It looks more and more like we will be spending Christmas beneath the Eiffel Tower. It goes without saying that I would rather be spending Christmas in Frankfurt, Germany. As Christmas Eve turns into Christmas Day, right at the stroke of midnight, we can step outside and tilt our faces up at the moon, taste the snowflakes on our lips and imagine they are angels gently kissing us. Perhaps it could really come true, if even just for an instant. If a miracle such as our Lord’s birth could occur on a night like this, then it is no great feat for our spirits to meet. The forms of things, although by their own nature they are conveyed to the sense of humans and other beings, can however, while they are in the air, receive a certain impression from the Heavens, by means of which, as also by the fitness deriving from the recipient’s disposition, they may be transmitted to the senses of one recipient rather than another. And hence it is possible, naturally, without any kind of superstition, and through the mediation of no other spirit, for an individual to convey one’s thoughts to someone else in a very short time, however far apart they may be from each other; and, though the time in which this is done cannot be exactly measured, it will inevitably happen within twenty-four hours. And I know how to do this and have done it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
The highest of the virtues is theoretical wisdom, and this is an activity of which humans are capable of because of something divine in their nature—in its exercise each individual approximates to the life of God; and for a human, as for God, one’s highest function is thought. This thought will be about objects which cannot be other than what they are and so never change. It is a common belief that telepathic communication can be achieve by means of the human spirits conveyed in the air; here the spirit, imprinted with the sender’s thoughts, is precisely directed to one recipient by means of some astrological operation. The message receives its direct impression from the Heavens, and the operation by which this impression is given might nevertheless require the assistance of a planetary angel. It has been rejected that Christ died for the elect alone, so think it is more logical that God has irresistible grace. And also believed that saints have sufficient powers, and it would not seem logical that they could fall from grace. Salvation depends on the cooperation of the human will, which is sufficiently strong to overcome the temptations of evil. Many of our ideas, in relation to God, we apprehend these ideas in God’s mind without any mediation. These ideas are the eternal archetypes of all possible Worlds, and their content is primarily mathematical. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
These ideas represent the created World in that they make it known to us. This realm of ideas is called Intelligible Extension, and this comprehends the essence of extended objects, but not the existence (which depends on God’s will rather than his intellect). We can believe that material objects exist, but not know it, and while such objects may be the causal occasion of certain sensation in us, the proper objects of knowledge are the eternal Idea. So many of these fantastic ideas like the Internet, cars, computers, air planes, and architecture come from God and I suppose that he elects people who are responsible enough to make them come into fruition. The object of the learning and refining process is indeed reform. The development of the individual through the right use of literature and knowledge is the pursuit of total perfection and is the ultimate objective. Culture is taught to humans to conceive of true human perfection as a harmonious process, developing all sides of our humanity; and as general perfection, developing all parts of our society so that we can enlarge and increase the volume of the human stream sweeping thitherwards. People should be led, not by their class spirit, but by a general humane spirit, by the low of human perfection. Each member of this human remnant, maintaining one’s own best self by the process of culture and seeking to awake in others the best self now obscured by the stock notions and habits of the group, representing the best self as society as a whole. It is this best self that the state must represent and express. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
When we realize God’s hand of favor is upon us, we will accomplish our dreams faster than we ever thought possible. Do not go around talking about how big your problems are, or how you will never make it. God’s gracious hands are on us. We have the blessing of the grace of God, so do not dwell on things that are lacking or less than perfect. Anything that one wants to achieve will happen by the power of God. Describe what it looks like when the gracious hands of God are upon you. Think about how God might bring opportunities across your path that are greater than you can imagine. Try claiming blessings instead of merely longing for them. Every calling is great when greatly pursued. God supplies perfectly measured grace to meet the requirements of the godly. For daily requirements, there is some daily graces; for sudden requirements, sudden grace; for overwhelming requirements, overwhelming grace. God’s grace is given wonderfully, but not wastefully; freely but not foolishly; bountifully but not blindly. Father, thank You that Your gracious hand is upon me. I know I have an advantage. I have an edge. Other people may not see it. They may try to push me down and disqualify me. However, that is okay. I know the truth. I have the favor of God. I am well able to fulfill my destiny. #RandolpHarris 4 of 5
I am a firm believer in the magical power of words, characters, figures and incantations. I suspect you are an erudite and neither unskilled not silly. To achieve the results of the imagination, one must be a suitable nature or disposition, namely, in a state of receptivity due to innocence; the operator must believe whole-heartedly in the efficacy of the words one is saying, only then will one’s imagination, and thence one’s spirits and bodies, be transformed. How you pray determines what kind of life you will live. If you only pray small, ordinary, get-by prayers, then you will live that kind of life. However, when you have the boldness to ask God for extraordinary things, you ask Him to open doors that might otherwise never open. You can ask Him for great success and to restore a relationship that looks over and done. When you pray for extraordinary things, you will see the greatness of God’s power. Ask God to perform miracles in your life. God’s angels can take over functions planets, so ask God for your dreams because it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. God wants to give you the desires of your heart, but you have to have the faith of a child and be willing to ask. What miracle are you going to ask God for today? Pray for great things, expect great things, work for great things, but above all believe in miracles. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
I was punished for reading Auguste Comte in church. My Bible is one that I have had since my First Communion. It is a slim little volume bound in limp brown leather with pages as thin as dragonfly wings, so it is the perfect size for my duffel bag. My name is scrawled in the frontispiece in round, childish letters, and I have a lock of my baby hair tucked somewhere in the Book if Ruth, so it cannot help but remind me of home. Every individual is absolutely bound to obey the political authority established in one’s country because that authority enjoys by divine decree the powers originally conferred on Adam at the creation over his wife, his children, and their descendants eternally. From the view of the Old Testament, the Bible is of course is patriarchal and display the importance of hierarchy in reference to age, and explains that all humans are naturally—physiologically—related to each other. Society is a family, descended from one single male individual. All people born, and always remain, unfree and unequal, and consent is irrelevant to political association. Political society is also universal, for there are no humans who are not descended from Adam. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
A prepolitical state of nature makes no sense at all, nor does any idea of a contract to replace such a condition by political society. Property as well as political power is distributed according to God’s patriarchal decrees and belongs absolutely to the person who inherits it or to whom it has been given. I also brought along my battered copy of Huck Finn, more for comfort than reading, as I could probably recite the whole book verbatim (with the exception of a few words). However, that dog-eared book has been the first thing in my suitcase when packing for anything stressful or upheaving—hospital visits (of which, as you know, there have been more than a few), first ocean voyage, going away to college, moving to the apartment. I take it out, read it straightaway, and it immediately makes me feel that I am back curled in the green armchair in my parents’ library as it is endowed with a remarkable capacity for sympathetic understanding and exemplary brilliance and clarity, as well as the ability to unravel cultural and historical themes and subtlest ramifications to illuminate and reconstruct society. It only stands to reason that I would bring it along here. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Perhaps it is superstitious, but I also view the book somewhat as a lucky charm. My mother brought it to read aloud when I was feeling physical unwell. We finished reading the book and then, the next day my fever broke. I have always somehow associated that collective sigh of relief with Hunk Finn. You may rightly wonder, since I am invincible, why do I need a lucky charm? Well, I am afraid. For the first time in my life I am really afraid of something tangible. I was fine on the boat ride over, even eager for what awaited me in France. What I overlooked, though, was what I would find in London. I found something worth coming back for. I found you. The boy who never shied away from any daredevilry, brought to his knees by a woman he only just met. However, a woman she is! When you stepped off the train and that shaft of Sunlight found its way through the glass in the roof to set you aglow, even an atheist would have seen the finger of God in that. You have a phenomenal World Spirit. Even after you stepped into the shadows, you glowed like a yellow diamond in the sky. You spoke, and I heard a chorus of seraphim. You laid your hand on my arm when we were leaving, but I felt the touch of fairy wings. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
I laid my eyes on you, there was that shaft of Sunlight, and I was suddenly terrified. Terrified you would disappear in a cloud of bubbles, terrified I might be hit by limousine in the next instant, terrified the World would end before our World had even begun. Did you know that human evolution had reached a stage in which the brain alone continues to evolve; ultimately, a level is achieved at which the individual’s brain continues to develop after one’s birth. The process, which necessitated a period of prolonged infancy accompanied by the evolution of strong parental affection, provided the physical setting for the evolution of the resulting family clans into society; for the origin of morality in the altruism demanded by family care; and for cultural progress, through the enhanced receptivity of yet developing minds. Your soul is similar to musical consonance. When I am around you I feel animated. The emotions and thoughts from your beautiful music and singing corresponds with my soul. Although visual impressions are in a way pure, they lack the impressions of motion and move the soul only slightly. Smell, taste, and touch are entirely material, and rather titillate the sense-organs than penetrate the depths of the soul. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
When I hear you sing and listen to the melodious rhythm, the musical sound by the movement of the air moves the body; by emotion it affects the senses and at the same time the soul: by meaning it works on the mind: finally, by the very movement of subtle air it penetrates strongly: by its contemperation it flows smoothly: by the conformity of its quality it floods us with a wonderful pleasure: by its nature, both spiritual and material, it at once seizes, and claims as its own, a being and one’s entirety. Hearing and seeing one in person, then, both puts us in more direct contact with external reality, since the sound and physical elements consists of aerial movements which can actually occur in our spirit, whereas a picture of letter merely reproduces surface images of things; and it powerfully affects the whole of us—as the musical sound by working on the spirit, which links body and soul, and the lyrics by working on the mind or intellect. When I am near you, my whole moral and emotional life consists of actions of the body and motions of the spirit and soul. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Not until we were in the limousine and you tumbled nearly onto my lap as we edged that corner was I truly aware that you were more than just ethereal. My sink memorized every place you touched, and that feeling did not diminish for the rest of the afternoon. I do not know if that one little incident made as much of an impression on you are it did me, but it reminded me whom I was with. Not an unreachable angel, but a lady I know better than I know the lines in my own palm. I was still terrified, though. I did not want to make a wrong move. The human soul is not merely the end product, but the goal of the great evolutionary process contrived by God. Nature is not morally indifferent, but on the contrary, evolution exists purely for the sake of moral end. Science offers confirmation of the existence of God and immortality. Remember that song is the most powerful imitator of all things. For it imitates the intentions and affections of the soul, and speech, and also reproduces bodily gestures, human movements and moral characters, and imitates and acts everything so powerfully that it immediately provokes both the singer and hearer to imitate and perform the same thing. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
There is a spiritual existence in musical and it speaks a truth through its influence, living a whole which transcends the logical laws of thought. Reason loses itself in the antinomies when attempting to fathom this whole; but through direct religious experience, one can perceive the integral truth and can reconcile, superrationally, such contradictions as those between Divine Unity and Trinity, free will and predestination, universal salvation and eternal damnation. Thus, music must never take its departure from spiritual experience. The mystical and personal character of cognition, gives much attention to occult phenomena. Musically moved air is alive, like a disembodied human spirit, and therefore naturally has the most powerful effect possible on the hearer’s spirit, and makes all created beings are consubstantial with one another. In cognition, the knower escapes from one’s isolation and, contravening the logical law of identity, one achieves identity with rhythms and melodies, which are sounds similar to moral character, while flavors, colours and scents are secret sympathies. God put something in you to give you an advantage—His favor, His blessing. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
There is something about you that makes you stand out, something that draws opportunity, somethings that causes you to overcome obstacles, to accomplish dreams. Stoic in origin, which postulates a cosmic spirit (spiritus mundi) flowing through the whole of the sensible Universe, and thus providing an influence between the Heavenly bodies and the sublunary World. It is like you transmit powers to its body. There is a very subtle body; as it were not body and almost soul. Or again, as it were not soul and almost body. Its power contains very little Earthly nature, but more watery, still more aerial and the maximum of fiery and starry nature…It vivifies everything everywhere and is the immediate cause of all generation and motion. It is not just your talent, your education, or your hard work. This cosmic spirit, which is also that of the alchemist, is like enough to ours for us to be able to nourish and purify our own spirit by attracting and absorbing it. Undoubtedly, the World lives and breathes, and we may also absorb its breath. It is God almighty breathing in your direction. You could call it the favor of God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
The past three years, we have let things fall as they may, and love happened. Do we need to plan out what comes next? Do we even need to know? The soul may rightly be the center of nature, the middle term of all things, the bond and juncture of the Universe. The soul is in a gradual ascent toward higher degrees of truth and being, an ascent that finally culminates in the immediate knowledge and vision of God. This knowledge represents the ultimate goal of human life and existence—in it alone the unrest of our mind is satisfied—and all other modes and degrees of human life and knowledge must be understood as more or less direct and conscious preparations for this in. If you only knew how you keep me going, how you keep me waking up, simply because I know you are thinking of me. You reminded me that I am not just a lonely recluse. I have something more not. I have you. The ascent of the soul towards God is accomplished with the help of two wings, the intellect and the will; accordingly, the knowledge of God is accompanied and paralleled on each level by the love of God; and the ultimate vision, by an act of enjoyment. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7
Do you really think that you need to prove yourself to me? Do you think you have to do anything but continue to be there? That is all I ask. Just be there. Love for another human being is merely a preparation, more or less conscious, for the love of God, which constitutes the real goal and true content of human desire and is turned toward persons and things by virtue of the reflected splendor of divine goodness and beauty that may appear in them. So much has happened here. Can you think of anything more perfect for me? I finally feel as if I have found my purpose in life, and I can hardly wait to get there. Only recently, I offered my heart up to you, tentatively, hesitantly, not trusting my own feelings but trusting you implicitly. And now you have trampled all over it in your haste to run off. All I wanted was for you to be there. There can never be two friends; there must always be three—two human beings and one God. God alone is the indissoluble bond and perpetual guardian of any true friendship for a true lover loves the other person solely for the sake of God. True love and friendship between several persons is derived from the individual love of God; it is thus reduced to the basic phenomenon of the inner ascent, wait for me my life. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7
Love may still seem a strange and remote concept, some people reach out, and grab for whatever they can hold on to, trying to catch any bit of happiness they can. As if life really works that way. That is how one sets oneself up to be shattered, and I was. No one could stop the choices I made. I had to see if ghosts still drifted here the way they always drift around Edinburgh. Once, too long ago, I fell in live. Unexpected, heady love. I do not want to let this person go because their soul bloomed with beauty. I did not feel so alone. However, it was not the time or place for new love. Emotions can be confused, people can disappear, minds can change. Perhaps I was wrong to fall in love so suddenly. What happened all those years ago, what happened? It cost me a lot. If I could do it differently, would I? Make different choices that would keep my family together? Make different choices that would keep me from choosing the wrong person? Those few bright years of beauty, and the fumbling loneliness, was not worth it. I could have spent my time doing something different, focusing on something else. In the light of this relationship, I realize it was not love. It was just a situation I got stuck in out of concern for someone else and it gained a new life. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7
We all face situations that seem impossible. It is easy to become discouraged and think that things will never work out. However, God has already written every day of our lives in His book. He knew exactly when that setback would occur, and the good news is He has already arranged a comeback. Before we have problems, God already has arranged the solution. He is going before us right now and preparing the next chapter of our lives. If one stays in faith and keeps the right attitude, one will enter a better chapter, a chapter with greater success and greater fulfillment. When we receive the word of God in our spirit, we will come out of trouble quicker than we realize. God is fighting our battles for us. A person who believes in God will get well quicker than they think and the recovery will amaze the doctors. When we walk by faith and not by sight, this allows one to accomplish one’s dreams much faster than we think. Supernatural miracles will come the way of those who love God and have faith. God gives people the strength and power, as He is the one who holds our future in His hands. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7
You have only just left, are probably settling down in your seat, listening to the train rumble out of London. I am sorry I did not see you to the station. Truly I am. I had no faith in myself. I knew if I had gone to the station with you, I would have held on to you and not let you go. Now, though, I do regret not going, not getting one more chance to see your dear face. I have to admit that, once the tears dried, I was quite angry with you. I suppose I thought I could somehow convince you to stay. If I gave all my love to you, you would not be able to leave. Everything about these past nine days was person. I know that you are in love with me. Never doubt that. Three years of deliberate word choices, neat turns of the phrase, how you looked at me with extra care. I know I had no reason to worry about our meeting. Yet I did. However, those poems I wrote by dim candlelight, as birds roost in the thatch above. I wipe stinging eyes to read your letters, crouched by the smoky swirl of the peat fire. When your eyes met mine across the fire, all my fears melted away. You saw the real me. Now I know my dreams are the stuff of more than imagination. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7
To see you in the flesh, in colour, is more than I could ever hope for. Did you know your eyes are the exact same blue as the Autumn sky? And you are so much taller than I would have guessed from your photos. Your hair is shorter, yet still invited fingers through all those sandy curls. You seemed so shy when you met me at the Castle, almost as if you did not know me at all. And I could not believe that I could not thin of more than tend words to say to you over lunch. I was so nervous, though, dining at my very first restaurant. So many people, so many forks, and not an oatcake in sight. However, when we walked back to the apartment, when you stopped my words with a kiss that left me breathless, that is when I saw the person I love. That is when I saw the fearless individual who stole my heart. Waking up and seeing that funny startled look in your eyes each morning to find me still there. Falling asleep in your arms with our drowsy conversation in the dark. I collected each word to string together on my lonely nights back. I know you had to leave. Even after all that, even after me, you had to leave. And I hate myself for hating it. I hate myself for wasting a single second of our precious time wishing things could be different. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7
Of course, I could not tell you any of this in person. I could not say much at all. The very sound of our voices was so…unusual. So banal. I confess I could not wait to get back to my notepaper and pen to tell you how I felt. And to tell you how my mind is collaborating with my heart and my body to make me miss you unbelievably, more than I thought I could. I love you. Stay safe. Stay safe for me. Switch over into faith. Get in agreement with God. Those obstacles trying to hold you back do not have a chance. Nothing can stand against our God. The LORD will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. The hotel seems so big and lonely without you (does the room echo or is it just my imagination?). The scent of the oranges lingers in the air and I swear I can still see the shape of you in the mattress. As lovely the hotel is, I shall not be too sad to leave. It is not as lovely when you are not here. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7
Last night, I sat outside the cottage, watching the moon rise, notebook and pencil on my lap. The garden smelled like foxglove and honeysuckle, with, of course, the tangy scent of the sea. It was even cool enough that I was not bothered much by the midges. My son brought me out a thermos flask of tea before he went to bed. I stayed out all night. I had my hot tea and my notebook. Who could want for anything more? The night seemed so alive, so poignant, one of those Scottish nights that make you understand why some still believe in spirits and wee folk. The whole Universe is spiritual in character, the phenomenal World of physics being merely the external manifestation of this spiritual reality. That which to itself is psychical (relating to the human soul or mind; mental) is to others physical. Physics requires us to regard atoms only as centers of force or energy; it is not necessary to suppose them to be material or extended. These atoms are only the simplest elements in a spiritual hierarchy leading up to God. When God planned out your life, He lined up the right people, the right breaks, and the right opportunities. He said yes to that clean bill of health and yes to that promotion. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7
However, keep in mind, you have to sometimes experienced denial of opportunities before you find that right situation for you. Each level of this hierarchy includes all those levels beneath it, so that God contains the totality of spirits. Consciousness is an essential feature of all that exists, but this assertion does not mean that every physical entity or phenomenon has its own soul. When my father came out to do the milking in the morning, he found me fast asleep on the bench beside the house, “all covered in dew like a fairy,” he said. Now you can see where I get my poetry! Only certain systems, namely, organic wholes, give evidence of soul are the systematic coherence and conformity to law exhibited in the behavior of organic wholes. The Earth is our mother, as such an organic besouled whole. The stars and the physical Universe as a whole are also bodies of this kind. God is the soul of the Universe; He is to the system of nature as that system is to itself. Entities which exhibit the sort of order that our own bodies do may therefore be assumed to be alive and inwardly spiritual as we are. Get up every morning knowing you are anointed. You are equipped. You are empowered. You have everything you need to fulfill your destiny. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7
I have your picture propped up on my desk as I am writing this, and I am trying to imagine you reading my articles after they are published. Your photographs do not do you justice. I do not think I need to tell you how lovely you look to me. Immortality is based on the observation that many individual experiences which are forgotten or unnoticed may later be recalled into consciousness. If the soul as a whole is treated on the analogy of its individual experiences, then, since these do not vanish utterly but often return in the form of memory, the soul itself may likewise continue to exist in God’s memory. Mind and body are not parallel aspects of some third substance, they are identical. The persistence of mind is therefore no more difficult to entertain than the persistence of the material Universe itself, which is only the outward manifestation of an all-inclusive soul. Right now, God is breathing on your dreams. He is will increase your talent, your resources, and your creativity. This is not the time to shrink back in fear. This is the time to be moved forward in faith. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7
God knows what He is doing in your life. Maybe a relationship ended, or you were passed over for a promotion, or you lost a loved one. I will never give up on my dream. I know favor is coming. Healing is coming. Promotion is coming. I postponed my wedding and Lara was furious. I told her that it was not fitting to go ahead with the festivities, not with Harry so sick. I do not think she believed it was my only reason. Truth is, I do not either. Mrs. Wendy always said, “if you have a long engagement, it means you have something to think about. An engagement is not the same as marriage.” I did not expect her to be content with they. Do they not say that bad luck comes in threes? If Harry’s illness is the first, and my canceled wedding the second, the third has to be that I was asked to not come back to my teaching position next year. They were very polite about it, but, essentially I was canned. It seems the parents took issue with some atrocities happening in my personal life. Mommy and Daddy did not want their precious darlings to know what a horrible place the World really is. Here I am, trying to educate, and I get sacked for doing it too well. “Stick to the periodic table,” I was told. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7
Harry rented an apartment after coming back to the States, and I have moved in with him. It is like being in England with him all over again. The other good thing in my life is you. I did not realize the stores of my antics and asinine exploits were so important to you—my Albatross is afloat in a White Squall. I never hoped I could achieve more than a hearty chuckle or round of applause for the stunts I pull. I feel I have a lot to live up to now, but, as always, I am up to the challenge. If you believe—a stimulus must acquire a certain intensity before it can produce pleasure or pain. The effect will then gradually increase until it reaches a maximum point, whereupon it will decrease to the point of indifference. In the case of pleasure but not in that of pain, the effect may, after the maximum is reached, change to its opposite. Since writings to you, something has happened. Harry let Lara into my room to surprise me and she spotted the letter on my desk. She snatched it and read it before I realized what was happening. Lara’s called the engagement off for good, in fact tossed the engagement ring in my wastebasket. She says she fancies I am in love with you and she cannot compete with someone who has been winning all along. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7
