Blue Lives Matter Quotes

It used to be that a man could keep out of trouble if he behaved himself. Now he will only keep out of trouble if he behaves himself, the police behave themselves, and court behaves itself. ~ Agona Apell

The law is not an ass but a chameleon in ass skin: it turns deathly black when around blacks and pristine white when around whites ~ Agona Apell

Aubade"

Who lives where summer
ends knows the hard cold of

autumn is blissfully
close, although it feels
each season newly un-

known. You are constantly
newly unknown to me,
my night-glowing open-hearted

sting-of-salt weather.
Rains and winds, sleights-of-
hand. Who if not you

could weigh me enough
down. You'd paint my eyes
blacker and warmer than they are

and soon they would carry
whole calendars of
black night in them.

You say you're pulled back,
but it is a rare thing inside those

shocks of minutes that
holds without our even
needing to touch it.

Maybe you think you trade
one clean joy for

another. But mine is darker,
slanted, nitrous blue at the root,

an acrostic of what is
most free and
far. To be another

person than the one
you were before means
more than I understand.

But my gradual hands
move in streams
over you whether you travel or not,

as you drop into sleep or not,
and in the book of this
most-alone-place I am

there only when you feel
need, a coat so thin and so like

skin you can touch the
slopes, the smoother

pools, dust-mooded
winds over roads, the skeleton
instrument of your voi ~ Joanna Klink

Yeah, there are no more "colored" water fountains, and it's supposed to be illegal to discriminate, but if I can be forced to sit on the concrete in too-tight cuffs when I've done nothing wrong, it's clear there's an issue. That things aren't as equal as folks say they are. ~ Nic Stone

I answer that I try to write true stories but that at a given point the story becomes unbearable because of it's very truth, and then I have to change it. I tell her that I try to tell my story but all of a sudden I can't-I don't have the courage, it hurts too much. And so I embellish everything and describe things not as they happened but the way I wished they happened.
She says, "Yes, there are lives sadder than the saddest of books." I say, "Yes. No book, no matter how sad, can be as sad as a life. ~ Agota Kristf

So all in their different fashions pursued their daily lives, thoughtfully or not; everything seemed to be following is usual course, as is the way in monstrously strange circumstances when everything is at stake: we go on with our lives as though nothing were the matter. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A recent example of the racial reconciliation paradigm at work is the #AllLivesMatter retort. In an interview in The New York Times, philosopher Judith Butler unpacked the problem: If we jump too quickly to the universal formulation, "all lives matter," then we miss the fact that black people have not yet been included in the idea of "all lives." That said, it is true that all lives matter (we can then debate about when life begins or ends). But to make that universal formulation concrete, to make that into a living formulation, one that truly extends to all people, we have to foreground those lives that are not mattering now, to mark that exclusion, and militate against it.113 ~ Robert P. Jones

They don't understand that religion and science are there to serve different purposes. We need science to understand how everything on this planet and beyond works – us, nature, everything we see around us. That's fact – no one with a working brain can question that. But we also need religion. Not for ridiculous counter-theories about things that science can prove. We need it for something else, to fill a different kind of need. The need for meaning. It's a basic need we have, as humans. And it's a need that's beyond the realm of science. Your scientists don't understand that it's a need they can't fulfill no matter how many Hadron colliders and Hubble telescopes they build- and your preachers don'[t understand that their job is to help you discover a personal, inner sense of meaning and not behave like a bunch of zealots intent on converting the rest of the planet to their rigid, literalist view of how everyone should live their lives. ~ Raymond Khoury

It was amazing, indeed, to find how great a matter the life of the obscure dairy had become to him. And though new love was to be held partly responsible for this it was not solely so. Many besides Angel have learnt that the magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements, but as to their subjective experiences. The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king. Looking at it thus he found that life was to be seen of the same magnitude here as elsewhere. ~ Thomas Hardy

We've had a nice time, haven't we? It has been very special here, talking every day. It was that much-overburdened and worn phrase referred to as a 'meeting of the minds. ' "She turned the blue envelope in her hands. "I've always known that the quality of love was the mind, even though the body sometimes refuses this knowledge. The body lives for itself. It lives only to feed and wait for the night. It's essentially nocturnal. But what of the mind which is born of the sun, William, and must spend thousands of hours of a lifetime awake and aware? Can you balance off the body, that pitiful, selfish thing of night against a whole lifetime of sun and intellect? I don't know. I only know there has been your mind here and my mind here, and the afternoons have been like none I can remember. There is still so much to talk about, but we must save it for another time. ~ Ray Bradbury

People do not feel anxious or weary when they follow
the Qur'an's morality. However, the enjoyment derived
from doing something with worldly aims in mind is very limited
and of short duration. When the benefits gained run
out, their eagerness to continue subsides and the aim
becomes regarded as a bother. But those who seek Allah's
favor are rewarded with pleasure, for they know that they
will be rewarded for their intention and not for the nature of
the act. Therefore, they will never get bored with doing it:
Their [the sacrificial animals'] flesh and blood does not
reach Allah, but your heedfulness does. In this way He
has subjected them to you so that you might proclaim
Allah's greatness for the way that He has guided you.
Give good news to those who do good. (Surat al-Hajj:
37)
Adnan Oktar
Harun Yahya
33
And so, no matter what they do, if they perform it in the
hope of winning Allah's pleasure, and if they keep on doing
so until the end of their lives, they will never get bored or
lose their enjoyment in doing it again and again.
No matter how long they do that deed, their love and
desire for earning Allah's favor will cause them to constantly
create new and beautiful things on their horizon. Having
rooted their morality in fear of Him, they form close relationships
and friendships with those around them; have no
desire for rank, position, ~ Harun Yahya

Nothing was easy. Every move, each decision, a matter of life and death. It made for interesting times. Small human lives were so limited. And for that very reason, so fascinating. Shadowed by death, life became immediate. Intense. ~ Karen Marie Moning

I do believe that some humans have more amazing lives than others–above all, those who don't sit down in a chair like mere spectators letting their lives happen in front of them, but they take risks as heroes do, experiencing, living, becoming the main character - but no matter what, we all have at least one story to tell. ~ Merce Cardus

I don't myself think much of science as a phase of human development. It has given us a lot of ingenious toys; they take our attention away from the real problems, of course, and since the problems are insoluble, I suppose we ought to be grateful for distraction. But the fact is, the human mind, the individual mind, has always been made more interesting by dwelling on the old riddles, even if it makes nothing of them. Science hasn't given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn't given us any richer pleasures, as the Renaissance did, nor any new sins-not one! Indeed, it takes our old ones away. It's the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You'll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin. We were better off when even the prosaic matter of taking nourishment could have the magnificence of a sin. I don't think you help people by making their conduct of no importance-you impoverish them. As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in a gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracles and great temptations and revelations. And that's what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own little individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our c ~ Willa Cather

And I can imagine Farmer saying he doesn't care if no one else is willing to follow their example. He's still going to make these hikes, he'd insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you're saying that their lives matter less than some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world. ~ Tracy Kidder

Nor does it matter from the standpoint of a comparative study of symbolic forms whether Christ or the Buddha ever actually lived and performed the miracles associated with their teachings. The religious literatures of the world abound in counterparts of those two great lives. And what one may learn from them all, finally, is that the savior, the hero, the redeemed one, is the one who has learned to penetrate the protective wall of those fears within, which exclude the rest of us, generally, in our daylight and even our dreamnight thoughts, from all experience of our own and the world's divine ground. The mythologized biographies of such saviors communicate the messages of their world-transcending wisdom in world-transcending symbols - which, ironically, are then generally translated back into such verbalized thoughts as built the interior walls in the first place. ~ Joseph Campbell

Right now, you know, everyone one is going to be there for you." I explained. "Everyone will surround you with love and you'll be busy and have things to keep your mind off the worst. And then in six weeks, or may be twelve weeks, everybody else's life is going to start to get back to normal. But your life isn't going to be normal again. As a matter of fact, as you probably understand already, it's going to get harder for you. And after a while you're going to start feeling guilty because you're going to be going to the same people constantly for help, or just to talk. And as their lives get back to normal, you going to start to worry about leaning on them too much. There might come a time when you think, I'm asking too much. I've got to stop complaining. So when you're down and you feel guilty for burdening your family and friends," I said, "pick up the phone and call me. ~ Joe Biden

The fact of the matter is, we really and truly need each other. Women naturally seek friendship, support, and companionship. We have so much to learn from one another, and we often let self-imposed barriers keep us from enjoying associations which could be among the greatest blessings in our lives. ~ Bonnie L. Oscarson

A kinder, gentler, and more diverse war on the poor is still a war on the poor. ~ Alex. S. Vitale

People have their time stamps on how long you should know someone before earning the right to say it, but I wouldn't lie to you no matter how little time we have. People waste time and wait for the right moment and we don't have that luxury. If we had our entire lives ahead of us I bet you'd get tired of me telling you how much I love you because I'm positive that's the path we were heading on. But because we're about to die, I want to say it as many times as I want---I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. ~ Adam Silvera

Your silence is power to the savages. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Sometimes the tasks we take on seem virtually impossible. But amazingly, when we harness the incredible power of the subconscious in our lives, we can accomplish whatever we set out to do, no matter what obstacles we have to overcome. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

In our daily lives we attend primarily to that which the senses are spelling out for us: to what the eyes perceive, to what the fingers touch. Reality to us is thinghood , consisting of substances that occupy space; even God is conceived by most of us as a thing. The result of our thinginess is our blindness to all reality that fails to identify itself as a thing, as a matter of fact. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

Americans need to continue to develop broad-based movements that reject the established political parties and rethink the social formations necessary to bring about a radical democracy. We see this in the Black Lives Matter movement as well as in a range of other movements that are resisting corporate money in politics, the widespread destruction of the environment, nuclear war and the mass incarceration state. ~ Henry A. Giroux

... I've seen the world tell us with wars and real estate developments and bad politics and odd court decisions that our lives don't matter. That may be because we are too many. Architecture and application form, modern life says that with so many of us we can best survive by ignoring identity and acting as it individual differences do not exist. Maybe the narcissism academics condemn in creative writers is but a last reaching for a kind of personal survival. Anyway, as a sound psychoanalyst once remarked to me dryly, narcissism is difficult to avoid. When we are told in dozens of insidious ways that our lives don't matter, we may be forced to insist, often far too loudly, that they do. ~ Richard Hugo

My head is so full of memories!" Cinderheart wailed. "I feel as though there are two lives inside me, not one. How can it be my choice to make? Doesn't Cinderpelt have a choice? I can't make her a warrior! She was a medicine cat!"
Lionblaze pressed his muzzle closer. "She chose you", he murmured. "She gave you the choice".
Cinderheart began to tremble. Lionblaze could sense her mind whirling. "You can only live one life, Cinderheart. It's your choice! This is your destiny, not Cinderpelt's. She lived her own life".
Cinderheart gasped. Then her pelt smoothed. She lifted her chin. "Then I choose the life of a warrior". Her blue eyes shone. "And I choose you".
A breeze stirred the ferns. Lionblaze glimpsed a pale gray shape appear like a shadow beside Cinderheart. Stepping back in surprise, he saw it peel away from her and drift up like a cobweb carried by the wind. A soft voice whispered, Thank you.
Lionblaze's fur stood on end. "Did you see that?
Cinderheart was watching the shadow disappear into the trees. "It was Cinderpelt", she breathed. "I've set her free".
Lionblaze purred loudly. "Will you fight alongside me?"
Cinderheart pressed her muzzle fiercely against his. "Always". ~ Erin Hunter

With this necklace, no matter how far apart we are, or where our lives lead us, I will always be next to your heart when you wear it. ~ S.K. Lessner

What would our lives be like if we could all be happy no matter what? ~ Marci Shimoff

At the time I was first writing the stories/essays that appear in Oedipus Wrecked, I was still under the impression that people would be delighted to see their name in print. I overlooked the fact that I was writing about intimate matters, and people are a bit touchy about airing their private lives in such a public fashion. Especially when it's done without their consent. ~ Kevin Keck

It is so important to see that we are all converted, that we have in our hearts a conviction concerning this great work. It is not a matter of the head only. It is a matter of the heart. It is being touched by the Holy Spirit until we know that this work is true, that Joseph Smith was verily a prophet of God, that God lives and that Jesus Christ lives and that they appeared to the boy Joseph Smith, that the Book of Mormon is true, that the priesthood is here with all of its gifts and blessings. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

The struggle doesn't last long; it's too unequal. Their momentary surprise overcome, they close in on him. The well-directed slice of a gun-butt slackens the good arm; it's easy to pry the disabled one from around the racketeer's collar.
Tereshko is trembling with his anger. 'Now him again!' he protests, as though at an injustice. 'All they do is die and then get up and walk around again! What'sa matter, you guys using spitballs for slugs? No, don't kick at him, that'll never do it - I think the guy has nine lives!' ("Jane Brown's Body") ~ Cornell Woolrich

The Butcher's Shop

The pigs are strung in rows, open-mouthed,
dignified in martyrs' deaths. They hang
stiff as Sunday manners, their porky heads
voting Tory all their lives, their blue rosettes
discarded now. The butcher smiles a meaty smile,
white apron stained with who knows what,
fingers fat as sausages. Smug, woolly cattle
and snowy sheep prance on tiles, grazing
on eternity, cute illustrations in a children's book.
What does the sheep say now?
Tacky sawdust clogs your shoes.
Little plastic hedges divide the trays of meat, playing farms.
playing farms. All the way home
your cold and soggy paper parcel bleeds. ~ Angela Topping

Hocking was slender in the way that writers and musicians are sometimes slender: not out of any desire or design but rather because his days were spent being consumed rather than consuming. ~ Tom Bissell

The shaman is a very peculiar figure. He is critical to the functioning of the psychological and social life of his community, but in a way he is always peripheral to it. He lives at the edge of the village. He is only called upon in matters of great social crisis. He is feared and respected. And this might be a description of these hallucinogenic substances. ~ Terence McKenna

Right or wrong is nonexistent in the eye of the universe. It doesn't matter who is right or who is wrong because the universe never cares for both. The universe lets both happen and the universe lets both end. A natural disaster claims all lives. Life and resources is the one that matters. No matter who you are or what you are, you must never harm life and you must never spend resources. These are what matters. I don't know about the afterlife. I don't know whether the afterlife exists, but in this existence, these are what matters. ~ Andreas Laurencius

The Black Lives Matter movement can be read as an attempt to keep mourning an open dynamic in our culture because black lives exist in a state of precariousness. Mourning then bears both the vulnerability inherent in black lives and the instability regarding a future for those lives. ~ Claudia Rankine