Bc Love Quotes

As Aristocleia raised her cup to toast Xanthippus, her gown slipped from her shoulders, exquisite as Aphrodite’s, and flowed like the water that slid over her naked breasts when she allowed him to watch her bathe. It was wonderful to possess a gem of a woman. It made a man feel beautiful and godlike himself, briefly.

We live in a modern society. Husbands and wives don't grow on trees, like in the old days. So where does one find love? When you're sixteen it's easy, like being unleashed with a credit card in a department store of kisses. There's the first kiss. The sloppy kiss. The peck. The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The we shouldn't be doing this kiss. The but your lips taste so good kiss. The bury me in an avalanche of tingles kiss. The I wish you'd quit smoking kiss. The I accept your apology, but you make me really mad sometimes kiss. The I know your tongue like the back of my hand kiss. As you get older, kisses become scarce. You'll be driving home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road, with its purple thumb out. If you were younger, you'd pull over, slide open the mouth's red door just to see how it fits. Oh where does one find love? If you rub two glances, you get a smile. Rub two smiles, you get a warm feeling. Rub two warm feelings and presto-you have a kiss. Now what? Don't invite the kiss over and answer the door in your underwear. It'll get suspicious and stare at your toes. Don't water the kiss with whiskey. It'll turn bright pink and explode into a thousand luscious splinters, but in the morning it'll be ashamed and sneak out of your body without saying good-bye, and you'll remember that kiss forever by all the little cuts it left on the inside of your mouth. You must nurture the kiss. Turn out the lights. Notice how it illuminates the room. Hold it to your chest and wonder if the sand inside hourglasses comes from a special beach. Place it on the tongue's pillow, then look up the first recorded kiss in an encyclopedia: beneath a Babylonian olive tree in 1200 B.C. But one kiss levitates above all the others. The intersection of function and desire. The I do kiss. The I'll love you through a brick wall kiss. Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth, like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.

I often must sacrifice my own needs and desires for the purpose of giving my children what they need and modeling for them the depths of Christ's love. "...make myself available in the routine tasks and myriad interruptions of daily life b/c I believe it is God's will for me to serve my family through them.

He put his forehead against hers. “Alannah, my heart is yours.” He said softly. “And yet, I must hand it over to someone else for the keeping.” Her last words falling to a strained whisper.

I still want to feel you against me.” Her gaze dropped to his hands. “I want you to stay with me. Hold me. Just tonight. If I lose you again tomorrow then it will still be worth it. I will lose you a hundred times, if you would but hold me in your arms each time before my loss.” She saw his eyes water, but no tears emerged...

Not to aim to show God is not to love, bc God is what we need the most deeply. And to have all else without Him is to perish in the end.

Why did popular songs always focus on romantic love? Why this preoccupation with first meetings, sad partings, honeyed kisses, heartbreak, when life was also full of children's births and trips to the shore and longtime jokes with friends? Once Maggie had seen on TV where archaeologists had just unearthed a fragment of music from who knows how many centuries B.C., and it was a boys lament for a girl who didn't love him back. Then besides the songs there were the magazine stories and the novels and the movies, even the hair-spray ads and the pantyhose ads. It struck Maggie as disproportionate. Misleading, in fact.

Now he reduced his progress to the rhythm of his boots -- he walked across the land until he came to the sea. Everything that impeded him had to be outweighed, even if only by a fraction, by all that drove him on. In one pan of the scales, his wound, thirst, the blister, tiredness, the heat, the aching in his feet and legs, the Stukas, the distance, the Channel; in the other, I'll wait for you, and the memory of when she had said it, which he had come to treat like a sacred site. Also, the fear of capture. His most sensual memories -- their few minutes in the library, the kiss in Whitehall -- was bleached colorless through overuse. He knew by heart certain passages from her letters, he had revisited their tussle with the vase by the fountain, he remembered the warmth from her arm at the dinner when the twins went missing. These memories sustained him, but not so easily. Too often they reminded him of where he was when he last summoned them. They lay on the far side of a great divide in time, as significant as B.C. and A.D. Before prison, before war, before the sight of a corpse became a banality. But these heresies died when he read her last letter. He touched his breast pocket. It was a kind of genuflection. Still there. Here was something new on the scales. That he could be cleared had all the simplicity of love. Merely tasting the possibility reminded him of how much had narrowed and died. His taste for life, no less, all the old ambitions and pleasures. The prospect was of rebirth, a triumphant return.

I attended a symposium, an event named after a fifth century (B.C.) Athenian drinking party in which nonnerds talked about love; alas, there was no drinking, and mercifully, nobody talked about love.

...I’m sometimes called a reactionary. People say I want to go back to the 50s. And they’re right – but it’s the 650s BC I want to return to, because Sparta had the right idea about male love. You can spend all day wrestling and wanking each other off if you want to, chaps, but you still have to get married, have kids and go off to fight wars.

Singling out “women’s fiction” for genre derision never fails to piss me off. Somehow worse when women do it. Case in pt: Editor says crowd-sourcing editorial for romance & erotica not bad idea b/c “no great artistry at stake” Yes, genre fiction not high art. But it’s a craft we take seriously, writing for love of storytelling, not writing whatever sells.

As early as 1,000 BC, man had to wait nearly 3,000 years to talk to me. And my first words to the world right out of the womb were: “Love is timeless, but man is not. I think I’m early.” It’s true. I was a premature baby. I was born generations before my time.

Alannah took a step back. “Brennus, are you intoxicated?” “I am King Brennus. I do not become intoxicated. I am intoxicating.” Alannah let out another giggle. “This is not like you. How much have you had?” Brennus leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Two, maybe three.” “Glasses?” “Bottles.

I'll kiss you every hour... of everyday

so spoil me baby, give me everything i want bc i am lost w/out your leniency i don’t wanna be a queen i don’t wanna rule i only wanna be a princess &wear the jewels

this is your woman who would sweep your khat but doesn’t bc you don’t even chew it

Should you see the light of your future, within the shadows of your present, The resilience of life dancing over vast deserts of death, Witness if you so shall, the majesty of Creation. The connectedness of All was and always will be. Entanglement? No. We call it Love.” ~ Sargon of Akkad 2345 B.C. Excerpt from Andulairah's upcoming book "The Erunisis Medallion

For now, the Simple Daily Practice means doing ONE thing every day. Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

Should you see the light of your future, within the shadows of your present, The resilience of life dancing over vast deserts of death, Witness if you so shall, the majesty of Creation. The connectedness of All was and always will be. Entanglement? No. We call it Love.” ~ Sargon of Akkad 2345 B.C. Excerpt from Andulairah's upcoming book "The Erunisis Medallion

Nick has to give me a sponge-bath first.”  Brandon bent over with tired laughter.  “Now that would be brotherly love, if I’ve ever seen it.” Nick came through the doorway, a wet rag in his left hand, a red bucket in his right.  A bath towel was thrown over his right shoulder. Brandon’s mouth dropped open.  “Wait.  You were serious?” Jarryd gave him the thumbs up without moving his sore head.

The whole of life but labours in the dark. For just as children tremble and fear all In the viewless dark, so even we at times Dread in the light so many things that be No whit more fearsome than what children feign, Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark. This terror then, this darkness of the mind, Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse, But only nature's aspect and her law.

In the modern era, teachers and scholarship have traditionally laid strenuous emphasis on the fact that Briseis, the woman taken from Achilles in Book One, was his géras, his war prize, the implication being that her loss for Achilles meant only loss of honor, an emphasis that may be a legacy of the homoerotic culture in which the classics and the Iliad were so strenuously taught—namely, the British public-school system: handsome and glamorous Achilles didn’t really like women, he was only upset because he’d lost his prize! Homer’s Achilles, however, above all else, is spectacularly adept at articulating his own feelings, and in the Embassy he says, “‘Are the sons of Atreus alone among mortal men the ones / who love their wives? Since any who is a good man, and careful, / loves her who is his own and cares for her, even as I now / loved this one from my heart, though it was my spear that won her’ ” (9.340ff.). The Iliad ’s depiction of both Achilles and Patroklos is nonchalantly heterosexual. At the conclusion of the Embassy, when Agamemnon’s ambassadors have departed, “Achilles slept in the inward corner of the strong-built shelter, / and a woman lay beside him, one he had taken from Lesbos, / Phorbas’ daughter, Diomede of the fair colouring. / In the other corner Patroklos went to bed; with him also / was a girl, Iphis the fair-girdled, whom brilliant Achilles / gave him, when he took sheer Skyros” (9.663ff.). The nature of the relationship between Achilles and Patroklos played an unlikely role in a lawsuit of the mid-fourth century B.C., brought by the orator Aeschines against one Timarchus, a prominent politician in Athens who had charged him with treason. Hoping to discredit Timarchus prior to the treason trial, Aeschines attacked Timarchus’ morality, charging him with pederasty. Since the same charge could have been brought against Aeschines, the orator takes pains to differentiate between his impulses and those of the plaintiff: “The distinction which I draw is this—to be in love with those who are beautiful and chaste is the experience of a kind-hearted and generous soul”; Aeschines, Contra Timarchus 137, in C. D. Adams, trans., The Speeches of Aeschines (Cambridge, MA, 1958), 111. For proof of such love, Aeschines cited the relationship between Achilles and Patroklos; his citation is of great interest for representing the longest extant quotation of Homer by an ancient author. 32

