Aryan fathers not yet paced, but wild,
But virgin to our fruitful human toil,
Where Nature lay reclined in dumb delight
Alone with woodlands and the voiceless hills.

He with the widening yellow Ganges came,
Amazed, to trackless countries where few tribes,
Kirath and Poundrian, warred, worshipping trees
And the great serpent. But robust wild earth,
But forests with their splendid life of beasts
Savage mastered those strong inhabitants.

Thither came Ruru. In a thin soft eve
Ganges spread far her multitudinous waves,
A glimmering restlessness with voices large,
And from the forests of that half-seen bank
A boat came heaving over it, white-winged,
With a sole silent helmsman marble-pale.

Then Ruru by his side stepped in; they went
Down the mysterious river and beheld
The great banks widen out of sight. The world
Was water and the skies to water plunged.

All night with a dim motion gliding down
He felt the dark against his eyelids; felt,
As in a dream more real than daylight,
The helmsman with his dumb and marble face
Near him and moving wideness all around,
And that continual gliding dimly on,
As one who on a shoreless water sails
For ever to a port he shall not win.

But when the darkness paled, he heard a moan
Of mightier waves and had the wide great sense
Of ocean and the depths below our feet.

But the boat stopped; the pilot lifted on him
His marble gaze coeval with the stars.

Then in the white-winged boat the boy arose
And saw around him the vast sea all grey
And heaving in the pallid dawning light.

Loud Ruru cried across the murmur: "Hear me,

Love and Death
O inarticulate grey Ocean, hear.

If any cadence in thy infinite
Rumour was caught from lover's moan, O Sea,
Open thy abysses to my mortal tread.

For I would travel to the despairing shades,
The spheres of suffering where entangled dwell
Souls unreleased and the untimely dead
Who weep remembering. Thither, O, guide me,
No despicable wayfarer, but Ruru,
But son of a great Rishi, from all men
On earth selected for peculiar pangs,
Special disaster. Lo, this petalled fire,
How freshly it blooms and lasts with my great pain!"
He held the flower out subtly glimmering.

And like a living thing the huge sea trembled,
Then rose, calling, and filled the sight with waves,
Converging all its giant crests; towards him
Innumerable waters loomed and heaven
Threatened. Horizon on horizon moved
Dreadfully swift; then with a prone wide sound
All Ocean hollowing drew him swiftly in,
Curving with monstrous menace over him.

He down the gulf where the loud waves collapsed
Descending, saw with floating hair arise
The daughters of the sea in pale green light,
A million mystic breasts suddenly bare,
And came beneath the flood and stunned beheld
A mute stupendous march of waters race
To reach some viewless pit beneath the world.

Ganges he saw, as men predestined rush
Upon a fearful doom foreseen, so run,
Alarmed, with anguished speed, the river vast.

Veiled to his eyes the triple goddess rose.

She with a sound of waters cried to him,
A thousand voices moaning with one pain:
"Lover, who fearedst not sunlight to leave,
With me thou mayst behold that helpless spirit

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Lost in the gloom, if still thy burning bosom
Have courage to endure great Nature's night
In the dire lands where I, a goddess, mourn
Hurting my heart with my own cruelty."
She darkened to the ominous descent,
Unwilling, and her once so human waves
Sent forth a cry not meant for living ears.

And Ruru chilled; but terrible strong love
Was like a fiery finger in his breast
Pointing him on; so he through horror went
Conducted by inexorable sound.

For monstrous voices to his ear were close,
And bodiless terrors with their dimness seized him
In an obscurity phantasmal. Thus
With agony of soul to the grey waste
He came, glad of the pain of passage over,
As men who through the storms of anguish strive
Into abiding tranquil dreariness
And draw sad breath assured; to the grey waste,
Hopeless Patala, the immutable
Country, where neither sun nor rain arrives,
Nor happy labour of the human plough
Fruitfully turns the soil, but in vague sands
And indeterminable strange rocks and caverns
That into silent blackness huge recede,
Dwell the great serpent and his hosts, writhed forms,
Sinuous, abhorred, through many horrible leagues
Coiling in a half darkness. Shapes he saw,
And heard the hiss and knew the lambent light
Loathsome, but passed compelling his strong soul.

At last through those six tired hopeless worlds,
Too hopeless far for grief, pale he arrived
Into a nether air by anguish moved,
And heard before him cries that pierced the heart,
Human, not to be borne, and issued shaken
By the great river accursed. Maddened it ran,
Anguished, importunate, and in its waves

Love and Death
The drifting ghosts their agony endured.

There Ruru saw pale faces float of kings
And grandiose victors and revered high priests
And famous women. Now rose from the wave
A golden shuddering arm and now a face.

Torn piteous sides were seen and breasts that quailed.

Over them moaned the penal waters on,
And had no joy of their fierce cruelty.

Then Ruru, his young cheeks with pity wan,
Half moaned: "O miserable race of men,
With violent and passionate souls you come
Foredoomed upon the earth and live brief days
In fear and anguish, catching at stray beams
Of sunlight, little fragrances of flowers;
Then from your spacious earth in a great horror
Descend into this night, and here too soon
Must expiate your few inadequate joys.

O bargain hard! Death helps us not. He leads
Alarmed, all shivering from his chill embrace,
The naked spirit here. O my sweet flower,
Art thou too whelmed in this fierce wailing flood?
Ah me! But I will haste and deeply plunge
Into its hopeless pools and either bring
Thy old warm beauty back beneath the stars,
Or find thee out and clasp thy tortured bosom
And kiss thy sweet wrung lips and hush thy cries.

Love shall draw half thy pain into my limbs;
Then we shall triumph glad of agony."
He ceased and one replied close by his ear:
"O thou who troublest with thy living eyes
Established death, pass on. She whom thou seekest
Rolls not in the accursed tide. For late
I saw her mid those pale inhabitants
Whom bodily anguish visits not, but thoughts
Sorrowful and dumb memories absolve,
And martyrdom of scourged hearts quivering."
He turned and saw astride the dolorous flood

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A mighty bridge paved with mosaic fire,
All restless, and a woman clothed in flame,
With hands calamitous that held a sword,
Stood of the quaking passage sentinel.

Magnificent and dire her burning face.

"Pass on," she said once more, "O Bhrigu's son;
The flower protects thee from my hands." She stretched
One arm towards him and with violence
Majestic over the horrid arch compelled.

Unhurt, though shaking from her touch, alone
He stood upon an inner bank with strange
Black dreary mosses covered and perceived
A dim and level plain without one flower.

Over it paced a multitude immense
With gentle faces occupied by pain;
Strong men were there and grieving mothers, girls
With early beauty in their limbs and young
Sad children of their childlike faces robbed.

Naked they paced with falling hair and gaze
Drooping upon their bosoms, weak as flowers
That die for want of rain unmurmuring.

Always a silence was upon the place.

But Ruru came among them. Suddenly
One felt him there and looked, and as a wind
Moves over a still field of patient corn,
And the ears stir and shudder and look up
And bend innumerably flowing, so
All those dumb spirits stirred and through them passed
One shuddering motion of raised faces; then
They streamed towards him without sound and caught
With desperate hands his robe or touched his hair
Or strove to feel upon them living breath.

Pale girls and quiet children came and knelt
And with large sorrowful eyes into his looked.

Yet with their silent passion the cold hush
Moved not; but Ruru's human heart half burst
With burden of so many sorrows; tears

Love and Death
Welled from him; he with anguish understood
That terrible and wordless sympathy
Of dead souls for the living. Then he turned
His eyes and scanned their lovely faces strange
For that one face and found it not. He paled,
And spoke vain words into the listless air:
"O spirits once joyous, miserable race,
Happier if the old gladness were forgot!
My soul yearns with your sorrow. Yet ah! reveal
If dwell my love in your sad nation lost.

Well may you know her, O wan beautiful spirits!
But she most beautiful of all that died,
By sweetness recognisable. Her name
The sunshine knew." Speaking his tears made way:
But they with dumb lips only looked at him,
A vague and empty mourning in their eyes.

He murmured low: "Ah, folly! were she here,
Would she not first have felt me, first have raised
Her lids and run to me, leaned back her face
Of silent sorrow on my breast and looked
With the old altered eyes into my own
And striven to make my anguish understand?
Oh joy, had she been here! for though her lips
Of their old excellent music quite were robbed,
Yet her dumb passion would have spoken to me;
We should have understood each other and walked
Silently hand in hand, almost content."
He said and passed through those untimely dead.

Speechless they followed him with clinging eyes.

Then to a solemn building weird he came
With grave colossal pillars round. One dome
Roofed the whole brooding edifice, like cloud,
And at the door strange shapes were pacing, armed.

Then from their fear the sweet and mournful dead
Drew back, returning to their wordless grief.

But Ruru to the perilous doorway strode,
And those disastrous shapes upon him raised

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Their bows and aimed; but he held out Love's flower,
And with stern faces checked they let him pass.

He entered and beheld a silent hall
Dim and unbounded; moving then like one
Who up a dismal stair seeks ever light,
Attained a dais brilliant doubtfully
With flaming pediment and round it coiled
Python and Naga monstrous, Joruthcaru,
Tuxuc and Vasuki himself, immense,
Magic Carcotaca all flecked with fire;
And many other prone destroying shapes
Coiled. On the wondrous dais rose a throne,
And he its pedestal whose lotus hood
With ominous beauty crowns his horrible
Sleek folds, great Mahapudma; high displayed
He bears the throne of Death. There sat supreme
With those compassionate and lethal eyes,
Who many names, who many natures holds;
Yama, the strong pure Hades sad and subtle,
Dharma, who keeps the laws of old untouched,
Critanta, who ends all things and at last
Himself shall end. On either side of him
The four-eyed dogs mysterious rested prone,
Watchful, with huge heads on their paws advanced;
And emanations of the godhead dim
Moved near him, shadowy or serpentine,
Vast Time and cold irreparable Death.

Then Ruru came and bowed before the throne;
And swaying all those figures stirred as shapes
Upon a tapestry moved by the wind,
And the sad voice was heard: "What breathing man
Bows at the throne of Hades? By what force,
Spiritual or communicated, troubles
His living beauty the dead grace of Hell?"
And one replied who seemed a neighbouring voice:
"He has the blood of Gods and Titans old.

An Apsara his mother liquid-orbed

Love and Death
Bore to the youthful Chyavan's strong embrace
This passionate face of earth with Eden touched.

Chyavan was Bhrigu's child, Puloma bore,
The Titaness, - Bhrigu, great Brahma's son.

Love gave the flower that helps by anguish; therefore
He chilled not with the breath of Hades, nor
The cry of the infernal stream made stone."
But at the name of Love all hell was moved.

Death's throne half faded into twilight; hissed
The phantoms serpentine as if in pain,
And the dogs raised their dreadful heads. Then spoke
Yama: "And what needs Love in this pale realm,
The warm great Love? All worlds his breath confounds,
Mars solemn order and old steadfastness.

But not in Hell his legates come and go;
His vernal jurisdiction to bare Hell
Extends not. This last world resists his power
Youthful, anarchic. Here will he enlarge
Tumult and wanton joys?" The voice replied:
"Menaca momentary on the earth,
Heaven's Apsara by the fleeting hours beguiled
Played in the happy hidden glens; there bowed
To yoke of swift terrestrial joys she bore,
Immortal, to that fair Gundhurva king
A mortal blossom of delight. That bloom
Young Ruru found and plucked, but her too soon
Thy fatal hooded snake on earth surprised,
And he through gloom now travels armed by Love."
But then all Hades swaying towards him cried:
"O mortal, O misled! But sacrifice
Is stronger, nor may law of Hell or Heaven
Its fierce effectual action supersede.

Thy dead I yield. Yet thou bethink thee, mortal,
Not as a tedious evil nor to be
Lightly rejected gave the gods old age,
But tranquil, but august, but making easy
The steep ascent to God. Therefore must Time

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Still batter down the glory and form of youth
And animal magnificent strong ease,
To warn the earthward man that he is spirit
Dallying with transience, nor by death he ends,
Nor to the dumb warm mother's arms is bound,
But called unborn into the unborn skies.

For body fades with the increasing soul
And wideness of its limit grown intolerant
Replaces life's impetuous joys by peace.

Youth, manhood, ripeness, age, four seasons
Twixt its return and pale departing life
Describes, O mortal, - youth that forward bends
Midst hopes, delights and dreamings; manhood deepens
To passions, toils and thoughts profound; but ripeness
For large reflective gathering-up of these,
As on a lonely slope whence men look back
Down towards the cities and the human fields
Where they too worked and laughed and loved; next age,
Wonderful age with those approaching skies.

That boon wilt thou renounce? Wherefore? To bring
For a few years - how miserably few! -
Her sunward who must after all return.

Ah, son of Rishis, cease. Lo, I remit
Hell's grasp, not oft relinquished, and send back
Thy beautiful life unborrowed to the stars.

Or thou must render to the immutable
Total all thy fruit-bearing years; then she
Reblossoms." But the Shadow antagonist:
"Let him be shown the glory he would renounce."
And over the flaming pediment there moved,
As on a frieze a march of sculptures, carved
By Phidias for the Virgin strong and pure,
Most perfect once of all things seen in earth
Or Heaven, in Athens on the Acropolis,
But now dismembered, now disrupt! or as
In Buddhist cavern or Orissan temple,
Large aspirations architectural,

Love and Death
Warrior and dancing-girl, adept and king,
And conquering pomps and daily peaceful groups
Dream delicately on, softening with beauty
Great Bhuvanayshwar, the Almighty's house,
With sculptural suggestion so were limned
Scenes future on a pediment of fire.

There Ruru saw himself divine with age,
A Rishi to whom infinity is close,
Rejoicing in some green song-haunted glade
Or boundless mountain-top where most we feel
Wideness, not by small happy things disturbed.

Around him, as around an ancient tree
Its seedlings, forms august or flame-like rose;
They grew beneath his hands and were his work;
Great kings were there whom time remembers, fertile
Deep minds and poets with their chanting lips
Whose words were seed of vast philosophies -
These worshipped; above this earth's half-day he saw
Amazed the dawn of that mysterious Face
And all the universe in beauty merge.

Mad the boy thrilled upwards, then spent ebbed back.

Over his mind, as birds across the sky
Sweep and are gone, the vision of those fields
And drooping faces came; almost he heard
The burdened river with human anguish wail.

Then with a sudden fury gathering
His soul he hurled out of it half its life,
And fell, like lightning, prone. Triumphant rose
The Shadow chill and deepened giant night.

Only the dais flickered in the gloom,
And those snake-eyes of cruel fire subdued.

But suddenly a bloom, a fragrance. Hell
Shuddered with bliss: resentful, overborne,
The world-besetting Terror faded back
Like one grown weak by desperate victory,
And a voice cried in Ruru's tired soul:
"Arise! the strife is over, easy now

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The horror that thou hast to face, the burden
Now shared." And with a sudden burst like spring
Life woke in the strong lover over-tried.

He rose and left dim Death. Twelve times he crossed
Boithorini, the river dolorous,
Twelve times resisted Hell and, hurried down
Into the ominous pit where plunges black
The vast stream thundering, saw, led puissantly
From night to unimaginable night, -
As men oppressed in dreams, who cannot wake,
But measure penal visions, - punishments
Whose sight pollutes, unheard-of tortures, pangs
Monstrous, intolerable mute agonies,
Twisted unmoving attitudes of pain,
Like thoughts inhuman in statuary. A fierce
And iron voicelessness had grasped those worlds.

No horror of cries expressed their endless woe,
No saving struggle, no breathings of the soul.

And in the last hell irremediable
Where Ganges clots into that fatal pool,
Appalled he saw her; pallid, listless, bare -
O other than that earthly warmth and grace
In which the happy roses deepened and dimmed
With come-and-go of swift enamoured blood!
Dumb drooped she; round her shapes of anger armed
Stood dark like thunder-clouds. But Ruru sprang
Upon them, burning with the admitted God.

They from his touch like ineffectual fears
Vanished; then sole with her, trembling he cried
The old glad name and crying bent to her
And touched, and at the touch the silent knots
Of Hell were broken and its sombre dream
Of dreadful stately pains at once dispersed.

Then as from one whom a surpassing joy
Has conquered, all the bright surrounding world
Streams swiftly into distance, and he feels
His daily senses slipping from his grasp,

Love and Death
So that unbearable enormous world
Went rolling mighty shades, like the wet mist
From men on mountain-tops; and sleep outstretched
Rising its soft arms towards him and his thoughts,
As on a bed, sank to ascending void.

But when he woke, he heard the kol insist
On sweetness and the voice of happy things
Content with sunlight. The warm sense was round him
Of old essential earth, known hues and custom
Familiar tranquillising body and mind,
As in its natural wave a lotus feels.

He looked and saw all grass and dense green trees,
And sunshine and a single grasshopper
Near him repeated fierily its note.

Thrilling he felt beneath his bosom her;
Oh, warm and breathing were those rescued limbs
Against the greenness, vivid, palpable, white,
With great black hair and real and her cheek's
Old softness and her mouth a dewy rose.

For many moments comforting his soul
With all her jasmine body sun-ensnared
He fed his longing eyes and, half in doubt,
With touches satisfied himself of her.

Hesitating he kissed her eyelids. Sighing
With a slight sob she woke and earthly large
Her eyes looked upward into his. She stretched
Her arms up, yearning, and their souls embraced;
Then twixt brief sobbing laughter and blissful tears,
Clinging with all her limbs to him, "O love,
The green green world! the warm sunlight!" and ceased,
Finding no words; but the earth breathed round them,
Glad of her children, and the kol's voice
Persisted in the morning of the world.
141

A NOTE ON LOVE AND DEATH
The story of Ruru and Pramadvura - I have substituted a name more manageable to the English tongue - her death in the forest by the snake and restoration at the price of half her husband's life is told in the Mahabharata. It is a companion legend to the story of Savitri but not being told with any poetic skill or beauty has remained generally unknown. I have attempted in this poem to bring it out of its obscurity. For full success, however, it should have had a more faithfully Hindu colouring, but it was written a score of years ago when I had not penetrated to the heart of the Indian idea and its traditions, and the shadow of the Greek underworld and Tartarus with the sentiment of life and love and death which hangs about them has got into the legendary framework of the Indian Patala and hells. The central idea of the narrative alone is in the Mahabharata; the meeting with
Kama and the descent into Hell were additions necessitated by the poverty of incident in the original story.

~ Sri Aurobindo, - Love and Death
,
764:The House Of Dust: Complete
I.
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.
162
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
II.
One, from his high bright window in a tower,
Leans out, as evening falls,
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:
Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,
And silver falling from eave and tree.
One, from his high bright window, looking down,
Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,
And thinks its towers are like a dream.
The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,
Pale roofs begin to gleam.
Looking down from a window high in a wall
He sees us all;
Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain,
Searching the sky, and going our ways again,
Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . .
There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees
What we are blind to,—we who mass and crowd
From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud.
The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers,
Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly;
Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain.
The yellow lamps wink one by one again.
The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky.
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III.
One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand,
With wave upon slowly shattering wave,
Turned to the city of towers as evening fell;
And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it;
And saw how the towers darkened against the sky;
And across the distance heard the toll of a bell.
Along the darkening road he hurried alone,
With his eyes cast down,
And thought how the streets were hoarse with a tide of people,
With clamor of voices, and numberless faces . . .
And it seemed to him, of a sudden, that he would drown
Here in the quiet of evening air,
These empty and voiceless places . . .
And he hurried towards the city, to enter there.
Along the darkening road, between tall trees
That made a sinister whisper, loudly he walked.
Behind him, sea-gulls dipped over long grey seas.
Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked.
And death was observed with sudden cries,
And birth with laughter and pain.
And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies
And night came down again.
IV.
Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.
They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,
Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew.
And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished,
And some strange shadows threw.
And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving,
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Restlessly moving in each lamplit room,
From chair to mirror, from mirror to fire;
From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom:
From some, a dazzling desire.
And there was one, beneath black eaves, who thought,
Combing with lifted arms her golden hair,
Of the lover who hurried towards her through the night;
And there was one who dreamed of a sudden death
As she blew out her light.
And
And
And
And
And
there was one who turned from clamoring streets,
walked in lamplit gardens among black trees,
looked at the windy sky,
thought with terror how stones and roots would freeze
birds in the dead boughs cry . . .
And she hurried back, as snow fell, mixed with rain,
To mingle among the crowds again,
To jostle beneath blue lamps along the street;
And lost herself in the warm bright coiling dream,
With a sound of murmuring voices and shuffling feet.
And one, from his high bright window looking down
On luminous chasms that cleft the basalt town,
Hearing a sea-like murmur rise,
Desired to leave his dream, descend from the tower,
And drown in waves of shouts and laughter and cries.
V.
The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain . . .
It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls
Down golden-windowed walls.
We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain,
We do not remember the red roots whence we rose,
But we know that we rose and walked, that after a while
We shall lie down again.
The snow floats down upon us, we turn, we turn,
Through gorges filled with light we sound and flow . . .
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One is struck down and hurt, we crowd about him,
We bear him away, gaze after his listless body;
But whether he lives or dies we do not know.
One of us sings in the street, and we listen to him;
The words ring over us like vague bells of sorrow.
He sings of a house he lived in long ago.
It is strange; this house of dust was the house I lived in;
The house you lived in, the house that all of us know.
And coiling slowly about him, and laughing at him,
And throwing him pennies, we bear away
A mournful echo of other times and places,
And follow a dream . . . a dream that will not stay.
Down long broad flights of lamplit stairs we flow;
Noisy, in scattered waves, crowding and shouting;
In broken slow cascades.
The gardens extend before us . . . We spread out swiftly;
Trees are above us, and darkness. The canyon fades . . .
And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,
Vaguely and incoherently, some dream
Of a world we came from, a world of sun-blue hills . . .
A black wood whispers around us, green eyes gleam;
Someone cries in the forest, and someone kills.
We
We
We
We
We
flow to the east, to the white-lined shivering sea;
reach to the west, where the whirling sun went down;
close our eyes to music in bright cafees.
diverge from clamorous streets to streets that are silent.
loaf where the wind-spilled fountain plays.
And, growing tired, we turn aside at last,
Remember our secret selves, seek out our towers,
Lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb;
Climbing, each, to his little four-square dream
Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime.
VI.
Over the darkened city, the city of towers,
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The city of a thousand gates,
Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,
Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,
The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,
With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.
On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea,
And dreams in white at the city's feet;
On one side sleep the plains, with heaped-up hills.
Oaks and beeches whisper in rings about it.
Above the trees are towers where dread bells beat.
The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea
And sails toward the far-off city, that seems
Like one vague tower.
The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,
And shrill rain seethes like a ghostly music about him
In a quiet shower.
Rain with a shrill sings on the lapsing waves;
Rain thrills over the roofs again;
Like a shadow of shifting silver it crosses the city;
The lamps in the streets are streamed with rain;
And sparrows complain beneath deep eaves,
And among whirled leaves
The sea-gulls, blowing from tower to lower tower,
From wall to remoter wall,
Skim with the driven rain to the rising sea-sound
And close grey wings and fall . . .
. . . Hearing great rain above me, I now remember
A girl who stood by the door and shut her eyes:
Her pale cheeks glistened with rain, she stood and shivered.
Into a forest of silver she vanished slowly . . .
Voices about me rise . . .
Voices clear and silvery, voices of raindrops,—
'We struck with silver claws, we struck her down.
We are the ghosts of the singing furies . . . '
A chorus of elfin voices blowing about me
Weaves to a babel of sound. Each cries a secret.
I run among them, reach out vain hands, and drown.
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'I am the one who stood beside you and smiled,
Thinking your face so strangely young . . . '
'I am the one who loved you but did not dare.'
'I am the one you followed through crowded streets,
The one who escaped you, the one with red-gleamed hair.'
'I am the one you saw to-day, who fell
Senseless before you, hearing a certain bell:
A bell that broke great memories in my brain.'
'I am the one who passed unnoticed before you,
Invisible, in a cloud of secret pain.'
'I am the one who suddenly cried, beholding
The face of a certain man on the dazzling screen.
They wrote me that he was dead. It was long ago.
I walked in the streets for a long while, hearing nothing,
And returned to see it again. And it was so.'
Weave, weave, weave, you streaks of rain!
I am dissolved and woven again . . .
Thousands of faces rise and vanish before me.
Thousands of voices weave in the rain.
'I am the one who rode beside you, blinking
At a dazzle of golden lights.
Tempests of music swept me: I was thinking
Of the gorgeous promise of certain nights:
Of the woman who suddenly smiled at me this day,
Smiled in a certain delicious sidelong way,
And turned, as she reached the door,
To smile once more . . .
Her hands are whiter than snow on midnight water.
Her throat is golden and full of golden laughter,
Her eyes are strange as the stealth of the moon
On a night in June . . .
She runs among whistling leaves; I hurry after;
She dances in dreams over white-waved water;
Her body is white and fragrant and cool,
Magnolia petals that float on a white-starred pool . . .
I have dreamed of her, dreaming for many nights
Of a broken music and golden lights,
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Of broken webs of silver, heavily falling
Between my hands and their white desire:
And dark-leaved boughs, edged with a golden radiance,
Dipping to screen a fire . . .
I dream that I walk with her beneath high trees,
But as I lean to kiss her face,
She is blown aloft on wind, I catch at leaves,
And run in a moonless place;
And I hear a crashing of terrible rocks flung down,
And shattering trees and cracking walls,
And a net of intense white flame roars over the town,
And someone cries; and darkness falls . . .
But now she has leaned and smiled at me,
My veins are afire with music,
Her eyes have kissed me, my body is turned to light;
I shall dream to her secret heart tonight . . . '
He rises and moves away, he says no word,
He folds his evening paper and turns away;
I rush through the dark with rows of lamplit faces;
Fire bells peal, and some of us turn to listen,
And some sit motionless in their accustomed places.
Cold rain lashes the car-roof, scurries in gusts,
Streams down the windows in waves and ripples of lustre;
The lamps in the streets are distorted and strange.
Someone takes his watch from his pocket and yawns.
One peers out in the night for the place to change.
Rain . . . rain . . . rain . . . we are buried in rain,
It will rain forever, the swift wheels hiss through water,
Pale sheets of water gleam in the windy street.
The pealing of bells is lost in a drive of rain-drops.
Remote and hurried the great bells beat.
'I am the one whom life so shrewdly betrayed,
Misfortune dogs me, it always hunted me down.
And to-day the woman I love lies dead.
I gave her roses, a ring with opals;
These hands have touched her head.
'I bound her to me in all soft ways,
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I bound her to me in a net of days,
Yet now she has gone in silence and said no word.
How can we face these dazzling things, I ask you?
There is no use: we cry: and are not heard.
'They cover a body with roses . . . I shall not see it . . .
Must one return to the lifeless walls of a city
Whose soul is charred by fire? . . . '
His eyes are closed, his lips press tightly together.
Wheels hiss beneath us. He yields us our desire.
'No, do not stare so—he is weak with grief,
He cannot face you, he turns his eyes aside;
He is confused with pain.
I suffered this. I know. It was long ago . . .
He closes his eyes and drowns in death again.'
The wind hurls blows at the rain-starred glistening windows,
The wind shrills down from the half-seen walls.
We flow on the mournful wind in a dream of dying;
And at last a silence falls.
VII.
Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers
The golden lights go out . . .
The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn,
In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn,
We lie face down, we dream,
We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem
To stare at the ceiling or walls . . .
Midnight . . . the last of shattering bell-notes falls.
A rush of silence whirls over the cloud-high towers,
A vortex of soundless hours.
'The bells have just struck twelve: I should be sleeping.
But I cannot delay any longer to write and tell you.
The woman is dead.
She died—you know the way. Just as we planned.
Smiling, with open sunlit eyes.
Smiling upon the outstretched fatal hand . . .'
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He folds his letter, steps softly down the stairs.
The doors are closed and silent. A gas-jet flares.
His shadow disturbs a shadow of balustrades.
The door swings shut behind. Night roars above him.
Into the night he fades.
Wind; wind; wind; carving the walls;
Blowing the water that gleams in the street;
Blowing the rain, the sleet.
In the dark alley, an old tree cracks and falls,
Oak-boughs moan in the haunted air;
Lamps blow down with a crash and tinkle of glass . . .
Darkness whistles . . . Wild hours pass . . .
And those whom sleep eludes lie wide-eyed, hearing
Above their heads a goblin night go by;
Children are waked, and cry,
The young girl hears the roar in her sleep, and dreams
That her lover is caught in a burning tower,
She clutches the pillow, she gasps for breath, she screams . . .
And then by degrees her breath grows quiet and slow,
She dreams of an evening, long ago:
Of colored lanterns balancing under trees,
Some of them softly catching afire;
And beneath the lanterns a motionless face she sees,
Golden with lamplight, smiling, serene . . .
The leaves are a pale and glittering green,
The sound of horns blows over the trampled grass,
Shadows of dancers pass . . .
The face smiles closer to hers, she tries to lean
Backward, away, the eyes burn close and strange,
The face is beginning to change,—
It is her lover, she no longer desires to resist,
She is held and kissed.
She closes her eyes, and melts in a seethe of flame . . .
With a smoking ghost of shame . . .
Wind, wind, wind . . . Wind in an enormous brain
Blowing dark thoughts like fallen leaves . . .
The wind shrieks, the wind grieves;
It dashes the leaves on walls, it whirls then again;
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And the enormous sleeper vaguely and stupidly dreams
And desires to stir, to resist a ghost of pain.
One, whom the city imprisoned because of his cunning,
Who dreamed for years in a tower,
Seizes this hour
Of tumult and wind. He files through the rusted bar,
Leans his face to the rain, laughs up at the night,
Slides down the knotted sheet, swings over the wall,
To fall to the street with a cat-like fall,
Slinks round a quavering rim of windy light,
And at last is gone,
Leaving his empty cell for the pallor of dawn . . .
The mother whose child was buried to-day
Turns her face to the window; her face is grey;
And all her body is cold with the coldness of rain.
He would have grown as easily as a tree,
He would have spread a pleasure of shade above her,
He would have been his father again . . .
His growth was ended by a freezing invisible shadow.
She lies, and does not move, and is stabbed by the rain.
Wind, wind, wind; we toss and dream;
We dream we are clouds and stars, blown in a stream:
Windows rattle above our beds;
We reach vague-gesturing hands, we lift our heads,
Hear sounds far off,—and dream, with quivering breath,
Our curious separate ways through life and death.
VIII.
The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city,
Over the pale grey tumbled towers,—
And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls.
Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,
Curls like a dream among the motionless trees
And seems to freeze.
The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms,
Whirls over sleeping faces,
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Spins in an atomy dance round misty street lamps;
And blows in cloudy waves over open spaces . . .
And one from his high window, looking down,
Peers at the cloud-white town,
And thinks its island towers are like a dream . . .
It seems an enormous sleeper, within whose brain
Laborious shadows revolve and break and gleam.
PART II.
I.
The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea.
The walls and towers are warmed and gleam.
Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves.
The city stirs like one that is half in dream.
And the mist flows up by dazzling walls and windows,
Where one by one we wake and rise.
We gaze at the pale grey lustrous sea a moment,
We rub the darkness from our eyes,
And face our thousand devious secret mornings . . .
And do not see how the pale mist, slowly ascending,
Shaped by the sun, shines like a white-robed dreamer
Compassionate over our towers bending.
There, like one who gazes into a crystal,
He broods upon our city with sombre eyes;
He sees our secret fears vaguely unfolding,
Sees cloudy symbols shape to rise.
Each gleaming point of light is like a seed
Dilating swiftly to coiling fires.
Each cloud becomes a rapidly dimming face,
Each hurrying face records its strange desires.
We descend our separate stairs toward the day,
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Merge in the somnolent mass that fills the street,
Lift our eyes to the soft blue space of sky,
And walk by the well-known walls with accustomed feet.
II. THE FULFILLED DREAM
More towers must yet be built—more towers destroyed—
Great rocks hoisted in air;
And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight
With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes . . .
And so he did not mention his dream of falling
But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears
That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his breath
Sucked out of him, and saw the tower flash by
And the small tree swell beneath him . . .
He patted his boy on the head, and kissed his wife,
Looked quickly around the room, to remember it,—
And so went out . . . For once, he forgot his pail.
Something had changed—but it was not the street—
The street was just the same—it was himself.
Puddles flashed in the sun. In the pawn-shop door
The same old black cat winked green amber eyes;
The butcher stood by his window tying his apron;
The same men walked beside him, smoking pipes,
Reading the morning paper . . .
He would not yield, he thought, and walk more slowly,
As if he knew for certain he walked to death:
But with his usual pace,—deliberate, firm,
Looking about him calmly, watching the world,
Taking his ease . . . Yet, when he thought again
Of the same dream, now dreamed three separate times,
Always the same, and heard that whistling wind,
And saw the windows flashing upward past him,—
He slowed his pace a little, and thought with horror
How monstrously that small tree thrust to meet him! . . .
He slowed his pace a little and remembered his wife.
Was forty, then, too old for work like this?
Why should it be? He'd never been afraid—
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His eye was sure, his hand was steady . . .
But dreams had meanings.
He walked more slowly, and looked along the roofs,
All built by men, and saw the pale blue sky;
And suddenly he was dizzy with looking at it,
It seemed to whirl and swim,
It seemed the color of terror, of speed, of death . . .
He lowered his eyes to the stones, he walked more slowly;
His thoughts were blown and scattered like leaves;
He thought of the pail . . . Why, then, was it forgotten?
Because he would not need it?
Then, just as he was grouping his thoughts again
About that drug-store corner, under an arc-lamp,
Where first he met the girl whom he would marry,—
That blue-eyed innocent girl, in a soft blouse,—
He waved his hand for signal, and up he went
In the dusty chute that hugged the wall;
Above the tree; from girdered floor to floor;
Above the flattening roofs, until the sea
Lay wide and waved before him . . . And then he stepped
Giddily out, from that security,
To the red rib of iron against the sky,
And walked along it, feeling it sing and tremble;
And looking down one instant, saw the tree
Just as he dreamed it was; and looked away,
And up again, feeling his blood go wild.
He gave the signal; the long girder swung
Closer to him, dropped clanging into place,
Almost pushing him off. Pneumatic hammers
Began their madhouse clatter, the white-hot rivets
Were tossed from below and deftly caught in pails;
He signalled again, and wiped his mouth, and thought
A place so high in the air should be more quiet.
The tree, far down below, teased at his eyes,
Teased at the corners of them, until he looked,
And felt his body go suddenly small and light;
Felt his brain float off like a dwindling vapor;
And heard a whistle of wind, and saw a tree
Come plunging up to him, and thought to himself,
'By God—I'm done for now, the dream was right . . .'
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III. INTERLUDE
The warm sun dreams in the dust, the warm sun falls
On bright red roofs and walls;
The trees in the park exhale a ghost of rain;
We go from door to door in the streets again,
Talking, laughing, dreaming, turning our faces,
Recalling other times and places . . .
We crowd, not knowing why, around a gate,
We crowd together and wait,
A stretcher is carried out, voices are stilled,
The ambulance drives away.
We watch its roof flash by, hear someone say
'A man fell off the building and was killed—
Fell right into a barrel . . .' We turn again
Among the frightened eyes of white-faced men,
And go our separate ways, each bearing with him
A thing he tries, but vainly, to forget,—
A sickened crowd, a stretcher red and wet.
A hurdy-gurdy sings in the crowded street,
The golden notes skip over the sunlit stones,
Wings are upon our feet.
The sun seems warmer, the winding street more bright,
Sparrows come whirring down in a cloud of light.
We bear our dreams among us, bear them all,
Like hurdy-gurdy music they rise and fall,
Climb to beauty and die.
The wandering lover dreams of his lover's mouth,
And smiles at the hostile sky.
The broker smokes his pipe, and sees a fortune.
The murderer hears a cry.
IV. NIGHTMARE
'Draw three cards, and I will tell your future . . .
Draw three cards, and lay them down,
Rest your palms upon them, stare at the crystal,
And think of time . . . My father was a clown,
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My mother was a gypsy out of Egypt;
And she was gotten with child in a strange way;
And I was born in a cold eclipse of the moon,
With the future in my eyes as clear as day.'
I sit before the gold-embroidered curtain
And think her face is like a wrinkled desert.
The crystal burns in lamplight beneath my eyes.
A dragon slowly coils on the scaly curtain.
Upon a scarlet cloth a white skull lies.
'Your hand is on the hand that holds three lilies.
You will live long, love many times.
I see a dark girl here who once betrayed you.
I see a shadow of secret crimes.
'There was a man who came intent to kill you,
And hid behind a door and waited for you;
There was a woman who smiled at you and lied.
There was a golden girl who loved you, begged you,
Crawled after you, and died.
'There is a ghost of murder in your blood—
Coming or past, I know not which.
And here is danger—a woman with sea-green eyes,
And white-skinned as a witch . . .'
The words hiss into me, like raindrops falling
On sleepy fire . . . She smiles a meaning smile.
Suspicion eats my brain; I ask a question;
Something is creeping at me, something vile;
And suddenly on the wall behind her head
I see a monstrous shadow strike and spread,
The lamp puffs out, a great blow crashes down.
I plunge through the curtain, run through dark to the street,
And hear swift steps retreat . . .
The shades are drawn, the door is locked behind me.
Behind the door I hear a hammer sounding.
I walk in a cloud of wonder; I am glad.
I mingle among the crowds; my heart is pounding;
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You do not guess the adventure I have had! . . .
Yet you, too, all have had your dark adventures,
Your sudden adventures, or strange, or sweet . . .
My peril goes out from me, is blown among you.
We loiter, dreaming together, along the street.
V. RETROSPECT
Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops,
Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass.
A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing,
Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant,
And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass.
And one old man looks down from a dusty window
And sees the pigeons circling about the fountain
And desires once more to walk among those trees.
Lovers walk in the noontime by that fountain.
Pigeons dip their beaks to drink from the water.
And soon the pond must freeze.
The light wind blows to his ears a sound of laughter,
Young men shuffle their feet, loaf in the sunlight;
A girl's laugh rings like a silver bell.
But clearer than all these sounds is a sound he hears
More in his secret heart than in his ears,—
A hammer's steady crescendo, like a knell.
He hears the snarl of pineboards under the plane,
The rhythmic saw, and then the hammer again,—
Playing with delicate strokes that sombre scale . . .
And the fountain dwindles, the sunlight seems to pale.
Time is a dream, he thinks, a destroying dream;
It lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas;
It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.
Where was the woman he loved? Where was his youth?
Where was the dream that burned his brain like fire?
Even a dream grows grey at last and falls.
He opened his book once more, beside the window,
178
And read the printed words upon that page.
The sunlight touched his hand; his eyes moved slowly,
The quiet words enchanted time and age.
'Death is never an ending, death is a change;
Death is beautiful, for death is strange;
Death is one dream out of another flowing;
Death is a chorded music, softly going
By sweet transition from key to richer key.
Death is a meeting place of sea and sea.'
VI. ADELE AND DAVIS
She turned her head on the pillow, and cried once more.
And drawing a shaken breath, and closing her eyes,
To shut out, if she could, this dingy room,
The wigs and costumes scattered around the floor,—
Yellows and greens in the dark,—she walked again
Those nightmare streets which she had walked so often . . .
Here, at a certain corner, under an arc-lamp,
Blown by a bitter wind, she stopped and looked
In through the brilliant windows of a drug-store,
And wondered if she dared to ask for poison:
But it was late, few customers were there,
The eyes of all the clerks would freeze upon her,
And she would wilt, and cry . . . Here, by the river,
She listened to the water slapping the wall,
And felt queer fascination in its blackness:
But it was cold, the little waves looked cruel,
The stars were keen, and a windy dash of spray
Struck her cheek, and withered her veins . . . And so
She dragged herself once more to home, and bed.
Paul hadn't guessed it yet—though twice, already,
She'd fainted—once, the first time, on the stage.
So she must tell him soon—or else—get out . . .
How could she say it? That was the hideous thing.
She'd rather die than say it! . . . and all the trouble,
Months when she couldn't earn a cent, and then,
If he refused to marry her . . . well, what?
She saw him laughing, making a foolish joke,
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His grey eyes turning quickly; and the words
Fled from her tongue . . . She saw him sitting silent,
Brooding over his morning coffee, maybe,
And tried again . . . she bit her lips, and trembled,
And looked away, and said . . . 'Say Paul, boy,—listen—
There's something I must tell you . . . ' There she stopped,
Wondering what he'd say . . . What would he say?
'Spring it, kid! Don't look so serious!'
'But what I've got to say—IS—serious!'
Then she could see how, suddenly, he would sober,
His eyes would darken, he'd look so terrifying—
He always did—and what could she do but cry?
Perhaps, then, he would guess—perhaps he wouldn't.
And if he didn't, but asked her 'What's the matter?'—
She knew she'd never tell—just say she was sick . . .
And after that, when would she dare again?
And what would he do—even suppose she told him?
If it were Felix! If it were only Felix!—
She wouldn't mind so much. But as it was,
Bitterness choked her, she had half a mind
To pay out Felix for never having liked her,
By making people think that it was he . . .
She'd write a letter to someone, before she died,—
Just saying 'Felix did it—and wouldn't marry.'
And then she'd die . . . But that was hard on Paul . . .
Paul would never forgive her—he'd never forgive her!
Sometimes she almost thought Paul really loved her . . .
She saw him look reproachfully at her coffin.
And then she closed her eyes and walked again
Those nightmare streets that she had walked so often:
Under an arc-lamp swinging in the wind
She stood, and stared in through a drug-store window,
Watching a clerk wrap up a little pill-box.
But it was late. No customers were there,—
Pitiless eyes would freeze her secret in her!
And then—what poison would she dare to ask for?
And if they asked her why, what would she say?
VII. TWO LOVERS: OVERTONES
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Two lovers, here at the corner, by the steeple,
Two lovers blow together like music blowing:
And the crowd dissolves about them like a sea.
Recurring waves of sound break vaguely about them,
They drift from wall to wall, from tree to tree.
'Well, am I late?' Upward they look and laugh,
They look at the great clock's golden hands,
They laugh and talk, not knowing what they say:
Only, their words like music seem to play;
And seeming to walk, they tread strange sarabands.
'I brought you this . . . ' the soft words float like stars
Down the smooth heaven of her memory.
She stands again by a garden wall,
The peach tree is in bloom, pink blossoms fall,
Water sings from an opened tap, the bees
Glisten and murmur among the trees.
Someone calls from the house. She does not answer.
Backward she leans her head,
And dreamily smiles at the peach-tree leaves, wherethrough
She sees an infinite May sky spread
A vault profoundly blue.
The voice from the house fades far away,
The glistening leaves more vaguely ripple and sway . .
The tap is closed, the water ceases to hiss . . .
Silence . . . blue sky . . . and then, 'I brought you this . . . '
She turns again, and smiles . . . He does not know
She smiles from long ago . . .
She turns to him and smiles . . . Sunlight above him
Roars like a vast invisible sea,
Gold is beaten before him, shrill bells of silver;
He is released of weight, his body is free,
He lifts his arms to swim,
Dark years like sinister tides coil under him . . .
The lazy sea-waves crumble along the beach
With a whirring sound like wind in bells,
He lies outstretched on the yellow wind-worn sands
Reaching his lazy hands
Among the golden grains and sea-white shells . . .
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'One white rose . . . or is it pink, to-day?'
They pause and smile, not caring what they say,
If only they may talk.
The crowd flows past them like dividing waters.
Dreaming they stand, dreaming they walk.
'Pink,—to-day!'—Face turns to dream-bright face,
Green leaves rise round them, sunshine settles upon them,
Water, in drops of silver, falls from the rose.
She smiles at a face that smiles through leaves from the mirror.
She breathes the fragrance; her dark eyes close . . .
Time is dissolved, it blows like a little dust:
Time, like a flurry of rain,
Patters and passes, starring the window-pane.
Once, long ago, one night,
She saw the lightning, with long blue quiver of light,
Ripping the darkness . . . and as she turned in terror
A soft face leaned above her, leaned softly down,
Softly around her a breath of roses was blown,
She sank in waves of quiet, she seemed to float
In a sea of silence . . . and soft steps grew remote . .
'Well, let us walk in the park . . . The sun is warm,
We'll sit on a bench and talk . . .' They turn and glide,
The crowd of faces wavers and breaks and flows.
'Look how the oak-tops turn to gold in the sunlight!
Look how the tower is changed and glows!'
Two lovers move in the crowd like a link of music,
We press upon them, we hold them, and let them pass;
A chord of music strikes us and straight we tremble;
We tremble like wind-blown grass.
What was this dream we had, a dream of music,
Music that rose from the opening earth like magic
And shook its beauty upon us and died away?
The long cold streets extend once more before us.
The red sun drops, the walls grow grey.
VIII. THE BOX WITH SILVER HANDLES
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Well,—it was two days after my husband died—
Two days! And the earth still raw above him.
And I was sweeping the carpet in their hall.
In number four—the room with the red wall-paper—
Some chorus girls and men were singing that song
'They'll soon be lighting candles
Round a box with silver handles'—and hearing them sing it
I started to cry. Just then he came along
And stopped on the stairs and turned and looked at me,
And took the cigar from his mouth and sort of smiled
And said, 'Say, what's the matter?' and then came down
Where I was leaning against the wall,
And touched my shoulder, and put his arm around me . . .
And I was so sad, thinking about it,—
Thinking that it was raining, and a cold night,
With Jim so unaccustomed to being dead,—
That I was happy to have him sympathize,
To feel his arm, and leaned against him and cried.
And before I knew it, he got me into a room
Where a table was set, and no one there,
And sat me down on a sofa, and held me close,
And talked to me, telling me not to cry,
That it was all right, he'd look after me,—
But not to cry, my eyes were getting red,
Which didn't make me pretty. And he was so nice,
That when he turned my face between his hands,
And looked at me, with those blue eyes of his,
And smiled, and leaned, and kissed me—
Somehow I couldn't tell him not to do it,
Somehow I didn't mind, I let him kiss me,
And closed my eyes! . . . Well, that was how it started.
For when my heart was eased with crying, and grief
Had passed and left me quiet, somehow it seemed
As if it wasn't honest to change my mind,
To send him away, or say I hadn't meant it—
And, anyway, it seemed so hard to explain!
And so we sat and talked, not talking much,
But meaning as much in silence as in words,
There in that empty room with palms about us,
That private dining-room . . . And as we sat there
I felt my future changing, day by day,
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With unknown streets opening left and right,
New streets with farther lights, new taller houses,
Doors swinging into hallways filled with light,
Half-opened luminous windows, with white curtains
Streaming out in the night, and sudden music,—
And thinking of this, and through it half remembering
A quick and horrible death, my husband's eyes,
The broken-plastered walls, my boy asleep,—
It seemed as if my brain would break in two.
My voice began to tremble . . . and when I stood,
And told him I must go, and said good-night—
I couldn't see the end. How would it end?
Would he return to-morrow? Or would he not?
And did I want him to—or would I rather
Look for another job?—He took my shoulders
Between his hands, and looked down into my eyes,
And smiled, and said good-night. If he had kissed me,
That would have—well, I don't know; but he didn't . .
And so I went downstairs, then, half elated,
Hoping to close the door before that party
In number four should sing that song again—
'They'll soon be lighting candles round a box with silver handles'—
And sure enough, I did. I faced the darkness.
And my eyes were filled with tears. And I was happy.
IX. INTERLUDE
The days, the nights, flow one by one above us,
The hours go silently over our lifted faces,
We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea.
Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together.
We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee.
We sit at tables and sip our morning coffee,
We read the papers for tales of lust or crime.
The door swings shut behind the latest comer.
We set our watches, regard the time.
What have we done? I close my eyes, remember
The great machine whose sinister brain before me
Smote and smote with a rhythmic beat.
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My hands have torn down walls, the stone and plaster.
I dropped great beams to the dusty street.
My eyes are worn with measuring cloths of purple,
And golden cloths, and wavering cloths, and pale.
I dream of a crowd of faces, white with menace.
Hands reach up to tear me. My brain will fail.
Here, where the walls go down beneath our picks,
These walls whose windows gap against the sky,
Atom by atom of flesh and brain and marble
Will build a glittering tower before we die . . .
The young boy whistles, hurrying down the street,
The young girl hums beneath her breath.
One goes out to beauty, and does not know it.
And one goes out to death.
X. SUDDEN DEATH
'Number four—the girl who died on the table—
The girl with golden hair—'
The purpling body lies on the polished marble.
We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare . . .
One, who held the ether-cone, remembers
Her dark blue frightened eyes.
He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast
More hurriedly fall and rise.
Her hands made futile gestures, she turned her head
Fighting for breath; her cheeks were flushed to scarlet,—
And, suddenly, she lay dead.
And all the dreams that hurried along her veins
Came to the darkness of a sudden wall.
Confusion ran among them, they whirled and clamored,
They fell, they rose, they struck, they shouted,
Till at last a pallor of silence hushed them all.
What was her name? Where had she walked that morning?
Through what dark forest came her feet?
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Along what sunlit walls, what peopled street?
Backward he dreamed along a chain of days,
He saw her go her strange and secret ways,
Waking and sleeping, noon and night.
She sat by a mirror, braiding her golden hair.
She read a story by candlelight.
Her shadow ran before her along the street,
She walked with rhythmic feet,
Turned a corner, descended a stair.
She bought a paper, held it to scan the headlines,
Smiled for a moment at sea-gulls high in sunlight,
And drew deep breaths of air.
Days passed, bright clouds of days. Nights passed. And music
Murmured within the walls of lighted windows.
She lifted her face to the light and danced.
The dancers wreathed and grouped in moving patterns,
Clustered, receded, streamed, advanced.
Her dress was purple, her slippers were golden,
Her eyes were blue; and a purple orchid
Opened its golden heart on her breast . . .
She leaned to the surly languor of lazy music,
Leaned on her partner's arm to rest.
The violins were weaving a weft of silver,
The horns were weaving a lustrous brede of gold,
And time was caught in a glistening pattern,
Time, too elusive to hold . . .
Shadows of leaves fell over her face,—and sunlight:
She turned her face away.
Nearer she moved to a crouching darkness
With every step and day.
Death, who at first had thought of her only an instant,
At a great distance, across the night,
Smiled from a window upon her, and followed her slowly
From purple light to light.
Once, in her dreams, he spoke out clearly, crying,
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'I am the murderer, death.
I am the lover who keeps his appointment
At the doors of breath!'
She rose and stared at her own reflection,
Half dreading there to find
The dark-eyed ghost, waiting beside her,
Or reaching from behind
To lay pale hands upon her shoulders . . .
Or was this in her mind? . . .
She combed her hair. The sunlight glimmered
Along the tossing strands.
Was there a stillness in this hair,—
A quiet in these hands?
Death was a dream. It could not change these eyes,
Blow out their light, or turn this mouth to dust.
She combed her hair and sang. She would live forever.
Leaves flew past her window along a gust . . .
And graves were dug in the earth, and coffins passed,
And music ebbed with the ebbing hours.
And dreams went along her veins, and scattering clouds
Threw streaming shadows on walls and towers.
XI.
Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares
With purple lights in the canyoned street.
The fiery sign on the dark tower wreathes and flares . . .
The trodden grass in the park is covered with white,
The streets grow silent beneath our feet . . .
The city dreams, it forgets its past to-night.
And one, from his high bright window looking down
Over the enchanted whiteness of the town,
Seeing through whirls of white the vague grey towers,
Desires like this to forget what will not pass,
The littered papers, the dust, the tarnished grass,
Grey death, stale ugliness, and sodden hours.
Deep in his heart old bells are beaten again,
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Slurred bells of grief and pain,
Dull echoes of hideous times and poisonous places.
He desires to drown in a cold white peace of snow.
He desires to forget a million faces . . .
In one room breathes a woman who dies of hunger.
The clock ticks slowly and stops. And no one winds it.
In one room fade grey violets in a vase.
Snow flakes faintly hiss and melt on the window.
In one room, minute by minute, the flutist plays
The lamplit page of music, the tireless scales.
His hands are trembling, his short breath fails.
In one room, silently, lover looks upon lover,
And thinks the air is fire.
The drunkard swears and touches the harlot's heartstrings
With the sudden hand of desire.
And
And
And
And
one goes late in the streets, and thinks of murder;
one lies staring, and thinks of death.
one, who has suffered, clenches her hands despairing,
holds her breath . . .
Who are all these, who flow in the veins of the city,
Coil and revolve and dream,
Vanish or gleam?
Some mount up to the brain and flower in fire.
Some are destroyed; some die; some slowly stream.
And
And
And
And
And
the new are born who desire to destroy the old;
fires are kindled and quenched; and dreams are broken,
walls flung down . . .
the slow night whirls in snow over towers of dreamers,
whiteness hushes the town.
PART III
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As evening falls,
And the yellow lights leap one by one
Along high walls;
And along black streets that glisten as if with rain,
The muted city seems
Like one in a restless sleep, who lies and dreams
Of vague desires, and memories, and half-forgotten pain . . .
Along dark veins, like lights the quick dreams run,
Flash, are extinguished, flash again,
To mingle and glow at last in the enormous brain
And die away . . .
As evening falls,
A dream dissolves these insubstantial walls,—
A myriad secretly gliding lights lie bare . . .
The lovers rise, the harlot combs her hair,
The dead man's face grows blue in the dizzy lamplight,
The watchman climbs the stair . . .
The bank defaulter leers at a chaos of figures,
And runs among them, and is beaten down;
The sick man coughs and hears the chisels ringing;
The tired clown
Sees the enormous crowd, a million faces,
Motionless in their places,
Ready to laugh, and seize, and crush and tear . . .
The dancer smooths her hair,
Laces her golden slippers, and runs through the door
To dance once more,
Hearing swift music like an enchantment rise,
Feeling the praise of a thousand eyes.
As darkness falls
The walls grow luminous and warm, the walls
Tremble and glow with the lives within them moving,
Moving like music, secret and rich and warm.
How shall we live tonight? Where shall we turn?
To what new light or darkness yearn?
A thousand winding stairs lead down before us;
And one by one in myriads we descend
By lamplit flowered walls, long balustrades,
Through half-lit halls which reach no end.
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II. THE SCREEN MAIDEN
You read—what is it, then that you are reading?
What music moves so silently in your mind?
Your bright hand turns the page.
I watch you from my window, unsuspected:
You move in an alien land, a silent age . . .
. . . The poet—what was his name—? Tokkei—Tokkei—
The poet walked alone in a cold late rain,
And thought his grief was like the crying of sea-birds;
For his lover was dead, he never would love again.
Rain in the dreams of the mind—rain forever—
Rain in the sky of the heart—rain in the willows—
But then he saw this face, this face like flame,
This quiet lady, this portrait by Hiroshigi;
And took it home with him; and with it came
What unexpected changes, subtle as weather!
The dark room, cold as rain,
Grew faintly fragrant, stirred with a stir of April,
Warmed its corners with light again,
And smoke of incense whirled about this portrait,
And the quiet lady there,
So young, so quietly smiling, with calm hands,
Seemed ready to loose her hair,
And smile, and lean from the picture, or say one word,
The word already clear,
Which seemed to rise like light between her eyelids . .
He held his breath to hear,
And smiled for shame, and drank a cup of wine,
And held a candle, and searched her face
Through all the little shadows, to see what secret
Might give so warm a grace . . .
Was it the quiet mouth, restrained a little?
The eyes, half-turned aside?
The jade ring on her wrist, still almost swinging? . . .
190
The secret was denied,
He chose his favorite pen and drew these verses,
And slept; and as he slept
A dream came into his heart, his lover entered,
And chided him, and wept.
And in the morning, waking, he remembered,
And thought the dream was strange.
Why did his darkened lover rise from the garden?
He turned, and felt a change,
As if a someone hidden smiled and watched him . . .
Yet there was only sunlight there.
Until he saw those young eyes, quietly smiling,
And held his breath to stare,
And could have sworn her cheek had turned—a little . . .
Had slightly turned away . . .
Sunlight dozed on the floor . . . He sat and wondered,
Nor left his room that day.
And that day, and for many days thereafter,
He sat alone, and thought
No lady had ever lived so beautiful
As Hiroshigi wrought . . .
Or if she lived, no matter in what country,
By what far river or hill or lonely sea,
He would look in every face until he found her . . .
There was no other as fair as she.
And before her quiet face he burned soft incense,
And brought her every day
Boughs of the peach, or almond, or snow-white cherry,
And somehow, she seemed to say,
That silent lady, young, and quietly smiling,
That she was happy there;
And sometimes, seeing this, he started to tremble,
And desired to touch her hair,
191
To lay his palm along her hand, touch faintly
With delicate finger-tips
The ghostly smile that seemed to hover and vanish
Upon her lips . . .
Until he knew he loved this quiet lady;
And night by night a dread
Leered at his dreams, for he knew that Hiroshigi
Was many centuries dead,—
And the lady, too, was dead, and all who knew her . .
Dead, and long turned to dust . . .
The thin moon waxed and waned, and left him paler,
The peach leaves flew in a gust,
And he would surely have died; but there one day
A wise man, white with age,
Stared at the portrait, and said, 'This Hiroshigi
Knew more than archimage,—
Cunningly drew the body, and called the spirit,
Till partly it entered there . . .
Sometimes, at death, it entered the portrait wholly . .
Do all I say with care,
And she you love may come to you when you call her . . . '
So then this ghost, Tokkei,
Ran in the sun, bought wine of a hundred merchants,
And alone at the end of day
Entered the darkening room, and faced the portrait,
And saw the quiet eyes
Gleaming and young in the dusk, and held the wine-cup,
And knelt, and did not rise,
And said, aloud, 'Lo-san, will you drink this wine?'
Said it three times aloud.
And at the third the faint blue smoke of incense
Rose to the walls in a cloud,
And the lips moved faintly, and the eyes, and the calm hands stirred;
And suddenly, with a sigh,
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The quiet lady came slowly down from the portrait,
And stood, while worlds went by,
And lifted her young white hands and took the wine cup;
And the poet trembled, and said,
'Lo-san, will you stay forever?'—'Yes, I will stay.'—
'But what when I am dead?'
'When you are dead your spirit will find my spirit,
And then we shall die no more.'
Music came down upon them, and spring returning,
They remembered worlds before,
And years went over the earth, and over the sea,
And lovers were born and spoke and died,
But forever in sunlight went these two immortal,
Tokkei and the quiet bride . . .
III. HAUNTED CHAMBERS
The lamplit page is turned, the dream forgotten;
The music changes tone, you wake, remember
Deep worlds you lived before,—deep worlds hereafter
Of leaf on falling leaf, music on music,
Rain and sorrow and wind and dust and laughter.
Helen was late and Miriam came too soon.
Joseph was dead, his wife and children starving.
Elaine was married and soon to have a child.
You dreamed last night of fiddler-crabs with fiddles;
They played a buzzing melody, and you smiled.
To-morrow—what? And what of yesterday?
Through soundless labyrinths of dream you pass,
Through many doors to the one door of all.
Soon as it's opened we shall hear a music:
Or see a skeleton fall . . .
We walk with you. Where is it that you lead us?
We climb the muffled stairs beneath high lanterns.
We descend again. We grope through darkened cells.
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You say: this darkness, here, will slowly kill me.
It creeps and weighs upon me . . . Is full of bells.
This is the thing remembered I would forget—
No matter where I go, how soft I tread,
This windy gesture menaces me with death.
Fatigue! it says, and points its finger at me;
Touches my throat and stops my breath.
My fans—my jewels—the portrait of my husband—
The torn certificate for my daughter's grave—
These are but mortal seconds in immortal time.
They brush me, fade away: like drops of water.
They signify no crime.
Let us retrace our steps: I have deceived you:
Nothing is here I could not frankly tell you:
No hint of guilt, or faithlessness, or threat.
Dreams—they are madness. Staring eyes—illusion.
Let us return, hear music, and forget . . .
IV. ILLICIT
Of what she said to me that night—no matter.
The strange thing came next day.
My brain was full of music—something she played me—;
I couldn't remember it all, but phrases of it
Wreathed and wreathed among faint memories,
Seeking for something, trying to tell me something,
Urging to restlessness: verging on grief.
I tried to play the tune, from memory,—
But memory failed: the chords and discords climbed
And found no resolution—only hung there,
And left me morbid . . . Where, then, had I heard it? . . .
What secret dusty chamber was it hinting?
'Dust', it said, 'dust . . . and dust . . . and sunlight . .
A cold clear April evening . . . snow, bedraggled,
Rain-worn snow, dappling the hideous grass . . .
And someone walking alone; and someone saying
That all must end, for the time had come to go . . . '
These were the phrases . . . but behind, beneath them
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A greater shadow moved: and in this shadow
I stood and guessed . . . Was it the blue-eyed lady?
The one who always danced in golden slippers—
And had I danced with her,—upon this music?
Or was it further back—the unplumbed twilight
Of childhood?—No—much recenter than that.
You know, without my telling you, how sometimes
A word or name eludes you, and you seek it
Through running ghosts of shadow,—leaping at it,
Lying in wait for it to spring upon it,
Spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound:
Until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest,
You hear it, see it flash among the branches,
And scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it—
Well, it was so I followed down this music,
Glimpsing a face in darkness, hearing a cry,
Remembering days forgotten, moods exhausted,
Corners in sunlight, puddles reflecting stars—;
Until, of a sudden, and least of all suspected,
The thing resolved itself: and I remembered
An April afternoon, eight years ago—
Or was it nine?—no matter—call it nine—
A room in which the last of sunlight faded;
A vase of violets, fragrance in white curtains;
And, she who played the same thing later, playing.
She played this tune. And in the middle of it
Abruptly broke it off, letting her hands
Fall in her lap. She sat there so a moment,
With shoulders drooped, then lifted up a rose,
One great white rose, wide opened like a lotos,
And pressed it to her cheek, and closed her eyes.
'You know—we've got to end this—Miriam loves you . . .
If she should ever know, or even guess it,—
What would she do?—Listen!—I'm not absurd . . .
I'm sure of it. If you had eyes, for women—
To understand them—which you've never had—
You'd know it too . . . ' So went this colloquy,
Half humorous, with undertones of pathos,
Half grave, half flippant . . . while her fingers, softly,
195
Felt for this tune, played it and let it fall,
Now note by singing note, now chord by chord,
Repeating phrases with a kind of pleasure . . .
Was it symbolic of the woman's weakness
That she could neither break it—nor conclude?
It paused . . . and wandered . . . paused again; while she,
Perplexed and tired, half told me I must go,—
Half asked me if I thought I ought to go . . .
Well, April passed with many other evenings,
Evenings like this, with later suns and warmer,
With violets always there, and fragrant curtains . . .
And she was right: and Miriam found it out . . .
And after that, when eight deep years had passed—
Or nine—we met once more,—by accident . . .
But was it just by accident, I wonder,
She played this tune?—Or what, then, was intended? . . .
V. MELODY IN A RESTAURANT
The cigarette-smoke loops and slides above us,
Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes;
You strike a match and stare upon the flame.
The tiny fire leaps in your eyes a moment,
And dwindles away as silently as it came.
This melody, you say, has certain voices—
They rise like nereids from a river, singing,
Lift white faces, and dive to darkness again.
Wherever you go you bear this river with you:
A leaf falls,—and it flows, and you have pain.
So says the tune to you—but what to me?
What to the waiter, as he pours your coffee,
The violinist who suavely draws his bow?
That man, who folds his paper, overhears it.
A thousand dreams revolve and fall and flow.
Some one there is who sees a virgin stepping
Down marble stairs to a deep tomb of roses:
At the last moment she lifts remembering eyes.
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Green leaves blow down. The place is checked with shadows.
A long-drawn murmur of rain goes down the skies.
And oaks are stripped and bare, and smoke with lightning:
And clouds are blown and torn upon high forests,
And the great sea shakes its walls.
And then falls silence . . . And through long silence falls
This melody once more:
'Down endless stairs she goes, as once before.'
So says the tune to him—but what to me?
What are the worlds I see?
What shapes fantastic, terrible dreams? . . .
I go my secret way, down secret alleys;
My errand is not so simple as it seems.
VI. PORTRAIT OF ONE DEAD
This is the house. On one side there is darkness,
On one side there is light.
Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns—
O, any number—it will still be night.
And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward
To long sonorous halls.
And here is spring forever at these windows,
With roses on the walls.
This is her room. On one side there is music—
On one side not a sound.
At one step she could move from love to silence,
Feel myriad darkness coiling round.
And here are balconies from which she heard you,
Your steady footsteps on the stair.
And here the glass in which she saw your shadow
As she unbound her hair.
Here is the room—with ghostly walls dissolving—
The twilight room in which she called you 'lover';
And the floorless room in which she called you 'friend.'
So many times, in doubt, she ran between them!—
Through windy corridors of darkening end.
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Here she could stand with one dim light above her
And hear far music, like a sea in caverns,
Murmur away at hollowed walls of stone.
And here, in a roofless room where it was raining,
She bore the patient sorrow of rain alone.
Your words were walls which suddenly froze around her.
Your words were windows,—large enough for moonlight,
Too small to let her through.
Your letters—fragrant cloisters faint with music.
The music that assuaged her there was you.
How many times she heard your step ascending
Yet never saw your face!
She heard them turn again, ring slowly fainter,
Till silence swept the place.
Why had you gone? . . . The door, perhaps, mistaken . . .
You would go elsewhere. The deep walls were shaken.
A certain rose-leaf—sent without intention—
Became, with time, a woven web of fire—
She wore it, and was warm.
A certain hurried glance, let fall at parting,
Became, with time, the flashings of a storm.
Yet, there was nothing asked, no hint to tell you
Of secret idols carved in secret chambers
From all you did and said.
Nothing was done, until at last she knew you.
Nothing was known, till, somehow, she was dead.
How did she die?—You say, she died of poison.
Simple and swift. And much to be regretted.
You did not see her pass
So many thousand times from light to darkness,
Pausing so many times before her glass;
You did not see how many times she hurried
To lean from certain windows, vainly hoping,
Passionate still for beauty, remembered spring.
You did not know how long she clung to music,
You did not hear her sing.
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Did she, then, make the choice, and step out bravely
From sound to silence—close, herself, those windows?
Or was it true, instead,
That darkness moved,—for once,—and so possessed her? . . .
We'll never know, you say, for she is dead.
VII. PORCELAIN
You see that porcelain ranged there in the window—
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They're works of art—minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?
Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you stare hard enough, a sort of swimming
Of lights and shadows, ghosts within a crystal—
My brain unfolding! There you'll see me sitting
Day after day, close to a certain window,
Looking down, sometimes, to see the people . . .
Sometimes my wife comes there to speak to me . . .
Sometimes the grey cat waves his tail around me . . .
Goldfish swim in a bowl, glisten in sunlight,
Dilate to a gorgeous size, blow delicate bubbles,
Drowse among dark green weeds. On rainy days,
You'll see a gas-light shedding light behind me—
An eye-shade round my forehead. There I sit,
Twirling the tiny brushes in my paint-cups,
Painting the pale pink rosebuds, minute violets,
Exquisite wreaths of dark green ivy leaves.
On this leaf, goes a dream I dreamed last night
Of two soft-patterned toads—I thought them stones,
Until they hopped! And then a great black spider,—
Tarantula, perhaps, a hideous thing,—
It crossed the room in one tremendous leap.
Here,—as I coil the stems between two leaves,—
It is as if, dwindling to atomy size,
199
I cried the secret between two universes . . .
A friend of mine took hasheesh once, and said
Just as he fell asleep he had a dream,—
Though with his eyes wide open,—
And felt, or saw, or knew himself a part
Of marvelous slowly-wreathing intricate patterns,
Plane upon plane, depth upon coiling depth,
Amazing leaves, folding one on another,
Voluted grasses, twists and curves and spirals—
All of it darkly moving . . . as for me,
I need no hasheesh for it—it's too easy!
Soon as I shut my eyes I set out walking
In a monstrous jungle of monstrous pale pink roseleaves,
Violets purple as death, dripping with water,
And ivy-leaves as big as clouds above me.
Here, in a simple pattern of separate violets—
With scalloped edges gilded—here you have me
Thinking of something else. My wife, you know,—
There's something lacking—force, or will, or passion,
I don't know what it is—and so, sometimes,
When I am tired, or haven't slept three nights,
Or it is cloudy, with low threat of rain,
I get uneasy—just like poplar trees
Ruffling their leaves—and I begin to think
Of poor Pauline, so many years ago,
And that delicious night. Where is she now?
I meant to write—but she has moved, by this time,
And then, besides, she might find out I'm married.
Well, there is more—I'm getting old and timid—
The years have gnawed my will. I've lost my nerve!
I never strike out boldly as I used to—
But sit here, painting violets, and remember
That thrilling night. Photographers, she said,
Asked her to pose for them; her eyes and forehead,—
Dark brown eyes, and a smooth and pallid forehead,—
Were thought so beautiful.—And so they were.
Pauline . . . These violets are like words remembered . . .
Darling! she whispered . . . Darling! . . . Darling! . . . Darling!
Well, I suppose such days can come but once.
Lord, how happy we were! . . .
200
Here, if you only knew it, is a story—
Here, in these leaves. I stopped my work to tell it,
And then, when I had finished, went on thinking:
A man I saw on a train . . . I was still a boy . . .
Who killed himself by diving against a wall.
Here is a recollection of my wife,
When she was still my sweetheart, years ago.
It's funny how things change,—just change, by growing,
Without an effort . . . And here are trivial things,—
A chill, an errand forgotten, a cut while shaving;
A friend of mine who tells me he is married . . .
Or is that last so trivial? Well, no matter!
This is the sort of thing you'll see of me,
If you look hard enough. This, in its way,
Is a kind of fame. My life arranged before you
In scrolls of leaves, rosebuds, violets, ivy,
Clustered or wreathed on plate and cup and platter . . .
Sometimes, I say, I'm just like John the Baptist—
You have my head before you . . . on a platter.
VIII. COFFINS: INTERLUDE
Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .
We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.
One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,
Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;
One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.
One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .
Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.
201
One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.
Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.
A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.
He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:
A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.
Death, from street to alley, from door to window,
Cries out his news,—of unplumbed worlds approaching,
Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.
But why comes death,—he asks,—in a world so perfect?
Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?
Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,
A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes
Down jangled streets, and dies.
The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,
Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.
Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;
Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;
From freezing rooms as bare as rock.
The curtains are closed across deserted windows.
Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.
Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;
Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;
Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;
Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;
Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;
Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,
And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;
Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,—
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.
And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
202
IX. CABARET
We sit together and talk, or smoke in silence.
You say (but use no words) 'this night is passing
As other nights when we are dead will pass . . .'
Perhaps I misconstrue you: you mean only,
'How deathly pale my face looks in that glass . . .'
You say: 'We sit and talk, of things important . . .
How many others like ourselves, this instant,
Mark the pendulum swinging against the wall?
How many others, laughing, sip their coffee—
Or stare at mirrors, and do not talk at all? . . .
'This is the moment' (so you would say, in silence)
When suddenly we have had too much of laughter:
And a freezing stillness falls, no word to say.
Our mouths feel foolish . . . For all the days hereafter
What have we saved—what news, what tune, what play?
'We see each other as vain and futile tricksters,—
Posturing like bald apes before a mirror;
No pity dims our eyes . . .
How many others, like ourselves, this instant,
See how the great world wizens, and are wise? . . .'
Well, you are right . . . No doubt, they fall, these seconds . . .
When suddenly all's distempered, vacuous, ugly,
And even those most like angels creep for schemes.
The one you love leans forward, smiles, deceives you,
Opens a door through which you see dark dreams.
But this is momentary . . . or else, enduring,
Leads you with devious eyes through mists and poisons
To horrible chaos, or suicide, or crime . . .
And all these others who at your conjuration
Grow pale, feeling the skeleton touch of time,—
Or, laughing sadly, talk of things important,
Or stare at mirrors, startled to see their faces,
Or drown in the waveless vacuum of their days,—
203
Suddenly, as from sleep, awake, forgetting
This nauseous dream; take up their accustomed ways,
Exhume the ghost of a joke, renew loud laughter,
Forget the moles above their sweethearts' eyebrows,
Lean to the music, rise,
And dance once more in a rose-festooned illusion
With kindness in their eyes . . .
They say (as we ourselves have said, remember)
'What wizardry this slow waltz works upon us!
And how it brings to mind forgotten things!'
They say 'How strange it is that one such evening
Can wake vague memories of so many springs!'
And so they go . . . In a thousand crowded places,
They sit to smile and talk, or rise to ragtime,
And, for their pleasures, agree or disagree.
With secret symbols they play on secret passions.
With cunning eyes they see
The innocent word that sets remembrance trembling,
The dubious word that sets the scared heart beating . . .
The pendulum on the wall
Shakes down seconds . . . They laugh at time, dissembling;
Or coil for a victim and do not talk at all.
X. LETTER
From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,—
And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.
It is so long, indeed, since I have written,—
Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,—
That these first words I write seem cold and strange.
Are you the man I knew, or have you altered?
Altered, of course—just as I too have altered—
And whether towards each other, or more apart,
We cannot say . . . I've just re-read your letter—
204
Not through forgetfulness, but more for pleasure—
Pondering much on all you say in it
Of mystic consciousness—divine conversion—
The sense of oneness with the infinite,—
Faith in the world, its beauty, and its purpose . . .
Well, you believe one must have faith, in some sort,
If one's to talk through this dark world contented.
But is the world so dark? Or is it rather
Our own brute minds,—in which we hurry, trembling,
Through streets as yet unlighted? This, I think.
You have been always, let me say, "romantic,"—
Eager for color, for beauty, soon discontented
With a world of dust and stones and flesh too ailing:
Even before the question grew to problem
And drove you bickering into metaphysics,
You met on lower planes the same great dragon,
Seeking release, some fleeting satisfaction,
In strange aesthetics . . . You tried, as I remember,
One after one, strange cults, and some, too, morbid,
The cruder first, more violent sensations,
Gorgeously carnal things, conceived and acted
With splendid animal thirst . . . Then, by degrees,—
Savoring all more delicate gradations
In all that hue and tone may play on flesh,
Or thought on brain,—you passed, if I may say so,
From red and scarlet through morbid greens to mauve.
Let us regard ourselves, you used to say,
As instruments of music, whereon our lives
Will play as we desire: and let us yield
These subtle bodies and subtler brains and nerves
To all experience plays . . . And so you went
From subtle tune to subtler, each heard once,
Twice or thrice at the most, tiring of each;
And closing one by one your doors, drew in
Slowly, through darkening labyrinths of feeling,
Towards the central chamber . . . Which now you've reached.
What, then's, the secret of this ultimate chamber—
Or innermost, rather? If I see it clearly
205
It is the last, and cunningest, resort
Of one who has found this world of dust and flesh,—
This world of lamentations, death, injustice,
~ Conrad Potter Aiken,

