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I Quotes

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All I Quotes

“In The Order of Time, physicist and author Carlo Rovelli sums up this dynamic beautifully: "It isn't absence that causes sorrow. It is affection and love. Without affection, without love, such absences would cause us no pain. For this reason, even the pain caused by absence is, in the end, something good and even beautiful, because it feeds on that which gives meaning to life.”

“In the ordinary affairs of life we do not require nor expect demonstrative evidence, because it is inconsistent with the nature of matters of fact, and to insist on its production would be unreasonable and absurd.”

“In the ordinary jumble of my literary drawer, I sometimes find texts I wrote ten, fifteen, or even more years ago. And many of them seem to me written by a stranger: I simply do not recognize myself in them. There was a person who wrote them, and it was I. I experienced them, but it was in another life, from which I just woke up, as if from someone else's dream.”

“In the ordinary, everyday understandings of the words involved, to say that someone survived death is to contradict yourself; while to assert that all of us live forever is to assert a manifest falsehood, the flat contrary of a universally known truth: namely, the truth that all human beings are mortal. For when, after some disaster, the 'dead' and the 'survivors' have both been listed, what logical space remains for a third category?”

“In the Orthodox ecclesial experience and tradition a sacrament is understood primarily as a revelation of the genuine nature of creation, of the world, which, however much it has fallen as "this world," will remain God's world, awaiting salvation, redemption, healing and transfiguration in a new earth and a new heaven. In other words, in the Orthodox experience a sacrament is primarily a revelation of the sacramentality of creation itself, for the world was created and given to man for conversion of creaturely life into participation in divine life. If in baptism water can become a "laver of regeneration," if our earthy food - bread and wine - can be transformed into partaking of the body and blood of Christ, if with oil we are granted the anointment of the Holy Spirit, if, to put it briefly, everything in the world can be identified, manifested and understood as a gift of God and participation in the new life, it is because all of creation was originally summoned and destined for the fulfillment of the divine economy - "then God will be all in all.”

“In the other gardens And all up the vale, From the autumn bonfies See the smoke trail! Pleasant summer over And all the summer flowers, The red fire blazes, the grey smoke towers. Sing a song of seasons! Something bright in all, Flowers in the summer Fires in the fall!”

“In the other story, the real one that must be nurtured with the gentleness of a seedling plant, two days hence would bring leaves, grass and Robert Trout. His visit must remain clandestine, his company continue; there were too many questions, too much poetry to hear, more harp song perhaps. And the genial hum of him. Peculiar to feel such kinship with a stranger. And sympathy for his rootless plight filled Lavender like an interior stream---a rill and beck that coursed through her veins and chased the coracle of her heart along at a pace so rapid she trembled at the risk of it capsizing, tossing her onto the shores of some barren, alien planet.”

“In the other universes, stones and stellar masses are still and quiet. They might emit light, they might glow, but they’re still inanimate. Bakhassa is different. That is why we, Bakhals, love our homeland so much and wish to neither invade the other universes nor let others penetrate through ours. We believe the other species have killed their universes due to their vile codes of conduct. We do not wish the same to happen to ours, because we cherish our beloved home, unlike them. Bakhassa is like a living organism where every star, every particle, every small cell, has a heart and a soul. It is a universe where everything coexists in harmony, and destructions too, serve to create younger matters. We, Bakhals, call our universe ‘Bakhassa’ - the ‘heartbeat’, because everything here breathes, feels, and connects. Unlike the others, this universe is alive, and we follow the rhythm of its heartbeat.”

“In the Ottoman times, there were itinerant storytellers called "meddah. " They would go to coffee houses, where they would tell a story in front of an audience, often improvising. With each new person in the story, the meddah would change his voice, impersonating that character. Everybody could go and listen, you know ordinary people, even the sultan, Muslims and non-Muslims. Stories cut across all boundaries. Like "The Tales of Nasreddin Hodja," which were very popular throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans and Asia. Today, stories continue to transcend borders”

“in the outcomes of the greatest movements in German history—the Reformation and the Peasant War, the events of the period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, the Revolution of 1848 and the movement for the national unification of Germany. In all these major events the scales turned, in the long run, in favour of the reactionary classes.”

“In the outer layers of young stars life nearly always appears not only in the normal manner but also in the form of parasites, minute independent organisms of fire, often no bigger than a cloud in the terrestrial air, but sometimes as large as the Earth itself. These "salamanders" either feed upon the welling energies of the star in the same manner as the star's own organic tissues feed, or simply prey upon those tissues themselves. Here as elsewhere the laws of biological evolution come into force, and in time there may appear races of intelligent flame-like beings. Even when the salamandrian life does not reach this level, its effect on the star's tissues may become evident to the star as a disease of its skin and sense organs, or even of its deeper tissues. It then experiences emotions not wholly unlike human fright and shame, and anxiously and most humanly guards its secret from the telepathic reach of its fellows. The salamandrian races have never been able to gain mastery over their fiery worlds. Many of them succumb, soon or late, either to some natural disaster or to internecine strife or to the self-cleansing activities of their mighty host. Many others survive, but in a relatively harmless state, troubling their stars only with a mild irritation, and a faint shade of insincerity in all their dealings with one another. In the public culture of the stars the salamandrian pest was completely ignored. Each star believed itself to be the only sufferer and the only sinner in the galaxy. One indirect effect the pest did have on stellar thought. It introduced the idea of purity. Each star prized the perfection of the stellar community all the more by reason of its own secret experience of impurity.”

“In the outworks of our lives, we were almost strangers, but we shared a certain outlook on human life and human destiny, which, from the very first, made a bond of extreme strength . . . . At our very first meeting, we talked with continually increasing intimacy. We seemed to sink through layer after layer of what was superficial, till gradually both reached the central fire. It was an experience unlike any other that I have known. We looked into each other's eyes, half appalled and half intoxicated to find ourselves together in such a region. The emotion was as intense as passionate love, and at the same time all-embracing. I came away bewildered, and hardly able to find my way among ordinary affairs.”

“In the overwhelming demands of daily life, you get bombarded with continuous distractions, expectations and responsibilities. Is it no wonder that you may lose touch with simple pleasures and life lessons which you once knew, but have since forgotten? What do you need to be reminded of to live your life with purpose and passion?”

“In the pale light of daybreak the gravestones looked like so many white sails of boats anchored in a busy harbor. They were sails that would never again be filled with wind, sails that, too long unused and heavily drooping, had been turned into stone just as they were. The boats' anchors had been thrust so deeply into the dark earth that they could never again be raised.”

“In the Parable of the Great Banquet, many of those who failed to share the joy of the feast were ordinary people who were simply too busy with their future-oriented life. As the invitation came, they ignored it and went off to tend their everyday business. Like most people, they felt that it is more important to make a living than to go to a feast and make merry. In a word, they are too "serious.”

“In the parallel universe the laws of physics are suspended. What goes up does not necessarily come down, a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction. Time, 'too, is different. It may run in circles, flow backward, skip about from now to then. The very arrangement of molecules is fluid: Tables can be clocks, faces, flowers.”