Toward Or Quotes & Sayings

Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it. — Ajahn Chah

No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren't designed to produce them, if we don't speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist. — Donella Meadows

Patrick's handsome face descended toward mine. He stopped when he was just a whisper away. "You have a beautiful mouth."
God, he was magnificent. Such harsh, sensual beauty. The luck of genetics and vampirism and gym time? Who knew?
He watched me watching him and I knew he was probably in my head, listening in on my thoughts, my confusion. He grinned, just a little, and I knew that rotten, ugly, fat troll was reading my mind.
He laughed, unrepentant, and his breath plumed my lips. How the hell did he do that? How could he pretend to breathe? Or better yet, why did he pretend to breathe? — Michele Bardsley

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee ... mark! ... I love thee
in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature's. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Once one understands that 'racial tensions' is a euphemism for a black animosity toward whites and a left-wing construct, one begins to understand why the election of a black president has had no impact on most blacks or on the left. — Dennis Prager

There are 3 ways of handling a situation. You can either become part of the problem, part of the solution or part of the pavement.. — Cornelius Moore

One of the reasons I love prayer is that it is an antidote to guilt and blame. If we are unhappy with the way we have acted or been treated, instead of stewing in self-recrimination on the one hand, or harboring ill will toward someone else on the other, prayer gives us a way out of the circle of guilt and blame. We bring our painful feelings into the open and say, "I have done wrong," or "I have been wronged." And then we ask for a vaster view
one that contains within it all the forgiveness we need in order to move forward. — Elizabeth Lesser

Overwhelmingly, Israel's political and military establishment want the rest of the world to act diplomatically or otherwise to stop Iran. But if that doesn't happen, then the impulse toward the use of force will become quite strong. — Dennis Ross

We're not out of the woods yet, people," I said, and grimaced, my eyes cheating toward the trees growing on all sides. "No pun intended. Sloane, were you being serious when you said that most of that was Demi's blood? Because I'm not quite ready to condone beating her to death." "She got a nosebleed," said Sloane, reaching forward and taking my hand in hers. Her fingers left red stains on my skin. "Sure, I had to punch her four or five times to make that happen, but nosebleeds are a normal part of being a traitorous bitch who goes over to the dark side at the first sign of trouble. — Seanan McGuire

We cannot choose the things that will happen to us. But we can choose the attitude we will take toward anything that happens. Success or failure depends on your attitude. — Alfred Armand Montapert

That idea of peace and love toward humanity shouldn't be nationalistic or denominational. It should be a chief concern for all mankind. — Mos Def

Having done Spaced, I can't even remember it being that difficult on Spaced, but we know what the end's going to be like. We know why we're putting in this amount of work, or why a shot might be particularly tricky, because we know that what we do is create a whole package. It's the writing, the performances, and the style of camerawork, that's what we're working toward, and we're prepared for that. — Simon Pegg

We have noted thatthe two creation stories contained no pointers toward male "headship" in the sense that men or husbands are supposed to exercise authority or leadership over women or wives. But the audience of Genesis knew that patriarchy was a reality of life. Genesis here tells them how this came to be. Male authority or domination was not God's design but a consequence of a breakdown in relationship between humanity and God, between humanity and the animal world, and between human beings and one another. From now on, the Bible will assume the reality of patriarchy and of male headship, but it begins by noting that this came about only as a result of those various breakdowns of relationship. — John E. Goldingay

Festivals and fasts are unhinged, traveling backward at a rate of ten days per year, attached to no season. Even Laylat ul Qadr, the holiest night in Ramadan, drifts
its precise date is unknown. The iconclasm laid down by Muhammed was absolute: you must resist attachment not only to painted images, but to natural ones. Ramadan, Muharram, the Eids; you associate no religious event with the tang of snow in the air, or spring thaw, or the advent of summer. God permeates these things
as the saying goes, Allah is beautiful, and He loves beauty
but they are transient. Forced to concentrate on the eternal, you begin to see, or think you see, the bones and sinews of the world beneath its seasonal flesh. The sun and moon become formidable clockwork. They are transient also, but hint at the dark planes that stretch beyond the earth in every direction, full of stars and dust, toward a retreating, incomprehensible edge — G. Willow Wilson

Your relationship with your brother will be, in many ways, the most complex and bewildering of all the interpersonal connections you will form. An older brother is both authority and peer, friend and bitter enemy, partner and rival, and will play these contradictory roles to varying degrees throughout your life. At this point the rivalry is most prominent, owing to the difference in age and the resentment your brother feels toward you monopolizing your mother's attention. Try to remember, in the face of the poor treatment you receive at his hands, that more than a pure desire to cause you harm or pain, this is an effort on his part to win back some of that attention, even if it's only through being scolded and punished. — Ron Currie Jr.

