People From London

"It is OK to feel a little bit lost and not know what is going on, and stick with your truth."

"A practical observation that I’ve made over the years with ancient beloved people in my life—real spiritual youth is gained latterly."

"We’re not a very professional bunch under our roof. We’re amateurs. We just make life up as we go along. I think that sense is very important to try to keep alive"

"What children, in fact all of us at any age, find frightening is unreliability and emotional coldness. The idea that you can't affect someone, that you can't see where they're coming from and can change tact at any moment."

"There's this myth in drama, which I think comes from theatre, and I think it comes from writers, who are too articulate for their own good, that everyone is sincere and able to communicate their ideas exactly at the moment that they are having their ideas. And it's not the way it is. And you can explore that in cinema. I tend to make friends with film-makers who are interested in inarticulacy."

"The people who went to Eton can't run this country. They have done it. They have tried to do it. This little small group who all went to the same school, in the same class. It doesn't work. So, I feel we need some working-class people, people that have lived a real-life. People in touch with what is going on, in reality, to maybe become into the front now and start to get involved in how this country is run."

"This hall was, by order of the Emperor Jehanguire, the son of Acbar, highly decorated with painting and gilding; but in the lapse of time it was found to be gone greatly to decay; and the Emperor Aurungzebe, either from superstition or avarice, ordered it to be entirely defaced, and the walls whitened."

"So what's happened to that twat David Cameron, who called it on? Let's be fair, how comes he can scuttle off? He called all this on, yeah, he called it on, where is he? He's in Europe, in Nice, with his trotters up, yeah, where is the geezer? I think he should be held account for it. He should be held account for it. Twat."

"This city anciently bore the name of Kashi, but at what period it received its present name the page of history is silent. It is built on the north side of the river, which is here very broad, and the banks of which are very high : from the water, its appearance is extremely beautiful ; the great variety of the buildings strikes the eye, and the whole view is much improved by innumerable flights of stone steps, which are either entrances into the several temples, or to the houses.... Nearly in the center of the city is a considerable Mahomedan mosque, with two minarets ... this building was raised by that most intolerant and ambitious of human beings, the Emperor Aurungzebe, who destroyed a magnificent temple of the Hindoos on this spot, and built the present mosque, said to be of the same extent and height of the building destroyed... Surrounding the city are many ruins of buildings, the effects of Mahomedan intolerance."

"From Mongheir I embarked, and returned by water to Calcutta; and here I had an opportunity of observing a series of scenery perfectly new; the different boats of the country, and the varied shores of the Ganges. .... It is common, on the banks of the river, to see small Hindoo temples, with gauts or passages, and flights of steps to the river."

"Comedy is quite different to anything else – the most important thing is getting a laugh, and it’s a technical skill. You can easily kill a laugh by coming in too soon or with a different expression, so in a way it’s much harder work than drama, because with drama you just get into the script and that’s it! And the more you’re into the script, the more convincing you’ll be."

"In film and media I want to see short men with tall women."

"“A quadrangular coffer of stone, white washed five ells long, four broad, and protruding five or six inches above ground, is pointed out as the cradle in which Rama was born, as the seventh avatar of Vishnu; and is accordingly abundantly honoured by the pilgrimages and devotions of the Hindoos.”"

"“Ayodhyā or Oude is considered by the best authorities to be the most ancient city in Hindostan; and Prinsep mentions that some of its coins in the cabinet of the Asiatic Society of Bengal are of such extreme antiquity that the characters in which their legends are graven are totally unknown. According to Elphinstone, “from thence the princes of all Indian countries are sprung.”"

"[According to tradition] Vikramaditya, king of Oojein, half a century before the Christian era, and by him [Ayodhya was] embellished with 360 temples. Not the smallest traces of these temples, however, now remain and according to native tradition, they were demolished by Aurangzeb, who built a mosque on part of the site. The falsehood of the tradition is, however, proved by an inscription on the wall of the mosque, attributing the work to the conqueror Babur, from whom Aurangzeb was fifth in descent. The mosque is embellished with fourteen columns of only five or six feet in height, but of very elaborate and tasteful workmanship, said to have been taken from the ruins of the Hindoo fanes...."

"“Not the smallest traces of these temples, however, now remain; and according to the native tradition, they were demolished by Aurungzebe who built a mosque on part of the site”."

"Hindus are indisputably entitled to rank among the most ancient of existing nations, as well as among those most early and most rapidly civilized....ere yet the Pyramids looked down upon the Valley of the Nile... when Greece and Italy, these cradles of modern civilization, housed only the tenants of the wilderness, India was the seat of wealth and grandeur..."

"Close to the town on the east, and on the right bank of the Ghoghra, are extensive ruins, said to be those of the fort of Rāma, King of Oude, hero of the Rāmāyana, and otherwise highly celebrated in the mythological and romantic legends of India.”"

"I would be spooning my 6'8" boyfriend. I'm the big spoon, obviously. He'll love that I said that."

"Lord North is a good man, unlike the others. He is a good man."

"H[is] M[ajesty] continued this Evening to speak very kindly of Lord North, & said He was the Man He loved best in the World."

"Am I to hear myself charged as the author of our present misfortunes? and— [Many gentlemen cried across the house, “You are, you are.”]"

"Oh, God! it is all over!"

"If you mean there should not be a Government by departments, Isigma with you; I think it a very bad system. There should be one man, or a Cabinet to govern the whole, and direct every measure. Government by departments was not brought in by me. I found it so, and had not vigor and resolution to put an end to it. The King ought to be treated with all sort of respect and attention, but the appearance of power is all that a king of this country can have."

"I was not, when I was honoured with office, a Minister of chance, or a creature of whom Parliament had no experience. I was found among you when I was so honoured. I had been long known to you. In consequence, I obtained your support; when that support was withdrawn, I ceased to be a Minister. I was the creature of Parliament in my rise; when I fell I was its victim. I came among you without connection. It was here I was first known: you raised me up; you pulled me down."

"Did freedom depend upon every individual subject being represented in that House? Certainly not; for that House, constituted as it was, represented the whole kingdom. Freedom depended on a very different circumstance. He was free, because he lived in a country governed by equal laws. Where the highest and the lowest were governed by the same laws, where there was no distinction of persons, there freedom might be said to exist as purely and as perfectly as in the nature of things it could exist."

"I’ve kicked six stuntmen in the bollocks, hit someone over the back with a lead pipe and launched an iron chair at an assistant director. All completely by accident. When it comes to stunts I have a lot of confidence and little skill."

"He represents a model of strength, alien to any form of compromise, aware that, in order to remain in Jesus' love, it is necessary to live the Gospel in a concrete way, even at the cost of going against the tide."

"The beatification of [arlo Acutis, son of Lombardy and lover of the land of Francis of Assisi, is good news, a powerful announcement that a young man of our time, one like many others, was won over by Christ and became a beacon of light for all those who want to know him and follow his example. His life is a model especially for young people, not to find gratification only in ephemeral successes, but in the perennial values that Jesus suggests in the Gospel, namely: putting God first, in the big and small circumstances of life, and serving our brothers and sisters, especially the least among us."

"He rode around on a broken bicycle, never talked about himself, and when I wanted to buy him an extra pair of shoes, he would reply, “What do I need them for?” [...] [About poor people] He knew them by name, he says, and brought them sleeping bags, blankets, clothes, and hot meals."

"You go straight to Heaven if you receive the Eucharist every day."

"Everyone is born original, but many die as photocopies."

"You know, to live close to someone like Carlo means to not remain neutral in your own faith. For me, Carlo brought me closer to God. He would ask questions that I would not know the answer to, especially in my own lack of catechism. So I turned to learning more about my faith, and this was because of Carlo. Many other people would witness to this, as well: people who converted because of his example, or his conversations. He really lived what he preached, a witness."

"To always be close to Jesus, that’s my life plan."

"Carlo strove to document the feat Of God’s disclosures visibly surprising Men capable of honest sympathizing."

"The more Eucharist we receive, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of Heaven."

"Acutis expressed a traditional form of Catholicism and was a staunch believer in transubstantiation. He recognized that many—even among Catholics—do not accept this doctrine and regard the Eucharist as merely symbolic. To counter this skepticism, he dedicated time to documenting miracles related to transubstantiation and sharing them through his blog. …I am unsure if the crowds of young people visiting his grave or who went to Rome for his (later postponed) share his belief in transubstantiation. Nevertheless, they find Acutis more intriguing and engaging than his liberal Catholic or secular critics."

"This boy from Milan, who chose Assisi as his favorite place, understood, also following in the footsteps of St. Francis, that God must be at the center of everything"

"For the value of these teachings will perhaps be most fully realized when we clearly perceive that they are scientific in their character rather than controversial... Spiritual truths, if they are truths, may evidently be dealt with in a no less scientific spirit than chemical reactions. And no religious feeling, of whatever colour it may be, need be disturbed by the importation into the general stock of knowledge of new discoveries about the constitution and nature of man on the plane of his higher activities."

"The information contained in the following pages is no collection of inferences deduced from study. I am bringing to my readers knowledge which I have obtained by favour rather than by effort. It will not be found the less valuable on that account; I venture, on the contrary, to declare that it will be found of incalculably greater value, easily as I have obtained it, than any results in a similar direction which I could possibly have procured by ordinary methods of research, even had I possessed, in the highest degree, that which I make no claim to possess at all - Oriental scholarship."

"It will readily be supposed that the chain of worlds to which this earth belongs are not all prepared for a material existence exactly, or even approximately resembling our own. There would be no meaning in an organized chain of worlds which were all alike, and might as well all have been amalgamated into one. In reality the worlds with which we are connected are very unlike each other, not merely in outward conditions, but in that supreme characteristic, the proportion in which spirit and matter are mingled in their constitution. Our own world presents us with conditions in which spirit and matter are on the whole evenly balanced in equilibrium. Let it not be supposed on that account that it is very highly elevated in the scale of perfection. On the contrary, it occupies a very low place in that scale. The worlds that are higher in the scale are those in which spirit largely predominates. There is another world attached to the chain, rather than forming a part of it, in which matter asserts itself even more decisively than on earth, but this may be spoken of later."

"Evolution of Man. For it must be realized that the evolution of man is a process still going on, and by no means yet complete. Darwinian writings have taught the modern world to regard the ape as an ancestor, but the simple conceit of Western speculation has rarely permitted European evolutionists to look in the other direction, and recognize the probability, that to our remote descendants we may be, as that unwelcome progenitor to us. Yet the two facts just declared hinge together. The higher evolution will be accomplished by our progress through the successive worlds of the system; and in higher forms we shall return to this earth again and again. But the avenues of thought through which we look forward to this prospect, are of almost inconceivable length."

"The external forms and fancies of religion in one age may be a little purer, in another a little more corrupt, but they inevitably adapt themselves to their period, and it would be extravagant to imagine them interchangeable."

"For the present let us consider the position of the adepts as they now exist, or, to use the designation more generally employed in India, of "the Mahatmas." [Mahatma -Great Soul, or Great Spirit, derived from Maha and Atma.] They constitute a Brotherhood, or Secret Association, which ramifies all over the East, but the principal seat of which for the present I gather to be in Tibet. But India has not yet been deserted by the adepts, and from that country they still receive many recruits. For the great fraternity is at once the least and the most exclusive organization in the world, and fresh recruits from any race or country are welcome, provided they possess the needed qualifications. The door, as I have been told by one who is himself an adept, is always open to the right man who knocks, but the road that has to be travelled before the door is reached is one which none but very determined travellers can hope to pass. It is manifestly impossible that I can describe its perils in any but very general terms, but it is not necessary to have learned any secrets of initiation to understand the character of the training through which a neophyte must pass before he attains the dignity of a proficient in occultism. The adept is not made: he becomes, as I have been constantly assured, and the process of becoming is mainly in his own hands. (Occultism and the Adepts II)"

