#qualities

I invited Intuition to stay in my house when my roommates went North. I warned her that I am territorial and I keep the herb jars in alphabetical order. Intuition confessed that she has a ‘spotty employment record.’ She was fired from her last job for daydreaming. When Intuition moved in, she washed all the windows, cleaned out the fireplace, planted fruit trees, and lit purple candles. She doesn’t cook much. She eats beautiful foods, artichokes, avocadoes, persimmons and pomegranates, wild rice with wild mushrooms, chrysanthemum tea. She doesn’t have many possessions. Each thing is special. I wish you could see the way she arranged her treasures on the fireplace mantle. She has a splendid collection of cups, bowls, and baskets. Well, the herbs are still in alphabetical order, and I can’t complain about how the house looks. Since Intuition moved in, my life has been turned inside out. ↗

— J. Ruth Gendler

#j-ruth-gendler #the-book-of-qualities #beauty

In these downbeat times, we need as much hope and courage as we do vision and analysis; we must accent the best of each other even as we point out the vicious effects of our racial divide and pernicious consequences of our maldistribution of wealth and power. We simply cannot enter the twenty-first century at each other's throats, even as we acknowledge the weighty forces of racism, patriarchy, economic inequality, homophobia, and ecological abuse on our necks. We are at a crucial crossroad in the history of this nation--and we either hang together by combating these forces that divide and degrade us or we hang separately. Do we have the intelligence, humor, imagination, courage, tolerance, love, respect, and will to meet the challenge? Time will tell. None of us alone can save the nation or world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. ↗

— Cornel West

#change #courage #future #hope #inequalities

There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion. ↗

— Lord Acton

#bear #cannot #contrary #development #discussion

Even though I love my mother, I didn't want to make an idealized portrait of her. I'm fascinated more by her defects - they are funnier than her other qualities. ↗

— Pedro Almodovar

#even #fascinated #funnier #her #i

You can be revered for all sorts of qualities, but to be truly charismatic is rare. Elizabeth Taylor was, for me, one of those rarities. ↗

— Francesca Annis

#elizabeth #elizabeth taylor #me #qualities #rare

But it's always really difficult to find someone that has the qualities to be a great accompanist. ↗

— Victoria de los Angeles

#difficult #find #great #qualities #really

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others. ↗

— Aristotle

#courage #first #guarantees #human #human qualities

When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks. ↗

— Natalie Clifford Barney

#attributes #comes #elation #halo #her

To think straight, it is advisable to expect all qualities and attributes, adjectives, and so on to refer to at least two sets of interactions in time. ↗

— Gregory Bateson

#advisable #attributes #expect #interactions #least

Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. ↗

— Charles Baudelaire

#irony #literary #qualities #two