philosophical

Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously

One needs to properly possess only a couple of great thoughts--they shed light on many stretches whose illumination one would never have believed in.

When the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys.

_ 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 _ire, 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 _riugena 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 have the ability to find all the answers--if you let yourself do so.

There is a coherence in things, a stability; something... is immune from change and shines out... in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby.

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.

Well, it is in fact possible to put things behind you, Rakel. The art of dealing with ghosts is to dare to look at them long and hard until you know that is what they are. Ghosts. Lifeless, powerless ghosts.

Honesty scares quite a lot of people.

Dualism::In Ralph Ellison's Invisible ManI am outside of history. i wish i had some peanuts, it looks hungry there in the cage.i am outside of history. its hungrier than i thot.

As I usually do when I want to get rid of someone whose conversation bores me, I pretended to agree.

Heated is what you get when you rub faith and instinct together.

Irony is the kid who steals music and is stolen by the music.

Doctrines are meant to serve man, not the other way around.

A man who discovers his pants are on fire tends to have very little time to worry about somebody else's box of matches

The Prayer of the Middle-Aged ManAmid the doctors in the Temple at twelve, between mother & host at Cana implored too soon, in the middle of disciples, the midst of the mob, between High-Priest and Procurator, among the occupiers,between the malefactors, and 'stetit in medio, et dixit, pax vobis' and 'ascensit ad mediam Personarum et caelorum,' dear my Lord,mercy a sinner nailed dead-centre too, pray not to late,-for also Ezra stood between the seven & the six, restoring the new Law.

What if he could see this, his own skull, yellow and eroded? Two centuries old. Would he still speak? Would he speak, if he could see it, the grinning, aged skull? What would there be for him to say, to tell the people? What message could he bring?What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull?

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.