Initiates Quotes & Sayings

An effective leader creates specific, achievable goals, initiates action and enlists the participation of others. They remove distractions; grasps the bigger picture, focuses on one task at a time; completes the task competently and organizes for the future. — Ken Wyatt

Then all the older members wash the initiates' feet. — Veronica Roth

It is significant that many of these experiences are reported to us from periods of war and distress: that the stronger the forces of destruction appeared, the more intense grew the spiritual vision which opposed them. We learn from these records that the mystical consciousness has the power of lifting those who possess it to a plane of reality which no struggle, no cruelty, can disturb: of conferring a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck. Yet it does not wrap its initiates in a selfish and otherworldly calm, isolate them from the pain and effort of the common life. Rather, it gives them renewed vitality; administering to the human spirit not--as some suppose--a soothing draught, but the most powerful of stimulants. — Evelyn Underhill

We live under the New Testament principles of grace and mercy toward our enemies, but when it comes to sin, God wants us to be ruthless. The moment we believe in Jesus as our Savior, God initiates the process of making us holy through his Spirit. He expects us to participate in the lifelong process by battling any tendencies to follow our old nature when it fights against our desire to please God. Since there's no such thing as a harmless sin, any compromise is dangerous. God's battle plan is clear: wipe out any sinful desires, attitudes, and habits before they lead us into disaster. — Dianne Neal Matthews

Man and not nature initiates, but nature in large measure controls. — Halford Mackinder

Simply bringing awareness to the process of breathing initiates the release of peptide molecules from the hindbrain to regulate breathing while unifying all systems. — Candace Pert

Do not make the mistake of supposing that the little world you see around you - the Earth, which is a mere grain of dust in the Universe - is the Universe itself. There are millions upon millions of such worlds, and greater. And there are millions of millions of such Universes in existence within the Infinite Mind of THE ALL — Three Initiates

And the transfer initiates with forgiving parents will be able to see them again too. I suspect mine will not be among them. Not after my father's cry of outrage at the ceremony. Not after both their children left them. — Veronica Roth

God initiates the salvation of man to express the Father's love, not a punitive deflecting of the Father's anger. — Garry Wills

The Warrior archetype is hard-wired into our brain structure. Socialization means repression, which only keeps aggressiveness in an all the more volatile, compressed, and explosive form. But aggression is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. In many ways legitimate aggression contributes vitally to our lives. In aggression we find our drives for life, career, social contact, self-definition, and service. Perseverance and fidelity are products of the Warriors determination. Though the Lover initiates a relationship, it is the Warrior who maintains it-without the Warrior the Lover is merely promiscuous. The answer then is not to banish any of the archetypes, but to work on achieving the maturity necessary to manage them. — Douglas Gillette

Once in a while a new government initiates a program to put power to better use, but its success or failure never really proves anything. In science, experiments are designed, checked, altered, repeated
but not in politics ... We have no real cumulative knowledge. History tells us nothing. That's the tragedy of a political reformer. — B.F. Skinner

We have the truth still with us. But it is not found in books, to any given extent. It has been passed along......from lip to ear. When it was written down at all, its meaning was veiled in terms of alchemy and astrology, so that only those possessing the key could read it aright. — Three Initiates

The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding" - The Kybalion. — Three Initiates

To be clear, male leadership in marriage does not mean the husband does everything or even that he decides everything. Rather, it means he typically initiates and always leads those shared discussions with his wife by which the various aspects of marriage and family life are decided and planned. The wife's opinion is vitally important, and a godly couple should be a close-knit team. But there should be no area of family life in which the husband does not serve as leader, facilitator, and overseer. — Richard D. Phillips

If America puts the enmity aside, if it initiates good will, and if it compensates for the past, the future situation between the United States and Iran will change. — Hassan Rouhani

At the moment of death, the soul's impressions are similar to those of initiates in the ways of the Great Mysteries.
First they rush along blindly, twisting and turning, on an endless, anxious journey through the shadows.
Then, just before the end, their fear reaches its height. Bathed in cold sweat, they shiver and tremble, utterly terrified.
This phase is almost immediately followed by a return to the light, a sudden illumination.
They are surrounded by a marvelous glow and move through pure places and meadows ringing with voices and dancing.
Sacred words inspire religious respect. The perfect initiate is free to celebrate the Mysteries. — Bernard Werber

Seeing her look at me this way causes my soul to leap from its rest and give of what I too have been feeling. Her eyes compare to that still river raising light from the moon that passes through the sky. I am now as indestructible and as fragile as I've ever been as she reaches out for me to grab her and hold her tightly. The burning inside of me initiates a pure joy and peace that I haven't felt in so long. To love and be loved has become the most incredible experience ever granted unto me. She is now my every breath and the very beating of my heart. I hold her close as the tense weave of my muscles break free and give warmth to every part of her. — Luccini Shurod

The loss of innocence is inevitable, but the death of innocence disturbs the natural order. The death of innocence causes an imbalance and initiates an internal war that manifests differently in each individual, but almost always includes anger, withdrawal and severe depression. — B.G. Bowers

There is no question, therefore, that the work to be done in familiarising the general public with the nature of the Mysteries is of paramount importance at this time. These Mysteries will be restored to outer expression through the medium of the Church and the Masonic Fraternity ... When the Great One comes with His disciples and initiates we shall have ... the restoration of the Mysteries and their exoteric presentation as a consequence of the first initiation. — Alice Bailey

Belief Initiates and guides action - Or it does nothing. — Octavia E. Butler

What is the hidden influence behind the press, behind all the sub-versive movements going on around us? Are there several Powers at work? Or is there one Power, one invisible group directing all the rest - the circle of the real Initiates? - Nesta Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, London, Boswell, 1924, p. 348 — Umberto Eco

Cancer initiates due to a wide variety of causes, some of which are outside of our control or already occurred during our childhood. — Joel Fuhrman

To say it once more: today I find it an impossible book: I consider it badly written, ponderous, embarrassing, image-mad and image-confused, sentimental, in places saccharine to the point of effeminacy, uneven in tempo, without the will to logical cleanliness, very convinced and therefore disdainful of proof, mistrustful even of the propriety of proof, a book for initiates, "music" for those dedicated to music, those who are closely related to begin with on the basis of common and rare aesthetic experiences, "music" meant as a sign of recognition for close relatives in artibus - an arrogant and rhapsodic book that sought to exclude right from the beginning the profanum vulgus of "the educated" even more than "the mass" or "folk. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Love ... it ought to be at the center of all and everything we do in our own family, in our church callings, and our livelihood. Love is the healing balm that repairs rifts in personal and family relationships. It is the bond that unites families, communities and nations. love is the power that initiates friendship, tolerance, civility, and respect. It is the source that overcomes divisiveness and hate. Love is the fire that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. Love should be our walk and our talk. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world-the very nature of its life. — Rachel Carson

To you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General (33rd Degree Masons), we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st, and 30th degrees: 'The Masonic religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine.' — Albert Pike

He's losing weight," I say. "He doesn't sleep anymore." It occurs to me that this is how cults weaken the will of initiates.
Robert says, "It sounds to me like he's in love," and adds that the world's most coveted state is characterized by unrelieved insecurity and almost constant pain. — Melissa Bank

He was a physicist, more precisely an astrophysicist, diligent and eager but without illusions: the Truth lay beyond, inaccessible to our telescopes, accessible to the initiates. This was a long road which he was traveling with effort, wonderment, and profound joy. Physics was prose: elegant gymnastics for the mind, mirror of Creation, the key to man's dominion over the planet; but what is the stature of Creation, of man and the planet? His road was long and he had barely started up it, but I was his disciple: did I want to follow him? — Primo Levi

the differences between different manifestations of Matter, Energy, Mind, and even Spirit, result largely from varying rates of Vibrations......the higher the vibration, the higher the position in the scale. — Three Initiates

That doesn't sound fair," says Peter. "What if one person only has seven fears and someone else has twenty? That's not their fault."
Four stares at him for a few seconds and then laughs. "Do you really want to talk to me about what's fair?"
The crowd of initiates parts to make way for him as he walks toward Peter, folds his arms,and says,in a deadly voice, "I understand why you're worried, Peter.The events of last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward."
Peter stares back,expressionless.
"So now we all know," says Four, quietly, "that you are afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation." His mouth curls in a smile.
Will puts his arm around me. Christina's shoulders shake with suppressed laughter. And somewhere within me,I find a smile too. — Veronica Roth

Perception, influenced by experience and knowledge creates an acceptable level of reality. — Kamil Ali