You know, for a girl studying German Literature, who did not yet graduate from graduate school, she is quite smart. Vagueness and ambiguity are aesthetically displeasing, as the principle of clarity announces. The recollection of an event portrayed in some aesthetic object my bring pleasure or displeasure, depending on whether the event reminds us of something pleasant or unpleasant. We have to reconcile an idealistic view of reality with the methodology of modern science and, in so doing, providing some of the groundwork for further developments in a number of areas of experimental psychology. My work has disclosed a mind of poetic sensitivity, and my visions, however, are being subjected to scientific scrutiny. If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down fifty-four or fifty-six times and get up off the floor will lead to the achievement of success. Colin Kaepernick may want to take a knee, but I am going for that winning touchdown! #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7
Father, thank you that you know what you are doing in my life. You put a dream in my heart, you have given me a promise on the inside, and deep down I know that I will succeed. There are blessings in my future, and by faith I am looking for them. I will keep looking to you, keep expecting, keep dreaming. My mind is made-up, and I am in it to win it. People will not talk me out of it. I will not give up because it does not happen on my timetable. I will not settle for second best because I have missed a few opportunities. I believe that you will bring me though to my ultimate goal. This is all part of God’s plan to prepare me. I will keep moving forward, being my best, honoring God, being determined and persistent, and God promises me that I will be rewarded in my future. God is going before us to fight our battles and make crooked places straight. Wars of aggression fought in the name of national prestige, territorial aggrandizement and extravagant luxury at court are condemned, not only for the misery they cause for impoverished subjects, but also as evils in themselves. A good king is one whose people enjoy prosperity based on industry and commerce and who accepts the duty of ensuring not only their material but also, through his example, their more welfare. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7
Lazy days reading in Parisian cafés, peppered with those bursts of excitement and adventure I love so well. Our desire for anything is always in proportion to the difficulty which attends the attainment of it. Ethical disagreements often follow cultural lines. The cultural tradition is a prime source of the individual’s views and most disagreements in ethics among individuals arise from differences of innate constitution or personal history between the individuals. It is always right to do what will make all affected at least as happy as they could be made by any other possible action. It follows from this principle that in some situations it will be right to lie (for instance, to tell a man that he is not mortally ill when one knows he is, if he cannot bear the truth) and that in other situations it will be wrong to lie. Thus, the rightness of an act is relative to the circumstances because sometimes all people need to survive, recover, or feel good is a little faith. Genius is the activity which repairs the decay of things. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7
Suppose we think that the only reasonable way to correct a person’s ethical appraisal is to show him or her that it does not coincide with the appraisal one would make if one were vividly informed about all the relevant facts and were impartial in one’s judgment. Some people are simply left cold by the ideal of equality of welfare and others may view it as a basic human right, when both groups have exactly the same beliefs about what equality of welfare is and what its consequences would be. I finished reading the “The Mouse King’s Cheese,” to my niece, who jumped up and down and cried, “’Gain! Read it ‘gain” If I can inspire a similar response in you, I will be satisfied. Our great grandfather fought near the end of the Civil War, and we grew up listening to his stories. That man could spin a tale! No one else could make war sounds unlike war. He enthralled even my son, such that he pasted on a fake mustache and played Rough Riders with me all Summer. I have some things on my mind that I do not want to share. Cheerier thoughts certainly are needed. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7
Whatever the number of a person’s friends, there will be times in life when one has too few; but if one has only one enemy, one is lucky indeed is one has not one too many. When amicable relations between two people happen to be in jeopardy, there is at least danger of ensuring quarrel if the friendly intercourse has been of the artificial growth. You know, the nights are the worst. I sit by the fire, listening to music or holding an unread book on my lap, and I cannot stop my mind from racing, cannot stop my ears from hearing the tweaker upstairs constantly doing laps in his apartment. I try to go to bed early, so that I do not have to think and feel alone, but I just cannot fall asleep. I admit, I have been pulling out all of your old letters and rereading them, sometimes falling asleep covered in your words. It makes me feel that you are really here and that I am not alone. I can imagine we are talking. By the way, do you realize how pretentious you sounded in your early letters to me? You must have really wished to impress me. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7
