#p

Now I would solicit the particular attention of those numerous people who imagine that money is everything in this world, and that rank and ability are inseparable from wealth: let them observe that Cincinnatus, the one man in whom Rome reposed all her hope of survival, was at that moment working a little three-acre farm (now known as Quinctian meadows) west of the Tiber, just opposite the spot where the shipyards are today. A mission from the city found him at work on his land - digging a ditch, maybe, or ploughing. Greetings were exchanged, and he was asked - with a prayer for God's blessing on himself and his country - to put on his toga and hear the Senate's instructions. This naturally surprised him, and, asking if all were well, he told his wife Racilia to run to their cottage and fetch his toga. The toga was brought, and wiping the grimy sweat from his hands and face he put it on; at once the envoys from the city saluted him, with congratulations, as Dictator, invited him to enter Rome, and informed him of the terrible danger of Minucius's army. ↗

— Livy

#history #influence #political-philosophy #political-science #power

Take sex, for instance.' 'What do you want me to do with it?' 'Try to be serious for a moment. Take the sex life of our father.' [...] Even after a couple of brandies he felt extremely reluctant to discuss sex and his father. 'It's something I'd rather not think about,' he said. 'We all come into existence as a result of a momentary embrace by our parents which find impossible to imagine. [...] We all assume we're the result of our own particular immaculate conception. ↗

— John Mortimer

#sex #imagination

I learned that things are never as complicated as we imagine them to be. It is only our arrogance which seeks to find complicated answers to simple problems. ↗

— Muhammad Yunus

#arrogance #inspirational #problem #simple #imagination

Growing up, my parents managed to show me the importance of reading without cramming it down my throat. A difficult task, I'm sure. It breaks my heart to think that there are kids out there, ready to have their imaginations lit on fire, excited and wanting to read, and facing naked shelves in their school or local libraries. Rather than complain or wait till the system stops failing our nation's children this is a matter I feel we must take into our own hands. There are children, right now, waiting-wanting to read. What shall we tell them> ↗

— Nathan Fillion

#kids #reading #imagination

Bagiku ada sesuatu yang paling berharga dan hakiki dalam kehidupan: 'dapat mencintai, dapat iba hati, dapat merasai kedukaan'. Tanpa itu semua maka kita tidak lebih dari benda. Berbahagialah orang yang masih mempunyai rasa cinta, yang belum sampai kehilangan benda yang paling bernilai itu. Kalau kita telah kehilangan itu maka absurdlah hidup kita ↗

— Soe Hok Gie

#inspirational

Life's managed, not cured. ↗

— Phillip C. McGraw

#inspirational #life #philosophy #psychology #self-help

But what was there to say? Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-colored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close, long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief. Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#forbidden #grief #happiness #inspirational #laws

I was a witness of the execution at Horsemonger-lane this morning. ... I believe that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at that execution this morning could be imagined by no man, and could be presented in no heathen land under the sun. The horrors of the gibbet and of the crime which brought the wretched murderers to it, faded in my mind before the atrocious bearing, looks and language, of the assembled spectators. ... When the two miserable creatures who attracted all this ghastly sight about them were turned quivering into the air, there was no more emotion, no more pity, no more thought that two immortal souls had gone to judgment, no more restraint in any of the previous obscenities, than if the name of Christ had never been heard in this world, and there were no belief among men but that they perished like beasts. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#mr-and-mrs-manning #public-executions #imagination

once i asked myself ," what is time? " , in a second or two , i find the answer - " 't' for tension , 'i' for imaginative character of time , 'm' as it is mathematically expressed , 'e' as it has elegance ↗

— suman kundu

#science #imagination

The themes Poe used were universal and timeless. As long as the English language exists at all, we will be able to appreciate what he did. It will not age! It will not become dated! ↗

— John Astin

#age #appreciate #become #dated #did