The Buddhist word for it was upekkha. The Muslims spoke of aslama. The Hebrews, hishtavut. The second book of the Bhagavad Gita, the epic poem of the warrior Arjuna, speaks of samatvam, an “evenness of mind—a peace that is ever the same.”
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“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
― Meditations
― Meditations
“The more noise you make the more likely you are to be eaten. If you’ve no way to escape you keep silent. If birds couldnt fly they wouldnt sing. When you’re defenseless you keep your opinions to yourself.”
― Stella Maris
― Stella Maris
“My guess is that you can only be so happy. While there seems to be no floor to sorrow. Each deeper misery being a state heretofore unimagined. Each suggestive of worse to come.”
― Stella Maris
― Stella Maris
“Longing on a large scale is what makes history. This is just a kid with a
local yearning but he is part of an assembling crowd, anonymous
thousands off the buses and trains, people in narrow columns tramping over
the swing bridge above the river, and even if they are not a migration or a
revolution, some vast shaking of the soul, they bring with them the body
heat of a great city and their own small reveries and desperations, the
unseen something that haunts the day—men in fedoras and sailors on
shore leave, the stray tumble of their thoughts, going to a game.”
―
local yearning but he is part of an assembling crowd, anonymous
thousands off the buses and trains, people in narrow columns tramping over
the swing bridge above the river, and even if they are not a migration or a
revolution, some vast shaking of the soul, they bring with them the body
heat of a great city and their own small reveries and desperations, the
unseen something that haunts the day—men in fedoras and sailors on
shore leave, the stray tumble of their thoughts, going to a game.”
―
“When all trace of our existence is gone, for whom then will this be a tragedy?”
― Stella Maris
― Stella Maris
John’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at John’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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