“
There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-
”
”
Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone)
“
The same substance composes us--the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star--we are all one, all moving to the same end.
”
”
P.L. Travers (Mary Poppins (Mary Poppins, #1))
“
There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-she had reached that point.
”
”
Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone)
“
I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
that in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion
will come with bandages in her mouth
and the soft body of a woman,
and lick you clean of fever,
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck
and caress you into darkness and paradise.
”
”
Louise Penny (The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5))
“
We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.
”
”
P.L. Travers (Mary Poppins)
“
I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
That the deity that kills for pleasure will also
heal,
That in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion will pick your soul
up gently
by the nape of the neck,
And caress you into darkness and paradise.
~ Ruth Zardo, poet and character in All The Devils Are Here
”
”
Louise Penny (All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #16))
“
A deaf composer's like a cook who's lost his sense of taste. A frog that's lost its webbed feet. A truck driver with his license revoked. That would throw anybody for a loop, don't you think? But Beethoven didn't let it get to him. Sure, he must have been a little depressed at first, but he didn't let misfortune get him down. It was like, Problem? What problem? He composed more than ever and came up with better music than anything he'd ever written. I really admire the guy. Like this Archduke Trio--he was nearly deaf when he wrote it, can you believe it? What I'm trying to say is, it must be tough on you not being able to read, but it's not the end of the world. You might not be able to read, but there are things only you can do. That's what you gotta focus on--your strengths. Like being able to talk with the stone.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)
“
Chin up! You're a Montrose, and we stay calm and composed everywhere, always.
”
”
Kerstin Gier (Ruby Red (Precious Stone Trilogy, #1))
“
What artist has not experienced the feverish euphoria of composing the perfect thumbnail sketch, first draft, negative or melody — only to run headlong into a stone wall trying to convert that tantalizing hint into the finished mural, novel, photograph, sonata. The artist’s life is frustrating not because the passage is slow, but because he imagines it to be fast.
”
”
David Bayles (Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking)
“
Forever—is composed of Nows— EMILY DICKINSON
”
”
Kerstin Gier (Emerald Green (Precious Stone Trilogy, #3))
“
Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
--through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.
”
”
William Carlos Williams
“
For London, Blampied claimed, was of all cities in the world the most autumnal —its mellow brickwork harmonizing with fallen leaves and October sunsets, just as the etched grays of November composed themselves with the light and shade of Portland stone. There was a charm, a deathless charm, about a city whose inhabitants went about muttering, "The nights are drawing in," as if it were a spell to invoke the vast, sprawling creature-comfort of winter.
”
”
James Hilton (Random Harvest)
“
My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.” “But
”
”
P.L. Travers (Mary Poppins)
“
Jahan took a breath and composed herself. “When I was a little sort of girl and I would see a gentleman or a lady with good, clean clothes I would run and hide my face. But after I graduated from the Korphe School, I felt a big change in my life. I felt I was clear and clean and could go before anybody and discuss anything. And now that I am already in Skardu, I feel that anything is possible. I don’t want to be just a health worker. I want to be such a woman that I can start a hospital and be an executive, and look over all the health problems of all the women in the Braldu. I want to become a very famous woman of this area,” Jahan said, twirling the hem of her maroon silk headscarf around her finger as she peered out the window, past a soccer player sprinting through the drizzle toward a makeshift goal built of stacked stones, searching for the exact word with which to envision her future. “I want to be a… ‘Superlady’” she said, grinning defiantly, daring anyone, any man, to tell her she couldn’t. p. 313
”
”
Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time)
“
You're composing not in relation to the spectacle, but in relation to the drama on the screen.
”
”
HowardStone
“
I stood there, listening. The wind blew snow from the branches. Snow blew out of the woods in eddies and sweeping gusts. I raised my collar, put my gloves back on. When the air was still again, I walked among the stones, trying to read the names and dates, adjusting the flags to make them swing free. Then I stood and listened.
The power of the dead is that we think they see us all the time. The dead have a presence. Is there a level of energy composed solely of the dead? They are also in the ground, of course, asleep and crumbling. Perhaps we are what they dream.
May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan.
”
”
Don DeLillo (White Noise)
“
Mirabai composed many ecstatic songs which are still treasured in India; I translate one of them here: “If by bathing daily God could be realised Sooner would I be a whale in the deep; If by eating roots and fruits He could be known Gladly would I choose the form of a goat; If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him I would say my prayers on mammoth beads; If bowing before stone images unveiled Him A flinty mountain I would humbly worship; If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed Many calves and children would know Him; If abandoning one’s wife would summon God Would not thousands be eunuchs? Mirabai knows that to find the Divine One The only indispensable is Love.
”
”
Paramahansa Yogananda (The Autobiography of a Yogi ("Popular Life Stories"))
“
People say that certain sounds can melt a heart of stone. If there is anyone who has that sort of a heart―which I doubt (as far as I am aware hearts are made of fibrous materials, fluid sacs and pumping mechanisms)―if anyone does have a heart composed of granite or flint and therefore not at all prone to melting but just conceivably meltable when exposed to very beautiful sounds, then the sounds made by my cherrywood harp, I am confident, would do it. However, I had a feeling the heart of Ellie the Exmoor Housewife was completely lacking in stony components. I had a feeling it was made of much softer stuff.
”
”
Hazel Prior (Ellie and the Harpmaker)
“
Out in the stone-pile the toad squatted with its glowing jewel-eyes and, maybe, its memories. I don't know if you'll admit a toad could have memories. But I don't know, either, if you'll admit there was once witchcraft in America. Witchcraft doesn't sound sensible when you think of Pittsburgh and subways and movie houses, but the dark lore didn't start in Pittsburgh or Salem either; it goes away back to dark olive groves in Greece and dim, ancient forests in Brittany and the stone dolmens of Wales. All I'm saying, you understand, is that the toad was there, under its rocks, and inside the shack Pete was stretching on his hard bed like a cat and composing himself to sleep.
("Before I Wake...")
”
”
Henry Kuttner (Masters of Horror)
“
They’re all dear to me, but I admire the dandelion the most. It is hardy and determined, adaptable and practical. The flower looks like a small chrysanthemum, but it’s much more resourceful and far less delicate. Poets may compose odes about the chrysanthemum, but the dandelion’s leaves and flowers can fill your belly, its sap cure your warts, its roots calm your fevers. Dandelion tea makes you alert, while chewing its root can steady a nervous hand. The milk of the dandelion can even be used to make invisible ink that reveals itself when mixed with the juice of the stone’s ear mushroom. It is a versatile and useful plant people can rely on. “And
”
”
Ken Liu (The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty, #1))
“
it may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember
”
”
P.L. Travers (Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back)
“
There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed—she had reached that point.
”
”
Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone)
“
The same substance composes us — the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star — we are all one, all moving to the same end.
