Dwell Travel Quotes

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Fare well we call to hearth and hall Though wind may blow and rain may fall We must away ere break of day Over the wood and mountain tall To Rivendell where Elves yet dwell In glades beneath the misty fell Through moor and waste we ride in haste And wither then we cannot tell With foes ahead behind us dread Beneath the sky shall be our bed Until at last our toil be sped Our journey done, our errand sped We must away! We must away! We ride before the break of day!
J.R.R. Tolkien
The soul in which philosophy dwells should by its health make even the body healthy. It should make its tranquillity and gladness shine out from within; should form in its own mold the outward demeanor, and consequently arm it with a graceful pride, an active and joyous bearing, and a contented and good-natured countenance. The surest sign of wisdom is constant cheerfulness.
Michel de Montaigne (The Complete Works: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters)
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore in that sense we have arrived and are dwelling in the light. But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!
Thomas Merton (The Seven Storey Mountain)
A Book “Now” - said a good book unto me - “Open my pages and you shall see Jewels of wisdom and treasures fine, Gold and silver in every line, And you may claim them if you but will Open my pages and take your fill. “Open my pages and run them o’er, Take what you choose of my golden store. Be you greedy, I shall not care - All that you seize I shall gladly spare; There is never a lock on my treasure doors, Come - here are my jewels, make them yours! “I am just a book on your mantel shelf, But I can be part of your living self; If only you’ll travel my pages through, Then I will travel the world with you. As two wines blended make better wine, Blend your mind with these truths of mine. “I’ll make you fitter to talk with men, I’ll touch with silver the lines you pen, I’ll lead you nearer the truth you seek, I’ll strengthen you when your faith grows weak - This place on your shelf is a prison cell, Let me come into your mind to dwell!
Edgar A. Guest (Collected Verse)
but paper and ink have conjuring abilities of their own. arrangements of lines and shapes, of letters and words on a series of pages make a world we can dwell and travel in.
Lynda Barry (What It Is)
He sees the land of meaning, and one path to it, and the so-called “normal” people traveling swiftly and in comfort to the land; he does not include the shipwrecked people who arrive by devious lonely routes, and the many who dwell in the land in the beginning.
Janet Frame
There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
Somethings worth having defy logic. They come with obstacles, challenges, battles and long periods of wandering in the dark. Your path won't make sense to your family or friends. People will weigh in with their life rules and fears, but in the end it is your life. That pull you feel is real and often your intuition. It nags at you everyday. Follow it for as far as it takes you because life is too short to dwell on indecision, while you forget to live. Take a chance because if you have a good heart God isn't going to abandon you. He will travel wherever you need to go, in order to find the missing pieces of your soul.
Shannon L. Alder
Philosophy, then, is not a doctrine, not some simplistic scheme for orienting oneself in the world, certainly not an instrument or achievement of human Dasein. Rather, it is this Dasein itself insofar as it comes to be, in freedom, from out of its own ground. Whoever, by stint of research, arrives at this self-understanding of philosophy is granted the basic experience of all philosophizing, namely that the more fully and originally research comes into its own, the more surely is it "nothing but" the transformation of the same few simple questions. But those who wish to transform must bear within themselves the power of a fidelity that knows how to preserve. And one cannot feel this power growing within unless one is up in wonder. And no one can be caught up in wonder without travelling to the outermost limits of the possible. But no one will ever become the friend of the possible without remaining open to dialogue with the powers that operate in the whole of human existence. But that is the comportment of the philosopher: to listen attentively to what is already sung forth, which can still be perceived in each essential happening of world. And in such comportment the philosopher enters the core of what is truly at stake in the task he has been given to do. Plato knew of that and spoke of it in his Seventh Letter: 'In no way can it be uttered, as can other things, which one can learn. Rather, from out of a full, co-existential dwelling with the thing itself - as when a spark, leaping from the fire, flares into light - so it happens, suddenly, in the soul, there to grow, alone with itself.
Martin Heidegger
On a long flight, after periods of crisis and many hours of fatigue, mind and body may become disunited until at times they seem completely different elements, as though the body were only a home with which the mind has been associated but by no means bound. Consciousness grows independent of the ordinary senses. You see without assistance from the eyes, over distances beyond the visual horizon. There are moments when existence appears independent even of the mind. The importance of physical desire and immediate surroundings is submerged in the apprehension of universal values. For unmeasurable periods, I seem divorced from my body, as though I were an awareness spreading out through space, over the earth and into the heavens, unhampered by time or substance, free from the gravitation that binds to heavy human problems of the world. My body requires no attention. It's not hungry. It's neither warm or cold. It's resigned to being left undisturbed. Why have I troubled to bring it here? I might better have left it back at Long Island or St. Louis, while the weightless element that has lived within it flashes through the skies and views the planet. This essential consciousness needs no body for its travels. It needs no plane, no engine, no instruments, only the release from flesh which circumstances I've gone through make possible. Then what am I – the body substance which I can see with my eyes and feel with my hands? Or am I this realization, this greater understanding which dwells within it, yet expands through the universe outside; a part of all existence, powerless but without need for power; immersed in solitude, yet in contact with all creation? There are moments when the two appear inseparable, and others when they could be cut apart by the merest flash of light. While my hand is on the stick, my feet on the rudder, and my eyes on the compass, this consciousness, like a winged messenger, goes out to visit the waves below, testing the warmth of water, the speed of wind, the thickness of intervening clouds. It goes north to the glacial coasts of Greenland, over the horizon to the edge of dawn, ahead to Ireland, England, and the continent of Europe, away through space to the moon and stars, always returning, unwillingly, to the mortal duty of seeing that the limbs and muscles have attended their routine while it was gone.
Charles A. Lindbergh (The Spirit of St. Louis)
My suspicion is that, like me, most of you reading these pages are drawn to extremes. Moderation bores you. You seek challenges and adventures that dwell on the outer edges. The path of least resistance is not a route often traveled.
Dean Karnazes (Run! 26.2 Stories of Blisters and Bliss)
Technologies of easy travel "give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being so facile, what can be any man’s inducement to tarry in one spot? Why, therefore, should he build a more cumbrous habitation than can readily be carried off with him? Why should he make himself a prisoner for life in brick, and stone, and old worm-eaten timber, when he may just as easily dwell, in one sense, nowhere,—in a better sense, wherever the fit and beautiful shall offer him a home?
Nathaniel Hawthorne (The House of the Seven Gables)
THE INNER HISTORY OF A DAY No one knew the name of this day; Born quietly from deepest night, It hid its face in light, Demanded nothing for itself, Opened out to offer each of us A field of brightness that traveled ahead, Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps And the light of thought to show the way. The mind of the day draws no attention; It dwells within the silence with elegance
John O'Donohue (To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings)
Emotion doesn't travel in a straight line. Like water, our feelings trickle down through cracks and crevices, seeking out the little pockets of neediness and neglect, the hairline fractures in our character usually hidden from public view. Beware the dark pool at the bottom of our hearts. In its icy, black depths dwell strange and twisted creatures it is best not to disturb.
Sue Grafton (I is for Innocent (Kinsey Millhone, #9))
For modern people the pursuit of wisdom sounds like something you'd have to travel to Tibet for. To us, wisdom is mystical and esoteric. It conjures up images of cave-dwelling hermits, saffron-robed monks, and, well, Yoda.
J. Mark Bertrand (Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World)
My family had declared me a nullity. The Spare. I didn’t complain about it, but I didn’t need to dwell on it either. Far better, in my mind, not to think about certain facts, such as the cardinal rule for royal travel: Pa and William could never be on the same flight together, because there must be no chance of the first and second in line to the throne being wiped out. But no one gave a damn whom I traveled with; the Spare could always be spared.
Prince Harry (Spare)
Never waste your energy to dwell on the past failures and mistakes. May you find renewed energy, courage and hope to pursue new adventures.
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
The lightning-rod man still dwells in the land; still travels in storm-time, and drives a brave trade with the fear of man.
Herman Melville (The Lightning-Rod Man)
Dwelling As though touching her might make him known to himself, as though his hand moving over her body might find who he is, as though he lay inside her, a country his hand's traveling uncovered, as though such a country arose continually up out of her to meet his hand's setting forth and setting forth. And the places on her body have no names. And she is what's immense about the night. And their clothes on the floor are arranged for forgetfulness.
Li-Young Lee (Book of My Nights: Poems (American Poets Continuum, 68))
Came the visions of icy beauty, from the land of death where they dwell. Pursuing their prize and grisly duty, came the thieves of the charm and spell. The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling. Alluring of shape though seldom seen, they traveled the breeze on a spark. some fed twigs to their newborn queen, while others invaded the dark. the bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling. some they called and others they kissed as they traveled on river and wave. with resolve they came and did insist: every one touched to a grave. the bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling. roving to hunt and gathering to dance, they practiced their dark desires by casting a hex and a beautiful trance, before feeding the queen's new fires. the bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling. till he parted the falls and the bells chimed thrice, till he issued the calls and demanded the price. the bells chimed thrice and death met the mountain. they charmed and embraced and they tried to extoll but he bade them in grace and demanded a soul. the bells fell silent and the mountain slew them all. and the mountain entombed them all.
