Authors From England

"The gold mine in the soul is called heaven."

"A properly devised Prayer said with all your true Love is a key to the door of the miraculous."

"Miracles are not performed by God for man, but by man for God."

"It is a fact that a few really dedicated humanitarians, working alone, can do much good for humanity. But bring these together in a common spiritual purpose and they can save the world."

"It is wisdom that sets a man free. Nothing else."

"Complete and absolute Truth is essential in all your thought throughout your daily lives, in all your meetings and business with others. Untruth has never, neither will it ever, bring to the seeker – Truth."

"Can we wonder that the strict Protestants were jealous of the backsliding of the Arminian prelatical clergy and of Laud their leader, when so strict a Calvinist as Bishop Hacket could trick himself up in such fantastic rags and lappets of Popish monkery!—could skewer such frippery patches, cribbed from the tyring room of Romish Parthenolatry, on the sober gown and cassock of a Reformed and Scriptural Church!"

"The Lord hath set every thing in its place and order, and what is there which he cannot root up and displant again?"

"Many hundreds of years before the coming of the English, the nations of India had been a collection of wealthy and highly civilized people, possessed of a great language with an elaborate code of laws and social regulations, with exquisite artistic taste in architecture and decoration, producing beautiful manufactures of all kinds, and endowed with religious ideas and philosophic and scientific conceptions which have greatly influenced the development of the most progressive races of the West. One of the noblest individual moralists who ever lived, Sankya Muni was a Hindu; the Code of Manu, dating from before the Christian era, is still an essential a study for the jurist....and there are in India, in this later age, worthy descendants of the great authors of the Vedas, of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana... And yet, nine-tenths of what has been written by the British about India is so expressed that we are made to believe the shameful falsehood that stability and civilized government in Hindustan began only with the rule of the British."

"Now for the inward qualities of the minde; albeit some writers reduce them to twelve heads, which indeed whosoever enjoyeth, cannot chuse but be very compleat in much perfection, yet I must draw them into many more branches. The first, and most especial whereof is, that a skilful angler ought to be a general scoller, and seen in all the Liberal Sciences, as a Grammarian to know how either to write or discourse of his art in true and fitting terms, either without affectation or rudeness. He should have sweetness of speech, to perswade and entice others to delight in an exercise so much laudable. He should have strength of arguments to defend and maintain his profession, against envy or slander.He should have knowledge in the Sun, Moon, and Stars, that by their aspects he may guesse the seasonableness or unseasonableness of the weather, the breeding of storms, and from what coasts the winds are ever delivered. He should be a good knower of countries, and well used to High-wayes, that by taking the readiest paths to every Lake, Brook and River, his Journies may be more certain and less wearisome. He should have knowledge in proportions of all sorts, whether Circular, Square, or Diametrical, that when he shall be questioned of his diurnal progresses, he may give a Geographical description of the angles and channels of Rivers, how they fall from their heads, and what compasses they fetch in their several windings. He must also have the perfect art of numbring, that in the sounding of Lakes or Rivers, he may know how many foot or inches each severally containeth; and by adding, subtracting or multiplying the same, he may yield the reason of every River's swift or slow current. He should not be unskilful in Musick, that whensoever either melancholy, heaviness of his thoughts, or the perturbations of his own fancies, stirreth up sadness in him, he may remove the same with some godly Hymn or Anthem, of which David gives him ample examples."

"The recognition of Pure Being as one's Selfand the Self of the universe and of all beings is the supreme and ultimate truth, transcending all other levels of doctrine without denying their truth on their own plane. This is the doctrine of Advaita, non- Duality, taught by the ancient Rishis and pre-emmently by Shankaracharya. It is the simplest as well as the most profound, being the ultimate truth beyond all the complexities of cosmology."

"‘A day or two later,’ Osborne wrote, ‘my wife entered the hall and sat down. Immediately Bhagavan turned his luminous eyes on her in a gaze so concentrated that there was a vibration she could actually hear. She returned the gaze, losing all sense of time, the mind stilled, feeling like a bird caught by a snake, yet glad to be caught. An older devotee who watched told her that this was the silent initiation and that it had lasted about fifteen minutes. Usually it was quite short, a minute or two. She wrote to me that all her doubts had vanished; her objections no longer mattered . . .’"