”
”
P.L. Travers (Mary Poppins)
“
For it is the duty of an astronomer to compose the history of the celestial motions through careful and expert study. - Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
”
”
Vincent Pauletti (The Copernicus Connection (Donovan Stone #2))
“
He paused a moment, gazing in awe at the huge mass of buildings composing the castle. It stood close to the river, on either side and to the rear stretched the extensive park and gardens, filled with splendid trees, fountains and beds of brilliant flowers in shades of pink, crimson, and scarlet. The castle itself was built of pink granite, and enclosed completely a smaller, older building which the present Duke's father had considered too insignificant for his town residence. The new castle had taken forty years to build; three architects and hundreds of men had worked day and night, and the old Duke had personally selected every block of sunset-colored stone that went to its construction. 'I want it to look like a great half-open rose,' he declared to the architects, who were fired with enthusiasm by this romantic fancy. It was begun as a wedding present to the Duke's wife, whose name was Rosamond, but unfortunately she died some nine years before it was completed. 'never mind, it will do for her memorial instead,' said the grief-stricken but practical widower. The work went on. At last the final block was laid in place. The Duke, by now very old, went out in his barouche and drove slowly along the opposite riverbank to consider the effect. He paused midway for a long time, then gave his opinion. 'It looks like a cod cutlet covered in shrimp sauce,' he said, drove home, took to his bed, and died.
”
”
Joan Aiken (Black Hearts in Battersea (The Wolves Chronicles, #2))
“
One insight was that the ordinary physical world through which one shuffled heedless and half-assed toward nonentity was capable of composing itself, at any time and without notice, into a massive instrument of agonizing death.
”
”
Robert Stone (Dog Soldiers)
“
Formerly these harsh cells in which the discipline of the prison leaves the condemned to himself were composed of four stone walls, a ceiling of stone, a pavement of tiles, a camp bed, a grated air-hole, a double iron door, and were called "dungeons" ; but the dungeon has been thought too horrible; now it is composed ofan iron door, a grated air-hole, a camp bed, a pavement of tiles, a ceiling of stone, four stone walls, and it is called "punishment cell.
”
”
Victor Hugo
“
On the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through the solid marble—for the structure was composed of a few vast blocks of stone—was a great iron spike or stake. On going to the back I saw, graven in great Russian letters: 'The dead travel fast.
”
”
Bram Stoker (Dracula's Guest)
“
At that time I found that many of the citizens had been living under ground. The ridges upon which Vicksburg is built, and those back to the Big Black, are composed of a deep yellow clay of great tenacity. Where roads and streets are cut through, perpendicular banks are left and stand as well as if composed of stone. The magazines of the enemy were made by running passage-ways into this clay at places where there were deep cuts. Many citizens secured places of safety for their families by carving out rooms in these embankments. A door-way in these cases would be cut in a high bank, starting from the level of the road or street, and after running in a few feet a room of the size required was carved out of the clay, the dirt being removed by the door-way. In some instances I saw where two rooms were cut out, for a single family, with a door-way in the clay wall separating them. Some of these were carpeted and furnished with considerable elaboration. In these the occupants were fully secure from the shells of the navy,
”
”
Ulysses S. Grant (Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes)
“
I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
That the deity that kills for pleasure will also heal,
That in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion will pick your soul up gently
by the nape of the neck,
And caress you into darkness and paradise.
”
”
Louise Penny (All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #16))
“
The way grew more and more stony and this made me suspicious. If we were approaching a town we ought by now to have found a path. Instead there were these jumbled white stones that looked as if they had been combed out by an ignorant hand from the elements that make least sense. There must be stupid portions of heaven, too, and these had rolled straight down from it. I am no geologist but the word calcareous seemed to fit them. They were composed of lime and my guess was that they must have originated in a body of water. Now they were ultra-dry but filled with little caves from which cooler air was exhaled—ideal places for a siesta in the heat of noon, provided no snakes came. But the sun was in decline, trumpeting downward. The cave mouths were open and there was this coarse and clumsy gnarled white stone.
”
”
Saul Bellow (Henderson the Rain King)
“
It is vain philosophy that supposes more causes than are exactly adequate to explain the phenomena of things. . . . You assert that the construction of the animal machine, the fitness of certain animals to certain situations, the connexion between the organs of perception and that which is perceived; the relation between every thing which exists, and that which tends to preserve it in its existence, imply design. It is manifest that if the eye could not see, nor the stomach digest, the human frame could not preserve its present mode of existence. It is equally certain, however, that the elements of its composition, if they did not exist in one form, must exist in another; and that the combinations which they would form, must so long as they endured, derive support for their peculiar mode of being from their fitness to the circumstances of their situation. It by no means follows, that because a being exists, performing certain functions, he was fitted by another being to the performance of these functions. So rash a conclusion would conduct, as I have before shewn, to an absurdity; and it becomes infinitely more unwarrantable from the consideration that the known laws of matter and motion, suffice to unravel, even in the present imperfect state of moral and physical science, the majority of those difficulties which the hypothesis of a Deity was invented to explain. Doubtless no disposition of inert matter, or matter deprived of qualities, could ever have composed an animal, a tree, or even a stone. But matter deprived of qualities, is an abstraction, concerning which it is impossible to form an idea. Matter, such as we behold it, is not inert. It is infinitely active and subtile.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
“
All moveables of wonder, from all parts,
Are here—Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs,
The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig,
The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire,
Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl,
The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,
The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft
Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows,
All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things,
All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts
Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats
All jumbled up together, to compose
A Parliament of Monsters.
”
”
William Wordsworth (The Prelude)
“
These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape—for did not this star-fashioned image prove it?—but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, they could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (Tales)
“
Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight before he and the wolves had drawn the great gay skin clear of the body.
'Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home! Help me to herd them, Akela.'
The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the village Mowgli saw lights, and heard the conches and bells in the temple blowing and banging. Half the village seemed to be waiting for him by the gate. 'That is because I have killed Shere Khan,' he said to himself; but a shower of stones whistled about his ears, and the villagers shouted: 'Sorcerer! Wolfs brat! Jungle-demon! Go away! Get hence quickly, or the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot, Buldeo, shoot!'
The old Tower musket went off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed in pain.
'More sorcery!' shouted the villagers. 'He can turn bullets. Buldeo, that was thy buffalo.'
'Now what is this?' said Mowgli, bewildered, as the stones flew thicker.
'They are not unlike the Pack, these brothers of thine,' said Akela, sitting down composedly. 'It is in my head that, if bullets mean anything, they would cast thee out.'
'Wolf! Wolf's cub! Go away!' shouted the priest, waving a sprig of the sacred tulsi plant.
'Again? Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because I am a wolf. Let us go, Akela.
”
”
Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book (Jungle Book, #1))
“
Mirabai composed many ecstatic songs, which are still treasured in India. I translate one of them here: If by bathing daily God could be realized Sooner would I be a whale in the deep; If by eating roots and fruits He could be known Gladly would I choose the form of a goat; If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him I would say my prayers on mammoth beads; If bowing before stone images unveiled Him A flinty mountain I would humbly worship; If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed Many calves and children would know Him; If abandoning one’s wife could summon God Would not thousands be eunuchs? Mirabai knows that to find the Divine One The only indispensable is Love. Several
”
”
Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi (Complete Edition))
“
In a solemn tone, like a priest chanting a mass, beating time in the air with a stiff finger, Slote quoted: " 'The German Revolution will not prove any milder or gentler because it was preceded by the Critique of Kant, by the Transcendental Idealism of Fichte. These doctrines served to develop revolutionary forces that only await their time to break forth. Christianity subdued the brutal warrior passion of the Germans, but it could not quench it. When the Cross, that restraining talisman, falls to pieces, then will break forth again the frantic Berserker rage. The old stone gods will then arise from the forgotten ruins and wipe from their eyes the dust of centuries. Thor with his giant hammer will arise again, and he will shatter the Gothic cathedrals.' "
Slote made an awkward, weak gesture with a fist to represent a hammerblow, and went on: " 'Smile not at the dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and the other philosophers. Smile not at the fantasy of one who foresees in the region of reality the same outburst of revolution that has taken place in the region of intellect. The thought precedes the deed as the lightning the thunder. German thunder is of true German character. It is not very nimble but rumbles along somewhat slowly. But come it will. And when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then know that at last the German thunderbolt has fallen.'
"Heine - the Jew who composed the greatest German poetry, and who fell in love with German philosophy - Heine wrote that," Slote said in a quieter tone. "He wrote that a hundred and six years ago.
”
”
Herman Wouk (The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1))
“
Why were hippies such a threat, from the President on down to local levels, objects for surveillance and disruptions? Many of the musicians had the potential to become political. There were racial overtones to the black-white sounds, harmony between Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix. Black music was the impetus that drove the Rolling Stones into composing and performing. The war in Vietnam we escalated. What if they stopped protesting the war in Southeast Asia and turned to expose domestic policies at home with the same energy? One of the Byrds stopped singing at Monterey Pop to question the official Warren Report conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a “lone assassin.” Bob Dylan’s Bringing it All Back Home album features a picture of Lyndon Johnson on the cover of Time. By 1966, LBJ had ordered writers and critics of his commission report on the JFK murder under surveillance. That research was hurting him. Rock concerts and Oswald. What next?
”
”
Mae Brussell (The Essential Mae Brussell: Investigations of Fascism in America)
“
In 1872, Lubbock learned from a rector in rural Wiltshire that a big chunk of Avebury, an ancient circle of stones considerably larger than Stonehenge (though not so picturesquely composed), was about to be cleared away for new housing. Lubbock bought the threatened land, along with two other ancient monuments nearby, West Kennett Long Barrow and Silbury Hill (an enormous manmade mound—the largest in Europe), but clearly he couldn’t protect every worthy thing that grew threatened, so he began to press for legislation to safeguard historic treasures. Realizing this ambition was not nearly as straightforward as common sense would suggest it ought to be, because the ruling Tories under Benjamin Disraeli saw it as an egregious assault on property rights. The idea of giving a government functionary the right to come onto the land of a person of superior caste and start telling him how to manage his estate was preposterous—outrageous. Lubbock persevered, however, and in 1882, under the new Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone, he managed to push through Parliament the Ancient Monuments Protection Act—a landmark piece of legislation if ever there was one. Because
”
”
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
“
Fluffy is a call-back to Cerberus, the Classical three-headed mythological beast and guard dog to the gates of hell, which Hercules had to capture as one of his twelve labours. The depiction of Cerberus and Hercules by Aegidius Sadeler II, engraver in the court of Rudolf II in Prague (made some time between 1586 and 1629), made the gates of hell look like a flaming brick prison. What’s interesting about the image of Hercules dragging the dark, muscular, fanged beast in his left hand and the way it is composed is the angle. You’re compelled to follow the action from right to left, as opposed to the conventional Western habit of reading left to right. This inversion could be because we are in the underworld, where logic, physics and, indeed, art are turned on their head. What also links Cerberus to Fluffy and the Philosopher’s Stone is that in capturing Cerberus and taking him to King Eurystheus (who was so terrified he immediately jumped into a large jar to escape), Hercules gained immortality by completing his penance. And just like Harry in his epic struggle to find the Philosopher’s Stone, Hercules did so less through physical effort than through courage and strength of mind.
”
”
Pottermore Publishing (Harry Potter: A Journey Through Potions and Herbology (Harry Potter: A Journey Through, #2))
“
My own sight-seeing habits don’t at all incommode her, owing to my having made the acquaintance of a little old German lady who lives at the top of our house. She is a queer wizened oddity of a woman, but she is very clever and friendly, and she has the things of Rome on her fingers’ ends. The reason of her being here is very sad and beautiful. Twelve years ago her younger sister, a beautiful girl (she has shown me her miniature), was deceived and abandoned by her betrothed. She fled away from her home, and after many weary wanderings found her way to Rome, and gained admission to the convent with the dreadful name, — the Sepolte Vive. Here, ever since, she has been immured. The inmates are literally buried alive; they are dead to the outer world. My poor little Mademoiselle Stamm followed her and took up her dwelling here, to be near her, though with a dead stone wall between them. For twelve years she has never seen her. Her only communication with Lisa — her conventual name she doesn’t even know — is once a week to deposit a bouquet of flowers, with her name attached, in the little blind wicket of the convent-wall. To do this with her own hands, she lives in Rome. She composes her bouquet with a kind of passion; I have seen her and helped her. Fortunately
”
”
Henry James (Delphi Complete Works of Henry James)
“
The hill was mainly composed of the soft stone material known as gypsum which possessed two qualities: first, it would slowly dissolve in water and was thus a poor foundation for any large building. Second, when heated, after giving off steam, it could easily be ground into the powder from which white plaster was made. For that reason, men had been burying into the hill of Montmartre for centuries to extract the gypsum. So famous had these quarrying's become, that now, even across the ocean, white plaster had come to be known as Plaster of Paris. When the builders of Sacre Coeur began their task therefore, they found that the underlying terrain was not only soft, but so honeycombed with mineshafts and tunnels that had the great building been placed directly upon it, the entire hill would have surely collapsed, leaving the church in a stupendous sinkhole. The solution had been very French, a combination of elegant logic and vast ambition: 83 gigantic shafts were dug, each over 100 feet deep filled with concrete. Upon these mighty columns, like a huge box, almost as deep as the church above, the crypt was constructed as a platform. This work alone had taken almost a decade, and by the end of it, even those who hated the project would remark with rye amusement: 'Montmartre isn't holding up the church, it's the church that's holding up Montmartre'.
”
”
Edward Rutherfurd (Paris)
“
True love is in despair and is enchanted over a glove lost
or a handkerchief found, and eternity is required for its devotion
and its hopes. It is composed both of the infinitely
great and the infinitely little.
If you are a stone, be adamant; if you are a plant, be the
sensitive plant; if you are a man, be love.
Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1579
Nothing suffices for love. We have happiness, we desire
paradise; we possess paradise, we desire heaven.
Oh ye who love each other, all this is contained in love.
Understand how to find it there. Love has contemplation as
well as heaven, and more than heaven, it has voluptuousness.
‘Does she still come to the Luxembourg?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘This
is the church where she attends mass, is it not?’ ‘She no longer
comes here.’ ‘Does she still live in this house?’ ‘She has
moved away.’ ‘Where has she gone to dwell?’
‘She did not say.’
What a melancholy thing not to know the address of
one’s soul!
Love has its childishness, other passions have their pettinesses.
Shame on the passions which belittle man! Honor to
the one which makes a child of him!
There is one strange thing, do you know it? I dwell in the
night. There is a being who carried off my sky when she went
away.
Oh! would that we were lying side by side in the same
grave, hand in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness,
gently caressing a finger,—that would suffice for my
eternity!
Ye who suffer because ye love, love yet more. To die of
love, is to live in it.
Love. A sombre and starry transfiguration is mingled
with this torture. There is ecstasy in agony.
Oh joy of the birds! It is because they have nests that they
sing.
1580 Les Miserables
Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise.
Deep hearts, sage minds, take life as God has made it; it
is a long trial, an incomprehensible preparation for an unknown
destiny. This destiny, the true one, begins for a man
with the first step inside the tomb. Then something appears
to him, and he begins to distinguish the definitive. The definitive,
meditate upon that word. The living perceive the
infinite; the definitive permits itself to be seen only by the
dead. In the meanwhile, love and suffer, hope and contemplate.
Woe, alas! to him who shall have loved only bodies,
forms, appearances! Death will deprive him of all. Try to
love souls, you will find them again.
I encountered in the street, a very poor young man who
was in love. His hat was old, his coat was worn, his elbows
were in holes; water trickled through his shoes, and the stars
through his soul.
What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander
thing it is to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion.
It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it
no longer rests on anything that is not elevated and great. An
unworthy thought can no more germinate in it, than a nettle
on a glacier. The serene and lofty soul, inaccessible to vulgar
passions and emotions, dominating the clouds and the
shades of this world, its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its vanities,
its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels
anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny,
as the crests of mountains feel the shocks of earthquake.
If there did not exist some one who loved, the sun would
become extinct.
”
”
Victor Hugo
“
Between the extreme limits of this series would find a place all the forms of prestige resulting from the different elements composing a civilisation -- sciences, arts, literature, &c. -- and it would be seen that prestige constitutes the fundamental element of persuasion. Consciously or not, the being, the idea, or the thing possessing prestige is immediately imitated in consequence of contagion, and forces an entire generation to adopt certain modes of feeling and of giving expression to its thought. This imitation, moreover, is, as a rule, unconscious, which accounts for the fact that it is perfect. The modern painters who copy the pale colouring and the stiff attitudes of some of the Primitives are scarcely alive to the source of their inspiration. They believe in their own sincerity, whereas, if an eminent master had not revived this form of art, people would have continued blind to all but its naïve and inferior sides. Those artists who, after the manner of another illustrious master, inundate their canvasses with violet shades do not see in nature more violet than was detected there fifty years ago; but they are influenced, "suggestioned," by the personal and special impressions of a painter who, in spite of this eccentricity, was successful in acquiring great prestige. Similar examples might be brought forward in connection with all the elements of civilisation.
It is seen from what precedes that a number of factors may be concerned in the genesis of prestige; among them success was always one of the most important.
Every successful man, every idea that forces itself into recognition, ceases, ipso facto, to be called in question. The proof that success is one of the principal stepping-stones to prestige is that the disappearance of the one is almost always followed by the disappearance of the other. The hero whom the crowd acclaimed yesterday is insulted to-day should he have been overtaken by failure. The re-action, indeed, will be the stronger in proportion as the prestige has been great. The crowd in this case considers the fallen hero as an equal, and takes its revenge for having bowed to a superiority whose existence it no longer admits.
”
”
Gustave Le Bon (سيكولوجية الجماهير)
“
My bedroom is separated from the main body of my house so that I have to go outside and cross some pseudo-Japanese stepping stones in order to go to sleep at night. Often I get rained on a little bit on my way to bed. It’s a benediction. A good night kiss.
Romantic? Absolutely. And nothing to be ashamed of. If reality is a matter of perspective, then the romantic view of the world is as valid as any other - and a great deal more rewarding. It makes of life and unpredictable adventure rather that a problematic equation. Rain is the natural element for romanticism. A dripping fir is a hundred times more sexy than a sunburnt palm tree, and more primal and contemplative, too. A steady, wind-driven rain composed music for the psyche. It not only nurtures and renews, it consecrates and sanctifies. It whispers in secret languages about the primordial essence of things.
Obviously, then, the Pacific Northwest's customary climate is perfect for a writer. It's cozy and intimate. Reducing temptation (how can you possibly play on the beach or work in the yard?), it turns a person inward, connecting them with what Jung called "the bottom below the bottom," those areas of the deep unconscious into which every serious writer must spelunk. Directly above my writing desk there is a skylight. This is the window, rain-drummed and bough-brushed, through which my Muse arrives, bringing with her the rhythms and cadences of cloud and water, not to mention the latest catalog from Victoria's Secret and the twenty-three auxiliary verbs.
Oddly enough, not every local author shares my proclivity for precipitation. Unaware of the poetry they're missing, many malign the mist as malevolently as they non-literary heliotropes do. They wring their damp mitts and fret about rot, cursing the prolonged spillage, claiming they're too dejected to write, that their feet itch (athlete's foot), the roof leaks, they can't stop coughing, and they feel as if they're slowly being digested by an oyster.
Yet the next sunny day, though it may be weeks away, will trot out such a mountainous array of pagodas, vanilla sundaes, hero chins and god fingers; such a sunset palette of Jell-O, carrot oil, Vegas strip, and Kool-Aid; such a sea-vista display of broad waters, firred islands, whale spouts, and boat sails thicker than triangles in a geometry book, that any and all memories of dankness will fizz and implode in a blaze of bedazzled amnesia. "Paradise!" you'll hear them proclaim as they call United Van Lines to cancel their move to Arizona.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Wild Ducks Flying Backward)
“
Cass pointed toward the entrance to the piazza. “Palazzo Alioni is just across the way.” She dropped Falco’s arm. “I can make it alone from here.”
Falco cocked his head to the side. His eyes sparkled. “Are you afraid of being seen with me?”
“No,” Cass said, a little too loudly. He was wearing down her resolve, and that just wouldn’t do. Besides, she needed to compose herself before attempting to sneak back in. “I just don’t want to wake anyone.”
