take me back

In the end, we will only conserve what we love. We will only love what we understand. We will only understand what we are taught.
--Baba Dioum
saved 08/20/2021, 12:20 pm

The world just goes along. Nothing much matters, you know? I mean really matters. But then sometimes, just for a second, you get this grace, this belief that it does matter, a whole lot.
--Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women
saved 12/16/2021, 11:17 am

The choices we make within the boundaries of the twists of fate determine who we are.
--John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
saved 03/10/2022, 11:41 am

We might derive value from reading religious stories as a deeply moving archive that symbolically captures essential qualities of the human condition. We might savor the challenge of developing an interpretive system that squares particular religious doctrines with scientific understanding. We might find it rewarding to overlay a sacred sensibility on our engagement with the world, adding a veneer that enhances experience but does not negate rationality. We might benefit from the support and solidarity of religious affiliation. We might find it emotionally enriching to participate in religious rituals, consecrating life passages and marking sacred days that connect us with a venerable tradition. Such varieties of religious engagement can provide activity, motivation, community, and guidance that, for some, lay out a path toward a richer life endowed with greater meaning. Such varieties of religious engagement do not require a belief in the factual nature of religious content; they reflect a belief in the value of such content, regardless of whether the content is veridical.
--Brian Greene, Until the End of Time
saved 06/02/2022, 11:05 am

How unjust it was, when people treated the actual as limiting proof of the possible!
--Elif Batuman, Either/Or
saved 06/11/2022, 2:32 pm

Is there anything that is truly at rest, something stationary around which the universe revolves, or is there nothing at all to hold on to amid this endless chain of movements in which every single thing seems bound? Just imagine how far we have fallen into uncertainty if the human imagination cannot find a single place to lay its anchor, if not a single stone in the world has the right to be considered immobile!
--Karl Swarzchild
saved 07/04/2022, 3:39 pm

see year 5