What Is An Quotes

What an eternal art it is
such a glittery delightful art
finding hard names for our opponents! How we do sanctify our efforts to keep them from getting the holy dollars we want for ourselves! ~ Sinclair Lewis

Sex is also a positive way of working on one's personal freedom project. After all, it is one of the few areas of real privacy that a person has in an existence that is almost wholly social, entirely shaped by the parents and society. In this sense, sex as a project represents a retreat from the standardizations and monopolizations of the social world. No wonder people dedicate themselves so all-consumingly to it, often from childhood on in the form of secret masturbations that represent a protest and a triumph of the personal self. As we will see in Part II of this book, Rang goes so far as to say that this use of sex explains all sexual conflicts in the individual-"from masturbation to the most varied perversions." The person attempts to use his sex in an entirely individual way in order to control it and relieve it of its determinism. It is as though one tried to transcend the body by depriving it entirely of its given character, to make sport and new invention in place of what nature "intended." The "perversions" of children certainly show this very clearly: they are the true artists of the body, using it as clay to assert their symbolic mastery. Freud saw this and recorded it as "polymorphous perversity"-which is one way of talking about it. But he seems not to have realized that this kind of play is already a very serious attempt to transcend determinism, not merely an animal search for a variety of body-zone pleasures. ~ Ernest Becker

The central theme of Anna Karenina," he said, "is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy."
"That is a very long theme," the scout said.
"It's a very long book," Klaus replied.
[ ... ]
"Or maybe a daring life of impulsive passion leads to something else," the scout said, and in some cases this mysterious person was right. A daring life of impulsive passion is an expression which refers to people who follow what is in their hearts, and like people who prefer to follow their head, or follow a mysterious man in a dark blue raincoat, people who lead a daring life of impulsive passion end up doing all sorts of things. ~ Lemony Snicket

Everybody always tells you what an awesome and unique experience being a parent is. Words can never do the feeling justice. ~ Eric Church

But this is what ... people are so often and disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment ...
And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half broken things that they would like to call their happiness, and their futures?
And so each of them loses himself to the other for the sake of the other person, and loses the other. And loses the vast possibilities ... in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come, nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment and poverty. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Some people have a knack, for example, of being able to tell when someone's lying to them. They may not know what the truth is, but they can tell when someone is trying to lead them astray or sell them something shady. I think he had that ability to an amazing degree. I also think he thought, without saying it explicitly, that you can convince a crowd of something that's not true more easily than you can one person at a time. ~ George Orwell

The thing is, I've never believed in feuds. Don't get me wrong: I've been angry with people. Very angry – with people like Patrick Meehan, or that lawyer who tried to bill me for a drink, or Bob Daisley. But I don't hate them. And I don't wish them any harm. I reckon hating someone is just a total f**king waste of time and effort. What do you get out of it in the end? Nothing. I'm not trying to come over like the Archangel Gabriel here. I just think that if you're pissed off with someone, call them an arsehole, get it out of your system, and move on. It's not like we're on this earth very long. ~ Ozzy Osbourne

While we think of the boundary between what is legal and what is not as a clear dividing line, it is far from being so. Rather, the boundary becomes further and further indented and folded over time, yielding a jagged and complicated border, rather than a clear straight line. In the end, the law turns out to look like a fractal: no matter how much you zoom in on such a shape, there is always more unevenness, more detail to observe. Any general rule must end up dealing with exceptions, which in turn split into further exceptions and rules, yielding an increasingly complicated, branching structure. ~ Samuel Arbesman

Let them say what they want. I will not demand that the Jewish Agency allocate a sum of 300,000 or 100,000 pounds sterling to help European Jewry. And I think that whoever demands such things is performing an anti-Zionist act. ~ Yitzhak Gruenbaum

Let the sky celebrate!
Let it pour some rain
to wash away the past years' grief.

Let the fireworks speak
announcing a New Year to break,
displaying seasons of different flavours.

Oh New Year, can you restore our hopes and spill our fears?

I wonder.. What will you bring?
Happiness, confusion, or sadness?
Let the other years witness..
your joy, your pity, your cruelty, and your niceness.

So New Year, I have too many hopes in you.
My wishes are infinite, what are you going to do?
Don't disappoint me, I suppose you already know.
The hope fountain knows no chains,
Don't tell me it's all in vain..
Tell me how I can refrain myself from dreaming in my dale.
If only there was a chance or even an opportunity in disguise,
I wouldn't cease proving and proving my worth all the time,
I would use my ship to sail,
And you will witness my success..
This is what I promise,
And here comes the test..
Let me declare it in that feast..

