“
It is a pure soul who can hold true the innocence and timelessness of passion in another soul. Each unveiling the greatest pieces of the other, locked together at the heart for eternity
”
”
Christine Zolendz (Saving Grace (Mad World, #2))
“
The others went upstairs, a slow unwilling procession. If this had been an old house, with creaking wood, and dark shadows, and heavily panelled walls, there might have been an eerie feeling. But this house was the essence of modernity. There were no dark corners - no possible sliding panels - it was flooded with electric light - everything was new and bright and shining. There was nothing hidden in this house, nothing concealed. It had no atmosphere about it. Somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all. They exchanged good-nights on the upper landing. Each of them went into his or her own room, and each of them automatically, almost without conscious thought, locked the door....
”
”
Agatha Christie (And Then There Were None)
“
That’s what I tell people. My official version of the truth.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)
“
As if any one of those people isn’t already looking around for a new guru to make sense out of their risk-free boredom of a lifestyle while they watch the news on television and pass judgment on me.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)
“
In other words, Theology is practical: especially now. In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones — bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties to-day are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
“
Many women do not join organized resistance against sexism precisely because sexism has not meant an absolute lack of choices. They may know they are discriminated against on the basis of sex, but they do not equate this with oppression. Under capitalism, patriarchy is structured so that sexism restricts women's behavior in some realms even as freedom from limitations is allowed in other spheres. The absence of extreme restrictions leads many women to ignore the areas in which they are exploited or discriminated against; it may even lead them to imagine that no women are oppressed.
”
”
bell hooks (Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom)
“
One voice whispered Beloved. She spread her colors on the starshine to embrace this land he had given her, and there were no shadows to darken the Fire soaring across the sand. Only light, only joy.
No one heard Elisel scream. Only the dragons saw her rise into the night sky like an arrow, mute after that one keening wail. It was two days before she returned to Skybowl.
Long before that, they found Sioned.
”
”
Melanie Rawn (Skybowl (Dragon Star, #3))
“
Exercise: Letting Go As you read this, take a deep breath and, as you exhale, allow all the tension to leave your body. Let your scalp and your forehead and your face relax. Your head does not need to be tense in order for you to read. Let your tongue and your throat and your shoulders relax. You can hold a book with relaxed arms and hands. Do that now. Let your back and your abdomen and your pelvis relax. Let your breathing be at peace as you relax your legs and feet. Is there a big change in your body since you began the previous paragraph? Notice how much you hold on. If you are doing it with your body, you are doing it with your mind. In this relaxed, comfortable position, say to yourself, “I am willing to let go. I release. I let go. I release all ten- sion. I release all fear. I release all anger. I release all guilt. I release all sadness. I let go of all old limitations. I let go, and I am at peace. I am at peace with myself. I am at peace with the process of life. I am safe.” Go over this exercise two or three times. Feel the ease of letting go.
”
”
Louise L. Hay (You Can Heal Your Life)
“
I will believe that the battle of feminism is over, and that the female has reached a position of equality with the male, when I hear that a country has allowed itself to be turned upside-down and led to the brink of war by its passion for a totally bald woman writer.
”
”
Rebecca West (Black Lamb and Grey Falcon)
“
The male ego had spent two millennia running unchecked by its female counterpart. The Priory of Sion believed that it was this obliteration of the sacred feminine in modern life that had caused what the Hopi Native Americans called koyanisquatsi - "life out of balance" - an unstable situation marked by testosterone-fueled wars, a plethora of misogynistic societies, and a growing disrespect for Mother Earth.
”
”
Dan Brown (The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2))
“
All is illusion; nothing is real.
There are no true windows or halls.
The doors are not there and they can't hold the light.
My life's not contained in these walls.
”
”
L.S. Hartfield
“
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis argues that human beings cannot be truly good or moral without faith in God and without submis- sion to the will of Christ. Unfortunately, Lewis does not provide any actual data for his assertions. They are nothing more than the mild musings of a wealthy British man, pondering the state of humanity’s soul between his sips of tea. Had Lewis actually famil- iarized himself with real human beings of the secular sort, per- haps sat and talked with them, he would have had to reconsider this notion. As so many apostates explained to me, morality is most certainly possible beyond the confines of faith. Can people be good without God? Can a moral orientation be sustained and developed outside of a religious context? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes.
”
”
Phil Zuckerman (Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion)
“
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow, Nightly I visit.
”
”
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
“
Our "increasing mental sickness" may find expression in neurotic symptoms. These symptoms are conspicuous and extremely distressing. But "let us beware," says Dr. Fromm, "of defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. Symptoms as such are not our enemy, but our friend; where there are symptoms there is conflict, and conflict always indicates that the forces of life which strive for integration and happiness are still fighting." The really hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does." They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted, still cherish "the illusion of individuality," but in fact they have been to a great extent deindividualized. Their conformity is developing into something like uniformity. But "uniformity and freedom are incompatible. Uniformity and mental health are incompatible too. . . . Man is not made to be an automaton, and if he becomes one, the basis for mental health is destroyed.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World Revisited)
“
ROM11.26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
”
”
Anonymous (Holy Bible: King James Version)
“
Canta, oh hija de Sion; da voces de júbilo, oh Israel; gózate y regocíjate de todo corazón, hija de Jerusalén.
”
”
Casiodoro de Reina (Reina Valera 1960)
“
Tocad trompeta en Sion, y dad alarma en mi santo monte; tiemblen todos los moradores de la tierra, porque viene el día de Jehová, porque está cercano.
”
”
Casiodoro de Reina (Reina Valera 1960)
“
salvation is open to all. The humanist belief in progress is only a secular ver sion of this Christian faith.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Todo el que quiera gobernar debe recurrir al engaño y a la hipocresía. En política, el honor y la sinceridad se convierten en vicios que despachan a un mandatario más pronto que sus mayores enemigos.
”
”
Sergei Nilus (Los protocolos de los sabios de Sion)
“
And then Gwalchmai said, ‘No one should distract an ordained knight from his thoughts in a discourteous way, for perhaps he has either suffered a loss or he is thinking about the woman he loves best.
”
”
Sioned Davies (The Mabinogion)
“
Reasons Why I Loved Being With Jen
I love what a good friend you are. You’re really engaged with the lives of the people you love. You organize lovely experiences for them. You make an effort with them, you’re patient with them, even when they’re sidetracked by their children and can’t prioritize you in the way you prioritize them.
You’ve got a generous heart and it extends to people you’ve never even met, whereas I think that everyone is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but really I was jealous that you always thought the best of people.
You are a bit too anxious about being seen to be a good person and you definitely go a bit overboard with your left-wing politics to prove a point to everyone. But I know you really do care. I know you’d sign petitions and help people in need and volunteer at the homeless shelter at Christmas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us.
I love how quickly you read books and how absorbed you get in a good story. I love watching you lie on the sofa reading one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other galaxy.
I love that you’re always trying to improve yourself. Whether it’s running marathons or setting yourself challenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to therapy every week. You work hard to become a better version of yourself. I think I probably didn’t make my admiration for this known and instead it came off as irritation, which I don’t really feel at all.
I love how dedicated you are to your family, even when they’re annoying you. Your loyalty to them wound me up sometimes, but it’s only because I wish I came from a big family.
I love that you always know what to say in conversation. You ask the right questions and you know exactly when to talk and when to listen. Everyone loves talking to you because you make everyone feel important.
I love your style. I know you think I probably never noticed what you were wearing or how you did your hair, but I loved seeing how you get ready, sitting in front of the full-length mirror in our bedroom while you did your make-up, even though there was a mirror on the dressing table.
I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in November and that you’d pick up spiders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not.
I love how free you are. You’re a very free person, and I never gave you the satisfaction of saying it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you because of your boring, high-pressure job and your stuffy upbringing, but I know what an adventurer you are underneath all that.
I love that you got drunk at Jackson’s christening and you always wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never complained about getting up early to go to work with a hangover. Other than Avi, you are the person I’ve had the most fun with in my life.
And even though I gave you a hard time for always trying to for always trying to impress your dad, I actually found it very adorable because it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to anywhere in history, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beautiful and clever and funny you are. That you are spectacular even without all your sports trophies and music certificates and incredible grades and Oxford acceptance.
I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked myself, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of myself, either. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental.
I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Good Material)
“
This is the history of un-art—the cultural productions that are not intended to convey beauty, not organized around the notion of singular genius expres- sion, not designed to sooth audiences and to confirm the order of things. Un-art comes to unmake worlds.
”
”
J. Jack Halberstam (Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire (Perverse Modernities: A Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe))
“
Sion calls Anne an eel, he calls her a slippery dipper from the slime, and he remembers what the cardinal had called her: my serpentine enemy. Sion says, she goes to it with her brother; he says, what, her brother George? ‘Any brother she's got. Those kind keep it in the family. They do filthy French tricks, like –’
‘Can you keep your voice down?’ He looks around, as if spies might be swimming by the boat.
‘– and that's how she trusts herself she don't give in to Henry, because if she lets him do it and she gets a boy he's, thanks very much, now clear off, girl – so she's oh, Your Highness, I never could allow – because she knows that very night her brother's inside her, licking her up to the lungs, and then he's, excuse me, sister, what shall I do with this big package – she says, oh,don't distress yourself, my lord brother, shove it up the back entry, it'll come to no harm there.
”
”
Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1))
“
Freedom of speech is priceless to me. So is the freedom of expres- sion of thoughts and beliefs as an expression of yourself, the free- dom of showing that you are different, the freedom of being the force motivating people around you, and the freedom of being motivated by the successes of others.
”
”
Maxim Behar (The Global PR Revolution: How Thought Leaders Succeed in the Transformed World of PR)
“
At that time Math son of Mathonwy could not live unless his feet were in the lap of a virgin, except when the turmoil of war prevented him.
”
”
Sioned Davies (The Mabinogion)
“
Salmo 133 Canción de las gradas: de David. 1 ¡Mirad cuán bueno y cuán suave es habitar los hermanos igualmente en uno! 2 Es como el buen óleo sobre la cabeza, el cual desciende sobre la barba, la barba de Aarón, que desciende sobre el borde de sus vestiduras; 3 como el rocío de Hermón, que desciende sobre los montes de Sion. Porque allí envía el SEÑOR bendición, y vida eterna.
”
”
Russell M. Stendal (Las Sagradas Escrituras (Jubilee Bible 2000))
“
In effect, our bodies and brains are a device or vessel ‘birthed’ by our Divine Spark out of DNA to act as information gathering equipment, as well as earthly transportation vehicles and as energy harvesting and processing devises. Additionally, the Divine Spark is capable of “morphing” our bodies into a star or light-gate for entrance to Sion and to be able to function there.
”
”
William Henry (THE SECRET OF SION: Jesus’s Stargate, the Beaming Garment and the Galactic Core in Ascension Art)
“
It is a truth universally acknow-
ledged, that a single man in posses-
sion of a good fortune, must be in
want of a wife.
However little known the feelings
or views of such a man may be on his
first entering a neighbourhood, this
truth is so well fixed in the minds of
the surrounding families, that he is
considered as the rightful property of
some one or other of their daugh-
ters.
”
”
Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
“
All I really want to say is this:
Get in the water.
Walk along the water. Move across its surface. Get under it.
Sit in it. Leap into it. Listen to it. Touch the water. Float on it. Close your eyes and drink a big glass.
Fall more deeply in love with water in all its shapes, colors, and forms. Let it heal you and make you a better, stronger ver- sion of yourself. You need water. And water needs you now.
I wish you water.
”
”
Wallace J Nichols
“
Por lo cual también contiene la Escritura: He aquí, pongo en Sion la principal piedra del ángulo, escogida, preciosa; Y el que creyere en él, no será avergonzado. 7 Para vosotros, pues, los que creéis, él es precioso; pero para los que no creen, La piedra que los edificadores desecharon, Ha venido a ser la cabeza del ángulo; 8 y: Piedra de tropiezo, y roca que hace caer, porque tropiezan en la palabra, siendo desobedientes; a lo cual fueron también destinados.
”
”
Casiodoro de Reina (Reina Valera 1960)
“
She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d really chosen. We weren’t in each other’s lives because of any obligation to the past or convenience of the present. We had no shared history and we had no reason to spend all our time to gether. But we did. Our friendship intensified as all our friends had children – she, like me, was unconvinced about having kids. And she, like me, found herself in a relationship in her early thirties where they weren’t specifically working towards starting a family.
By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Every time there was another pregnancy announcement from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And another one!’ and she’d know what I meant.
She became the person I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, because she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink without planning it a month in advance. Our friendship made me feel liberated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sympathy or concern for her. If I could admire her decision to remain child-free, I felt encouraged to admire my own. She made me feel normal. As long as I had our friendship, I wasn’t alone and I had reason to believe I was on the right track.
We arranged to meet for dinner in Soho after work on a Friday. The waiter took our drinks order and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Martinis.
‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling water, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her uncharacteristic abstinence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m pregnant.’
I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imagine the expression on my face was particularly enthusiastic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an unwarranted but intense sense of betrayal. In a delayed reaction, I stood up and went to her side of the table to hug her, unable to find words of congratulations. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in vagaries about it ‘just being the right time’ and wouldn’t elaborate any further and give me an answer. And I needed an answer. I needed an answer more than anything that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a realization that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it.
When I woke up the next day, I realized the feeling I was experiencing was not anger or jealousy or bitterness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t really gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had disappeared and there was nothing they could do to change that. Unless I joined them in their spaces, on their schedules, with their families, I would barely see them.
And I started dreaming of another life, one completely removed from all of it. No more children’s birthday parties, no more christenings, no more barbecues in the suburbs. A life I hadn’t ever seriously contemplated before. I started dreaming of what it would be like to start all over again. Because as long as I was here in the only London I knew – middle-class London, corporate London, mid-thirties London, married London – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Good Material)
“
Memory is an artist, an impressionist. She adds colour, sound, smell and emotion to events at her whim. She adds, subtracts and embellishes until the event she started documenting is quite unrecognisable to the others who also experienced it, but at the same time, is more truthful to the owner of the memory. There is no reality. There are only impres- sions of past events, made by a million selves, all interacting with each other, vying for superiority. Reality doesn’t exist, perhaps in the end, that’s my only truth.
”
”
Nigel Jay Cooper (Beat the Rain: A dark, twisting 'fall out of love' story with an epic end you won’t see coming)
“
Salmo 128 [Libros] Bienaventuranza del que teme a Dios Cántico de ascenso gradual. 1 Bienaventurado todo aquel que teme al SEÑOR, que anda en sus caminos. 2Cuando comas del trabajo de tus manos, dichoso serás y te irá bien. 3Tu mujer será como fecunda vid en el interior de tu casa; tus hijos como plantas de olivo alrededor de tu mesa. 4He aquí que así será bendecido el hombre que teme al SEÑOR. 5 El SEÑOR te bendiga desde Sion, veas la prosperidad de Jerusalén todos los días de tu vida, 6y veas a los hijos de tus hijos. ¡Paz sea sobre Israel!
”
”
Anonymous (La Biblia de las Américas (LBLA))
“
What do you consider to
be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth?
One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me
tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and
cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world be-
low and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once
a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they
may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing
nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and
alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what
wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his transgres-
sions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and
he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet
hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age:
’Hope,’ he says, ’cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness,
and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;– hope which is
mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.
”
”
Plato (The Republic)
“
Love. This daughter of Sion1 does not long for Masses or sermons, or fastings or prayers. Reason. And why, Lady Love? says Reason. These are the food of holy souls. Love. That is true, says Love, for those who beg; but this Soul begs for nothing, for she has no need to long for anything which is outside her. Now listen, Reason, says Love. Why should this Soul long for those things which I have just named, since God is everywhere, just as much without them as with them? This Soul has no thought, no word, no work, except for employing the grace of the divine Trinity. 2 This Soul feels no disquiet for any sins which she once committed, 3 nor for the suffering which God underwent for her, nor for the sins and the troubles in which her neighbors live. Reason. Oh God, what does this mean, Love? says Reason. Teach me to understand this, since you have reassured me about my other questions. Love. It means, says Love, that this Soul is not her own, and so she can feel no disquiet; for her thought is at rest in a place of peace, that is in the Trinity, and therefore she cannot move from there, nor feel disquiet, so long as her beloved is untroubled. But that anyone falls into sin, or that sin was ever committed, Love replies to Reason, this is displeasing to her will just as it is to God: for it is his own displeasure which gives such displeasure to this Soul. But none the less, says Love, in spite of such displeasure there is no disquiet in the Trinity, nor is there in such a Soul who is at rest within the Trinity. But if this Soul, who is in such exalted rest, could help her neighbors, she would help them in their need with all her might. But the thoughts of such Souls are so divine that they do not dwell upon past4 or created things, so as to apprehend disquiet in themselves, for God is good beyond all comprehending.
”
”
Marguerite Porete (The Mirror of Simple Souls (Notre Dame Texts in Medieval Culture Book 6))
“
Yet that which is above all this, the favour and the love of Heaven, we have great argument to think in a peculiar manner propitious and propending towards us. Why else was this nation chosen before any other, that out of her, as out of Sion, should be proclaimed and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to all Europe? And had it not been the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the divine and admirable spirit of Wickliff, to suppress him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Huss and Jerome, no nor the name of Luther or of Calvin, had been ever known: the glory of reforming all our neighbours had been completely ours.
”
”
John Milton (Areopagitica)
“
Yet that which is above all this, the favour and the love of Heaven, we have great argument to think in a peculiar manner propitious and propending towards us. Why else was this nation chosen before any other, that out of her, as out of Sion, should be proclaimed and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to all Europe? And had it not been the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the divine and admirable spirit of Wickliff, to suppress him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Huns and Jerome, no nor the name of Luther or of Calvin, had been ever known: the glory of reforming all our neighbours had been completely ours.
”
”
John Milton (Areopagitica)
“
But as to our country and our race, as long as the well compacted structure of our church and state, the sanctuary, the holy of holies of that ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress at once and a temple, shall stand inviolate on the brow of the British Sion—as long as the British Monarchy, not more limited than fenced by the orders of the State, shall, like the proud Keep of Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of it’s kindred and coeval towers, as long as this awful structure shall oversee and guard the subjected land—so long the mounds and dykes of the low, fat, Bedford level will have nothing to fear from all the pickaxes of all the levellers of France. As long as our Sovereign Lord the King, and his faithful subjects, the Lords and Commons of this realm, the triple cord, which no man can break; the solemn, sworn, constitutional frank-pledge of this nation; the firm guarantees of each others being, and each others rights; the joint and several securities, each in it’s place and order, for every kind and every quality, of property and of dignity—As long as these endure, so long the Duke of Bedford is safe: and we are all safe together—the high from the blights of envy and the spoliations of rapacity; the low from the iron hand of oppression and the insolent spurn of contempt.
”
”
Edmund Burke (A Letter To A Noble Lord)
“
A teacher in Oklahoma reflected on the post-graduation aftermath of student social divisions. “The in crowd always hangs together, even after graduation. They are the ones who will become debutantes after their freshman year in college. The others tend to drift away. They don’t get invited to the parties, they are laughed at because they aren’t wearing designer clothes, etc.,” she said. But when it comes down to the popular students versus the outcasts, the latter “are more sure of themselves (even with the ridicule), and usually turn out to be more successful and well-adjusted. I would take the outcasts in a heartbeat.” So would I.
”
”
Alexandra Robbins
“
They have confirmed my belief that the ideas people choose to have
about themselves largely determine the quality of the lives they lead. We
can choose to believe in ourselves, and thus to strive, to risk, to perse-
vere, and to achieve. Or we can choose to cling to security and medi-
ocrity. We can choose to set no limits on ourselves, to set high goals and
dream big dreams. We can use those dreams to fuel our spirits with pas-
sion. Or we can become philosophers of the worst kind, inventing ways
to rationalize our failures, inventing excuses for mediocrity. We can fall
in love with our own abilities and our own potential, then choose to
maximize those abilities. Or we can decide that we have no special tal-
ents or abilities and try to be happy being safe and comfortable.
”
”
Bob Rotella (How Champions Think: In Sports and in Life)
“
And then one day everything changed; the world shifted on its axis, our consciousness evolved. Instead of making their purchase deci- sions based solely on price, people became willing to pay more for sustainable or organic products. They no longer wanted their meat mass-produced; they wanted grass-fed beef from a local farmer. Rather than just a good sweat from their exercise, they also wanted mindfulness, so they took up SoulCycle, yoga, or meditation. And rather than settling down to buy their dream home and build their 401k, they spent their resources searching out experiences they could share and cherish more than they would another purse or car. Above all else, they wouldn’t accept the status quo. Instead of working in secure yet unfulfilling jobs, they wanted to create an existence that reflected their innermost desires and beliefs. And they did, in record numbers.
”
”
Alan Philips
“
The wind was blustering again, whipping the curtains. Peter went over to close the window. The moon was now high on the eastern rise, radiant above the church where small water-cart clouds raced across the sky. About to fasten the window latch, his eye was drawn down to the garden. The fox stood under the apple tree looking up at him. The animal began to bark. Each monosyllabic yip and yap seemed to mimic human speech. By some strange power or spell, Peter could understand what the animal was saying. He heard the words loud and clear.
‘I-am Si-on,’ the fox barked. Man and beast looked unwaveringly at one another, neither moving a muscle. The wind stopped blowing, the curtains hung at rest.
Peter leaned out the window.
‘What do you want from me?’ he called down.
‘Save-us-from-the-stea-lers,’ barked Sion. Peter’s mind reeled. It would be madness to believe he could understand what the fox was saying—lunacy to think he could commune with it! ‘I must still be asleep,’ he reasoned, closing the window. He sat down on the bed, folding his hands in his lap. But this is not a dream. Lying down, he pulled the bedcovers over himself. ‘Save-us! Save-us! Save-us!’ the fox kept barking from the garden.
”
”
Robin Craig Clark (Heart of the Earth: A Fantastic Mythical Adventure of Courage and Hope, Bound by a Shared Destiny)
“
And one gathers from this enormous modern literature of confes- 11
sion and self- analysis that to write a work of genius is almost always
a feat of prodigious difficulty. Everything is against the likelihood that
it will come from the writer’s mind whole and entire. Generally material circumstances are against it. Dogs will bark; people will interrupt;
money must be made; health will break down. Further, accentuating all
these difficulties and making them harder to bear is the world’s notorious indifference. It does not ask people to write poems and novels
and histories; it does not need them. It does not care whether Flaubert
finds the right word or whether Carlyle scrupulously verifies this or
that fact. Naturally, it will not pay for what it does not want. And
so the writer, Keats, Flaubert, Carlyle, suffers, especially in the creative years of youth, every form of distraction and discouragement. A
curse, a cry of agony, rises from those books of analysis and confession. “Mighty poets in their misery dead” — that is the burden of their
song. If anything comes through in spite of all this, it is a miracle, and
probably no book is born entire and uncrippled as it was conceived.
