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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #stern
But who are we, where do we come from When all those years Nothing but idle talk is left And we are nowhere in the world?" = MEETING = ↗
If the ego is not regularly and repeatedly dissolved in the unbounded hyperspace of the Transcendent Other, there will always be slow drift away from the sense of self as part of nature’s larger whole. The ultimate consequence of this drift is the fatal ennui that now permeates Western Civilization. ↗
I’m here for the weather. I’m here for the forests (what’s left of them), for the world’s best bookstores and movie theaters; for the informality, anonymity, general lack of hidebound tradition, and the fact that here and nowhere else grunge rubs shoulders in the half-mean streets with a pervasive yet subtle mysticism. The shore of Puget Sound is where electric guitars cut their teeth, and old haiku go to die. In the deepest, darkest heart of winter, when the sky resembles bad banana baby food for months on end, and the witch measles that meteorologists call “drizzle” are a chronic gray rash on the skin of the land, folks all around me sink into a dismal funk. Many are depressed, a few actually suicidal. But I, I grow happier with each fresh storm, each thickening of the crinkly stratocumulus. “What’s so hot about the sun?” I ask. Sunbeams are a lot like tourists: intruding where they don’t belong, promoting noise and forced activity, faking a shallow cheerfulness, dumb little cameras slung around their necks. Raindrops, on the other hand, introverted, feral, buddhistically cool, behave as if they live here. Which, of course, they do. My bedroom is separated from the main body of my house, so that I have to go outside and cross some pseudo-Japanese stepping stones in order to go to sleep at night. Often I get rained on a little bit on my way to bed. It’s a benediction, a goodnight kiss. Romantic? Absolutely. And nothing to be ashamed of. If reality is a matter of perspective, then the romantic view of the world is as valid as any other—and a great deal more rewarding. It makes of life an unpredictable adventure rather than a problematic equation. Rain is the natural element for romanticism. A dripping fir is a thousand times more sexy than a sunburnt palm, and more primal and contemplative, too. A steady, wind-driven rain composes music for the psyche. It not only nurtures and renews, it consecrates and sanctifies. It whispers in secret languages about the primordial essence of things... Yes, I’m here for the weather. And when I’m lowered at last into a pit of marvelous mud, a pillow of fern and skunk cabbage beneath my skull, I want my epitaph to read, “IT RAINED ON HIS PARADE. AND HE WAS GLAD! ↗
#food
أيتها المرأة الشرقية إن الذين ينادون باسمك ويدعون إلى مساواتك بالرجل إنما يضحكون عليك، فقد ضحكوا علينا من قبلك. ↗
This revolutionary idea of Western citizenship—replete with ever more rights and responsibilities—would provide superb manpower for growing legions and a legal framework that would guarantee that the men who fought felt that they themselves in a formal and contractual sense had ratified the conditions of their own battle service. The ancient Western world would soon come to define itself by culture rather than by race, skin color, or language. That idea alone would eventually bring enormous advantages to its armies on the battlefield. (p. 122) ↗
#civilization #consent #contract-for-service #government #politics
I don’t like keeping her in the dark,” Jace said. “We’ll tell her in a week. What difference does a week make?” Jace gave him a look. “Two weeks ago you were dead.” “Well, I wasn’t suggesting two weeks,” said Sebastian. “That would be insane. ↗
