“
Life has no remote....get up and change it yourself!
”
”
Mark A. Cooper (Operation Einstein (Edelweiss Pirates #1))
“
There is immense power when a group of people with similar interests gets together to work toward the same goals.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
“
He who masters the power formed by a group of people working together has within his grasp one of the greatest powers known to man.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (All You Need Is a Ball: What Soccer Teaches Us about Success in Life and Business)
“
Anyone who imagines they can work alone winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals, without companions. The fact is, no one ascends alone.
”
”
Lance Armstrong (It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life)
“
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
”
”
Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program)
“
Ethical veganism results in a profound revolution within the individual; a complete rejection of the paradigm of oppression and violence that she has been taught from childhood to accept as the natural order. It changes her life and the lives of those with whom she shares this vision of nonviolence. Ethical veganism is anything but passive; on the contrary, it is the active refusal to cooperate with injustice
”
”
Gary L. Francione
“
I held this girl in my arms
She wrapped her tiny fingers around mine.
It was then that I realized.
She was the fusion.
The glue.
The cement that bound all my pieces together.
The piece that seals my puzzle.
The piece that completes my life.
The element that makes me who I am.
Who I was.
Who I'll one day be.
You, baby girl.
You're my final piece.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (This Girl (Slammed, #3))
“
I just wanna make sure that you don't miss out on the things in life that are happening when you're not thinking. Because believe me, those are the best things in life.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (This Girl (Slammed, #3))
“
Life has no remote, get up and change it yourself!
”
”
Mark A. Cooper
“
Everyone who lives long enough to love deeply will experience great losses. Don't let fear of loss, or the losses themselves, take away your ability to enjoy the wonderful life that is yours.
”
”
Barbara "Cutie" Cooper (Fall in Love for Life: Inspiration from a 73-Year Marriage)
“
Oh, I think not,” Varys said, swirling the wine in his cup. “Power is a curious thing, my lord. Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?”
“It has crossed my mind a time or two,” Tyrion admitted. “The king, the priest, the rich man—who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.”
“And yet he is no one,” Varys said. “He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.”
“That piece of steel is the power of life and death.”
“Just so… yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?”
“Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.”
“Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or… another?”
Tyrion cocked his head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?”
Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
“So power is a mummer’s trick?”
“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
Tyrion smiled. “Lord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I’d feel sad about it.”
“I will take that as high praise.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
“
What's life without whimsy?
”
”
Dr Sheldon Cooper - The Big Bang Theory
“
Because the beings from that planet are now circling Earth in a ship the size of a small moon, threatening to destroy all human life if we don’t cooperate.
”
”
Steven Decker (The Balance of Time (Time Chain #2))
“
Your life might be easier if you were. A fool for love is happier than a Dog with a heart that's all leather.
”
”
Tamora Pierce (Bloodhound (Beka Cooper, #2))
“
She touched something deep in his soul. He didn't believe in love at first sight, but the thought of hurting her made his chest ache.
”
”
Jodie B. Cooper (Beloved LifeMate)
“
The mark of man is initiative, but the mark of woman is cooperation. Man talks about freedom; woman about sympathy, love, sacrifice. Man cooperates with nature; woman cooperates with God. Man was called to till the earth, to "rule over the earth"; woman to be the bearer of a life that comes from God.
”
”
Fulton J. Sheen (The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God)
“
Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.
”
”
Albert Einstein (Living Philosophies)
“
One must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
“
Fiction isn't bad. It is vital. Without commonly accepted stories about things like money, states or corporations, no complex human society can function. We can't play football unless everyone believes in the same made-up rules, and we can't enjoy the benefits of markets and courts without similar make-believe stories. But stories are just tools. They shouldn't become our goals or our yardsticks. When we forget that they are mere fiction, we lose touch with reality. Then we begin entire wars `to make a lot of money for the cooperation' or 'to protect the national interest'. Corporations, money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us; why do we find ourselves sacrificing our life in their service.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
“
As human beings, we have an innate need to create and innovate from within ourselves to address our own concerns, and writing helps fulfill that need.
”
”
Suman Pokhrel
“
The world that I should wish to see would be one freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from co-operation than from strife. I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than imprisoning the minds of the young in rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects)
“
The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (The Problems of Philosophy)
“
Why is there no life on Mars?” Scott paused. “Because Jason Steed went there.
”
”
Mark A. Cooper (Nautilus (Jason Steed #6))
“
It's funny how nothing really ever turns out the way we expect it to, no matter how certain the future seems. I guess we need to keep adjusting our dreams to fit reality, because life is not going to cooperate.
”
”
Cassia Leo (Bring Me Home (Shattered Hearts, #4))
“
All life is theatre,' he said. 'We are all actors, you and I, in a play which nobody wrote and which nobody will see. We have no audience but ourselves....
”
”
Susan Cooper (Silver on the Tree (The Dark is Rising, #5))
“
Sometimes, life gets in your way. It gets all up in your damn way.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Slammed (Slammed, #1))
“
If we cooperate with Him in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.
”
”
A.W. Tozer (The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine)
“
We're merely one tree with various types, shapes and sizes of leaves that all wave differently in the breeze
”
”
Rasheed Ogunlaru
“
All my life I've wanted to be the kid who gets to cross over into the magical kingdom. I devoured those books by C.S. Lewis and William Dunthorn, Ellen Wentworth, Susan Cooper, and Alan Garner. When I could get them from the library, I read them out of order as I found them, and then in order, and then reread them all again, many times over. Because even when I was a child I knew it wasn't simply escape that lay on the far side of the borders of fairyland. Instinctively I knew crossing over would mean more than fleeing the constant terror and shame that was mine at that time of my life. There was a knowledge – an understanding hidden in the marrow of my bones that only I can access ― telling me that by crossing over, I'd be coming home.
That's the reason I’ve yearned so desperately to experience the wonder, the mystery, the beauty of that world beyond the World As It Is. It's because I know that somewhere across the border there's a place for me. A place of safety and strength and learning, where I can become who I'm supposed to be. I've tried forever to be that person here, but whatever I manage to accomplish in the World As It Is only seems to be an echo of what I could be in that other place that lies hidden somewhere beyond the borders.
”
”
Charles de Lint
“
For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it. Old One, do we not? For ever and ever ... so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die, Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.
”
”
Susan Cooper (Silver on the Tree (The Dark is Rising, #5))
“
Jason knew his life would never be the same again. British intelligence now had an ace up their sleeve, and Jason had to overcome his fears and deal with the secret world he was now a part of.
He would have to grow a tough shell around himself. Despite his many friends, his grandparents and love of his father, he was painfully aware he was very much alone in this world. When it came down to it, there was only one person he could really rely on in the world,
and he was called Jason Steed.
”
”
Mark A. Cooper (Revenge (Jason Steed, #2))
“
Obedience may have its uses, but it is no substitute for willing, uncoerced co-operation.
”
”
Eleanor Roosevelt (You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life)
“
t may not be the life you imagined, but it’s your life. You came here for a reason. Is it time for you to go and begin again?
”
”
Doug Cooper (Outside In)
“
Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, concludes, “Your grades in school, your scores on the SAT, mean less for life success than your capacity to co-operate, your ability to regulate your emotions, your capacity to delay your gratification, and your capacity to focus your attention. Those skills are far more important—all the data indicate—for life success than your IQ or your grades.
”
”
Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)
“
THE DAWN OF NEW POSSIBILITIES Therefore glorify the LORD in the dawning light. —ISAIAH 24:15 Every new day with God brings the dawn of new and better possibilities. Today could turn out to be the best day of your life—but how it ends largely depends on how you begin it. You are in charge of taking control of your day from its very beginning—as you command your morning—and as you do, know that whatever begins with God has to end right. No matter how good or bad your life is, every circumstance can change for the best if you learn how to command your morning before your day begins. Father, I stand and declare that today is a new day. Every element of my day shall cooperate with Your purpose and destiny for me. Anything or anyone assigned to undermine, frustrate, hinder, or hurt me, I command to be moved out of my sphere of influence. I greet
”
”
Cindy Trimm (Commanding Your Morning Daily Devotional: Unleash God's Power in Your Life--Every Day of the Year)
“
Dependence, humility, simplicity, cooperation, and a sense of abandon are qualities greatly prized in the spiritual life, but extremely elusive for people who live in comfort.
”
”
Philip Yancey (The Jesus I Never Knew)
“
There is no need for us all to be alike and think the same way, neither do we need a common enemy to force us to come together and reach out to each other. If we allow ourselves and everyone else the freedom to fully individuate as spiritual beings in human form, there will be no need for us to be forced by worldly circumstances to take hands and stand together. Our souls will automatically want to flock together, like moths to the flame of our shared Divinity, yet each with wings covered in the glimmering colors and unique patterns of our individual human expression.
”
”
Anthon St. Maarten
“
What's the first sign of a lurking, hidden expectation you didn't know you had? Pain! People don't do what we want, things don't happen quickly enough, the weather doesn't cooperate, our bodies don't cooperate. Why are these moments so painful? Because our minds are focused on a static, unchanging, me-centric picture while the dynamic unfolding of a broader life continues around us. There is nothing wrong with expectations per se, as it's appropriate to set goals and work, properly, towards their fruition. But the instant we feel pain over life not going "my way," our expectations have clearly taken an improper turn. Any moment you feel resistance or pain, look for -- and then let go of -- the hidden expectation. Practice giving yourself over to what "you" don't want. Let the line at the store be long. Let the other person interrupt you. Let the nervousness make you shake. Be where your body is, not where your mind is trying to take you.
”
”
Guy Finley
“
The rainbow comes and goes. Enjoy it while it lasts. Don't be surprised by its departure, and rejoice when it returns.
”
”
Anderson Cooper (The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss)
“
There is always some beauty in life. Look up … and get on with it. Build you a rainbow. Do it yourself! If you can’t do that, build your mind near one. Learn how to fly. Then … soar a little.
”
”
J. California Cooper (Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime: Stories)
“
The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch's brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium)
“
When we speak of the Path we mean much more than a course of study. The Path is a way of life and on it the whole being must co-operate if the heights are to be won.
”
”
Dion Fortune (Esoteric Orders and Their Work and The Training and Work of the Initiate)
“
Father, You spoke into nothingness and created the world. I speak into this day and declare that it will cooperate with Your plans. Anything sent to frustrate Your purposes for this day is bound now in the name of Jesus and rendered ineffective. I declare that today is pregnant with destiny. Thank You, Father, for divine connections that advance Your kingdom. Lord, give me wisdom and understanding to be more efficient in my work; open doors to new opportunities and new revelation in the name of Jesus. Father, bless the works of my hands; I choose to glorify You in all I do. In the name of Jesus, amen. June
”
”
Cindy Trimm (Commanding Your Morning Daily Devotional: Unleash God's Power in Your Life--Every Day of the Year)
“
If you're bored, you're boring.
”
”
Barbara "Cutie" Cooper (Fall in Love for Life: Inspiration from a 73-Year Marriage)
“
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,' I said, sighing.
'Is it?' said Veronica, looking surprised. 'Universally acknowledged? Surely that presupposes life similar to human societies beyond this planet, and besides--'
'No, no, it's a quote from ... Never mind,' I said.
”
”
Michelle Cooper (The FitzOsbornes in Exile)
“
So, don’t believe anyone who says that since nature is based on a struggle for life, we need to live like this as well. Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing. This applies most definitely to pack hunters, such as wolves or killer whales, but also to our closest relatives, the primates.
”
”
Frans de Waal (The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society)
“
I believe that the universe was formed around 15 billion years ago and that humans have evolved from their apelike ancestors over the past few million years. I believe we are more likely to live a good life if all humans try to work together in a world community, preserving planet earth. When decisions for groups are made in this world, I believe that the democratic process should be used. To protect the individual, I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom from religion, freedom of inquiry, and a wall of separation between church and state. When making decisions about what is right or wrong, I believe I should use my intelligence to reason about the likely consequences of my actions. I believe that I should try to increase the happiness of everyone by caring for other people and finding ways to cooperate. Never should my actions discriminate against people simply because of their race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, or national origin. I believe that ideas about what is right and wrong will change with education, so I am prepared to continually question ideas using evidence from experience and science. I believe there is no valid evidence to support claims for the existence of supernatural entities and deities. I will use these beliefs to guide my thinking and my actions until I find good reasons for revising them or replacing them with other beliefs that are more valid.
”
”
Ronald P. Carver
“
Without respect, there is no love … for long, for anyone, but a fool.
”
”
J. California Cooper (Life is Short But Wide)
“
Learn from them, baby. You got one life, never use it just to breathe.
”
”
Kristen Ashley (Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell, #1))
“
We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior toward the world - to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it. And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error has become clear. It is not only our own creativity - our own capacity for life - that is stifled by our arrogant assumption; the creation itself is stifled.
We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.
”
”
Wendell Berry (The Long-Legged House)
“
Without such trust and safety, social relationships tend to become strategic rather than cooperative, increasingly full of skepticism and even anxiety and fear about others' intentions. (p. 27)
”
”
Donald Rothberg (The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World)
“
If you haven't said 'I love you' to someone today, do it. You won't always be happy, but you should try to be. Don't be too afraid of germs. Those people have no fun. Remember to look around sometimes. You might see something you haven't seen before or at the very least avoid being hit by a flying object. Speaking of flying objects, don't spend your life looking for extraterrestrial life, unless you work for NASA. Remember that you always have to cooperate with someone. Life is an endless negotiation. Play fair. Stay out of jail. Don't live in the past. Eat breakfast. It really is the most important meal of the day. Try to make new friends, even when you think you're too old to do that. ...And finally, remember this" 'Yes' is always a better work than 'no'. Unless, of course, someone has just asked you to commit a felony.
”
”
Lisa Lutz
“
Sometimes it's a struggle to get over self-love first. Sometimes in this struggle for love, we give up, or lose everything, and we still don't achieve love. Some people don't even recognize real love when it comes without being called or sought.
”
”
J. California Cooper (Life Is Short But Wide)
“
We're born into the world as just one small piece to the puzzle that makesup an entire life.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (This Girl (Slammed, #3))
“
Moody had no small genius for the art of diplomacy. As a child he had known instinctively that it was always better to tell a partial truth with a willing aspect than to tell a perfect truth in a defensive way. The appearance of cooperation was worth a great deal, if only because it forced a reciprocity, fair met with fair.
”
”
Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries)
“
Sitting at our back doorsteps, all we need to live a good life lies about us. Sun, wind, people, buildings, stones, sea, birds and plants surround us. Cooperation with all these things brings harmony, opposition to them brings disaster and chaos.
”
”
Bill Mollison (Introduction to Permaculture)
“
A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.
”
”
Ludwig von Mises
“
I don’t expect you to take me back, but I needed to come here and tell you how sorry I am. I needed to tell you how much I love you, Gavin. How much I need you in my life.
”
”
Gail McHugh (Pulse (Collide, #2))
“
This the kind of world, if you don’t die, you just keep on growing up and living through everything that comes.
”
”
J. California Cooper (Some Soul to Keep)
“
Tis a strange calling!’ muttered Hawkeye, with an inward laugh, ‘to go through life, like a catbird, mocking all the ups and downs that may happen to come out of other men’s throats.
”
”
James Fenimore Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales, #2))
“
So I didn't adopt Homer because he was cute and little and sweet, or because he was helpless and needed me. I adopted him because when you think you see something so fundamentally worthwhile in someone else, you don't look for the reasons - like bad timing or a negative bank balance - that might keep it out of your life. You commit to being strong enough to build your life around it, no matter what. In doing so, you begin to become the thing you admire.
”
”
Gwen Cooper (Homer's Odyssey)
“
Sally at this time gave up any notion of being a co-operative member of a family, named herself "Tiger" and settled down to an unceasing, and seemingly endless, war against clothes, toothbrushes, all green vegetables, and bed.
”
”
Shirley Jackson (Life Among the Savages)
“
What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish?
There are some nations in Europe whose inhabitants think of themselves in a sense as colonists, indifferent to the fate of the place they live in. The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved. They are so divorced from their own interests that even when their own security and that of their children is finally compromised, they do not seek to avert the danger themselves but cross their arms and wait for the nation as a whole to come to their aid. Yet as utterly as they sacrifice their own free will, they are no fonder of obedience than anyone else. They submit, it is true, to the whims of a clerk, but no sooner is force removed than they are glad to defy the law as a defeated enemy. Thus one finds them ever wavering between servitude and license.
When a nation has reached this point, it must either change its laws and mores or perish, for the well of public virtue has run dry: in such a place one no longer finds citizens but only subjects.
”
”
Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America)
“
Because Clare had never let the fact that Mark didn't have a father in his life get in the way of sex education. She'd been showing Mark how to roll condoms onto bananas long before he'd known it was other bananas he was interested in.
”
”
Lisa Henry (Mark Cooper versus America (Prescott College, #1))
“
Whenever you’re ready. As often as you like,” Cooper vowed. “You can always tell me what you want out of life and I’ll always be first pick on your heist team ready to help you get it.”
“As often as I like?”
“Dreams change. People change. Please just don’t stop giving me the chance to change with you.
”
”
Charlie Adhara (Cry Wolf (Big Bad Wolf, #5))
“
I don't like anything that scares me, and I prefer to face it head on and get over it. Anyone who says they're not scared is a fool, a liar or both. I just don't want that fear in my stomach to be part of my life, so I work to eliminate it.
”
”
Anderson Cooper
“
Your grades in school, your scores on the SAT, mean less for life success than your capacity to co-operate, your ability to regulate your emotions, your capacity to delay your gratification, and your capacity to focus your attention. Those skills are far more important—all the data indicate—for life success than your IQ or your grades.
”
”
Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)
“
A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occurred to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the man’s disposal. The horse was willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him. The man mounted, hunted down the wolf, and killed him. “The horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: ‘Now that our enemy is dead, remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.’ “Whereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, ‘Never!’ and applied the spurs with a will.
”
”
Isaac Asimov (Foundation (Foundation, #1))
“
One of my favorite definitions of enlightenment comes from a Jesuit priest named Anthony de Mello, who passed away some years ago. Someone asked him to define his experience of enlightenment. He said, “Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable.” I love that, because it defines enlightenment not just as a realization, but as an activity. Enlightenment is when everything within us is in cooperation with the flow of life itself, with the inevitable.
