#gm

If you understand or if you don't If you believe or if you doubt There's a universal justice And the eyes of truth Are always watching you ↗

— Enigma

#music #music

She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when well sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one. On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? They never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual must be improper. Shirley was judged. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#empathy #expectations #expression #faithfulness #feeling

... cynicism is the only tool that can scrape away the tint off rose-coloured glasses. ↗

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

#flame-lily #great-zimbabwe #hangman #mystrey #parnormal

When it comes to judging individuals, I do not like remarks such as 'too good to be true.' They speak as though one is rewarding the nature of evil. Yet, ironically, we still wonder where all the good people have gone. ↗

— Criss Jami

#bad-people #chances #discernment #evil #good

There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty. ↗

— Bart D. Ehrman

#dogma #fanaticism #fundamentalism #religion #religion

Barriers to accumulation are perpetually dissolving and re-forming around the issue of so-called natural scarcities and on occasion, as Marx might put it, these barriers can be transformed into absolute contradictions and crises. ↗

— David Harvey

#capitalism #enigma #harvey #marx #marxist

so much of nature as he is ignorant of,so much of his own mind does not yet posess ↗

— Emerson

#nature

Authors who moan with praise for their editors always seem to reek slightly of the Stockholm syndrome. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#authorship #editing #relationship

The destiny of your soul is not predicated upon acceptance of a specific dogma that happens to be "correct." A loving God does not dole out eternal condemnation because one has selected the wrong doctrine or misinterpreted scripture. On the contrary, your endeavor to understand God and the nature of the universe is a testament to your devotion. ↗

— Mark Ireland

#god #religion #spiritual #love

One century's saint is the next century's heretic ... and one century's heretic is the next century's saint. It is as well to think long and calmly before affixing either name to any man. ↗

— Ellis Peters

#dogma #heresy #labels #orthodoxy #religion