Synonyms For Sayings And Quotes

We’re sick of hearing people say, “That band is so gay,” or “Those guys are fags.” Gay is not a synonym for shitty. If you wanna say something’s shitty, say it’s shitty. Stop being such homophobic assholes.

You ruin your life by desensitizing yourself. We are all afraid to say too much, to feel too deeply, to let people know what they mean to us. Caring is not synonymous with crazy. Expressing to someone how special they are to you will make you vulnerable. There is no denying that. However, that is nothing to be ashamed of. There is something breathtakingly beautiful in the moments of smaller magic that occur when you strip down and are honest with those who are important to you. Let that girl know that she inspires you. Tell your mother you love her in front of your friends. Express, express, express. Open yourself up, do not harden yourself to the world, and be bold in who, and how you love. There is courage in that.

I almost miss the sound of your voice but know that the rain outside my window will suffice for tonight. I’m not drunk yet, but we haven’t spoken in months now and I wanted to tell you that someone threw a bouquet of roses in the trash bin on the corner of my street, and I wanted to cry because, because — well, you know exactly why. And, I guess I’m calling because only you understand how that would break my heart. I’m running out of things to say. My gas is running on empty. I’ve stopped stealing pages out of poetry books, but last week I pocketed a thesaurus and looked for synonyms for you but could only find rain and more rain and a thunderstorm that sounded like glass, like crystal, like an orchestra. I wanted to tell you that I’m not afraid of being moved anymore; Not afraid of this heart packing up its things and flying transcontinental with only a wool coat and a pocket with a folded-up address inside. I’ve saved up enough money to disappear. I know you never thought the day would come. Do you remember when we said goodbye and promised that it was only for then? It’s been years since I last saw you, years since we last have spoken. Sometimes, it gets quiet enough that I can hear the cicadas rubbing their thighs against each other’s. I’ve forgotten almost everything about you already, except that your skin was soft, like the belly of a peach, and how you would laugh, making fun of me for the way I pronounced almonds like I was falling in love with language.

...[W]hen we make mistakes, we shrug and say that we are human. As bats are batty and slugs are sluggish, our own species is synonymous with screwing up.

Surrender is the ultimate sign of strength and the foundation for a spiritual life. Surrendering affirms that we are no longer willing to live in pain. It expresses a deep desire to transcend our struggles and transform our negative emotions. It commands a life beyond our egos, beyond that part of ourselves that is continually reminding us that we are separate, different and alone. Surrendering allows us to return to our true nature and move effortlessly through the cosmic dance called life. It's a powerful statement that proclaims the perfect order of the universe. When you surrender your will, you are saying, "Even though things are not exactly how I'd like them to be, I will face my reality. I will look it directly in the eye and allow it to be here." Surrender and serenity are synonymous; you can't experience one without the other. So if it's serenity you're searching for, it's close by. All you have to do is resign as General Manager of the Universe. Choose to trust that there is a greater plan for you and that if you surrender, it will be unfolded in time. Surrender is a gift that you can give yourself. It's an act of faith. It's saying that even though I can't see where this river is flowing, I trust it will take me in the right direction.

I'm running out of things to say. I've stopped stealing pages out of poetry books, but last week I pocketed a thesaurus and looked for synonyms for you and could only find rain and more rain and a thunderstorm that sounded like glass, like crystal, an orchestra.

Fear is synonymous with the future, and the future consists of forked roads, I should say forking roads, because the roads are forking all the time, like slow lightning. A road is a process, not a location.

This is what I think, but I don't say the words because the counterpoint of yes and no, love and hate, fear and longing, the need to tear down and the need to build up are synonymous and one.

If a man is only as good as his word, then I want to marry a man with a vocabulary like yours. The way you say dicey and delectable and octogenarian in the same sentence — that really turns me on. The way you describe the oranges in your backyard using anarchistic and intimate in the same breath. I would follow the legato and staccato of your tongue wrapping around your diction until listening become more like dreaming and dreaming became more like kissing you. I want to jump off the cliff of your voice into the suicide of your stream of consciousness. I want to visit the place in your heart where the wrong words die. I want to map it out with a dictionary and points of brilliant light until it looks more like a star chart than a strategy for communication. I want to see where your words are born. I want to find a pattern in the astrology. I want to memorize the scripts of your seductions. I want to live in the long-winded epics of your disappointments, in the haiku of your epiphanies. I want to know all the names you’ve given your desires. I want to find my name among them, ‘cause there is nothing more wrecking sexy than the right word. I want to thank whoever told you there was no such thing as a synonym. I want to throw a party for the heartbreak that turned you into a poet. And if it is true that a man is only as good as his word then, sweet jesus, let me be there the first time you are speechless, and all your explosive wisdom becomes a burning ball of sun in your throat, and all you can bring yourself to utter is, oh god, oh god.

You think—I dare say that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it We’re destroying words—scores of them hundreds of them every day. It’s a beautiful thing the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms there are also the antonyms.

What I like most about change is that it's synonym for 'hope'. If you are taking a risk, what you are really saying is, 'I believe in tomorrow and I will be part of it.

Now, I can say I tried everything. And to my own surprise, I discovered that sometimes different is synonymous with interesting.

Every time I ate well or bowed correctly to my elders, my relatives would say, “Aigo yeppeu.” “Yeppeu,” or pretty, was frequently employed as a synonym for good or well-behaved, and this fusion of moral and aesthetic approval was an early introduction to the value of beauty and the rewards it had in store.

Many social justice or social activist movements have been rooted in a position. A position is usually against something. Any position will call up its opposition. If I say up, it generates down. If I say right, it really creates left. If I say good, it creates bad. So a position creates its opposition. A stand is something quite distinct from that. There are synonyms for “stand” such as “declaration” or “commitment,” but let me talk for just a few moments about the power of a stand. A stand comes from the heart, from the soul. A stand is always life affirming. A stand is always trustworthy. A stand is natural to who you are. When we use the phrase “take a stand” I’m really inviting you to un-cover, or “unconceal,” or recognize, or affirm, or claim the stand that you already are. Stand-takers are the people who actually change the course of history and are the source of causing an idea’s time to come. Mahatma Gandhi was a stand-taker. He took a stand so powerful that it mobilized millions of people in a way that the completely unpredictable outcome of the British walking out of India did happen. And India became an independent nation. The stand that he took… or the stand that Martin Luther King, Jr. took or the stand that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony took for women’s rights—those stands changed our lives today. The changes that have taken place in history as a result of the stand-takers are permanent changes, not temporary changes. The women in this room vote because those women took so powerful a stand that it moved the world. And so the opportunity here is for us to claim the stand that we already are, not take a position against the macro economic system, or a position against this administration, although some of you may have those feelings. What’s way more powerful than that is taking a stand, which includes all positions, which allows all positions to be heard and reconsidered, and to begin to dissolve. When you take a stand, it actually does shift the whole universe and unexpected, unpredictable things happen.

Supposedly if you could think of nothing good to say about a dullard you would say that he was a good Christian. Diabolical on the other hand is all but synonymous with ingenious. What Satan had for sale in the garden was knowledge.

People who are saying that they are afraid of heights are usually not actually afraid of heights. They are afraid of falling, which means it's a synonym for losing control. So they have to get in touch with the definitional belief to find out what's really going on.

the prayer that is synonymous with Jewish mourning does not mention death or consolation.

A brick could be used to say hello in a foreign language. Like most great words, it’d also have synonyms. One such synonym would be the word “Duck!” Not a Feathery Quack Maker, but Get down!


I laugh. “How much thinking about this have you been doing?” “A fair amount,” he says, and kisses me again, and it’s more than good. It’s excellent. Stupendous. Phenomenal. Prodigious. Every synonym for excellent ever conceived.

I don't know why people start thank you notes with the word 'just'. Just a quick note to thank you for a wonderful time. Just wanted to say thanks for everything. It reduces expecations right from the start. It says: I understand the importance of saying thank you, but I won't be writing a letter. It says: I'd like to follow the best social conventions, but I won't be spending that much time on it. I've even seen stationery that has "Just a note" printed on the front. If you start there, why write the note at all? Consider the synonyms: merely, barely. Would you write: barely a note to thank you for the visit? Merely a hasty parargaph to acknowledge all you did for me?

Is biblical headship synonymous with taking control over someone else and forcing her to comply when she resists? And, does biblical submission require a wife to always do what her husband says? Does it mean she has no choices of her own or can’t ever say no without being labeled as rebellious or ungodly?

Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month—the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this—or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the meanwhile, and had received a Rodgers' penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers?... To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation!—why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about it. Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.

immense France has her freaks of pettiness. That is all. To this there is nothing to say. Peoples, like planets, possess the right to an eclipse. And all is well, provided that the light returns and that the eclipse does not degenerate into night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is identical with the persistence of the I.

