#phil

When a traveler from the future must talk, he does not talk but whimpers. He whispers tortured sounds. He is agonized. For if he makes the slightest alteration in anything, he may destroy the future. At the same time, he is forced to witness events without being part of them, without changing them. He envies the people who live in their own time, who can act at will, oblivious of the future, ignorant of the effects of their actions. But he cannot act. He is an inert gas, a ghost, a sheet without soul. He has lost his personhood. He is an exile of time. ↗

— Alan Lightman

#time #change

Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand. ↗

— Oprah Winfrey

#challenge

It is common to represent a title, but inspiring to represent a purpose. ↗

— T.F. Hodge

#philosophical #purpose #quotes #death

Whether you call the principle of existence "God," "matter," "energy," or anything else you like, you have created nothing; you have merely changed a symbol. Eastern and Western Thinking, 1938 ↗

— C.G. Jung

#change

Then the soul, freed from vice, purged by studies of true philosophy, versed in spiritual life, and practised in matters of the intellect, devoted to the contemplation of her own substance, as if awakened from deepest sleep, opens those eyes which all possess but few use, and sees in herself a ray of that light which is the true image of the angelic beauty communicated to her, and of which she then communicates a faint shadow to the body. ↗

— Baldassare Castiglione

#courtier #light #philosophy #religion #vice

Simply to render oneself able to understand what other Christian thinkers have themselves come to understand and to more or less felicitously communicate requires that one's mind not be a blank slate but already properly formed, disciplined, and exercised. ↗

— Gregory B. Sadler

#christian-thought #discipline #intellect #intellectual-life #theology

Civilizations are the generations of the racial soul. As family-rearing, and then writing, bound the generations together, handing down the lore of the dying to the young, so print and commerce and a thousand ways of communication may bind the civilizations together, and preserve for future cultures all that is of value for them in our own. Let us, before we die, gather up our heritage, and offer it to our children. ↗

— Will Durant

#history #philosophy #communication

Willow: I don't actually date a whole lot... lately. Buffy: Why not? Willow: Well, when I'm with a boy I like, it's hard for me to say anything cool, or -or witty, or at all. I can usually make a few vowel sounds, and then I have to go away. Buffy: It's not that bad! Willow: No, it is. I think boys are more interested in a girl who can talk. Buffy: You really haven't been dating lately. Buffy: Well, my philosophy, do you wanna hear my philosophy? Willow: Yeah, I do! Buffy: Life is short. Willow: Life is short! Buffy: Not original, I'll grant you, but it's true. You know? Why waste time being all shy and worrying about some guy, and if he's gonna laugh at you. Seize the moment, 'cause tomorrow you might be dead. Willow: Oh, that's nice! ↗

— Joss Whedon

#carpe-diem #dating #humour #philosophy #dating

Because each of you has his or her own death, you carry it with you in a secret place from the moment you're born, it belongs to you and you belong to it. ↗

— José Saramago

#death-with-interruptions #life #philosophy #death

Life... is a paradise to what we know of death. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#philosophy #shakespeare #death