For to know nothing is nothing, not to want to know anything likewise, but to be beyond knowing anything, to know you are beyond k...nowing anything, that is when peace enters in, to the soul of the incurious seeker.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My general theory since 1971 has been that the word is literally a virus, and that it has not been recognised as such because it h...as achieved a state of relatively stable symbiosis with its human host; that is to say, the word virus (the Other Half) has established itself so firmly as an accepted part of the human organism that it can now sneer at gangster viruses like smallpox and turn them in to the Pasteur Institute.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Instead of giving in to the greatest misfortune that can happen at my age, deafness, I busy myself in searching out all possible c...ompensations, and I apply myself much more to all the amusements that are here within my grasp.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Single parents in particular may have trouble maintaining themselves as authority figures because of underlying guilt; they feel a... continuing sense that they have deprived their kids of the second parent, and so they tend to give in to the children's requests, even when unreasonable.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no shame in man giving in to pain, but it is shameful for him to give in to pleasure. This is not because pain comes to u...s from outside, whilst we seek pleasure, for we may seek pain and deliberately give in to it without this sort of abasement. Why then is it to reason's credit to give in to the effect of pain, and to its shame to give into that of pleasure? It is because it is not pain that tempts and attracts us; it is we ourselves who voluntarily choose it and allow it to get the better of us, so that we are masters of the occasion, and in this it is man giving in to himself. But in pleasure it is man who gives in to pleasure. Now, glory comes only from mastery and control, shame only from subjection.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?--the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; t...he self that took the veil and left the world--a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When I received this [coronation] ring I solemnly bound myself in marriage to the realm; and it will be quite sufficient for the m...emorial of my name and for my glory, if, when I die, an inscription be engraved on a marble tomb, saying, "Here lieth Elizabeth, which reigned a virgin, and died a virgin."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The hill farmer ... always seems to make out somehow with his corn patch, his few vegetables, his rifle, and fishing rod. This sel...f-contained economy creates in the hillman a comparative disinterest in the world's affairs, along with a disdain of lowland ways. "I don't go to question the good Lord in his wisdom," runs the phrasing attributed to a typical mountaineer, "but I jest cain't see why He put valleys in between the hills."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Who will join in the march to the Rocky Mountains with me, a sort of high-pressure-double-cylinder-go-it-ahead-forty-wildcats- tea...rin' sort of a feller?... Git out of this warming-pan, ye holly-hocks, and go out to the West where you may be seen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nearby Bodie was a notoriously tough camp, where "a man for breakfast" was so frequent an occurrence that the phrase "bad man from... Bodie" was coined to describe those residents who were still in the land of the living. So impressive was its reputation for wickedness that once when an Aurora family considered moving to the town, the young daughter of the family finished her evening prayers with a tearful, "Goodbye, God, we're going to Bodie." Aurora ruffled whatever virtuous feathers it could muster and pointed scornfully. Bodie resentfully charged that the child has been deliberately misquoted--that what she had actually said was "Good! By God, we're going to Bodie"!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »