VNVera Nazarian

126 collected words

Vera Nazarian

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Quotations and sayings

01Undated

Science uses the Red Shift to measure deep cosmic distances. But how to measure deep historic time? How about—the Saffron Shift.If history itself had a color, it is . . . like wood or bark, or living forest floor.Assigning hues to time periods, the sum total of history is saffron-brown—but the chromatic arc starts from blinding white (prehistory) to sun-yellow (Ancient Greece), then deepening to pale wood tones (Dark Ages) and finally exploding like an infinite chord into a full brown palette that includes mahoganies, siennas (Middle Ages), oak, sandalwood (the Renaissance), cherry, maple (Age of Reason), and near-black old woods (Industrial Revolution) for which there may not be names.As time approaches our own, the wood-brown palette fades to a weird glassy colorlessness, goes black-and-white for a brief span as you think of photographs of your grandparents, and then again fades until we get a clear medium that is the color of the world.And the present moment is perfectly transparent.It's only as you start looking into the future, that the colors start returning. The glass is turning silvery with a murky haze, and there is blue somewhere in the distance . . .

Vera Nazarian / quote

02Undated

Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.Their language has been lost.But not the gestures.

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03Undated

Q: Why do I love thee, O Night?A: Because you know I will never answer.

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04Undated

A fine glass vase goes from treasure to trash, the moment it is broken. Fortunately, something else happens to you and me. Pick up your pieces. Then, help me gather mine.

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05Undated

If Music is a Place -- then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple.

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06Undated

A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists.Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song.

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07Undated

Money is like fire. It is only good when there's just the right amount of it, when it's properly contained and under your control.

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08Undated

In the kingdom of glass everything is transparent, and there is no place to hide a dark heart.

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09Undated

The heartland lies where the heart longs to be. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to find the true place to plant it.

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10Undated

It's a commonly expressed and rather nice, romantic notion that we are all "sisters" and "brot

Vera Nazarian / quote

11Undated

It does not take a great supernatural heroine or magical hero to save the world.We all save it every day, and we all destroy it -- in our own small ways -- by every choice we make and every tiniest action resulting from that c

Vera Nazarian / quote

12Undated

The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface.The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust.The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water.Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.Dare to breach the surface and sink.

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13Undated

A long time ago people believed that the world is flat and the moon is made of green cheese. Some still do, to this day. The man on the moon is looking down and laughing.

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14Undated

The weight of the world is a trifle, if we all put our two fingers under it and try to lift together.

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15Undated

Passion and courtesy are two polar opposite traits that serve to balance each other into a full-blooded whole.Without socialization, passion is a crude barbarian, and without passion, the elegant and polite are dead.Allow both passion and courtesy into your life in equal measure, and be complete.

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16Undated

It is interesting that we call something good a “dream,” but being called a “dreamer” is somewhat of a putdown.Without dreamers, no dream would ever be given reality, and we would live in a very small and shallow world.If you are a secret dreamer, it’s your time to announce yourself.

Vera Nazarian / quote

17Undated

The cactus thrives in the desert while the fern thrives in the wetland.The fool will try to plant them in the same flowerbox.The florist will sigh and add a wall divider and proper soil to both sides.The grandparent will move the flowerbox halfway out of the sun.The child will turn it around properly so that the fern is in the shade, and not the cactus.The moral of the story?Kids are smart.

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18Undated

Believe it or not, the notions of free will and destiny are not mutually exclusive.Predestination is the universal framework of limits (based on natural physical laws) placed upon us.Free will is our infinite ability to make choices within that framework.Because the universal scale is so great—and most of it constitutes an undiscovered frontier—our choices are only limited by our knowledge, our abilities, and our imagination.To put it simply, the world is such a huge playground sandbox that we will never run out of sand or reach the faraway safety fence of destiny.So go out there and play!

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19Undated

One of the strangest things is the act of creation.You are faced with a blank slate—a page, a canvas, a block of stone or wood, a silent musical instr

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20Undated

Creativity is not so much a boundless well, but an all-you-can-eat buffet of elements for your creative endeavor.Eventually you've eaten your fill, and it's time to digest and then make something.But at some point, it will be time to return to the restaurant.

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21Undated

Know, child, that the One God—He is so vast that He cannot be moved, else the Universe falls. Nor can He answer, for the very act of opening His Mouth is Movement, indeed the greatest Act of all, for it is the Word. And this is precisely why He has made an infinity of lesser gods, creating them in His own image, so that we can do the lesser things on His behalf. We are His hands and arms and feet and mouths. We are His answers to your prayers, enacted along the great Framework of Being.

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22Undated

Why does every road eventually narrow into a point at the horizon? Because that's where the point lies.

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23Undated

A sage is a former fool who has become tired of himself.A foolish sage is one who forgets this.Remember, or come full circle.

Vera Nazarian / quote

24Undated

Meditation is a mysterious method of self-restoration.It involves “shutting” out the outside world, and by that means sensing the universal “presence” which is, incidentally, absolute perfect peace.It is basically an existential “time-out”—a way to “come up for a breath of air” out of the noisy clutter of the world.But don’t be afraid, there is nothing arcane or supernatural or creepy about the notion of taking a time-out. Ball players do it. Kids do it, when prompted by their parents. Heck, even your computer does it (and sometimes not when you want it to).So, why not you?A meditation can be as simple as taking a series of easy breaths, and slowly, gently counting to ten in your mind.

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