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21081ea "The lesson of the Funk Dog: "You can forget what it used to feel like to feel good about life; feeling rotten--or just a low-grad funk--seems normal and therefore acceptable. I just don't believe that God intended for any of his creatures to be petted with sticks." life funk Jill Conner Browne
41a1212 We only have a few minutes. Let's make them worth our while. romance life Jennifer L. Armentrout
8072491 "i said to my soul be still and wait so the darkness shall be the light and the stillness life light-and-darkness t.s. eliot
f16ee51 That's the way all life's battles are won.. You don't look at the overall picture. You take one step, then another, and another... until you arrive at your destination. life V.C. Andrews
7895879 Then they wondered if there were men in the stars. Why not? And as creation is harmonious, the inhabitants of Sirius ought to be huge, those of Mars middle-sized, those of Venus very small. Unless it is the same everywhere. There are businessmen, police up there; people trade, fight, dethrone their kings. Some shooting stars suddenly slid past, describing a course in the sky like the parabola of a monstrous rocket. 'My Word,' said Bouvard, 'look at those worlds disappearing.' Pecuchet replied: 'If our world in its turn danced about, the citizens of the stars would be no more impressed than we are now. Ideas like that are rather humbling.' 'What is the point of it all?' 'Perhaps there isn't a point.' 'Yet...' and Pecuchet repeated the word two or three times, without finding anything more to say. earth science life outer-space Gustave Flaubert
3851b75 ...you can pretend that bad things will never happen. But life's a lot easier if you realize and admit that sometimes they do. experiences pain reality life downfall difficulty challenges Lois Lowry
4fc767e Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world. life Annie Dillard
bf17eb2 Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one--that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life. christianity religion life nourishment nurturing needs soul Alain de Botton
543894a Perhaps the price of comfort is that life passes more rapidly. But for anyone who has lived in uneasiness, even for a short, memorable duration, it's a trade-off that will gladly be made. life Arthur Nersesian
c0ac46a We have been cut off, the past has been ended and the family has broken up and the present is adrift in its wheelchair. ... That is no gap between the generations, that is a gulf. The elements have changed, there are whole new orders of magnitude and kind. [...] My grandparents had to live their way out of one world and into another, or into several others, making new out of old the way corals live their reef upward. I am on my grandparents' side. I believe in Time, as they did, and in the life chronological rather than in the life existential. We live in time and through it, we build our huts in its ruins, or used to, and we cannot afford all these abandonings. present time history past family life build-up chronology development generation-gap existentialism modernity Wallace Stegner
cec2912 Who you allow into the circle of your life will make the difference in the quality of your life. friendship happiness life philosophy zen-and-the-art-of-happiness zen Chris Prentiss
bdc4243 The best way for you to get that new experience is to change your response to what happens. happiness life philosophy zen-and-the-art-of-happiness zen Chris Prentiss
ca517bb The heart beneath the breastbone pumping. The blood on its appointed rounds. Life in small places, narrow crannies. In the leaves, the toad's pulse. The delicate cellular warfare in a waterdrop. A dextrocardiac, said the smiling doctor. Your heart's in the right place. Weathershrunk and loveless. The skin drawn and split like an overripe fruit. nature heart life cellular overripe pump loveless warfare Cormac McCarthy
5417134 I could do a good imitation of a competent young woman. women life womanhood Margaret Atwood
b64913e Having begun to feel, people's desire to feel grew. They wanted to feel more, feel deeper, despite how it sometimes hurt. People became addicted to feeling. They struggled to uncover new emotions. feelings life Nicole Krauss
5c93c37 You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots. Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives. reason living life Fyodor Dostoyevsky
e8e046a She ordered a martini and encouraged me to, but said she couldn't drink it with her medication. She just liked seeing it in front of her, like the old days, all set to do its little magic. memories life siblings nostalgia Richard Ford
1a0ccf3 "My feet," said Montag. "I can't move them. I feel so damn silly. My feet won't move!" "Listen. Easy now," said the old man gently. "I know, I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn." -- learning life guy-montag fahrenheit-451 growth ignorance Ray Bradbury
8dda2bd Yell. Jump. Play. Out-run those sons-of-bitches. They'll never live the way you live. Go do it. writing life Ray Bradbury
8a90d5a However life, unlike art, has an irritating way of bumping and limping on, undoing conversions, casting doubt on solutions, and generally illustrating the impossibility of living happily or virtuously ever after. life Iris Murdoch
1a14c6c Tomorrow and tomorrow come creeping in and always will. We're fools trapped in a mechanism of our own unconscious making. Shadows strutting and fretting for one brief hour upon a stage, then heard no more. I'll weep an ocean in my heart, if the world would give me time. But not now. grief life tomorrow insignificance David Hewson
99e0704 There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough. life love inspirational the-notebook soul Nicholas Sparks
d2c007e Diligence and Application have their due Encouragement, even in the remotest Parts of the World, and that no Case can be so low, so despicable, or so empty of Prospect, but that an unwearied Industry will go a great way to deliver us from it, will in time raise the meanest Creature to appear again in the World, and give him a new Case for his Life. life diligence Daniel Defoe
582e59a What, after all, is so special about genes? The answer is that they are replicators. The laws of physics are supposed to be true all over the accessible universe. Are there any principles of biology which are likely to have similar universal validity? When astronauts voyage to distant planets and look for life, they can expect to find creatures too strange and unearthly for us to imagine. But is there anything which must be true of all life, wherever it is found, and whatever the basis of its chemistry? If forms of life exist whose chemistry is based on silicon rather than carbon, or ammonia rather than water, if creatures are discovered which boil to death at -100 degrees centigrade, if a form of life is found which is not based on chemistry at all, but on electronic reverberating circuits, will there still be any general principle which is true of all life? Obviously I do not know but, if I had to bet, I would put my money on one fundamental principle. This is the law that all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the replicating entity which prevails on our own planet. There may be others. If there are, provided certain conditions are met, they will almost inevitably tend to become the basis for an evolutionary process. evolution science life Richard Dawkins
435d7f5 Oxygen flooded into the atmosphere as a pollutant, even a poison, until natural selection shaped living things to thrive on the stuff and, indeed, suffocate without it. life oxygen natural-selection Richard Dawkins
8b86655 You speak as if this is a good world with a little evil in it. Rubbish. It's a hellish one where the best a man can do is put a little sanity back and look after his own. life self A.J. Hartley and David Hewson
3ab87bc Rudeness affected Margaret like a bitter taste in the mouth. It poisoned life. At times it is necessary, but woe to those who employ it without due need. life unpleasant howards-end rude manners rudeness E.M. Forster
dd763dc What infinite heart's-ease Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! And what have kings, that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth! What is thy soul of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd Than they in fearing. What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation? Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose; I am a king that find thee, and I know 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread; Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, But, like a lackey, from the rise to set Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn, Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse, And follows so the ever-running year, With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country's peace, Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Whose hours the peasant best advantages. mankind equality satisfaction humanity work life ceremony empty-form exaltation feudal-society honors pomp burdens fulfillment purpose-in-life peasants meaninglessness emptiness royalty kings flattery society values William Shakespeare
35ec3d5 Miss Abbott, don't worry over me. Some people are born not to do things. I'm one of them. life philosophy where-angels-fear-to-tread forster E.M. Forster
ca87f59 He brooded on how close destruction always was to all creatures, animals as well as humans, and he realized that there is nothing we can predict or know for certain in this world except death. death life wisdom Hermann Hesse
fd254b1 I wonder how much the general population of this country know that the legal system has far more to do with playing a good hand of poker than it does with justice. reality life legal-system justice-system justice reality-of-life Jodi Picoult
52330aa She is here. And she comes to you, and she does not speak, and the others do not notice her, and she takes your hand, and you ready yourself to die, eyes open, aware this is all an illusion, a last aroma cast up by the chemical stew that is your brain, which will soon cease to function, ad there will be nothing, and you are ready, ready to die well, ready to die like a man, like a woman, like a human, for despite all else you have loved, you have loved your father and your mother and your brother and your sister and your son and, yes, your ex-wife and you have loved the pretty girl, you have been beyond yourself, and so you have courage, and you have dignity, and you have calmness in the face of terror, and awe, and the pretty girl holds your hand, and you contain her, and this book, and me writing it, and I too contain you, who may not even be born, you inside me inside you, though not in a creepy way, and so may you, may I, may we, so may all of us confront the end. death life love inspirational poignant self-help old-age Mohsin Hamid
