“To Imagination” by Emily BrontëWhen weary with the long day’s care,And earthly change from pain to pain,And lost and ready to despair,Thy kind voice calls me back again:Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,While thou canst speak with such a tone! So hopeless is the world without;The world within I doubly prize;Thy world, where …
Sonnet 79 by Edmund Spencer Men call you fair, and you do credit it,For that yourself you daily such do see:But the true fair, that is the gentle witAnd virtuous mind, is much more praised of me.For all the rest, however fair it be,Shall turn to naught and lose that glorious hue:But only that is permanent …
“Personal Talk (concluded)” by William Worsdworth Nor can I not believe but that herebyGreat gains are mine; for thus I live remoteFrom evil-speaking; rancor, never sought,Comes to me not; malignant truth, or lie.Hence have I genial seasons, hence have ISmooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thought;And thus from day to day my little boatRocks in …
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart…live in the question.” – Rainer Maria Rilke Everyone has unsolved matters in his heart. Such matters ebb and flow with the passage of time and their resolution cannot be forced arbitrarily. How these matters are handled largely determines ones effectiveness in living. Actively abiding in …
What ails society is not its politics and politicians, but something deeper. We like to think we have reached a unique juncture in history, but we have been here before, both in modern times and in civilizations reaching back into the distant past. Make no mistake: what ails us is at its root an existential …
All in the universe follows one basic, universal law: effect follows cause. There is no escaping this reality. No prayer, supplication, incantation, or petition can change the working of this cosmic mandate: as you sow, so also shall you reap, as you do good, so too shall good be done to you; as you are, …
The great lost chord of mankind is forgetfulness of the fact in nature of universal brotherhood. Mankind—the body of humanity—is not a contrived, sentimental or political brotherhood. It is a spiritual or cosmic brotherhood of common ancestry, an integral part of the vast body of the universe, that likewise springs from a common root. The …
When we think of laws, what typically comes to mind are man’s laws, i.e. a system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties. These laws, like a company handbook, protect the best from the worst and …
From the Rig-Veda, chiefest of the Vedas: “Tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi,Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.” Slightly paraphrased: "That lofty inner soul of the god's sun, may it unite the thoughts of us, its offspring, and urge us into that union, the union of the lower with the superior, of the individual with the spirit …
The notion that virtue is an outer ideal toward which man must strive lies at the root of much of the evils and suffering that we’ve experienced through the millennia. This belief pits courageous man against courageous man, caring person against caring person, in a struggle to establish a good and just world through imperfect …
Gregory Hake 