IN CHAPTERS [148/148]



   46 Integral Yoga
   30 Yoga
   11 Philosophy
   9 Poetry
   9 Christianity
   6 Psychology
   5 Occultism
   2 Mysticism
   2 Fiction
   1 Hinduism


   31 The Mother
   24 Sri Ramakrishna
   18 Sri Aurobindo
   12 Satprem
   8 Nolini Kanta Gupta
   7 Plotinus
   5 Swami Vivekananda
   5 Carl Jung
   4 Plato
   3 Swami Krishnananda
   2 William Butler Yeats
   2 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   2 Saint John of Climacus
   2 Saint Augustine of Hippo
   2 Robert Browning
   2 Jordan Peterson
   2 Henry David Thoreau


   23 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
   5 The Synthesis Of Yoga
   5 Questions And Answers 1954
   4 The Life Divine
   3 The Study and Practice of Yoga
   3 Talks
   3 Questions And Answers 1955
   3 Questions And Answers 1953
   3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
   3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
   3 Agenda Vol 10
   2 Yeats - Poems
   2 Words Of Long Ago
   2 Walden
   2 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
   2 Some Answers From The Mother
   2 Record of Yoga
   2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
   2 Questions And Answers 1956
   2 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
   2 Mysterium Coniunctionis
   2 Maps of Meaning
   2 Letters On Yoga IV
   2 Letters On Yoga II
   2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
   2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
   2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
   2 City of God
   2 Browning - Poems
   2 Bhakti-Yoga
   2 Agenda Vol 12
   2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E


0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
   The worship in the temple intensified Sri Ramakrishna's yearning for a living vision of the Mother of the Universe. He began to spend in meditation the time not actually employed in the temple service; and for this purpose he selected an extremely solitary place. A deep jungle, thick with underbrush and prickly plants, lay to the north of the temples. Used at one time as a burial ground, it was shunned by people even during the day-time for fear of ghosts. There Sri Ramakrishna began to spend the whole night in meditation, returning to his room only in the morning with eyes swollen as though from much weeping. While meditating, he would lay aside his cloth and his brahminical thread. Explaining this strange conduct, he once said to Hriday: "Don't you know that when one thinks of God one should be freed from all ties? From our very birth we have the eight fetters of hatred, shame, lineage, pride of good conduct, fear, secretiveness, caste, and grief. The sacred thread reminds me that I am a brahmin and therefore superior to all. When calling on the Mother one has to set aside all such ideas." Hriday thought his uncle was becoming insane.
   As his love for God deepened, he began either to forget or to drop the formalities of worship. Sitting before the image, he would spend hours singing the devotional songs of great devotees of the Mother, such as Kamalakanta and Ramprasad. Those rhapsodical songs, describing the direct vision of God, only intensified Sri Ramakrishna's longing. He felt the pangs of a child separated from its mother. Sometimes, in agony, he would rub his face against the ground and weep so bitterly that people, thinking he had lost his earthly mother, would sympathize with him in his grief. Sometimes, in moments of scepticism, he would cry: "Art Thou true, Mother, or is it all fiction — mere poetry without any reality? If Thou dost exist, why do I not see Thee? Is religion a mere fantasy and art Thou only a figment of man's imagination?" Sometimes he would sit on the prayer carpet for two hours like an inert object. He began to behave in an abnormal manner
  --
   Balaram Bose came of a wealthy Vaishnava family. From his youth he had shown a deep religious temperament and had devoted his time to meditation, prayer, and the study of the Vaishnava scriptures. He was very much impressed by Sri Ramakrishna even at their first meeting. He asked Sri Ramakrishna whether God really existed and, if so, whether a man could realize Him. The Master said: "God reveals Himself to the devotee who thinks of Him as his nearest and dearest. Because you do not draw response by praying to Him once, you must not conclude that He does not exist. Pray to God, thinking of Him as dearer than your very self. He is much attached to His devotees. He comes to a man even before He is sought. There is none more intimate and affectionate than God." Balaram had never before heard God spoken of in such forceful words; every one of the words seemed true to him. Under the Master's influence he outgrew the conventions of the Vaishnava worship and became one of the most beloved of the disciples. It was at his home that the Master slept whenever he spent a night in Calcutta.
   --- MAHENDRA OR M.

0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  as much as he can; no one thinks of saving and avoiding waste.
  It is the triumph of egoism. You may show this to them and add

0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  all this complication? I don't know what X thinks of me,
  but it is true that I have got him into a very complicated
  --
  Why is it that whenever one thinks of You one feels
  a need for physical closeness? What is the value of this

0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   It is very clear. So it is not I who can make Her stay. And I certainly cannot ask Her to stay for egotistical reasons. Moreover, all these Aspects, all these Personalities manifest constantly but they never manifest for personal reason. Not one of them has ever thought of helping my bodybesides, I dont ask them to because that is not their purpose. But it is more than obvious that if the people around me were receptive, She could permanently manifest since they could receive Herand this would help my body enormously because all these vibrations would run through it. But She never gets even a chance to manifestnot a single one. She only meets people who dont even feel Her when Shes there! They dont even notice Her, theyre not even aware of her presence. So how can She manifest in these conditions? Im not going to ask Her, Please come and change my body. We dont have that kind of relationship! Furthermore, the body itself wouldnt agree. It never thinks of itself, it never pays attention to itself, and besides, it is only through the work that it can be transformed.
   Yes, certainly had there been any receptivity when She came down and had She been able to manifest with the power with which She came But I can tell you one thing: even before Her coming, when, with Sri Aurobindo, I had begun going down (for the Yoga) from the mental plane to the vital plane, when we brought our yoga down from the mental plane into the vital plane, in less than a month (I was forty years old at the time I didnt seem very old, I looked less than forty, but I was forty anyway), after no more than a month of this yoga, I looked exactly like an 18 year old! And someone who knew me and had stayed with me in Japan5 came here, and when he saw me, he could scarcely believe his eyes! He said, But my god, is it you? I said, Of course!

0 1961-06-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I have had an oft repeated experience of reliving the past1 (its a phenomenon of consciousness, possible because everything is preserved and continues to exist somewhere), with a kind of willwhich would be the sign of a powerto change it. I dont know, but at the moment of reliving it, instead of reliving the past just as it had been preserved, a power to make it different was introduced. I am not speaking of the power to change the consequences of the past (that is obvious and functions all the time)it wasnt that; it was the power to change the circumstances themselves (circumstances not quite material but of the subtle physical, with a predominantly psychological content). And since the will was there, from the standpoint of consciousness it actually happened that is, instead of circumstances developing in one direction, they developed in another. So it must correspond to something real, otherwise I would not have had the experience. It wasnt a product of the imagination; it wasnt something one thinks of and would really like to be differentit wasnt that; it was a phenomenon of consciousness: my consciousness was reliving certain circumstances (which are still quite living and obviously continue to exist within their own domain), but reliving them with the power and the knowledge acquired between that past moment and the present, and with a power to change the past moment. A new power entered the scene and turned the circumstance being relived in a new direction. I have had this experience many times and it has always surprised meits not a phenomenon of mental imagination, which is something else entirely.
   It opens the door to everything.

0 1963-12-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Very long ago, many times over, when I looked at the universe (I dont mean the earth: the universe), it was that way (same gesture of a round totality). How can I put it? It gave the feeling of moving forward, of moving forward towards a progressive perfection. For years on end, my perception of the earth has been that way; and now, it takes place completely at will, in the sense that it takes only just a small movement in the consciousness (gesture of a trigger or a slight reversal, a drawing within) for the whole earth to move that way, along with the events and the inner complications. But now, that same consciousness of the whole works that way: when it thinks of something (for some reason of work, not because of an arbitrary decision), the thing imposes itself; its a whole set of things that presents itself as the TOTALITY on which the action must take place. So it may be a small thing like this sports festival, it may be the Ashram (very often the Ashram as a whole), it may be a part of the earth, or sometimes even a single individual (who is no longer an individual but a set or a world of things, a totality4). A totality of things (round gesture) that move within themselves in (Mother draws within that totality small movements, individual and local, like waves or currents of force). Oh, its most interesting! And even there, there is no more notion of this person, that person, so-and-soall that vanishes.
   But when you have to speak, what can you do? You cant spend all your time explaining it all; besides, its unintelligible for whoever hasnt lived it.

0 1967-10-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The body itself is learning that every time it thinks of itself, theres a small catastrophenot catastrophe, but I mean on the bodys scale: a cellular catastrophe every time there is even a slight turning in on itself. It must forget itself completely, forget itself, and most importantly, it must not try to find support, comfort, understanding, help or anything of the sort (horizontal gesture all around)only there (gesture with palms open upward and the two hands forming a kind of upside down triangle): the only support is the Divine. The only support. The only help, the only responsibility. All the rest. There isnt one thing coming from or towards a human being that isnt mixed; and the moment its mixed, it means conflict.
   This is a time of extremes, even extremes in the downright material. Did I tell you both the other day that I had received the first flower of a plant which visibly was supramental powera flower like this (gesture), a hibiscus? And yesterday there was the first flower of another plant, also a hibiscus, this big, snow-white, with such a colour at the centre! An indefinable colour, it cant be described. Its golden pink, but so beautiful that you wonder how such colours can be physical. A flower this big (gesture, about fifteen centimetres), the first flower was yesterday. And that was VISIBLY (it expressed itself, you know) the Victory of Love, the Power of Love. Its as if all this physical Nature were, oh, like this (gesture of intense aspiration), tryingshe tries, and there is a Response. They are blessed not to have a mind.

0 1968-05-11, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But as soon as he thinks of it [the Vatican], his face tenses. So I told him not to think about it anymore, not to bother about it anymorenothing, to leave that for an uncertain future. To stop bothering about it. And when he is told to stop bothering about it, his face becomes all smiles!
   J. is PL.'s friend.

0 1969-07-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I said, Be careful! Here is what he thinks of your cuts.6
   Its like that, thoroughly familiar, but very expressive.

0 1969-10-18, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   That is to say, for the entire old Indian yoga, the body is something untransformable, and therefore its a momentary necessity that will disappear; while for Sri Aurobindo, the body is transformable, and the minute its transformable, instead of thinking of itself as an individual, it thinks of itself as the Lord. And, you know, I guarantee that its spontaneous, natural, and blissful. While the idea of a separate person is a painful calamity.
   I was with A.R. when he meditated here his body is still ONE body.

0 1969-10-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I havent learned anything new. All that she [Mother] says I have known for twenty years. The very basis of my experience was the transformation of the cells, that was my starting point. According to what Mother writes, I think she only began this experience two years ago, and I understand she has now completed it. So for me, all that she says is true, correct, and it cannot be otherwise. Only, unlike her, I did not go through every stage of the experience in detail, right to the end. My method was direct straight, all the way up; I cut out all those stages and visions on the way, because otherwise I could not have done what I did. You understand, I couldnt attempt those details, because if I had, I would have lost my aim, I would have missed my realization. For her, its all right, because she was educated. She knows philosophy, metaphysics, science, and what not! Moreover, she had the good fortune of meeting Sri Aurobindo. I would like to meet him. But as for me, I was all alone. So I had no option. I dont regret it. I came here because I knew there was here someone who spoke my language. I got confirmation of my experiences, and I provide conirmation to her experience. Thats right. One might say that we have gone hand in hand into our experiencewe are on the same plane. Thats how I understand it. I dont know what she thinks of me, she didnt tell me anything. I wanted to talk with her, but I dont think she is inclined to speak much. So!
   At any rate, she told me she would help me; in that case, something is surely being done. The seed you sow today doesnt grow the next day. We must wait. It may take time.

0 1971-06-05, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   All circumstances have been furiously teaching the body to call all the time, all the timeto call the Divine. And so now its got into the habit of repeating its mantra, and it repeats it ALL THE TIME. Its a curious thing: if it repeats it, everything runs smoothly; if it doesnt, it cant even swallow foodeverything seems on the verge of falling apart; so it repeats its mantra, and everything goes quite well. When it thinks of nothing but the Divine, everything is fine. This morning, while I was having breakfast, thats how it was. It was so plain! If the body thinks about eating, everything goes wrong; if it repeats its mantra, it can absorb the food, it doesnt even notice it, everything becomes so easy. Very interesting. The same goes for people: when theyre here, if I think about them, if I think there are difficulties, then (grating gesture), but if I am like this (peaceful gesture, immovable in the Lord), everything goes well, quite naturally.
   Its a lesson, but a relentless one.

0 1971-07-17, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Not clinging to what one thinks of the Divine, not even to what one feels of the Divine to an aspiration an aspiration as sincere as possible. And cling to that.
   (silence)

0 1972-04-03, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The body must learn not to think of itself. Thats the only way. As soon as it thinks of itself, its condition gets horrible.
   But honestly, sincerely, it doesnt think anymore. It is here for a certain work; the work must be done, and thats all. What will be will beits true, after all, what will be will be, what does it matter to it! It says, Everything is for the best. It cant stay forever in its present precarious condition; so it must either be transformed, or else lose its form and come undone. Well it neednt worry about it, just leave it to the Lord to decidetruly and sincerely.

03.05 - The Spiritual Genius of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The French, for example, have developed as a people a special characteristic and mental turn that has set its pervading impress upon their culture and civilisation, upon their creations and activities; that which distinguishes them is a fine, clear and subtle, rational, logical, artistic and literary mind. France, it has often been said, is the head of modern Europe. The Indians are not in the same way a predominantly intellectual race, in spite of the mighty giants of intellect India has always produced, and still produces. Nor are they a literary race, although a rich and grandiose literature, unrivalled in its own great qualities, is their patrimony. It was the few, a small minority, almost a closed circle, that formed in India the elite whose interest and achievement lay in this field; the characteristic power, the main life-current of the nation, did not flow this way, but followed a different channel. Among the ancients the Greeks, and among the moderns the French alone, can rightfully claim as their special genius, as the hallmark of their corporate life, a high intellectual and literary culture. It is to this treasure,a serene and yet vigorous and organized rational mind, coupled with a wonderful felicity of expression in speech,that one turns when one thinks of the special gift that modern France and ancient Greece have brought to the heritage of mankind.
   Again, the Japanese, as a people, have developed to a consummate degree the sense of beauty, especially as applied to life and living. No other people, not even the old-world Greeks, possessed almost to a man, as do these children of the Rising Sun, so fine and infallible an sthetic sensibility,not static or abstract, but of the dynamic kinduniformly successful in making out of their work-a-day life, even to its smallest accessories, a flawless object of art. It is a wonder to see in japan how, even an unlettered peasant, away in his rustic environment, chooses with unerring taste the site of his house, builds it to the best advantage, arranges everything about it in a faultless rhythm. The whole motion of the life of a Japanese is almost Art incarnate.

05.13 - Darshana and Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   There is one concept in Whitehead which seems rather strange to us; it is surely a product of the brain-mind. God, according to him, is not the creator: he is only the Redeemer, he is a shaper but not the source and origin of things. That is because he thinks that if God is made the creator of the world, he would be held responsible for the evil there. This difficulty comes when one thinks of God too much in the popular anthropomorphic way, like someone seated above the world and passing judgment upon a world which is not his doing. God is perhaps a lover of the world, but not its Mastera certain Christian outlook says. According to Sri Aurobindo, God is a triple reality in his transcendental, cosmic and individual aspect. In creating the world, God creates, that is to say, manifests himself. And Evil is an evolute in the process of God's self-creation through self-limitation: it proceeds to self-annihilation and even self-transmutation in a farther process of God's self-unfoldment in world and Nature.
   To return to our main theme, we should point out, however, that in Europe too at one time (during the whole Middle Age, the Age of Scholasticism) philosophy was considered only as a handmaid of Religion, it had to echo and amplify and reason out the dogmas (which were sometimes real spiritual experiences or revelations); but the New Illumination came and philosophy declared her autonomy, only that autonomy did not last long. For today in Europe, Philosophy has become the handmaid of Science. It was natural, since Reason is not a self-sufficient faculty, it is mediatory and must be ancillary either to something above it 'or something below iteither to Revelation or to sense-perception.

07.11 - The Problem of Evil, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   In truth, the question itself is wrong. It is childish. It presupposes things that are themselves questionable. There are certain ideas about creation which have been almost universally current, more or less permanently accepted by human thought during ages; they are of an astounding simplicity. There is a world here, it is said, and up there somewhere there is a being called God; This person one day thought of creating some kind of thing, a visible form. The world was the result. Evidently we see a lot of mistakes in his work. We conclude the creator perhaps is a well-meaning benevolent person, but not all-powerful; some other thing or being there is that contradicts him. Or perhaps he is all-powerful but then has no heart and must be cruelty itselfviewing the condition of his creation which is a story of sorrow and trouble and misery. Such an idea, I say, is simplicity itself, the simplicity of a child brain. When one speaks of God the creator as a potter making a pot, one thinks of him as a human being, only in bigger proportions. Truly, it is not God who has made man in his image, it is man who has made God in his image.
   As I say, the question is wrongly put. The very form of the question already assumes a certain notion about God and creation. Your postulates or axioms themselves are vitiated.

08.25 - Meat-Eating, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   I will tell you then a story. I knew a young woman, Swedish, who was doing Sadhana. Normally she was a vegetarian, by habit as well as by inclination. One day she was invited to a dinner. She was given fowl to eat. She did not like to make a fuss and quietly ate her fowl. Now at night she found herself, in dream of course, in a basket and her head in between two bits of sticks and being shaken to and fro. She felt very unhappy, very miserable. And then she saw herself head down and legs up in the air and being shaken, shaken continually. She was thoroughly miserable. All on a sudden she felt she was being skinned, flayed and how painful it all was! And then someone came with a knife and cut off her head. She woke up at that. She told me the story and said she had never had such a frightful nightmare in her life. She had thought nothing of this kind before going to bed; it must have been simply the consciousness of the poor chicken that entered into her and she experienced in dream all the agonies of this creature when it was being carried to the market, her feathers pulled out and in the end the head severed. That is what happens. In other words, along with the meal that you take, you absorb also, in a large or small measure, the consciousness of the animal whose flesh you swallow. Of course it is nothing serious, but it is not always pleasant. Yet obviously it does not help you to be more on the side of man than on that of the animal kind. Primitive men, we know, were much nearer the animal level and used to take raw meat: that gave them evidently more strength and energy than cooked meat. They used to kill an animal, tear it to pieces and bite into the flesh. That is how they were robust and strong. Also it was for this reason perhaps that there was in their intestines an organ called appendix of a much bigger size than it is now: for it had to digest raw meat. As men however started cooking their food and found it more palatable that way the organ too gradually diminished in size and fell into atrophy; now it does not serve any purpose, it is an encumbrance and often a source of illness. This means that it is time to change the diet and take to something less bestial. It depends, however, on the state of the consciousness of each person. An ordinary man, who leads an ordinary life, has ordinary aspirations, thinks of nothing else than earning his livelihood, keeping good health and rearing a family, need not pick and choose, except on purely hygienic grounds. He may eat meat or anything else that he considers helpful and useful, doing good to him.
   But if you wish to move from the ordinary life to a higher life, the problem acquires an interest. And again, for a higher life if you wish to move up still farther and prepare yourself for transformation, then the problem becomes very important. For there are certain foods that help the body to become more refined and others that keep it down to the level of animalhood. But it is only then that the question acquires an importance, not before. Before you come to that point, you have a lot of other things to do. It is certainly better to purify your mind, purify your vital before you think of purifying your body. For even if you take all possible precautions and live physically with every care to eat only the things that help to refine the body, but the mind and the vital remain full of desire and inconscience and obscurity and all the rest, your care will serve no purpose. Your body will become perhaps weak, disharmonious with your inner life and drop off one day.

08.34 - To Melt into the Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   We must begin by understanding what the thing really means. There are many stages or steps in it. First of all, you must distinguish between two things (1) selfishness and (2) egoism. Selfishness is a crude form and it should not be very difficult to get rid of it, at least a good part of it. You can get over it simply by having a sense of the ridiculous. You do not see how absurd a selfish man is. He always thinks of himself, bringing everything round to himself, ruled by considerations of his small person, putting himself at the centre of the universe and trying to organise the universe, including God, around himself, as if he was the most important item of the universe. Now, if you just try to look at yourself from outside in a dispassionate way, see yourself as in a mirror, you immediately recognise how ridiculous your little person is. I remember I read in French, translated of course, a line from Tagore which amused me very much. It was about a little dog. The dog was seated in the lap of its mistress and considered itself to be the centre of the universe. Yes, the picture stuck in my mind. I knew actually a little dog who was like that. There are many of the kind, perhaps all: they want that everybody should be busy with them and they succeed in doing so.
   You have to go a long way before you can think of merging your ego, your self in the Divine. First of all, you cannot merge your ego or your self until you are a completely individualised being. And do you know what does that mean'to be completely individualised'? It means one capable of resisting all external influences. The other day I received a letter from someone who says that he hesitates to read books; for he has a very strong tendency to identify himself with what he reads; if he reads a novel or a drama he becomes the character pictured and is possessed by the feelings and thoughts and movements of the character. There are many like that. If they read something, while they read they are completely moved by the ideas and impulsions and even ideals they read about and are totally absorbed in them and become them, without their knowing it even. That is because ninety-nine per cent of their nature is made of butter as it were: if you press your finger it leaves a mark. That is the ordinary man's character. One takes in, as one comes across it, a thought experienced by another, a phrase read in a book, a thing observed or an incident the eyes fall upon, a will or wish of a neighbour, all that enters pell-mell intermixed enters and goes out, others come inlike electric currents. And one does not notice it. There is a conflict, a clash among these various movements, each trying to get the upper hand. Thus the person is tossed to and fro like a piece of cork upon the waves in the sea.

1.01 - Economy, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
  Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both north and south. It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests? Does not he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? How godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
  Self-emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination,what Wilberforce is there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

1.01 - On renunciation of the world, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
  The irreligious man is a mortal being with a rational nature, who of his own free will turns his back on life and thinks of his own Maker, the ever-existent, as non-existent. The lawless man is one who holds the law of God after his own depraved fashion,4 and thinks to combine faith in God with heresy that is directly opposed to Him. The Christian is one who imitates Christ in thought, word and deed, as far as is possible for human beings, believing rightly and blamelessly in the Holy Trinity. The lover of God is he who lives in communion with all that is natural and sinless, and as far as he is able neglects nothing good. The continent man is he who in the midst of temptations, snares and turmoil, strives with all his might to imitate the ways of Him who is free from such. The monk is he who within his earthly and soiled body toils towards the rank and state of the incorporeal beings.5 A monk is he who strictly controls his nature and unceasingly watches over his senses. A monk is he who keeps his body
  1 Lit. head, Gk. kephale, commonly used as a term of endearment.

1.01 - SAMADHI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  the PuruSa. When the mind thinks of the elements of nature
  by thinking of their beginning and their end, this is one sort of
  --
  its object, and thinks of them as in time and space, it is called
  Savichara, with-discrimination, and when the same
  meditation gets beyond time and space, and thinks of the fine
  elements as they are, it is called Nirvichara,

1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
  may not even guess at some of their own potentialities. One usually thinks of education, in the broad
  sense, as producing a resourceful, emotionally stable adult, without respect to the environment in which

1.02 - The Pit, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
  Modern conceptions of mathematics, chemistry, and physics are sheer paradox to the" plain man" who thinks of matter, for example, as something that he can knock up against. There appears to be no doubt nowadays that the ultimate nature of Science in any of its branches will be purely abstract, almost of a
  Qabalistic character one might say, even though it may never be officially denominated the Qabalah. It is natural and proper to represent the Cosmos or any part of it, or its

1.035 - The Recitation of Mantra, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  This system of the combination of particular words with other words of the requisite character is followed in the composition of a mantra, which literally means, 'that which protects a person who thinks of it'. Mananat trayate iti mantrah a mantra is that which protects us when we chant it. It protects us like armour, like a shield that we wear in a war, by generating in us a resisting power against any kind of influence which is extraneous in nature, and which is unwanted for the purpose on hand. Chandas is the peculiar chemical combination of the letters, we may say. Particular chemical substances produce special results or effects when they are combined with certain types of other chemical components. But when they are mixed together, they may create a third force altogether.
  A mixture that is chemically produced, like hydrogen and oxygen for instance, is not merely an arithmetical combination of two elements, because when the two are combined, some peculiar effect is produced which is not apparently present in either of the components. For instance, water is produced by a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, but we will not find the character of water either in hydrogen or in oxygen. The water that is the effect of the combination of hydrogen and oxygen in a certain proportion is a new effect altogether, and we cannot, by analysis, discover the essence of water in its original causes. Likewise, the words of a mantra, the components of a mantra, have special forces present or inherent in them, and when the words are combined in the requisite proportion and in the manner mentioned in the chandas shastra, they produce a third kind of effect which is the purpose or intention of the mantra, and that effect is called the devata. We may say that water is the devata of hydrogen and oxygen it is the deity. That is the intention. That is the purpose. That is what we require. That is what we are aiming at and want.

1.03 - VISIT TO VIDYASAGAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  that he was a teacher at Vidyasagar's school, the Master asked: "Can you take me to Vidyasagar? I should like very much to see him." M. told Iswar Chandra of Sri Ramakrishna's wish, and the pundit gladly agreed that M. should bring the Master, some Saturday afternoon at four o'clock. He only asked M. what kind of paramahamsa the Master was, saying, "Does he wear an ochre cloth?" M. answered: "No, sir. He is an unusual person. He wears a red-bordered cloth and polished slippers. He lives in a room in Rani Rasmani's temple garden. In his room there is a couch with a mattress and mosquito net. He has no outer indication of holiness. But he doesn't know anything except God. Day and night he thinks of God alone."
  On the afternoon of August 5 the Master left Dakshineswar in a hackney carriage, accompanied by Bhavanath, M., and Hazra. Vidyasagar lived in Badurbagan, in central Calcutta, about six miles from Dakshineswar. On the way Sri Ramakrishna talked with his companions; but as the carriage neared Vidyasagar's house his mood suddenly changed. He was overpowered with divine ecstasy. Not noticing this, M. pointed out the garden house where Raja Rammohan Roy had lived. The Master was annoyed and said, "I don't care about such things now." He was going into an ecstatic state.

1.04 - ADVICE TO HOUSEHOLDERS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "One who thinks of God, day and night, beholds Him everywhere. It is like a man's seeing flames on all sides after he has gazed fixedly at one flame for some time."
  "But that isn't the real flame", flashed through M.'s mind.
  --
  Haladhri replied, 'What is the use of seeing a mere human body, which is no better than a cage of clay?' Haladhri was a student of the Gita and Vedanta philosophy, and therefore referred to the holy man as a mere 'cage of clay'. I repeated this to Krishnakishore. With great anger he said: 'How impudent of Haladhri to make such a remark! How can he ridicule as a "cage of clay" the body of a man who constantly thinks of God, who meditates on Rama, and has renounced all for the sake of the Lord? Doesn't he know that such a man is the embodiment of Spirit?' He was so upset by Haladhri's remarks that he would turn his face away from him whenever he met him in the temple garden, and stopped speaking to him.
  "Once Krishnakishore asked me, 'Why have you cast off the sacred thread?' In those days of God-vision I felt as if I were passing through the great storm of win, and everything had blown away from me. No trace of my old self was left. I lost all consciousness of the world. I could hardly keep my cloth on my body, not to speak of the sacred thread! I said to Krishnakishore, 'Ah, you will understand if you ever happen to be as intoxicated with God as I was.'

1.04 - Sounds, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
  Cuttingsville, Vermont, some trader among the Green Mountains, who imports for the farmers near his clearing, and now perchance stands over his bulk-head and thinks of the last arrivals on the coast, how they may affect the price for him, telling his customers this moment, as he has told them twenty times before this morning, that he expects some by the next train of prime quality. It is advertised in the
  Cuttingsville Times.

1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
  who thinks of nothing and lives contented?
  You are right, he replied. I have said to myself a thousand times that I should be happy if I were

1.04 - The Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  one thinks of it. The rationalistic interpretation of this inner
  authority as "natural forces" or the instincts satisfies the modern

1.05 - Knowledge by Aquaintance and Knowledge by Description, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
  (rightly, we will suppose) with Bismarck's body. His body, as a physical object, and still more his mind, were only known as the body and the mind connected with these sense-data. That is, they were known by description. It is, of course, very much a matter af chance which characteristics of a man's appearance will come into a friend's mind when he thinks of him; thus the description actually in the friend's mind is accidental. The essential point is that he knows that the various descriptions all apply to the same entity, in spite of not being acquainted with the entity in question.
  When we, who did not know Bismarck, make a judgement about him, the description in our minds will probably be some more or less vague mass of historical knowledge--far more, in most cases, than is required to identify him. But, for the sake of illustration, let us assume that we think of him as 'the first Chancellor of the German Empire'. Here all the words are abstract except 'German'. The word 'German' will, again, have different meanings for different people. To some it will recall travels in Germany, to some the look of Germany on the map, and so on.

1.05 - THE MASTER AND KESHAB, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "Even if one lives in the world, one must go into solitude now and then. It will be of great help to a man if he goes away from his family, lives alone, and weeps for God even for three days. Even if he thinks of God for one day in solitude, when he has the leisure, that too will do him good. People shed a whole jug of tears for wife and children. But who cries for the Lord? Now and then one must go into solitude and practise spiritual discipline to realize God. Living in the world and entangled in many of its duties, the aspirant, during the first stage of spiritual life, finds many obstacles in the path of concentration. While the trees on the footpath are young, they must he fenced around; otherwise they will be destroyed by cattle. The fence is necessary when the tree is young, but it can be taken away when the trunk is thick and strong. Then the tree won't be hurt even if an elephant is tied to it.
  Malady of worldly people and its cure

1.06 - MORTIFICATION, NON-ATTACHMENT, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  There can be no complete communism except in the goods of the spirit and, to some extent also, of the mind, and only when such goods are possessed by men and women in a state of non-attachment and self-denial. Some degree of mortification, it should be noted, is an indispensable prerequisite for the creation and enjoyment even of merely intellectual and aesthetic goods. Those who choose the profession of artist, philosopher, or man of science, choose, in many cases, a life of poverty and unrewarded hard work. But these are by no means the only mortifications they have to undertake. When he looks at the world, the artist must deny his ordinary human tendency to think of things in utilitarian, self-regarding terms. Similarly, the critical philosopher must mortify his commonsense, while the research worker must steadfastly resist the temptations to over-simplify and think conventionally, and must make himself docile to the leadings of mysterious Fact. And what is true of the creators of aesthetic and intellectual goods is also true of the enjoyers of such goods, when created. That these mortifications are by no means trifling has been shown again and again in the course of history. One thinks, for example, of the intellectually mortified Socrates and the hemlock with which his unmortified compatriots rewarded him. One thinks of the heroic efforts that had to be made by Galileo and his contemporaries to break with the Aristotelian convention of thought, and the no less heroic efforts that have to be made today by any scientist who believes that there is more in the universe than can be discovered by employing the time-hallowed recipes of Descartes. Such mortifications have their reward in a state of consciousness that corresponds, on a lower level, to spiritual beatitude. The artistand the philosopher and the man of science are also artistsknows the bliss of aesthetic contemplation, discovery and non-attached possession.
  The goods of the intellect, the emotions and the imagination are real goods; but they are not the final good, and when we treat them as ends in themselves, we fall into idolatry. Mortification of will, desire and action is not enough; there must also be mortification in the fields of knowing, thinking, feeling and fancying.

1.06 - Quieting the Vital, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  depression, 'my' personality, 'my' desire," and thinks of itself as all sorts of little me's it is not. If we are convinced that all these occurrences are ours, then there is obviously nothing we can do about them, except put up with the trivial family until the attack is over. But if we can remain silent within, we soon realize that none of this has anything to do with us: everything comes from outside. We keep picking up the same wavelengths, and becoming overwhelmed by every contagion. For example, we are with some people, completely silent and still within (which doesn't prevent us from talking and acting normally), when suddenly, in this transparency, we feel something trying to draw us or to enter us, a kind of pressure or vibration in the atmosphere (which may cause a vague sense of unease). If we take in the vibration, we are soon struggling against a depression, having a particular desire, or feeling restless; we have caught the contagion. Sometimes it is not just a vibration but a whole wave that falls upon us. Another's physical presence is unnecessary;
  we can be alone in the Himalayas and still receive the world's vibrations. So where is "my" restlessness, "my" desire in all this,

1.06 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER: "A devotee thinks of God as he sees Him. In reality there is no confusion about God. God explains all this to the devotee if the devotee only realizes Him somehow. You haven't set your foot in that direction. How can you expect to know all about God?
  Parable of the chameleon
  --
  "In like manner, one who constantly thinks of God can know His real nature; he alone knows that God reveals Himself to seekers in various forms and aspects. God has attri butes; then again He has none. Only the man who lives under the tree knows that the chameleon can appear in various colours, and he knows, further, that the animal at times has no colour at all. It is the others who suffer from the agony of futile argument.
  "Kabir used to say, 'The formless Absolute is my Father, and God with form is my Mother.'

1.08 - The Depths of the Divine, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
  She is conscious of a strange solitude, since there is not a creature on the whole earth who can be a companion to her-in fact, I do not believe she would find any in Heaven, save Him Whom she loves: on the contrary, all earthly companionship is torment to her. She thinks of herself as of a person suspended aloft, unable either to come down and rest anywhere on earth or to ascend into Heaven. She is parched with thirst, yet cannot reach the water; and the thirst is not a tolerable one but a kind that nothing can quench. . . .32
  The dialectic of progress, here unleashed in its most subtle yet agonizing form.

1.098 - The Transformation from Human to Divine, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  That one has to pass through various stages of self-communion before the great aim of yoga is reached is a point which has been emphasised, again and again, in various ways and at different places in the system of Patanjali. We do not suddenly jump to the skies in one stroke. There is a very slow process of growth inwardly, like the maturing of a large tree, stage by stage. And, every stage is supposed to be an occasion for a novel experience every time new experiences present themselves, inasmuch as every experience is one of communion. It is very important to remember that yoga is not a process of thinking through the mind, understanding through the intellect, or ratiocinating. Yoga is communion. This is the main feature of yoga which can miss ones attention, and one can be under the complacent mood that there is a progress gradually taking place while one is merely thinking as one thinks of a cow, or a tree an object which is totally outside oneself.
  Every progress is a progress in communion. It is not a progress merely in thought and clarity of understanding which are all very great things, no doubt, in the world, but they are nothing before yoga. We are not here for intensifying our analytic understanding or logical deductive knowledge of things, or for any kind of worldly genius. All that we regard as great in this world becomes nothing before this master technique of yoga, which is the precise reason why some cannot grasp even the first stage of yoga properly, because the very first step itself is a complete turning upside-down of the way of thinking. It is not continuing our present way of thinking that is called yoga. It is a complete transformation, a right-about turn of the entire attitude. This has to be grasped at the very outset. We are not becoming better and better human beings in yoga; we are becoming transformed and transfigured into a newer quality of being. It is not that the human nature continues, the human valuation continues and the human assessment of things continues nothing of the kind. There is a transfiguration of the human character altogether into a newer type of perception and experience. This is what is effected by communion.

1.09 - Concentration - Its Spiritual Uses, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  Again, in the very same meditation, when one struggles to take the elements out of time and space, and think of them as they are, it is called Nirvitarka, without question. When the meditation goes a step higher, and takes the Tanmatras as its object, and thinks of them as in time and space, it is called Savichra, with discrimination; and when in the same meditation one eliminates time and space, and thinks of the fine elements as they are, it is called Nirvichra, without discrimination. The next step is when the elements are given up, both gross and fine, and the object of meditation is the interior organ, the thinking organ. When the thinking organ is thought of as bereft of the qualities of activity and dullness, it is then called Snanda, the blissful Samadhi. When the mind itself is the object of meditation, when meditation becomes very ripe and concentrated, when all ideas of the gross and fine materials are given up, when the Sattva state only of the Ego remains, but differentiated from all other objects, it is called Ssmita Samadhi. The man who has attained to this has attained to what is called in the Vedas "bereft of body". He can think of himself as without his gross body; but he will have to think of himself as with a fine body. Those that in this state get merged in nature without attaining the goal are called Prakritilayas, but those who do not stop even there reach the goal, which is freedom.
  18. There is another Samadhi which is attained by the constant practice of cessation of all mental activity, in which the Chitta retains only the unmanifested impressions.

1.09 - Taras Ultimate Nature, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
  For example, when we say Seattle, our mind that grasps at true existence thinks of a xed thing. To us, Seattle appears to be one solid unchanging thing. But what we label Seattle changes from day to day. The buildings
  change from one day to the next. Today a building is standing; a week later

1.1.02 - Sachchidananda, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  "I" to dispose the stress, - it can do that of itself; wherever the stress is put the "I" attaches itself to that, so that one thinks of oneself as a mental being or physical being or whatever it may be. The consciousness in me can be utterly free of any sense of an individual "I" and yet dispose its stress in this way or the other way - it may go down into the physical and work there in the physical nature keeping all the rest behind or above for the time or it may go up into the overhead level and stand above mind, life and body seeing them as instrumental lower forms of itself; or it may not see them at all but rather immerge
  Letters on Yoga - I

1.107 - The Bestowal of a Divine Gift, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  We have many things in front of us. The mind thinks of many objects; that is vishayakara-vritti. But in the brahmakara-vritti, there is only one object in front of the mind, and that is the Cosmic Being. It has no other vritti. There is a total awakening of the mind into the content of the whole universe, and the total universe becomes its object. There is no multitude or variety of content in the vritti. It is a single universal content. When the mind assumes that form, it is called the brahmakara-vritti. Such sort of experience is perhaps comparable with what the sutra calls dharma-megha samadhi.

1.13 - THE MASTER AND M., #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Brahman and akti are not different "The Jnni seeks to realize Brahman. But the ideal of the bhakta is the Personal God-a God endowed with omnipotence and with the six treasures. Yet Brahman and akti are, in fact, not different. That which is the Blissful Mother is, again, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. They are like the gem and its lustre. When one speaks of the lustre of the gem, one thinks of the gem; and again, when one speaks of the gem, one refers to its lustre. One cannot conceive of the lustre of the gem without thinking of the gem, and one cannot conceive of the gem without thinking of its lustre.
  "Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute is one, and one only. But It is associated with different limiting adjuncts on account of the different degrees of Its manifestation. That is why one finds various forms of God. The devotee sings, 'O my Divine Mother, Thou art all these!' Wherever you see actions, like creation, preservation, and dissolution, there is the manifestation of akti. Water is water whether it is calm or full of waves and bubbles. The Absolute alone is the Primordial Energy, which creates, preserves, and destroys. Thus it is the same 'Captain', whether he remains inactive or performs his worship or pays a visit to the Governor General. Only we designate him by different names at different times."
  --
  MASTER (sharply): "Why shouldn't I go to see Keshab? You feel at ease when you go to the Governor General's house, and for money at that. Keshab thinks of God and chants His name. Isn't it you who are always saying that God Himself has become the universe and all its living beings? Doesn't God dwell in Keshab also?"
  With these words the Master left the room abruptly and went to the northeast verandah.
  --
  "Believe in the form of God. It is only after attaining Brahmajnana that one sees non-duality, the oneness of Brahman and Its akti. Brahman and akti are identical, like fire and its power to burn. When a man thinks of fire, he must also think of its power to burn. Again, when he thinks of the power to burn, he must also think of fire. Further, Brahman and akti are like milk and its whiteness, water and its wetness.
  Vijnna or Transcendental Knowledge

1.15 - LAST VISIT TO KESHAB, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER: "He who has surrendered his body, mind, and innermost self to God is surely a holy man. He who has renounced 'woman and gold' is surely a holy man. He is a holy man who does not regard woman with the eyes of a worldly person. He never forgets to look upon a woman as his mother, and to offer her his worship if he happens to be near her. The holy man constantly thinks of God and does not indulge in any talk except about spiritual things. Furthermore, he serves all beings, knowing that God resides in everybody's heart. These, in general, are the signs of a holy man."
  NEIGHBOUR: "Must one always live in solitude?"
  --
  "By turning the mind within oneself one acquires discrimination, and through discrimination one thinks of Truth. Then the mind feels the desire to go for a walk to Kli, the Wish-fulfilling Tree. Reaching that Tree, that is to say, going near to God, you can without any effort gather four fruits, namely, dharma, artha, kama, and moksha.
  Yes, after realizing God, one can also get, if one so desires, dharma, artha, and kama, which are necessary for leading the worldly life."
  --
  MASTER: "As long as one has not realized God, one should renounce the world, following the process of 'Neti, neti.' But he who has attained God knows that it is God who has become all this. Then he sees that God, maya, living beings, and the universe form one whole. God includes the universe and its living beings. Suppose you have separated the shell, flesh, and seeds of a bel-fruit and someone asks you the weight of the fruit. Will you leave aside the shell and the seeds, and weigh only the flesh? Not at all. To know the real weight of the fruit, you must weigh the whole of it-the shell, the flesh, and the seeds. Only then can you tell its real weight. The shell may be likened to the universe, and the seeds to living beings. While one is engaged in discrimination one says to oneself that the universe and the living beings are non-Self and unsubstantial. At that time one thinks of the flesh alone as the substance, and the shell and seeds as unsubstantial. But after discrimination is over, one feels that all three parts of the fruit together form a unity. Then one further realizes that the stuff that has produced the flesh of the fruit has also produced the shell and seeds. To know the real nature of the bel-fruit one must know all three.
  "It is the process of evolution and involution. The world, after its dissolution, remains involved in God; and God, at the time of creation, evolves as the world. Butter goes with buttermilk, and buttermilk goes with butter. If there is a thing called buttermilk, then butter also exists; and if there is a thing called butter, then buttermilk also exists.

1.17 - On poverty (that hastens heavenwards)., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
  3. The poor ascetic is a son of detachment and thinks of what he has as if it were nothing. When he becomes a solitary, he regards everything as refuse. But if he worries about something, he has not yet become poor.
  4. A poor man is pure during prayer, but an acquisitive man prays to material images.

1.19 - THE MASTER AND HIS INJURED ARM, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "The grain-dealer stores rice in huge bags in his warehouse. Near them he puts some puffed rice in a tray. This is to keep the rats away. The puffed rice tastes sweet to the rats and they nibble at it all night; they do not seek the rice itself. But just think! One seer of rice yields fourteen seers of puffed rice. How infinitely superior is the joy of God to the pleasure of 'woman and gold'! To one who thinks of the beauty of God, the beauty of even Rambha and Tilottama appears as but the ashes of a funeral pyre."
  DEVOTEE: "Why do we not feel intense restlessness to realize Him?"

1.2.03 - The Interpretation of Scripture, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The heterodox on the other hand swear by Max Muller and the Europeans. It is enough for them that Max Muller should have found henotheism in the Vedas for the Vedas to be henotheistic. The Europeans have seen in our Veda only the rude chants of an antique and primitive pastoral race sung in honour of the forces of Nature, and for many their opinion is conclusive of the significance of the mantras. All other interpretation is to them superstitious. But to me the ingenious guesses of foreign grammarians are of no more authority than the ingenious guesses of Sayana. It is irrelevant to me what Max Muller thinks of the
  Veda or what Sayana thinks of the Veda. I should prefer to know what the Veda has to say for itself and, if there is any light there on the unknown or on the infinite, to follow the ray till I come face to face with that which it illumines.
  There are those who follow neither Sayana and Shankara nor the Europeans, but interpret Veda and Vedanta for themselves, yet permit themselves to be the slaves of another kind of irrelevancy. They come to the Veda with a preconceived and established opinion and seek in it a support for some trifling polemic; they degrade it to the position of a backer in an intellectual prizefight. Opinions are not knowledge, they are only sidelights on knowledge. Most often they are illegitimate extensions of an imperfect knowledge. A man has perhaps travelled to England and seen Cumberl and and the lakes; he comes back and imagines England ever after as a country full of verdant mountains, faery woodlands, peaceful and enchanted waters.

12.05 - Beauty, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  There is a certain state of Yogic consciousness in which all things become beautiful to the eye of the seer, simply because they spiritually are - because they are a rendering in line and form of the quality and force of existence, of the consciousness, of the Ananda that rules the worlds, - of the hidden Divine. What a thing is to the exterior sense may not be, often is not beautiful for the ordinary aesthetic vision, but the Yogin sees in it the something More which the external does not see, he sees the soul behind, the self and spirit, he sees to the lines, hues, harmonies and expressive dispositions which are not to the first surface sight visible or something that is in himself, transmutes it by adding out of his own being to it - as the artist too does something of the same kind but in another way. It is not quite that however, - what the Yogin sees, what the artist sees, is there - his is a transmuting vision because it is a revealing vision; he discovers behind what the object appears to be the something More that it is. And so from this point of view of a realised supreme harmony all is or can be subject-matter for the artist because in all he can discover and reveal the Beauty that is everywhere. Again we land ourselves in a devastating catholicity; for here too one cannot pull up short at any given line. It may be a hard saying that one must or may discover and reveal beauty in a pig or its poke or in a parish pump or an advertisement of somebody's pills, and yet something like that seems to be what modern Art and literature are trying with vigour and a conscientious labour to do. By extension one ought to be able to extract beauty equally well out of morality or social reform or a political caucus or allow at least that all these things can, if he wills, become legitimate subjects for the artist. Here too one cannot say that it is on condition he thinks of beauty only and does not make moralising or social reform or a political idea his main object. For if with that idea foremost in his mind he still produces a great work of art, discovering Beauty as he moves to his aim, proving himself in spite of his unaesthetic preoccupations a great artist, it is all we can justly ask from him - whatever his starting point - to be a creator of Beauty. Art is discovery and revelation of Beauty and we can say nothing more by way of prohibition or limiting rule.
    But there is one thing more that can be said, and it makes a big difference. In the Yogin's vision of universal beauty all becomes beautiful, but all is not reduced to a single level. There are gradations, there is a hierarchy in this All-Beauty and we see that it depends on the ascending power (vibhuti) of consciousness and Ananda that expresses itself in the object. All is the Divine, but some things are more divine than others. In the artist's vision too there are or can be gradations, a hierarchy of values.

1.20 - RULES FOR HOUSEHOLDERS AND MONKS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "It is God Himself who has become the physicians. Therefore one must believe all of them. But one cannot have faith in them if one thinks of them as mere men.
  "Sambhu was fearfully delirious. Dr. Sarvadhikari said that the delirium was due to the strong medicine. Haladhri asked the doctor to feel his pulse. The doctor said: 'Let me see your eyes. Oh, it is an enlargement of the spleen!' Haladhri said he had nothing of the sort. But Dr. Madhu gives good medicine."

1.22 - ADVICE TO AN ACTOR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  ACTOR: "Revered sir, what you have just said about enjoyment is very true. One ultimately courts disaster if one prays to God for enjoyment. Various desires come to the mind and by no means all of them are good. God is the Kalpataru, the Wish-fulfilling Tree. A man gets whatever he asks of God. Suppose it comes to his mind: 'God is the Kalpataru. Well, let me see if a tiger will appear before me.' Because he thinks of the tiger, it really appears and devours him."
  MASTER: "Yes, you must remember that the tiger comes. What more shall I tell you?

1.23 - FESTIVAL AT SURENDRAS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "May I ask you one thing? Does a man watching magic really feel compassion when he sees suffering in the performance? Does he feel, at that time, any sense of responsibility? One thinks of compassion only when one feels responsibility. Isn't that so?"
  How a Jnni looks on the illusory world

1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Speaking of Heaven one thinks of it as above or below, within or without, since one is accustomed to relative knowledge. One seeks only objective knowledge and hence these ideas.
  Really speaking there is neither up nor down, neither in nor out.
  --
  Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi picture. Imagine the actor in the picture asking if he could enact a scene without the screen. Such is the case of the man who thinks of his acting apart from the Self.
  D.: It is like asking the spectator to act in the cinema picture.
  --
  M.: The sastras say: By karma, bhakti and so on. My attendant asked the same question once before. He was told, By karma dedicated to God. It is not enough that one thinks of God while doing the karma, but one must continually and unceasingly think of Him. Then alone will the mind become pure.
  The attendant applies it to himself and says, It is not enough that I serve

1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Speaking of Heaven one thinks of it as above or below, within or without, since one is accustomed to relative knowledge. One seeks only objective knowledge and hence these ideas.
  Really speaking there is neither up nor down, neither in nor out.
  --
  Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi picture. Imagine the actor in the picture asking if he could enact a scene without the screen. Such is the case of the man who thinks of his acting apart from the Self.
  D.: It is like asking the spectator to act in the cinema picture.
  --
  M.: The sastras say: "By karma, bhakti and so on". My attendant asked the same question once before. He was told, "By karma dedicated to God". It is not enough that one thinks of God while doing the karma, but one must continually and unceasingly think of Him. Then alone will the mind become pure.
  The attendant applies it to himself and says, "It is not enough that I serve

1.32 - Expounds these words of the Paternoster Fiat voluntas tua sicut in coelo et in terra. Describes how much is accomplished by those who repeat these words with full resolution and how well, #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
  back to Him. Ah, my God! How well Jesus knows us and how much He thinks of our good! He did
  not say we must surrender our wills to the Lord until we had been well paid for this small service.

14.01 - To Read Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   I said: "It is very near you; still you don't believe. If you see into yourself quietly, you will find that there are very many good things in you, not only bad things bits perhaps, shades or shadows perhaps, but you know this is a good thought in you, this is a noble impulse, a sweet feeling. Each one has all these things, you have only to recognise them. All this is the expression of the soul in you. The beautiful, the luminous, the noble things that appear to you, in your consciousness, from time to time, all come from your soul." Even the greatest villain has such moments. You remember Lady Macbeth known as the cruellest woman; well, she said about Duncan, "I would have killed him myself but he looked like my father"2 well, that is the feeling even she had. So let us not despair, even the weakest among us should not despair. First of all, each one has a soul, and secondly, we have the luminously strong sup port of the Mother. It is the nature of the Divine that even if you don't think of Him He thinks of you. It is true, very true; because you are part of the Divine. Only you have to concentrate consciously on that part, that portion; then gradually it will increase.
   Question: What is the distinction you make between "to know about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother," and "to know of them"?

1.66 - The External Soul in Folk-Tales, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  internal arrangements to external relations," the savage thinks of
  it as a concrete material thing of a definite bulk, capable of being

19.22 - Of Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   One who thinks of abandoning a thing not to be abandoned, but finds in a thing to be abandoned a thing not to be abandoned possesses a false vision and comes to an evil end.
   [14]

1951-04-02 - Causes of accidents - Little entities, helpful or mischievous- incidents, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   If one answers deeply Outwardly there are many causes, but there is a deeper cause which is always there. I said the other day that if the nervous envelope is intact, accidents can be avoided, and even if there is an accident it wont have any consequences. As soon as there is a scratch or a defect in the nervous envelope of the being and according to the nature of this scratch, if one may say so, its place, its character, there will be an accident which will correspond to the diminution of resistance in the envelope. I believe almost everybody is psychologically aware of one thing: that accidents occur when one has a sort of uncomfortable feeling, when one is not fully conscious and self-possessed, when one feels uneasy. In any case, generally, people have a feeling that they are not fully themselves, not fully aware of what they are doing. If one were fully conscious, the consciousness wide awake, accidents would not occur; one would make just the right gesture, the necessary movement to avoid the accident. Hence, in an almost absolute way, it is a flagging of consciousness. Or quite possibly it may be that the consciousness is fixed in a higher domain; for example, not to speak of spiritual things, a man who is busy solving a mental problem and is very concentrated upon his mental problem, becomes inattentive to physical things, and if he happens to be in a street or in a crowd, his attention fixed upon his problem, he will not make the movement necessary to avoid the accident, and the accident will occur. It is the same for sports, for games; you can observe this easily, there is always a flagging of the consciousness when accidents occur, or a lack of attention, a little absent-mindedness; suddenly one thinks of something else, the attention is drawn elsewhereone is not fully conscious of what one is doing and the accident happens.
   As I was telling you at the beginning, if for some reason or other for example, lack of sleep, lack of rest or an absorbing preoccupation or all sorts of things which tire you, that is to say, when you are not above themif the vital envelope is a little damaged, it does not function perfectly and any current of force whatever which passes through is enough to produce an accident. In the final analysis, the accident comes always from that, it is what one may call inattentiveness or a slackening of consciousness. There are days when one feels quite not exactly uneasy, but as though one were trying to catch something which escapes, one cant hold together, one is as though half-diluted; these are the days of accidents. You must be attentive. Naturally, this is not to tell you to shut yourself up in your room and not to stir out when you feel like that! This is not what I mean. Rather I mean that you must watch all the more attentively, be all the more on your guard, not allow, precisely, this inattentiveness, this slackening of consciousness to come in.

1951-05-05 - Needs and desires - Discernment - sincerity and true perception - Mantra and its effects - Object in action- to serve - relying only on the Divine, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   One cannot make general rules. This depends on the spirit in which you make your purchases. It is said that you should have no desiresif this is not a desire, it is all right. You understand, there is no movement, no action which in itself is good or bad; it depends absolutely on the spirit in which it is done. If, for instance, you are in a state of total indifference about what you have and what you do not (it is a condition a little difficult to realise, but after all, one can attain ita state of detachment: If I have it, I have it; if I dont, I dont), there comes a moment when, if your state is quite sincere and you really need something (it must not be a fancy or a desire or a caprice but a true need), automatically the thing comes to you. Since I have been here it is a long time, isnt it?I have known people who have never asked me for anything; I dont even think (naturally there are always weaknesses in human nature), but I dont even think they have had a violent desire for anything at all, but when it was a need, automatically it came to them. Suddenly the idea would come to me, Ah! This must be given to so-and-so, and if it was not directly through me, in some way, quite unexpectedly, the thing came to them. On the other hand, if one is preoccupied with ones needs (I dont want even to speak of desires, for that is quite another thing), but if one is preoccupied with ones needs, if one thinks of them, tells oneself, Truly I must have this, it is not often that it comes to you; so you are obliged to do something to satisfy yourself and, if you have the means, to go and buy the thing. Now there are people who always take their desires for their needs, that we do not speak of these, they form the great majority. They are convinced that without this or that one cannot live: It is impossible, one cant live without that. I shall fall ill or something very unpleasant will happen to me or I shall not be able to do my work. It is impossible, if I dont have this I cant do my work. So, the first step for these people is to try a small experiment (if they are sincere): Well, I wont have this thing and we are going to see what happens. This is a very interesting experiment. And I can guarantee that 999 times out of a thousand, after a few days one asks oneself, But why the devil did I think I had such a great need of this thing, I can do without it very well! There you are. And like this, little by little, one makes progress.
   It is a question of trainingeducating oneself. The sooner one begins, the easier it is. When one begins very young, it becomes very easy, for one gets accustomed to ones inner reactions and so can act with wisdom and discernmentwhereas for those who are accustomed from their childhood to take all their desires for needs or necessities, and have flung themselves into them with passionate zeal, the road is much more difficult, because first they must acquire discernment and distinguish a desire from what it is not; and sometimes this is very difficult, it is so mixed up that it can hardly be perceived.

1953-08-12, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But it is just that, what hinders the experience is the absence of the practice of concentration, and also the absence of one- pointedness, singleness of purpose, of will. One wants it for a minute, two minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, an hour, and afterwards, one wants many other things. One thinks about it for a few seconds, and after that thinks of a thousand other things. So naturally in this way you could take an eternity. For indeed, in this you cannot add up; if it could be accumulated like grains of sand, if with every thought you give to the Divine you place a little grain of sand somewhere, after a time this would make a mountain. But it is not like that, it does not remain. It has no result. It does not accumulate, you cannot go on adding, cannot progress quantitativelyyou can progress in intensity, progress qualitatively. Yes, you can learn within yourself how to do it; but what you have done counts only in this way. It does not get accumulated like grains of sand on a dune. Else it would be enough to become quite clever and tell yourself: Well, I shall give at least a dozen thoughts to the Divine every day. And then, by little bits like that, after some time one has a little hill.
   Well, my children, it will soon be ten oclock. But if someone has a very interesting question You? Ask.

1953-10-07, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   As long as it is the mind that thinks, your physical is something thats three-fourths inert and without its own consciousness. There is a physical consciousness proper, a consciousness of the body; the body is conscious of itself, and it has its own aspiration. So long as one thinks of ones body, one is not in ones physical consciousness. The body has a consciousness thats quite personal to it and altogether independent of the mind. The body is completely aware of its own functioning or its own equilibrium or disequilibrium, and it becomes absolutely conscious, in quite a precise way, if there is a disorder somewhere or other, and (how shall I put it?) it is in contact with that and feels it very clearly, even if there are no external symptoms. The body is aware if the whole working is harmonious, well balanced, quite regular, functioning as it should; it has that kind of plenitude, a sense of plenitude, of joy and strength something like the joy of living, acting, moving in an equilibrium full of life and energy. Or else the body can be aware that it is ill-treated by the vital and the mind and that this harms its own equilibrium, and it suffers from this. That may produce a complete disequilibrium in it. And so on.
   One can develop ones physical consciousness so well that even if one is fully exteriorised, even if the vital goes completely out of the body, the body has a personal, independent consciousness which enables it to move, to do all kinds of very simple things without the vitals being there, quite independently. The body can learn how to speak: the mind and the vital may be outside it, very far away, busy elsewhere, but due to the link joining them with matter, they can still find expression through a body wherein there is no mind or vital, and which yet can learn to speak and repeat what the others say. The body can move; I dont mean that it can exert much, but it can move. It can do small, very simple things. It can write, for instance, learn how to write as it can learn to speak. It does speak: a little (how to put it?) slowly, with a little difficulty, but still it can speak clearly (sufficiently clearly) for one to understand. And yet the mind and vital may have gone out altogether, may be completely outside. There is a body-consciousness.

1953-11-25, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   How can he call? The two things are contradictory. If he has no trust, he wont even think of the Divine! He wont think of calling. It is contradictory. He thinks of calling exactly in proportion to his trust. So?
   You have said here: To smile at an enemy is to disarm him.2 Smile means what? One ought not to smile at an enemy!

1954-06-02 - Learning how to live - Work, studies and sadhana - Waste of the Energy and Consciousness, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Who thinks that all this Force that is here, that is infinitely greater, infinitely more precious than all money-forces, this Force which is here and is given consciously, constantly, with an endless perseverance and patience, only for one sole purpose, that of realising the divine workwho thinks of not wasting it? Who realises that it is a sacred duty to make progress, to prepare oneself to understand better and live better? For people live by the divine Energy, they live by the divine Consciousness, and use them for their personal, selfish ends.
  You are shocked when a few thousand rupees are wasted but not shocked when there are when streams of Consciousness and Energy are diverted from their true purpose!

1954-07-21 - Mistakes - Success - Asuras - Mental arrogance - Difficulty turned into opportunity - Mothers use of flowers - Conversion of men governed by adverse forces, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  There are people who see clearly, who know so well what they ought to do, and who feel that they cant They dont know why. It is nothing else but that. There is a little spot which doesnt want to change and this little spot awaits its hour. And the day it is allowed, through laxity, fatigue, somnolence, through a little inertia, allowed to show itself, it will show itself with all concentrated, accumulated energy, and will make you do, will make you say, make you feel, make you act ex-act-ly contrary to what you had decided to do! And you will stand there: Ah, how discouraging this is! Then some people say, Fate! They think it is their fate. It is not fate, it is themselves! It is that they dont have, havent used, the light, the searchlight. They have not turned the searchlight into the small hidden corners of their being, they havent discovered what was well hidden. They have left it there, and then have done this (Mother turns away her head) so as not to see it. How many times one suddenly feels one is on the point of catching something, Hup! It hurts a little It is troublesome So one thinks of something else, and thats all! The opportunity has gone. One must wait for another occasion, again commit a few stupidities, before being able to find an opportunity to catch the thing by the tail, like this, or by the ear or the nose, and hold it firmly and say, No! You wont hide any longer now, I see you as you are, and you must either get out or change!
  One must have a strong grip and an unshakable resolution. As in our Japanese story of the other day, that soldier who had a knife in his knee in order to make sure of not falling asleep and when he felt very sleepy, he turned the knife in such a way that it hurt him still more. One must have something like that. This, this is determination: to know what one wants and to do it. There we are!

1954-07-28 - Money - Ego and individuality - The shadow, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  (After a silence) You see, when one thinks of money, one thinks of bank-notes or coins or some kind of wealth, some precious things. But this is only the physical expression of a force which may be handled by the vital and which, when possessed and controlled, almost automatically brings along these more material expressions of money. And that is a kind of power. (Silence) It is a power of attracting certain very material vibrations, which has a capacity for utilisation that increases its strengthwhich is like the action of physical exercise, you seeit increases its strength through utilisation.
  For example, if you have a control over this forceit is a force which, in the vital world, has a colour varying between red, a dark, extremely strong red and a deep gold thats neither bright nor very pale. Well, this forcewhen it is made to move, to circulate, its strength increases. It is not something one can accumulate and keep without using. It is a force which must always be circulated. For example, people who are misers and accumulate all the money, all the wealth they can attract towards themselves, put this force aside without using its power of movement; and either it escapes or it lies benumbed and loses its strength.

1954-08-11 - Division and creation - The gods and human formations - People carry their desires around them, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Naturally, there are people who cant even think clearly. So they form nothing at all except faint eddies. But people who think clearly are surrounded by a heap of little forms which, sometimes, go out to do some work in others; and when one thinks of them again, they return.
  And we have instances of people who are troubled by their own formations, which return constantly as though to take possession of them, and which they cant get rid of because they dont know how to undo the formations they have made. There are more cases of this kind than one would think. When they have made a particularly strong formation for themselves, you see, relativelythis formation is always tied up with the one who makes it and return to knock at the brain to receive forces and ends up by truly acting as a necessity. It is a whole world to know; one truly lives in ignorance, one has powers one doesnt know about, so naturally one uses them very badly. One uses them somewhat unconsciously and very badly.
  --
  But, you see, in a smaller measure and less perfectly one is making formations all the time. When, for instance, one thinks of somebody quite powerfully, there is a small emanation of mental substance which, instantaneously, goes to this person, you understand, a vibration of your thought which goes and touches his; and if he is receptive, he sees you. He sees you and tells you, You came last night to see me! Thats because you made a small formation and this formation went and did its work, which was to put you into contact with this person or else to carry a message if you had something special to tell him; and that was done. This happen constantly, but as it is quite a constant and spontaneous phenomenon and done in ignorance, one is not even aware that one does this, one does it automatically.
  People who have desires add to the mental formation a kind of small envelope, a vital shell which gives it a still greater reality. These people are usually surrounded by a number of tiny entities which are their own formations, their own mental formations clothed with vital force, which come all the time to strike them to try to make them realise materially the formations they have made.

1954-08-25 - Ananda aspect of the Mother - Changing conditions in the Ashram - Ascetic discipline - Mothers body, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  So, at times, she thinks of withdrawing, finding that the world is not ready to receive her. And this would be a cruel loss. It is true that for the moment her presence is more nominal than active, for she does not have the opportunity to manifest herself. But even so, she is a powerful help in the Work. For, of all the aspects of the Mother, this is the one which has the greatest power for the transformations of the body. Indeed, the cells which are able to vibrate to the contact of divine joy, to receive and preserve it, are regenerated cells on the way to becoming immortal. But the vibration of divine joy and those of pleasure cannot lodge together in the same vital and physical system. So one must have totally renounced experiencing all pleasure in order to be in a state to receive the Ananda But very few are those who can renounce pleasure without, by the very fact, renouncing all participation in active life and plunging into a rigorous asceticism. And among those who know that it is in active life that the transformation must take place, some try to see pleasure as a more or less warped form of Ananda, and thus justify in themselves the quest for personal satisfaction, creating in themselves an almost insuperable obstacle to their own transformation.
  Shall we stop here? We shall finish next time. That will give me time to find out.
  --
  I have not said that she has gone away. I said that she thinks of going away, sometimes, from time to time.
  But, Mother, she came down because she must have seen some possibility!
  --
  Oh, but you see, from the occult point of view, it is a selection! From the external point of view you may tell me that there are people in the world who are much superior to you, I wont contradict you. But from the occult point of view it is a selection. There are here one can say without being mistaken that most of the young people who are here have come because they have been promised that they will be here at the time of the Realisation. They do not remember this. (Mother laughs.) I have already said quite often that when one comes down upon earth he falls headlong and this stuns him. (Laughter) Its a pity. But still, one can get out of this stupefaction, cant he? What is necessary is to enter into oneself, find the immortal consciousness within, and then one becomes very keenly aware, one can remember very clearly the circumstances in which he aspired to be here when the Work is accomplished. But after all, to tell the truth, I think you have such an easy life that you dont take much trouble! Are there many among you who really feel an intense need to find your psychic being, to know what you really are, what you have to do, why you are here? One just goes on living or even complains when things are not too easy. And then one takes like that things as they come, and sometimes, if some aspiration arises and one meets a difficulty in oneself, one says, Oh, Mother is there, she will manage this for me, and then thinks of something else!
  But Mother, formerly you were very strict in the Ashram; now you are not, why?

1955-02-23 - On the sense of taste, educating the senses - Fasting produces a state of receptivity, drawing energy - The body and food, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Of course there are people who prepare food for themselves and for others, and who are obliged to think about it, but just a very little. One can prepare food while thinking about more interesting things. But in any case, the less one thinks about it the better; and when one is not concerned with it, either mentally or vitally, the body becomes a very good indicator. When it is hungry it will tell you, when it needs to take in something, it will tell you; when it has finished, when it doesn't need any more, it will tell you; and when it doesn't need food, it doesn't think about it, it thinks of something else. It is only the head which creates all the trouble. In fact it is always the head which creates the trouble, because one doesn't know how to use it. If one knew how to use it, it could also create harmony. But it is something very strange that people always use their imagination for something bad, and it is very very rarely that they use their imagination for the good. Instead of thinking of happy things which would help to keep them in balance and harmony, they always think of all the possible catastrophes, and so naturally they disturb the balance of their being, and into the bargain, if they are unfortunate enough to be afraid, they attract the catastrophes they fear.
  There we are. That's all? No questions?

1955-06-29 - The true vital and true physical - Time and Space - The psychics memory of former lives - The psychic organises ones life - The psychics knowledge and direction, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Yes, but only that part of the thought, not your body. Thats just what I said. In the mental domain it is like that; if one concentrates on the Divine and thinks of the Divine, the part I dont say the whole thought, because thought is multiple and divided, but the part which is sincerely concentrated on the Divine is with Him. It does some good but not very much when this part is mixed with all the others which think of hundreds of different things at the same time, or when it goes down into the body, is all tied up precisely to that frightful slowness of material things, and when we have to take so many steps only to go from here to the door.
  In the vital with a leap one can be there; mentally there is no need even of a leap.

1955-07-06 - The psychic and the central being or jivatman - Unity and multiplicity in the Divine - Having experiences and the ego - Mental, vital and physical exteriorisation - Imagination has a formative power - The function of the imagination, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Mother, the other day you said that when one thinks of someone or something, one part of this thought goes there at once.
  Yes.
  --
  If one thinks of someone who doesnt exist or who is dead?
  Ah! What do you mean? What have you just said? Someone who doesnt exist or someone who is dead? These are two absolutely different things.

1956-03-21 - Identify with the Divine - The Divine, the most important thing in life, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  But of course, if in ones life one thinks of Him for five minutes and is busy with other things for three-quarters of an hour, there is not much chance of success. Anyway, it will take many lifetimes.
  It must not be a pastime. It must be the exclusive preoccupation of ones being, the very reason of ones existence.

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
  It is very difficult for a virtuous man to enter the path of God; this has been said very often, but it is altogether true, for he is most self-satisfied, he thinks he has realised what he ought to have realised, he no longer has either the aspiration or even that elementary humility which makes one want to progress. You see, one who is known here as a sattwic man1 is usually very comfortably settled in his own virtue and never thinks of coming out of it. So, that puts you a million leagues away from the divine realisation.
  What really helps, until one has found the inner light, is to make for oneself a certain number of rules which naturally should not be too rigid and fixed, but yet should be precise enough to prevent one from going completely out of the right path or making irreparable mistakesmistakes the consequences of which one suffers all ones life.

1957-01-16 - Seeking something without knowing it - Why are we here?, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Well, to find out what one truly is, to find out why one is on earth, what is the purpose of physical existence, of this presence on earth, of this formation, this existence the vast majority of people live without asking themselves this even once! Only a small lite ask themselves this question with interest, and fewer still start working to get the answer. For, unless one is fortunate enough to come across someone who knows it, it is not such an easy thing to find. Suppose, for instance, that there had never come to your hands a book of Sri Aurobindos or of any of the writers or philosophers or sages who have dedicated their lives to this quest; if you were in the ordinary world, as millions of people are in the ordinary world, who have never heard of anything, except at timesand not always nowadays, even quite rarelyof some gods and a certain form of religion which is more a habit than a faith and, which, besides, rarely tells you why you are on earth. Then, one doesnt even think of thinking about it. One lives from day to day the events of each day. When one is very young, one thinks of playing, eating, and a little later of learning, and after that one thinks of all the circumstances of life. But to put this problem to oneself, to confront this problem and ask oneself: But after all, why am I here? How many do that? There are people to whom this idea comes only when they are facing a catastrophe. When they see someone whom they love die or when they find themselves in particularly painful and difficult circumstances, they turn back upon themselves, if they are sufficiently intelligent, and ask themselves: But really, what is this tragedy we are living, and whats the use of it and what is its purpose?
  And only at that moment does one begin the search to know.

1958-04-09 - The eyes of the soul - Perceiving the soul, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  And if the contact has been conscious and complete enough, it liberates you from the bondage of outer form; you no longer feel that you live only because you have a body. That is usually the ordinary sensation of the being, to be so tied to this outer form that when one thinks of myself one thinks of the body. That is the usual thing. The personal reality is the bodys reality. It is only when one has made an effort for inner development and tried to find something that is a little more stable in ones being, that one can begin to feel that this something which is permanently conscious throughout all ages and all change, this something must be myself. But that already requires a study that is rather deep. Otherwise if you think I am going to do this, I need that, it is always your body, a small kind of will which is a mixture of sensations, of more or less confused sentimental reactions, and still more confused thoughts which form a mixture and are animated by an impulse, an attraction, a desire, some sort of a will; and all that momentarily becomes myself but not directly, for one does not conceive this myself as independent of the head, the trunk, the arms and legs and all that movesit is very closely linked.
  It is only after having thought much, seen much, studied much, observed much that you begin to realise that the one is more or less independent of the other and that the will behind can make it either act or not act, and you begin not to be completely identified with the movement, the action, the realisation that something is floating. But you have to observe much to see that.

1f.lovecraft - The Man of Stone, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   ever thinks of going there in winter. Ill do some wood-cutting to
   account for my time away. A small load or two brought in will keep him

1.lb - Crows Calling At Night, #Li Bai - Poems, #Li Bai, #Poetry
  She stops the shuttle, sorrowful, and thinks of the distant man.
  She stays alone in the lonely room, her tears just like the rain.

1.pbs - Song. To [Harriet], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  And he thinks of the friend to his bosom so dear.--
  And thou dearest friend in his bosom for ever

1.rb - In A Gondola, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  As if the Tizian thinks of her,
  And is not, rather, gravely bent

1.rb - Paracelsus - Part III - Paracelsus, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  So, Michalyou have said she thinks of me?
  Festus.

1.sv - Song of the Sanyasin, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   Wake up the note! the song that had its birth Far off, where worldly taint could never reach, In mountain caves and glades of forest deep, Whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame Could ever dare to break; where rolled the stream Of knowledge, truth, and bliss that follows both. Sing high that note, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Strike off thy fetters! Bonds that bind thee down, Of shining gold, or darker, baser ore; Love, hate -- good, bad -- and all the dual throng, Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free; For fetters, though of gold, are not less strong to bind; Then off with them, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Let darkness go; the will-o'-the-wisp that leads With blinking light to pile more gloom on gloom. This thirst for life, for ever quench; it drags From birth to death, and death to birth, the soul. He conquers all who conquers self. Know this And never yield, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" "Who sows must reap," they say, "and cause must bring The sure effect; good, good; bad, bad; and none Escape the law. But whoso wears a form Must wear the chain." Too true; but far beyond Both name and form is Atman, ever free. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om! " They know not truth who dream such vacant dreams As father, mother, children, wife, and friend. The sexless Self! whose father He? whose child? Whose friend, whose foe is He who is but One? The Self is all in all, none else exists; And thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" There is but One -- The Free -- The Knower -- Self! Without a name, without a form or stain. In Him is Maya dreaming all this dream. The witness, He appears as nature, soul. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world Nor that can give. In books and temples vain Thy search. Thine only is the hand that holds The rope that drags thee on. Then cease lament, Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Say, "Peace to all: From me no danger be To aught that lives. In those that dwell on high. In those that lowly creep, I am the Self in all! All life both here and there, do I renounce, All heavens and earths and hells, all hopes and fears." Thus cut thy bonds, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Heed then no more how body lives or goes, Its task is done. Let Karma float it down; Let one put garlands on, another kick This frame; say naught. No praise or blame can be Where praiser praised, and blamer blamed are one. Thus be thou calm, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Truth never comes where lust and fame and greed Of gain reside. No man who thinks of woman As his wife can ever perfect be; Nor he who owns the least of things, nor he Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro' Maya's gates. So, give these up, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Have thou no home. What home can hold thee, friend? The sky thy roof, the grass thy bed; and food What chance may bring, well cooked or ill, judge not. No food or drink can taint that noble Self Which knows Itself. Like rolling river free Thou ever be, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Few only know the truth. The rest will hate And laugh at thee, great one; but pay no heed. Go thou, the free, from place to place, and help Them out of darkness, Maya's veil. Without The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go Beyond them both, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Thus, day by day, till Karma's powers spent Release the soul for ever. No more is birth, Nor I, nor thou, nor God, nor man. The "I" Has All become, the All is "I" and Bliss. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" <
1.wby - He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The Constellations Of Heaven, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
  object:1.wby - He thinks of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The Constellations Of Heaven
  author class:William Butler Yeats

1.wby - He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
  object:1.wby - He thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved
  author class:William Butler Yeats

1.ww - The Farmer Of Tilsbury Vale, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
  He thinks of the fields he so often hath mown,
  And is happy as if the rich freight were his own.

2.01 - The Yoga and Its Objects, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Ananda - Christ's kingdom of heaven, our Satyayuga - upon the earth. Of moks.a we have no personal need; for the soul is nityamukta and bondage is an illusion. We play at being bound, we are not really bound. We can be free when God wills; for he, our supreme Self, is the master of the game, and without his grace and permission no soul can leave the game. It is often God's will in us to take through the mind the bhoga of ignorance, of the dualities, of joy and grief, of pleasure and pain, of virtue and sin, of enjoyment and renunciation: for long ages, in many countries, he never even thinks of the yoga but plays out this play century after century without wearying of it. There is nothing evil in this, nothing which we need condemn or from which we need shrink, - it is God's play. The wise man is he who recognises this truth and knowing his freedom, yet plays out God's play, waiting for his comm and to change the methods of the game.
  The comm and is now. God always keeps for himself a chosen country in which the higher knowledge is through all chances and dangers, by the few or the many, continually preserved, and for the present, in this Chaturyuga at least, that country is India.

2.03 - The Eternal and the Individual, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  He still individualises and it is still he who exists and embraces this wider consciousness while he individualises: but the mind no longer thinks of a limited temporary individualisation as all ourselves but only as a wave of becoming thrown up from the sea of its being or else as a form or centre of universality. The soul still makes the world-becoming the material for individual experience, but instead of regarding it as something outside and larger than itself on which it has to draw, by which it is affected, with which it has to make accommodations, it is aware of it subjectively as within itself; it embraces both its world-material and its individualised experience of spatial and temporal activities in a free and enlarged consciousness. In this new consciousness the spiritual individual perceives its true self to be one in being with the Transcendence and seated and dwelling within it, and no longer takes its constructed individuality as anything more than a formation for world-experience.
  Our unity with the world-being is the consciousness of a Self which at one and the same time cosmicises in the world and individualises through the individual Purusha, and both in that world-being and in this individual being and in all individual beings it is aware of the same Self manifesting and experiencing its various manifestations. That then is a Self which must be one in its being, - otherwise we could not have this experience of unity, - and yet must be capable in its very unity of cosmic differentiation and multiple individuality. The unity is its being,

2.03 - THE MASTER IN VARIOUS MOODS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER: "According to the Git, one becomes afterwards what one thinks of at the time of death. King Bharata thought of his deer and became a deer in his next life. Therefore one must practise sdhan in order to realize God. If a man thinks of God day and night, he will have the same thought in the hour of death."
  My hides Knowledge
  --
  MASTER (to M.): "What need of the sandhya has a man who thinks of God day and night?
  What need of rituals has a man, what need of devotions any more,
  --
  Sometimes, again, the lover of God says, 'I am Your dancing-girl.' He dances and sings before Him. He thinks of himself sometimes as the friend of God and sometimes as His handmaid. He looks on God sometimes as a child, as did Yaoda, and sometimes as husb and or sweetheart, as did the gopis.
  "Sometimes Balarama looked on Krishna as a friend; sometimes he would think he was Krishna's umbrella or carpet. He served Krishna in all possible ways."

2.04 - ADVICE TO ISHAN, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "Haripada has fallen into the clutches of a woman of the Ghoshpara sect. He can't get rid of her. He says that she takes him on her lap and feeds him. She claims that she looks on him as the Baby Krishna. I have warned him a great many times. She says that she thinks of him as a child. But this maternal affection soon degenerates into something dangerous.
  "You see, you should keep far away from woman; then you may realize God. It is extremely harmful to have much to do with women who have bad motives, or to eat food from their hands. They rob a man of his spirituality. Only by being extremely careful about woman can one preserve one's love of God. One day Bhavanth, Rkhl, and some other youngsters had cooked their own meal in the temple garden. They were sitting at their meal when a Baul arrived, sat down with them, and said he wanted to eat with them. I said that there was not enough food; if anything was left it would be kept for him. He became angry and left. On the Vijaya day a man allows anyone and everyone to feed him with his own hand. It is not good. But one can eat food from the hand of a devotee who is pure in heart.

2.04 - The Forms of Love-Manifestation, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  Think of Him, think of Him alone, and give up all other vain words (ANya vacae ivmu< cw). Those who talk of Him alone, the Bhakta finds to be friendly to him; while those who talk of anything else appear to him to be unfriendly. A still higher stage of love is reached when life itself is maintained for the sake of the one Ideal of Love, when life itself is considered beautiful and worth living only on account of that Love (tdwRa[s thinks of the Beloved. Tadiyata (td Iyta = His-ness) comes when a man becomes perfect according to Bhakti when he has become blessed, when he has attained God, when he has touched the feet of God, as it were. Then his whole nature is purified and completely changed. All his purpose in life then becomes fulfilled. Yet many such Bhaktas live on just to worship Him. That is the bliss, the only pleasure in life, which they will not give up. Oh king, such is the blessed quality of Hari that even those, who have become satisfied with everything, all the knots of whose hearts have been cut asunder, even they love the Lord for loves sake the Lord Whom all the gods worship, all the lovers of liberation, and all the knowers of the Brahman (Nri. Tap. Up.) Such is the power of love. When a man has forgotten himself altogether and does not feel that ahything belongs to him, then he acquires the state of Tadiyata; everything is sacred to him, because it belongs to the Beloved. Even in regard to earthly love, the lover thinks that everything belonging to his beloved is sacred and so dear to him. He loves even a piece of the cloth belonging to the darling of his heart. In the same way, when a person loves the Lord, the whole universe becomes dear to him, because it is all His.

2.05 - VISIT TO THE SINTHI BRAMO SAMAJ, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  VIJAY: "Ah! Priceless words! God Himself carries on His shoulders all the responsibilities of a person who thinks of Him with single-minded devotion and is mad with divine love.
  A minor gets his guardian without seeking him. Alas, when shall I have that state of mind? How lucky they are who feel that way!"
  --
  MASTER: "A man thinks of God, no doubt, but he has no faith in Him. Again and again he forgets God and becomes attached to the world. It is like giving the elephant a bath; afterwards he covers his body with mud and dirt again. 'The mind is a mad elephant.'
  But if you can make the elephant go into the stable immediately after bathing him, then he stays clean. Just so, if a man thinks of God in the hour of death, then his mind becomes pure and it gets no more opportunity to become attached to 'woman and gold'.
  "Man has no faith in God. That is the reason he suffers so much. They say that when you plunge into the holy waters of the Ganges your sins perch on a tree on the bank. No sooner do you come out of the water after the bath than the sins jump back on your shoulders. (All laugh.) A man must prepare the way beforehand, so that he may think of God in the hour of death. The way lies through constant practice. If a man practises meditation on God, he will remember God even on the last day of his life."

2.06 - The Higher Knowledge and the Higher Love are one to the true Lover, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  The Upanishads distinguish between a higher knowledge and a lower knowledge; and to the Bhakta there is really no dfference between this higher knowledge and his higher love (Par-Bhakti). The Mundaka Upanishad says: The knowers of Brahman declare that there are two kinds of knowledge worthy to be known. namely, the Higher (Par) and the Lower (Apar). Of these the Lower (knowledge) consists of the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Smaveda, the Atharvaveda, the Shiksh (or the science dealing with pronunciation and accent), the Kalpa (or the sacrificial liturgy), Grammar, the Nirukta (or the science dealing with etymology and the meaning of words), Prosody, and Astronomy; and the Higher (knowledge) is that by which that unchangeable is known. The higher knowledge is thus clearly shown to be the knowledge of Brahman: and the Devi-Bhgavata gives us the following definition of the higher love (Par-Bhakti):As oil poured from one vessel to another falls in an unbroken line, so, when the mind in an unbroken stream thinks of the Lord, we have what is called Para-Bhakti or supreme love. This kind of undisturbed and ever steady direction of the mind and the heart to the Lord with an inseparable attactment is indeed the highest manifestation of mans love to God. All other forms of Bhakti are only preparatory to the attainment of this highest form thereof, viz. the Par-Bhakti which is also known as the love that comes after attachment (Rgnug). When this supreme love once comes into the heart of man, his mind will continuously think of God and remember nothing else.
  He will give no room in himself to thoughts other than those of God, and his soul will be unconquerably pure, and will alone break all the bonds of mind and matter and become serenely free. He alone can worship the Lord in his own heart; to him, forms, symbols, books, and doctrines are all unnecessary and are incapable of proving serviceable in any way. It is not easy to love the Lord thus. Ordinarily human love is seen to flourish only in places where it is returned; where love is not returned for love, cold indifference is the natural result. There are, however, rare instances in which we may notice love exhibiting itself even where there is no return of love. We may compare this kind of love, for purposes of illustration, to the love of the moth for the fire; the insect loves the fire, falls into it and dies. It is indeed in the nature of this insect to love so. To love, because it is the nature of love to love, is undeniably the highest and the most unselfish manifestation of love that may be seen in the world. Such love working itself out on the plane of spirituality necessarily leads to the attainment of ParaBhakti.

2.06 - The Synthesis of the Disciplines of Knowledge, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The error proceeds from a false identification. Nature has created within her material unity separate-seeming bodies which the Soul manifested in material Nature enfolds, inhabits, possesses, uses; the Soul forgetting itself experiences only this single knot in Matter and says, "I am this body." It thinks of itself as the body, suffers with the body, enjoys with the body, is born with the body, is dissolved with the body; or so at least it views its self-existence. Again, Nature has created within her unity of universal life separate-seeming currents of life which form themselves into a whorl of vitality around and in each body, and the Soul manifested in vital Nature seizes on and is seized by that current. Is imprisoned momentarily in that little whirling vortex of life. The Soul, still forgetting itself, says "I am this life"; it thinks of itself as the life, craves with its cravings or desires, wallows in its pleasures, bleeds with its wounds, rushes or stumbles with its movements. If it is still mainly governed by the body-sense, it identifies its own existence with that of the whorl and thinks "When this whorl is dissipated by the dissolution of the body round which it has formed itself, then I shall be no more." If it has been able to sense the current of life which has formed the vortex, it thinks of itself as that current and says "I am this stream of life; I have entered upon the possession of this body, I shall leave it and enter upon the possession of other bodies: I am an immortal life revolving in a cycle of constant rebirth."
  But again Nature has created within her mental unity, formed in the universal Mind separate-seeming dynamos as it were of mentality, constant centres for the generation, distribution and reabsorption of mental force and mental activities, stations as it were in a system of mental telegraphy where messages are conceived, written, sent, received, deciphered, and these messages and these activities are of many kinds, sensational, emotional, perceptual, conceptual, intuitional, all of which the Soul manifested in mental Nature accepts, uses for its outlook on the world and seems to itself to project and to receive their shocks, to suffer or to master their consequences. Nature installs the base of these dynamos in the material bodies she has formed, makes these bodies the ground for her stations and connects the mental with the material by a nerve-system full of the movement of vital currents through which the mind becomes conscious of the material world and, so far as it chooses, of the vital world of Nature. Otherwise the mind would be conscious of the mental world first and chiefly and would only indirectly glimpse the material. As it is, its attention is fixed on the body and the material world in which it has been installed and it is aware of the rest of existence only dimly, indirectly or subconsciously in that vast remainder of itself with regard to which superficially it has become irresponsive and oblivious.
  The Soul identifies itself with this mental dynamo or station and says "I am this mind." And since the mind is absorbed in the bodily life, it thinks "I am a mind in a living body" or, still more commonly, "I am a body which lives and thinks." It identifies itself with the thoughts, emotions, sensations of the embodied mind and imagines that because when the body is dissolved all this will dissolve, itself also will cease to exist. Or if it becomes conscious of the current of persistence of mental personality, it thinks of itself as a mental soul occupying the body whether once or repeatedly and returning from earthly living to mental worlds beyond; the persistence of this mental being mentally enjoying or suffering sometimes in the body, sometimes on the mental or vital plane of Nature it calls its immortal existence. Or else, because the mind is a principle of light and knowledge, however imperfect, and can have some notion of what is beyond it, it sees the possibility of a dissolution of the mental being into that which is beyond, some Void or some eternal Existence, and it says, "There I, the mental soul, cease to be." Such dissolution it dreads or desires, denies or affirms according to its measure of attachment to or repulsion from this present play of embodied mind and vitality.
  Now, all this is a mixture of truth and falsehood. Mind, Life, Matter exist and mental, vital, physical individualisation exists as facts in Nature, but the identification of the soul with these things is a false identification. Mind, Life and Matter are ourselves only in this sense that they are principles of being which the true self has evolved by the meeting and interaction of Soul and Nature in order to express a form of its one existence as the Cosmos. Individual mind, life and body are a play of these principles which is set up in the commerce of Soul and Nature as a means for the expression of that multiplicity of itself of which the one Existence is eternally capable and which it holds eternally involved in its unity. Individual mind, life and body are forms of ourselves in so far as we are centres of the multiplicity of the One; universal Mind, Life and Body are also forms of our self, because we are that One in our being. But the self is more than universal or individual mind, life and body and when we limit ourselves by identification with these things, we found our knowledge on a falsehood, we falsify our determining view and our practical experience not only of our self-being but of our cosmic existence and of our individual activities.

2.06 - WITH VARIOUS DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "If the householder becomes a jivanmukta, then he can easily live in the world if he likes. A man who has attained Knowledge does not differentiate between 'this place' and 'that place'. All places are the same to him. He who thinks of 'that place' also thinks of 'this place'.
  Master's first meeting with Keshab
  --
  MASTER: "Once I visited Devendranath Tagore with Mathur Babu. I said to Mathur: 'I have heard that Devendra Tagore thinks of God. I should like to see him.' 'All right,' said Mathur, 'I will take you to him. We were fellow students in the Hindu College and. I am very friendly with him.' We went to Devendra's house. Mathur and Devendra had not seen each other for a long time. Devendra said to Mathur: 'You have changed a little.
  You have grown fat around the stomach.' Mathur said, referring to me: 'He has come to see you. He is always mad about God.' I wanted to see Devendra's physical marks and said to him, 'Let me see your body.' He pulled up his shirt, and I found that he had very fair skin tinted red. His hair had not yet turned grey.
  --
  MASTER (to M.): "Please ask him what he thinks of me. Does he thinkof me as a Jnni?
  Or what does he say about me? I understand that he is very reticent. (To Gopal) Ask Tejchandra to come here Saturdays and Tuesdays. (To M.) Suppose I go to your school and look for-"

2.07 - BANKIM CHANDRA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  The pundit has no doubt studied many books and scriptures; he may rattle off their texts, or he may have written books. But if he is attached to women, if he thinks of money and honour as the essential things, will you call him a pundit? How can a man be a pundit if his mind does not dwell on God?
  Devotees and the worldly-minded
  --
  "Those who build hospitals and dispensaries, and get pleasure from that, are no doubt good people; but they are of a different type. He who is a real devotee of God seeks nothing but God. If he finds himself entangled in too much work, he earnestly prays, 'Lord, be gracious and reduce my work; my mind, which should think of Thee day and night, has been wasting its power; it thinks of worldly things alone.' Pure-souled devotees are in a class by themselves. You cannot have real love of God unless you know that God alone is real and all else illusory. You cannot have real love of God unless you know that the world is impermanent, only of two days' existence, while its Creator alone is real and eternal. "Janaka and sages like him worked in the world at the comm and of God.
  Spirituality and book-learning

2.08 - ALICE IN WONDERLAND, #God Exists, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
  In a crude form, Berkeley said this. But, in a more philosophical fashion, Plato affirmed it. We can never stomach this idea that consciousness is precedent to matter, though we have attempted to convince ourselves, in our previous discussions, that consciousness is our essential reality by an analysis conducted of the three stateswaking, dream and deep sleep. We have already understood this to some extent. We have gone to the depths of our condition in deep sleep where we appear to exist only as pure consciousness minus body and mind in the state of deep sleep, that must have been what our stuff is. This so-called body of ours, this hard substance of contactual experience, and the mind which thinks of it, are subsequent evolutes; and if they were the ultimate realities that we are, they would not have perished in deep sleep also. But we had no experience of body or mind there. We were bare, featureless, unobjectified being, consciousness only. This is what we learnt in our earlier analysis of the condition of sleep. What were you in deep sleep? Not man, not woman, not human being, not body, not mind, not anything, not object. What were you then? A bare impersonal, indefinite, undivided awareness you were. So, this consciousness that you were is the same as consciousness of beingbeing inseparable from consciousness, consciousness inseparable from being.
  This is the great conclusion of Vedanta philosophyBeing-Consciousness. Sat-Chit was your essential naturenot body, not mind, not anything that the senses perceive or conceive, not the world. Then, wherefrom this body came? What is this body? What is the world? What are these buildings and stony mountains and the flowing rivers and the burning sun? What is all this? From where have they come?

2.08 - AT THE STAR THEATRE (II), #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER (sharply): "'A little shopkeeping is necessary!' One speaks as one thinks. If a man thinks of worldly things day and night, and deals with people hypocritically, then his words are coloured by his thoughts. If one eats radish, one belches radish. Instead of talking about 'shopkeeping', he should rather have said, 'A man should act as if he were the doer, knowing very well that he is really not the doer.' The other day a man was singing here. The song contained words like 'profit' and 'loss'. I stopped him. If one contemplates a particular subject day and night, one cannot talk of anything else."
  The reading continued. The author was describing the realization of God. Prafulla had become Devi Choudhurani. It was the month of Vaikh. Devi was seated on the roof of her house-boat talking with Diva and another woman companion. The moon was up. The boat had cast anchor in the Ganges. The conversation turned to the question of whether one could see God. Devi said, "As the aroma of a flower is directly perceived by the nose, so God is directly perceived by the mind."

2.09 - Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   forms arrives thus far that it is aware of all its superficially conscious becoming as related to an "I" which it always is. That "I" it partly identifies with the conscious becoming, partly thinks of it as something other than the becoming and superior to it, even perhaps eternal and unchanging. In the last resort, by the aid of its reason which distinguishes in order to co-ordinate, it may fix its self-experience on the becoming only, on the constantly changing self and reject the idea of something other than it as a fiction of the mind; there is then no being, only becoming. Or it may fix its self-experience into a direct consciousness of its own eternal being and reject the becoming, even when it is compelled to be aware of it, as a fiction of the mind and the senses or the vanity of a temporary inferior existence.
  But it is evident that a self-knowledge based on the separative ego-sense is imperfect and that no knowledge founded upon it alone or primarily or on a reaction against it can be secure or assured of completeness. First, it is a knowledge of our superficial mental activity and its experiences and, with regard to all the large rest of our becoming that is behind, it is an Ignorance. Secondly, it is a knowledge only of being and becoming as limited to the individual self and its experiences; all the rest of the world is to it not-self, something, that is to say, which it does not realise as part of its own being but as some outside existence presented to its separate consciousness.

2.1.01 - The Central Process of the Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Karma is a much simpler roadprovided ones mind is not fixed on the karma to the exclusion of the Divine. The aim must be the Divine and the work can only be a means. The use of poetry etc. is to keep one in contact with ones inner being and that helps to prepare for the direct contact with the inmost, but one must not stop with that, one must go on to the real thing. If one thinks of being a literary man, a poet, a painter as things worthwhile for their own sake, then it is no longer the Yogic spirit. That is why I have sometimes to say that our business is to be Yogis, not merely poets, painters etc.
  Love, bhakti, surrender, the psychic opening are the only short cut to the Divineor can be; for if the love and bhakti are too vital, then there is likely to be a seesaw between ecstatic expectation and viraha, abhimna, despair, which will make it not a short cut but a long one, a zigzag, not a straight flight, a whirling round ones own ego instead of a running towards the Divine.

2.1.02 - Love and Death, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Or breaking off like one who thinks of grief,
  Wonderful melancholy in her eyes

2.10 - Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Where there is duality, there other sees other, other hears, touches, thinks of, knows other. But when one sees all as the
  Self, by what shall one know it? it is by the Self that one knows all this that is. . . . All betrays him who sees all elsewhere than in the Self; for all this that is is the Brahman, all beings and all this that is are this Self.

2.10 - THE MASTER AND NARENDRA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  NARENDRA: "Nowadays Girish Ghosh thinks of nothing but spiritual things."
  MASTER: "That is very good. But why is he so abusive? Why does he use such vulgar language to me? In my present state of mind I cannot bear such rudeness. When a thunderbolt strikes near a house, the heavy things inside the house are not much affected; but the window-panes rattle. Nowadays I cannot bear such roughness. A man living on the plane of sattva cannot bear noise and uproar. That is why Hriday was sent away. It was the Divine Mother who sent him away. During the later part of his stay he went to extremes; he became very rough and abusive. (To Narendra) Do you agree with Girish about me?"

2.11 - The Boundaries of the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  But even here the self-ignorance of man does not end; for not only is he ignorant of his superconscient Self, of his subliminal self, of his subconscient self, he is ignorant of his world in which he presently lives, which constantly acts on and through him and on which and by which he has to act. And the stamp of his ignorance is this, that he regards it as something quite separate from him, as not-self because it is other than his individual nature-formation and his ego. So too when he confronts his superconscient Self, he thinks of it first as something quite other than he, an external, even extracosmic God; when he confronts
  584

2.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES IN CALCUTTA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "Brahman and Kli are not different. They are like fire and its power to burn: if one thinks of fire one must think of its power to burn. If one recognizes Kli one must also recognize Brahman; again, if one recognizes Brahman one must recognize Kli. Brahman and Its Power are identical. It is Brahman whom I address as akti or Kli."
  It was late at night: Girish asked Haripada to call a cab, for he had to go to the theatre.
  --
  M: "Yes, sir, we talked about that. He has been telling me for the last four or five days that whenever he thinks of God or repeats His name, tears flow from his eyes and the hair on his body stands on end-such is his joy."
  MASTER: "Indeed! That's all he needs."
  --
  Seeing the younger Naren laugh, the Master and the other devotees laughed too. The Master said to M., laughing and pointing to Naren: "Look at him! Look! How naive he looks when he laughs, as if he knew nothing. He never thinks of these three things: land, wife, and money. God cannot be realized unless the mind is totally free from 'woman and gold'."
  Master at Devendra's house

2.1.2 - The Vital and Other Levels of Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  It is not at all true that the Mother takes away the mental control that is one of the many foolish misinterpretations that certain sadhaks make about the sadhana. What is true and that is the cause of what you feelis that when you try to control fully your habitual movements in the vital by the sadhana, instead of sometimes controlling them and sometimes indulging, then they make a violent resistance so that they seem to increase. The sadhak has to stand firm and refuse to be overborne or discouraged by this violence. In dream it is usually the case that even what one has thrown out from the waking state, comes up for a long time that is because all these things remain still in the subconscient and it is the subconscient that creates a great part of peoples dreams. Thus if one no longer has sexual desires in the waking state he can still have sex-dreamsand emissionswith a more or less frequent recurrence; he can still meet people in dreams whom he never sees or hears or thinks of in his waking hours, and so on. All the more are such dreams likely to come when the waking mind is not free.
  ***

2.14 - AT RAMS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  M: "I shall say that one thinks of God in holy company. That is by no means bad.
  Further, I shall tell him that the textbooks prescribed by the school authorities say that one should love God with all one's soul" (The Master laughs.) MASTER : "At Captain's house I sent for the younger Naren. I said to him:' where is your house? I want to see it.' 'Please do come', he said. But he became nervous as we were going there, lest his father should know about it. (All laugh.) (To a visitor) "You haven't been here for a long time-about seven or eight months."

2.16 - VISIT TO NANDA BOSES HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER: "One thinks of God through His grace."
  NANDA: "But how can we obtain God's grace? Has He really the power to bestow grace?"

2.18 - SRI RAMAKRISHNA AT SYAMPUKUR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Sri Ramakrishna was talking aside to Amrita. He asked him, "Do you meditate?" He further said to him: "Do you know!" what one feels in meditation? The mind becomes like a continuous flow of oil-it thinks of one object only, and that is God. It does not think of anything else."
  Sri Ramakrishna was talking to the devotees.
  --
  "Only he who constantly thinks of God can know His real nature. He alone knows that God reveals Himself in different forms and different ways that He has attri butes and, again, has none. Only the man who lives under the tree knows that the chameleon can assume various colours and that sometimes it remains colourless. Others, not knowing the whole truth, quarrel among themselves and suffer.
  Illustration of ice and water

2.2.04 - Practical Concerns in Work, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  A rule that can be varied by everyone at his pleasure is no rule. In all countries in which organised work is successfully done, (India is not one of them), rules exist and nobody thinks of breaking them, for it is realised that work (or life either) without discipline would soon become a confusion and an anarchic failure. In the great days of India everything was put under rule, even art and poetry, even Yoga. Here in fact rules are much less rigid than in any European organisation. Personal discretion can even in a frame of rules have plenty of play but discretion must be discreetly used, otherwise it becomes something arbitrary or chaotic.
  ***

2.20 - THE MASTERS TRAINING OF HIS DISCIPLES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  GIRISH: "You feel happy to save the child; therefore you rush into the fire. It is your happiness that drives you to the action. A man eats opium being tempted by such relishes as puffed rice or fried potatoes." (Laughter.) MASTER: "A man must have some kind of faith before he undertakes a work. Further, he feels joy when he thinks of it. Only then does he set about performing the work.
  Suppose a jar of gold coins is hidden underground. First of all a man must have faith that the jar of gold coins is there. He feels joy at the thought of the jar. Then he begins to dig. As he removes the earth he hears a metallic sound. That increases his joy. Next he sees a corner of the jar. That gives him more joy. Thus his joy is ever on the increase. Standing on the porch of the Kli temple, I have watched the ascetics preparing their smoke of hemp. I have seen their faces beaming with joy in anticipation of the smoke."
  --
  DOCTOR: "One should suppress one's feelings in such a matter. It is bad to give vent to them. Alas! No one understands my own feelings. Even my best friend thinks of me as a stern and cruel person. Even people like you will perhaps one day throw me out after beating me with your shoes."
  MASTER: "Don't say such a thing! They love you so much! They await your coming as eagerly as the bridesmaids in the bridal chamber await the coming of the groom."

2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   Sri Aurobindo: Guidance in solving practical difficulties. Aman of successful action gets a sort of insight which is half-intuition; while a man of intellect is generally handicapped, his intellect thinks of various possibilities, saying this may happen, that may happen.
   Disciple: Has a man of successful action no intellect?

2.3.08 - The Mother's Help in Difficulties, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Mother never thinks of future difficulties, falls or dangers. Her concentration is always on help and uplift, not on difficulty and
  8 January 1934 downfall.

3.00.2 - Introduction, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  one thinks of the devils mentioned by St Athanasius in his life of St
  Anthony, who talk very piously, sing psalms, read the holy books, and

3.00 - The Magical Theory of the Universe, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  the plain man who thinks of Matter as something that one can knock up against.
  MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

3.02 - The Psychology of Rebirth, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  17 Vollers, p. 254. This may possibly be due to Christian influence: one thinks of
  the fish meals of the early Christians and of fish symbolism in general. Vollers him-

3.04 - The Way of Devotion, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Consecration becomes in its fullness a devoting of all our being to the Divine; therefore also of all our thoughts and our works. Here the Yoga takes into itself the essential elements of the Yoga of works and the Yoga of knowledge, but in its own manner and with its own peculiar spirit. It is a sacrifice of life and works to the Divine, but a sacrifice of love more than a tuning of the will to the divine Will. The bhakta offers up his life and all that he is and all that he has and all that he does to the Divine. This surrender may take the ascetic form, as when he leaves the ordinary life of men and devotes his days solely to prayer and praise and worship or to ecstatic meditation, gives up his personal possessions and becomes the monk or the mendicant whose one only possession is the Divine, gives up all actions in life except those only which help or belong to the communion with the Divine and communion with other devotees, or at most keeps the doing{|50c-} from the secure fortress of the ascetic life of those services to men which seem peculiarly the outflowing of the divine nature of love, compassion and good. But there is the wider self-consecration, proper to any integral Yoga, which, accepting the fullness of life and the world in its entirety as the play of the Divine, offers up the whole being into his possession; it is a holding of all one is and has as belonging to him only and not to ourselves and a doing of all works as an offering to him. By this comes the complete active consecration of both the inner and the outer life, the unmutilated self-giving. There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration,--for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world,--so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised. There are supposed by those who systematise to be three stages of the seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation. And by these, too, there comes when the accompanying feeling or the concentration is very intense, the Samadhi, the ecstatic trance in which the consciousness passes away from outer objects. But all this is really incidental; the one thing essential is the intense devotion of the thought in the mind to the object of adoration. Although it seems akin to the contemplation of the way of knowledge, it differs from that in its spirit. It is in its real nature not a still, but an ecstatic contemplation; it seeks not to pass into the being of the Divine, but to bring the Divine into ourselves and to lose ourselves in the deep ecstasy of his presence or of his possession; and its bliss is not the peace of unity, but the ecstasy of union. Here, too, there may be the separative self-consecration which ends in the giving up of all other thought of life for the possession of this ecstasy, eternal afterwards in planes beyond, or the comprehensive consecration in which all the thoughts are full of the Divine and even in the occupations of life every thought remembers him. As in the other Yogas, so in this, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all one's inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported here by the primary force of the emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the spirit and its members.
  This is the ordinary movement by which what may be at first a vague adoration of some idea of the Divine takes on the hue and character and then, once entered into the path of Yoga, the inner reality and intense experience of divine love. But there is the more intimate Yoga which from the first consists in this love and attains only by the intensity of its longing without other process or method. All the rest comes, but it comes out of this, as leaf and flower out of the seed; other things are not the means of developing and fulfilling love, but the radiations of love already growing in the soul. This is the way that the soul follows when, while occupied perhaps with the normal human life, it has heard the flute of the Godhead behind the near screen of secret woodlands and no longer possesses itself, can have no satisfaction or rest till it has pursued and seized and possessed the divine fluteplayer. This is in essence the power of love itself in the heart and soul turning from earthly objects to the spiritual source of all beauty and delight. There live in this seeking all the sentiment and passion, all the moods and experiences of love concentrated on a supreme object of desire and intensified a hundredfold beyond the highest acme of intensity possible to a human love. There is the disturbance of the whole life, the illumination by an unseized vision, the unsatisfied yearning for a single object of the heart's desire, the intense impatience of all that distracts from the one preoccupation, the intense pain of the obstacles that stand in the way of possession, the perfect vision of all beauty and delight in a single form. And there are all the many moods of love, the joy of musing and absorption, the delight of the meeting and fulfilment and embrace, the pain of separation, the wrath of love, the tears of longing, the increased delight of reunion. The heart is the scene of this supreme idyll of the inner consciousness, but a heart which undergoes increasingly an intense spiritual change and becomes the radiantly unfolding lotus of the spirit. And as the intensity of its seeking is beyond the highest power of the normal human emotions, so also the delight and the final ecstasy are beyond the reach of the imagination and beyond expression by speech. For this is the delight of the Godhead that passes human understanding. Indian bhakti has given to this divine love powerful forms, poetic symbols which are not in reality so much symbols as intimate expressions of truth which can find no other expression. It uses human relations and sees a divine person, not as mere figures, but because there are divine relations of supreme Delight and Beauty with the human soul of which human relations are the imperfect but still the real type, and because that Delight and Beauty are not abstractions or qualities of a quite impalpable metaphysical entity, but the very body and form of the supreme Being. It is a living Soul to which the soul of the bhakta yearns; for the source of all life is not an idea or a conception or a state of existence, but a real Being. Therefore in the possession of the divine Beloved all the life of the soul is satisfied and all the relations by which it finds and in which it expresses itself, are wholly fulfilled; therefore, too, by any and all of them can the Beloved be sought, though those which admit the greatest intensity, are always those by which he can be most intensely pursued and possessed with the profoundest ecstasy. He is sought within in the heart and therefore apart from all by an inward-gathered concentration of the being in the soul itself; but he is also seen and loved everywhere where he manifests his being. All the beauty and joy of existence is seen as his joy and beauty; he is embraced by the spirit in all beings; the ecstasy of love enjoyed pours itself out in a universal love; all existence becomes a radiation of its delight and even in its very appearances is transformed into something other than its outward appearance. The world itself is experienced as a play of the divine Delight, a Lila, and that in which the world loses itself is the heaven of beatitude of the eternal union.

3.11 - Spells, #Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E, #unset, #Zen
    Before the victim undertakes any action, he must gain permission. He will not follow through with an action until he gains permission. If permission is denied, the victim cannot act until he thinks of an alternate action and gains permission for that action.
    Every round, the victim must decide his action for that round; at the victim's initiative, he must ask permission to perform his action. If permission is denied, the victim can take no other action that round.

3.1.3 - Difficulties of the Physical Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Yes; that [the idea that things cannot change] also is the fault of the physical consciousness. It is obsessed by the idea that what is must be,that the habit of things cannot be altered. This inevitability it extends not only to what is but to what it merely thinks of as a factit lays itself open inertly to every suggestion or possibility that seems to be justified by the habit of things. It is the main obstacle to the material change.
  ***

4.04 - The Perfection of the Mental Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  When we thus draw back into the soul, we find ourselves to be not the mind, but a mental being who stands behind the action of the embodied mind, not a mental and vital personality, -- personality is a composition of Nature, -- but a mental Person, manomaya purusa. We become aware of a being within who takes his stand upon mind for self-knowledge and world-knowledge and thinks of himself as an individual for self-experience and world-experience, for an inward action and an outward-going action, but is yet different from mind, life and body. This sense of difference from the vital actions and the physical being is very marked; for although the Purusha feels his mind to be involved in life and body, yet he is aware that even if the physical life and body were to cease or be dissolved, he would still go on existing in his mental being. But the sense of difference from the mind is more difficult and less firmly distinct. But still it is there; it is characterised by any or all of three intuitions in which this mental Purusha lives and becomes by them aware of his own greater existence.
  First, he has the intuition of himself as someone observing the action of the mind; it is something which is going on in him and yet before him as an object of his regarding knowledge. This self-awareness is the intuitive sense of the witness Purusha, saksi. Witness Purusha is a pure consciousness who watches Nature and sees it as an action reflected upon the consciousness and enlightened by that consciousness, but in itself other than it. To mental Purusha Nature is only an action, a complex action of discriminating and combining thought, of will, of sense, of emotion, of temperament and character, of ego feeling, which works upon a foundation of vital impulses, needs and cravings in the conditions imposed by the physical body. But it is not limited by them, since it can not only give them new directions and much variation, refining and extension, but is able to act in thought and imagination and a mental world of much more subtle and flexible creations. But also there is an intuition in the mental Purusha of something larger and greater than this present action in which he lives, a range of experience of which it is only a frontal scheme or a narrow superficial selection. By this intuition he stands upon the threshold of a subliminal self with a more extended possibility than this superficial mentality opens to his self-knowledge. A last and greatest intuition is an inner awareness of something which he more essentially is, something as high above mind as mind is above the physical life and body. This inner awareness is his intuition of his supramental and spiritual being.

4.04 - THE REGENERATION OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  [369] Thus the author of the following parable, Sir George Ripley (141590), Canon of Bridlington, was already revolving in his mind the problem of the sick king. I must leave to one side the question of how far this idea was influenced by the Grail Legend. It is conceivable that Ripley, as an Englishman, would have been acquainted with this tradition. Apart from the rather doubtful evidence of the lapis exillis (lapsit exiliis in Wolfram von Eschenbach), I have not been able to find any more likely traces of the Grail cycle in alchemical symbolism, unless one thinks of the mystic vessel of transformation, the tertium comparationis for which would be the chalice in the Mass.
  The first five verses of the Cantilena67 are as follows:

4.04 - Weaknesses, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  The ego thinks of what it wants and has not. This is its constant preoccupation.
  The soul is aware of what it is given and lives in endless gratitude.

6.07 - THE MONOCOLUS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  [727] Corvus (crow or raven) or caput corvi (ravens head) is the traditional name for the nigredo (nox, melancholia, etc.). It can also, as pars pro toto, mean a capital thing or principle, as for instance the caput mortuum, which originally meant the head of the black Osiris,168 but later Mercurius philosophorum, who, like him, undergoes death and resurrection and transformation into an incorruptible state. Thus the anonymous author of the Novum lumen chemicum exclaims: O our heaven! O our water and our Mercurius! O dead head or dregs of our sea! . . . And these are the epithets of the bird of Hermes,169 which never rests.170 This bird of Hermes is the raven, of which it is said: And know that the head of the art is the raven, who flies without wings in the blackness of the night and the brightness of the day.171 He is a restless, unsleeping spirit, our aerial and volatile stone, a being of contradictory nature.172 He is the heaven and at the same time the scum of the sea. Since he is also called water, one thinks of rain-water, which comes from the sea and falls from heaven. As a matter of fact the idea of clouds, rain, and dew is often found in the texts and is extremely ancient.173 A papyrus text says: I am the mother of the gods, named heaven; I am Osiris, named water; I am Isis, named dew; . . . I am Eidolos, likened to the true spirits. Thus speaks a magician who wishes to conjure up his familiar: he himself is a spirit and thus akin to the bird of the night. In Christian tradition the raven is an allegory of the devil.174
  [728] Here we encounter the primitive archetypal form of spirit, which, as I have shown,175 is ambivalent. This ambivalence or antagonism also appears in the ancient Egyptian pair of brothers, Osiris and Set, and in the Ebionite opposition of Christ and Satan. The night raven (nycticorax) is an allegory of Christ.176

7.02 - Courage, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  "Just as," he said, "a hen lays eggs and broods on them and never thinks of fretting: 'Will my little chicks be able to break out of their shells with their beaks and see the light of day?' you too should have no fear: if you are persistent in the Noble Path, you also will come to the light."
  And this is true courage: to walk the straight path, to brave storm, darkness and suffering and to persevere, moving ever forward, in spite of everything, towards the light.

7.07 - Prudence, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  He considers the consequences, thinks of the morrow, and if he does not know his way, he asks.
  ***

7 - Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Who thinks of it? that this Force is there which is
  infinitely greater, infinitely more precious than all money
  --
  divine work I say, who thinks of not wasting it? Who
  recollects that it is a sacred duty for all to progress, to

Appendix 4 - Priest Spells, #Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E, #unset, #Zen
        The caster can find the direction and distance of any one type of animal or plant he desires. The caster, facing in a direction, thinks of the animal or plant, and then knows if any such animal or plant is within range. If so, the exact distance and approximate number present is learned. During each round of the spell's duration, the caster can face in only one direction (i.e., only a 20-foot-wide path can be known). The spell lasts one round per level of experience of the caster, while the length of the path is 100 yards plus
        20 yards per level of experience. (At the DM's option, some casters may be able to locate only those animals [or plants] associated closely with their own mythos.)

Blazing P1 - Preconventional consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  correspondence between all things. He thinks of the transmutation of self to other animals to
  other objects and the transmutation of other animals and objects to self and in terms of the

BOOK I. - Augustine censures the pagans, who attributed the calamities of the world, and especially the sack of Rome by the Goths, to the Christian religion and its prohibition of the worship of the gods, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
  If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and were conquered, and that when conquered they could not escape except under the protection of a man, what madness is it to suppose that Rome had been wisely entrusted to these guardians, and could not have been taken unless it had lost them! Indeed, to worship conquered gods as protectors and champions, what is this but to worship, not good divinities, but evil omens?[37] Would it not be wiser to believe, not that Rome would never have fallen into so great a calamity had not they first perished, but rather that they would have perished long since had not Rome preserved them as long as she could? For who does not see, when he thinks of it, what a foolish assumption it is that they could not be vanquished under vanquished defenders, and that they only perished[Pg 6] because they had lost their guardian gods, when, indeed, the only cause of their perishing was that they chose for their protectors gods condemned to perish? The poets, therefore, when they composed and sang these things about the conquered gods, had no intention to invent falsehoods, but uttered, as honest men, what the truth extorted from them. This, however, will be carefully and copiously discussed in another and more fitting place. Meanwhile I will briefly, and to the best of my ability, explain what I meant to say about these ungrateful men who blasphemously impute to Christ the calamities which they deservedly suffer in consequence of their own wicked ways, while that which is for Christ's sake spared them in spite of their wickedness they do not even take the trouble to notice; and in their mad and blasphemous insolence, they use against His name those very lips wherewith they falsely claimed that same name that their lives might be spared. In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His sake no enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues that they might be safe and protected; but no sooner do they emerge from these sanctuaries, than they unbridle these tongues to hurl against Him curses full of hate.
    4. Of the asylum of Juno in Troy, which saved no one from the Greeks; and of the churches of the apostles, which protected from the barbarians all who fled to them.

BOOK XIX. - A review of the philosophical opinions regarding the Supreme Good, and a comparison of these opinions with the Christian belief regarding happiness, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
  After the state or city comes the world, the third circle of human society,the first being the house, and the second the city. And the world, as it is larger, so it is fuller of dangers, as the greater sea is the more dangerous. And here, in the first place, man is separated from man by the difference of languages. For if two men, each ignorant of the other's language, meet, and are not compelled to pass, but, on the contrary, to remain in company, dumb animals, though of different species, would more easily hold intercourse than they, human beings though they be. For their common[Pg 311] nature is no help to friendliness when they are prevented by diversity of language from conveying their sentiments to one another; so that a man would more readily hold intercourse with his dog than with a foreigner. But the imperial city has endeavoured to impose on subject nations not only her yoke, but her language, as a bond of peace, so that interpreters, far from being scarce, are numberless. This is true; but how many great wars, how much slaughter and bloodshed, have provided this unity! And though these are past, the end of these miseries has not yet come. For though there have never been wanting, nor are yet wanting, hostile nations beyond the empire, against whom wars have been and are waged, yet, supposing there were no such nations, the very extent of the empire itself has produced wars of a more obnoxious descriptionsocial and civil warsand with these the whole race has been agitated, either by the actual conflict or the fear of a renewed outbreak. If I attempted to give an adequate description of these manifold disasters, these stern and lasting necessities, though I am quite unequal to the task, what limit could I set? But, say they, the wise man will wage just wars. As if he would not all the rather lament the necessity of just wars, if he remembers that he is a man; for if they were not just he would not wage them, and would therefore be delivered from all wars. For it is the wrong-doing of the opposing party which compels the wise man to wage just wars; and this wrong-doing, even though it gave rise to no war, would still be matter of grief to man because it is man's wrong-doing. Let every one, then, who thinks with pain on all these great evils, so horrible, so ruthless, acknowledge that this is misery. And if any one either endures or thinks of them without mental pain, this is a more miserable plight still, for he thinks himself happy because he has lost human feeling.
  8. That the friendship of good men cannot be securely rested in, so long as the dangers of this life force us to be anxious.

DS2, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Tao-chuan says, When youre happy, Im not / when youre sad, Im not / a crane thinks of flying north or south / a swallow thinks of its old nest / autumn moon and spring flower thoughts never end / you only need to know yourself right now.
  Textual note: All Chinese translations interpret s thatavya (stand) by chu (dwell). Kumarajiva does not include kathan pratipattavyan (how should they walk), nor does the Khotanese. The other

ENNEAD 01.06 - Of Beauty., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
  2. Returning to our first consideration, we shall examine the nature of the element of beauty in bodies. It is something perceivable at the very first glance, something which the soul recognizes as kindred, and sympathetic to her own nature, which she welcomes and assimilates. But as soon as she meets an ugly object, she recoils, repudiates it, and rejects it as something foreign, towards which her real nature feels antipathy. That is the reason why the soul, being such as it is, namely, of an essence superior to all other43 beings, when she perceives an object kindred to her own nature, or which reveals only some traces of it, rejoices, is transported, compares this object with her own nature, thinks of herself, and of her intimate being as it would be impossible to fail to perceive this resemblance.
  BEAUTY CONSISTS IN PARTICIPATION IN A FORM.

ENNEAD 02.04a - Of Matter., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
  (An objector might ask) whether there be identity of conditions between the soul's not thinking, and her experience while thinking of matter? By no means; when the soul is not thinking of anything, she neither asserts anything, nor experiences anything. When she thinks of matter, she experiences something, she receives the impression of the shapeless. When she presents to herself objects that possess shape and magnitude, she conceives of them as composite; for she sees them as distinct (or, colored?) and determined by qualities they contain. She conceives of both the totality and its two constituent elements. She also has a clear perception, a vivid sensation of properties inherent (in209 matter). On the contrary, the soul receives only an obscure perception of the shapeless subject, for there is no form there. Therefore, when the soul considers matter in general, in the composite, with the qualities inherent in this composite, she separates them, analyzes them, and what is left (after this analysis), the soul perceives it vaguely, and obscurely, because it is something vague and obscure; she thinks it, without really thinking it. On the other hand, as matter does not remain shapeless, as it is always shaped, within objects, the soul always imposes on matter the form of things, because only with difficulty does she support the indeterminate, since she seems to fear to fall out of the order of beings, and to remain long in nonentity.
  THE COMPOSITION OF A BODY NEEDS A SUBSTRATE.

ENNEAD 04.03 - Psychological Questions., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
  It (may be objected) that nothing hinders Intelligence from knowing the changes of other beings, such as, for instance, the periodical revolutions of the world, without itself undergoing any change. But then it would have to follow the changes of the moving object, as it would think first of one thing, and then of another. Besides, thought is something else than memory, and we must not apply to self-consciousness the name of memory. Indeed, intelligence does not busy itself with retaining its thoughts, and with hindering them from escaping; otherwise it might also fear lest it lose its own nature ("Being"). For the soul herself, remembering is not the same as recalling innate notions. When the soul has descended here below, she may possess these notions without thinking of them, especially if it be only recently that she entered into the body.141 The ancient philosophers seem to have applied the terms memory and reminiscence to the actualization by which the soul thinks of the entities she possesses; that (however) is a quite special kind of memory, entirely independent of time.142
  DEFINITION OF MEMORY DEPENDS ON WHETHER IT BELONGS TO THE SOUL OR ORGANISM.

ENNEAD 05.09 - Of Intelligence, Ideas and Essence., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
  5. Taking it in its genuine sense, Intelligence is not only potential, arriving at being intelligent after having been unintelligent for otherwise, we would be forced to seek out some still higher principle but is in actualization, and is eternal. As it is intelligent by itself, it is by itself that it thinks what it thinks, and that it possesses what is possesses. Now since it thinks of itself and by itself, it itself is what it thinks. If we could distinguish between its existence and its thought, its "being" would be unintelligent; it would be potential, not in actualization. Thought, therefore, must not be separated from its object, although, from sense-objects, we have become accustomed to conceive of intelligible entities as distinct from each other.
  REASONS, AS ARCHETYPES, MUST HAVE EXISTED BEFORE STOIC "HABIT," NATURE OR SOUL.

