Quotes by Authors - Page 792

I love you not because I need you, but because you have created a place in my heart for you.

After he had fully determined that the young man was at the bottom of this state of affairs, and that it all came from him, he Jean Valjean, the regenerated man, the man who had laboured so much upon his soul, the man who had made so many efforts to resolve all life, all misery, and all misfortune into love; he looked within himself, and there he saw a spectre, Hatred.

The sea in all its vastness is its own, real world. Man is nature's sci-fi.

Then the soul, freed from vice, purged by studies of true philosophy, versed in spiritual life, and practised in matters of the intellect, devoted to the contemplation of her own substance, as if awakened from deepest sleep, opens those eyes which all possess but few use, and sees in herself a ray of that light which is the true image of the angelic beauty communicated to her, and of which she then communicates a faint shadow to the body.

Many of us ordinary folk have tasted these moments of "union" - on the ladder, in the pond, in the jungle, on the hospital bed. In the yogic view, it is in these moments that we know who we really are. We rest in our true nature and know beyond a doubt that everything is OK, and not just OK, but unutterably well. We know that there is nothing to accept and nothing to reject. Life just is as it is.

Envy nobody. It is the true secret of happiness, or at least the only one I know. (By Moonlight)

...success is not a comparison of what we have done with what others have done.

If there be such a principle as justice, or natural law, it is the principle, or law, that tells us what rights were given to every human being at his birth; what rights are, therefore, inherent in him as a human being, necessarily remain with him during life; and, however capable of being trampled upon, are incapable of being blotted out, extinguished, annihilated, or separated or eliminated from his nature as a human being, or deprived of their inherent authority or obligation.

An echo has no voice of its own.

I’d like to share with you a parable: the parable of Bob the Angel.A girl was walking down a darkly lit city street late at night. A man jumped out from the shadows and attacked her, suddenly she was suffocating and disoriented as hands clasped around her neck and the force of his attack started to push her down. She tried to yell as she struggled to pull his arms from her neck while she crumpled backwards to the ground, “God . . . help me!” The next thing she remembers—just as the fear consumed her, and right as she disappeared into the misery and despair of helplessness—was a loud crash and an explosion of glass which rained down upon her and her attacker. The assailant’s lifeless body was suspended above her, held from collapsing on her by an unknown force, and then pulled away from hovering over her and dropped onto the pavement beside her. She opened her eyes in the faint shadowy light, to see black matted hair and a long, black beard framing the eyes of a man. The smell of alcohol on his breath would have knocked her out if the adrenaline was not still trilling through her veins. There he stood, God’s angel, off-kilter and drunk, with a broken whiskey bottle in his hand. “You probably shouldn’t be walking through here this late at night,” was all he said as he turned away.“Wait! What’s your name?” she asked, still stunned half sitting up on the ground.All she heard as he walked away was his trailing voice calling, “Bob’s as good as any. . . .” An angel is a messenger, and sometimes we only want letters sent in white envelopes with beautiful gold print, when sometimes a simple “no” on the back of a gum wrapper is what we are offered. Every postcard from heaven does not come with a picture of the sunset there, nor should it. If it is an answer we want, an answer we will get. As far as pretty postcards, there are many others willing to send us that. If not harps and gold-tipped wings, what then is the mark of an angel? An answer which pierces your soul, and which inspires a question that invites you to look outside of yourself and up to God. God is very objective; He wants to make us think, to engage the faculties we have been given, and to learn from the messengers he sends us. He wants us in the ark before the flood; he could come himself—or send a Noah—but most of the time he sends Bob. Bob is in you, Bob is in me, Bob is in the emotionalized, sarcastic, mocking, patronizing, proud or foolish person which points out meaningful things to us in the worst possible moments, or in the worst possible way.

A forest," William said, his expression distant. "Where the ground is dry soil and stone. Where tall trees grow and centuries of autumn carpet their roots. Where the wind smells of game and wildflowers.""Why, that was lovely, Lord Bill. Do you ever write poetry? Something for your blueblood lady?""No.""She doesn't like poetry?""Leave it."Hehe. "Oh, so you have a lady. How interes--

Day blame ornery youngins.

Sometimes when you are low, you may feel that that there is darkness all around. In such moments, look at a faraway star. Its light seems to be less…very less. However, light is still there. Just because it is far, its light is not visible to the naked eye. You also have a lot of light and energy like that star. Harness it properly and see the effects!

With each encounter, we leave a part of ourselves

I am just as human as the man.

Where we sail and anchor our heart fill up the multitude odyssey paving to the coming home of our soul.

If you would stop worrying about things you don’t control and release what God has put into you, you will change everything around you.

The same magazines which not long before advertised products which would quickly allow women to return to their war work now extolled elaborate recipes which women could attempt if they stayed home and vacated jobs for men.

She wanted to lick her way across the sexy lettering on his chest just to hear his breath catch and feel the pounding of his heart beneath her tongue.

Only the right pain gets the right gain.

If want to become a person with vision, get back and reconnect to your source.

Don't assume you are more creative or better than anyone, because some people with better stuffs are just pretending to be dumb for a while.

The act of copulation is like that of picking the nose. It's all right to be doing it yourself but it is a singularly unattractive spectacle for the onlooker.

Moral issues rarely have yes or no answers.-Myles to Alanna when she asks about the Gift

Love yourself first to love others.

And courage to me meant ploughing through that dull gray mist that comes down on life--not only overriding people and circumstances but overriding the bleakness of living.

The person who thinks dogs can't talk doesn't want to learn a second language.

Even if mankind can go on without them, a piece of our vibrantly diverse world dies along with each species.

[Freud] "sat in his quiet cozy study in Vienna, glad to be back. He said to Ernest Jones, America is a mistake, a gigantic mistake.” Ragtime

Admire the efforts of a failure like you admire the beauty of a sunset.

At the heart of nature’s mystery lies another mystery.

There is no disgrace in being knocked down, there is only shame in not getting back up; never quit!

A man is not a tree'...If we remain where we start from we will neither grow nor flourish.

As I close my eyes in prayer, let me see the faces of those who need to know You, beloved Savior.

I was told very sternly at the hospital to avoid boys at all costs. Mess up your levels.""Oh, they do that!" Amy laughs. "Probably best to leave them alone for a while. The secret, though, is to start with one you're not that bothered about."What is the point in that?

Hey - Duggie! Duggie! Duggie!" He came running up to me, sparkler in hand. I felt like sticking one on him, the cheeky bastard. Nobody called me Duggie.He held the sparkler up in front of my face and said, "Wait. Wait."I was already waiting. What else was there to do?"Here you are," he said. "Look! What's this?"At that precise moment, his sparkler fizzled out. I didn't say anything, so he supplied the answer himself. "The death of the socialist dream," he said.He giggled like a little maniac, and stared at me for a second or two before running off, and in that time I saw exactly the same thing I'd seen in Stubbs's eyes the day before. The same triumphalism, the same excitement, not because something new was being created, but because something was being destroyed. I thought about Phillip and his stupid rock symphony and I swear that my eyes pricked with tears. This ludicrous attempt to squeeze the history of the countless millennia into half an hour's worth of crappy riffs and chord changes suddenly seemed no more Quixotic than all the things my dad and his colleagues had been working towards for so long. A national health service, free to everyone who needed it. Redistribution of wealth through taxation. Equality of opportunity. Beautiful ideas, Dad, noble aspirations, just as there was the kernel of something beautiful in Philip's musical hodge-podge. But it was never going to happen. If there had ever been a time when it might have happened, that time was slipping away. The moment had passed. Goodbye to all that.Easy to be clever with hindsight, I know, but I was right, wasn't I? Look back on that night from the perspective of now, the closing weeks of the closing century of our second millennium - if the calendar of some esoteric and fast-disappearing religious sect counts for anything any more - and you have to admit that I was right. And so was Benjamin's brother, the little bastard, with his sparkler and his horrible grin and that nasty gleam of incipient victory in his twelve-year-old eyes. Goodbye to all that, he was saying. He'd worked it out already. He knew what the future held in store.

I carried around five tons of pain where she used to be.

The vain woman spent fortunes seeking out astrologers, sorcerers, and magicians who would concoct spells and potions to preserve her beauty and help her remain looking young--but envy is hard to cover.

It’s as if everyone got cancer the day I was diagnosed, except I’m their tumor.

We often take for granted those familiar faces and places, the repetitive nature of something once new, excitement wanes. To capture that early moment and hold onto it for all our days, true bliss. Looking at the old in in a different way, making it new once again.

You get in life that which is your deep driving desire.

And there you have it...if I knew that I could only have a few nights in that man's arms or nothing, I would take those magic nights and use them to keep me warm for the rest of my life.

Success rarely occurs until a desire is turned into a passion and all focus and energy is channelled in its path.

I don't want to cry for Edward- at least not in the deep, personal way that you cry for a friend or loved one. I want to cry because something terrible happened, and I saw it, and I could not see a way to mend it.

It turns out horrendous when you choose the wrong options.

Is peace of mind the co-workability of your laws?

The man that wars with and judges others is eternally lost. The man that wars with and judges himself is eternally found.

Like you and me," said Jade. "How we used to be.""What do you mean? Crazy?""Living on our own world. Believing what we felt was separate from everything else. We couldn't do anything except be together and nothing else was real.""That's right.""Well, that's crazy. And you just said it was, even you.""No, " I said, "not when we both believe it. Crazy people are alone and no one understands what they mean. But that's not our way. We both know and it makes complete sense. It's not when you make it true by living it. And other people believe it, too, remember. Believe it about us. Everyone who knows us, sees us together. We have that effect.

The smaller the item of gratitude, the purer is the connection to our heart.

This world is as beautiful as your thoughts are.

This was met with a long pause. “Are you really left-handed?” Mr. Marshall asked.“No. I’ve just been pretending to use my left hand my entire life because I enjoy never being able to work scissors properly.

That K was hesitant in love does not mean that his love was in any sense lukewarm. He was unable to move, despite the violence of his emotion. And since the impact of his new emotion was not so great as to allow him to forget himself, he was forced to look back and remind himself of what his past had meant. And in doing so he could not but continue along the path that he had so far followed.

The more people I am with, Dorrigo thought, the more alone I feel.

In every family there is a murderer, a thief and a crazy person. And if you have a little Blue blood in the line, you can be sure there are more than one of each.

My daddy always said being brave wasn’t not being scared. Being brave was keeping going when you were.

Republicans have succeeded with a social agenda that gets people to vote against their own interests while the Democrats are so elitist that they can't tap into the anger that's real.

Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know.

Grace is a great mercy of God.

I wanted the rattle of New York around me, I wanted stink and strangers and the sour dank air of the IRT clutching me to its bosom. I wanted hustle and bustle. I wanted to know that millions of lives were playing out at my doorstep, and not one of them gave a damn about my little problems.

Love, like everything else, exists in a spectrum. Love of another, love of the world, love of God, all these loves are really one love in different degrees of light and density.