My mind can take no hold on the present world, nor rest in it a moment, but my whole nature rushes onward with irresistible force towards a future and better state of being.
A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste Of BEING from the Well amid the Waste-- And, Lo! the phantom Caravan has reach'd The NOTHING it set out from. Oh, make haste!
The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art. … All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it.
It’s brutal, making the list of Things I Don’t Do, especially for someone like me, who refuses most of the time to acknowledge that there is, in fact, a limit to her personal ability to get things done. But I’ve discovered that the list sets me free. I have it written in black and white, sitting on my desk, and when I’m tempted to go rogue and bake muffins because all the other moms do, I come back to both lists, and I remind myself about the important things: that time is finite, as is energy. And that one day I’ll stand before God and account for what I did with my life. There is work that is only mine to do: a child that is ours to raise, stories that are mine to tell, friends that are mine to walk with. The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets us where we want to be. It gets us somewhere, certainly, but not anywhere worth being.
The body of anything which is fed is continually dying and being reborn, since nourishment cannot enter save where the past nourishment is exhausted; and if it is exhausted, it no longer has life, and if you do not furnish it with nourishment equal to that which has been before, you will impair the health of the organism, and if you deprive it of this nourishment, life will be altogether destroyed. But if you supply it with so much as can be consumed in a day, then as much life will be restored as was consumed, like the light of the candle which is furnished to it by the fuel provided by the moisture of the candle, and this light with most speedy succour restores beneath what is consumed above as it dies in dusky smoke; and this death is continuous, likewise the continuity of the smoke is equal to the continuity of the fuel; and in the same moment the light dies and is born again together with the movement of its fuel.
We need no great elevation of soul to understand that here is no true and solid satisfaction, that all our pleasures are but vanity, our evils infinite, and lastly that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly and within a few years place us in the dread alternative of being for ever either annihilated or wretched.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel … the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself. To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
"Might I but see a miracle," men say, "I would become a Christian." How can they be sure they would do that of which they are ignorant? Men imagine that conversion consists in making of the worship of God such a transaction and way of life as they picture to themselves. True conversion consists in the annihilation of self before that universal Being whom we have so often provoked, and who might with justice destroy us at any moment; in recognising that we can do nought without him, and have merited nothing from him but his wrath. It consists in knowing that there is unconquerable opposition between us and God, and that without a mediator there could be no communion with him.
There was sadness in being a man, but it was a proud thing too. And he showed what the pride of it was till you couldn't help feeling it. Yes, even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it. And he wasn't pleading for any one person any more, though his voice rang like an organ. He was telling the story and the failures and the endless journey of mankind. They got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey. And no demon that was ever foaled could know the inwardness of it — it took a man to do that. … His voice could search the heart, and that was his gift and his strength. And to one, his voice was like the forest and its secrecy, and to another like the sea and the storms of the sea; and one heard the cry of his lost nation in it, and another saw a little harmless scene he hadn't remembered for years. But each saw something. And when Dan'l Webster finished he didn't know whether or not he'd saved Jabez Stone. But he knew he'd done a miracle. For the glitter was gone from the eyes of the judge and jury, and, for the moment, they were men again, and knew they were men.
It so happens that calcareous skeletons, exactly similar to the _Globigerinæ_ of the chalk, are being formed, at the present moment, by minute living creatures, which flourish in multitudes, literally more numerous than the sands of the sea-shore, over a large extent of that part of the earth's surface which is covered by the ocean.
You don't get very far in life without having to be brave an awful lot. Because we all have our frightening moments and difficult trials and we don't have much of a choice but to get through them, and it takes a lot of bravery to do that. The most important thing about bravery is this — It's not about not being scared — it's about being scared and doing it anyway — that's bravery.
The perfection of spiritual virtue lies in being always all there, a whole man present in every movement and moment.
Every symbol and combination of symbols led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with a meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created.
Just being alive It can really hurt. These moments given Are a gift from time. Just let us try To give these moments back To those we love To those who will survive.
Her father loved me; oft invited me; Still question'd me the story of my life, From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, That I have passed. I ran it through, even from my boyish days, To the very moment that he bade me tell it: Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents by flood and field, Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, Of being taken by the insolent foe And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence And portance in my travels' history; Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak,--such was the process; And of the Cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear Would Desdemona seriously incline.
How remarkable and how beautiful it is that the last page of the Revelation should come bending round to touch the first page of Genesis. The history of man began with angels with frowning faces and flaming swords barring the way to the Tree of Life. It ends with the guard of cherubim withdrawn; or rather, perhaps, sheathing their swords and becoming guides to the no longer forbidden fruit, instead of being its guards. That is the Bible's grand symbolical way of saying that all between--the sin, the misery, the death--is a parenthesis. God's purpose is not going to be thwarted. The end of His majestic march through history is to be men's access to the Tree of Life, from which, for the dreary ages--that are but as a moment in the great eternities--they were barred out by their sin,--_Alex. McLaren._
He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.
Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion. The man who has sufficient power over himself to wait until his nature has recovered its even balance is the truly wise man, but such beings are seldom met with.
Charlotte Joko Beck, Zen teacher and author, teaches that the “secret” of spiritual life is the capacity to “… return to that which we have spent a lifetime hiding from, to rest in the bodily experience of the present moment—even if it is a feeling of being humiliated, of failing, of abandonment, of unfairness.” Through the sacred art of pausing, we develop the capacity to stop hiding, to stop running away from our experience. We begin to trust in our natural intelligence, in our naturally wise heart, in our capacity to open to whatever arises. Like awakening from a dream, in the moment of pausing our trance recedes and Radical Acceptance becomes possible.
In the twenty-first century the techniques of the political technologists have become centralized and systematized, coordinated out of the office of the presidential administration, where Surkov would sit behind a desk on which were phones bearing the names of all the “independent” party leaders, calling and directing them at any moment, day or night. The brilliance of this new type of authoritarianism is that instead of simply oppressing opposition, as had been the case with twentieth-century strains, it climbs inside all ideologies and movements, exploiting and rendering them absurd. One moment Surkov would fund civic forums and human rights NGOs, the next he would quietly support nationalist movements that accuse the NGOs of being tools of the West. With a flourish he sponsored lavish arts festivals for the most provocative modern artists in Moscow, then supported Orthodox fundamentalists, dressed all in black and carrying crosses, who in turn attacked the modern art exhibitions. The Kremlin’s idea is to own all forms of political discourse, to not let any independent movements develop outside of its walls. Its Moscow can feel like an oligarchy in the morning and a democracy in the afternoon, a monarchy for dinner and a totalitarian state by bedtime.
Generosity is a willingness to give, to open without philosophical or pious or religious motives, just simply doing what is required at any moment in any situation, not being afraid to receive anything.
As no man fording a swift stream can dip his foot twice into the same water, so no man can, with exactness, affirm of anything in the sensible world that it is. As he utters the words, nay, as he thinks them, the predicate ceases to be applicable; the present has become the past; the "is" should be "was." And the more we learn of the nature of things, the more evident is it that what we call rest is only unperceived activity; that seeming peace is silent but strenuous battle. In every part, at every moment, the state of the cosmos is the expression of a transitory adjustment of contending forces; a scene of strife, in which all the combatants fall in turn. What is true of each part is true of the whole. Natural knowledge tends more and more to the conclusion that "all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth" are the transitory forms of parcels of cosmic substance wending along the road of evolution, from nebulous potentiality, through endless growths of sun and planet and satellite; through all varieties of matter; through infinite diversities of life and thought; possibly, through modes of being of which we neither have a conception, nor are competent to form any, back to the indefinable latency from which they arose. Thus the most obvious attribute of the cosmos is its impermanence. It assumes the aspect not so much of a permanent entity as of a changeful process, in which naught endures save the flow of energy and the rational order which pervades it.
I’ve always had a talent for recognizing when I am in a moment worth being nostalgic for.
I had an experience... I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever... A vision of the universe that tells us, undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how … rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not — that none of us — are alone! … I wish I could share that. I wish, that everyone, if only for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and hope. But … that continues to be my wish.
They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more. They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought. No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground
things was itself the doing of them.
To wield oneself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and
so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the
greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand
and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt
sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment >before lived in the body
of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food
spread only for demons or for gods."
-- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"
A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer promptly replied. "I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully, how long will it take?" The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish to add. This will take at least two weeks," he finally said. "Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be</p> satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete." The programmer agreed to this. Several years later, the manager retired. On the way to his retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal. He had been programming all night. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
ACTON'S LAW Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. ALBRECHT'S LAW Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being. ALLEN'S (or CANN'S) AXIOM When all else fails, read the instructions. BOREN'S FIRST LAW When in doubt, mumble. BOVE'S THEOREM The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches. BOWIE'S THEOREM If an experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment. BROOK'S LAW Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. CANADA BILL JONES' MOTTO It's morally wrong to allow naive end users to keep their money. CANN'S (or ALLEN'S) AXIOM When all else fails, read the instructions. CARLSON'S CONSOLATION Nothing is ever a complete failure; it can always serve as a bad example. CLARKE'S THIRD LAW Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. COLE'S LAW Thinly sliced cabbage. COHN'S LAW The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time reporting on the nothing you are doing. CONWAY'S LAW In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired. LAW OF CONTINUITY Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way. CORRESPONDENCE COROLLARY An experiment may be considered a success if no more than half of your data must be discarded to obtain correspondence with your theory. CROPP'S LAW The amount of work done varies inversely with the amount of time spent in the office. CUTLER WEBSTER'S LAW There are two sides to every argument, unless a person is personally involved, in which case there is only one. DEADLINE-DAN'S DEMO DEMONSTRATION The higher the "higher-ups" are who've come to see your demo, the lower your chances are of giving a successful one. DEMIAN'S OBSERVATION There is always one item on the screen menu that is mislabeled and should read "ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE". DENNISTON'S LAW Virtue is its own punishment. DOW'S LAW In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the confusion. DR. CALIGARI'S COME-BACK A bad sector disk error occurs only after you've done several hours of work without performing a backup. ESTRIDGE'S LAW No matter how large and standardized the marketplace is, IBM can redefine it. FINAGLE'S LAWS 1) Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse. 2) No matter what results are expected, someone is always willing to fake it. 3) No matter what the result, someone is always eager to misinterpret it. 4) No matter what occurs, someone believes it happened according to his pet theory. FINAGLE'S RULES 1) To study an application best, understand it thoroughly before you start. 2) Always keep a record of data. It indicates you've been working. 3) Always draw your curves, then plot the reading. 4) In case of doubt, make it sound convincing. 5) Program results should always be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way. 6) Do not believe in miracles. Rely on them. FINSTER'S LAW A closed mouth gathers no feet. FIRST RULE OF HISTORY History doesn't repeat itself --- historians merely repeat each other. FRANKLIN'S PARAPHRASE OF POPE'S LAW Praised be the end user who expects nothing, for he/she will never be disappointed. GILB'S LAWS OF UNRELIABILITY 1) At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. 2) Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. 3) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited. 4) Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done. GLYME'S FORMULA FOR SUCCESS The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made. THE GOLDEN RULE Whoever has the gold makes the rules. GOLD'S LAW If the shoe fits, it's ugly. GORDON'S FIRST LAW If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well. GOVERNMENT'S LAW There is an exception to all laws. GREEN'S LAW OF DEBATE Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about. GUMMIDGES'S LAW The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public. GUMPERSON'S LAW The probability of a given event occurring is inversely proportional to its desirability. HANLON'S RAZOR Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. HARP'S COROLLARY TO ESTRIDGE'S LAW Your "IBM PC-compatible" computer grows more incompatible with every passing moment. HARRISON'S POSTULATE For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. HELLER'S LAW The first myth of management is that it exists. HINDS' LAW OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING 1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. 2) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. 3) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. 4) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. 5) The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. 6) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it. 7) Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, andyou will find that programmers cannot write in English. HOARE'S LAW OF LARGE PROGRAMS Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out. HOPPER'S AXIOM (Admiral Grace Hopper, USN, who discovered the first computer "bug" in the 1940's---an actual insect) It's better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. HUBBARD'S LAW Don't take life too seriously; you won't get out of it alive. JENKINSON'S LAW It won't work. JOHNSON-LAIRD'S LAW Toothaches tend to start on Saturday night. LARKINSON'S LAW All laws are basically false. THE LAST ONE'S LAW OF PROGRAM GENERATORS A program generator creates programs that are more "buggy" than the program generator. LIEBERMAN'S LAW Everybody lies; but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. LYNCH'S LAW When the going gets tough, everyone leaves. MASON'S FIRST LAW OF SYNERGISM The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut. MAY'S LAW The quality of correlation is inversely proportional to the density of control. (The fewer the data points, the smoother the curves.) MENCKEN'S LAW There is always an easy answer to every human problem --- neat, plausible, and wrong. MESKIMEN'S LAW There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over. MUIR'S LAW When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. MURPHY'S LAWS 1) If anything can go wrong, it will (and at the worst possible moment). 2) Nothing is as easy as it looks. 3) Everything takes longer than you think it will. MURPHY'S FOURTH LAW If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. MURPHY'S LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS 1) You can't win, 2) You can't break even, 3) And you can't get out of the game. ALSO: Things get worse under pressure. NINETY-NINETY RULE OF PROJECT SCHEDULES The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent. NIXON'S THEOREM The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on. NOLAN'S PLACEBO An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. OLIVER'S LAW OF LOCATION No matter where you are, there you are. O'REILLY'S LAW OF THE KITCHEN Cleanliness is next to impossible. OSBORN'S LAW Variables won't, constants aren't. O'TOOLE'S COMMENTARY ON MURPHY'S LAW Murphy was an optimist. PARKINSON'S LAW Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. PARKINSON'S LAW (MODIFIED) The components you have will expand to fill the available space. PEER'S LAW The solution to a problem changes the problem. PETER'S PRINCIPLE In every hierarchy, each employee tends to rise to the level of his incompetence. THE LAW OF THE PERVERSITY OF NATURE You cannot determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. PUDDER'S LAW Anything that begins well will end badly. [Note: The converse of Pudder's law is not true.] RHODE'S COROLLARY TO HOARE'S LAW Inside every complex and unworkable program is a useful routine struggling to be free. ROBERT E. LEE'S TRUCE Judgment comes from experience; experience comes from poor judgment. RUDIN'S LAW In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, people tend to choose the worst possible course. RULE OF ACCURACY When working toward the solution of a problem it always helps you to know the answer. RYAN'S LAW Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish yourself as an expert. SATTINGER'S LAW It works better if you plug it in. SAUSAGE PRINCIPLE People who love sausage and respect the law should watch neither being made. SHAW'S PRINCIPLE Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. SNAFU EQUATIONS 1) Given any problem containing N equations, there will be N+1 unknowns. 2) The object or bit of information most needed will be the least available. 3) The device requiring service or adjustment will be the least accessible. 4) Interchangeable devices aren't. 5) In any human endeavor, once you have exhausted all possibilities and fail, there will be one solution, simple and obvious, highly visible to everyone else. 6) Badness comes in waves. STEWART'S LAW OF RETROACTION It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. THOREAU'S THEORIES OF ADAPTATION 1) After months of training and you finally understand all of a program's commands, a revised version of the program arrives with an all-new command structure. 2) After designing a useful routine that gets around a familiar "bug" in the system, the system is revised, the "bug" taken away, and you're left with a useless routine. 3) Efforts in improving a program's "user friendliness" invariably lead to work in improving user's "computer literacy". 4) That's not a "bug", that's a feature! THYME'S LAW Everything goes wrong at once. THE LAW OF THE TOO SOLID GOOF In any collection of data, the figures that are obviously correct beyond all need of checking are the figures that contain the errors. Corollary 1: No one you ask for help will see the error either. Corollary 2: Any nagging intruder, who stops by with unsought advice, will spot it immediately. UNNAMED LAW If it happens, it must be possible. WEILER'S LAW Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do the work. WEINBERG'S COROLLARY An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy. WEINBERG'S LAW If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. WHITEHEAD'S LAW The obvious answer is always overlooked. WILCOX'S LAW A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants. WOOD'S AXIOM As soon as a still-to-be-finished computer task becomes a life-or-death situation, the power fails. WOODWARD'S LAW A theory is better than its explanation. ZYMURGY'S FIRST LAW OF EVOLVING SYSTEM DYNAMICS Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.
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