#owe

The garden has wrapped itself in autumn haze. An unusual autumn, lacking that thrill of vegetal warmth when the sap is still alive and holds up the trees, drunk on solar gold. It is the sorrowful climax of a summer's drought. Never before was I so struck by the cancerous emaciation in a garden. The leaves started turning yellow in July and began falling, like a dance of prematurely withered bodies. ↗

— Emil Dorian

#garden #nature #nature

...the magic was a tool, though a natural, mysterious tool. In its awareness of the magic, his human nature had desired to connect with it, to use it. The whisperings were the voice of his own awakening, not the seductive call of a dark power. Using it was not corruption, but a natural extension of his being. And he could control the manner in which he used it. He would. ↗

— Derek Donais

#choice #dark-power #free-will #magic #power

I am not nor have I ever been a 'wild-eyed' charismatic, but rather an 'empowered evangelical' (Nathan)". ~R. Alan Woods [2006] ↗

— R. Alan Woods

#empowered #evangelicalism #john-wimber #r-alan-woods #rich-nathan

The is a secret for greater self-control, the science points to one thing: the power of paying attention. ↗

— Kelly McGonigal

#mindfulness #science #self-control #willpower #science

To use a man for what he is naturally best fitted is to keep him, if one can, from apostasy and dissatisfaction. At the same time, life's temptations come most often from that for which one has the greatest aptitude. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#power #skill #talent #nature

The excellence and efficiency of any nation or of our global community at large is driven by the collective empowerment of individuals. Gross consumer waste, haphazard bureaucratic spending, and the careless consumption of natural resources are all reflections of the mismanagement of personal power common within the average citizen. ↗

— Scott Edmund Miller

#societal-progress #nature

One of the key characteristics of an elite corps is its susceptibility to those more powerful than itself. Elite power is naturally attracted to a power hierarchy and fits itself neatly, obediently into the one that promises the most personal benefits. Here is the Achilles’ heel of armies, police and bureaucracies. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#bureaucracies #bureaucracy #elite #hierarchy #power

Sicknesses, especially those affecting nerves and head, are signs that the defensive strength of the strong natures is lacking; precisely this is suggested by irritability, so pleasure and displeasure become foreground problems. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#nature

There’s nothing easier to ‘acquire’ than a girl with a broken heart. ↗

— Daniele Lanzarotta

#new-adult #owen #new-adult

Power is fortified not just by what it destroys, but also by what it creates. Not just by what it takes, but also by what it gives. And powerlessness reaffirmed not just by the helplessness of those who have lost, but also by the gratitude of those who have (or THINK they have) gained. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#helplessness #human-nature #humility #power #powerlessness