'absolute dependence upon the spirit of the times'

No one perhaps has said it better than Karl Barth who observed with pointed irony that the more a theologian wishes to be considered a pure biblicist, disdaining the Church, her dogma and tradition, the more surely he ends "in absolute dependence upon the spirit of the times."

—Henri de Lubac, A Brief Catechesis on Nature & Grace (1980)

'Music demands risk'

. . . she practiced unstintingly each day, the Beethoven, the Liszt, her beloved Chopin, and the Fantasy over which her fingers were gradually gaining control. Pianists will tell you that they practice in order to reduce the risk of catastrophe, but they know that to play with complete safety is an insult to their art. Music demands risk, a condition that Anna seems to have embraced with near-manic devotion, as if by engaging the demons inherent in her art she might destroy all claims they might have on her.

—Ben Fountain, "Fantasy for Eleven Fingers," Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (2006)

Act and Intent

Every legal act is a combination of some type of act and some type of intent. For example, a "signature" is a combination of some writing or marking of one's name, nickname or initials or other symbol (the act) combined with a peculiar type of intent called the intention to sign (animus signandi). The intention to sign is a mental intention that the act be a "signature," i.e., that the formality and finality which accompany a signature be present.

—Robert L. Mennell, Wills and Trusts in a Nutshell (1994)

A Man of Noble Breeding

Now against both these dangers there is one safeguard: not to exercise the soul without the body, nor yet the body without the soul, in order that both may hold their own and prove equally balanced and sound. So the mathematician or one who is intensely occupied with any other intellectual discipline must give his body its due meed by taking part in athletic training; while he who is industrious in molding his body must compensate his soul with her proper exercise in the cultivation of the mind and all higher education; so one may deserve to be called in the true sense a man of noble breeding.

—Plato, Timaeus (360 BC)

'unpublished virtues of the earth'

CORDELIA

What can man's wisdom
In the restoring his bereaved sense?
He that helps him take all my outward worth.

DOCTOR

There is means, madam:
Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.

CORDELIA

All blest secrets,
All you unpublished virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate
In the good man's distress! Seek, seek for him;
Lest his ungovern'd rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.

—William Shakespeare, King Lear (IV.v) (1606)

'Bright sunshine is boring'

All beings are swathed in veils of mysterious vapours. The pleasure of intimacy lies in the lifting of such veils, and seeing behind them the real contour of the mind. Love demands that the mystery be dispelled, yet it wants it to remain too. Bright sunshine is boring and puts one to sleep.

—André Maurois, Conversation (trans. Yvonne Dufour 1930)

The Salinas

The Salinas was only a part-time river. The summer sun drove it underground. It was not a fine river at all, but it was the only one we had and so we boasted about it—how dangerous it was in a wet winter and how dry it was in a dry summer. You can boast about anything if it's all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.

—John Steinbeck, East of Eden (1952)

'the wonders of the world as it continually flashes up in retrospect'

... but enough, let us sleep now, let us ascertain, in the morning, if there is a way of abstracting the interesting paragraphs of material in all this running consciousness stream that can be used as the progressing lightning chapters of a great essay about the wonders of the world as it continually flashes up in retrospect; as, for example, this night I ran cold water into a glass at the sink while everybody was high and immediately was reminded completely and perfectly of the cool exact waters of Pine Brook on a summer afternoon.

—Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody (1951-'52)

'I wish God had made me vaster myself'

—Now events of this moment are so mad that of course I can't keep up but worse they're as though they were fond memories that from my peaceful hacienda or Proust-bed I was trying to recall in toto but couldn't because like the real world so vast, so delugingly vast, I wish God had made me vaster myself—I wish I had ten personalities, one hundred golden brains, far more ports than are ports, more energy than the river, but I must struggle to live it all, and on foot, and in these little crepesole shoes.

—Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody (1951-'52)

The Original Image of the Creation

Now our Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, the essential Image, the essential Harmony, the Righteousness of God, becomes a creature, springs up from beneath the foundations of the Creation in an Human Soul and Body in the midst of its ruines. This Jesus is the Original Image of the Creation, of Man, of every Creature, the Root, the Rule, the Actor of all, who virtually, eminently comprehends all in their distinct Ideal Forms within himself. As so many eternal Beauties in his own eternal Beauty, who bringeth them forth from himself, beareth them in himself, as Flowers in their Garden-beds.

—Peter Sterry, A Discourse of the Freedome of the Will (1675)