We Are Engaged Quotes

The complexion of a novelist is seldom rosy (Paul Bailey once announced to a heavy-hearted audience of novelists at PEN that we have always been an ugly tribe). We are engaged in indoor activity, haemorrhoidal, prone to chillblains, poor of circulation. ~ Jane Gardam

They (the Jews) work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in ... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America. ~ George Washington

In many cases, our need to wonder about or be told what God wants in a certain situation is nothing short of a clear indication of how little we are engaged in His work. ~ Dallas Willard

When God overcomes our difficulties for us, we have the assurance that we are engaged in His work and not our own ~ George Muller

The world has fundamentally changed. It fundamentally changed when the Berlin Wall came down and the 'evil empire' ceased to exist. We are engaged around the world whether we like it or not. ~ Robert Foster Bennett

We do not experience ourselves as a gift until we are engaged in the act of creating. ~ Elizabeth O'Conner

All our lives we are engaged in preserving our experiences and keeping them fresh by artificially sprinkling the water of memory over them. They have ceased to retain their original smell and fragrance. Do you call it life- this effort at the preservation of a phantom freshness in something that is withered and gone? ~ Vimala Thakar

We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There's a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody's values will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe. ~ Gary Bauer

In America, we are engaged in constant battle with food. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

A child's reading is guided by pleasure, but his pleasure is undifferentiated; he cannot distinguish, for example, between aesthetic pleasure and the pleasures of learning or daydreaming. In adolescence we realize that there are different kinds of pleasure, some of which cannot be enjoyed simultaneously, but we need help from others in defining them. Whether it be a matter of taste in food or taste in literature, the adolescent looks for a mentor in whose authority he can believe. He eats or reads what his mentor recommends and, inevitably, there are occasions when he has to deceive himself a little; he has to pretend that he enjoys olives or War and Peace a little more than he actually does. Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity. Few of us can learn this without making mistakes, without trying to become a little more of a universal man than we are permitted to be. It is during this period that a writer can most easily be led astray by another writer or by some ideology. When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,'he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu', because, between twenty and forty, the surest sign that a man has a genuine taste o ~ W.H. Auden

It's not just that there is a cooperative spirit of investigation there, where we all recognise that we are engaged in a common project of inquiry. It's also that the philosophers are well-versed in the relevant empirical data, and the scientists are well-versed in the more abstract issues which are typically the central focus of philosophical work. ~ Hilary Kornblith

In the most basic of situations-- when we know what we are doing, when we are engaged with the familiar-- these fundamental tendencies suffice. Our actual situations, however, are almost always more complex. If things or situations were straightforwardly or simply positive or negative, good or bad, we would not have to make judgements regarding them, would not have to think about our behavior, and how and when it should be modified-- indeed, would not have to think at all. We are faced, however, with the constant problem of ambivalence in meaning, which is to say that a thing or situation might be bad and good simultaneously (or good in two conflicting manners; or bad, in two conflicting manners). ~ Jordan B. Peterson

Whereas certain people start with a recollection or an experience and paint that experience, to some of us the act of doing is the experience; so that we are not quite clear why we are engaged on a particular work. And because we are more interested in plastic matters than we are in matters of words, once can begin a painting and carry it through and stop it and do nothing about the title at all. All pictures are full of association. ~ William Baziotes

Thanks to the heroic sons and daughters of this country, who have paid sacrifices, we have been able to score a number of victories which are encouraging the nation-building process we are engaged in. ~ Girma Woldegiorgis

Blind compassion is rooted in the belief that we are all doing the best that we can. When we are driven by blind compassion, we cut everyone far too much slack, making excuses for others' behavior and making nice in situations that require a forceful "no," an unmistakable voicing of displeasure, or a firm setting and maintaining of boundaries. These things can, and often should, be done out of love, but blind compassion keeps love too meek, sentenced to wearing a kind face. This is not the kindness of the Dalai Lama, which is rooted in courage, but rather a kindness rooted in fear, and not just the fear of confrontation, but also the fear of not coming across as a good or spiritual person. When we are engaged in blind compassion we rarely show any anger, for we not only believe that compassion has to be gentle, we are also frightened of upsetting anyone, especially to the point of their confronting us. ~ Robert Augustus Masters

Washington is a bubble, and there is nothing more powerful than the conservative grassroots when we are engaged and letting our voice be heard. ~ Ted Cruz

The strength in our third-quarter financial results is cause for excitement. I'm particularly pleased that we continue to demonstrate impressive growth at the same time we are engaged in important merger discussions. ~ Bernard Ebbers

Changing the world is like trying to straighten a dog's tail. However much you may try, you won't succeed. But although the tail won't straighten, if you keep trying every day, at least you will put on some muscle. Similarly, even though it is difficult to make a change, our effort to do so in itself brings positive results. It will help us change. Without waiting for others to change,if we change ourselves first, that will make a difference. Instead of worrying about results, focus on doing our best in what we are engaged in. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

We are engaged in immediate conversations with the White House on deliberations over a successor whom we hope will continue in the general direction of Attorney General Holder. ~ Al Sharpton

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The driving force behind today's terrorist threat is Islamist fundamentalism. The struggle we are engaged in is, at root, ideological. During the last century a strain of Islamist thinking has developed which, like other totalitarianisms, such as Nazi-ism and Communism, offers its followers a form of redemption through violence. ~ David Cameron

We are not engaged in a complicated joke disguised as a religion. We are engaged in a religion disguised as a complicated joke. ~ Malaclypse The Younger

I love the ordered mind of history because it takes us out of the chaos, momentarily, and says, "Ah, so this is the story we are engaged in." ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Once we become conscious of a feeling and attempt to make a corresponding form, we are engaged in an activity which, far from being sincere, is prepared (as any artist if he is sincere will tell you) to moderate feelings to fit the form. The artist's feeling for form is stronger than a formless feeling. ~ Herbert Read

It seems to me that to-day, or I may say this present moment is a moment of trial for this people. I have often heard the President say, in relation to our having been driven from our homes, hated and mistreated by our enemies and the enemies of truth, that we were not then particularly tried. I believe it. I believe that then we were more happy and better alive to the work we are engaged in than many are to-day. I believe, of the two, take the period when the Saints were driven from the State of Missouri, or subsequently, when we were driven from the State of Illinois, and compare it with the present day, that to-day is the day of trial for this people. When you go along the street, and meet a man or a woman, do you know whether he or she is a Latter-day Saint or not? There was a time when we could walk up and down the streets and tell by the very countenances of men whether they were Latter-day Saints, or not; but can you do it now? You can not, unless you have greater discernment and more of the Spirit and power of God than I have. Why? Because many are trying as hard as they can to transform themselves into the very shape, character, and spirit of the world. Elders in Israel, young men, mothers and daughters in Israel are conforming to the world's fashions, until their very countenances indicate its spirit and character. This course is to the shame and disgrace of those who are so unwise. . . . And when the line is drawn and the choice made, there are many, who we think t ~ Joseph F. Smith

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child
our own two eyes. All is a miracle. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

W. H. Auden articulated this tension beautifully: Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity. ~ Gretchen Rubin

To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to a creeping bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit ...
A praying life is just the opposite. It engaged evil. It doesn't take no for an answer. The psalmist was in God's face, hoping, dreaming, asking. Prayer is feisty. Cynicism, on the other hand, merely critiques. It is passive, cocooning itself from the passions of the great cosmic battle we are engaged in. It is without hope. ~ Paul E. Miller

We are not engaged in domestic politics, in church building or in social uplift work, but we are engaged in nation building. ~ Marcus Garvey

Of course, once I'd wrapped my mind around the fact that it was Cal and not Archer standing in my bedroom, it dawned on me that Cal was standing in my bedroom.
"Hey," I breathed, hoping my hair wasn't a huge tangled mess, even though I was ninety-nine percent sure that it was. I mean, I could see it out of my peripheral vision.
"Hey."
"You're,um,in my room."
"I am."
"Is that allowed?"
"Well,we are engaged," Cal deadpanned.
I squinted at him, shoving big handfuls of my hair away from my face. I had no idea if that was supposed to be a joke or not. You could never tell with Cal.
"Did you want to watch me sleep or something? Because if that's the case, this engagement is so broken."
Cal's lips quirked in what might have been a smile. "Do you have a smart-ass reply for everything?
"If at all possible,yeah. ~ Rachel Hawkins

Humanity faces a quantum leap forward. It faces the deepest social upheaval and creative restructuring of all time. Without clearly recognizing it, we are engaged in building a remarkable new civilization from the ground up. This is the meaning of the Third Wave. ~ Alvin Toffler

Don't be afraid of us, for now you are not a prisoner. We are extending you an invitation to collaborate with us and maybe to help us put an end to this war that we are engaged in without even looking for it. We are also hoping that, with your special mental abilities, you can help throw some light into this Ancient message," the "Humanoid" said. "You are *The Chosen One*, we think. If it's in your veins to use your powers, as we think it is, we may all win and I am not only talking about the war. Maybe if we make sense of what the Ancient message says, we can all survive in Harmony, and I mean all the worlds and civilizations in the Universe. ~ AD Proca

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction. ~ Barack Obama

We are struggling with language.
We are engaged in a struggle with language. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

If all art is conceptual, the issue is rather simple. For concepts, like pictures, cannot be true or false. They can only be more or less useful for the formation of descriptions. The words of a language, like pictorial formulas, pick out from the flux of events a few signposts which allow us to give direction to our fellow speakers in that game of "Twenty Questions" in which we are engaged. Where the needs of users are similar, the signposts will tend to correspond. We can mostly find equivalent terms in English, French, German, and Latin, and hence the idea has taken root that concepts exist independently of language as the constituents of "reality." But the English language erects a signpost on the roadfork between "clock" and "watch" where the German has only "Uhr." The sentence from the German primer, "Meine Tante hat eine Uhr," leaves us in doubt whether the aunt has a clock or watch. Either of the two translations may be wrong as a description of a fact. In Swedish, by the way, there is an additional roadfork to distinguish between aunts who are "father's sisters," those who are "mother's sisters," and those who are just ordinary aunts. If we were to play our game in Swedish we would need additional questions to get at the truth about the timepiece. ~ E.H. Gombrich

Things are continually beginning again; they're never really resolved, you know. They are only resolved temporarily. We live in a society that peddles solutions, whether it's solutions to those extra pounds you're carrying, or to your thinning hair, or to your loss of appetite, loss of love. We are always looking for solutions, but actually what we are engaged in is a process throughout life during which you never get it right. You have to keep being open, you have to keep moving forward. You have to keep finding out who you are and how you are changing, and only that makes life tolerable. ~ Jeanette Winterson

When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.' Mosiah 2:17. Focusing on serving our brothers and sisters can guide us to make divine decisions in our daily lives and prepares us to value and love what the Lord loves. In so doing, we witness by our very lives that we are His disciples. When we are engaged in His work, we feel His Spirit with us. We grow in testimony, faith, trust, and love. ~ Ronald A. Rasband

Sometimes we don't know how afraid we are until we've reached a strange door and we don't know what will be on the other side. ~ Lauren DeStefano

To the extent that we are all educated and informed, we will be more equipped to deal with the gut issues that tend to divide us. ~ Caroline Kennedy

I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. And the great divide between the beautiful and the ugly will cease to be. Because we are all what we choose. ~ Margaret Cho

When you moved, I felt squeezed with a wild infatuation and protectiveness. We are one. Nothing, not even death, can change that. ~ Suzanne Finnamore

What art does is to coax us away from the mechanical and towards the miraculous. The so-called uselessness of art is a clue to its transforming power. Art is not part of the machine. Art asks us to think differently, see differently, hear differently, and ultimately to act differently, which is why art has moral force. Ruskin was right, though for the wrong reasons, when he talked about art as a moral force. Art is not about good behaviour, when did you last see a miracle behave well? Art makes us better people because it asks for our full humanity, and humanity is, or should be, the polar opposite of the merely mechanical. We are not part of the machine either, but we have forgotten that. Art is memory - which is quite different [from] history. Art asks that we remember who we are, and usually that asking has to come as provocation - which is why art breaks the rules and the taboos, and at the same time is a moral force. ~ Jeanette Winterson

The Christian community demonstrates the effectiveness of the gospel. We are the living proof that the gospel is not an empty word but a powerful word that takes men and women who are lovers of self and transforms them by grace through the Spirit into people who love God and others. We are the living proof that the death of Jesus was not just a vain expression of God's love but an effective death that achieved the salvation of a people who now love one another sincerely from a pure ~ Tim Chester

We are not going back. We are not returning to the days of back-room abortions, when countless women died or were maimed. The decision about abortion must remain a decision for the woman, her family and a physician to make, not the government. ~ Bernie Sanders

When life begins we are tender and weak When life ends we are stiff and rigid All things, including the grass and trees, are soft and pliable in life and dry in brittle in death So the soft and supple are the companion of life While the stiff and unyielding are the companions of death An army that cannot yield will be defeated A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind Thus by Nature's own decree the hard and strong are defeated while the soft and gentle are triumphant ~ Laozi

Because we are not powerless biochemical machines, popping a pill every time we are mentally or physically out of tune is not the answer. Drugs and surgery are powerful tools when they are not overused, but the notion of simple drug fixes is fundamentally flawed. Every time a drug is introduced into the body to correct function A, it inevitably throws off function B, C, or D. It is not gene-directed hormones and neurotransmitters that control our bodies and our minds; our beliefs control our bodies, our minds, and thus our lives ... Oh ye of little belief! ~ Bruce H. Lipton

We tend to be particularly unaware that we are thinking virtually all the time. The incessant stream of thoughts flowing through our minds leaves us very little respite for inner quiet. And we leave precious little room for ourselves anyway just to be, without having to run around doing things all the time. Our actions are all too frequently driven rather than undertaken in awareness, driven by those perfectly ordinary thoughts and impulses that run through the mind like a coursing river, if not a waterfall. We get caught up in the torrent and it winds up submerging our lives as it carries us to places we may not wish to go and may not even realize we are headed for.
Meditation means learning how to get out of this current, sit by its bank and listen to it, learn from it, and then use its energies to guide us rather than to tyrannize us. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

We learned that what happens when we are alone with the Lord determines how intimate and deep the worship will be when we come together. ~ John Wimber

To be an American (unlike being English or French or whatever) is precisely to imagine a destiny rather than to inherit one; since we have always been, insofar as we are Americans at all, inhabitants of myth rather than history. ~ Leslie Fiedler

There is hardly a place on Earth where people do not log, pave, spray, drain, flood, graze, fish, plow, burn, drill, spill or dump. There is no life zone, with the possible exception of the deep ocean, that we are not degrading. ~ Donella Meadows

Your peers are people in the business who are going to push you forward. So I think it's one of the reasons that Syracuse students come out truly ready for the industry because we've been rubbing elbows with people who are likeminded and just as 'pushy' or as ready to go as we are. ~ Mike Tirico

He is right. We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in war. ~ Erich Maria Remarque

Don't wait. The time will never be just right. Life is short and fleeting and yet we are always all waiting for the 'right moment' to do something. When I have more money. Or when I quit my job. Or when I've lost weight. There always seems to be an excuse for not doing the things you want to do. Stop waiting for the right time and just start. The best time is now. ~ Oprah Carnegie

We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry, cried the duchess, nodding pleasantly ~ Oscar Wilde

We are the products of our past ... a web of complexities. ~ Janet Leigh

If you want to design a successful human society, you need to know what kind of animal we are. Are we a social animal or a selfish animal? Do we respond better when we're solitary or living in a group? ~ Frans De Waal

We are not here on earth to change our destiny but to fulfill it. ~ Guy Finley

People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

We are all part of the human family and we should be about doing what all good families do - caring for our less fortunate brothers and sisters. ~ Dan O'Neill

We are very serious so we can make very strong jokes. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other. ~ Anna Deavere Smith

I feel only gratitude. We are doing something as necessary to our well-being as food or air or water. We are steeping ourselves, reassuring ourselves, renewing ourselves, three creatures of two species, finding comfort in the simple exchange of body warmth. ~ Abigail Thomas

The simple truth is that love is a part of who we are, not something that others "give" to us if we're worthy of it. We're taught that if we just find that right person, and that person "falls in love" with us, everything will be fine. We're not taught about recognizing the love that is a part of our spirits, the love that we radiate when we recognize the beauty and need in all the people that surround us. Love is ours to share, at all moments and in all situations, but for some reason we fear doing so. ~ Tom Walsh

After a thousand years pass, it builds its own funeral pyre, lining it with cinnamon, myrrh and cassia. Climbing to a rest on the very top, it examines the world all throughout the night with the ability to see true good and evil. When the sun rises the next morning, with great sorrow for all that it sees, it sings a haunting song. As it sings, the heat of the sun ignites the expensive spices and the Phoenix dies in the flames.

But the Phoenix is not remarkable for its feathers or flames. It is most revered for its ability to climb from its own funeral pyre, from the very ashes of its old charred body, as a brand new life ready to live again once more. Life after life, it goes through this cycle. It absorbs human sorrow, only to rise from death to do it all again. It never wearies, it never tires. It never questions its fate. Some say that the Phoenix is real, that it exists somewhere out there in the mountains of Arabia, elusive and mysterious. Others say that the Phoenix is only a wish made by desperate humans to believe in the continuance of life.
But I know a secret.
We are the Phoenix. ~ Courtney Cole

[O]ver the years I travelled to another universe. However alert we are, however much we think we know what will happen, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. It is alien, and old people are a separate form of life. They have green skin, with two heads that sprout antennae. They can be pleasant, they can be annoying
in the supermarket, these old ladies won't get out of my way
but most important they are permanently other. When we turn eighty, we understand that we are extraterrestrial. If we forget for a moment that we are old, we are reminded when we try to stand up, or when we encounter someone young, who appears to observe green skin, extra heads, and protuberances. ~ Donald Hall

We are here to start an era, to start an Age, to celebrate the transition from the Piscean Age into the Aquarian Age. We are here to celebrate that. We are the pioneers. We are the pioneers of the Dharma. Let's bow our heads in prayer and let us open our hearts. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi

As artists, we'd all love to not be commercial - to not sell out to the full extent that we are able. But you do what you have to do to pay New York rent and continue to do what you feel strongly about. ~ Mike Birbiglia

We must be so heavenly minded that we are compelled to be of earthly good! ~ Marilynn Dawson

We choose this. This place. This life. What it will be, and how we live it. We are not slaves to gods, or fate, or destinies woven in veils of smoke. We choose the people we want to be, and we choose the shape of the world in which we live. Nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice. There is nothing so easy as swimming with the current, nothing so difficult as being the first to stand up. To say no. To point at a thing wrong and name it so. There are none so brave as those who choose to stand, when all others are content to kneel. None so worthy of the title 'hero' as those who fight when there are none to see it. Who choose a life bereft of accolade or fanfare, a life of struggle for the idea that we are all the same. Every one of us. And every one of us has the right to be happy. To know peace. To know love. ~ Jay Kristoff

All we are is who we surround ourselves with and let into our hearts. ~ Nancy S. Thompson

Treat everyone equal. We are all born the same and die the same. ~ Abi Ketner

For suddenly it had changed into that gear when time is slower - as when, falling off a ladder, one has time to think: I shall land so, just there, and I must turn in the air slightly ... All this in a space of time normally too short for any thought at all. But we are wrong in dividing the mind's machinery from time: they are the same. It is only in such sharp emphatic moments that we recognize this fact. ~ Doris Lessing

I repeat that there is no practical joke here, but that we are investigating a serious crime. A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion's words and saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features. This brutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and inexplicable horror in the background. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Most of Roosevelt's innovations have been the law of the land for 70 years now, and yet we are still a free society free enough, that is, to allow tens of thousands of protesters to gather on the National Mall and to broadcast their slogans and speeches to the world via C-SPAN. ~ Thomas Frank