Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Greek philosophy departs from the assumption that we can understand the world autonomously using our rational faculties. Islam is not saying this.
In sha Allah, God willing, must be the expression of humility of the active actors and it must never be the justification of the passive observers
People don't know what to do when writing a story with teens that takes place now - they think you have to make a bunch of references to Facebook.
I'm not exaggerating when I say 'Taxi Driver' was the movie that stopped me in my tracks. That was the first time it got me thinking about movies.
The book itself [The Thorn and The Blossom] is bound accordion-style: it has no spine, so it can open in either direction, and it's in a slipcase.
Writing is an art like other arts. Dancers don't dance every once in a while. Musicians don't stop practicing. They are dedicated to what they do.
The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.
I had written about a small hamlet upstate, and had been called into a meeting about my story, which, as it turned out, had upset a lot of people.
When you go for a walk, take seeds with you, poppies, rainbow chard, rocket. Plant them among the weeds in patches of wasteland. See what happens.
Dot the i's, cross the t's, answer the phones promptly, send out errorless invoices, and in general never forget that the devil is in the details.
And it was strange, I thought, that sorrow lasts and can make a man look forward to death, but the mood of victory fills a moment and then is over
Few of humanity's characteristics are more disconcerting than its ability to reduce world-events to its own level, wherever this may happen to be.
Dangling a carrot in front of a donkey—or anyone else for that matter—is not nice, and not fair, unless you eventually plan to give it up to them.
As I see it, a green salad is an open invitation to carrots, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and the sprouts that grow in jars on my kitchen counter.
But when we sit together, close,’ said Bernard, ‘we melt into each other with phrases. We are edged with mist. We make an unsubstantial territory.
Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.
We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie asleep.
Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall
He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink.
Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies." (Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)
If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero.
They take away your shoelaces and your belt so you can’t kill yourself no matter how bad it is. I guess making you live is part of the punishment.
I've asked Jobs why he didn't get an operation then and he said, 'I didn't want my body to be opened... I didn't want to be violated in that way.'
It is a remarkable thing that some of the most optimistic and enthusiastic people you will meet are those who have been through intense suffering.
The eyes see what the heart loves. If the heart loves God and is single in this devotion, then the eyes will see God whether others see Him or not
I don't think there's anything cliche feminine about Jane Austen. And, anyway, her earliest champions were Sir Walter Scott and the Prince Regent.
Every man has a different idea of what's beautiful, and it's best to take the gesture, the shadow of the branch, and let the mind create the tree.
Go to the winter woods: listen there, look, watch, and "the dead months" will give you a subtler secret than any you have yet found in the forest.
To achieve any change in the minds of the youth, there must be reorientation in terms of materialistic tendencies, corruption and crime generally.
...choose to deal with inhumane situations in a humane way, we can turn the world around and create positive lessons for ourselves and for others.
Other people's traditions look charming and decorative and exotic. They're nice places to visit on holiday, but you wouldn't want to live with one.
I'm a huge freak, and always have been. I spent the first part of my life trying really desperately not to be one, and it was just a waste of time.
Everybody thinks theyll never get married at your age. You think you can go on all your life being single, but you suddenly find out that you cant.
The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.
Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It's the second biggest cause of death amongs the English in general. Sheer boredom...
As a general rule...people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or if they do follow it, in order to have someone to blame for giving it.
Music stays in the air. / It travels at the speed of breath / at the sound of light. / It is never not heard. / It can wait centuries if it has to.
But she was waiting patiently. She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything. At seventy she had come to believe in time alone. ~pg 254
I'm fine with whatever comes my way, and whatever doesn't come my way I'm fine with too. I have a very laissez-faire attitude with the whole thing.
I Love Jesus Christ and that is why I am on fire with the desire to give Him souls, first of all my own, and then an incalculable number of others.
Our moral responsibility is not to stop future, but to shape it...to channel our destiny in humane directions and to ease the trauma of transition.
Forever is a really long time, you know? What do you do with forever?" "The same thing you do when you don't have forever." He smiled wanly. "Live.
The more I like a book, the more reluctant I am to turn the page. Lovers, even book lovers, tend to cling. No one-night stands or "reads" for them.
I'm sure that if we had enough sophistication, someone could look at what my changes in brain structure were as I came to feel more deeply in love.
I have spent a lot of my life trying to do good and be a humanitarian, to write about difficult places, and to tell the story of oppressed peoples.
If you put on an item of clothing that hurts just because you have an idea it looks better or conforms to what other people are wearing, it's dumb.
Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman's natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.
Never yet were the feelings and instincts of our nature violated with impunity; never yet was the voice of conscience silenced without retribution.
what red lips you have," he said in her ear. Did she dare say it? "All the better to kiss you with, my dear," she replied. And then their lips met.
He who bears in his heart a cathedral to be built is already victorious. He who seeks to become sexton of a finished cathedral is already defeated.