Root Quotes

Beware of those who are homeless by choice! You have no hold on human being whose affections are without a top-root! ~ Robert Southey

Some Me of Beauty

I took a good long look at myself in a full length mirror
Sometimes it's good to look in a full length mirror
And what I saw was not some soul sister poetess of the moment
But I saw just a woman
Just a woman feeling
Just a woman human
And what I felt was
What I felt was a spiritual revelation
And what I felt was a root revival of some love coming on
Coming on strong
And I knew then, looking in a full length mirror,
That many things were over
And some me of beauty was about to begin ~ Carolyn Rodgers

He was very interested in everything that lay to the North because no one ever went that way and he was never allowed to go there himself. When he was sitting out of doors mending the nets, and all alone, he would often look eagerly to the North. One could see nothing but a grassy slope running up to a level ridge and beyond that the sky with perhaps a few birds in it.

Sometimes if Arsheesh was there Shasta would say, 'O my Father, what is there beyond that hill?' And then if the fisherman was in a bad temper he would box Shasta's ears and tell him to attend to his work. Or if he was in a peaceable mood he would say, "O my son, do not allow your mind to be distracted by idle questions. For one of the poets has said, 'Application to business is the root of prosperity, but those who ask questions that do not concern them are steering the ship of folly towards the rock of indigence'.

Shasta thought that beyond the hill there must be some delightful secret which his father wished to hide from him. In reality, however, the fisherman talked like this because he didn't know what lay to the North. Neither did he care. He had a very practical mind. ~ C.S. Lewis

Outsong in the Jungle

[Baloo:] For the sake of him who showed
One wise Frog the Jungle-Road,
Keep the Law the Man-Pack make
For thy blind old Baloo's sake!
Clean or tainted, hot or stale,
Hold it as it were the Trail,
Through the day and through the night,
Questing neither left nor right.
For the sake of him who loves
Thee beyond all else that moves,
When thy Pack would make thee pain,
Say: "Tabaqui sings again."
When thy Pack would work thee ill,
Say: "Shere Khan is yet to kill."
When the knife is drawn to slay,
Keep the Law and go thy way.
(Root and honey, palm and spathe,
Guard a cub from harm and scathe!)

Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,
Jungle-Favour go with thee!

[Kaa:] Anger is the egg of Fear--
Only lidless eyes see clear.
Cobra-poison none may leech--
Even so with Cobra-speech.
Open talk shall call to thee
Strength, whose mate is Courtesy.
Send no lunge beyond thy length.
Lend no rotten bough thy strength.
Gauge thy gape with buck or goat,
Lest thine eye should choke thy throat.
After gorging, wouldst thou sleep ?
Look thy den be hid and deep,
Lest a wrong, by thee forgot,
Draw thy killer to the spot.
East and West and North and South,
Wash thy hide and close thy mouth.
(Pit and rift and blue pool-brim,
Middle-Jungle follow him!)

Wood and Water, W ~ Rudyard Kipling

I don't find any difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalists. I believe religion is the root, and from the root fundamentalism grows as a poisonous stem. If we remove fundamentalism and keep religion, then one day or another fundamentalism will grow again. I need to say that because some liberals always defend Islam and blame fundamentalists for creating problems. But Islam itself oppresses women. Islam itself doesn't permit democracy and it violates human rights. ~ Taslima Nasrin

Ideas take root at the oddest moments. Some grow into novels, the weaker ones wither and die. ~ Pippa DaCosta

So if you hear something in this book that sounds like advocacy of a particular political point of view, please reject the notion. My interest in issues is merely to point out how badly we're doing, not to suggest a way we might do better.
Don't confuse me with those who cling to hope. I enjoy describing how things are, I have no interest in how they ought to be. And I certainly have no interest in fixing them. I sincerely believe that if you think there's a solution, you're part of the problem.
My motto: Fuck Hope.
P.S. In case you're wondering, personally I'm a joyful individual, I had a long happy marriage and a close and loving family, my career has turned out better than I ever dreamed, and it continues to expand. I'm a personal optimist, but a skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger, is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don't confuse my point of view with cynicism–the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything's gonna be all right.
And P.P.S., by the way, if by some chance you folks do manage to straighten things out and make everything better, I still don't wish to be included. ~ George Carlin

Astonishment is the root of philosophy. ~ Paul Tillich

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

Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor - the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant "To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart." Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences
good and bad. Speaking from our hearts is what I think of as "ordinary courage. ~ Brene Brown

The equal and sustainable right of access to the Earth's bounty seems one of the most transcendent truths a human being can contemplate. Yet, this right is missing from the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The fact that this single principle is violated on an ongoing basis is quite possibly the root cause of many, if not most, other human rights violations. ~ Martin Adams

I was standing amid floor-to-ceiling shelves of books in wonder and awe when my view of stories suddenly and forever changed. There were enormous piles of books lying in corners. Books covered the walls. Books even lined the staircases as you went up from one floor to the next. It was as if this used bookstore was not just a place for selling used books; it was like the infrastructure itself was made up of books. There were books to hold more books, stories built out of stories.

I was standing in Daedalus Books in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I had recently read Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read a Book. I was alive with the desire to read. But at that particular moment, my glee turned to horror. For whatever reason, the truth of the numbers suddenly hit me. The year before, I had read about thirty books. For me, that was a new record. But then I started counting. I was in my early twenties, and with any luck I'd live at least fifty more years. At that rate, I'd have about 1,500 books in me, give or take.

There were more books than that on the single wall I was staring at.

That's when I had a realization of my mortality. My desire outpaced reality. I simply didn't have the life to read what I wanted to read.

Suddenly my choices in that bookstore became a profound act of deciding. The Latin root of the word decide - cise or cide - is to "cut off' or "kill." The idea is that to choose anything means to kill off other options you m ~ Justin Whitmel Earley

Anything allowed in the heart which is contrary to the will of God, let it seem ever so insignificant, or be ever so deeply hidden, will cause us to fall before our enemies. Any root of bitterness cherished towards another, any self-seeking, any harsh judgments indulged in, any slackness in obeying the voice of the Lord, any doubtful habits or surroundings, any one of these things will effectually cripple and paralyze our spiritual life. I believe our blessed Guide, the indwelling Holy Spirit, is always secretly discovering these things to us by continual little twinges and pangs of conscience, so that we are left without excuse. ~ Hannah Whitall Smith

They who prematurely put themselves forward to root out whatever is displeasing to them overthrow the judgment of God and rashly intrude upon the office of angels. ~ John Calvin

Rousseau's ideas brought about-he moved the political process to the very centre of human existence by making the legislator, who is also a pedagogue, into the new Messiah, capable of solving all human problems by creating New Men. 'Everything,' he wrote, 'is at root dependent on politics.' Virtue is the product of good government. 'Vices belong less to man, than to man badly governed.' The political process, and the new kind of state it brings into being, are the universal remedies for the ills of mankind.49 Politics will do all. Rousseau thus prepared the blueprint for the principal delusions and follies of the twentieth century. ~ Paul Johnson

Literally, this is what enthios means - it is the root of enthusiastic - enthusiasmos means having the god/s within, thus becoming god-filled, or one with the god and in a state of participation mystique. ~ Erin Sullivan

For my entire life I longed for love. I knew it was not right for me - as a girl and later as a woman - to want or expect it, but I did, and this unjustified desire has been at the root of every problem I have experienced in my life. ~ Lisa See

The root of all evil: that the slavish morality of meekness, chastity, selflessness, absolute obedience, has triumphed - ruling natures were thus condemned (1) to hypocrisy, (2) to torments of conscience - creative natures felt like rebels against God, uncertain and inhibited by eternal values.

In summa: the best things have been slandered because the weak or the immoderate swine have cast a bad light on them - and the best men have remained hidden - and have often misunderstood themselves. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

At the root of every large struggle in life is the need to be honest about something that we do not feel we can be honest about. We lie to ourselves or other people because the truth might require action on our part, and action requires courage. We say we "don't know" what is wrong, when we do know what is wrong; we just wish we didn't.
Art lets us tell the truth, but even art can be something to hide behind. ~ Deb Caletti

We all have the same root, and are connected...
To tap into this connectedness we must go within. ~ Summerlyn Guthrie

Better still [than pure sugar] was the remedy known as theriac, the root of the English word 'treacle,' which was kept in ornate ceramic jars on the shelves of every self-respecting apothecary shop. The name comes from the Greek therion, meaning 'venomous animal,' for theriac was supposed in Classical times to counteract all venoms and poisons. ~ Philip Ball

Say you could view a time lapse film of our planet: what would you see?

Transparent images moving through light, "an infinite storm of beauty."
The beginning is swaddled in mists, blasted by random blinding flashes. Lava pours and cools; seas boil and flood. Clouds materialize and shift; now you can see the earth's face through only random patches of clarity. The land shudders and splits, like pack ice rent by widening lead. Mountains burst up, jutting, and dull and soften before your eyes, clothed in forests like felt. The ice rolls up, grinding green land under water forever; the ice rolls back. Forests erupt and disappear like fairy rings. The ice rolls up- mountains are mowed into lakes, land rises wet from the sea like a surfacing whale- the ice rolls back.

A blue-green streaks the highest ridges, a yellow-green spreads from the south like a wave up a strand. A red dye seems to leak from the north down the ridges and into the valleys, seeping south; a white follows the red, then yellow-green washes north, then red spreads again, then white, over and over, making patterns of color too intricate to follow. Slow the film. You see dust storms, locusts, floods, in dizzying flash-frames.

Zero in on a well-watered shore and see smoke from fires drifting. Stone cities rise, spread, and crumble, like paths of alpine blossoms that flourish for a day an inch above the permafrost, that iced earth no root can suck, and wither in a hour. New cit ~ Annie Dillard

Protestantism's evolution away from hierarchy and authority has enormous consequences for America and the world. On the one hand, the democratization of religion runs parallel to political democratization. The king of England, questioning the pope, inspires English subjects to question the king and his Anglican bishops. Such dissent is backed up by a Bible full of handy Scripture arguing for arguing with one's kIng. This is the root of self-government in the English-speaking world. ~ Sarah Vowell

When one has taken root, one puts out branches. ~ Jules Verne

Artistic prejudices are always the most difficult to root out. Critics - whose duty should be to see beyond the pretensions of artists and the public's passing fancies - often allow themselves to be persuaded by the way authors present their work, by what they say they have achieved, or else are guided by whatever has been a wild success - usually in order to take the opposing view - and which had been damningly labelled 'popular. ~ Javier Marias

My Hamlet was about as alienated as you can get. Mine was a bitter and lonely prince. Valid, I think, but maybe tough to root for. I think that romance was missing. ~ Stephen Lang

All things return (to their root and disappear), and do not know that it is it which presides over their doing so; - it may be named in the greatest things. ~ Lao-Tzu

Something's happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. It's taken root, a poison tree; it's grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ~ A.J. Finn

To-day I think
Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot's seed,
And the square mustard field;
Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;
The smoke's smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.
It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.
- A poem called DIGGING. ~ Edward Thomas

A bed is where a sense of shared purpose first takes root. ~ Rick Moody

She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! ~ Zora Neale Hurston

He was aware that darkness could take root in pristine gardens, and even good men could fall to shadow. ~ Ella Rose Carlos

As we grow into maturity in Christ our distinctiveness is accentuated, not blunted. General directions, useful as they are, don't take into account the details that face us as holiness takes root in the particular social and personal place we are planted. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

I often refer to myself as a radical, reminding people that the word radical comes from the Latin word radix, meaning root. I think we need to get to the roots of problems as we try to solve them. I also like the word anti-capitalist. ~ Cynthia Kauffman

No longer could I root happily into my mother's company and find comfort in her rounded shape. There was no one to tell me the facts. How much nutrition to pull from the dirt? Would the beetles bring harm? And what of the worms? Friends, foe, or nevermind? ~ Kate Bernheimer

Our right or wrong use of money is the utmost test of character, as well as the root of happiness or misery, throughout our whole lives. ~ Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

And yet to possess a young soul that has barely developed is a source of very deep delight. It is like a flower whose richest perfume goes out to meet the first ray of the sun. One must pluck it at that very moment and, after inhaling its perfume to one's heart's content, discard it along the wayside on the chance that someone will pick it up. I sense in myself that insatiable avidity that devours everything in its path. And I regard the sufferings and joys of others merely in relation to myself, as food to sustain my spiritual strength. Passion is no longer capable of robbing me of my sanity. My ambition has been crushed by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in a new form, for ambition is nothing but lust for power, and my greatest pleasure I derive from subordinating everything around me to my will. Is it not both the first token of power and its supreme triumph to inspire in others the emotions of love, devotion and fear? Is it not the sweetest fare for our vanity to be the cause of pain or joy for someone without the least claim thereto? And what is happiness? Pride gratified. Could I consider myself better and more powerful than anyone else in the world, I would be happy. Were everybody to love me, I'd find in myself unending wellsprings of love. Evil begets evil; one's first suffering awakens a realization of the pleasure of tormenting another. The idea of evil cannot take root in the mind of man without his desiring to apply it in practice. Someone has said th ~ Mikhail Lermontov

The root of all fear lies in the unknown. ~ Francisco Battiti

Sensuality often makes love grow too quickly, so that the root remains weak and is easy to pull out. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The role of political leadership in any society will remain critical to the socio-economic progression of the world. It is however worrying to see the growing number of people, including the youth, getting into politics for economic gain and not for a cause. This, inter alia, is the contaminated seed and eventual root of chronic corruption because such leadership will always be selfishly seeking gain and enrichment from their roles and offices. ~ Archibald Marwizi

At root, a pearl is a 'disturbance' a beauty caused by something that isn't supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provocation, to intrusion ... The pearl's beauty is made as a result of insult ... ~ Julia Cameron

The technical definition of heuristic is a simple procedure that helps find adequate, though often imperfect, answers to difficult questions. The word comes from the same root as eureka. ~ Daniel Kahneman

Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away. ~ Charles W. Chesnutt

Darona's face bore the pinched, taut look and shadowed eyes of someone constantly in pain, but the lack of lines suggested she was younger than Jesral had first thought; middle-aged, fifty at the very most.
'You make an uncommonly fine looking noblewoman, for a Mhrydaineg commoner.'
'Thank you.' Jesral was careful to keep all tone out of her voice. Darona gave her a shrewd stare, then a slight smile.
'Self-control. Good. You must ignore me when I offend you unintentionally. They say that pain can make one waspish, but my brothers and son tell me there's been no change in my manner. I was acid-tongued long before this set in,' she held up a knotted hand, 'and taking devil's claw root has no effect on that. Rest assured, young woman, when I intend offence people are in no doubt about it. ~ Helen Bell

How glad I am that spring has come, and how it calms my mind when wearied with study to walk out in the green fields and beside the pleasant streams in which South Hadley is rich! ... The older I grow, the more do I love spring and spring flowers. Is it not so with you? (May 16, 1848 to Abiah Root) ~ Emily Dickinson

There was always an observation at the root of a superstition. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Once we acquired the power to destroy ourselves, the very notion of human life had been altered; even the air we breathed was contaminated with the stench of death. Sachs was hardly the first person to come up with this idea, but considering what happened to him nine days ago, there's a certain eeriness to the obsession, as if it were a kind of deadly pun, a mixed-up word that took root inside him and proliferated beyond his control. ~ Paul Auster

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death
ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. ~ James Baldwin

Therefore, when a person refuses to come to Christ it is never just because of a lack of evidence or because of intellectual difficulties: at root, he refuses to come because he willingly ignores and rejects the drawing of God's Spirit on his heart. No one in the final analysis fails to become a Christian because of a lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with god. ~ William Lane Craig

For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now, a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years, but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall. ~ Charles Dickens

Every greed is the root of un-gratefulness. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I should have known that at the root of any mystery that's all you find: people doing unspeakable harm to other people. What else on this earth is there to hide? ~ Nick Dybek

We know that silence equals consent when atrocities are committed against innocent men, women and children. We know that indifference equals complicity when bigotry, hatred and intolerance are allowed to take root. And we know that education and hope are the most effective ways to combat ignorance and despair. ~ Gabrielle Giffords

I went back every evening, after work, for nearly a year. I learned the meaning of the cud of a leaf and the glisten of wet pebbles, and the special significance of curves and angles. A great deal of the writing was unwritten. Plot three dots on a graph and join them; you now have a curve with certain characteristics. Extend that curve while maintaining the characteristics, and it has meaning, up where no dots were plotted.

In just this way I learned to extend the curve of a grass-blade and of a protruding root, of the bent edges of wetness on a drying headstone. I quit smoking so I could sharpen my sense of smell, because the scent of earth after a rain has a clarifying effect on graveyard reading, as if the page were made whiter and the ink darker. I began to listen to the wind, and to the voices of birds and small animals, insects and people; because to the educated ear, every sound is filtered through the story written on graves, and becomes a part of it.

("The Graveyard Reader") ~ Theodore Sturgeon

The moral, dear child, is that such powers are never to be considered as the main object; it ought in fact to be obvious from the start that any one's True Will must be deeper and more comprehensive than any mere technical achievement. I will go further and say that any such endeavour must be a magical mistake, like cherishing a gun or a clock or a fishing-rod for its own sake, and not for the use that one can make of it. Indeed, that remark goes to the root of the matter; for all these powers, if we understand them properly, are natural by-products of one's real Great Work. My own experience was very convincing on this point; for one power after another came popping up when it was least wanted, and I saw at once that they represented so many leaks in my boat.

And really they are quite a bit of a nuisance. Their possession is so flattering, and their seduction so subtle. One understands at once why all the first-class Teachers insist so sternly that the Siddhi (or Iddhi) must be rejected firmly by the Aspirant, if he is not to be side-tracked and ultimately lost. ~ Aleister Crowley

It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Love and intimacy are at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing. ... I am not aware of any other factor in medicine - not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery - that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness, and premature death from all causes. ~ Brian L. Weiss

In the original language, "he gave thanks" reads "eucharisteo." ... The root word for eucharisteo is charis, meaning "grace." Jesus took bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks. ~ Ann Voskamp

many things tempt our hearts to put them first and God second. We must root out the desire to worship these things and focus on the true God. The ~ Richard J. Foster

Most of us do not even know how to ask a question. Most of us do not see the root of the word 'question' is 'quest'. Most of us don't have a quest in our life. ~ Richard Saul Wurman

Everyone contemplates suicide at some point, even if it's just for a minute. And one thing is usually the root cause. Loneliness. ~ Penelope Douglas

Grace is costly because it calls us through our person to the person of Jesus Christ. And when we follow the person of Jesus Christ, when we follow his call through our person, we're sent to act for the concrete person of our neighbor in the world. ~ Andrew Root

The unattended garden will soon be overrun with weeds; the heart that fails to cultivate truth and root out error will shortly be a theological wilderness. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

Sometimes magnificent visual art takes root in the humblest of soils. Advertisements painted on old barns, tattoos, fruit crate labels, hot rod embellishments - all these media and many other non-galleried forms have hosted and fostered esthetic delights that satisfy any rigorous definition of art. ~ Paul Di Filippo

As long as greed is the root of all evil, there will not be peace.
Get rid of selfishness and greed too will disappear. ~ Zarina Bibi

The root of all of it: he's never lost. He still has both his parents, and any kind of loss he ever went through was his choice, which is always a different kind of loss than the kind that's ripped from you. ~ Vanessa Garcia

Now his story has shifted. He's no longer the underdog. Instead he's suddenly the luckiest guy in the room, in the school, maybe even in the whole city. He's the luckiest guy anybody knows, and there's no need to root for someone like that to win. Because guys like that - lucky guys, fortunate guys - they don't need any support. And the audience knows it. ~ Jennifer E. Smith

But the root cause of this war was geopolitical. Georgia was determined to go West and Russia was determined to stop it from doing so. ~ Ronald D. Asmus

I have great confidence in Taiwan's democracy. I have great confidence in the universal value and in basic human rights, and I have great confidence that referenda will eventually take root and become part of our daily lives in Taiwan. ~ Chen Shui-bian

Prayer is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings. ~ Saint John Chrysostom

