Not Being Who You Were Quotes

Weight gain can happen at any point in time, and it is something that you are dealing with anyway, and it is OK. It is ridiculous to have this dictate your very being because I have always said that it is not the outside that defines who you are. ~ Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

You know how to steer a yacht?" Mr. McIntyre asked Ian worriedly.
"I was born knowing how to steer a yacht," Ian said. Then a stricken look came over his face. "But–do you suppose Jonah prepaid the full amount for renting this? Once my dad hears what Natalie and I did, he'll cancel our credit cards."
"You mean we're...we're poor now?" Natalie gasped.
"Penniless," Ian said grimly.
"Actually," Mr. McIntyre said, "I should have mentioned this before the others left. Grace had an addendum to her will regarding everyone who made it through the gauntlet. There were eight of you–you will all receive double the amount you turned down to get the first clue."
"It was a million dollars originally," Ian said. "So Natalie and I each get two million dollars? I suppose we could live on that."
Natalie beamed.
"That is such a relief!" she said. "Being poor wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, but still–"
"You were only poor for about two seconds!" Dan protested, rolling his eyes. ~ Margaret Peterson Haddix

You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit othere is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being,the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness -it means more to me than my life itself. ~ Marquis De Sade

Will you be there waiting for me every night, in our cottage?" he murmured.
She nodded, leaning against him.
McKenna's bristly black lashes lowered until they cast shadows on his cheeks. "And you'll scrub my back when I'm tired and dusty from the field?"
Aline pictured his large, powerful body lowering into a wooden tub... his pleasured sigh at the heat of the water... his bronzed back shining in the firelight. "Yes," she breathed. "And then you can soak while I hang the stew pot over the fire, and I'll tell you about the argument I had with the miller, who didn't give me enough flour because his scale was weighted."
McKenna laughed softly while his fingertip skimmed lightly along her throat. "The cheat," he murmured, his eyes sparkling. "I'll speak with him tomorrow- no one tries to fleece my wife and gets away with it. In the meantime, let's go to bed. I want to hold you all night long."
The thought of being tucked in a cozy bed with him, their naked bodies entwined, made Aline tremble with longing. "You'll probably fall asleep as soon as your head touches the pillow," she said. "Farming is hard work- you're exhausted."
"Never too tired to love you." His arms slid around her, and he hunched over to nuzzle the curve of her cheek. His lips were like hot velvet as he whispered against her skin. "I'm going to kiss you from your head to your toes. And I won't stop until you're crying for me, and then I'll pleasure you until you're weak from my lovin ~ Lisa Kleypas

Although your decision to die is firm, your decision to become a god has caused you to suffer. You suffered, wondering why you couldn't cure Magdalia's illness, wondering why you weren't capable of saving her. All you wanted to do was protect your only sister, wasn't that it? Not in heaven, but here on Earth. You wanted to make Lady Maldaria happy more than anything else, didn't you? And so now, to avoid the guilt of your loved one dying at your expense, you're willing to die yourself. You've already come to this realization. You know you aren't god. You're just a fragile human being who's capable of feeling pain and having doubts. Go back to being an ordinary man and start all over again for the sake of those who look up to you.
-Kenshin ~ Nobuhiro Watsuki

There are students that are scattered, who need to see something through to the finish, but I would say there are possibly more who do not entertain the leaps of the mind that need to be nurtured, and this desire to finish becomes more about being a good student than about finishing something interesting. Where does work ethic fit in with writing? I think that's pretty complicated from one writer to the next. You need some kind of work ethic, but what does it look like for you? ~ Aimee Bender

In New Zealand, we have a one-party disclosure system, where if one of you knows you're being recorded, it's completely fine. It doesn't matter if the other person doesn't know. Look, I'm not breaking new ground by recording people who don't want to be recorded. ~ David Farrier

She looked into his eyes, hoping he could give her something to hang on to. His response saddened her.
"No. I wish I could give you a better answer, but I don't have it all planned out. I just try to be best I can today. Things like being happy, having a good time, have different definitions for me than they used to. Before you start trying to have a good time or figure out where you're going, first find out who you are. If you don't like yourself, that's the starting point, not the end point. ~ E. M. Youman

Many of those who have experienced trauma in early childhood grow up to become adults with dysfunctional lives and dysfunctional relationships, never being able to solve such issues within themselves, not even with the help of the best therapists in the world, because the root cause of it has been removed by the institutions in control of mental health training programs, mainstream media and public opinion. And the root cause of all evil, including self-inflicted evil, lays on the capacity to differentiate good from evil, which has helped us survive as a society and as individuals throughout the entirety of human history and up to this day. Once you remove this natural ability from anyone's awareness, no theory, despite the amount of logic and common sense in it, will ever work. As a matter of fact, not many people know what serves their best interest, because they don't even know what is good or evil. They relativize their ignorance to justify their stupidity. And this constitutes a thicker layer on top of their innate capacity to perceive reality. Many problems, including those related to self-esteem, could easily be solved, if one was able of properly differentiating what promotes survival from what leads to death. Whenever a large group of people lacks such capacity, they are promoting a dysfunctional society by default, and in doing so, replicating the same traumas that made them themselves dysfunctional as humans. And that's how an overall mindset rooted on victimizatio ~ Robin Sacredfire

It should not be surprising if people believe easily in a God who makes no demands, but this is not the God of the Bible. Satan has cleverly misled people by whispering that they can believe in Jesus Christ without being changed, but this is the Devil's lie. To those who say you can have Christ without giving anything up, Satan is deceiving you. ~ Billy Graham

What makes the difference between "ideal" and an ordinary object of desire is that the former is impersonal; it is something having(at least ostensibly)no special reference to the ego of the man who feels the desire, and therefore capable, theoretically, of being desired by everybody.
Thus we might define an "ideal" as something desired, not egocentric, and such that the person
Desiring it wishes that everyone else also desired it. I may wish that everybody had enough to eat,
that everybody felt kindly towards everybody, and so on, and if I wish anything of this kind I shall
also wish others to wish it. In this way, I can build up what looks like an impersonal ethic,
although in fact it rests upon the personal basis of my own desires--for the desire remains mine
even when what is desired has no reference to myself. For example, one man may wish that
everybody understood science, and another that everybody appreciated art; it is a personal
difference between the two men that produces this difference in their desires.
The personal element becomes apparent as soon as controversy is involved. Suppose some man
says: "You are wrong to wish everybody to be happy; you ought to desire the happiness of
Germans and the unhappiness of everyone else. "Here "ought" maybe taken to mean that that is
what the speaker wishes me to desire. I might retort that, not being German, it is psychologically
impossible for me to desire th ~ Bertrand Russell

While I'd been plagued by nightmares of Jonathan's unrest in the hereafter, it was only now that I'd seen Adair again - and seen him so changed - that I could admit, even to myself, that it was him I daydreamed of, who I longed for, who I ached for, physically. That was how I'd betrayed Luke - in my desire for Adair. It wasn't so uncommon, was it? Living with one man while your mind is on another? Being unable to stop thinking of this other man who, for one reason or another, was not the one sitting beside you. Thinking of the way his eyes lit up when he saw you, of his wicked smile and what it was like when he held you, how you responded to the touch of his hands. In solitary moments, you remembered the little intimacies, the feel of his skin against yours, the way he liked to be touched, the velvet nap of his member, the way he tasted. You thought of him even though you could never be with him. His absence nagged like an itch you could never scratch. ~ Alma Katsu

You were very hurt at being slighted. That means you are forgetting too easily who you are. ~ Josemaria Escriva

That's the thing about being a Labrador retriever - you were born for fun. Seldom was your loopy, freewheeling mind cluttered by contemplation, and never at all by somber worry; every day was a romp. What else could there possibly be to life? Eating was a thrill. Pissing was a treat. Shitting was a joy. And licking your own balls? Bliss. And everywhere you went were gullible humans who patted and hugged and fussed over you. ~ Carl Hiaasen

Making good use of that room?" Lucius asked them, having a laugh with the trollop at his side. Oscar stood unwavering in the center of the hall, forcing Lucius to skirt around him.
"You're a pig," Camille replied, but he only squealed and snorted like a sow.
"Either of you figure out yet how we're going to get home?" Lucius asked. "Don't get me wrong. I'm perfectly content here for the time being."
A pair of sloppy-looking men stumbled through the front door, obviously drunk, and howling like wolves. Oscar stepped up beside Camille, blocking her from their view. His shoulders and chest were the perfect shield against whatever misguided attentions the men might show her.
"When did you become concerned about the three of us sticking together?" she asked Lucius. "We haven't set eyes on you since you disappeared into the orlop deck of the Londoner."
Lucius nodded over his shoulder. "I'm being nursed back to health, can't you see?"
She glared at him. Why someone like Lucius had survived the shipwreck instead of a worthier person like her father angered her. Maybe she really was cursed.
"You don't have a plan, do you?" Lucius asked Oscar, who continued to block Camille from the two men anxiously waiting by the front door for someone to greet them. Lucius snorted a laugh. "Should'a guessed as much."
Oscar took a step forward, pressing Camille between his chest and Lucius's.
"What do you mean by that?"
Lucius laced his fingers togethe ~ Angie Frazier

The bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured. And by the way, that is very important. Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God's eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing does dome tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

It is as well to put this the other way round. Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man's psychological makeup is probably d ~ C.S. Lewis

Don't you dare hide behind your illness!"
"You were the one who just said I couldn't help it!"
"You can't help being ill, but you can help what you do about it," Eithne says sharply. ~ Tess Stimson

Do not waste the precious moments of this, your present reality, seeking to unveil all of life's secrets. Those secrets are a secret for a reason. Grant your God the benefit of the doubt. Use your NOW moment for the Highest Purpose- the creation and the expression of WHO YOU REALLY ARE. Decide who you are- who you want to be-and then do everything in your power to be that.

It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent. You cannot take responsibility for how well another accepts your truth; you can only ensure how well it is communicated. And by how well, I don't mean merely how clearly; I mean how lovingly, how compassionately, how sensitively, how courageously, and how completely.

If you think your life is about DOINGNESS, you do not understand what you are about. Your soul doesn't care what you do for a living-and when your life is over, neither will you. Your soul cares only about what you're BEING while you're doing whatever you're doing. It is a state of BEINGNESS the soul is after, not a state of doingness. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.
The fools who write articles about me think that one morning I suddenly decided to write and began to produce masterpieces.
There is no special trick about writing or painting either. I wrote constantly for 15 years before I produced anything with any solidity to it.
The thing of course, is to make yourself alive. Most people remain all of their lives in a stupor.
The point of being an artist is that you may live.
You won't arrive. It is an endless search. ~ Sherwood Anderson

In the heat of leadership, with the adrenaline pumping, it is easy to convince yourself that you are not subject to the normal human frailties that can defeat ordinary mortals. You begin to act as if you are indestructible. But the intellectual, physical, and emotional challenges of leadership are fierce. So, in addition to getting on the being and assess the tolls those changes are taking. If you don't, your seemingly indestructible self can self-destruct. This, by the way, is an ideal outcome for your foes-and even friends who oppose your initiative- because no one has to feel responsible for your downfall.
_________
When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue.
Attacks may be personal, understand that they are basically attacks on positions you represent and the role you are seeking to play ~ Ronald A. Heifetz

This is for all those who choose to stand out
No matter how many people around have no power but to fit in.
This is for all those who still hope for new mornings
No matter how long, cold and gloomy their nights were.
This is for you
This is for me
And this is for everyone who still have some kind of hope in their hearts , no matter how many times this life have proved them why they shouldn't …
Thank you!
Thank you for being the silver lining that still finds its way through the darkness …. ~ Samiha Totanji

There is a deeper, more profound reason for this craving for acceptance and glory. Put simply, it's because all writers are fat and/or ugly. And generally socially inept. Me being the notable exception, of course. Writers want to be special, because they're so not. They're losers, overgrown kids who've never escaped from being misfits and who have run away into their own imaginations in an attempt to find self-esteem. Why do you think they all star in their own books? Self included. ~ Chancery Stone

I try not to be protected. Because I feel like you can become a little bit of a robot. That's not who I am. And I don't want to be monotone. It's important to be yourself, whatever the cost. ~ Serena Williams

Kiss me, Raven. Merge your mind with mine. Share your body so that we are completely one being. You trusted me before. Do so now. Look at me with the eyes of love, in forgiveness for the things I have been forced to do, for the beast in my nature. Do not look at me through the eyes of one who would wish to destroy our people and us. Give yourself to me. ~ Christine Feehan

I thank you, Wilhelm, for your heartfelt sympathy, for your well-intentioned advice, but beg you to be quiet. Let me stick it out. Blessedly exhausted as I am, I have strength enough to carry through. I honor religion, you know that, I feel it is a staff for many weary souls, refreshment for many a one who is pining away. But--can it be, must it be, the same thing for everyone? If you look at the great world, you see thousands for whom it wasn't, thousands for whom it will not be the same, preached or unpreached, and must it then be the same for me? Does not the son of God Himself say that those would be around Him whom the Father had given Him? But if I am not given? If the Father wants to keep me for Himself, as my heart tells me?--I beg you, do not misinterpret this, do not see mockery in these innocent words. What I am laying before you is my whole soul; otherwise I would rather have kept silent, as I do not like to lose words over things that everyone knows as little about as I do. What else is it but human destiny to suffer out one's measure, drink up one's cup?--And if the chalice was too bitter for the God from heaven on His human lips, why should I boast and pretend that it tastes sweet to me? And why should I be ashamed in the terrible moment when my entire being trembles between being and nothingness, since the past flashes like lightning above the dark abyss of the future and everything around me is swallowed up, and the world perishes with me?--Is that not the vo ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Jean-Jacques Rousseau defined civilization as when people build fences. A very perceptive observation. And it's true - all civilization is the product of a fenced-in lack of freedom. The Australian Aborigines are the exception, though. They managed to maintain a fenceless civilization until the seventeenth century. They're dyed-in-the-wool free. They go where they want, when they want, doing what they want. Their lives are a literal journey. Walkabout is a perfect metaphor for their lives. When the English came and built fences to pen in their cattle, the Aborigines couldn't fathom it. And, ignorant to the end of the principle at work, they were classified as dangerous and antisocial and were driven away, to the outback. So I want you to be careful. The people who build high, strong fences are the ones who survive the best. You deny that reality only at the risk of being driven into the wilderness yourself. ~ Haruki Murakami

Raven paced restlessly across the floor of the cabin, sending Jacques a little self-mocking smile. "I'm very good at waiting."
"I can see that," Jacques agreed dryly.
"Come on, Jacques" - Raven made the length of the room again, turned to face him - " don't you find this even a little bit nerve-racking?" He leaned lazily back in his chair, flashing a cocky grin.
"Being caged up with a beautiful lunatic, you mean?"
"Ha, ha, ha. Do all Carpathian males think they're stand-up comedians?"
"Just those of us with sisters-in-law who bounce off walls. I feel like I am watching a Ping-Pong ball. Settle down."
"Well, how long does something like this take? I thought he implied he'd be in and out of the hospital in two minutes, Jacques. What could have gone wrong? Mikhail was very upset."
"Mikhail did not actually say anything went wrong, did he?" Jacques asked, blankly innocent.
Raven's large blue-violet eyes settled on Jacques's face thoughtfully. Jacques squirmed under her suspicious, steady gaze. There was far too much intelligence in her enormous eyes to suit him. He held up a placating hand. "Now, Raven."
"Don't you now-Raven me. That brother of yours, worm that he is, male chauvinist unequaled in modern times, told you something he didn't tell me, didn't he?"
Leaning back with studied casualness, Jacques tipped his chair to a precarious angle and raised an eyebrow. "Women have vivid imaginations. I think you have a susp ~ Christine Feehan

What you see is not what wee se. What you see is distracted by memory, by being who you are, all this time, for all these years. ~ Don DeLillo

It's more important than ever to define yourself in terms of what you stand for rather than what you make, because what you make is going to become outmoded faster than it has at any time in the past ... hang on to the idea of who you are as a company, and focus not on what you do, but on what you could do. By being really clear about what you stand for and why you exist, you can see what you could do with a much more open mind. You enhance your ability to adapt to change. ~ James C. Collins

God wants to rescue us, not destroy us. You don't have to be afraid of being happy, thinking that he wants to take that happiness away from you That's not who he is." "How can you be sure?" "Because when you've had a taste of goodness, it helps you recognize the difference between good and evil. I believe that people like Grace and St. Francis and a whole host of other kind, loving people show us what God is like. He isn't waiting to punish you and he doesn't give you blessings just to strip them away. ~ Sylvain Reynard

Most churches do not grow beyond the spiritual health of their leadership. Many churches have a pastor who is trying to lead people to a Savior he has yet to personally encounter. If spiritual gifting is no proof of authentic faith, then certainly a job title isn't either.

You must have a clear sense of calling before you enter ministry. Being a called man is a lonely job, and many times you feel like God has abandoned you in your ministry. Ministry is more than hard. Ministry is impossible. And unless we have a fire inside our bones compelling us, we simply will not survive. Pastoral ministry is a calling, not a career. It is not a job you pursue.

If you don't think demons are real, try planting a church! You won't get very far in advancing God's kingdom without feeling resistance from the enemy.

If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. Once a month I get away for the day, once a quarter I try to get out for two days, and once a year I try to get away for a week. The purpose of these times is rest, relaxation, and solitude with God.

A pastor must always be fearless before his critics and fearful before his God. Let us tremble at the thought of neglecting the sheep. Remember that when Christ judges us, he will judge us with a special degree of strictness.

The only way you will endure in ministry is if you determine to do so through the prevailing power of the Holy Sp ~ Darrin Patrick

You didn't answer my question. I asked you about being in love. You said what it was like when your wife went away."
Martin sat down again. How young she is. When we were that young we invented the world, no one could tell us a thing. Julia stood with her hands clenched, as though she wanted to pound an answer out of him. "Being in love is ... anxious," he said. "Wanting to please, worrying that she will see me as I really am. But wanting to be known. That is ... you're naked, moaning in the dark, no dignity at all ... I wanted her to see me and to love me even though she knew everything I am, and I knew her. Now she's gone, and my knowledge is incomplete. So all day I imagine what she is doing, what she says and who she talks to, how she looks. I try to supply the missing hours, and it gets harder as they pile up, all the time she's been gone. I have to imagine. I don't know, really. I don't know any more. ~ Audrey Niffenegger