Only a personal experience of it, or a prolonged study of men who have passed into the new life, will enable us to realize what this actually is; but it has seemed to the present writer that to pass in review, even briefly and imperfectly, instances in which the condition in question has existed would be worth while.
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First Words.Richard Maurice Bucke
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Although the future exists, you can avoid or alter it by changing you present condition. By the quality of our condition, we attract or are attracted to particular types of experiences. If our condition is good we do not attract or need to experience certain events that would otherwise be necessary to balance our lives. We exert control over and have responsibility for our future because it is determined by our present condition.
Michio Kushi
As for the clergy — No — If I say a word against them, I'll be shot. — I have no desire, — and besides, if I had, — I durst not for my soul touch upon the subject, — with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at present, 'twould be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account, — and therefore, 'tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to clear up, — and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least wit are reported to be men of most judgment.
Laurence Sterne
The man who dares to live his life with death before his eyes, the man who receives life back bit by bit and lives as though it did not belong to him by right but has been bestowed on him as a gift, the man who has such freedom and peace of mind that he has overcome death in his thoughts — such a man believes in eternal life because it is already his, it is a present experience, and he already benefits from its peace and joy. He cannot describe this experience in words. He may not be able to conform his view with the traditional picture of it. But one thing he knows for certain: Something within us does not pass away, something goes on living and working wherever the kingdom of the spirit is present. It is already working and living within us, because in our hearts we have been able to reach life by overcoming death.
Albert Schweitzer
To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us.
John Lancaster Spalding
If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Bucke, Richard Maurice
Buckingham, George Villiers
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