A Quote by Simon Schama
Nations don't start out. There is not a particular moment when they unveil the essence of themselves. They are always a work in progress.
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It is true that men themselves made this world of nations... but this world without doubt has issued from a mind often diverse, at times quite contrary, and always superior to the particular ends that men had proposed to themselves.
Gardeners (or just plain simple writers who write about the garden) always have something they like intensely and in particular, right at the moment you engage them in the reality of the borders they cultivate, the space in the garden they occupy at any moment, they like in particular this, or they like in particular that.
The essence of analysis is surprise. When people are themselves surprised by what they say, that's when they are really making some progress.
There are constraints on what counts as "Reformed." It's more than a name or a label. It's about belonging to a particular theological stream or tradition, which is shaped in important respects by particular thinkers and their work, particular arguments and ideas, a particular community (especially, particular church communities, denominations, and so on), particular liturgies or ways of worshipping and living out the Christian life, and particular confessions that inform the practices of these communities.
One thing that we have found over the years is that video games themselves are a thing that have a tendency to be difficult for them to break out of a particular segment, or a particular group, or a particular group of people with particular interests.
Maybe feeling of presence in my body is why I've always sought out extreme experiences; it forces me to be in a moment, to face the fact of my existing in that particular moment, in my body.
Certainly we're always rooting for our particular contingent moment to be a great one. Pain-free. But the more expansive vision has to include the idea that, even for us, sometimes our particular contingent moment is going to be horrific.
I always start with emotion. That's where I start all of my improvisations, on the piano. I always start with the mood or the feel of where I am in that moment.
No one can say how long the process of human extinction might take, but as it proceeds, the same global order will prevail that always prevails: rich nations will find ways to protect themselves and make themselves comfortable, while the poor nations and the poor people of the planet will suffer.
The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the Thirteenth Century, but this yielding is always done grudgingly, and thus lingers a good while behind the event.
The beginning of civilisation is the discovery of some useful arts, by which men acquire property, comforts, or luxuries. The necessity or desire of preserving them leads to laws and social institutions. The discovery of peculiar arts gives superiority to particular nations ... to subjugate other nations, who learn their arts, and ultimately adopt their manners;- so that in reality the origin as well as the progress and improvement of civil society is founded in mechanical and chemical inventions.
People make fools out of themselves in all sorts of ways. No particular qualifications or particular criteria are necessary.
In my ninety-plus years, I have learned a secret. I have learned that when good men and good women face challenges with optimism, things will always work out! Truly, things always work out! Despite how difficult circumstances may look at the moment, those who have faith and move forward with a happy spirit will find that things always work out.
We have to start calling sexual harassment out because only then can we start to make progress on it.
You can always figure out how to deliver things in somewhat controlled situations, but when you start to get into the reality of the market you start to figure out what isn't going to work.
It is such an amazing moment when people realize what they are and what they can be, and they start putting themselves out into the world. I think you can see it in people when it's happening. They look different.
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