Enraptured ingenious eyes

Ephemerals

1. The more fondly we imagine something will last forever, the more ephemeral it often proves to be.
2. "Why have I thought the dew Ephemeral when I Shall rest so short a time, myself, On earth?"
3. A pleasurable sensation that lasts a moment is worth more than a bronze statue that lasts a thousand years.
4. We continue to eat, the conversation easy and flowing. I listen to everything everyone says, an urgency to pay attention, to not miss these moments you don't know are moments until they're gone. I narrow in, trying to hold it all in place, even though I think that if you document life this way, the moments will never set. We don't need to remember. Everything just becomes a part of you. And then it's over."
5. "Some guns were fired to give notice that the departure of the balloon was near. ... Means were used, I am told, to prevent the great balloon's rising so high as might endanger its bursting. Several bags of sand were taken on board before the cord that held it down was cut, and the whole weight being then too much to be lifted, such a quantity was discharged as would permit its rising slowly. Thus it would sooner arrive at that region where it would be in equilibrio with the surrounding air, and by discharging more sand afterwards, it might go higher if desired. Between one and two o'clock, all eyes were gratified with seeing it rise majestically from above the trees, and ascend gradually above the buildings, a most beautiful spectacle. When it was about two hundred feet high, the brave adventurers held out and waved a little white pennant, on both sides of their car, to salute the spectators, who returned loud claps of applause. The wind was very little, so that the object though moving to the northward, continued long in view; and it was a great while before the admiring people began to disperse. The persons embarked were Mr. Charles, professor of experimental philosophy, and a zealous promoter of that science; and one of the Messrs Robert, the very ingenious constructors of the machine. {While U.S. ambassador to France, writing about witnessing, from his carriage outside the garden of Tuileries, Paris, the first manned balloon ascent using hydrogen gas by Jacques Charles on the afternoon of 1 Dec 1783. A few days earlier, he had watched the first manned ascent in Montgolfier's hot-air balloon, on 21 Nov 1783.}" ― Benjamin Franklin, Writings: The Autobiography / Poor Richard's Almanack / Bagatelles, Pamphlets, Essays & Letters .
6. Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too, just once. And never again. But to have been this once, completely, even if only once: to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing." ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

Oxymoron

7. "Rescuing myself' is an oxymoron that will leave me in the perpetual need of being rescued 'from myself'." ― Craig D. Lounsbrough

"In time we hate that which we often fear."
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

8. Felicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter." ― Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
9. Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity." ― Mahatma Ghandi

A glorios yet unknowm thing

10. Therefore of necessity they must at first believe that Felicity is a glorious though an unknown thing. And certainly it was the infinite wisdom of God that did implant by instinct so strong a desire of Felicity in the Soul, that we might be excited to labour after it, though we know it not, the very force wherewith we covet it supplying the place of understanding. That there is a Felicity, we all know by the desires after, that there is a most glorious Felicity we know by the strength and vehemence of those desires." ― Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations
11. "So if the ultimate felicity of man does not consist in external things which are called the goods of fortune, nor in the goods of the body, nor in the goods of the soul according to its sensitive part, nor as regards the intellective part according to the activity of the moral virtues, nor according to the intellectual virtues that are concerned with action, that is art and prudence – we are left with the conclusion that the ultimate felicity of man lies the contemplation of truth." ― Thomas Aquinas
"inherent :: late 16th century: from Latin inhaerent- 'sticking to,' from the verb inhaerere, from in- 'in, toward' + haerere 'to stick.'"
12. Is there a way to scrape it off that does not involve joining a monastery?" ― A. Cretan

    A positive demerit

13. "In these symbols Christ is exhibited as a sacrifice; and expiation is needed only where there is no merit -- where there is positive demerit -- where the individual atoned for has become obnoxious to justice, and must depend for salvation on other righteousness than his own. -- David King, "The Lord's Supper" ― David King
14. The real question is: What is expiation? Is it compatible with a pure image of God? Is it not a phase in man's religious development that we need to move beyond? If Jesus is to be the new messenger of God, should he not be opposing this notion? So the actual point at issue is whether the New Testament texts—if read rightly—articulate an understanding of expiation that we too can accept, whether we are prepared to listen to the whole of the message that it offers us." ― Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection