Marathoning For Mortals Quotes

Long Distance training can be a positive & constructive form of selfishness. After all, once you're at the starting line, you're there by yourself. No one can run a single step for you. No one can jump in & help you. No one but you can make the decisions about what to do to keep going. It's all up to you. ~ John Bingham

Crossing the starting line may be an act of courage, but crossing the finish line is an act of faith. Faith is what kepes us going when nothing else will. Faith is the emotion that will give you victory over your past, the demons in your soul, & all of those voices that tell you what you can & cannot do & can & cannot be. ~ John Bingham

When people treat you ill, blame your conduct,
or report anything to your disadvantage, enter into
the very soul of them ; examine their understandings,
and see of what nature they are. You will be fully
convinced that the opinion of such mortals is not
worth one troublesome thought. However, you must
be kind to them, for nature has made them your
relations. Besides, the gods give them all sort of
countenance, warn them by dreams and prophecy,
and help them to those things they have a mind. ~ Marcus Aurelius

The betrothed bride must see her future home, and dictate any changes that she would like to have made there. A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards. And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. On ~ George Eliot

[If a man] postpone[s] any open acknowledgement... that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends [are] based... he will be in a false position. He will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent. He will assume, at first only by his manner, but presently by his words, all sorts of cynical and sceptical attitudes which are not really his. But... they may become his. All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. ~ C.S. Lewis

They believed that the most important thing in the world was to find out what one liked doing, and then to do it. Thus the people who liked being hunters, were hunters; those who liked fishing, fished; and anybody who did not like doing anything at all was supported by the others with the greatest care and commiseration, for they considered him to be the most unfortunate of mortals. ~ T.H. White

What was I thinking?" Chiron cried. " I can't let you get away without this."
He pulled a pen from his coat pocket. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably thirty cents.
Gee," I said. "Thanks."
Percy, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the profecy is clear to me now. You are the one.
I remembered the feild trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be...?
I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather=wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hands.
The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me. "It's name is Anaklusmos."
Riptide," I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.
Use it only for emergencies" Chiron said, "and only against monsters No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case. ~ Rick Riordan

I am the wind heralding death, the instrument of justice sent by our Prince to carry out the sentence pronounced on you by our people for your crimes against mortals and immortals alike. ~ Christine Feehan

That is the god's work, spinning threads of death through the lives of mortal men, and all to make a song for those to come ... ~ Homer

Overhead the constellations dip and wheel. My divinity shines in me like the last rays of the sun before they drown in the sea. I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.
All my life, I have been moving forward, and now I am here. I have a mortal's voice, let me have the rest. I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink. ~ Madeline Miller

I asked him for it.
For the blood, for the rust,
for the sin.
I didn't want the pearls other girls talked about,
or the fine marble of palaces,
or even the roses in the mouth of servants.
I wanted pomegranates -
I wanted darkness,
I wanted him.
So I grabbed my king and ran away
to a land of death,
where I reigned and people whispered
that I'd been dragged.
I'll tell you I've changed. I'll tell you,
the red on my lips isn't wine.
I hope you've heard of horns,
but that isn't half of it. Out of an entire kingdom
he kneels only to me,
calls me Queen, calls me Mercy.
Mama, Mama, I hope you get this.
Know the bed is warm and our hearts are cold,
know never have I been better
than when I am here.
Do not send flowers,
we'll throw them in the river.
'Flowers are for the dead', 'least that's what
the mortals say.
I'll come back when he bores me,
but Mama,
not today. ~ Daniella Michalleni

Do you like it?" Bananach whispered. "How they want to eat you alive? You took away the last king's mortal. You make the new king mourn for both his mortals. ~ Melissa Marr

O, never from the memory of my heart
Your dear, paternal image shall depart,
Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised,
Taught me how mortals are immortalized;
How grateful am I for that patient care
All my life long my language shall declare. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

That, Bonecaster, is what we mortals delight in doing. You bind yourself to a clan, to a tribe, to a nation or an empire, but to give force to the illusion of a common bond, you must feed its opposite – that all those not of your clan, or tribe, or empire, do not share that bond. I have seen Onrack the Broken, a T'lan Imass. And now I have seen him, mortal once again. To the joy and the life in the eyes of my friend, I will fight all those who deem him their enemy. For the bond between us is one of friendship, and that, Til'aras Benok, is not an illusion. ~ Steven Erikson

It is different for us mortals. We are the ones who become old and grey. We are the ones who become worn at the seams and disappear. But not our dreams. They can live on in other people even after we have gone. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Fear in sooth holds so in check all mortals, becasue thay see many operations go on in earth and heaven, the causes of which they can in no way understand, believing them therefore to be done by power divine. for these reasons when we shall have seen that nothing can be produced from nothing, we shall then more correctly ascertain that which we are seeking, both the elements out of which every thing can be produced and the manner in which every thing can be produced in which all things are done without the hands of the gods. ~ Lucretius

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress ~ W.B.Yeats

From the first day I met his daughter, all I could think about was snuffling up under that sweet dimity like some bad old bear, just crawling up into that honeycomb, nose twitching, and never come out of there till early spring. Think that's disgusting? Dammit, I do, too, but that's the way male animals are made. Those peculiar delights were created to entrap us, and anybody who disapproves can take it up with God.

In their wondrous capacity of knowing the Lord's mind, churchly folks will tell you that He would purely hate to hear such dirty talk. My idea is, He wouldn't mind it half so much as they would have us think, because even according to their own queer creed, we are God's handiwork, created in His image, lust, piss, shit, and all. Without that magnificent Almighty lust that we mere mortals dare to call a sin, there wouldn't be any more mortals, and God's grand design for the human race, if He exists and if He ever had one, would turn to dust, and dust unto dust, forever and amen. Other creatures would step up and take over, realizing that man was too weak and foolish to properly reproduce himself. I nominate hogs to inherit the Earth, because hogs love to eat any old damned thing God sets in front of them, and they're ever so grateful for God's green earth even when it's all rain and mud, and they just plain adore to feed and fuck and frolic and fulfill God's holy plan. For all we know, it's hogs which are created in God's image, who's to say? ~ Peter Matthiessen

Repentance for past crimes is just and easy; but sin-no-more's a task too hard for mortals ~ John Vanbrugh

Philosophers are composed of flesh and blood as well as other human creatures; and however sublimated and refined the theory of these may be, a little practical frailty is as incident to them as to other mortals. It is, indeed, in theory only, and not in practice, as we have before hinted, that consists the difference: for though such great beings think much better and more wisely, they always act exactly like other men. They know very well how to subdue all appetites and passions, and to despise both pain and pleasure; and this knowledge affords much delightful contemplation, and is easily acquired; but the practice would be vexatious and troublesome; and, therefore, the same wisdom which teaches them to know this, teaches them to avoid carrying it into execution. ~ Henry Fielding

I feel that what mathematics needs least are pundits who issue prescriptions or guidelines for presumably less enlightened mortals. ~ Armand Borel

Children of gods always came to their strength faster than mortals. He would miss them when they were gone, I knew. But I would find something else for him. I would help him forget. I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season. ~ Madeline Miller

Death is a woman, and for that reason she's courageous and just, and never makes distinctions between mortals; she'll crush the ignorant, the arrogant, and the wise alike under her icy foot. ~ Rosario Ferre

God seemed to be having a hard time killing him, and he'd be damned if he was going to make the job easy for mere mortals ~ Mario Puzo

I perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes, you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle; knottings and catchings occur - sudden breaks leave damage in the web. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Mortals simply aren't what they used to be," he said. "A thousand years ago, you would have bartered your immortal soul for a crust of stale bread. Now I can't even get you to gamble at all, even for your freedom. ~ Rachel Caine

A republic - if you can keep it - is about limitation, and for good reason, because we are mortal and our actions are imperfect. ~ Mike Pence

It was him against the flames and he revelled in it.
Logan was good at his job. Exceptionally good. He had the Knight gift for it.
There was no fear of the fire that would turn most mortals to jelly because flames licked in his blood.
To him it was a battle - good against evil.

And he was the good guy. ~ Amy Andrews

Time is an abstraction of eternity. A glimpse, for mortals, of what could be if we spend ours wisely in life. ~ Dean Cavanagh

The 2013 Boston Marathon was, for me, a milestone. A bucket list event that was supposed to be my last marathon until my next big milestone, turning 50. But I couldn't leave marathoning on a memory like that, so I am running this year to honor everyone in the running community and those unsung heroes from April 15, 2013. ~ Summer Sanders

Jason took me by the shoulders - not out of anger, or in a clinging way, but as a brother. "Promise me one thing. Whatever happens, when you get back to Olympus, when you're a god again, remember. Remember what it's like to be human."
A few weeks ago, I would have scoffed. Why would I want to remember any of this?
At best, if I were lucky enough to reclaim my divine throne, I would recall this wretched experience like a scary B-movie that had finally ended. I would walk out of the cinema into the sunlight, thinking Phew! Glad that's over.
Now, however, I had some inkling of what Jason meant. I had learned a lot about human frailty and human strength. I felt…different toward mortals, having been one of them. If nothing else, it would provide me with some excellent inspiration for new song lyrics! ~ Rick Riordan

Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life. ~ Plutarch

I love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man. ~ Louisa May Alcott

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young;
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightaway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,
Guess now who holds thee?
Death, I said, But, there,
The silver answer rang,
Not Death, but Love. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The hallmark of religion is to distrust claims made for mortal men. It is in ages of great religious faith that great skepticism can find expression. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge