Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you grow up", I said, "do you ever stop feeling little and weak?" "No," she says. "There's always a little frail and tiny thing inside, no matter how grown-up you are.
People are very ready to criticize other people's accents. There's no correlation between accents and intelligence or accents and criminality, but people do make judgments.
The only way the corporate Body of Christ will fulfill the mission Christ has given it is for individual Christians to have a vision for fulfilling that mission personally.
...but the truth is that I don't feel like I can carry anyone but myself right now. The streets are empty. I am empty. Or, no--I am full of pain. It's my life that's empty.
It felt good to be surrounded by books, by all this solid knowledge, by these objects that could be ripped page by page but couldn't be torn if the pages all held together.
We are living in a time when the very integrity of the Constitution is being threatened daily, from federal bailouts to federal assumption of control over private business.
The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement... To do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance.
… The most worthy calling in life is that in which man can serve best his fellow man. … The noblest aim in life is to strive to live to make other lives better and happier.
All men begin as good men. What they are taught as children, what is expected of them as young men, is either the armor about that goodness or the flaw that allows evil in.
It's not what you know, and it's not even who you know. It's how much knowledge you give away. Hoarding knowledge diminishes your power because it diminishes your presence.
Hope, however, isn't all that's needed to achieve change. Hope is a hand extended, but two hands are required to be pulled out of this deep hole. The second hand was faith.
Life, Stormy says, is not about how fast you run or even with what degree of grace. It's about perseverance, about staying on your feet and slogging forward no matter what.
There's a big thing in Canada that parents need to talk to their children about drugs and sex. I don't think talking to your kids about war is any less important than that.
For nearly a hundred years, we have known that the material world is an illusion. Everything that seems solid - a rock, a tree, your body - is actually 99.999% empty space.
My definition of success is: 1.) The progressive realization of worthy goals 2.) The ability to love and have compassion 3.) To be in touch with the creative source within.
Pay attention to that unchanging part of yourself. It is perfect. At the source of life, and only there, one finds peace, harmony, and the undisturbed contentment of bliss.
Meditation is one of the most direct and powerful ways to awaken to who we really are and to experience happiness as a state of consciousness that already exists within us.
The ornament of beauty, Shakespeare wrote, is suspect. And he was right. But beauty itself, unadorned and unaffected, is sacred, I think, worthy of our awe and our loyalty.
He looked at her. “We’re meant to be together…” “And this is exactly what I mean.” “Our love is written in the stars.” “And there you go again.” “I love you.” “You bore me.
Is that it?” “No. That’s a wall.” “It could be disguised.” “You’re not very good at looking for things, are you?” “I’m good at looking for walls. Look, I found another one.
One dictum I had learned on the battlefields of France in a far distant war: You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough.
If you're going to have more than one person read your book, they're going to have totally different opinions and responses. No person - no two people - read the same book.
My mom just died. We blink and another decade passes. I don't want to reach the end of my life and regret not having given my days everything in me to make them worthwhile.
I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.
Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. ... they bring the world into focus, they corral ideas, they hone thoughts, they paint watercolors of perception.
I did about 2000 covers altogether, for all sorts of books - from Shakespeare to James Bond - and I always had the idea that I must give 100%, no matter who the author was.
Now, I had been drawing all this time - especially in France of course - so, when I came back, my father gave me the chance to do a cover for one of the books he published.
And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic.
Most of us are waiting. We're waiting for something interesting to happen. And I think we're going to wait forever if we don't do something more interesting with our lives.
Even our beliefs have become trend statements. We don’t even believe things because we believe them anymore. We only believe things because they are cool things to believe.
I denounce Donald Trump for not denouncing the kind of vitriol, the kind of violence that he has perpetrated with his angry rhetoric, and he knows exactly what he is doing.
I really feel like if everyone listened to their angels the world which shift. We wouldn't see any kind of greed or competition - it would really be the world of kindness .
I think I've learned that if you want to be successful, you have to tell your story honestly and from your heart - and I think a healthy sense of humor doesn't hurt either.
If I find here and Now unacceptable, I have three choices: 1-Totally accept it. 2- Change it. 3-Remove myself from the situation. That is taking responsibility for my life.
Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.
To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.
One only needs to read twentieth-century history to see that it has been the climax of human madness, if it's measured in terms of human violence inflicted on other humans.
It takes practice to hear your true desires. Your passion will often come as a whisper or serendipitous event that reminds you of what's important and what makes you happy.
As a child, a person builds up an egoic sense - the child has a name, has an "I," has a mind. But then, to awaken, a person needs to completely transcend that sense of ego.
And since the now is all there ever is in your life, your entire life unfolds as the present moment. People don't realize it, but all they ever have is "this". This moment.
To awaken within the dream is our purpose now. When we are awake within the dream, the ego-created earth-drama comes to an end and a more benign and wonderous dream arises.
The outer purpose belongs to the horizontal dimension of space and time; the inner purpose concerns a deepening of your Being in the vertical dimension of the timeless Now.
From childhood's hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone.
If I could dwell where Israfel hath dwelt and he where I he might not sing so wildly well a mortal melody while a bolder note then this might swell from my lyre in the sky.
It's all still there in heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days and years to come.
"If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture--that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves." E.Abbey
A journey into the wilderness is the freest, cheapest, most nonprivileged of pleasures. Anyone with two legs and the price of a pair of army surplus combat boots may enter.
Good writing can be defined as having something to say and saying it well. When one has nothing to say, one should remain silent. Silence is always beautiful at such times.
God's plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God's method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.
The books that really made an impact on me were not set in New Zealand. Some were New Zealand novels, but the New Zealandness of them was not what carried me or excited me.