Does Not Quotes

What is a child?" he asks her.
The diamond gaze does not flinch. "Creatures that are sold on the street by their parents, to get the coin to make more children." She paused. "Adults sell themselves. ~ C.S. Friedman

But, in the words of a Portuguese proverb, "God writes straight with crooked lines", and He is far more interested in getting us where He wants us to be than we are in getting there. He does not discuss things with us. He leads us faithfully and plainly as we trust Him and simply do the next thing. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

If a man achieves worldly success and does not blend into his life a program of self-improvement to bring about a sensible balance, he no doubt will end up as a failure. ~ John H. Vandenberg

Knowledge does not corrupt, unless it is arrogant; but then it is not true knowledge. ~ Elie Wiesel

That which a team does not want to discuss, it most needs to discuss. ~ Paul Gibbons

A really good story does not answer everything. After all, life doesn't answer everything. There remain ambiguities. There remains room for doubt. ~ Isaac Asimov

The house does not rest upon the ground, but upon a woman. ~ Mexican Proverb

You get the feeling that childhood does not last as long as it used to. Innocence gets harder to hold on to as the world gets older, as it accumulates more experience, more mileage and more blood on the tracks. ~ Martin Amis

The action or inaction of any government does not negate the Personal Responsibility of the citizens. ~ Sunday Adelaja

I am only a cup that knowledge holds. It does not to knowledge matter how poor the cup is. It is the wisdom of those who drink of me that me wise makes. Fools make a sibyl foolish, wherever she is. ~ Joan D. Vinge

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Wealth does not count; words do not count; actions count! ~ Dada J. P. Vaswani

I named this place Listening Point because only when one comes to listen, only when one is aware and still, can things be seen and heard. Everyone has a listening point somewhere. It does not have to be in the north or close to the wilderness, but someplace of quiet where the universe can be contemplated with awe. ~ Sigurd F. Olson

The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness. ~ John Green

Hearts, you say? You Humans are always so quick to speak of such things. As though you carry your hearts in the very palms of your hands. But this eye of mine perceives all. There is nothing that it overlooks. If this eye cannot see a thing, then it does not exist. That is the assumption under which I have always fought. What is this "heart"? If I tear open that chest of yours, will I see it there? If I smash open that skull of yours, will I see it there? ~ Tite Kubo

Girls and women, in their new, particular unfolding, will only in passing imitate men's behavior and misbehavior and follow in male professions. Once the uncertainty of such transitions is over it will emerge that women have only passed through the spectrum and the variety of those (often laughable) disguises in order to purify their truest natures from the distorting influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life abides and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully and more trustingly, are bound to have ripened more thoroughly, become more human human beings, than a man, who is all too light and has not been pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of a bodily fruit and who, in his arrogance and impatience, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity which inhabits woman, brought to term in pain and humiliation, will, once she has shrugged off the conventions of mere femininity through the transformations of her outward status, come clearly to light, and men, who today do not yet feel it approaching, will be taken by surprise and struck down by it. One day (there are already reliable signs which speak for it and which begin to spread their light, especially in the northern countries), one day there will be girls and women whose name will no longer just signify the opposite of the male but something in their own right, something which does not make one think of any supplement or limit but only of life and existence: the female human being.

This ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Just as his sentimentalism is profoundly middle-class and plebeian, but his irrationalism reactionary, so his moral philosophy also contains an inner contradiction: on the one hand, it is saturated with strongly plebeian characteristics, but on the other, it contains the germ of a new aristocratism. The concept of the 'beautiful soul' presupposes the complete dissolution of kalo-kagathia and implies the perfect spiritualization of all human values, but it also implies an application of aesthetic criteria to morality and is bound up with the view that moral values are the gift of nature. It means the recognition of a nobility of soul to which everyone has a right by nature, but in which the place of irrational birthrights is taken by an equally irrational quality of moral genius. The way of Rousseau's 'spiritual beauty' leads, on the one hand, to characters like Dostoevsky's Myshkin, who is a saint in the guise of an epilectic and an idiot, on the other, to the ideal of individual moral perfection which knows no social responsibility and does not aspire to be socially useful. Goethe, the Olympian, who thinks of nothing but his own spiritual perfection, is a disciple of Rousseau just as much as the young freethinker who wrote Werther. ~ Arnold Hauser

This is what it
means to create: not to make something out of nothing, but to make order out of chaos. A creative scientist or historian does not make
up facts but orders facts; he sees connections between them rather than seeing them as random data. A creative writer does not
make up new words but arranges familiar words in patterns which say something fresh to us. ~ Harold S. Kushner

To dwell on the things taht depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone. ~ Walter Isaacson

Donald Saari uses a combination of stories and questions to challenge students to think critically about calculus. "When I finish this process," he explained, "I want the students to feel like they have invented calculus and that only some accident of birth kept them from beating Newton to the punch." In essence, he provokes them into inventing ways to find the area under the curve, breaking the process into the smallest concepts (not steps) and raising the questions that will Socratically pull them through the most difficult moments. Unlike so many in his discipline, he does not simply perform calculus in front of the students; rather, he raises the questions that will help them reason through the process, to see the nature of the questions and to think about how to answer them. "I want my students to construct their own understanding," he explains, "so they can tell a story about how to solve the problem. ~ Ken Bain

The fact that you are attending church does not mean you are already serving the Lord ~ Sunday Adelaja

The word "art" does not designate the concept of a mere eventuality; it is a concept of rank.
To dwell is to garden. ~ Martin Heidegger

Nothing changes more constantly than the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but of what men believe happened. ~ Gerald W. Johnson

Till the chit is in blissful state, the world does not come in one's remembrance (one forgets the world till that time). ~ Dada Bhagwan

Democracy is a continuous, open process of civility.
A democracy can never be "done"; updating democracy can never be over.

Democracy can be nothing else but a continuous process, because we use it to organize our life, and life is nothing but a continuous process.

Democracy can be compared to an operating system or an anti-virus software; if it does not get perpetually updated, it becomes obsolete very fast.

Trusting the updates or the "improvements" of democracy to the elected and the owned mass media is like trusting the updates of an anti-virus program to virus creators; it defeats the purpose of updates or improvements. ~ Haroutioun Bochnakian

Social media is not rocket science. This, however, does not make it easy either. ~ David Amerland

The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter - for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. ~ Nikola Tesla

Beyond happiness or unhappiness, though it is both things, love is intensity; it does not give us eternity but life, that second in which the doors of time and space open just a crack: here is there and now is always. ~ Octavio Paz

The Beautiful chariots of kings wear out, This body too undergoes decay. But the Dhamma of the good does not decay: So the good proclaim along with the good. ~ Gautama Buddha

An irenic approach to expounding Christian beliefs is one that attempts always to understand opposing viewpoints before disagreeing, and when it is necessary to disagree does so respectfully and in love. An irenic approach to doctrine seeks common ground and values unity within diversity and diversity within unity. An irenic approach does not imply relativism or disregard for truth, but it does seek to live by the motto "in essentials unity, ~ Roger E. Olson

The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The trouble with gardening is that is does not remain an avocation. It becomes an obsession. ~ Phyllis McGinley

What I feel for you...it can be neither quantified nor defined. It is so profound, so revolutionary, that no methods to date are equipped to even measure it. A new word should be imagined just to express the depth and scope of it, because 'love' does not even come close. ~ Joanna Shupe

The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves. ~ Paulo Freire

You are a free man, and let no organization come between you and your best interests. Do not let any man, or any body of men, tell you where you shall work, or where you shall not work, when you shall work, or when, you shall not work. If a man wants to belong to a labor organization, let him belong. If he does not want to belong to a labor organization, let him have perfect liberty to stay out. You own yourself. Let no man put a manacle on your hand, or foot, or head, or heart. ~ Thomas De Witt Talmage

Can you be from a place
you have never been?

You can find the island stamped all over me,
but what would the island find if I was there?

Can you claim a home that does not know you,
much less claim you as its own? ~ Elizabeth Acevedo

This is an example of what Jung called "the regressive restoration of the persona," namely, the re-identification with a former position, role, ideology because it offers a predictable content, security, and script. In the face of the new and uncertain, we often return to the old place, which is why we so often stop growing. (It has become clear to me, for example, that aging itself does not bring wisdom. It often brings regression to childishness, dependency, and bitterness over lost opportunities. ~ James Hollis

She does not flinch from the caress, because she feels very strong. She walks everywhere she goes but is never tired. ~ Anna Keesey

Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil ... a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons ... never to truth. Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error ... Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscrapers as doctors are intolerant about germs in the laboratory. Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. Intolerance of this kind is the foundation of all stability. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

A great writer is always like a foreigner in the language which he expresses himself, even if this is his native tongue. At the limit, he draws his strength from a mute and unknown minority that belongs only to him. He is a foreigner in his own language: he does not mix another language with his own language, he carves out a nonpreexistent foreign language within his own language. He makes the language itself scream, stutter, stammer, or murmur. ~ Gilles Deleuze

Recall Marx's fundamental insight about the "bourgeois" limitation of the logic of equality: capitalist inequalities ("exploitation") are not the "unprincipled violations of the principle of equality," but are absolutely inherent to the logic of equality, they are the paradoxical result of its consistent realization. What we have in mind here is not only the wearisome old motif of how market exchange presupposes formally/legally equal subjects who meet and interact in the market; the crucial moment of Marx's critique of "bourgeois" socialists is that capitalist exploitation does not involve any kind of "unequal" exchange between the worker and the capitalist - this exchange is fully equal and "just," ideally (in principle), the worker gets paid the full value of the commodity he is selling (his labor-power). Of course, radical bourgeois revolutionaries are aware of this limitation; however, the way they try to counteract it is through a direct "terroristic imposition of more and more de facto equality (equal salaries, equal access to health services…), which can only be imposed through new forms of formal inequality (different sorts of preferential treatments for the underprivileged). In short, the axiom of equality" means either not enough (it remains the abstract form of actual inequality) or too much (enforce "terroristic" equality) - it is a formalistic notion in a strict dialectical sense, that is, its limitation is precisely that its form is not concrete enough, but a ~ Slavoj Zizek

I support a very active programme on disarmament and arms control for Iraq, and of course every other country in the world ... That does not require economic sanctions ... I think we've got to take the risk and give up economic sanctions while hanging on to the disarmament programme and allow the Iraqis to get on with rebuilding their country. ~ Denis Halliday

For those who believe in God the matter is simpler still and clearly than anything else: because those who believe in God believe that God is the Creator of the whole Universe and there is nothing that does not come from Him. ~ Morarji Desai

We thought speaking in English meant you were more intelligent. We were wrong of course. It does not matter what language you choose, the important thing is the words you use to express yourself. ~ Malala Yousafzai

You may have come on no bicycle," he said, "but that does not say that you know everything. ~ Flann O'Brien

We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers? ~ Michel De Montaigne

What storyteller is adequate to her story? The story carries us along, bottles on the tide, each with our secret mesage and the fervent hope that it does not turn out to be blank. ~ Erica Jong

And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off. ~ C.S. Lewis

Jesus Christ does not teach us a spirituality 'of closed eyes,' but one of 'alertness,' one which entails an absolute duty to take notice of the needs of others and of situations involving those whom the Gospel tells us are our neighbors ... The gaze of Jesus, what 'his eyes' teach us, leads to human closeness, solidarity, giving time, sharing our gifts and even our material goods. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

I want you to know that it is not always easy to love me. That sometimes my chest is a field full of landmines, and where you went last night, you can't go tomorrow. There is no manual, there is no road map, no help line you can call; my body does not come with instructions, and sometimes even I don't know what to do with it. This cannot be easy. But still, you touch me anyway. ~ Ivan E. Coyote

Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

But evil does not die, just as history does not end. Like a weed, evil can be cut back but never entirely uprooted. It waits for its chance to spread through the cracks in our vigilance. It can take root in the fertile soil of our complacency, or even the rocky rubble of the fallen Berlin Wall. ~ Garry Kasparov

Grace does not share ice cream. She does, however, talk about herself in the third person. ~ Alice Clayton

The grief does not feel like what you feel about Uche, or Corundum, or Innon; those are rents in your soul that still seep blood. The loss of Alabaster is simply... a thinning of who you are. ~ N.K. Jemisin

The Church in contemporary America does not need more strategies, steps, or keys to the Christian life. The Church needs truth, and more specifically, the great foundational truths of historical Christianity. ~ Charles Leiter

There is something beyond the grave; death does not end all, and the pale ghost escapes from the vanquished pyre. ~ Propertius

When a girl tries to lead, she is often labeled bossy. Boys are seldom called bossy because a boy taking the role of a boss does not surprise or offend. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

The language lesson: A+B+C does not necessarily equal C+B+A. The order of presentation determines the reaction. ~ Frank Luntz

I like strong girls, as long as they don't get snappish. And furthermore I think it important that you are good buddies and she does not get angry when you don't have your day. ~ Jonathan Brandis

Affliction hardens and discourages us because, like a red hot iron, it stamps the soul to its very depths with the scorn, the disgust, and even the self-hatred and sense of guilt that crime logically should produce but actually does not. ~ Simone Weil

Politeness does not always inspire goodness, equity, complaisance, and gratitude; it gives at least the appearance of these qualities, and makes man appear outwardly, as he should be within. ~ Jean De La Bruyere

The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day. ~ Norbert Wiener

Any technology that does not appear magical is insufficiently advanced. ~ Gregory Benford

It is solely bigness in business which makes it possible to supply the masses with all those products the present-day American common man does not want to do without. Luxury goods for the few can be produced in small shops. Luxury goods for the many require big business. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Who is a bad man and who is a good man? What is the definition? The bad man is one who is inconsiderate of others. The bad man is one who uses others and has no respect for others. The bad man is one who thinks he is the center of the world and everybody is just to be used. Everything exists for him. The bad man is one who thinks that other persons are just means for his gratification.

Keep this definition in mind because you ordinarily think the bad man is the criminal. The bad man may not be the criminal: all bad men are not criminals. All criminals are bad, but all bad men are not criminals. A few of them are judges, a few of them are very respectable people, a few of them are politicians, presidents and prime ministers, a few of them are even parading as saints.

So when we will be talking about this sutra, remember the definition of a bad man - Buddha says a bad man is one who has no consideration for others. He simply thinks about himself only - he thinks he is the center of existence and he feels the whole existence is made for him. He feels authorized to sacrifice everybody for his own self. He may not be bad ordinarily, but if this is the attitude, then he is a bad man.

Who is a good man? Just the opposite of the bad man: one who is considerate of others, who gives as much respect to others as he gives to himself, and who does not pretend in any way that he is the center of the world, and who has come to feel that everybody is the cent ~ Osho

If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at the cats. The writer of the letter asked a civil question; attack cats, then, only if you can do so with good humor, good taste, and in such a way that your answer will be courteous as well as responsive. Since you are out of sympathy with cats, you may quite properly give this as a reason for not appearing at the dedicatory ceremonies of a cat hospital. But bear in mind that your opinion of cats was not sought, only your services as a speaker. Try to keep things straight. ~ William Strunk Jr.

And so we see the paradox that evolution has handed us. If man is the only animal whose consciousness of self gives him an unusual dignity in the animal kingdom, he also pays a tragic price for it. The fact that the child has to identify -first- means that his very first identity is a social product. His habitation of his own body is built from the outside in; not from the inside out. He doesn't unfold into the world, the world unfolds into him. As the child responds to the vocal symbols learned from his object, he often gives the pathetic impression of being a true social puppet, jerked by alien symbols and sounds. What sensitive parent does not have his satisfaction tinged with sadness as the child repeats with such vital earnestness the little symbols that are taught him? ~ Ernest Becker

Every one may know that to will and not to do, when there is opportunity, is in reality not to will; and that to love what is good and not to do it, when it is possible, is in reality not to love it. Will, which stops short of action, and love, which does not do the good that is loved, is a mere thought separate from will and love, which vanishes and comes to nothing. ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

I've filled my whole life trying to preserve the memory of living, in the fight against dying. Perhaps the only thing I've done, since stopping death is impossible, is to show this fight. The fight itself does not satisfy us either. ~ Christian Boltanski

Most of us inherit one shame or another. [...] I met a guy named Mike during my travels in Alaska. We've stayed in touch. He's blond and blue-eyed, and does not fit comfortably in most chairs and beds because he's six foot nine. He's often embarrassed by his height and sometimes tells people he's six foot eight. He stoops on purpose. Once, while waiting to be seated at a restaurant, he and I stood in front of a full-length mirror. His reflection wasn't all there. His head was cut off. There were so many ways to be invisible. ~ Alex Tizon

A true Master does not "give up" something. A true Master simply sets it aside, as he would do with anything for which he no longer has any use. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

All law must be subjective; the soil knows how to take a seed and make a plant from it; it does not know whether it is making a tomato or a potato ... It knows how to create without knowing what It creates. ~ Ernest Holmes

The general rule is that anything that is passed on in reproduction does not undergo senescence. ~ George C. Williams

Truth does not care if it feels true or not. It is true nonetheless" -Pet ~ Akwaeke Emezi

I fought for the values of responsibility, and I'm not a man who does not accept his responsibilities. ~ Nicolas Sarkozy

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world it's pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We're on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on ~ C.S. Lewis

Right and wrong, good and bad, he regarded as qualities solely of conduct - of acts and omissions; there being no feeling which may not lead, and does not frequently lead, either to good or to bad actions: conscience itself, the very desire to act right, often leading people to act wrong. Consistently carrying out the doctrine, that the object of praise and blame should be the discouragement of wrong conduct and the encouragement of right, he refused to let his praise or blame be influenced by the motive of the agent. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If one believes in a god, one is a Theist. If one does not believe in a god, then one is an A-theist - he is without that belief. The distinction between atheism and theism is entirely, exclusively, that of whether one has or has not a belief in God. ~ Chapman Cohen

They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes; its leaves are always green. ~ Jeremiah 17:8

I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action. ~ Fidel Castro

If a group of atoms in the presence of energy falls into a stable pattern it will tend to stay that way. The earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones. There is no mystery about this. It had to happen by definition. From this, of course, it does not follow that you can explain the existence of entities as complex as man by exactly the same principles on their own. It is no good taking the right number of atoms and shaking them together with some external energy till they happen to fall into the right pattern, and out drops Adam! ~ Richard Dawkins

The practice of perfect virtue does not require teaching, but instructs others. ~ Ambrose Of Milan

The death of a dreamer does not always bring about the death of his dreams. ~ Ogwo David Emenike

He [Picasso] used to say quite often, paper lasts quite as well as paint and after all it all ages together, why not, and he said further, after all, later, no one will see the picture, they will see the legend of the picture, the legend that the picture has created, then it makes no difference if the picture lasts or does not last. ~ Gertrude Stein

The painter who is content with the praise of the world for what does not satisfy himself, is not an artist, but an artisan; for though his reward be only praise, his pay is that of a mechanic. ~ Washington Allston

Does not the gratitude of the dog put to shame any man who is ungrateful to his benefactors? ~ Saint Basil

The uneasy ghost of Marx must suffer the torments of the damned at the truth glaring from the pages of history that one does not abolish property by transferring it to the state. ~ Louis O. Kelso

He does not always remain bent over the
pages; he often leans back and closes
his eyes over a line he has been reading
again, and its meaning spreads through
his blood. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Christ beats his drum, but he does not press men; Christ is served with voluntaries. ~ John Donne

In actual fact, however, the revolt of Ibsen and Shaw against the conventional nineteenth century drama could very well be described as a return to Shakespeare, as an attempt once again to present human beings in their historical and social setting and not, as playwrights since the Restoration had done, either as wholly private or as embodiments of the social manners of a tiny class. Shakespeare's plays, it is true, are not, in the Shavian sense, "dramas of thought," that is to say, not one of his characters is an intellectual: it is true, as Shaw says, that, when stripped of their wonderful diction, the philosophical and moral views expressed by his characters are commonplaces, but the number of people in any generation or society whose thoughts are not commonplace is very small indeed. On the other hand, there is hardly one of his plays which does not provide unending food for thought, if one cares to think about it. ~ W. H. Auden

Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one's faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one's life ~ St. Jerome

If you've a notion of what man's heart is, wouldn't you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man's frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself? That there is a part of man that man wants to reject? That man wants to keep from knowing what he is? That he wants to protect himself from seeing that he is something awful? And that this 'awful' part of himself might not be as awful as he thinks, but he finds it too strange and he does not know what to do with it? We talk about what to do with the atom bomb ... But man's heart, his spirit is the deadliest thing in creation. Are not all cultures and civilizations just screens which men have used to divide themselves, to put between that part of themselves which they are afraid of and that part of themselves which they wish, in their deep timidity, to try to preserve? Are not all of man's efforts at order an attempt to still man's fear of himself? ~ Richard Wright

Faith does not make things happen. It merely breeds perseverance; which helps one persist in making things happen. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

In the economy of Heaven, God does not send thunder if a still, small voice is enough, or a prophet if a priest can do the job. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

Union with God is not something we acquire by a technique but the grounding truth of our lives that engenders the very search for God. Because God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God does not know how to be absent. The fact that most of us experience throughout most of our lives a sense of absence or distance from God is the great illusion that we are caught up in; it is the human condition. The sense of separation from God is real, but the meeting of stillness reveals that this perceived separation does not have the last word.

This illusion of separation is generated by the mind and is sustained by the riveting of our attention to the interior soap opera, the constant chatter of the cocktail party going on in our heads. For most of us this is what normal is, and we are good at coming up with ways of coping with this perceived separation (our consumer-driven entertainment culture takes care of much of it). But some of us are not so good at coping, and so we drink ourselves into oblivion or cut or burn ourselves "so that the pain will be in a different place and on the outside."

The grace of salvation, the grace of Christian wholeness that flowers in silence, dispels this illusion of separation. For when the mind is brought to stillness, and all our strategies of acquisition have dropped, a deeper truth presents itself: we are and have always been one wit ~ Martin Laird

For people like this life is just about stuff.
Having more than your neighbor and never enough.
For these types of folks it's all about fortune and fame.
What pays off is good, what does not is lame.
So they don't and they won't and they can't understand.
It's wisdom, not money that makes life grand. ~ Jacob M. Held

One key and defining attribute of God that does not appear in any other world religion or system is the biblical use of the term "Father." Over 70 times in the New Testament alone, God is described as "Father" to His children. No major world religion describes the relationship between its creator and its adherents in terms of a father. ~ Ergun Caner

Except to the insane narrow-mindedness of industrial economics, selfishness does not pay. ~ Wendell Berry

We live in secret cities
And we travel unmapped roads.

We speak words between us that we recognize
But which cannot be looked up.

They are our words.
They come from very far inside our mouths.

You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city
Inside us, and inside us

There go all the cars we have driven
And seen, there are all the people

We know and have known, there
Are all the places that are

But which used to be as well. This is where
They went. They did not disappear.

We each take a piece
Through the eye and through the ear.

It's loud inside us, in there, and when we speak
In the outside world

We have to hope that some of that sound
Does not come out, that an arm

Not reach out
In place of the tongue. ~ Alberto Alvaro Rios

What no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish. ~ Austin Farrer