Terry Goodkind (Soul of the Fire (Sword of Truth, #5))
There are hermit souls that live withdrawn In the place of their self-content; There are souls like stars, that dwell apart, In a fellowless firmament; There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths Where highways never ran- But let me live by the side of the road And be a friend to man. - Let me live in a house by the side of the road, Where the race of men go by- The men who are good and the men who are bad, As good and as bad as I. I would not sit in the scorner's seat, Or hurl the cynic's ban- Let me live in a house by the side of the road And be a friend to man. - I see from my house by the side of the road, By the side of the highway of life, The men who press with the ardor of hope, The men who are faint with the strife. But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears, Both parts of an infinite plan- Let me live in a house by the side of the road And be a friend to man. I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead And mountains of wearisome height; That the road passes on through the long afternoon And stretches away to the night. But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice. And weep with the strangers that moan, Nor live in my house by the side of the road Like a man who dwells alone. - Let me live in my house by the side of the road- It's here the race of men go by. They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, Wise, foolish- so am I; Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat, Or hurl the cynic's ban? Let me live in my house by the side of the road And be a friend to man.
Sam Walter Foss
What it takes to realize everything is fine around you? A road trip to the mountains where your soul dwells in the echoes of the winds that carry fragments of clouds with them. What it takes to realize world is going back to chaos and infinite hurry? End of the aforementioned road trip...
Crestless Wave
Great growth comes from loneliness. You have time to develop, dwell in your own mind and go a bit mad. All great people are a bit mad. That’s good to remember. Don’t escape it.  Great growth comes from time spent in foreign lands, watching foreign people with foreign cultures. It makes you forget about your own land and race and town for a while. Great growth also comes from rooting yourself into one place from time to time. Unpack your bags, get a nice bed, a book shelf, some friends. Learn to show up, keep in touch, stick around.  Growth comes in all sort of forms and shapes, everywhere at all times, and it’s yours to take and consume. Do what ought to be done. Here and now, to get you somewhere — anywhere.
Charlotte Eriksson
Control thought of the theories as “slow death by,” given the context: Slow death by aliens. Slow death by parallel universe. Slow death by malign unknown time-traveling force. Slow death by invasion from an alternate earth. Slow death by wildly divergent technology or the shadow biosphere or symbiosis or iconography or etymology. Death by this and by that. Death by indifference and inference. His favorite: “Surface-dwelling terrestrial organism, previously unknown.” Hiding where all of these years? In a lake?
Jeff VanderMeer (Authority (Southern Reach #2))
Most of us don’t live in the present tense. We dwell in a mental place where our regrets and grudges from our past compete with our fears about the future. Sometimes we barely notice what’s going on around us, we’re so busy time traveling.
Lisa Unger (Black Out)
Many people in this room have an Etsy store where they create unique, unreplicable artifacts or useful items to be sold on a small scale, in a common marketplace where their friends meet and barter. I and many of my friends own more than one spinning wheel. We grow our food again. We make pickles and jams on private, individual scales, when many of our mothers forgot those skills if they ever knew them. We come to conventions, we create small communities of support and distributed skills--when one of us needs help, our village steps in. It’s only that our village is no longer physical, but connected by DSL instead of roads. But look at how we organize our tribes--bloggers preside over large estates, kings and queens whose spouses’ virtues are oft-lauded but whose faces are rarely seen. They have moderators to protect them, to be their knights, a nobility of active commenters and big name fans, a peasantry of regular readers, and vandals starting the occasional flame war just to watch the fields burn. Other villages are more commune-like, sharing out resources on forums or aggregate sites, providing wise women to be consulted, rabbis or priests to explain the world, makers and smiths to fashion magical objects. Groups of performers, acrobats and actors and singers of songs are traveling the roads once more, entertaining for a brief evening in a living room or a wheatfield, known by word of mouth and secret signal. Separate from official government, we create our own hierarchies, laws, and mores, as well as our own folklore and secret history. Even my own guilt about having failed as an academic is quite the crisis of filial piety--you see, my mother is a professor. I have not carried on the family trade. We dwell within a system so large and widespread, so disorganized and unconcerned for anyone but its most privileged and luxurious members, that our powerlessness, when we can summon up the courage to actually face it, is staggering. So we do not face it. We tell ourselves we are Achilles when we have much more in common with the cathedral-worker, laboring anonymously so that the next generation can see some incremental progress. We lack, of course, a Great Work to point to and say: my grandmother made that window; I worked upon the door. Though, I would submit that perhaps the Internet, as an object, as an aggregate entity, is the cathedral we build word by word and image by image, window by window and portal by portal, to stand taller for our children, if only by a little, than it does for us. For most of us are Lancelots, not Galahads. We may see the Grail of a good Classical life, but never touch it. That is for our sons, or their daughters, or further off. And if our villages are online, the real world becomes that dark wood on the edge of civilization, a place of danger and experience, of magic and blood, a place to make one’s name or find death by bear. And here, there be monsters.
Catherynne M. Valente
In the end, a person is only know by the impact he or she has on others. The Gift of Work: He who loves his work never labors. The Gift of Money: Money is nothing more than a tool. It can be a force for good, a force for evil, or simple be idle. The Gift of Friends: It is a wealthy person, indeed, who calculates riches not in gold but in friends. The Gift of Learning: Education is a lifelong journey whose destination expands as you travel. The desire and hunger for education is the key to real learning. The Gift of Problems: Problems can only be avoided by exercising good judgment. Good judgment can only be gained by experiencing life's problems. The Gift of Family: Some people are born into wonderful families. Others have to find or create them. Being a member of a family is a priceless privilege which costs nothing but love. The Gift of Laughter: Laughter is good medicine for the soul. Our world is desperately in need of more such medicine. The Gift of Dreams: Faith is all that dreamers need to see into the future. The Gift of Giving: The only way you can truly get more out of life for yourself is to give part of yourself away. One of the key principles in giving, is that the gift must be yours to give-either something you earned or created or maybe, simply, part of yourself. The Gift of Gratitude: In those times when we yearn to have more in our lives, we should dwell on the things we already have. In doing so, we will often find that our lives are already full to overflowing. The Golden List: Every morning before getting up visualize a golden tablet on which is written ten things in your life you are especially thankful for. The Gift of a Day: Life at its essence boils down to one day at a time. Today is the Day! If we can learn how to live one day to its fullest, our lives will be rich and meaningful. The Gift of Love: Love is a treasure for which we can never pay. The only way we keep it is to give it away. The Ultimate Gift: In the end, life lived to its fullest is its own ultimate gift.
Jim Stovall (The Ultimate Gift (The Ultimate Series #1))
Most people think of the mind as located in the head, but the latest findings in physiology suggest that the mind doesn't really dwell in the brain but travels the whole body on caravans of hormones and enzymes, busily making sense of the compound wonders we catalogue as touch, taste, smell, hearing, and vision.
Helen Thomas (Ayurveda - The A-Z Guide to Healing Techniques From Ancient India)
We dwell in the place in which we are not traveling but are at home. The landscape of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ is our home. It is a landscape that we are never finished exploring, for new prospects are always emerging. Nevertheless, it is familiar to us and becomes all the more familiar the longer we reside there.
Hans Urs von Balthasar (Christian Meditation)
Allons! whoever you are come travel with me! Traveling with me you find what never tires. The earth never tires, The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first, Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d, I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell. Allons! we must not stop here, However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here, However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here, However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while." -from "Song of the Open Road
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
Your love renders you impatient and disturbed. With such sincerity you have placed your head at her feet that you are oblivious to the world. When in the eyes of your beloved riches don't count, gold and dust are as one to you. You say that she dwells in your eyes - if they be closed, she is in your mind. If she demands your life, you place it in her hand; if she places a sword upon your head, you hold it forward. When earthly love produces such confusion and demands such obedience, don't you wonder if travelers of the road of God remain engulfed in the Ocean of Reality?
Saadi
Some time, when man shall have made all things alike, the earth will be a dull, tedious dwelling-place, and we shall have even to give up travelling and seeking for a change which can no longer be found.
Pierre Loti (Madame Chrysantheme - Complete)
Kahlil Gibran addresses himself in what are perhaps the finest words ever written about child-raising: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bow from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrow may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. 19
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
To those who may have wisely kept their fancies within the boundary of the fields we know it is difficult for me to tell of the land to which Alveric had come, so that in their minds they can see that plain with its scattered trees and far off the dark wood out of which the palace of Elfland lifted those glittering spires, and above them and beyond them that serene range of mountains whose pinnacles took no colour from any light we see. Yet it is for this very purpose that our fancies travel far, and if my reader through fault of mine fail to picture the peaks of Elfland my fancy had better have stayed in the fields we know. Know then that in Elfland are colours more deep than are in our fields, and the very air there glows with so deep a lucency that all things seen there have something of the look of our trees and flowers in June reflected in water. And the colour of Elfland, of which I despaired to tell, may yet be told, for we have hints of it here; the deep blue of the night in Summer just as the gloaming has gone, the pale blue of Venus flooding the evening with light, the deeps of lakes in the twilight, all these are hints of that colour. And while our sunflowers carefully turned to the sun, some forefather of the rhododendrons must have turned a little towards Elfland, so that some of that glory dwells with them to this day.
Lord Dunsany (The King of Elfland's Daughter)
When you are quite well enough to travel, Latimer, I shall take you home with me. The journey will amuse you and do you good, for I shall go through the Tyrol and Austria, and you will see many new places. Our neighbours, the Filmores, are come; Alfred will join us at Basle, and we shall all go together to Vienna, and back by Prague...' My father was called away before he had finished his sentence, and he left my mind resting on the word Prague with a strange sense that a new and wondrous scene was breaking upon me: a city under the broad sunshine, that seemed to me as if it were summer sunshine of a long-past century arrested in its course-unrefreshed for ages by dews of night, or the rushing rain-cloud; scorching the dusty, weary, time-eaten grandeur of a people doomed to live on in the stale repetition of memories, like deposed and superannuated kings in their regal gold inwoven tatters. The city looked so thirsty that the broad river seemed to me a sheet of metal; and the blackened statues, as I passed under their blank gaze, along the unending bridge, with their ancient garments and their saintly crowns, seemed to me the real inhabitants and owners of this place, while the busy, trivial men and women, hurrying to and fro, were a swarm of ephemeral visitants infesting it for a day. It is such grim, stony beings as these, I thought, who are the fathers of ancient faded children, in those tanned time-fretted dwellings that crowd the steep before me; who pay their court in the worn and crumbling pomp of the palace which stretches its monotonous length on the height; who worship wearily in the stifling air of the churches, urged by no fear or hope, but compelled by their doom to be ever old and undying, to live on in the rigidity of habit, as they live on in perpetual midday, without the repose of night or the new birth of morning. A stunning clang of metal suddenly thrilled through me, and I became conscious of the objects in my room again: one of the fire-irons had fallen as Pierre opened the door to bring me my draught. My heart was palpitating violently, and I begged Pierre to leave my draught beside me; I would take it presently. ("The Lifted Veil")
George Eliot (The Lifted Veil (Fantasy and Horror Classics))
The boughs of trees stretched high overhead, leaves of dappled green and black mottling the sky. It was called the black forest for more reasons than the inky-black foliage. The wise and cautious seldom travelled by night along its poorly-tended roads, and banditry wasn’t the main reason. In the minds of many, shadows of a threat lurked in wait, seeking an opportunity to strike during a moment of weakness. It was known among the old folk that not all who dwelled within the black forest were of human or animal-kind. Some beings were much older and believed far more dangerous.
Mara Amberly (Her Gypsy Promise: A Short Story)
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bow from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrow may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.19
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
By the lakes that thus outspread Their lone waters, lone and dead,— Their sad waters, sad and chilly With the snows of the lolling lily,— By the mountains—near the river Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,— By the gray woods,—by the swamp Where the toad and the newt encamp,— By the dismal tarns and pools Where dwell the Ghouls,— By each spot the most unholy— In each nook most melancholy,— There the traveller meets aghast Sheeted Memories of the past— Shrouded forms that start and sigh As they pass the wanderer by— White-robed forms of friends long given, In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.
Edgar Allan Poe (Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works)
However, whatever frightening mask it might assume, the national spirit in its original state was of pristine whiteness. Traveling through a country like Thailand, Honda realized more clearly than ever the simplicity and purity of things Japanese, like transparent stream water through which one could glimpse pebbles below, or the probity of Shinto rites. Honda’s life was not imbued with such spirit. Like the majority of Japanese he ignored it, behaving as though it did not exist and surviving by escaping from it. All his life he had dodged things fundamental and artless: white silk, clear cold water, the zigzag white paper of the exorciser’s staff fluttering in the breeze, the sacred precinct marked by a torii, the gods’ dwelling in the sea, the mountains, the vast ocean, the Japanese sword with its glistening blade so pure and sharp. Not only Honda, but the vast majority of Westernized Japanese, could no longer stand such intensely native elements.
Yukio Mishima (The Temple of Dawn (The Sea of Fertility, #3))
Those of us who make the sea our home carry libraries in our head, a fact I have tried to impress upon many a land-dwelling intellectual. The scholars who travel the world to study could learn just as much if they would speak to the sailors, porters, and caravan hands who ferry them and their books to such faraway lands.
Shannon Chakraborty (The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1))
Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, from the town, burrowing among the dwellings of men and making the streets hum, flashing out into the meadows for a moment, mining in through the damp earth, booming on in darkness and heavy air, bursting out again into the sunny day so bright and wide; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, through the fields, through the woods, through the corn, through the hay, through the chalk, through the mould, through the clay, through the rock, among objects close at hand and almost in the grasp, ever flying from the traveller, and a deceitful distance ever moving slowly with him: like as in the track of the remorseless monster, Death!
Charles Dickens (Dombey and Son)
One," said the recording secretary. "Jesus wept," answered Leon promptly. There was not a sound in the church. You could almost hear the butterflies pass. Father looked down and laid his lower lip in folds with his fingers, like he did sometimes when it wouldn't behave to suit him. "Two," said the secretary after just a breath of pause. Leon looked over the congregation easily and then fastened his eyes on Abram Saunders, the father of Absalom, and said reprovingly: "Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids." Abram straightened up suddenly and blinked in astonishment, while father held fast to his lip. "Three," called the secretary hurriedly. Leon shifted his gaze to Betsy Alton, who hadn't spoken to her next door neighbour in five years. "Hatred stirreth up strife," he told her softly, "but love covereth all sins." Things were so quiet it seemed as if the air would snap. "Four." The mild blue eyes travelled back to the men's side and settled on Isaac Thomas, a man too lazy to plow and sow land his father had left him. They were not so mild, and the voice was touched with command: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." Still that silence. "Five," said the secretary hurriedly, as if he wished it were over. Back came the eyes to the women's side and past all question looked straight at Hannah Dover. "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion." "Six," said the secretary and looked appealingly at father, whose face was filled with dismay. Again Leon's eyes crossed the aisle and he looked directly at the man whom everybody in the community called "Stiff-necked Johnny." I think he was rather proud of it, he worked so hard to keep them doing it. "Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck," Leon commanded him. Toward the door some one tittered. "Seven," called the secretary hastily. Leon glanced around the room. "But how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," he announced in delighted tones as if he had found it out by himself. "Eight," called the secretary with something like a breath of relief. Our angel boy never had looked so angelic, and he was beaming on the Princess. "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," he told her. Laddie would thrash him for that. Instantly after, "Nine," he recited straight at Laddie: "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?" More than one giggled that time. "Ten!" came almost sharply. Leon looked scared for the first time. He actually seemed to shiver. Maybe he realized at last that it was a pretty serious thing he was doing. When he spoke he said these words in the most surprised voice you ever heard: "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." "Eleven." Perhaps these words are in the Bible. They are not there to read the way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name, and he glanced toward our father: "Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and to-day, and forever!" Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook. "Twelve." Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken. He surely shrank in size and appeared abused. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed forlorn at the beginning. "Thirteen." "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?" inquired Leon of every one in the church. Then he soberly made a bow and walked to his seat.
Gene Stratton-Porter (Laddie: A True Blue Story (Library of Indiana Classics))
It was the my-father-got-rid-of-my-piano story; something she’d share one day with her college roommates, her husband, her children, and her psychiatrist. It would earn a few crucial frames in her final reel of memories and travel with her into the next life. When it comes to the bad stuff, there’s nothing too small that’s not worth dwelling on forever. I say, anyway.
Adam Resnick (Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation)
The daughter of Sin was determined to go To the dark house, dwelling of Erkalla's god, To the house which those who enter cannot leave, On the road where travelling is one-way only, To the house where those who enter are deprived of light, Where dust is their food, clay their bread. They see no light, they dwell in darkness, They are clothed like birds, with feathers.
Stephanie Dalley (Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others)
I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach"; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars—even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. The
Henry David Thoreau (WALDEN, and ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE (ILLUSTRATED))
This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth every where.
