The buddha lands described in the Lotus share certain generic features: the ground is made of lapis or crystal; they are perfectly level, without mountains or valleys; they are free from all manner of filth, including the stench of latrines … The ground was made of lapis lazuli, …

A woman's love is essentially lonely and spiritual in its nature—feeding on fancy, rather than hope—or like that fairy flower of the East, which floats in, and lives upon, the air. Her attachment is the heathenism of the heart: she has herself created the glory and beauty with which the idol of her altar stands invested.

The Mexica do not sing alabanzas, thus any recent Mexica-ization, or rather Aztecization, of existing alabanzas (or the newly written) is the result of the Concheros' increased interest in the Aztec past and their desire to celebrate it.

The former British wife of a Russian billionaire, who was ordered to pay a 453 million pound ($572 million) divorce bill, has claimed the first sliver of the award after seizing and selling a helicopter, her advisers said on Thursday.