A Quote by Henry Van Dyke
The simple life which blandly ignores all care and conflict, soon becomes flabby and invertebrate, sentimental and gelatinous.
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As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action.
Think of a flabby person covered with layers of fat. That is what your mind can become - flabby, covered with layers of fat till it becomes too dull and lazy to think, to observe, to explore, to discover ... not wanting to be disturbed or questioned into wakefulness.
Life, as we all know, is conflict, and man, being part of life, is himself an expression of conflict. If he recognizes the fact and accepts it, he is apt, despite the conflict, to know peace and to enjoy it. But to arrive at this end, which is only a beginning (for we haven’t begun to live yet!), a man has got to learn the doctrine of acceptance, that is, of unconditional surrender, which is love.
Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.
So soon as the possession of property becomes the basis of popular esteem, therefore, it becomes also a requisite to that complacency which we call self-respect.
My dog does not care where heat comes from, but he cares that it comes, and soon. Indeed he considers my ability to make it come as something magical, for when I rise in the coal black pre-dawn and kneel by the hearth to make a fire, he pushes himself blandly between me and the kindling splits I have laid in the ashes, and I must touch a match to them by poking it between his legs. Such faith , I suppose, is the kind that moves mountains.
So let us decide whether you want a shelter, a safety zone, which will no longer yield conflict, whether you want to escape from the present conflict to enter a condition in which there shall be no conflict; or whether you are unaware, unconscious of this conflict in which you exist. If you are unconscious of the conflict, that is, the battle that is taking place between that self and the environment, if you are unconscious of that battle, then why do you seek further remedies? Remain unconscious.
The constant struggle in mature life, I think, is to accept the necessity of tragedy and conflict, and not to try to escape to some falsely simple solution which does not include these more somber complexities.
Do you have a lot of other profound thoughts like that? Blood is blood? A toaster is a toaster? A Gelatinous Cube is a Gelatinous Cube?
Accumulating knowledge is a form of avarice and lends itself to another version of the Midas story ...man [is] so avid for knowledge that everything that he touches turns to facts; his faith becomes theology; his love becomes lechery; his wisdom becomes science; pursuing meaning, he ignores truth.
As soon as baseball becomes a job, as soon as I stop caring, as soon as the smile goes away, I'll hang up my spikes and do something else.
The special life is where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, the natural becomes miraculous, the everyday becomes unique. Finding the magic and wonder within nature is the most assured means by which children rediscover the joy of life.
As soon as you know what you're doing, you're doing it wrong. That's what I find with acting. As soon as it becomes padded, it becomes pat.
All of us must care for life, cherish life, with tenderness, warmth...to give life is to open (our) heart, and to care for life is to (give oneself) in tenderness and warmth for others, to have concern in my heart for others. Caring for life from the beginning to the end. What a simple thing, what a beautiful thing..So, go forth and don't be discouraged. Care for life. It's worth it.
Just as soon as any conviction of important truth becomes central and vital, there comes the desire to utter it - a desire which is immediate and irresistible. Sacrifice is gladness, service is joy, when such an idea becomes a commanding power.
I came to feel very, very sentimental about those sets, which is ludicrous, because they represent everything which is transitory and insubstantial. It's absurd that one should feel sentimental about timber and canvas.
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