Why did popular songs always focus on romantic love? Why this preoccupation with first meetings, sad partings, honeyed kisses, heartbreak, when life was also full of children’s births and trips to the shore and longtime jokes with friends? Once Maggie had seen on TV where archaeologists had just unearthed a fragment of music from who knows how many centuries B.C., and it was a boy’s lament for a girl who didn’t love him back. Then besides the songs there were the magazine stories and the novels and the movies, even the hair-spray ads and the panty-hose ads. It struck Maggie as disproportionate. Misleading, in fact.

Ah, dear Reader, is there a married man living who hasn’t purged his drawers and closets of premarital memorabilia, only to have one more incriminating relic from yester-life rear its lovely head? Kristy contends that old flames never die, not completely. They smolder for years in hidden places. They flare up again just when you think you’re over them. They can burn you if you don’t deal with them. Such is the price I’ve had to pay for not rooting out the evidence of my life B.C. (Before Contentment). Or, perhaps, for having planted it too well. But that, you see, is no longer an issue. Shall I tell you the crux of this argument? A man with a past can be forgiven. A man without one cannot be trusted. If there were no pictures in my drawer for Kirsty to uncover, I would have had to produce some.

Sumptuary laws were passed by the Senate limiting expenditure on banquets and clothing, but as the senators ignored these regulations, no one bothered to observe them. “The citizens,” Cato mourned, “no longer listen to good advice, for the belly has no ears.”9 The individual became rebelliously conscious of himself as against the state, the son as against the father, the woman as against the man. Usually the power of woman rises with the wealth of a society, for when the stomach is satisfied hunger leaves the field to love. Prostitution flourished. Homosexualism was stimulated by contact with Greece and Asia; many rich men paid a talent ($3600) for a male favorite; Cato complained that a pretty boy cost more than a farm.10 But women did not yield the field to these Greek and Syrian invaders. They took eagerly to all those supports of beauty that wealth now put within their reach. Cosmetics became a necessity, and caustic soap imported from Gaul tinged graying hair into auburn locks.11 The rich bourgeois took pride in adorning his wife and daughter with costly clothing or jewelry and made them the town criers of his prosperity. Even in government the role of women grew. Cato cried out that “all other men rule over women; but we Romans, who rule all men, are ruled by our women.”12 In 195 B.C.. the free women of Rome swept into the Forum and demanded the repeal of the Oppian Law of 215, which had forbidden women to use gold ornaments, varicolored dresses, or chariots. Cato predicted the ruin of Rome if the law should be repealed. Livy puts into his mouth a speech that every generation has heard:

The central figure of Buddhism is not a god but a human being, Siddhartha Gautama. According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama was heir to a small Himalayan kingdom, sometime around 500 BC. The young prince was deeply affected by the suffering evident all around him. He saw that men and women, children and old people, all suffer not just from occasional calamities such as war and plague, but also from anxiety, frustration and discontent, all of which seem to be an inseparable part of the human condition. People pursue wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content. Those who live in poverty dream of riches. Those who have a million want two million. Those who have two million want 10 million. Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied. They too are haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until sickness, old age and death put a bitter end to them. Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. Life is a pointless rat race. But how to escape it? At the age of twenty-nine Gautama slipped away from his palace in the middle of the night, leaving behind his family and possessions. He travelled as a homeless vagabond throughout northern India, searching for a way out of suffering. He visited ashrams and sat at the feet of gurus but nothing liberated him entirely – some dissatisfaction always remained. He did not despair. He resolved to investigate suffering on his own until he found a method for complete liberation. He spent six years meditating on the essence, causes and cures for human anguish. In the end he came to the realisation that suffering is not caused by ill fortune, by social injustice, or by divine whims. Rather, suffering is caused by the behaviour patterns of one’s own mind. Gautama’s insight was that no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the mind experiences something distasteful it craves to be rid of the irritation. When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves that the pleasure will remain and will intensify. Therefore, the mind is always dissatisfied and restless. This is very clear when we experience unpleasant things, such as pain. As long as the pain continues, we are dissatisfied and do all we can to avoid it. Yet even when we experience pleasant things we are never content. We either fear that the pleasure might disappear, or we hope that it will intensify. People dream for years about finding love but are rarely satisfied when they find it. Some become anxious that their partner will leave; others feel that they have settled cheaply, and could have found someone better. And we all know people who manage to do both.

GIVE ME THE SONGS OF A NATION” Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob! Begin the music, strike the timbrel, play the melodious harp and lyre. Psalm 81:1–2 Let these two quotations wash over you:           “I am the art in your arthouses, the ideas in your institutions, the laws in your land, the message in your movies, the thoughts of your teachers, the values your kids value. I affect you. Do you affect me?”—Culture And also this one, from the fifth-century BC Greek musician Damon of Athens:           Give me the songs of a nation, and it matters not who writes its laws. I wish more of us—especially our politicians—realized that ideas have consequences in the real world. When we embrace certain ideals in our movies and songs (sex without restraint, for example, which happened during the “free love” 1970s), it affects our culture in ways that rules and regulations can’t undo. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, don’t let movies, songs, and the arts be dominated by liberals. Instead, arm your Christian children and grandkids with a solid worldview and encourage them to enter these areas boldly and with excellence.

claque, aka canned laughter It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s nothing new under the sun (a heavenly body, by the way, that some Indian ascetics stare at till they go blind). I knew that some things had a history—the Constitution, rhythm and blues, Canada—but it’s the odd little things that surprise me with their storied past. This first struck me when I was reading about anesthetics and I learned that, in the early 1840s, it became fashionable to hold parties where guests would inhale nitrous oxide out of bladders. In other words, Whip-it parties! We held the exact same kind of parties in high school. We’d buy fourteen cans of Reddi-Wip and suck on them till we had successfully obliterated a couple of million neurons and face-planted on my friend Andy’s couch. And we thought we were so cutting edge. And now, I learn about claque, which is essentially a highbrow French word for canned laughter. Canned laughter was invented long before Lucille Ball stuffed chocolates in her face or Ralph Kramden threatened his wife with extreme violence. It goes back to the 4th century B.C., when Greek playwrights hired bands of helpers to laugh at their comedies in order to influence the judges. The Romans also stacked the audience, but they were apparently more interested in applause than chuckles: Nero—emperor and wannabe musician—employed a group of five thousand knights and soldiers to accompany him on his concert tours. But the golden age of canned laughter came in 19th-century France. Almost every theater in France was forced to hire a band called a claque—from claquer, “to clap.” The influential claque leaders, called the chefs de claque, got a monthly payment from the actors. And the brilliant innovation they came up with was specialization. Each claque member had his or her own important job to perform: There were the rieurs, who laughed loudly during comedies. There were the bisseurs, who shouted for encores. There were the commissaires, who would elbow their neighbors and say, “This is the good part.” And my favorite of all, the pleureuses, women who were paid good francs to weep at the sad parts of tragedies. I love this idea. I’m not sure why the networks never thought of canned crying. You’d be watching an ER episode, and a softball player would come in with a bat splinter through his forehead, and you’d hear a little whimper in the background, turning into a wave of sobs. Julie already has trouble keeping her cheeks dry, seeing as she cried during the Joe Millionaire finale. If they added canned crying, she’d be a mess.

Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

If we consider the possibility that all women–from the infant suckling her mother’s breast, to the grown woman experiencing orgasmic sensations while suckling her own child, perhaps recalling her mother’s milk-smell in her own; to two women, like Virginia Woolf’s Chloe and Olivia, who share a laboratory; to the woman dying at ninety, touched and handled by women–exist on a lesbian continuum, we can see ourselves as moving in and out of this continuum, whether we identify ourselves as lesbian or not. It allows us to connect aspects of woman-identification as diverse as the impudent, intimate girl-friendships of eight- or nine-year-olds and the banding together of those women of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries known as Beguines who “shared houses, rented to one another, bequeathed houses to their room-mates … in cheap subdivided houses in the artisans’ area of town,” who “practiced Christian virtue on their own, dressing and living simply and not associating with men,” who earned their livings as spinners, bakers, nurses, or ran schools for young girls, and who managed–until the Church forced them to disperse–to live independent both of marriage and of conventual restrictions. It allows us to connect these women with the more celebrated “Lesbians” of the women’s school around Sappho of the seventh century B.C.; with the secret sororities and economic networks reported among African women; and with the Chinese marriage resistance sisterhoods–communities of women who refused marriage, or who if married often refused to consummate their marriages and soon left their husbands–the only women in China who were not footbound and who, Agnes Smedley tells us, welcomed the births of daughters and organized successful women’s strikes in the silk mills. It allows us to connect and compare disparate individual instances of marriage resistance: for example, the type of autonomy claimed by Emily Dickinson, a nineteenth-century white woman genius, with the strategies available to Zora Neale Hurston, a twentieth-century black woman genius. Dickinson never married, had tenuous intellectual friendships with men, lived self-convented in her genteel father’s house, and wrote a lifetime of passionate letters to her sister-in-law Sue Gilbert and a smaller group of such letters to her friend Kate Scott Anthon. Hurston married twice but soon left each husband, scrambled her way from Florida to Harlem to Columbia University to Haiti and finally back to Florida, moved in and out of white patronage and poverty, professional success and failure; her survival relationships were all with women, beginning with her mother. Both of these women in their vastly different circumstances were marriage resisters, committed to their own work and selfhood, and were later characterized as “apolitical ”. Both were drawn to men of intellectual quality; for both of them women provided the ongoing fascination and sustenance of life.

On and on they went these nevers, but despite their random natures I found myself following almost every one perhaps bc I never wanted to disappoint my father. His voice even now follows me now on this longest of rides this thing called life.

Too often, however, these passing modes of relief proved insufficient. Among the all-too-scanty literary documents as yet unearthed, two dialogues on suicide significantly remain, one Egyptian and one Mesopotamian. In each case a member of the privileged classes, with every luxury and sensual gratification open to him, finds his life intolerable. His facile dreams are unsalted by reality. The Egyptian debate between a man and his soul dates from the period following the disintegration of the Pyramid Age, and betrays the desperation of an upper-class person who had lost faith in the ritualistic exaltation of death as the ultimate fulfillment of life, which rationalized the irrationalities of high Egyptian society. But the Mesopotamian dialogue between a rich master and his slave, dating from the first Millenium B.C., is even more significant: for the principal finds that no piling up of wealth, power, or sexual pleasure produces a meaningful life. Another seventh-century B.C. 'Dialogue About Human Misery' expands the theme: the fact that it has been called a Babylonian Ecclesiastes indicates the depth of its pessimism-the bitterness of power unrelieved by love, the emptiness of wealth condemned to enjoy only the goods that money can buy. If this is what the favored few could expect, in justification of thousands of years of arduous collective effort and sacrifice, it is obvious that the cult of power, from the beginning, was based upon a gross fallacy. Ultimately the end product proved as life-defeating for the master classes as the mechanism itself was for the disinherited and socially dismembered workers and slaves.

Don’t cry, Mary,” Eden croaked. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” My lip quivered as I softly replied, “You’re dying. How could I not cry?” I didn’t hear Lucas walk up behind me, but he put his hand on my shoulder for comfort. I sniffed back tears as I looked at my aunt lying helplessly in the hospital bed. I took in a sharp breath as Eden’s glassy eyes searched mine. “I love you,” Eden said weakly, coughing into her shaking hand. “I love you, too,” I whispered. “But this isn’t goodbye. Don’t say goodbye,” I pleaded.

It was Zoroastrianism which had a lasting impact on the Kurdish way of thinking, between 700 and 550 BC. Zoroastrianism cultivated a way of life that was marked by work in the fields, where men and women were equal to each other. Love of animals played an important role, and freedom was a high moral good. Zoroastrian culture influenced Eastern and Western civilisation equally, since both Persians and Hellenes adopted many of its cultural influences. The Persian civilisation, however, was founded by the Medes, believed to be the predecessors of the Kurds. In Herodotus’ histories there is much evidence for a division of power among both Medes and Persian ethnic groups in the Persian Empire. This is also true for the subsequent Sassanid Empire.

Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. -Plato (427 – 347 BC)

Red wine and Hennessy She fell out of her bottle when she fell into love, cup running over, overflowing emotions in glass- red stained palet, on a pallet on the grass, to a quilt on the floor -affixed between lips and red lipstick on a shirt that he wore. A familiar place, she know she's been here before Reminiscent of the evening On his shirt that she tore ............ Drop by drop, puddle in glass getting lower- impressions in her gut, rim of her glass, hour glass figure moves counter clockwise - while absorbing the contents of merlot. Hard liquor and fine wine ............. Red Wine and Hennessy A wicked twist on some champagne tips French nails, manicures over grapes Whoever said wine and liquor don't mix? Last night I had six Bottle caps, corks, bedazzled juice Merlot was her name - slim waist - good taste slinger neck, red lace. Long stem, pedestal - hands embraced her face ............. room temperature, her body temperature ... personality of two, she's mellow and chill... aged to perfection- pop the seal- watch the erection ... splatters on the floor- covers the rug, Residue of red lipstick- Merlot stained lips match the kiss on his neck ............ Chasing fantasy through the Red Sea While chasing that with a white BC How much will she pour- how much will she drink How much more before her ship sinks ........... A full body lush, blackberry crush Medium sized Bordeaux Intense velvety plum I asked her where she's from She said she's international She's longer thinking rational .......... Sips in sync with blinking eyes She sips too much to realize Every time you pour into me, my bottle gets more empty- Glass falling to the floor She staggers to the door Glass shatters her feet She stumbles to her seat She's still asking for more But she falls to the floor Red lipstick in the mud She covers up the blood ............ She lays in her wine She forgot about the time Clock on the wall Footsteps in the hall Pounding in her head She rushes to the bed ......... She lays motionless ... but her head is racing Her heart is pacing Her lungs are gasping - air, she needs air Rolls to her side, brings her self to sit up She gags and gags until She throws it all up- ........... Wakes up the next morning Dazed and confused She's laying in a bed That she's not used to She moves slowly, where did everyone go? She checks the time- it's a quarter pass 4 sounds on the other side of the door Are Muffled by the sound of a knock at the door ........... Looks around for her little red dress Notices a blotch - a red stain on her breast Lipstick smeared an accessory to her mess She reached for her clothes and saw a note on the desk. .......... Dearly beloved, I want to see you again I'd love to have to back I think we make a great blend I tried to wake you Because I had to go And Oh by the way, my name is merlot "Little Black Bird

A man was born on January 1st, 23 B.C. and died January 2nd, 23 A.D. How old did he live to be?

In the ancient-wisdom literature known as the book of Ecclesiastes, written several hundred years BC, there is a wanderer I borrowed from, a sojourner who discovers that sex, drugs, money, fame … are apparently not the promised land. Instead, says the writer—maybe Solomon—these are the vanities of vanities. The best thing in life, he discovers, is to enjoy your work. To do what you love. The promised land will always be somewhere else. I think I can grasp this.

Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to love! — Virgil, Eclogue X (37 B.C.)

this is your woman who would sweep your khat but doesn’t bc you don’t even chew it

Anna returned to supper preparations, wondering what on earth she had managed to fill her time with before having children. ‘BC’, they jokingly described it. She loved all of them to bits. But there were times when she longed to escape from the bedlam of family life. Lately she felt constantly tired. Some mornings she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other to confront the day. And she was putting on weight despite being careful with her diet. She worried there might be something seriously wrong, but it was easier to push nagging thoughts to the back of her mind. She craved one week on her own: one week of blissful quiet without the confusion and togetherness Italians craved. To go to bed late if she wanted without a 6 a.m. alarm call. Time to read a whole book in one sitting or drink wine in the middle of the day, without the responsibility of being the afternoon chauffeur to one of her children: for swimming lessons, music clubs, gymnastics and now regional tennis coaching, for which Davide had been selected. And a week of sleeping in a bed on her own might be good, she thought – without having to get up to soothe a child’s nightmares or being kept awake by Francesco’s snores or his hand stroking her thigh, when sex was the very last thing on her mind… ‘Penny for them?’ Francesco had crept up behind her, folding her in a hug, nuzzling the back of her neck as she tried to concentrate on chopping parsley and celery for a meat sauce. ‘You wouldn’t want to know,’ she said, thinking that he really wouldn’t and that she was an ungrateful cow to fantasise about a life without them. ‘Mamma, Babbo, stop it!’ Rosanna and Emilia were trying to insinuate themselves between their parents to break up their embrace. ‘Is supper nearly ready?’ Emilia, always hungry, asked.

What if you’re like Patrick, and never compete?” Ryan asked before Brandon could go on. “Please don’t single anyone out like that. We’re a team, and I bet Patrick will join us for the next competition.” Patrick sat, holding his knees close to his body, rocking back and forth. “Would he get ‘perseverance’ for continually not playing?” Ryan spurted. “No, it doesn’t work that way…” “Would he get ‘love’ for hith love of hatred?” Sammy chimed. “Or, uh, ‘attitude’ because he has a pretty awesome bad one?” Ryan spurted again. “STOP! Wow, okay! I will call on you to talk. Otherwise,

How do I feel abaout her? my knuckels run up her cheek, my palm flattening against it later, and she blinks slowly.....I love you baby. Every part of you. I love the way that you link life to lyrics, how you smile at the moon, and love like the ocean: far and wide and without apology. I love how selfless you are, how honest and kind- even though life hasn't been so kind to you lately. I love how you try to be brave for your family bc you don't want them to hurt, even when doing so hurts you a little. I love you so much that I want to come home to you, wake beside you and spend a lifetime worshipping you. I want the house that you spoke of and the family in your dreams. I don't ONLY want to be the man that you need, but the one that you want, the one that you can't live without. I want to love you for a lifetime and even more after that. But most of all, i just want the chance to make you MINE again., because I'm YOURS, ALWAYS, no matter what.

