Contemporary Life Quotes

What need had the businessman to scribble or philosophize when he dominated the imagination of his time and the frantic materialism that was his principle of existence had become the haunting central figure in contemporary life? ~ Alfred Kazin

A great part of the disaster of contemporary life lies in the fact that it is organized around feelings. People nearly always act on their feelings, and think it only right. The will is then left at the mercy of circumstances that evoke feelings. Christian spiritual formation today must squarely confront this fact and overcome it. ~ Dallas Willard

The major impediment to experiencing the sacred depths of ordinary moments is the speed and distraction of contemporary life that moves to the imperatives of the global economic order.In addition, we increasingly live in a virtual world in which our reality is filtered through media and information technology. ~ Sam Keen

Social Media has transformed contemporary life at work, home and play. You don't have to love me as long as you LIKE ME. Following is good, though cyber-stalking is bad. Selfies are addictive unless they're too dicktive. And going viral is no longer a health risk but, rather, the holy grail of communication. It only makes you sick if you have a brain. (WELCOME TO PLANET JORDO, I COMEDY IN PEACE) ~ J. Lee Margolis

It's one of the great tragedies of our contemporary life in America, that families fall apart. Almost everybody has that in common. ~ Sam Shepard

But the story I'm telling here began the day I discovered the affair between Mark and Thelma, and it ended exactly six weeks later. It has a happy ending, but that's because I insist on happy endings; I would insist on happy beginnings, too, but that's not necessary because all beginnings are intrinsically happy, in my opinion. What about middles, you may ask. Middles are a problem. Middles are perhaps the major problem of contemporary life. ~ Nora Ephron

The acceleration of contemporary life also plays a role in this lack of being. The society of laboring and achievement is not a free society. It generates new constraints. Ultimately, the dialectic of master and slave does not yield a society where everyone is free and capable of leisure, too. Rather, it leads to a society of work in which the master himself has become a laboring slave. In this society of compulsion, everyone carries a work camp inside. This labor camp is defined by the fact that one is simultaneously prisoner and guard, victim and perpetrator. One exploits oneself. It means that exploitation is possible even without domination. ~ Byung-Chul Han

All ideas about identity, of course, fit perfectly into the social media wonderland we live in. They seem to really connect. There's a science-fiction aspect to our contemporary life. What's virtual, what's real ... ~ Vijay Seshadri

Popular culture isn't a freeze-frame; it is images zapping by in rapid-fire succession, which is why collage is such an effective way of representing contemporary life. The blur between images creates a kind of motion in the mind. ~ James Rosenquist

The public examination of homosexuality in our contemporary life is still so coated with distasteful moral connotations that even a reviewer is bound to wonder uneasily why he was selected to evaluate a book on the subject, and to assert defensively at the outset that he is happily married, the father of four children and the one-time adornment of his college boxing, track and tennis teams. ~ Sydney J. Harris

We need it to capture the energy of contemporary life. ~ John Eaton

The thinness of contemporary life. I can poke my finger through it. ~ Don DeLillo

I write about the trials and triumphs of contemporary life - and often the readers see themselves between the lines of the story. ~ Karen Kingsbury

There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch of the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not. ~ Oscar Wilde

To understand what I am saying, you have to believe that dance is something other than technique. We forget where the movements come from. They are born from life. When you create a new work, the point of departure must be contemporary life
not existing forms of dance. ~ Pina Bausch

The most difficult problems are naturally not involved in the search for forms for contemporary life. It is a question of working our way to forms behind which real human values lie. ~ Alvar Aalto

I'm interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life. ~ Toni Morrison

I do not know of anything in modern poetry as violently hostile to contemporary life as was the poetry of T. S. Eliot, which so perfectly fitted the mood of the young people between the two wars. I also find much more benevolence towards humanity in younger historians than there was in Spengler or in Toynbee. Still, it is not difficult to sense the disgust of the intellectuals at the new prosperous working class, 'with their eyes glued to the television screen,' who have become indifferent to radical ideas. ~ Dennis Gabor

One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that. ~ Joseph Campbell

It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times
the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie
seem attractive by comparison. ~ Christopher Lasch

But perhaps more important, as someone wishing to make a comment or two about contemporary life and values, I don't have to dig through libraries or travel to exotic lands to arrive at a view of our modern situation refracted through the lens of the preindustrial world, or the uncommercialized, unfranchised, perhaps unsanitized-and therefore supposedly more "authentic"-perspective ofthe Third World. Very simply, this is because that "other" world, as alien as if separated by centuries in time, is the one from which I came ~ Sidney Poitier

The psychological dangers through which earlier generations were guided by the symbols and spiritual exercises of their mythological and religious inheritance, we today (in so far as we are unbelievers, or, if believers, in so far as our inherited beliefs fail to represent the real problems of contemporary life) must face alone, or, at best with only tentative, impromptu, and not often very effective guidance. This is our problem as modern, "enlightened" individuals, for whom all gods and devils have been rationalized out of existence. ~ Joseph Campbell

I am making an Enlightenment Capsule for the audience to meditate inside - virtual reality in which people can experience ancient ideas from the East ... But I'm not interested in using ancient things; rather I want to connect [audiences] with contemporary life through the technology we have now. ~ Mariko Mori

To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social environment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments. To achieve such autonomy, a person has to learn to provide rewards to herself. She has to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of external circumstances. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Artists - musicians, painters, writers, poets - always seem to have had the most accurate perception of what is really going on around them, not the official version or the popular perception of contemporary life. ~ Billy Joel

I suppose in our contemporary lives, our cumulative e-mails might constitute a kind of diary: that informal, moment-by-moment description of life as it goes by. As I think of those notes now - what I wrote, what I said - it seems to me they danced across the surface just as my grandmother's diaries did - Anais Nin she wasn't, and I wasn't, either. Who is? Not even Anais Nin. ~ Sue Miller

The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command. ~ Dallas Willard

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: Is it good Is it fair Is it just Is it right Will it help bring about a better society or a better world Those used to be the political questions even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them.

The materialistic and selfish quality of contemporary life is not inherent in the human condition. Much of what appears "natural" today dates from the 1980s: the obsession with wealth creation the cult of privatization and the private sector the growing disparities of rich and poor. And above all the rhetoric that accompanies these: uncritical admiration for unfettered markets disdain for the public sector the delusion of endless growth.

We cannot go on living like this. The little crash of 2008 was a reminder that unregulated capitalism is its own worst enemy: sooner or later it must fall prey to its own excesses and turn again to the state for rescue. But if we do no more than pick up the pieces and carry on as before we can look forward to greater upheavals in years to come. ~ Tony Judt

I had wanted to kill myself, not because I hated living, but because I loved it.
And the truth of the matter is, I think that a lot of people who think about killing themselves feel the same way. They love live but it's all fucked up for them
We were up on that roof because we couldn't find a way back into life, and being shut out of it like that ... It just fucking destroys you, man. ~ Nick Hornby

It is so contradictory that life can be the worst it's ever been and the best it's ever been all at once. It's strange how love can blossom even in the darkest places. ~ Amanda Hocking

It's so much more than a child's story. - Matt Chandler on LIFE Today. ~ Matt Chandler

And then you came along and you spoke to me and nobody had looked me in the eye for years. ( ... ) But I remember you that day and you looked at peace with yourself and it made me reconsider everything I had planned to do. Because I thought to myself, you can't do this to her, not after the Hermit thing."
"Do what to me? I don't think leaving me on that platform would have changed my life, Griggs," I lie.
"You being on that platform changed mine. ~ Melina Marchetta

I have a real problem with watching movies where I see this perfect woman who is married to the man in question, who has a perfect life, who has perfect hair, perfect clothes, and doesn't give you any of the kind of reality that you're used to. ~ Caroline Goodall

Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
On death ~ John Keats

The emotion he felt towards her was as mysterious as it was irrational. He needed to understand it, to define its nature, to analyse what he knew was beyond analysis. But some things now he did know, and perhaps they were all he needed to know. He wished her only good. He would put her good before his own. He could no longer be separate himself from her. He would die for her life. ~ P.D. James

I'm broken.
Fucked up.
I feel sick.
I can't breathe.
It's like someone's snaked their fingers around my heart, capturing it in a crushing grip.
It's Emma. This is her doing.
Well, it won't fucking bleed for her.
It won't bleed for anyone.
It's black.
I'm dead inside. ~ Franca Storm

Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt. ~ Haruki Murakami

I built private sector jobs all my life. ~ Rick Scott

His words had tossed the book that was her life into the air and the pages had been blown into disarray, could never be put back together to tell the same story. ~ Kate Morton

I've been enjoying 'Life on the Mississippi' by Mark Twain that I picked up at the airport randomly. It's very witty and interesting to read about his time as a steamboat pilot. ~ Roman Coppola

Panditji lived a full life replete with achievements and honours. He was such a versatile and noble man that the like of him may not be born again.'
Sri Shanti Bhushan, Advocate ~ Munindra Misra

the thing is, life is nothing like the movies...Somewhere between the two of us, something broke and we couldn't fix it. We tried. we only ended up hurting each other more ~ Vince O. Teves

To such an one we speak as those who are like us have spoken to us, and have so become our comfort in the wilderness of this life. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Hope is firm belief. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Our life seems not present, so much as prospective; not for the affairs on which it is wasted, but as a hint of this vast- flowingvigor. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

To hell with luck. I'll bring the luck with me. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Dave Wann's recipes from his own experience in Simple Prosperity are a breath of fresh air, and just what we need for a saner future. They include ideas, sound research and down-to-earth advice we can all use. This book is also much more: a friendly, personal guidebook for living a more enjoyable, healthy, loving life. ~ Hazel Henderson

In a certain sense you deny the existence of this world. You explain life as a state of rest, a state of rest in motion. ~ Franz Kafka

I don't drink. Never taken a drug in my life ever. In fact from a newspaper point of view I'm very boring. I don't do anything. I don't drink no booze, no drugs, no kinky carryings on, don't go to brothels. ~ Jimmy Savile

Writing is like a religion to those who don't practise, an act of faith for those who do. ~ Chloe Thurlow

God pulled out almost to the tip and eased back in again. His body was pressed against his man from head to toe; only his hips moved his cock in and out of that heavenly cavern. God heard Day release the sexiest moan he'd ever heard in his life, and he thrust in with more power. "Yes! Fuck, right there! Right fucking there," Day urged while thrusting his hips up to meet him. God ~ A.E. Via

I had done this. I had pulled my life apart. I would never, ever be safe again. ~ Ruth Reichl

I loved this man with all my heart; he had shown me that even though life can be a bitch, love can get you through any storm. ~ Nina Levine

No secrets, no mystery. no mystery, no life worth rememberin'. no life worth rememberin', no life worth goin' on. ~ Robert James Waller

For years I was deathly afraid of my own weaknesses, but when I closed my eyes and let myself be vulnerable to them it allowed miracles to take place. Miracles that were only alive when I accessed my BLIND faith. ~ Bethany Brookbank

While performing the great majority of the actions in their life, people are totally unaware. We tend to go through our daily activities mechanically. We talk without real purpose. We do things without even knowing that we do them. We are not really present to what we are doing. Even if we practise being aware, entire portions of our days can elapse before we retrieve our thread of awareness. In short, we are not living our life, we are sleeping it. ~ Samuel Sagan

No one ever gets talker's block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers he has nothing to say, and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the muse hits, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his life has died down. ~ Seth Godin

Fundamentalists believe that we don't believe in anything. In their view of the world, they are in possession of absolute certainties, while we are descending into decadence. We will be able to triumph over terrorism not by waging war on it, but through a conscious, fearless way of life. ~ Salman Rushdie

seriously, listen up because this is important and this is where we'll leave it. Your boy, my guess is he never stopped thinkin' you were beautiful. The only thing that changed was he started worrying that other people didn't think you were. So now he's gonna spend his life with a gorgeous, boring woman who'll make him miserable, all so that he can wear her on his arm to parties, thinkin' that'll show other people how great he is. He'll pick the career and car and mansion that he thinks other people expect him to have, put all his energy into building up that front. Then one day he'll find out his life is all wrapping paper and no gift. ~ David Wong

You have to be competitive to be relevant ~ Sunday Adelaja

Once upon a time there was a banana and it grew. It grew until it was large, firm, yellow and fragrant. Then it fell to the ground and someone came upon it and ate it and afterwards that person felt better. ~ Martel, Yann

You can't be happy at work every day. No matter how much you love your job, there are still going to be bad days. And that's cool - it's always OK to have a bad day at work. ~ Alexander Kjerulf

Our fears would disappear when we accept the truth and confront our challenges with integrity. ~ Mayank Sharma