”
”
Adyashanti (The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment)
“
Planning complex, beautiful meals and investing one's heart and time in their preparation is the opposite of self-indulgence. Kitchen-based family gatherings are process-oriented, cooperative, and in the best of worlds, nourishing and soulful. A lot of calories get used up before anyone sits down to consume. But more importantly, a lot of talk happens first, news exchanged, secrets revealed across generations, paths cleared with a touch on the arm. I have given and received some of my life's most important hugs with those big oven-mitt potholders on both hands.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)
“
a woman who contributes to the life of mankind by the occupation of motherhood is taking as high a place in the division of human labor as anyone else could take. If she is interested in the lives of her children and is paving the way for them to become fellow men, if she is spreading their interests and training them to cooperate, her work is so valuable that it can never be rightly rewarded. In our own culture the work of a mother is undervalued and often regarded as a not very attractive or estimable occupation. It is paid only indirectly and a woman who makes it her main occupation is generally placed in a position of economic dependence. The success of the family, however, rests equally upon the work of the mother and the work of the father. Whether the mother keeps house or works independently, her work as a mother does not play a lower role than the work of her husband.
”
”
Alfred Adler (WHAT LIFE COULD MEAN TO YOU (Timeless Wisdom Collection Book 196))
“
Part of the puzzle, surely, lies in the disconnect between official rhetoric and lived realities. Americans are constantly extolling “traditions”; litanies to family values are at the center of every politician’s discourse. And yet the culture of America is extremely corrosive of family life, indeed of all traditions except those redefined as “identities” that fit in the larger patterns of distinctiveness, cooperation, and openness to innovation.
”
”
Susan Sontag (At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches)
“
You scared me the moment I saw you, and I think it’s because I knew, I just knew, I was going to fall in love you. I didn’t know our worlds were already intertwined, but my heart somehow knew it belonged to you from the start. I didn’t believe a pain so deep existed while we were apart, but I also didn’t believe a love like ours existed. You’ve shown me it does. You’ve shown me good when there was bad. You’ve given me pleasure above all of my pain. You’ve given me life when I thought I was dead.
”
”
Gail McHugh (Pulse (Collide, #2))
“
For remember, that it is altogether your world now. You and all the rest. We have delivered you from evil, but the evil that is inside men is at the last a matter for men to control. The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands-your hands and the hands of all men on this earth. The future can not blame the present, just as the present can not blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.
For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy the world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvelous joy.
And the world will still be imperfect, because men are imperfect. Good men will still be killed by bad, or sometimes by other good men, and there will still be pain and disease and famine, anger and hate. But if you work and care and are watchful, as we have tried to be for you, then in the long run the worse will never, ever, triumph over the better. And the gifts put into some men, that shine as bright as Eirias the sword, shall light the dark corners of life for all the rest, in so brave a world.
”
”
Susan Cooper (Silver on the Tree (The Dark is Rising, #5))
“
Conservatism starts from a sentiment that all mature people can readily share: the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created. This is especially true of the good things that come to us as collective assets: peace, freedom, law, civility, public spirit, the security of property and family life, in all of which we depend on the cooperation of others while having no means singlehandedly to obtain it. In respect of such things, the work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating; the work of creation slow, laborious and dull. That is one of the lessons of the twentieth century. It is also one reason why conservatives suffer such a disadvantage when it comes to public opinion. Their position is true but boring, that of their opponents exciting but false.
”
”
Roger Scruton (How to be a Conservative)
“
A fight with a child is always a losing fight: he can never be beaten or won to cooperation by fighting. In these struggles the weakest always carries the day. Something is demanded of him which he refuses to give; something which can never be gained by such means. An incalculable amount of tension and useless effort would be spared in this world if we realized that cooperation and love can never be won by force.
”
”
Alfred Adler (WHAT LIFE COULD MEAN TO YOU (Timeless Wisdom Collection Book 196))
“
These three ties, therefore, set three problems: how to find an. occupation which will enable us to survive under the limitations set by the nature of the earth; how to find a position among our fellows, so that we may cooperate and share the benefits of cooperation; how to accommodate ourselves to the fact that we live in two sexes and that the continuance and furtherance of mankind depends upon our love-life. Individual
”
”
Alfred Adler (WHAT LIFE COULD MEAN TO YOU (Timeless Wisdom Collection Book 196))
“
But in truth, the world is constantly shifting: shape and size, location in space. It's got edges and chasms, too many to count. They open up, close, reappear somewhere else. Geologists nay have mapped out the planet's tectonic plates -hidden shelves of rock that grind, one against the other, forming mountains, creating continents - but thy can't plot the fault lines that run through our heads, divide out hearts.
The map of the world is always changing; sometimes it happens overnight. All it takes is the blink of an eye, the squeeze of a trigger, a sudden gust of wind. Wake up and your life is perched on a precipice; fall asleep, it swallows you whole
”
”
Anderson Cooper (Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival)
“
He leaned forward suddenly, so that for an instant the strong, bearded face was clear; the voice softened, and there was an aching sadness in it. "Only the creatures of the earth take from one another, boy. All creatures, but men more than any. Life they take, and liberty and all that another man may have - sometimes through greed, sometimes through stupidity, but never by any volition but their own. Beware your own race, Bran Davies - they are the only ones who will ever harm you, in the end.
”
”
Susan Cooper (The Grey King (The Dark is Rising, #4))
“
To the average man, life presents itself, not as material malleable to his hand, but as a series of problems…which he has to solve…And he is distressed to find that the more means he can dispose of—such as machine-power, rapid transport, and general civilized amenities, the more his problems grow in hardness and complexity….Perhaps the first thing he can learn form the artists is that the only way of 'mastering' one's material is to abandon the whole conception of mastery and to co-operate with it in love: whosoever will be a lord of life, let him be its servant.
”
”
Dorothy L. Sayers (The Mind of the Maker)
“
In fact, the belief that climate could be plausibly governed, or managed, by any institution or human instrument presently at hand is another wide-eyed climate delusion. The planet survived many millennia without anything approaching a world government, in fact endured nearly the entire span of human civilization that way, organized into competitive tribes and fiefdoms and kingdoms and nation-states, and only began to build something resembling a cooperative blueprint, very piecemeal, after brutal world wars—in the form of the League of Nations and United Nations and European Union and even the market fabric of globalization, whatever its flaws still a vision of cross-national participation, imbued with the neoliberal ethos that life on Earth was a positive-sum game. If you had to invent a threat grand enough, and global enough, to plausibly conjure into being a system of true international cooperation, climate change would be it—the threat everywhere, and overwhelming, and total. And yet now, just as the need for that kind of cooperation is paramount, indeed necessary for anything like the world we know to survive, we are only unbuilding those alliances—recoiling into nationalistic corners and retreating from collective responsibility and from each other. That collapse of trust is a cascade, too.
