A Higher Call Quotes & Sayings

Everyone [in higher education] was what I call drillers of deeper wells. These academics sit at the bottom of a deep well and they look up and see a sliver of the sky. They know everything about that little sliver of sky and nothing else. I scan all my horizons. — Vaclav Smil

We must become the person who is ready to accept the thing/s that we want. Sometimes, what you want is already waiting for you, alongside the person that you are capable of becoming. Alongside the destined you. So in between here and there, you have that journey, that process, of becoming that person. Wiser, stronger, gentler. We think that to attain what we want, means simply to achieve what we wish to attain. But if we could only see ourselves
our destined selves
already there in the future, standing hand-in-hand with our desires, we would always know that our worthy desires are objects that call us unto a higher calling, a higher state of existence. — C. JoyBell C.

There is something beyond power. The totality of one's being. Some call it nirvana. We have a higher destiny. Before you can scratch the surface, you have to bring your life into order. — Frederick Lenz

to call someone an artist means that they have a sense of higher purpose beyond commerce. Not that they don't profit from their work, or promote themselves, but that the work itself has spiritual, philosophical, emotional or experiential attributes as central goals. — Scott Berkun

In the long run, success or failure will be
conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. — Theodore Roosevelt

If a man can realize his divine nature with the help of an image, would it be right to call that a sin? Nor, even when he has passed that stage, should he call it an error. [ ... ] man is not traveling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. To him all the religions from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realize the Infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of these marks a stage of progress; and every soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and more strength till it reaches the Glorious Sun. — Swami Vivekananda

In the universe there is an un-measurable, indescribable force which sorcerers call intent, and absolutely everything that exists in the entire cosmos is attached to intent by a connecting link. Sorcerers, or warriors, were concerned with discussing, understanding, and employing that connecting link...Sorcerers, therefore, divide their instruction into two categories; one is for everyday-life state of awareness, the other is for the states of heightened awareness, in which sorcerers obtained knowledge directly from intent, without the distracting intervention of spoken language. — Carlos Castaneda

The economy - and the need to keep it strong and growing - has somehow become the most important aspect of modern life. Nothing else is allowed to rank higher. The economy is suffering; the economy is improving; the economy is stable or unstable - you'd think it was a patient on life support in an intensive-care unit from the way we anxiously await the next pronouncement on its health. But what we call the economy is nothing more than people producing, consuming and exchanging things and services. — David Suzuki

At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages, mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have - I believe the English already use the phrase - "parity of esteem." An even more drastic scheme is not impossible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma - Beelzebub, what a useful word! - by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out 'A Cat Sat On A Mat'. — C.S. Lewis

It's important to believe in something, a spirit in things and a higher purpose. Something I call 'True Beauty'. — Fennel Hudson

Christians tell me that they have a higher destiny than the lower animals, because Homo Sapiens can reason. But the Bible tells me that this gift of reason, which they call god-given, may be the match that lights the fires of hell for all who dare to use it, since whatever is not of faith is sin. — Ruth Hurmence Green

Christians who fail also avoid other Christians, especially when they are feeling bad and guilty in the midst of their failure. It's sad to see this dynamic of the law happen in the church and then see the opposite happen in Twelve Step groups. In these recovery groups, people are taught that the very first thing to do when you fail is to call someone in the group and get to a meeting. They are taught to "run to grace," as it were, to turn immediately to their higher power and their support system. The sad part is that this theology is more biblical than what is practices in many Christian environments, where people in failure run from instead of to God and the people they need. — Henry Cloud

Beauty is a form of Genius
is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. — Oscar Wilde

Coincidence, when raised to a symbol, occurs with mathematical precision at the most crucial moment, even for the squarest of minds. A moment the rest of us call higher will, Fate's gesture, something like that. — Odysseus Elytis

Athletes train 15 years for 15 seconds of performance. Ask them if they got lucky. Ask an athlete how he feels after a good workout. He will tell you that he feels spent. If he doesn't feel that way, it means he hasn't worked out to his maximum ability.
Losers think life is unfair. They think only of their bad breaks. They don't consider that the person who is prepared and playing well still got the same bad breaks but overcame them. That is the difference. His threshold for tolerating pain becomes higher because in the end he is not training so much for the game but for his character. Alexander Graham Bell was desperately trying to invent a hearing aid for his partially deaf wife. He failed at inventing a hearing aid but in the process discovered the principles of the telephone. You wouldn't call someone like that lucky, would you?Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Without effort and preparation, lucky coincidences don't happen. — Shiv Khera

To summarise so far, Step One says I can't; Step Two says: I am not alone; Step Three says: I can be helped. Step Four and Five call for honesty and openness, and action to shed our secrets. In Steps Six and Seven, we take full responsibility for our problems and shortcomings (NOT the same as taking blame) and get help from our 'higher power', in order to change ourselves. Steps Eight and Nine ask for amends to be made to those we have injured or hurt - often a very hard and painful thing to do. — David Stafford

Yes, every act of obedience is an act of worship." he said. "But why don't we learn that sooner? Why do we waste our lives before we learn how to live?" "I am sure," he returned, "that we do not learn as fast as we are willing to learn. God does not force instruction upon us, but when we say as Luther did, 'More light, Lord, more light,' the light comes." I questioned myself after he had gone as to whether this could be true of me. Is there not in my heart some secret reluctance to know the truth lest that knowledge should call to a higher and a holier life than I have yet tried? — Elizabeth Payson Prentiss

Robart blinked, momentarily thrown off track, but recovered. "I will have my knight returned to me."
Knight? What knight? Oh shoot. I had completely forgotten about the vampire who'd almost chopped the police car in a half. I'd left him in the basement holding cell for almost four hours. I concentrated. The knight was alive and well. He was sitting on the floor meditating. I gave the floor a little push and felt it slide up, carrying the knight with it.
"You will find your knight in your quarters."
Robart nodded. His gaze narrowed. "Perhaps if you were less heavy-handed in your treatment of the guests you claim to honor and protect, your inn would have a higher rating."
He did not. Oh yes, yes he did. "Perhaps if you trained the knights under your command to follow simple orders, your House would've reached greater prominence within your empire."
Robart locked his jaw.
If my smile were any sweeter, you could pour it on pancakes and call it syrup. — Ilona Andrews

What is required is faith. Man has body, life and mind but that is not all that constitutes man. He has risen to the mind as a result of evolution. Now a higher consciousness will be evolved - this I call Supermind. It is the instrument of the Divine Consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness. — Sri Aurobindo

We have to make sure that college is accessible and affordable. Two years ago, I stood here and called upon our institutions of higher learning to develop plans for degrees that cost no more than $10,000. There were plenty of detractors at that time who insisted it couldn't be done. However, that call inspired educators at colleges and universities across our state to step up to the plate. Today, I'm proud to tell you that thirteen Texas universities have announced plans for a $10,000 degree. — Rick Perry

Though reason must guide us in laying down standards and laws regarding animals, and in examining the arguments of those who reject such standards, it is usually best in any moral inquiry to start with the original motivation, which in the case of animals we may without embarrassment call love. Human beings love animals as only the higher love the lower, the knowing love the innocent, and the strong love the vulnerable. When we wince at the suffering of animals, that feeling speaks well of us even when we ignore it, and those who dismiss love for our fellow creatures as mere sentimentality overlook a good and important part of our humanity. — Matthew Scully

There are times ... when we are in the midst of life-moments of confrontation with birth or death, or moments of beauty when nature or love is fully revealed, or moments of terrible loneliness-times when a holy and awesome awareness comes upon us. It may come as deep inner stillness or as a rush of overflowing emotion. It may seem to come from beyond us, without any provocation, or from within us, evoked by music or by a sleeping child. If we open our hearts at such moments, creation reveals itself to us in all it's unity and fullness. And when we return from such a moment of awareness, our hearts long to find some way to capture it in words forever, so that we can remain faithful to it's higher truth.
... When my people search for a name to give to the truth we feel at those moments, we call it God, and when we capture that understanding in timeless poetry, we call it praying. — Mary Doria Russell

