Cultivation Quotes

“We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it.”
― Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

“Our great mistake in education is, as it seems to me, the worship of book-learning–the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children in our elementary schools are wearied by the mechanical act of writing, and the interminable intricacies of spelling; they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation to their daily wants and occupations; while in our public schools the same unfortunate results are produced by the weary monotony of Latin and Greek grammar. We ought to follow exactly the opposite course with children–to give them a wholesome variety of mental food, and endeavor to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their minds with dry facts. The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. What does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A boy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have forgotten almost all he ever learned; while another who had acquired a thirst for knowledge, even if he had learned little, would soon teach himself more than the first ever knew.”
― John Lubbock, The Pleasures of Life

“Politeness is the first thing people lose once they get the power.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Growth is an unavoidable part of life. Whether we mean for it to happen or not, our bodies continually nourish and regenerate themselves, our minds continually learn and expand, and our lives continually evolve. We have the power to craft our growth the way a landscaper crafts a majestic garden, or we can leave it to chance, allowing it to unfold wild as the weeds that spread across a vacant lot.”
― Scott Edmund Miller

“Can you see us, Celia?
More of us have risen from the grass
that your bare, searching feet have sunken into.
Steadfast and sturdy are we, Agapanthus africanus.”
― Susan L. Marshall, Fleur of Yesterday

“You remember that lovely passage in which Plato describes how a young Greek should be educated, and with what insistence he dwells upon the importance of surroundings, telling us how the lad is to be brought up in the midst of fair sights and sounds, so that the beauty of material things may prepare his soul for the reception of the beauty that is spiritual. Insensibly, and without knowing the reason why, he is to develop that real love of beauty which, as Plato is never weary of reminding us, is the true aim of education. By slow degrees there is to be engendered in him such a temperament as will lead him naturally and simply to choose the good in preference to the bad, and, rejecting what is vulgar and discordant, to follow by fine instinctive taste all that possesses grace and charm and loveliness. Ultimately, of course, this taste is to become critical and self-conscious, but at first it is to exist purely as a cultivated instinct, and ‘he who has received this true culture of the inner man will with clear and certain vision per­ceive the omissions and faults in art or nature, and with a taste that cannot err, while he praises, and finds his pleasure in what is good, and receives it into his soul, and so becomes good and noble, will rightly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why:’ and so, when, later on, the critical and self-conscious spirit develops in him, he ‘will recognise and salute it as a friend with whom his education has made him long familiar.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The heart of matial arts is bravery love and courage, Amen.”
― patricio telman chincocolo

“He didn't know it, but America had a need for David Fairchild. The bare agricultural landscape at the beginning of his life would transform by its end into a colorful portrait: yellows from tropical nectarines and Chinese lemons, reds of blood oranges from Mongolia, greens from Central American avocados and grapes from the Caucasus, even purple from dates, raisins, and eggplants that sprouted first in the Middle East.”
― Daniel Stone, The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats

“In the thousands of years before European colonists landed in the West, the area that would come to be occupied by the United States and Canada produced only a handful of lasting foods---strawberries, pecans, blueberries, and some squashes---that had the durability to survive millennia. Mexico and South America had a respectable collection, including corn, peppers, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, pineapples, and peanuts. But the list is quaint when compared to what the other side of the world was up to. Early civilizations in Asia and Africa yielded an incalculable bounty: rice, sugar, apples, soy, onions, bananas, wheat, citrus, coconuts, mangoes, and thousands more that endure today.
If domesticating crops was an earth-changing advance, figuring out how to reproduce them came a close second. Edible plants tend to reproduce sexually. A seed produces a plant. The plant produces flowers. The flowers find some form of sperm (i.e., pollen) from other plants. This is nature beautifully at work. But it was inconvenient for long-ago humans who wanted to replicate a specific food they liked. The stroke of genius from early farmers was to realize they could bypass the sexual dance and produce plants vegetatively instead, which is to say, without seeds. Take a small cutting from a mature apple tree, graft it onto mature rootstock, and it'll produce perfectly identical apples. Millenia before humans learned how to clone a sheep, they discovered how to clone plants, and every Granny Smith apple, Bartlett pear, and Cavendish banana you've ever eaten leaves you further indebted to the people who figured that out.
Still, even on the same planet, there were two worlds for almost all of human time. People are believed to have dug the first roots of agriculture in the Middle East, in the so-called Fertile Crescent, which had all the qualities of a farmer's dream: warm climate; rich, airy soil; and two flowing rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. Around ten thousand years before Jesus walked the earth, humans taught themselves how to grow grains like barley and wheat, and soon after, dates, figs, and pomegranates.”
― Daniel Stone, The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats

“The land must be cultivated with crops, if we wish to have food.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Everything felt perfect, like he’d paid the terrible price for happiness and he was, finally, reaping the rewards. The smile blooming on his lips was hesitant, and he pressed two fingers there.

