#am

In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that's why you're not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable. ↗

— Primo Levi

#life

When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the tree with the lights in it.” It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchards of summer, in the forests of fall and down winter and spring for years. Then one day I was walking along Tinker creek and thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing that like being for the first time see, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells un-flamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. I have since only very rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#landscape #mysticism #nature #seeing #spirituality

Every step in life is merely part of a game. Every piece is necessary, but if you do not know how to control the game, then you become one of the pieces that are meant to be sacrificed. ↗

— Lionel Suggs

#life-lessons #philosophy #strategy #tactics #life

If you desire the path of sincerity, develop a love for obscurity. Flee from the clatter and clinks of fame. Be like the roots of a tree; it keeps the tree upright and gives it life, but it itself is hidden underneath the earth and eyes cannot see it. ↗

— Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak

#clinks #earth #eyes #fame #flee

In order to lead a meaningful life, you need to cherish others, pay attention to human values and try to cultivate inner peace. ↗

— Dalai Lama XIV

#human-values #inner-peace #meaning-of-life #life

In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life. ↗

— Ayaan Hirsi Ali

#god #government #holy-book #islam #muslim

There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table. ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#humility #kitchen #kitchen-table #parliament #philosophical

When Life rings your door bell and leaves a burning bag of poo on your porch don't step on it, instead put it out by pissing on it. Touche, Life will say. Touche. ↗

— Sheldon Higdon

#steampunk #suspense #thriller #urban-fantasy #young-adult

The next day he woke up feeling like he'd been unshackled from his fat, like he'd been washed clean from his misery, and for a long time he couldn't remember why he felt this way, and then he said her name. ↗

— Junot Díaz

#her-name #love #misery #life

Being stubborn won't make you fluent. Practicing will! The more mistakes you make, the more you'll learn not to. ↗

— Thanhha Lai

#classic #hope #hope-and-despair #insideoutandbackagain #learning