“Fair enough.” Falco pulled her closer to him. “But know that I’ll be watching you all the way to the door, so there’s no danger of you being abducted.” He scooped Cass suddenly into his arms and spun both of them around in a circle. “By anyone but me, that is.”
Cass gave in to giggling. She couldn’t help it. Everything seemed less frightening now that she was home and Falco was with her. “Put me down,” she said. “You’re going to wake up the entire block.”
Falco lowered her to the ground, but he kept his arms around her waist. “I may not be able to give you diamonds yet, Cassandra, but I do have something for you.”
“Oh really?” Cass asked, suddenly breathless.
He nodded, his face as serious as stone. “Close your eyes,” he commanded.
“Falco,” Cass protested. “I really need to--” She knew she should pull away from his touch. But she couldn’t.
“Close your eyes or I will wake the entire block.” He cleared his throat as if to scream.
Cass closed her eyes. It would be fine. What harm could one little…?
Her brain didn’t even get to finish the thought. Her body caught fire and her knees buckled as Falco pressed his lips to hers. He lifted her off the ground. She was weightless. She was floating. No, flying. Falco supported her back against the marble wall of the nearest palazzo. A soft sigh escaped his lips. The warm breath tickled Cass’s chin. The desire that had bloomed inside of her when she saw him became an entire garden of roses, wild and warm, twining through every part of her soul.
She gave in, pulling him close, tangling her hands in his hair, tasting his skin and his lips and his tongue. She expected him to taste like ale, but he just tasted warm, like summer and sunrise. And happiness. Happiness Cass hadn’t felt in weeks. And in that moment she knew that she would go home with him, that she would give in. She would let him return her to his meager lodgings and undress her, and their bodies would flow together like rivers.
”
”
Fiona Paul (Belladonna (Secrets of the Eternal Rose, #2))
“
Maybe that fits. Maybe it’s only right that we should be the ones to raise your standard, Fallen One. And ignorant historians will write of us, in the guise of knowledge. They will argue over our purpose – the things we sought to do. They will overturn every boulder, every barrow stone, seeking our motives. Looking for hints of ambition. They will compose a Book of the Fallen.
”
”
Steven Erikson (The Crippled God (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #10))
“
But there exist other, different, methods of infolding-obliquity, compression, and the Seven Types of Ambiguity-a modest estimate of Empson's. The later Joyce, for instance, makes one realize why the German word for writing poetry is 'dichten'- to condense (certainly more poetical than 'composing', i.e. 'putting together'; but perhaps less poetical than the Hungarian kolteni-to hatch). Freud actually believed that to condense or compress several meanings or allusions into a word or phrase was the essence of poetry. It is certainly an essential ingredient with Joyce; almost every word in the great monologues in Finnegans Wake is overcharged with allusions and implications. To revert to an earlier metaphor, economy demands that the stepping stones of the narrative should be spaced wide enough apart to require a significant effort from the reader; Joyce makes him feel like a runner in a marathon race with hurdles every other step and aggravated by a mile-long row of hieroglyphs which he must decipher. Joyce would perhaps be the perfect writer-of the perfect reader existed.
”
”
Arthur Koestler (The Act of Creation)
“
Raskin stepped away to the narrow end of the trench. Opened the revolver’s cylinder and saw a single cartridge. Closed the cylinder again and turned it until it was lined up right. Then he pulled the hammer back and put the barrel in his mouth. He turned around, so that he was facing the Zec and his back was to the trench. He shuffled backward until his heels were on the edge of the hole. He stood still and straight and balanced and composed, like an Olympic diver preparing for a difficult backward pike off the high board. He closed his eyes. He pulled the trigger. For a mile around black crows rose noisily into the air. Blood and brain and bone arced through the sunlight in a perfect parabola. Raskin’s body fell backward and landed stretched out and flat in the bottom of the trench. The crows settled back to earth and the faint noise of the distant stone-crushing machines rolled back in and sounded like silence. Then the Zec clambered up into the Caterpillar’s cab and started the engine. The levers all had knobs as big as pool balls, which made them easy to manipulate with his palms.
”
”
Lee Child (One Shot (Jack Reacher, #9))
“
The energy from that event is stored and released at any given moment, resulting in a playback just like a tape recording. The spirit usually acts out the event with no regard to the living in its presence. It’s similar to imprint theory in that it explains residual hauntings, but differs in the material that stores the energy. Imprint theory states our energies are stored on the fabric of the universe, which is composed of time and space by a process that we have yet to figure out. Stone tape theory states that certain types of rock store the energy of significant emotional and traumatic events inside them.
”
”
Zak Bagans (Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventures Crew)
“
In the course of being fragmentation-bombed by the South Vietnamese Air Force, Converse experienced several insights; he did not welcome them although they came as no surprise.
One insight was that the ordinary physical world through which one shuffled heedless and half-assed toward nonentity was capable of composing itself, at any time and without notice, into a massive instrument of agonizing death. Existence was a trap; the testy patience of things as they are might be exhausted at any moment.
Another was that in the single moment when the breathing world had hurled itself screeching and murderous at his throat, he had recognized the absolute correctness of its move. In those seconds, it seemed absurd that he had ever been allowed to go his foolish way, pursuing notions and small joys. He was ashamed of the casual arrogance with which he had presumed to scurry about creation. From the bottom of his heart, he concurred in the moral necessity of his destruction.
”
”
Robert Stone (Dog Soldiers)
“
his abode looked like the creation of a campfire story. Its black walls stood six stories high. Scraps of worn paint peeled beneath the fingers of a sudden, foreboding wind that picked up the moment Ceony stepped foot onto the unpaved lane leading away from the main road. Three uneven turrets jutted up from the house like a devil’s crown, one of which bore a large hole in its east-facing side. A crow, or maybe a magpie, cried out from behind a broken chimney. Every window in the mansion—and Ceony counted only seven—hid behind black shutters all chained and locked, without the slightest glimmer of candlelight behind them. Dead leaves from a dozen past winters clogged the eaves and wedged themselves under bent and warped shingles—also black—and something drip-drip-dripped nearby, smelling like vinegar and sweat. The grounds themselves bore no flower gardens, no grass lawn, not even an assortment of stones. The small yard boasted only rocks and patches of uncultivated dirt too dry and cracked for even a weed to take root. The tiles composing the path up to the front door, which hung only by its top hinge, were cracked into pieces and overturned, and Ceony didn’t trust a single one of the porch’s gray, weathered boards to hold her weight long enough for her to ring the bell. “I’ve
”
”
Charlie N. Holmberg (The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician #1))
“
in our materialist culture, such alternate forms of knowledge, whatever they might be, tend to undergo a materialist reduction. This is simply a sociological fact about how knowledge in our culture is viewed: the world, whatever else it may be, is composed of matter, and it is best understood in materialist terms. This, overwhelmingly, is the received opinion. Accordingly, many thinkers will claim that science (a science whose main task is to study and understand matter) constitutes our best form of knowledge. Of course, the very claim that science is our best form of knowledge is itself nonscientific. No scientific experiment or scientific theory can define what science is. In fact, what constitutes science is not written in stone but has been continually negotiated for more than two millennia (scientists, or natural philosophers as they used to be called, have been around at least that long).
