Mindless Quotings Quotes

Mindless fear is greater than mindful fear.

One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings.

I choose you," he said very softly, "Max." Then his hard, rough hand tenderly cuppoed my chin, and suddenly his mouth was on mine, and every synapse in my brain shorted out. We had kissed a couple of times before, but this was different. This time, I squelched my immediate, overwhelming desire to run away screaming. I closed my eyes and put my arms around him despite my fear. Then somehow we slid sideways so we were lying in the cool sand. I was holding him fiercely, and he was kissing me fiercely, and it was...just so, so intensely good. Once I got past my usual, gut-wrenching terror, there was a long, sweet slide into mindlessness, when all I felt was Fang, and all I heard was his breathing, and all I could think was "Oh, God, I want to do this all the time.

Every single person is a fool, insane, a failure, or a bad person to at least ten people.

There were people who called themselves Satanists who made Crowley squirm. It wasn't just the things they did, it was the way they blamed it all on Hell. They'd come up with some stomach-churning idea that no demon could have thought of in a thousand years, some dark and mindless unpleasantness that only a fully-functioning human brain could conceive, then shout "The Devil Made Me Do It" and get the sympathy of the court when the whole point was that the Devil hardly ever made anyone do anything. He didn't have to. That was what some humans found hard to understand. Hell wasn't a major reservoir of evil, any more than Heaven, in Crowley's opinion, was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game. Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind.

Not kill us," Pigeon corrected. "She was mainly just trying to turn us into mindless slaves.

I walked up to Griz and poked him in the chest. "Let me make this perfectly clear to you. Though some might seek to make it appear otherwise, I am not a bride to be bartered away to another kingdom, not a prize of war, not a mouthpiece for your Komizar. I am not a chip in a card game to be mindlessly tossed into the center of the pot, nor one to be kept in the tight fist of a greedy opponent. I am a player seated at the table alongside everyone else, and from this day forward, I will play my own hand as I see fit. Do you understand me? Because the consequences could be ugly if someone thought otherwise.

The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing devision of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes,

It's a thought," I said with a grin. "That's exactly what it is, Dan - a thought - no more real than the shadow of a shadow. Consciousness is not In the body; the body is In Consciousness. And you Are that Consciousness - no the phantom mind that troubles you so. You are the body, but you are everything else, too. That is what your visions revealed to you. Only the mind resists change. When you relax mindless into the body, you are happy and content and free, sensing no separation. Immortality is Already yours, but not in the same way you imagined or hope for. You have been immortal since before you were born and will be long after the body dissolves. The body is in Consciousness; never born; never dies; only changes. The mind - your ego, personal beliefs, history, and identity - is all that ends at death. And who needs it?" Socrates leaned back into his chair. "I'm not sure all of that sank in." "Of course not." He laughed. "Words mean little unless you realize the truth of it yourself. And when you do, you'll be free at last.

A blind pursuit of cheap popularity has nothing to do with revolution." [Political Report of the National Executive Committee to the forty-ninth A.N.C. National Conference, Bloemfontein, South Africa, 17 December 1994]

Harry swallows, still staring, still caught. Almost dazed. "That doesn't make sense, either." Louis dares to smile wider. "Good. I should hate to make sense." "To be great is to be misunderstood." Harry quotes mindlessly, unblinkingly, lost. Louis' ribs are cracking. He grins.

Knowing you, I became mindless. Having wasted previous wishes, I'm riddled with regrets Feeling you, I became hopeless. Adrift in chasms, I surrender to a caress. Loving you, I became love. My universe became love. Planets rotate on love's axes and apples fall to be near their beloveds. No longer a rationalist, I assert my existence with love. I love, therefore I exist, therefore I love.

Graham Chapman, co-author of the "Parrot Sketch", is no more. He has ceased to be. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He's kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky. And I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say: nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries. And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn't, if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him but mindless good taste. (He paused, then claimed that Chapman had whipered in his ear while he was writing the speech): All right, Cleese. You say you're very proud of being the very first person ever to say 'shit' on British television. If this service is really for me, just for starters, I want you to become the first person ever at a British memorial service to say 'fuck'.

No. He says when you're dealing with any kids of supernatural beings, Gods and Devils and angels, you tend to think about them like hurricanes or earthquakes, some kind of mindless force of nature. But if they're real, then they have minds. They know your name. So even reading about the Devil tips him off, he knows instantly he's being read about and that you're somebody he may have to deal with. And I'm thinking what you did in Vegas went way, way beyond that." "What 'I' did? What about us? We were both there." "Yeah but I cut my hair since then. They probably think that was a different guy.

Knowledge isn't truth. It's just mindless agreement. You agree with me, I agree with someone else - we all have knowledge. We haven't come any closer to the truth. You can never understand anything by agreeing, by making definitions. Only by turning over the possibilities. That's called thinking. If I say "I know", I stop thinking. As long as I keep thinking, I come to understand. That way, I might approach some truth.

You want your daughter to become a critical consumer of the media, so use what she's watching to help her build those skills. Swing by the couch or lean over her laptop and say, "I'm all for mindless entertainment, but you know that I'm not a big fan of shows that celebrate women for being sexy and stupid." Your daughter may roll her eyes, but do it anyway. Girls can listen and roll their eyes at the same time.

It's hard to think when someone's trying to kill you. We human beings aren't wired to be rational and creative when we know our lives are in danger of a swift and violent end. The body has definite ideas of which survival strategies it prefers to embrace, and those are generally limited to "rip threat to pieces" or "run like hell." No thinking need be involved, as far as our instincts are concerned. Our instincts were a long time in the making, though, and the threats that can come after us now have outpaced them. You can't outrun a bullet, and you don't go hand-to-hand with a gunman unless you're certain you are about to die anyway. Speed and mindless aggression weren't going to keep me alive.

Ari!" Jeb had finally seen his son. He rushed to Ari's side and knelt next to him. Looking stunned, he gathered Ari's hulking form and held him to his chest. "I'm so sorry." I saw his mouth shape the words, though I couldn't hear them. "I'm so sorry." He bent over Ari's form, mindless of his vulnerable position.

Most unintelligent or foolish people do not regard themselves as that; they regard themselves as not-that-intelligent or not-that-wise.

heeping (noun): a state of mindlessly following others when in fact you know the truth and the right actions you must take, but you don’t want to overcome social resistance, accept the brief emotional pain of going against social pressure, and assume full responsibility for your life.

Operating in a state of mindlessness robs us of our ability to create holistic wealth.

You're confident he'll have found him, then?" "Well, no. I didn't sat that." "If there's one thing I hate," Volyova said, looking coldly at the other Triumvir, "it's mindless optimism.

Give me back my lips. I meant to give you a kiss but a kiss turned to a thousand, and a thousand to thousands, and now my lips have left with you. Give me back my hands. They only intended to caress you but they held tight and have forgotten even the very arms they belong to. Give me back my mind. Mind wasn’t even supposed to think of you but you forced yourself into dreams, and those dreams dreamed of your reality and now mind is mindless — less mine more yours. Give me back to myself. I miss my reflection and who I was before I met you. Before I eagerly and lovingly, stupidly and foolishly gave all of myself to you.

She would not admit she was making a mess. Unfazed by bacon already shriveled and coffee stone-cold, she poured her mixings onto a grill she'd forgotten to grease, and said, "Oh I adore to cook: it makes me feel so mindless in a worthwhile way.

Fruit is freely given by the plant. It entrusts us with its seed, while surrounding it with the gift of fruit, as prepayment for conscious seed dispersal; the tree trusts us to do the right thing and care for its seeds as best we are able, by at least letting each one have a fighting chance. All too often we ignore this symbiotic pact, and mindlessly dispose of seeds to fates that have no possible future.

Pain is a crucial part of our reality; it awakens a person from a mental stupor. A person must never be afraid to discover where their pain originates, follow pain to where it emanates from, learn from its messages, and reject the mindless business and busyness of contemporary culture in order to fuel an artistic vision of the self.

I spy something green," Sally announced. "Trees," Crina hollered, while Mariana called out, "Grass," "Nope," Sally answered. "What's the point of this game again?" Crina asked. "Mindless entertainment," Jen announced. “It's what Americans are known for.

If a wave of veganism washed over the land, in six months there would be Broccoli Kings, Taco Bell Peppers, and McTofu Drive-Thrus.

I work to make human beings out of human bodies. I work to make conscience out of mindlessness. I work to make Gods out of obedient worshippers.

...This is the arena in which a spiritualized disobedience means most. It doesn't mean a second New Deal, another massive bureaucratic attack on our problems. It doesn't mean taking to the streets, throwing bricks through the window at the Bank of America, or driving a tractor through the local McDonald's. It means living differently. It means taking responsibility for the character of the human world. That's a real confrontation with the problem of value. In short, refusal of the present is a return to what Thoreau and Ruskin called "human fundamentals, valuable things," and it is a movement into the future. This movement into the future is also a powerful expression of that most human spiritual emotion, Hope. p.124

Faith without reason produces a mindless Christianity which is less than useless; the focus on justice in this world produces a theology that chases its own tail." ~R. Alan Woods [2013]

Her arms groped forward to guide her when her tears blocked her vision in darkness. Then she couldn't run any more. She sank to her knees and began to cry in her terror. She wanted Gary. She suddenly felt strong arms around her. She bent her head to bury it in Gary's shoulder, trembling in the darkness. Whimpering like a small animal in a trap, she pushed herself closer to him and said in a choked voice, "I'm so frightened!" "I know, my love," the voice said. "I'm so sorry you were hurt." She felt herself being pulled up to him, his grip around her tight. It was a strange feeling in this pitch-black hallway, where not even the light of the moon cast any illumination. The lips she touched were cold and yet they responded to her with an unusual warmth. His hands massaged her back. Something, Melanie thought, was wrong with that. The hands were too smooth, not like a plastered wrist would feel. "Gary?" she asked, backing away. She didn't trust what she couldn't see. "My love," the voice whispered, "there is no need to fear now. I shall protect you from those who mean you harm.

Darwin’s “strange inversion of reasoning” and Turing’s equally revolutionary inversion were aspects of a single discovery: competence without comprehension. Comprehension, far from being a Godlike talent from which all design must flow, is an emergent effect of systems of uncomprehending competence: natural selection on the one hand, and mindless computation on the other. These twin ideas have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but they still provoke dismay and disbelief in some quarters, which I have tried to dispel in this chapter. Creationists are not going to find commented code in the inner workings of organisms, and Cartesians are not going to find an immaterial res cogitans “where all the understanding happens".

Maybe Talon was secretly operating a chocolate factory," I joked, "because they discovered that making chocolate is much more rewarding than trying to take over everything" Riley snorted. "If they put something in the bars that turned all humans into mindless drones, I wouldn't put it past them," he replied. "But I doubt that's what happened here, Firebrand." "Okay, but if we run into chocolate-fueled zombies, you owe me dinner." "Always the zombies with you.

Victory slipped through our fingers the moment Horus chose to reach into the dark and something reached back. We sacrificed our ambitions on the altar of his hubris, and when he fell, he dragged us all down inexorably with him. And not just Horus- Fulgrim as well. And Angron. Magnus. Lorgar. The gods you worship are nothing save lies, hidden behind masks of folklore and superstition. Interdimensional cancers, their mindless hunger confused for sentience amongst the lost and the damned".