”
”
David Wallace-Wells (The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming)
“
We’re all—trees, humans, insects, birds, bacteria—pluralities. Life is embodied network. These living networks are not places of omnibenevolent Oneness. Instead, they are where ecological and evolutionary tensions between cooperation and conflict are negotiated and resolved. These struggles often result not in the evolution of stronger, more disconnected selves but in the dissolution of the self into relationship. Because life is network, there is no “nature” or “environment,” separate and apart from humans. We are part of the community of life, composed of relationships with “others,” so the human/nature duality that lives near the heart of many philosophies is, from a biological perspective, illusory.
”
”
David George Haskell (The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature's Great Connectors)
“
When I was little, I longed and longed to be older, except now I can't recall what exactly it was that I most keenly anticipated. Being allowed to stay up as late as I wanted? To wear or eat or read whatever I pleased? Well, I could do all those things now, but mostly I don't--either because I have to get up early for work the next morning, or haven't enough money to buy the outfit I really love, or for some other boring, grown-up reason. Also, children don't realize what a huge proportion of adult life is used up worrying about things--from what to make for dinner and whether one's sheets will get dry in time to make the beds that night, to whether one will ever manage to meet the right man and marry him. Shouldn't being a grown-up be slightly more exhilarating?
”
”
Michelle Cooper (The FitzOsbornes at War)
“
There is no such thing in a civilized society as self-support. In a state of society so barbarous as not even to know family cooperation, each individual may possibly support himself, though even then for a part of his life only; but from the moment that men begin to live together, and constitute even the rudest of society, self-support becomes impossible. As men grow more civilized, and the subdivision of occupations and services is carried out, a complex mutual dependence becomes the universal rule. Every man, however solitary may seem his occupation, is a member of a vast industrial partnership, as large as the nation, as large as humanity. The necessity of mutual dependence should imply the duty and guarantee of mutual support...
”
”
Edward Bellamy (Looking Backward)
“
For a considerable portion of humanity today, it is possible and indeed likely that one's neighbor, one's colleague, or one's employer will have a different mother tongue, eat different food, and follow a different religion than oneself. It is a matter of great urgency, therefore, that we find ways to cooperate with one another in a spirit of mutual acceptance and respect.
In such a world, I feel, it is vital for us to find genuinely sustainable and universal approach to ethics, inner values, and personal integrity-an approach that can transcend religious, cultural, and racial differences and appeal to people at a sustainable, universal approach is what I call the project of secular ethics.
All religions, therefore, to some extent, ground the cultivation of inner values and ethical awareness in some kind of metaphysical (that is, not empirically demonstrable) understanding of the world and of life after death. And just as the doctrine of divine judgment underlies ethical teachings in many theistic religions, so too does the doctrine of karma and future lives in non-theistic religions.
As I see it, spirituality has two dimensions. The first dimension, that of basic spiritual well-being-by which I mean inner mental and emotional strength and balance-does not depend on religion but comes from our innate human nature as beings with a natural disposition toward compassion, kindness, and caring for others. The second dimension is what may be considered religion-based spirituality, which is acquired from our upbringing and culture and is tied to particular beliefs and practices. The difference between the two is something like the difference between water and tea.
On this understanding, ethics consists less of rules to be obeyed than of principles for inner self-regulation to promote those aspects of our nature which we recognize as conducive to our own well-being and that of others.
It is by moving beyond narrow self-interest that we find meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in life.
”
”
Dalai Lama XIV (Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World)
“
Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. Bureaus cannot live without a host, being true parasitic organisms. (A cooperative on the other hand can live without the state. That is the road to follow. The building up of independent units to meet needs of the people who participate in the functioning of the unit. A bureau operates on opposite principles of inventing needs to justify its existence.) Bureaucracy is wrong as a cancer, a turning away from the human evolutionary direction of infinite potentials and differentiation and independent spontaneous action to the complete parasitism of a virus. (It is thought that the virus is a degeneration from more complex life-form. It may at one time have been capable of independent life. Now has fallen to the borderline between living and dead matter. It can exhibit living qualities only in a host, by using the life of another — the renunciation of life itself, a falling towards inorganic, inflexible machine, towards dead matter.) Bureaus die when the structure of the state collapse. They are as helpless and unfit for independent existence as a displaced tapeworm, or a virus that has killed the host.
”
”
William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch)
“
As I have earlier noted, the most important things in life and in business can’t be measured. The trite bromide 'If you can measure it, you can manage it' has been a hindrance in the building a great real-world organization, just as it has been a hindrance in evaluating the real-world economy. It is character, not numbers, that make the world go ‘round. How can we possibly measure the qualities of human existence that give our lives and careers meaning? How about grace, kindness, and integrity? What value do we put on passion, devotion, and trust? How much do cheerfulness, the lilt of a human voice, and a touch of pride add to our lives? Tell me, please, if you can, how to value friendship, cooperation, dedication, and spirit. Categorically, the firm that ignores the intangible qualities that the human beings who are our colleagues bring to their careers will never build a great workforce or a great organization.
”
”
John C. Bogle (Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life)
“
I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch – hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into – some fearful, devastating scourge, I know – and, before I had glanced half down the list of “premonitory symptoms,” it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever – read the symptoms – discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it – wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance – found, as I expected, that I had that too, – began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically – read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.
...
I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.
I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I’m ill; so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now. “What a doctor wants,” I said, “is practice. He shall have me. He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with only one or two diseases each.” So I went straight up and saw him, and he said:
“Well, what’s the matter with you?”
I said:
“I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is NOT the matter with me. I have not got housemaid’s knee. Why I have not got housemaid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I HAVE got.”
And I told him how I came to discover it all.
Then he opened me and looked down me, and clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn’t expecting it – a cowardly thing to do, I call it – and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head. After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out.
I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chemist’s, and handed it in. The man read it, and then handed it back.
He said he didn’t keep it.
I said:
“You are a chemist?”
He said:
“I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you. Being only a chemist hampers me.”
I read the prescription. It ran:
“1 lb. beefsteak, with
1 pt. bitter beer
every 6 hours.
1 ten-mile walk every morning.
1 bed at 11 sharp every night.
And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand.”
I followed the directions, with the happy result – speaking for myself – that my life was preserved, and is still going on.
”
”
Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat (Three Men, #1))
“
You already know I love you,” Park said, shaking his head impatiently. “So today I promise, I vow that I know you love me, too. I never doubt it. How could I when I feel it all the time? I feel it when you make me laugh and then watch with that pleased little look on your face. I feel it when you touch me like I’m special and when you can’t touch me anymore because you’re over-full of sensations, but let me stay by you anyway. I feel so safe in loving you, because I know you love me, too. And it’s the greatest gift of my life.”
“You love me,” Cooper said.
“Obviously.” And it was, wasn’t it? Park pulled Cooper closer, arms around his waist. “So if you’re the Moon, fine. I’m the sky. If you’re a human, I’m your wolf. If you’re a prickly, sarcastic, awkward, independent, randy-as-hell, secretly good-hearted porcupine, well, then I’m Oliver Park.”
“I can’t believe I’m being slandered in my own vows.”
“Whatever happens next, whoever we are or whoever they think we are, it doesn’t matter. Because the way we love is already the stuff of legends.”
Cooper couldn’t help smiling. “Well. I guess if you say it like that, it doesn’t sound like such a bad life,” he said, leaning in to kiss him, and felt Park’s body sigh into his like it was coming home.
No, not a bad life at all.
”
”
Charlie Adhara (Cry Wolf (Big Bad Wolf, #5))
“
No Child of Yours
I saw a child hide in the corner
So I went and asked her name
She was so naive and so petite
With such a tiny frame.
'No one,' she replied, that's what I am called
I have no family, no one at all
I eat, I sleep, I get depressed
There is no life, I have nothing left.'
'Why hide in the corner?' I had to ask twice
Because I've been hurt, it not very nice
I tried to stop it, it was out of my control
I feared for myself I wanted to go.
I begged for my sorrow to disappear
I turned in my bed, oh God, I knew they were near
'So come on little girl, where do you go
A path ahead, or a path to unknown?'
With that she arose, her head hung low
She held herself for only she knows
Her tears held back, her heart like ice
It looks as though she has paid the price.
The ice started melting, her tears to flow
The memories flood back, still so many years to go
The pain, the anger all built up inside
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
It will get better, just wait and see
You'll get a life, though you'll never be fire
Open your heart and love yourself
The abuse you suffered was NOT your fault.
”
”
Teresa Cooper (Pin Down)
“
Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is.”
"An authentically powered person lives in love. Love is the energy of the soul. Love is what heals the personality. There is nothing that cannot be healed by love. There is nothing but love."
"Love is the ability to live your life with an empowered heart without attachment to the outcome, the ability within yourself to distinguish within yourself between love and fear and choose love regardless of what is going on inside yourself or outside. This is self-mastery or authentic power...that means you become clear, forgiving, humble and loving... you are grounded in harmony, cooperating, sharing and reverence for life."
"When you become completely loving and kind without fear and without thought of harming others, you graudate from the Earth school. That is when reincarnation ends."
"The journey from love to love. This is the journey all of us are on- what happens between teh beginning and end of the journey is your life."
"Open to others as you would like them to open to you.
”
”
Gary Zukav
“
In 1924, Nikola Tesla was asked why he never married?
His answer was this:
"I had always thought of woman as possessing those delicate qualities of mind and soul that made her in her respects far superior to man. I had put her on a lofty pedestal, figuratively speaking, and ranked her in certain important attributes considerably higher than man. I worshipped at the feet of the creature I had raised to this height, and, like every true worshiper, I felt myself unworthy of the object of my worship.
But all this was in the past. Now the soft voiced gentle woman of my reverent worship has all but vanished. In her place has come the woman who thinks that her chief success in life lies on making herself as much as possible like man - in dress, voice, and actions, in sports and achievements of every kind. The world has experience many tragedies, but to my mind the greatest tragedy of all is the present economic condition wherein women strive against men, and in many cases actually succeed in usurping their places in the professions and in industry. This growing tendency of women to overshadow the masculine is a sign of a deteriorating civilization.
Practically all the great achievements of man until now have been inspired by his love and devotion to woman. Man has aspired to great things because some woman believed in him, because he wished to command her admiration and respect. For these reasons he has fought for her and risked his life and his all for her time and time again.
Perhaps the male in society is useless. I am frank to admit that I don't know. If women are beginning to feel this way about it - and there is striking evidence at hand that they do - then we are entering upon the cruelest period of the world's history.
Our civilization will sink to a state like that which is found among the bees, ants, and other insects - a state wherein the male is ruthlessly killed off. In this matriarchal empire which will be established, the female rules. As the female predominates, the males are at her mercy. The male is considered important only as a factor in the general scheme of the continuity of life.
The tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life, is very disappointing to me."
Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, page 23. August 10, 1924.
”
”
Nikola Tesla
“
There should be a Stage IV of black identity—Unmitigated Blackness. I’m not sure what Unmitigated Blackness is, but whatever it is, it doesn’t sell. On the surface Unmitigated Blackness is a seeming unwillingness to succeed. It’s Donald Goines, Chester Himes, Abbey Lincoln, Marcus Garvey, Alfre Woodard, and the serious black actor. It’s Tiparillos, chitterlings, and a night in jail. It’s the crossover dribble and wearing house shoes outside. It’s “whereas” and “things of that nature.” It’s our beautiful hands and our fucked-up feet. Unmitigated Blackness is simply not giving a fuck. Clarence Cooper, Charlie Parker, Richard Pryor, Maya Deren, Sun Ra, Mizoguchi, Frida Kahlo, black-and-white Godard, Céline, Gong Li, David Hammons, Björk, and the Wu-Tang Clan in any of their hooded permutations. Unmitigated Blackness is essays passing for fiction. It’s the realization that there are no absolutes, except when there are. It’s the acceptance of contradiction not being a sin and a crime but a human frailty like split ends and libertarianism. Unmitigated Blackness is coming to the realization that as fucked up and meaningless as it all is, sometimes it’s the nihilism that makes life worth living. Sitting
”
”
Paul Beatty (The Sellout)
“
Thousands of years ago tribes of human beings suffered great privations in the struggle to survive. In this struggle it was important not only to be able to handle a club, but also to possess the ability to think reasonably, to take care of the knowledge and experience garnered by the tribe, and to develop the links that would provide cooperation with other tribes. Today the entire human race is faced with a similar test. In infinite space many civilizations are bound to exist, among them civilizations that are also wiser and more "successful" than ours. I support the cosmological hypothesis which states that the development of the universe is repeated in its basic features an infinite number of times. In accordance with this, other civilizations, including more "successful" ones, should exist an infinite number of times on the "preceding" and the "following" pages of the Book of the Universe. Yet this should not minimize our sacred endeavors in this world of ours, where, like faint glimmers of light in the dark, we have emerged for a moment from the nothingness of dark unconsciousness of material existence. We must make good the demands of reason and create a life worthy of ourselves and of the goals we only dimly perceive.
