Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant of Variety of Posts

It is said that the study of metaphysics is dying because people no longer want to study things that cannot be changed. One sees this in the popularity of the Serenity Prayer, in which the thing most feared is not, as with the Lord’s Prayer, the temptation to sin, but rather the inability to control one’s circumstances: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” - Dawn Eden

What is needed from the supporters of this very confident faith [Islam] is more self-criticism and less self-pity and self-righteousness. - Chris Hitchens

The sun was sinking fast, and a laundry line full of cirrus clouds stretched along the western sky like boas of white linen. - Pat Conroy from "South of Broad"

His reflex after attraction was to look for the biological meaning in the attraction, encoded but only temporarily mysterious. Some canny evolutionist could explain... - Arthur Philip's "A Song is You"

Refrain from indiscreet zeal [fanaticism], which may do us great harm. - St. Therese of Avila via Janice Connell in "Secrets of Mary"

I also added to my store of knowledge about the Commander’s attitude to gin, which was a relatively devout one. Alcohol for me has been an aspect of my optimism: the mood caught by Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited when he discourses on aspects of the Bacchic and the Dionysian and claims that he at least chooses to drink “in the love of the moment, and the wish to prolong and enhance it.” - Christopher Hitchens in "Hitch-22"

Me hath such strong enhancement overcome,
When I have held a volume in my hand,
Poor earthly casket of immortal verse,
Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine!
- William Wordsworth "Prelude"