#eros

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. ↗

— John Holmes

#compassion #friendship #generosity #helping-others #friendship

God never estimates what we give from impulse. We are given credit for what we determine in our hearts to give; for the giving that is governed by a fixed determination. The Spirit of God revolutionises our philanthropic instincts. Much of our philanthropy is simply the impulse to save ourselves an uncomfortable feeling. The Spirit of God alters all that. As saints our attitude towards giving is that we give for Jesus Christ’s sake, and from no other motive. ↗

— Oswald Chambers

#giving #guilt #attitude

Novels institutionalize the ruse of eros. It becomes a narrative texture of sustained incongruence, emotional and cognitive. It permits the reader to stand in triangular relation to the characters in the story and reach into the text after the objects of their desire, sharing their longing but also detached from it, seeing their view of reality but also its mistakenness. It is almost like being in love. ↗

— Anne Carson

#desire #eros #eros-the-bittersweet #literature #novels

Psyche did not think the feeling running through her could exist, it was too powerful, too profound and pierced her soul in a way that was a beautiful agony. ↗

— Jasmine Dubroff

#greek-mythology #jasmine-dubroff #more-than-life #beauty

You make all kinds of mistakes, but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. ↗

— Winston Churchill

#fallibility #generosity #inspirational #courage

Leila dreamt that her Soul was on fire. It was not a nightmare. Shannon was in the dream. Shannon was telling her to wake up. She woke up, burning as if she had a fever, nearly soaking wet with sweat. Kevin was asleep beside her. ↗

— H. Raven Rose

#dark-eros #dream #fire #murder #soul

Forty-two years after Dr. King was murdered, we are still a nation of inequality. People of color, women, gays, lesbians, and others are still treated as second-class citizens. Yes, things have changed but we have still not achieved equality among all humans. And nonhuman animals continue to be chattel property without any inherent value. ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#chattel-property #heterosexism #inherent-value #nonhuman #racism

I don’t drink water, because if water can erode rock, think what it can do to flesh.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#drinking #erode #erosion #flesh #geology

Women have married because it was necessary, in order to survive economically, in order to have children who would not suffer economic deprivation or social ostracism, in order to remain respectable, in order to do what was expected of women because coming out of "abnormal" childhoods they wanted to feel "normal," and because heterosexual romance has been represented as the great female adventure, duty, and fulfillment. We may faithfully or ambivalently have obeyed the institution, but our feelings - and our sensuality - have not been tamed or contained within it. ↗

— Adrienne Rich

#marriage #norms #faith

At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague or subordinate. Not among Friends. It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#friendship #love #personality #friendship