So New Year, I have too many hopes in you.. ~ Noha Alaa El-Din

Every living thing is integrated. Do you know what that means? Whole, pure, complete, unbroken. Do you know what constitutes an integrating principle? A thought. The one thought, the single thought that created the thing and every part of it. The thought which no one can change or touch. ~ Ayn Rand

What an immense power over the life is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice, the dress, the look, the very motion of a person, define and alter when he or she begins to live for a reason. ~ Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Elegance? It may seem odd to non-scientists, but there is an aesthetic in software as there is in every other area of intellectual endeavour. Truly great programmers are like great poets or great mathematicians - they can achieve in a few lines what lesser mortals can only approach in three volumes ~ John Naughton

I glare at him and sigh. "Don't you understand what a book is?"
"Obviously."
"Then how can it be boring? It's not just twenty-six little letters all mushed together to make words that link together to tell a story. It's the creation of another world where anything can happen and anyone can be whoever they want to be. It's a crazy, special kind of magic that can transport you out of the real world, to anywhere you want to go. It doesn't matter if it's a made-up universe or it's written in a city you can drive to within an hour. It's what happens within the pages that makes reading so...not boring."

-Emma Hart "Dirty Little Rendezvous (The Burke Brothers Spin-Off #1). ~ Emma Hart

Is it not late? A late time to be living? Are not our generations the crucial ones? For we have changed the world. Are not our heightened times the important ones? For we have nuclear bombs. Are we not especially significant because our century is? - our century and its unique Holocaust, its refugee populations, its serial totalitarian exterminations; our century and its antibiotics, silicon chips, men on the moon, and spliced genes? No, we are not and it is not. These times of ours are ordinary times, a slice of life like any other. Who can bear to hear this, or who will consider it?...

Take away the bomb threat and what are we? Ordinary beads on a never-ending string. Our time is a routine twist of an improbable yarn...There must be something heroic about our time, something that lifts it above all those other times. Plague? Funny weather? Dire things are happening...
Why are we watching the news, reading the news, keeping up with the news? Only to enforce our fancy - probably a necessary lie - that these are crucial times, and we are in on them. Newly revealed, and we are in the know: crazy people, bunches of them. New diseases, shifts in power, floods! Can the news from dynastic Egypt have been any different? ~ Annie Dillard

Our city, these streets, I don't know why it makes me so depressed. That old familiar gloom that befalls the city dweller, regular as due dates, cloudy as mental Jell-O. The dirty facades, the nameless crowds, the unremitting noise, the packed rush-hour trains, the gray skies, the billboards on every square centimeter of available space, the hopes and resignation, irritation and excitement. And everywhere, infinite options, infinite possibilities. An infinity, and at the same time, zero. We try to scoop it all up in our hands, and what we get is a handful of zero. ~ Haruki Murakami

I wish i Could throw a stone high in the air, keep looking at that and never want it to come back or disappear. that is just what our life is we want it to stay high and never come to an end. On the other hand we dont work that much for it ~ Ahad Aadi

When they so-called 'target the interest rate', what they're doing is controlling the money supply via the interest rate. The interest rate is only an intermediary instrument. ~ Milton Friedman

What is at stake is civilization and humanity, nothing less. The idea that everything is permitted, as Nietzsche put it, rests on the premise of nihilism and has nihilistic implications. I will not pretend that the case against nihilism and for civilization is an easy one to make. We are here confronting the most fundamental of philosophical questions, on the deepest levels. In short, the matter of pornography and obscenity is not a trivial one, and only superficial minds can take a bland and untroubled view of it. ~ Irving Kristol

That tank," Bucktooth pointed at the gas gauge on the dashboard of the decidedly unfredneck-like '65 Dodge Dart, "is almost empty. We ain't going much farther."
"Indeed it is." A solemn Phosphate agreed. "I suggest we stop the car and weigh our options."
"What options?" Professor Buckley asked. "Why do-that is- we've been traveling up and down this path for over an hour without seeing anyone or encountering anything. Even the doughnut shop cannot be relocated. In light of this, what options do we have?"
It was difficult to argue with the ex-history teacher's typically alarmist position. Brisbane's reliable old automobile had indeed been expending its remaining fuel supply in what seemed to be a hopeless effort to exit the unnamed dirt path. After leaving the doughnut shop and the blonde presidential descendant who worked there, they'd been unable to find DeMohrenschildt Lane again, or any other side street. ~ Donald Jeffries

It is easy to be disgruntled if you are denied rights and freedoms to which you feel entitled. But if you are not coherent, if you cannot put into words what it is that displeases you and why it is unfair and should change, then you are dismissed as an unreasonable whiner. You may be lectured about perseverance and patience, life as a test, the need to accept the higher wisdom of others. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Fundamentalism wears many masks, but always claims a monopoly on the Truth. Many people buy into fundamentalism in much the same way people buy cola to quench their thirst. There are elements of truth in fundamentalist thinking, just as water is an ingredient in cola. But just as the water loses much of its value when artificial flavors and colors are added, Truth loses its
value when guilt, shame, and rigid dogma are present. Fundamentalism is to the soul what artificial sweetener is to the body. ~ Darren Main