We are talking about a bunch of mindless bottom feeders who is general ignorance of a way of life is tempered only by their indifference to human suffering, we are all agreed on that?" "Is this the politicians all the killers?" "good point, but I meant the killers.

What is a disciple? It is not a mindless follower. A disciple is a student. When Paul prohibits women teaching men, he (in the same breath) requires Christian women to be students of the Word "Let a woman learn..." (1 Tim 2:11). Because biblical learning is required of us, we ought not to be afraid of it. We must overcome our ignorance! We ought to read good, solid books on Christian doctrine. It is good for us! We must cultivate a taste for books that will build s up in the faith- not take us to fantasy land. Just read a page or two at a time if need be, and never at the expense of your Bible reading.

Modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient electric winch and “maximum-capacity-eight-persons" jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire west wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital. This is because they operate on the curious principle of “defocused temporal perception.” In other words they have the capacity to see dimly into the immediate future, which enables the elevator to be on the right floor to pick you up even before you knew you wanted it, thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing and making friends that people were previously forced to do while waiting for elevators. Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking. An impoverished hitchhiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counselor for neurotic elevators.

Hearing "can't" dares a person to find a workaround. It's a basic psychological theory called reactance - telling someone "no" just makes them want it more.

It sucks. I think you'd make a pretty snake woman, but I'm not really into that kind of girl. Those pointy teeth and slitted nose. Their mindless need to kill..." He shuddered.

When you start dreaming, you become just a body because your mind is now somewhere else! A dreaming person is just a mindless body!

Universe is an unconscious god! It has the power to create anything we see in the cosmos, but it creates them unconsciously, without any purpose! Universe is a mindless god!

What are you waiting for, show your gratitude to everyone!

happiness is a choice and is entirely down to us

my new house" (or any other intention). All we are doing here is to use the fewest words possible to represent our intentions.

Love Your "self" without bordering it, in it's true nature. Love just the "Limitless, Timeless & Spaceless Self

The squeak of oarlocks comes over the lake water A woman's shriek assaults the ear While above, in the sky, inured to everything, The moon looks on with a mindless leer ("The Unknown Lady")

You're walking into the garden little girl with your belly just rumblin' for an apple." "My belief happen to be other than your own but I've always thought the Garden of Eden story would have been much better if Eve wasn't portrayed as such a mindless character manipulated by suggestion. I mean if she were a little bolder more resourceful and confident she and Adam might've had snake for dinner instead.

Our actions reflect the distilled wisdom that we possess of the innermost self. Our personal philosophy is an activated way of living. A peaceful person delves the truest definition of the self by maintaining an attentive state of conscious awareness and ceases escaping from reality with mindless diversions. Self-inquiry is the principal method to remove ignorance, increase self-awareness, and abide in a tranquil existence

If I start doing more things with my hands, whether that's woodworking or gardening or knitting or baking cookies, I might fall into the condition made famous by the psychologist with the impossible name: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. That condition is "flow." It means becoming completely involved in an activity not for the sake of the outcome but for the sheer joy of it. It means feeling alive when we are fully in the groove of doing something. According to Csikszentmihalyi, the path to greatest happiness lies not with mindless consuming but with challenging ourselves to experience or produce something new, becoming in the process more engaged, connected and alive.

Groups are capable of being as moral and intelligent as the individuals who form them; a crowd is chaotic, has no purpose of its own and is capable of anything except intelligent action and realistic thinking. Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice. Their suggestibility is increased to the point where they cease to have any judgment or will of their own. They become very ex­citable, they lose all sense of individual or collective responsibility, they are subject to sudden accesses of rage, enthusiasm and panic. In a word, a man in a crowd behaves as though he had swallowed a large dose of some powerful intoxicant. He is a victim of what I have called "herd-poisoning." Like alcohol, herd-poison is an active, extraverted drug. The crowd-intoxicated individual escapes from responsibility, in­telligence and morality into a kind of frantic, animal mindlessness.

I'm not concerned with paid assassins ... mindless, soulless animals who excel at nothing else. But you, Erik ... you love all the beauty in this world ... you are a genius in so many different fields. Why do you set yourself beyond the pale of humanity by such a despicable crime?" He took off the mask and turned slowly to let me see. "This face which has denied me all human rights also frees me of all obligation to the human race," he said quietly. "My mother hated me, my village drove me from my home, I was exhibited like an animal in a cage until a knife showed me the only way to be free. The pleasures of love will always be forbidden to me ... but I am young, Nadir. I have all the desires of any normal man.

If one were to typify a place, then these are snapshots that need to be captured. Brazen realities frozen in time; progress impeded because of a tradition of cultural sloth. The world goes by without a moment’s reproach and I retire for the day; however, a line drones mindlessly in paradox. “Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized on a table (The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S Eliot, 1920).” Splendidly juxtaposed, I chuckle." Juxtaposed Realities - Mehreen Ahmed

So that while others may look on the laws of physics as legislation and God as a human form with beard measured in light-years and double for sandals, Faust's kind (poets) are alone with the task of living in a universe of things which simply are, and cloaking that innate mindlessness with comfortable and pious metaphor so that the "practical" half of humanity may continue in the Great Lie, confident that their machines, dwellings, streets and weather share the same human motives, personal traits and fits of contrariness as they.

But the biggest clue seemed to be their expressions. They were hard to explain. Good-natured, friendly, easygoing...and uninvolved. They were like spectators. You had the feeling they had just wandered in there themselves and somebody had handed them a wrench. There was no identification with the job. No saying, "I am a mechanic." At 5 P.M. or whenever their eight hours were in, you knew they would cut it off and not have another thought about their work. They were already trying not to have any thoughts about their work on the job.

I told my therapist how I had been feeling this heaviness, more than my usual amount of stress and anxiety, as though I were moving through life underwater. "I've been hard on myself lately," I began. "I feel like I always have a long list of things I need to do, but I keep getting distracted doing useless things like watching TV or mindlessly scrolling through the internet. And at the end of each wasted day, I always ask myself "What is wrong with you? Why are you like this?" It's like...this crippling cycle of guilt and disappointment, and it always ends in anger towards myself for not being better.

Once in the crowd, a collar is worn around your neck; if the crowd runs to the left, you have to run to the left, if they run to the right, you have to run to the right, if they stop, you have to stop! If you are not in control, someone else is in control and then you become a puppet, a puppet of the mindless crowd!

You know what I was thinking? [Ruthie] got so excited when she was spouting this ahistorical countertextual nonsense, and I caught myself thinking, 'What an idiot her teacher must be,' and thinking about her teacher made me realize - the kind of excitement she was showing as she mindlessly spouted back the nonsense she learned in college, that's just like the excitement some of my own students show. And it occurred to me that what we professors think of as a 'brilliant student' is nothing but a student who is enthusiastically converted to whatever idiotic ideas we've been teaching them." "Self-knowledge is a painful thing," said Esther. "To learn that your best students are parrots after all.

[T]he idea of treating Mind as an effect rather than as a First Cause is too revolutionary for some–an "awful stretcher" that their own minds cannot acommodate comfortably. This is as true today as it was in 1860, and it has always been as true of some of evolution's best friends as of its foes. For instance, the physicist Paul Davies, in his recent book The Mind of God, proclaims that the reflective power of human minds can be "no trivial detail, no minor by-product of mindless purposeless forces" (Davies 1992, p. 232). This is a most revealing way of expressing a familiar denial, for it betrays an ill-examined prejudice. Why, we might ask Davies, would its being a by-product of mindless, purposeless forces make it trivial? Why couldn't the most important thing of all be something that arose from unimportant things? Why should the importance or excellence of anything have to rain down on it from on high, from something more important, a gift from God? Darwin's inversion suggests that we abandon that presumption and look for sorts of excellence, of worth and purpose, that can emerge, bubbling up out of "mindless, purposeless forces.

Here we meet an insolent pacifist objection, one that is Jewish in its inspiration: "Man can control even nature!" There are millions who mindlessly repeat this Jewish nonsense, and end up imagining that somehow they themselves are the conquerors of nature. Yet their only weapon is just a mere idea, and a very preposterous one at that. If one accepted it, then it would be impossible even to imagine the existence of the world.

First I smell that smell and am overcome with a sensation of elation. Like a tight faucet turned open, everything floods from me. I scan the view, take a deep breath, and inevitably utter, "God, I love it here." I stride quickly to where the sand is still wet from the previous tide and then, and then I am gone. There is no thinking, just being. I have no awareness of time or of myself. If I am searching for glass, it is rote, with no more or less consciousness than a jellyfish searching for sustenance. It is not mindlessness or oblivion, as I am wholly aware, but in a way that preempts any reality outside of the moment. There I am seaweed, I am water, I am stone, I am fish. I am a grain of sand, warm in the sun. I am reduced to nothing, but part of everything. I am home, I am free, I am one with the sea, I am the primordial me, and the glass is just my excuse to be there.

when we spend time with toxic people, difficult people, narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, and/or assholes. it is not good for us. It erodes our self-esteem, infects us with self-doubt, increases the likelihood of stress-related illnesses, and makes us less efficient, because we spend our time walking on eggshells and trying to protect ourselves against their careless, mindless, and sometimes downright cruel words, actions, and manipulations.

I guess we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away ... Well, I feel that I should say, "Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries!" And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn't, if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him, but mindless good taste.

Democracy is popular because of the illusion of choice and participation it provides, but when you live in a society in which most people’s knowledge of the world extends as far as sports, sitcoms, reality shows, and celebrity gossip, democracy becomes a very dangerous idea. Until people are properly educated and informed, instead of indoctrinated to be ignorant mindless consumers, democracy is nothing more than a clever tool used by the ruling class to subjugate the rest of us.

So that while others may look on the laws of physics as legislation and God as a human form with beard measured in light-years and nebulae for sandals, Faust's kind (poets) are alone with the task of living in a universe of things which simply are, and cloaking that innate mindlessness with comfortable and pious metaphor so that the "practical" half of humanity may continue in the Great Lie, confident that their machines, dwellings, streets and weather share the same human motives, personal traits and fits of contrariness as they.

So that while others may look on the laws of physics as legislation and God as a human form with beard measured in light-years and nebulae for sandals, Fausto's kind (poets) are alone with the task of living in a universe of things which simply are, and cloaking that innate mindlessness with comfortable and pious metaphor so that the "practical" half of humanity may continue in the Great Lie, confident that their machines, dwellings, streets and weather share the same human motives, personal traits and fits of contrariness as they.

I have often mentioned that the more "spiritual" knowledge or background that you have, the more it tends to work against you in the application of this material as it did for me. Each additional book I read that did not work for me just made me heavier in terms of knowledge, and it worked against my application of future material. So I often tell new readers to forget everything they have learned up to this point when they read my material. Forget all the techniques, rituals, steps, and affirmations that you have been told to use.

What the hell is all this I read in the papers?" "Narrow it down for me," Alan suggested. "I suppose it might have been a misprint," Daniel considered, frowning at the tip of his cigar before he tapped it in the ashtray he kept secreted in the bottom drawer of his desk. "I think I know my own flesh and blood well enough." "Narrow it just a bit further," Alan requested, though he'd already gotten the drift.It was simply too good to end it too soon. "When I read that my own son-my heir, as things are-is spending time fraternizing with a Campbell, I know it's a simple matter of misspelling. What's the girl's name?" Along with a surge of affection, Alan felt a tug of pure and simple mischief. "Which girl is that?" "Dammit,boy! The girl you're seeing who looks like a pixie.Fetching young thing from the picture I saw.Good bones; holds herself well." "Shelby," Alan said, then waited a beat. "Shelby Campbell." Dead silence.Leaning back in his chair, Alan wondered how long it would be before his father remembered to take a breath. It was a pity, he mused, a real pity that he couldn't see the old pirate's face. "Campbell!" The word erupted. "A thieving, murdering Campbell!" "Yes,she's fond of MacGregor's as well." "No son of mine gives the time of day to one of the clan Campbell!" Daniel bellowed. "I'll take a strap to you, Alan Duncan MacGregor!" The threat was as empty now as it had been when Alan had been eight, but delivered in the same full-pitched roar. "I'll wear the hide off you." "You'll have the chance to try this weekend when you meet Shelby." "A Campbell in my house! Hah!" "A Campbell in your house," Alan repeated mildly. "And a Campbell in your family before the end of the year if I have my way." "You-" Emotions warred in him. A Campbell versus his firmest aspiration: to see each of his children married and settled, and himself laden with grandchildren. "You're thinking of marriage to a Campbell?" "I've already asked her.She won't have me...yet," he added. "Won't have you!" Paternal pride dominated all else. "What kind of a nitwit is she? Typical Campbell," he muttered. "Mindless pagans." Daniel suspected they'd had some sorcerers sprinkled among them. "Probably bewitched the boy," he mumbled, scowling into space. "Always had good sense before this.Aye, you bring your Campbell to me," he ordered roundly. "I'll get to the bottom of it." Alan smothered a laugh, forgetting the poor mood that had plagued him only minutes earlier. "I'll ask her." "Ask? Hah! You bring the girl, that daughter of a Campbell, here." Picturing Shelby, Alan decided he wouldn't iss the meeting for two-thirds the popular vote. "I'll see you Friday, Dad.Give Mom my love." "Friday," Daniel muttered, puffing avidly on his cigar. "Aye,aye, Friday." As he hung up Alan could all but see his father rubbing his huge hands togther in anticipation. It should be an interesting weekened.

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently. And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal. And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

Contrast this to the unashamed recommendations of the mindless that are offered to us every day. In place of honest disputation we are offered platitudes about "healing." The idea of "unity" is granted huge privileges over any notion of "division" or, worse, "divisiveness." I cringe every time I hear denunciations of "the politics of division"--as if politics was not division by definition. Semi-educated people join cults whose whole purpose is to dull the pain of thought, or take medications that claim to abolish anxiety. Oriental religions, with their emphasis on Nirvana and fatalism, are repackaged for Westerners as therapy, and platitudes or tautologies masquerade as wisdom.

I've stopped taking it all so personally. The racism and capitalism and ecocide, the sexism and homophobia, how tired everyone in the United States seems even though they claim they are living the best life in the best country in the world. When folks are being worked to the bone and drinking poisoned water in their coffee every morning, there isn't a lot of psychological energy left to figure out that this "best life" is all hoax and a wink. I imagine that anti-Blackness and capitalism and ableism are huge mindless machines hooked into people's spines, making unable to stand for what is right, Every day I pray, not for the revolution, not a savior, just to have the strength to constantly disentangles myself from the machine.

Bah, he still saw the same stupidity. The image of the hanged man in the farming community of Yondern flashed through his mind. Now there was a war brewing between the Steelwielders and some foreign religion. More mindless loss over beliefs and mythology. But.. he could not deny the noble features in his companions. Although Perfidian was too blithe and Elaina too didactic, they had risked their life to do what was right. He did owe them his life. He could not deny the nobility he saw in many different people, bits and pieces of nobility that shined through under pressure. The guards who risked their lives to protect the villagers, Markham who flew at the dangerous dwarf, swords flashing; even an Eruthian merchant who stopped in his journey to share tales with complete strangers'.

When your mind is distracted with all these game machines, you become mindless. When you don’t think, your mind becomes blank. You don’t use your imagination anymore. You don’t plan and you stop looking forward. Television can do the same thing if you’re not careful. It can stop you from using your mind. When you stop using your mind, you chug along on the Mindless Express going nowhere. You forget to look at how beautiful the world is. Your energy flows where your attention goes and then drains away until nothing is left. The more you play with machines, the less you play in the world around you. Eventually, your world disappears because you’ve forgotten about it. You wake up one day and find it all gone. It’s too late. You’ve wasted your time on the Mindless Express. You lose your chance to make a difference in the world. Your story never gets told.

So you've nearly done it, huh?" I said, a trifle inanely but just trying to make conversation. "Yes" said the girl. She said it slowly, as two syllables, as if it hadn't previously occurred to her. There was something serenely mindless in her manner. "Did you ever feel like giving up?" The girl thought for a moment. "No," she said simply. "Really?" I found this amazing. "Did you never think, 'Jeez, this is too much. I don't know that I want to go through with this'?" She thought again, with an air of approaching panic. These were obviously questions that had never penetrated her skull. Her partner came to her rescue. "We had a couple of low moments in the early phases," he said, "but we put our faith in the Lord and His will prevailed." "Praise Jesus," whispered the girl, almost inaudibly. "Ah," I said, and made a mental note to lock my door when I went to bed. "And God bless Allah for the mashed potatoes!" said Katz happily and reached for the bowl for the third time.

Nettie turned her eyes toward me. "Bookworm, are you?" The way she said that word absolutely made my skin crawl. She made me sound like I was some spineless, mindless creature living on mold underground. I do love books, but there is nothing wormy about it. I would much prefer to be called a bat than a worm any day of the week. Just that afternoon at the library storytime, Nancy had read a beautiful poem about a baby bat being born. It described the bats' "sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces." It told how they soared and looped through the night, how they listened by sending out what the poet called "shining needlepoints of sound." Bats live by hearing. I realized, standing in front of Nettie right then, that when I read I am like a bat soaring and swooping through the night, skimming across the treetops to find my way through the densest forest in the darkest night. I listen to the shining needlepoints of sound in every book I read. I am no bookworm. I am the bookbat.

He leaned down and kissed her stomach, her hip bones, while his big hands held her in place. Then his mouth was on her, covering her, licking over her clit. She arched up, crying out as his tongue slid over her folds, making her mindless and crazy. She clutched the pillow, burying her head into the softness as he sucked and licked, nipping over her skin. She clamped her thighs around his head. Whimpered. He was going to drive her right over the edge. His tongue lapped over her clit. "Jack, stop," she said, her voice harsh and panting. "I'm going to... God... No... I want..." He didn't stop. Didn't ease up. He just pushed her harder. His tongue. It was magic. The condom packet slid off her stomach as she planted her feet and rocked into him. Giving up, surrendering to his will and determination. Everything that made Jack, Jack. She coiled tight and then she exploded. She bit her lip, stifling her moans as she rode out wave after wave of delicious sensation. She couldn't think, couldn't put together a sentence, but then he was on her, over her. His palm on her neck, his fingers on her jaw, twisting her face to meet his. His mouth covered hers. He tasted like sex. And lust. His grasp was tight on her jaw, and the way he kissed her, devoured her, sucked her right back under. It was a raw, dirty kiss that consumed her. Her fingers came up to where he held her, and she dug her nails into his wrists. He growled against her lips, biting her, sucking. And the kiss went on and on and on. He finally pulled away, grabbed the condom, and tore open the package. He tossed it onto her body again, ridding himself of his sweats, and then he was naked. And she could only gape at him. Her gaze wide. He had the best cock she'd ever seen in her life. Long and thick. A work of goddamn art. She reached for him, but he grabbed her wrist, shaking his head. "I can't wait, Chlo." He picked up the condom, threw the packet on the floor somewhere and rolled the condom down his hard shaft. She breathed out his name. "Jack." He leaned down, kissing her again, soft and sweet. His erection nudged between her legs. "Just let me inside.

Onset" Watching that frenzy of insects above the bush of white flowers, bush I see everywhere on hill after hill, all I can think of is how terrifying spring is, in its tireless, mindless replications. Everywhere emergence: seed case, chrysalis, uterus, endless manufacturing. And the wrapped stacks of Styrofoam cups in the grocery, lately I can’t stand them, the shelves of canned beans and soups, freezers of identical dinners; then the snowflake-diamond-snowflake of the rug beneath my chair, rows of books turning their backs, even my two feet, how they mirror each other oppresses me, the way they fit so perfectly together, how I can nestle one big toe into the other like little continents that have drifted; my God the unity of everything, my hands and eyes, yours; doesn’t that frighten you sometimes, remembering the pleasure of nakedness in fresh sheets, all the lovers there before you, beside you, crowding you out? And the scouring griefs, don’t look at them all or they’ll kill you, you can barely encompass your own; I’m saying I know all about you, whoever you are, it’s spring and it’s starting again, the longing that begins, and begins, and begins.

Racism has taken over America; discrimination and misogyny are the law. The clash between our better and darker instincts slams home. It is the year 2037. What is now referred to as “The Great Madness of ’16” has set loose moral, economic, and cultural devastation. In the once powerful United States, paranoia and hatred rage at epidemic levels. Behind “The Great Barrier Walls”, Red State citizens suffer near-slavery and dire hunger at the hands of totalitarian leaders calling themselves the PolitiChurch. Family Values Patrols work the streets, raping, maiming, and murdering in the name of Righteousness. Children are corralled and forced to work for the state. The world is tearing itself apart. Between those who choose to hate, in an us-against-them world; and those who find healing through helping those in need. Oppressive governments and bullying leaders crush their followers into mindless subservience, herding them like cattle, whipping up fear and hatred against outsiders. As one side surges into ever more disturbing and twisted violence, some counterforce leading toward caring and truth seems to be awakening in others. In this war there can be no compromise. Had ancients predicted these times? Must mankind destroy itself? Is there no hope? Or is there something we’re not seeing? - Back cover description of "The Soul Hides in Shadows

The central ceremony of Ritual Witchcraft was the so-called "Sabbath" - a word of unknown origin having no relation to its Hebrew homonym. Sabbaths were celebrated four times a year - on Candlemass Day, February 2nd, on Rood Mass Day, May 1st, on Lammas Day, August 1st, and on the eve of All Hallows, October 31st. These were great festivals, often attended by hundreds of devotees, who came from considerable distances. Between Sabbaths there were weekly "Esbats" from small congregations in the village where the ancient religion was still practiced. At all high Sabbaths the devil himself was invariably present, in the person of some man who had inherited, or otherwise acquired, the honor of being the incarnation of the two-faced god of the Dianic cult. The worshipers paid homage to the god by kissing his reverse face - a mask worn, beneath an animal's tail, on the devil's backside. There was then, for some at least of the female devotees, a ritual copulation with the god, who was equipped for this purpose with an artificial phallus of horn or metal. This ceremony was followed by a picnic (for the Sabbaths were celebrated out of doors, near sacred trees or stones), by dancing and finally by a promiscuous sexual orgy that had, no doubt, originally been a magical operation for increasing the fertility of the animals on which primitive hunters and herdsmen depend for their livelihood. The prevailing atmosphere at the Sabbaths was one of good fellowship and mindless, animal joy. When captured and brought to trial, many of the who had taken part in the Sabbath resolutely refused, even under torture, even at the stake, to abjure the religion which had brought them so much happiness.

It's not that we're dumb. On the contrary, many millions of people have exerted great intelligence and creativity in building the modern world. It's more that we're being swept into unknown and dangerous waters by accelerating economic growth. On just one single day of the days I have spent writing this book, as much world trade was carried out as in the whole of 1949; as much scientific research was published as in the whole of 1960; as many telephone calls were made as in all of 1983; as many e-mails were sent as in 1990.11 Our natural, human, and industrial systems, which evolve slowly, are struggling to adapt. Laws and institutions that we might expect to regulate these flows have not been able to keep up. A good example is what is inaccurately described as mindless sprawl in our physical environment. We deplore the relentless spread of low-density suburbs over millions of acres of formerly virgin land. We worry about its environmental impact, about the obesity in people that it fosters, and about the other social problems that come in its wake. But nobody seems to have designed urban sprawl, it just happens-or so it appears. On closer inspection, however, urban sprawl is not mindless at all. There is nothing inevitable about its development. Sprawl is the result of zoning laws designed by legislators, low-density buildings designed by developers, marketing strategies designed by ad agencies, tax breaks designed by economists, credit lines designed by banks, geomatics designed by retailers, data-mining software designed by hamburger chains, and automobiles designed by car designers. The interactions between all these systems and human behavior are complicated and hard to understand-but the policies themselves are not the result of chance. "Out of control" is an ideology, not a fact.

Derangement - reasoned derangement: that was the key. To break the mould, the chains, the bars that held the flesh and the spirit; to throw off the blinds, the slings, the splints and trusses with which life binds us; to derange and twist and destroy the whole fabric of the prison, and to emerge whole and free. He was not afraid to be free - nor to find his own way to freedom. He was not afraid of "queerness" and "different," of apartness and aloneness, of ranging beyond the bounds which men set for themselves - into a fantasy and hallucination, rapture, and ecstasy. As a voyou (for this was part of it - the seen, the outward) he must pledge himself to the rejection of all forms, all rules and customs, all mindless conformity and acquiescence. And as a voyant he must push on for ever outward, for ever expanding his experience and consciousness; seeing clearly, with fresh eyes; seeing beyond the veils, beyond the shams and effigies, beyond illusion and lie, to the truth. "Yea, verily, verily, I say unto you -" (sayeth God) "- ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

The most vexing managerial aspect of this problem of asymmetry, where the easiest path to growth and profit is up, and the most deadly attacks come from below, is that “good” management—working harder and smarter and being more visionary—doesn’t solve the problem. The resource allocation process involves thousands of decisions, some subtle and some explicit, made every day by hundreds of people, about how their time and the company’s money ought to be spent. Even when a senior manager decides to pursue a disruptive technology, the people in the organization are likely to ignore it or, at best, cooperate reluctantly if it doesn’t fit their model of what it takes to succeed as an organization and as individuals within an organization. Well-run companies are not populated by yes-people who have been taught to carry out mindlessly the directives of management. Rather, their employees have been trained to understand what is good for the company and what it takes to build a successful career within the company. Employees of great companies exercise initiative to serve customers and meet budgeted sales and profits. It is very difficult for a manager to motivate competent people to energetically and persistently pursue a course of action that they think makes no sense.

The demolition of the wall of silence, against which the theme of child abuse constantly runs up, marks only the beginning of a long overdue development. It creates the conditions that make it possible to free the truth from the prison of misleading opinions and well-established lies. But for the full unfolding of the truth and its deployment in the service of life, more is required than a merely statistical grasp of the facts. Some people may, for instance, say, "Yes, I was often spanked as a child," while remaining, emotionally, miles from the truth—because they cannot feel. They lack the consciousness, the emotional knowledge, of what it means, as small, defenseless children, to be beaten and shoved around by incensed adults. They say the word "spanked" but thereby identify with the mindless, destructive behavior of the adult who violates, abuses, and destroys the child without the slightest knowledge of or concern for what he is doing and what it may result in. Even Adolf Hitler never denied that he had been beaten. What he denied was that these beatings were painful. And by totally falsifying his feelings, he would become a mass murderer. That would never have occurred had he been capable of feeling, and weeping about, his situation and had he not repressed his justifiable hatred of those responsible for his distress but consciously experienced and comprehended it. Instead he perverted this hatred into ideology. The same holds for Stalin, Ceausescu, and all the other beaten and humiliated children who later turn into tyrants and criminals.

© 2000 The Barcelona Review, interview made by Sarah Martin with Patricia Anthony on the subject of her novel FLANDERS - Why did you choose to write about World War I? The easy answer to your question "Why?" would be that I wanted to write about death in all its aspects, from the terror and pain of it to the transcendent beauty of the end. Normally I don't begin a novel with a theme, but allow the theme to grow organically, just as I allow my characters and story to grow on their own and follow where they lead. Anyway, this time, rather than the idea, I played with theme. I looked around history for just the right death--the worst grinding horror of it, the great maw of the beast. The perfect choice, of course, was WWI. Not when the Americans entered the war - then the war became mobile. The soldiers climbed up out of the trenches. The early tanks made their debut. Earlier, then. So the secondary characters had to be British, as I didn't know enough about the Germans. It wouldn't be appropriate to set the novel in 1914 when, despite the slaughter of the British Army, many soldiers still believed the war would be won soon. No. It had to be the tag end of 1915, expanding until that dismal, wet autumn of 1916 when in Flanders the mud was so deep that the wounded drowned in it, that horses couldn't move. Hope was lost and all that was left was the daily grind of battle. War had become commonplace, a way of life, no longer a goal to be won. War had become the terrible, mindless machine that rolls over everything in its path - morality and courage and even outrage become moot in its shadow. But in that darkness, Travis Lee's enlightenment. And in the end, of course, the only light of the book resides in him, even though his external world is uncompromisingly dark. What I wanted to do was show one man who faces the worst that life and death has to offer, yet still has inner peace. Travis Lee's story is that of a man on his road toward enlightenment.

It's a cheval," said Mick, huge eyed. ..."A mindless, soulless, sexless shell, genderless as a baby doll," she said to me--at me--whoever she was talking to, it wasn't me. She didn't believe I existed.

It doesn’t cost much to be shallow, but it costs you everything to be learned. It doesn’t cost much to be dull, but it costs you everything to be bright. It doesn’t cost much to be uncultured, but it costs you everything to be educated. It doesn’t cost much to be mindless, but it costs you everything to be wise. It doesn’t cost much to be loud, but it costs you everything to be silent. It doesn’t cost much to be rude, but it costs you everything to be polite. It doesn’t cost much to be simple, but it costs you everything to be sophisticated. It doesn’t cost much to be careless, but it costs you everything to be cautious. It doesn’t cost much to be weak, but it costs you everything to be strong. It doesn’t cost much to be mediocre, but it costs you everything to be great. It doesn’t cost much to be obscure, but it costs you everything to be famous. It doesn’t cost much to be inferior, but it costs you everything to be superior. It doesn’t cost much to be relaxed, but it costs you everything to be focused. It doesn’t cost much to be lazy, but it costs you everything to be determined. It doesn’t cost much to be incompetant, but it costs you everything to be diligent. It doesn’t cost much to be defeated, but it costs you everything to be victorious. It doesn’t cost much to be narrow, but it costs you everything to be open. It doesn’t cost much to be shameful, but it costs you everything to be honorable. It doesn’t cost much to be uncouth, but it costs you everything to be uncultured. It doesn’t cost much to be sinful, but it costs you everything to be virtuous. It doesn’t cost much to be sad, but it costs you everything to be happy. It doesn’t cost much to be cruel, but it costs you everything to be kind. It doesn’t cost much to be gentle, but it costs you everything to be firm. It doesn’t cost much to be hasty, but it costs you everything to be patient. It doesn’t cost much to be backward, but it costs you everything to be forward. It doesn’t cost much to be down, but it costs you everything to be up. It doesn’t cost much to be low, but it costs you everything to be high.

Many who mindlessly clock in to another's dream, have looked failure in its eyes and bowed

If you’re about to request a search party for your free time, try issuing a warrant for mindless activities that do not contribute to your goals as a student.

You know what Human means? HUMAN means Harmonious across Hate, Undivided through Diversity, Mindful amidst Mindlessness, Amiable amidst Apathy, and Neighborly amidst Nonchalance.

Mindlessness leads to life fulness.

It’s something Eckhardt quoted to me,” her eyes gleamed. “The difference between chance and purpose. It was something about the difference between falling into the grinding power of a mindless machine versus falling into the loving hands of a father. Eckhardt said all the language of men fell short in explaining the difference. He was right.

If you knew that you would die in 14 days, what would you do? What about a year? What about 25 years? My guess is, in each circumstance, that everyone would miss as much of their life as they do now. If you are in a habit of mindlessly putting your pennies into the slot machine, you will do it until your pockets are empty. This is why paying attention is so important.

Much of my day can consist of me being lost in thoughts. An equal amount of the day can be lost in scrolling a Facebook feed, mindless and solitary in a room full of people. Now add in the amount of time that I sleep. This is the recipe for a lot of time with little attention.

Anger ignites illusion, illusion ignites mindlessness, mindlessness ignites fall of self-respect.

No Struggle No Life (The Sonnet) Ain't no life without struggle, Ain't no heart without heartbreak. Ain't no destination without the journey, Ain't no courage without some dread. Ain't no clarity without some confusion, Ain't no serenity without suffering. Ain't no contentment without disappointment, Ain't no resilience without failing. Ain't no mindfulness without mindlessness, Ain't no uplift without some devastation. Ain't no knowledge without ignorance, Ain't no salvation without self-annihilation. Ain't no I without the Us, without the We. Ain't no We, unless the norm is nonbinary.

Humanitarian Nuclear Physics (The Sonnet) One nuclear warhead contains 9 lbs of plutonium, Which can electrify 2000 households for a year. Yet you use that majestic power of atom as pawn, In your stoneage geopolitical games of fear. When monkeys crack the mystery of the atom, Without developing any civilized purpose, They go blind with the madness of power, Atom bombs become newage arrows and spears. Hypnotized by the mindless pursuit of "could", Apes rarely ever stop to question if they should! What good is such science without conscience, What good is a scientist without a vision for good! Either atom bombs will be obsolete as bow and arrow, Or humankind will go extinct like dinosaurs tomorrow.

so by way of providing an intellectual first-aid kit, I would suggest the following: Do not look for familiar landmarks-you won't find them; you are not entering the backyard of your neighbors, but a universe you did not know existed. Do not look for familiar faces - you are about to meet a race of giants, who might have and ought to have been your neighbors. Do not say that these giants are "unreal" because you have never seen them before - check your eyesight, not Hugo's, and your premises, not his; it was not his purpose to show you what you had seen a thousand times before. Do not say the actions of these giants are "impossible" because they are heroic, noble, intelligent, beautiful - remember that the cowardly, the depraved, the mindless, the ugly are not all that is possible to man. Do not say that this glowing new universe is an "escape" - you will witness harder, more demanding, more tragic battles than any you have seen on poolroom street corners; Do not say that "life is not like that" - ask yourself WHOSE life?

What extended intelligence is NOT is a mindless cheerleader who says, "Oh, that is a good idea, carry on! You can do it!" Often the new data points suggest new avenues of exploration or thought or research. Work with Ei enough, and the logic of it begins to rub off on you.

I played your favourite tunes on the old piano I sang mindlessly the song you loved the most I wished for you to walk in and sing with me Then I realized your favourite song has changed

To accept the meaninglessness of existence, is to isolate oneself from the world and the imprisoned, mindless actors within it. By world, I mean the pseudo-sapien world. For the modern sapien world is the antithesis of wise, and the quintessence of the absurd.