Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treausre of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.
life wisdom mind death light libraries human secrets thought learning living knowledge book library divine dialogue lie speak reflection things place minds books thing
Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.
reading philosophy mind body giving lost nourishment reflection choke read written impossible consideration part left books
If every library is in some sense a reflection of its readers, it is also an image of that which we are not, and cannot be.
sense image readers library reflection books
Nobody ever talks about the pyramids that weren't built, the books that weren't written, the songs that weren't sung. Stop letting your fear condemn you to mediocrity. Get out of your own way. Your dreams are a poetic reflection of your soul's wishes. Be courageous enough to follow them. There is no greater time than now to experience the full power of your potential. Make this the day you take the first step in the beautiful journey of bringing your dreams to life.
dreams life wishes power time soul experience fear journey songs potential beautiful poetic day reflection stop written courageous mediocrity books goals greater
One of the many things I love about bound books is their sheer physicality. Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence. Sure, sometimes they'll elude you by hiding in improbable places: in a box full of old picture frames, say, or in the laundry basket, wrapped in a sweatshirt. But at other times they'll confront you, and you literally stumble over some tomes you hadn't thought about in weeks or years. I often seek electronic books, but they never come after me. They may make me feel, but I can't feel them. They are all soul with no flesh, no texture, and no weight. They can get in your head but can't whack you upside it.
reading places mind live soul body thought feel times reflection picture things box weight bound hiding flesh presence head sight love books
Keisha Blake, whose celebrated will and focus did not leave her much room for angst, watched her friend ascend to the top deck in her new panda-eyed makeup and had a mauvais quart d'heure, wondering whether she herself had any personality at all or was in truth only the accumulation and reflection of all the things she had read in books and seen on television.
truth personality television focus wondering friend reflection leave things angst makeup read books accumulation
Today a woman must ignore her reflection in the eyes of her lover, since he might admire her, and seek it in the gaze of the God of Beauty, in whose perception she is never complete.
equality culture perception beauty society feminism self-esteem objectification body-image sexuality today eating-disorders woman marketing eyes advertising reflection aging lover double-standards pornography magazines images god cosmetics plastic-surgery diet-industry mass-culture fashion-industry cosmetic-surgery
Sexual satisfaction eases the stranglehold of materialism, since status symbols no longer look sexual, but irrelevant. Product lust weakens where emotional and sexual lust intensifies. The price we pay for artificially buoying up this market is our heart's desire. The beauty myth keeps a gap of fantasy between men and women. That gap is made with mirrors; no law of nature supports it. It keeps us spending vast sums of money and looking distractedly around us, but its smoke and reflection interfere with our freedom to be sexually ourselves.
women equality symbols culture satisfaction money men nature beauty society fantasy mirrors feminism self-esteem objectification body-image sexuality desire myth eating-disorders emotional marketing market law advertising reflection materialism lust aging price double-standards pornography status made magazines images freedom cosmetics plastic-surgery diet-industry smoke mass-culture fashion-industry cosmetic-surgery
To be alive, it seemed to me, as I stood there in all kinds of sorrow, was to be both original and reflection, and to be dead was to be split off, to be reflection alone.
life original death spiritual sorrow life-lessons life-and-death reflection dead alive answer
What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
women life men death moment children poem song end reflection forward alive young wait die
Though she would have preferred long ago to have died, fled, gotten it all over with, the body--Jesus, how the body!--took its time. It possessed its own wishes and nostalgias. You could not just turn neatly into light and slip out the window. You couldn't go like that. Within one's own departing but stubborn flesh, there was only the long, sentimental, piecemeal farewell. The body, hauling sadness, pursued the soul, hobbled after. The body was like a sweet, dim dog trotting lamely toward the gate as you tried slowly to drive off, out the long driveway. Barked the dog., it said, running along the fence, almost keeping pace but not quite, its reflection a shrinking charm in the car mirrors as you trundled past the viburnium, past the pin grove, past the property line, past every last patch of land, straight down the swallowing road, disappearing and disappearing. Until at last it was true: you had disappeared.
car wishes farewell death time light soul mirrors past charm body true sadness sweet running road drive dog reflection patch window flesh land stubborn property
In Sarajevo in 1992, while being shown around the starved, bombarded city by the incomparable John Burns, I experienced four near misses in all, three of them in the course of one day. I certainly thought that the Bosnian cause was worth fighting for and worth defending, but I could not take myself seriously enough to imagine that my own demise would have forwarded the cause. (I also discovered that a famous jaunty Churchillism had its limits: the old war-lover wrote in one of his more youthful reminiscences that there is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at without result. In my case, the experience of a whirring, whizzing horror just missing my ear was indeed briefly exciting, but on reflection made me want above all to get to the airport. Catching the plane out with a whole skin is the best part.) Or suppose I had been hit by that mortar that burst with an awful shriek so near to me, and turned into a Catherine wheel of body-parts and (even worse) body-ingredients? Once again, I was moved above all not by the thought that my death would 'count,' but that it would not count in the least.
worth death war city experience thought day count imagine limits reflection fighting missing martyrdom famous exciting skin made part john result horror shot worse causes bosnian-war
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know?I hear my being dance from ear to ear.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside me, which are you?God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go. Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Great Nature has another thing to doTo you and me, so take the lively air, And, lovely, learn by going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I learn by going where I have to go.
sleep fate life destiny future consciousness awareness reflection waking
Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom. Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open the door and let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, that tranquility that you called peace
solitude peace loneliness tranquility reflection freedom
Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue).
friendship life insightful truth society family human-nature humanity meaning humans meaning-of-life life-lessons friends young-adult insight social-commentary reflective reflection urban-fantasy human-behavior humankind young-adult-fiction elves young-adult-series young-adult-novels
I write about adversity, I praise adversity, not to be pessimistic, but rather to strengthen myself. The more familiar that you are with it, the less likely you are to have a breakdown when it occurs. You become more reflective of its purpose, you understand God's reason for it, and are then able to make the best of everything that you are handed. The darkness is only frightening after constant sunshine.
strength philosophy adversity pessimism writing courage optimism fear reason fearless praise understanding darkness reflective reflection training familiarity afraid hardship god sunshine
What was more needed by this old man who divided the leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between gardening in the daytime, and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background, enough to enable him to adore God in his most beautiful as well as in his most sublime works? Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect upon. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate upon: a few flowers on the earth, and all the stars in the sky.
nature sky prayer reflection god
Only a fool can be happy. For happiness consists of two contradictory elements: contentment and pleasure. Enjoy pleasure and you have no contentment; be content and you have no pleasure. For this reason happiness is conceivable only for those who enjoy themselves without thinking that they will always want more and thus be discontented, or for those who are content without thinking that they have no pleasure. Whoever reflects can never be happy, unless he is a fanatic and thus blindedthus exercising control over his intelligence with his feelings, instead of the other way round
happiness pleasure reflection
My mind to me a kingdom is, Such present joys therein I find, That it excels all other blissThat world affords or grows by kind. Though much I want which most would have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
happiness joy reflection edward
Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?
funny humor reflection hobbes
It is always the first and last steps that are the hardest to take. We walk away and try not to turn back, or we stand just outside the gates, terrified to find what's waiting for us now that we've returned. In between, we stumble blindly from one place and life to the next. We try to do the best we can. There are moments like this, however, when we are neither coming nor going, and all we have to do is sit and look back on the life we have made.
life-and-living reflection
.. Poetry is paying attention to life when all the world seems asleep to its beauties and truths..
poetry sleep life-and-living truths truth-of-life reflection
There is no future without a past, because what is to be cannot be imagined except as a form of repetition.
philosophy past reflection
An ordinary mirror is silvered at the back but the window of the night train has darkness behind the glass. My face and the faces of other travellers were now mirrored on this darkness in a succession of stillnesses. Consider this, said the darkness: any motion at any speed is a succession of stillnesses; any section through an action will show just such a plane of stillness as this dark window in which your seeking face is mirrored. And in each plane of stillness is the moment of clarity that makes you responsible for what you do.
philosophy perception reflection
.. Dark furrow lines grid the snow, punctuated by orange abacus beads of pumpkins - now the crows own the field..
poetry nature reflection snow
Showing 251 to 275 of 371 results
You must log in to post a comment.
There are no comments yet.