All lives are difficult; what makes some of them fulfilled as well is the manner in which pains have been met. Every pain is an indistinct signal that something is wrong, which may engender either a good or bad result depending on the sagacity and strength of mind of the sufferer. Anxiety may precipitate panic, or an accurate analysis of what is amiss. A sense of injustice may lead to murder, or to a ground-breaking work of economic theory. Envy may lead to bitterness, or to a decision to compete with a rival and the production of a masterpiece. As ~ Alain De Botton

For it is difficult to speak, even any old rubbish, and at the same time focus one's attention on another point, where one's true interest lies, as fitfully defined by a feeble murmur seeming to apologize for not being dead. And what it seemed to me I heard then, concerning what I should do, and say, in order to have nothing further to do, nothing further to say, it seemed to me I only barely heard it, because of the noise I was engaged in making elsewhere, in obedience to the unintelligible terms of an incomprehensible damnation. ~ Samuel Beckett

You are her mother.
Why did you not warn her,
hold her like a rotting boat
and tell her that men will not love her
if she is covered in continents,
if her teeth are small colonies,
if her stomach is an island
if her thighs are borders?

What man wants to lie down
and watch the world burn
in his bedroom?

Your daughter 's face is a small riot,
her hands are a civil war,
a refugee camp behind each ear,
a body littered with ugly things.

But God,
doesn't she wear
the world well? ~ Warsan Shire

Mad-Eye Moody?" said George thoughtfully, spreading marmalade on his toast. "Isn't he that nutter - " "Your father thinks very highly of Mad-Eye Moody," said Mrs. Weasley sternly. "Yeah, well, Dad collects plugs, doesn't he?" said Fred quietly as Mrs. Weasley left the room. "Birds of a feather ... " "Moody was a great wizard in his time," said Bill. "He's an old friend of Dumbledore's, isn't he?" said Charlie. "Dumbledore's not what you'd call normal, though, is he?" said Fred. "I mean, I know he's a genius and everything ... ~ J.K. Rowling

Lieutenant Smith was asked by Mister Zumwald to get him a drink," Wilkes said. "She responded with physical violence. I counseled her on conduct unbecoming of an officer and, when she reacted with foul language, on disrespect to a superior officer, sir, and I'll stand by that position. Sir."

"I agree that her actions were unbecoming, Captain," Steve said, mildly. "She really should have resolved it with less force. Which I told her as well as a strong lecture on respect to a superior officer. On the other hand, Captain, Mister Zumwald physically accosted her, grabbing her arm and, when she protested, called her a bitch. Were you aware of that, Captain?"

"She did say something about it, sir," Wilkes said. "However… "

"I also understand that you spent some time with Mister Zumwald afterwards," Steve said. "Rather late. Did you at any time express to Mister Zumwald that accosting any woman, much less an officer of… what was it? 'The United States Naval services' was unacceptable behavior, Captain?"

"Sir," Wilkes said. "Mister Zumwald is a major Hollywood executive… "

"Was," Steve said.

"Excuse me, sir?" Wilkes said.

"Was a major Hollywood executive," Steve said. "Right now, Ernest Zumwald, Captain, is a fucking refugee off a fucking lifeboat. Period fucking dot. He's given a few days grace, like most refugees, to get his headspace and timing back, then he can decide if he wants to help out or go in with ~ John Ringo

Catching the apple doesn't overturn the law of gravity or the formulation of a
new law. It's merely an intervention of a person with freewill who
overrides the natural causes operative in that particular circumstance.
And that is, essentially, is what God does when he causes a miracle to
occur. ~ William Lane Craig

A recent book by University of Chicago professor of philosophy and law Brian Leiter outlines what I believe will become the theoretical consensus that does away with religious liberty in spirit if not in letter. "There is no principled reason," he writes, "for legal or constitutional regimes to single out religion for protection." . . . Evoking the principle of fairness, Leiter argues that everybody's conscience should be accorded the same legal protections. Thus he proposes to replace religious liberty with a plenary "liberty of conscience."

Leiter's argument is libertarian. He wants to get the government out of the business of deciding whose conscience is worth protecting. This mentality seems to expand freedom, but that's an illusion. In practice it will lead to diminished freedom, as is always the case with any thoroughgoing libertarianism. ~ R. R. Reno

The true distinction ... between what is called a fine Regiment, and an indifferent one will ever, upon investigation, be found to originate in, and depend upon the care, or the inattention, of the Officers belonging to them. ~ George Washington

God never estimates what we give from impulse. We are given credit for what we determine in our hearts to give; for the giving that is governed by a fixed determination. The Spirit of God revolutionises our philanthropic instincts. Much of our philanthropy is simply the impulse to save ourselves an uncomfortable feeling. The Spirit of God alters all that. As saints our attitude towards giving is that we give for Jesus Christ's sake, and from no other motive. ~ Oswald Chambers

And what is the reaction of the British politcal class? Well the Lib Dems, still think that the Euro is a success! I don't quiet think where Cleggy gets this from, I don't know. Prehaps he is cosidering an alternative career, as a stand up comedian, once he's out of politics. ~ Nigel Farage

I think of scientific veracity as an idea from the past - the scientists say it is so, the photo is proof. Even the authoritative power of the word actual - an actual what? An actual retouched photo, an actual collaged photo? ~ Laurie Simmons

One of the pleasant things about you is that you're entirely predictable because you never learn. I've told you before, and I'm telling you again, that people who murder other people are dangerous to be around. You're charming, my dear, and sometimes you act like an awful fool. Someday it'll be you that doesn't wake up at the foot of some stone steps. Those are terms a first-grader ought to be able to understand--won't you see what you can make of them? ~ Leslie Ford

EMDR is a bizarre and wondrous treatment and anybody who first hears about it, myself included, thinks this is pretty hokey and strange. It's something invented by Francine Shapiro who found that, if you move your eyes from side to side as you think about distressing memories, that the memories lose their power.

And because of some experiences, both with myself, but even more with the patients of mine who told me about their experiences, I took a training in it. It turned out to be incredibly helpful. Then I did what's probably the largest NIH-funded study on EMDR. And we found that, of people with adult-onset traumas, a one-time trauma as an adult, that it had the best outcome of any treatment that has been published.

What's intriguing about EMDR is both how well it works and the question is how it works and that got me into this dream stuff that I talked about earlier, and how it does not work through figuring things out and understanding things. But it activates some natural processes in the brain that's helped you to integrate these past memories. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

What's humorous to me about using "bitch" as an insult is that it clearly illustrates just how marginalized women really are; for this singular insult stands to throw us out of the human species altogether, and quite literally, to the dogs. ~ Brandon Kelly

Nietzsche was a Greek born two thousand years too late. His dreams were thoroughly Hellenic; his whole manner of thinking was Hellenic; his peculiar errors were Hellenic no less. But his Hellenism, I need not add, was anything but the pale neo-Platonism that has run like a thread through the thinking of the Western world since the days of the Christian Fathers. From Plato, to be sure, he got what all of us must get, but his real forefather was Heraclitus. It is in Heraclitus that one finds the germ of his primary view of the universe - a view, to wit, that sees it, not as moral phenomenon, but as mere aesthetic representation. The God that Nietzsche imagined, in the end, was not far from the God that such an artist as Joseph Conrad imagines - a supreme craftsman, ever experimenting, ever coming closer to an ideal balancing of lines and forces, ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Ambition is a path, not a destination, and it is essentially the same path for everybody. No matter what the goal is, the path leads through Pilgrim's Progress regions of motivation, hard work, persistence, stubbornness, and resilience under disappointment. Unconsidered, merely indulged, ambition becomes a vice; it can turn an man into a machine that knows nothing but how to run. Considered, it can be something else - pathway to the stars, maybe. I suspect that what makes hedonists so angry when they think about overachievers is that the overachievers, without benefit of drugs or orgies, have more fun. ~ Wallace Stegner

God's relationship with us and with our world is just that: a relationship. As with every relationship, there's a certain amount of unpredictability, and the ever-present likelihood that you'll get hurt. The ultimate risk anyone ever takes is to love, for as C. S. Lewis says, "Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal." But God does give it, again and again and again, until he is literally bleeding from it all. God's willingness to risk is just astounding - far beyond what any of us would do were we in his position. ~ John Eldredge

Imagine that one day you are out for a walk in the woods. Suddenly you see a small spaceship on the path in front of you. A tiny Martian climbs out the spaceship and stands on the ground looking up at you…
What would you think? Never mind, it's not important. But have you ever given any thought to the fact that you are a Martian yourself?
It is obviously unlikely that you will ever stumble upon a creature from another planet. We do not even know that there is life on other planets. But you might stumble upon yourself one day. You might suddenly stop short and see yourself in a completely new light. On just such a walk in the woods.
I am an extraordinary being, you think. I am a mysterious creature.
You feel as if you are waking from an enchanted slumber. Who am I? you ask. You know that you are stumbling around on a planet in the universe. But what is the universe?
If you discover yourself in this manner you will have discovered something as mysterious as the Martian we just mentioned. You will not only have seen a being from outer space. You will feel deep down that you are yourself an extraordinary being. ~ Jostein Gaarder

And then she reverses direction and heads straight for Willesden Bookshop, an independent shop that rents space from the council and provides--no matter what Brent Council may claim--an essential local service. It is run by Helen. Helen is an essential local person. I would characterize her essentialness in the following way: 'Giving the people what they didn't know they wanted.' Important category. ~ Zadie Smith

Boxing is not brutal, it's an art - God has gifted me with incredible handspeed as a tool to be used - what else am I supposed to do but fight? There ain't no hand-racing competitions. ~ Roy Jones Jr.