”
”
William A. Dembski (Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information (Ashgate Science and Religion Series))
“
Here is the story, which I have abridged (with acknowledgement to Sergey Parkhomenko, journalist and broadcaster, who reported it): The River Ob makes a turn at Kolpashevo, and every year it eats away a few feet of a sand cliff there. On April 30, 1979, the Ob's waters eroded another six-foot section of bank. Hanging from the newly exposed wall were the arms, legs and heads of people who had been buried there. A cemetery at least several yards wide had been exposed. The bodies had been packed in and layered tightly. Some of the skulls from the uppermost layer rolled out from the sandbank, and little boys picked them up and began playing with them. News of the burial spread quickly and people started gathering at the sandbank. The police and neighbourhood watch volunteers quickly cordoned off the whole thing. Shortly afterwards, they built a thick fence around the crumbling sandbank, warning people away. The next day, the Communist Party called meeting in the town, explaining that those buried were traitors and deserters from the war. But the explanation wasn't entirely convincing. If this were so, why was everyone dressed in civilian clothes? Why had women and children been executed as well? And from where, for that matter, did so many deserters come in a town of just 20,000 people? Meanwhile, the river continued to eat away at the bank and it became clear that the burial site was enormous; thousands were buried there. People could remember that there used to be a prison on these grounds in the late 1930s. It was general knowledge that there were executions there, but nobody could imagine just how many people were shot. The perimeter fence and barbed wire had long ago been dismantled, and the prison itself was closed down. But what the town's people didn't know was that Kolpashevo's prison operated a fully-fledged assembly line of death. There was a special wooden trough, down which a person would descend to the edge of a ditch. There, he'd be killed by rifle fire, the shooter sitting in a special booth. If necessary, he'd be finished off with a second shot from a pistol, before being added to the next layer of bodies, laid head-to-toe with the last corpse. Then they'd sprinkle him lightly with lime. When the pit was full, they filled in the hole with sand and moved the trough over a few feet to the side, and began again. But now the crimes of the past were being revealed as bodies fell into the water and drifted past the town while people watched from the shore. In Tomsk, the authorities decided to get rid of the burial site and remove the bodies. The task, it turned out, wasn't so easy. Using heavy equipment so near a collapsing sandbank wasn't wise and there was no time to dig up all the bodies by hand. The Soviet leadership was in a hurry. Then from Tomsk came new orders: two powerful tugboats were sent up the Ob, right up to the riverbank, where they were tied with ropes to the shore, facing away from the bank. Then they set their engines on full throttle. The wash from the ships' propellers quickly eroded the soft riverbank and bodies started falling into the water, where most of them were cut to pieces by the propellers. But some of the bodies escaped and floated away downstream. So motorboats were stationed there where men hooked the bodies as they floated by. A barge loaded with scrap metal from a nearby factory was moored near the boats and the men were told to tie pieces of scrap metal to the bodies with wire and sink them in the deepest part of the river. The last team, also composed of local men from the town, worked a bit further downstream where they collected any bodies that had got past the boats and buried them on shore in unmarked graves or sank them by tying the bodies to stones. This cleanup lasted almost until the end of the summer.
”
”
Lawrence Bransby (Two Fingers On The Jugular)
“
Rhysand chuckled. 'If you're that desperate for release, you should have asked me.'
'Pig,' I snapped, covering my breasts with the folds of my gown.
With a few easy steps, he crossed the distance between us and pinned my arms to the wall. My bones groaned. I could have sworn shadow-talons dug into the stones beside my head. 'Do you actually intend to put yourself at my mercy, or are you truly that stupid?' His voice was composed of sensuous, bone-breaking ire.
'I'm not your slave.'
'You're a fool, Feyre. Do you have any idea what could have happened had Amarantha found you two in here? Tamlin might refuse to be her lover, but she keeps him at her side out of the hope that she'll break him- dominate him as she loves to do with our kind.' I kept silent. 'You're both fools,' he murmured, his breathing uneven. 'How did you not think that someone would notice you were gone? You should thank the Cauldron Lucien's delightful brothers weren't watching you.'
'What do you care?' I barked, and his grip tightened enough on my wrists that I knew my bones would snap with a little more pressure.
'What do I care?' he breathed, wrath twisting his features. Wings- those membranous, glorious wings- flared from his back, crafted from the shadows behind him. 'What do I care?'
But before he could go on, his head snapped to the door, then back to my face. The wings vanished as quickly as they had appeared, and then his lips were crushing into mine. His tongue pried my mouth open, forcing himself into me, into the space where I could still taste Tamlin. I pushed and thrashed, but he held firm, his tongue sweeping over the roof of my mouth, against my teeth, claiming my mouth, claiming me-
The door was flung wide, and Amarantha's curved figure filled the space. Tamlin- Tamlin was beside her, his eyes slightly wide, shoulders tight as Rhys's lips crushed mine.
Amarantha laughed, and a mask of stone slammed down on Tamlin's face, void of feeling, void of anything vaguely like the Tamlin I'd been tangled up with moments before.
Rhys casually released me with a flick of his tongue over my bottom lip as a crowd of High Fae appeared behind Amarantha and chimed in with her laughter. Rhysand gave them a lazy, self-indulgent grin and bowed. But something sparked in the queen's eyes as she looked at Rhysand. Amarantha's whore, they'd called him.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1))
“
Another common but mistaken assumption is that creativity is unique to humans so it would be difficult to automate any job that requires creativity. In chess, however, computers are already far more creative than humans. The same may become true of many other fields, from composing music to proving mathematical theorems to writing books like this one. Creativity is often defined as the ability to recognize patterns and then break them. If so, then in many fields computers are likely to become more creative than us, because they excel at pattern recognition.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI)
“
If we deny that the emotions are there, then maybe we can avoid the consequences of feeling them. But we have about the same chance of hiding our emotions as the boy has of convincing his mother that all is well with the vase. Feelings are too powerful to remain peacefully bottled. We cry or explode when we would rather act composed and capable. Of course, there are many possible explanations for anger or tears, some of which have deep psychological roots. One common explanation, however, is just the opposite of what we might expect. We don’t cry or lose our temper because we express our feelings too often, but because we express them too rarely. Like finally opening a carbonated drink that has been shaken, the results can be messy.
”
”
Douglas Stone (Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most)
“
The wonderful thing about Moab is that everything happens in a story-book setting, with illustrations by Maxfield Parrish and Wyeth and Joe Coll, and all the rest of them, whichever way you look.
