#toms

Habits and customs are a convenience devised for the support of timid natures who dare not allow their souls free play. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#habit #nature

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#cosmos #dna #sense-of-wonder #stars #wonder

The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust. ↗

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

#cosmic #star-stuff #biology

The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict? The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don’t wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. It takes at least three months’ shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don’t really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict. The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict’s special need. You don’t decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you’re an addict. (Junky, Prologue, p. xxxviii) ↗

— William S. Burroughs

#addicts #drug-addiction #junk #junkie #motivations

Vertigo, it was thought at the time, could only be caused by a disease of the cerebellum. He observed this kind of patient for years and saw absolutely no symptoms of brain disease. ↗

— Robert Barany

#brain #caused #could #disease #kind

My works are Chinese literature, which is part of world literature. They show the life of Chinese people as well as the country's unique culture and folk customs. ↗

— Mo Yan

#chinese people #country #culture #customs #folk

Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms. ↗

— Lord Byron

#body #born #god #god help #good

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed. ↗

— Albert Camus

#death #either #heart #individuals #lasting

Middle age: when you begin to exchange your emotions for symptoms. ↗

— Irvin S. Cobb

#begin #emotions #exchange #middle #middle age

Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds. ↗

— Charles Caleb Colton

#bodies #change #climate #customs #empty