ENNEAD 06.01 - Of the Ten Aristotelian and Four Stoic Categories., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
  What are we to say if there be no suffering? We might answer that the actualization of him who acts is simply present in such a thing (without correlative reaction). There are thus two manners of acting; to act within oneself, and to act outside of oneself. No more will it then be said that the first mode is proper acting, and the second reacting, but that there are two ways of acting outside of oneself, acting and reacting. For instance, writing is an operation in which one acts on something else without a correlative reaction, because in writing one produces nothing but the very actualization of writing, and not something else, like experiencing; for the quality of writing that has been produced is nothing that reacts (or, experiences). As to walking, though the earth be stepped on by the feet, it does not react (or, experience) as a consequence. On the contrary, if it be the body of an animal that is trod under feet, it may be conceived that there is reaction, because one then thinks of the suffering endured by the animal thus trod on, and not of the walking;870 otherwise, this reaction would have been conceived before (the notion of this reaction would have been implied in the very notion of walking).
  ACTION AND REACTION FORM BUT A SINGLE GENUS.

ENNEAD 06.02 - The Categories of Plotinos., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
  But what is the soul considered apart from all action, if we examine in her the part which does not work at formation of the bodies?304 Will not a plurality of powers still be found therein? As to world-Essence, nobody even thinks of depriving the soul of it. But is her acknowledged essence the same as that predicated of a stone? Surely not. Besides, even in the essence of the stone, "being" and "being a stone" are inseparable concepts, just as "being" and "being a soul" are, in the soul, but one and the same thing.305 Must we then regard as different in her essence on one side, and on the other the remainder (what constitutes the being); so that it would be the difference (proper to being) which, by being added to her, constituted the soul? No: the soul is no doubt a determinate essence; not as a "white man," but only as a particular being; in other words, she has what she has by her very being.
  THE ESSENCE OF THE SOUL DERIVES FROM ITS BEING; ADDING LIFE TO ESSENCE.

ENNEAD 06.06 - Of Numbers., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
  4. Let us now examine how the numbers form part of the intelligible world. Are they inherent in the other forms? Or are they, since all eternity, the648 consequences of the existence of these forms? In the latter case, as the very essence possessed primary existence, we would first conceive the monad; then, as movement and stability emanated from it, we would have the triad; and each one of the remaining intelligible entities would lead to the conception of some of the other numbers. If it were not so, if a unity were inherent in each intelligible entity, the unity inherent in the first Essence would be the monad; the unity inherent in what followed it, if there be an order in the intelligible entities, would be the "pair"; last, the unity inhering in some other intelligible entity, such as, for instance, in ten, would be the decad. Nevertheless this could not yet be so, each number being conceived as existing in itself. In this case, will we be compelled to admit that number is anterior to the other intelligible entities, or posterior thereto? On this subject Plato9 says that men have arrived to the notion of number by the succession of days and nights, and he thus refers the conception of number to the diversity of (objective) things. He therefore seems to teach that it is first the numbered objects that by their diversity produce numbers, that number results from movement of the soul, which passes from one object to another, and that it is thus begotten when the soul enumerates; that is, when she says to herself, Here is one object, and there is another; while, so long as she thinks of one and the same object, she affirms nothing but unity. But when Plato says that being is in the veritable number, and that the number is in the being,10 he intends to teach that by itself number possesses a hypostatic substantial existence, that it is not begotten in the soul which enumerates, but that the variety of sense-objects merely recalls to the soul the notion of number.
  649

Gorgias, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  SOCRATES: Can you tell me the pursuits which delight mankindor rather, if you would prefer, let me ask, and do you answer, which of them belong to the pleasurable class, and which of them not? In the first place, what say you of flute-playing? Does not that appear to be an art which seeks only pleasure, Callicles, and thinks of nothing else?
  CALLICLES: I assent.

IS - Chapter 1, #Invisible Cities, #Italo Calvino, #Fiction
  and he thinks of all the ports, the foreign merchandise the cranes unload on the docks, the taverns
  where crews of different Bags break bottles over one

Liber 46 - The Key of the Mysteries, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
     It is the sigh of the traveller who thinks of his fatherland.
     It is the thought of the poor man who works to support his wife and

Liber 71 - The Voice of the Silence - The Two Paths - The Seven Portals, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   undoubtedly the Path seems attractive at this stage. One thinks of the
   joyous reception into the Company of Adepts. One goes almost as a boy

r1912 11 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   None of these four directions have been fulfilled. There is an attempt to adhere to them, but it is combated always by the experience of asiddhi. The establishment of intellectual infallibility which seemed assured at one time by the fulfilment of the intellectual perceptions & the right placing, accompanied with definite proofs, of that which was misplaced has been followed by a strong disillusionment which challenges the whole foundation of the theory as a self-delusion. While the existence of a perfectly accurate trikaldrishti, perceiving truth past, present & future even to exact time, place & circumstance has been put beyond all dispute, the fact that what seems to be precisely the same movement brings error & failure, clouds the whole issue & is being dwelt on in order to break down sraddha. For where is the use of trikaldrishti & aishwarya when one can never be certain whether a perception is trikaldrishti or false intuition, the perception of an actuality or a possibility, the perception of that which will be or the perception of something that someone else thinks of doing or looks at as a possibility, or whether an expense of will will bring a favourable or perverse result? The doubt comes to be one of Gods guidance & the reality of the Adesha. The science of Yoga is justified, but the idea of the personal mission seems to be convicted of essential falsity. Meanwhile the particular siddhis established maintain themselves ordinarily, but do not progress. Only the sahitya proceeds smoothly & seems to develop in security.
   ***

r1914 03 24, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   The thought-telepathy is now coming more freely; sometimes it is seen as a thought with impulse & proved by the immediately subsequent act; sometimes it is entertained by the mind not as a perception of thought in anothers mind, but as an impression registered as a thought in ones own mind, yet vaguely but uncertainly associated, perhaps as a speculation of the others conduct, with another mind. Eg. B [Bijoy] brings tea. Mind thinks of B. looking for a cigarette, seeing none & possibly bringing one. There is no such look or action in Bs body, but only a vague idea of such a thought, possibly, in his mind. The next minute B brings a cigarette & looks to see whether or not there were any left, showing that this had actually been in his mind & he was now verifying by his senses an idea the mind had arrived at in thought only. At the same time it is possible that the thought went from my mind to his & produced the action or went to anothers who gave the cigarette to be placed there & then only B looked to see if there were no cigarettes already. In the latter case the thought was an effective vyapti from my mind to his or anothers; in the former a srauta vyapti from his to mine. Other cases were clear cases of prakamya; eg the perception of the thought & impulse in his mind & body to take the carbolic lotion, followed the next second by his action in taking it, etc.
   Lipi.

Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (text), #Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  341. If a man sees a pleader, he naturally thinks of law suits and courts. Similarly, on seeing a pious
  devotee, one is reminded of God and of the life hereafter.
  --
  (Bhramarakita), a cockroach is transformed into the insect. Similarlv, he who constantly thinks of the
  Bliss Absolute himself becomes full of bliss.
  --
  that he never thinks of settling his domestic affairs first before he would seek the Lord.
  559. Why does a God-lover renounce everything for the sake of Him Whom he loves? The moth after

Sophist, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  The divisions of the Hegelian logic bear a superficial resemblance to the divisions of the scholastic logic. The first part answers to the term, the second to the proposition, the third to the syllogism. These are the grades of thought under which we conceive the world, first, in the general terms of quality, quantity, measure; secondly, under the relative forms of 'ground' and existence, substance and accidents, and the like; thirdly in syllogistic forms of the individual mediated with the universal by the help of the particular. Of syllogisms there are various kinds,qualitative, quantitative, inductive, mechanical, teleological,which are developed out of one another. But is there any meaning in reintroducing the forms of the old logic? Who ever thinks of the world as a syllogism? What connexion is there between the proposition and our ideas of reciprocity, cause and effect, and similar relations? It is difficult enough to conceive all the powers of nature and mind gathered up in one. The difficulty is greatly increased when the new is confused with the old, and the common logic is the Procrustes' bed into which they are forced.
  The Hegelian philosophy claims, as we have seen, to be based upon experience: it abrogates the distinction of a priori and a posteriori truth. It also acknowledges that many differences of kind are resolvable into differences of degree. It is familiar with the terms 'evolution,' 'development,' and the like. Yet it can hardly be said to have considered the forms of thought which are best adapted for the expression of facts. It has never applied the categories to experience; it has not defined the differences in our ideas of opposition, or development, or cause and effect, in the different sciences which make use of these terms. It rests on a knowledge which is not the result of exact or serious enquiry, but is floating in the air; the mind has been imperceptibly informed of some of the methods required in the sciences. Hegel boasts that the movement of dialectic is at once necessary and spontaneous: in reality it goes beyond experience and is unverified by it. Further, the Hegelian philosophy, while giving us the power of thinking a great deal more than we are able to fill up, seems to be wanting in some determinations of thought which we require. We cannot say that physical science, which at present occupies so large a share of popular attention, has been made easier or more intelligible by the distinctions of Hegel. Nor can we deny that he has sometimes interpreted physics by metaphysics, and confused his own philosophical fancies with the laws of nature. The very freedom of the movement is not without suspicion, seeming to imply a state of the human mind which has entirely lost sight of facts. Nor can the necessity which is attri buted to it be very stringent, seeing that the successive categories or determinations of thought in different parts of his writings are arranged by the philosopher in different ways. What is termed necessary evolution seems to be only the order in which a succession of ideas presented themselves to the mind of Hegel at a particular time.

Symposium translated by B Jowett, #Symposium, #Plato, #Philosophy
  This, or something like this, was the speech of Phaedrus; and some other speeches followed which Aristodemus did not remember; the next which he repeated was that of Pausanias. Phaedrus, he said, the argument has not been set before us, I think, quite in the right form;we should not be called upon to praise Love in such an indiscriminate manner. If there were only one Love, then what you said would be well enough; but since there are more Loves than one,should have begun by determining which of them was to be the theme of our praises. I will amend this defect; and first of all I will tell you which Love is deserving of praise, and then try to hymn the praiseworthy one in a manner worthy of him. For we all know that Love is inseparable from Aphrodite, and if there were only one Aphrodite there would be only one Love; but as there are two goddesses there must be two Loves. And am I not right in asserting that there are two goddesses? The elder one, having no mother, who is called the heavenly Aphroditeshe is the daughter of Uranus; the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dioneher we call common; and the Love who is her fellow-worker is rightly named common, as the other love is called heavenly. All the gods ought to have praise given to them, but not without distinction of their natures; and therefore I must try to distinguish the characters of the two Loves. Now actions vary according to the manner of their performance. Take, for example, that which we are now doing, drinking, singing and talkingthese actions are not in themselves either good or evil, but they turn out in this or that way according to the mode of performing them; and when well done they are good, and when wrongly done they are evil; and in like manner not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise. The Love who is the offspring of the common Aphrodite is essentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner sort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the body rather than of the soulthe most foolish beings are the objects of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never thinks of accomplishing the end nobly, and therefore does good and evil quite indiscriminately. The goddess who is his mother is far younger than the other, and she was born of the union of the male and female, and partakes of both. But the offspring of the heavenly Aphrodite is derived from a mother in whose birth the female has no part,she is from the male only; this is that love which is of youths, and the goddess being older, there is nothing of wantonness in her. Those who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature; any one may recognise the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments. For they love not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow. And in choosing young men to be their companions, they mean to be faithful to them, and pass their whole life in company with them, not to take them in their inexperience, and deceive them, and play the fool with them, or run away from one to another of them. But the love of young boys should be forbidden by law, because their future is uncertain; they may turn out good or bad, either in body or soul, and much noble enthusiasm may be thrown away upon them; in this matter the good are a law to themselves, and the coarser sort of lovers ought to be restrained by force; as we restrain or attempt to restrain them from fixing their affections on women of free birth. These are the persons who bring a reproach on love; and some have been led to deny the lawfulness of such attachments because they see the impropriety and evil of them; for surely nothing that is decorously and lawfully done can justly be censured. Now here and in Lacedaemon the rules about love are perplexing, but in most cities they are simple and easily intelligible; in Elis and Boeotia, and in countries having no gifts of eloquence, they are very straightforward; the law is simply in favour of these connexions, and no one, whether young or old, has anything to say to their discredit; the reason being, as I suppose, that they are men of few words in those parts, and therefore the lovers do not like the trouble of pleading their suit. In Ionia and other places, and generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable; loves of youths share the evil repute in which philosophy and gymnastics are held, because they are inimical to tyranny; for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit (compare Arist. Politics), and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power. And, therefore, the ill-repute into which these attachments have fallen is to be ascribed to the evil condition of those who make them to be ill-reputed; that is to say, to the self-seeking of the governors and the cowardice of the governed; on the other hand, the indiscriminate honour which is given to them in some countries is attri butable to the laziness of those who hold this opinion of them. In our own country a far better principle prevails, but, as I was saying, the explanation of it is rather perplexing. For, observe that open loves are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honourable. Consider, too, how great is the encouragement which all the world gives to the lover; neither is he supposed to be doing anything dishonourable; but if he succeeds he is praised, and if he fail he is blamed. And in the pursuit of his love the custom of mankind allows him to do many strange things, which philosophy would bitterly censure if they were done from any motive of interest, or wish for office or power. He may pray, and entreat, and supplicate, and swear, and lie on a mat at the door, and endure a slavery worse than that of any slavein any other case friends and enemies would be equally ready to prevent him, but now there is no friend who will be ashamed of him and admonish him, and no enemy will charge him with meanness or flattery; the actions of a lover have a grace which ennobles them; and custom has decided that they are highly commendable and that there no loss of character in them; and, what is strangest of all, he only may swear and forswear himself (so men say), and the gods will forgive his transgression, for there is no such thing as a lover's oath. Such is the entire liberty which gods and men have allowed the lover, according to the custom which prevails in our part of the world. From this point of view a man fairly argues that in Athens to love and to be loved is held to be a very honourable thing. But when parents forbid their sons to talk with their lovers, and place them under a tutor's care, who is appointed to see to these things, and their companions and equals cast in their teeth anything of the sort which they may observe, and their elders refuse to silence the reprovers and do not rebuke themany one who reflects on all this will, on the contrary, think that we hold these practices to be most disgraceful. But, as I was saying at first, the truth as I imagine is, that whether such practices are honourable or whether they are dishonourable is not a simple question; they are honourable to him who follows them honourably, dishonourable to him who follows them dishonourably. There is dishonour in yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner; but there is honour in yielding to the good, or in an honourable manner. Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting. The custom of our country would have both of them proven well and truly, and would have us yield to the one sort of lover and avoid the other, and therefore encourages some to pursue, and others to fly; testing both the lover and beloved in contests and trials, until they show to which of the two classes they respectively belong. And this is the reason why, in the first place, a hasty attachment is held to be dishonourable, because time is the true test of this as of most other things; and secondly there is a dishonour in being overcome by the love of money, or of wealth, or of political power, whether a man is frightened into surrender by the loss of them, or, having experienced the benefits of money and political corruption, is unable to rise above the seductions of them. For none of these things are of a permanent or lasting nature; not to mention that no generous friendship ever sprang from them. There remains, then, only one way of honourable attachment which custom allows in the beloved, and this is the way of virtue; for as we admitted that any service which the lover does to him is not to be accounted flattery or a dishonour to himself, so the beloved has one way only of voluntary service which is not dishonourable, and this is virtuous service.
  For we have a custom, and according to our custom any one who does service to another under the idea that he will be improved by him either in wisdom, or in some other particular of virtuesuch a voluntary service, I say, is not to be regarded as a dishonour, and is not open to the charge of flattery. And these two customs, one the love of youth, and the other the practice of philosophy and virtue in general, ought to meet in one, and then the beloved may honourably indulge the lover. For when the lover and beloved come together, having each of them a law, and the lover thinks that he is right in doing any service which he can to his gracious loving one; and the other that he is right in showing any kindness which he can to him who is making him wise and good; the one capable of communicating wisdom and virtue, the other seeking to acquire them with a view to education and wisdom, when the two laws of love are fulfilled and meet in onethen, and then only, may the beloved yield with honour to the lover. Nor when love is of this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived, but in every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being deceived. For he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any one's 'uses base' for the sake of money; but this is not honourable. And on the same principle he who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler. Thus noble in every case is the acceptance of another for the sake of virtue. This is that love which is the love of the heavenly godess, and is heavenly, and of great price to individuals and cities, making the lover and the beloved alike eager in the work of their own improvement. But all other loves are the offspring of the other, who is the common goddess. To you, Phaedrus, I offer this my contri bution in praise of love, which is as good as I could make extempore.
  --
  'Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget childrenthis is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnantfor there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodiesconceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions?wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate. He wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspringfor in deformity he will beget nothingand naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body; above all when he finds a fair and noble and well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such an one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man; and he tries to educate him; and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he brings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends that which he brings forth; and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal. Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would not rather have their children than ordinary human ones? Who would not emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory? Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, who have given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such as theirs; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children.
  'These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form onlyout of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention:

Talks 026-050, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
    It is meant for ridding oneself of other forms and confining oneself to one form. It leads to the goal. It is impossible to fix the mind in the Heart to start with. So these aids are necessary. Krishna says that there is no birth (janma) to you, me, etc., and later says he was born before Aditya, etc. Arjuna disputes it. Therefore it is certain that each one thinks of God according to his own degree of advancement.
    You say you are the body in wakeful state; not the body in sleep.

Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  SATYENDRA: When one thinks of this problem of manifestation, one gets tired
  of it.
  --
  while for a man of intellect intuition is difficult. His intellect thinks of various possibilities, saying this may happen, that may happen.
  NIRODBARAN: Does a man of action have no intellect?
  --
  the universal vital or the universal mental? He thinks of the psychic as being
  only individual.
  --
  time thinks of his household matters, as when one says, "The cow is getting
  loose!"

The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
  When one thinks of 'matrices' and 'codes' it is sometimes helpful to
  bear these figures in mind. The matrix is the pattern before you, rep-

Theaetetus, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  I will illustrate my meaning by the jest of the witty maid-servant, who saw Thales tumbling into a well, and said of him, that he was so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see what was before his feet. This is applicable to all philosophers. The philosopher is unacquainted with the world; he hardly knows whether his neighbour is a man or an animal. For he is always searching into the essence of man, and enquiring what such a nature ought to do or suffer different from any other. Hence, on every occasion in private life and public, as I was saying, when he appears in a law-court or anywhere, he is the joke, not only of maid-servants, but of the general herd, falling into wells and every sort of disaster; he looks such an awkward, inexperienced creature, unable to say anything personal, when he is abused, in answer to his adversaries (for he knows no evil of any one); and when he hears the praises of others, he cannot help laughing from the bottom of his soul at their pretensions; and this also gives him a ridiculous appearance. A king or tyrant appears to him to be a kind of swine-herd or cow-herd, milking away at an animal who is much more troublesome and dangerous than cows or sheep; like the cow-herd, he has no time to be educated, and the pen in which he keeps his flock in the mountains is surrounded by a wall. When he hears of large landed properties of ten thousand acres or more, he thinks of the whole earth; or if he is told of the antiquity of a family, he remembers that every one has had myriads of progenitors, rich and poor, Greeks and barbarians, kings and slaves. And he who boasts of his descent from Amphitryon in the twenty-fifth generation, may, if he pleases, add as many more, and double that again, and our philosopher only laughs at his inability to do a larger sum. Such is the man at whom the vulgar scoff; he seems to them as if he could not mind his feet. 'That is very true, Socrates.' But when he tries to draw the quick-witted lawyer out of his pleas and rejoinders to the contemplation of absolute justice or injustice in their own nature, or from the popular praises of wealthy kings to the view of happiness and misery in themselves, or to the reasons why a man should seek after the one and avoid the other, then the situation is reversed; the little wretch turns giddy, and is ready to fall over the precipice; his utterance becomes thick, and he makes himself ridiculous, not to servant-maids, but to every man of liberal education. Such are the two pictures: the one of the philosopher and gentleman, who may be excused for not having learned how to make a bed, or cook up flatteries; the other, a serviceable knave, who hardly knows how to wear his cloak,still less can he awaken harmonious thoughts or hymn virtue's praises.
  'If the world, Socrates, were as ready to receive your words as I am, there would be greater peace and less evil among mankind.'
  --
  SOCRATES: But perhaps he thinks of something which he does not know as some other thing which he does not know; for example, he knows neither Theaetetus nor Socrates, and yet he fancies that Theaetetus is Socrates, or Socrates Theaetetus?
  THEAETETUS: How can he?
  --
  SOCRATES: Then he who thinks of that which is not, thinks of nothing?
  THEAETETUS: Clearly.
  SOCRATES: And he who thinks of nothing, does not think at all?
  THEAETETUS: Obviously.
  --
  SOCRATES: Then when any one thinks of one thing as another, he is saying to himself that one thing is another?
  THEAETETUS: Yes.
  --
  SOCRATES: And every one who is not born deaf or dumb is able sooner or later to manifest what he thinks of anything; and if so, all those who have a right opinion about anything will also have right explanation; nor will right opinion be anywhere found to exist apart from knowledge.
  THEAETETUS: True.

the Eternal Wisdom, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  2) Nobility is for each man within him; only he never thinks of seeking for it within. ~ Meng-Tse II 5.17
  3) If any one asks what is the shortest and surest way of disposing ourselves to advance continually in the spiritual life, I shall reply that it is to remain carefully self-gathered within, for it is there properly that one sees the gleam of the true light. ~ J. Tauler, "Institutions," 37

WORDNET



--- Overview of verb think_of

The verb think of has 6 senses (first 5 from tagged texts)
                  
1. (53) remember, think of ::: (keep in mind for attention or consideration; "Remember the Alamo"; "Remember to call your mother every day!"; "Think of the starving children in India!")
2. (26) entertain, think of, toy with, flirt with, think about ::: (take into consideration, have in view; "He entertained the notion of moving to South America")
3. (26) think of, repute, regard as, look upon, look on, esteem, take to be ::: (look on as or consider; "she looked on this affair as a joke"; "He thinks of himself as a brilliant musician"; "He is reputed to be intelligent")
4. (20) think of, have in mind, mean ::: (intend to refer to; "I'm thinking of good food when I talk about France"; "Yes, I meant you when I complained about people who gossip!")
5. (16) think up, think of, dream up, hatch, concoct ::: (devise or invent; "He thought up a plan to get rich quickly"; "no-one had ever thought of such a clever piece of software")
6. think of ::: (choose in one's mind; "Think of any integer between 1 and 25")












IN WEBGEN [10000/11]

Wikipedia - Sexual identity -- How a person thinks of oneself with regard to romantic and sexual orientation and behaviour
Boy Meets World (1993 - 2000) - From middle school through college and beyond, this is story of Corey Matthews. His life, his love, and oh yeah, all the stupid stuff he does.The people and places that he thinks of as home are slowly pulled away from him one by one, leaving him to consider just what his life is about when things ar...
Fled(1996) - Though serving a prison sentence for using his computer to embezzle from an international corporation, Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) still thinks of himself as an ordinary criminal. His fellow convict, Piper (Lawrence Fishburne), whose basic decency leads him to protect Dodge from an assault by another pr...
The Girl In The Picture(1985) - Alan and Mary are pretty miserable together and split up. As a very presentable Glaswegian photographer, Alan soon has chances to find consolation elsewhere, but more and more thinks of Mary. She however seems a lot less keen to try again.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) ::: 7.8/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 43min | Comedy | 11 June 1986 (USA) -- A high school wise guy is determined to have a day off from school, despite what the Principal thinks of that. Director: John Hughes Writer: John Hughes
Smoke Signals (1998) ::: 7.1/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 29min | Comedy, Drama | 27 November 1998 (Iceland) -- Arnold rescued Thomas from a fire when he was a child. Thomas thinks of Arnold as a hero, while Arnold's son Victor resents his father's alcoholism, violence and abandonment of his family. Director: Chris Eyre Writers:
The Sarah Silverman Program. ::: TV-14 | 22min | Comedy | TV Series (20072010) Sarah's immature, only thinks of herself and has no inhibition nor work. Her sister Laura pays her rent. She has a gay couple as neighbors. Laura's seeing cop Jay. Creators: Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, Sarah Silverman Stars:
Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku -- -- AIC -- 13 eps -- Original -- Adventure Drama Fantasy Military Sci-Fi -- Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku -- Shuuzou ''Shuu'' Matsutani lives his ordinary life in peace. He has friends, a crush, and a passion for kendo. Dejected after losing to his kendo rival, Shuu climbs a smokestack to watch the sunset where he finds Lala-Ru, a quiet, blue-haired girl wearing a strange pendant. Shuu attempts to befriend her, despite her uninterested, bland responses. -- -- However, his hopes are crushed when a woman, accompanied by two serpentine machines, appear out of thin air with one goal in mind: capture Lala-Ru. Shuu, bull-headed as he is, tries to save his new friend from her kidnappers and is transported to a desert world, unlike anything he has ever seen before. Yet, despite the circumstances, Shuu only thinks of saving Lala-Ru, until he is thoroughly beaten up by some soldiers. As he soon finds out, Lala-Ru can manipulate water and her pendant is the source from which she is able to bring forth the liquid, a scarce commodity in his new environment. But now, the pendant is lost, and Shuu is the prime suspect. -- -- Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku is the haunting story of a dystopian world, and of Shuu, who has to endure torture, hunger, and the horrors of war in order to save the lonely girl he found sitting atop a smokestack. -- -- 110,835 7.66
Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku -- -- AIC -- 13 eps -- Original -- Adventure Drama Fantasy Military Sci-Fi -- Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku -- Shuuzou ''Shuu'' Matsutani lives his ordinary life in peace. He has friends, a crush, and a passion for kendo. Dejected after losing to his kendo rival, Shuu climbs a smokestack to watch the sunset where he finds Lala-Ru, a quiet, blue-haired girl wearing a strange pendant. Shuu attempts to befriend her, despite her uninterested, bland responses. -- -- However, his hopes are crushed when a woman, accompanied by two serpentine machines, appear out of thin air with one goal in mind: capture Lala-Ru. Shuu, bull-headed as he is, tries to save his new friend from her kidnappers and is transported to a desert world, unlike anything he has ever seen before. Yet, despite the circumstances, Shuu only thinks of saving Lala-Ru, until he is thoroughly beaten up by some soldiers. As he soon finds out, Lala-Ru can manipulate water and her pendant is the source from which she is able to bring forth the liquid, a scarce commodity in his new environment. But now, the pendant is lost, and Shuu is the prime suspect. -- -- Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku is the haunting story of a dystopian world, and of Shuu, who has to endure torture, hunger, and the horrors of war in order to save the lonely girl he found sitting atop a smokestack. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media -- 110,835 7.66
Sekaiichi Hatsukoi 2 -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Romance Shounen Ai -- Sekaiichi Hatsukoi 2 Sekaiichi Hatsukoi 2 -- First loves are messy. While settling in as a shoujo manga editor at the famous Marukawa Publishing House, Ritsu Onodera is quite troubled. Working under the stern and superb Masamune Takano is hard enough as it is. However, Masamune is not only Ritsu's first love from middle school but he also suddenly declares that he will make Ritsu fall for him again. -- -- Unknown to them, another editor in the department, Yoshiyuki Katori, is in a relationship with the popular manga artist Chiaki Yoshino. The carefree Chiaki fails to notice, however, that his high school friend—Yuu Yanase—thinks of him as more than a friend. The stoic but caring Hatori will not surrender his love so easily. -- -- Falling in love for the first time when you are 30 is certainly troublesome. Shouta Kisa, yet another editor, is going out with 21-year-old Kou Yukina, an art student. Despite Yukina's assurances, Kisa cannot help but doubt whether someone like himself is truly worthy of his younger, "sparkling" boyfriend. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Oct 8, 2011 -- 130,512 7.94
No One Thinks of Greenland



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