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1 " Life's a freaking mess. In fact, I'm going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram's right, there's not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It's all a beautiful calamitous mess. It's like the day Mr. James took us into the woods and cried triumphantly, " That's it! That's it!" to the dizzying cacophony of soloing instruments trying to make music together. That is it. "
2 " War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other. "
― John Stuart Mill , Principles of Political Economy: And Chapters on Socialism
3 " The ruling classes use broken and smashed up childhoods as weaponised instruments of domination around the world. This is why the government has no incentive to end child abuse "
4 " Of course, supernatural acts are what miracles are all about. They are, after all, precisely those things that circumvent the laws of nature. A god who can create the laws of nature can presumably also circumvent them at will. Although why they would have been circumvented so liberally thousands of years ago, before the invention of modern communication instruments that could have recorded them, and not today, is still something to wonder about. "
― Lawrence M. Krauss , A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
5 " Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us. "
― Benedict XVI , Charity in Truth: Caritas in Veritate
6 " He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope's pretensions, Caesar without the legions of Caesar: without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue; if ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by the right divine, it was Mohammed, for he had all the power without its instruments and without its supports. He cared not for the dressings of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life." "
7 " The art of life is to live in the present moment and to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and expression of God himself. "
― Emmet Fox
8 " O God, I’m grateful for this gift of another beautiful day. I pray that just as You give us a new gift of life every day, may we too value it as much. May Thy love and light always show us the right path. May we always be compassionate and kind to others. May we never ignore someone in need. Bless us O God so that we become the instruments of Thy wishes. "
9 " I still believe in man in spite of man. I believe in language even though it has been wounded, deformed, and perverted by the enemies of mankind. And I continue to cling to words because it is up to us to transform them into instruments of comprehension rather than contempt. It is up to us to choose whether we wish to use them to curse or to heal, to wound or to console. "
― Elie Wiesel , Open Heart
10 " We’re only instruments of love, flowing through heaps of pain hoping one day we’d hatch a passion of our own. "
11 " Many are they that rise up against you. Many there be which say of your soul, ‘’There is no help for you.’’ But the instruments of death is prepared for your cause. "
― COMPTON GAGE
12 " The flesh surrenders itself. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not...yet, I occurred. "
― Frank Herbert , Dune Messiah (Dune, #2)
13 " All things that we ordained festival,Turn from their office to black funeral;Our instruments to melancholy bells,Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,And all things change them to the contrary. "
― William Shakespeare , Romeo and Juliet
14 " We are all instruments pulling the bows across our own lungs. Windmills, still startling in every storm. Have you ever seen a newborn blinking at the light? I wanna do that every day. I wanna know what the kite called itself when it got away, when it escaped into the night... "
― Andrea Gibson
15 " I had thought that words were instruments of precision. Now I know that they devour the world, leaving nothing in its place. "
― Steven Millhauser , Dangerous Laughter
16 " I have sent books and music there, and all / Those instruments with which high spirits call / The future from its cradle, and the past / Out of its grave, and make the present last / In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, / Folded within their own eternity. "
― Percy Bysshe Shelley , Shelley's Poetry and Prose
17 " Only Gnan (Knowledge of the Self) will give liberation. All other instruments (& practices) create bondage. "
― Dada Bhagwan
18 " ... In the discourse of today's financial backers of research, the only credible goal is power. Scientists, technicians, and instruments are purchased not to find truth, but to augment power. "
― Jean-François Lyotard , The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
19 " The scriptures are the instruments and how to use these instruments is a science itself. One goes wandering around for infinite lives because he doesn’t have the knowledge of this science! "
20 " This worldly knowledge is not called (Real) Knowledge. It is worldly knowledge. The scriptural knowledge is known as the instrumental knowledge. The knowledge about the goal [to attain Pure Soul] is Real ‘Knowledge’. Scriptures themselves are the instruments and the knowledge within the scriptures is also an instrument; whereas, the ‘knowledge’ of the Self is the goal [to attain Pure Soul]! "
