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world is supported by four things….” She held up four big-knuckled fingers. “…the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing….” She closed her fingers into a fist. “…without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition!”
‘A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.’
the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.
the proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.
There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man—with human flesh.
The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn’t tell them?”
The gift is the blessing of the giver.’”
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.
There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.
“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Subtlety and self-control were, after all, the most deadly threats to us all.
The meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture—it begins in the dignity with which we treat our dead.
The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.
The mixture of whipcord and softness he felt beneath her robe stirred his blood.
