Monastic Life Quotes

Silence will illuminate you in God ... and deliver you from phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God ... In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then from our very silence is born something that draws us into deeper silence. May God give you an experience of this 'something' that is born of silence ~ Isaac Of Nenevah

Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself. ~ Albert Camus

I like the monastic life ... in the prayer and the praising ... this has charged me with new energy, spiritual energy. This is very important for my ministry outside the monastery. ~ Pope Theodoros II

By my monastic life and vows I am saying no to all the concentration camps, the aerial bombardments, the staged political trials, the judicial murders, the racial injustices, the economic tyrannies, and the whole socioeconomic apparatus which seems geared for nothing but global destruction in spite of all its fair words in favor of peace. ~ Thomas Merton

Art is a vocation, as much as anything in this world. For the real artist, it is the most natural thing in the world, not as necessary as air and water, perhaps, but as food and water. But we really do lead almost a monastic life, you know; to follow it you very often have to give up something. ~ Katherine Anne Porter

Mental discipline, prayer and remoteness from the world and its disturbing visions reduce temptation to a minimum, but they can never entirely abolish it. In medieval traditions, abbeys and convents were always considered to be expugnable centres of revolt against infernal dominion on earth. They became, accordingly, special targets. Satan, issuing orders at nightfall to his foul precurrers, was rumoured to dispatch to capital cities only one junior fiend. This solitary demon, the legend continues, sleeps at his post. There is no work for him; the battle was long ago won. But monasteries, those scattered danger points, become the chief objectives of nocturnal flight; the sky fills with the beat of sable wings as phalanx after phalanx streams to the attack, and the darkness crepitates with the splintering of a myriad lances against the masonry of asceticism. ~ Patrick Leigh Fermor

I don't tweet or blog or order pizza with arugula on top. You won't find my mug on Facebook or Instagram. I don't have a life coach, an aroma therapist, or a manicurist, and I sure as hell don't do Pilates. ~ Paul Levine

You Can't Write Perfect Software. Did that hurt? It shouldn't. Accept it as an axiom of life. Embrace it. Celebrate it. Because perfect software doesn't exist. No one in the brief history of computing has ever written a piece of perfect software. It's unlikely that you'll be the first. And unless you accept this as a fact, you'll end up wasting time and energy chasing an impossible dream. ~ Andrew Hunt

Life is an illusion of the reality which we want or wish ~ Saurabh Mathur

The greatest luxury of life is peaceful breathing because it repairs the wounds of the cosmic soul. ~ Amit Ray

Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow. ~ Woody Guthrie

the organization of labor is only another word for the forms of life of the common people, this means that the development of the market system would be accompanied by a change in the organization of society itself. All along the line, human society had become an accessory of the economic system. ~ Karl Polanyi

People used to show me respect, to bow down to me; time has passed; I see no more of this. I have known gladness and sorrow, I have rejoiced and I have wept; the same happens to me now but, as the days go by, sorrow and gladness, joy and tears go with them. I have been praised and exalted, I have been criticized and abused; the same who praised me, have cursed; and those who abused have turned to praise me ... such is human constantly! Poor is man from his mother's womb to his grave. Born with a cry, he lives, tossed up and down as a ship on a sea, and dies with tears. ~ Tikhon Of Zadonsk

So many vows ... they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or the other. ~ George R R Martin

Urban people celebrate death, they just invite people, dine in the name of dead; even if the dead goes to hell. Nevertheless, rustic people are different. They rejoice when someone dies; they cry. ~ Shiv Sangal

He slid his hand onto Riley's bare abdomen. "I got to thinkin' that a few years down the line, when yer older, what if that was our baby and I could feel it right here under my hand. Feel the life we'd created."
Riley's eyes moistened. "Girl or boy?"
"Doesn't matter. If it's a girl, we can name her after my gran. Her name was Emily Rose."
"Hmm ... I like that. Maybe the boy could be Paul Arthur, like my dad."
"Yeah, that works. But that's all the way down the line, isn't it?" It might never come to pass. ~ Jana Oliver

