#ed

[T]he concern of man is not his future but his present, not the world but his soul. We must be just, we must strive, we must engage ourselves with the business of the world for our own sake, because through that, and through contemplation in equal measure, our soul is purified and brought closer to the divine. ... Thought and deed conjoined are crucial. ... The attempt must be made; the outcome is irrelevant. Right action is a pale material reflection of the divine, but reflection it is, nonetheless. Define your goal and exert reason to accomplish it by virtuous action; successs or failure is secondary. ↗

— Iain Pears

#deeds #divinity #failure #future #goals

Those images were the world, and it stewed in her as she sat with the lovely books and their manicured titles. It brewed in her as she eyed the pages full to the brims of their bellies with paragraphs and words. You bastards, she thought. You lovely bastards. Don't make me happy. Please, don't fill me up and let me think something good can come from any of this. Look at my bruises. Look at this graze. Do you see the graze inside me? Do you see it before your very eyes, eroding me? I don't want to hope for anything anymore. ↗

— Markus Zusak

#depressed #love

From your silken hair to your delicate feet you are perfection to me. Pleasure hides love from us, but pain reveals it in its essence. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#love

Dedicated to: You, with awe and love. Than you for coming and finding me. And for showing me the way. It was the ride of a lifetime, the best I've ever had. ↗

— J.R. Ward

#love

The human heart is a healer, which heals both others and ourselves. ↗

— Swami Dhyan Giten

#heart #joy #love #meditation #spirituality

There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering, decrying the unfairness of things but always - always - returning to obedience at whatever the cost. Generations dying in the ovens of hatred. Future generations scarred by the cold fires of radiation and renewed hatred. ↗

— Dan Simmons

#hatred #obedience #religion #searching #suffering

It's about more than us, now, can't you see? I love you, of course I do, but some things...some things just have to be done. ↗

— Natasha Farrant

#love-story #resistance #starcrossed #wartime #love

...you knew I was confused, tormented, but you enticed me - led me on... ↗

— John Geddes

#love #torment #unrequited #love

I hired a counterfeiter the other day. I told him, “As for your salary, how much you make is really up to you.” I love a business model where the employee pays the employer. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#business-model #cash #counterfeit #counterfeiter #currency

Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results. ↗

— Harper Lee

#god #hatred #judgement #religion #business