But
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Lee A. Jacobus (A World of Ideas)
“
It had been hard enough to drive past the area. It was harder to imagine what it was like living there. Yet people lived with the stench and the terrible air, and had careers there. Even lawyers lived there, I was told. Was the smell of excrement only on the periphery, from the iridescent black lake? No; that stench went right through Dharavi. Even more astonishing was to read in a Bombay magazine an article about Papu's suburb of Sion, in which the slum of Dharavi was written about almost as a bohemian feature of the place, something that added spice to humdrum middle-class life. Bombay clearly innoculated its residents in some way.
I had another glimpse of Dharavi some time later, when I was going in a taxi to the domestic airport at Santa Cruz. The taxi-driver - a Muslim from Hyderabad, full of self-respect, nervous about living in Bombay, fearful of sinking, planning to go back home soon, and in the meantime nervously particular about his car and his clothes - the taxi-driver showed the apartment blocks on one side of the airport road where hutment dwellers had been rehoused. In the other direction he showed the marsh on which Dharavi had grown and, away in the distance, the low black line of the famous slum.
Seen from here, Dharavi looked artificial, unnecessary even in Bombay: allowed to exist because, as people said, it was a vote-bank, and hate-bank, something to be drawn upon by many people. All the conflicting currents of Bombay flowed there as well; all the new particularities were heightened there. And yet people lived there, subject to this extra exploitation, because in Bombay, once you had a place to stay, you could make money.
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V.S. Naipaul (India: A Million Mutinies Now)
“
Psaume 128 1Cantique des degrés. Heureux tout homme qui craint l'Eternel, Qui marche dans ses voies! 2Tu jouis alors du travail de tes mains, Tu es heureux, tu prospères. 3Ta femme est comme une vigne féconde Dans l'intérieur de ta maison; Tes fils sont comme des plants d'olivier, Autour de ta table. 4C'est ainsi qu'est béni L'homme qui craint l'Eternel. 5L'Eternel te bénira de Sion, Et tu verras le bonheur de Jérusalem Tous les jours de ta vie; 6Tu verras les fils de tes fils. Que la paix soit sur Israël!
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Anonymous (La Bible (La Sainte Bible - Ancien et Nouveau Testaments, Louis Segond 1910) (French Edition))
“
Z ipes’s concerns overlap with those of feminists such as Marcia Lieberman, Karen Rowe, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and, to a lesser extent, Ruth B. Bottigheimer, who diagnose fairy tales as symptoms of their cultures’ misogynistic traditions.11 For feminists, the fairy tales favored by a given society reflect its gender biases. Accordingly, Amer- icans’ Disney-abetted passion for “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Snow White,” and “Beauty and the Beast” testifies to our culture’s expediently sexist projection of women as passively compliant, self- sacrificing, beauty-obsessed creatures devoid of agency.12 The inclu- sion of Russian fairy tales in Western feminists’ sphere of reference would necessitate a modification of their critique, for, Russian society’s notorious ageless sexism notwithstanding, some of Russia’s favorite tales (“The Feather of Finist the Bright Falcon,” “The Maiden Tsar,” and “The Frog Princess”) reverse the gender roles in the hackneyed paradigm that feminists deem generically quintessential.
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Anonymous
“
It looked up at them with animal-like intelligence, arching its back as it prepared to leap. “A ghoul!” Sion shouted. The robed skeleton waved its hand, and the doors slammed shut with an ominous boom, locking them in. Then Richter heard something even more disturbing from his Companion. “Fuck my life!
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Aleron Kong (The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds, #1))
“
For us there are still the great gods Sex, Shekels, and Stomach (an unholy trinity constituting one god, self), and the other enslaving trio, Pleasure, Possessions, and Position, whose worship is described in 1 John 2:16 as “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in posses-sions.” Football, the Firm, Freemasonry, and the Family are also gods for some, and indeed the list of other gods is endless, for anything that anyone allows to run his life becomes his god, and the claimants for this prerogative are legion. In the matter of life’s basic loyalty, temptation is a many-headed monster.
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J.I. Packer (Keeping the Ten Commandments)
“
La râul Babilonului, acolo am şezut şi am plâns, când ne-am adus aminte de Sion. În sălcii, în mijlocul lor, am atârnat harpele noastre. Că acolo cei ce ne-au robit pe noi ne-au cerut nouă cântare, zicând: "Cântaţi-ne nouă din cântările Sionului!" Cum să cântăm cântarea Domnului în pământ străin? De te voi uita, Ierusalime, uitată să fie dreapta mea! Să se lipească limba mea de grumazul meu, de nu-mi voi aduce aminte de tine, de nu voi pune înainte Ierusalimul, ca început al bucuriei mele.
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”
Anonymous
“
Within this historic and optimistic future in mind, I have made no value judgment of the destiny bestowed on each nation. For all this, however, leadership matters; so do the institutional structures and the system of political governance.
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Patrick Mendis (Peaceful War: How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a New Pacific World Order)
“
When God is worshipped in them in spirit and truth, they become the outworks of heaven and as it were its gates. As in houses of public worship here there are assemblies of Christians meeting to worship God, so in heaven there is a glorious assembly, or Church, continually worshipping God: Heb. xii. 22, 23, “But ye are come unto mount Sion, [and unto] the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, that are written in heaven.” Heaven
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Jonathan Edwards (Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards)
“
Sion, pour moi, c'était une idée sainte, divine, un espoir messianique, une prière, un battement de coeur—et non un lieu géographique, une réalité politique, une cause au nom de laquelle on meurt ou on tue.
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Elie Wiesel (Dawn)
“
What constitutes a brand? There are several aspects. First, it is a promise, or at least a belief. Customers cannot test every product that they buy, so they draw on their own past experience or on the recommendations of others. Through consistent and reliable experience achieved over a long period of time, trust in the promise is created. Trust reduces complexity and shortens buyers’ deci[1]sions. Often decisions are based not on specific attributes but on the holistic emotions that a product engenders. Young men do not buy expensive Swiss watches because they tell the time better, but because they appeal to their aspi[1]rations. A brand must differentiate itself against the plethora of so-called ‘me too’ alternatives. Against these measures, ‘Swissness’ has become a brand in its own right – and this may be the country’s most precious and enduring comparative advantage.
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R. James Breiding (Swiss Made: The Untold Story Behind Switzerland s Success)
“
In 1860 Rhett “joined a drive to either rule or ruin the 1860 Democratic convention scheduled for Charleston.”97 He succeeded and devised a strategy to destroy the Union by destroying the Democratic Party. In January 1860 he wrote that “the destruction of the Union must . . . begin with the demolition of the party. So long as the Democratic Party, as a ‘National’ organization exists in power in the South . . . our public men will trim their sails.”98 Rhett drafted South Carolina’s Seces sion Ordinance, which claimed that South Carolina was not “perpetrating a treasonous revolution, but . . . simply taking back . . . the same powers it had temporarily surrendered . . . when South Carolina ratified the federal Constitution.
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Steven Dundas
“
The first known published text of the classic fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" was written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740 and collected in her compilation La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins. To say that the story met with favor is an understatement. By 1756, "Beauty and the Beast" was so well known that Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont wrote an abridged edition of it that would become the popular version included in collections of fairy tales throughout the nineteenth century (although Andrew Lang went back to de Villeneuve's original for his groundbreaking anthology The Blue Fairy Book, first published in 1891 as the beginning of a twelve-book series that would revolutionize the anthologizing of fairy tales for young read ers). Fifteen years later. Jean-François Marmontel and André Ernest Modeste Grétry adapted de Villeneuve's story as the book for the opera Zémire et Azor. the start of more than two centuries of extraliterary treatments that now include Jean Cocteau's famous 1946 film La Belle et la Bête, Walt Disney's 1991 animated feature Beauty and the Beast, and countless other cinematic, televi sion, stage, and musical variations on the story's theme.
More than 4,000 years after it became part of the oral storytelling tradi tion, it is easy to understand why "Beauty and the Beast" continues to be one of the most popular fairy tales of all time, and a seemingly inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists working in all mediums. Its theme of the power of unconditional love is one that never grows old.
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Various (Beauty and the Beast and Other Classic Fairy Tales)
“
It has often struck me as unbelievable how much a pair of human eyes can see, for I’ve long thought that as a young man I had already absorbed more impressions and seen far more than one man’s consciousness can ever manage to work through. Within me all was chaos and darkness, turbulent and wild, sense impressions all too strong, devoid of concepts. Without concepts, of course, our impressions remain in the form of “raw experience”, not subjected to the clarity, order and discipline of thought. My life was for many, many years a long journey in the land of Chaos.
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Jens Bjørneboe (Moment of Freedom: The Heiligenberg Manuscript)
“
they used to be. Warlow had picked up the reins after an eighteen-month self-induced lay-off wrapped up as a supposed retirement. But the force, namely Superintendent Sion Buchannan, asked him to return after a successful partnership where he’d consulted on a nasty case with Jess Allanby and they’d blown wide open a drug and human trafficking racket. And so here he was doing the same thing as he’d done for the last
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Rhys Dylan (Caution: Death at Work (DCI Evan Warlow #2))
“
The seventeenth century began with the death of Queen Elizabeth and the ascension to the English throne of James VI of Scotland, who, for this reason, became James I of England. Of course, James’ grandmother was Marie de Guise of France, who had married James V of Scotland. She had steered the Stuart dynasty away from Protestantism in the direction of Catholicism. Marie was a Merovingian and a member of the Priory of Sion, and she functioned on behalf of its Catholic wing, in attempting to control the course of change in European Christendom. Chapter 8 - Sion's Army
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Jeff Wilkerson (Sion's Army: The Freemasons)
“
The two branches of Freemasonry—the Templars and the Rosicrucians (Sionists)—were to play a major part in the American and French revolutions. In the end, the Priory of Sion would prove itself dominant over the Templars. They seemed to be better entrenched in the European power matrix as well as being better funded. The Templars—Sion’s partners-in-crime, so to speak—were behind the American Revolution and with regard to the French Revolution, both the Templar and Rosicrucian factions combined forces to avenge the death, four centuries earlier, of Jacques de Molay the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, who was burned at the stake by Philip IV of France in 1314. The French Bourbons were related to Philip so Louis XVI’s beheading, in 1792, was meant as penance for de Molay’s death. Chapter 10 - Sion's Army.
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Jeff Wilkerson
“
You and your child have a unique and very special relationship. The dos and don’ts of all the advice givers out there may or may not apply to you. You have to listen to your heart and to your child and then make the deci- sions that are good for right now, for you two.
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Vimala McClure (The Tao of Motherhood)
“
Above all, consider the merits and sufferings of Christ, which are our principal title to God's grace and mercy, and which form the treasure whence the Church supplies the necessities of her children. It was from a confidence inspired by such motives that the saints drew that strength which rendered them as firm as Mount Sion, and established them in the holy city whence they never could be moved. (Cf. Ps. 124:1). Yet, notwithstanding these powerful reasons for hope, it is deplorable that this virtue should still be so weak in us. We lose heart at the first appearance of danger, and go down into Egypt hoping for help from Pharaoh (Cf. Is. 30:2) – that is, we turn to creatures instead of God. There are many servants of God who zealously devote themselves to fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, but few who possess the confidence with which the virtuous ï Susanna was animated, even when condemned to death and led to execution. (Cf. Dan. 13). Read the Holy Scriptures, particularly the Psalms and the writings of the prophets, and you will find abundant motives for unfailing hope in God.
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Louis of Granada (The Sinner's Guide)
“
The rivers of Babylon are all the penalties that remain of sin which flow down to hell, and the wicked follow them, for the penalties of this life do not suffice for such crimes, therefore they both end in hell. However, the righteous sit beside these rivers, for they only have to suffer transient penalties which pass away, leaving them seated and not departing with this world, but awaiting the world of the eternal Father prepared for them. David does not say they wept on account of 'their discomfort by the rivers, which signify trials, but because of their longing for Sion, that is for heaven, where the God of Gods is beheld. This means that the just are more tormented by the postponement of the glory promised them than by all the other sufferings of the world, for they feel their absence from Sion and weep for it
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Francisco De Osuna (Third Spiritual Alphabet)
“
I have begotten them and I have reared them but I have no comments to make and no advice to give. I do not know if I have done them good or ill. I do not know whether, in their own generation, they will do well or badly; I cannot even guess whether they will build because of me or in spite of me. I know only that they will build elsewhere, and that I have here no continuing city. I can barely live with my children, yet I must shortly and inconceivably live without them. I have hardly known them, hardly begun to walk in the streets of their minds and the gardens of their pleasures, hardly explored with them the city that they are, and already they begin to go their ways and to take my city with them. My exile comes implacably. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered thee O Sion. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. I am absurd, I know; but it is the infirmity in which I glory.
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Robert Farrar Capon (Bed and Board: Plain Talk About Marriage)
“
Francis and Clare would retire to the woods near Assisi to converse with each other. The villagers of Assisi, seeing a red glow over the forests ran with buckets of water to douse what they assumed was a fire. Instead, they found Francis and Clare, seated in a clearing, rapt in conversation surrounded by a holy fire. The icon shows the fulfillment of Christ's promise in the gospel: "Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there with them". The figure of the Risen Christ is in their midst, blessing and connecting them from within a red mandorla of seraphs.
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William Henry (THE SECRET OF SION: Jesus’s Stargate, the Beaming Garment and the Galactic Core in Ascension Art)
“
I am willing to let go. I release. I let go. I release all ten- sion. I release all fear. I release all anger. I release all guilt. I release all sadness. I let go of all old limitations. I let go, and I am at peace. I am at peace with myself. I am at peace with the process of life. I am safe.
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Louise L. Hay (You Can Heal Your Life)
“
Secondly, we worship creatures by [109] honouring those places or persons whom God has associated with the work of our salvation, whether before our Lord's coming or since the dispensation of His incarnation. For instance, I venerate Mount Sinai, Nazareth, the stable at Bethlehem, and the cave, the sacred mount of Golgotha, the wood of the Cross, the nails and sponge and reed, the sacred and saving lance, the dress and tunic, the linen cloths, the swathing clothes, the holy tomb, the source of our resurrection, the sepulchre, the holy mountain of Sion and the mountain of Olives, the Pool of Bethsaida and the sacred garden of Gethsemane, and all similar spots. I cherish them and every holy temple of God, and everything connected with God's name, not on their own account but because they show forth the divine power, and through them and in them it pleased God to bring about our salvation. I venerate and worship angels and men, and all matter participating in divine power and ministering to our salvation through it. I do not worship the Jews. They are not participators in divine power, nor have they contributed to my salvation. They crucified my God, the King of [110] Glory, moved rather by envy and hatred against God their Benefactor. "Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thy house," (Ps. 26.8) says David, "we will adore in the place where his feet stood. And adore at His holy mountain." (Ps. 132.7; 99.9) The holy Mother of God is the living holy mountain of God. The apostles are the teaching mountains of God. "The mountains skipped like rams, and the hills like the lambs of the flock." (I Cor. 10.11) The
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John of Damascus (Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Images)
“
am willing to let go. I release. I let go. I release all ten- sion. I release all fear. I release all anger. I release all guilt. I release all sadness. I let go of all old limitations. I let go, and I am at peace. I am at peace with myself. I am at peace with the process of life. I am safe.
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Louise L. Hay (You Can Heal Your Life)
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AFFUSION (AFFU'SION) n.s.[affusio, Lat.]The act of pouring one thing upon another. Upon the affusion of a tincture of galls, it immediately became as black as ink.Grew’sMusæum.
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Samuel Johnson (A Dictionary of the English Language (Complete and Unabridged in Two Volumes), Volume One)
“
Without the Merovingians, the Prieuré de Sion would not exist, and without the Prieuré de Sion, the Merovingian dynasty would be extinct.
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Michael Baigent (Holy Blood, Holy Grail: The Secret History of Christ. The Shocking Legacy of the Grail)
“
recollection is spotty and inconsistent.Bayoumi’s ver= sion can be challenged as well, since the mosque
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Anonymous
“
the ideological defense of “private property” is both vague and misleading. The seizure, or even abolition of private property doesn’t refer to the water bottles or homes that many of us have purchased; private property in the context of anti-capitalist politics refers to the ownership by bosses and landlords of the resources people need to survive. Most people have no access to the tools and supplies required to build their own furniture, provide all their own food, or maintain a home entirely on their own. In a capitalist society, we depend on the market to provide these for us in exchange for money. We work waged jobs, where we receive only a portion of the value we add to the commodities we produce, and go into debt in order to afford them. When anti-capitalists talk about private property, they’re not referring to the possessions consumers have purchased in order to live; they’re referring to those possessions that the wealthy have accumulated in order to rent or sell to those who must work a waged job to survive.
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Anonymous
“
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” (Romans 11:25–27)
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William Struse (The 13th Prime: Deciphering the Jubilee Code (The Thirteenth #2))
“
In our view, when women fight for the wage for domestic work, they are also fighting against this work, as domestic work can continue as such so long as and when it is not paid. It is like slavery. The demand for a domestic wage denaturalized female slavery. Thus, the wage is not the ultimate goal, but an instrument, a strategy, to achieve a change in the power relations between women and capital. The aim of our struggle was to convert exploitative slave labor that was naturalized because of its unpaid character into socially recognized work; it was to subvert a sexual division of labor based on the power of the masculine wage to command the reproductive labor of women, which in Caliban and the Witch I call “the patriarchy of the wage.” At the same time, we proposed to move beyond all of the blame generated by the fact that it was always considered as a female obligation, as a female vocation.
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Anonymous
“
the Ordre de Sion was founded by Godfroi de Bouillon in 1090,
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Michael Baigent (Holy Blood, Holy Grail: The Secret History of Christ. The Shocking Legacy of the Grail)
“
Wonder-Working Providences of Sion’s Saviour in New England,
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Peter Marshall (The Light and the Glory)
“
we refer to the Middle Ages as ages of faith; a time in which men believed a heavenly Jerusalem above the sky much as they believed an earthly Sion beyond the sea; when the whole of their thought was of a piece with their theology...those were days when a thoughtful soul here or there could realize some unity of mental vision. The fact should be admitted, however we regard it - whether as the stultifying tyranny of dogma or as an enviable single-mindedness; an ideal too easily realized, no doubt, in a plentiful dearth of empirical knowledge, and yet establishing a standard after which perplexed modernity may strive.
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Jocelyn Gibb (Light on C. S. Lewis (Harvest Book; Hb 341))
“
rhetorical garden paths are endemic to country music, often taking the form of deconstructed idiomatic expressions. In George Strait’s “You Look So Good in Love,” by Glen Ballard, Roury Michael Bourke, and Kerry Chater, the word “in” is a hinge, turning from a physical descriptor to a state of being. Liz Anderson’s “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers,” as sung by Merle Haggard, includes a line in which both the figurative and literal connotations of an idiom are simultaneously at play: “The only thing I can count on now is my fingers.” These phrases work by refusing to take a metaphor at face value. If a metaphor is a substitution of one thing for another, leaving the word itself absent in its own description, the double entendres of country songs are the return of the repressed.
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Anonymous
“
While it is possible for the con fessor in some cases to obtain such knowledge without confession, this is not the rule, because the confessor, not the penitent, is the competent judge of the latter's state of conscience and without a close insight into the number and gravity of the sins submitted he cannot decide whether to give or to withhold absolution. 14 Conse- 14 Cfr. St. Jerome, In Matth., 16, varietates, scit qui ligandus sit 29: " Quum peccatorum audierit quive solvendus." igo THE THREE ACTS OF THE PENITENT quently the confessor has the right and the duty to de mand an accurate and circumstantial description of the penitent's state of conscience, i. e. a complete confes sion of his sins. But the office of the penitential judge does not end here. Even if the penitent has the right disposition, the priest may not absolve him without at the same time enjoining an appropriate penance* This again cannot be justly determined without a com plete knowledge of the facts, because a penance must correspond to the number and gravity of the sins for which it is imposed. " It is manifest," says the Council of Trent, " that priests could not have exercised this judgment without knowledge of the cause; neither indeed could they have observed equity in enjoining punishments, if the faithful should have declared their sins in general only, and not rather specifically, and one by one." 15
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Joseph Pohle (The sacraments: A Dogmatic Treatise, Vol. 3)
“
[each] confess those sins by which he remembers that he has mortally offended his Lord and God; whilst the other sins, which do not occur to him after diligent thought, are understood to be included as a whole in that same confes sion." 6 The last-quoted phrase is of great dogmatic importance,, inasmuch as it demands a merely formal (not a material) integrity of confession and declares that mortal sins omitted without fault are forgiven by what theologians call indirect remission. The holy Synod does not, how ever, deny that confession may be difficult, but says that the difficulty is counterbalanced " by many and great advantages and consolations.
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Joseph Pohle (The sacraments: A Dogmatic Treatise, Vol. 3)
“
What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. ROM9:31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. ROM9:32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; ROM9:33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
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Anonymous (King James Bible Touch)
“
I wasn’t getting along with Trouble and for good reason. He strolled over and made a snide remark.
“Patches,” he meowed, “why do you look so worried? Has Santa got you on the Naughty List this year? Oh, look, someone left some muddy shoes by the back door. Meowr.”
“GRmpf.” I snarled.
“Oh. And is this a Patch-of-mud on the doormat?” mewed Trouble.
“Look, Cat,” I said, “My status with Santa is a private affair. Someone with a name like yours shouldn’t be pointing paws!”
“That’s so. That’s so,” he purred. “Pointing paws usually lead to flying fur and the need for hair ex-ten-sions.” Trouble did say things that made sense sometimes, in a weird sort of way. (He was trying to mes-mer-ize me with those purrs, but it wouldn’t work).
“Purr--cise-ly. Oh, uh-hum, I meant to say, pre-cise-ly,” I growled, “So let’s drop the subject.” Then he PURRED at me.
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Lea Beall (Once Upon A Dreamland Christmas (A Patches Adventure Book, #2))
“
These three or four scriptures also have been great refreshments in this condition to me: John xiv. 1-4; John xvi. 33; Col. iii. 3, 4; Heb. xii. 22-24. So that sometimes when I have been in the savour of them, I have been able to laugh at destruction, and to fear neither the horse nor his rider. I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this place, and of my being with Jesus in another world: Oh! the mount Sion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and God the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus, have been sweet unto me in this place: I have seen that here, that I am persuaded I shall never, while in this world, be able to express: I have seen a truth in this scripture, Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. 1 Pet. i. 8.
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John Bunyan (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners)
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If he who hath posterity in Sion and kindred in Jerusalem hath been called happy, verily how much happier are we, for we have posterity in the heavenly Jerusalem. Verily.....
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A J and Albertus Schwengler: Wensinck (Legends of Eastern Saints Chiefly from Syriac Sources. Volume 1: Archelides; Volume 2: Hilaria. Bound with: Eusebii Pamphilii Historiae Ecclesiasticae Lib X, Ed A Schwegler.)
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When I am most myself and see the clearest, men are least to be seen; they are like muscae volitantes, and that they are seen at all is the proof of imperfect vision.
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H. D. Thoreau
“
The first such model was built in
May 1876, and a patent was granted the following year. The
superior efficiency and performance of the four-stroke engine
were obvious, and it was an immediate commercial success.
Over 30,000 were sold in the next ten years alone, and all ver
sions of the Lenoir engine soon became obsolete.
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Michael H Hart (The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History)
“
For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.
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Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
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Maloof controlled the exchequer, advised in regard to the imposition of taxes, fees, rents and imposts. Witherwood worked to codify the judicial systems of the land, reconciling regional differences and making the laws universally responsive, to persons of high and low degree alike. Sion-Tansifer, a relict from the reign of King Granice, advised as to military organisation and strategy. Foirry was an expert in the field of naval architecture. Pirmence, who had travelled widely, from Ireland to Byzantium, was in effect the Minister of Foreign Affairs, while Langlark had been commissioned by Aillas to establish at Domreis a university of letters, mathematics, geography and the several sciences.
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Jack Vance (The Complete Lyonesse (Lyonesse, #1, #2 and #3))
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El mundo objetivo se ha desacralizado, pero precisamente al desacralizarse el mundo objetivo debería haberse sacralizado en igual medida el reino imaginario del Yo, y justamente esta sacralización está reprimida. Se han perdido la proyección y la creencia viva, pero subsiste y es muy licita la vivencia profunda. Nadie cree ya en Plutón, ni en Proserpina, ni er los númenes del mundo subterráneo, ni en el lapis philoso-phorum como realidades objetivas, pero en todos nosotros existe una necesidad más o menos reprimida de vivir experiencias numinosas, la cual, evitando la censura impuesta por la lógica correspondiente a nuestra visión objetiva del mundo, se manifiesta en fábulas, en relatos fantásticos, e sueños de aventuras imposibles, que ya no son irracionalista porque se saben de antemano falsos, porque no tienen preten siones de verdad objetiva; en una palabra: porque se expr san en el plano de la estética.
Las artes fantásticas, pues, constituyen intentos vital instintivos, necesarios, de integrar lo numinoso en el Yo decir, de vivirlo y expresarlo libremente y en toda su intensidad, pero sin alterar por ello la fría visión objetiva del cosmos.
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Rafael Llopis (Viajes al otro mundo: Ciclo de aventuras oníricas de Randolph Carter)
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por el bien de las almas perecederas pero inmortales, por el bien de Sion y la gloria de Dios?
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John Piper (No desperdicies tu vida (Spanish Edition))
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Moreover, Parsani's breakthrough was coincidental with an ongoing discus- sion at Hyperstition's laboratory crisscrossing between the Deleuze-Guattarian model of the ’war machine* and desert-nomadism. The discussion was spiralling through a series of theoretical confrontations between jungle militarism (the Vietnam war or the process of NAMification) and desert-militarism (War-on- Terror and Mecca-nomics). The discussion at Hyperstition ultimately developed into what would later be defined as 'biobjectivity', or the logics of petropolitical undercurrents. According to a blobjective point of view, petropolitical undercurrents function as narrative lubes: they interconnect inconsistencies, anomalies or what we might simply call the ‘plot holes' in narratives of planetary formations
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Reza Negarestani (Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials (Anomaly))
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While part of the reason for the scientific sterility of feminism is its failure to ask why, a further cause of this sterility is the widespread impression that it is up to the nativist to prove the existence of innate sex differences, and that, if he cannot, sex differences may be presumed to be learned.
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Michael Levin (Feminism and Freedom)
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Question 5. Is the moral law which you say was the substance of the Old Covenant from Mount Sinai, done away to believers in the New Covenant as it was a rule of life, etc.? Answer. Doubtless it is done away to believers, and that, firstly, as it was a covenant from Mount Sinai, and secondly a ministry of Moses. 1. That it was and is done away to believers is evident, Romans 7:4-6, where the apostle said, Wherefore my brothers ye also are become dead to the law, etc. and But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, etc. This was the moral law, for it was that law that discovered sin, even that sin forbidden in that moral law, Thou shall not covet. Ye are not under the law but under grace (chapter 6:14). That very law written on tablets of stone is said to be done away with (2 Cor. 3:7 & 11) and abolished (verse 13); and if any will say it is the ministration that is done away and not the rule, I say it must be done away as it was then a rule, without which the ministration could not cease. It was its being given as a rule that made it a ministration. Therefore I say, that it is done away, first as it was a covenant from Mount Sinai, so it is clear turned out and has no place in the gospel, even as Hagar, the Old Covenant in an allegory must be thrown out of Abraham's house (Gen. 21:10; Gal. 4:22-30): Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So that, when the free woman is come to be fruitful, the bondwoman with her son must be cast out. So likewise, Hebrews 12:18-24: We are not come to the mount that might not [ed: word absent in Scripture] be touched, that is, to Mount Sinai, but ye are come unto Mount Sion and to Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant, all of which demonstrates that the law as it was a covenant, from Mount Sinai, is done away to believers. 2. As it was a ministration by Moses, so it is done away with and abolished, and is not to be preached or received (as in the hand of Moses) as it was ministered forth, received and obeyed in the Old Covenant. For it was ministered then on life and death, and was (through man's weakness) a ministration of death and not of life. So that I understand all those expressions to relate to those particulars, when the Scripture says that the law is abolished and done away, that believers are dead to it, delivered from it, are not under it, and the bondwoman must be cast out with her son. And yet believers are not without law to God but under the law of Christ, yea and that under the moral law. But as given from Mount Zion, ministered forth in the hand of Christ, not in the hand of Moses, for if we take it from Moses we must be Moses' disciples. But if from Christ, as given forth in the gospel account, then we are Christ's disciples indeed, and receive it in power (from Christ, the minister and mediator) to live to God according to it, not for righteousness unto justification. But Jesus Christ having fulfilled all its righteousness, having born the curse for us. It is a rule of righteousness, of conversation to the honor of Him that has done all for us in point of justification to eternal life. And so it is become a law of love, a royal law of liberty to all that are by faith in the New Covenant, and a law to which every believer is duty bound to Jesus Christ, to own as His precious rule of life to honor Him by it, as it is given forth by Him in the gospel and not in any other way.
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Thomas Collier (Gospel Blessedness in the New Covenant: The distinction of the two Covenants, New and Old, First and Second.)
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To the Priory of Sion, the secret organization described in the novel “The DaVinci Code,” the Bear was an animal of the Goddess Diana. The Merovingian kings, from their founder Merovee to Clovis (who converted to Christianity in 496) were kings who worshipped the Goddess Diana.
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Laurence Galian (The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis)
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Sartre threw away the entire content of thebourgeois subject, maintaining only its pure form, and the next stepwas to throw away this form itself—is it not that,mutatis mutandis,Der-rida threw away all the positive ontological content of messianism, re-taining nothing but the pure form of the messianic promise, and thenext step is to throw away this form itself? And, again, is this not alsothe passage from Judaism to Christianity? Judaism reduces the prom-ise of Another Life to a pure Otherness, a messianic promise whichwill never become fully present and actualized (the Messiah is always
“to come”); while Christianity, far from claiming full realization ofthe promise, accomplishes something far more uncanny: the Messiahis here, he has arrived, the final Event has already taken place,yet the gap(the gap which sustained the messianic promise) remains....Here I am tempted to suggest a return to the earlier Derrida ofdifférance:what if (as Ernesto Laclau, among others, has already ar-gued17) Derrida’s turn to “postsecular” messianism is not a necessaryoutcome of his initial “deconstructionist” impetus? What if the ideaof infinite messianic Justice which operates in an indefinite suspen-sion, always to come, as the undeconstructible horizon of decon-struction, already obfuscates “pure”différance,the pure gap whichseparates an entity from itself? Is it not possible to think this pure in-between priorto any notion of messianic justice? Derrida acts as ifthe choice is between positive onto-ethics, the gesture of transcend-ing the existing order toward another higher positive Order, andthe pure promise of spectral Otherness—what, however, if we dropthis reference to Otherness altogether? What then remains is eitherSpinoza—the pure positivity of Being—or Lacan—the minimal con-tortion of drive, the minimal “empty” (self-)difference which is op-erative when a thing starts to function as a substitute for itself.
As Freud observed, the very acts that are forbidden by religion arepracticed in the name of religion. In such cases—as, for instance, mur-der in the name of religion—religion also can do entirely withoutminiaturization.Those adamantly militant advocates of human life, forexample, who oppose abortion, will not stop short of actually mur-dering clinic personnel. Radical right-wing opponents of male homo-sexuality in the USA act in a similar way.They organize so-called “gaybashings” in the course of which they beat up and finally rape gays.
What we have here, yet again, is the Hegelian “oppositional determi-nation”: in the figure of the gay-basher raping a gay, the gay encoun-ters himself in its oppositional determination; that is to say, tautology(self-identity) appears as the highest contradiction.This threshold canalso function as the foreign gaze itself: for example, when a disen-chanted Western subject perceives Tibet as a solution to his crisis, Ti-bet loses its immediate self-identity, and turns into a sign of itself,its own “oppositional determination.
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ZIZEK
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Most businesses have the goal of getting as big as possible. Supreme, on the other hand, strives to remain underground and boutique, growing only when they deem it will enhance the brand. As style writer Glenn O’Brien put it, “Supreme is a company that refuses to sell out.” But why? Well, first off, because it wouldn’t be authentic to who they are, what they do, and what they’re into. For instance, when asked why they wouldn’t expand into women’s wear, Jebbia simply replied, “It’s not what we know.” And that’s all they’ve done—manifest an authentic reflection of their core beliefs with unyielding discipline.
Supreme is a reflection of Jebbia’s life experiences and pas- sions. It just happened that his passion for “cool and unusual things for young people” was in harmony with the global youth movement that his brand has come to represent. Supreme continues to succeed on a massive scale because they have the discipline to focus their resources on creating great products rather than over-expanding. Or, as Jebbia puts it, “Staying true to what you do best has played a major role in our longevity. I would like people to see that we’re a small, independent skate company that has done our own thing, in our own way, over many years, and will hopefully continue to do so.
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Alan Philips (The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential)
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Second essay: ‘Guilt’, ‘bad conscience’ and related matters
1
To breed an animal with the prerogative to promise – is that not pre- cisely the paradoxical task which nature has set herself with regard to humankind? is it not the real problem of humankind? . . . The fact that this problem has been solved to a large degree must seem all the more sur- prising to the person who can fully appreciate the opposing force, forget- fulness. Forgetfulness is not just a vis inertiae, as superficial people believe, but is rather an active ability to suppress, positive in the strongest sense of the word, to which we owe the fact that what we simply live through, experience, take in, no more enters our consciousness during digestion (one could call it spiritual ingestion) than does the thousand-fold process which takes place with our physical consumption of food, our so-called ingestion. To shut the doors and windows of consciousness for a while; not to be bothered by the noise and battle with which our underworld of serviceable organs work with and against each other; a little peace, a little tabula rasa of consciousness to make room for something new, above all for the nobler functions and functionaries, for ruling, predicting, pre- determining (our organism runs along oligarchic lines, you see) – that, as I said, is the benefit of active forgetfulness, like a doorkeeper or guardian of mental order, rest and etiquette: from which we can immediately see how there could be no happiness, cheerfulness, hope, pride, immediacy, without forgetfulness. The person in whom this apparatus of suppression is damaged, so that it stops working, can be compared (and not just com- pared –) to a dyspeptic; he cannot ‘cope’ with anything . . . And precisely
35
On the Genealogy of Morality
this necessarily forgetful animal, in whom forgetting is a strength, repre- senting a form of robust health, has bred for himself a counter-device, memory, with the help of which forgetfulness can be suspended in certain cases, – namely in those cases where a promise is to be made: conse- quently, it is by no means merely a passive inability to be rid of an impres- sion once it has made its impact, nor is it just indigestion caused by giving your word on some occasion and finding you cannot cope, instead it is an active desire not to let go, a desire to keep on desiring what has been, on some occasion, desired, really it is the will’s memory: so that a world of strange new things, circumstances and even acts of will may be placed quite safely in between the original ‘I will’, ‘I shall do’ and the actual dis- charge of the will, its act, without breaking this long chain of the will. But what a lot of preconditions there are for this! In order to have that degree of control over the future, man must first have learnt to distinguish between what happens by accident and what by design, to think causally, to view the future as the present and anticipate it, to grasp with certainty what is end and what is means, in all, to be able to calculate, compute – and before he can do this, man himself will really have to become reliable, regular, necessary, even in his own self-image, so that he, as someone making a promise is, is answerable for his own future!
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Nietszche
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The lad knew a trick for seeing things in their right size instead of in the illusion that they project.
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R.A. Lafferty
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The lad knew a trick for seeing things in their right size instead of in the illusion that they project... The lad tried that same trick now. He turned around, bent over, and looked at the Person backwards between his legs. And by that viewing, the Person Himself was a veritable giant, taller than the trees, taller than the distance between here and a full moon. Then the lad straightened up and turned around and looked at the Person frontwards; and the illusion returned... and the Person was again only a rather large and altogether pleasant man, not too large to be accounted in the normal human range.
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R.A. Lafferty
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In the Upper Midwest, newcomers often receive a classic piece of wintertime advice: “The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them.” Here, people spend good money on warm cloth-ing so they can get outdoors and avoid the “cabin fever” that comes from huddling fearfully by the fire during the long frozen months. If You live here long, you learn that a daily walk into the winter worldwill fortify the spirit by taking you boldly to the very heart of the sea-son you fear.
Our inward winters take many forms – failure, betrayal, depres-sion, death. But every one of them, in my experience, yields to the same advice: “The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them.” Until we enter boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives. But when we walk directly into them – protected from frostbite by the warm garb of friendship or inner discipline or spiritual guidance – we can learn what they have to teach us. Then, we discover once again that the cycle of the seasons is trustworthy and life-giving, even in the most dismaying season of all.
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Parker J. Palmer (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation)
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It is interesting that a
pair of isolated pulses yields
a stable system: the emis-
sion of two diverging digital
particles (Fig. 19). Appar-
ently only certain configura-
tions are possible, while oth-
ers are excluded or provide no stable results. This bears a certain similarity
to some situations in quantum mechanics.
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Konrad Zuse (Rechnender Raum)