We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris- ing generation. I am an oldster myself and might be expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have been far more impressed by the bad manners of par- ents to children than by those of children to parents. Who has not been the embarrassed guest at family meals where the father or mother treated their grown-up offspring with an incivility which, offered to any other young people, would simply have termi- nated the acquaintance? Dogmatic assertions on mat- ters which the children understand and their elders don't, ruthless interruptions, flat contradictions, ridicule of things the young take seriously some- times of their religion insulting references to their friends, all provide an easy answer to the question "Why are they always out? Why do they like every house better than their home?" Who does not prefer civility to barbarism?
C.S. Lewis
Related Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move a... PAULO COELHO The Genius Of The Crowd there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the avera... CHARLES BUKOWSKI Why Not You? Today, many will awaken with a fresh sense of inspiration. Why not you? STEVE MARABOLI He was a friend to man, and lived in a house by the side of the road. HOMER There are hermit so... SAM WALTER FOSS BEWARE OF THOSE Beware of those who are bitter, For they will never allow you T... SUZY KASSEM I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter; power was on the side of t... ANONYMOUS -A Word On Statistics- Out of every hundred people, those who always kn... WISłAWA SZYMBORSKA
Before Jerusalem
Now they've come before Jerusalem. Passions, avar... CONSTANTINOS P. CAVAFIS Readin' all those books makes me wonder whether anyone ever dies natural." " They... RICHMAL CROMPTON Here's to the kids who are different, The kids who don't always get A's, The k... DIGBY WOLFE who knows if the moon's a balloon,coming out of a keen city in the sky--filled with pretty... E.E. CUMMINGS Have you noticed how the cleverest people at school are not those who make it in life? Pe... PAUL ARDEN And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them ... MARY OLIVER You might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell the brave at heart, Their daring, nerve, and c... J.K. ROWLING SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain an... W.H. AUDEN From birth to death and further on As we were born and introduced into this world, W... VIRGIL KALYANA MITTATA IORDACHE Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself... KAHLIL GIBRAN We grow old judging others And ourselves Until life humbles us And makes scared child... KAMAND KOJOURI BLACK AND WHITE I was born into A religion of Light, But with so many oth... SUZY KASSEM And I — my head oppressed by horror — said: "Master, what is it that I hear? Who are t... DANTE ALIGHIERI the lost women I need to know their names those women I would have walked with, LUCILLE CLIFTON What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why is... CONSTANTINOS P. CAVAFIS So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel: First, Comp... THOMAS HOBBES He who becomes the slave of habit, who follows the same routes every day, who never change... MARTHA MEDEIROS Yawn... I believe that I love sleep much more than anybody I’ve ever met. CHARLES BUKOWSKI One must have the courage to give children up; One must have the courage to give children up; <... JACQUES CHARDONNE I don’t know why everyone is still trying to find out whether heaven and hell exist. KAMAND KOJOURI Nothing can escape death. Not even the Sun. Not even the Earth. Not even the unive... HINA YU They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us ... KAMAND KOJOURI Discipline I am old and I have had more than my share of good and bad. I'... MERYL GORDON Who has not hoped To outrage an enemy's dignity? Who has not been swept By the wish to hurt... JACOB BRONOWSKI Arab children, Corn ears of the future, You will break our chains, Kill the opium in ... نزار قباني Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to... LAO TZU ...feel the fierce way desire tourniquets itself around you and clings Clubland... CLINT CATALYST Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind. Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bar... VERA NAZARIAN I dream that I have found us both again, With spring so many strangers' lives away, And we... THOMAS PYNCHON (You do not have to be shamed in my closeness. Family are the people who must never make you feel as... JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL Dear Mr. Schneider, I attended your elementary Schoo... SUZY KASSEM THE SILENT PEOPLE Some people are so rude, Living their lives with no concern for ot... GIORGE LEEDY Of course there are mothers, squeezing their breasts dry, pawning their bodies, shedd... MARGARET ATWOOD FORBIDDEN Pain without learning is forbidden, waking up one day not knowing what to do, JOSé N. HARRIS I don’t have any fancy story, about the way we fell in love. It was that one awkward mov... JASLEEN KAUR GUMBER That's a revealing question because most Americans simply know very little about a complex, immensel... RICHARD BLUMENTHAL I promise you I will try harder to be better. I have battled with things ... TYLER KNOTT GREGSON Why We Tell Stories I Because we used to have leaves and on damp days ... LISEL MUELLER