c1e8d93 It's good if you can accept your life--you'll notice Your face has become deranged trying to adjust To it. Your face thought your life would look Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten. That was a clear river touched by mountain wind. Even your parents can't believe how much you've changed. life changing coming-of-age Robert Bly
ac4dfac In my father's last letter he said that the world is run by those willing to take the responsibility for the running of it. If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. responsibility world life helpless impotent impotence willingness letter willing streets law helplessness government father Cormac McCarthy
347c822 Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms... life love truth wisdom respect Simone de Beauvoir
dbd289e It was an unforgettable painting; it set a dense golden halo of light round the most trivial of moments, so that the moment, and all such moments, could never be completely trivial again. life moments painting capture John Fowles
02e60e3 From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, or dominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, to take what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself. fate life vow vows domination control V.C. Andrews
66331b0 ... the only thing that makes life worthwhile is loving orher people and being loved by them. - Pia Obrian life-lessons life love loving Susan Mallery
e6ab4a2 "Our days are numbered in the book of days, Most High," Gorgon murmurs as the garden comes once more into view. "That is what gives them sweetness and purpose." life purpose Libba Bray
307cab0 To make the most of your life, you must keep the vision of eternity continually in your mind and the value of it in your heart. life fulfillment Rick Warren
16c281c "One of the greatest tragedies of growing up is the discovery that your parents- and your teachers, and your sports heroes, and your favorite actors, singers, YouTube sensations- are fallible. Adults don't know all, and what they do know, they often won't tell you- because they've got their own agendas, or because they want to shield you from the hard truths "for your own good." Adults lie, they betray, they screw up in every way possible..." life growing-up childhood Robin Wasserman
79f1f84 Look, Miranda, he said, those twenty long years that lie between you and me. I've more knowledge of life than you, I've lived more and betrayed more and seen more betrayed. At your age one is bursting with ideals. You think that because I can sometimes see what's trivial and what's important in art that I ought to be more virtuous. But I don't want to be virtuous. My charm (if there is any) for you is simply frankness. And experience. Not goodness. I'm not a good man. Perhaps morally I'm younger even than you are. Can you understand that? virtue good goodness life betrayed bursting younger older trivial ideals virtuous years frank old frankness betray important understand ideal experience charm knowledge betrayal young John Fowles
ea74f04 You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. ... The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity--it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud. life Yann Martel
084ff2e "Don't make fun of me!" Ender said. "I'm afraid I'm going crazy." life truth crazyness ender genius Orson Scott Card
49d0095 Mothers are urgently trying to tell something to their daughters, and this urgency is precisely what repels their daughters, forcing them to turn away. Mothers are left stranded, madly holding a lump of London clay, some grass, some white tubers, a dandelion, a fat worm passing the world through itself. family life love repel urgency daughters mothers generations mothers-and-daughters london Zadie Smith
07c7c22 "It's one of these juvenile therapy scams," he went on, sprinkling a pinch of the Golden Virginia tobacco along the rolling paper. "They advertise help for your troubled teen by staring at the stars and singing 'Kumbaya'. Instead, it's a bunch of bearded nutjobs left in charge of some of the craziest kids I've ever seen in my life--bulimics, nymphos, cutters trying to saw their wrists with the plastic spoons from lunch. You wouldn't believe the shit that went on." He shook his head. "Most of the kids had been so mentally screwed by their parents they needed more than twelve weeks of . They needed reincarnation. To and just come back as a grasshopper, as a fucking . be preferable to the agony they were in just by being alive." suicide depression life teenagers mental-health Marisha Pessl
f436abb Look around. It's almost gone. If only someone had told me that before. About life. If only I had understood. understanding life inspirational life-is-short Marisha Pessl
f6b6417 ...she did not believe that the world was a vale of tears but rather a joke that God had played and that it was idiotic to take it seriously if He himself never had. life life-philosophy Isabel Allende
