#sm

The number two, he thought, was an ominous number. Two is a reflection or duplication of one, the most perfect of the natural numbers. Two is all echo and counterpoise; two is the beginning of multiplicity, the way the universal oneness differentiates itself and breaks apart into strings and quarks and photons, all the separate and component pieces of life. Two is a symbol of becoming as opposed to pure being... ↗

— David Zindell

#phenomenology #spirituality #life

this is the woman you are inside the life. looking at you, what? i'm more excited than i've been since the first burning nights of adolescent frenzy. excited and confused. i look at you and feel an erection stirring even as the situation argues strenuously against it." _Eric Packer ↗

— Don DeLillo

#don-delillo #life

All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will,and government by self-control, but submission and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is their nature to live fir others;to make complete abnegation of themselves,and to have no life but in their affections. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#life

According to the Buddha's teaching the beginning of the life-stream of living beings is unthinkable. THe believer in the creation of life by God may be astonished at this reply. But if you were to ask him 'What is the beginning of God?' he would answer without hesitation 'God has no beginning', and he is not astonished at his own reply. ↗

— Walpola Rahula

#buddhism #circle-of-life #creation-of-the-universe #creationism #god

This nation's 23 million small businesses need a budget that reflects their value to the economy. ↗

— Solomon Ortiz

#businesses #economy #million #nation #need

A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#buddhism #eastern-religion #indochina #monotheism #rebirth-buddhism

Emmy has embarked on her journey to enrich the world with smiles. They are free, healthy, and often, very contagious. ↗

— Emmy Swain

#life #love-each-other #smile #life

The Lord does not require us to wear a [cassock] — He wants us to be good and kind. ↗

— Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

#eastern-orthodoxy #jesus-christ #kindness #monasticism #spirituality

I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child who...prayed..with...unexpiated tears to 'dear,kind God! ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#pessimism #philosophic-reflection #religion #theology #life

I will never do this, says one, yet does it: I am resolved to do this, says another; but flags upon second Thoughts: Or does it, tho’ awkwardly, for his Word’s sake: As if it were worse to break his Word, than to do amiss in keeping it. ↗

— William Penn

#life