Citatepedia^®.com

The circumstances of human society are too complicated to be submitted to the rigor of mathematical calculation.

quote by Marquis De Custine
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Map Of Culture

Culture

Contents

What is Culture?

The Importance of Culture

Culture Varies

Culture is Critical

The Sociobiology Debate

Values, Norms, and Social Control

Signs and Symbols

Language

Terms and Definitions

Approaches to the Study of Culture

Are We Prisoners of Our Culture?

What is Culture?

I prefer the definition used by Ian Robertson: 'all the shared products of society: material and nonmaterial' (Our text defines it in somewhat more ponderous terms- 'The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. It includes ideas, values, and customs (as well as the sailboats, comic books, and birth control devices) of groups of people' (p.32) .

Back to Contents

[...] Read more

poem by Nyein Way
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Microphone Fiend

Yo, I was a fiend before I became a teen
I melted microphone instead of cones of ice cream
Music orientated so when hip-hop was originated
Fitted like pieces of puzzles, complicated
Shot grabbed the mic and try to say, yes yall!
They tried to take it, and say that Im too small
Cool, cause I dont get upset
I kick a hole in the speaker, pull the plug, then I jet
Back to the lab ...without a mic to grab
So then I add all the rhymes I had
One after the another one, then I make another one
To dis the opposite then ask if the brothers done
I get a craving like I fiend for nicotine
But I dont need a cigarette, know what I mean?
Im raging, ripping up the stage and
Dont it sound amazing cause every rhyme is made and
Thought of, cuz its sort of...an addiction,
Magnatized by the mixing
E-f-f-e-c-t
A smooth operator operating correctly.
An e-f-f-e-c-t
A smooth operator operating correctly.
E-f-f-e-c-t
A smooth operator operating correctly.
An e-f-f-e-c-t
A smooth operator operating correctly.
But back to the problem, I gotta habit,
You cant solve it, you silly rabbit
The prescription is a hypertone thats thorough when
I fiend for a microphone like heroin
Soon as the bass kicks, I need a fix
Gimme a stage and a mic and a mix
And Ill put you in a mood or is it a state of
Unawareness? beware, its the reanamator!
A menace to a microphone, a lethal weapon
An assasinator, if the people aint stepping
You see a part of me that you never seen
When Im fiending for a microphone.
Cause I take it to the maximum, I cant relax see, im
Hype as a hyperchrondriac cause the rap be one
Hell of a antidote, something you cant smoke
More than dope, youre trying to move away but you cant, youre broke
More than cracked up, you should have backed up
For those who act up need to be more than smacked up
E-f-f-e-c-t
A smooth operator operating correctly.
An e-f-f-e-c-t
A smooth operator operating correctly.
An e-f-f-e-c-t
A smooth operator operating correctly.

[...] Read more

song performed by Rage Against The Machine
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

She was a complicated woman

She was a complicated woman
Emotions led her here
She loved her cats and nature
She loved to feed the deer.
She loved to play the piano
She loved to watch TV
She loved to sit around the house
She loved to talk to me

She was a complicated woman
Her anger could get mean
Her emails could get nasty
As mean as you've ever seen

She was a complicated woman
The best friend that she could be
Always there to listen
Always there for me
If you needed help you asked her
It didn't matter the task
She lived to make you happy
A smile was her mask

She was a complicated woman
So sad and so alone
She'd hide her heart and feelings
She'd turn it into stone
Why she couldn't find love
Is a mystery unto me
Her stone would turn to acid
Her pain would drip and bleed

She was a complicated woman
This world wasn't her era
She'd rather live on the prairie
Or in a house named Tara

She was a complicated woman
So talented so smart
Creative with her hobbies
Made by love from the heart
From needlepoint to minis
Dollhouses and crochet
She wrote and played piano
So much more to say

She was a complicated woman
She liked fast cars and smoking
Shopping and some cussing
Rock and roll and joking

[...] Read more

poem by Kathleen J. Shields
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Interpretation of Nature and

I.

MAN, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.


II.

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

III.

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

IV.

Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within.

V.

The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now are) with slight endeavour and scanty success.

VI.

It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

VII.

The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufactures. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known; not in the number of axioms.

VIII.

Moreover the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.

IX.

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this -- that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

X.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it.

XI.

As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.

XII.

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.

XIII.

