Site uses cookies to provide basic functionality.

OK
Link Quote Stars Tags Author
e658818 What is always needed in the appreciation of art, or life, is the larger perspective. Connections made, or at least attempted, where none existed before, the straining to encompass in one's glance at the varied world the common thread, the unifying theme through immense diversity, a fearlessness of growth, of search, of looking, that enlarges the private and the public world. And yet, in our particular society, it is the narrowed and narrowing view of life that often wins courage existence growth life narrow-mindedness open-mindedness perspective society Alice Walker
27b8bfd Would you actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts in order to spare your son from committing them too? And could you in any way protect your son from Sansara? How could you? By means of teachings, prayer, admonition? My dear, have you entirely forgotten that story, that story containing so many lessons, that story about Siddhartha, a Brahman's son, which you once told me here on this very spot? Who has kept the Samana Siddhartha safe from Sansara, from sin, from greed, from foolishness? Were his father's religious devotion, his teachers warnings, his own knowledge, his own search able to keep him safe? Which father, which teacher had been able to protect him from living his life for himself, from soiling himself with life, from burdening himself with guilt, from drinking the bitter drink for himself, from finding his path for himself? Would you think, my dear, anybody might perhaps be spared from taking this path? That perhaps your little son would be spared, because you love him, because you would like to keep him from suffering and pain and disappointment? But even if you would die ten times for him, you would not be able to take the slightest part of his destiny upon yourself. life parenthood Hermann Hesse
378b4d5 To deal with history [life] means to abandon one's self to chaos but to retain a belief in the ordination and the meaning. It is a very serious task. history life meaning Hermann Hesse
df42bcb "My dear Mrs Casaubon," said Farebrother, smiling gently at her ardour, "character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do." "Then it may be rescued and healed," said Dorothea." life positive-thinking George Eliot
fa9be41 At some point, human intelligence became collective and cumulative in a way that happened to no other animal. life Matt Ridley
2d56167 El misterio de la vida no es problema que hay que resolver, sino una realidad que hay que experimentar. dune existence existencial life realidad reality science-fiction vida Frank Herbert
6b2527f You do it how you can do it, so long as it's getting done, you're okay. inspirational life Emma Forrest
897bf6f What determines each person's state of happiness or unhappiness is not the event itself, but what the event means to that person. inspiration life philosophy zen zen-and-the-art-of-happiness Chris Prentiss
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. change christianity eternity life upside-down Randy Alcorn
41fdfe2 wlkn knt 'nt l`z wlsrwr ! lHy@ SHr qHl@ mhlk@ w 'nt bh wHdk lwH@ lkhDr lrTyb@ tlwdh bh lnfs life lover Naguib Mahfouz
8771415 lmr'@ hy lHy@, lmwt nfsh ykll bjll@ lHq byn ydyh. life woman Naguib Mahfouz
ba2547d Hope could be a wonderful thing. But hope could crush you anew every single day. Hope could be the cruelest thing in the world. life Harlan Coben
3fce9c9 Is there any place on Earth that smells better than a laundromat? It's like a rainy Sunday when you don't have to get out from under your covers, or like lying back on the grass your father's just mowed - comfort food for your nose. family father happiness laundromat life rain safety sunday Jodi Picoult
f91fa52 One must indeed test the strings to this life, bounce the bow, wet the mouthpiece, prepare for the deeper music that follows. life music Mitch Albom
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 life-lessons patronizing pet-peeves teenagers Marisha Pessl
e81e7b2 l shy ymknh tGyyr nmT lHy@ 'kthr mn njb Tfl children life novel Nicholas Sparks
4785bd0 If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe? Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe? faith life love Yann Martel
3cf9aef - i have done things i am not proud of, things that brought shame onto my house and my father's name.. but to kill your own sire? how could any man do that? - give me a crossbow and pull down your breeches, and i'll show you. gladly. - you think this is a jape? - i think life is a jape. yours, mine, everyone's. life tyrion George R.R. Martin
ccbebd0 No matter what night preceded it, she had never known a morning when she did not feel the rise of a quiet excitement that became a tightening energy in her body and a hunger for action in her mind--because this was the beginning of day and it was a day of her life. dagny-taggart life Ayn Rand
caa5d08 We reach in desperation beyond the fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the universe are ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human face. London is religions opportunity--not the decorous religion of theologians, but an anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the continuous flow would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not anyone pompous or tearful--were caring for us up in the sky. life religion truth E.M. Forster
579313e In India everything has a use and a value. life use value Tahir Shah
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. evil good happiness john-galt life man mind morality morals objectivism pain philosophy pursuit-of-happiness rational reason think thinking truth values virtue wisdom Ayn Rand
a514c2b Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification. consciousness existence john-galt life man mind morality morals objectivism philosophy pursuit-of-happiness rational reason think thinking truth values virtue wisdom Ayn Rand
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. evil good john-galt life man mind morality morals objectivism philosophy pursuit-of-happiness rational reason think thinking truth values virtue wisdom Ayn Rand
ad36099 It was as if each of them sensed vaguely that the Saturday afternoons of youth are few, and precious, and this feeling which neither of them could have defined or described made every moment of this time together too short, too quickly gone, yet clearer and more sharply edged than any other. life moments saturday teenage-love teenagers youth youthfulness Grace Metalious
61a552d ...and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end. life Louisa May Alcott
8d9fb57 she hated everything her parents loved hate life parents parents-and-children Stephen Chbosky
7fd6013 I kept my expectations low, which is one of the secrets of life. life secret Anne Lamott
f2a9b73 Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? life Joseph Conrad
3b9f197 I was stirred by the dark mystery of mortality. I couldn't resist stealing up to the edge of doom and peering over the brink (...) That was a very different thing from wanting to die. freedom life wild wilderness Jon Krakauer
5f8c42d After the gratifications of brutish appetites are past, the greatest pleasure then is to get rid of that which entertained it. battle-of-the-sexes don-quixote dorothea humor life love lust pleasure sex truth Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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
3fd11af Life, Tavi reflected, seldom makes a gift of what one expects or plans for. life Jim Butcher
d74f07b People want us, or want us dead, because of what we are, not who we are. It's hard. final james james-patterson lessons-of-life life maximum patterson reality reality-sucks ride the warning James Patterson
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." companies conditioned conditioning deceit fame goals good happiness indicators is lies life looks meaning media money of possessions power secular society success successful truth western what Tim Crawshaw
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
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
286bfb2 "If life were a movie, we'd have had what they call a "meet cute"." life love meet-cute James Patterson
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
96c87d6 Joy multiples when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life. life R.A. Salvatore
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 life personhood women Philippa Gregory
9c3138d "Years have passed, I suppose. I'm not really counting them anymore. But I think of this thing often: Perhaps there is a Golden Age someplace, a Renaissance for me sometime, a special time somewhere, somewhere but a ticket, a visa, a diary-page away. I don't know where or when. Who does? Where are all the rains of yesterday? In the invisible city? Inside me? life melancholy poetry Roger Zelazny
444fb2c The first rule in life is 'everybody lies.' Remember that and you'll get a lot further. cynical lies life lying rule rules Jennifer Crusie
bb2fc86 I have no emotions. I just stand there, in the rubble of my life. This... this was my home. If it were a person, this would be a gaping chest wound, the kind no one can recover from. feelings home life rubble wounds Beth Revis
a8c177a One day the enemy will cross the Great Green. They will bring war and tragedy to these eastern lands. Such is the nature of vile men. Yet we cannot live in dread of them. We cannot hide behind these high walls, our hearts trembling. For that is not life. We must accept the needs and the duties of each day, and face them one at a time. life war David Gemmell
537a863 We all do what we do. life mgg ray-bradbury Ray Bradbury
a7247cb Until we realize that things might not be, we cannot realize that things are. Until we see the background of darkness, we cannot admire the light as a single and created thing. As soon as we have seen that darkness, all light is lightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. Until we picture nonentity we underrate the victory of God, and can realize none of the trophies of His ancient war. It is one of the million wild jests of truth that we know nothing until we know nothing. existence life G.K. Chesterton
336bad4 Why are my sons followed thus by darkness?' ...'Because they were born in the house of flesh, therefore death follows at their heels. dying inevitability life living Ursula K. Le Guin
9d3b7c0 It is not death that allows us to understand each other, but poetry. history inspirational life life-philosophy love poetry Ursula K. Le Guin
2d9d85e Survival often demands our courage. life survival David Mitchell
1d6ef57 The popularity of an individual in life often only manifests itself in death. jeffrey-archer life popularity sons-of-fortune Jeffrey Archer
6bb3ea1 The Source of all things, the luminescence, has more forms than heaven's stars, sure. And one good thought is all it takes to make it shine. But a single mistake can burn down a forest in your heart, hiding all the stars, in all the skies. And while a mistake's still burning, ruined love or lost faith can make you think you're done, and you can't go on. But it's not true. It's never true. No matter what you do, no matter where you're lost, the luminescence never leaves you. Any good thing that dies inside can rise again, if you want it hard enough. The heart doesn't know how to quit, because it doesn't know how to lie. You lift your eyes from the page, fall into the smile of a perfect stranger, and the searching starts all over again. It's not what it was. It's always different. It's always something else. But the new forest that grows back in a scarred heart is sometimes wilder and stronger than it was before the fire. And if you stay there, in that shine within yourself, that new place for the light, forgiving everything and never giving up, sooner or later you'll always find yourself right back there where love and beauty made the world: at the beginning. The beginning. The beginning. life love luminescence mumbai night shantaram stars Gregory David Roberts
dbf5abf Beside them, little pot-bellied men in light suits and panama hats; clean, pink men with puzzled, worried eyes, with restless eyes. Worried because formulas do not work out; hungry for security and yet sensing its disappearance from the earth. In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid any more. life men restless security-fear John Steinbeck
1af4461 We pimp our precious lives to the infernal gnashing babble - Follow me! Friend me! Like me! But don't ever know me. follow know knowledge life like social-network society Patrick Marber
3a16c34 Only one life, it will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. christ christian done faith god jesus last life one past soon Elizabeth George
6043a40 The woman who later became his wife was sleeping in his bed, her face buried in the pillows and her feet crossed on top of each other like a child's. He watched her sleep and struggled to see her as she was, but what he saw instead were her muscles and bones. He saw right through the skin to where her femur connected to her tibia by way of the ligaments, to the hair web of nerves and the delicate forest of her lungs, to the abstract heart pumping blood through her arteries. It terrified him how easily these systems could fail her. death life Nicole Krauss
6984399 "Pa said, "Won't you say a few words? Ain't none of our folks ever been buried without a few words." Connie led Rose of Sharon to the graveside, she reluctant. "You got to," Connie said. "It ain't decent not to. It'll jus' be a little. The firelight fell on the grouped people, showing their faces and their eyes, dwindling on their dark clothes.All the hats were off now. The light danced, jerking over the people. Casy said, It'll be a short one." He bowed his head, and the others followed his lead. Casy said solemnly, "This here ol' man jus' lived a life an' just died out of it. I don't know whether he was good or bad, but that don't matter much. He was alive, an' that's what matters. An' now his dead, an' that don't matter. Heard a fella tell a poem one time, an' he says 'All that lives is holy.' Got to thinkin', an' purty soon it means more than the words says. An' I woundn' pray for a ol' fella that's dead. He's awright. He got a job to do, but it's all laid out for'im an' there's on'y one way to do it. But us, we got a job to do, an' they's a thousan' ways, an' we don' know which one to take. An' if I was to pray, it'd be for the folks that don' know which way to turn. Grampa here, he got the easy straight. An' now cover 'im up and let'im get to his work." He raised his head." death funeral last-words life John Steinbeck
c2baa1a "But, Mameha-san, I don't want kindness!" "Don't you? I thought we all wanted kindness. Perhaps what you mean is that you want something more than kindness. And that is something you're in no position to ask." kindness life love Arthur Golden
5d40f74 I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself that nothing really matters except being alive. life Sarah Miller
3763e7a He drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow-Chinese paper, the brushes, and slab of India ink. In cleanest, severest outline he had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose centre is the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance, Anger, and Lust), and whose compartments are all the heavens and hells, and all the chances of human life. balance human-life ignorance life lust the-wheel-of-things Rudyard Kipling
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
d4adf34 ... forty's nothing, at fifty you're in your prime, sixty's the new forty, and so on. ageing life 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. history life literature time Julian Barnes
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." law life society society-individualism suicide Julian Barnes
bd08a45 Tragedies in hindsight look like farces. life tragedy Julian Barnes
96fd4c2 Just because something isn't good doesn't mean it's bad. book characters crime depth ethics evil good life literary lonely misunderstood novel sad spooky truth Rebecca McNutt
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 family hope human life material together Rebecca McNutt
3bac8d5 Doing nothing sometimes hurts more than doing something. Life doesn't come with a guarantee, which is just as well, because most guarantees are bullshit. life Nora Roberts
dd781c8 Believe me, once you have tasted worship--the kind of worship that captures your heart and rivets your full attention on the living Lord--nothing less satisfies. Nothing else even comes close. Once you have tasted true worship, you will never want to play church again. life religion Charles R. Swindoll
9e7b41f The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are -- until the poem -- nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. hope life Audre Lorde
4c8d46b "That's a stupid name! Whirly-gig is much better, I think. Who in their right mind would point at this thing and say, 'I'm going to fly in my Model-A1'. amnesia androids apocalypse carrack cityisle cityspire count damnation death desolate dreams emily-dickinson empty fedora ghosts gothic greek-mythology haunting haunts horace-walpole jazz life magic magick mannequins masquerade music phillip-k-dick piano poems puddles rain reflections romance sacrifice science-fiction sex shakespeare ships songs specters spectre storms tempest waking water Nathan Reese Maher
7e28141 There is nothing more vindictive, nothing more underhanded, than a little world that would like to be a big one. life vindictive world Stefan Zweig
41f2d47 Pasmo sempre quando acabo qualquer coisa. Pasmo e desolo-me. O meu instinto de perfeicao deveria inibir-me de acabar; deveria inibir-me ate de dar comeco. Mas distraio-me e faco. O que consigo e um produto, em mim, nao de uma aplicacao de vontade, mas de uma cedencia dela. Comeco porque nao tenho forca para pensar; acabo porque nao tenho alma para suspender. Este livro e a minha cobardia. inner-self life solitude Fernando Pessoa
ce95a04 Our souls are but leaves in a storm, and only the gods know where we will come to rest. fait gods life people prophecy David Gemmell
986fdeb Life is a precious possession...It is what one makes of it. - Charity Duncan life love Mary Balogh
afba38e It came to Mary now that her mother had been right, after all; Mary had been born for this. In sixteen years she'd shot along the shortest route she could find between life and death, as the crow flew. life Emma Donoghue
385f872 Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By most astounding stroke of luck and infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist. For endless eons there was no you. Before you know it, you will cease to be again. And in between you have this wonderful opportunity to see and feel and think and do. Whatever else you do with your life, nothing will remotely compare with the incredible accomplishment of having managed to get yourself born. Congratulations. Well done. You really are special. inspirational life living Bill Bryson
b55abfa Life was small but good. (15) life simplicity small Francesca Lia Block
6041560 Everything free and decent in life is being locked away in filthy little cellars by beastly people who don't care. beastly care cellar cellars decent filthy free life locked people John Fowles
3c0330f "Sweet Pocket, you mustn't ask about my life before I came here. What I am now, I have always been, and everything I am is here with you." "Sweet Thalia," said I. "That is a fiery flagon of dragon toss." future humor life past Christopher Moore
28451ce Nothing in life was as ugly as death. life Graham Greene
e6cb711 A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats. life mgg stephen-crane the-open-boat trials waves Stephen Crane
3641a33 ... one can't live without falling now and again. life life-lessons Elizabeth Hoyt
63ba007 "But we who remain shall grow old We shall know the cold Of cheerless Winter and the rain of Autumn and the sting Of poverty, of love despised and of disgraces, And mirrors showing stained and aging faces, And the long ranges of comfortless years And the long gamut of human fears... But, for you, it shall forever be spring, And only you shall be forever fearless, And only you have white, straight, tireless limbs, And only you, where the water-lily swims Shall walk along the pathways thro' the willows Of your west. You who went West, and only you on silvery twilight pillows Shall take your rest death dying forever life sad war youth Ford Madox Ford (Ford Madox Hueffer )
1319d64 "But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me? Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous." feminism life tradition virginia-woolf woman Elizabeth Gilbert
2e61010 "Life is more than great sex and a nice car." "Well, yeah. But not a lot more." cars life meaning-of-life sex Jennifer Crusie
9bc9c26 Mariac tells us about the books he's read, the painters he's liked, the plays he's seen. He finds himself by looking in the works of others. He defines his own faith by a passionate anger against Gide the Luciferian. Reading his 'memories' is like meeting a man on a train who says, 'Don't look at me; that's misleading. If you want to know what I'm like, wait until we're in a tunnel, and then study my reflection in the window.' You wait, and look, and catch a face against a shifting background of sooty walls, cables, and sudden brickwork. The transparent shape flickers and jumps, always a few feet away. You become accustomed to its existence, you move with its movements; and though you know its presence is conditional, you feel it to be permanent. Then there is a wail from ahead, a roar and a burst of light; the face is gone for ever. condition existence life misleading passion Julian Barnes
d3201a9 And what percentage of people take up the option to die off?' She looked at me, her glance telling me to be calm. 'Oh, a hundred per cent, of course. Over many thousands of years, calculated by old time, of course. But yes, everyone takes the option, sooner or later.' 'So it's just like the first time round? You always die in the end?' 'Yes, except don't forget the quality of life here is much better. People die when they decide they've had enough, not before. The second time round it's altogether more satisfying because it's willed.' She paused, then added, 'As I say, we cater for what people want.' I hadn't been blaming her. I'm not that sort. I just wanted to find out how the system worked. 'So ... even people, religious people, who come here to worship God throughout eternity ... they end up throwing in the towel after a few years, hundred years, thousand years?' 'Certainly. As I said, there are still a few Old Heaveners around, but their numbers are diminishing all the time. life Julian Barnes
9258267 It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. human-nature inspiration life morality philosophy psychology societal-expectations society Leo Tolstoy
598dc10 I lived through those books, songs, television shows, and movies - the way the characters talked, looked, acted. I thought that could translate over into reality, that I could make their world my world. I wanted so badly to run away from my life. But you can't bury yourself in other people's pages and scenes. You aren't David Copperfield or Tom Sawyer. Those love songs on the radio might speak to you, but they're not about you or the person you pine for. Life is not a John Hughes film. life movies novels tv-shows Jason Diamond
b91a7ea Is there life before death? That's chalked up In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain, Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup, We hug our little destiny again. life poetry Seamus Heaney
7235232 Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it's made truly. The thing to do is work and learn to make it. life literature philosophy writing Ernest Hemingway
02ebe02 Growth is life, and life is for ever destined to make for light. inspirational life moving-forward Jack London
76e4d0c In the end, each of us is alone, but in the meantime, we must all huddle together to give one another comfort and warmth. life Sidney Sheldon
357e9dc You despise the real bourgeois classes for all their snobbishness and their snobbish voices and ways. You do, don't you? Yet all you put in their place is a horrid little refusal to have nasty thoughts or do nasty things or be nasty in any way. Do you know that every great thing in the story of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that? beautiful beauty bourgeois class classes despise feelings hatred horrid life love nasty passion refusal snob snobbish snobbishness thought thoughts truth John Fowles
0fd4aca My life had gone to bits and I was so unrecognizable to myself that I probably couldn't have picked me out of a police lineup. life Elizabeth Gilbert
ef8d38e Worry denies the power of God and produces no good results. Worry adds no value to your life. Eliminate it with God's help. free god life love power result value worry Elizabeth George
c813c8c Justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them life philospohy Gregory David Roberts
0048b43 Life is both a particle and a wave, Lacey taught me, and also it's neither. But only when no one is watching. Once you measure it, it has to choose. It was the act of witnessing that turned nothing into something, collapsed possibility clouds into concrete and irrevocable truth. I'd only pretended to understand before, but I understood now: When no one was watching, I was a cloud. I was all possibilities. definition life particle wave Robin Wasserman
8caf5de I had to get out of there for my face showed too much, the war in my body was dragging me down. My feet refused to carry me over to him again. The wind of my life was blowing me away. giovanni-s-room goodbye inner-turmoil james-baldwin leave-taking life sad separation James Baldwin
08050fc By the time I visited those battlefields, I knew that they had been retrofitted as the staging ground for a great deception, and this was my only security, because they could no longer insult me by lying to me. I knew--and the most important thing I knew was that, somewhere deep with them, they knew too. I like to think that knowing might have kept me from endangering you, that having understood and acknowledged the anger, I could control it. I like to think that it could have allowed me to speak the needed words to the woman and then walk away. I like to think this, but I can't promise it. The struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion of this world under your control. blacks life race-relations racism struggle whites Ta-Nehisi Coates
f69b30e ... but life would be very miserable indeed were I to spend it in terror of the thing that has not yet happened. life Edgar Rice Burroughs
c4191d1 If you life is an example of glorifying God, others won't see your good works and glorify YOU, because they'll know what you are doing is for God's glory. glorifying-god god life wake-up Charles R. Swindoll
371f21d I wondered If things that might seem frightening could lose their hold over you. I wondered If we find the people we need when we need them. I wondered If we attract our future by some sort of invisible force, or If we are drawn to it by a similar force. I felt I was turning a corner and that change was afoot. invisible life questions-in-life unexpected Sharon Creech
edd2159 One may deal with things without love...but you cannot deal with men without it...It cannot be otherwise, because natural love is the fundamental law of human life. life love mankind natural-laws Leo Tolstoy
9c2067b In all its beautiful, tragic fragility, there was still life. death life tragedy Sara Gruen
2b518fb If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man -- and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages -- it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. cost housing life Henry David Thoreau
f9e8ac9 As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men--men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. dead life Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1acf1a5 You are your own beginning. Every day, every hour, every minute, you start again. There is no point wishing you were someone else, you are who you are--start there. change life A.M. Homes
85d328c There's something about courting the darkness that makes some people see the truth in raw, twisted ways, as though they were shining a black light on life to illuminate the absurdity of it all. Comics tell you a truth you can only see from the underside of the psyche. At its best, comedy is prophesy and societal dream interpretation. At its worst it's just dick jokes. life pastrix Nadia Bolz-Weber
c3f86bc It isn't fair, but maybe that's the whole point. Fairness has no part in real life, and she took that lesson away from the Hotel Angeline with her. fairness life life-lessons mystery Susan Wiggs
5e52bf1 "This was real life, not a book. And in fiction legacy life real someday Danielle Steele
09ed7d0 When the peasants and their song had vanished from his sight and hearing, a heavy feeling of anguish at his loneliness, his bodily idleness, his hostility to this world, came over him...It was all drowned in the sea of cheerful common labor. God had given the day, God had given the strength. Both day and strength had been devoted to labour and in that lay the reward...Levin had often admired this life, had often experienced a feeling of envy for the people who lived this life, but that day for the first time...the thought came clearly to Levin that it was up to him to change that so burdensome, idle, artificial and individual life he lived into this laborious, pure and common, lovely life. life meaningful-life simple simplicity work Leo Tolstoy
ca791d2 Each person leaves a legacy -- a single, small piece of herself, which makes richer each individual life and the collective life of humanity as a whole. humanity legacy life John Nichols
96f3dbd ...some events in life would remain beyond my ability to control or manage them. Some events would just happen. life Joan Didion
a4a6e28 The world just happens to you sometimes, is what I think. And people just gotta keep moving through it, best they can. life what-happens-to-you Elizabeth Gilbert
5a0e1ef Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it - in a beautiful place of worship, surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it. Let things work themselves out here in India. grief life spirituality Elizabeth Gilbert
0e60048 I invented adventures for myself and made up a life, so as at least to live in some way. invention life loneliness Fyodor Dostoyevsky
99fdc23 We have talked about Suzy and about her last days, but it's as if our lives stopped then and there. If I say anything to him about feeling lonesome, he goes outside and does some little chore. I can't tell if he is secretly blaming me, or himself, or just too full of pain to talk. That was the one thing we could always do together. I wish for the old days. I wish for the struggling days and the days of Geronimo, and the days of birthing Charlie with no one but Jack to help me. How happy and in love we were then. I want to be in love again, but all I feel is darkness and shadows. Everything is changed and different death depression life loneliness marriage sadness Nancy E. Turner
0e47edd She couldn't believe how quickly life could change. How could she have known when she'd woken up that morning that today was the day she'd fall in love? life love Cecily von Ziegesar
09f6c0e At the age of twelve, before I had had one full year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering. life meaning meaning-of-life Richard Wright
038ce3f When you mess something up, you learn for the next time. life life-and-living Ned Vizzini
6dd44b6 And who knows (one cannot vouch for it), perhaps the whole goal mankind strives for on earth consists just in this ceaselessness of the process of achievement alone, that is to say, in life itself, and not essentially in the goal, which, of course, is bound to be nothing other than two times two is four--that is, a formula; and two times two is four is no longer life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death. fyodor-dostoyevsky life notes-from-underground Fyodor Dostoyevsky
29d2c62 One of the juiciest pleasures of life is to be able to salute and embrace, as elected leaders and honored representatives, people whom you first met when they were on the run or in exile or (like Adam) in and out of jail. I was to have this experience again, and I hope to have it many more times in the future: it sometimes allows me to feel that life is full of point. dissent life politics Christopher Hitchens
f2aeabf Proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life. life Tim O'Brien
d237c3b Not so bad this ending because one is getting used to endings: life like Morse, a series of dots and dashes, never forming a paragraph. goodbyes life vignettes Graham Greene
c0580ff Every time you try to block a thought out of your mind, you drive it deeper into your memory. By resisting it, you actually reinforce it. inspirational life subconscious Rick Warren
442ec4b For what could any Entity, conscious of eternal existence, want - but an end? existence life Isaac Asimov
fee0a2d Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting--that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art--and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort. book creativity curiosity inspirational joy life painting strangers writer writers-on-writing writing writing-life Yann Martel
e7c0afe Us, little children of the dust, children of a day, who with so many burdens do burden us with taking thought and with fears and desires and devious schemings of the mind, so that we wax old before our time and fall weary ere the brief day be spent and one reaping-hook gather us home at last for all our pains. humanity life E.R. Eddison
4b45f5a Mas como era extraordinaria aquela sala cheia de gente -- ou melhor, de animais -, a olhar na mesma direccao, para outros animais mascarados e treinados para representar num palco, para animais cobertos de tecido e bocados de peles, ornamentados com pedras e de rostos e garras pintados. Toda a gente acabara de comer um animal de qualquer especie; as peles que se viam por toda a parte, apesar de a noite estar quente, provinham de animas que tinham vivido, brincado e fornicado em florestas e campos, e os pes de toda a gente estavam cobertos de pele de animais. conscience life Doris Lessing
708e801 Znaesh veche kak da se smeesh na sm'rtta, Aruta - kaza Amos. - Nikoga poveche niama da si s'shchiiat. aruta bulgaria bulgarian death feist laugh life magician master raymond riftwar saga trask амос война живот магьосник майстор разлом реймънд смърт смях Raymond E. Feist
8cdd278 It's not as if we're running a hospital for sick children down here, let's put it that way. Where's the nobility in patching up a bunch of old tables and chairs? Corrosive to the soul, quite possibly. I've seen too many estates not to know that. Idolatry! Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only--if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of things--beautiful things--that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another? care connect corrosive destroy heart life nobility objects patch-up saving soul Donna Tartt
3114d80 Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life--a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple--the painter is giving you a secret message. He's telling you that living things don't last--it's all temporary. Death in life. That's why they're called natures mortes. Maybe you don't see it at first, with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer--there it is. death life philosophy transience Donna Tartt
ed9d76a As she made coffee in the kitchen and tried to spoon the frozen ice-cream from its carton without snapping the shaft off the spoon, Elizabeth was struck, not for the first time, by the thought that her life was entirely frivolous. It was a rush and slither of trivial crises; of uncertain cash-flow, small triumphs, occasional sex and too many cigarettes; of missed deadlines that turned out not to matter; of arguments, new clothes, bursts of altruism and sincere resolutions to address the important things. Of all these and the other experiences that made up her life, the most significant aspect was the one suggested by the words 'turned out not to matter'. Although she was happy enough with what she had become, it was this continued sense of the easy, the inessential nature of what she did, that most irritated her. She thought of Tom Brennan, who had known only life or death, then death in life. In her generation there was no intensity. life Sebastian Faulks
c638206 Your ultimate goal for marriage is that both of you--as husband and wife--commit to keep growing spiritually. christian faithfulness goal god grow husband life love marriage married spiritual ultimate wife Elizabeth George
66df5db Wisdom is the God-given ability to see life with rare objectivity and to handle life with rare stability. christian faith god joy life love objectivity peace point-of-view see stability stable view wisdom Elizabeth George
bd179b6 If you want to live a godly life, then choose to put the things into your mind that lead to living a godly life. god godly life living Elizabeth George
c733ada "Again, all of life presents us with two basic ways to treat events. We can either label them "god for us" or "bad for us." The event is only an event. It's how we treat the event that determines what it becomes in our lives. The event doesn't make that determination- we do." depression happiness life philosophy zen zen-and-the-art-of-happiness Chris Prentiss
6e3abd5 He believed he understood, for the first time, why people say life is a dream: if you live long enough, the events of a lifetime, like the events of a dream, cannot be communicated, simply because they are of no interest to anyone. Human beings themselves, after death, become figures in a dream to the survivors , they fade away and are forgotten, like dreams that were once convincing, but which no one cares to hear about. There are parents who find in their children a receptive audience, with the result that in the child's credulous imagination they find a last semblance of life, which quickly dims out as if they had never existed. ... life Adolfo Bioy Casares
4d31e8f When you need an idea about how to do anything, get quiet and relaxed and think about what it is you need to know. Then the flow of ideas will come. Be patient and let it happen. Sometimes it takes a little while, but it always works. life meditate meditation new-ideas patience Chris Prentiss
bb17509 "Without grievability, there is no life, or, rather, there is something living that is other than life. Instead, "there is a life that will never have been lived," sustained by no regard, no testimony, and ungrieved when lost. The apprehension of grievability precedes and makes possible the apprehension of precarious life. Grievability precedes and makes possible the apprehension of the living being as living, exposed to non-life from the start." life precariousness war Judith Butler
9171e34 STONE Let my heart turn to stone. Maybe then I can sleep without nightmares. May be then I can eat without a stomachache. Maybe then I can read without fear of an unhappy ending. Take the knife out of my heart and,please, let it turn to stone. heart life nightmares poetry stone unhappy-endings Lisa Schroeder
2ddf6e0 "According to Melanie Klein, we develop moral responses in reaction to questions of survivability. My wager is that Klein is right about that, even as she thwarts her own insight by insisting that it is the ego's survivability that is finally at issue. Why the ego? After all, if my survivability depends on a relation to others, to a "you" or a set of "yous" without whom I cannot exist, then my existence is not mine alone, but is to be found outside myself, in this set of relations that precede and exceed the boundaries of who I am. If I have a boundary at all, or if a boundary can be said to belong to me, it is only because I have become separated from others, and it is only on condition of this separation that I can relate to them at all. So the boundary is a function of the relation, a brokering of difference, a negotiation in which I am bound to you in my separateness. If I seek to preserve your life, it is not only because I seek to preserve my own, but because who "I" am is nothing without your life, and life itself has to be rethought as this complex, passionate, antagonistic, and necessary set of relations to others. I may lose this "you" and any number of particular others, and I may well survive those losses. But that can happen only if I do not lose the possibility of any "you" at all. If I survive, it is only because my life is nothing without the life that exceeds me, that refers to some indexical you, without whom I cannot be." boundaries butler dissociation grief klein life loss morality otherness self-preservation seperation survival Judith Butler