History, memory - that is what makes us human, that, and our knowledge of death: 'by man came death'. For knowledge of death makes us wish to extend our lives at the expense of others. And this is the root of the struggle for power. ~ Saul Bellow

The leading error of the human mind, - the bane of human happiness - the perverter of human virtue ... is Religion - that dark coinage of trembling ignorance! It is Religion - that poisoner of human felicity! It is Religion - that blind guide of human reason! It is Religion - that dethroner of human virtue! which lies at the root of all the evil and all the misery that pervade the world! ~ Frances Wright

The hills and valleys of Heaven will be to those you now experience not as a copy is to an original, nor as the substitute is to the genuine article, but as the flower to the root, or the diamond to the coal. ~ C.S. Lewis

I think long-lasting, healthy relationships are more important than the idea of marriage. At the root of every successful marriage is a strong partnership. ~ Carson Daly

Shame is the root of all addictions. ~ John Bradshaw

Even where there is talent, culture, knowledge, if there is not earnestness, it does not go to the root of things. ~ James Freeman Clarke

The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition! Finally, ~ Herman Melville

Ancient moon priestesses were called virgins. 'Virgin' meant not married, not belong to a man - a woman who was 'one-in-herself'. The very word derives from a Latin root meaning strength, force, skill; and was later applied to men: virle. Ishtar, Diana, Astarte, Isis were all all called virgin, which did not refer to sexual chasity, but sexual independence. And all great culture heroes of the past…, mythic or historic, were said to be born of virgin mothers: Marduk, Gilgamesh, Buddha, Osiris, Dionysus, Genghis Khan, Jesus - they were all affirmed as sons of the Great Mother, of the Original One, their worldly power deriving from her. When the Hebrews used the word, and in the original Aramaic, it meant 'maiden' or 'young woman', with no connotations to sexual chasity. But later Christian translators could not conceive of the 'Virgin Mary' as a woman of independent sexuality, needless to say; they distorted the meaning into sexually pure, chaste, never touched. When Joan of Arc, with her witch coven associations, was called La Pucelle - 'the Maiden,' 'the Virgin' - the word retained some of its original pagan sense of a strong and independent woman. The Moon Goddess was worshipped in orgiastic rites, being the divinity of matriarchal women free to take as many lovers as they choose. Women could 'surrender' themselves to the Goddess by making love to a stranger in her temple. ~ Monica Sjöö

You can buy turmeric from any supermarket - or get it raw from Asian shops and grate a quarter of an inch of the root into your food. There's evidence to suggest raw turmeric may have greater anti-inflammatory effects, while cooked turmeric offers better DNA protection. ~ Michael Greger

My ability to get through my day greatly depends on the relationship that I have with other women ... We have to be able to champion other women. We have to root for each other's successes and not delight in one another's failures. ~ Michelle Obama

Memories are the enemies that never die," he says, turning away and shoving open his door, leaving me with the pain carved in those words that I am fairly certain he didn't want me to hear. But I did, and they speak to me, diving deep in my soul with the blood of my own loss, and taking root. I say I want my memories back, but I'm not so sure I really do. It's an idea I reject as I shove open my door and stand. ~ Lisa Renee Jones

Yes, I am finally a match for Amy. The other morning I woke up next to her, and I studied the back of her skull. I tried to read her thoughts. For once I didn't feel like I was staring into the sun. I'm rising to my wife's level of madness. Because I can feel her changing me again: I was a callow boy, and then a man, good and bad. Now at last I'm the hero. I am the one to root for in the never-ending war story of our marriage. It's a story I can live with. Hell, at this point, I can't imagine my story without Amy. She is my forever antagonist.
We are one long frightening climax. ~ Gillian Flynn

Ants - the pious insect, Randolph called them: they fill me with oh so much admiration and ah oh so much gloom: such puritan spirit in their mindless march of Godly industry, but can so anti-individual a government admit the poetry of what is past understanding? Certainly the man who refused to carry his crumb would find assassins on his trail, and doom in every smile. As for me, I prefer the solitary mole: he is no rose dependent upon thorn and root, nor ant whose time of being is organized by the analterable herd: sightless, he goes his separate way, knowing truth and freedom are attitudes of the spirit. ~ Truman Capote

Tantalus grabbed for the glass, but it scooted away before he could touch it. A few drops of root beer spilled, and Tantalus tried to dab them up with his fingers, but the drops rolled away like quicksilver before he could touch them. He growled and turned toward the plate of barbecue. He picked up a fork and tried to stab a piece of brisket, but the plate skittered down the table and flew off the end, straight into the coals of the brazier. ~ Rick Riordan

Ponder the fact that God has made you a gardener, to root out vice and plant virtue. ~ St. Catherine Of Siena

(It is interesting that the words "cosmos" and "cosmetic" have the same root, the Greek word for "adornment" or "arrangement.") ~ Jim Holt

Taking them out of the picture, so to speak, what football really is, the savagery, the core root of football, it doesn't change. It really puts the real in football. ~ Lawrence Taylor

The interwovenness of our lives is the source of our solidarity. But it also lies at the root of our mutual harm. ~ Terry Eagleton

I will journey to the black heart of a corrupt empire to root out my foes. But Rome wasn't built in a day and it won't be restored by a lone Assassin. I am Ezio Auditore Da Firenze. This is my Brotherhood. ~ Oliver Bowden

The expansionary dynamic of Western culture has been the root, the denominating constant, of modern history. The grandeur of Western liberalism, its material abundance, the flourishing of its arts and sciences, its painful construction of constitutional democracy -- these interconnected achievements have been financed by the sustained theft called imperialism. ~ Carl Oglesby

I tend to connect most easily with two kinds of people, those who are creating something and those who are easily vulnerable. Both trees grow from the same root, I think, and that's the willingness to take risks. ~ Donald Miller

I loved you too much, wanted you too much, had for you too great a tenderness. Now all of this is like a twisted root in my heart, a deadly poison in my brain. You have made of me a madman. You fill me with a kind of horror, a devastating hate that is akin to love – a hunger that is nausea. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

All the philosophical theories that exist have been created by the mistaken dualistic minds of human beings. In the realm of philosophy, that which today is considered true, may tomorrow be proved to be false. No one can guarantee a philosophy's validity. Because of this, any intellectual way of seeing whatever is always partial and relative. The fact is that there is no truth to seek or to confirm logically; rather what one needs to do is to discover just how much the mind continually limits itself in a condition of dualism.

Dualism is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts. All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. When we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political or social conviction may condition us. We have to abandon such concepts as 'enlightenment', 'the nature of the mind', and so on, until we are no longer satisfied by a merely intellectual knowledge, and until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence. ~ Namkhai Norbu

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will ... An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. ~ William James

Sociologist Robert Wuthnow argues that churches (and American institutions in general) have abandoned this age group, who must consequently make the most important decisions of their lives-decisions with long-lasting consequences about love, work and ideology-without the benefit of traditions or elders to guide them.22 ~ Andrew Root

What Mogo did was to take ultimate action to improve his quality of life. This is at the root of murder. We kill people to make our own lives better. We kill them because they are obstacles to our desires, because they make us unhappy, because they burden us, or because they keep calling us fucking wizards. Murder increases happiness. ~ Warren Ellis

Man's natural and inevitable urge to deny mortality and achieve a heroic self-image are the root causes of human evil. ~ Ernest Becker

Is the square root of hate the same thing as love times love? ~ Eugene Mirman

Radical simply means grasping things at the root. ~ Angela Y. Davis

The bistro was his secret weapon in tracking down murderers. Not just in Three Pines, but in every town and village in Quebec. First he found a comfortable café or brasserie, or bistro, then he found the murderer. Because Armand Gamache knew something many of his colleagues never figured out. Murder was deeply human, the murdered and the murderer. To describe the murderer as a monstrosity, a grotesque, was to give him an unfair advantage. No. Murderers were human, and at the root of each murder was an emotion. Warped, no doubt. Twisted and ugly. But an emotion. And one so powerful it had driven a man to make a ghost.

Gamache's job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was do get to know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention, and the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual way in a deceptively casual setting.

Like the bistro. ~ Louise Penny