[...] Read more

poem by Sir Francis Bacon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Low Society

A judge a dentist or physician
In this low society
Trade ambition for position
In this low society
Have you heard its in the stars
Next july we collide with mars
Have you heard it in the bars
In this low society
No more pay and lots of leisure
In this low society
Low society
Im just doing what I can
In this low society
But Im an incidental man
In this low society
I give away what others sell
The secrets yours so never tell
cos if you do youll go to hell
Low society
Side by side and always tired
All for one and no-one hired
All thats left is love inspired
Low society
And when the party is complete
And youre still standing on your feet
The taste of victory is sweet
Low society
And darling dont forget
In this low society
To turn off your t.v. set
In this low society
The most important thing at all
In this low society
Is not to stand too tall
In this low society
In this world that never learns
I can see rome as it burns
All the passion and the power
Turns to ash within an hour
No more play and no more pleasure
In this low society

song performed by Heaven 17
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Complicated Shadows

Well you know your time has come and youre sorry for what youve done
You shouldve never have been playing with a gun
In those complicated shadows
Well theres a line that you must toe
And itll soon be time to go
But its darker than you know in those complicated shadows
All you gangsters and rude clowns
Who were shooting up the town
When you should have found someone to put the blame on
Though the furys hot and hard
I still see that cold graveyard
Theres a solitary stone thats got your name on
You dont have to take it from me
But I know what I spake
You think youre like iron and steel
But iron and steel will bend and break
In those complicated shadows
Go!
Sometimes justice you will find
Is just dumb not colour-blind
And your poor shattered mind cant take it all in
All those phantoms and those shades
Should jump up on judgement day
And say to the almighty Im still stinking of sin
But the jury was dismissed
Took his neck and they give it a twist
So you see you wont be missed in those complicated shadows
You can say just what you like in a voice like a john ford film
Take the law into your hands
You will soon get tired of killing
In those complicated shadows
Complicated shadows
Complicated shadows
Complicated shadows
Go!

song performed by Elvis Costello
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Complicated Melody

If he were a color
Hed be a deep dark forrest green
If he were a car
Hed be a long stretch limousine
With room for all of humanity inside
Cause he is so giving
And he is so wise
If he were a number
Hed be a five cause he has such a brilliant mind
If he were an animal
Hed be an ass cause hes so stubborn sometime
But if he were a song
Hed be a complicated melody
That complicated fellow he
I almost can not sing it on key
But he means the world to me
If he were a building
Hed be a beautiful cathedral
Cause hes so traditionally spiritual
If he were a dance
Hed be complicated like the tango
Exotic like a mango
But if he were a song
Hed be a complicated melody
That complicated fellow he
I almost can not sing it on key
But he means the world to me
He aint the reason for the sun and the moon
He is just the reason for this here tune
Cause he means the world to me (ooh ooh)
Said he means the world to me
Me me me yeah
He means the world to me yeah
Complicated melody that complicated fellow he
Hes a complicated melody
I almost can not sing it on key

song performed by India Arie
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

So Complicated

So complicated, so complicated
Just wanna blow my horn
So complicated, so complicated
Just wanna know the score
Are you telling me that everythings fine
When I cant even tie my shoes
Better get into a new frame of mind
When I dont have to think about the business no more
'cause I just wanna blow my horn
The telephone is ringing out
But it dont understand my blues
And how much longer will it take
Until they get the news
The weather man said it was good
He forecast it was truly great
So if you change your train of thought
You know it wont be late
Too complicated, too complicated
You know this crazy scene
Too complicated, too complicated
No one says what they mean
Are you telling me that everythings fine
When I cant even tie my shoes
Better get into a new frame of mind
When I dont have to think about the business no more
'cause I just wanna blow my horn.

song performed by Van Morrison
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Least Complicated

I sit two stories above the street
Its awful quiet here since love fell asleep
Theres life down below me though
The kids are walking home from school
Some long ago when we were taught
That for whatever kind of puzzle you got
You just stick the right formula in
A solution for every fool
I remember the time when I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool
What makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
So I just sit up in the house and resist
And not be seen until I cease to exist
A kind of conscientious objection
A kind of dodging the draft
The boy and girl are holding hands on the street
And I dont want to but I think you just wait
Its more than just eye to eye
Learn the things I could never apply
I remember the time when I came so close with you
I let everything go it seemed the only truth
And I bought you that ring, it seemed the thing to do
What makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
So what makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
Im just a mirror of a mirror myself
All the things that I do
And the next time I fall Im gonna have to recall
Its isnt love its only something new
I sit two stories above the street
Its awful quiet here since love fell asleep
Theres life down below me though
The kids are walking home from school
Im remember the time when I came so close with you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool
What makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
So what makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
The least complicated
The least complicated

song performed by Indigo Girls
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Voyage around the Square Root of Minus One

I often heard
that while the sciences concern themselves
with objective truths
the arts deal with subjective phenomena.

Many years ago I held the same view,
but later came to the conclusion
that this is just a well-combed popular myth.

It is an untenable credo
because the sharp separation
of the arts and sciences is a rigid
and arbitrary mandate, full of holes.

Although all subjects have their specificities,
at the same time they also share
many common traits with each other.

There is art in science and science in art.

Artists, for example,
apply geometry to represent
a three dimensional scene in a painting,
which is a two dimensional surface.

By using ‘objective' geometrical perspective,
Renaissance artists, among them Alberti,
Brunelleschi, Uccello, Leonardo and Dürer,
developed in Europe the ‘subjective' illusion
of perceptual realism.

Later, in the Dutch Republic of the 17th century,
Johannes Vermeer applied expensive pigments
to the canvas and conducted
pioneering research in optics that enhanced
the supreme quality of his work,
imbuing his paintings with sublime,
otherworldly light.

In the 19th century
the Romantic painter John Constable
prepared detailed studies
of the landscape and weather conditions
of England, before transcribing them
into images of stunning accuracy and grace.

Following the closing of the Weimar Bauhaus
by the Nazis in 1933, the artist Josef Albers
moved to the USA, where he worked at
Black Mountain College and at Yale University.

[...] Read more

poem by Paul Hartal
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Man In The Middle

(m gibb, b gibb)
Youve got a plan that could never go wrong
You took advantage and the damage done
It all comes back to me baby
It all comes back to me
I played the fool and I went off the track
And when I think of all it cost
When the die was cast
You know I had to be crazy
You know I had to be
Ive been telling lies
And you forgive me but my heart still cries
And you can understand
Im just the man in the middle
Of a complicated plan
No one to show me the signs
Im just a creature of habit
In a complicated world
Nowhere to run to
Nowhere to hide
I know I let you down in so many ways
I know that sorry doesnt tell you
What you need me to say
But, I would die for you baby
Yes, I would die for you
Ive been in disguise
And you forgive me and our love will rise
And you can understand
Im just the man in the middle
Of a complicated plan
No one to show me the light
Ah,yes, Im weary from battle
But Ive just begun to fight
Nowhere to run to
Nowhere to hide
Im just the man in the middle
Of a complicated plan
No one to show me the signs
Im just a creature of habit
In a complicated world
Nowhere to run to
Nowhere to hide
Im just the man in the middle
Of a complicated plan
No one to show me the light
Ah, yes, Im weary from battle
But Ive just begun to fight
Nowhere to run to
Nowhere to hide
Im just the man in the middle

[...] Read more

song performed by Bee Gees
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Complicated Questions

Easy to be taken with everything youre saying
Make us perfect and say it all again
But if every single seconds killing
Tell me Im dreaming
Ill sleep it all away
Tear out this love
Tear up the root
Tear out this love
Tear me from you
You know you can tell me anything you want to
Tell me something that Id never know
Could be cautious as the words roll over your tongue
Im stung with sick discovery
Tear me from these complicated questions
Taking all the empty spaces inside me
But complicated answers never did you any justice anyway
Complicated as we are were going have to burn it all away
Complicated answers take up all the empty spaces inside me
But complicated answers never did you any justice anyway
Complicated as we are were going to tear out this love

song performed by Finger Eleven
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Simply Complicated

When you find out things about yourself
that you hadn't thought to know.
When your grandma calls
and books you on the Jerry Springer show.
And you find out you and your wife for ten years,
just might be related
Brother, life's not over,
it's just simply complicated.
There's other situations
that might challenge you, I guess
When your daughter tries out for the footbal team
and your son tries on her dress
And you start to think that the devil's in charge
of how you're situated.
Life is still worth livin
It's just simply complicated.
Life is complicated with its
ifs and ands and buts.
It's alright to be crazy,
just don't let it drive you nuts!
My daughter wants to go on dates,
I think I'll let her go.
But she better not be movin'
at the movin' picture show.
Her stops by all those honky tonks
and getin' aviated
aint it all a caution?
Its just simply complicated.
Now I'm havin a big problem
with my present-day career
My ship, she has a rudder
but I don't know where to steer.
Am I country, pop or rock-and-roll?
I know they are related.
I'll just let you be the judge.
It's simply complicated.
Life is complicated with its
ifs and ands and buts.
It's alright to be crazy,
just don't let it drive you nuts!

song performed by Jimmy Buffett
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Complicated Life

Well I woke this morning with a pain in my neck,
A pain in my heart and a pain in my chest,
I went to the good doctor and the good doctor said,
You gotta slow down your life or youre gonna be dead,
Cut out the struggle and strife,
It only complicates your life.
Well I cut down women I cut out booze,
I stopped ironing my shirts, cleaning my shoes,
I stopped going to work, reading the news,
Im sitting twiddling my thumbs cos I got nothing to do,
Minimal exercise,
To help uncomplicate my life,
Gotta stand and face it life is so complicated,
Ladi dah di dahdah, ladi dah di dah dah,
Got to get away from the complicated life son,
Life is overated, life is complicated,
Must aleviate this, complicated life.
Like old mother hubbard
I got nothin in the cupboard,
Got no dinner and I got no supper,
Holes in my shoes I got holes in my socks,
I cant go to work cos I cant get a job,
The bills are rising sky high,
Its such a complicated life,
Gotta stand and face it,
Life is so complicated.

song performed by Kinks
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Mathematical calculation

Mathematical calculation failed
Life succeeded with full swim
With formula of love and affection
It is correct mathematical calculation.

poem by Gajanan Mishra
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Sanctity Of Dreams

Paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa
Ride a Harley through the heart of danger
Pick up a pen and fight a war for the right to dream
I was seventeen
Give up my house, sleep for nights on concrete
Meditate with all the bums on Vine Street
No more running, no more hiding in the house of the dead
I think I'll grow some dreads
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
I dream of loving, of the empty graveyard
I dream of Vegas and the transcendental wildcard
A place where noone waits to die before they go into the light
And just the blind have sight
I follow nothing but the compass of my instinct
No matter where it leads, I know it will take me to the brink
And leave me there by myself and all alone with my dreams
Can you hear my scream?
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Ooh ooh ooh
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Oh-oh
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Society
Society will never dream like me
Society
Society
Society will never dream like me

song performed by Live
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sanctity Of Dreams

Paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa
Ride a Harley through the heart of danger
Pick up a pen and fight a war for the right to dream
I was seventeen
Give up my house, sleep for nights on concrete
Meditate with all the bums on Vine Street
No more running, no more hiding in the house of the dead
I think I'll grow some dreads
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
I dream of loving, of the empty graveyard
I dream of Vegas and the transcendental wildcard
A place where noone waits to die before they go into the light
And just the blind have sight
I follow nothing but the compass of my instinct
No matter where it leads, I know it will take me to the brink
And leave me there by myself and all alone with my dreams
Can you hear my scream?
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Ooh ooh ooh
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Oh-oh
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Society
Society will never dream like me
Society
Society
Society will never dream like me

song performed by Live
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sophia

Sophia:
Affirmations and Meditations for a Positive and Meaningful Life

By Uriah Lee Hamilton

1. The universe seeks to treat you kindly like a friend. The stars shine for you in the dreamy midnight air. Doors are opening to you to enter in and find the love of your life, the joy of your being. Garden paths are beneath your feet to gaze affectionately upon every flower. The fountains of wine flow abundantly for you to imbibe the spirits of desire and happiness. Accept your destiny as gods and goddesses in the mystical realm of innocence.
2. Your eyes are open and there is nothing you cannot see or perceive with translucent vision of understanding. Every mystery is discernible and arrayed in magnificent and colorful robes of light. Every day is a magical journey of discovery and especially self-discovery. Find your important place in the happy scheme of this life, your intricate functioning with every other soul.
3. Your song is being played and you’re invited to sing along and join the dance. No longer think in terms of withdrawal and alienation. Think in terms of participation. There is nothing to fear and no one to impress. Just enjoy your every experience, they’re yours to possess. When you open yourself to joy, joy finds you and reminds you life is beautiful and brief.
4. More people love you than you will ever know. Prayers congregate in the heart of God for you like stars swimming in the night. People you have nearly forgotten have not forgotten you. Your impression continues to linger and leave a kind feeling in the hearts of those you’ve touched and they are every moment sending you powerful karma that rushes to your aid in the hour of need. Trust the thoughts that seek to uplift you.
5. You have the power to overcome any difficult situation. With every stressful development in your life there is an equal reserve of strength and determination to resist and conquer the armies of the negative and harmful. The human will is boundless and will not accept defeat but will lift you up until you are the victor over every power of darkness that assaults you.
6. Every mistake you have made is in the past. To linger on any mistake with regret or judgment serves no purpose. Today is a clean slate, a new beginning. Forgive yourself, accept forgiveness, and never judge yourself or anyone else unkindly. Every moment you become more enlightened.
7. If you can remember love when you’re abandoned in the rain and the universe is in tears, you can pull yourself through any sadness. Love is the reality of the soul and the desire of everyone’s inner being. Love is the strength that sustains us when we're weary and seemingly at the end of our rope, dangling at the edge of the cliff of despair. Love is the nature of divinity shared with humanity and will not leave us to wither like waterless flowers. Remember love when you have forgotten everything else.
8. Forget the sound of unkind words and don’t repeat them. Remember how you felt when someone hurt you or treated you insensitively and be determined to never make anyone feel that way. The smile you leave on someone’s face will fill your own heart with joy and return your own smile back to you.
9. The best way to appreciate your own unique godliness is to appreciate and praise the unique godliness of others. When you perceive others as special and angelic, you will understand you have arrived at the shore of humanity from the same sea of divinity. We are here at this stage of our journey to find God in others and offer others the kindness of God that exists within ourselves.
10. Respect the dignity of everyone. This is enlightenment. Never suppose that you are superior or inferior to anyone. You are unique and your neighbor is unique. Our differences make the human experience beautiful and mysterious. Learn to appreciate the differences in everyone and the glorious variety this offers. Everyone compliments everyone and when any soul departs this plane we have all lost someone and something precious.
11. Live the power of kindness. When you’re kind, you respect yourself. When you know that you have helped someone else, you feel the presence of angels and God surrounding you. You can live without an abundance of money and possessions but you cannot live without confronting yourself as a human. If someone judges you unjustly and negatively, that hurts but never as much as judging yourself and knowing the truth about whom you are if you’re not a good and kind person. Jesus said if someone asks you to walk one mile, walk two. Go the added distance to know you are a compassionate human being. If by chance there is no God and no final judgment, if the last judgment is nothing more than the last time you look yourself in the mirror, don’t fail that judgment.
12. You are eternal in spirit. Your essence is from the beginning and is unending. You originate in the heartbeat of God and eventually were sent to earth as a hopeful song. Sing your song to every receptive ear. Allow the universe to partake in your melody of joy. You can make your life a gift to everyone; you are a flower in the human bouquet. One day, you will return happily to God. Let the world know today you’re here and partake of your bliss and happiness.
13. Godliness is your nature, divinity your true personality. Maybe the world has labeled you a prostitute or a thief, a police officer or a lawyer, but your real soul is the essence of God, the substance of eternity, the DNA of spiritual greatness. Never accept restricting labels, never define your dreams with other people’s language of defeat. Birth has opened every possibility, and every second is a new rebirth. Begin now whatever dream and path you choose.
14. Live in the moment. Experience the present. Breathe in the perfume of freshly bloomed flowers. Be conscious of the poetry of existence all around you. Compose your poems on trees and rocks and flower petals. Be the poem, be the flower. Compose your poems on human souls that will live in the heart of God for eternity. You’ve never had anything but this moment, perceive it as beautiful and make it more beautiful.
15. Never live in the past. The past is only a collection of memories that become sad overtime even if they were happy memories to begin with. The past is either defeat or forgotten glories. The present is your opportunity to shape the future in a positive manner. A few souls have lived their lives in such joy and kindness as to become spirits of the future. The future is about joy, acceptance, dreams accomplished, ideas realized, and the end of suffering. Every positive thought and action of today will transform tomorrow. Believe.
16. Celebrate the music of existence. The sparrow dawns, the symphonic engine hum of the highway, the locust afternoons of high summer, the angelic chatter of beautiful conversations, church bell Sunday mornings, the autumn chimes carried in by a cool breeze. Everything is music if you’re willing to listen and to rejoice.
17. In your life show kindness, express friendliness, make others feel comfortable in your presence and in their own. The karmic return for being a positive human being is receiving the eternal and universal goodwill of the divine; it is reaching that place where you see yourself in a beautiful and self-accepting mirror.
18. Find the true religion. The true religion is happiness, the welcoming, friendly smile, the exuberant heart. Most religious people throughout the human experience have embraced religion with a sad face for the purposes of judgment and condemnation, but hatred and cruelty must no longer have any place at the spiritual table, punishing one’s self for being human must cease. Love is the true religion and it is expressed with joy. Make laughing and dancing your greatest rituals.
19. Learn perspective and endurance. If you fail today, you are stronger tomorrow. If you fall today, you will soar tomorrow. A boxer has lost every round to eventually win the fight. He throws his bruised body into the pummeling of the opponent, his eyes are closed with blood and sweat but still looking for his opportunity until he lands the knockout punch. Life is a struggle but your heart must never be vanquished. Push forward in everything you do to make your existence meaningful. A hundred falls and a thousand mistakes will never define your being but your dogged determination to resist and succeed.
20. The past is a casket of despair, a realm of old ideas that embraced sadness and toil and dreams defeated. If you linger in the valley of regrets, there is only a bleak future of hopelessness to discover. If you abandon the unhappiness of history and embrace your child-like hopefulness, then the future is the home of ever unfolding potential where love is always waiting around the corner. In fact, you are love and you are no longer waiting, you have arrived. Your love is emanating like spring flowers in the sunlit day and you can waft your perfume for the world to breathe in and rejoice.
21. The life you are given at this moment should be heaven and can be heaven. If you accept unhappiness and loneliness and suffering to place your bet on the next lifetime, you will miss your opportunity to appreciate this lifetime. If the life you are living is hell, exchange it for heaven and exchange it now while you are breathing and not as a promise for the grave or reincarnation. Accept this life as your garden, as your paradise, as your heaven. Find something small in your life to appreciate until you can appreciate everything about your life. Do not practice rejection. Do not call the world evil or your life evil or believe that anything is evil. Practice acceptance and believe in the good. Accept everything as good and as a means to the eventual actualization of your real and lasting happiness.
22. You are god-like when you accept yourself, the qualities and tendencies that make up your unique personality. You are angry and pleasant, sad and happy, beautiful and ugly. You cannot divorce yourself anymore than God can divide or divorce himself. If you try to abandon or throw away half of yourself, you will lose all of yourself. Self-acceptance and self-love is the way of godliness and the means to loving and appreciating the beauty and uniqueness of others. It takes one lifetime at least if not innumerable lifetimes to learn who you are and it will never happen if you do not accept yourself for the entire all-encompassing creation you are.
23. Become everything and understand everything. Absorb the laughter of a child, the excitement of a bride, the sadness of a funereal, the love of a mother giving birth, the pride of a father at a child’s graduation, the fear of death, the pain of loneliness. Feel everything. Understand everything. Celebrate and commiserate with the world you live in as a human being and become life-positive and not life-negative. There is not joy without sadness; there is not laughter without tears. You will have them both. Learn from them both and then embrace your life with gratitude.
24. When a truly happy, dancing spirit ventures upon the scene, it attracts love and affection. Joy and happiness are magnets drawing our attention, our interests, and our passionate desire. The world has been so sad with terrible suffering and unhappiness and so many teachers have arisen to manipulate the fears and disappointments of the masses to instill hatred and judgment. The genuine happy person is rare, almost unheard of. The world is yours if you can harness your happiness and spiritual and psychological well-being. What do you have to lose? If you become happy and dancing and you’re happy and dancing alone in the world, you still have achieved more than every other soul. Claim your happiness, it is not selfish to do so because your happiness can only expand and become contagious. May your happiness become an ecstatic epidemic.
25. Be whole in all your thoughts and completely embrace all the various facets of your life. Don’t try to deny the child within who wants to play beneath the sun, to laugh and to run rather than be sequestered into some adult room where you’re not allowed to smile. There’s a place for responsibility and sacrifice, for noble thoughts and placing others first but if you try to occupy this place consistently and permanently, you will wither away like an autumn leaf, you will be a shell of the human promise that was given to you at birth. Enjoy your body, relish your desires, and laugh with ecstasy when the spirit moves you. Don’t be sad or stoic forever, return to the merry-go-round you loved in your youth.
26. When you depart your mother’s body to begin your own journey, the path begins with your initial tears, the cry that accompanies existence. It then becomes easy to cry for a lifetime, to feel fear and abandonment, to know nothing but sorrow and despair, but there is joy and the goal is to learn to laugh. Laugh from the heart and make your way through the world cheerfully. It won’t happen in a moment or a single day, but you can turn your life into a dance that sways to the rhythm of laughter and happiness.
27. Enjoy lazy afternoons. Sit in the cricket grass in the summer sunlight. Gaze at the pattern of the leaves beneath shaded trees. One only finds his soul in stillness, not in much activity. When people are too busy, they are hiding from themselves. You have to find your real self before you cease to exist else you may have to wait a prolonged time before your next incarnation allows you a new opportunity of self-discovery. When you find yourself, then you learn what the heart needs for true happiness and communion with the eternal.
28. Life is a dream and the future unfolds in the hands of imagination. Dream your future in bright beautiful colors; make your landscapes lavish and rich and dazzling. Don’t be timid with your dreams, your aspirations, and your hopes of self-realization. With a single thought you may revolutionize all thinking; you may touch hundreds or thousands of lives and leave a lasting and meaningful impression. The power to transcend becoming a statistic is yours. You are not required to be an unknown entity or live in shadows. Walk out into the sunlight of a positive life that is waiting like a circus clown’s balloon for you to form it into a lovely shape that brings a smile.
29. In a time of war, one is taught to suppress his desires and his needs, to sacrifice for the cause until the victory is won. The battle now is for the soul of your happiness, and the battle will not be won by sacrifice and suppression, it will not be gained by self-coercion and intense rejection. Only by realizing what you want in the core of your being and granting yourself permission to pursue it unhindered by guilt will you win this victory. Grant yourself the right to be yourself, appreciate yourself, and pursue your joy. The long sleep will endure forever for the happy and the sad; it is your time to be happy if you choose it.
30. If you have followed a path or a plan that has led you to a loveless place, then take stock of yourself, evaluate your life-choices and begin anew. If your hands are empty, there is nothing to be lost in opening them and turning them over. To remain on the path you’re on and refuse to make any changes can only reinforce the status quo of your loneliness and unhappiness. You have been a stunted tree too long. Become a new person and begin to flower. At whatever age you are it is not too late to experience rebirth. Become a stranger to the alienated person you were in the past when you find your destiny in joyfulness. You can become a new creation in the blink of an eye.
31. Attain God in your own room where the candles pray in the moonlight that seeps through the window blinds at night. God is the silent compassion that ever surrounds you and finds you when you’re sad. You’re success in perceiving the presence of God is not dependent upon rules of religion or great moral feats and ascetic accomplishments but on your child-like desire to perceive that reality of love. God is your heartbeat when your kind to others and to yourself. Listen to your heartbeat and you will find God. Most of the world never finds God because they’re looking under every religious rock instead of looking inwardly for the God within.
32. Beginning today, I’ve become my ally and no longer my opponent. I will trust my instincts and my desires and no longer view them as separate from my spiritual being, my eternal soul. When I tell myself yes and no, I pursue my own personal civil war. For now on there is only yes. Yes to self-love, yes to confidence, yes to friendship, yes to health, yes to joy, yes to success. To everything positive and life-affirming there is nothing but yes. Denial and suppression and negative opinion has ceased. The doubting and judgmental man has vanished and will not be seen again.
33. To become a happy human being dancing in the soft summer moonlight is not easily done in the world of manipulative guilt. You may have to dance alone if everyone you know will only sing a dirge. If everyone has a sad face and a melancholy heart, resort to friendship with scattered roadside flowers and happy stray dogs. Eventually your joy will become infectious and pleasantly contaminate existence with the smile they’ve been waiting to express. It is never wrong to offer someone your cheerfulness. Practice charity of the spirit.
34. The soul is deathless and enters the spirit world where every fear has vanished in the sunlight of love. There is a heavenly wine creating communion with the divine. Everyone is a psychic essence connected to each other. The secrets of non-violence are intuitively imparted and the heart will not be wounded again. The meaning of God is the embrace of all existence in joyous celebration.
35. The bright light illuminating true happiness flickers through time from ancient corridors of spiritual history and revelation. Some sainted madman playing a flute in the moonlight in the background hush of lakeside and the tune drifted into all future souls. Everyone has the melody of joy and tranquility encoded mystically into their DNA. Learn to access the songbook of your higher self that has all the answers to every difficult question pressing the spirit at the perfect time when you need them most.
36. It is difficult but meaningful to live life in the beauty of contradiction. To have a peaceful mind in the midst of turmoil and upheaval; to have an innocent heart engaged in romantic and intricate relationships of desire, to have a pure soul in the midst of thieves and cutthroats, to have the candlelight of your spiritual awareness burn steady amidst the storm of everyday confusion and societal manipulation. One can passionately embrace all of the world’s creatures both gentle and wild without ever forsaking his higher self of elevated ideals and inner truths.
37. Thousands of years of history, of wars and plagues and famines document the human will to survive and thrive and ever evolve to higher emotional and spiritual enlightenment. Poets and prophets slowly teach the way of joy and gentleness, the path to becoming a passionate soul that completely embraces his existence to the maximum potential of happiness. The day has arrived to believe in one’s own strength to completely express and possess his compassion and love under all circumstances. Completely loving on the battlefield or in the work place, at home or walking summer city streets, never separating the spiritual from the physical, the soul from the body, ever maintaining the highest goals of self-realization during all moments of his being.
38. The source of life and all knowledge of spiritual perfection emanates from your hidden God within. Every soul is an essence fragment of the One Soul. We live and move and find our destiny in eventually attaining communion with the One. The bliss is real and the ecstasy is true and indescribable. There is no death and our true self is ever peaceful. Find yourself in the tranquility of the God within.
39. The bondage of the soul by the chains of unhappiness is a delusion of false perceptions. No liberation movement is required. The soul is free and true reality is the awareness of bliss. Abandon false perceptions and definitions of unhappiness and accept the natural state of being one with everything positive and powerful. The true nature of the human spirit is divine with all the attributes and characteristics of divinity to lay claim to. Tranquility and joyfulness is always present and all one needs to do is open the eyes of the mind and perceive reality in the cosmic design of the eternal good.
40. Discard vain books outside the window, toss the directionless compass into the trash, abandon every previous form of knowledge and trust your intuition. Within your soul knowledge supreme is kept, you are part and parcel of the Over-Soul, the one truth established in eternity. Intuition is imperishable and not restricted by boundaries of time. Intuition is the instant flash of insight that dawns without hesitation or explanation. Intuition is your God within guiding your steps into the light. Trust the light that surrounds you, the light that comes from you and belongs to you.
41. There is no knowledge greater than the knowledge of the self. Most people remain alienated strangers from whom they really are. A lifetime of not knowing their own spiritual personality and then the grave. Too busy to quietly sit in the summer grass and gaze calmly into the mirror of their soul. Only in meditation is intuition discovered and realized. Not knowing yourself is the cause of loneliness and the sense of immense meaninglessness. No real connection with another human being can ever be made until a connection is made with the self. Find yourself in meditation and intuition.
42. As the spiritual life increases, the appetite for strife and struggle decreases, an inner sweetness is manifested and lovely new music is heard. As you recede into your true self, the desire for objects of unhappiness and lust for possessions of discontent fall away and leave a genuine beauty behind. This beauty is love and it must first be planted and nurtured before harvested. You are the seed, the sewer, and the harvest. Indeed, you are the love you have always sought.
43. Attain awareness through non-concern, gain knowledge by not seeking it, find trust by trusting yourself; everything worthwhile already belongs to you when you cease to pursue that which is outside yourself, when you find the quiet place within your soul and allow all doubts and fears to subside. God provides for every sparrow and arrays the flowers of the fields with immense beauty. God will also seek your good if you believe you are part and parcel of the compassionate heart of God.
44. There is no becoming; there is no fulfilled desire waiting to dawn; there is no completed destination at the end of the journey. You have become and are divine; you are the realization of beautiful desire at this very moment and forever; the journey and the destination are one in the same: you have arrived and always were present in your mystical soul reality.
45. One day, love will carry the heart to God. Love to love will be united, mystical soul will embrace sacred spiritual destination. Friendships never cease but find expression on eternal shores where there is no suffering or disease nor accidental cruelty by otherwise gentle and compassionate people. We live in beauty and offer the world beauty and finally become nothing but beauty. We are the hands of love, the clothes of love, the agents of love, the heart of love and love transports us to God to rest forever in his sanctuary of love.

[...] Read more

poem by Uriah Hamilton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Almost Human

Ahh, ha
Im almost human, cant help feelin strange
The moon is out, I think Im gonna change
Youre so smooth and tender, a living, breathing dream
Ive got to have you, baby, Im listenin for your scream
Im almost human, Im almost a man
Im almost human, ooh
Im almost human, baby please dont run away
cause wherever you run, Ill be a scream away
Im very hungry and youre what Im thinkin of
Ooh baby, baby, baby, so hungry for your love
Im almost human, oh, almost a man
Im almost human, whoo
Im very hungry and youre what Im thinkin of
Ooh baby, baby, baby, so hungry for your love
Im almost human, Im almost a man
Im almost human, Im almost human
Im almost human, Im almost human
Im almost human, almost, almost, almost a man
Im almost human
Almost, almost, almost, almost, almost, almost human
Im almost human, Im almost human
Im almost human, almost a man
Im almost human, almost, almost, almost
Im almost human

song performed by Kiss
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!