Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.
Thomas HardyRead
The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.
Interpretation
Religion aims to inspire a spiritual transformation within individuals rather than merely focusing on the afterlife.
This quote by Thomas Hardy emphasizes that the true purpose of religion extends beyond its traditional goal of securing a place in heaven after death. Instead, it suggests that the essence of religion lies in cultivating inner peace, moral integrity, and a sense of divinity within oneself, thus enriching one’s life and character in the present moment.
In practice
In a sermon about the importance of personal spirituality over religious dogma.
Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.
Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only - finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings'll be like thousands' and thousands'.
But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.
I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else.
Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.
The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they? -that is, seem as if they had. And the river says,-'Why do ye trouble me with your looks?' And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand further away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, 'I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!
The interior of our skulls contains a portal to infinity.
The world is all alike. Those that seem better than their neighbours are only more artful. They mean the same thing, though they take a different road.
I believe human beings mark a threshold in the development of the planet, of course, but it is only part of the picture. What Big History can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us, but it can also show us our power, with collective learning.
Why, I can't help wondering, is God thought to need such ferocious defence? One might have supposed him amply capable of looking after himself.
It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.
When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.
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