"I entered the Ashram hall on the morning of my arrival, before Bhagavan had returned from his daily walk on the hill. I was a little awed to find how small it was and how close to him I should be sitting; I had expected something grander and less intimate. And then he entered and, to my surprise, there was no great impression. Certainly far less than his photograph had made. Just a white-haired, very gracious man, walking a little stiffly from rheumatism and with a slight stoop . . . ‘The change came a few weeks later at one of the big festivals of the Ashram year [Osborne quotes what he wrote at the time] ‘There were huge crowds for the festival and we were sitting in the courtyard outside the hall. Bhagavan was reclining on his couch and I was sitting in the front row before it. He sat up, facing me, and his narrowed eyes pierced into me, penetrating, intimate, with an intensity I cannot describe. It was as though they said: “You have been told; why have you not realised?” And then quietness, a depth of peace, an indescribable lightness and happiness. Thereafter love for Bhagavan began to grow in my heart and I felt his power and beauty . . .’"

"They recognize that the present rulers of India . . . are generally animated by that same love of justice and fair play, the same high principles of conduct and respect for humanitarian laws which guided the ancient Aryan statesmen and law givers in their relations with the Indian masses ... in thus honouring our Aryan forerunners in India we shall both honour ourselves and make the most direct and effective appeal to Indian loyalty."

"India s present Aryan rulers should misunderstand or ignore the political ideals and methods by which the great men of our own race made the people of India accept Aryan domination as the greatest of divine blessings."

"In thus honouring our Aryan forerunners in India, we shall both honour ourselves and make the most direct and effective appeal to Indian loyalty."

"As the Englishman Meredith Townsend says: “None of the black races, whether negro or Australian, have shown within the historic time the capacity to develop civilization. They have never passed the boundaries of their own habitats as conquerors, and never exercised the smallest influence over peoples not black. They have never founded a stone city, have never built a ship, have never produced a literature, have never suggested a creed. ... There seems to be no reason for this except race. It is said that the negro has been buried in the most ‘massive’ of the four continents, and has been, so to speak, lost to humanity; but he was always on the Nile, the immediate road to the Mediterranean, and in West and East Africa he was on the sea. Africa is probably more fertile, and almost certainly richer than Asia, and is pierced by rivers as mighty, and some of them at least as navigable. What could a singularly healthy race, armed with a constitution which resists the sun and defies malaria, wish for better than to be seated on the Nile, or the Congo, or the Niger, in numbers amply sufficient to execute any needed work, from the cutting of forests and the making of roads up to the building of cities? How was the negro more secluded than the Peruvian; or why was he ‘shut up’ worse than the Tartar of Samarcand, who one day shook himself, gave up all tribal feuds, and, from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Baltic and southward to the Nerbudda, mastered the world? ... The negro went by himself far beyond the Australian savage. He learned the use of fire, the fact that sown grain will grow, the value of shelter, the use of the bow and the canoe, and the good of clothes; but there to all appearances he stopped, unable, until stimulated by another race like the Arab, to advance another step.”"

"According to the last census (April 1932) the number of Ṣubba in Iraq is given as 4,805. I incline to think this an understatement, which will be revised when we get the results of the new census recently taken by the Iraqi Government. Under the mandate, communities like those at Amarah and Qal‘at Salih took on a new prosperity, and independent Iraq promises protection and tolerance. The danger to the flock lies within the fold rather than from wolves without."

"When I was about 7 years old, I remember Lady Drower’s visit to our village (Liṭlaṭa) in Kalaatsalah in the south of Iraq. All the people in the village celebrated and welcomed Lady Drower. And as a child we sat around her chair, which was woven of palm leaves. I remember seeing Lady Drower in the Mandaean temple, she was a beautiful, slim woman in her white dress and white hat. We saw her as an angel and studied her every move. She visited my uncle [Sheikh Negm bar Zahroon] from time to time."

"Indeed, modern methods, modern ways, nationalistic education, cinemas, cars, and all that make up the new Iraq, threaten the existence of this already dwindling community. In Government schools, boys conform to a pattern in dress, manners, and thought. Mandaean boys (including those of priestly caste) take to European dress and wear the sidāraḥ cap, and, when they return to their homes, neglect and slight the precepts of the priests. In the stress of school, or later business or office life, ceremonial ablutions are seldom performed, while sons of priests cut their hair and shave, and so become ineligible for priesthood (see Chapter IX). One by one, as priestly perquisites diminish and incomes lessen, the calling becomes unpopulär. If these conditions persist, the priesthood will gradually die out, and without priests to baptize, marry, and bury them, the Mandaeans as a sect must disappear. There is a further drain on the community in the shape of apostates. Ṣubbiyah girls marry outside the faith and adopt their husbands’ creeds, and youths forsake a religion so incompatible with worldly advantage and town life. In big towns the publicity of the river-side makes the prescribed ablutions and baptisms all but impossible."

"Of all the regions of the Earth (India is) the only Public theatre of Justice and Tenderness to Brutes and all living creatures." He also found that, because of their diet, the Hindus kept a comely and proportionate body and lived a long life. The simple and meatless food made their thoughts 'quick and nimble,' their 'comprehension of things' easier and developed in them a spirit of fearlessness."

"If the two great nations, India and England, cannot be united by political chords, the ties of spiritual and intellectual co-operation will certainly prove a stronger bond of union."

"It has been assumed that freedom means the absence of limitation, which is correct but misleading; for it explains by a negative, and has therefore led to the absurdities of individualism. ... The value of freedom lies in the original impulse, and not in the absence of an obstacle."

"Jesus Christ Superstar"

"Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"

"The Lion King"

"As Fred Lamond candidly admits in his must read introduction Religion without Beliefs, Essays in Pantheist Theology, Comparative Religion and Ethics (Janus Publ., London 1997, p.111): "Our practical ethics are 90% the same" as those of established religions, but "the only area where our principles differ sharply from theirs is in sexual ethics. To Pagans, sexual intimacy before marriage is neither sinful nor immoral (...) we regard shared sexual passion under most circumstances as a sacrament which, far from harming our souls, can be a gateway to self-transcendence and unity with the divine.""

"The cliffs of Ballybunian are even less remarkable for their dimensions, than they are for the singular form of rocks, which seem as if carved by the hand of man; and, independently of the lofty mural precipices, whose angular proportions present every variety of arrangement, as in Smuggler's Bay, where they oftentimes are semicircularly arranged, like the groin-work of an arch, or the tablets or small strings running round a window, or are piled above one another in regular succession, presenting a geological phenomenon of great grandeur and magnificence, they have also other distinct beauties, which originate frequently in similar causes."

"Every single one of us needs to be there for each other, not just in the big profound ways but sometimes just the really small and important ways."

"School friends don’t have to be people that you actually get on with, they’re just people that you bond with after sharing a traumatic situation for several years."

"We get dealt cards from the start, too. If you look at my life, I was born into this world as an able-bodied, white, cis man in Britain, which immediately gives me so much privilege in this current world and I am fully aware of how much harder making it to today could have been for me, which is why we all need to stand up for equality and social justice, even if it doesn't apply to us."

"I’m here, I’m queer, and don’t worry, I’m still full of existential fear."

"I have a platform and a following of millions of people, many of whom I know have been through exactly what I have. And if I tell my story, as painful and flip floppy and flawed as it is, I know it will mean something to someone, as every time someone speaks openly about sexuality, it saves lives."

"Queer people exist. Choosing not to accept them is not an option."

"If a gay person dyes their hair, they are a visibly spiraling crisis twink. [...] That is a stereotype, and you know what, some stereotypes are true, and that is one of them."

"This experience coming from a childhood hearing the word gay meaninglessly thrown around as an insult at home and school, in music, on TV, to then realizing I am actually kinda gay, to then very specifically being attacked for it, was traumatic."

"I’ve come out of the closet, now I just need the confidence to actually leave the house."

"The combination of shrewd common sense and romantic sentiment; the oscillation between levity and dignity, from caustic jest to tender earnestness ; the restlessness, the fervour, the impestuosity,-all these are characteristics of a Scotsman of parts and highly developed in Ruskin."

"I didn’t know the show was gonna be this big. But to be honest, when I went to the Philippines, it made me think, wow. The show is big because the fans there are so passionate and lovely. Yeah, it definitely was an eye opener."

"I will speak out for the millions of children whose voices have been silenced for far too long. I will shine a light on the issues that vulnerable children have suffered around the world. Including representing them at places they haven’t yet had a seat at the table."

"There are moments I get frustrated from the inaccuracy, inappropriate comments, sexualisation and unnecessary insults that have ultimately resulted in pain and insecurity for me."

"The day I shaved my head was the most empowering moment of my whole life. The last strand of hair cut off was the moment my whole face was on show and I couldn't hide behind my hair like I used to. As I looked in the mirror I realised I had one job to do. Inspire ... Shaving your head is so empowering. You don't need hair to be beautiful. You are beautiful with or without. I learnt that too."

"I know this sounds crazy, but once I find something I want to do, nobody's stopping me. If I don't know how to sew, and I really had that passion to sew, that's it, I'm going to sew. That's also with acting. So here I am."

"She said, ‘Can I take a video of you?' I said, ‘Um, no.' But why would anyone want to be taken a video of? Of me? It's not like of the both of us. I don't need to justify it to anyone. If I don't want to be taken a video of, I don't have to be. I was paying and she walked past me and began to video me again. And I said, ‘I'm a human being. Like, what more can I ask from you?' She said 'So I can't take a video of a human being?' And I said, 'No, not when I said no.' It just makes me upset when people try to push the boundary, and I just wish people were more respectful. I'm still trying to navigate this all and it's still overwhelming... Where are my rights to say no? You have to show more respect for others, no matter who they are, what they do. It's just manners."

"Since I was a baby, I told my mom, like, baby dolls. I wanted to be a mom just like the way my mom was to me. And my nan, my grandmother, was a huge part of my life. Jake knows how important that is to me, and of course I want to focus on establishing myself as an actor and a producer, but I also find it so important to start a family for me personally. It’s a huge thing. Jake was like, we cannot do that until we get married — that was his thing."

"Noah is my best friend. We're the same age. We do everything together. We go to Six Flags. We have play dates. I mean, we are children."

"It really came out of the blue, to be honest. I was in England, and I didn’t get a lot of auditions there. So I did the first audition — a very emotional audition — and they said, ‘Come back for a callback.’ And I was like, ‘Okay!'"

"Perhaps you are wondering if I myself believe in flying saucers? Yes I do. I have thought it all out, and, from what I have learned from my husband, I think there is no doubt that they do exist... Until Desmond had had actual contact with the men from the other worlds I doubted their existence. But his letters are full of facts which have amazed and shaken me. What is more, I share my husband's belief that the present "cold war" conditions in the world may flare up at any time, and that the saucer men may be our only means of salvation."

"It seems that a lot of people have forgotten about George Adamski. In the 1950s he was one of the very first people to speak out about his contacts. He wrote a very famous book he coauthored with an Anglo-Irish gentleman, Desmond Leslie, called Flying Saucers Have Landed, which was published in 1953. It’s mainly a historical overview, a study by Desmond Leslie, of the flying saucer phenomena."

"Desmond Leslie, who has died aged 79, was a celebrated Irish eccentric and self-styled "discologist" best known for his book The Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), which became a key text of the New Age movement. The prevailing scientific materialism of Leslie's time held no appeal to him, and he turned his attention instead to the world of mysteries. Attracted to ancient history, archaeology and esoteric philosophy, he saw in them evidence of a world view quite different from that of more soberly academic contemporaries. To Leslie, ancient monuments and artefacts were proof of a sophistication of culture and technology that could not be attributed to the people of their times. The makers, he concluded, were evidently super-human - or came from elsewhere... Leslie joined forces with another Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Brinsley le Poer Trench, who as the 8th Earl of Clancarty later promoted a debate on UFOs in the House of Lords. Together they founded Flying Saucer Review. Contributors included C G Jung, who published his own book on flying saucers in 1959.Thereafter, Leslie continued to preach the message of the space people. Their intentions, he was at pains to explain, were wholly peaceable."