For when you see that the universe cannot be distinguished from how you act upon it, there is neither fate nor free will, self nor other. There is simply one all-inclusive Happening, in which your personal sensation of being alive occurs in just the same way as the river flowing and the stars shining far out in space. There is no question of submitting or accepting or going with it, for what happens in and as you is no different from what happens as it.
You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? Because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.
Far away beyond the pine-woods,' he answered, in a low dreamy voice, 'there is a little garden. There the grass grows long and deep, there are the great white stars of the hemlock flower, there the nightingale sings all night long. All night long he sings, and the cold, crystal moon looks down, and the yew-tree spreads out its giant arms over the sleepers.
Nature....she will hang the night stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send word the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.
Romeo, of dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens fine. Life, with this pair, has no other aim, asks no more,than Juliet,--than Romeo.
O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretch'd beneath the pines
When the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and pride of man,
At the Sophist's schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
We don't have a lot of men on stage doing flamboyant or theatrical. We have a lot of female pop stars doing it, but where are the guys? Where's the classic pop-rock showman?
Up then, fair phoenix bride, frustrate the sun; Thyself from thine affection Takest warmth enough, and from thine eye All lesser birds will take their jollity. Up, up, fair bride, and call Thy stars from out their several boxes, take Thy rubies, pearls, and diamonds forth, and make Thyself a constellation of them all; And by their blazing signify That a great princess falls, but doth not die. Be thou a new star, that to us portends Ends of much wonder; and be thou those ends.
To crush out fanaticism and revere the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to falling prostrate beneath the tree of creation and contemplating its vast ramifications full of stars. We have a duty to perform, to cultivate the human soul, to defend mystery against miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and to reject the absurd; to admit nothing that is inexplicable excepting what is necessary, to purify faith and obliterate superstition from the face of religion, to remove the vermin from the garden of God.
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.
I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.
And yet more bright
Shines out the Julian star,
As moon outglows each lesser light.
[Lat., Micat inter omnes
Iulium sidus, velut inter ignes
Luna minores.]