You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition. ~ James Agee

Changes in societal structure and in art would possess more credibility if they had their origins in the soul and spirit. If people read the words of the prophets with closer attention, they would find the keys to life. ~ Marc Chagall

We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there are two distinct conditions of my mental existence - the condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of events forming the first epoch of my life - and ~ Edgar Allan Poe

The world is broken. Our bodies break eventually. Our minds and hearts can break as well. We lose things in this life. We lose relationships. We lose people. And so a lot of folks live with a lot of pain. Much is mystery but God asks us to love, not just when it's easy and not just when a certain Scripture fits. What does it look like to love someone who lives in a place you've never been? When there are no words? Or what about allowing someone to love you when you feel completely alone, like no one can relate?

Beyond that, maybe it's better not to fake it, not to offer something cheap. For the rest of us still here, with air in our lungs and tears in our eyes, perhaps we are meant to simply meet one another in the questions. Though the price will be the heartache of loss – for we can't control when or how an ending comes – what a privilege that God allows us to connect with other people in this life, to be known and to be loved so we do not walk alone. Perhaps friendship – the deep kind, the best kind – perhaps it is a miracle. ~ Jamie Tworkowski

They assessed my age and assigned me a birthday. ~ Davan Yahya Khalil

I have never cooked a meal in my life and always end up paying for dozens of people to eat with me. ~ Rufus Wainwright

Perspective is everything when you are experiencing the challenges of life. ~ Joni Eareckson Tada

The residents and elected officials of Long Island have fought vigorously for many years and spent millions of dollars to preserve the quality of life that the Long Island Sound offers. ~ Tim Bishop

If a man through his life became like an angel he would accomplish very little; the accomplishment which is most desirable for man is to fulfill the obligations of human life. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

Life nurtures.
Life tortures.
Either way, you come out stronger! ~ Manoj Vaz

I believe that life is shorter; that is why we have to make experience longer. ~ Marina Abramovic

And if anyone asks what became of me, you relate my life in all its wonder, and end it with a simple and modest He died. ~ Suzanne Weyn

[H]aving heard, or more probably read somewhere, in the days when I thought I would be well advised to educate myself, or amuse myself, or stupefy myself, or kill time, that when a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping in this way to go in a straight line. ~ Samuel Beckett

Fear, separation, hate and anger come from the wrong view that you and the Earth are two separate entities, the Earth is only the environment. You are in the centre, and you want to do something for the Earth in order for you to survive. ~ Nhat Hanh

Libertarians have always battled the age-old scourge of war. They understood that war brought death and destruction on a grand scale, disrupted family and economic life, and put more power in the hands of the ruling class - which might explain why the rulers did not always share the popular sentiment for peace. Free men and women, of course, have often had to defend their own societies against foreign threats; but throughout history, war has usually been the common enemy of peaceful, productive people on all sides of the conflict. ~ David Boaz

As with everything in nature, if your life isn't supported by a grounded source of energy, it will wither and lose its vitality. ~ Sonia Choquette

The worst thing to be afraid of is fear. Give yourself grace. – Jessica Willis ~ The Willis Clan

I don't know what it's like to be an arm amputee, or have even one flesh-and-bone leg, or to have cerebral palsy. I don't speak for such huge and diverse groups. What I've tried to do, what I've been fortunate to do, is to live my live and create my life as I've wanted to create it. ~ Aimee Mullins

For Aboriginal leaders, the social and moral obligation that comes with community leadership is life-long. Those who lead, who have authority, must care for and look after those who come behind. ~ Patrick Dodson

We can get through this. You just have to believe in that because we don't know if a miracle is about to come our way.- Afia ~ Diyar Harraz

Life is like gravity. You have to let it keep you grounded, but you can never let it keep you down. ~ Shayne McClendon

Raw Living: Picking blackberries, beneath late afternoon sun; a sunset reminiscent of watermelon sangria, as the scent of honeysuckle accosts me and the ducks waddle into the lake. Thanking Mama Nature for her abundance. Loving this candied-sweet southern life. ~ Brandi L. Bates

