The creeks ... are an active mystery, fresh every minute. Theirs is the mystery of continuous creation and all that providence imp...lies: the uncertainty of vision, the horror of the fixed, the dissolution of the present, the intricacy of beauty, the pressure of fecundity, the elusiveness of the free, and the flawed nature of perfection. The mountains ... are a passive mystery, the oldest of all. Theirs is the one simple mystery of creation from nothing, of matter itself, anything at all, the given. Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And the first till last alshemist wrote over every square inch of the only foolscap available, his own body, till by its corrosive... sublimation one continuous present tense integument slowly unfolded all marryvoising moodmoulded cyclewheeling history....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He is a man of thirty-five, but looks fifty. He is bald, has varicose veins and wears spectacles, or would wear them if his only p...air were not chronically lost. If things are normal with him, he will be suffering from malnutrition, but if he has recently had a lucky streak, he will be suffering from a hangover. At present it is half past eleven in the morning, and according to his schedule he should have started work two hours ago; but even if he had made any serious effort to start he would have been frustrated by the almost continuous ringing of the telephone bell, the yells of the baby, the rattle of an electric drill out in the street, and the heavy boots of his creditors clumping up the stairs. The most recent interruption was the arrival of the second post, which brought him two circulars and an income tax demand printed in red. Needless to say this person is a writer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Catholic theological tradition is not a series of historically contiguous but different theologies; it is a continuous effort ...in a uniform line. A twentieth-century theologian can go back to the thirteenth or sixteenth and not be in an unknown, strange world. He is quite at home, because it is the very house he is living in today. There is central heating now and electricity, but the fireplaces have not been removed. There are elevators, but the magnificent stairs of the older time are still there. Even the moat can still be seen, though today it is used for flower beds, and the drawbridge is always down.... The Protestant theological house does not follow such a plan; it is really a rambling complex of buildings. At any moment it obeys the dictates of the tastes of the time, but one can see in the whole that there were once other structures where present ones now stand. The older parts have been torn down, though elements thereof were employed in the present erections.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is very considerably smaller than Australia and British Somaliland put together. As things stand at present there is nothing mu...ch the Texans can do about this, and ... they are inclined to shy away from the subject in ordinary conversation, muttering defensively about the size of oranges.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes... of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What if this present were the world's last night? Mark in my heart, O Soul, where thou dost dwell,... The picture of Christ crucified, and tell Whether that countenance can thee affright,LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete indolence. Its condition is that of a man who ha...s only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition... on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »