The shadow of an eagle that had set forth from those high and craggy fastnesses crossed the line of riders below and they looked up to mark it where it rode in that brittle blue and faultless void.
Blood Meridian (1985) by Cormac McCarthy
Hobbes describes life as “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Keltner believes evolution has given Homo sapiens emotions like gratitude, joy, amusement, and compassion.
–On the Science of Awe by Mark Leviton Thomas
Humans Appreciate Art
Liberal & conservative are terms used – not to think – but to avoid thinking. You can classify anything as liberal or conservative, then simply declare yourself as being one or the other. All your thoughts for the rest of your life can be a knee jerk.
Five Good Minutes
by Brantley & Millstine @ New Harbinger Books
The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo.
She succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing.
And when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away.
Besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to.
Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (1865)
for a clever animation -> Alice and the Flamingo
The polar bears are waiting for well-done.
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go.
— Hamlet
One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt & darkness as the cost of existence. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of living & dying.
The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris L. West,