c8ee363 lqd `rf kyf ymwt , km `rf kyf y`ysh life Isabel Allende
359905f They are so very cultivated, so very rich and so utterly charming. At the end of each day, they all ask themselves: 'Is it time I stopped?' And they all reply: 'If I did, there would be no meaning to my life.' As if they actually knew what the meaning of life was. meaning life Paulo Coelho
97c92e6 He is the earth and sunlight, the leaves of trees, the eagle's flight. He is alive. And all who ever died, live; they are reborn and have no end, nor will there ever be an end. life rebirth Ursula K. Le Guin
515c08d <> he said. <> <> the Alien said. choice life volition Ursula K. Le Guin
7e999ef In diversity is life and where there's life there's hope, was the general sum of his creed, a modest one to be sure. hope life inspirational Ursula K. Le Guin
98a01e0 - Vzemete koito shchete moriak, gazil v d'lboki vodi i sreshchal sm'rtta tolkova p'ti, kolkoto men, drasnete go s nok't po kozhata i otdolu shche namerite filosof. Zasukanite dumi shche sa mu chuzhdi, garantiram vi, no shche namerite d'lbok i traen uset za miastoto mu v sveta. world life philosophy българия bulgaria магьосник майстор философ bulgarian feist raymond амос война място разлом реймънд фийст живот more philosopher saga бард български place filosofia sea Raymond E. Feist
3508352 And what new life can emerge from a book. Any book, maybe. life Gregory Maguire
cde1dae "Poor little girl. Poor little girl," Nan says, and at first I think she is speaking of the baby, perhaps it is a girl after all. But then I realize she is speaking of me, a girl of thirteen years, whose own mother has said that they can let her die as long as a son and heir is born." history women life personhood Philippa Gregory
18b4bdc Este incredibil cat de completa este iluzia care ne face sa credem ca frumusetea este in genere bunatate. life truth Leo Tolstoy
885ea6e But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional types, and then--all the combinations made--they are tired of the fictitious figures and begin to invent more natural, true figures. writing inspiration life drawing perception Leo Tolstoy
c765b4b A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living': so too with the biography of that self. And just as lives don't stay still, so life-writing can't be fixed and finalised. Our ideas are shifting about what can be said, our knowledge of human character is changing. The biographer has to pioneer, going 'ahead of the rest of us, like the miner's canary, testing the atmosphere, detecting falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions'. So, 'There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation'. She is talking about the story of Shelley, but she could be talking about her own life-story. (Virginia Woolf, p. 11) life woolf Hermione Lee
f275130 I had not been prepared for the simple charm of watching someone you love grow. life love Ta-Nehisi Coates
598b29e I walked home, seeing all my doubt from the other side. Have you ever seen that? Like when you go on holiday. On the way back, everything is the same but it looks a little different than it did on the way. It's because you're seeing it backwards. life view perception Markus Zusak
71c6e5b What these people were trying to create or re-create here in this new world is beyond me. I can't put myself in their minds or their hearts, but I can sympathize with their struggle for an identity, with their puzzlement, which has troubled Americans from the very beginning - Who are we, where do we fit in, where are we going? life experience Nelson DeMille
6d43345 What's important is the ambition that results from our weakness. life weakness Sharon Creech
9447bf5 I wasn't thanking him for the coin, or even for the trouble he'd taken in stopping to help me. I was thanking him for... well, for something I'm not sure I can explain even now. For showing me that something besides cruelty could be found in the world, I suppose. life love signs Arthur Golden
49ee4f9 In happiness or unhappiness, living is a duty, and must be done thoroughly. life inspirational duty Ellis Peters
b657a28 It is possible to be struck by a meteor or a single-engine plane while reading in a chair at home. Safes drop from rooftops and flatten the odd pedestrian mostly within the panels of the comics, but still, we know it is possible, as well as the flash of summer lightning, the thermos toppling over, spilling out on the grass. And we know the message can be delivered from within. The heart, no valentine, decides to quit after lunch, the power shut off like a switch, or a tiny dark ship is unmoored into the flow of the body's rivers, the brain a monastery, defenseless on the shore. This is what I think about when I shovel compost into a wheelbarrow, and when I fill the long flower boxes, then press into rows the limp roots of red impatiens-- the instant hand of Death always ready to burst forth from the sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then the soil is full of marvels, bits of leaf like flakes off a fresco, red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick to burrow back under the loam. Then the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the clouds a brighter white, and all I hear is the rasp of the steel edge against a round stone, the small plants singing with lifted faces, and the click of the sundial as one hour sweeps into the next. poetry living life Billy Collins
1ee3672 She never had much in this life, but with the simplest things, she made her corner of the world as beautiful as any king's palace. We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts. heart life love material-possessions stormy-lewellyn simplicity Dean Koontz
06c4079 Shiroyama's heart stops. The earth's pulse beats against his ear. An inch away is a go clamshell stone, perfect and smooth ... ... a black butterfly lands on the white stone, and unfolds its wings. life David Mitchell
f65b159 But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. sex life philosophy convictions Ayn Rand
6659a53 You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty. sacrifice life philosophy john-galt morals values Ayn Rand
3297c43 Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness--to value the failure of your values--is an insolent negation of morality. virtue man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
3a71a5f Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it--that no substitute can do your thinking--that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence. virtue pain man mind good independence morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
51ea090 Apparently even the most awful tragedies, and the people they'd ruined, got a little stale after a while. tragedy life news Tom Perrotta
8882f49 Love is bitter, death is sweet. poetry life love Jack Kerouac
f537e95 By day I am nothing, by night I am I. life Fernando Pessoa
cca2b67 Shrouded as he was for a decade in an apparent cloak of anonymity and obscurity, Osama bin Laden was by no means an invisible man. He was ubiquitous and palpable, both in a physical and a cyber-spectral form, to the extent that his death took on something of the feel of an exorcism. It is satisfying to know that, before the end came, he had begun at least to guess at the magnitude of his 9/11 mistake. It is essential to remember that his most fanatical and militant deputy, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, did not just leave his corpse in Iraq but was isolated and repudiated even by the minority Sunnis on whose presumed behalf he spilled so much blood and wrought such hectic destruction. It is even more gratifying that bin Laden himself was exposed as an excrescence on the putrid body of a bankrupt and brutish state machine, and that he found himself quite unable to make any coherent comment on the tide--one hopes that it is a tide, rather than a mere wave--of demand for an accountable and secular form of civil society. There could not have been a finer affirmation of the force of life, so warmly and authentically counterposed to the hysterical celebration of death, and of that death-in-life that is experienced in the stultifications of theocracy, where womanhood and music and literature are stifled and young men mutated into robotic slaughterers. literature feminism death music life abu-musab-al-zarqawi al-qaeda al-qaeda-in-iraq arab-spring death-of-osama-bin-laden exorcism sunni-islam theocracy osama-bin-laden september-11-attacks iraq pakistan terrorism islamism secularism Christopher Hitchens
9b0f875 One of the greatest advantages of singleness is the potential for greater focus on Christ and accomplishing work for Him. marriage work god life love potential calling single singleness christian young Elizabeth George
235d371 Allow God to use the difficulties and disappointments in life as polish to transform your faith into a glistening diamond that takes in and reflects His love. women faith god life love diamond disappointments daily transform difficult reflective polish walk Elizabeth George
eb420cb The speech of God's beautiful woman is a fountain of life to those around her. woman faith god life fountain lady-like her christian girl nice lady pretty speech eyes Elizabeth George
8f81b22 We saw the same sunset. universe unity life S.E. Hinton
12766c3 And though I've lived to be an old man with my very own share of happiness for all the mess I made, I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living. life reflection Tim Winton
ce2a8de Morning seems to come earlier every year I live. time life John Steinbeck
363d818 What I am mourning is perhaps not worth saving, but I regret its loss nevertheless. mourning life regrets John Steinbeck
861a234 Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Who knows what keeps us living and struggling, while all things break about us? Who knows why the warm flesh of a child is such comfort, when one's own child is lost and cannot be recovered? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom. life cry-the-beloved-country Alan Paton
8aaf2aa Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long six-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech--and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives--he called them enemies!--hidden out of sight somewhere. life hypocrisy thinking Joseph Conrad
9397687 I know we didn't accomplish anything, but it felt great to sit there and talk about our place in things. existence friends life life-roles existentialism Stephen Chbosky
55b50f2 I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. live life love share Stephen Chbosky
330e88d The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting. dreams hope life expectancy idleness repetition Vladimir Nabokov
cc0250b Character? I should have thought it needed a good deal of character to throw up a career after half an hour's meditation, because you saw in another way of living a more intense significance. And it required still more character never to regret the sudden step. I wondered if Abraham really had made a hash of life. Is to do what you most want, to live under the conditions that please you, in peace with yourself, to make a hash of life; and is it success to be an eminent surgeon with ten thousand a year and a beautiful wife? I suppose it depends on what meaning you attach to life, the claim which you acknowledge to society, and the claim of the individual. But again I held my tongue, for who am I to argue with a knight? life self-fulfillment decisions W. Somerset Maugham
38e2e5f Sometimes when you get older--and I'm not talking about you, I'm talking generally, because everyone ages differently--things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they're a part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they're not true--why, then you get offended. history life truth challenge offended belief Sara Gruen
0562c0c You do right by me, I'll show you a life most suckers can't even dream of. live quote life love book jacob marlena water-for-elephants laugh Sara Gruen
8da9480 Death is not a release, but an incentive. The more focused you are on your death, the more righteously you live your life. life Caitlin Moran
7f89d46 Bad people very often do one good thing. people life Emma Forrest
e5a5cb0 The death of Nighteyes gutted me. I walked wounded through my life in the days that followed, unaware of just how mutilated I was. I was like the man who complains of the itching of his severed leg. The itching distracts from the immense knowledge that one will forever after hobble through life. pain death life forever denial effect itch mutilated unimaginable wound result knowledge Robin Hobb
7a3383f There are a lot of things I can't control. I don't know what's going to happen in the next few days.I don't want what I am going to face, what kind of choices I am going to have to make. I can't predict it. I can't control it. It's too big.' I nodded at my shovel. 'But that, I can predict. I know that if I pick up that shovel and clear the snow from the walkways, it's going to make my neighbors safer and happier.' I glanced at him and shrugged. 'It's worthwhile to me. humor life Jim Butcher
1131d64 I don't know who I am any more. I have no bloody idea. ... I don't know who I am. Or what my goal is...or where I'm headed in life. Or anything life hard-life tough hard Sophie Kinsella
4f99ae2 I hope you had fun, I hope you had a nice, nice time being happy, Ender. It might be the last time in your life. life Orson Scott Card
845f831 Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. motivational life inspirational fortitude resilience Herman Melville
f2fd91b Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore. struggle life truth soul Herman Melville
12680c5 If you remembered somebody was as real as yourself, how could you kill anybody? violence life nonviolence Sena Jeter Naslund
d260cd8 "There is no life without the conditions of life that variably sustain life, and those conditions are pervasively social, establishing not the discrete ontology of the person, but rather the interdependency of persons, involving reproducible and sustaining social relations, and relations to the environment and to non-human forms of life, broadly considered. This mode of social ontology (for which no absolute distinction between social and ecological exists) has concrete implications for how we re-approach the issues of reproductive freedom and anti-war politics. The question is not whether a given being is living or not, nor whether the being in question has the status of a "person"; it is, rather, whether the social conditions of persistence and flourishing are or are not possible. Only with this latter question can we avoid the anthropocentric and liberal individualist presumptions that have derailed such discussions." social-ontology life butler social personhood individualism Judith Butler
b047119 There is no alternative to action, and that requires faith. The issue is how we are to mold for ourselves a belief system that is worthy of life. life belief-systems Naguib Mahfouz
336bad4 Why are my sons followed thus by darkness?' ...'Because they were born in the house of flesh, therefore death follows at their heels. living life inevitability dying Ursula K. Le Guin
f91fa52 One must indeed test the strings to this life, bounce the bow, wet the mouthpiece, prepare for the deeper music that follows. music life Mitch Albom
8d9fb57 she hated everything her parents loved hate life parents parents-and-children Stephen Chbosky
9d3b7c0 It is not death that allows us to understand each other, but poetry. history poetry life love inspirational life-philosophy Ursula K. Le Guin
41fdfe2 wlkn knt 'nt l`z wlsrwr ! lHy@ SHr qHl@ mhlk@ w 'nt bh wHdk lwH@ lkhDr lrTyb@ tlwdh bh lnfs lover life Naguib Mahfouz
8e35188 "We've all grown unaccustomed to life, we're all lame, each of us more or less. We've even grown so unaccustomed that at times we feel a sort of loathing for real "living life," and therefore cannot bear to be reminded of it. For we've reached a point where we regard real "living life" almost as a labor, almost as a service, and we all agree in ourselves that it's better from a book." life Fyodor Dostoyevsky
a043896 You don't have to want to be in a relationship for a little bow-chicka-bow-wow. life love Jennifer L. Armentrout
9c425e3 Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies...It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil. virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
f90a27d Someday this upside-down world will be turned right side up. Nothing in all eternity will turn it back again. If we are wise, we will use our brief lives on earth positioning ourselves for the turn. upside-down christianity change life eternity Randy Alcorn
d4aa10e Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking--that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action--that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise--that a concession to the irrational invalidates one's consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality--that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind--that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one's consciousness. virtue pain man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
a514c2b Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification. virtue man mind existence morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think consciousness thinking morals values Ayn Rand
3a16c34 Only one life, it will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. jesus faith past god life soon one done christian last christ Elizabeth George
bd08a45 Tragedies in hindsight look like farces. tragedy life Julian Barnes
4c555ad Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? All the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders' attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A. virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil Ayn Rand
10822cb "The law, and society, and religion all said it was impossible to be sane, healthy, and kill yourself. Perhaps those authorities feared that the suicide"s reasoning might impugn the nature and value of life as organised by the Page | 49 . state which paid the coroner? And then, since you had been declared temporarily mad, your reasons for killing yourself were also assumed to be mad. So I doubt anyone paid much attention to Adrian"s argument, with its references to philosophers ancient and modern, about the superiority of the intervening act over the unworthy passivity of merely letting life happen to you." suicide life society-individualism law society Julian Barnes
b9f7a66 Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing--until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return. time literature history life Julian Barnes
d4adf34 ... forty's nothing, at fifty you're in your prime, sixty's the new forty, and so on. life ageing Julian Barnes
8932a6b I wish life was like banking,' I said. 'I don't mean it's straightforward. Some of it's incredibly complicated. But you can understand it in the end, if you try hard enough. Or there's someone, somewhere, who understands it, even if only afterwards, after it's too late. The trouble with life, it seems to me, is that it can turn out to be too late and you still haven't understood it. life Julian Barnes
9c55337 Everything has a past, a voice, existed at some point, even things as small and seemingly meaningless as a house in a huge suburb. It's a house like every other house... but at some point a family lived there, made it theirs, made it important. When people forget that history, that somebody at some point thought the house mattered, it just becomes an empty pile of nailed wood and brick and concrete that gets torn down for some strip mall or chain store to take its place... and that's what happens more and more now, everything is disposable, always replaced with no thought at all. That's where things get lost, memories get lost, humanity slips through the cracks, because when we all fail to pay attention to the things that make up our lives, we're no longer human at all, not really. earth human family hope life material together Rebecca McNutt
96fd4c2 Just because something isn't good doesn't mean it's bad. good life truth misunderstood spooky depth book literary ethics characters crime lonely sad novel evil Rebecca McNutt
7fd6013 I kept my expectations low, which is one of the secrets of life. secret life Anne Lamott
8bde9f7 No true love is possible, Lewis demonstrates, until we abandon our claims, our rights, our grievances. Until then we will be trapped in the obscurity of our heart's mixed motives, our will to possess, to control, to be our own gods. cslewis life love wisdom control rights Michael D. O'Brien
59f9e28 As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had. sadness life love Jeannette Walls
c7ae766 "The voice came from the night all around him, in his head and out of it. "What do you want?' it repeated. He wondered if he dared to turn and look, realised he did not. 'Well? You come here every night, in a place where the living are not welcome. I have seen you. Why?' 'I wanted to meet you,' he said, without looking around. 'I want to live for ever.' His voice cracked as he said it. He had stepped over the precipice. There was no going back. In his imagination, he could already feel the prick of needle-sharp fangs in his neck, a sharp prelude to eternal life. The sound began. It was low and sad, like the rushing of an underground river. It took him several long seconds to recognise it as laughter. 'This is not life,' said the voice. It said nothing more, and after a while the young man knew he was alone in the graveyard." life vampires Neil Gaiman
1b6d740 If he's like any other man I've ever met, it's not my smile he's going to be looking at. brad-thor scot-harvath men fiction humor life thriller Brad Thor
4c4a6c6 You feel as if everybody has been given an instruction manual on how to be likable, but you didn't get it. And they are all sold out now. And if you are what you eat, then you must have surely spent the last few years of your life eating dog food and cat shit. Because when you look in the mirror, it is all that you see. feelings life Heather O'Neill
ff2875e Nothing is quite so beautiful as when you share it with it with someone else. There is no purpose in working unless one works for someone, for something. life Louis L'Amour
d7a93ba Why do they have windows? Is it to let a glimpse of the world in? Or for us to see out? Our own place is small perhaps, but when your old man is eaten up by his own shadow, you realize maybe that in every house, something so savage and sad and brilliant is standing up, without the world even seeing it. Maybe that's what these pages of words are about. Bringing the world to the window. inspiration life understanding-life fight Markus Zusak
fa9be41 At some point, human intelligence became collective and cumulative in a way that happened to no other animal. life Matt Ridley
6b2527f You do it how you can do it, so long as it's getting done, you're okay. life inspirational Emma Forrest
b20838b "The meaning of life in western secular society is to be successful. So many people are success mad and they are encouraged to reach for something and have so called "worthwhile goals". Money, fame, power, good looks, possessions are the indicators of success and the media and advertising companies exploit this. People are conditioned to believe that they can only feel happy or good about themselves if they have these things. This of course is not true." money looks lies good meaning success happiness life truth companies conditioned indicators what possessions conditioning is of fame successful western society goals secular media deceit power Tim Crawshaw
2305011 It wasn't the big decisions that set the course of one's life; it was the slow accretion of all the little ones. life path-of-life Lauren Willig
182e490 One day you discover you are alive. Explosion! Concussion! Illumination! Delight! You laugh, you dance around, you shout. But, not long after, the sun goes out. Snow falls, but no one sees it, on an August noon. death life summer Ray Bradbury
3e3c1d0 Above all, staring at my old bedroom ceiling, I feel safe. Cocooned from the world; wrapped up in cotton wool. No one can get me here. No one even knows I'm here. I won't get any nasty letters and I won't get any nasty phone calls and I won't get any nasty visitors. It's like a sanctuary. I feel as if I'm fifteen again, with nothing to worry about but my Homework. (And I haven't even got any of that.) life parent-love-and-protection parents nostalgia Sophie Kinsella
6889189 The classes were valuable, but the real education was the game. war live world life truth genius game Orson Scott Card
1563b75 Here some one thrust these cards into these old hands of mine, swears that I must play them, and no others. And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right, live in the game, and die in it. hunts life game-theory Herman Melville
43e5b18 There are worse things, worse than being like us. Look, at least we're alive. life truth Jonathan Safran Foer
b779264 My mother? My own mother told my lady governess that if the baby and I were in danger then they should save the baby. history women life personhood Philippa Gregory
f0c5c10 The disruption of the anticipated American future that was simply to have unrolled out of the solid American past, out of each generation's getting smartersmarter for knowing the inadequacies and limitations of the generations beforeout of each new generation's breaking away from the parochialism a little further, out of the desire to go the limit in America with your rights, forming yourself as an ideal person who gets rid of the traditional Jewish habits and attitudes, who frees himself of the pre-America insecurities and the old, constraining obsessions so as to live unapologetically as an equal among equals. life Philip Roth
280c6fa One of my pet peeves was when an adult imagined they had to encapsulate Life for you, hand you Life in a jar, in an eyedropper, in a penguin paperweight full of snow-A Collector's Dream. life-lessons life patronizing pet-peeves teenagers Marisha Pessl
a781adf For the first time, Ender had found a living mind he could admire. personality feelings life ender genius Orson Scott Card
968819c insanin butun eylemleri kendisine yoneliktir, butun hizmetleri kendine hizmettir, butun sevgisi kendini sevmesindendir. life Irvin D. Yalom
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