I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me.
modesty idea mind religion kind reason universe divine plan arrogance atheism worse
It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith.. These taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.
belief diversity people faith society religion spirituality humanism religious ethics civilization beliefs concern religions agnosticism atheism worse
What we have in life that we can count on is who we are and where we come from, she thought absently. For better or worse, that is what we have to sustain us in our endevors, to buttress us in our darker moments, and to remind us of our identity. Without those things, we are adrift.
life survival identity thought moments count things books worse
How the excitement comes upon me to tell it all! In the quest of writing, the heart can speed up with anticipation--as it does, indeed, during the chase itself of whales. I can swear it, having done both, and I will tell YOU though other writers may not. My heart is beating fast; I am in pursuit; I want my victory--that you should see and hear and above all feel the reality behind these words. For they are but a mask. Not the mask that conceals, not a mask that I would have you strike through as mere appearance, or, worse, deceitful appearance. Words need not be that kind of mask, but a mask such as the ancient Greek actors wore, a mask that expresses rather than conceals the inner drama.(But do you know me? Una? You have shipped long with me in the boat that is this book. Let me assure you and tell you that I know you, even something of your pain and joy, for you are much like me. The contract of writing and reading requires that we know each other. Did you know that I try on your mask from time to time? I become a reader, too, reading over what I have just written. If I am your shipbuilder and captain, from time to time I am also your comrade. Feel me now, standing beside you, just behind your shoulder?)
reading appearance pain speed chase writing time reality kind heart drama actors book writers excitement joy ancient words feel mask sea written hear greek quest reader pursuit books worse boat
Sometimes the things in our heads are far worse than anything they could put in books or on film!
imagination writing movies scary film things books worse ck-webb
There is quite enough sorrow and shame and suffering and baseness in real life and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction. As Police Commissioner it was my duty to deal with all kinds of squalid misery and hideous and unspeakable infamy, and I should have been worse than a coward if I had shrunk from doing what was necessary; but there would have been no use whatever in my reading novels detailing all this misery and squalor and crime, or at least in reading them as a steady thing. Now and then there is a powerful but sad story which really is interesting and which really does good; but normally the books which do good and the books which healthy people find interesting are those which are not in the least of the sugar-candy variety, but which, while portraying foulness and suffering when they must be portrayed, yet have a joyous as well as a noble side.
reading meeting crime life duty people real suffering powerful sorrow fiction good interesting story healthy sad find shame variety novels noble misery coward police books thing side worse
Books have to be read (worse luck, for it takes a long time); it is the only way of discovering what they contain.
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The pity is that the public will demand and find a moral in my book, or worse they may take it in some serious way, and on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious word in it.
funny book word moral find serious public honour ulysses pity single demand books humour worse
Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is.
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For better of for worse the church in the West bought modernity's claims. We were baptized in its story (even though it said it did not have one) and accepted its categories and definitions. But somewhere along the way we also began to believe that the ways in which we accessed knowledge about God or Jesus or the Spirit or Christianity were those things themselves.
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Over the years the Indian leadership, and the educated Indian, have deliberately projected and embellished an image about Indians that they know to be untrue, and have wilfully encouraged the well-meaning but credulous foreign observer to accept it. What is worse, they have fallen in love with this image, and can no longer accept that it is untrue.
culture leadership image indian india fallen accept love worse
There were worse things than dying, and those worse things happened to the people you left behind.
people death death-and-dying things die dying left worse
You were unsure which pain is worse -- the shock of what happened or the ache for what never will.
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The true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.
death true world living things die run master dying worse
The fear of death haunted me for a year. I cried whenever anyone dropped a glass or broke a picture. But even then that passed, I was left with a sadness that couldn't be rubbed off. It wasn't that something had happened. It was worse: I'd become aware of what had been with me all along without my notice. I dragged this new awareness around like a stone tied to my ankle. Wherever I went, it followed. I used to make up little sad songs in my head. I eulogized the falling leaves. I imagined my death in a hundred different ways, but the funeral was always the same: from somewhere in my imagination, out rolled a red carpet. Because after every secret death I died, my greatness was always discovered.
greatness imagination death fear sadness songs secret glass sad awareness falling picture haunted head red left funeral worse aware
It's true, I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of the world moving forward without me, of my absence going unnoticed, or worse, being some natural force propelling life on. Is it selfish? Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.
force life absence death true world fear dreaming respect moving person bad eyes forward natural selfish afraid ending dying worse
June is gone. For the first time, the enormity of that hits me. Every muscle aches, my heart most of all. I am throbbing with how much I miss her. It hurts worse than anything. I don't know how I'm supposed to be expected to live day to day carrying this kind of pain. I don't know how I'm supposed to go out there, spread her ashes, and let her go.I want to stop running away from everything.I want to find something to run toward.
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Listen: being dead is not worse than being alive. It is different though. You could say the view is larger.
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Because there was only one thing worse than dying. And that was knowing you were going to die. And where. And how. (Death Ship)
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I wonder if I'll ever have to decide which is worse, life as we're living or no life at all.
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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
You can't let the truth bring out the worst and let it get the best of you.
truth pride purity clever self-control humility arrogance humble wit witty pure self-righteousness wordplay worst self-importance best worse
I was never hurt by loss as much as I was hurt by the people who tried to make me feel like a winner, they made it worse
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Life is like the drama on a stage. What was once declared as a sin, perhaps much worse nowadays.
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My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you.
helping mother thinking think sylvia-plath yourself worse the-bell-jar
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