Arius’s doctrine spread among them from the time in the fourth century when Arianism was strong in the empire. This Arianism, however, was more ecclesiastical than theological, because the Germans were not interested in the niceties of abstract theology. Their Christ was the firstborn creature. They tended to think of him as a glorified warlord. But the main difference between the Arians and the orthodox in the West lay in the structure of the church. The Arians had no ecclesiastical center. They did not recognize orthodox Rome, and they had no counterpart of their own. Their churches belonged to the clan. Even after the conversion of these Arian Germans to orthodoxy, they were still loath to accept centralized church authority through Rome.
"Biliyor musun, gezegenlerin hareketini her gün izlemek, günlük hayatlarımızın ne kadar küçük ve önemsiz olduğunu anlamanı sağlıyor. Tartışıyoruz. Kavga ediyoruz. Çabalıyoruz. Servetimizi artırmak için rekabet ediyoruz. Evrene bak. Hareketi devasa bir saat gibi çok dinamik. Dünya bu saatin çarklarındaki küçük bir dişliden ibaret, insanların yarattığı fark ise bakterilerinkinden fazla değil. Kısa hayatlarını yaşayan, küçük savaşlarında savaşan milyonlarca ve milyonlarca bakteri. Evrenin mekanizmaları olmasaydı hiçbirimizin var olamayacağını durup düşünmüyorlar bile. İnsanların ne yaptığına bak—ölmeden önce asla harcamayacakları bir banka hesabı için birbirlerini öldürüyorlar. Bu saçmalık."
"You know, watching the movement of the planets every day makes you realize how small and insignificant our daily lives are. We argue. We fight. We struggle. We compete to increase our wealth. Look at the universe. Its movement is so dynamic, like a huge clock. The earth is just a cog in the gears of the clock, and humans make no more difference than bacteria do. Millions and millions of bacteria living their short lives battling their petty battles. They don’t stop to think that without the mechanisms of the universe, none of us would exist. Look at what people do—they kill each other for a deposit in the bank, which they will never spend before they die. It’s ridiculous.”
Reklam
"He was sure that it made no difference to her on which day he appeared:
for her, every day was the same, and when each day is the same as the next,
it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises."
In the realm of political decision-making, a widely circulated U.S. study showed that the views of ordinary people make no difference to public policy: a lack of control on a mass scale. "When a majority of citizens disagree with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose," the authors concluded, adding that "even when fairly large majorities favor policy change, they generally do not get it."
“remember two things: i. that everything has always been the same, and keeps recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred, or in an infinite period; ii. that the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. the present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have you cannot lose.”
“what we do now echoes in eternity.”
"thou must be like a promontory of the sea, against which though the waves beat continually, yet it both itself stands, and about it are those swelling waves stilled and quieted."
“the blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.”
“the first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. the second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”
“reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
“your days are numbered. use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. if you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.”
“whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: what fault of mine most nearly resembles the one i am about to criticize?”
“death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.”
"within a very little while, thou wilt be either ashes, or a sceletum; and a name perchance; and perchance, not so much as a name. and what is that but an empty sound, and a rebounding echo? those things which in this life are dearest but vain, putrid, contemptible. tho most weighty and serious, if rightly esteemed, but as puppies, biting one another: or untoward children, now laughing and then crying. as for
How is this rational?
Darrow ignored her and jerked his chin at Aedion. “You’re rather quiet
tonight.”
“I don’t think you particularly want to hear my thoughts right now,
Darrow,” Aedion replied.
“Your blood oath is stolen by a foreign prince, your queen is an assassin
who appoints common whores to serve her, and yet you have nothing to
say?”
Aedion’s chair groaned, and Aelin dared a look—to find him gripping
the sides of it so hard his knuckles were white.
Lysandra, though stiff-backed, did not give Darrow the pleasure of
blushing with shame.
And she was done. Sparks danced at her fingertips beneath the table.
But Darrow went on before Aelin could speak or incinerate the room.
“Perhaps, Aedion, if you hope to still gain an official position in Terrasen,
you could see if your kin in Wendlyn have reconsidered the betrothal
proposition of so many years ago. See if they’ll recognize you as family.
What a difference it might have made, if you and our beloved Princess
Aelin had been betrothed—if Wendlyn had not rejected the offer to formally
unite our kingdoms, likely at Maeve’s behest.” A smile in Rowan’s
direction.
Her world tilted a bit. Even Aedion had paled. No one had ever hinted
that there had been an official attempt at betrothing them. Or that the
Ashryvers had truly left Terrasen to war and ruin.
“Whatever will the adoring masses say of their savior princess,” Darrow
mused, putting his hands flat on the table, “when they hear of how she has
spent her time while they suffered?” A slap in the face, one after another.
“But,” Darrow added, “you’ve always been good at whoring yourself out,
Aedion. Though I wonder if Princess Aelin knows what—”
Aelin lunged.
Not with flame, but steel.
Reklam
Reklam