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(page 62 of 76)
"We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all. We sleep to time’s Hurdy Gurdy; we wake, if we ever wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of light uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it’s time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it’s time to break our necks for home." — Apr 10, 2026 11:49AM
"We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all. We sleep to time’s Hurdy Gurdy; we wake, if we ever wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of light uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it’s time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it’s time to break our necks for home." — Apr 10, 2026 11:49AM
Charles McBryde
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"It was always the excesses that we wished to oppose, rather than the whole program. The whole spirit that produced the first steps A,B,C, and D out of which the excesses were bound to come. It is so much easier to oppose the excesses about which one can, of course, do nothing, than it is to oppose the whole spirit about which one can do something every day." — Apr 06, 2026 05:51PM
"It was always the excesses that we wished to oppose, rather than the whole program. The whole spirit that produced the first steps A,B,C, and D out of which the excesses were bound to come. It is so much easier to oppose the excesses about which one can, of course, do nothing, than it is to oppose the whole spirit about which one can do something every day." — Apr 06, 2026 05:51PM
“But even Plato knew that class and conditioning and so forth have an inalterable effect on the individual. It seems to me that psychology is only another word for what the ancients called fate.”
“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”
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“Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us. This is the great realization of the Upanishads of India in the ninth Century B.C. All the gods, all the heavens, all the world, are within us. They are magnified dreams, and dreams are manifestations in image form of the energies of the body in conflict with each other. That is what myth is. Myth is a manifestation in symbolic images, in metaphorical images, of the energies of the organs of the body in conflict with each other. This organ wants this, that organ wants that. The brain is one of the organs.”
― The Power of Myth
― The Power of Myth
“Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.”
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“Late modern society is principally concerned with purchasing things, in ever greater abundance and variety, and so has to strive to fabricate an ever greater number of desires to gratify, and to abolish as many limits and prohibitions upon desire as it can. Such a society is already implicitly atheist and so must slowly but relentlessly apply itself to the dissolution of transcendent values. It cannot allow ultimate goods to distract us from proximate goods. Our sacred writ is advertising, our piety is shopping, our highest devotion is private choice. God and the soul too often hinder the purely acquisitive longings upon which the market depends, and confront us with values that stand in stark rivalry to the only truly substantial value at the center of the social universe: the price tag.”
― The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss
― The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss
Donna Tartt
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For readers who, like me, love both of Donna Tartt's novels, The Secret History (1992) and The Little Friend (2002) and may be wondering what happened ...more
Caroliniana Athenaeum
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A bi-weekly reading group for the members of the Caroliniana Athenaeum. Members of the Caroliniana Athenaeum may add events, create polls, submit revi ...more
Charles McBryde’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Charles McBryde’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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