“To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).”
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
“When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward – in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link.”
― Heretics
― Heretics
“Indeed — why should I not admit it? — in that moment, my heart was breaking.”
― The Remains of the Day
― The Remains of the Day
“Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.”
― The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle
― The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle
“Don’t be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid - the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.”
― Crime and Punishment
― Crime and Punishment
Ethan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ethan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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