Life Is Not A Dream Quotes

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of
the dead dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders. ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

Life is not a dream to be dreamed but a story to be written. ~ Debasish Mridha

When we dream, we feel we are experiencing reality. What separates our waking feelings from our dream feelings?"
"When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream," writes Descartes. And he goes on: "How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream? ~ Jostein Gaarder

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the
street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead
dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

Out in the sky, no one sleeps. No one, no one.
No one sleeps.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of an arid landscape in his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.
Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the snow's edge with the voices of dead dahlias.
But there is no oblivion; no dream:
only flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a tangle of new veins,
and those who hurt will hurt without rest
and those who are afraid of death will carry it on their shoulders. ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

Do not be seduced by those big-box come-ons, full of "complete sets" of extraneous cookware. A complete set is whatever you need, and maybe all you need is a wok and a hot place to grill your bacon. In a pinch, I can do it all with my good heavy nonstick frying pan. Besides the obvious braising, browning, and frying, I can make sauces and stir-fries in it, toast cheese sandwiches and slivered almonds, use the underside to pound cutlets, and in a pinch probably swing it to defend my honor. If I could find a man that versatile and dependable, I'd marry him. ~ Jennifer Crusie

Appearances are deceiving. *Having* authority is not the same as *being* an authority. *Having* the right and *being* the right are not the same either. Being promoted doesn't necessarily mean you're doing good work and it doesn't mean you are worthy of promotion (they call it failing upward in such bureaucracies). *Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.*

To be or to do - life is a constant roll call. ~ Ryan Holiday

Women's liberation is one thing, but the permeation of anti-male sentiment in post-modern popular culture - from our mocking sitcom plots to degrading commercial story lines - stands testament to the ignorance of society. Fair or not, as the lead gender that never requested such a role, the historical male reputation is quite balanced.
For all of their perceived wrongs, over centuries they've moved entire civilizations forward, nurtured the human quest for discovery and industry, and led humankind from inconvenient darkness to convenient modernity. Navigating the chessboard that is human existence is quite a feat, yet one rarely acknowledged in modern academia or media. And yet for those monumental achievements, I love and admire the balanced creation that is man for all his strengths and weaknesses, his gifts and his curses. I would venture to say that most wise women do. ~ Tiffany Madison

Sometimes our ideas about love are really simplistic. We think of it as something that fixes everything, or, if the love is real, then you definitely have to stay in the relationship. The only way to really respect love is to respect its limits, and respect that it doesn't give you the power to change other people. That's why you can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them. It's not necessarily a question of whether you love them, it's a question of whether they belong in your life. ~ Tara Westover

There is no occasion for our rejoicing at a foe's death, because our own life will also not last forever. ~ Bill Vaughan

Yes, it is worthwhile to live! yes, I am worthy to live!-life, and you, and I, and all of us together became for a while interesting to ourselves once more.-It is not to be denied that until now laughter and reason and nature have in the long run got the upper hand ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

He had loved is mother and his child, everything that it was not up to him to choose. And after all he, who had challenged everything, questioned everything, he had never loved anything except what was inevitable. The people fate had imposed on him, the world as it appeared to him, everything in his life he had not been able to avoid, his illness, his vocation, fame or poverty--in a word, his star. For the rest, for everything he had to choose, he made himself love, which is not the same thing. No doubt he had known the feeling of wonderment, passion, and even moments of tenderness. But each moment had sent him on to other moments, each person to others, and he had loved nothing he had chosen, except what was little by little imposed on him by circumstance, had lasted as much by accident as by intention, and finally became necessary: Jessica. The heart, the heart above all is not free. It is inevitability and the recognition of the inevitable. And he, in truth, had never wholeheartedly loved other than the inevitable. All that was left for him was to love his own death. ~ Albert Camus

Spirituality has thus come to be regarded by the world as those futile, self-torturing excesses of strange men and women who lived in far-off, benighted places and times. Accordingly, the One who came to give abundance of life is commonly thought of as a cosmic stuffed shirt, whose excessive "spirituality" probably did not allow him normal bodily functions and certainly would not permit him to throw a frisbee or tackle someone in a football game. ~ Dallas Willard

Under conditions of a truly human existence, the difference between succumbing to disease at the age of ten, thirty, fifty, or seventy, and dying a "natural" death after a fulfilled life, may well be a difference worth fighting for with all instinctual energy. Not those who die, but those who die before they must and want to die, those who die in agony and pain, are the great indictment against civilization. They also testify to the unredeemable guilt of mankind. Their death arouses the painful awareness that it was unnecessary, that it could be otherwise. It takes all the institutions and values of a repressive order to pacify the bad conscience of this guilt. Once again, the deep connection between the death instinct and the sense of guilt becomes apparent. The silent "professional agreement" with the fact of death and disease is perhaps one of the most widespread expressions of the death instinct -- or, rather, of its social usefulness. In a repressive civilization, death itself becomes an instrument of repression. Whether death is feared as constant threat, or glorified as supreme sacrifice, or accepted as fate, the education for consent to death introduces an element of surrender into life from the beginning -- surrender and submission. It stifles "utopian" efforts. The powers that be have a deep affinity to death; death is a token of unfreedom, of defeat. Theology and philosophy today compete with each other in celebrating death as an existential category: perverting a ~ Herbert Marcuse

Amateur," Kavinsky said. "This is the way to dream back Gansey's balls for him."
"Is this going to be a thing?" Ronan demanded. He was angry, but not as angry as he would've been before he started drinking. He put his fingers on the door handle, ready to get out. "Like, is this going to be what's funny to you? Because I don't want this that bad. I can figure it out myself."
"Sure you can," Kavinsky said. He cocked a finger at him. "Give him that pen. Write him a little note with it. In fucking George Washington letters, 'Dear Dick, drive this, ex-oh-ex-oh. Ronan Lynch. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

So the life of a philosopher extends widely: he is not confined by the same boundary as are others. He alone is free from the laws that limit the human race, and all ages serve him as though he were a god. ~ Seneca.

Religion, art, and science flourish best in a free society. True, freedom does not afford much opportunity for grand gestures. It has little room for martyrs. But life is not supposed to be about dying well. It is about living well. ~ Virginia Postrel

My heart beats for him.
The man who shares my secret. The man who holds my life in the palm of his hands. Sometimes, I think I could love him. But most of the time, I just hate him. For making me weak. For tempting me to stay. For wondering when he'll finally make good and kill me too.
I don't know how it's possible to have feelings that are such polar opposites. I want to slap him. I want to scream in his face and force him to acknowledge me. His cavalier attitude towards me is worse than any of the pain Blaine ever inflicted on me. I'm not even worth his attention. A moment of his time. And yet, when he walks into the room, everything else ceases to exist. ~ A. Zavarelli

I have great sympathy for people that are infertile, but a life is not something you can give away. ~ Mary Beth Whitehead

One of the most important lessons the Lord has taught me is that you are not your gift. That is, you are not defined by what you do or create. Jesus is a wonderful example of this. He would not allow the crowd to define Him by His considerable gifts, even though they tried to do so. Jesus always points away from Himself and His gifts and thereby wins praise for the Father. We are not our gifts. We are called to give more. Like Jesus, we are called to give ourselves. That is the real purpose behind our gifts; they are vehicles for giving the self. ~ Michael Card

I'm not perfect. I think more highly of snow and ice than love. It's easier for me to be interested in mathematics than to have affection for my fellow human beings. But I am anchored to something in life that is constant. You can call it a sense of orientation; you can call it woman's intuition; you can call it whatever you like. I'm standing on a foundation and have no farther to fall. It could be that I haven't managed to organize my life very well. But I always have a grip - with at least one finger at a time - on Absolute Space. That's why there's a limit to how far the world can twist out of joint, and to how badly things can go before I find out. I now know, without a shadow of a doubt, that something is wrong. I ~ Peter Hoeg

I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books. I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams
like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves. ~ Hermann Hesse

Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route to becoming. All the magic and glass mountains and pearls the size of houses and princesses beautiful as the day and talking birds and part-time serpents are distractions from the core of most of the stories, the struggle to survive against adversaries, to find your place in the world, and to come into your own.

Fairy tales are almost always the stories of the powerless, of youngest sons, abandoned children, orphans, of humans transformed into birds and beasts or otherwise enchanted away from their own lives and selves. Even princesses are chattels to be disowned by fathers, punished by step-mothers, or claimed by princes, though they often assert themselves in between and are rarely as passive as the cartoon versions. Fairy tales are children's stories not in wh they were made for but in their focus on the early stages of life, when others have power over you and you have power over no one.

In them, power is rarely the right tool for survival anyway. Rather the powerless thrive on alliances, often in the form of reciprocated acts of kindness -- from beehives that were not raided, birds that were not killed but set free or fed, old women who were saluted with respect. Kindness sewn among the meek is harvested in crisis...

