What was dark will always be dark, I know that. Death is still death. Hatred will never be far, in this life.But also, there is light. It is everywhere. It floods this world--the world brims with it. Once, I sat by the Coe and watched a shaft of light come down through the trees, through leaves, and wondered if there was a greater beauty, or a simpler one. There are many great beauties. but all of them--from the snow, to his fern-red hair, to my mare's eye reflecting the sky as she smelt the air of Rannoch Moor--have light in them, and are worth it. They are worth the darker parts.
The scientific creation story has majesty, power and beauty. and is infused with a powerful message capable of lifting our spirits in a way that its multitudinous supernatural counterparts are incapable of matching. It teaches us that we are the products of 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution and the mechanism by which meaning entered the universe, if only for a fleeting moment in time. Because the universe means something to me, and the fact that we are all agglomerations of quarks and electrons in a complex and fragile pattern that can perceive the beauty of the universe with visceral wonder, is, I think, a thought worth raising a glass to this Christmas.
By the time they arrived, the snow was coming down fast...."It's beautiful," she said, pausing outside the door. She thrust out her hands and let the snow land on her palms."Yes, yes..." Reid seemed in a mighty big hurry to get her inside."How long did you say the storm would last?" she asked, thinking it would be so beautiful. The snow -- not being trapped with Reid Jamison.Reid hesitated. "Longer than either of us is going to like," he muttered, looking miserable.Jenna was afraid of that.
Quinn spoke their language—all mystery and inside jokes, scarred souls and statement shirts. It was a beautiful moment for him—in his element and completely happy.When they started playing, he leaned over and whispered in my ear. “See that guitar?”I nodded.“That’s a 1969 Martin D28. Hear me when I say if I had to choose between a beautiful girl and that guitar, I’d choose the guitar. Natch.” He took a huge gulp of water, clearly affected.“Naturally,” I whispered. “It could be why you’re still single.
Imagination is haunted by the swiftness of the creatures that live on the mountain - eagle and peregrine falcon, red deer and mountain hare. The reason for their swiftness is severely practical: food is so scarce up there that only those who can move swiftly over vast stretches of ground may hope to survive. The speed, the whorls and torrents of movement, are in plain fact the mountain's own necessity. But their grace is not necessity. Or if it is - if the swoop, the parabola, the arrow-flight of hooves and wings achieve their beauty by strict adherence to the needs of function - so much the more is the mountain's integrity vindicated. Beauty is not adventitious but essential.
The coast is an edgy place. Living on the coast presents certain stark realities and a wild, rare beauty. Continent confronts ocean. Weather intensifies. It's a place of tide and tantrum; of flirtations among fresh- and saltwaters, forests and shores; of tense negotiations with an ocean that gives much but demands more. Every year the raw rim that is this coast gets hammered and reshaped like molten bronze. This place roils with power and a sometimes terrible beauty. The coast remains youthful, daring, uncertain about tomorrow. The guessing, the risk; in a way, we're all thrill seekers here.
There are all degrees of proficiency in the use men make of this instructive world where we are boarded and schooled and apprenticed. It is sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three degrees of progress.One class lives to the utility of the symbol, as the majority of men do, regarding health and wealth as the chief good. Another class live about this mark to the beauty of the symbol; as the poet and artist and the sensual school in philosophy. A third class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified and these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the second, taste; and the third spiritual perception.I see in society the neophytes of all these classes, the class especially of young men who in their best knowledge of the sign have a misgiving that there is yet an unattained substance and they grope and sigh and aspire long in dissatisfaction, the sand-blind adorers of the symbol meantime chirping and scoffing and trampling them down. I see moreover that the perfect man - one to a millennium - if so many, traverses the whole scale and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly; then also has a clear eye for its beauty; and lastly wears it lightly as a robe which he can easily throw off, for he sees the reality and divine splendor of the inmost nature bursting through each chink and cranny.
There is only one moment; its events are infinitely unfolding, increasing at every passing second—meaning that they were somehow compressed before. This moment was never smaller, but less beauty was exposed in the physical form, yet still this flower blooms. I think we tend to see time as the events alone; in this sense, we view objects as a means of measurement to time. But we forget the place of events in time is change. I am the measurement to my own happiness; time is the breadth of that beauty, and that beauty is the measurement of this moment’s grandeur. Somehow compressed, potential beauty was enfolded infinitely from the start of time, and now waits in vain for its fullest blossoming.The fact that there is a progression to time proves that time is not infinite; you can’t approach infinity. Time is more like a dot, expanding on a plane that is infinite; but that dot may as well not be growing, because the plane that its on is growing too. Stagnant, this explains what we call “now” that moment, ever unfolding; matter changes, but not the moment; the only proof that a past exists is our memories. What did it feel like to be four? Like now. My memories of a past are an illusion, because they take place in the now, the one moment.
“The challenge down there in South Bend is that they've got this quaint, beautiful little town, and a lot of people pass through there, but there's not a lot of places for them to stop. Not only is there a need for more places for people to stop, but to make room for them to stop.”
“I never thought of celebrity. I'm just happy it found a home and that maybe people will find beauty and grace in it. ... I hope that it somehow touches them and gives them something they can take away with them. That's the goal of an artist.”