It was then that the universe struck back.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“Lei Gong's eyes were a deep, luminous crimson ringed in amber. A color he'd never seen in any human, nor God. It was a gaze a maiden fell into without resistance, and one any average man fled from.

But he was no average man.”
― K. Klein

“Lei Gong's eyes were a deep, luminous crimson ringed in amber. A color he'd never seen in any human, nor God. It was a gaze a maiden fell into without resistance, and one any average man fled from.

But he was no average man.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“Why did you believe me to be a God?"

"You are willing to commit deeds others do not have the courage for in order to protect the world from evil. That is righteous, that is just."

Qian Meng blinked at him.

Is that what he was doing?”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“The dark cultivator hoped that if he was angry for long enough, the God would decide he wasn't worth the effort of sweet words and kind smiles.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“What had he done to deserve this?

Was killing evil people truly so detestable? Or was it because he held no allegiances? Refused to cultivate the normal, rule-paved path? Tall trees attract the wind, but he had never thought being exceptional by his own merit was a crime. That it meant every person he'd slain, no matter how obviously criminal they were, was suddenly touted as innocent. Where was justice? Where was the amiable, gentle strength of the cultivators he'd looked up to all his life?”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“If he didn't need to, Qian Meng preferred not to think about the blood shed that day. Both his own and others... But the world wouldn't let him. It had been so long since it occurred, and yet the rumors grew out of control rather than diminish. He'd long since known the explanation—only villains were remembered so clearly, and Qian Meng had never once claimed to be the hero.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“He wanted to move closer, to ask questions and learn. The compulsion burned within him to the point of tasting ash on the back of his tongue. But there was a clear line between those with power and those without, and Qian Meng was well aware of which side he stood on.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“Even upon first meeting him, Qian Meng was certain the man was a storm to be weathered. Wherever he went, the cultivator surely grasped exactly what he wanted without resistance. People no doubt threw themselves at his feet just to be noticed, even if it was simply to step over them.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“Qian Meng smiled, wide and blinding. It seemed to take the cultivator before him aback, Lei Hua's face going slack and his ruby lips parting. It was the first time the prince had shown such easy joy, and it revealed just how beautiful he was underneath his pain.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“Maintaining the shivering balance of power in this god-forsaken palace was a priority if only to stave off future pain. And yet... Here he was. Sitting across from the cultivator and reveling in the way their energies had become so synced Qian Meng could feel them Lei Hua from a Li away. Two Li. A lifetime, perhaps. As if they were blessed by the Celestial Beings to meet and bond over magic. It was a fool's notion, or a desperate one, or both.

Qian Meng was well aware of that.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“Qian Meng felt a small part of himself aching to speak past his loathsome feelings, but he was, by and large, a coward always looking to save himself some pain.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“Your presence makes me rise from bed each morning and smile as I go to sleep. While I may tease you about it, my words are true. Meeting you was no mistake, and you are not a burden.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“Lei Hua stared down at the shivering man before him, hands twitching to pull him into his chest. To soothe the prince's terrible past into something manageable. And if he couldn't do that, he wanted to storm out and kill every single person who'd ever wronged him. Tear their heads from their bodies and hold them out as favors of conquest.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“You are worthy," the man repeated, expectantly.

"I, I don't know if I can say that," Qian Meng admitted, voice small.

Lei Hua's soft smile tightened. "Then I will say it for you until you can muster it yourself. Again and again, for a lifetime—for two or three if that's what it takes.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“Oh, no," the king murmured, leaning so close Qian Meng was forced to lock gazes with him. "It seems you've become stubborn as of late, and I do not blame you. It's a human response when one has something to fight for.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“His twin twitched, and Qian Meng smirked a little. He knew it was a struggle for Zihao to look him in the eye. The coward lasted all of ten seconds at best, but it was enough. A shiver of revulsion echoed between them, their very cores recognized a finite difference. While being of the same blood, they were a paradox. Destined to rebound off one another for eternity, forever linked, but never united.”
― K. Klein, The Failed Assassination of the Thunder God: A Dark Cultivation Fantasy

“I wonder what whispers, those whispering wisps whisper. What whisper them whispering wisps?”
― Peter Hackshaw, The Shadow Sect

“Their cider ain't no good either... Them apples got the sooty blotch.”
― Peter Hackshaw, The Shadow Sect

“73 Years Later, the "A-Bomb" Ginkgo Trees Still Grow in Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, an Allied plane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, creating a fireball 1,200 feet in diameter. Disaster rained down upon the city, killing an estimated 150,000 people and leveling both the biological and man-made landscape. Little was left standing, but somehow the ginkgo trees were able to weather one of the most destructive moments in human history.”
― Sheikh Gulzar ([email protected])