Plain Things Quotes

Simple and plain things can touch your heart very easily! If you can be simple and plain, you can touch every heart! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Man, a gigantic child, must play with Babylon and Nineveh, with Isis and with Ashtaroth. By all means let him dream of the Bondage of Egypt, so long as he is free from it. By all means let him take up the Burden of Tyre, so long as he can take it lightly. But the old gods must be his dolls, not his idols. His central sanctities, his true possessions, should be Christian and simple. And just as a child would cherish most a wooden horse or a sword that is a mere cross of wood, so man, the great child, must cherish most the old plain things of poetry and piety; that horse of wood that was the epic end of Ilium, or that cross of wood that redeemed and conquered the world. ~ G.K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that can ~ G.K. Chesterton

We're all just a conglomeration of our nervous habits. I see them like road maps in each conversation telling me more about the people than their words.
stripping people of simple things weakens them. ~ Sarah Noffke

It's a privilege, you know, to paint and it takes up a lot of time and it means there's a lot of things you don't do. But still, with me, painting was more than a profession, it was also an obsession. I had to paint. ~ Alice Neel

It had been wonderful and they had been truly happy and he had not known that you could love anyone so much that you cared about nothing else and other things seemed inexistent. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings. ~ Denis Diderot

In the sunlight, snow melts, crystals evaporate into a steam, into nothing. In the firelight, vapors dance and vanish. In the core of a volcano, fragile things burst and disappear. The girl, in the gunfire, in the heat, in the concussion, folded like a soft scarf, melted like a crystal figurine. What was left of her, ice, snowflake, smoke, blew away in the wind. The tiller seat was empty. ~ Ray Bradbury

This is going to be a good day! I believe my dreams are coming to pass. God has great things in store. ~ Joel Osteen

They were trying to escape. They asked us "Where's the railway?" We'd never seen a railway. They asked "Where's Moscow? Leningrad?" They were asking the wrong people: we'd never heard of those places. We're Ostyaks. People were running away starving. They were given a handful of flour. They mixed it with water and drank it and then they immediately got diarrhea. The things we saw! People were dying everywhere; they were killing each other.... On the island there was a guard named Kostia Venikov, a young fellow. He was courting a pretty girl who had been sent there. He protected her. One day he had to be away for a while, and he told one of his comrades, "Take care of her," but with all the people there the comrade couldn't do much.... People caught the girl, tied her to a poplar tree, cut off her breasts, her muscles, everything they could eat, everything, everything.... They were hungry, they had to eat. When Kostia came back, she was still alive. He tried to save her, but she had lost too much blood. ~ Nicolas Werth

Some things mankind can finish and be done with, but not ... science, that persists, and changes from ancient Chaldeans studying the stars to a new telescope with a 200-inch reflector and beyond; not religion, that persists, and changes from old credulities and world views to new thoughts of God and larger apprehensions of his meaning. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

And what is reality, if it isn't how we feel about things? What else matters at the end of the day when we lie in bed alone with our thoughts? ~ Matthew Quick

The man smiled. "Harry is unique, for he was born with a special gift of sight, with eyes able to see things that are unseen. He has talents to move matter by the sound of his voice. ~ Mark Andrew Poe

What mattered was the here and now and not the life before, what mattered were the changeable things of today and tomorrow and not the ever, infinitely, unbearably unchanging yesterday. She ~ Madeleine Thien

But," you may ask, "how can we forget the unkind things that are said ... the cruel and unfair treatment one has received? How can we simply forget these things? It is not as simple as that!" There is just one sure way. Never talk about them, and never think about them. If you want to forget something, never speak even to your dearest friend about it. When it bobs into your mind, banish it at once. It will surprise you how quickly you can forget anything by that treatment. ~ Peter Marshall

The most unique thing about music making is sharing. ~ Igor Levit

It is not things, but opinions about things that have absolutely no existence, which have so deranged mankind! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Watch people do their most common actions; these are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great person. ~ Swami Vivekananda

If hard things ultimately have a purpose, then they aren't so hard anymore. Therefore, I listed what I had learned: 1. It's easy to forget that people can think you think what you don't think. 2. Don't write when you're angry and under deadline, with time to test it only on friends who know what you mean, not on strangers who don't. 3. A writer's greatest reward is naming something unnamed that many people are feeling. A writer's greatest punishment is being misunderstood. The same words can do both. ~ Gloria Steinem

I definitely had to do some soul searching, and there would be a lot of times where I would sit back and look at the Internet and say to myself, 'This is a way of being able to communicate with all my fans all over the world, other than just being in New York and only hearing the New York side of things.' ~ Raekwon

I write about all the horrible things that can happen to kids as a way of keeping those things from happening to mine. Write the books, spit three times over your shoulder and you're safe. ~ Jodi Picoult

Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation between things (the exchange of one commodity for another) Marx revealed a relation between people. ~ Vladimir Lenin

Things, I know, stiffen and shift in memory, become what they never were before. As when an army takes over a country. Or a summer yard goes scarlet with fall and its venous leaves. One summons the years of the past largely by witchcraft-a whore's arts, collage and brew, eye of newt, heart of horse. Still, the house of my childhood is etched in my memory like the shape of the mind itself: a house-shaped mind-why not? It was this particular mind out of which I ventured-for any wild danger or sentimental stance or lunge at something faraway. But it housed every seedling act. I floated above it, but close, like a figure in a Chagall. ~ Lorrie Moore

Water is the best of all things. ~ Pindar

Anyone who can't learn from other people's mistakes simply can't learn, and that;s all there is to it. There is value in the wrong way of doing things. The knowledge gained from errors contributes to our knowledge base. ~ Ben Carson