Henry David Thoreau
Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men? I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
Happy those early days! when I Shined in my angel-infancy, Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race1, Or taught my soul to fancy ought But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first love, And looking back—at that short space— Could see a glimpse of His bright face; When on some gilded cloud, or flower, My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense A several2 sin to every sense, But felt through all this fleshy dress Bright shoots of everlastingness. Oh how I long to travel back, And tread again that ancient track! That I might once more reach that plain, Where first I left my glorious train3; From whence the enlightened spirit sees That shady city of palm trees4. But ah! my soul with too much stay5 Is drunk, and staggers in the way. Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move And when this dust falls to the urn, In that state I came, return.
Henry Vaughan
Prayer to an Unseen Friend My special friend, thank you for listening to me. You know how hard I am trying to fulfill your faith in me. Thank You, also for the place in which I dwell. Let neither work nor play, no matter how satisfying or glorious, ever separate me for long from my precious family. Teach me how to play the game of life with fairness, courage, fortitude and confidence. Provide me with a few friends who understand me and yet remain my friends. Allow me a forgiving heart and a mind unafraid to travel though the trail may not be marked. Give me a sense of humor and a little leisure with nothing to do. Help me to strive for the highest legitimate reward of merit, ambition and opportunity, and yet never allow me to forget to extend a kindly, helping hand to others who need encouragement and assistance. Provide me with the strength to encounter whatever is to come, that I be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in anger and always prepared for any change of fortune. Enable me to give a smile instead of a frown, a kindly word instead of harshness and bitterness. Make me sympathetic to the grief of others, realizing that there are hidden woes in every life, no matter how exalted. Keep me forever serene in every activity of life, neither unduly boastful nor given to the more serious sin of self-depreciation. In sorrow, may my soul be uplifted, by the thought that if there were no shadow, there would be no sunshine. In failure, preserve my faith. In success, keep me humble. Steady me to do the full share of my work, and more, as well as I can, and when that is done, stop me, pay me what wages Thou wilt, and permit me to say, from a loving heart... A grateful Amen
Og Mandino (The Greatest Salesman in the World, Part II: The End of the Story)
Slave autonomy and resistance altered the shape and course of slaveholding in America. For all the masters who took up the lash to suppress the bondsman’s “insolence,” there were others who were compelled to recognize the dignity of their slaves as workers. Still others came to a standoff. One traveler found the slaveholders so afraid of their bondsmen that they were prevented from inflicting punishment “lest the slave should abscond, or take a sulky fit and not work, or poison some of the family, or set fire to the dwelling, or have recourse to any other mode of avenging himself.
James Oakes (The Ruling Race)
I wish I had an answer, but I fear I do not.” Her gaze traveled out to the field, her gaze unfocused at the horizon. “I do not know why we lost everything. I do not know why the Lord removed us from all we knew.” She turned back to look him in the eye. “But I do know that it is best not to dwell on the past. When I focus on what I have lost, I stay sad and in darkness. But when I focus on the tender mercies we have endured during this time, my heart is full and joyful. I would rather be joyful than in despair. So, although I do not have answers, I choose the path that leads to happiness.
L.A. Pattillo (The Faith of a Wife (Women of Faith #1))
Finns have a deep and abiding love of their country’s forests and lakes. In July Finland is one of the world’s most relaxing, joyful places to be – a reason Finns traditionally have not been big travellers. After the long winter, why miss the best their country has to offer? Finns head en masse for the mökki (summer cottage) from midsummer until the end of the July holidays. Most Finns of any age could forage in a forest for an hour at the right time of year and emerge with a feast of fresh berries, wild mushrooms and probably a fish or two. City-dwelling Finns are far more in touch with nature than most of their European equivalents.
Lonely Planet Finland
This scroll, five hundred years old and more, had been inspired by her favorite, the great Wang Wei, master of landscape art, who had painted the scenes from his own home, where he lived for thirty years before he died. Now behind the palace walls on this winter’s day, where she could see only sky and falling snow, Tzu His gazed upon the green landscapes of continuing spring. One landscape melted into another as slowly she unrolled the scroll, so that she might dwell upon every detail of tree and brook and distant hillside. So did she, in imagination, pass beyond the high walls which enclosed her, and she traveled through a delectable country, beside flowing brooks and spreading lakes, and following the ever-flowing river she crossed over wooden bridges and climbed the stony pathways upon a high mountainside and thence looked down a gorge to see a torrent fed by still higher springs, and breaking into waterfalls as it traveled toward the plains. Down from the mountain again she came, past small villages nestling in pine forests and into the warmer valleys among bamboo groves, and she paused in a poet’s pavilion, and so reached at last the shore where the river lost itself in a bay. There among the reeds a fisherman’s boat rose and fell upon the rising tide. Here the river ended, its horizon the open sea and the misted mountains of infinity. This scroll, Lady Miao had once told her, was the artist’s picture of the human soul, passing through the pleasantest scenes of earth to the last view of the unknown future, far beyond.
Pearl S. Buck (Imperial Woman)
fridge, a stove and a Bendix washing machine. For an extra 250 dollars you could have a car as well; the buyer of that package was all set for the future. The Levitts erected their first houses in a huge potato field in Hempstead, twenty miles from Manhattan, in 1946. Within two years the place had become a town in its own right. By July 1948, 180 houses were being manufactured every week, and just three years later 82,000 people were living on the old potato field in 17,000 prefab dwellings. Most of those drawn to the brand-new Levittown were GIs, each with a generous discharge payment in his pocket. The ads didn’t exaggerate; the instalment plan was generous: ‘Uncle Sam and the world’s largest builder have made it possible for you to live in a charming house in a delightful community
Geert Mak (In America: Travels with John Steinbeck)
A man who is awake in the open field at night or who wanders over silent paths experiences the world differently than by day. Nighness vanishes, and with it distance; everything is equally far and near, close by us and yet mysteriously remote. Space loses its measures. There are whispers and sounds, and we do not know where or what they are. Our feelings too are peculiarly ambiguous. There is a strangeness about what is intimate and dear, and a seductive charm about the frightening. There is no longer a distinction between the lifeless and the living, everything is animate and soulless, vigilant and asleep at once. What the day brings on and makes recognizable gradually, emerges out of the dark with no intermediary stages. The encounter suddenly confronts us, as if by a miracle: What is the thing we suddenly see - an enchanted bride, a monster, or merely a log? Everything teases the traveller, puts on a familiar face and the next moment is utterly strange, suddenly terrifies with awful gestures and immediately resumes a familiar and harmless posture. Danger lurks everywhere. Out of the dark jaws of the night which gape beside the traveller, any moment a robber may emerge without warning, or some eerie terror, or the uneasy ghost of a dead man - who knows what may once have happened at that very spot? Perhaps mischievous apparitions of the fog seek to entice him from the right path into the desert where horror dwells, where wanton witches dance their rounds which no man ever leaves alive. Who can protect him, guide him aright, give him good counsel? The spirit of Night itself, the genius of its kindliness, its enchantment, its resourcefulness, and its profound wisdom. She is indeed the mother of all mystery. The weary she wraps in slumber, delivers from care, and she causes dreams to play about their souls. Her protection is enjoyed by the un-happy and persecuted as well as by the cunning, whom her ambivalent shadows offer a thousand devices and contrivances. With her veil she also shields lovers, and her darkness keeps ward over all caresses, all charms hidden and revealed. Music is the true language of her mystery - the enchanting voice which sounds for eyes that are closed and in which heaven and earth, the near and the far, man and nature, present and past, appear to make themselves understood. But the darkness of night which so sweetly invites to slumber also bestows new vigilance and illumination upon the spirit. It makes it more perceptive, more acute, more enterprising. Knowledge flares up, or descends like a shooting star - rare, precious, even magical knowledge. And so night, which can terrify the solitary man and lead him astray, can also be his friend, his helper, his counsellor.
Walter F. Otto (Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion. Tr from German by Moses Hadas. Reprint of the 1954 Ed)
Letter You can see it already: chalks and ochers; Country crossed with a thousand furrow-lines; Ground-level rooftops hidden by the shrubbery; Sporadic haystacks standing on the grass; Smoky old rooftops tarnishing the landscape; A river (not Cayster or Ganges, though: A feeble Norman salt-infested watercourse); On the right, to the north, bizarre terrain All angular--you'd think a shovel did it. So that's the foreground. An old chapel adds Its antique spire, and gathers alongside it A few gnarled elms with grumpy silhouettes; Seemingly tired of all the frisky breezes, They carp at every gust that stirs them up. At one side of my house a big wheelbarrow Is rusting; and before me lies the vast Horizon, all its notches filled with ocean blue; Cocks and hens spread their gildings, and converse Beneath my window; and the rooftop attics, Now and then, toss me songs in dialect. In my lane dwells a patriarchal rope-maker; The old man makes his wheel run loud, and goes Retrograde, hemp wreathed tightly round the midriff. I like these waters where the wild gale scuds; All day the country tempts me to go strolling; The little village urchins, book in hand, Envy me, at the schoolmaster's (my lodging), As a big schoolboy sneaking a day off. The air is pure, the sky smiles; there's a constant Soft noise of children spelling things aloud. The waters flow; a linnet flies; and I say: "Thank you! Thank you, Almighty God!"--So, then, I live: Peacefully, hour by hour, with little fuss, I shed My days, and think of you, my lady fair! I hear the children chattering; and I see, at times, Sailing across the high seas in its pride, Over the gables of the tranquil village, Some winged ship which is traveling far away, Flying across the ocean, hounded by all the winds. Lately it slept in port beside the quay. Nothing has kept it from the jealous sea-surge: No tears of relatives, nor fears of wives, Nor reefs dimly reflected in the waters, Nor importunity of sinister birds.
Victor Hugo
It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us. The trees of the forest, the animals of the bushes, tortoises, birds, and flowers know our future. The world that we see and the world that is there are two different things. Wars are not fought on battlegrounds but in a space smaller than the head of a needle. We need a new language to talk to one another. Inside a cat there are many histories, many books. When you look into the eyes of dogs strange fishes swim in your mind. All roads lead to death, but some roads lead to things which can never be finished. Wonderful things. There are human beings who are small but if you can SEE you will notice that their spirits are ten thousand feet wide. In my dream I met a child sitting on a cloud and his spirit covered half the earth. Angels and demons are amongst us; they take many forms. They can enter us and dwell there for one second or half a lifetime. Sometimes both of them dwell in us together. Before everything was born there was first the spirit. It is the spirit which invites things in, good things, or bad. Invite only good things, my son. Listen to the spirit of things. To your own spirit. Follow it. Master it. So long as we are alive, so long as we feel, so long as we love, everything in us is an energy we can use. There is a stillness which makes you travel faster. There is a silence which makes you fly. If your heart is a friend of Time nothing can destroy you. Death has taught me the religion of living – I am converted – I am blinded – I am beginning to see – I am drunk on sleep – My words are the words of a stranger – Wear a smile on your faces – Pour me some wine and buy me some cigarettes, my son, for your father has returned to his true home.
Ben Okri (The Famished Road)
My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it; but it seemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors. All the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room; it was kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping-room; and whatever satisfaction parent or child, master or servant, derive from living in a house, I enjoyed it all. Cato says, the master of a family (patremfamilias) must have in his rustic villa "cellam oleariam, vinariam, dolia multa, uti lubeat caritatem expectare, et rei, et virtuti, et gloriae erit," that is, "an oil and wine cellar, many casks, so that it may be pleasant to expect hard times; it will be for his advantage, and virtue, and glory." I had in my cellar a firkin of potatoes, about two quarts of peas with the weevil in them, and on my shelf a little rice, a jug of molasses, and of rye and Indian meal a peck each. I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work, which shall still consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one's head—useful to keep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to receive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate Saturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house, wherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof; where some may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; where the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for house-keeping; where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg, that a man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thing, as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornaments; where the washing is not put out, nor the fire, nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the trap-door, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn whether the ground is solid or hollow beneath you without stamping. A house whose inside is as open and manifest as a bird's nest, and you cannot go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing some of its inhabitants; where to be a guest is to be presented with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven eighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself at home there—in solitary confinement. Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you. I am aware that I have been on many a man's premises, and might have been legally ordered off, but I am not aware that I have been in many men's houses. I might visit in my old clothes a king and queen who lived simply in such a house as I have described, if I were going their way; but backing out of a modern palace will be all that I shall desire to learn, if ever I am caught in one.
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
At the beginning or end of the day, after you step away from tablets and phones and people, spend at least five minutes in solitude. Let yourself dwell in the pause, between consciousness and unconsciousness, between masculine and feminine. If you notice longing or sadness travel up to consciousness through the fissure of the transition, consider moving toward it instead of brushing it aside. Notice what thoughts arise in response to the feeling, then gently bring your attention to it as if it were a fairy or a precious gem. Within this intentional liminal zone, trust where your body wants to lead you. You may want to do some gentle yoga; you may want to dance. You may feel called to sit near an open window and listen to the wind or watch the stars. You may gravitate toward the moon. If you find yourself face-to-face with the moon, listen to her wisdom. Watch for a poem or painting that may arrive. Trust the feelings that long to emerge. Pay attention to longing. Honor the images that float from unconsciousness to consciousness. Even if you’re tired and really “should” get to bed, find a way to express what comes through. Write, paint, dance, breathe, do nothing. Even your silhouette next to the window, drenched in moonlight, is an expression of the divine. Simply being you is enough.
Sheryl Paul (The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal)
There is another and stronger reason why the soul travels securely when in darkness. This reason is derived from the consideration of the light itself, or dark wisdom. The dark night of contemplation so absorbs the soul, and brings it so near unto God, that He defends it, and delivers it from all that is not God. For the soul is now, as it were, under medical treatment for the recovery of its health, which is God Himself: God compels it to observe a particular diet, and to abstain from all hurtful things, the very desire for them being subdued. The soul is treated like a sick man respected by his household, who is so carefully tended that the air shall not touch him, nor the light shine upon him, whom the noise of footsteps and the tumult of servants shall not disturb, and to whom the most delicate food is given most cautiously by measure, and that nutritious rather than savory. 12. All these advantages—they all minister to the safekeeping of the soul—are the effects of this dim contemplation, for it brings the soul nearer to God. The truth is, that the nearer the soul comes to Him it perceives that darkness is greater and deeper because of its own weakness; thus the nearer the sun the greater the darkness and distress wrought by its great brightness, because our eyes are weak, imperfect, and defective. Hence it is that the spiritual light of God is so immeasurable, so far above the understanding, that when it comes near to it, it dims and blinds it. 13. This is the reason why David says that God made darkness His hiding-place and covert, His tabernacle around Him, dark water in the clouds of the air.10 The dark water in the clouds of the air is the dim contemplation and divine wisdom in souls, as I am going to explain, of which they have experience as a thing near to the pavilion where He dwells, when God brings them
Juan de la Cruz (Dark Night of the Soul)
DREAMLAND             BY a route obscure and lonely,             Haunted by ill angels only,             Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,             On a black throne reigns upright,             I have reached these lands but newly             From an ultimate dim Thule— From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime                 Out of SPACE—out of TIME.             Bottomless vales and boundless floods,             And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods             With forms that no man can discover             For the dews that drip all over; WHERE AN EIDOLON NAMED NIGHT ON A BLACK THRONE REIGNS UPRIGHT         Mountains toppling evermore         Into seas without a shore;         Seas that restlessly aspire,         Surging, unto skies of fire;         Lakes that endlessly outspread         Their lone waters—lone and dead,         Their still waters—still and chilly         With the snows of the lolling lily.         By the lakes that thus outspread         Their lone waters, lone and dead,—         Their sad waters, sad and chilly         With the snows of the lolling lily,—         By the mountains—near the river         Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—         By the grey woods,—by the swamp         Where the toad and the newt encamp,—         By the dismal tarns and pools                 Where dwell the Ghouls,—         By each spot the most unholy—         In each nook most melancholy,—         There the traveller meets aghast         Sheeted Memories of the Past—         Shrouded forms that start and sigh         As they pass the wanderer by—         White-robed forms of friends long given,         In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.         For the heart whose woes are legion         ’Tis a peaceful, soothing region—         For the spirit that walks in shadow         ’Tis—oh, ’tis an Eldorado!         But the traveller, travelling through it,         May not—dare not openly view it;         Never its mysteries are exposed         To the weak human eye unclosed;         So wills its King, who hath forbid         The uplifting of the fringèd lid;         And thus the sad Soul that here passes         Beholds it but through darkened glasses.         By a route obscure and lonely,         Haunted by ill angels only,         Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,         On a black throne reigns upright,         I have wandered home but newly         From this ultimate dim Thule.