Thus, when we plead for the gift of charity, we aren't asking for lovely feelings toward someone who bugs us or someone who has injured or wounded us. We are actually pleading for our very natures to be changed, for our character and disposition to become more and more like the Savior's, so that we literally feel as He would feel and thus do what He would do. — Sheri Dew

Barrons Books and Baubles had been ransacked!

Tables were overturned, books torn from shelves and strewn everywhere, baubles broken. Even my little TV behind the counter had been destroyed.

"Barrons?" I called warily. It was night and the lights were on. My illusory Alina had told me more than an hour had passed. Was it the same night, nearly dawn? Or was it the night following our theft attempt? Had Barrons come back from Wales yet? Or was he still there, searching for me? When I'd been so rudely ripped from reality, who or what had come through those basement doors?

I heard footsteps, boots on hardwood, and turned expectantly toward the connecting doors.

Barrons was framed in the doorway. His eyes were black ice. He stared at me a moment, raking me from head to toe. "Nice tan, Ms. Lane. So, where the fuck have you been for the past month? — Karen Marie Moning

Our life consists not in the pursuit of material success but in the quest for worthy spiritual growth. Our entire earthly existence is but a transitional stage in the movement toward something higher, and we must not stumble and fall, nor must we linger fruitlessly on one rung of the ladder. Material laws alone do not explain our life or give it direction. The laws of physics and physiology will never reveal the indisputable manner in which the Creator constantly, day in and day out, participates in the life of each of us, unfailingly granting us the energy of existence; when this assistance leaves us, we die. And in the life of our entire planet, the Divine Spirit surely moves with no less force: this we must grasp in our dark and terrible hour. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Bahaism gives you a pluralistic view, and a lot of aspects of Hinduism give you a moral framework with no accountability other than the karmic system. There's no linear movement or point of accountability toward God. — Ravi Zacharias

Love wakes much and sleeps little and, in sleeping, does not sleep. It faints is not weary; it is restricted in its liberty and is great freedom. It sees reasons to fear and does not fear, but, like an ember or a spark of fire, flames always upward, by the fervor of its love, toward God, and through the special help of grace is delivered from all perils and dangers — Thomas A Kempis

I'm in the dark as to how close to an edge or transition to a new ocean and climate regime we might me. But I know which way we are walking. We are walking toward the cliff. — Terry Joyce

All the evidence that we have indicates that it is reasonable to assume in practically every human being, and certainly in almost every newborn baby, that there is an active will toward health, an impulse towards growth, or towards the actualization. — Abraham Maslow

In the far corner, a tenor began to sing, Zsadist's crystal-clear voice sailing up toward the warrior paintings on the ceiling far, far above them all. At first John didn't know what the song was ... although if he'd been asked what his name was, he would have said Santa Claus, or Luther Vandross, or Teddy Roosevelt.
Maybe even Joan Collins. — J.R. Ward

Her profession did not fascinate him in the least, and he had no boyhood memories of tenderness or embarrassment to soften him toward the subtleties of her trade; when he looked at her, he saw only a catalogue of indiscretions. — Eleanor Catton

It is the power of visualization that enables us to reach out toward the future, whether our goal is to bring down a mammoth, write a book, or set a new record time in a race. — Cameron Stracher

The danger of pride
I see increasingly how difficult it is to exercise authority in a community. We are so inclined to want authority for the honour, prestige and admiration that comes with it. Inside each of us is a little tyrant who wants power and the associated prestige, who wants to dominate, to be superior and to control. We are frightened of criticism. We feel we are the only ones to see the truth - and that, sometimes, in the name of God ... So the community becomes 'our' project.
... And Christians can sometimes hide these tendencies behind a mask of virtue, doing what they do for 'good' reasons. There is nothing more terrible than a tyrant using religion as his or her cover. I know my own tendencies toward this and I have to struggle against them constantly. — Jean Vanier

My composition often goes toward the black middle class or the black super-wealthy or strong historical black figures. — Rashid Johnson

I swear you don't know how to have any fun at all," I teased.
"This is not exactly my idea of it," he said wryly.
I gestured toward the ballroom. "But you're royal. It's your kind of party. You should be relaxed, letting everyone suck up to you."
He laughed and my chest tightened. God, I loved that sound.
"Kendra, not everything about being royal is enjoyable."
"So what would you consider fun?" I asked, curious.
Tristan was obviously well-liked and respected. But I'd never seen him when he wasn't in either instructor, gardinel, or prince mode. I got the feeling he wasn't very social and spent a lot of time alone.
His eyes turned thoughtful. "Relaxing in a quiet room with a nice glass of scotch, listening to Bach."
I rolled my eyes. "Are you serious, grandpa?"
He hid a smile. — Emma Raveling

I either play cops or criminals - I'm either on the right side of the law or the wrong side. I gravitate toward edgier material because it suits my nature. I find it fascinating to play. I'm just that kind of person. — Marg Helgenberger

Hope is 'that virtue by which we take responsibility for the future.' ... hope is our positive orientation toward the future, a future in which we simultaneously recognize difficulty, responsibility, and delight. Hope is not relative to the present situation, nor is it dependent upon a specific outcome ... Hope is not an antidote to despair, or a sidestepping of difficulty, but a companion to all these things. — Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Frank turned to look down at me, and he was right there, so close. Hi, he said.
I looked up at him.Now that the moment was here, it didn't feel scary. What would happen would happen, and I couldn't know or control it. But I was ready for it to begin. Hey, I said.
In a well-ordered universe, he said, and I could hear how nervous he was, I'd be able to do this. He leaned his head down and kissed me softly, then pulled back, making sure this was okay.
I smiled at him. Then we must be in one, I said. And as the sun rose behind us and he bent his head down to kiss me again, I leaned forward.
Toward him, and to whatever came next. — Morgan Matson

You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings toward Him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just as far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon it; you love Him. It is not natural to us sinful, ungrateful beings to prefer His pleasure to our own or to follow His way instead of our own way, and nothing, nothing but love of Him can or does make us obedient to Him. — Elizabeth Payson Prentiss

Rhyme as an echo not a closing off of sound. Love it. I don't know where the rhymes came from. Or the puns like "no/know" and so on. Just a way my mind start moving toward what seemed urgent to it. I'd like to claim complete rational intent for it all, but it wasn't that way. if you asked me about rhyme thirty years ago, I'd have said: not me, never. And now I done it. — Gregory Orr

No, you love to confuse me and drive me crazy. You don't really love me. You don't know what love is."
"Yeah, I think I do." His brows lowered, and he took a step toward her. "I have loved you my whole life, Delaney. I can't remember a day when I didn't love you. I loved you the day I practically knocked you out with a snowball. I loved you when I flattened the tires on your bike so I could walk you home. I loved you when I saw you hiding behind the sunglasses at the Value Rite, and I loved you when you loved that loser son of a bitch Tommy Markham. I never forgot the smell of your hair or the texture of your skin the night I laid you on the hood of my car at Angel Beach. So don't tell me I don't love you. Don't tell me
" His voice shook and he pointed a finger at her. "Just don't tell me that. — Rachel Gibson

After listening to hundreds and hundreds of [people's] stories over the last twenty years, I think I would have to say that most people do not recognize the strength of the life force in them or the many ways that it shows itself to them...So when people first come, this is the place we usually start - talking about life itself, our attitude toward it, our experience of it, our trust or distrust of it. Developing an eye to see it, in others and in ourselves. In the beginning is the life force. After more than fifty years of living, I have learned it can be trusted. — Rachel Naomi Remen

And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love. — James Allen

Someone's going to recognize us," Lex said to Uncle Mort without looking at him or moving her lips.
"No, they're not," he said, staring forward, keeping the same straight face. "The guards aren't even watching."
He was right. What few guards were left in the lobby were scattered, disorganized. They shouted for the citizens to remain calm, all the while sounding fairly panicked themselves. No one knew what had happened, as the only witnesses were now casually strolling toward the front door without a single eye looking their way.
Until the receptionist let out a shriek. "There they are!"
Uncle Mort let out a huff of defeat. "Mar-lene," he whined. "I thought we were cool."
"So much for the Wink of Trust," Lex said. — Gina Damico

People may indeed be treated as objects and may be profoundly affected thereby. Kick a dog often enough and he will become cowardly or vicious. People who are kicked undergo similar changes; their view of the world and of themselves is transformed ... People may indeed be brainwashed, for benign or exploitative reasons ...
If one's destiny is shaped by manipulation one has become more of an object, less of a subject, has lost freedom ...
If, however, one's destiny is shaped from within then one has become more of a creator, has gained freedom. This is self-transcendence, a process of change that originates in one's heart and expands outward ... begins with a vision of freedom, with an "I want to become ... ", with a sense of the potentiality to become what one is not. One gropes toward this vision in the dark, with no guide, no map, and no guarantee. Here one acts as subject, author, creator. — Allen Wheelis

Stu stops munching, looks up at me from under his shaggy hair.
"So, can you read?" He slides a section toward me.
I cock my head toward the paper. The letters are small, blurry drawings. The alphabet might as well be Chinese or Arabic. Strange that I can't read or speak, though I still have language inside my head. Words are a consolation, but not a tool.
"Guess not. You want me to read stuff out loud to you?"
I would, but not right now. If I wanted to show interest in the newspaper I could cross the table and rub against his shoulder. Instead I gaze at him over the bowl of milk.
"It's so weird," he says in a hesitant voice. "You don't look like a cat. When you stare at me, you look like Eliza."
That's the nicest thing he could have said. With a happy lightness to my step I move between the bowls, over his napkin ring and spoon, until I stand on the edge of the table and nip at his prickly chin. This is my way of saying: Hi, there. I like you. — Simone Martel

Then I take a dump. Feel better. Take off my clothes and step into the pool. Ice water. But great. I walk along toward the deep end of the pool, the water rising inch by inch, chilling me. Then I plunge below the water. It's restful. The world doesn't know where I am. I come up, swim to the far edge, find the ledge, sit there. It must be about the 9th or 10th race. The horses are still running. I plunge again into the water, being aware of my stupid whiteness, of my age hanging onto me like a leech. Still, it's OK. I should have been dead 40 years ago. I rise to the top, swim to the far edge, get out. — Charles Bukowski

Aunt Grace was leaving ... Looking after her a moment, Laura had another feeling of tenderness toward her. How we live our lives side by side with those whom we never know or understand. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

There are a whole lot of religious people in America, including the majority of Democrats. When we abandon the field of religious discourse - when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends. — Barack Obama

I saw this French woman, this English man in Italy. It was a film [Certified Copy] I knew well, but I had already seen it, and I was familiar with it, and I had no feeling of anxiety or responsibility toward it. — Abbas Kiarostami

The wonderful thing about saints is that they were human. They lost their tempers, got hungry, scolded God, were egotistical or impatient in their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. Still they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven. — Phyllis McGinley

The notion that moving toward renewable energy will kill jobs is an absurdity on its face. The notion that we have to live smaller lifestyles; not have the American way of life or give up the American Dream is just ridiculous. It is the opposite of the case; a new energy paradigm will create opportunity. — Marshall Herskovitz

The problem is that we tend too often to read Lincoln's growth backward, as an unproblematic trajectory toward a predetermined end. This enables scholars to ignore or downplay aspects of Lincoln's beliefs with which they are uncomfortable. — Eric Foner

Amos and Naomi were at a table in a corner. No sign of Alex. No sign of Holden. That made it easier. Not easy, but closer. He made his way toward them. Naomi saw him first, and Miller read the discomfort in her expression, covered over as quickly as it appeared. Amos turned to see what she'd been reacting to, and the corners of his mouth and eyes didn't shift into a frown or a smile. Miller scratched his arm even though it didn't itch. — James S.A. Corey

The first thing you do at the end is reflect on the beginning. Maybe it's some form of reverse closure, or just the basic human impulse toward sentimentality, or masochism, but as you stand there shell-shocked in the charred ruins of your life, your mind will invariably go back to the time when it all started. And even if you didn't fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will fee like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benatar or The Cure on the soundtrack. — Jonathan Tropper

Every major difficulty you face in life is a fork in the road. You choose which track you will head down, toward breakdown or breakthrough. — John C. Maxwell

No society can survive if it allows its members to behave toward one another in the same way in which it encourages them to behave as a group toward other groups; internal cooperation is the first law of external competition. The struggle for existence is not ended by mutual aid, it is incorporated, or transferred to the group. Other things equal, the ability to compete with rival groups will be proportionate to the ability of the individual members and families to combine with one another.
Hence every society inculcates a moral code, and builds up in the heart of the individual, as its secret allies and aides, social dispositions that mitigate the natural war of life; it encourages by calling them virtues those qualities or habits in the individual which redound to the advantage of the group, and discourages contrary qualities by calling them vices.
In this way the individual is in some outward measure socialized, and the animal becomes a citizen. — Will Durant

Growth hackers resist this temptation (or, more appropriate, this delusion). They opt, deliberately, to attract only the early adopters who make or break new tech services and seek to do it as cheaply as possible. In fact, part of the reason the scrappy start-ups, services, and apps in this book might not always be well-known or topics of daily conversation is because their founders have focused their energies on product development with an eye toward growth - they're now millions of members strong without any superfluous "buzz." They got to mass market by ignoring the urge to appeal to the mass market, at least to start with. — Ryan Holiday

Respect toward others can't be imposed.
It's a blessing ... or learning the hard way. — Toba Beta

Or else you can say, like the camel driver who took me there: "I arrived here in my first youth, one morning, many people were hurrying along the streets toward the market, the women had fine teeth and looked you straight in the eye, three soldiers on a platform played the trumpet, and all around wheels turned and colored banners fluttered in the wind. Before then I had known only the desert and the caravan routes. In the years that followed, my eyes returned to contemplate the desert expanses and the caravan routes; but now I know this path is only one of the many that opened before me on that morning in Dorothea. — Italo Calvino

You can experiment with directing metta toward a difficult aspect of yourself. There may be physical or emotional aspects of yourself you have struggled with, denied, avoided, been at war with. Sit quietly, sending yourself metta. After some time, turn your attention to the loneliness, anger, disability, addiction, or whatever aspect of your mind or body you feel most estranged from. Healing begins with the open, compassionate acknowledgment of these unpleasant aspects of our lives. Surround the painful element of your experience with the warmth and acceptance of metta. You can use phrases such as, ' May I accept this,' 'May I be filled with loving kindness toward this,' 'May I use the pain of this experience for the welfare of all. — Sharon Salzberg

He awoke on the desert gliding at seventyfive, to see a single great headlight topping a rise not far off and bearing toward him. Vaguely he remembered being under the eye of the law most of the night, pursued by cops in white cars like their uniforms, so he slowed her to an unreasonable speed and crept on with two restless wheels in the sand. Ahead of him the light veered off to the right, out of disappointment or what, and it appeared to rise quickly into the air. He soon saw why: it was the moon being chased by the sun. — Douglas Woolf

Each person is oriented toward a quest for his personal invisible guide, or ... he entrusts himself to the collective, magisterial authority as the intermediary between himself and Revelation. — Ibn Arabi

That Chippendale is a coffee table, Lieutenant, not a footstool."
"How do you walk with that stick up your ass?" She left her feet where they were, propped comfortably on the table. "Does it hurt, or does it give you a nice little rush?"
"Your dinner guests," he said, curling his lip, "have arrived."
"Thank you, Summerset." Roarke got to his feet. "We'll have the hors d'oeuvres in here." He held out a hand to Eve.
She waited, deliberately, until Summerset had stepped out again before swinging her feet to the floor.
"In the interest of good fellowship," Roarke began as they started toward the foyer, "could you not mention the stick in Summerset's ass for the rest of the evening?"
"Okay. If he rags on me I'll just pull it out and beat him over the head with it."
"That should be entertaining. — J.D. Robb

I am playing with the assumptions that we have in our everyday life when we are tripped up or fooled and we learn something, that makes things exciting - I am having fun with that stuff, but you have to manage it so it doesn't get too cute, that's what I trying to work toward. — Jim McKay

The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,' he said. 'It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men - it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone - the noblest man alive or the most wicked - has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God. — Gregory David Roberts

Did I help you toward a fate you didn't want, Alaska, or did I just assist in your willful self-destruction? — John Green

Women certainly learn a lot from books oriented toward a masculine world. Why is not the reverse also true? Or are men really so afraid of women's creativity (because they are not themselves at the center of creation, cannot bear children) that a woman writer of genius evokes murderous rage, must be brushed aside with a sneer as "irrelevant"? When — May Sarton

A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener's mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere at all or just where he didn't expect to go. — Max Eastman

His father placed his elbows on the table and leaned toward him. "We need to know if you are simply ordinary or larger than life." To the best of his ability, he mulled over the notion of being larger than life. "Did you have to go there when you were young?" His father nodded. "Were you afraid?" His father sat back into his tall, brocaded armchair, as if in recall. "In the beginning I was. Until I learned to overcome fear. — James Luceno

We can draw no deadlines for God. He hastens or He delays as he sees fit. And his timing is all-loving toward his children. On, that we might learn to be patient in the hour of darkness. I don't mean that we make peace with darkness. We fight for joy. But we fight as those who are saved by grace and held by Christ. We say ... that our night will soon- in God's good timing- turn to day. — John Piper

Come on,"he said, gesturing toward the exit. "let's take a walk."
"Where?"
"It doesn't matter. We just need you calmed down or you'll be in no shape to fight."
"Yeah? Are you afraid of my possibly insane dark side coming out?"
"No, I'm afraid of your normal Rose Hathaway side coming out, the one that isn't afraid to jump in without thinking when she believes something is right."
I gave him a dry look. "Is there are a difference?"
"Yes. The second one scares me. — Richelle Mead

In a recent experiment, men were asked to rank how attractive they found photographs of different women's faces. The photos were eight by ten inches, and showed women facing the camera or turned in three-quarter profile. Unbeknownst to the men, in half the photos the eyes of the women were dilated, and in the other half they were not. The men were consistently more attracted to the women with dilated eyes. Remarkably, the men had no insight into their decision making. None of them said, "I noticed her pupils were two millimeters larger in this photo than in this other one." Instead, they simply felt more drawn toward some women than others, for reasons they couldn't quite put a finger on. — David Eagleman

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

After all, it isn't the facts of one's environment, but one's attitude toward them, that determines whether one will be defeated or victorious. — David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.

In places, the drop was just a little ripple - a fall of some five feet or so. But in others, majestic waterfalls plunged fifty feet or more before pounding onto the next stone platform. It looked like a man-made effect, for the various split streams and waterfalls eventually ran back together into the river, which flowed away from the city toward distant Elendel. — Brandon Sanderson

As Pliable and Christian find themselves walking together toward the narrow gate, we see the stark contrast between the two pilgrims. One is burdened; the other is not. One is clutching a book that is a light to his path. The other is guideless. One is on the journey in pursuit of deliverance from besetting sins and rest for his soul. The other is on the journey in order to obtain future delights that temporarily dazzle his mind. One is slow and plodding because of his great weight and a sense of his own unrighteousness; the other is light-footed and impatient to obtain all the benefits of Heaven. One is in motion because his soul has been stirred up to both fear and hope; the other is dead to any spiritual fears,
longings, or aspirations. One is seeking God; the other is seeking self-satisfaction. One is a true pilgrim; the other is false and fading.
15. — John Bunyan

Incidental by-products of alterations in other traits? Belyaev strongly leaned toward the latter view, because of a phenomenon known as "pleiotropy": a single gene affecting multiple traits. Pleiotropy means that selection - whether natural or artificial - for one trait can affect many others. This is why evolutionary biologists make a distinction between selection for and selection of.9 — Anonymous

In the same way, you have to stop loving and pursuing Christ in order to sin. When you are pursuing love, running toward Christ, you do not have opportunity to wonder, Am I doing this right? or Did I serve enough this week? When you are running toward Christ, you are freed up to serve, love, and give thanks without guilt, worry, or fear. As long as you are running, you are safe. — Francis Chan

Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death. — Jean Cocteau

I tend to gravitate toward the "act two," or "act three," or "act four" stories - either things that are underreported, where we think we already know the common narrative, or things that are at the margins of an over-reported story, where we're all so focused in one direction that we're missing something crucial that's unfolding off to the side. — Sarah Stillman

To step inside a sealed, twelve-by-twelve-foot space with a wild animal that is many times your size is extremely hazardous to say the least. Yet sending these frightened animals out into the real world without giving them tools to safely deal with a new environment...could be disastrous. It would not be unlike sending a soldier on a mission without any training. Clearly, it was not a scenario lending itself toward safety or success for either horse or new owner. — Kim Meeder

We cannot, therefore, blame the courts, public schools, media, or government for our own theological unfaithfulness. We are the ones - the prophets and priests - who have contributed to this "Ichabod," this departure of God's glory in our time. Only by returning to sound, effective God-centered preaching and teaching can we restore the confidence not only of Christians themselves in God's greatness, but of an unbelieving world that is more apathetic toward our benign, helpless, happy deity than hostile. — Michael S. Horton

If we are in a position to affect the happiness or suffering of others, we have ethical responsibilities toward them2 - and many of these responsibilities are so grave as to become matters of civil and criminal law. Taking — Sam Harris

The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies The right way to respond to this if you are a company is to put the vast majority of your energy, attention and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it. — Jeff Bezos

The issues which today confront the nation are clearly defined and so fundamental as to directly involve the very survival of the Republic. Are we going to preserve the religious base to our origin, our growth and our progress, or yield to the devious assaults of atheistic or other anti-religious forces? Are we going to maintain our present course toward State Socialism with Communism just beyond or reverse the present trend and regain our hold upon our heritage of liberty and freedom? — Douglas MacArthur

Social psychology, the science of how people behave toward one another, is often a mishmash of interesting phenomena that are "explained" by giving them fancy names. Missing is the rich deductive structure of other sciences, in which a few deep principles can generate a wealth of subtle predictions - the kind of theory that scientists praise as "beautiful" or — Steven Pinker

Three days a week she helped at the Manor Nursing Home, where people proved their keenness by reciting received analyses of current events. All the Manor residents watched television day and night, informed to the eyeballs like everyone else and rushed for time, toward what end no one asked. Their cupidity and self-love were no worse than anyone else's, but their many experiences' having taught them so little irked Lou. One hated tourists, another southerners; another despised immigrants. Even dying, they still held themselves in highest regard. Lou would have to watch herself. For this way of thinking began to look like human nature
as if each person of two or three billion would spend his last vital drop to sustain his self-importance. — Annie Dillard

Democrats are making it clear that they intend to use our economic crisis to rush through their longtime liberal goals without public scrutiny or debate ... This will increase burdens on taxpayers and take a significant step toward socialized medicine. — Jim DeMint

No species, ours included, possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by its genetic history. Species may have vast potential for material and mental progress but they lack any immanent purpose or guidance from agents beyond their immediate environment or even an evolutionary goal toward which their molecular architecture automatically steers them. — Edward O. Wilson

Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body's deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body's superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity. — Henri Nouwen

Between the dark, heavily laden treetops of the spreading chestnut trees could be seen the dark blue of the sky, full of stars, all solemn and golden, which extended their radiance unconcernedly into the distance. That was the nature of the stars. and the trees bore their buds and blossoms and scars for everyone to see, and whether it signified pleasure or pain, they accepted the strong will to live. flies that lived only for a day swarmed toward their death. every life had its radiance and beauty. i had insight into it all for a moment, understood it and found it good, and also found my life and sorrows good. — Hermann Hesse

Forgiveness doesn't make one person better, or the other guy smaller. Forgiving is just letting go. It's turning back toward being what we really are. — Edward Fahey

every night, when he didn't want to be alone, or to age or die, with that set expression he assumed which she occasionally recognized on other men's faces, the only common expression of those madmen hiding under an appearance of wisdom until the madness seizes them and hurls them desperately toward a woman's body to bury in it, without desire, everything terrifying that solitude and night reveals to them. — Albert Camus

Children know how to be cruel, and the cruelty of their elders is the surest residue of the malaise the young feel toward things strange, things other, things that reveal our own ignorance or insufficiency — Carlos Fuentes

Sometimes the subconscious mind manifests a wisdom several steps or even years ahead of the conscious mind, and has its own way of leading us toward our destiny. — Nathaniel Branden

Zia turned toward us, her expression grim. "I will show you to your quarters. In the morning, your testing begins. We will see what magic you know, and how you know it."
I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but I exchanged an uneasy look with Sadie.
"Sounds fun," Sadie ventured. "And it we fail this test?"
Zia regarded her coldly. "This is not the sort of test you fail, Sadie Kane. You pass or you die. — Rick Riordan

If a man's heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can't win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don't want to change their minds. They can't be forced or driven to agree with you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly. — Dale Carnegie

A kind of joy came upon him, as if borne in on a summer breeze. He dimly recalled that he had been thinking of failure
as if it mattered. It seemed to him now that such thoughts were mean, unworthy of what his life had been. Dim presences gathered at the edge of his consciousness; he could not see them, but he knew that they were there, gathering their forces toward a kind of palpability he could not see or hear. He was approaching them, he knew; but there was no need to hurry. He could ignore them if he wished; he had all the time there was.
There was a softness around him, and a languor crept upon his limbs. A sense of his own identity came upon him with a sudden force, and he felt the power of it. He was himself, and he knew what he had been. — John Edward Williams

Repentance means turning toward other human beings, our own flesh and blood, whenever they're oppressed, hungry, or imprisoned; it means acting with compassion instead of indifference. — Sara Miles

I saw his eyes go up and he looked past me, toward the door, as if he were watching it, waiting. But there was no one there, it did not open, no one left or came in. I wondered if he was actually dreaming of escape. — S.J. Watson

To enter into a partnership with one of the many thousands of kinds of fungi, a tree must be very open-literally-because the fungal threads grow into its soft root hairs. There's no research into whether this is painful or not, but as it is something the tree wants, I imagine it gives rise to positive feelings. However the tree feels, from then on, the two partners work together. The fungus not only penetrates and envelops the tree's roots, but also allows its web to roam through the surrounding forest floor. In so doing, it extends the reach of the tree's own roots as the web grows out toward other trees. Here, it connects with other trees' fungal partners and roots. And so a network is created, and now it's easy for the trees to exchange vital nutrients (see chapter 3, "Social Security") and even information-such as an impending insect attack.

This connection makes fungi something like the forest Internet. — Peter Wohlleben

Then everything was normal again, except that the liner was speeding for the planet Krim at something more than thirty times the speed of light. Normality extended through all the galaxy so far inhabited by men. There were worlds on which there was peace, and worlds on which there was tumult. There were busy, zestful young worlds, and languid, weary old ones. From the Near Rim to the farthest of occupied systems, planets circled their suns, and men lived on them, and every man took himself seriously and did not quite believe that the universe had existed before he was born or would long survive his loss. Time passed. Comets let out vast streamers like bridal veils and swept toward and around their suns. Some of them - one in ten thousand, or twenty - were possibly seen by human eyes. The liner bearing Hoddan sped through the void. In time it made a landfall on the Planet Krim. — Murray Leinster

Please - please just do this for me," Tamlin said, stroking his stallion's thick neck as the beast nickered with impatience. The others had already moved their horses into easy canters, the first of them nearly within the shade of the woods. Tamlin jerked his chin toward the alabaster estate looming behind me. "I'm sure there are things to help with around the house. Or you could paint. Try out that new set I gave for you for Winter Solstice. — Sarah J. Maas

I leaned toward him and whispered, "I'm drowning. Save me." But when I tried to grasp his shoulder my hand passed through him.
"I'm over here," he said.
I said, "No wonder I can't touch you. You're dead too." Or perhaps I didn't say it. — Sarah Micklem

That was when I left her and went outside to talk to Charles. I knew I would dislike talking to Charles, but it was almost too late to ask him politely and I thought I should ask him once. Even the garden had become a strange landscape with Charles' figure in it; I could see him standing under the apple trees and the trees were crooked and shortened beside him. I came out the kitchen door and walked slowly toward him. I was trying to think charitably of him, since I would never be able to speak kindly until I did, but whenever I thought of his big white face grinning at me across the table or watching me whenever I moved I wanted to beat at him until he went away, I wanted to stamp on him after he was dead, and see him lying dead on the grass. So I made my mind charitable toward Charles and came up to him slowly. — Shirley Jackson

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath toward you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful enormous serpent is in ours. — Jonathan Edwards