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J Quotes

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All J Quotes

“Just as there are those who accept every UFO report at face value, there are also those who dismiss the idea of alien visitation out of hand and with great passion. It is, they say, unnecessary to examine the evidence, and “unscientific” even to contemplate the issue. I once helped to organize a public debate at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science between proponent and opponent scientists of the proposition that some UFOs were spaceships; whereupon a distinguished physicist, whose judgment in many other matters I respected, threatened to sic the Vice President of the United States on me if I persisted in this madness. (Nevertheless, the debate was held and published, the issues were a little better clarified, and I did not hear from Spiro T. Agnew.)”

“Just as there comes a warm sunbeam into every cottage window, so comes a lovebeam of God's care and pity for every separate need.”

“Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see; one, you cannot. One is made of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are both equally true.”

“Just as there is no place where God is not, there is no state where saintliness cannot find a place. Whether anchorites or wanderers, princes who retreat to the desert, merchants who abandon their shops and go begging by the roadside, there is in Islam no lack of vocations which take their impulse from renunciation and find their fulfilment in exile. But perfection does not come from these ruptures. The best stay where they are, since "He is with you wherever you are". They do not flee their condition, be they caliph or water bearer; sometimes it is their condition which flees them. Their retreat is the crowd, their desert is the public square. Conformity is their asceticism, the ordinary is their miracle.”

“Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement. There are only individual minds and individual achievements-an d a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.”

“Just as there’s usually a space or interval between people passing on the street, even if it sometimes seems very small, a space also exists between thoughts. In your meditation, see if you can perceive this gap between thoughts. What is it, and does it belong to the realm of time? If it does not, then it’s unborn and undying, beyond all conditioning, which is a psychological carry-over from the past to the present. Whatever thoughts or internal conflicts come up—do nothing. Do not try to force them to cease or change. And don’t “do nothing” to still the mind, quiet fears, or resolve conflicts—all of this is doing something. It only leads to more struggling and prevents you from seeing the actual nature of thought and internal conflict. Genuine attention has no motive. This observation or listening doesn’t involve effort. Effort merely distracts you from what’s taking place in the instant. A kind of concentration exists that’s not forced. We’ve all experienced listening or paying attention to something we truly enjoyed. At that moment, was effort required for concentration to take place?”

“Just as there was a first instant when someone rubbed two sticks together to make a spark, there was a first time joy was felt, and a first time for sadness. For a while, new feelings were being invented all the time. Desire was born early, as was regret. When stubbornness was felt for the first time, it started a chain reaction, creating the feeling of resentment on the one hand, and alienation and loneliness on the other. It might have been a certain counterclockwise movement of the hips that marked the birth of ecstasy; a bolt of lightening that caused the feeling of awe. Contrary to logic, the feeling of surprise wasn’t born immediately. It only came after people had enough time to get used to things as they were. And when enough time had passed, and someone felt the first feeling of surprise, someone, somewhere else, felt the first pang of nostalgia.”

“Just as they reached the bridge, Alix heard the planes returning – and soon after came deafening explosions to either side of them. Plumes of water rose into the air as bombs fell into the river and the fragile bridge shook alarmingly. Tito quickly dismounted Swallow, leading his horse onto the wooden pontoon. Alix got down too and followed, her head bowed in an attempt to shut out the cacophony of noises. As she reached the end of the pontoon, ready to climb up the old bridge, she heard a horse scream behind her. She jerked round in the direction of the noise and saw Nikola’s horse throwing up its head and prancing sideways, refusing to set foot on the bridge. Nikola remained mounted, struggling to keep control. Above her she heard Tito shout, ‘Dismount, you fool!’ But it was too late. Nikola gave the horse a cut with his whip. It reared and then bucked, throwing Nikola over its head into the turbulent waters of the river below. Alix watched, terror stricken, for him to surface. But there was no sign. Though it was mere seconds, it felt as if she was frozen in place forever. Then she heard the sound of another body entering the water. Drago had been close behind her but now she realised he was missing. Paralysed with fear, she looked down at the rushing waters below her. A few more seconds passed and then Drago reappeared, holding Nikola under the arms.”

“Just as this female krewe had turned the table on men, now they turned the table on convention. Not one queen, they agreed. No. Why should there be only one? “Let us have four, one for each point of the compass, to include the whole of womanhood. One each of the various symbols of female identity—-Semiramis, Pocahontas, Juliet, and Brunhilde. All womanhood included in royalty!” they declared.”

“Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.”

“Just as Uncle Tom, back during slavery used to keep the Negroes from resisting the bloodhound or resisting the Ku Klux Klan by teaching them to love their enemies or pray for those who use them despitefully, today Martin Luther King is just a twentieth-century or modern Uncle Tom or religious Uncle Tom, who is doing the same thing today to keep Negroes defenseless in the face of attack that Uncle Tom did on the plantation to keep those Negroes defenseless in the face of the attack of the Klan in that day.”

“Just as verbally and physically abused children internalize blame, so do incest victims. However, in incest, the blame is compounded by the shame. The belief that ‘it’s all my fault’ is never more intense than with the incest victim. This belief fosters strong feelings of self-loathing and shame. In addition to having somehow to cope with the actual incest, the victim must now guard against being caught and exposed as a ‘dirty, disgusting’ person”

“just as violence is the last refuge of the inarticulate, so it is also the first resort of the incompetent, the easy out for the man who is capable of expressing himself only in the most primitive and vulgar of dramatic terms. He leaves us with only the obscenity of violence per se - and the pornographer thereof will always be with us, in film as in any other medium. And so will his audience.”

“Just as Wallace learned and evolved, Ali was on his own journey of discovery. Starting out as a 15-year-old cook, Ali learned to collect and mount specimens. He took on responsibility for organizing travel. He nursed Wallace during many bouts of fever and injury.”