Imagine a blue sky—so clear-blue and pure that you can see against it the very feathers in the tails of wheeling kites, and know that they are brown, not black. Imagine all the houses, and the shacks between them, and the poles on which the burlap awnings hang, painted on flat canvas and stood up against that infinite blue. Stick some vultures in a row along a roof-top—purplish—bronze they’ll look between the tiles and sky. Add yellow camels, gray horses, striped robes, long rifles, and a searching sun-dried smell. And there you have El-Kerak, from the inside.
From any point along the broken walls or the castle roof you can see for fifty miles over scenery invented by the Master-Artist, with the Jordan like a blue worm in the midst of yellow-and-green hills twiggling into a turquoise sea.
The villains stalk on-stage and off again sublimely aware of their setting. The horses prance, the camels saunter, the very street-dogs compose themselves for a nap in the golden sun, all in perfect harmony with the piece. A woman walking with a stone jar on her head (or, just as likely, a kerosene can) looks as if she had just stepped out of eternity for the sake of the picture. And not all the kings and kaisers, cardinals and courtezans rolled into one great swaggering splurge of majesty could hold a candle to a ragged Bedouin chief on a flea-bitten pony, on the way to a small-town mejlis.
”
”
Talbot Mundy (Jimgrim and Allah's Peace)
“
We know what wood is and what earth and stone are and that they have a color and texture, a smell and even a taste, but matter as a perceptible material substance independent of the nature of the wood, earth and stone composed of it seems incomprehensible. In order for us to regard a thing as real it must possess at least some distinctive physical qualities. We must be able to experience it as a physical thing before we can decide it is real. Matter as proposed by modern science, however, has no distinctive or definite physical qualities at all. Matter is simply some unimaginable stuff possessing no conceivable definition whatsoever. The concept of matter, then, proves to be just as elusive and abstract as the concepts of spirit, soul or the life-principle.
”
”
Ojo Blacke (Dr. Monroe A. Dunlop's Paranormal Studies Lecture Series, Mind and Reality: A Psychedelic Trip to the Doormat of the Unknown: Fictional Nonfiction, Fifth Edition)
“
The fabulous beasts of the world’s various myths are not fables, although we concede that the facts of their existence were composed in a fabulous manner. But that is a matter of style and artistic licence. Regardless of dramatic embellishment, the fundamental facts are discernable. It is not the mythic tropes and motifs that are improper or at fault, but our understanding. After we finally erect a stone pyramid to rival that at Giza, we might have the right to be condescending toward the physical and intellectual creations of our ancestors.
”
”
Michael Tsarion (Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation)
“
The legal codes, such as the Turim (“Rows” composed on the structure of the rows of stones on the Priestly Breastplate) and the Shulchan Arukh (“Prepared Table” presenting the code of Jewish law for everyday life), summarized the Biblical and rabbinical rules and regulations to be followed by the Jew, in the government of his conduct. Every literary effort was expended in the production of such works, which helped to familiarize Jews with ritualistic enactments, to promote ecclesiastical unity and solidarity, despite their world-wide dispersion, and to rescue them from a carefully planned annihilation.
”
”
William Rosenau (Jewish Biblical Commentators)
“
Compose music
out of me.
Make me loud.
Let me reverberate
off the walls
and I promise
I’ll be one of your
favorite songs.
”
”
Leah J. Stone
“
He was so sturdy, like a piece of well-chiseled stone. His nose, his chin, his forehead were composed in straight lines, his shoulders and soul, too. Not a single curve. Whereas her body was all round, with sweet, smooth curves and rises, gentle like the earth itself, longing to partake of the other.
”
”
Margarita Liberaki (Three Summers)
“
The background, like the name Telepinus, is Hattian. The Hittite versions were composed in connection with various rituals; in other words, the recitation of the myth played a fundamental part in the cult. Since the beginning of the narrative6 is lost, we do not know why Telepinus decides to “disappear.” Perhaps it is because men have angered him. But the consequences of his disappearance immediately make themselves felt. Fires go out on hearths, gods and men feel “stifled”;
”
”
Mircea Eliade (A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries)
“
A common book was not composed by all the apostles conjointly, both that they might not seem to have entered into a compact and that it might not appear of greater authority than that which would be written separately by each individual. This seems to have been the reason why Christ abstained from writing—that we might say that here is one who writes his epistle not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in the heart (2 Cor. 3:2). It was sufficient, therefore, for these things to be written by
some and approved by the rest. Yea, it adds great weight and authority to the apostolic writings that they wrote in different places, for various reasons and on different occasions, in a different style and method to different persons and yet so consistent with each other.
”
”
Francis Turretin (Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Vol. 1))
“
A common book was not composed by all the apostles conjointly, both that they might not seem to have entered into a compact and that it might not appear of greater authority than that which would be written separately by each individual. This seems to have been the reason why Christ abstained from writing that we might say that here is one who writes his epistle not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in the heart (2 Cor. 3:2). It was sufficient, therefore, for these things to be written by some and approved by the rest. Yea, it adds great weight and authority to the apostolic writings that they wrote in different places, for various reasons and on different occasions, in a different style and method to different persons and yet so consistent with each other.
”
”
Francis Turretin (Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Vol. 1))
“
I shake my head, thinking about that castle again. About how you have to break it apart just to see inside. About the fact that we’re all castles—hard, packed pieces of stone. Perfectly composed by eons of earth shifting and forming, carved into our individual builds. And when we shatter, there’s no going back to what we were before.
”
”
Skye Warren (The Castle (Endgame, #3))
“
I just sit where I’m put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
That the deity that kills for pleasure will also heal,
That in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion will come with bandages in her mouth
And lick you clean of fever,
And pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck,
And caress you into darkness and paradise.
”
”
Louise Penny (All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #16))
“
And so, as he became a man, he began to search for a name of his own.
Eventually his quest took him far from the shores where he was born...he began to fight in the name of another man.
Some might say that the boy's quest had failed. For he would forever be nameless in his own land.
A pale girl he had once loved would think of him sometimes, on a bright spring day in her cold stone castle. But she would never speak his name. A family in a small, dark cottage would mourn their lost son when the war ended and he did not come home. But none of them would ever know how his end came, and as years passed they would wonder out loud about his fate less and less until they stopped altogether.
And when they were gone, too, his name would never be spoken again in the land of his birth. No mothers would tell their sons and daughters his story as they held their children on their knees in front of the fireplace. No singers would compose odes to his deeds. And the queen of the kingdom across the sea would never know that a boy from her island met his end alone in the dark, fighting another ruler's war.
But not so in the desert.
In the desert, the boy would never be nameless again.
”
”
Alwyn Hamilton (Hero at the Fall (Rebel of the Sands, #3))
“
God did not give the Ten Commandments to a ‘redeemed [regenerate] people for their sanctification.’ Such a view is not tenable simply because most of those people were not regenerate believers. God gave the Ten Commandments as a legal covenant of life and death to a nation composed of a mix of mostly proud sinners and a few regenerate believers as a means of driving the former to faith in the gospel preached to Abraham. As we shall see later, the primary function and goal of the Ten Commandments was a ministry of death by means of convicting the conscience of guilt.
