Now, five years is nothing in a man's life except when he is very young and very old... - Wang Lung
Pearl S. BuckRead
God is not in the vastness of greatness. He is hid in the vastness of smallness . He is not in the general. He is in the particular.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The divine can be found in small, specific moments rather than in grand, general experiences.
This quote by Pearl S. Buck emphasizes the idea that the presence of the divine, or a deeper understanding of life, is often hidden in the details and simple moments rather than in grand or monumental occurrences. It suggests that by paying attention to the small and particular aspects of life, one may discover greater truths and meanings that are usually overlooked.
Themes
GodSmallnessParticularDivineGreatnessDetails
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a meditation retreat to emphasize mindfulness.
More from Pearl S. Buck
All quotes βYou are free when you gain back yourself,β Madame Wu said. βYou can be as free within these walls as you could be in the whole world. And how could you be free if, however far you wander, you still carry inside yourself the constant thought of him? See where you belong in the stream of life. Let it flow through you, cool and strong. Do not dam it with your two hands, lest he break the dam and so escape you. Let him go free, and you will be free.
Pearl S. BuckRead
We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave.
Pearl S. BuckRead
To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
Pearl S. BuckRead
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.
Pearl S. BuckRead
Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman.
Pearl S. BuckRead
Similar quotes
What we call "normal" is a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection, and other forms of destructive actions on experience...It is radically estranged from the structure of being.
R. D. LaingRead
Water in the boat is the ruin of the boat, but water under the boat is its support.
RumiRead
A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.
E. B. WhiteRead
I urge you to ask yourself just how honorable it is to preside over the abuse and suffering of animals.
Richard PryorRead
From a Buddhist point of view, emotions are not real. As an actor, I manufacture emotions. They're a sense of play. But real life is the same. We're just not aware of it.
Richard GereRead
There is no harm in patience, and no profit in lamentation. Death is easier to bear (than) that which precedes it, and more severe than that which comes after it. Remember the death of the Apostle of God, and your sorrow will be lessened.
Abu BakrRead