Man has a need of perfection—that is, the fulfillment of both his intellectual and his emotional powers, which indeed are not existentially separate. The more adequate an idea, the more it is pleasing, liberating, and intrinsically human. The culmination of the ethical life—that is, the life devoted to freedom of the intellect—is found in the intellectual love of God. Some people actually recognize the evil of loving. Love drives men and women to suicide, madness, and extremes of sacrifice. Some people enjoy love not for the sake of their beloved, but for the sake of their own self-centered pleasure. It is like a loathing that invades them while satisfying their passion. However, through self-knowledge, people learn to look upon the eternal light and ultimately come to the complete love of God. The fruit of love is knowledge of the divine. My new life is filled with someone guiding me through paradise. Sometimes I seem to be writing in the vein of courtly love, sometimes in the mystical vein, but in both cases love represents a force that attracts people to a nobler life. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7
However, to suffer because of love appears to be analogous to the sufferings of the martyrs—an abnegation of the self for a value that transcends egoism. Love has the power to free the soul from its bodily prison. Why is it that I am always at a loss for words when you need them the most? If my thoughts of you right now could be put into words so easily, then you would be getting the firmest of epistolary embraces. There are no constrains on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. Courage is a door that can only be opened from the inside. Father, thank you. You are the God who is more than enough. This is my year to go to a new level. This is my year to see a supernatural increase. I am making room for your far-and-beyond favor. I am positioned under the open windows of Heaven with my heart, mind, body, and soul to be filled by your love. Do a new work in me, take me beyond the barriers of the past, and help me to step into the abundance you have in store. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7
God has a mansion of blessings stored up for us. Do not let a limited mind-set hold one back. Although we cannot see how it will happen, God has a way. Take off the limits and make room for him to do something new, we will go beyond the barriers of the past and step into the abundance God has in store. When God puts a promise in our hearts, we have to come to the place where we believe that promise so strongly no one and no circumstance can move us. A medical report may say there is no way one will get well. It may look like one will never have enough money. All the circumstances may indicate that one will never accomplish one’s dreams, never meet the right person, or never see your family restored. However, deep down you have got to have this unshakable confidence—a knowing that God is on the Throne working on our behalf, so that we go out each day with passion, with expectancy, and looking for the great things God has in store. If you consider only the negatives, you will be discouraged and doubt will creep in, keeping you from God’s best. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7
Do not focus on the negative things in life that experts or one’s mind are saying. Do not worry about how big your problems are. Instead, focus on how big my God is. He spoke the World into existence. He flung the stars into space. He is not limited by the natural. He has supernatural power. With the love that moves the Sun and the other stars, identify that with your own lobe and with the love that the cosmos has for its Creator. When we focus on God instead of on our circumstances, doubt, fear, anxiety, and negativity do not have a chance. Make God bigger than the problems of life and they will become smaller. When we magnify God instead of magnifying our difficulties, faith rises in our hearts. That faith will keep us fully persuaded that God will make a way, even though we cannot see a way. And the beauty is that God will show us amazing things. Neither fighting nor being alone is how I hope to spend my Christmas this year. When we touch hands across the miles, at the stroke of midnight, it will make it all more bearable. I will close my eyes and stand still as I try to remember just how your fingers press on my shoulder, how your hair tickles my chin, how your body measures the length of mine. I caught the faint smell of flowers and has the wild thought that perhaps it worked, that, for a brief moment, our spirits had somehow transcended the distance between us. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7