Live for the present, as the past has gone and the future as yet to arrive. ~ LadyTiara

Try not to react merely in the moment. Pull back from the situation. Take a wider view. Compose yourself. ~ Epictetus

Things fucking change, dude! Life changes. Priorities change. Pre-fucking-conceived notions change. You have to adjust and change with them or your ass gets left behind. ~ K. Bromberg

Rain didn't make things messy. People did that all on their own. ~ Barbara Delinsky

Captain MacWhirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans as
some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into
a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been
made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror.

There are on sea and land such men thus fortunate--or thus disdained by
destiny or by the sea. ~ Joseph Conrad

Gideon brought into my life. The acceptance and the love. The safety. Gideon had given me my freedom back, a life without terror. Giving him vows in return was too simple a repayment for that. ~ Sylvia Day

This isn't a spotless life. There is much ahead, my immaculate little peach. And there is no way to say it other than to say it: marriage is indeed this horribly complex thing for which you appear to be ill prepared and about which you seem to be utterly naive. That's okay. A lot of people are. You can learn along the way. A good way to start would be to let fall your notions about "perfect couples." It's really such an impossible thing to either perceive honestly in others or live up to when others believe it about us. It does nothing but box some people in and shut other people out, and it ultimately makes just about everyone feel like shit. A perfect couple is a wholly private thing. No one but the two people in the perfect relationship know for certain whether they're in one. Its only defining quality is that it's composed of two people who feel perfectly right about sharing their lives with each other, even during the hard times. ~ Cheryl Strayed

How to raise this dead level of theistic belief is really a matter of life and death for all denominations. Therefore their tolerance; but it is a tolerance not of understanding; but of weakness. ~ Emma Goldman

She'd lost so much in the process of becoming Zyne, but somewhere in the middle of it all, she'd found herself. Her heritage had shattered her illusions of a tranquil life. Destiny swept behind in a blaze, decimating everything she tried to hold on to. She was left alone, like the solitary tree standing after a forest fire. She'd thought she would crumble to ash, just another memory on the wind. But as blackened pieces of her cracked and fell away, she saw the truth. Under all that charred wreckage was the heartwood. Bruised. Scarred. But still good. Still capable of growth. When she looked in the mirror, she no longer saw a victim, but a survivor. ~ Gwen Mitchell

We therapists often make inaccurate assumptions about people living with DID and DDNOS. They often appear to be "just like us," so we often assume their experience of life reflects our own. But this is profoundly untrue. It results in a communication gap, and, as a consequence, treatment errors. Because the dominant culture is one of persons with a single sense of self, most with multiple "selves" have learned to hide their multiplicity and imitate those who are singletons (that is, have a single, non-fragmented personality). Therapists who do not understand this sometimes describe their clients' alters without acknowledging their dissociation, saying only that they have different "moods." In overlooking dissociation, this description fails to recognize the essential truth of such disorders, and of the alters. It was difficult for me to comprehend what life was like for my first few dissociative clients. ~ Alison Miller

It's OK to be different. ~ Gerard Way

You'll only fall if you doubt your balance. ~ Willa Okati

The more you experience love, the more full of it you should be. But the opposite sometimes happens, because you fear the loss of life. You fear the vulnerability that can take the goodness of it away. This might have happened because when i was just a kid, i had the sense that your whole life can change with a death in the family. It's like they say - at least i say - It's the loss of money that leads to the love of it. You know, the people who care about money are never the people who made a lot. They're the people who have lost a lot. And I think that might be true in relationships, when if you've lost somebody important to you early on, you live in fear of that the rest of your life. I suppose that's one of the things that I would fear, and that might explain the rage you referred to earlier, which is real in me, at some point, it really is. An odd thing to own up to, but I do know it's true. ~ Michka Assayas

If you're funny, if there's something that makes you laugh, then every day's going to be okay. ~ Tom Hanks

A dream is sacred essence of life. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita