#pre

Olivier took a deep breath, then turned and bowed in farewell. Gersonides nodded in return, then thought of something. "The manuscript you brought me, by that bishop. It argues that understanding is more important than movement. That action is virtuous only if it reflects pure comprehension, and that virtue comes from the comprehension, not the action." Olivier frowned. "So?" "Dear boy, I must tell you a secret." "What?" "I do believe it is wrong. ↗

— Iain Pears

#comprehension #philosophy #right #understanding #virtue

He ran his fingers over the moist ends of her hair and across her face. Her eyes were wet. Jesus Christ. How many nights had he heard Lily crying. As some parents sleep through fire, thunderstorms, and voices at the back door only to wake at a child’s whisper, so Everett heard Lily crying at night. Her muffled sobs seemed to have broken his dreams for years. He had heard her even at Fort Lewis, even in Georgia, finally at Bliss. That was Lily crying in the wings whenever the priest came to tear up his mother’s grave. Lily cried in the twilight field where he picked wild poppies with Martha; Lily’s was the cry he heard those nights the kiln burned, the levee broke, the ranch went to nothing. ↗

— Joan Didion

#relationships #dreams

It is so hard to learn to put sadness in perspective so hard to understand that it is a feeling that comes in degrees, it can be a candle burning gently and harmlessly in your home, or it can be a full-fledged forest fire that destroy almost everything and is controlled by almost nothing. It can also be so much in-between ↗

— Elizabeth Wurtzel

#control

How often do you ignore a dream, dismiss it as fantasy and then see echoes of the dream around you the following day? What if a dream were the forewarning of what will become your reality; if you are being told within the world of a dream what may occur in the near or distant future, but your mind mangles the truth and information so much that you discard it as fiction? ↗

— Samantha Robertson

#fiction #forewarning #premonition #dreams

I asked her, dreamily, if we had met, and when she told me that we had not, I gave her a little finger wave, the type a leprechaun might offer a pixie who was floating by on a maple leaf. "Well, hi there," I whispered. ↗

— David Sedaris

#dream #drugs #hello #leprechaun #pixie

She pauses several treads from the bottom, listening, waiting; she is again possessed (it seems to be getting worse) by a dream-like feeling, as if she is standing in the wings, about to go onstage and perform in a play for which she is not appropriately dressed, and for which she has not adequately rehearsed. ↗

— Michael Cunningham

#domestic-life #loved-ones #numb-depression #preparation-to-face-the-day #putting-on-an-act

A plan is the transport medium which conveys a person from the station of dreams to the destination of success. Goals are the transport fees. ↗

— Israelmore Ayivor

#achievements #achievers #convey #destination #destiny

In the meantime, I could withdraw to my room, could hide and sleep as if I were dead ↗

— Elizabeth Wurtzel

#memories #suicide #suicide

Science replaces private prejudice with public, verifiable evidence. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#education #enlighten #evidence #ignorance #knowledge

Modernist discourse [...] incorporates semantic devices - such as the labeling of theism as 'religion' and naturalism as 'science' - that work to prevent a dangerous debate over fundamental assumptions from breaking out in the open. ↗

— Phillip E. Johnson

#modernity #naturalism #naturalism-as-science #presuppositions #science