"Preface to the Annotated Edition Since this book was first published in the beginning of 1883, I have come into possession of much additional information bearing on many of the problems dealt with. But I am glad to say that such later teaching only reveals incompleteness in my original conception of the esoteric doctrine, - no material error so far. Indeed I have received from the great Adept himself, from whom I obtained my instruction in the first instance, the assurance that the book as it now stands is a sound and trustworthy statement of the scheme of Nature as understood by the initiates of occult science, which may have to be a good deal developed in the future, if the interest it excites is keen enough to constitute an efficient demand for further teaching of this kind on the part of the world at large, but will never have to be remodelled or apologized for. In view of this assurance it seems best that I should now put forward my later conclusions and additional information in the form of annotations on each branch of the subject, rather than infuse them into the original text, which, under the circumstances, I am reluctant in any way to alter. I have therefore adopted that plan in the present edition."

"In regard to the complaint itself, that the teachings here reduced to an intelligible shape are incorrectly described by the name this book bears, I cannot do better than quote the note by which the editor of the Theosophist replies to his Brahman contributor. This note says: -“We print the above letter as it expresses in courteous language, and in an able manner, the views of a large number of our Hindoo brothers. At the same time it must be stated that the name of ‘Esoteric Buddhism’ was given... not because the doctrine propounded therein is meant to be specially Esoteric Buddhism... identified with any particular form of faith, but because Buddhism means the doctrine of the Buddhas, the Wise i.e. the Wisdom Religion.” For my own part I need only add that I fully accept and adopt that explanation of the matter."

"Theosophical literature, from the outset of the great movement it inaugurated, has been largely concerned with previously unknown laws governing the origin and destinies of humanity, the birth and progress of worlds, the coherent design of the Solar System, and, in short, with the interpretation, in the light of knowledge till recently reserved for a very few, of the stupendous Divine purpose underlying physical manifestation. My own earlier books, The Occult World and Esoteric Buddhism, forecast rather than embodied teaching along such lines, revealing the existence of those whom I called “ the Elder Brethren of Humanity,” who had risen above the level of generally current civilization, and thus had touch with the wisdom of the Divine Hierarchy."

"The trials through which the neophyte has to pass are no fantastic mockeries, or mimicries of awful peril. Nor, do I take it, are they artificial barriers set up by the masters of occultism, to try the nerve of their pupils, as a riding-master might put up fences in his school. It is inherent in the nature of the science that has to be explored, that its revelations shall stagger the reason and try the most resolute courage. It is in his own interest that the candidate's character and fixity of purpose, and perhaps his physical and mental attributes, are tested and watched with infinite care and patience in the first instance, before he is allowed to take the final plunge into the sea of strange experiences through which he must swim with the strength of his own right arm, or perish. (Occultism and the Adepts I)"

"In that which really constitutes Buddhism we find a sublime simplicity, like that of Nature herself, — one law running into infinite ramifications ; complexities of detail, it is true, as Nature herself is infinitely complex in her manifestations, however unchangeably uniform in her purposes, but always the immutable doctrine of causes and their effects, which in turn become causes again in an endless cyclic progression. p. 300"

"There is a school of Philosophy still in existence of which modern culture has lost sight. Glimpses of it are discernible in the ancient philosophies with which all educated men are familiar, but these are hardly more intelligible than fragments of forgotten sculpture,-less so, for we comprehend the human form, and can give imaginary limbs to a torso; but we can give no imaginary meaning to the truth coming down to us from Plato or Pythagoras, pointing, for those who hold the clue to their significance, to the secret knowledge of the ancient world. Side lights, nevertheless, may enable us to decipher such language, and a very rich intellectual reward offers itself to persons who are willing to attempt the investigation. (Introduction)"