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41 " You are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can can play the 'Gloria'? No, not Bach's 'Gloria.' Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you. "
― Abraham Verghese , Cutting for Stone
42 " Islam began as a tribal religion, whereas Christianity began more as an individual or family religion. Christianity struck out from Palestine, converting one person or one family at a time. After the initial successes and conquests by Mohammed and his tribe, conversions were as much military as spiritual. Mohammed was both a political and military genius and used his success and charisma to convince the superstitious tribes around him that he had Allah on his side. As such, the sword was the instrument of persuasion. "
― Darrel Ray , Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality
43 " The best thing you can give to a child is to create an environment where the child can develop an independent mind so that he will be the man of no one and the instrument of no system! "
― Mehmet Murat ildan
44 " It never was about the musician or the instrument - it was about the laser notes in a hall of mirrors, the music itself. It was going to change the world for the better and it has. Maybe not as fast or as much as we wanted, but it has and it still will. Whether your name is Mozart, or Django Reinhardt, or Robert Johnson, or Jimi Hendrix, or whoever is next; who you are doesn't matter so long as you can open that conduit and let the music come through. It is the burning edge, whatever it sounds like and whoever is playing it. It is the noisy, messy, silly, invincible voice of life that comes through the LP on the turn-table, the transistor radio, or the Bose in your new Lexus that makes you want to get up out of whatever you are stuck in and dance. It is Dionysus and the Maenads all over again. No one can control it and I pity whoever tries. I am old now and only a house cat sunning herself in the window - but I was a tigress once, and I remember. I still remember. "
45 " In the 'Life' of George Eliot, John Walter Cross gave an intriguing account of Eliot's creative method. " She told me that, in all her best writing, there was a 'not herself' which took possession of her, and that she felt her own personality to be merely the instrument through which this spirit, as it were, was acting," Cross wrote. "
46 " Jennifer now understood the meaning of the cadence: the black and white drawing, the watercolor painting,and the notes. The cadence had at last developed into a concerto for violin, the instrument of gypsies, with a prevailing rhapsodic " leitmotif" . The final movement had revealed itself when they were at the gypsy camp. And now it was complete. "
47 " Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'? "
48 " Vera had not sensed my approach. She was peering into the instrument and turning knobs with child-like seriousness and ineptitude. It was obvious that she had never used a microscope before. I stole closer to her, and then I said, " Boo!" She jerked her head away from the eyepiece." Hello," I said." You scared me to death," she said." Sorry," I said, and I laughed.These ancient games go on and on. It's nice they do. "
49 " A martyrdom is always the design of God, for His love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. It is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, and who no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of being a martyr. "
― T.S. Eliot , Murder in the Cathedral
50 " ...you play the instrument you have. "
― Ursula K. Le Guin , The Compass Rose
51 " Either it falls on your head like a roof tile or it attaches itself to your insides like a tapeworm. Afterward, you no longer see the world in the same way. You’ve got only one thing on your mind: the thing that has taken you over, body and soul. You want to lift it so you can see what’s under it. And from that point on, you can never turn back. Besides, you’re no longer giving the orders. You think you’re in control, doing what you want to do, but it’s not true. You’re nothing but the instrument of your own frustrations. For you, life and death come down to the same thing, Somewhere, you must have renounced everything that could have given you a chance of returning to earth, to the real world. You’re an extraterrestrial. You live in a kind of limbo, stalking houris and unicorns. As for this world, you don’t even want to hear about it anymore. You’re just waiting for the right moment to cross the threshold. The only way to get back what you’ve lost or to fix what you’ve screwed up -- in other words, the only way to make something of your life -- is to end it with a flourish. … The way you see it, the day of your funeral procession will be the day when you’re exalted in other people’s eyes. "
― Yasmina Khadra
52 " Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch what make you go beyond the norm. "
53 " Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. "
54 " We are but as the instrument of Heaven. Our work is not design but destiny. "
55 " Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. "
56 " I like guitar. It just turned out that it's the instrument I learned to play. I have a lot of respect for it, and I'm learning more and more every day. For me, the classic band setup - guitars, drums, bass - will stay fresh forever. I don't know. I'm still into it. "
57 " But I think that any young drummer starting out today should get himself a great teacher and learn all there is to know about the instrument that he wants to play. "
58 " Yes, people pull the trigger - but guns are the instrument of death. Gun control is necessary, and delay means more death and horror. "
59 " Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die! "