The idea that when people see prices falling they will stop buying those cheaper goods or cheaper food does not make much sense. And aiming for 2 percent inflation every year means that after a decade prices are more than 25 percent higher and the price level doubles every generation. That is not price stability, yet they call it price stability. I just do not understand central banks wanting a little inflation. — Paul Volcker

when higher-ups could be bothered to hand down answers, they often didn't understand the situation well enough to make a good call. — Dennis Bakke

If every call to Christ and His righteousness is a call to suffering, the converse is equally - every call to suffering is a call to Christ, a promotion, an invitation to come up higher. — Charles Bent

The call to leadership excellence means you must now be awake to the reality that you are no longer your own, you are a blessing to society. In business, this will also mean value given to shareholders, customers, employees as well as society. This will take you, your family and your corporate base to appreciate that your leadership role and influence demands that they share you with other causes and stakeholders. As an effective person, you must be able to balance the demands on you and create the additional time that leadership at a higher level requires. — Archibald Marwizi

Today I call upon my Higher Power to help me get through one more day. Help me have gratitude in the face of scarcity, strength in my private struggles and the wisdom to live a good life for myself and others. - Bryant McGill — Bryant McGill

What I call my philosophy of teaching is in fact a philosophy of learning. It comes out of Plato, modified. Before true learning can occur, I believe, there must be in the student's heart a certain yearning for the truth, a certain fire. The true student burns to know. In the teacher she recognizes, or apprehends, the one who has come closer than herself to the truth. So much does she desire the truth embodied in the teacher that she is prepared to burn her old self up to attain it. For his part, the teacher recognizes and encourages the fire in the student, and responds to it by burning with an intenser light. Thus together the two of them rise to a higher realm. So to speak. — J.M. Coetzee

She flies higher than she's ever flown before, maybe she is trying to leave the earth. She isn't sure, she isn't thinking about it. She's far in her mind, deep in her own thoughts, the air on her wings feels amazing, she is swimming, rolling through the air as if it's water. She lifts her head as she flies and lets out a series of loud chirps. And that's when she sees it. The largest bat ever. Flying faster than any hawk or eagle or owl, roaring like some sort of monster. She doesn't know the human word 'dragon' otherwise she would call it that. There is no time to flee. No time to turn. No time to shriek, and no pain. It is like being thrown into the stars. — Nnedi Okorafor

I have often been reminded of the wild duck that came down on migration into a barnyard and liked it so well that he stayed there. In the fall his erstwhile companions passed overhead and his first impulse was to rise and join them, but he had fed too well and could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. The day came when his old fellow travelers could pass overhead without his even hearing their call. I have seen men and women who once mounted up with wings like eagles but are now content to live in the barnyard of this world. — Vance Havner

I've always believed in a higher power. You can call it God, you can call it Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Allah, I don't care. I really believe we are all a part of God. — Olivia Hussey

I think that we all at some point are in search of something - a higher power, whatever you want to call it, the meaning of life. I know I was, especially at even my son's age in my 20s, and dabbling in Eastern philosophies and yoga and Buddhism and Christianity and Islam. I kind of touched them all, you know, just trying to figure out the meaning of life or if nothing else, figure myself out. — Denzel Washington

For nearly 11 years, now, we have been on this mission; we call it, "climbing Mt. Sustainability", a mountain higher than Everest, to meet at that point at the top that symbolizes zero footprint-zero environmental impact. Sustainable: taking nothing, doing no harm. — Ray Anderson

I think we're part of a greater wisdom that we will ever understand; a higher order, call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. It doesn't punish, it doesn't reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just is. — George Carlin

Sometimes to touch us, God touches someone that's close to us. This is what opens our eyes to the fact there is a higher power than ourselves, whether we call it God or not. — Ron Hall

We never really went to church so AA is the closet thing I had to religion. And secretly, I do like it. All you have to do at AA is: Come to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity. That's it.
You don't have to believe that someone died and came back to life. You don't have to believe that you're God's chosen people, or that women should hide their hair, or that some guy found a golden book that told him to go west and polygamize.
You don't have to eat God's body or drink his blood. You don't even have to call him God. And you don't have to call it him. You call it a higher power. And you can imagine it any way you want. — Wendy Wunder

Let us be those creative dissenters who will call our beloved nation to a higher destiny. To a new plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness. — Martin Luther King Jr.

No. Wait. When will I see you again?" she asked. "How will I find you?"
"Well, you don't have to stand on the end of a diving board."
Ivy smiled.
"The end of a tree limb will do," he said. "Or the roof of any building three stories or higher."
"What?"
"Just kidding," he said, laughing. "Just call
anytime, anywhere, silently
and I'll hear you. If I don't come, it's because I'm in the middle of something that I can't stop, or I'm in the darkness. I can't control the darkness." He sighed. "I can feel it coming on
I can feel it right now
and I can fight it off for a while. But in the end I fall unconscious. It's how I rest. I guess one day the darkness will be final."
"No!"
"Yes, love," he said softly.
A moment later he was gone. — Elizabeth Chandler

Another part of the ritual was to ascend with closed eyes. 'Step, step, step,' came my mother's voice as she led me up - and sure enough, the surface of the next tread would receive the blind child's confident foot; all one had to do was lift it a little higher than usual, so as to avoid stubbing one's toe against the riser. This slow, somewhat somnambulistic ascension in self-engendered darkness held obvious delights. The keenest of them was not knowing when the last step would come. At the top of the stairs, one's foot would be automatically lifted to the deceptive call of 'Step,' and then, with a momentary sense of exquisite panic, with a wild contraction of muscles, would sink into the phantasm of a step, padded, as it were, with the infinitely elastic stuff of its own nonexistence. — Vladimir Nabokov

We've now become conscious of the uncalculated social, economic, and environmental costs of that kind of "unconscious" capitalism. And many are beginning to practice a form of "conscious capitalism," which involves integrity and higher standards, and in which companies are responsible not just to shareholders, but also to employees, consumers, suppliers, and communities. Some call it "stakeholder capitalism." — Patricia Aburdene

Intellectual 'work' is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand, who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him - why, certainly he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair - but there it is, and nothing can change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash also. — Mark Twain

You're worthy because the Great Spirit, or Universe, or God, or whatever you want to call a higher power, has put you on the earth at this time. There's nothing else to think about! Since you're as worthy as the next person, you're as deserving to receive as anyone else. Anything else that your mind says around that is made up, non-supportive crappola! — T. Harv Eker

The chanting grew louder, deep male voice pumping.
She looked to the brothers, the tall, fierce men who were now part of her life. Wrath pivoted and put his arm around her. Together, they swayed to the rhythm that swelled, filling the air. The brothers were as one as they paid homage in their language, a single powerful entity.
But then, in a high, keening call, one voice broke out, lifting above the others, shooting higher and higher. The sound of the tenor was so clear, so pure, it brought shivers to the skin, a yearning warmth to the chest. The sweet notes blew the ceiling off with their glory, turning the chamber into cathedral, the brothers into a tabernacle.
Bringing the very heavens close enough to touch.
It was Zsadist.
His eys closed, his head back, his mouth wide open, he sang.
The scarred one, the soulless one, had the voice of an angel. — J.R. Ward

But Christopher obeyed a higher calling: the intoxicating call of green grass and sunshine, the sweet scent of the earth on one of the last days of summer. — Sy Montgomery

What we call "Higher" behavior is elaborated by our abstract mind to ensure survival by an efficient cohesion of our clan.
What we call "lower" behavior is to ensure survival at the expense of a rival, or to prevent the survival of a rival to be at our expense.
So,
Be they our "higher" and "lower" behavior/selves, our humanity and inhumanity, our "Divine" and "diabolic" trends, or any aspect of our Human Nature,
All are created by our abstract mind to ensure survival in an environment of scarcity.

But of course you can always choose to adopt "revelations" which present human nature as:
A messed up image of a messed up supernatural coexistence between two messed up opposite supernatural entities with a messed up relation.

Ultimately, we all think we choose by what we think we know. — Haroutioun Bochnakian

If I had to bring the whole conspiracy in all its forms into one area, it would be to manipulate people into left-brain reality. That's the key. Once they are in left-brain reality-it's the area that decodes everything as apart, everything in terms of individuals, structure and language, rationality as we call it. Then you are parking them in the droplet. The left brain is great if it's used to translate higher awareness into a form that we can work with here. — David Icke

We should write because it is human nature to write. Writing claims our world. It makes it directly and specifically our own. We should write because humans are spiritual beings and writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us both to our own insights and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance.
We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. Writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. We should write because writing is good for the soul. We should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in.
We should write, above all, because we are writers, whether we call ourselves that or not. — Julia Cameron

It's a Tenth Amendment issue. If you want Washington, if you want to implement their standards, that's your call ... We certainly had higher standards than Common Core, so it was a very easy decision for Texans, myself and the legislature included, to basically say we still believe that Texans know how to best run Texas. — Rick Perry

No one praises happiness as one praises justice, but we call it a 'blessing,' deeming it something higher and more divine than things we praise. — Aristotle.

As every blossom fades
and all youth sinks into old age,
so every life's design, each flower of wisdom,
attains its prime and cannot last forever.
The heart must submit itself courageously
to life's call without a hint of grief,
A magic dwells in each beginning,
protecting us, telling us how to live.

High purposed we shall traverse realm on realm,
cleaving to none as to a home,
the world of spirit wishes not to fetter us
but raise us higher, step by step.
Scarce in some safe accustomed sphere of life
have we establish a house, then we grow lax;
only he who is ready to journey forth
can throw old habits off.

Maybe death's hour too will send us out new-born
towards undreamed-lands,
maybe life's call to us will never find an end
Courage my heart, take leave and fare thee well. — Hermann Hesse

I've wanted to feel pleasure to the point of insanity. They call it getting high, because it's wanting to know that higher level, that godlike level. You want to touch the heavens, you want to feel glory and euphoria, but the trick is it takes work. You can't buy it, you can't get it on a street corner, you can't steal it or inject it or shove it up your ass, you have to earn it. — Anthony Kiedis

We could say that the health of a culture is equal to the collective ability of the people who work there to feel the impacts of their actions on others. Now if you're an app developer and want to help me build a tool that tracks that, please give a call. What I've seen over and over again in my career as a business leader and leadership mentor is that this one thing - the inability of people to feel their impact on others - is the cause of cultural dysfunction. And the higher up you are on the org chart, the more problematic that weakness is in terms of what it does to the culture at large. Which is why, as a manager, the most important thing you can do - after recognizing your own impact on your team - is to help people see their impacts on each other, and to help them let go of the emotional story they're telling themselves that's keeping the pattern going. In — Jonathan Raymond

I don't expect to get a standing ovation from businessmen when I call for higher wages. — Peter Bofinger

If we are to do justice to the essence of the thing we call spirit, we should really speak of a "higher" consciousness rather than of the unconscious. — C. G. Jung

Two angels guide
The path of man, both aged and yet young.
As angels are, ripening through endless years,
On one he leans: some call her Memory,
And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet,
With deep mysterious accords: the other,
Floating above, holds down a lamp with streams
A light divine and searching on the earth,
Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields,
Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew,
Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp
Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked
But for Tradition; we walk evermore
To higher paths by brightening Reason's lamp. — George Eliot

