Universe Conspires Quotes

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And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
You can justify anything. If you’re narcissistic enough to believe that the universe conspires for and against you—which we all are, deep down—then you can convince yourself you're getting signs about anything and everything.
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones & The Six)
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn't conspire against you, but it doesn't go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. "Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it's important to you and you want to do it "eventually," just do it and correct course along the way.
Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Workweek)
To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation and when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
The Universe doesn't like secrets. It conspires to reveal the truth, to lead you to it.
Lisa Unger (Beautiful Lies (Ridley Jones, #1))
The universe conspires to reveal the truth and to make your path easy if you have the courage to follow the signs.
Lisa Unger
There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can. . . . Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; human beings must act on reason.
David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars)
when you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it
Paulo Coelho
Intent without dedicated action is simply not enough. Action without a clear intent is a waste. It is when these two powerful forces are aligned that the energy of the universe conspires in your favor.
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
I'd hate to find out that the universe really wasn't conspiring against me. It would jerk the rug out from under my persecution complex.
Jim Butcher (Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, #3))
When a human awakens to a great dream and throws the full force of his soul over it, all the universe conspires in your favor.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In all that was to happen, there would be that feeling of inevitability and rightness, and the sense that the universe was conspiring in it. It would be easy.
Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1))
When you want something, he entire universe conspires to help you achieve it.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
Things began happening with odd synchronicity, as if the universe itself was conspiring on behalf of their love story.
John Mark Green
So really, it was just as well that Godmother had caught up to me, in spite of my best efforts to avoid her. I'd hate to find out that the universe really wasn't conspiring against me. It would jerk the rug out from under my persecution complex." -Harry
Jim Butcher (Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, #3))
I didn't want to do it,' Kiala said. 'The universe just kind of conspired to force me to make a fool of myself. It does that quite a lot, actually.
Graham Parke (Unspent Time)
Power, true power, comes from the belief in true things, and the willingness to stand behind that belief, even if the universe itself conspires to thwart your plans. Chaos may settle; flames may die; worlds may rise and fall. But true things will remain so, and will never fail to guide you to your goals.
James A. Owen (Here, There Be Dragons (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, #1))
The sense of wonder and possibility – that I owed to the Argentine women who had fought for freedom before the universe conspired and the stars aligned to make me.
Yamile Saied Méndez (Furia)
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
W.H. Auden (Another Time)
So, a warrior of the light must be prepared to be patient at difficult times, and know that the Universe is conspiring in his favor, even if he does not understand how.
Paulo Coelho (Warrior of the Light)
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Stephanie Land (Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive)
DAISY: When Teddy died, that was it. I’d decided there was no sense in getting sober. I rationalized it. You know, If the universe wanted me to get clean, it wouldn’t have killed Teddy. You can justify anything. If you’re narcissistic enough to believe that the universe conspires for and against you—which we all are, deep down—then you can convince yourself you’re getting signs about anything and everything.
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones & The Six)
The universe has always conspired to fuck me up.
Tom Spanbauer (Now Is the Hour)
When you want something with all of your heart, the universe conspires to helping you achieve it - The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
Someone gave me a copy of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, a fable about a shepherd boy who travels to the Pyramids in search of treasure when all the time it's at home. I loved that book and read it over and over again. 'When you want something all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it,' it says. I don't think that Paulo Coelho had come across the Taliban or our useless politicians.
Malala Yousafzai (I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban)
If you’re narcissistic enough to believe that the universe conspires for and against you—which we all are, deep down—then you can convince yourself you’re getting signs about anything and everything.
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones & The Six)
when a person really desires something,all the universe conspires to help that person realise his dream...
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
The universe conspires to help the dreamer
Paulo Coelho
Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor even though we may not understand how.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Marc Reklau (30 Days - Change your habits, Change your life: A couple of simple steps every day to create the life you want)
Learn the wisdom of the Hound. Always rest, eat, and play when you can, because the universe conspires to keep you from doing any of these things nearly as often as you would like.
Mercedes Lackey (Elite (Hunter, #2))
After accepting love as a stimulus, a man faces the third obstacle: the fear of the defeats he will encounter along the way. A man who fights for his dream suffers far more when something doesn’t go well, because he cannot use the famous excuse: “oh, well in fact that wasn’t exactly what I wanted anyway… ” He does want it, and knows he is putting everything into it, and also that the Personal Legend is just as difficult as any other path - the difference being that your heart is present on this journey. So, a warrior of the light must be prepared to be patient at difficult times, and know that the Universe is conspiring in his favor, even if he does not understand how.
Paulo Coelho (Warrior of the Light)
And the old King said - Wen You want Something, all the Universe conspires in helping You to achieve it !!!- The Alchemist
Cohelo
Sometimes the universe conspires in ways that make it look like you are being rejected, but really, you are being protected from misaligned, potentially harmful people and situations.
Vanessa Ooms (Do It For You: How to Stop People-Pleasing and Find Peace)
Pursue what’s in your heart, and the universe will conspire to support you.
Rich Roll (Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself)
The only real voyage consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes; in seeing the universe through the eyes of another, one hundred others-in seeing the hundred universes that each of them sees. Marcel Proust, translated by Kiyotesong
Rob Brezsny (Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings)
The Universe conspires to make people meet each other! We may not realize this but we don't just meet anyone by chance. Everything is connected. We see the signs every moment. We just need to believe in the story of our life!
Avijeet Das
I had a dream, and I met with a king. I sold crystal and crossed the desert. And, because the tribes declared war, I went to the well, seeking the alchemist. So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
The universe is conspiring in every moment to bring me happiness and peace.
Marianne Williamson (A Year of Miracles: Daily Devotions and Reflections (The Marianne Williamson Series))
And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it
Paulo Coelho
when you really want want something the whole universe conspires you to search for that thing
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
When you want something,all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Paulo Coelho
When you want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
When you are in Alignment with yourself, the Universe conspired to make this world a bliss for you.
Mridula Singh (Live More: Magic Begins with You)
Always rest, eat, and play when you can, because the universe conspires to keep you from doing any of these things nearly as often as you would like.
Mercedes Lackey (Elite (Hunter, #2))
You know, sometimes even when two people love each other the universe still conspires against them, forces them apart.
Sarah Noffke (Revived (The Lucidites, #3))
All happy mornings resemble one another, as do all unhappy mornings, and that’s at the bottom of what makes them so deeply unhappy: the feeling that this unhappiness has happened before, that efforts to avoid it will at best reinforce it, and probably even exacerbate it, that the universe is, for whatever inconceivable, unnecessary, and unjust reason, conspiring against the innocent sequence of clothes, breakfast, teeth and egregious cowlicks, backpacks, shoes, jackets, goodbye. Jacob
Jonathan Safran Foer (Here I Am)
I once heard this theory that when you dread something, time moves faster, as if the universe is determined to conspire against you.
Ann Liang (This Time It's Real)
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it,
Anonymous
The universe conspires to steer one in the direction where one can flourish. Bad or good the experience will be a lesson and a lesson learned is fortune measured by wisdom gained.
Sal Martinez
But sometimes all the stars in the entire universe conspire to make something good happen.
Nathan Filer
It’s not every day the universe conspires to bring you face-to-face with someone who makes you think, Yes, you are my human.
Vivien Chien (Killer Kung Pao (A Noodle Shop Mystery #6))
when you want something, the whole universe conspires to help you.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
Be true to yourself and the right people and resources always show up. The Universe always conspires for the right meetings to occur. Everything is unfolding as it should. It really is.
Maria Erving
The next day, I’d be going home. Little did I know that, as I slept, the universe was already conspiring, like a table full of gossiping women, to help nudge me in the right direction to- ward my fate... or to my death.
Kayla Cunningham (Fated to Love You (Chasing the Comet Book 1))
...once you express your will, the Universe will conspire with each and every atom to help you reach your destiny.
Katy Tackes (Each Time She Wakes)
The boy thought it a strange question. But he trusted in the old man, who had said that, when you really want something, the universe always conspires in your favor.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
He had some taste for romance reading before he went to the university, where, we must confess, in justice to his college, he was cured of the love of reading in all its shapes; and the cure would have been radical, if disappointment in love, and total solitude, had not conspired to bring on a relapse.
Thomas Love Peacock (Nightmare Abbey)
I've never been good with asking for help; it seems risky, but at some point when things are really dicey, your stubbornness gives way to a certain form of humility that, after you get over yourself, feels liberating. I started to believe that the universe was conspiring to help me finish my house, sending people along at the right moment.
Dee Williams
Though either choice was good, one was truer to myself... Ultimately, I reflected on Geothe's invocation to 'make a commitment and the forces of the universe will conspire to make it happen' and chose the uncharted path.
Jacqueline Novogratz (The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World)
So Einstein says, "The universe is always conspiring for your greatest good," huh? If that were true, we wouldn't be living here. Not in this broken time, not in this broken city, not on this broken planet with my broken Ziggy cross pieces. No. We'd be on our caravel ride through the stars. Together.
James Brandon (Ziggy, Stardust and Me)
As Einstein might have put it, only a very malicious (and, therefore, in his mind unimaginable) God would have conspired to have created a universe that so unambiguously points to a Big Bang origin without its having occurred.
Lawrence M. Krauss (A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing)
Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor. even though we may not understand how.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
if you really want something the whole universe will conspires to help to achieve that
poulo choelo
Always look for the window of opportunity. If you look for it passionately, you will find it, because the whole universe will conspire to find an open window just for you
Debasish Mridha
we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
Sometimes it was hard to breathe, knowing how small my world could be. Maybe in San Francisco it wouldn't feel like the universe was conspiring to keep me in a bubble.
Heather Demetrios (I'll Meet You There)
So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
Paulo Coelho
Once upon a time there was a boy who met a girl, because the universe conspired to help him find her. Her smile was a question he wanted to spend the rest of his life answering.
Shawn Stern
When u really want something, the entire universe conspires to help you achieve it.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream,” said the alchemist, echoing the words of the old king.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation. All things are one."And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it,” he had said.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
Sometimes all the stars in the entire universe conspire to make something good happen.
Nathan Filer
We lose our gratitude so easily in this commerce-driven world, and take for granted our health, friendships, food, warm shelter, running water, etc. We can become so spoiled that we actually feel the universe is conspiring against us if we aren’t being handed an Academy Award, or if we aren’t as famous as U2.
Max Strom (A Life Worth Breathing: A Yoga Master's Handbook of Strength, Grace, and Healing)
I always admire people who have the courage to confront the conventional wisdom - I mean, people within the system. Those of us on the outside, it's easy for us to say whatever we think, because there are no consequences to it. It's much harder to say, "I think the conventional wisdom is full of beans, and I'm not going to go along with it," when you're inside the system and exposed to the possibility of actual failure. I think the people who do this drive the world to get better, whereas the people who snipe at anybody who dares suggest that the conventional wisdom is malarkey are, in my view, gutless conspirators in the mediocrity of the universe.
Bill James
But of course the universe does not conspire to put you in one place rather than another, Colin knew. He thought of Democritus: “Everywhere man blames nature and fate, yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passions, his mistakes and weaknesses.
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
The more we see ourselves as victims who need to be saved, the more we’ll attract people offering to help. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it keep us depending on others and hence, stuck in the disempowering cycle of the victim mentality. Truly, once you save yourself the universe will somehow conspire to help you out. But the work must be ignited from within. A the very end, we are our own victim as well as our own saviour... the rest are mere excuses.
Omar Cherif
We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey. Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
when you really want something, the universe always conspires in your favor.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
if you are really looking for something, the entire universe will conspire to help you get it.
Manoj Arora (From the Rat Race to Financial Freedom (Second Edition))
But of course, the universe does not conspire to put you in one place rather than another.
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn't conspire against you, but it doesn't go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. "Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it's important to you and you want to do it "eventually," just do it and correct course along the way.
null
Why is nature so ingeniously, one might even say suspiciously, friendly to life? What do the laws of physics care about life and consciousness that they should conspire to make a hospitable universe? It's almost as if a Grand Designer had it all figured out.
Paul C.W. Davies
This, to be sure, is not the entire truth. For there were individuals in Germany who from the very beginning of the regime and without ever wavering were opposed to Hitler; no one knows how many there were of them—perhaps a hundred thousand, perhaps many more, perhaps many fewer—for their voices were never heard. They could be found everywhere, in all strata of society, among the simple people as well as among the educated, in all parties, perhaps even in the ranks of the N.S.D.A.P. Very few of them were known publicly, as were the aforementioned Reck-Malleczewen or the philosopher Karl Jaspers. Some of them were truly and deeply pious, like an artisan of whom I know, who preferred having his independent existence destroyed and becoming a simple worker in a factory to taking upon himself the “little formality” of entering the Nazi Party. A few still took an oath seriously and preferred, for example, to renounce an academic career rather than swear by Hitler’s name. A more numerous group were the workers, especially in Berlin, and Socialist intellectuals who tried to aid the Jews they knew. There were finally, the two peasant boys whose story is related in Günther Weisenborn’s Der lautlose Aufstand (1953), who were drafted into the S.S. at the end of the war and refused to sign; they were sentenced to death, and on the day of their execution they wrote in their last letter to their families: “We two would rather die than burden our conscience with such terrible things. We know what the S.S. must carry out.” The position of these people, who, practically speaking, did nothing, was altogether different from that of the conspirators. Their ability to tell right from wrong had remained intact, and they never suffered a “crisis of conscience.” There may also have been such persons among the members of the resistance, but they were hardly more numerous in the ranks of the conspirators than among the people at large. They were neither heroes nor saints, and they remained completely silent. Only on one occasion, in a single desperate gesture, did this wholly isolated and mute element manifest itself publicly: this was when the Scholls, two students at Munich University, brother and sister, under the influence of their teacher Kurt Huber distributed the famous leaflets in which Hitler was finally called what he was—a “mass murderer.
Hannah Arendt (Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil)
To the Druids, a man was not separate from the universe or born into it from elsewhere. He was, like the trees and their leaves and blooms, part of nature. As a flower breaks out from a twig, so does man appear in the world from the womb of the universal mother. Man is an embodiment and emanation of nature. Consequently, a man who felt himself apart from nature was considered unsane. This was the law of the Druids and of Shaman everywhere. Perverted men were sacrificed to save the tribe from calamity. Trees are capable of producing sour and rotten fruit and, likewise, civilizations produce sour and rotten men and women who constitute a hazard to themselves and everyone around them. Thus rites of initiation were instigated to make sure the impure had no chance of attaining positions of power. The removal of these strict telestic rites gave mentally and morally toxic men access to the thrones of the world. Once in command, such types were wont to promote others of their kind and conspire against the morally and spiritually superior men they despise.
Michael Tsarion (The Irish Origins of Civilization, Volume One: The Servants of Truth: Druidic Traditions & Influence Explored)
It must have been a decade since the Count had first promised himself to read this work of universal acclaim that his father had held so dear. And yet, every time he had pointed his finger at his calendar and declared: This is the month in which I shall devote myself to the Essays of Michel de Montaigne! some devilish aspect of life had poked its head in the door. From an unexpected corner had come an expression of romantic interest, which could not in good conscience be ignored. Or his banker had called. Or the circus had come to town. Life will entice, after all. But here, at last, circumstance had conspired not to distract the Count, but to present him with the time and solitude necessary to give the book its due.
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
The banana flavour of his accidental conception, and the banana theme of his accidental death, now all seemed to conspire against him and rather suggest the universe, Mr Fate or whoever did have some sort of master plan after all. Despite all his earlier conjecturing, maybe the universe, Mr Fate or whoever was laughing its fat and meddling head at him. The outlandish evidence did seem to speak for itself, truly suggesting a mocking narrative devised by some mischievous author because quite simply a banana condom had brought Midnight into the world and a banana skin had seen him out. Putting those two seeming truths together, Midnight was once again forced to ask such confused and searching questions like: What is this place, where am I heading? And what’s the deal with all the ruddy bananas?
Tom Conrad
we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how. I ask myself: are defeats necessary? Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how. I ask myself: are defeats necessary? Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times. So, why is it so important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people? Because, once we have overcome the defeats—and we always do—we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. We start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure. Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives. Having disinterred our dream, having used the power of love to nurture it and spent many years living with the scars, we suddenly notice that what we always wanted is there, waiting for us, perhaps the very next day. Then comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives. Oscar Wilde said: “Each man kills the thing he loves.” And it’s true. The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
You allege some considerations in favor of a Deity from the universality of a belief in his existence. The superstitions of the savage, and the religion of civilized Europe appear to you to conspire to prove a first cause. I maintain that it is from the evidence of revelation alone that this belief derives the slightest countenance. That credulity should be gross in proportion to the ignorance of the mind that it enslaves, is in strict consistency with the principles of human nature. The idiot, the child and the savage, agree in attributing their own passions and propensities to the inanimate substances by which they are either benefited or injured. The former become Gods and the latter Demons; hence prayers and sacrifices, by the means of which the rude Theologian imagines that he may confirm the benevolence of the one, or mitigate the malignity of the other. He has averted the wrath of a powerful enemy by supplications and submission; he has secured the assistance of his neighbour by offerings; he has felt his own anger subside before the entreaties of a vanquished foe, and has cherished gratitude for the kindness of another. Therefore does he believe that the elements will listen to his vows. He is capable of love and hatred towards his fellow beings, and is variously impelled by those principles to benefit or injure them. The source of his error is sufficiently obvious. When the winds, the waves and the atmosphere act in such a manner as to thwart or forward his designs, he attributes to them the same propensities of whose existence within himself he is conscious when he is instigated by benefits to kindness, or by injuries to revenge. The bigot of the woods can form no conception of beings possessed of properties differing from his own: it requires, indeed, a mind considerably tinctured with science, and enlarged by cultivation to contemplate itself, not as the centre and model of the Universe, but as one of the infinitely various multitude of beings of which it is actually composed.
Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
Flow is an extremely potent response to external events and requires an extraordinary set of signals. The process includes dopamine, which does more than tune signal-to-noise ratios. Emotionally, we feel dopamine as engagement, excitement, creativity, and a desire to investigate and make meaning out of the world. Evolutionarily, it serves a similar function. Human beings are hardwired for exploration, hardwired to push the envelope: dopamine is largely responsible for that wiring. This neurochemical is released whenever we take a risk or encounter something novel. It rewards exploratory behavior. It also helps us survive that behavior. By increasing attention, information flow, and pattern recognition in the brain, and heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle firing timing in the body, dopamine serves as a formidable skill-booster as well. Norepinephrine provides another boost. In the body, it speeds up heart rate, muscle tension, and respiration, and triggers glucose release so we have more energy. In the brain, norepinephrine increases arousal, attention, neural efficiency, and emotional control. In flow, it keeps us locked on target, holding distractions at bay. And as a pleasure-inducer, if dopamine’s drug analog is cocaine, norepinephrine’s is speed, which means this enhancement comes with a hell of a high. Endorphins, our third flow conspirator, also come with a hell of a high. These natural “endogenous” (meaning naturally internal to the body) opiates relieve pain and produce pleasure much like “exogenous” (externally added to the body) opiates like heroin. Potent too. The most commonly produced endorphin is 100 times more powerful than medical morphine. The next neurotransmitter is anandamide, which takes its name from the Sanskrit word for “bliss”—and for good reason. Anandamide is an endogenous cannabinoid, and similarly feels like the psychoactive effect found in marijuana. Known to show up in exercise-induced flow states (and suspected in other kinds), this chemical elevates mood, relieves pain, dilates blood vessels and bronchial tubes (aiding respiration), and amplifies lateral thinking (our ability to link disparate ideas together). More critically, anandamide also inhibits our ability to feel fear, even, possibly, according to research done at Duke, facilitates the extinction of long-term fear memories. Lastly, at the tail end of a flow state, it also appears (more research needs to be done) that the brain releases serotonin, the neurochemical now associated with SSRIs like Prozac. “It’s a molecule involved in helping people cope with adversity,” Oxford University’s Philip Cowen told the New York Times, “to not lose it, to keep going and try to sort everything out.” In flow, serotonin is partly responsible for the afterglow effect, and thus the cause of some confusion. “A lot of people associate serotonin directly with flow,” says high performance psychologist Michael Gervais, “but that’s backward. By the time the serotonin has arrived the state has already happened. It’s a signal things are coming to an end, not just beginning.” These five chemicals are flow’s mighty cocktail. Alone, each packs a punch, together a wallop.
Steven Kotler (The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance)
Eeh, but whah’s the use, the fuckin’ use?” Dixon resting his head briefly tho’ audibly upon the Table. “It’s over . . . ? Nought left to us but Paper-work . . . ?” Their task has shifted, from Direct Traverse upon the Line to Pen-and-Paper Representation of it, in the sober Day-Light of Philadelphia, strain’d thro’ twelve-by-twelve Sash-work, as in the spectreless Light of the Candles in their Rooms, suffering but the fretful Shadows of Dixon at the Drafting Table, and Mason, seconding now, reading from Entries in the Field-Book, as Dixon once minded the Clock for him. Finally, one day, Dixon announces, “Well,— won’t thee at least have a look . . . ?” Mason eagerly rushes to inspect the Map of the Boundaries, almost instantly boggling, for there bold as a Pirate’s Flag is an eight-pointed Star, surmounted by a Fleur-de-Lis. “What’s this thing here? pointing North? Wasn’t the l’Grand flying one of these? Doth it not signify, England’s most inveterately hated Rival? France?” “All respect, Mason,— among Brother and Sister Needle-folk in ev’ry Land, ’tis known universally, as the ‘Flower-de-Luce.’ A Magnetickal Term.” “ ‘Flower of Light’? Light, hey? Sounds Encyclopedistick to me, perhaps even Masonick,” says Mason. A Surveyor’s North-Point, Dixon explains, by long Tradition, is his own, which he may draw, and embellish, in any way he pleases, so it point where North be. It becomes his Hall-Mark, personal as a Silver-Smith’s, representative of his Honesty and Good Name. Further, as with many Glyphs, ’tis important ever to keep Faith with it,— for an often enormous Investment of Faith, and Will, lies condens’d within, giving it a Potency in the World that the Agents of Reason care little for. “ ’Tis an ancient Shape, said to go back to the earliest Italian Wind-Roses,” says Dixon, “— originally, at the North, they put the Letter T, for Tramontane, the Wind that blew down from the Alps . . . ? Over the years, as ever befalls such frail Bric-a-Brack as Letters of the Alphabet, it was beaten into a kind of Spear-head,— tho’ the kinder-hearted will aver it a Lily, and clash thy Face, do tha deny it.” “Yet some, finding it upon a new Map, might also take it as a reassertion of French claims to Ohio,” Mason pretends to remind him. “Aye, tha’ve found me out, I confess,— ’tis a secret Message to all who conspire in the Dark! Eeh! The old Jesuit Canard again!
Thomas Pynchon (Mason & Dixon)