Himself - Quotes
If a man calls himself priest but then demands your entire purse for entry into his cult, he is a false prophet.
If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.
I`m angry that when people run for political office in the United States, it`s considered legitimate to grill them about their employment background, their positions on legislation, their positions on social issues, the taxes they`ve paid [...]... but it`s considered invasive and intolerant to ask if they believe in talking snakes, demonic possession, magic underwear, magic crackers that turn into the flesh of their god, an Earth that was created 6,000 years ago, or a god who put himself on Earth in human form and then sacrificed himself to himself to atone for sins that other people committed and to save humanity from the punishment he himself was planning to dole out. If someone is going to make decisions about science funding, emerging medical technology, our educational system, and so on... I think it matters if they believe any of that shit, and I bloody well want to know about it.
Invoking a deity doesn`t solve the problem of complexity; it introduces a new problem. If all complex things really do require an intelligent creator, then why is that creator himself not bound to the same rule? Would that complex deity not require an even more complex creator, and so on, for infinity?
Man has always praised himself as an extremely rational being. He ought to stop that.
My other brother-in-law died. He was a karate expert, then joined the army. The first time he saluted, he killed himself.
A measure of a man is in the moment when he is confronted by himself.
Our present swarms with traces of our past. We are histories of ourselves, narratives. I am not this momentary mass of flesh reclined on the sofa typing the letter a on my laptop; I am my thoughts full of the traces of the phrases that I am writing; I am my mother`s caresses, and the serene kindness with which my father calmly guided me; I am my adolescent travels; I am what my reading has deposited in layers in my mind; I am my loves, my moments of despair, my friendships, what I`ve written, what I`ve heard; the faces engraved on my memory. I am, above all, the one who a minute ago made a cup of tea for himself. The one who a moment ago typed the word "memory" into his computer. The one who just composed the sentence that I am now completing. If all this disappeared, would I still exist? I am this long, ongoing novel. My life consists of it.
Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who `forgives` you - out of love - takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.
He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven.