Perhaps passing through the gates of death is like passing through the gate in a pasture fence. On the other side, you keep walking, without the need to look back. No shock, no drama, just the lifting of a plank or two in a simple wooden gate in a clearing. Neither pain, nor floods of light, nor great voices, but just the silent crossing of a meadow.
Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress; working hard for something we love is called passion.
If you understand too much, eternity passes you by.
It is impossible to be grateful and hateful at the same time.
I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in their time.
The EU has a flag no one salutes, an anthem no one sings, a president no one can name, a parliament whose powers subtract from those of national legislatures, a bureaucracy no one admires or controls, and rules of fiscal rectitude that no member is penalized for ignoring.
When dealing with the finest lines in this or any other language, you should let Shakespeare do the talking. If you insist on interposing your ego, you ensure that all in the audience, wherever they sit, get an obstructed view. When you stage Shakespeare, you are fashioning a setting for the most precious of jewels. The work demands all your artifice. The goldsmith’s craft may be creative, original, dazzling — but it must be deployed in the service of enhancing the gem, not smothering it.
When media and the digital world become omnipresent, their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply and to love generously.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
…you don’t need a grand plan. Just take the next step, do the unglamorous tasks enthusiastically and expect the unexpected.
The biggest problem we face as a culture…is that we use words like justice, rights, freedom and dignity without any commonly shared meaning. . . . Our most important debates boil out to who can deploy the best words in the best way to get power.
We often wonder how people of the past, including the most revered and refined, could have universally engaged in conduct now considered unconscionable. Such as slavery. How could the Founders, so sublimely devoted to human liberty, have lived with — some participating in — human slavery? …While retrospective judgment tends to make us feel superior to our ancestors, it should really evoke humility. Surely some contemporary practices will be deemed equally abominable by succeeding generations. The only question is: Which ones?
I’ve learned that style is the product of my limitations.
I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.
When someone isn’t willing or ready for spiritual oneness, emotional oneness, legal oneness, financial oneness — why let them steal physical and soul oneness from you?
