Paths And Roads Quotes

There are Four of Us

I have turned aside from everything,
from the whole earthly store.
The spirit and guardian of this place
is an old tree-stump in water.

We are brief guests of the earth, as it were,
and life is a habit we put on.
On paths of air I seem to overhear
two friendly voices, talking in turn.

Did I say two?...There
by the east wall's tangle of raspberry,
is a branch of elder, dark and fresh.
Why! It's a letter from Marina.


November 1962 (in delirium) ~ Anna Akhmatova

With their unspoken words of love still echoing in her ears and aching in her heart, Kayn knew she had to be brave. He was gone. This was where their roads separated, right at the beginning. ~ Kim Cormack

the ultimate design of God was to give salvation to the world at large. If the Jews were to have the peculiar glory of giving birth to the Saviour, and of having the Gospel first ministered to them, they were not to engross all the benefits of his mission. The Gentiles, who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, were to behold his light, and to be guided by him into the paths of peace. Wherever there is a fallen child of Adam, there is a person for whom Christ came into the world, and to whom the Gospel, if thankfully accepted, shall become the power of God unto salvation. We are ~ Anonymous

SUMMER SHOWER. A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be! The dust replaced in hoisted roads, The birds jocoser sung; The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung. The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; The East put out a single flag, And signed the fete away. ~ Emily Dickinson

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, or curled up in my favorite chair in the family room next to the big stone fireplace. The walls are papered deep red, hung with Madison's paintings and lined with our favorite books. The furniture is comfortable and inviting. Our house is made to be lived in; we use every inch of it and don't mind the signs of wear and tear. There's a deep dent in the floor next to the hearth ... It's part of the story of this house, where a family has left its mark, and where it continues to grow and evolve. ~ Sissy Spacek

Would you that ever find yourself walking the Road, trudging without purpose, seeking some journey's end, I give you this warning. The Road is a living being. She is an enchantress and She has a long reach. ~ Caiseal Mor

We ought not to look back, unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dear bought experience. To enveigh against things that are past and irremediable, is unpleasing; but to steer clear of the shelves and rocks we have struck upon, is the part of wisdom, equally as incumbent on political as other men, who have their own little bark, or that of others, to navigate through the intricate paths of life, or the trackless ocean, to the haven of security and rest. ~ George Washington

And with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the world without. Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant before slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. They were all real and true - solidly ~ Rudyard Kipling

The past may or may not be a foreign country. It may morph or lie still, but its capital is always Regret, and what flushes through it is the grand canal of unfledged desires that feed into an archipelago of tiny might-have-beens that never really happened but aren't unreal for not happening and might still happen though we fear they never will. And I thought of Ole Brit holding back so much, as we all do when we look back to see that the roads we've left behind or not taken have all but vanished. Regret is how we hope to back into our real lives once we find the will, the blind drive and courage, to trade in the life we're given for the life that bears our name and ours only. Regret is how we look forward to things we've long lost yet never really had. Regret is hope without conviction, I said. We're torn between regret, which is the price to pay for things not done, and remorse, which is the cost for having done them. Between one and the other, time plays all its cozy little tricks. ~ Andre Aciman

And secondly, admit defeat. Socialism (or anarchism) is not going to happen. And there is no national resurgence
of organic community coming our way. There will be no night-watchman state and libertarian utopia where the
public sector is all but removed. There will be no ecological-spiritual awakening spontaneously growing
from the goodness of your heart. And no, Mr. Conservative, there will be no rolling back of gay rights,
bike paths, vegan diets, animal rights and queer perspectives - they are all here to stay and expand. You can give up on all of that nonsense. Those were whispers of another time. Let them die hard. Clear your
head of these hallucinatory fantasies. They are about as meaningful today as belief in ghosts or Jesus walking
across King Herod's swimming pool. ~ Hanzi Freinacht

Once, very long ago, Time fell in love with Fate. This, as you might imagine, proved problematic. Their romance disrupted the flow of time. It tangled the strings of fortune into knots. The stars watched from the heavens nervously, worrying what might occur. What might happen to the days and nights were time to suffer a broken heart? What catastrophes might result if the same fate awaited Fate itself? The stars conspired and separated the two. For a while they breathed easier in the heavens. Time continued to flow as it always had, or perhaps imperceptibly slower. Fate weaved together the paths that were meant to intertwine, though perhaps a string was missed here and there. But eventually, Fate and Time found each other again. In the heavens, the stars sighed, twinkling and fretting. They asked the Moon her advice. The Moon in turn called upon the parliament of owls to decide how best to proceed. The parliament of owls convened to discuss the matter amongst themselves night after night. They argued and debated while the world slept around them, and the world continued to turn, unaware that such important matters were under discussion while it slumbered. The parliament of owls came to the logical conclusion that if the problem was in the combination, one of the elements should be removed. They chose to keep the one they felt more important. The parliament of owls told their decision to the stars and the stars agreed. The Moon did not, but on this night she was dark and cou ~ Erin Morgenstern

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

All journeys meet crossroads. Where the river ends, the ocean begins. We must have the courage to embark on these journeys, to choose our paths, and to let go of the boat once we are across the river. ~ Thomas Lloyd Qualls

I don't know if you have ever seem a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less and island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. ~ J.M. Barrie

The paths and down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herself stronger ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

The beauty and charm of the wilderness are his for the asking, for the edges of the wilderness lie close beside the beaten roads of the present travel. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Our knowledge and all of our ideas are mutually connected; the more complicated they are, the more numerous must be the roads that lead to them and depart from them. ~ Cesare Beccaria

In the fall of the year I turned sixteen, I jumped out of my bedroom window and ran away. The night's black roads wound like long stretches of river. … The streets ribboned out in all directions. I lifted first one foot and then the other, ready to run down all of them ~ Lê Thi Diem Thúy

She had seen him once, smiling a little through another friar's sermon about Hell, saying after the other left that fear of Hell is one of many paths to it. Forget Hell and love one another. That is all He wants of you. ~ Christopher Buehlman

There is a Sufi story about a man who is so good that the angels ask God to give him the gift of miracles. God wisely tells them to ask him if that is what he would wish.

So the angels visit this good man and offer him first the gift of healing by hands, then the gift of conversion of souls, and lastly the gift of virtue. He refuses them all. They insist that he choose a gift or they will choose one for him. "Very well," he replies. "I ask that I may do a great deal of good without ever knowing it." The story ends this way:

The angels were perplexed. They took counsel and resolved upon the following plan: Every time the saint's shadow fell behind him it would have the power to cure disease, soothe pain, and comfort sorrow. As he walked, behind him the shadow made arid paths green, caused withered plants to bloom, gave clear water to dried up brooks, fresh color to pale children, and joy to unhappy men and women. The saint simply went about his daily life diffusing virtue as the stars diffuse light and the flowers scent, without ever being aware of it. The people respecting his humility followed him silently, never speaking to him about his miracles. Soon they even forgot his name and called him "the Holy Shadow. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

The surpluses will have to be expended somehow, and trust the oligarchs to find a way. Magnificent roads will be built. There will be great achievements in science, and especially in art. When the oligarchs have completely mastered the people, they will have time to spare for other things. They will become worshippers of beauty. They will become art-lovers. And under their direction and generously rewarded, will toil the artists. The result will be great art; for no longer, as up to yesterday, will the artists pander to the bourgeois taste of the middle class. It will be great art, I tell you, and wonder cities will arise that will make tawdry and cheap the cities of old time. And in these cities will the oligarchs dwell and worship beauty ~ Jack London

These days, when our companies are spinning their wheels and all the street lights are out, when our familiar routes are blocked and our maps are torn, this first signpost of post-Christendom directs us towards a prodigal Christianity that does not stand still in order to attract, does not sit in the seat of authority, and does not walk in the ways of the universal, but instead delights in the paths of the prodigal God ~ David E. Fitch

But private lands development around the periphery of the parks - Grand Teton and Yellowstone - is a crucial issue because if those private lands are transformed from open pastures, meadow, forest land to suburbs, to little ranchettes, to shopping malls, to roads, to Starbucks - if those places are all settled for the benefit of humans, then the elk are not going to be able to migrate in and out of Yellowstone Park anymore. And if the elk can't migrate into the park, then that creates problems for the wolves, for the grizzlies, for a lot of other creatures. ~ David Quammen

As a person i couldnt say, although i am well apuainted with tales of his atrocities. every time brom and i crossed paths with him, he was trying to kill us. or ratar, capture, torture, and then killus, none of which are productive to establishing a close relationship _ Jeod ~ Christopher Paolini

I'm fascinated by people's process. Everyone's process is a little bit different, and just to see the different paths that people take to get where they are is really interesting to me. ~ Chris Hardwick

On the roads of failure, it is not uncommon to see the tears of the talented; and in the land of success, to hear the victorious screams of the incompetent! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it. ~ Charles De Lint

In any moment of time, you have three paths to choose from. You stand for something, you stand against something, or you drop both, and walk with your inner truth. ~ Roshan Sharma

Good Teachers are like Accomplished Drivers on high-risk roads. They have a fabulous sense of direction, control, judgement and respect for signals - they know when to speed, when to stop and when to give way to others. They save innumerable lives everyday. ~ Kavita Bhupta Ghosh

I lifted my chin, meeting the eyes of the woman who'd become the living embodiment of my totem, my bright phoenix, and forged ahead. "But I live with the wrong choices, the paths untraveled, the lives lost, and I never hold those regrets against anyone but myself. So, if you have some reason that you think I'll regret getting in that car or not getting in that car, then tell me. Because I won't have anything between us, either." My mind flashed to an hourglass, grains of sand trickling away, carrying my life with them. "At least, nothing that we can avoid...like the fear of unspoken words. ~ Marie Castle

It is a great joy to open a new path; and then, it is a greater joy to see new people on this new path; but the greatest joy is to see the new people opening many more brand new paths via this new path! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan