Deeds Related Quotes

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I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme. . .
William Shakespeare (Othello)
She, too, is one of Regin’s friends. They’re poker buddies, sisters of the Wii, and Mari is a vaunted member of the karaoke contingent. Regin has long acted as the witches’ designated driver.” “BFF?” Lachlain asked, brows drawn. “Sisters of the what?” Emma supplied, “Best friend forever and a video game.” Lachlain muttered to Emma, “Your relatives are just no’ right.
Kresley Cole (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night (Immortals After Dark, #3))
Bagged her? What does that even mean?” I asked, already wishing I hadn’t. “Intimate relations. Intercourse. Coitus. Doing the deed. Nookie. Fornicating. Laying pipe. Screwing. Sex. Tapping that ass. Fucking. Need I go on?
Jamie McGuire (Beautiful Sacrifice (The Maddox Brothers, #3))
Bless the ladies and their charming inconsistency! They demand to be treated like men, but they react like women.
Elizabeth Peters (The Deeds of the Disturber (Amelia Peabody, #5))
there is a kind of business, called Government service, which allows men to treat other men as things without having human brotherly relations with them; and that they should be so linked together by this Government service that the responsibility for the results of their deeds should not fall on any one of them individually.
Leo Tolstoy (Resurrection)
Because the actor always moves among and in relation to other acting beings, he is never merely a "doer" but always and at the same time a sufferer. To do and to suffer are like opposite sides of the same coin, and the story that an act starts is composed of its consequent deeds and sufferings. These consequences are boundless, because action, though it may proceed from nowhere, so to speak, acts into a medium where every reaction becomes a chain reaction and where every process is the cause of new processes
Hannah Arendt (The Human Condition)
Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know't.— No more of that.—I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely, but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but,
William Shakespeare (Othello)
Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal, where words are not used to veil intentions but to disclose realities, and deeds are not used to violate and destroy but to establish relations and create new realities.
Hannah Arendt (The Human Condition)
Is it only in the army in the Philippines that Americans sometimes commit deeds that cause all other Americans to regret? [Theodore Roosevelt 1901 relating reports of water torture in the Philippines to lynching in the south]
Theodore Roosevelt
Witch-hunting in all its different forms is also a powerful means to destroy communal relations, injecting the suspicion that underneath the neighbor, the friend, the lover hides another person, lusting for power, sex, wealth, or simply wanting to commit evil deeds.
Silvia Federici (Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women)
You ought to forgive others. Sometimes, the dark deed of others is due to inner struggles and fears. With your shining light and kind deeds, you will help them to turn to the light.
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
You own me,” he said, water sputtering against his lips as his head bobbed at the surface. “You have lock and key, deed to the house, the welcome mat, all that shit. It’s all yours, baby.” “I’ll have to take good care of my property, then.” “And I’ll have to behave on and off the premises. I may be a little rowdy, but...I’ll use my manners.” I sent him a small splash. “No swearing, invading personal space, or forgetting your pleases and thank-yous.” A glimmer twinkled in his irises, and for a moment, it looked as if he was the one about to drown. “Damn straight,” he pulled me against him abruptly, nose to nose. “Now please get over here and fucking kiss me.
Rachael Wade (Love and Relativity (Preservation))
Love begets joy. Joy begets peace. Peace begets patience. Patience begets kindness. Kindness begets goodness. Goodness begets faithfulness. Faithfulness begets gentleness. Gentleness begets self-control.
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
I want friends, not admirers. People who respect me for my character and my deeds, not my flattering smile. The circle around me would be much smaller, but what does that matter, as long as they're sincere?
Anne Frank
Over-attachment for one’s close relatives is simply born of ignorance. Every creature in the world is born alone and dies alone. He experiences the results of his own good and evil deeds and in the end leaves the present body to accept another. The belief that one person is the relation of another is nothing more than illusion.
Krishna Dharma (Mahabharata)
If one’s cup of water is foul, one must first ascertain if the well is poisoned. If we find that the well is indeed polluted, it may have some bearing on whether or not he is responsible for his deeds.
Graeme Macrae Burnet (His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae)
Some years ago I had a conversation with a man who thought that writing and editing fantasy books was a rather frivolous job for a grown woman like me. He wasn’t trying to be contentious, but he himself was a probation officer, working with troubled kids from the Indian reservation where he’d been raised. Day in, day out, he dealt in a concrete way with very concrete problems, well aware that his words and deeds could change young lives for good or ill. I argued that certain stories are also capable of changing lives, addressing some of the same problems and issues he confronted in his daily work: problems of poverty, violence, and alienation, issues of culture, race, gender, and class... “Stories aren’t real,” he told me shortly. “They don’t feed a kid left home in an empty house. Or keep an abusive relative at bay. Or prevent an unloved child from finding ‘family’ in the nearest gang.” Sometimes they do, I tried to argue. The right stories, read at the right time, can be as important as shelter or food. They can help us to escape calamity, and heal us in its aftermath. He frowned, dismissing this foolishness, but his wife was more conciliatory. “Write down the names of some books,” she said. “Maybe we’ll read them.” I wrote some titles on a scrap of paper, and the top three were by Charles de lint – for these are precisely the kind of tales that Charles tells better than anyone. The vital, necessary stories. The ones that can change and heal young lives. Stories that use the power of myth to speak truth to the human heart. Charles de Lint creates a magical world that’s not off in a distant Neverland but here and now and accessible, formed by the “magic” of friendship, art, community, and social activism. Although most of his books have not been published specifically for adolescents and young adults, nonetheless young readers find them and embrace them with particular passion. I’ve long lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people from troubled backgrounds say that books by Charles saved them in their youth, and kept them going. Recently I saw that parole officer again, and I asked after his work. “Gets harder every year,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just getting old.” He stopped me as I turned to go. “That writer? That Charles de Lint? My wife got me to read them books…. Sometimes I pass them to the kids.” “Do they like them?” I asked him curiously. “If I can get them to read, they do. I tell them: Stories are important.” And then he looked at me and smiled.
Terri Windling
Certainly, a clear line must be preserved by strict discipline, and on the other hand the men must know that everything is done for them that hard times permit. On the top of that it follows that, among real men, what counts is deeds, not words; and then it comes of itself, when such are the relations between men and their leaders, that instead of opposition there is harmony between them. The leader is merely a clearer expression of the common will and an example of life and death. And there is no science in all this. It is a practical quality, the simple manly commonsense that is native to a sound and vigorous race.
Ernst Jünger (Copse 125: A Chronicle from the Trench Warfare of 1918)
Over-attachment for one’s close relatives is simply born of ignorance. Every creature in the world is born alone and dies alone. He experiences the results of his own good and evil deeds and in the end leaves the present body to accept another. The belief that one person is the relation of another is nothing more than illusion.
Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (Mahabharata)
We are so accustomed to classifying judgments, arguments and deeds in terms of morality that we forget how relatively new the notion was in the culture of the Enlightenment.
Alasdair MacIntyre
During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes. Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history. That is, if this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him? (Albert Einstein, Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A 1934 Symposium published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941; from Einstein's Out of My Later Years, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1970, pp. 26-27.)
Albert Einstein
A diplomat’s words must have no relation to actions—otherwise what kind of diplomacy is it? Words are one thing, actions another. Good words are a concealment of bad deeds. Sincere diplomacy is no more possible than drywater or iron wood.
T.R. Fehrenbach (This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War)
Conjugal love, like romantic love, wants to be heroic; but it does not limit arbitrarily the scope of this heroism. In its desire to relate itself existentially to heroism, it will find it also in the modest deeds of everyday life, and will transform the tiresome routine of daily duties into golden threads binding oneself closer and closer to the beloved. There is in conjugal love a note of truth which is lacking in romantic love. It is a love that has been tested in the furnace of everyday trials and difficulties and had come out victoriously [...] To be kind and loveable for a moment is no great feat. But to be loving day after day in the most varied and trying circumstances can be achieved only by a man who truly loves.
Alice von Hildebrand
Equality in mutual relations with the solidarity arising from it, this is the most powerful weapon of the animal world in the struggle for existence. And equality is equity. By proclaiming ourselves anarchists, we proclaim before- hand that we disavow any way of treating others in which we should not like them to treat us; that we will no longer tolerate the inequality that has allowed some among us to use their strength, their cunning or their ability after a fashion in which it would annoy us to have such qualities used against ourselves. Equality in all things, the synonym of equity, this is anarchism in very deed. It is not only against the abstract trinity of law, religion, and authority that we declare war. By becoming anarchists we declare war against all this wave of deceit, cunning, exploitation, depravity, vice --in a word, inequality-- which they have poured into all our hearts. We declare war against their way of acting, against their way of thinking. The governed, the deceived, the exploited, the prostitute, wound above all else our sense of equality. It is in the name of equality that we are determined to have no more prostituted, exploited, deceived and governed men and women.
Pyotr Kropotkin (Anarchist Morality)
And once again sentimentality seems to be dialectically related to violence and brutality, in imagination if not in deed.
Theodore Dalrymple (Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality)
Action and speech are so closely related because the primordial and specifically human act must at the same time contain the answer to the question asked of every newcomer: “Who are you?” This disclosure of who somebody is, is implicit in both his words and his deeds; yet obviously the affinity between speech and revelation is much closer than that between action and revelation,4 just as the affinity between action and beginning is closer than that between speech and beginning, although many, and even most acts, are performed in the manner of speech. Without
Hannah Arendt (The Human Condition)
Proverbs is in many respects a work on ethics, presenting arguments concerning the manner in which moral precepts relate to life and the good; Job investigates the reasons good individuals (and, by implication, good nations) should suffer catastrophe; Esther seeks an account of how God’s will works in political circumstances in which one sees nothing but the decisions and deeds of human actors; and so forth.
Yoram Hazony (The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture)
Tsz-lu said to the Master, "As the prince of Wei, sir, has been waiting for you to act for him in his government, what is it your intention to take in hand first?" "One thing of necessity," he answered "the rectification of terms." "That!" exclaimed Tsz-lu. "How far away you are, sir! Why such rectification?" "What a rustic you are, Tsz-lu!" rejoined the Master. "A gentleman would be a little reserved and reticent in matters which he does not understand. If terms be incorrect, language will be incongruous; and if language be incongruous, deeds will be imperfect. So, again, when deeds are imperfect, propriety and harmony cannot prevail, and when this is the case laws relating to crime will fail in their aim; and if these last so fail, the people will not know where to set hand or foot. Hence, a man of superior mind, certain first of his terms, is fitted to speak; and being certain of what he says can proceed upon it. In the language of such a person there is nothing heedlessly irregular and that is the sum of the matter.
Confucius (The Analects)
I realized that I had been lost, and how I had become lost. I had strayed not so much because my ideas had been incorrect as because I had lived foolishly. I realized that I had been blinded from the truth not so much through mistaken thoughts as through my life itself, which had been spent in satisfying desire and in exclusive conditions of epicureanism. I realized that my questions as to what my life is, and the answer that it is an evil, was quite correct. The only mistake was that I had extended an answer that related only to myself to life as a whole. I had asked myself what my life was and had received the answer that it is evil and meaningless. And this was quite true, for my life of indulgent pursuits was meaningless and evil, but that answer applied only to my life and not to human life in general. I understood a truism that I subsequently found in the gospels: that people often preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil. For he who acts maliciously hates light and avoids it so as not to throw light on his deeds. I understood that in order to understand life it is first of all necessary that life is not evil and meaningless, and then one may use reason in order to elucidate it. I realized why I had for so long been treading so close to such an obvious truth without seeing it, and that in order to think and speak about human life one must think and speak about human life and not about the lives of a few parasites. The truth has always been the truth, just as 2 x 2 = 4, but I had not admitted it, because in acknowledging that 2 x 2 = 4 I would have to admit that I was a bad man. And it was more important and necessary for me to feel that I was good than to admit that 2 x 2 = 4. I came to love good people and to loathe myself, and I acknowledged the truth. And then it all became clear to me.
Leo Tolstoy (A Confession and Other Religious Writings)
...we are concluding falsely that we can deduce the justification, the rational admissibility of displeasure, from the fact that it exists; and from this false deduction Schopenhauer arrives at his fantastic conclusion of so-called intelligible freedom. But displeasure after the deed need not be rational at all: in fact, it certainly is not rational, for it rests on the erroneous assumption that the deed did not have to follow necessarily. Thus, because he thinks he is free (but not because he is free), man feels remorse and the pangs of conscience. Furthermore, this displeasure is a habit that can be given up; many men do not feel it at all, even after the same actions that cause many other men to feel it. Tied to the development of custom and culture, it is a very changeable thing, and present perhaps only within a relatively short period of world history. No one is responsible for his deeds, no one for his nature; to judge is to be unjust. This is also true when the individual judges himself. The tenet is as bright as sunlight, and yet everyone prefers to walk back into the shadow and untruth - for fear of the consequences.
Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits)
When a culture is no longer centered in a living and continually renewed relational process, it freezes into the It-world which is broken only intermittently by the eruptive, glowing deeds of solitary spirits. From that point on, common causality, which hitherto was never able to disturb the spiritual conception of the cosmos, grows into an oppressive and crushing doom. Wise, masterful fate which, as long as it was attuned to the abundance of meaning in the cosmos, held sway over all causality, has become transformed into demonic absurdity and has collapsed into causality.
Martin Buber (I and Thou)
But this superadded consciousness, wearying and annoying enough when it urged on me the trivial experience of indifferent people, became an intense pain and grief when it seemed to be opening to me the souls of those who were in a close relation to me — when the rational talk, the graceful attentions, the wittily-turned phrases, and the kindly deeds, which used to make the web of their characters, were seen as if thrust asunder by a microscopic vision, that showed all the intermediate frivolities, all the suppressed egoism, all the struggling chaos of puerilities, meanness, vague capricious memories, and indolent make-shift thoughts, from which human words and deeds emerge like leaflets covering a fermenting heap.
George Eliot (The Lifted Veil)
Loose and easy language about equality, resonant resolutions about brotherhood fall pleasantly on the ear, but for the Negro there is a credibility gap he cannot overlook. He remembers that with each modest advance the white population promptly raises the argument that the Negro has come far enough. Each step forward accents an ever-present tendency to backlash. This characterization is necessarily general. It would be grossly unfair to omit recognition of a minority of whites who genuinely want authentic equality. Their commitment is real, sincere, and is expressed in a thousand deeds. But they are balanced at the other end of the pole by the unregenerate segregationists who have declared that democracy is not worth having if it involves equality. The segregationist goal is the total reversal of all reforms, with reestablishment of naked oppression and if need be a native form of fascism. America had a master race in the antebellum South. Reestablishing it with a resurgent Klan and a totally disenfranchised lower class would realize the dream of too many extremists on the right.
Martin Luther King Jr. (Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?)
Good and bad are just relative concepts. It’s not our choice to be a part of any of this screwing sort. Just we are labelled in one of the two not based on our deeds or actions. Those who are able to hide their darker sides and cover that shit up and walk in this society are called as “good”, where as those who fail to do so are labelled with tag of “bad”. It’s nothing more than that…...
Saksham Minocha
Cassandra caught my quizzical look and shrugged. “Problems adjusting. You just missed the latest of the new souls. It would seem none of us are quite as good with people as you are.” That was an understatement. With any luck, Cassandra hadn’t caused any psychological scarring with her “Yeah, you’re dead, get over it” speech. She wasn’t a people person. Ordinarily, I greeted the new souls and took special care to deal with any “adjustment problems.” I enjoyed that part of my work. It was one of the few good deeds I could credit myself with. But as much as I’d love to tell myself otherwise, I wasn’t settling in the souls out of the goodness of my heart. Just lack of better alternatives. The other gods had difficulties relating to humans. But those difficulties were nothing compared to the problems the humans in my court had relating to each other. Souls lose something the longer they’re dead. They forget what it was like to worry, to be scared, to be human. Just yesterday, I’d caught Cassandra telling a frightened new soul I’d gone through a dark phase back when Dante passed through, but not to worry. I hadn’t gone off my meds for centuries. Fucking Dante.
Kaitlin Bevis (The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus, #3))
Penemue’s thing was knowing all that was written. That included the abstract, metaphorical writing of one’s deeds on their soul. And with Penemue’s perfect memory it meant he could tell you everything about you, your parents, your extended family and all your relatives going back to the beginning of time with an eerie precision. Sadly, Penemue’s thing tended to freak the hell out of people. 
R.E. Vance (Gone God World)
They were polytheistic, and the name for their most securely reconstructible deity relates to the word for “sky.” Their word for human, on the other hand, was derived from their word for “earth” or “land.” Their poetry revolved around themes of fertility, reciprocity, immortality, and heroic deeds; a single famous phrase, best known to us from the Homeric epics, is glossed as “imperishable fame.
Christina Thompson (Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia)
Divine creator, father, mother, son as one . . . If I, my family, relatives, and ancestors have offended you, your family, relatives, and ancestors in thoughts, words, deeds, and actions from the beginning of our creation to the present, we ask your forgiveness. . . . Let this cleanse, purify, release, cut all the negative memories, blocks, energies, and vibrations and transmute these unwanted energies to pure light. . . . And it is done.
Joe Vitale (Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More)
They could not understand that there is some few people in the world who do good without being asked. It were a hot day, I were a little boy, and ice-cream cones are always good. And that man just looked at me and thought I would like one--which I did. That is one reason why I do not hate all white folks today because some white folks will do good without being asked or hauled up before the Supreme Court to have a law promulgated against them.
Langston Hughes (The Return of Simple)
...when the bullets fly and sundry erratic fragments of shell are seeking a fellowʼs life, and he has to lay low in the pits to keep his light from being snuffed out, then is a good opportunity to reckon up and balance accounts with the world in general and a fellowʼs near relatives and family in particular. Many, many, many a time have I thought of the careless word or deed never recalled, or amended, and during those midnight hours would I have given almost life itself to have the opportunity of making amends for them. Not through fear of what is beyond this life, but in order that after my flesh had turned to dust, and my bones to traces of white lime, those that knew me in life could say, “Charlie is gone, and though his life was full of inconsistencies, still he was a good hearted fellow, and if he did not amount to much as man, still he done no one any harm.” Charlie Biddlecom January 22, 1865
Katherine M. Aldridge (No Freedom Shrieker The Civil War Letters of Union Soldier Charles Biddlecom)
He who can command, he who is a ‘master’ by nature, he who is forceful in deed and gesture – what has he to do with contracts! Such beings violate our every assumption: they come unexpectedly, without cause, reason, notice, excuse; they appear as suddenly as lightning, and are too terrible, too sudden, too convincing, too ‘different’ even to be hated. Their work is the instinctive creation and imposition of forms; of all artists, their work is the most instinctive, unconscious – in connection with appearance there arises something new, a system of governance which is alive , in which the functions and parts are defined and related to one another, in which above all no part finds a place unless it has some ‘function’ in connection with the whole. These instinctive organizers, they know nothing of guilt, responsibility, consideration; they are subject to that terrible artist-egoism which gleams like brass, and which sees itself justified to all eternity, in its work, even as a mother sees in her child.
Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals)
As we let go of reacting in conditioned ways, we are jettisoning the learned patterns we have developed in the past to relate to every aspect of experience. To let go of these is to enter into a spontaneous and unpredictable present, unmodulated by wanting, aversion, or other forms of self-centeredness. Indeed, what gets “stirred up” in reaction always has to do with me. The sense of “I” is largely composed of reaction, being an encyclopedic anthology of likes and dislikes, and it infiltrates even our most altruistic thoughts and deeds.
Chip Hartranft (The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali: A New Translation with Commentary (Shambhala Classics))
According to the law of karma, souls reincarnate in environments befitting their spiritual attainments. Good people (even those who have veered from the spiritual path) go, when they die, to the heaven of those who do good deeds. They dwell there for a number of years and then take birth again, this time into a home that is pure and prosperous. A few of them will be born into a family that is spiritually advanced, but such births are difficult to obtain. When this happens, the good environment draws out their latent spirituality and leads them rapidly toward liberation. The ones born into the pure and prosperous houses have the opportunity at first to enjoy the relatively tame desires they held in their former bodies. But as soon as those pleasures are done they feel irresistibly drawn to spirituality by the force of the good habits they strove for in the previous life. Even those who showed only a faint interest, merely inquiring about spiritual matters, progress further than the ones who merely follow the rites and ceremonies of their belief systems unthinkingly, and thus stall their true spiritual advancement.
Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
As a result of the experience of consistent parental love and caring throughout childhood, such fortunate children will enter adulthood not only with a deep internal sense of their own value but also with a deep internal sense of security. All children are terrified of abandonment, and with good reason. This fear of abandonment begins around the age of six months, as soon as the child is able to perceive itself to be an individual, separate from its parents. For with this perception of itself as an individual comes the realization that as an individual it is quite helpless, totally dependent and totally at the mercy of its parents for all forms of sustenance and means of survival. To the child, abandonment by its parents is the equivalent of death. Most parents, even when they are otherwise relatively ignorant or callous, are instinctively sensitive to their children’s fear of abandonment and will therefore, day in and day out, hundreds and thousands of times, offer their children needed reassurance: “You know Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to leave you behind”; “Of course Mommy and Daddy will come back to get you”; “Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to forget about you.” If these words are matched by deeds, month in and month out, year in and year out, by the time of adolescence the child will have lost the fear of abandonment and in its stead will have a deep inner feeling that the world is a safe place in which to be and protection will be there when it is needed. With this internal sense of the consistent safety of the world, such a child is free to delay gratification of one kind or another, secure in the knowledge that the opportunity for gratification, like home and parents, is always there, available when needed.
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
One's deeds are done by oneself, but destiny is bestowed by heaven. The relation of deeds to destiny is like shadows and echoes following form and sound. If you want to practice the way to attain reality, first get rid of warped behavior. There are people who are serene and free, following natural reality, whom others consider lazy, but I consider at peace. There are people who conduct themselves simply and have very stable personalities, whom others consider uncultured, but I consider unspoiled. To those who want to know the way to deal with the world, I suggest, Love People.
Chang San-Feng
The injured person’s reaction to the trauma only exercises a completely ‘cathartic’ effect if it is an adequate reaction - as, for instance, revenge. But language serves as a substitute for action; by its help, an affect can be ‘abreacted’ almost as effectively. In other cases speaking is itself the adequate reflex, when, for instance, it is a lamentation or giving utterance to a tormenting secret, e.g. a confession. If there is no such reaction, whether in deeds or words, or in the mildest cases in tears, any recollection of the event retains its affective tone to begin with.
Sigmund Freud (Freud's Most Famous & Influential Books, Vol 1: The Interpretations of Dreams/On Dreams/On Psychotherapy/Jokes & Their Relation to the Unconscious)
Any vision of God places man before the necessity of self-determination in relation to Him. In essence our every action inevitably either approaches us to God or, on the contrary, distances us from Him. Hence, every venture is effected in what is termed divine fear. The soul fears not only deeds that are patently wrong but thoughts, too, that may grieve the Holy Spirit, Whom she has come to love. The distance between us and God is inexpressibly vast. We recognise we are unworthy of the Holy of holies. The hear grieves, wearied and oppressed to see herself so destitute. We do no understand immediately that this very phenomenon signals the start of an advance towards God.
Sophrony Sakharov (On Prayer)
In 2019, however, there is nothing left from that: the revolution- ary advent of social media has now reached its full swing, and 100 percent of all deeds, thoughts, deals, and acts in our lives are public. Social media’s almightiness has brought about many things, but the main one is transparency. Total transparency everywhere and for everyone. As a result, social media have shaken up the PR industry beyond recognition. In fact, social media have caused the first and only real PR revolution in the industry’s more than 100 years of history. Regardless of how the PR business may have developed over the years, we always used to be a transmission, a sort of bridge, between our clients and their clients.
Maxim Behar (The Global PR Revolution: How Thought Leaders Succeed in the Transformed World of PR)
Legends have always played a powerful role in the making of history. Man, who has not been granted the gift of undoing, who is always an unconsulted heir of other men’s deeds, and who is always burdened with a responsibility that appears to be the consequence of an unending chain of events rather than conscious acts, demands an explanation and interpretation of the past in which the mysterious key to his future destiny seems to be concealed. Legends were the spiritual foundations of every ancient city, empire, people, promising safe guidance through the limitless spaces of the future. Without ever relating facts reliably, yet always expressing their true significance, they offered a truth beyond realities, a remembrance beyond memories.
Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism)
Legends have always played a powerful role in the making of history. Man, who has not been granted the gift of undoing, who is always an un-consulted heir of other men’s deeds, and who is always burdened with a responsibility that appears to be the consequence of an unending chain of events rather than conscious acts, demands an explanation and interpretation of the past in which the mysterious key to his future destiny seems to be concealed. Legends were the spiritual foundations of every ancient city, empire, people, promising safe guidance through the limitless spaces of the future. Without ever relating facts reliably, yet always expressing their true significance, they offered a truth beyond realities, a remembrance beyond memories.
Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism)
Great Discourse on Blessings AT one time the Exalted One was living in Jeta Grove. A certain deity of astounding beauty approached the Exalted One and said: Many deities and humans have pondered on blessings. Tell me the blessings supreme. The Buddha replied: To associate not with the foolish, to be with the wise, to honor the worthy ones this is a blessing supreme. To reside in a suitable location, to have good past deeds done, to set oneself in the right direction this is a blessing supreme. To be well spoken, highly trained, well educated, skilled in handicraft, and highly disciplined, this is a blessing supreme. To be well caring of mother, of father, to look after spouse and children, to engage in a harmless occupation, this is a blessing supreme. Outstanding behavior, blameless action, open hands to all relatives and selfless giving, this is a blessing supreme. To cease and abstain from evil, to avoid intoxicants, to be diligent in virtuous practices, this is a blessing supreme. To be reverent and humble, content and grateful, to hear the Dharma at the right time, this is a blessing supreme. To be patient and obedient, to visit with spiritual people, to discuss the Dharma at the right time, this is a blessing supreme. To live austerely and purely, to see the noble truths, and to realize nirvana, this is the blessing supreme. A mind unshaken when touched by the worldly states, sorrowless, stainless, and secure, this is the blessing supreme. Those who have fulfilled all these are everywhere invincible; they find well-being everywhere, theirs is the blessing supreme. adapted from MANGALA SUTTA, translated by Gunaratana Mahathera
Jack Kornfield (Teachings of the Buddha)
Imam al-Qarāfī differentiates between the hope inherent in the Arabic word rajā’ and the hope implied by taṭwīl al-’amal. The Qur’an praises one who hopes for God and meeting Him in the Hereafter: “Say [O Muḥammad], ‘I am but a man like yourselves, but to whom it is revealed that your God is but one God. So whoever hopes to meet his Lord, let him do righteous deeds and never associate anyone with the worship of his Lord’” (QUR’AN , 18:110). A famous hadith narrated from ʿĀ’ishah relates that the Prophet said, “Whoever loves to meet God is one whom God also loves to meet.” And ʿĀ’ishah asked, “O Messenger of God, what about disliking death?” He replied, “It is natural to dislike death, but ultimately meeting God is something the believer seeks and looks forward to.” This kind of hope is known as rajā’. It is hope coupled with sincere effort to achieve what one hopes for.
Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
There is only one power which can from within undermine egoism at the root, and really does undermine it, namely love, and chiefly sexual love. The falsehood and evil of egoism consists in the exclusive acknowledgement of absolute significance for oneself and in the denial of it for others. Reason shows us that this is unfounded and unjust, but simply by the facts love directly abrogates such an unjust relation, compelling us not by abstract consciousness, but by an internal emotion and the will of life to recognize for ourselves the absolute significance of another. Recognizing in love the truth of another, not abstractly, but essentially, transferring in deed the centre of our life beyond the limits of our empirical personality, we by so doing reveal and realize our own real truth, our own absolute significance, which consists just in our capacity to transcend the borders of our factual phenomenal being, in our capacity to live not only in ourselves, but also in another.
Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (The Meaning of Love)
The further we delve into the origins of a "collective image" (or, to express it in ecclesiastical language, of a dogma), the more we uncover a seemingly unending web of archetypal patterns that, before modern times, were never the object of conscious reflection. Thus, paradoxically enough, we know more about mythological symbolism then did any generation before us. The fact is that in former times men did not reflect upon their symbols; they lived them and were unconsciously animated by their meaning... Goethe's Faust aptly says: "Im Anfang war die Tat [In the beginning was the deed]." "Deeds" were never invented, they were done; thoughts, on the other hand, are a relatively late discovery of man. First he was moved to deeds by unconscious factors; it was only a long time afterward that he began to reflect upon the causes that had moved him; and it took him a very long time indeed to arrive at the Preposterous idea that he must have moved himself-- his mind being unable to identify any other motivating force than his own.
C.G. Jung (Man and His Symbols)
O Krishna, what satisfaction could we find in killing Dhritarashtra's sons? We would become sinners by slaying these men, even though they are evil. The sons of Dhritarashtra are related to us: therefore, we should not kill them. How can we gain happiness by kiling members of our own family? Though they are overpowered by greed and see no evil in destroying families or injuring friends, we see these evils. Why shouldn't we turn away from this sin? When a family declines, ancient traditions are destroyed. With them are lost the spiritual foundations for life, and the family loses its sense of unity. Where there is no sense of unity, the women of the family become corrupt; and with the corruption of its women, society is plunged into chaos. Social chaos is hell for the family and for those who have destroyed the family as well. It disrupts the process of spiritual evolution begun by our ancestors. The timeless spiritual foundations of family and society would be destroyed by these terrible deeds, which violate the unity of life.
Eknath Easwaran (The Bhagavad Gita)
JOC. Some God miserably destroys the race of Œdipus; for thus began it, when I brought forth children in that unhallowed manner, and thy father married me in evil hour, and thou didst spring forth. But why relate these things? What is sent by the Gods we must bear. But how I may ask the questions I wish, I know not, for I fear lest I wound at all thy feelings; but I have a great desire. POL. But inquire freely, leave nothing out. For what you wish, my mother, this is dear to me. JOC. I ask thee therefore, first, for the information that I wish to obtain. What is the being deprived of one's country, is it a great ill? POL. The greatest: and greater is it in deed than in word. JOC. What is the reason of that? What is that so harsh to exiles? POL. One thing, and that the greatest, not to have the liberty of speaking. JOC. This that you have mentioned belongs to a slave, not to give utterance to what one thinks. POL. It is necessary to bear with the follies of those in power. JOC. And this is painful, to be unwise with the unwise. POL. But for interest we must bend to slavery contrary to our nature
Euripides (The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I.)
Celebrate deeds of mercy and justice. We live in a time when public esteem of the church is plummeting. For many outsiders and inquirers, the deeds of the church will be far more important than our words in gaining plausibility (Acts 4:32–33). Leaders in most places see “word-only” churches as net costs to their community, organizations of relatively little value. But effective churches will be so involved in deeds of mercy and justice that outsiders will say, “We cannot do without churches like this. This church is channeling so much value into our community that if it were to leave the neighborhood, we would have to raise taxes.” Evangelistic worship services should highlight offerings for deed ministry and celebrate by the giving of reports, testimonies, and prayers. It is best that offerings for mercy ministries are received separately from the regular offering; they can be attached (as is traditional) to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. This connection brings before the non-Christian the impact of the gospel on people’s hearts (i.e., the gospel makes us generous) and the impact of lives poured out for the world.
Timothy J. Keller (Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City)
There are many things that men and women ought to think about, and must think about, in private, that they would not for a moment discuss in public. There are books on the proper conduct of women in certain most sacred relations of life, relations of life which are as holy as any, and which can be entered into in the presence of a holy God with no question of His approval, but which do not permit of public mention. . . . That the Bible is a pure book is evidenced by the fact that it is not a favourite book in dens of infamy. But on the other hand, books that try to make out that the Bible is an obscene book, and that endeavour to keep people from reading it, are favourite books in dens of infamy. The unclean classes, both men and women, were devoted admirers of the most brilliant man this country ever produced who attacked what he called the "obscenity of the Bible." These unclean classes do not frequent Bible classes. They do frequent infidel lectures. These infidel objectors to the book as an "obscene book" constantly betray their insincerity and hypocrisy. Colonel Ingersoll . . . objected to the Bible for telling these vile deeds "without a touch of humour." In other words, he did not object to telling stories of vice, if only a joke was made of the sin. Thank God, that is exactly what the Bible does not do--make a joke of sin. It makes sin hideous, so men who are obscene in their own hearts object to the Bible as being an obscene book. . . . To sum up, there are in the Bible descriptions of sins that cannot wisely be read in every public assembly, but these descriptions of sin are morally most wholesome in the places where God, the Author of the Book, manifestly intends them to be read. The child who is brought up to read the Bible as a whole, from Genesis to Revelation, will come to know in the very best way possible what a child ought to know very early in life if he is to be safeguarded against the perils that surround our modern life on every hand. A child who is brought up upon a constant, thorough, continuous reading of the whole Bible is more likely than any other child to be free from the vices that are undermining the mental, moral, and physical strength of our boys and girls, and young men and young women. But the child who is brought up on infidel literature and conversation is the easiest prey there is for the seducer and procuress. The next easiest is the one who, through neglect of the Bible, is left in ignorance of the awful pitfalls of life.
Reuben A. Torrey
In the past two decades, especially, scholars and biographers have given emphasis to a pattern of hypocrisy and duplicity in the president’s life and career. Affecting the modesty and frugality of a simple country farmer, Jefferson’s private tastes ran to fine food, fine wines, fine homes, and fine horses. He criticized government waste, overspending, and public debt, but his profligate spending habits kept him buried under a mountain of personal debt all his adult life. He was enthralled by mechanical contrivances and innovations, but an enemy of industrialization. He denounced financial speculators while speculating aggressively in real estate. Deploring the smear tactics that were so pervasive in the 1790s, he arranged to have his political adversaries smeared. He declared that “If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all,” but he was the first acknowledged leader of a major American political party. Jefferson was his country’s greatest spokesman for liberty—swearing “eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the minds of men”—and also the deeded owner of more than two hundred men, women and children, some of whom were his blood relations. As Dr. Samuel Johnson had asked: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
Ian W. Toll (Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy)
My conception of genius. — Great men, like great ages, are explosives in which a tremendous force is stored up; their precondition is always, historically and physiologically, that for a long time much has been gathered, stored up, saved up, and conserved for them — that there has been no explosion for a long time. Once the tension in the mass has become too great, then the most accidental stimulus suffices to summon into the world the "genius," the "deed," the great destiny. What does the environment matter then, or the age, or the "spirit of the age," or "public opinion"! Take the case of Napoleon. Revolutionary France, and even more, prerevolutionary France, would have brought forth the opposite type; in fact, it did. Because Napoleon was different, the heir of a stronger, older, more ancient civilization than the one which was then perishing in France, he became the master there, he was the only master. Great men are necessary, the age in which they appear is accidental; that they almost always become masters over their age is only because they are stronger, because they are older, because for a longer time much was gathered for them. The relationship between a genius and his age is like that between strong and weak, or between old and young: the age is relatively always much younger, thinner, more immature, less assured, more childish.
Friedrich Nietzsche
New people rarely went there to live. The same families married the same families until relationships were hopelessly entangled and the members of the community looked monotonously alike. Jean Louise, until the Second World War, was related by blood or marriage to nearly everybody in the town, but this was mild compared to what went on in the northern half of Maycomb County: there was a community called Old Sarum populated by two families, separate and apart in the beginning, but unfortunately bearing the same name. The Cunninghams and the Coninghams married each other until the spelling of the names was academic—academic unless a Cunningham wished to jape with a Coningham over land titles and took to the law. The only time Jean Louise ever saw Judge Taylor at a dead standstill in open court was during a dispute of this kind. Jeems Cunningham testified that his mother spelled it Cunningham occasionally on deeds and things but she was really a Coningham, she was an uncertain speller, and she was given to looking far away sometimes when she sat on the front porch. After nine hours of listening to the vagaries of Old Sarum’s inhabitants, Judge Taylor threw the case out of court on grounds of frivolous pleading and declared he hoped to God the litigants were satisfied by each having had his public say. They were. That was all they had wanted in the first place.
Harper Lee (Go Set a Watchman)
You will see that the most powerful and highly placed men let drop remarks in which they long for leisure, acclaim it, and prefer it to all their blessings. They desire at times, if it could be with safety, to descend from their high pinnacle; for, though nothing from without should assail or shatter, Fortune of its very self comes crashing down.8 The deified Augustus, to whom the gods vouchsafed more than to any other man, did not cease to pray for rest and to seek release from public affairs; all his conversation ever reverted to this subject—his hope of leisure. This was the sweet, even if vain, consolation with which he would gladden his labours—that he would one day live for himself. In a letter addressed to the senate, in which he had promised that his rest would not be devoid of dignity nor inconsistent with his former glory, I find these words: "But these matters can be shown better by deeds than by promises. Nevertheless, since the joyful reality is still far distant, my desire for that time most earnestly prayed for has led me to forestall some of its delight by the pleasure of words." So desirable a thing did leisure seem that he anticipated it in thought because he could not attain it in reality. He who saw everything depending upon himself alone, who determined the fortune of individuals and of nations, thought most happily of that future day on which he should lay aside his greatness. He had discovered how much sweat those blessings that shone throughout all lands drew forth, how many secret worries they concealed. Forced to pit arms first against his countrymen, then against his colleagues, and lastly against his relatives, he shed blood on land and sea. Through Macedonia, Sicily, Egypt, Syria, and Asia, and almost all countries he followed the path of battle, and when his troops were weary of shedding Roman blood, he turned them to foreign wars. While he was pacifying the Alpine regions, and subduing the enemies planted in the midst of a peaceful empire, while he was extending its bounds even beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates and the Danube, in Rome itself the swords of Murena, Caepio, Lepidus, Egnatius, and others were being whetted to slay him. Not yet had he escaped their plots, when his daughter9 and all the noble youths who were bound to her by adultery as by a sacred oath, oft alarmed his failing years—and there was Paulus, and a second time the need to fear a woman in league with an Antony.10 When be had cut away these ulcers11 together with the limbs themselves, others would grow in their place; just as in a body that was overburdened with blood, there was always a rupture somewhere. And so he longed for leisure, in the hope and thought of which he found relief for his labours. This was the prayer of one who was able to answer the prayers of mankind.
Seneca (On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It (Penguin Great Ideas))
To the Po'lice In case you are wondering the answer is yes: you have hurt us. Deeply. Just as you intended: you and those who sent you. You do know by now that you do not send yourself? I imagine your Designers sitting back in the shadows laughing as we weep. Though usually devoid of feeling, they are experiencing a sensation they almost enjoy: they get to witness, by twisted enchantment, dozens of strong black mothers weeping. They planned and nurtured your hatred and fear and focused the kill shot. Then watched you try to explain your innocence on TV. It is entertainment for them. They chuckle and drink Watching you squirm. They have tied you up in a bag of confusion from which you will never escape. It’s true you are white, but you are so fucking poor, and dumb, to boot, they say. A consideration that turns them pink with glee. (They have so many uses planned for the poor, white, and dumb: you would be amazed). You and the weeping mothers have more in common than you might think: the mothers know this. They have known you far longer than you have known them. After centuries, even those in the shadows, your masters, offer little mystery. If you could find your true courage you might risk everything to sit within a circle, surrounded by these women. Their eyes red from weeping, their throats raw. (They might strike you too, who could swear they wouldn’t?) Their sons are dead and it was you who did the deed. Scary enough. But within that enclosure Naked to their grief Is where you must center If you are ever To be freed.
Alice Walker (Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart)
Author Shelby Steele, one of America’s most insightful commentators on race relations, notes that whites have been looking for some time for a black leader who has credibility within the black community and yet can offer whites racial absolution. This should not be taken too cynically. Many whites genuinely espouse an idealism that seeks to move beyond race, and they recognize that it’s going to take a black spokesman to make this case on a national level and help to get us there. Steele notes bluntly that this idealism cannot be divorced from a powerful sense of white racial guilt. We have to get beyond race because America’s past racial history has become such an embarrassment. Now the black leader that whites are looking for does not actually have to issue indulgences in the manner of the medieval papacy; rather, by his words and deeds, he can signal to white America that whites are no longer on the hook for past racism. In Steele’s view, whites have been eagerly, hungrily awaiting the black leader who would give them a chance, through their support of his leadership, not merely to say to others but to feel, in their innermost being, “Whew, I am not a racist.” Steele speculated that whites may be willing to pay heavily both in money and in political support if such a candidate appeared on the horizon. He would truly be the anointed one.11 Obama’s ingenuity was to recognize that this unique opportunity required a black man of a kind not seen in American politics before. Such a man would have to look black but act white.
Dinesh D'Souza (The Roots of Obama's Rage)
Essentially, we are still the same people as those in the period of the Reformation - and how should it be otherwise? But we no longer allow ourselves certain means to gain victory for our opinion: this distinguishes us from that age and proves that we belong to a higher culture. These days, if a man still attacks and crushes opinions with suspicions and outbursts of rage, in the manner of men during the Reformation, he clearly betrays that he would have burnt his opponents, had he lived in other times, and that he would have taken recourse to all the means of the Inquisition, had he lived as an opponent of the Reformation. In its time, the Inquisition was reasonable, for it meant nothing other than the general martial law which had to be proclaimed over the whole domain of the church, and which, like every state of martial law, justified the use of the extremist means, namely under the assumption (which we no longer share with those people) that one possessed truth in the church and had to preserve it at any cost, with any sacrifice, for the salvation of mankind. But now we will no longer concede so easily that anyone has the truth; the rigorous methods of inquiry have spread sufficient distrust and caution, so that we experience every man who represents opinions violently in word and deed as any enemy of our present culture, or at least as a backward person. And in fact, the fervour about having the truth counts very little today in relation to that other fervour, more gentle and silent, to be sure, for seeking the truth, a search that does not tire of learning afresh and testing anew.
Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits)
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE CAN GO A LONG WAY A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS ARE CRACKPOTS A MAN CAN'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A MOTHER A NAME MEANS A LOT JUST BY ITSELF A POSITIVE ATTITUDE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD A RELAXED MAN IS NOT NECESSARILY A BETTER MAN A SENSE OF TIMING IS THE MARK OF GENIUS A SINCERE EFFORT IS ALL YOU CAN ASK A SINGLE EVENT CAN HAVE INFINITELY MANY INTERPRETATIONS A SOLID HOME BASE BUILDS A SENSE OF SELF A STRONG SENSE OF DUTY IMPRISONS YOU ABSOLUTE SUBMISSION CAN BE A FORM OF FREEDOM ABSTRACTION IS A TYPE OF DECADENCE ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE ACTION CAUSES MORE TROUBLE THAN THOUGHT ALIENATION PRODUCES ECCENTRICS OR REVOLUTIONARIES ALL THINGS ARE DELICATELY INTERCONNECTED AMBITION IS JUST AS DANGEROUS AS COMPLACENCY AMBIVALENCE CAN RUIN YOUR LIFE AN ELITE IS INEVITABLE ANGER OR HATE CAN BE A USEFUL MOTIVATING FORCE ANIMALISM IS PERFECTLY HEALTHY ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL ANYTHING IS A LEGITIMATE AREA OF INVESTIGATION ARTIFICIAL DESIRES ARE DESPOILING THE EARTH AT TIMES INACTIVITY IS PREFERABLE TO MINDLESS FUNCTIONING AT TIMES YOUR UNCONSCIOUS IS TRUER THAN YOUR CONSCIOUS MIND AUTOMATION IS DEADLY AWFUL PUNISHMENT AWAITS REALLY BAD PEOPLE BAD INTENTIONS CAN YIELD GOOD RESULTS BEING ALONE WITH YOURSELF IS INCREASINGLY UNPOPULAR BEING HAPPY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING ELSE BEING JUDGMENTAL IS A SIGN OF LIFE BEING SURE OF YOURSELF MEANS YOU'RE A FOOL BELIEVING IN REBIRTH IS THE SAME AS ADMITTING DEFEAT BOREDOM MAKES YOU DO CRAZY THINGS CALM IS MORE CONDUCIVE TO CREATIVITY THAN IS ANXIETY CATEGORIZING FEAR IS CALMING CHANGE IS VALUABLE WHEN THE OPPRESSED BECOME TYRANTS CHASING THE NEW IS DANGEROUS TO SOCIETY CHILDREN ARE THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE CHILDREN ARE THE MOST CRUEL OF ALL CLASS ACTION IS A NICE IDEA WITH NO SUBSTANCE CLASS STRUCTURE IS AS ARTIFICIAL AS PLASTIC CONFUSING YOURSELF IS A WAY TO STAY HONEST CRIME AGAINST PROPERTY IS RELATIVELY UNIMPORTANT DECADENCE CAN BE AN END IN ITSELF DECENCY IS A RELATIVE THING DEPENDENCE CAN BE A MEAL TICKET DESCRIPTION IS MORE VALUABLE THAN METAPHOR DEVIANTS ARE SACRIFICED TO INCREASE GROUP SOLIDARITY DISGUST IS THE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO MOST SITUATIONS DISORGANIZATION IS A KIND OF ANESTHESIA DON'T PLACE TOO MUCH TRUST IN EXPERTS DRAMA OFTEN OBSCURES THE REAL ISSUES DREAMING WHILE AWAKE IS A FRIGHTENING CONTRADICTION DYING AND COMING BACK GIVES YOU CONSIDERABLE PERSPECTIVE DYING SHOULD BE AS EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG EATING TOO MUCH IS CRIMINAL ELABORATION IS A FORM OF POLLUTION EMOTIONAL RESPONSES ARE AS VALUABLE AS INTELLECTUAL RESPONSES ENJOY YOURSELF BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CHANGE ANYTHING ANYWAY ENSURE THAT YOUR LIFE STAYS IN FLUX EVEN YOUR FAMILY CAN BETRAY YOU EVERY ACHIEVEMENT REQUIRES A SACRIFICE EVERYONE'S WORK IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT EVERYTHING THAT'S INTERESTING IS NEW EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE DESERVE SPECIAL CONCESSIONS EXPIRING FOR LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL BUT STUPID EXPRESSING ANGER IS NECESSARY EXTREME BEHAVIOR HAS ITS BASIS IN PATHOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY EXTREME SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS LEADS TO PERVERSION FAITHFULNESS IS A SOCIAL NOT A BIOLOGICAL LAW FAKE OR REAL INDIFFERENCE IS A POWERFUL PERSONAL WEAPON FATHERS OFTEN USE TOO MUCH FORCE FEAR IS THE GREATEST INCAPACITATOR FREEDOM IS A LUXURY NOT A NECESSITY GIVING FREE REIN TO YOUR EMOTIONS IS AN HONEST WAY TO LIVE GO ALL OUT IN ROMANCE AND LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY GOING WITH THE FLOW IS SOOTHING BUT RISKY GOOD DEEDS EVENTUALLY ARE REWARDED GOVERNMENT IS A BURDEN ON THE PEOPLE GRASS ROOTS AGITATION IS THE ONLY HOPE
Jenny Holzer
humanitarian grounds, failed to understand that the rapidly developing capitalism of the North was also an oppressive system. They viewed slavery as a detestable and inhuman institution, an archaic transgression of justice. But they did not recognize that the white worker in the North, his or her status as “free” laborer notwithstanding, was no different from the enslaved “worker” in the South: both were victims of economic exploitation. As militant as William Lloyd Garrison is supposed to have been, he was vehemently against wage laborers’ right to organize. The inaugural issue of the Liberator included an article denouncing the efforts of Boston workers to form a political party: An attempt has been made—it is still in the making—we regret to say—to inflame the minds of our working classes against the more opulent, and to persuade men that they are condemned and oppressed by a wealthy aristocracy … It is in the highest degree criminal, therefore, to exasperate our mechanics to deeds of violence or to array them under a party banner.58 As a rule, white abolitionists either defended the industrial capitalists or expressed no conscious class loyalty at all. This unquestioning acceptance of the capitalist economic system was evident in the program of the women’s rights movement as well. If most abolitionists viewed slavery as a nasty blemish which needed to be eliminated, most women’s righters viewed male supremacy in a similar manner—as an immoral flaw in their otherwise acceptable society. The leaders of the women’s rights movement did not suspect that the enslavement of Black people in the South, the economic exploitation of Northern workers and the social oppression of women might be systematically related. Within the early women’s movement, little was said about white working people—not even about white women workers. Though many of the women were supporters of the abolitionist campaign, they failed to integrate their anti-slavery consciousness into their analysis of women’s oppression.
Angela Y. Davis (Women, Race, & Class)
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" --As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lost his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?--Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their minds and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions. Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as though an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Had it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. "How shall we comfort ourselves. the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under out knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us--for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto." Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightening and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars--and yet they have done it themselves" It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said to always have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not tombs and sepulchers of God?
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
Unconditional Love - Love Without Condition I love you as you are, as you seek to find your own special way to relate to the world. I honour your choices to learn in the way you feel is right for you. I know it is important that you are the person you want to be and not someone that I or others think you "should" be. I realise that I cannot know what is best for you, although perhaps sometimes I think I do. I have not been where you have been, viewing life from the angle you have. I do not know what you have chosen to learn, how you have chosen to learn it, with whom or in what time period. I have not walked life looking through your eyes, so how can I know what you need. I allow you to be in the world without a thought or word of judgement from me about the deeds you undertake. I see no error in the things you say and do. In this place where I am, I see that there are many ways to perceive and experience the different facets of our world. I allow without reservation the choices you make in each moment. I make no judgement of this, for if I would deny your right to your evolution, then I would deny that right for myself and all others. To those who would choose a way I cannot walk, whilst I may not choose to add my power and my energy to this way, I will never deny you the gift of love that God has bestowed within me, for all creation. As I love you, so I shall be loved. As I sow, so shall I reap. I allow you the Universal right of Free Will to walk your own path, creating steps or to sit awhile if that is what is right for you. I will make no judgement that these steps are large or small, nor light or heavy or that they lead up or down, for this is just my viewpoint. I may see you do nothing and judge it to be unworthy and yet it may be that you bring great healing as you stand blessed by the Light of God. I cannot always see the higher picture of Divine Order. For it is the inalienable right of all life to choose their own evolution and with great Love I acknowledge your right to determine your future. In humility I bow to the realisation that the way I see as best for me does not have to mean it is also right for you. I know that you are led as I am, following the inner excitement to know your own path. I know that the many races, religions, customs, nationalities and beliefs within our world bring us great richness and allow us the benefit and teachings of such diverseness. I know we each learn in our own unique way in order to bring that Love and Wisdom back to the whole. I know that if there were only one way to do something, there would need only be one person. I will not only love you if you behave in a way I think you should, or believe in those things I believe in. I understand you are truly my brother and my sister, though you may have been born in a different place and believe in another God than I. The love I feel is for all of God's world. I know that every living thing is a part of God and I feel a Love deep within for every person, animal, tree and flower, every bird, river and ocean and for all the creatures in all the world. I live my life in loving service, being the best me I can, becoming wiser in the perfection of Divine Truth, becoming happier in the joy of ... Unconditional Love
Sandy Stevenson
On Mr. Phipps' discovering the place of my concealment, he cocked his gun and aimed at me. I requested him not to shoot and I would give up, upon which he demanded my sword. I delivered it to him, and he brought me to prison. During the time I was pursued, I had many hair breadth escapes, which your time will not permit you to relate. I am here loaded with chains, and willing to suffer the fate that awaits me. I here proceeded to make some inquiries of him after assuring him of the certain death that awaited him, and that concealment would only bring destruction on the innocent as well as guilty, of his own color, if he knew of any extensive or concerted plan. His answer was, I do not. When I questioned him as to the insurrection in North Carolina happening about the same time, he denied any knowledge of it; and when I looked him in the face as though I would search his inmost thoughts, he replied, 'I see sir, you doubt my word; but can you not think the same ideas, and strange appearances about this time in the heaven's might prompt others, as well as myself, to this undertaking.' I now had much conversation with and asked him many questions, having forborne to do so previously, except in the cases noted in parenthesis; but during his statement, I had, unnoticed by him, taken notes as to some particular circumstances, and having the advantage of his statement before me in writing, on the evening of the third day that I had been with him, I began a cross examination, and found his statement corroborated by every circumstance coming within my own knowledge or the confessions of others whom had been either killed or executed, and whom he had not seen nor had any knowledge since 22d of August last, he expressed himself fully satisfied as to the impracticability of his attempt. It has been said he was ignorant and cowardly, and that his object was to murder and rob for the purpose of obtaining money to make his escape. It is notorious, that he was never known to have a dollar in his life; to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits. As to his ignorance, he certainly never had the advantages of education, but he can read and write, (it was taught him by his parents,) and for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension, is surpassed by few men I have ever seen. As to his being a coward, his reason as given for not resisting Mr. Phipps, shews the decision of his character. When he saw Mr. Phipps present his gun, he said he knew it was impossible for him to escape as the woods were full of men; he therefore thought it was better to surrender, and trust to fortune for his escape. He is a complete fanatic, or plays his part most admirably. On other subjects he possesses an uncommon share of intelligence, with a mind capable of attaining any thing; but warped and perverted by the influence of early impressions. He is below the ordinary stature, though strong and active, having the true negro face, every feature of which is strongly marked. I shall not attempt to describe the effect of his narrative, as told and commented on by himself, in the condemned hole of the prison. The calm, deliberate composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions, the expression of his fiend-like face when excited by enthusiasm, still bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence about him; clothed with rags and covered with chains; yet daring to raise his manacled hands to heaven, with a spirit soaring above the attributes of man; I looked on him and my blood curdled in my veins.
Nat Turner (The Confessions of Nat Turner)
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."  13 In that He says, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (NKJV)        Covenant determines how God relates to people.        The Old (Law) Covenant: God had to relate to sinful people as a Holy Righteous God would/had to. Do bad get cursed, do good get blessed.        The New (Grace) Covenant: God relates to sinful people through Jesus, reconciling them to Himself and no longer relating to them through the Law since Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law on the behalf of people. Heb 7:18-19              The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless 19 (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. (NIV)        The Law Covenant was weak and useless in providing people with right-standing before God because nobody could ever keep it perfectly (Gal 3:10, James 2:10, James 4:17).        The better hope by which we draw near to God is not our own righteousness or holiness, but through Jesus Christ’s free gift of righteousness. (Eph 2:8-9, Rom 3:20-26)        Because of this Jesus qualifies you to do the same works and greater because you have the same right-standing before God as Jesus has. (John 14:12). Gal 3:11-14              Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."  12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them."  13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."  14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. (NIV)        NO ONE is justified by the law. No one can please God by keeping the law and living holy.        Righteousness (right standing before God) is attained by faith in Christ only.        The Law is not of faith which makes relating to God through it not pleasing to Him. (Heb 11:6)        Jesus became a curse for us, removing the right of the curse of the Law to come on us. (This doesn’t mean the curse doesn’t exist)        Living under the Law, trying to be justified by your own efforts to live holy and pleasing to God is A CURSE! No good will come from it.        In fact, you alienate yourself from the life of Christ by doing it. (Gal 5:1-5) 2 Cor 3:4-9              Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant- — not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? 9 If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! (NIV)        Law Covenant: Ministry of DEATH and CONDEMNATION.        Engraved on stone: 10 Commandments.        Grace Covenant: Ministry of LIFE and the SPIRIT.        Engraved on our hearts Rom 8:1              There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. (NKJV)
Cornel Marais (Administering the Children's Bread)
It is related on the authority of Ibn ‘Abbâs that the Messenger of Allâh said: “When a person turns in repentance to Allâh ,Allâh accepts his repentance and He causes the angels who record his deeds to forget the sins which they had recorded, and He causes his body parts to forget the evil deeds which they committed, and He causes the place in the earth and the sky to also forget. Allâh does all this so that he may come to Him on the day of resurrection without anyone or anything from the creation being able to testify against him.
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (An Exposition of the Hearts: Makashifat-ul-Quloob (Ihyaʾ Ulūm al-Dīn))
It is related on the authority of ‘Alî that the Prophet said: “Four thousand years before the creation could be created, the following was inscribed around the throne of Allâh : ‘I am extremely forgiving to the person who repents, believes, does good deeds, and remains on guidance.
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (An Exposition of the Hearts: Makashifat-ul-Quloob (Ihyaʾ Ulūm al-Dīn))
Consciousness is there in animal life. Beyond animal instincts, humans also have inherent recognition of good and evil in their conscience. Belief in deterministic justice and rewards in afterlife fulfils our aspiration to have true and fair reward for every small act of goodness and evil in afterlife. Every moment of a nurse and that of a cured or dead patient is not meaningless if one believes and prepare for afterlife by achieving excellence in morals. Imam Ghazali wrote that wealth is useful till we die, relatives till we are put in grave and only good deeds will be the currency on judgement day. If we have good deeds to take in next life, then we can have everlasting happiness that is not infected and affected by any Corona Virus.
Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
If you ever had to deal with difficult employees and used industrial relations procedures, this book is for you. If you're a manager, supervisor, legislator, trade union official or politician, you need to read this and how it impacts managers. It seems "workers" are more than accommodated. This book takes things to extremes when outdated legislation doesn't work.
R.J. Deeds
Amidst the many and varied emotions that we as humans endure the human imagination fuses with the realities of outer space for a new born planet to emergence that catapults a message of dire warnings to us, a cataclysmic finale for the planet earth that has fallen prey to human arrogance and greed. The events of this story play themselves out in NASA when its spacecraft disappear, one after the other, and in the moments of hopelessness and expectation and the glances of disappear from the eyes of the world, and the feelings of the families. It is here that three of the best of the best that NASA has to offer, hero astronauts, are deployed to solve the riddle. David, a pompous man if ever there was one, a man who has never been able to hold onto a woman in a serious relationship, least of all the last two women he was involved with. Jack, the consummate womaniser who can’t get enough of his relationships with woman, while his dutiful wife Suzie remains at home, seething with pain for his many treacheries. Finally there is Tony, the kind of heart, and his angelic wife Angela and their tragic infant son Cody, the apple of their eye, a handsome boy and smart suffering from an incurable disease that is on the verge of killing him. With all of that they love and support him and find time to do good deeds for all, garnering the respect and love of all. As the astronauts arrive in the designated spot in space where the previous missions disappeared, they almost collide with a semi-invisible planet from legend, dragging them towards it with all their attempts to flee. They see within it things that go beyond the wildest dreams of mortal man till they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. Then they realise that this planet is besotted with many dark and ancient secrets relating to the Pharaohs, as they also learn that the planets responds only to human emotion. Upon their return to earth the great surprise involving Cody takes place, and in the moment of farewell this mysterious planet sends a definite and resounding message to earth and all who reside on it. The surprises don’t end there, till we return a second time to this planet to discover even more of its secrets… The only remaining question then is, will the inhabitants of this world reveal them?
Hany Rasha
Without anxiety about fulfilling what others require of him (such as at his job, or in school, or in a family environment), or excitement for gaining someone’s praise (bragging about and showing off his accomplishments, or telling stories of his virtuous deeds), or the other great variety of pleasures and fulfillments that only interpersonal relations can provide, a person will likely find himself utterly dominated by the need to seek pleasure, and quickly default to the lowest and easiest pleasures available to him. A person left in this way to his own devices, and at the unopposed mercy of his pleasure unconscious, will likely be consumed by it—at least for a while, until self-revulsion or some other factor eventually pulls him out of it. And many people who become mired in such a situation, as I have said happened to me, truly do eat themselves (I mean this figuratively, of course).
Roman Gelperin (Addiction, Procrastination, and Laziness: A Proactive Guide to the Psychology of Motivation)
Therefore, when Paul proclaimed the eschatological meaning of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and exaltation, he was proclaiming all that Jesus’ life, deeds, and words had meant, and far more. His relative silence about Jesus reflects neither historical nor theological disinterest in Jesus, but only the actual situation in the unfolding of redemptive history. All that Jesus in history had meant was included, and enlarged, in the preaching of the exalted one.