In Hans Christian Andersen's retelling of the old Nordic tale that begins with a stepmother, "The Wild Sw ~ Rebecca Solnit

For many decades now - and certainly during my adult life in academe - the Western intellectual world has not been convinced that theology is a pursuit that can be engaged in with intellectual honesty and integrity. ~ Arthur Peacocke

To live your life afraid of others and deny them a chance to come close is to not live at all. ~ Heather Marie Adkins

What in the fuck is happening? he said to the darkening house. The first time in his life he'd ever uttered a swear; he'd earned the word, he felt. The house did not answer him. ~ Lauren Groff

What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented has the power to ring true. True to what? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality. ~ Elizabeth Bowen

Modern Western culture, you've been brainwashed by what is called "the secular worldview." In this view of the world, what's real, or at least what's important, is the physical here-and-now. When we're brainwashed by this worldview, we experience the world as though God did not exist, for we habitually exclude him from our awareness. We may still believe in God, of course, but he's not real to us most of the time. Because of this we go about our day-to-day lives as functional atheists. We may pray and worship God on occasion, but these are "special times," isolated from our "normal," secular day-to-day life. So thoroughly are we brainwashed by the secular mind-set that the very suggestion that we could routinely experience the world in a way that includes God strikes us as impossible. ~ Gregory A. Boyd

But then I grew up, experienced some life, and I understood that when you merely switch from being a prisoner to being a guard, no one is freed, not even yourself. ~ Lisa Crystal Carver

You know, motherhood is my favourite topic in my personal life and I won't shut up about it, but it's not something I want to discuss publicly just because of the amount of attention it draws to a small person who didn't choose to be exposed. ~ Isla Fisher

Life isn't easy. Would that every story ended happily, every crisis be averted, everything get a pretty shiny bow, but that's not the world we live in. Life is harsh. Things go wrong, People get hurt, and some even die. That's just the way it goes. ~ Daniel Younger

The science of the spirit and its relationship to the body in which it indwells is a complex conundrum. Life is not what it appears to be. Life is wholesome, and this unison of synergistic amalgamations persuade the common view that one thing is the other. But one thing is many things - at the one time - and this simple truth goes to the essence of all life with its manifold complexities. ~ Gabriel Brunsdon

People have been on earth in our present form for only about 100,000 years, and in so many ways we're still ironing out our kinks. These turtles we've been traveling with, they outrank us in longevity, having earned three more zeros than we. They've got one hundred million years of success on their resume, and they've learned something about how to survive in the world. And this, I think, is part of it: they have settled upon peaceful career paths, with a stable rhythm. If humans could survive another one hundred million years, I expect we would no longer find ourselves riding bulls. It's not so much that I think animals have rights; it's more that I believe humans have hearts and minds- though I've yet to see consistent, convincing proof of either. Turtles may seem to lack sense, but they don't do senseless things. They're not terribly energetic, yet they do not waste energy… turtles cannot consider what might happen yet nothing turtles do threatens anyone's future. Turtles don't think about the next generation, but they risk and provide all they can to ensure that there will be one. Meanwhile, we profess to love our own offspring above all else, yet above all else it is they from whom we daily steal. We cannot learn to be more like turtles, but from turtles we could learn to be more human. That is the wisdom carried within one hundred million years of survival. What turtles could learn from us, I can't quite imagine. ~ Carl Safina

Everyone has stories of the small coincidence by which their parents met or their grandmother was saved from fire or their grandfather from the grenade, of the choice made by the most whimsical means that led to everything else, whether you're blessed or cursed or both. Trace it back far enough and this very moment in your life becomes a rare species, the result of a strange evolution, a butterfly that should already be extinct and survives by the inexplicabilities we call coincidence. The word is often used to mean the accidental but literally means to fall together. The patterns of our lives come from those things that do not drift apart but move together for a little while, like dancers. ~ Rebecca Solnit

If the incarceration experience doesn't break your spirit, it changes you in a way that you lose many fears. You begin to realize that your life is not ruled by your ego and ambition and that it can end any day at any time. So why worry? You learn that just like on the street, there is life in prison, and random people get there based on the jeopardy of the system. The prisons are filled by people who crossed the law, as well as by those who were incidentally and circumstantially picked and crushed by somebody else's agenda. On the other hand, as a vivid benefit, you become very much independent of material property and learn to appreciate very simple pleasures in life such as the sunlight and morning breeze. ~ Michael Lewis

In whatever relationship I get into, I have to keep some parts of myself tucked away.
Another part of it is that meeting new people is often a lesson for them on race and there is just not enough time in my life to continue delivering that lecture. ~ Gita Jackson

Life is not a romance novel ~ Meg Cabot

Life is to be used, not just held in the hand like a box of bonbons that nobody eats. ~ John Dos Passos

I could probably not say more than that life is a very deep mystery, and that finally the grace of God is all that can resolve it. And the grace of God is also a very deep mystery. ~ Marilynne Robinson

There is a immense difference between training to do something and trying to do something ... Sp iritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely ... Following Jesus simply means learning from him how to arrange my life around activities that enable me to live in the fruit of the Spirit ~ John Ortberg

I don't go to an office, so I write at home. I like to write in the morning, if possible; that's when my mind is freshest. I might write for a couple of hours, and then I head out to have lunch and read the paper. Then I write for a little bit longer if I can, then probably go to the library or make some phone calls. Every day is a little bit different. I'm not highly routinized, so I spend a lot of time wandering around New York City with my laptop in my bag, wondering where I'm going to end up next. It's a fairly idyllic life for someone who likes writing. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

Is this Tree of Life a God one could worship? Pray to? Fear? Probably not. But it did make the ivy twine and the sky so blue, so perhaps the song I love tells a truth after all. The Tree of Life is neither perfect nor infinite in space or time, but it is actual, and if it is not Anselm's "Being greater than which nothing can be conceived," it is surely a being that is greater than anything any of us will ever conceive of in detail worthy of its detail. Is something sacred? Yes, say I with Nietzsche. I could not pray to it, but I can stand in affirmation of its magnificence. This world is sacred. ~ Daniel C. Dennett

Victims of police brutality is not new.
It happened to me and can happen to you.
I hope you learn a lesson or two
From this incident I've been through. ~ Heide Velarde, A Fadeaway Dream Of Justice To Redeem

Never lose a holy curiosity. Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives. ~ Albert Einstein

A woman who is in touch with her sensuality subliminally empowers her man to prosper, flourish and truly live a happy life. She does
not know it, but she is a huge catalyst to his fulfillment. But those who suppress their own sensuality whether consciously or unconsciously make it difficult for their men to find the motivation they need to succeed, and thus be fulfilled. ~ Lebo Grand

My paintings are well-painted, not nimbly but patiently. My painting contains in it the message of pain. I think that at least a few people are interested in it. It's not revolutionary. Why keep wishing for it to be belligerent? I can't. Painting completed my life. I lost three children and a series of other things that would have fulfilled my horrible life. My painting took the place of all of this. I think work is the best. ~ Frida Kahlo

Your challenge as #GIRLBOSS is to dive headfirst into things without being too attached to the results. When your goal is to gain experience, perspective, and knowledge, failure is no longer a possibility. Failure is your invention.I believe that there is a silver lining in everything, and once you being to see it, you'll need sunglasses to combat the glare. It is she who listens to the rest of the world who fails, and it is she who has enough confidence to define success and failure for herself who succeeds. These words were not invented for an incremental life. "Success" and "failure" serve a world that is black-and-white. And as I said before, it's all just kinda grey. ~ Sophia Amoruso

Fear not my worries
they do not concern you
Hear not my cries
Even when my life is through

This fortress I have erected
around my heart from pain I build
from of bricks painful blood from the holes
over the years that have spilled

I don't live in the past
Gone the years fleet footed and so damn fast
It seems nothing at all seems to last

What is Victory in love and life
Since it will one day be done
Wrapped in another memory
To start anew, knowing it will be over before it begun

A seed of a Rose gets planted
The beauty in time grows
Then, nature takes her wrath
Wilted and dead, then a wind comes and away it goes.

A new day, perfect starts fresh
Beauty is there feeling the sun on my face and head
Enjoying and living then it has to stop
Then the sun goes home as another day is dead.

I am the seed, I am the sun
Beauty and sensuality is my friend
When all is over and done
I fear not the start but I know and fear the end. ~ Albert Alexander Bukoski

Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive. ~ Mel Brooks

If every day you practice walking and sitting meditation and generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration and peace, you are a cell in the body of the new Buddha. This is not a dream but is possible today and tomorrow. ~ Nhat Hanh

A Christian does not see a Sabbath as a period of time. Sabbath, for a Christian, is a way of life. All of life for a Christ wanderer is a Sabbath. All of life is one big period of rest - not rest from the day job or rest from responsibilities, but rest from striving. From saving ourselves. From all of that. ~ A.J. Swoboda