You go first," Four says. Eric shrug. "Edward." Four leans against the door frame and nods. The moonlight makes his eyes bright. He scans the group of transfer initiates briefly, without calculation and says, "I want the Stiff." ...
Heat rushes into my cheeks and I don't know whether to be angry at the people laughing at me or flattered by the fact that he chose me first. "Got something to prove?" asks Eric, with his trademark smirk. "Or you just picking the weak ones, so that if you lose, you'll have someone to blame it on?" Four shrugs. "Something like that." Angry. I should be angry. I scowl at my hands. Whatever Four's strategy is, it's based on the idea that I am weaker than the other initiates. And it gives me a bitter taste in my mouth. i have to prove him wrong
I have to. — Veronica Roth

Do you know him well?" I ask.I am too curious; I always have been.
"Everyone knows Four," she says. "We were initiates together.I was bad at fighting,so he taught me every night after everyone was asleep." She scratches the back of her neck, her expression suddenly serious. "Nice of him."
She gets up and stands behind the members sitting in the doorway. In a second, her serious expression is gone,but I still feel rattled by what she said, half confused by the idea of Four being "nice" and half wanting to punch her for no apparent reason. — Veronica Roth

On the terrace of the Pepiniere, the 150 pupils of the Institut Chemique talk chemistry as they leave the auditoria and the laboratory. The echoes of the magnificent public garden of the city of Nancy make the words reverberate; coupling, condensation, grignardization. Moreover, their clothes stay impregnated with strong and characteristic odours; we follow the initiates of Hermes by their scent. In such an environment, how is it possible not to be productive? — Victor Grignard

Speed is simply the rite that initiates us into
emptiness: a nostalgic desire for forms to revert to immobility, concealed beneath the very intensification of their mobility. Akin to the nostalgia for living forms that haunts geometry. — Jean Baudrillard

When someone initiates kindness anonymously, you know it comes from the most pure, kind-hearted part of them because they'll probably never be singled out and thanked. It speaks to his character. — Kim Holden

Trust is the core of human relationships, of gregariousness among men. Friendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person's qualities but on trust. It is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

I have observed in my 30 years in Washington that when a President initiates a major policy speech on a controversial issue while Congress is in recess, it usually is because what he is advocating is indefensible and that he is seeking to minimize criticism. — Dana Rohrabacher

ORTHODOX PARADOX
Religion, unlike ethnicity, is inculcated
Kamil Ali — Kamil Ali

All [Sadie's] previous attempts [of making a shabti (an Egyptian avatar of one's self)] had exploded or gone haywire, terrorizing Khufu and the initiates. Last week she'd created a magical Thermos with googly eyes that levitated around the room, yelling, "Exterminate! Exterminate!" until it smacked me in the head. — Rick Riordan

Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form. — Ayn Rand

Richardson, however, remains a vital figure in the history of the novel, and of ideology. He initiates a discourse on sexual roles which, in all its ambiguities, is as relevant to today's society as it was in the mid-eighteenth century and which fills the pages of hundreds of novels after Pamela and Clarissa. — Ronald Carter

Reiki is the best vibration for helping someone to relax well and deeply. Relaxation is key to human health and recovery because it initiates our natural and innate healing abilities. It is when we are truly relaxed that true healing can take place. — Chyna Honey

Four shrugs. "So I suggest that you take the next week to consider your fears and develop strategies to face them." "That doesn't sound fair," says Peter. "What if one person only has seven fears and someone else has twenty? That's not their fault." Four stares at him for a few seconds and then laughs. "Do you really want to talk to me about what's fair?" The crowd of initiates parts to make way for him as he walks toward Peter, folds his arms, and says, in a deadly voice, "I understand why you're worried, Peter. The events of last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward." Peter stares back, expressionless. "So now we all know," says Four, quietly, "that you are afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation." His mouth curls in a smile. — Veronica Roth

Supposedly, going to war initiates you into this gnostic priesthood of people who've had a liminal experience forever separating them from civilians. Except ... you go there, and it is what it is. A form of human activity as varied as any other. — Phil Klay

Freud has said in Totem and Taboo that acts that are illegal for the individual can be justified in another way: the one who initiates the act takes upon himself both the risk and the guilt. The result is truly magic: each member of the group can repeat the act without guilt. They are not responsible, only the leader is. Redl calls this, aptly, "priority magic." But it does something even more than relieve guilt: it actually transforms the fact of murder. This crucial point initiates us directly into the phenomenology of group transformation of the everyday world. If one murders without guilt, and in imitation of the hero who runs the risk, why then it is no longer murder: it is "holy aggression. For the first one it was not." In other words, participation in the group redistills everyday reality and gives it the aura of the sacred-just as, in childhood, play created a heightened reality. — Ernest Becker

I am constantly surprised that the simple word 'feminism' raises more eyebrows and initiates more sad-faced head-shaking than any elaborate stream of invective I have ever leveled at either the I.R.S. or the D.M.V ... — Gina Barreca

Works of art are viewed by people. They are heard by people. They are felt by people. They are not just the fodder of a close-knit group of initiates. They are the soul food of all people. — L. Ron Hubbard

People look at initiates or gurus as having fancy titles, deep or advanced spiritual information or super powers. Yet in truth initiation is about becoming a good human again. The same way animals know what their role is when it comes to serving nature. Initiates understand their unique roles in serving nature. Since each person is unique, either initiate understands they were born under an astrological sign, to serve a unique role to nature.

Adebamgbe From the short story Dark Initiation — Jamal Thompson

He who grasps the truth of the Mental Nature of the Universe is well advanced on The Path to Mastery. — Three Initiates

We do not live in a world of dreams, but in an Universe which while relative, is real so far as our lives and actions are concerned. Our business in the Universe is not to deny its existence, but to LIVE, using the Laws to rise from lower to higher--living on, doing the best that we can under the circumstances arising each day, and living, so far as is possible, to our biggest ideas and ideals. The true Meaning of Life is not known to men on this plane .if, indeed, to any--but the highest authorities, and our own intuitions, teach us that we will make no mistake in living up to the best that is in us, so far as is possible, and realising the Universal tendency in the same direction in spite of apparent evidence to the contrary. We are all on The Path--and the road leads upward ever, with frequent resting places. — Three Initiates

A glint of intention initiates the process of creation. — Debasish Mridha

The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying that the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the rosary is beyond description. — Fulton J. Sheen

My Everest is not your Everest. Your Everest is not mine. We all have an Everest. Each of us. Sometimes the peak is literally Mount Everest but most times it lies deep within us, figuratively occupying a mountainous inner space. It calls us to rise up, to do what we formerly labeled as impossible, and to be who we deeply and desperately want to be. I know that I have found an Everest when my soul furiously pokes me repeatedly until I listen. Heeding this call to passionate adventure of any sort initiates a journey of intense immense proportion that changes every molecule of my being. — T.A. Loeffler

A belief imposes limitations, an understanding invites possibilities, and experience initiates transformation.
- Todd Anthonsen999 — Todd Anthonsen

A good basic character should be developed even before discussing enlightenment or the growth of your soul. That's why Zen initiates developed their basic character traits through nine years of study - three years of cleaning, three years of firewood collecting and cutting, and three years of cooking. Teachings on the Tao were transmitted only to those who had successfully cultivated such character in themselves. — Ilchi Lee

Gratitude is a divine attitude in the wisdom traditions. It takes you out from the ego self and takes you into the higher self. That higher state of consciousness initiates self repair, self regulation and healing. — Deepak Chopra

Everything flows out and in; everything has its tides;
all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests
in everything; the measure of the swing to the right,
is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm
compensates — Three Initiates

Being honest in a relationship is at times exceedingly difficult and painful. Yet the moment a person evades the truth, central fibers of the self pull away and the person initiates a process of deception - a way of manipulating the other person by preventing the person from discovering real thoughts and real feelings — Clark Mustakas

When Christianity proscribed the public exercise of the ancient worships, the partisans of the latter were compelled to meet in secret for the celebration of their mysteries. Initiates presided over these assemblies and soon established a kind of orthodoxy among the varieties of persecuted worships, this being facilitated by the aid of magical truth and by the fact that proscription unites wills and forges bonds of brotherhood between men. — Eliphas Levi

Science fiction is a dialogue, a tennis match, in which the Idea is volleyed from one side of the net to the other. Ridiculous to say that someone 'stole' an idea: no, no, a thousand times no. The point is the volley, and how it's carried, and what statement is made by the answering 'statement.' In other words - if Burroughs initiates a time-gate and says it works randomly, and then Norton has time gates confounded with the Perilous Seat, the Siege Perilous of the Round Table, and locates it in a bar on a rainy night - do you see both the humor and the volley in the tennis match? — C.J. Cherryh

THE TWAIN DOTH MEET
East and West are relative to their shared starting point
Kamil Ali — Kamil Ali

Scientists say every action initiates an equal and opposite reaction. I say that's just the start. I say every action initiates a most unequal and upredictable chain reaction, that every filament of living becomes part of a larger weave, while remaining identifiable. That every line of latitude requires several stripes of longitude to obtain meaning. That every universe is part of a bigger heaven, a heaven of rhythm and geometry, where a heartbeat is the apex of a triangle. — Ellen Hopkins

Although leaders and followers are closely linked, it is the leader who often initiates the relationship, creates the communication linkages, and carries the burden for maintaining the relationship. — Peter Northouse

He [Aristotle] pointed out that people who had become initiates in the various mystery religions were not required to learn any facts 'but to experience certain emotions and to be put in a certain disposition.' Hence his famous literary theory that tragedy effected a purification (katharsis) of the emotions of terror and pity that amounted to an experience of rebirth. — Karen Armstrong

The Kalambo River and Waterfall exemplify life and afterlife: From birth at its source, the river twists and turns to overcome hurdles on its way to enhance the life of others before falling off the edge in death to flow quietly into Lake Tanganyika, while it's mist rises to heaven, freed from the burden of the body of water that held it. — Kamil Ali

Whoever, to whatever purpose or extent, initiates the use of force, is a killer acting on the premise of death in a manner wider than murder: the premise of destroying man's capacity to live. — Ayn Rand

Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? A thermometer only reflects the temperature of its environment, adjusting to the situation. But a thermostat initiates action to change the temperature in its environment — Nido R. Qubein

It can take years of tears to melt the hardness that develops in this world, covering our tender, gentler inner selves. Tears for every devastating loss, tears for every humiliating failure, tears for every repeated mistake. Those who honor those tears, and even honor them, are not failures at love but rather its true initiates. First the pain and then the power. First the heart breaks and then it soars. — Marianne Williamson

In matters of healing, the body initiates and the mind follows. — Jonathan Kellerman

When the door to suicide opens it becomes a viable option that you never considered before, but, once ajar, it initiates an invasion strategy. Day by day thoughts blacken under the occupation of the new inhabitant. It becomes an all-consuming addiction that makes its home in your head and heart and, before you know it, the whole neighbourhood is talking and thinking about suicide. Eventually, the mind is overwhelmed by the conspiracy of its own darkness and begins to wage war against the body. At this point, the body is powerless. — B.G. Bowers

I read in desperate snatches in the interstices of the Quotidian, and dream of finding three uninterrupted quiet hours to think, moon, mentally maunder, and, above all, write. I am pursued by an anti-Muse; her name is Life. Her homely multisyllabic surname is often left unenunciated, but to certain initiates it may be whispered: Exigency. — Cynthia Ozick

If you are possessed of Fear, do not waste time trying to "kill out" Fear, but instead cultivate the quality of Courage, and the Fear will disappear. — Three Initiates

Stand warned, lovelies. Initiates are encouraged to teach you cruelty. An you should thank them for it. For to understand cruelty is to know strength. — Veronica Wolff

Normally my sister, Sadie, or some of our other initiates from Brooklyn House would've come with me. But they were all at the First Nome, in Egypt, for a weeklong training session on controlling cheese demons(yes, they're a real thing; believe me, you don't want to know) — Rick Riordan

When the pupil is ready to receive the truth, then will this little book come to him, or her. Such is The Law. ...The Law of Attraction, will bring lips and ear together - pupil and book in company. So mote it be! — Three Initiates

How often a mother initiates a conversation with her child is not predictive of the language outcomes - what matters is, if the infant initiates, whether the mom responds. — Po Bronson

Though Women's Studies was supposed to give a voice to "silenced" women, all too many women who dissent from its orthodoxy have themselves felt silenced by intolerant professors - and students, too. Indeed, while some (generally tenured) older professors like Willingham do dare to challenge Women's Studies dogma, younger initiates, whether students or greenhorn instructors, often act as fierce enforcers of dogma, reiterating it (as did Tholen and Alder at the Beijing +15 session) with all the zeal of fresh converts to a fundamentalist faith and bristling at any violation of Holy Writ. Patai and Koertge quote professors who complain about students being "zombified" by Women's Studies, turned into "ideologically inflamed Stepford Wives" who "utter ... stock phrases" and are plainly "terrified of a thought because if they ever had a serious thought, they might start reflecting on this stuff they're taught to repeat. — Bruce Bawer