George Eldon Ladd (A Theology of the New Testament)
What they said about flogging and Christianity I understood well enough, but I was quite in the dark as to what they meant by the words "his colt," from which I perceived that people considered that there was some connexion between me and the head groom. What the connexion was I could not at all understand then. Only much later when they separated me from the other horses did I learn what it meant. At that time I could not at all understand what they meant by speaking of *me* as being a man's property. The words "my horse" applied to me, a live horse, seemed to me as strange as to say "my land," "my air," or "my water.” But those words had an enormous effect on me. I thought of them constantly and only after long and varied relations with men did I at last understand the meaning they attach to these strange words, which indicate that men are guided in life not by deeds but by words. They like not so much to do or abstain from doing anything, as to be able to apply conventional words to different objects. Such words, considered very important among them, are my and mine, which they apply to various things, creatures or objects: even to land, people, and horses. They have agreed that of any given thing only one person may use the word *mine*, and he who in this game of theirs may use that conventional word about the greatest number of things is considered the happiest. Why this is so I do not know, but it is so. For a long time I tried to explain it by some direct advantage they derive from it, but this proved wrong. For instance, many of those who called me their horse did not ride me, quite other people rode me; nor did they feed me - quite other people did that. Again it was not those who called me *their* horse who treated me kindly, but coachmen, veterinaries, and in general quite other people. Later on, having widened my field of observation, I became convinced that not only as applied to us horses, but in regard to other things, the idea of mine has no other basis than a low, mercenary instinct in men, which they call the feeling or right of property. A man who never lives in it says "my house" but only concerns himself with its building and maintenance; and a tradesman talks of "my cloth business" but has none of his clothes made of the best cloth that is in his shop. There are people who call land theirs, though they have never seen that land and never walked on it. There are people who call other people theirs but have never seen those others, and the whole relationship of the owners to the owned is that they do them harm. There are men who call women their women or their wives; yet these women live with other men. And men strive in life not to do what they think right but to call as many things as possible *their own*. I am now convinced that in this lies the essential difference between men and us. Therefore, not to speak of other things in which we are superior to men, on this ground alone we may boldly say that in the scale of living creatures we stand higher than man. The activity of men, at any rate of those I have had to do with, is guided by words, while ours is guided by deeds.
Leo Tolstoy (Kholstomer)
Even at Yad Vashem, the country’s official Holocaust archive, museum and memorial in Jerusalem, the Auschwitz Report was filed away without the names of its authors. When historians referred to the report, they tended to speak of ‘two young escapees’ or ‘two Slovak escapees’ as if the identities of the men who had performed this remarkable deed were incidental. What might explain this relative lack of recognition? It certainly did not help Wetzler that he was out of sight of western writers and historians and, therefore, mostly out of mind. As for Rudi, while he was accessible, and a model interviewee, he was not an easy sell in Israel or in the mainstream Jewish diaspora. Those audiences would have thrilled to hear the story of his escape and his mission to tell the world of Auschwitz, but he never left it at that. He would not serve up a morally comfortable narrative in which the only villains were the Nazis. Instead he always insisted on hitting out at Kasztner and the Hungarian Jewish leadership, as well as the Jewish council in Slovakia. He faulted them for failing to pass on his report and, in the Slovak case, for compiling the lists that had put him on a deportation train in the first place.
Jonathan Freedland (The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World)
The idea of reward and punishment also springs from this law. Whatever we sow, we must reap. It cannot be otherwise. [...] If a person spends all his life in evil-thinking and wrongdoing, then it is useless for him to look for happiness hereafter; because our hereafter is not a matter of chance, but follows as the reaction of our present action. [...] We should, however, never lose sight of the fact that all these ideas of reward and punishment exist in the realm of relativity or finiteness. No soul can ever be doomed eternally through his finite evil deeds; for the cause and effect must always be equal. Thus we can see through our common sense that the theory of eternal perdition and eternal heaven is impossible and illogical, since no finite action can create an infinite result. Hence according to Vedanta, the goal of mankind is neither temporal pleasure nor pain, but Mukti or absolute freedom ; and each soul is consciously or unconsciously marching towards this goal through the various experiences of life and death.
Paramananda
Forecasting (in words) bears no relation to speculation (in deeds).
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (Incerto, #5))
In order that a new world may step in, this world must for a time disappear. The murderers and the murder must be insulated -- cut off by an immeasurable gulf from the ordinary tide and succession of human affairs locked up and sequestered in some deep recess; we must be made sensible that the world of ordinary life is suddenly arrested -- laid asleep -- tranced -- racked into a dread armistice; time must be annihilated; relation to things without abolished; and all must pass self-withdrawn into a deep syncope and suspension of earthly passion. Hence it is, that, when the deed is done, when the work of darkness is perfect, then the world of darkness passes away like a pageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate is heard; and it makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced: the human has made its reflux upon the fiendish; the pulses of life are beginning to beat again...
Thomas de Quincey (Confessions of an English Opium-Eater & Other Writings)
Learn to admire others; it is the first step to overcome your ego.” “The ego destroys its egoist silently and suddenly, as a termite does.” “The ego is such a bullet that fires all your relations.” “The ego and vanity both hold such invisible fire that flames upon oneself.” “Your ego may hurt and damage you more than others.” Learn how to live and participate in people and society, how to help each other, and how to build harmony and peace among those who have lost their way. It can only be with respect, justice, and equality, without any distinctions. Be aware that your ego can destroy your ability if you focus on your caliber and status; it is a poison, not a remedy. Understand the outcomes and consequences of ego, egoists, and egotism. Read thoroughly to grasp the insight to enlighten your life and ways. “Everyone stands firm with their ego status; thus, I accept that I am zero and that everyone else is a hero, but remember that on every count, zero matters.” “The ego, vanity, jealousy, and other flaws define the imperceptive attitude and fly silently toward self-victimizing.” “Nothing else than the worst and abysmal self-defeat, which elucidates that one fetches and embraces itself to become the victim of ego, vanity, and jealousy.” “An egoist focuses on self-promotion and does not admire others or value anyone else. Unfortunately, such one remains the prisoner of egotism.” “A heart that contains love cannot keep the hate there A heart that performs forgiveness does not recognize revenge In a heart where there is altruism, there is no place for egoism Such a heart demonstrates a pure and real human.” “It proves not a difficult task if one discovers the universe; however, discovering one’s self-ego is the toughest matter, whereas overcoming that leads to a visionary victory.” “To show others, the quotes and sayings of the visionary figures, as a mirror instead of reform own conduct and character, indicates one’s worst egoism unless that reflects and demonstrates not their golden words.” “One can neither understand nor accept and respect others’ logic, view, and insight before overcoming their ego.” “After the jumping out of your ego, you liberate your own, and you see the way towards the values of others.” “The nurturing of morals is the language, and control of the ego is the eye of the soul.” “Surrender your ego to enjoy peace of mind and the beauty of equality and harmony.” “Everyone stands firm with their ego status; thus, I accept that I am zero and that everyone else is a hero, but remember that on every count, zero matters.” “Hatred, racism, discrimination, distinction, and vainglory germinate in the soil of ego.” “When one becomes capable of overcoming desires, hopes, and ego, one learns and understands the faculty of patience.” I Yield Not *** I suffer not from ego I let that not enter my life I yield not my will to avaricious As I am a truth of truths I dream not, impossibilities I become a dream of my dreams Since I exist as a reality Thus, it builds A sweet and lovely pleasure, Peace and calm I dance; I dance Without security Even no one can imagine My link to the spiritual world I am here and there No one is aware I wear and bear Every atmosphere. Deliberately *** I deliberately Become fool I enjoy that To punish My ego It is not strange Nor it is a surprise It is just an idea Of yourself What are you Who are you If my ego rules me I feel myself in the doom If I overcome my ego My ways become bright I see the destiny For that, I am here I deliberately Become fool To let people Enjoy and happy Let them heal Their wounds Caused by themselves Of their wrong deeds I deliberately Become fool To make the people active Put to use their time The great lessons That nowhere One can learn.
Ehsan Sehgal
Every afternoon, when the day is almost over, and the night is about to arrive, you can look back at your day, knowing that it’s almost over, finished, gone, it will never come back, and your lifetime is now a day shorter, you can look back at your day, and realize that everything, relationships, Politics, Art, everything is related to religion… Because everything, is a matter of life and death “He Who created Death and Life, that He may try which of you is best in deed: and He is the Exalted in Might, Oft-Forgiving” (QURAN, chapter “The Sovereignty”, translated by Yusufali)
Muhammad Hossain Nasseri
May those who feed me win the joy of tranquillity and peace, with those who protect me, honor me, respect me, and revere me. And those who revile me, afflict me, beat me, cut me in pieces with their swords, or take my life—may they all obtain the joy of complete enlightenment, may they be awakened to perfect and sublime enlightenment.” With such thoughts and actions and resolves he cultivates … and develops the consciousness of joy in his relations with all beings, and so he acquires a contemplative spirit filled with joy in all things … and becomes imperturbable—not to be shaken by all the deeds of Māra.
William Theodore de Bary (The Buddhist Tradition: In India, China and Japan)
The best comparison that I could give for islam, in relation to another false religion, would be mormonism. Both were started by self-proclaimed prophets who distorted truths from the Bible so to establish their own version of the Gospel. By definition, that act would be called "Historical Revisionism (Negationism)." Which, in accordance to the proper context of their deed, would be defined as - The Illegitimate Distortion Of The Historical Record.
Calvin W. Allison (The Sunset of Science and the Risen Son of Truth)
1 Chronicles 16:8 and many other portions of Scripture relate calling upon the Lord to the telling of all his deeds. Calling upon the Lord is equivalent to seeking him by faith (Ps. 14:2; Rom. 10:12–13). When we do, he gives us our desires (Ps. 145:18). Neither can worship be isolated from culture. Nor can culture be developed without religion, which is a form of worship. Just at the factual level this is clear. We don’t worship on the Sabbath without a number of cultural elements: the style of music, the language we use, a preaching style, the building we worship in, the dress code, etc. And when we engage in culture, be it science or politics or art, or even marriage and procreation, there is always a fundamental spiritual orientation involved.
Doug Serven (Firstfruits of a New Creation: Essays in Honor of Jerram Barrs)
think the easiest way to understand the difference is to point out that in Roman pagan thinking all things had their own ‘geni’ and every person possessed their ‘genius.’ To some extent this same thinking can be found among the Greeks in relation to the daimon. The sages understood every person to possess both an eidolon and a daimonic self. For the uninitiated the ‘eidolon’ (much like what is today called an ego) is all they know and the daimon appears as an external agency. But the goal of initiation is to unite daimon and eidolon into a ‘whole self.’ In the language of this book so far we could equate the eidolon with what we have been calling ‘the Shadow’ – this is the normal everyday consciousness of the person. The ‘Skins’ are other forms that may be animated by the Shadow, but the daimonic aspect of consciousness is the most mysterious of all, subtly working through the Shadow at all times, a direct spark of divine fire, the ‘godhead’ dimension of the self that few ever become aware of.
Lee Morgan (A Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft)
The concept of a pact, particularly one with the Devil is a relative latecomer to witchcraft mythology.[23] Early examples of magical grimoires such as the Greek Magical Papyri and even the Key of Solomon both present the occultist as ‘master of spirits’, just as the tribal shaman is in traditional cultures. In fact the Greek Magical Papyri actually shows the mage extracting an oath of allegiance from the daimon, rather than the other way around! It seems to be a uniquely post-Christian idea that the witch obtained his or her power from a pact with the devil or other powerful familiar
Lee Morgan (A Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft)
Today, of all days, there were no penitents present to witness what happened in the temple and report the deeds to Heaven. Her hand moved to the small of her back, to the talon knife that she carried sheathed there. She drew it with the bone-deep certainty that the gods had turned their faces away on purpose, like sneaky relatives slipping a child a gift they should not be approving. The weapon settled in her hand, warm and solid with purpose. Her clan, her family, her life might be in ruins—but she had this. It was up to her now, to finish what her brothers could not, to finally end the war between the clans. Perhaps Lan was watching. Perhaps Hilo was as well.
Fonda Lee (Jade Legacy (The Green Bone Saga, #3))
Because of this craftiness, Satan sought to deceive Eve by subtly changing God’s name. When he spoke to Eve, we read, “And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said, “You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’ ” (Genesis 3:1). In removing the name Lord (Jehovah) from before God, Satan pulled a sales trick on Eve. He sought to deceive her by hiding God’s relational nature and thus the relational impact of the deed he was trying to get her to commit. With the name Lord (Jehovah) still in the question, Satan would be reminding Eve through his own words about God’s position as absolute master over both Adam and Eve. Yet he didn’t use Jehovah, and even when Eve replied, she neglected to call God by the name He had used to make Himself known.
Tony Evans (The Power of God's Names (The Names of God Series))
Before turning to Marx’s writings, we must note the radical divide that separates his position from orthodox Marxism. Marx never conceived of socialism or communism as state control of the economy. Nor did he ever endorse the notion of a single-party state that rules on behalf of the masses. His conception of the new society is thoroughly democratic, based on freely associated relations of production and in society as a whole. He was primarily concerned with freeing individuals from alienated and dehumanised social relations—not simply with increasing the productive forces so that developing societies can catch up with developed ones… [Marx] then turns to the future, writing: “Let us finally imagine, for a change, an association of free people, working with the means of production held in common” (Marx 1977: 171). This does not refer to a formal transfer of private property to collective or state entities. Transferring property deeds is a juridical relation, which does not end class domination. Marx refers to “free people” owning the means of production, which means they exert effective and not just nominal control over the labour process. And that is not possible unless the producers democratically control the labour process through their own self-activity. He then goes on to state that in this post-capitalist society, products are “directly objects of utility” and do not assume a value form. Exchange value and universalised commodity production come to an end. Producers decide how to make, distribute, and consume the total social product. One part is used to renew the means of production; the other “is consumed by members of the association as means of subsistence” (Marx 1977: 171–72). He invokes neither the market nor the state as the medium by which this is achieved. He instead envisions a planned distribution of labour time by individuals who are no longer subjected to socially necessary labour time. Abstract labour is abolished, since actual labour time—not socially necessary labour time—serves as a measure of social relations.
Peter Hudis
What is the gospel, and how do we bring it to bear on the hearts of people today? What is this culture like, and how can we both connect to it and challenge it in our communication? Where are we located — city, suburb, town, rural area — and how does this affect our ministry? To what degree and how should Christians be involved in civic life and cultural production? How do the various ministries in a church — word and deed, community and instruction — relate to one another? How innovative will our church be and how traditional? How will our church relate to other churches in our city and region? How will we make our case to the culture about the truth of Christianity?
Timothy J. Keller (Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City)
2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own—in this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'Thing-in-itself— THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!"—This mode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation is at the back of all their logical procedure; through this "belief" of theirs, they exert themselves for their "knowledge," for something that is in the end solemnly christened "the Truth." The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred even to the wariest of them to doubt here on the very threshold (where doubt, however, was most necessary); though they had made a solemn vow, "DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM." For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antitheses exist at all; and secondly, whether the popular valuations and antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional perspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from below—"frog perspectives," as it were, to borrow an expression current among painters. In spite of all the value which may belong to the true, the positive, and the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher and more fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to pretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity. It might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and respected things, consists precisely in their being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposed things—perhaps even in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps! But who wishes to concern himself with such dangerous "Perhapses"! For that investigation one must await the advent of a new order of philosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, the reverse of those hitherto prevalent—philosophers of the dangerous "Perhaps" in every sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I see such new philosophers beginning to appear.
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Integrity (ajjava) implies incorruptibility in the discharge of public duties as well as honesty and sincerity in personal relations. There is a Burmese saying: ‘With rulers, truth, with (ordinary) men, vows’. While a private individual may be bound only by the formal vows that he makes, those who govern should be wholly bound by the truth in thought, word and deed.
Aung San Suu Kyi (Freedom from Fear: And Other Writings)
St. Lawrence River May 1705 Temperature 48 degrees From the river they walked back to the town, and the boy was taken into the fire circle outside the powwow’s longhouse. Here he was placed on the powwow’s sacred albino furs. A dozen men, those who were now his relatives, sat in a circle around him. The powwow lit a sacred pipe and passed it, and for the first time in his life, the boy smoked. Don’t cough, Mercy prayed for him. Don’t choke. Afterward she found out they diluted the tobacco with dried sumac leaves to make sure he wouldn’t cough on his first pull. Although the women had adopted him, it was the men who filed by to bring gifts. The new Indian son received a tomahawk, knives, a fine bow, a pot of vermilion paint, a beautiful black-and-white-striped pouch made from a skunk and several necklaces. “Watch, watch!” whispered Snow Walker, riveted. “This is his father. Look what his father gives him!” The warrior transferred from his own body to his son’s a wampum belt--hundreds of tiny shell circles linked together like white lace. The belt was so large it had to hang from the neck instead of the waist. To give a man a belt was old-fashioned. Wampum had no value to the French and had not been used as money by the Indians for many years. But it still spoke of power and honor and even Mercy caught her breath to see it on a white boy’s body. But of course, he was not white any longer. “My son,” said the powwow, “now you are flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.” At last his real name was called aloud, and the name was plain: Annisquam, which just meant “Hilltop.” Perhaps they had caught him at the summit of a mountain. Or considering the honor of the wampum belt, perhaps he kept his eyes on the horizon and was a future leader. Or like Ruth, he might have done some great deed that would be told in story that evening. When the gifts and embraces were over, Annisquam was taken into the powwow’s longhouse to sit alone. He would stay there for many hours and would not be brought out until well into the dancing and feasting in the evening. Not one of Mercy’s questions had been answered. Was he, in his heart, adopted? Had he, in his heart, accepted these new parents? Where, in his heart, had he placed his English parents? How did he excuse himself to his English God and his English dead? The dancing began. Along with ancient percussion instruments that crackled and rattled, rasped and banged, the St. Francis Indians had French bells, whose clear chimes rang, and even a bugle, whose notes trumpeted across the river and over the trees.
Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
The essence of life, true glory, lies in the pro-creation and re-enactment of heroic deeds and virtuous meaning in relation to universal Truth.
VD.
People do not know what good deeds are. It is udaya karma,unfolding effects of past karma; that makes them do the deeds. The prakruti, the relative self, forces them to do them. What is your own thing [effort] in that? Doing good deeds; that too is mandatory (farajiyat)!
Dada Bhagwan
case of Adam, however, had no analogy with this, but was altogether different. For, having been beguiled by another under the pretext of immortality, he is immediately seized with terror, and hides himself; not as if he were able to escape from God; but, in a state of confusion at having transgressed His command, he feels unworthy to appear before and to hold converse with God. Now, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;” the sense of sin leads to repentance, and God bestows His compassion upon those who are penitent. For [Adam] showed his repentance by his conduct, through means of the girdle [which he used], covering himself with fig-leaves, while there were many other leaves, which would have irritated his body in a less degree. He, however, adopted a dress conformable to his disobedience, being awed by the fear of God; and resisting the erring, the lustful propensity of his flesh (since he had lost his natural disposition and child-like mind, and had come to the knowledge of evil things), he girded a bridle of continence upon himself and his wife, fearing God, and waiting for His coming, and indicating, as it were, some such thing [as follows]: Inasmuch as, he says, I have by disobedience lost that robe of sanctity which I had from the Spirit, I do now also acknowledge that I am deserving of a covering of this nature, which affords no gratification, but which gnaws and frets the body. And he would no doubt have retained this clothing for ever, thus humbling himself, if God, who is merciful, had not clothed them with tunics of skins instead of fig-leaves. For this purpose, too, He interrogates them, that the blame might light upon the woman; and again, He interrogates her, that she might convey the blame to the serpent. For she related what had occurred. “The serpent,” says she, “beguiled me, and I did eat.” But He put no question to the serpent; for He knew that he had been the prime mover in the guilty deed; but He pronounced the curse upon him in the first instance, that it might fall upon man with a mitigated rebuke. For God detested him who had led man astray, but by degrees, and little by little, He showed compassion to him who had been beguiled.
The Church Fathers (The Complete Ante-Nicene & Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Collection)