The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard. — George S. McGovern

Once we build beyond a human scale, once we conceive ourselves as Titans or as gods, we are lost in magnitude; we cannot control or limit what we do. The statistics of magnitude call out like Sirens to the statistics of destruction. If we have built towering cities, we have raised even higher the cloud of megadeath. If people are as grass before God, they are as nothing before their machines ...
... Past the scale of the human, our works do not liberate us - they confine us. They cut off access to the wilderness of Creation where we must go to be reborn - to receive the awareness, at once humbling and exhilarating, grievous and joyful, that we are a part of Creation, one with all that we live from and all that, in turn, lives from us. They destroy the communal rites of passage that turn us the wilderness and bring us home again. — Wendell Berry

If you connect with a greater part of yourself, I call it higher self, but that's an experience, and when you do this, knowledge comes in, including intuition, and it's always about, 'What's my heart's sole desire?' — James Redfield

Sometimes the greatest fear and pain come from a sense of meaninglessness in life. Meaning is a choice, not a search, remember? A sense of meaninglessness is really, therefore, a call to let in higher awareness and truth. — Robert Holden

People who hear the call to conscience follow what they know inwardly
what they know in consciousness or at higher levels of awareness. I call this irresistible knowing. It is a form of divinely transcendent memory — Carlton D. Pearson

Love is a command, not just a feeling. Somehow, in the romantic world of music and theater we have made love to be what it is not. We have so mixed it with beauty and charm and sensuality and contact that we have robbed it of its higher call of cherishing and nurturing. — Ravi Zacharias

The nature of men and of organized society dictates the maintenance in every field of action of the highest and purest standards of justice and of right dealing ... By justice the lawyer generally means the prompt, fair, and open application of impartial rules; but we call ours a Christian civilization, and a Christian conception of justice must be much higher. It must include sympathy and helpfulness and a willingness to forego self-interest in order to promote the welfare, happiness, and contentment of others and of the community as a whole. — Woodrow Wilson

I talked to a lot of employers who just are, are fearful of what's coming next out of Washington. It's all the spending, it's all the debt. It's their national energy tax, they want to call it cap and trade - more mandates, higher costs, more taxes. Their healthcare bill - more mandates, higher costs, higher taxes. — John Boehner

As his mind becomes purer and his emotions come under control, his thoughts become clearer and his instincts truer. As he learns to live more and more in harmony with his higher Self, his body's natural intuition becomes active of itself. The result is that false desires and unnatural instincts which have been imposed upon it by others or by himself will become weaker and weaker and fall away entirely in time. This may happen without any attempt to undergo an elaborate system of self-discipline on his part: yet it will affect his way of living, his diet, his habits. False cravings like the craving for smoking tobacco will vanish of their own accord; false appetites like the appetite for alcoholic liquor or flesh food will likewise vanish; but the more deep-seated the desire, the longer it will take to uproot it
except in the case of some who will hear and answer a heroic call for an abrupt change. — Paul Brunton

If a man in order to shoot a hare, were to discharge thousands of guns on a great moor in all possible directions; if in order to get into a locked room, he were to buy ten thousand casual keys, and try them all; if, in order to have a house, he were to build a town, and leave all the other houses to wind and weather - assuredly no one would call such proceedings purposeful and still less would anyone conjecture behind these proceedings a higher wisdom, unrevealed reasons, and superior prudence. — J. W. N. Sullivan

The walking delegates of a higher civilization, who have nothing to divide, look upon the notion of property as a purely artificial creation of human society. According to these advanced philosophers, the time will come when no man shall be allowed to call anything his. The beneficent law which takes away an author's rights in his own books just at the period when old age is creeping upon him seems to me a handsome stride toward the longed-for millennium. — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

I myself have participated in girl-on-girl shows for men that would ask for it, of which were very, very many. It is a popular request, especially at bachelor parties. It also paid a much higher dividend. Also when I worked the escort services, certain male/female clients would call and ask for a male/male team and the escort services that I worked for provided this specific request. — Annie Lobert

As the Dark Lord becomes ever more powerful, your race is set still more firmly above mine! Gringotts falls under Wizarding rule, house-elves are slaughtered, and who amongst the wand-carriers protests?"
"We do!" said Hermione. She had sat up straight, her eyes bright. "We protest! And I'm hunted quite as much as any goblin or elf, Griphook! I'm a Mudblood!"
"Don't call yourself - " Ron muttered.
"Why shouldn't I?" said Hermione. "Mudblood, and proud of it! I've got no higher position under this new order than you have, Griphook! It was me they chose to torture, back at the Malfoys'! — J.K. Rowling

For most of us enlightenment is not a destination or graduation into a permanent higher state of consciousness, but a moment-by-moment experience constantly fluctuating between degrees of wholeness and limited consciousness. I like to call this enlightening-ment. — Jennifer Howard

I dream of a love in which two people share a passion to search together for some higher truth. Perhaps I should not call it love. Perhaps it's real name is friendship. — Irvin D. Yalom

At least for me personally, drugs aren't an essential part of having a surreal experience, or what you might call a higher experience. — Panda Bear

Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. They are more willing to follow their own vision, even when it takes them far from the mainland of the human community. Unexplored places do not frighten them- or not, at any rate, as much as they frighten those around them. This is one of the secrets of their power. That which we call genius has a great deal to do with courage and daring, a great deal to do with nerve. — Nathaniel Branden

Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly flashes out into fruitful knowledge. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When someone refuses to listen to you or others, there is one source or entity that he will listen to: Call it God, the universe, a higher power, karmic law, whatever. At any rate, if he feels that the universe is trying to tell him something, then he may listen. He won't listen to you or anyone else, but the universe, that's a different story. — David J. Lieberman

When I write a poem, I go into a state of self-forgetfulness, and something higher takes over; I like to call it my best self. — Ben Okri

Political monopoly and economic monopoly are two sides of the same coin, two heads of the same monster. Despite all the claims to the contrary, the essential ideology of Neo-Conservatism is to preserve the status quo, with all of its injustices. Its public relations experts call for "freedom and democracy" without a framework of higher values. They fail to comprehend the need for a paradigm of justice and therefore are blind to what concerns most of the people in the world. This failure is the taproot of terrorism. — Robert Dickson Crane

They call me a monster and if it were untrue the weight of my crimes would pin me to the ground. I have maimed and I have murdered and if this mountain stood but a little higher I would cut the angels from their heaven. I care less for accusations than for the rain that soaks me, that runs down every limb. I spit both from my lips. Judgment has always left a sour taste. — Mark Lawrence

Well,' said Staines, frowning slightly, 'that's very difficult to say - which to value higher. Honesty or loyalty. From a certain point of view one might say that honesty is a kind of loyalty - loyalty to the truth ... though one would hardly call loyalty a kind of honesty! I suppose that when it came down to it - if I had to choose between being dishonest but loyal, or being disloyal but honest - I'd rather stand by my men, or by my country, or by my family, than by truth. So I suppose I'd say loyalty ... I myself. But in others ... in the case of others, I feel quite differently. I'd much prefer an honest friend to a friend who was merely loyal to me; and I'd much rather be loyal to an honest friend than to a sycophant. Let's say that my answer is conditional; in myself, I value loyalty; on others, honesty — Eleanor Catton

We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge is power, and the like. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge. — Henry David Thoreau

I have a lot of what you might call creative self-loathing - I have pretty high expectations, and they seem to consistently be higher than what I'm able to accomplish. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the tether of our slavery? Then we can enjoy ourselves and frolic in a more spacious arena and die without having come to the end of the tether. Is that, then, what we call liberty? — Nikos Kazantzakis

In everyone's mind there is a whisper of the next step. It may be simple, such as making a phone call or reading a book. It may be a very concrete, mundane step to take that may not even seem connected with your higher vision. Know that you are always being shown the next step; it is always something that comes to your mind as obvious, simple, and a joyful thing to do — Sanaya Roman

The higher that the monkey can climb, the more he shows his tail.
Call no man happy till he dies, there's
no milk at the bottom of the pail.
God builds a church and the devil builds a chapel, like the thistles that are growing 'round the trunk of a tree.
All the good in the world you could put inside a thimble, and still have room for you and me.
If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man.
You can drive out nature with a pitchfork, but it always coming roaring back again.
Misery's the river of the world, misery's the river of the world.
Everybody row, everybody row;
misery's the river of the world. — Tom Waits

Most of us believe in a higher power, whatever name we use to describe it. I refer to this higher power as the universe. Others call it God. I was raised to believe in God and I still do, but to me all religions are like a great big plate that's been broken into many pieces. All the pieces are different, but they're all still part of the same plate. The words we use to describe our beliefs aren't as important as the beliefs themselves. — Laura Lynne Jackson

Whenever I saw her face, I felt that I myself had become beautiful. At the mere thought of her, I felt elevated by contact with her nobility. If this strange phenomenon we call Love can be said to have two poles, the higher of which is a sense of holiness and the baser the impulse of sexual desire, this love of mine was undoubtedly in the grip of Love's higher realm. Being human, of course, I could not leave my fleshly self behind, yet the eyes that beheld her, the heart that treasured thoughts of her, knew nothing of the reek of the physical. — Soseki Natsume

Dad and Mom had a lesbian couple living in our chalet for several years in the early 1970s. One was Dad's secretary, the other Mom's helper. They shared a room. Fortunately, my parents were hypocritical and acted as if, no matter their official religious absolutes, the higher call was to ignore what the Bible said in favor of what they hoped it meant. Thus, without ever saying it, it seems to me my parents were affirming that the Bible should be read as if Jesus was the only lens through which to see God. The result was that Francis and Edith Schaeffer were nicer than their official theology. — Frank Schaeffer

My phone rings, they call me up and say, 'Chael, your testosterone level is too high.' I say, 'Well, how high was it?' They say, '0.7.' I said, 'What's normal?' They say, '0.6.'; I said, 'One-tenth? You're telling me I'm one-tenth higher than the average man? Re-test that - you must have caught me on a low day.' — Chael Sonnen

But I think what we're coming to grips with is the fact that we actually have a mercenary Army, and it doesn't have a nice ring to it. We call it 'volunteers', but we're basically paying people to serve their country. And if you're going to pay people and have a mercenary Army, you're going to have to pay the market rate. And so the bounties are going up - more money for tuition, higher enlistment bonuses - and I think it's appropriate. — Eleanor Clift

All three, that is, were originally driven by ideals of justice and egalitarianism, rejecting the inequities of human power in favor of a higher and more just one. No matter how far they might have strayed from their origins as they became institutionalized over time, the historical record clearly indicates that what we now call the drive for social justice was the idealistic underpinning of monotheistic faith. — Lesley Hazleton

There is a danger there - a very real danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become? — Arthur Conan Doyle

When we work creatively and productively with others, our experience of meaning can be profound. When we work directly for the good of others, meaning deepens in ways that reward us beyond measure. Whenever we go beyond satisfying our own personal needs, we enter the realm of what Frankl called "ultimate meaning." some call it connection to a higher self, to God, to our own spirit, to universal consciousness, to love, to the collective good. No matter what it's called, it is deep meaning and it transforms our lives. — Alex Pattakos

it is always best to choose a task that is slightly above you, one that might be considered ambitious on your part. This is a corollary of the Law of the Creative Dynamic - the higher the goal, the more energy you will call up from deep within. You will rise to the challenge because you have to, and will discover creative powers in yourself that you never suspected. — Robert Greene