#y

You cannot mend the chromosome, quell the earthquake, or stanch the flood. You cannot atone for the dead tyrants’ murders and you alone cannot stop living tyrants. As Martin Buber saw it, the world of ordinary days “affords” us that precise association with god that redeems both us and our speck of world. God entrusts and allots to everyone an area to redeem: this creased and feeble life, “the world in which you live, just as it is, and not otherwise.” “Insofar as he cultivates and enjoys them in holiness, he frees their souls…he who prays and sings in holiness, eats and speaks in holiness…through him the sparks which have fallen will be uplifted, and the worlds which have fallen will be delivered and renewed. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#spirituality #life

Destiny is the invention of the cowardly, and the resigned. ↗

— Ignazio Silone

#destiny #invention #resigned

There's something else there as well, something entirely her own. An ability to look into the confusing mess of life and see things for what they are. ↗

— Suzanne Collins

#life #mockingjay #prim #life

When Nietszche says, "A new commandment I give to you, be hard" he is really saying, "A new commandment I give to you, be dead." Sensibility is the definition of life. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#life

Bones are patient. Bones never tire nor do they run away. When you come upon a man who has been dead many years, his bones will still be lying there, in place, content, patiently waiting, but his flesh will have gotten up and left him. Water is like flesh. Water will not stand still. It is always off to somewhere else; restless, talkative, and curious. Even water in a covered jar will disappear in time. Flesh is water. Stones are like bones. Satisfied. Patient. Dependable. Tell me, then, Alobar, in order to achieve immortality, should you emulate water or stone? Should you trust your flesh or your bones? ↗

— Tom Robbins

#death #immortality #life #permanence #stones

Question for your life: If Socrates had a clone, would he advise that clone to know thy self, or to know myself, with myself in this case being himself? ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#clone #clones #knowledge #philosophy #socrates

[O]ver the years I travelled to another universe. However alert we are, however much we think we know what will happen, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. It is alien, and old people are a separate form of life. They have green skin, with two heads that sprout antennae. They can be pleasant, they can be annoying--in the supermarket, these old ladies won't get out of my way--but most important they are permanently other. When we turn eighty, we understand that we are extraterrestrial. If we forget for a moment that we are old, we are reminded when we try to stand up, or when we encounter someone young, who appears to observe green skin, extra heads, and protuberances. ↗

— Donald Hall

#aliens #antiquity #extraterrestrials #old-age #other

Life's a lot different from what people pretend. That's why pretending is fun. I used to think it was some special wickedness of my own that made such queer things happen. Now I'm beginning to guess that everybody's like that. ↗

— Christopher Morley

#kitty-foyle #pretending #life

For the past couple of years I've been pretty bored with music in general... just bored with it. ↗

— Les Claypool

#bored #couple #general #i #just

I have not survived against all odds. I have not lived to tell. I have not witnessed the extraordinary. This is my story. ↗

— Amy Krouse Rosenthal

#life