#mit

I say, Bertie," he said, after a pause of about an hour and a quarter. "Hallo!" "Do you like the name Mabel?" "No." "No?" "No." "You don't think there's a kind of music in the word, like the wind rustling gently through the tree-tops?" "No." He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered up. "Of course, you wouldn't. You always were a fat-headed worm without any soul, weren't you?" "Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all. ↗

— P.G. Wodehouse

#jeeves #music

I could not have done anymore, I had pushed myself to a limit that I had never touched before and that's definitely going to change you - than going out and doing what you do in practice every day. ↗

— Elvis Stojko

#before #change #could #day #definitely

It's in the morning, for most of us. It's that time, those few seconds when we're coming out of sleep but we're not really awake yet. For those few seconds we're something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then...and then -- ah -- we open our eyes and the day is before us and ... we become ourselves. ↗

— Jerry Spinelli

#life #nonconformity #sleep #life

I was awakened by a tremendous earthquake, and though I hadn ever before enjoyed a storm of this sort, the strange thrilling motion could not be mistaken, and I ran out of my cabin, both glad and frightened, shouting, "A noble earthquake! A noble earthquake" feeling sure I was going to learn something. ↗

— John Muir

#earthquake #nature #yosemite #nature

Conformity—the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority. ↗

— Mark Twain

#nature

Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive ↗

— Ronald Reagan

#church #government #governments #religion #religion

A soft and sheltered Christianity, afraid to be lean and lone, unwilling to face the storms and brave the heights, will end up fat and foul in the cages of conformity. ↗

— Vance Havner

#comfort #conformity #religion #religion

Yes, Kālāmas, it is proper that your have doubt, that you have perplexity, for a doubt has arisen in a matter which is doubtful. Now, look you Kālāmas, do not be led by reports, or traditions, or hearsay. Be not led by the authority of religious texts, not by the delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, not by the idea: 'this is our teacher'. But, O Kālāmas, when you know for yourself that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up... And when you know for yourself that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them. ↗

— Gautama Buddha

#confusion #doubt #good-judgment #nonconformity #questioning

The problem with this generation is they are so quick to define who they are in the process of searching. It is their need for immediate acceptance that keeps them from exploring further. ↗

— Shannon L. Alder

#conformity #purpose #religion #religion

In the early days of the December that my father was to die, my younger brother brought me the news that I was a Jew. I was then a transplanted Englishman in America, married, with one son and, though unconsoled by any religion, a nonbelieving member of two Christian churches. On hearing the tidings, I was pleased to find that I was pleased. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#atheism #jews #religion #religion