Edgar Allan Poe (The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe)
Trying to get to 124 for the second time now, he regretted that conversation: the high tone he took; his refusal to see the effect of marrow weariness in a woman he believed was a mountain. Now, too late, he understood her. The heart that pumped out love, the mouth that spoke the Word, didn't count. They came in her yard anyway and she could not approve or condemn Sethe's rough choice. One or the other might have saved her, but beaten up by the claims of both, she went to bed. The whitefolks had tired her out at last. And him. Eighteen seventy-four and whitefolks were still on the loose. Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes; eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone in Kentucky; four colored schools burned to the ground; grown men whipped like children; children whipped like adults; black women raped by the crew; property taken, necks broken. He smelled skin, skin and hot blood. The skin was one thing, but human blood cooked in a lynch fire was a whole other thing. The stench stank. Stank up off the pages of the North Star, out of the mouths of witnesses, etched in crooked handwriting in letters delivered by hand. Detailed in documents and petitions full of whereas and presented to any legal body who'd read it, it stank. But none of that had worn out his marrow. None of that. It was the ribbon. Tying his flatbed up on the bank of the Licking River, securing it the best he could, he caught sight of something red on its bottom. Reaching for it, he thought it was a cardinal feather stuck to his boat. He tugged and what came loose in his hand was a red ribbon knotted around a curl of wet woolly hair, clinging still to its bit of scalp. He untied the ribbon and put it in his pocket, dropped the curl in the weeds. On the way home, he stopped, short of breath and dizzy. He waited until the spell passed before continuing on his way. A moment later, his breath left him again. This time he sat down by a fence. Rested, he got to his feet, but before he took a step he turned to look back down the road he was traveling and said, to its frozen mud and the river beyond, "What are these people? You tell me, Jesus. What are they?" When he got to his house he was too tired to eat the food his sister and nephews had prepared. He sat on the porch in the cold till way past dark and went to his bed only because his sister's voice calling him was getting nervous. He kept the ribbon; the skin smell nagged him, and his weakened marrow made him dwell on Baby Suggs' wish to consider what in the world was harmless. He hoped she stuck to blue, yellow, maybe green, and never fixed on red. Mistaking her, upbraiding her, owing her, now he needed to let her know he knew, and to get right with her and her kin. So, in spite of his exhausted marrow, he kept on through the voices and tried once more to knock at the door of 124. This time, although he couldn't cipher but one word, he believed he knew who spoke them. The people of the broken necks, of fire-cooked blood and black girls who had lost their ribbons. What a roaring.
Toni Morrison (Beloved)
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Mike Kelly
February 7 MORNING “Arise ye, and depart.” — Micah 2:10 THE hour is approaching when the message will come to us, as it comes to all — “Arise, and go forth from the home in which thou hast dwelt, from the city in which thou hast done thy business, from thy family, from thy friends. Arise, and take thy last journey.” And what know we of the journey? And what know we of the country to which we are bound? A little we have read thereof, and somewhat has been revealed to us by the Spirit; but how little do we know of the realms of the future! We know that there is a black and stormy river called “Death.” God bids us cross it, promising to be with us. And, after death, what cometh? What wonder-world will open upon our astonished sight? What scene of glory will be unfolded to our view? No traveller has ever returned to tell. But we know enough of the heavenly land to make us welcome our summons thither with joy and gladness. The journey of death may be dark, but we may go forth on it fearlessly, knowing that God is with us as we walk through the gloomy valley, and therefore we need fear no evil. We shall be departing from all we have known and loved here, but we shall be going to our Father’s house — to our Father’s home, where Jesus is — to that royal “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” This shall be our last removal, to dwell for ever with Him we love, in the midst of His people, in the presence of God. Christian, meditate much on heaven, it will help thee to press on, and to forget the toil of the way. This vale of tears is but the pathway to the better country: this world of woe is but the stepping-stone to a world of bliss. “Prepare us, Lord, by grace divine, For Thy bright courts on high; Then bid our spirits rise, and join The chorus of the sky.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Morning and Evening—Classic KJV Edition: A Devotional Classic for Daily Encouragement)
Rooms, corridors, bookcases, shelves, filing cards, and computerized catalogues assume that the subjects on which our thoughts dwell are actual entities, and through this assumption a certain book may be lent a particular tone and value. Filed under Fiction, Jonathon Swift's Gulliver's Travels is a humorous novel of adventure; under Sociology, a satirical study of England in the eighteenth century; under Children's Literature, an entertaining fable about dwarfs and giants and talking horses; under Fantasy, a precursor of science fiction; under Travel, an imaginary voyage; under Classics, a part of the Western literary canon. Categories are exclusive; reading is not--or should not be. Whatever classifications have been chosen, every library tyrannizes the act of reading, and forces the reader--the curious reader, the alert reader--to rescue the book from the category to which it has been condemned.
Alberto Manguel (A History of Reading)
I can’t dwell on this now but I want to go home and sleep for seven days and seven nights. I don’t know how to deal with yet another pain. I want to scream while I dance and dance while I scream. I want to forget that pain can be so intimate. I want to travel beside Daudi on his collar, whispering in his ear, soothing his shoulders, kissing his cheeks, and telling him, “I love you.” If
M.K. Asante (Buck: A Memoir)
Books of protection The Stellah Mupanduki books are full of protection of everything in your life. When you read them, then, you are protected physically, you are protected emotionally, you are protected in your environment, you are protected in your family, your children are protected, you are protected in your business and career, you are protected in your investments, you are protect in the work of your hands, you are protected in your home, you are protected in your hometown, in your country and in this whole world...You are protected as you travel…You are protected wherever you are and wherever you go...You are just protected in everything about you...You are protected with the wonderful presence of the Holy Spirit of God that comes into your life with an anointing presence as you read and absorb the works of God Almighty breathed in the Stellah Mupanduki books. Don't miss a single title, go for all of them in order to receive in fullness the true presence of the Holy Spirit coming to dwell in your body, soul and life with a wonderful healing protection. Buy these books and you will have nothing to worry about in your life...Says the Lord God Almighty.
Stellah Mupanduki (For The Sound Mind: Heal Me Lord For I Am Weak)
You have become acquainted with the characters. You have joined them in the imaginary world wherein they dwell, consented to the laws of their society, breathed its air, tasted its food, traveled its highways. Now you must follow them through their adventures.
Mortimer J. Adler (How to Read a Book)
THE THIRD DECISION FOR SUCCESS I am a person of action. Beginning today, I will create a new future by creating a new me. No longer will I dwell in a pit of despair, moaning over squandered time and lost opportunity. I can do nothing about the past. My future is immediate. I will grasp it in both hands and carry it with running feet. When I am faced with the choice of doing nothing or doing something, I will always choose to act! I seize this moment. I choose now. I am a person of action. I am energetic. I move quickly. Knowing that laziness is a sin, I will create a habit of lively behavior. I will walk with a
Andy Andrews (The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success)
I don’t dwell on it much – just every hour, on the hour, or so.
Rebecca Raisin (Rosie's Travelling Tea Shop (The Travelling Shops #1))
What does an igloo-dwelling millionaire do that a cubicle-dweller doesn’t? Follow an uncommon set of rules. How does a lifelong blue-chip employee escape to travel the world for a month without his boss even noticing? He uses technology to hide the fact. Gold is getting old. The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD).
Timothy Ferriss (The 4 Hour Workweek, Expanded And Updated: Expanded And Updated, With Over 100 New Pages Of Cutting Edge Content)
Choronzon is the dweller there, and his job is to trap the traveler in his meaningless world of illusion. However, Babalon is on just the other side, beckoning. If the adept gives himself to her—the symbol of this act is the pouring of the adept’s blood into her graal—he becomes impregnated in her, then to be reborn as a master and a saint that dwells in the City of the Pyramids.[244]
Thomas Horn (On the Path of the Immortals: Exo-Vaticana, Project L. U. C. I. F. E. R. , and the Strategic Locations Where Entities Await the Appointed Time)
The Travelling People, the final radio ballad, broadcast in 1964, was the most ambitious of all, grappling with the vilified nomadic population of Britain. The programme did not flinch from including the negative sentiments of the ‘not in my backyard’ brigade: one gentleman is heard to call them ‘misfits … the maggots of society’. The soundworld is particularly rich and evocative of difference: the travellers’ words are surrounded by the outdoor ambience in which they dwell – birdsong, horses’ hooves, the rush of road traffic. The voices of ‘respectable’ society speak in the dead air of cushioned interiors. Parker’s editing skills reach a new level of finesse, so a succession of phrases like ‘They call us the wild ones/ The pilgrims of the mist/ Romanies, Gypsies, diddikais, mumpers, travellers/ Nomads of the road/Blackfaced diddies/ … In Carlisle, they call you porters, dirty porters this, dirty porters that …’ whizz past in a kaleidoscope of lexicographic plurality and regional accents. Its conclusion – comparing Britain’s treatment of its nomads to the Nazi pogroms – is shocking, but is borne out by the words of Labour councillor Harry Watton, who is heard to say, ‘One must exterminate the impossibles.’ It is a bitter, troubling conclusion to the radio ballads.
Rob Young (Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music)
The Taoist Zhuangzi classic offers a fascinating story on this topic. A scholar named Zigong, while traveling, notices an old man working in a garden digging trenches, repeatedly going over to a well and returning with a jug full of water. “There's a machine,” Zigong tells the farmer, “which could irrigate a hundred plots like yours in a day. Would you, good sir, like to try one?” The farmer shows some initial interest, and Zigong explains to him how it works. Suddenly, the farmer's face flushes, and he retorts: “I've heard that where there are machines, there are bound to be machine worries; where there are machine worries, there are bound to be machine hearts. With a machine heart in your breast, you've lost what was pure and simple; and the loss of the pure and simple leads to restlessness of the spirit. Where there is restlessness of the spirit, the Tao no longer dwells. It's not that I don't know about your machine—I would be ashamed to use it!” This colorful story highlights a deep-rooted mistrust of technology, driven not necessarily by a reactionary fear of change but by a worldview that values, above all else, harmonization with the Tao in all one's activities.30 This ingrained distrust of technology permeated the mind-set of traditional Chinese peasantry throughout its history.
Jeremy Lent (The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning)
Three shall set out, though three shall not return To recover a stone from a land that won’t burn. Long they shall travel, for deep does it dwell To bring to the land either heaven or hell. They shall fall out of step in a land without time And toil in shadow where stars cannot shine. Old enemies prowl, for the dead never die But peace will prevail if the dragon can fly.
W.J. May (Discipline (Omega Queen #1))
So, we need not dwell upon the feature of illusion. Rather let us, recognizing the real nature of the Universe, seek to understand its mental laws, and endeavor to use them to the best effect in our upward progress through life, as we travel from plane to plane of being. The Laws of the Universe are none the less "Iron Laws" because of the mental nature. All, except THE ALL, are bound by them. What is IN THE INFINITE MIND OF THE ALL is REAL in a degree second only to that Reality itself which is vested in the nature of THE ALL.
Three Initiates (Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece)
After travelling a few miles, he fell asleep; and Emily, who had put two or three books into the carriage, on leaving La Vallee, had now the leisure for looking into them. She sought for one, in which Valancourt had been reading the day before, and hoped for the pleasure of re-tracing a page, over which the eyes of a beloved friend had lately passed, of dwelling on the passages, which he had admired, and of permitting them to speak to her in the language of his own mind, and to bring himself to her presence.
Eliza Parsons (The Complete Northanger Horrid Novel Collection (9 Books of Gothic Romance and Horror))
....The important thing is not where we die but how we live. Being native to a place is a labor of love and a life's work. It means stitching your life to that of a place with a thread spun from mindfulness, attentiveness, husbandry, pilgrimage, and witness. Stories knit these components of practice together. Flung outward, they clothe our relationships; flung inward, they map the soul. Stories enable us to enter and dwell attentively in a place; they enable us to travel and return, then eventually to leave for good. We need stories to stay alive spiritually: without them we would all turn into hungry ghosts. Stories are the only things we can take with us out of this world. They are the wings that bear us up or the chains that drag us down. In the end, it is stories that enable us to die.
John Tallmadge (The Cincinnati Arch: Learning from Nature in the City)
I was ashamed to find myself contemplating that for the traveller, Iran’s charms lay in its isolation. This was not a mindset I liked, or approved of; I didn’t want to be like the smug backpackers in The Beach, trying to keep their special place a secret. I wanted the Iranian people to reap all the benefits from engaging with the world and for the rest of us to wake up to the reality that Iran is not a nation of desert-dwelling terrorists.
Lois Pryce (Revolutionary Ride: On the Road to Shiraz, the Heart of Iran)
Most of us don’t live in the present tense. We dwell in a mental place where our regrets and grudges from our past compete with our fears about the future. Sometimes we barely notice what’s going on around us, we’re so busy time traveling. Before Victory was born, I could spend whole days trying to sort out the things that have happened to me, the terrible mistakes I’ve made. I marinated in my anger and self-loathing, cataloged all the different ways my parents failed me, cast myself as the victim and played the role like I was gunning for a gold statuette. Motherhood
Lisa Unger (Black Out)
Depending on your point of view, Jersey City was the rose, or possibly the thorn, of the Garden State. It is so far back that my memories are rather vague, but they were my first memories, and this is where I have to start. We lived at 77 Nelson Avenue, behind my parents’ German-style delicatessen, in three Spartan rooms counting the kitchen. Supermarkets were not yet prevalent and the neighborhood general store, grocery store or delicatessen was where most folks shopped for food. It was during the pre-World War II years, when very few people owned cars and the general public did not have the modern means of travel, which we now take for granted. Every item people needed came from a different store, so to go shopping was a daily task of which people were not even consciously mindful. Even if they had a car, they would have to deal with constant breakdowns, poor and frequently unpaved roads, and tire problems. Garage rentals were crowded behind and between buildings. Parking on the street was limited and most people respected the concept that the parking space in front of a dwelling was for the resident who lived there. It was much easier to use the available mass transportation or endure long walks.
Hank Bracker
O, the thrill when each knows its own guilt, travels the thorny paths. Thus did he find the white form of the child in the thorn bush, bleeding after the cloak of its bride-groom. Yet he stood before her buried in his steely hair, mute and suffering. O, the radiant angels scattered by the purple night winds. Long nights did he dwell in a crystal cave and leprosy grew all silvery upon his brow. A shadow, he walked down the boundary path beneath autumnal stars. Snow fell and the blue darkness filled the house. As a blind man's, Father's harsh voice resounded and called up dread. Woe, the bowed appearance of women. Beneath petrified hands fruit and implements mouldered to the appalled race. A wolf devoured the first-born and my sisters fled into dark gardens to skeletal old men. A deranged seer, that man sang by the derelict walls and God's wind consumed his voice. O ecstasy of death. O you children of a midnight race. All silver the evil flowers of the blood shimmer about that man's brow, the cold moon within his broken eyes. O, the creatures of night; O, those who are accursed.
Georg Trakl (Poems and Prose)
In fact next morning was not the right time to ask questions either. Everyone had fierce headaches, and the sun was already high before we were ready to set out on the road again. I loitered, waiting for Donnachad to pay our host for all the food and drink we had consumed, but he made no move to do so, and our host seemed just as good-natured as when we first arrived. Donnachad muttered only a few gracious phrases of thanks and then we rejoined his men, who were trudging blearily forward. I sidled across to the elderly servant and asked him why we had left without paying. 'You never pay a briugu for hospitality,' he answered, mildly shocked. 'That would be an insult. Might even take you to court for looking to pay him.' 'In Iceland, where I come from,' I said, 'a farmer is expected to be hospitable and give shelter and food to travellers who come to his door, particularly if he is wealthy and can afford it. But I didn't see any farming near the house. I'm surprised that he doesn't move away to somewhere a bit more remote.' 'That's precisely why he's built his house beside the road,' explained the old man, 'so that as many people as possible can visit him. And the more hospitality he dispenses, the higher will rise his face price. That's how he can increase his honour, which is much more important to him than the amount of wealth he has accumulated.' What the briugu would do when all his hoarded savings ran out, he did not explain. 'A briugu should possess only three things,' concluded the old man with one of those pithy sayings of which the Irish are fond, 'a never-dry cauldron, a dwelling on a public road and a welcome for every face.' p243
Tim Severin (Odinn's Child (Viking, #1))
Don’t time travel: don’t dwell on past bad trades, or fantasize about future great trades. Allow trading to teach you to live in the present.
Matthew R. Kratter (The Little Black Book of Stock Market Secrets)
Our versions of the truth so often dwell in the language we chose, but the words we use have consequences, they signify allegiances, shared histories, harms and losses.
Jessica J Lee. (Two Trees Make a Forest: Travels Among Taiwan's Mountains & Coasts in Search of My Family's Past)
Life is a quest. Leave your birthplace. Travel the world. Dwell with people of various races and cultures until you find what makes your soul sing. When you return, your reason for living will become clear.
Angela J. Ford (Aofie's Quest)
Newark, New Jersey. The bad part. Almost a redundancy. Decay was the first word that came to mind. The buildings were more than falling apart - they actually seemed to be breaking down, melting from some sort of acid onslaught. Here urban renewal was about as familiar a concept as time travel. The surroundings looked more like a war newsreel - Frankfurt after the Allies' bombing - than a habitable dwelling.
Harlan Coben (One False Move (Myron Bolitar, #5))
I’ve travelled miles to be here; to come and reach out to you. But right now, I’ll put my back towards this place which hems your shame. And I’ll send my feet towards the place where I think of you day in and day out. Where my thoughts dwell in sorrow, like a turnip growing within thorns. And I'll continue to do so until you find a word to say to me.
Mitta Xinindlu (STELLA)
Nesta pulled away—not harshly, but with enough intent that Cassian peered at where she and Amren focused on the map. “The Bog of Oorid?” Feyre frowned at the spot in the Middle. “The Mask is in a bog?” “Oorid was once a sacred place,” Amren said. “Warriors were laid to rest in its night-black waters. But Oorid changed to a place of darkness—don’t give me that look, Rhysand, you know what I mean—a long time ago. Filled with such evil that no one will venture there, and only the worst of the faeries are drawn to it. They say the water there flows to Under the Mountain, and the creatures who live in the bog have long used its underground waterways to travel through the Middle, even into the mountains of the surrounding courts.” Feyre frowned. “It can’t be more specific, though?” She asked Rhys, “Do we have a detailed map of the Middle?” Rhys shook his head. “It’s forbidden to map the Middle beyond vague landmarks.” He pointed to the sacred mountain in its center, where he’d been held for nearly fifty years. “The Mountain, the woods, the bog … All can be seen from land and air. But its secrets, those discovered on foot—those are forbidden.” Feyre’s frown didn’t lighten. “By whom?” “An ancient council of the High Lords. The Middle is a place where wild magic still dwells and thrives and feeds. We respect it as its own entity, and do not wish to provoke its wrath by revealing its mysteries.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
And you will dwell in the house of your Lord—forever.
Max Lucado (Traveling Light Deluxe Edition: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear)
About the “Direct Path” (直通の位の事) ◎ Jikitsū-no-kurai (“direct path”) is the soul of combat.15 All the teachings I have outlined above are like parts of the human body.16 Nothing more is needed. They must never be neglected. Depending on the situation, there are times when some techniques will not be suitable, but nothing will work without them [in your repertoire]. For example, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, hands and feet are what our bodies are comprised of. If one of these things is missing, then we are incomplete. The sword techniques that I have conveyed must all be committed to memory and used intuitively. Without the soul and spirit of the “direct path,” they amount to random madness. In all the techniques, be sure to seize the initiative and take the attack to the enemy. This will enable you to identify target areas. You must then determine what techniques or guards will be effective and what are not viable in a particular situation. Gauge how to close the distance, then commit with single-minded resolve to follow through to your mark (star) and attack without deviating. For example, even if you have to deflect the whole world, the flight of your sword must not diverge from its path. Purge yourself of fear. When you know the moment for that one [direct and decisive] strike of jikitsū, let the power surge through you to deliver the cut. It is no different when you enter the opponent’s space to arrest him. Advance rapidly, thinking of nothing other than grabbing hold of him. The further in you get, the better. Without the mind of “direct path,” your swords will be lifeless. Even this and discover what it means. Even retreat counts as a loss. When we speak of the “interior” (deepest principles), nothing is deeper than this. When we talk of the gateway (fundamental principles), nothing is more fundamental than this. The great monk Kūkai17 traveled deep into the mountain when planning to construct a monastery in the innermost reaches of Mount Kōya. Thinking it was still not far enough, he continued walking further, but eventually came across dwellings again. He said, “The further I entered, the closer I came to human habitation; I had looked too far in.”18 The interior is not the interior. The gate is not the gate. There are no special, secret interior teachings to look for if the great wisdom of combat strategy surges through your sinews and veins. Just make sure that nobody to your front or back can ever get the better of you. This cannot be conveyed with words and letters.
Alexander Bennett (Complete Musashi: The Book of Five Rings and Other Works: The Definitive Translations of the Complete Writings of Miyamoto Musashi--Japan's Greatest Samurai)
Emotion doesn’t travel in a straight line. Like water, our feelings trickle down through cracks and crevices, seeking out the little pockets of neediness and neglect, the hairline fractures in our character usually hidden from public view. Beware the dark pool at the bottom of our hearts. In its icy, black depths dwell strange and twisted creatures it is best not to disturb.
Sue Grafton (I is for Innocent (Kinsey Millhone, #9))
Y a ti, viajero, te dará sombra siempre, pero detén tu marcha pesarosa ante esa sombra suya. No olvidarás jamás que ha sido la triste, cruel, umbrosa, la efímera morada de múltiples cabezas negras colgando entre el follaje, incorruptibles. And you, traveller, it will shade you always, but slow your heavy step before its shadow. Never will you forget this tree has been of multitudinous black heads hanging among the foliage, the sad, cruel, shadowy, the ephemeral dwelling incorruptible. (de Un Manzano de Oakland, para Angela Davis)
Nancy Morejón (Where the Island Sleeps Like a Wing: Selected Poetry)
The flames were intense, but the darkness seemed to swallow up the light.21 The skyline was barely visible. The darkness was somewhat like a black hole. I have heard scientists say that within our universe’s black holes the pull of gravity is so strong that it actually stops light from traveling, and it cannot escape from the hole. The darkness in hell is like that. It is so dark that it seems to hinder any light from traveling. The only visible area was that which the flames exposed. The ground was all rock, barren and desolate. There was not one green thing, not one living thing, not one blade of grass, not one leaf on the ground—it was just a complete wasteland.22 In Ezekiel 26:20 we read, “Then I will bring you down with those who descend into the Pit… and I will make you dwell in the lowest part of the earth, in places desolate from antiquity, with those who go down to the Pit.” On earth even deserts contain life that has adapted to its harsh environment, and they have a natural beauty. But the place I saw was barren—nothing like the desert.
Bill Wiese (23 Minutes in Hell: One Man's Story About What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in That Place of Torment)
Seneca then suddenly changes the subject to talk about selecting and reading the right books, to discuss how “not wandering” is vital in reading also: “If you wish to take in something that will settle reliably in your mind,” he says, “you must dwell with a few chosen thinkers and be nourished by their works. Someone who is everywhere is nowhere. Those who travel constantly end up with many acquaintances, but no real friends.”7
David Fideler (Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living)
God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, but there is nothing weak about His embrace! There is no failure in His saving rescue! I can testify tonight that His covering is steady and faithful! His covering continues both in the day and the night – in joy and in sorrow, as faithfully as the rising and setting sun, and will continue for as long as we dwell in these earthly houses! “But I also know that a day is coming when only the JOY will remain: when we reach the land of which it is written: ‘THERE IS NO NIGHT THERE!!
D.I. Hennessey (The Traveler (Within & Without Time #2))
Utopia retains throughout its long history the basic form of the narrative of a journey. The traveler in space or time is an explorer who happens upon utopia. He (or, more recently, she) meets its people, usually at first its ordinary people, observes them at work and play, sees their dwellings and their cities... The traveler is, as are we, the more prepared to accept the validity and desirability of the general principles for having seen with his own eyes its effects in the daily life of its inhabitants.
Krishan Kumar (Utopianism (Concepts in Social Thought Series))
There’s no use arguing that modern society isn’t a kind of paradise. The vast majority of us don’t, personally, have to grow or kill our own food, build our own dwellings, or defend ourselves from wild animals and enemies. In one day we can travel a thousand miles by pushing our foot down on a gas pedal or around the world by booking a seat on an airplane. When we are in pain we have narcotics that dull it out of existence, and when we are depressed we have pills that change the chemistry of our brains. We understand an enormous amount about the universe, from subatomic particles to our own bodies to galaxy clusters, and we use that knowledge to make life even better and easier for ourselves. The poorest people in modern society enjoy a level of physical comfort that was unimaginable a thousand years ago, and the wealthiest people literally live the way gods were imagined to have. And yet. There are many costs to modern society, starting with its toll on the global ecosystem and working one’s way down to its toll on the human psyche, but the most dangerous loss may be to community. If the human race is under threat in some way that we don’t yet understand, it will probably be at a community level that we either solve the problem or fail to. If the future of the planet depends on, say, rationing water, communities of neighbors will be able to enforce new rules far more effectively than even local government. It’s how we evolved to exist, and it obviously works.
Sebastian Junger (Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging)
Ditch the baggage If you stay focused on the past, then you’ll get stuck where you are. That’s the reason some people don’t have any joy. They’ve lost their enthusiasm. They’re dragging around all this baggage from the past. Someone offended them last week, and they’ve got that stuffed in their resentment bags. They lost their tempers or said some things they shouldn’t have. Now, they’ve put those mistakes in their bags of guilt and condemnation. Ten years ago their loved one died and they still don’t understand why; their hurt and pain is packed in their disappointment bag. Growing up they weren’t treated right--there’s another suitcase full of bitterness. They’ve got their regret bags, containing all the things they wish they’d done differently. Maybe there is another bag with their divorce in it, and they are still mad at their former spouse, so they’ve been carrying resentment around for years. If they went to take an airline flight, they couldn’t afford it. They’ve got twenty-seven bags to drag around with them everywhere they go. Life is too short to live that way. learn to travel light. Every morning when you get up, forgive those who hurt you. Forgive your spouse for what was said. Forgive your boss for being rude. Forgive yourself for mistakes you’ve made. At the start of the day, let go of the setbacks and the disappointments from yesterday. Start every morning afresh and anew. God did not create you to carry around all that baggage. You may have been holding on to it for years. It’s not going to change until you do something about it. Put your foot down and say, “That’s it. I’m not living in regrets. I’m not staying focused on my disappointments. I’m not dwelling on relationships that didn’t work out, or on those who hurt me, or how unfairly I was treated. I’m letting go of the past and moving forward with my life.
Joel Osteen (You Can You Will: 8 Undeniable Qualities of a Winner)
NOW! it is gone- Our brief hours of travel post, Each with its thought or deed, its why or how; But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost To dwell within thee- an eternal NOW!
Thomas Smythe