For instance, if A=B, B=C, and so on, SMASH becomes TNBTI.

Gay men are the worst people ever bc if they don’t want to fuck you, you are nothing to them. Yet they love dogs.

Happy and thrice happy are those who enjoy an uninterrupted union, and whose love, unbroken by any sour complaints, shall not dissolve until the last day of their existence. Horace (65 B.C.–8 B.C.), Roman lyric poet

To him who feels that Nature is lovely, it appears an end in itself, it has the ground of its existence in itself: … the question, Why does it exist? does not arise. … Nature, as it impresses his senses, has indeed had an origin, has been produced, but not created in the religious sense, … [H]e posits … as the ground of Nature, a force of Nature, - a real, present, visibly active force, as the ground of reality. … Anaxagoras (510-428BC : 'Life is a journey.'): - Man is born to behold the world. … [M]an contents himself, allows himself free play, … [with] the sensuous imagination alone. … [H]e lets Nature subsist in peace, and constructs his castles in the air. … When, on the contrary, man … is in disunion with Nature[,] he makes Nature the abject vassal of his selfish interest, of his practical egoism. … Nature or the world is made, created, the product of a command.

Behold, nothing surpasses books. Would that I might make you love them more than your mother. Would that I might make their beauty enter before your face. For it is greater than any office You are to set your heart on books.

Barcelona Barcelona is a modern city with an outdoor lifestyle. Markets, churches, architecture, restaurants, beaches, boulevards are perfect for any explorer who loves to be independent. The city is Spain’s second largest (1.6 million in habitants). It was founded on ancient roots, Hannibal’s father settled here in the 3rd century BC and, from there, it was a Roman settlement before being taken over by the Goths, North Africans, French and finally Spanish – although it still has a streak of independence and a strong movement toward Catalan home rule. An airport bus, Aerobus, connects the airport with the city centre. The bus runs every 10—20 minutes and takes around 30 minutes. The Metro system (stations are marked M) connects most of the

It was early spring, 326 BC, in the beautiful city of Chersonesus protected by a haunting deep blue sea and a giant wall. Today was the second day of the Festival of Dionysus.

The Parthenon was 228 feet long by 101 broad, and 64 feet high; the porticoes at each end had a double row of eight columns; the sculptures in the pediments were in full relief, representing in the eastern the Birth of Athene, and in the western the Struggle between that goddess and Poseidon, whilst those on the metopes, some of which are supposed to be from the hand of Alcamenes, the contemporary and rival of Phidias, rendered scenes from battles between the Gods and Giants, the Greeks and the Amazons, and the Centaurs and Lapithæ. Of somewhat later date than the Parthenon and resembling it in general style, though it is very considerably smaller, is the Theseum or Temple of Theseus on the plain on the north-west of the Acropolis, and at Bassæ in Arcadia is a Doric building, dedicated to Apollo Epicurius and designed by Ictinus, that has the peculiarity of facing north and south instead of, as was usual, east and west. Scarcely less beautiful than the Parthenon itself is the grand triple portico known as the Propylæa that gives access to it on the western side. It was designed about 430 by Mnesicles, and in it the Doric and Ionic styles are admirably combined, whilst in the Erectheum, sacred to the memory of Erechtheus, a hero of Attica, the Ionic order is seen at its best, so delicate is the carving of the capitals of its columns. It has moreover the rare and distinctive feature of what is known as a caryatid porch, that is to say, one in which the entablature is upheld by caryatides or statues representing female figures. Other good examples of the Ionic style are the small Temple of Niké Apteros, or the Wingless Victory, situated not far from the Propylæa and the Parthenon of Athens, the more important Temple of Apollo at Branchidæ near Miletus, originally of most imposing dimensions, and that of Artemis at Ephesus, of which however only a few fragments remain in situ. Of the sacred buildings of Greece in which the Corinthian order was employed there exist, with the exception of the Temple of Jupiter at Athens already referred to, but a few scattered remains, such as the columns from Epidaurus now in the Athens Museum, that formed part of a circlet of Corinthian pillars within a Doric colonnade. In the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, designed by Scopas in 394, however, the transition from the Ionic to the Corinthian style is very clearly illustrated, and in the circular Monument of Lysicrates, erected in 334 B.C. to commemorate the triumph of that hero's troop in the choric dances in honour of Dionysos, and the Tower of the Winds, both at Athens, the Corinthian style is seen at its best. In addition to the temples described above, some remains of tombs, notably that of the huge Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in memory of King Mausolus, who died in 353 B.C., and several theatres, including that of Dionysos at Athens, with a well-preserved one of larger size at Epidaurus, bear witness to the general prevalence of Doric features in funereal monuments and secular buildings, but of the palaces and humbler dwelling-houses in the three Greek styles, of which there must have been many fine examples, no trace remains. There is however no doubt that the Corinthian style was very constantly employed after the power of the great republics had been broken, and the Oriental taste for lavish decoration replaced the love for austere simplicity of the virile people of Greece and its dependencies. CHAPTER III

I kinda love it when writers trash their own early work bc it suggests that we can be many writers in one life- Ben Purkert

Thus just as “Jerusalem” sometimes refers to the ancient city by that name, and sometimes, as we have seen, anticipates the new, eschatological Jerusalem, so also “Babylon” not only may refer to the ancient city that reached the pinnacle of its splendor about the sixth century B.C., but becomes a symbol—a symbol that anticipates every proud city or culture that imagines it will live forever and arrogantly measures all things by the standards of its own sins and presuppositions.

Hebrew for “poor, humble.” The “pious poor” of Judaism. After the Exile in Babylon (587 BC), a social class of Jews who returned were known as much for their commitment to the Torah* and the temple as for their economic poverty. Their situation led them to trust in God and to pray for him to establish his justice in the Land. Accordingly, this group was one in which hopes for the Messiah flourished

When you love someone hang on tight to them BC you put your and their heart on a line that could break any second cherish what you have and be careful because you never know when that line can snap and end your relationship

We recall Macaulay’s warning that democracy would collapse when the poor used their electoral power to rob rich Peter to pay lazy Paul. Polybius expressed the same idea in 130 BC: When,

Jesus of Nazareth (c. 6 BCE (BC)- c. 29 CE (AD) was a Palestine Jew who grew up in Galilee, an important center of the militant Zealots. Jesus's message was simple. He reassured his fellow Jews he did not plan to undermine their traditional religion. What was important was not strict adherence to the letter of the law but the transformation of the inner person: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." God's command was simply to love God and one another: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself." In his teachings, Jesus presented the ethical concepts-humility, charity, and brotherly love-that would form the basis of the value system of medieval Western civilization.

I have seen the Aurora Borealis twice in my life–once in Anchorage, Alaska while we were walking home from the bar our band was playing at; and the other time in Salmon Arm, BC (Notch Hill area), coming home from a gig we played in Armstrong–gigantic curtains of green and pink waved across the sky; it is a mighty sight to see. High-pitched ethereal tones shook me down to the soles of my feet. The experience filled me with longing and a desire to know about more universal things. It reminded me that the Source loves to dance, too.

To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage. Lao Tzu, fourth century B.C., Taoist

A Good Start in Financial History You really can’t learn enough financial history. The following, listed in descending order of importance, are landmarks in the field. Edward Chancellor. Devil Take the Hindmost. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999. What manias look like; how to recognize—and hopefully avoid—irrational exuberance. Benjamin Roth. The Great Depression: A Diary. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009. What the bottoms look like; how to keep your courage and your cash up. Roger G. Ibbotson and Gary P. Brinson. Global Investing. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. Five hundred years of hard and fiat money, inflation, and security returns in a small, easy-to-read package. Adam Fergusson. When Money Dies. New York: PublicAffairs, 2010; Frederick Taylor. The Downfall of Money. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013. What real inflation looks like. Be afraid, very afraid. Benjamin Graham. Security Analysis. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996. You’re not a pro until you’ve read Graham “in the original”—the first edition, published in 1934. An authentic copy in decent condition will run you at least a grand. Fortunately, McGraw-Hill brought out a facsimile reprint in 1996. Charles Mackay. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Petersfield, U.K.: Harriman House Ltd., 2003. If you were smitten with Devil Take the Hindmost, you’ll love this nineteenth-century look at earlier manias. Sydney Homer and Richard Sylla. A History of Interest Rates, 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Loan markets from 35th-century B.C. Sumer to the present.

My love is to valueable to give to just anyone. You gotta be worth it, b/c life is to short to waste it