That whole week, we started to divide things into those two categories: anything or something. A piece of jewelry bougth at a department store: anything. A piece of jewelry made by hand: something. A dollar: anything. A sand dollar: something. A gift certificate: anything. An IOU for two hours of starwatching: something. A drunk kiss at a party: anything. A sober kiss alone in a park: something. ~ David Levithan

Only people who've been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I'm as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to. Like that lovely pair we just met." He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. "Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas-- none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't. With those women--I should've just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can't do "do that. I say things I shouldn't, do things I shouldn't do. I can't control myself. That's one of my weak points. Do you know why that's a weak point of mine?"
"'Cause if you take every single person who lacks much imagination seriously, there's no end to it," I say. ~ Haruki Murakami

I think God isn't interested in intervening every time some little bad thing happens. God is interested in getting the message of good news and love and comfort and hope across through people like us, ordinary people, or extraordinary people like Bono. ~ Philip Yancey

Ignorance fears all things, falling, terror-stricken before the passing wind. Superstition stands as the monument to ignorance, and before it kneel all who realize their own weakness who see in all things the strength they do not possess ~ Manly P. Hall

Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

As far as the balance between being a journalist, being an artist, being a storyteller - documentary filmmakers are all three of those things. The balance between them is affected by the film itself, the topic of the film. ~ Marshall Curry

Most people seek after what they do not possess and are enslaved by the very things they want to acquire. ~ Anwar Sadat

When she had him along, the world looked different, and she liked the way she saw things she'd never seen before ... But she noticed other things, too
the way she herself felt acutely visible with the baby in her arms, and the way some people's faces lit up when they saw a child. His warm weight was like living ballast, thrumming with energy, giving her substance. Folks were drawn to that. ~ Ruth Ozeki

We have big, big problems - flooding, earthquake, and many foolish things which now people are doing - I mean, these self-made catastrophes. We are able to give to every man on the street the possibilities to help himself. And to fight for this was one of my duties. ~ Frei Otto

But that's just as bad," protested Milo. "You mean just as good," corrected the Humbug. "Things which are equally bad are also equally good. Try to look at the bright side of things." "I don't know which side of anything to look at," protested Milo. "Everything is so confusing and all your words only make things worse. ~ Norton Juster

That is the best-to laugh with someone because you both think the same things are funny. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs are 'crutches' hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing humanity. There are no problems related to human progress and happiness in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances. ~ David Marshall Brooks

The very things I needed to learn were the very things I was trying to teach you. ~ Kate McGahan

Anything can be an instrument, Chugurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. to separate the act from the the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it? ~ Cormac McCarthy

Dressed for Success"

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Tried to make it little by little
Tried to make it bit by bit on my own
Quit the job the gray believers
Another town where I get close to the bone

Whatcha gonna tell your brother?
Oh, oh, oh
Whatcha gonna tell your father?
I don't know
Whatcha gonna tell your mother?
Let me go

I'm gonna get dressed for success
Shaping me up for the big time, baby
Get dressed for success
Shaping it up for your love
For your love, yeah, yeah, yeah

I'm not afraid, a trembling flower
I'll feed your heart and blow the dust from your eyes, oh, oh, oh
And in the dark things happen faster
I love the way you sway your hips next to mine

Whatcha gonna tell your brother?
Oh, oh, oh
Whatcha gonna tell your father?
I don't know
Whatcha gonna tell your mother?
Let me go

I'm gonna get dressed for success
Shaping me up for the big time baby
Get dressed for success
Shaping it up for your love, yeah
(Look sharp)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, oh

Whatcha gonna tell your brother?
Oh, oh, oh
Whatcha gonna tell your father?
I don't know
Whatcha gonna tell your mother?
Let me go

(Dressed for success)
I'm gonna get
(Dressed for success)

I'm gonna get dressed for success
Hitting a s ~ Roxette

The experience of that night, coming so overwhelmingly to a man so dead, almost rent me in pieces. It was the same feeling that artists know when we, rarely, achieve truth in our work; the feeling of union with some great force, of purpose and security, of being glad that we have lived. For the first time I felt the pull of race and blood and kindred, and felt beating within me things that had not begun with me. It was as if the earth under my feet had grasped and rooted me, and were pouring its essence into me. I sat there until the dawn of morning, and all night long my life seemed to be pouring out of me and running into the ground.
from the short story The Namesake ~ Willa Cather

so-and-so is using?' You just knew. I never held it against anyone. It was one of those things where you knew they were just trying to keep their jobs, extend their careers. I guess I didn't ~ John Feinstein

Teaching is not about how we see things, it is about how children see things. ~ Kavita Bhupta Ghosh

I've had to relearn how I work with people so that if and when I do avoid different things I don't send any messages in doing so. ~ Jock Sturges

I can be a dickhead and I do it on purpose. I tend to bully people into doing what I want. And I let everything that had happened with Dawson amplify those ... uh, personality traits. But - " He removed his finger, and his grin spread into a smile. "But you ... you make me want to be different. That's why I didn't kill Blake. It's why I don't want you making those decisions or for you to be around me if I am choosing those things. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it! ~ Terry Pratchett

Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history. ~ Pete Seeger

Men do things. We can't help it. That's all there is to it. As you will discover in time, the primary choice every man has to make is whether he wants to be himself or if he wants peace. ~ Manu Joseph

We flatter ourselves. Most of the real diversity in evolution has been small-scale. We large things are just flukes - an interesting side branch. ~ Bill Bryson

Live one day at a time. Keep your attention in present time. Have no expectations. Make no judgements. And give up the need to know why things happen as they do. Give it up! ~ Caroline Myss