Jignesh Darji

“Pebbles of Perception The pebbles of perception; With poise and grace, accept what is, life’s sharp embrace. The pebbles of perception; Last to speak, seek better questions, to create, not critique. The pebbles of perception; Choose their response, and cherish the choice, of needs, not wants. The pebbles of perception; Seldom seek credit, self-aware, not self-absorbed, and never big-headed. The pebbles of perception; With enthusiastic wonder, forge their character, without going under. The pebbles of perception; Come what season, gently round out, the rocks of reason. And in the end; Soft sand beneath the feet of children playing.”
― Laurence Endersen, Pebbles of Perception: How a Few Good Choices Make All The Difference

“One of Wordsworth’s poetic ambitions was to induce us to see the many animals living alongside us that we typically ignore, registering them only out of the corner of our eyes and feeling no appreciation for what they are up to and want: shadowy, generic presences such as the bird up on the steeple and the rustling creature in the bush. He invited his readers to abandon their usual perspectives and to consider for a time how the world might look through other eyes, to shuttle between the human and the natural perspective. Why might this be interesting, or even inspiring? Perhaps because unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.”
― Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel

“at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a word came to prominence by means of which it became possible to indicate a specific response towards precipices and glaciers, night skies and boulder-strewn deserts. In their presence one was likely to experience, and could count on being understood if one reported that one had felt, a sense of the sublime.”
― Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel

“For Humboldt, the question had been, ‘Why are there regional variations in nature?’ For the person standing before the Iglesia de San Francisco el Grande, the question might be, ‘Why have people felt the need to build churches?’ or even ‘Why do we worship God?’ From such a naive starting point, a chain of curiosity would have the chance to grow, involving questions such as ‘Why are churches different in different places?’, ‘What have been the main styles of churches?’ and ‘Who were the main architects, and why did they achieve success?’ Only through such a slow evolution of curiosity could a traveller stand a chance of greeting the news that the church’s vast neoclassical facade was by Sabatini with anything other than boredom or despair.”
― Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel