“Yes, love, ...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one's neighbours; to love one's enemies. To love everything - to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? ...Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her.... If it were only possible for me to see her once more... once, looking into those eyes to say...”
― War and Peace
― War and Peace
“But these days the demons are more insidious; they’re the everyday annoyances, the little things that suck away our potential to do big things.”
― Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind
― Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind
“That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.”
― The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
― The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
“There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery”
―
music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery”
―
“We ignore the blackness of outer space and pay attention to the stars, especially if they seem to order themselves into constellations. “Common as the air” meant something worthless, but Hackworth knew that every breath of air that Fiona drew, lying in her little bed at night, just a silver flow in the moonlight, was used by her body to make skin and hair and bones. The air became Fiona, and deserving—no, demanding—of love. Ordering matter was the sole endeavor of Life, whether it was a jumble of self-replicating molecules in the primordial ocean, or a steam-powered English mill turning weeds into clothing, or Fiona lying in her bed turning air into Fiona.”
― The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
― The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
Mike’s 2025 Year in Books
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