”
”
John G. Reisinger (Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption)
“
The Shoah has been portrayed in scholarly literature as a phenomenon rooted in modernity. We know very well that in order to kill millions of people, an efficient bureaucracy is necessary, along with a (relatively) advanced technology. But the murder of Jedwabne Jews reveals yet another, deeper, more archaic layer of this enterprise. I am referring not only to the motivations of the murderers - after all, Jedwabne residents and peasants from Lomza County could not yet have managed to soak up the vicious anti-Jewish Nazi propoganda, even if they had been willing and ready - but also to primitive, ancient methods and murder weapons: stones, wooden clubs, iron bars, fire, and water; as well as the absence of organization. It is clear, from what happened in Jedwabne, that we must approach the Holocaust as a heterogeneous phenomenon. On the other hand, we have to be able to account for it as a system, which functioned according to a preconceived (though constantly evolving) plan. But, simultaneously, we must also be able to see it as a mosaic composed of discrete episodes, improvised by local decision-makers, and hinging on unforced behavior, rooted in God-knows-what motivations, of all those who were near the murder scene at the time. This makes all the difference in terms of assessing responsibility for the killings, as well as calculating the odds for survival that confronted the Jews.
”
”
Jan Tomasz Gross (Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland)
“
No one asked you, boy,” Gawain said. “Get back with the other soldiers.”
Clark flinched, his shoulders climbing to his ears and his face falling. His gaze darted to Fallon and away as he took the dressing down.
“I asked him here,” Shea said, staring Gawain down.
He snorted but didn’t say anything, Fallon’s presence keeping him from voicing his opinion.
“I’ll just go, Shea. It’s alright. I should probably report back to see if they need any scouts.” Clark didn’t wait for a reply, turning his horse and sending it galloping back to the line.
She watched him go before taking a deep breath. She turned back around. Eamon and Buck watched her for a moment before giving the Rain Clan’s elder hard glances. He didn’t pay them any attention, probably deciding they were no worthier of being here, than Clark had been.
“You do the boy no favors by making him think he can break the chain of command,” Gawain said, his tone patronizing. “You won’t always be there to protect him.”
Shea’s hands tightened on the reins of her mount. It took considerable effort to bite back the words that wanted to escape her. Only the knowledge that Fallon might have need of this man kept her from the scathing retort she had forming.
In a coordinated movement, made all the more comical for it, Buck and Eamon stuck their tongues out and rolled their eyes before assuming their normal stone-faced expressions—the ones they wore around Trateri expedition leaders whom they found obnoxious.
Shea smothered the brief giggle the sight caused her. She schooled her face and gave them a nod of gratitude. She looked up and blinked, as she found herself pinned under the enigmatic gaze of Fallon. His eyes flicked to her two friends then back to her.
She held her breath, sensing a chastisement coming. He lowered one eyelid in an exaggerated wink before sticking just the tip of his tongue out and wrinkling his nose. This time she didn’t quite contain her laugh.
Fallon’s face was cool and implacable as Shea lost the battle and her chortles rolled out. The rest of the party besides Fallon, Eamon and Buck eyed her with concern, not seeing what she found so funny.
“If the Telroi could compose herself, perhaps we could get back to the business at hand,” Braden said.
“My name is Shea. I suggest you remember it.
”
”
T.A. White (Mist's Edge (The Broken Lands, #2))
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The interior of the Zigana Mosque, a beehivelike geodesic dome composed of pointed arches of honey-colored stone, was based on al-Biruni’s sacred geometry.
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Eric Van Lustbader (The Testament: A Novel (The Testament Series Book 1))
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I just sit where I’m put, composed of stone and wishful thinking: That the deity that kills for pleasure will also heal, He could, even now, from what felt like an impossible distance, see through the mullioned windows of the bistro to the thick forests, and the leaves that would already be changing. As everything eventually did.
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Louise Penny (All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #16))
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The pyramids in Egypt and the temple at Angkor Wat built for Suryavarman II in Cambodia—what do they have in common? They share the conceit that the soul of the dead lives on in the stone. That hard gray gilded edifice is not merely tufa or granite. It is the abstract become concrete, the ineffable expressed, the soul in the stone.
It is hard to know who needed this conceit more: the king who ordered his own memorial or the priest who attended him. Im- mortality was at stake for the king. For the priest, it was his liveli- hood. While the king was alive, the priest thrived on his living presence. But kings do not live forever. The problem was how to make the beat go on when the drummer left town. The answer seemed simple: Don’t let him leave. Let the stone become the soul. We need a word for this. I suggest incairnation.
Incairnation is a big idea. It is no accident that kings, priests, medicine men, writers, composers, artists of all stripes, have taken it up. After all, incairnation is precisely what happened to the Earth. The Earth was a stone that became imbued with life. The incairnators of history were trying to replicate that ancient magic act. [- Samuel Jay Keyser]
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Barbara Wallraff (Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words)
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Beauvoir unfolded the paper in his hands. I just sit where I’m put, composed of stone, and wishful thinking: “Who’s Vincent Gilbert, sir? You seemed to know him.” “He’s a saint.” Beauvoir laughed, but seeing Gamache’s serious face he stopped. “What do you mean?” “There’re some people who believe that.” “Seemed like an asshole to me.” “The hardest part of the process. Telling them apart.” “Do you believe he’s a saint?” Beauvoir was almost afraid to ask. Gamache smiled suddenly. “I’ll leave you here. What do you say to lunch in the bistro in half an hour?” Beauvoir looked at his watch. Twelve thirty-five. “Perfect.” He watched the Chief walk slowly back across the bridge and into Three Pines. Then he looked down again, at the rest of what Ruth had written. that the deity who kills for pleasure will also heal, Someone
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Louise Penny (The Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Series, Books 4-6)
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just sit where I’m put, composed / of stone and wishful thinking.” The elderly poet was quoting from one of her more obscure works. “That the deity who kills for pleasure / will also heal.
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Louise Penny (The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #19))
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As the vehicle drove past the chapel, now lit up and surrounded by cop cars and ambulances, Ruth muttered, “I just sit where I’m put, composed / of stone and wishful thinking.” The elderly poet was quoting from one of her more obscure works. “That the deity who kills for pleasure / will also heal.
”
”
Louise Penny (The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #19))
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The man of action regards the external world as composed exclusively on of inert matter - either intrinsically inert, like a stone he walks on or kicks out of his part, or inert like a human being who couldn't resist him and thus might as well be a stone as a man since, like a stone, he was walked on or kicked out of the way.
The best example of the practical man is the military strategist, in whom extreme concentration of action is joined to its extreme importance. All life is war, and the battle is life's synthesis. The strategist is a man who plays with lives like the chess player with chess pieces. What would become of the strategist is he thought about how each of his moves brings night to a thousand homes and grief to three thousand hearts?
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Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet)