Quotes by Authors - Page 4502

The details that are life's special pattern, like how in handwoven rugs what really makes them unique are the tiny flaws in the stitching, little gaps and jumps and stutters that can never be reproduced. so many things become beautiful when you really look.

Sana'y hindi umiikot ang mundo at tumatanda ang panahon.- Jea

I remember one desolate Sunday night, wondering: Is this how I´m going to spend the rest of my life? Marrid to someone who is perpetually distracted and somewhat wistful, as though a marvelous party is going on in the next room, which but for me he could be attending?

I was performing my ritual of sipping tea, shooting flirtatious glances and planning murder

Being depressed and suicidal doesn't mean wanting to kill yourself every moment of every day. It may be a fixed obsession, but sometimes it gets relegated to the back of your head. Rather, it means the world takes on the very cut and dry, black and white, unilateral aspect of a flowchart.

The artist is the only one qualified to criticize his art, because only the artist knows what he was trying to express and how satisfied he is with the attempt.

When an ordinary man attains knowledge, he is a sage; when a sage attains understanding, he is an ordinary man

Never tell a mother how she has to raise her children and give no advice over their schooling, health or nutrition if you are not asked to.

The one, who likes to have an ‘underhand’, will inevitably come across a ‘boss’!

It's tough to have an authentic relationship with awe in the age of awesome, a word that has become so overused as to be drained of its meaning.

Fear, left unchecked, can spread like a virus.

Stranger inside me, when you are born, I will give youa closed book and ask you never to read it, never rest, never forgive a man who wants to save you.

Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route to becoming. All the magic and glass mountains and pearls the size of houses and princesses beautiful as the day and talking birds and part-time serpents are distractions from the core of most of the stories, the struggle to survive against adversaries, to find your place in the world, and to come into your own.Fairy tales are almost always the stories of the powerless, of youngest sons, abandoned children, orphans, of humans transformed into birds and beasts or otherwise enchanted away from their own lives and selves. Even princesses are chattels to be disowned by fathers, punished by step-mothers, or claimed by princes, though they often assert themselves in between and are rarely as passive as the cartoon versions. Fairy tales are children's stories not in wh they were made for but in their focus on the early stages of life, when others have power over you and you have power over no one.In them, power is rarely the right tool for survival anyway. Rather the powerless thrive on alliances, often in the form of reciprocated acts of kindness -- from beehives that were not raided, birds that were not killed but set free or fed, old women who were saluted with respect. Kindness sewn among the meek is harvested in crisis...In Hans Christian Andersen's retelling of the old Nordic tale that begins with a stepmother, "The Wild Swans," the banished sister can only disenchant her eleven brothers -- who are swans all day look but turn human at night -- by gathering stinging nettles barehanded from churchyard graves, making them into flax, spinning them and knitting eleven long-sleeved shirts while remaining silent the whole time. If she speaks, they'll remain birds forever. In her silence, she cannot protest the crimes she accused of and nearly burned as a witch.Hauled off to a pyre as she knits the last of the shirts, she is rescued by the swans, who fly in at the last moment. As they swoop down, she throws the nettle shirts over them so that they turn into men again, all but the youngest brother, whose shirt is missing a sleeve so that he's left with one arm and one wing, eternally a swan-man. Why shirts made of graveyard nettles by bleeding fingers and silence should disenchant men turned into birds by their step-mother is a question the story doesn't need to answer. It just needs to give us compelling images of exile, loneliness, affection, and metamorphosis -- and of a heroine who nearly dies of being unable to tell her own story.

I know the power of speech. I don't talk much.

Happiness is like time and space--we make and measure it ourselves; it is a fancy--as big, as little, as you please; just a thing of contrasts and comparisons, like health or strength or beauty or any other good--that wouldn't even be noticed but for sad personal experience of its opposite!--or its greater!

Find a unique path and make a successful journey over there! This is the way to have a unique place in the history!

Some that read this book will find its Libertarian and Constitutionalist slant a bit obtuse and maybe even off-putting. This author makes no apologies for viewing the history of the eugenics movement from this political perspective. It is the ethical and legal underpinnings of the American Revolution that remain as a guiding light while the eugenics movement continues to reemerge long after its alleged demise. Limited, or rather minimal government, goes a long way to curtail the disconnect that emerges when government grows so large that it no longer feels compelled to heed to the dictates of the governed.

The power of desire is a divine.Desire to live by faith.

Sin is all wrong doing.

When the only exorcise you get is running for a bus, get more buses!

Colin "I'm just--I'm just a failure. what if this is it? -----andI never do anything significant and I'm just a complete waste?"Hassan sat up, with his hands on his knees. "See, this is why you need to believe in God.

Passion - eventually it cools.

Emergency? Knighthawk sent. I’m just bored.I blinked, holding my phone and rereading that text.Bored? I sent. You’re literally spying on the entire world, Knighthawk. You can read anyone’s mail, listen to anyone’s phone calls.First, it’s not the whole world, he wrote. Only large chunks of North and Central America. Second, do you have any idea how mind-numbingly DULL most people are?I started a reply, but a flurry of messages came at me, interrupting what I was going to say.Oh! Knighthawk wrote. Look at this pretty flower!Hey. I want to know if you like me, but I can’t say that, so here’s an awkward flirtation instead.Where are you?I’m here.Where?Here.There?No, here.Oh.Look at my kid.Look at my dog.Look at me.Look at me holding my kid and dog.Hey, everyone. I took a huge koala this morning.Barf. The world is ruled by deific beings who can do stuff like melt buildings into puddles of acid, and all people can think of to do with their phones is take pictures of their pets and try to figure out how to get laid.

The Love factor makes anything hallowed, and an action is no exception. Doing things with love makes the work sacred.

Potential was a red herring to plot a life of wandering curiosity.

This was one of those non-glamorous parts about college that people never tell you about - worrying that the dilapidated apartment hosting a party would fall apart with you in it.

Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. - Amir

I thought that love would last forever. But nothing is forever. Life is not forever. The only reliable permanence is change. Love hurts because change is painful. Love hurts because love lost is an assault on our ego. We fear that we will fail again and those who live in fear of failure slowly but inevitably fail.

Charity is the best form of prayer. Do whatever little you can to help the not so fortunate. You may donate a small portion of your income, you may take out time to teach the underprivileged children, sponsor a meal for the hungry or just spend some time with an old lady who has no one. I am sure that you will move one level high on the spiritual plane. Like prayers, doing charity once is not enough. You have to do it continuously, as much as possible.

Perhaps I have misjudged you, Christopher,” Erienne commented as he whirled her about in a wide sweep of the ballroom. “How so, my love?” He searched her face for some hint of her meaning. “You watch over me as closely as Stuart,” she stated and grew thoughtful. “Perhaps more so.” “I have not given up hope that you will someday become mine, madam, and I choose to safeguard against those who would take you from me.” “What of Stuart?” She raised a lovely brow as she awaited his answer. It was a long moment before he gave a reply. “In the ways of love, I do not consider Stuart as much a threat as an inconvenience.” “An inconvenience?” she queried. “I shall have to deal with him in time, and that will be the difficult part. I cannot dismiss the man without rousing your hatred again. ’Tis a most perplexing problem.” “You amaze me, Christopher.” Erienne shook her head, somewhat shocked by his casual disregard of her husband. “You truly amaze me.” “The feeling is mutual, my love.” His voice came as a soft caress and sent an eddy of sensations spiraling down through the core of her being.-Erienne & Christopher

Most of our problems today are not that we don’t know, but that we don’t know how to put things together with the right zeal and grit to get something noble and leave noble footprints!

Denying the facts is what enables people to hate and to persecute marginalized and threatened minority groups. Labeling the advocacy, educational and informational initiatives of these persecuted minority groups dismissively as 'propaganda for the gay agenda' undermines, belittles and trivializes the cause of those whose right to exist is under threat.

There is only one limitation that exists in our minds, which can indeed reduce the speed of our progress; that is the limitation of our understanding

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

Sometimes we need to step away from our current reality in order to truly appreciate it.

She had loved him. He knew this; he had never doubted it. But she had also asked him to kill her. If you love someone that much, you did not lay that sort of burden on him for the rest of his life.

You have a brain and mind of your own. Use it, and reach your own decisions.

I was thinking of murder, mutilation and dessert like Ignacia Sandoval’s instructions for delectable empanadas made of minced mother-in-law’s tongue (said to induce peace and harmony in your household), or the gonads of your cheating husband (a savory dish to add spice to your lovemaking).

It is so easy to practice a creditable degree of so seeming virtue, and so difficult to purify and direct the affections of the heart, that I feel myself in continual danger of appearing better than I am; and I verily believe it is possible to make one’s whole life a display of splendid virtue and agreeable qualities, without ever setting foot towards the narrow path, or even one’s face towards the strait gate.” – Hannah More

But if I had to pick another person for her, I'd have to say you, Jess, since I hold you in such high regard. Yes, you would be a good match, but I am the lucky one this time! - Bryan Gifford

[A] person whose head is bowed and whose eyes are heavy cannot look at the light.

If you ever want to love someone, love yourself unconditionally first.

Look, let me just say it: He was hot. A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy . . . well.

That's what you do when you love someone. You accept their baggage and deal with the shit life throws at you along the way. You just learn to become a team and deal with it together. That's the only way you're going to survive it.

Being powerful means shifting our minds away from our troubles and into solution-thinking.

I believe in roses. Oh God, yes! I do believe in roses! And I believe in lots and lots and lots of them, too!

There is a wellspring of life within you where you can go for cleansing and transformation.

I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.

The union of their shared lives could be a masterpiece, even if the colors of one piece clashed with another, even if uneven stitches showed, even if, from time to time, they had to pick out seams, realign the pieces, and sew them back together again. It would not be perfect, but it could be beautiful, if they worked together and persevered.

It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life.Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. Sohrab's silence wasn't the self imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.

The cities were sucking all the life of the country into themselves and destroying it. Men were no longer individuals but units in a vast machine, all cut to one pattern, with the same tastes and ideas, the same mass-produced education that did not educate but only pasted a veneer of catchwords over ignorance. Why do you want to bring that back?

The mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.

All I needed for the mind was to be led to new stations. All I needed for the heart was to visit a place of greater storms.

red is for fire red is for love too it lies in our hand what we wanna choose...

After so many years drifting, not connected to anything, I'm finally tethered. Safe and loved, in the middle.We start senior year like kings, like nothing can ever tear us apart.We're wrong.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

Even dead, Scarlett seemed able to graft my thoughts onto yearnings a gentleman should never ever contemplate. But then again, no gentleman had ever lived a night wrapped in her cool limbs, savouring such sordid and delightful affections as I had. Scarlett’s attentions had raised me above God, but so help me, in no time she had thrown me down to the devil. And then the killings had begun.

When one devotes oneself to meditation mental burdens unnecessary worries and wandering thoughts drop off one by one life seems to run smoothly and pleasantly. A student may now depend on intuition to make decisions. As one acts on intuition second thought with its dualism doubt and hesitation does not arise.

Storylines from fiction always seem inherently improbable to occur in real life, yet when we read them we are happy to suspend our disbelief, which may simply suggest that in our everyday lives we have an irrational craving for certainty and probability.

One of the central elements of resilience, Bonanno has found, is perception: Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as an opportunity to learn and grow? “Events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic,” Bonanno told me, in December. “To call something a ‘traumatic event’ belies that fact.” He has coined a different term: PTE, or potentially traumatic event, which he argues is more accurate.The theory is straightforward. Every frightening event, no matter how negative it might seem from the sidelines, has the potential to be traumatic or not to the person experiencing it. Take something as terrible as the surprising death of a close friend: you might be sad, but if you can find a way to construe that event as filled with meaning—perhaps it leads to greater awareness of a certain disease, say, or to closer ties with the community—then it may not be seen as a trauma. The experience isn’t inherent in the event; it resides in the event’s psychological construal. It’s for this reason, Bonanno told me, that “stressful” or “traumatic” events in and of themselves don’t have much predictive power when it comes to life outcomes. “The prospective epidemiological data shows that exposure to potentially traumatic events does not predict later functioning,” he said. “It’s only predictive if there’s a negative response.” In other words, living through adversity, be it endemic to your environment or an acute negative event, doesn’t guarantee that you’ll suffer going forward. What matters is whether that adversity becomes traumatizing.