“The man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures and acknowledging unity with the universe of things was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization. And when native man left off this form of development, his humanization was retarded in growth.”
— Chief Luther Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle, 2006 reprint.
“But as for Aslan himself, the Beavers and the children didn’t know what to do or say when they saw him. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan’s face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn’t look at him and went all trembly.”
— C. S. Lewis. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 1950. (quote from Collier edition, 1970, p. 123).
“Looked at but not seen, the name is invisible. Listened to but not heard, the name is silent. Grasped at but not obtained, the name is intangible. These three can’t be analyzed, and so they merge and act as one. Its supremity is not bright, and its depth is not dark. Endlessly, endlessly, It can’t be named, and returns to the Substanceless. It is called the formless form, and the image of the Substanceless.”
— Laozi Daodejing, chapter 14. (The translation used in this quotation is by Harrison Adams, directly from the Chinese text)
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