To get along with God, Consider the consequences of your behavior. Earthseed: The Books of the Living
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of reflecting on the impact of one's actions in relation to a higher power.
In this quote from 'Earthseed: The Books of the Living', Octavia Butler suggests that one's relationship with God is closely tied to the awareness and understanding of how their behaviors and decisions affect themselves and others. It encourages introspection and the recognition that every action has repercussions, both in a spiritual sense and within the broader context of community and existence.
In practice
In a discussion about ethics and spirituality, this quote can remind participants to consider the outcomes of their actions.
What I'm working on now - I'm back to fantasy, although considering that it's me, I'm turning it into a kind of science fantasy. It's a vampire story - but my vampires are biological vampires. They didn't become vampires because someone bit them; they were born that way.
Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to.
There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.
You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.
Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.
The gospel cannot be truly preached without offense and tumult.
It is our very search, our lust for the miraculous and magical, that hides from us the truth that simply to be, simply to know I am, is already the miracle that we seek. Everything, as it is, is perfect, but you must stop seeing it as if in a mirror, as if in a dream.
We often wonder: "How will I be when I die?" The answer to that is that whatever state of mind we are in now, whatever kind of person we are now, that's what we will be like at the moment of death, if we do not change. This is why it is so absolutely important to use this lifetime to purify our mindstream, and so our basic being and character, while we can.
It's alright all of us all living saying 'oh well there's enough of us so we won't have anymore, don't let anybody else live.' I don't believe in that.
No man is above the law, and no man is below it.
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.