We choose
or choose not
to be alone when we decide whom we will accept as our fellows, and whom we will reject. Thus an eremite in a mountain is in company, because the birds and coneys, the initiates whose words live in his 'forest books,' and the winds
the messengers of the Increate
are his companions. Another man, living in the midst of millions, may be alone, because there are none but enemies and victims around him. — Gene Wolfe

We cannot find God without God. We cannot reach God without God. We cannot satisfy God without God - which is another way of saying that our seeking will always fall short unless God's grace initiates the search and unless God's call draws us to him and completes the search. — Os Guinness

Master Palaemon's hand, dry and wrinkled as a mummy's, groped until it found mine. "Among the initiates of religion it is said, 'You are an epopt always.' The reference is not only to knowledge but to their chrism, whose mark, being invisible, is ineradicable. You know our chrism."
I nodded again.
"Less even than theirs can it be washed away. Should you leave now, men will only say, 'He was nurtured by the torturers.' But when you have been anointed they will say, 'He is a torturer.' You may follow the plow or the drum, but still you will hear, 'He is a torturer.' Do you understand that? — Gene Wolfe

The moral absolute should be: if and when, in any dispute, one side initiates the use of physical force, that side is wrong - and no consideration or discussion of the issues is necessary or appropriate. — Ayn Rand

Back when he had first come to the monastery, they had given him a very simple ritual called Forgiving the Day. Even the youngest child could do this; all it required was looking back over the day and dismissing the day's pains as a thing that were past while choosing to remember as gains lessons learned or moments of insight. As initiates grew in the ways of Sa, it was expected they would grow more sophisticated in this exercise, learning to balance the day, taking responsibility for their own actions and learning from them without indulging in either guilt or regrets."
p. 240 — Robin Hobb

I am enceinte, gravid, pregnant, in pup, call it what you will. No doubt there are as many names for the production of a child as for the act which initiates it. — Winston Graham

Nothing stands still - everything is being born, growing, dying - the very instant a thing reaches its height, it begins to decline - the law of rhythm is in constant operations.... — Three Initiates

The great Initiates in the spirit world have vast and imposing plans for the musical future. What is this plan? It is to use music as an occult medium through which to develop altered states of consciousness, psychic abilities, and contact with the spirit world. Music in the future is to be used to bring people into yet closer touch with the devils; they will be enabled to partake of the beneficial influence of these beings while attending concerts at which by the appropriate type of sound they have been invoked. — John Todd

To derive the fullest comfort and encouragement from Romans 8:28 we must realize that God is at work in a proactive, not reactive, fashion. That is, God does not just respond to an adversity in our lives to make the best of a bad situation. He knows before He initiates or permits the adversity exactly how He will use it for our good. — Jerry Bridges

Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain. — Tara Brach

It is no accident that propels people like us to Paris. Paris is simply an artificial stage, a revolving stage that permits the spectator to glimpse all phases of the conflict. Of itself Paris initiates no dramas. They are begun elsewhere. Paris is simply an obstetrical instrument that tears the living embryo from the womb and puts it in the incubator. Paris is the cradle of artificial births. Rocking here in the cradle each one slips back into his soil: one dreams back to Berlin, New York, Chicago, Vienna, Minsk. Vienna is never more Vienna than in Paris. Everything is raised to apotheosis. The cradle gives up its babes and new ones take their places. You can read here on the walls where Zola lived and Balzac and Dante and Strindberg and everybody who ever was anything. Everyone has lived here some time or other.Nobody dies here ... — Henry Miller

Four wanders through the crowd of initiates, watching us as we go through the movements again. When he stops in front of me, my insides twist like someone is stirring them with a fork. He stares at me, his eyes following my body from my head to my feet, not lingering anywhere - a practical, scientific gaze.
"You don't have much muscle", he says, "which means you're better off using your knees and elbows. You can put more power behind them."
Suddenly he presses a hand to my stomach. His fingers are so long that, though the heel of his hand touches one side of my rib cage, his fingertips still touch the other side. My heart pounds so hard my chest hurts, and I stare at him, wide-eyed.
"Never forget to keep tension here", he says in a quiet voice.
Four lifts his hand and keeps walking. I feel the pressure of his palm even after he's gone. It's strange, but I have to stop and breathe for a few seconds before I can keep practicing again. — Veronica Roth