#stern

To the stern student of affairs, Beirut is a phenomenon, beguiling perhaps, but quite, quite impossible. ↗

— Jan Morris

#beirut #impossible #perhaps #phenomenon #quite

The hero of the book does long to experience God. But his conception of God is very western. ↗

— Orhan Pamuk

#conception #does #experience #god #hero

Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#code #culture #ethics #every #needs

If someone says, "You can make it!" down a vertical mountain when you don't ski very well, think about it before launching. This can be a turning point in your life. It sure was in mine when I slammed into the mountain. I wish I'd said, "F'getabout it, sucka," and gone to the Kiddie Corral. Would have saved a lot of pain and surgery. Think about this. What are you really up for? Is the thrill worth the cost? ↗

— Sandy Nathan

#health #inspirational #new-age #western-wisdom #age

We played in Texas about a year ago, at Emo's, the famous country and western club in Austin. And I figured, well, if I'm finally gonna die onstage, that's where it's going to be! ↗

— Alan Vega

#ago #austin #club #country #die

In the long winter evenings he talked to Ma about the Western country. In the West the land was level, and there were no trees. The grass grew thick and high. ↗

— Laura Ingalls Wilder

#country #evenings #grass #grew #high

Yes," Jace said, unable to help himself, "I was trained to be an evil mastermind from a young age. Pulling the wings off flies, poisoning the earth's water water supply - I was covering that stuff in kindergarten. I guess we're all just lucky my father faked his own death before he got to the raping and pillaging part of my education, or no one would be safe. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#jace-wayland #smartmouth #valentine-morgenstern #age

Yong is the outer manifestation of something. Ti is the underlying essence. Technology is a yong associated with a particular ti that is ... Western, and completely alien to us [the Chinese]. For centuries, since the time of the Opium Wars, we have struggled to absorb the yong of technology without importing the Western ti. But it has been impossible. Just as our ancestors could not open our ports to the West without accepting the poison of opium, we could not open our lives to Western technology without taking in the Western ideas, which have been as a plague on our society. The result has been centuries of chaos. ↗

— Neal Stephenson

#history #society #technology #western #age

The West is a civilization that has survived all the prophecies of its collapse with a singular stratagem. Just as the bourgeoisie had to deny itself as a class in order to permit the bourgeoisification of society as a whole, from the worker to the baron; just as capital had to sacrifice itself as a wage relation in order to impose itself as a social relation—becoming cultural capital and health capital in addition to finance capital; just as Christianity had to sacrifice itself as a religion in order to survive as an affective structure—as a vague injunction to humility, compassion, and weakness; so the West has sacrificed itself as a particular civilization in order to impose itself as a universal culture. The operation can be summarized like this: an entity in its death throes sacrifices itself as a content in order to survive as a form. ↗

— The Invisible Committee

#philosophy #western-civilization #death

Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation. ↗

— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

#hindu #inspirational #religious #spirituality #equality