”
”
Andrei D. Sakharov
“
There are members of our body politic who tell us that the public interest is best served when government action is reduced to a minimum and especially when it is kept negative in character. But just now, the nation as a whole seems to be moving rather swiftly and decisively—as is the world as a whole—in the opposite direction. More and more, we Americans are initiating new forms of positive government action for the common good. Between these two tendencies the struggle becomes every day more open and more intense. And as we wage that conflict it is well to remember that the logic of the Constitution gives no backing to either of the two combatants, as against the other. We are left free, as any self-governing people must leave itself free, to determine by specific decisions what our economy shall be. It would be ludicrous to say that we are committed by the Constitution to the economic cooperations of socialism. But equally ludicrous are those appeals by which, in current debate, we are called upon to defend the practices of capitalism, of "free enterprise," so-called, as essential to the freedom of the American Way of Life. The American Way of Life is free because it is what we Americans freely choose—from time to time—that it shall be.
”
”
Alexander Meiklejohn (Political Freedom: The Constitutional Powers of the People)
“
An awfulness was deep inside me, and I couldn't fight it; forced into submission and taken hostage by it, I could only just lie there, let it wash over me, and let myself be consumed by it. If I cooperate, maybe it won't stay too long; maybe it'll let me go free. But if I fight it, it might stay longer just to spite me. So I decided to let The Feeling inhabit me as long as it desired, while I lay still, cautious not to incite me, secretly hoping it would leave me soon and bother someone else, but outwardly, pretending to be its gracious host. The most discouraging element of what I felt was my inability to understand it. Usually when I was filled with an unpleasant feeling, I could make it go away, or at least tame it, by watching a light-hearted film or reading a good book or listening to a feel good album. But this feeling was different. I knew non of those distractions could rid me of it. But I knew nothing else. I couldn't even describe it. Is this depression? Maybe once you ask someone to describe depression, he can't find the words. Maybe I'm part of the official club now. I imagined myself in a room full of people where someone in the crowd, also suffering from depression, immediately noticed me-as if he detected the scent of his own kind-walked over, and looked into my eyes. He knew that I had The Feeling inside me because he, too, da The Feeling inside him. He didn't ask me to talk about it, because he understood that our type of suffering was ineffable. He only nodded at me, and I nodded back; and then, during our moment of silence, we both shared a sad smile of recognition, knowing that we only had each other in a room filled with people who would never understand us, because they didn't have The Feeling inside them.
”
”
Nick Miller (Isn't It Pretty To Think So?)
“
A common and traditionally masculine marital problem is created by the husband who, once he is married, devotes all his energies to climbing mountains and none to tending to his marriage, or base camp, expecting it to be there in perfect order whenever he chooses to return to it for rest and recreation without his assuming any responsibility for its maintenance. Sooner or later this “capitalist” approach to the problem fails and he returns to find his untended base camp a shambles, his neglected wife having been hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, having run off with another man, or in some other way having renounced her job as camp caretaker. An equally common and traditionally feminine marital problem is created by the wife who, once she is married, feels that the goal of her life has been achieved. To her the base camp is the peak. She cannot understand or empathize with her husband’s need for achievements and experiences beyond the marriage and reacts to them with jealousy and never-ending demands that he devote increasingly more energy to the home. Like other “communist” resolutions of the problem, this one creates a relationship that is suffocating and stultifying, from which the husband, feeling trapped and limited, may likely flee in a moment of “mid-life crisis.” The women’s liberation movement has been helpful in pointing the way to what is obviously the only ideal resolution: marriage as a truly cooperative institution, requiring great mutual contributions and care, time and energy, but existing for the primary purpose of nurturing each of the participants for individual journeys toward his or her own individual peaks of spiritual growth. Male and female both must tend the hearth and both must venture forth. As an adolescent I used to thrill to the words of love the early American poet Ann Bradstreet spoke to her husband: “If ever two were one, then we.”20 As I have grown, however, I have come to realize that it is the separateness of the partners that enriches the union. Great marriages cannot be constructed by individuals
”
”
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
“
The unexamined life is surely worth living, but is the unloved life worth examining? It seems a strange question until one realizes how much of our so-called mental life is about the lives we are not living, the lives we are missing out on, the lives we could be leading but for some reason are not. What we fantasize about, what we long for, are the experiences, the things and the people that are absent. It is the absence of what we need that makes us think, that makes us cross and sad. We have to be aware of what is missing in our lives - even if this often obscures both what we already have and what is actually available - because we can survive only if our appetites more or less work for us. Indeed, we have to survive our appetites by making people cooperate with our wanting. We pressurize the world to be there for our benefit. And yet we quickly notice as children - it is, perhaps, the first thing we do notice - that our needs, like our wishes, are always potentially unmet. Because we are always shadowed by the possibility of not getting what we want, we lean, at best, to ironize our wishes - that is, to call our wants wishes: a wish is only a wish until, as we say, it comes true - and, at worst, to hate our needs. But we also learn to live somewhere between the lives we have and the lives we would like.(…)
There is always what will turn out to be the life we led, and the life that accompanied it, the parallel life (or lives) that never actually happened, that we lived in our minds, the wished-for life (or lives): the risks untaken and the opportunities avoided or unprovided. We refer to them as our unloved lives because somewhere we believe that they were open to us; but for some reason - and we might spend a great deal of our lived lives trying to find and give the reason - they were not possible. And what was not possible all too easily becomes the story of our lives. Indeed, our lived lives might become a protracted mourning for, or an endless tantrum about, the lives we were unable to live. But the exemptions we suffer, whether forced or chosen, make us who we are. As we know more now than ever before about the kinds of lives it is possible to live - and affluence has allowed more people than ever before to think of their lives in terms of choices and options - we are always haunted by the myth of our potential, of what we might have it in ourselves to be or do. So when we are not thinking, like the character in Randall Jarrell's poem, that "The ways we miss our lives is life", we are grieving or regretting or resenting our failure to be ourselves as we imagine we could be. We share our lives with the people we have failed to be.
We discover these unloved lives most obviously in our envy of other people, and in the conscious 9and unconscious) demands we make on our children to become something that was beyond us. And, of course, in our daily frustrations. Our lives become an elegy to needs unmet and desires sacrificed, to possibilities refused, to roads not taken. The myth of our potential can make of our lives a perpetual falling-short, a continual and continuing loss, a sustained and sometimes sustaining rage; though at its best it lures us into the future, but without letting us wonder why such lures are required (we become promising through the promises made to us). The myth of potential makes mourning and complaining feel like the realest things we eve do; and makes of our frustration a secret life of grudges. Even if we set aside the inevitable questions - How would we know if we had realized our potential? If we don't have potential what do we have? - we can't imagine our lives without the unloved lives they contain. We have an abiding sense, however obscure and obscured, that the lives we do lead are informed by the lives that escape us. That our lives are defined by loss, but loss of what might have been; loss, that is, of things never experienced.
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Adam Phillips (Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life)
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I believe this movement will prevail.
I don’t mean it will defeat, conquer, or create harm to someone else.
Quite the opposite.
I don’t tender the claim in an oracular sense.
I mean that the thinking that informs the movement’s goals will reign. It will soon suffuse most institutions, but before then, it will change a sufficient number of people so as to begin the reversal of centuries of frenzied self-destructive behavior. Some say it is too late, but people never change when they are comfortable. Helen Keller threw aside the gnawing fears of chronic bad news when she declared, “I rejoice to live in such a splendidly disturbing time!” In such a time, history is suspended and thus unfinished. It will be the stroke of midnight for the rest of our lives.
My hopefulness about the resilience of human nature is matched by the gravity of our environmental and social condition. If we squander all our attention on what is wrong, we will miss the prize: In the chaos engulfing the world, a hopeful future resides because the past is disintegrating before us. If that is difficult to believe, take a winter off and calculate what it requires to create a single springtime. It’s not too late for the world’s largest institutions and corporations to join in saving the planet, but cooperation must be on the planet’s terms. The “Help Wanted” signs are everywhere. All people and institutions including commerce, governments, schools, churches and cities, need to learn from life and reimagine the world from the bottom up, based on the first principles if justice and ecology. Ecological restoration is extraordinarily simple: You remove whatever prevents the system from healing itself. Social restoration is no different.
We have the heart, knowledge, money and sense to optimize out social and ecological fabric.
It is time for all that is harmful to leave. One million escorts are here to transform the nightmares of empire and the disgrace of war on people and place. We are the transgressors and we are the forgivers.
“We” means all of us, everyone. There can be no green movement unless there is also a black, brown and copper movement. What is more harmful resides within is, the accumulated wounds of the past, the sorrow, shame, deceit, and ignominy shared by every culture, passed down to every person, as surely as DNA, as history of violence and greed. There is not question that the environmental movement is most critical to our survival. Our house is literally burning, and it is only logical that environmentalists expect the social justice movement to get on the environmental bus. But is actually the other way around; the only way we are going to put out this fire is to get on the social justice bus and heal our wounds, because in the end, there is only one bus.
Armed with that growing realization, we can address all that is harmful externally.
What will guide us is a living intelligence that creates miracles every second, carried forth by a movement with no name.
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Paul Hawken
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Darkness seems to have prevailed and has taken the forefront. This country as in the 'cooperation' of The United States of America has never been about the true higher-good of the people. Know and remember this.
Cling to your faith.
Roll your spiritual sleeves up and get to work. Use your energy wisely.
Transmute all anger, panic and fear into light and empowerment.
Don't use what fuels them; all lower-energy.
Mourn as you need to. Console who you need to—and then go get into the spiritual and energetic arena.
There's plenty work for us to do; within and without.
Let's each focus on becoming 'The President of Our Own Life.
Cultivate your mind. Pursue your purpose. Shine your light. Elevate past—and reject—any culture of low vibrational energy and ratchetness. Don't take fear, defeat or anger—on or in.
The system is doing what they've been created to do.
Are you? Am I? Are we—collectively?
Let's get to work.
No more drifting through life without your higher-self in complete control of your mind.
Awaken—fully. Activate—now. Put your frustrations or concerns into your work.
Don't lose sight. There is still—a higher plan.
Let's ride this 4 year energetic-wave like the spiritual gangsters that we are.
This will all be the past soon. Let's get to work and stay dedicated, consistent and diligent. Again, this will all be the past soon. We have preparing and work to do.
Toxic energy is so not a game.
Toxic energy and low vibrations are being collectively acted out on the world stage.
Covertly operating through the unconscious weak spots and blind spots in the human psyche; making people oblivious to their own madness, causing and influencing them to act against–their–own–best–interests and higher-good, as if under a spell and unconsciously possessed. This means that they are actually nourishing the lower vibrational energy with their lifestyle, choices, energy and habits, which is unconsciously giving the lower-energy the very power and fuel it needs—for repeating and recreating endless drama, suffering and destruction, in more and more amplified forms on a national and world stage.
So what do we do?
We take away its autonomy and power over us while at the same time empowering ourselves. By recognizing how this energetic/spiritual virus or parasite of the mind—operates through our unawareness is the beginning of the cure. Knowledge is power. Applied knowledge is—freedom.
Our shared future will be decided primarily by the changes that take place in the psyche of humanity, starting with each of us— vibrationally.
In closing and most importantly,
the greatest protection against becoming affected or possessed by this lower-energy is to be in touch with our higher vibrational-self. We have to call our energy and power back.
Being in touch with our higher-self and true nature acts as a sacred amulet, shielding and protecting us from the attempted effects. We defeat evil not by fighting against it (in which case, by playing its game, we’ve already lost) but by getting in touch with the part of us that is invulnerable to its effects— our higher vibrational-self.
Will this defeat and destroy us?
Or will it awaken us more and more?
Everything depends upon our recognizing what is being revealed to us and our stepping out of the unconscious influence of low vibrational/negative/toxic/evil/distraction energy (or whatever name you relate to it as)
that is and has been seeking power over each of our lives energetically and/or spiritually, and step into our wholeness, our personal power, our higher self and vibrate higher and higher daily.
Stay woke my friends—let's get to work.
”
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Lalah Delia