Like all numinous contents, they have a tendency to self-amplification, that is to say they form the nuclei for an aggregation of synonyms. These

It has to do with intelligence. Yes. And again, when you’re talking about intelligence you’re talking about number. A claim that the mathless are quick to frown upon. It’s about calculation and the nature of calculation. Verbal intelligence will only take you so far. There is a wall there, and if you dont understand numbers you wont even see the wall. People from the other side will seem odd to you. And you will never understand the latitude which they extend to you. They will be cordial—or not—depending on their nature. Of course one might also add that intelligence is a basic component of evil. The more stupid you are the less capable you are of doing harm. Except perhaps in a clumsy and inadvertent manner. The word cretin comes from the French chrétien. Supposedly if you could think of nothing good to say about a dullard you would say that he was a good Christian. Diabolical on the other hand is all but synonymous with ingenious. What Satan had for sale in the garden was knowledge.

Greatness is not synonymous with perfection or popularity. In the long-arc narratives of male genius that reach far beyond a lifetime, greatness is established despite, and in the glaring light of, great flaws. Great men are by definition to be reckoned with and honored for the dilemmas they force us to confront, while the ways to castigate a woman of brilliance and ambition are second-nature and sometimes fatal, whether she’s deemed evil or merely, as they say, problematic.

Q: Isn't the employment of thought in the psychological sense synonymous with corruption? Bohm: Why do you say that? Q: Are there not only two states: corruption and innocence? Bohm: Are you saying that thought by itself is incapable of innocence? Q: In the psychological sense it seems so. Bohm: It may seem so. But the question is whether it is actually so. That's the question we're trying to explore. We'll admit the fact that it seems so; it has that appearance. Now the question is: what is actually the case? We have to explore this, and it will take some digging into. We can't simply take the way things seem and just work on that, because that would be another kind of mistake thought makes—taking the surface and calling it the reality.

My husband says time heals all wounds. I nod my head. But deep down I know this isn’t really true. The wounds change shape, change forms. Pain appears as a gash, then a cut, then a scab, then a scar—all near-synonyms extending on and on along the signifying chain.

Amora of Nornheim," Odin said, his voice the one he used for court meetings and assemblies, though there was no one else present. The resonance made the room feel even emptier. "You have been charged with treason, theft, destruction of a sacred relic and robbery. Do you have anything to say for yourself?" With her head still bowed, she replied, "The charges are a bit redundant." At his side, Loki felt Thor stiffen. Odin's brow creased. "Excuse me?" "Are not theft and robbery the same, my king?" she asked. "I think you're trying to inflate the list of charges against me with synonyms.

[What is honor]—I suspect that if, after reading this book, you were to go and ask the question of your friends and acquaintances, you might experience some difficultly finding someone who could give you, off the cuff, an accurate and adequate definition of honor. Those who do respond will probably offer synonyms, digging into their memories for other words that are seldom used in today's world, like integrity, probity, morality, and self-sufficiency based upon an ethical and moral code. Some might even refine that further to include a conscience, but no one has ever really succeeded in defining honor absolutely, because it is a very personal phenomenon, resonating differently in everyone who is aware of it. We seldom speak of it today, in our post-modern, post-everything society. It is an anachronism, a quaint, mildly amusing concept from a bygone time, and those of us who do speak of it and think of it are regarded benevolently, and condescendingly, as eccentrics. But honor, in every age except, perhaps, our own, has been highly regarded and greatly respected, and it has always been one of those intangible attributes that everyone assumes they possess naturally and in abundance. The standards established for it have always been high, and often artificially so, and throughout history battle standards have been waved as symbols of the honor and prowess of their owners. But for men and women of goodwill, the standard of honor has always been individual, jealously guarded, intensely personal, and uncaring of what others may think, say, or do.

The average grunt when not out in “the shit” the boonie thought about all the “Ball Games”, the battles, he had fought, all the narrow escapes from death, of buddies who had fallen one by one and wondered just how long his luck would hold. It came from knowing that a grunt could not fight in many “Ball Games” before he became a casualty. The general thinking was that if a grunt fought in say six without being hit he would not last another six, for there was a feeling that, sooner or later, death caught up with you but it was not what actually happened. There was a near-truism that if a grunt remained in the shit for a long time without a break he was almost certain to become a casualty, but casualty and death are not synonymous. A more realistic calculation was between three to six people wounded for one “kool aid”, killed in action. Nevertheless, it sure was unsettling to think that the best to hope for was receiving a wound.

Essex raised its ugly head. When i was a scholarship boy at the local grammar, son of a city-hall toiler on the make, this country was synonymous with liberty, success, and Cambridge. Now look at it. Shopping malls and housing estates pursue their creeping invasion of our ancient land. A North Sea wind snatched frilly clouds in its teeth and scarpered off to the midlands. The countryside proper began at last. My mother had a cousin out here, her family had a big house. I think they moved to Winnipeg for a better life. There! There, in the shadow of that DIY warehouse, once stood a row of walnut trees where me and Pip Oakes - a childhood chum who died aged thirteen under the wheels of an oil tanker - varnished a canoe one summer and sailed it alone the Say. Sticklebacks in jars,. There, right there, around that bend we lit a fire and cooked beans and potatoes wrapped in silver foil! Come back, oh, come back! Is one glimpse all I get?

Her mind raced, scrambling to remember what she could of Aandrisk culture. Complicated family structures. Virtually no concept of personal space. Physically affectionate. Promiscuous. She mentally slapped herself for that. It was a stereotype, one that every Human knew whether they wanted to or not, and it smacked of ethnocentrism. They don’t pair up like we do, she chided herself. It’s not the same thing. Somewhere in her head, Professor Selim was frowning at her. “The very fact that we use the term ‘cold-blooded’ as a synonym for ‘heartless’ should tell you something about the innate bias we primates hold against reptiles,” she pictured him saying. “Do not judge other species by your own social norms.

I'm not the kind of person who talks a lot. But I prefer people who are willing to act rather than talk. Often it doesn't take words just to say something. But I also like smart people. It's easy for me to be attracted to people who are willing to think. Because in addition to showing physical action, our life should be filled with a series of thought processes. People who want to use their brains are always more attractive to me. To me, smart is synonymous with the word "sexy." They can be very attractive both physically and intellectually. That's why I hate stupid people. But I really hate a man who thinks he is handsome but he has no brains. It seems like people with this type are simply wasting God's grace.

It was Southern, therefore, to put it brutally, because of the history of America—the United States of America: and small black boys and girls were now paying for this holocaust. They were attempting to go to school. They were attempting to get an education, in a country in which education is a synonym for indoctrination, if you are white, and subjugation, if you are black. It was rather as though small Jewish boys and girls, in Hitler’s Germany, insisted on getting a German education in order to overthrow the Third Reich. Here they were, nevertheless, scrubbed and shining, in their never-to-be-forgotten stiff little dresses, in their never-to-be-forgotten little blue suits, facing an army, facing a citizenry, facing white fathers, facing white mothers, facing the progeny of these co-citizens, facing the white past, to say nothing of the white present: small soldiers, armed with stiff, white dresses, and long or short dark blue pants, entering a leper colony, and young enough to believe that the colony could be healed, and saved. They paid a dreadful price, those children, for their missionary work among the heathen.

Yes: all men believe and repeat that equality of conditions is identical with equality of rights; that property and robbery are synonymous terms; that every social advantage accorded, or rather usurped, in the name of superior talent or service, is iniquity and extortion. All men in their hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made to understand it.

Sixsmith, Eva. Because her name is a synonym for temptation: what treads nearer to the core of man? Because her soul swims in her eyes. Because I dream of creeping through the velvet folds to her room, where I let myself in, hum her a tune so-so-so softly, she stands with her naked feet on mine, her ear to my heart, and we waltz like string puppets. After that kiss, she says, “Vous embrassez comme un poisson rouge!” and in moonlight mirrors we fall in love with our youth and beauty. Because all my life, sophisticated, idiotic women have taken it upon themselves to understand me, to cure me, but Eva knows I’m terra incognita and explores me unhurriedly, like you did. Because she’s lean as a boy. Because her scent is almonds, meadow grass. Because if I smile at her ambition to be an Egyptologist, she kicks my shin under the table. Because she makes me think about something other than myself. Because even when serious she shines. Because she prefers travelogues to Sir Walter Scott, prefers Billy Mayerl to Mozart, and couldn’t tell C major from a sergeant major. Because I, only I, see her smile a fraction before it reaches her face. Because Emperor Robert is not a good man—his best part is commandeered by his unperformed music—but she gives me that rarest smile, anyway. Because we listened to nightjars. Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. Because a man like me has no business with this substance “beauty,” yet here she is, in these soundproofed chambers of my heart. Sincerely, R.F.

… in these new days and in these new pages a philosophical tradition of the spontaneity of speculation kind has been rekindled on the sacred isle of Éire, regardless of its creative custodian never having been taught how to freely speculate, how to profoundly question, and how to playfully define. Spontaneity of speculation being synonymous with the philosophical-poetic, the philosophical-poetic with the rural philosopher-poet, and by roundelay the rural philosopher-poet thee with the spontaneity of speculation be. And by the way of the rural what may we say? A philosopher-poet of illimitable space we say. Iohannes Scottus Ériugena the metaphor of old salutes you; salutes your lyrical ear and your skilful strumming of the rippling harp. (Source: Hearing in the Write, Canto 19, Ivy-muffled)

You can’t serve God and Mammon.” When Jesus used the word “Mammon,” he used it almost synonymously with pleasure. So Jesus was saying that you can’t serve God and Mammon at the same time. If you want to be his disciple, you have to leave Mammon. It’s not that you shouldn’t be comfortable; it’s not about having comfort or not, but if you’re seeking comfort, forget it. This path is definitely not yours. What he said is very true.

Intelligence is a basic component of evil. The more stupid you are the less capable you are of doing harm. Except perhaps in a clumsy and inadvertent manner. The word cretin comes from the French chrétien. Supposedly if you could think of nothing good to say about a dullard you would say that he was a good Christian. Diabolical on the other hand is all but synonymous with ingenious. What Satan had for sale in the garden was knowledge.

If we are part of nature, then we are synonymous with it at the metaphysical level, every bit as much as the first all-but-inorganic animalcules that ever formed a chain of themselves in the blow hole of a primordial sea vent. There is no magic rod that comes down three hundred thousand years ago and divides our essence from the material world that produced us. This means that we cannot speak in essential terms of nature—neither of its brutality nor of its beauty—and hope to say anything true, if what we say isn’t true of ourselves. The importance of that proposition becomes clear only when it’s reversed: What’s true of us is true of nature. If we are conscious, as our species seems to have become, then nature is conscious. Nature became conscious in us, perhaps in order to observe itself. It may be holding us out and turning us around like a crab does its eyeball. Whatever the reason, that thing out there, with the black holes and the nebulae and whatnot, is conscious. One cannot look in the mirror and rationally deny this. It experiences love and desire, or thinks it does. The idea is enough to render the Judeo-Christian cosmos sort of quaint. As far as Rafinesque was concerned, it was just hard science. That part is mysterious. “She lives her life not as men or birds,” said Rafinesque, “but as a world.

In Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom reports that Morrie Schwartz, his former professor terminally ill with ALS, “was intent on proving that the word ‘dying’ was not synonymous with ‘useless.’” The immediate question is why one would have a need to prove this. No human being is “useless,” whether the helpless infant or the helpless ill or dying adult. The point is not to prove that dying people can be useful but to reject the spurious concept that people need to be useful in order to be valued. Morrie learned at a young age that his “value” depended on his ability to serve the needs of others. That same message, taken to heart by many people early in life, is heavily reinforced by the prevailing ethic in our society. All too frequently, people are given the sense that they are valued only for their utilitarian contribution and are expendable if they lose their economic worth.

Jane guided the group to a wide ditch that ran alongside the wall. The high weeds would provide the perfect cover, as long as they stayed quiet. "Keep low." Gifford snorted. "That's easy for you to say." She arched her neck to look up at him. "No one asked you to be so tall." But she was pleased her demure stature was finally good for something. It was an advantage at last. A boon. An asset. A virtue - She stopped herself from continuing her synonym spiral. There was work to do.

our visuallydominated world sight is almost synonymous with understanding. We acknowledge light dawning by saying: ‘I see!’ The metaphor of vision suffuses our attempts to convey comprehension: we bring issues into focus, we clarify our views, we sight our objectives, we look into things. We accept the evidence of our own eyes. The conjurer turns the veracity of sight head over heels: now you see it—now you don’t. We find his tricks disturbing because we are so wedded to the truth of sight.

The Apocalypse gave you your time back. The time you can now use to look, to see, and to focus on your conscious process of cognitive evolution.” Master repeats the word ‘see’ in three local synonyms. Back then, they thought they all meant the same. Except, they didn’t. “The Apocalypse took your society, responsibilities, and useless recreations. Those were the distractions. Those things slow the process,” Master continues in the scene, the side of his face glowing from the daylight entering the cave. The visual details are as much as his brain retrieved from his memory. “Is this why monks hate recreation? Society?” Ruem asks—he looks just as Yuan’s memory recollected Ruem’s teenage self. “They don’t hate recreation,” Master says in the scene. “They just know they have to hate it.” “So, you like recreation?” Ruem asks in a confused tone. “Did I say I am a monk?” Master replies in the scene. “You never answer the question!” Ruem sounds annoyed. And for a moment, it makes the Monk—wrapped in the old shawl—smile as he watches his own old memory, remembering how impatient they both were before. “Fine,” Master begins. “The monks force themselves out of recreation because the rulebooks tell them to. People only follow rulebooks. But they don’t know why they should follow them. They don’t look at the true purpose of their rituals. They blindly follow, evolving neither spiritually nor physically.” “So, we should accept recreation, society?” asks Yuan’s teenage self, in the hologram scene. “Yes and No, my boy. It’s a perspective. You can find the secret from wherever you are as long as you aren’t drunk on indulgence, distracted from the One.” “Master, do you know why you wear orange cloth?” Ruem asks. “You caught me, my boy!” says Master, chuckling. “No, I don’t know. I wore it because the rulebooks told me to. Now it doesn’t matter which color I wear. No need for pointless rebellion over some uniform color!” “Because everything is the same?” Yuan’s teenage self asks. “Because everything is One.” Master’s eyes twinkle.

Ewww gross! I can't believe you thought I'd copulate with him." I cringe. "Please don't ever use that word again." "Copulate? What's wrong with it?" I make a face at her. "Nothing, just... never say it again in my presence." "What about fornicate?" Ugh , this is why I don't want kids. Was I this annoying as a teenager? "No." "Coitus?" "No." "Intercourse?" I glower at her. "It's fucking. Making love if you're into that wishy-washy bullshit, and sex if it's meaningless. No other terms." "Not even boinking?

Honest question: If I am a good Christian, and have faith and stuff, will God protect my children? Honest answer: He might. Or He might not. Honest follow-up question: So what good is He? I think the answer is that He’s still good. But our safety, and the safety of our kids, isn’t part of the deal. This is incredibly hard to accept on the American evangelical church scene, because we love families, and we love loving families, and we nearly associate godliness itself with cherishing family beyond any other earthly thing. That someone would challenge this bond, the primacy of the family bond, is offensive. And yet . . . Jesus did it. And it was even more offensive, then, in a culture that wasn’t nearly so individualistic as ours. Everything was based on family: your reputation, your status—everything. And yet He challenges the idea that our attachment to family is so important, so noble, that it is synonymous with our love for Him. Which leads to some other spare thoughts, like this: we can make idols out of our families. Again, in a “Focus on the Family” subculture, it’s hard to imagine how this could be. Families are good. But idols aren’t made of bad things. They used to be fashioned out of trees or stone, and those aren’t bad, either. Idols aren’t bad things; they’re good things, made Ultimate. We make things Ultimate when we see the true God as a route to these things, or a guarantor of them. It sounds like heresy, but it’s not: the very safety of our family can become an idol. God wants us to want Him for Him, not merely for what He can provide. Here’s another thought: As wonderful as “mother love” is, we have to make sure it doesn’t become twisted. And it can. It can become a be-all, end-all, and the very focus of a woman’s existence. C. S. Lewis writes that it’s especially dangerous because it seems so very, very righteous. Who can possibly challenge a mother’s love? God can, and does, when it becomes an Ultimate. And it’s more likely to become a disordered Ultimate than many other things, simply because it does seem so very righteous. Lewis says this happens with patriotism too.

Beware of Strangers As children, they teach us To beware of strangers, To refrain from approaching them. As we grow older we learn That no one is stranger than those We thought we’d known all our lives. As we grow older we learn That a stranger may carry more empathy, And may understand us more deeply. Even feelings of affection from a stranger May be more sincere. And so I ask: can humanity and the strangeness be synonymous? Could we say: I am a stranger; therefore I am? Can we truly feel alive Without strange things Strange encounters without strangers reminding us that our hearts and minds are still beating? They teach us to avoid strangers, And life teaches us that human awareness can only be borne out Of the dagger of strangeness… That life is tasteless When we don’t mix it with strangers… That familiarity is opposed to life! And thus, I loudly declare: A stranger I was born. A stranger I wish to remain! And I ask that you issue my death certificate The day I become familiar. [Original poem published in Arabic on October 29 at ahewar.org]

In today's church, the word "music" is often freely substituted for the idea of "worship"; however, music is not necessarily synonymous, or automatically interchangeable with, the idea of worship. People will often say, "It's time to worship" and what they mean is that it is time to begin singing. But, music is merely one form or means by which individuals can act on and express their worship to God. The substantive content of worship does not change, but there are many different ways in which worship of God is manifested through the actions of individuals.

She’s what my mother used to call “plain,” by which she meant an unremarkable-looking girl who was worse off than “the ugly ones.” That’s how she would say it, and her explanation for such a vile statement couldn’t have been more logical. At least in her limited way of thinking, and also in Dorothy’s because she shares the same point of view. Pretty girls don’t try at all because they don’t have to. Ugly girls try harder for obvious reasons. That leaves plain girls, which usually is synonymous with smart girls, and they need to try but don’t know any better or can’t be bothered.

The world was filled with weapons and combat was a way of life. Perhaps the only way of life. He’d bled to whips and words, to punches and glances. He’d been bludgeoned by invisible shields, blindsided by unseen clubs, and had laboured under the chains of his own vows. And as Samar Dev would say, one survives by withstanding this onslaught, this history of the then and the now. To fail was to fall, but falling was not always synonymous with a quick, merciful death. Rather, one could fall into the slow dissolution, losses heaped high, that dragged a mortal to his or her knees. That made them slow slayers of themselves.

Advaita, being the non-dual reality, necessarily points to the essential truth in all religions. Paula Marvelly points out that: 'All religions and faiths contain an esoteric heart, a mystical belief that I AM is in fact synonymous with God.' (Ref. 353) As Gandhi said: 'If the same divinity constitutes the core of all individuals, they cannot but be equal. Further, divinity in one person cannot in any way be unjust to the same divinity in another person.' (Ref. 215) Sayings from the bible such as those of God to Moses ('I am that I am' ) or of Christ ('The kingdom of heaven is within you') express the fundamental truth of Advaita, the non-dual reality of Brahman.

Thelema is a religion of joy and beauty. Humor is our armor and laughter our weapon. No longer do we look upon solemnity and selfeffacement as synonymous with spirituality. Thelema is a law of Liberty that holds the keys to unlock the innate potential of every individual, to release ourselves from the burden of sorrow and fear, and to allow ourselves to be ourselves and rejoice therein. As it says in The Book of the Law, “Remember all ye that existence is pure joy.” With this knowledge, we can consciously and willfully engage in that ultimate Sacrament we know as existence. I therefore say with Crowley, “Look, brother, we are free! Rejoice with me, sister, there is no law beyond Do what thou wilt!

{From Luther Burbank's funeral. He was loved until he revealed he was an atheist, then he began to receive death threats. He tried to amiably answer them all, leading to his death} It is impossible to estimate the wealth he has created. It has been generously given to the world. Unlike inventors, in other fields, no patent rights were given him, nor did he seek a monopoly in what he created. Had that been the case, Luther Burbank would have been perhaps the world's richest man. But the world is richer because of him. In this he found joy that no amount of money could give. And so we meet him here today, not in death, but in the only immortal life we positively know--his good deeds, his kindly, simple, life of constructive work and loving service to the whole wide world. These things cannot die. They are cumulative, and the work he has done shall be as nothing to its continuation in the only immortality this brave, unselfish man ever sought, or asked to know. As great as were his contributions to the material wealth of this planet, the ages yet to come, that shall better understand him, will give first place in judging the importance of his work to what he has done for the betterment of human plants and the strength they shall gain, through his courage, to conquer the tares, the thistles and the weeds. Then no more shall we have a mythical God that smells of brimstone and fire; that confuses hate with love; a God that binds up the minds of little children, as other heathen bind up their feet--little children equally helpless to defend their precious right to think and choose and not be chained from the dawn of childhood to the dogmas of the dead. Luther Burbank will rank with the great leaders who have driven heathenish gods back into darkness, forever from this earth. In the orthodox threat of eternal punishment for sin--which he knew was often synonymous with yielding up all liberty and freedom--and in its promise of an immortality, often held out for the sacrifice of all that was dear to life, the right to think, the right to one's mind, the right to choose, he saw nothing but cowardice. He shrank from such ways of thought as a flower from the icy blasts of death. As shown by his work in life, contributing billions of wealth to humanity, with no more return than the maintenance of his own breadline, he was too humble, too unselfish, to be cajoled with dogmatic promises of rewards as a sort of heavenly bribe for righteous conduct here. He knew that the man who fearlessly stands for the right, regardless of the threat of punishment or the promise of reward, was the real man. Rather was he willing to accept eternal sleep, in returning to the elements from whence he came, for in his lexicon change was life. Here he was content to mingle as a part of the whole, as the raindrop from the sea performs its sacred service in watering the land to which it is assigned, that two blades may grow instead of one, and then, its mission ended, goes back to the ocean from whence it came. With such service, with such a life as gardener to the lilies of the field, in his return to the bosoms of infinity, he has not lost himself. There he has found himself, is a part of the cosmic sea of eternal force, eternal energy. And thus he lived and always will live. Thomas Edison, who believes very much as Burbank, once discussed with me immortality. He pointed to the electric light, his invention, saying: 'There lives Tom Edison.' So Luther Burbank lives. He lives forever in the myriad fields of strengthened grain, in the new forms of fruits and flowers, plants, vines, and trees, and above all, the newly watered gardens of the human mind, from whence shall spring human freedom that shall drive out false and brutal gods. The gods are toppling from their thrones. They go before the laughter and the joy of the new childhood of the race, unshackled and unafraid.

From Fuss we learn that "gladiatorial shows were sacred" to Saturn; and in Ausonius we read that "the amphitheatre claims its gladiators for itself, when at the end of December they PROPITIATE with their blood the sickle-bearing Son of Heaven." On this passage, Justus Lipsius, who quotes it, thus comments: "Were you will observe two things, both, that the gladiators fought on the Saturnalia, and that they did so for the purpose of appeasing and PROPITIATING Saturn." "The reason of this," he adds, "I should suppose to be, that Saturn is not among the celestial but the infernal gods. Plutarch, in his book of 'Summaries,' says, that 'the Romans looked upon Kronos as a subterranean and infernal God.'" There can be no doubt that this is so far true, for the name of Pluto is only a synonym for Saturn, "The Hidden One.

The Incarnation, which is for traditional Christianity synonymous with the historical birth and earthly life of Christ, is for mystics of a certain type, not only this but also a perpetual Cosmic and personal process. It is an everlasting bringing forth, in the universe and also in the individual ascending soul, of the divine and perfect Life, the pure character of God, of which the one historical life dramatized the essential constituents. Hence the soul, like the physical embryo, resumes in its upward progress the spiritual life-history of the race. "The one secret, the greatest of all," says Patmore, is "the doctrine of the Incarnation, regarded not as an historical event which occurred two thousand years ago, but as an event which is renewed in the body of every one who is in the way to the fulfilment of his original destiny."  239

Faith is not discussed as an abstraction in the gospels. Jesus does not talk about it so much as respond to it in other people, for example, saying to a woman who has sought him for a healing, “thy faith hath made thee whole” (Matt. 9:22, KJV). And faith is not presented as a sure thing. Among Jesus’ disciples Peter is the one whose faith is most evident, always eager. Then, in the crisis of Jesus’ arrest and trial, Peter is the disciple who denies him three times. I do not know the man, he says, and weeps. The relentlessly cheerful and positive language about faith that I associate with the strong-arm tactics of evangelism fails to take this biblical ambiguity into account. I appreciate much more the wisdom of novelist Doris Betts’s assertion that faith is “not synonymous with certainty ... [but] is the decision to keep your eyes open.

The average grunt when not out in “the shit”, the boonie, thought about all the “Ball Games”, the battles, he had fought, all the narrow escapes from death, of buddies who had fallen one by one and wondered just how long his luck would hold. It came from knowing that a grunt could not fight in many “Ball Games” before he became a casualty. The general thinking was that if a grunt fought in say six without being hit he would not last another six, for there was a feeling that, sooner or later, death caught up with you but it was not what actually happened. There was a near-truism that if a grunt remained in the shit for a long time without a break he was almost certain to become a casualty, but casualty and death are not synonymous. A more realistic calculation was between three to six people wounded for one “kool aid”, killed in action. Nevertheless, it sure was unsettling to think that the best to hope for was receiving a wound.

It is understandable how this shame came into being. The nation made the black man's color a stigma. Even linguistics and semantics conspire to give this impression. If you look in Roget's Thesaurus you will find about 120 synonyms for blacK, and right down the line you will find words like smut, something dirty, worthless, and useless, and then you look further and you find about 120 synonyms for white and they all represent something high, noble, pure, chaste - right down the line. In our language structure, a white lie is a little better than a black lie. Somebody goes wrong in the family and we don't call him a white sheep, we call him a black sheep. We don't say whitemail, but blackmail. We don't speak of white-balling somebody, but black-balling somebody. The word 'black' itself in our society connotes something that is degrading. It was absolutely necessary to come to a moment with a sense of dignity. It is very positive and very necessary.

Besides, they say, when we eat something, what really happens is this. Our failing health starts fighting off the attacks of hunger, using the food as an ally. Gradually it begins to prevail, and, in this very process of winning back its normal strength, experiences the sense of enjoyment which we find so refreshing. Now, if health enjoys the actual battle, why wouldn't it also enjoy the victory? Or are we to suppose that when it has finally managed to regain its former vigour - the one thing that it has been fighting for all this time - it promptly falls into a coma, and fails to notice or take advantage of its success? As for the idea that one isn't conscious of health except through its opposite, they say that's quite untrue. Everyone's perfectly aware of feeling well, unless he's asleep or actually feeling ill. Even the most insensitive and apathetic sort of person will admit that it's delightful to be healthy - and what is delight, but a synonym for pleasure?

TechCrunch, Fast Company, Mashable, Inc., Entrepreneur, and countless other publications. LinkedIn and Hacker News abound with job postings: Growth Hacker Needed. Their job isn’t to “do” marketing as I had always known it; it’s to grow companies really fast—to take something from nothing and make it something enormous within an incredibly tight window. And it says something about what marketing has become that these are no longer considered synonymous tasks. The term “growth hacker” has many different meanings for different people, but I’ll define it as I have come to understand it: A growth hacker is someone who has thrown out the playbook of traditional marketing and replaced it with only what is testable, trackable, and scalable. Their tools are e-mails, pay-per-click ads, blogs, and platform APIs instead of commercials, publicity, and money. While their marketing brethren chase vague notions like “branding” and “mind share,” growth hackers relentlessly pursue users and growth—and when they do it right, those users beget more users, who beget more users. They are the inventors, operators, and mechanics of their own self-sustaining and self-propagating growth machine that can take a start-up from nothing to something.

So what made you the Knox Jagger you are today?” I asked. “The guy whose name has become synonymous with name-taker and ass-kicker? And let’s not forget my personal favorite—panty-procurer?” Knox finished the last of his water before sealing the empty bottle. “It depends on who you ask. A socialist would say it’s because I’m a member of generation Y and have entitlement issues and am lazy. A psychologist would say it’s because I have anger issues stemming from a turbulent childhood and an absent father.” “Do you have an absent father?” I butted in. “So absent I don’t even know who he is.” Knox met my gaze. “But I wasn’t finished with my earlier thought, so stop interrupting. You’re the one who wanted to know, remember?” His smile was in place as he nudged me. “If you ask the church, it’s because I haven’t found Jesus. If you ask the girls, it’s because I have commitment issues. If you ask the guys, it’s because I’m a hot-headed jackass. If you ask the transcendentalists, it’s because I haven’t found my inner chi. And if you ask my mother, it’s because one half of me is made up of the son of a bitch known as my absent father.” And there was Knox Jagger the enigma—ready to throw down one moment and talking about transcendentalism the next one. For one of the few times in my life, I didn’t know what to say. “Now

dared to accept this opportunity, or even to conceive of it as an opportunity. White Americans have thought of it as their shame, and have envied those more civilized and elegant European nations that were untroubled by the presence of black men on their shores. This is because white Americans have supposed “Europe” and “civilization” to be synonyms—which they are not—and have been distrustful of other standards and other sources of vitality, especially those produced in America itself, and have attempted to behave in all matters as though what was east for Europe was also east for them. What it comes to is that if we, who can scarcely be considered a white nation, persist in thinking of ourselves as one, we condemn ourselves, with the truly white nations, to sterility and decay, whereas if we could accept ourselves as we are, we might bring new life to the Western achievements, and transform them. The price of this transformation is the unconditional freedom of the Negro; it is not too much to say that he, who has been so long rejected, must now be embraced, and at no matter what psychic or social risk. He is the key figure in his country, and the American future is precisely as bright or as dark as his. And the Negro recognizes this, in a negative way. Hence the question: Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house? White

(...) To discuss such, ah, personal matters on the air, especially in an educational setting, is really quite in poor taste.” “It wasn’t that personal,” I say. “Everyone who’s been on social media knows what happened with the 'Bugle' stuff. Also, you know, my locker still says FEMINAZI.” Dr. Guinn clears his throat. “I meant your discussion about . . . feminine hygiene.” It takes me a minute to understand. “Are you trying to say that tampons aren’t allowed on the morning announcements?” Dr. Guinn studies me for a moment. (...) “I’m just trying to ensure that this is an environment where everyone feels comfortable.” Look, I get it. Tampons are embarrassing. Periods are embarrassing. PMS, for some reason, is not, but that’s because it has somehow become a synonym for being in a bad mood while female. The whole specific business with the bleeding, though, is still not cool, except in certain woke corners of the internet. (...) But it’s weird to have Dr. Guinn tell me how embarrassing periods are. The man has never had one in his life—why does he get to have an opinion about it? “Could it be,” I say, in as conciliatory a tone as I can manage, “that maybe it’s not an environment where everyone feels comfortable . . . if we’re not allowed to talk publicly about something that is a normal, healthy part of life for every menstruating student and teacher at Willoughby?

The development briefly outlined here seems to have been anticipated in medieval and Gnostic symbolism, just as the Antichrist was in the New Testament. How this occurred I will endeavour to describe in what follows. We have seen that, as the higher Adam corresponds to the lower, so the lower Adam corresponds to the serpent. For the mentality of the Middle Ages and of late antiquity, the first of the two double pyramids, the Anthropos Quaternio, represents the world of the spirit, or metaphysics, while the second, the Shadow Quaternio, represents sublunary nature and in particular man’s instinctual disposition, the “flesh”—to use a Gnostic-Christian term—which has its roots in the animal kingdom or, to be more precise, in the realm of warm-blooded animals. The nadir of this system is the cold-blooded vertebrate, the snake,30 for with the snake the psychic rapport that can be established with practically all warm-blooded animals comes to an end. That the snake, contrary to expectation, should be a counterpart of the Anthropos is corroborated by the fact—of especial significance for the Middle Ages—that it is on the one hand a well-known allegory of Christ, and on the other hand appears to be equipped with the gift of wisdom and of supreme spirituality.31 As Hippolytus says, the Gnostics identified the serpent with the spinal cord and the medulla. These are synonymous with the reflex functions.

Often interfaces are assumed to be synonymous with media itself. But what would it mean to say that “interface” and “media” are two names for the same thing? The answer is found in the remediation or layer model of media, broached already in the introduction, wherein media are essentially nothing but formal containers housing other pieces of media. This is a claim most clearly elaborated on the opening pages of Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media. McLuhan liked to articulate this claim in terms of media history: a new medium is invented, and as such its role is as a container for a previous media format. So, film is invented at the tail end of the nineteenth century as a container for photography, music, and various theatrical formats like vaudeville. What is video but a container for film. What is the Web but a container for text, image, video clips, and so on. Like the layers of an onion, one format encircles another, and it is media all the way down. This definition is well-established today, and it is a very short leap from there to the idea of interface, for the interface becomes the point of transition between different mediatic layers within any nested system. The interface is an “agitation” or generative friction between different formats. In computer science, this happens very literally; an “interface” is the name given to the way in which one glob of code can interact with another. Since any given format finds its identity merely in the fact that it is a container for another format, the concept of interface and medium quickly collapse into one and the same thing.

What is the vril?” I asked. Therewith Zee began to enter into an explanation of which I understood very little, for there is no word in any language I know which is an exact synonym for vril. I should call it electricity, except that it comprehends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which, in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as magnetism, galvanism, &c. These people consider that in vril they have arrived at the unity in natural energetic agencies, which has been conjectured by many philosophers above ground, and which Faraday thus intimates under the more cautious term of correlation:— “I have long held an opinion,” says that illustrious experimentalist, “almost amounting to a conviction, in common, I believe, with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest, have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent that they are convertible, as it were into one another, and possess equivalents of power in their action. These subterranean philosophers assert that by one operation of vril, which Faraday would perhaps call ‘atmospheric magnetism,’ they can influence the variations of temperature—in plain words, the weather; that by operations, akin to those ascribed to mesmerism, electro-biology, odic force, &c., but applied scientifically, through vril conductors, they can exercise influence over minds, and bodies animal and vegetable, to an extent not surpassed in the romances of our mystics. To all such agencies they give the common name of vril.

...he [Perry Hildebrandt] broached the subject of goodness and its relation to intelligence. He'd come to the reception for selfless reasons, but he now saw that he might get not only a free buzz but free advise from, as it were, two professionals. 'I suppose what I'm asking,' he said, 'is whether goodness can ever truly be its own reward, or whether, consciously or not, it always serves some personal instrumentality.' Reverend Walsh [Trinity Lutheran] and the rabbi [Meyer] exchanged glances in which Perry detected pleasant surprise. It gratified him to upset their expectations of a fifteen-year-old. 'Adam may have a different answer,' the rabbi said, but in the Jewish faith there is really only one measure of righteousness: Do you celebrate God and obey His commandments?' 'That would suggest,' Perry said, 'that goodness and God are essentially synonymous.' 'That's the idea,' the rabbi said. 'In biblical times, when God manifested Himself more directly. He could seem like quite the hard-ass--striking people blind for trivial offenses, telling Abraham to kill his son. But the essence of the Jewish faith is that God does what He does, and we obey Him.' 'So, in other words, it doesn't matter what a righteous person's private thoughts are, so long as he obeys the letter of God's commandments?' 'And worships Him, yes. Of course, at the level of folk wisdom, a man can be righteous without being a -mensch.- I'm sure you see this, too, Adam--the pious man who makes everyone around him miserable. That might be what Perry is asking about.' 'My question,' Perry said, 'is whether we can ever escape our selfishness. Even if you bring in God, and make him the measure of goodness, the person who worships and obeys Him still wants something for himself. He enjoys the feeling of being righteous, or he wants eternal life, or what have you. If you're smart enough to think about it, there's always some selfish angle.' The rabbi smiled. 'There may be no way around it, when you put it like that. But we "bring in God," as you say--for the believer, of course, it's God who brought -us- in--to establish a moral order in which your question becomes irrelevant. When obedience is the defining principle, we don't need to police every little private thought we might have.' 'I think there's more to Perry's question, though,' Reverend Walsh said. 'I think he is pointing to sinfulness, which is our fundamental condition. In Christian faith, only one man has ever exemplified perfect goodness, and he was the Son of God. The rest of us can only hope for glimmers of what it's like to be truly good. When we perform an act of charity, or forgive an enemy, we feel the goodness of Christ in our hearts. We all have an innate capability to recognize true goodness, but we're also full of sin, and those two parts of us are constantly at war.' 'Exactly,' Perry said. 'How do I know if I'm really being good or if I'm just pursuing a sinful advantage?' 'The answer, I would say, is by listening to your heart. Only your heart can tell you what your true motive is--whether it partakes of Christ. I think my position is similar to Rabbi Meyer's. The reason we need faith--in our case, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ--is that it gives us a rock-solid basis for evaluating our actions. Only through faith in the perfection of our Savior, only by comparing our actions to his example, only by experiencing his living presence in our hearts, can we hope to be forgiven for the more selfish thoughts we might have. Only faith in Christ redeems us. Without him, we're lost in a sea of second-guessing our motives.

Extroverts tend to tackle assignments quickly. They make fast (sometimes rash) decisions, and are comfortable multitasking and risk-taking. They enjoy “the thrill of the chase” for rewards like money and status. Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately. They like to focus on one task at a time and can have mighty powers of concentration. They’re relatively immune to the lures of wealth and fame. Our personalities also shape our social styles. Extroverts are the people who will add life to your dinner party and laugh generously at your jokes. They tend to be assertive, dominant, and in great need of company. Extroverts think out loud and on their feet; they prefer talking to listening, rarely find themselves at a loss for words, and occasionally blurt out things they never meant to say. They’re comfortable with conflict, but not with solitude. Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions. A few things introverts are not: The word introvert is not a synonym for hermit or misanthrope. Introverts can be these things, but most are perfectly friendly. One of the most humane phrases in the English language—“Only connect!”—was written by the distinctly introverted E. M. Forster in a novel exploring the question of how to achieve “human love at its height.” Nor are introverts necessarily shy. Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not.

..reincarnation is a truth, because in existence nothing dies. Even the physicist will say, about the objective world, that nothing dies. You can destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki but you cannot destroy a single drop of water. You cannot destroy. Physicists have become aware of this impossibility. Whatever you do, only the form changes. But nothing can be destroyed in the objective world. The same is true about the world of consciousness, of life. There is no death. Death is only a change from one form into another form, and ultimately from form to formlessness. Only Gautam Buddha has given the right word for this experience. In English it is difficult to translate it, because languages develop only after experience. It is just arbitrarily that I am calling it "enlightenment." But it is very arbitrary; it does not really give you the sense that Buddha's word gives. He calls it nirvana. Nirvana means ceasing to be. Strange... ceasing to be. Not to be is nirvana. That does not mean that you are no more; it simply means you are no longer an entity, embodied. The dewdrop drops into the ocean. Now it is the whole ocean. Existence is alive at every stage. Nothing is dead. Even a stone - which you think seems to be completely dead - is not dead. So many living electrons are running so fast inside it that you cannot see them, but they are all living beings. Their bodies are so small that nobody has seen them; we don't even have any scientific instrument to see the electron, it is only guesswork. We can see the effect; hence we think there must be a cause. The cause has not been seen, only the effect has been seen. But the electron is as alive as you are. The whole existence is synonymous with life. Here nothing dies. Death is an impossibility. Yes, things change from one form to another form till they become mature enough that they need not go to school again. Then they move into a formless life, then they become one with the ocean itself.

When Malcolm X, who is considered the movement’s second-in-command, and heir apparent, points out that the cry of “violence” was not raised, for example, when the Israelis fought to regain Israel, and, indeed, is raised only when black men indicate that they will fight for their rights, he is speaking the truth. The conquests of England, every single one of them bloody, are part of what Americans have in mind when they speak of England’s glory. In the United States, violence and heroism have been made synonymous except when it comes to blacks, and the only way to defeat Malcolm’s point is to concede it and then ask oneself why this is so. Malcolm’s statement is not answered by references to the triumphs of the N.A.A.C.P., the more particularly since very few liberals have any notion of how long, how costly, and how heartbreaking a task it is to gather the evidence that one can carry into court, or how long such court battles take. Neither is it answered by references to the student sit-in-movement, if only because not all Negroes are students and not all of them live in the South. I, in any case, certainly refuse to be put in the position of denying the truth of Malcolm’s statements simply because I disagree with his conclusions, or in order to pacify the liberal conscience. Things are as bad as the Muslims say they are—in fact, they are worse, and the Muslims do not help matters—but there is no reason that black men should be expected to be more patient, more forbearing, more farseeing than whites; indeed, quite the contrary. The real reason that nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes—I am not speaking now of its racial value, another matter altogether—is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened. One wishes they would say so more often. At the end of a television program on which Malcolm X and I both appeared, Malcolm was stopped by a white member of the audience who said, “I have a thousand dollars and an acre of land. What’s going to happen to me?” I admired the directness of the man’s question, but I didn’t hear Malcolm’s reply, because I was trying to explain to someone else that the situation of the Irish a hundred years ago and the situation of the Negro today cannot very usefully be compared.

Another dangerous neoliberal word circulating everywhere that is worth zooming in on is the word ‘resilience’. On the surface, I think many people won’t object to the idea that it is good and beneficial for us to be resilient to withstand the difficulties and challenges of life. As a person who lived through the atrocities of wars and sanctions in Iraq, I’ve learnt that life is not about being happy or sad, not about laughing or crying, leaving or staying. Life is about endurance. Since most feelings, moods, and states of being are fleeting, endurance, for me, is the common denominator that helps me go through the darkest and most beautiful moments of life knowing that they are fleeing. In that sense, I believe it is good for us to master the art of resilience and endurance. Yet, how should we think about the meaning of ‘resilience’ when used by ruling classes that push for wars and occupations, and that contribute to producing millions of deaths and refugees to profit from plundering the planet? What does it mean when these same warmongers fund humanitarian organizations asking them to go to war-torn countries to teach people the value of ‘resilience’? What happens to the meaning of ‘resilience’ when they create frighteningly precarious economic structures, uncertain employment, and lay off people without accountability? All this while also asking us to be ‘resilient’… As such, we must not let the word ‘resilience’ circulate or get planted in the heads of our youth uncritically. Instead, we should raise questions about what it really means. Does it mean the same thing for a poor young man or woman from Ghana, Ecuador, Afghanistan vs a privileged member from the upper management of a U.S. corporation? Resilience towards what? What is the root of the challenges for which we are expected to be resilient? Does our resilience solve the cause or the root of the problem or does it maintain the status quo while we wait for the next disaster? Are individuals always to blame if their resilience doesn’t yield any results, or should we equally examine the social contract and the entire structure in which individuals live that might be designed in such a way that one’s resilience may not prevail no matter how much perseverance and sacrifice one demonstrates? There is no doubt that resilience, according to its neoliberal corporate meaning, is used in a way that places the sole responsibility of failure on the shoulders of individuals rather than equally holding accountable the structure in which these individuals exist, and the precarious circumstances that require work and commitment way beyond individual capabilities and resources. I find it more effective not to simply aspire to be resilient, but to distinguish between situations in which individual resilience can do, and those for which the depth, awareness, and work of an entire community or society is needed for any real and sustainable change to occur. But none of this can happen if we don’t first agree upon what each of us mean when we say ‘resilience,’ and if we have different definitions of what it means, then we should ask: how shall we merge and reconcile our definitions of the word so that we complement not undermine what we do individually and collectively as people. Resilience should not become a synonym for surrender. It is great to be resilient when facing a flood or an earthquake, but that is not the same when having to endure wars and economic crises caused by the ruling class and warmongers. [From “On the Great Resignation” published on CounterPunch on February 24, 2023]

He was presented to her as Spencer Perceval, the Prime Minister of England. Kassandra stiffened as he bent over her hand. Mercifully, he released her swiftly but then proceeded to speak with exaggerated enunciation as though he presumed “foreign” and “slow” were synonymous. “I do hope your stay will be pleasant, Your Highness.” “Thank you, Prime Minister, I am quite assured that it will be. England is a delightful conjunction of seeming conflicts and contradictions, don’t you think?” Perceval frowned, taken by surprise and unsure how to respond. “Well, as to that-“ “After all, the culture that has produced that astonishing novel Sense and Sensibility and Lord Byron’s…ummm…affecting work within the space of just a few short months can hardly be considered merely> a self-aggrandizing island with delusions of empire, can it?” “I suppose not; that is to say?” “Do excuse us, Prime Minister,” Alex interjected smoothly. “I am sure you will understand there are so many waiting to meet Her Highness.” As he guided her toward the next eager greeter, Alex murmured, “Pray do try to remember we are not actually attempting to incite war with England.” Kassandra shrugged, feeling better since she had set down that vile Perceval. “Didn’t you suspect the Prime Minister of plotting an invasion of Akora just last year?” Her brother cast her a sharp look. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.” “For pity’s sake…” “All right, yes I did, but he was soundly discouraged by the Prince Regent himself. There is no reason to have any further concern in that regard.” Kassandra did not answer. She had her own thoughts on the subject and was not ye ready to share them. The introductions continued. Too soon, her head throbbed and the small of her back ached, but she kept her smile firmly in place. When the gong sounded for dinner, she resisted the urge to sag with relief.

Is it necessary to ask which attitude is more Christian, one that longs to return to the ‘unbroken harmony and unity’ of the Middle Ages, or one that wishes to use reason in order to free mankind from pestilence and oppression? But some part at least of the authoritarian Church of the Middle Ages succeeded in branding such practical humanitarianism as ‘worldly’, as characteristic of ‘Epicureanism’, and of men who desire only to ‘fill their bellies like the beasts’. The terms ‘Epicureanism’, ‘materialism’, and ‘empiricism’, that is to say, the philosophy of Democritus, one of the greatest of the Great Generation, became in this way the synonyms of wickedness, and the tribal Idealism of Plato and Aristotle was exalted as a kind of Christianity before Christ. Indeed, this is the source of the immense authority of Plato and Aristotle, even in our own day, that their philosophy was adopted by medieval authoritarianism. But it must not be forgotten that, outside the totalitarian camp, their fame has outlived their practical influence upon our lives. And although the name of Democritus is seldom remembered, his science as well as his morals still live with us.

Like strangler figs choking a banyan, not an explorer, no imperialist, not one of us, in taking what we pleased—in colonizing as the saying is—has been a synonym for mercy.

Sometimes the best way to relax, unwind, and get everything straightened out... is to curl up with a good book. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Give something of yourself to the day... even if it’s just a smile to someone walking the other way. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Even if you can’t just snap your fingers and make a dream come true, you can travel in the direction of your dream, every single day, and you can keep shortening the distance between the two of you. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Rest assured that, whenever you need them, your guardian angels are great about working overtime. – Douglas Pagels, from A Special Christmas Blessing Just for You Never forget what a treasure you are. That special person in the mirror may not always get to hear all the compliments you so sweetly deserve, but you are so worthy of such an abundance... of friendship, joy, and love. – Douglas Pagels, from You Are One Amazing Lady I love that I get to wake up every morning in a world that has people like you in it. – Douglas Pagels, from You Are One Amazing Lady Be someone who doesn’t make your guardian angel work too hard or worry too much. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Each day is a blank page in the diary of your life. Every day, you’re given a chance to determine what the words will say and how the story will unfold. The more rewarding you can make each page, the more amazing the entire book will be. And I would love for you to write a masterpiece. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Practice your tree pose. I want you to have a goal of finding a way to bring everything in your life into balance. Let the roots of all your dreams go deep. Let the hopes of all your tomorrows grow high. Bend, but don’t break. Take the seasons as they come. Stick up for yourself. And reach for the sky. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Remember that a new morning is good medicine... and one of the joys of life is realizing that you have the ability to make this a really great day. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Find comfort in knowing that “rising above” is something you can always find a way to do. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Look up “onward” in the thesaurus and utilize every one of those synonyms whenever you’re wondering which direction to go in. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Don’t judge yourself – love yourself. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! If you have a choice between a la-di-da life and an ooh-la-la! one, well... you know what to do. Choose the one that requires you to dust off your dancing shoes. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Write out your own definition of success. Fill it with a mix of stardust and wishes and down-to-earth things, and provide all the insight you can give it. Imagine what it takes to have a really happy, rewarding life. And then go out... and live it. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life!

Safety is synonymous with comfort, and comfort is antithetical to confrontation and growth. I have never grown in my life without being disciplined, confronted, or challenged. I have never matured and become better at much of anything, unless I was first made to feel dissonance and discomfort. Safe spaces will encourage students to do nothing more than what they already do and become nothing more than what they already are. If each of us is "good" enough, then feeling safe in that goodness may be fine. But, if we are hell-bent in our sin, then true love and good education calls for someone to stand in our way and say, "This may make you fell threatened and unsafe, but you're not as good as you think you are. Life isn't about you. You need to stop your bad behavior and think about others more than yourself!". The irony is that, while today's students are quick to deny the reality of sin, at the same time they are crying to be protected from ideas and actions they see as "sinful"--things they don't want to hear; things they don't want to see or experience; things and people they believe to be wrong. This new world of "safe spaces" is very much an "us" versus "them" paradigm. Consequently, because today's post-mods and millennials see themselves as sinless, anyone who dares disagree with them is sinful. In an effort to protect themselves from anyone and any idea they disagree with their call for "safety" has become a tool of emotional and ideological fascism.

Perhaps one could say that the figurative ultimate is the ultimate that can be talked about. It is moreover only in terms of the figurative ultimate that statements concerning the ultimate—as when one says, for instance, that phenomena are not produced, or that emptiness and dependent arising are synonymous—are made.

In Morozov’s critique, we’ve made “the Internet” synonymous with the revolutionary future of business and government. To make your company more like “the Internet” is to be with the times, and to ignore these trends is to be the proverbial buggy-whip maker in an automotive age. We no longer see Internet tools as products released by for-profit companies, funded by investors hoping to make a return, and run by twentysomethings who are often making things up as they go along. We’re instead quick to idolize these digital doodads as a signifier of progress and a harbinger of a (dare I say, brave) new world.

For more than thirty years we’ve known that the assumptions about people in the standard economic models aren’t right. Economic man doesn’t exist – at least not in reality. But we still cling to him. However much he is criticized, he is still synonymous with economics, and we allow him to take up more and more space in our lives. It doesn’t seem to matter what the research says. It doesn’t seem to matter how often the economic models we build contribute to crashing the global economy. It doesn’t seem to matter how they time and time again fail to predict a swell in the market, its panic attacks and whims. We still won’t let go. We scrape up bits of an imagined universe, put them together in models and call it an accurate-enough picture of the world.

Consider one of the most useful verbs you’ll ever see: To say. Novices often use different words to say said, especially when writing dialogue. So they say that a president argues, declares, and cajoles. A ballplayer stutters, barks, muses, and mumbles. A philosopher cogitates, elucidates, complains, and demurs. These synonyms disrupt the flow of ideas. Avoid that distraction; just say said. If someone says something interesting, you don’t need to dress it up with synonyms.

Complexity, in turn, is still often used as a synonym for hierarchy. Hierarchy, in turn, is used as a euphemism for chains of command (the 'origins of the state'), which mean that as soon as large numbers of people decided to live in one place or join a common project, they must necessarily abandon the second freedom - to refuse orders - and replace it with legal mechanisms for, say, beating or locking up those who don't do as they're told.

People assume the brave part of making art is creating," Joe finally said. "The bravery is in finishing. Saying nothing else I do will make this piece better and it's time to send it into the world. Creating is a synonym for birth, but it's as much a death. An ending. Because once it's out there you can't take it back. You have to let it be complete.

Saying you believe and living your belief aren’t necessarily synonymous. For one person Christianity can be simply a religion they identify with. It is a common perspective that lacks conviction (and the power to save). For another it is a “oneness” with Jesus that is so much a part of their life that it is at times difficult to determine where they end and He begins. This is the very same intertwined oneness that Jesus enjoyed with our heavenly Father and prayed for His followers to have (John 17:20-26).

[Love Wasn’t as They Said] Love wasn’t as they said… It didn’t last forever as they claimed… It is fleeting moments only recognized By those with sight and insight… And perhaps only captured By those patiently waiting as if to see a lightning in the sky… And, like lightning perhaps, we never know Where love goes after it strikes… And perhaps the only love that lasts Is one that know when to stay and when to walk away… ** Love wasn’t synonymous with honor As they defined honor... It is often the awareness that falls upon us After betraying or letting down the loved ones… Love wasn’t holding hands forever, It is boring afternoons spent together With no words And no activities… It wasn’t lifetime sexual attraction As many claimed… It is the companionship that remains After the hormonal fires are put out, When the noises of immaturity go silent, And after the childish quarrels and squabbles stop… It is the home that remains erected Long after getting erectile dysfunction… It that appetite for life after the last egg from the last period… It is that strange feeling of elation That may come after what is mistakenly called a “midlife crisis”, To fill that frightening gap between hope and reality… ** Love a widow brushing her hair, On a bus or in a public place, Unbothered by onlookers or passersby, As she opens her shabby handbag And takes out an apple to bite on With the teeth she has left… Love is an eye surrounded with wrinkles But is finally able to see the world Sensitively, insightfully, and more realistically, Without exaggerated embellishment or distortion… ** Love is shreds of joy Interspersed with long intervals Of boredom, exhaustion, reproach, and disappointment… It’s not measured with red flowers, bears, and expensive gifts in shiny wraps, It is who remains when the glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol numbers are high… It’s those who stay after the heart catheterization and knee replacement surgeries… Love gets stronger after getting osteoporosis And may move mountains despite the rheumatism… ** Love is the few seconds when our eyes cross with strangers Who awaken in us feelings we hadn’t experienced with those living with us in years… Or perhaps it’s rubbing arms and shoulders with a passenger On a bus, in a train, or on a plane… It is that fleeting look from a passerby in the street Convey to us that they, too, have understood the game, But there’s not much they can do about it… ** Love wasn’t as they said It wasn’t as they said… It is not 1+1=2… It is sometimes three or more… At other times, it grows at point zero or lower, In solitude, in loneliness, and in seclusion… Isn’t it time, I wonder, to demolish everything falsely, unfairly, and misleadingly attributed to love? Or is it that love burns and dies Precisely when we try to capture it in our hands? [Original poem published in Arabic on October 27, 2022 at ahewar.org]

However this may be, the preceding explanation has at least made it clear that the Way has two opposite aspects, one positive and the other negative. The negative side is comparable with the metaphysical Darkness of Ibn Arabi. In the world-view of the latter too, the Absolute (haqq) in itself, i.e., in its absoluteness, is absolutely invisible, inaudible and ungraspable as any 'form' whatsoever. it is an absolute Transcendent, and as such it is 'Nothing' in relation to human cognition. But, as we remember, the Absolute in the metaphysical intuition of the Arab sage is 'Nothing', not because it is 'nothing' in the purely negative sense, but rather because it is too fully existent-rather, it is Existence itself. Likewise, it is Darkness not because it is deprived of light, but rather because it is too full of light, too luminous-rather, it is the Light itself. Exactly the same holds true of the Way as Lao-tzu intuits it. The Way is not dark, but it seems dark because it is too luminous and bright. He says: A 'way' which is (too) bright seems dark. The Way in itself, that is, from the point of view of the Way itself, is bright. But since 'it is too profound to be known by man' it is, from the point of view of man, dark. The Way is 'Nothing' in this sense. This negative aspect, however, does not exhaust the reality of the Absolute. If it did, there would be no world, no creatures. In the thought of Ibn Arabi, the Absolute by its own unfathomable Will comes down from the stage of abysmal Darkness or 'nothingness' to that of self-manifestation. The Absolute, although it is in itself a Mystery having nothing to do with any other thing, and a completely self-sufficient Reality-has another, positive aspect in which it is turned toward the world. And in this positive aspect, the Absolute contains all things in the form of Names and Attributes. In the same way, the Way of Lao-Tzu too, although it is in itself Something 'nameless', a Darkness which transcends all things, is the 'Named' and the 'Mother of the ten thousand things'. Far from being Non-Being, it is, in this respect, Being in the fullest sense. The Nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The Named is the Mother of ten thousand things. This passage can be translated as follows: The term 'Non-Being' could be applied to the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The term 'Being' could be applied to the Mother of ten thousand things. Whichever translation we may choose, the result comes to exactly the same thing. For in the metaphysical system of Lao-Tzu, the 'Nameless' is, as we have already seen, synonymous with 'Non-Being', while the 'Named' is the same as 'Being'. What is more important to notice is that metaphysically the Nameless or Non-Being represents a higher - or more fundamental - stage than the Named or Being within the structure of the Absolute itself. Just as in Ibn 'Arabi' even the highest 'self-manifestation' (tajalli) is a stage lower than the absolute Essence (dhat) of the Absolute, so in Lao-Tzu Being represents a secondary metaphysical stage with regard to the absoluteness of the Absolute. The ten thousand things under Heaven are born out of Being (yu), and Being is born out of Non-Being (wu).

In fact, we might say that progress and practice are synonyms. You can’t have the former without the latter. And the latter is worthless without the former.

I head straight for the protein bars, wondering how in the hell my life has come to this. It’s not like it’s a big shocker that I’m stuck living at home with my absent father and ass of an older brother. When I graduated high school, no one was pointing at me and thinking, now there’s a girl that’s going places. Nope. If they were pointing at me, it was to say things like, Isn’t that the Rousseau girl? Didn’t her brother get arrested last week for beating the hell out of some guy? They weren’t wrong. The Rousseau name is synonymous with fighting, poverty, and a healthy dose of low-class.

Gabriel was a memory, vivid and tangible, but a memory nonetheless. Not anymore. I keep saying we’re finished, as if it’s synonymous with being done. Our marriage is finished. But are we done?

Dear final daughter, You married a man the opposite of your father but I need to say all men are synonyms none the word you’re looking for

You married a man the opposite of your father but I need to say al men are synonyms none the word youj're looking for

We need to develop a more nuanced mental map of the digital landscape. Social media is not synonymous with the internet, smartphones are not equivalent to desktop computers or laptops, PacMan is not World of Warcraft, and the 2006 version of Facebook is not the 2024 version of TikTok. Almost all of it is more harmful to preteens than to older teens. I’m not saying that 11-year-olds should be kept off the internet. I’m saying that the Great Rewiring of Childhood, in which the phone-based childhood replaced the play-based childhood, is the major cause of the international epidemic of adolescent mental illness. We need to be careful about which kids have access to which products, at which ages, and on which devices. Unfettered access to everything, everywhere, at any age has been a disaster, even if there are a few benefits.

He was insufferable, but Penelope wasn’t going to say so, because it would only make her sound like a character in a very bad romantic novel. She’d read one just the other day in which the heroine used the word (or one of its synonyms) on every other page.

Retributive justice is thus somewhat synonymous with punishment. This is a necessary expression of God’s reaction to sin and evil. Retributive justice is not something God may or may not exercise, as is the case with mercy, love, and grace. Retributive justice, that is, punishment for sin, is a matter of debt. It is something God cannot refrain from doing lest he violate the rectitude and righteousness of his nature and will. Sin must be punished. It is a serious misunderstanding of Christianity and the nature of forgiveness to say that believers are those whose guilt is rescinded and whose sins are not punished.

The Church has carried out some of the most inhuman and above all un-Christian acts of human history, yet, it is still gloriously hailed by the majority of human population as to be synonymous with Jesus Christ.

Squares have defined urban living since the dawn of democracy, from which they are inseparable. From the start, the public square has been synonymous with a society that acknowledges public life and a life in public, which is to say a society distinguishing the individual from the state [Michael Kimmelman, "Culture: Power of the Place"].

Amen, actually stems from Amun, the Egyptian god of Thebes,” Edna supplied. “With time, his name became synonymous with justice and truth, and hence saying Amen after a prayer or a proclamation served as joining in it and affirming its truthfulness. However, by using his name in this manner, you’re implying that you’re an Amun worshiper, which

The electrical universe meant that ‘eternal life and perpetual motion are almost, or altogether, synonymous’ – that is to say, impossible.30 Time therefore, for revolution on earth since there was no hope of heaven.

He was presented to her as Spencer Perceval, the Prime Minister of England. Kassandra stiffened as he bent over her hand. Mercifully, he released her swiftly but then proceeded to speak with exaggerated enunciation as though he presumed “foreign” and “slow” were synonymous. “I do hope your stay will be pleasant, Your Highness.” “Thank you, Prime Minister, I am quite assured that it will be. England is a delightful conjunction of seeming conflicts and contradictions, don’t you think?” Perceval frowned, taken by surprise and unsure how to respond. “Well, as to that-“ “After all, the culture that has produced that astonishing novel Sense and Sensibility and Lord Byron’s…ummm…affecting work within the space of just a few short months can hardly be considered merely a self-aggrandizing island with delusions of empire, can it?” “I suppose not; that is to say?” “Do excuse us, Prime Minister,” Alex interjected smoothly. “I am sure you will understand there are so many waiting to meet Her Highness.” As he guided her toward the next eager greeter, Alex murmured, “Pray do try to remember we are not actually attempting to incite war with England.” Kassandra shrugged, feeling better since she had set down that vile Perceval. “Didn’t you suspect the Prime Minister of plotting an invasion of Akora just last year?” Her brother cast her a sharp look. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.” “For pity’s sake…” “All right, yes I did, but he was soundly discouraged by the Prince Regent himself. There is no reason to have any further concern in that regard.” Kassandra did not answer. She had her own thoughts on the subject and was not ye ready to share them. The introductions continued. Too soon, her head throbbed and the small of her back ached, but she kept her smile firmly in place. When the gong sounded for dinner, she resisted the urge to sag with relief.

Sorry’ isn’t a synonym for ‘guilty.’ It's a way to say you're listening.