#commence

Unlike any other creature on this planet, human beings can learn and understand without having experienced. They can think themselves into other peoples’ places. Of course, this is a power like my brand of fictional magic that is morally neutral. One might use such a power to manipulate or control, just as much as to understand or sympathize. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or peer inside cages. They can close their hearts and minds to any suffering that does not touch them personally. They can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think that they have any fewer nightmares than I do. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#jk-rowling #experience

From the very commencement the student should set out to witness the progress and effects of sickness and ought to persevere in the daily observation of disease during the whole period of his studies. ↗

— Robert James Graves

#daily #disease #during #effects #his

Commenced operations in the Valley of the Kings. ↗

— Howard Carter

#kings #operations #valley

I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#harvard-commencement-speech #death

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. I wish you all very good lives. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#life #life

And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#life

A commencement is a time of joy. It is also a time of melancholy. But then again, so is life. ↗

— Paul Tsongas

#also #commencement #joy #life #melancholy

It was a myth that's often perpetuated at commencement that holds that only hope and promise lie beyond the halls of academe. Don't worry, be happy. Everything is fine. ↗

— Paul Tsongas

#be happy #beyond #commencement #everything #fine

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason. ↗

— Leonardo da Vinci

#commence #commences #ends #experience #investigate

A State infinitely worse than that which the most inflamed Zealot, the most violent Republican or Enthusiast even pretended to dread before the Rebellion commenced. ↗

— Charles Inglis

#commenced #dread #enthusiast #even #infinitely