I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, Eyes; I wonder if It weighs like Mine,<... EMILY DICKINSON I wish in the city of your heart you would let me be the street where you walk when you ar... ROBLEY WILSON I am who I say I am, I'm not some fantasy of how you think you think you know or who ... JAMES HOWE I'm a Kashmiri , I live in a rogue place. I'm surrounded by conformist , boot licking... BINYAMIN GULZAR How they are all about, these gentlemen In chamberlains' apparel, stocked and laced, Like ... RAINER MARIA RILKE The Mistake With the mistake your life goes in reverse. Now you can see exactl... JAMES FENTON An excerpt from: “Hypothetically Speaking” By Anthony T. Hincks ... ANTHONY T. HINCKS They're both convinced that a sudden passion joined them. Such certainty is beautiful, WISłAWA SZYMBORSKA Why I Cannot Relate "What do you think of this piece?" Someone will ask About some w... KYLEE CARRIER The Children's Hour Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning t... HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW While I slept you stood in the colorful night market with pyramids of bright fruit pi... BRENDA HILLMAN In your hands The dog, the donkey, surely they know They are alive. Who would ... MARY OLIVER It happens all the time in heaven, And some day It will begin to happen Again o... شمس الدین محمد حافظ شیرازی O smile, going where? O upturned look: new, warm, receding surge of the heart--; alas, we ... RAINER MARIA RILKE Altruism is for those who can't endure their desires. There's a world as ambigu... STEPHEN DUNN I watch my loved ones weep with sorrow, death's silent torment of no tomorrow. I feel th... C.L. WILSON Free Shoes The pairs of shoes stand in rows, polished and jet, like coffins... SHARON OLDS indelible waiting l'art poetique "..I will wait for the night to chase me..." I sit o... ADELHEID MANEFELDT Whose boys are those with the holes in their pants?" I cringed. How would my grandpa answ... ELIZABETH BYLER YOUNTS may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living whatever they si... E.E. CUMMINGS And now it is said of me That my love is nothing because I have borne no children, Or bec... JAMES WRIGHT Blue Planet Phenomenon. she’s from the pink planet called Constellation he’s f... R.M. ROMARNEY The Scholars "Bald heads forgetful of their sins, Old, learned, respectable bald he... W.B. YEATS Soeur Marie Emelie" Soeur Marie Emelie is little and very old: her eyes are ony... CARYLL HOUSELANDER Nell did not imagine that Constable Moore wanted to get into a detailed discussion of recent events,... NEAL STEPHENSON More than being human, we need peace and love. More than being strong and capable, we nee... NURUDEEN USHAWU It was a completely different time for me. Now, the children MICHAEL WALKER Wanting to Die Since you ask, most days I cannot remember. I walk in my clothing, u... ANNE SEXTON OLYMPAS: There is one doubt. When souls attain Such an unimagined gain Shall n... ALEISTER CROWLEY Die slowly He who becomes the slave of habit, who follows the same routes every day,... PABLO NERUDA Enter, stranger, but take heed Of what awaits the sin of greed, For those who take, but do... J.K. ROWLING THE UNFORGIVEN Tell me if you've ever had to deal with these kinds of people: ... SUZY KASSEM There will always be those who say you are too young and delicate to make anything happen ... CLEMENTINE VON RADICS They were Catholic, my lovers, All in an access of crossing themselves, Partic... SHAY CAROLINE But where do you live mostly now?" With the lost boys." Who are they?" They are the c... J.M. BARRIE BLESSINGS ARE IMMEASURABLE You can Lose a child Or a parent, The lov... SUZY KASSEM On Pleasure Pleasure is a freedom-song, But it is not freedom. It is the... KAHLIL GIBRAN It's not easy, but do it anyway It's not easy to love, when you get resentment in re... HENNA SOHAIL It's not easy, but do it anyway It's not easy to love, when you get resentment in re... HENNA SOHAIL Don’t pack out ______________ To some people, you make life bright When you d... ISRAELMORE AYIVOR The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I... THEODORE ROETHKE I saw thee once - only once - years ago: I must not say how many - but not many. It was a ... EDGAR ALLAN POE I have many lovers. Where ever I look, I find them. There is no place devoid of them. ANSUL NOOR Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise Hath chid down all the majesty of England; WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Violinists wear the imprint on their necks with pride For they are the players of harmony. KAMAND KOJOURI I have been hanging here headless for so long that the body has forgotten w... CHARLES BUKOWSKI It has often been said there’s so much to be read, you never can cram all those wor... DR. SEUSS Those who are weak don't fight. Those who are stronger might fight for an hour. Those... BERTOLT BRECHT Ay, that I had not done a thousand more. Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think, Few ... WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Looking for Your Face From the beginning of my life I have been looking for your fac... JALALUDDIN MEVLANA RUMI Not a believer in the mosque am I, Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I. I am not the pur... BULLEH SHAH Jesus in the Temple of God in Jerusalem Matthew 21 12: AND JESUS WENT INTO THE... SWAMI DHYAN GITEN The dead do not need aspirin or sorrow, I suppose. but they might need rain... CHARLES BUKOWSKI Make a memory with your children, Spend some time to show you care; Toys and trinkets can't ... ELAINE HARDT ... bright young men of disheveled appearance, often with sunken glowing eyes, can be seen sitt... JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM
More C.S. Lewis
Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, ... C.S. LEWIS Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't mer... C.S. LEWIS There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. C.S. LEWIS The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, ... C.S. LEWIS The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are C.S. LEWIS The fundamental laws are in the long run merely statements that every event is itself and not some d... C.S. LEWIS I have said that she had no face; but that meant she had a thousand faces C.S. LEWIS Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of ... C.S. LEWIS My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this ide... C.S. 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LEWIS Even if the two lovers are mature and experienced people who know that broken hearts heal in the end... C.S. LEWIS Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need... C.S. LEWIS Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping ... C.S. LEWIS When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has ... C.S. LEWIS It is no disparagement to the garden to say it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fru... C.S. LEWIS Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. C.S. LEWIS While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwh... C.S. LEWIS Very few modern people think Friendship a love of comparable value or even a love at all. C.S. LEWIS It has actually become very necessary in our time to rebut the theory that every firm and serious fr... C.S. LEWIS We are all receiving Charity. There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. C.S. LEWIS The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It w... C.S. LEWIS We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he "wants a... C.S. LEWIS Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude o... C.S. LEWIS Affection would not be affection if it was loudly and frequently expressed; to produce it in public ... C.S. LEWIS But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies ha... C.S. LEWIS In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself ... C.S. LEWIS Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for Go... C.S. LEWIS All that is not eternal is eternally out of date. C.S. LEWIS For us of course the shared activity and therefore the companionship on which Friendship supervenes ... C.S. LEWIS Those who cannot conceive of Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration ... C.S. LEWIS In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation into which ... C.S. LEWIS The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. IT ... C.S. LEWIS We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. They they become ... C.S. LEWIS Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appre... C.S. LEWIS We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for m... C.S. LEWIS A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. ... C.S. LEWIS [To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense i... C.S. LEWIS It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted crea... C.S. LEWIS I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you wan... C.S. LEWIS I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but becaus... C.S. LEWIS God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love ... C.S. LEWIS We were talking of DRAGONS, Tolkien and I In a Berkshire bar. The big workman Who had sa... C.S. LEWIS Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be ... C.S. LEWIS Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll h... C.S. LEWIS If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as... C.S. LEWIS Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make ev... C.S. LEWIS The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where th... C.S. LEWIS There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will ... C.S. LEWIS Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden ... C.S. LEWIS There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those t... C.S. LEWIS I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as... C.S. LEWIS You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know ... C.S. LEWIS I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looki... C.S. LEWIS Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither. C.S. LEWIS There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civil... C.S. LEWIS The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea... C.S. LEWIS At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or ... C.S. LEWIS As Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may thin... C.S. LEWIS Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our nat... C.S. LEWIS Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities. C.S. LEWIS In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give. C.S. LEWIS Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth?-Or at least, "Do you care about the s... C.S. LEWIS Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist... C.S. LEWIS People who bore one another should meet seldom; people who interest one another, often. C.S. LEWIS Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of ... C.S. LEWIS The mark of Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but t... C.S. LEWIS I have no duty to be anyone's Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no sh... C.S. LEWIS He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no... C.S. LEWIS I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ... C.S. LEWIS A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun... C.S. LEWIS We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the b... C.S. LEWIS To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. C.S. LEWIS The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good be... C.S. LEWIS If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explana... C.S. LEWIS Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if y... C.S. LEWIS You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another. C.S. LEWIS When the two people who thus discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, ... C.S. LEWIS In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates o... C.S. LEWIS Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one ... C.S. LEWIS Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no ... C.S. LEWIS Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. C.S. LEWIS The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts. C.S. LEWIS I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up o... C.S. LEWIS There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he... C.S. LEWIS A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking d... C.S. LEWIS They tell me, Lord, that when I seem To be in speech with you. Since but one voice is heard, i... C.S. LEWIS Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences,... C.S. LEWIS Friendship, then, like the other natural loves, is unable to save itself. In reality, because it is ... C.S. LEWIS The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I wa... C.S. LEWIS Once when I had remarked on the affection quite often found between cat and dog, my friend replied, ... C.S. LEWIS Alone among unsympathetic companions, I hold certain views and standards timidly, half ashamed to av... C.S. LEWIS Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike t... C.S. LEWIS No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. C.S. LEWIS And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, am... C.S. LEWIS You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. C.S. LEWIS Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon hi... C.S. LEWIS I desired dragons with a profound desire. C.S. LEWIS What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on wh... C.S. LEWIS Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole w... C.S. LEWIS You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of... C.S. LEWIS But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do ... C.S. LEWIS You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect th... C.S. LEWIS Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Ind... C.S. LEWIS People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot ... C.S. LEWIS The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not. C.S. LEWIS We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities, and anyone who has watched gluttons shov... C.S. LEWIS I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but becaus... C.S. LEWIS In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A y... C.S. LEWIS Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies t... C.S. LEWIS Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. C.S. LEWIS I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give... C.S. LEWIS Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he... C.S. LEWIS You are told to love your neighbour as yourself. How do you love yourself? When I look into my own m... C.S. LEWIS We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, Blessed are they that... C.S. LEWIS If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explan... C.S. LEWIS All joy emphasises our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are... C.S. LEWIS A faith in culture is as bad as a faith in religion; both expressions imply a turning away from thos... C.S. LEWIS Faith... is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted, despite your changing moods. C.S. LEWIS What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong tu... C.S. LEWIS If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precis... C.S. LEWIS Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead ... C.S. LEWIS Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth, and you will get neither. C.S. LEWIS “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we ... C.S. LEWIS To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possib... C.S. LEWIS If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of t... C.S. LEWIS Humans are amphibians -- half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, b... C.S. LEWIS I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of Admin. The gre... C.S. LEWIS The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epic... C.S. LEWIS Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense ... C.S. LEWIS The thing is to rely on God. The time will come when you will regard all this misery as a small pric... C.S. LEWIS We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walk... C.S. LEWIS