#fe

To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law—a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security. ↗

— Walter M. Miller Jr.

#perversion #security #suffering #nature

We should write because it is human nature to write. Writing claims our world. It makes it directly and specifically our own. We should write because humans are spiritual beings and writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us both to our own insights and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance. We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. Writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. We should write because writing is good for the soul. We should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in. We should write, above all, because we are writers, whether we call ourselves that or not. ↗

— Julia Cameron

#writing #life

Everything under heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled. Trying to control leads to ruin. Trying to grasp, we lose. Allow your life to unfold naturally. Know that it too is a vessel of perfection. Just as you breathe in and breathe out, there is a time for being ahead and a time for being behind; a time for being in motion and a time for being at rest; a time for being vigorous and a time for being exhausted; a time for being safe and a time for being in danger. ↗

— Lao Tzu

#life

You ever notice if you call someones cell phone they won't answer but if you text them seconds later they will. "The Power of your Thumbs compels You! ↗

— Stanley Victor Paskavich

#communication-quotes #life-reality #communication

Oliver: Fear is the natural state of anything that dies. ↗

— Rachel Caine

#last-breath #morganville-vampires #oliver #rachel-caine #nature

We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#character #falliability #flaws #frailty #humanity

At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: this hum is the silence. Nature does utter a peep - just this one. The birds and insects, the meadows and swamps and rivers and stones and mountains and clouds: they all do it; they all don't do it. There is a vibrancy to the silence, a suppression, as if someone were gagging the world. But you wait, you give your life's length to listening, and nothing happens. The ice rolls up, the ice rolls back, and still that single note obtains. The tension, or lack of it, is intolerable. The silence is not actually suppression: instead, it is all there is. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#listening #nature #life

For, so inconsistent is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not to undertake a thing at all seems better than to undertake and come short. ↗

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

#reason #nature

Just because a feeling is natural does not mean it should be indulged. ↗

— Roseanna White

#temptation #urge #nature

Repress the natural and it comes back even stronger: not everyone can be a fetishist ↗

— Philippe Lejeune

#repression #nature