#lit

It is not a single cowardice that drives us into fiction's fantasies. We often fear that literature is a game we can't afford to play — the product of idleness and immoral ease. In the grip of that feeling it isn't life we pursue, but the point and purpose of life — its facility, its use. ↗

— William H. Gass

#indolence #luxury #purpose #utility #life

Is a mountain only a huge stone? Is a planet an enormous mountain? ↗

— Stanisław Lem

#life #mountain #perception #reality #stone

The whole tendency of modern life is towards scientific planning and organisation, central control, standardisation, and specialisation. If this tendency was left to work itself out to its extreme conclusion, one might expect to see the state transformed into an immense social machine, all the individual components of which are strictly limited to the performance of a definite and specialised function, where there could be no freedom because the machine could only work smoothly as long as every wheel and cog performed its task with unvarying regularity. Now the nearer modern society comes to the state of total organisation, the more difficult it is to find any place for spiritual freedom and personal responsibility. Education itself becomes an essential part of the machine, for the mind has to be as completely measured and controlled by the techniques of the scientific expert as the task which it is being trained to perform. ↗

— Christopher Henry Dawson

#history #modernity #politics #science #society

Literature is the supreme means by which you renew your sensuous and emotional life and learn a new awareness. ↗

— F.R. Leavis

#reading #life

The natural world is the only reality, thus the only valid base for spirituality there is. ↗

— David Petersen

#life

…the work of the (Muslim Sufi) dervish community was to open the heart, explore the mystery of union, to fiercely search for and try to say the truth, and to celebrate the glory and difficulty in being in human incarnation. ↗

— Coleman Barks

#rumi #spirituality #life

The testimony of the greatest humans who have ever lived is that the way to make the most of ourselves is by transcending ourselves. We must learn to move beyond self-centeredness to make room within ourselves for others. When you transcend yourself, the fact will be confirmed by the quality of your life. We will attain – even if only momentarily – a transparency and a radiance of being which results from living both within and beyond yourself. This is the promise and the excitement of self-understanding. ↗

— Don Richard Riso

#inspiration #personality-types #self-awareness #self-understanding #wisdom

Manufacturers have long chosen plastic for their products on the basis of price and functionality., But creating a more sustainable relationship with plastics will require a new dexterity on our part. It will require us to think about the entire life cycle of the products we create and use. ↗

— Susan Freinkel

#sustainability #life

إذا تذكرت دائماً أن ما تمارسه سيصبح سمة مميزة لشخصيتك فإنك لا شك سوف تسلك أنواعاً من السلوك غير التي تسلكها الآن. ↗

— ريتشارد كارلسون

#personality #self-development #life

Whenever I feel bad, I go to the library and read controversial periodicals. Though I do not know whether I am a liberal or a conservative, I am nevertheless enlivened by the hatred which one bears the other. In fact, this hatred strikes me as one of the few signs of life remaining in the world. ↗

— Walker Percy

#life