What we think is a breakdown, is only a breakthrough. Whatever you may be going through, see it as an opportunity to propel yourself to the limitless heights in existence ~ Angie Karan

Dying in one's fourth decade is unusual now, but dying is not. "The thing about lung cancer is that it's not exotic," Paul wrote in an email to his best friend, Robin. "The reader can get into these shoes, walk a bit, and say, 'So that's what it looks like from here. Sooner or later, I'll be back here in my own shoes.' That's what I'm aiming for, I think. Not the sensationalism of dying and not the exhortations to gather rosebuds but: Here's what lies up ahead on the road." Of course, he did more than just describe the terrain. He traversed it bravely. ~ Paul Kalanithi

I'm an entertainer. Not a journalist or spokesman for anybody. Truth is, a lot of my listeners absolutely hate what I have to say. ~ Neal Boortz

I think it depends on what agenda that female president brings. It's not good if that female president brings an agenda which is actually hostile to the cause of living wages. Women need equal wages to men, but not equal wages at poverty. ~ Jill Stein

What's this?" Dan said, pointing to a funny squiggly formation.
Uh, an M," said Nellie. "Or if you look at it the other way, a W. Or sideways, kind of S-ish..."
Maybe it's palm trees," Dan said. "Like in the movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. You know? No? These guys need to find hidden money, and the only clue they have is it's under a big W? And no one sees what it means-but then, near the end of the movie, there's this grove of four palm trees rising up in the shape of... you-know-what! Classic!"
Amy, Alistair, Natalie, Ian and Nellie all looked at him blankly.
There is no W in the Korean language," Alistair replied. "Or palm trees in Korea. I might be maple trees..."
Mrrp," said Saladin, rubbing his face against Dan's knee.
I'll tell you the rest of the plot later," Dan whispered to the Mau. ~ Peter Lerangis

Victoria Lane: What hints or tips would you give for other artists who are starting a negotiation with an institution for their archive?

Barbara Stevini: I would tell them they need to work out what would they like their archive to do and for whom. It's actually the same questions I would ask when going into any institution or doing a placement - what is the context? What is the motivation I have for a placement there? What is the motivation of that hosting organisation to receive it? Is there any fusion of appropriately motivated endeavor from which something can happen from the placement of an archive here, for both parties concerned? I think those questions to be asked about doing anything at all, otherwise you're contaminating the planet aren't you? ~ Victoria Lane

It's God that's worrying me. That's the only thing that's worrying me. What if He doesn't exist? What if Rakitin's right -that it's an idea made up by men? Then, if He doesn't exist, man is the king of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God? That's the question. I always come back to that. Who is man going to love then? To whom will he be thankful? To whom will he sing the hymn? Rakitin laughs. Rakitin says that one can love humanity instead of God. Well, only an idiot can maintain that. I can't understand it. Life's easy for Rakitin. 'You'd better think about the extension of civic rights, or of keeping down the price of meat. You will show your love for humanity more simply and directly by that, than by philosophy.' I answered him: 'Well, but you, without a God, are more likely to raise the price of meat if it suits you, and make a rouble on every penny.' He lost his temper. But after all, what is goodness? Answer that, Alyosha. Goodness is one thing with me and another with a Chinaman, so it's relative. Or isn't it? Is it not relative? A treacherous question! You won't laugh if I tell you it's kept me awake for two nights. I only wonder now how people can live and think nothing about it. Vanity! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My mind is curiously alert; it's as though my skull had a thousand mirrors inside it. My nerves are taut, vibrant! the notes are like glass balls dancing on a million jets of water. I've never been to a concert before on such an empty belly. Nothing escapes me, not even the tiniest pin falling. It's as though I had no clothes on and every pore of my body was a window and all the windows open and the light flooding my gizzards. I can feel the light curving under the vault of my ribs and my ribs hang there over a hollow nave trembling with reverberations. How long this lasts I have no idea; I have lost all sense of time and place. After what seems like an eternity there follows an interval of semiconsciousness balanced by such a calm that I feel a great lake inside me, a lake of iridescent sheen, cool as jelly; and over this lake, rising in great swooping spirals, there emerge flocks of birds of passage with long slim legs and brilliant plumage. Flock after flock surge up from the cool, still surface of the lake and, passing under my clavicles, lose themselves in the white sea of space. And then slowly, very slowly, as if an old woman in a white cap were going the rounds of my body, slowly the windows are closed and my organs drop back into place. ~ Henry Miller

Having a narcissistic parent is an early manifestation of a phenomenon termed by some as "co-narcissism." Alan Rappoport describes this as unconsciously adapting to and supporting the narcissistic patterns of another person. He argues that this pattern starts in childhood, with the child having to adjust and calibrate to the narcissistic parent.
Narcissistic parents are not tuned into their children, and the narcissistic parent largely views the child as an object with which to satisfy his or her needs. Narcissistic parents will be overly indulgent and intrusive about some things and detached and uninterested in others. Children in these situations often believe life is unpredictable and strive hard to please "unpleasable" and distracted parents. If you grow up like this, you learn that you are valued for what you did, but only if it was aligned with your parent's wants and needs. It can be a confusing way to grow up and also the perfect set-up for accepting narcissistic behavior as "normal" and then tolerating it from a partner or in other close relationships. ~ Ramani Durvasula

She eyes me. 'What is this all about?'
It's my turn to shrug, upsetting the rocks on my back. 'I don't know. Girl talk. I mean, you can have any guy you want, so why don't you just pick one?'
Priscilla doesn't answer at first. I'm glad I chose this moment: she's actually pinned down and cannot run away. Finally, she says, 'If I can have any guy I want, I'd like to have every guy I want.'
'What do you mean?
She gives me an exasperated look. 'I'm only seventeen, Skye. I'm not looking to settle down just yet.' She probably misunderstands my shocked expression, because she adds, 'I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, but it's just not me, you know? ~ Fabio Bueno

But science, dominated by the spirit of religion is the key to progress and the hope of the future. For example, evolution's beautiful theory of the creation of the world offers many perplexing problems to the inquiring mind. Inevitably, a teacher who denies divine agency in creation, who insists there is no intelligent purpose in it, will infest the student with the thought that all may be chance. I say, that no youth should be so led without a counter balancing though. Even the skeptic teacher should be fair enough to see that even Charles Darwin, when he faced this great question of annihilation, that the creation is dominated only by chance wrote: "It is an intolerable thought than man and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long, continued slow progress." And another good authority, Raymond West, said, "Why this vast [expenditure] of time and pain and blood?" Why should man come so far if he's destined to go no farther? A creature that travels such distances and fought such battles and won such victories deserves what we are compelled to say, "To conquer death and rob the grave of its victory. ~ David O McKay

What the economy requires now is a whole different set of skills: You need intelligence, you need an ability to sit still and focus, to communicate openly to be able to listen to people and to operate in a workplace that is much more fluid than it used to be. Those are things that women do extremely well. ~ Hanna Rosin

Because only an artist can tell and only an artist have told, since we have heard of man, what it is like for anyone that gets this planet, to survive it. What it is like to die, or to have somebody die, what it is like to fear death, what is it like to fear, what it is like to love, what it is like to be glad. ~ James Baldwin

What? (Nick)
You one of them humans can't follow Simi speak. That's okay. This is why the Simi don't bother talking to most humans 'cause, no offense, you all weird. Some of you even stupid. Real stupid. Like stump stupid. It's the lack of hornays, I say. See, only really smart creatures have hornays…except for them moo moo cows – they not bright. But akri says there's always an exception to every rule. So they would be the exception to the hornay one. But they taste really good so the Simi will forgive them for bringing down her bell curve of superior intellect over all the other nonhorned subspecies. (Simi ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I believe that if an individual is not on the path to transcending his society and seeing in what way it furthers or impedes the development of human potential, he cannot enter into intimate contact with his humanity. ~ Erich Fromm

Actors and directors have written about it, psychologists, philosophers, social scientists, and even biologists have pondered it. What is acting, and how is it done? How does someone become someone else? Can someone become someone else? How much of what an actor does is due to that mysterious quality we call talent? ~ Richard Brestoff

I want more out of life than an instant breakfast, and frozen dinner. I want to see what was in the past, i want an idea of what might be. I want more out of life than just what happens now. If I didn't think there was more to life than the present, I wouldn't be here. I'd do what I wanted without regard. I'd live the life of a barbaric dictate, not caring at all. I know there is more to this life, so I live my life that I might return to my Father without shame and despair. I seek to escape from this society of pleasure. I seek a life of fulfillment and joy, for I know there is more to life than meets the 'present' eye.l ~ John M. Stewart

And everywhere, infinite options, infinite possibilities. An infinity, and at the same time, zero. We try to scoop it all up in our hands, and what we get is a handful of zero. That's the city ~ Haruki Murakami

Philip Wyndham! That is the most inappropriate thing I have ever heard, and if your mother were here she would give you the scolding of your life! In fact, I have half a mind to go tell her what an atrocious, incorrigible, scandalous tease she has raised." He didn't look the least bit chagrined. He just smiled and said, "If my mother were here I wouldn't have said it. That was for your ears only." And then he winked. I stared at him in disbelief. There was no stopping him. He had no limits to how far he would go with his outrageous flirting. ~ Julianne Donaldson

We can't leave the past in the past because, the past is who we are. It's like saying I wish I could forget English. So, there is no leaving the past in the past. It doesn't mean the past has to define and dominate everything in the future. The fact that I had a temper in my teens doesn't mean I have to be an angry person for the rest of my life. It just means that I had allot to be angry about but, didn't have the language and the understanding to know what it was and how big it was. I thought my anger was disproportionate to the environment which is what is called having a bad temper but, it just means that I underestimated the environment and my anger was telling me how wide and deep child abuse is in society but, I didn't understand that consciously so I thought my anger was disproportionate to the environment but, it wasn't. There is almost no amount of anger that's proportionate to the degree of child abuse in the world.

The fantasy that you can not be somebody that lived through what you lived through is damaging to yourself and to your capacity to relate to others. People who care about you, people who are going to grow to love you need to know who you are and that you were shaped by what you've experienced for better and for worse. There is a great deal of challenge in talking about these issues. Lots of people in this world have been hurt as children. Most people have been hurt in this world as children and when you talk honestly and openly it's very dif ~ Stefan Molyneux

Integrity is the sound follow through of your heart, and an important part in the process of manifesting what it is that you aspire to. If you say that you are going to do something, do it. If you fail to complete the task at hand, or fulfill a promise you made, you are not operating at the right frequency. Don't lie to yourself and to others, follow through. Complete yourself, Expand your consciousness. ~ Will Barnes

Consider the cattle, grazing as they pass you by. They do not know what is meant by yesterday or today, they leap about, eat, rest, digest, leap about again, and so from morn till night and from day to day, fettered to the moment and its pleasure or displeasure, and thus neither melancholy nor bored. [ ... ] A human being may well ask an animal: 'Why do you not speak to me of your happiness but only stand and gaze at me?' The animal would like to answer, and say, 'The reason is I always forget what I was going to say' - but then he forgot this answer too, and stayed silent. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I love the pictures of Old Hollywood, seeing the directors dressed in suits and ties. Even the grips would be wearing ties. But the biggest thing is when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to be an adult, and I think what happens with most guys is that no one wants to be an adult anymore. So they're dressing like kids. ~ Paul Feig

As you begin to simplify your life, you're going to be making a lot of changes in the way you spend your time. If saying no is a problem for you, go back to your short list (#21) and keep it firmly in mind. Your objective will be to get to the point where you see that by turning down an invitation you're not saying no to someone else; rather you're saying yes! to what you really want to do. ~ Elaine St. James

Your YES! Attitude is permission... A YES! Attitude is your ability to think, listen, speak, and react in a positive way. Your YES! Attitude is permission... To see the good in things, not the bad. To see how to make bad things good. To see the opportunity and the resolve when an obstacle faces you. To see things from the what is right side, not the what is wrong side. To treat others the way you want to be treated. To encourage others when they need support. To never let the negative things affect you for more than five minutes. To (almost) never have a "bad day." To have something nice or humorous to say. To be internally happy. To work at maintaining your attitude every day. ~ Jeffrey Gitomer

Murder is an inherently evil act, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how convincing the rationalizations. ~ Bentley Little

A book is simply the container of an idea like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters. ~ Angela Carter

The Inner Law

He whose law is within himself
Walks in hiddenness.
His acts are not influenced
By approval or disapproval.
He whose law is outside himself
Directs his will to what is
Beyond his control
And seeks
To extend his power
Over objects.

He who walks in hiddenness
Has light to guide him
In all his acts.
He who seeks to extend his control
Is nothing but an operator.
While he thinks he is
Surpassing others,
Others see him merely
Straining, stretching,
To stand on tiptoe.

When he tries to extend his power
Over objects,
Those objects gain control
Of him.

He who is controlled by objects
Loses possession of his inner self:
If he no longer values himself,
How can he value others?
If he no longer values others,
He is abandoned.
He has nothing left!

There is no deadlier weapon than the will!
The sharpest sword
Is not equal to it!
There is no robber so dangerous
As Nature (Yang and Yin).
Yet it is not nature
That does the damage:
It is man's own will! ~ Thomas Merton

I had thought I loved Mildrith, but that was lust, though for a time I had believed it was love. Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted, we discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such voyages and never care about the destination. Love ~ Bernard Cornwell

The male victims were born in the forties and fifties, a generation for whom therapy was mostly an alien concept. In the police files, gender roles are rigid and unambiguous. Detectives ask the women where they shop and the men about the locking mechanisms on the doors and windows. They drape blankets over the women's shoulders and ferry them to the hospital. The men are asked what they saw, not what they felt. Many of the male victims had military experience. They had toolsheds. They were doers and protectors who'd been robbed of their ability to do and protect. Their rage is in the details: one husband chewed the bindings off his wife's feet. ~ Michelle McNamara

So what if people disagree about values? People also disagree about facts. . . .

In my view, the great intellectual challenge facing conservatives is to make the case for morality at a time when many in the West have ceased to believe in an external moral order. The decline of belief in such an order is the most important political development of the past two centuries. Indeed, this decline has created the "crisis of the West. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

What an ephemeral thing human will is, to be manipulated by a couple of drops of hormones! ~ Elizabeth Fama

He's got to have the ability, and it seems to be fairly rare, to see things as they are and at the same time as they might have been. What we mean is the eye of an artist. ~ Jack Finney

Reuven, I did not want my Daniel to become like my brother, may he rest in peace. Better I should have had no son at all than to have a brilliant son who had no soul. I looked at my Daniel when he was four years old, and I said to myself, How will I teach this mind what it is to have a soul? How will I teach this mind to understand pain? How will I teach it to want to take on another person's suffering? How will I do this and not lose my son, my precious son whom I love as I love the Master of the Universe Himself? How will I do this and not cause my son, God forbid, to abandon the Master of the Universe and His Commandments? How could I teach my son the way I was taught by my father and not drive him away from Torah? Because this is America, Reuven. This is not Europe. It is an open world here. Here there are libraries and books and schools. Here there are great universities that do not concern themselves with how many Jewish students they have. I did not want to drive my son away from God, but I did not want him to grow up a mind without a soul. I knew already when he was a boy that I could not prevent his mind from going to the world for knowledge. I knew in my heart that it might prevent him from taking my place. But I had to prevent it from driving him away completely from the Master of the Universe. And I had to make certain his soul would the soul of a tzaddik no matter what he did with his life. ~ Chaim Potok

There is no reason why a man who is willing to work should not be able to work and to receive the full value of his work. There is equally no reason why a man who can but will not work should not receive the full value of his services to the community. He should most certainly be permitted to take away from the community an equivalent of what he contributes to it. If he contributes nothing he should take away nothing. He should have the freedom of starvation. We ~ Henry Ford

We've known his family forever. He doesn't seem to care about the scandal in ours, and he's an excellent shot-"
"That would certainly be at the top of my list of requirements for a husband," Minerva broke in, eyes twinkling. "'Must be able to hit a bull's-eye at fifty paces.'"
"Fifty paces? Are you mad? It would have to be a hundred at least."
Her sister burst into laughter. "Forgive me for not knowing what constitutes sufficient marksmanship for your prospective mate." Her gaze grew calculating. "I heart that Jackson is a very good shot. Gabe said he beat everyone today, even you."
"Don't remind me," Celia grumbled.
"Gabe also said he won a kiss from you."
"Yes, and he gave me a peck on the forehead," Celia said, still annoyed by that. "As if I were some…some little girl."
"Perhaps he was just trying to be polite."
Celia sighed. "Probably.
I didn't kiss you "properly" today because I was afraid if I did I might not stop.
"The thing is…" Celia bit her lower lip and wondered just how much she should reveal to her sister. But she had to discuss this with someone, and she knew she could trust Minerva. Her sister had never betrayed a confidence. "That wasn't the first time Jackson kissed me. Nor the last."
Minerva nearly choked on her chocolate. "Good Lord, Celia, don't say such things when I'm drinking something hot!" Carefully she set her cup on the bedside table. "He kissed you?" She seized Celia's free hand. "More than o ~ Sabrina Jeffries

The response of anybody interested in liberty is that we all have a say and the ability to have an argument is exactly what liberty is, even though it may never be resolved. In any authoritarian society the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside he will come after you. ~ Salman Rushdie

You've got to be committed. It comes down to setting yourself goals as an individual. In rugby you have team goals that you strive for, but you also set yourself simple goals that are achievable. It helps to write them down so you understand what you need to do, and what your focus is. Put them on your wall, then each time you wake up, you'll see them. Then you can just tick them off once you've achieved them. ~ Filo Tiatia

When I first started out, I was considered a crackpot. The doctors used to say, Don't go to that Jack LaLanne, you'll get hemorrhoids, you won't get an erection, you women will look like men, you athletes will get muscle-bound
this is what I had to go through. ~ Jack LaLanne

Don't you loathe the word "workaholic"? It has nothing to do with an important thing, that you and your secretary are at the office until 6:30. But that's life, kiddo. 24-hour work doesn't go on in America. 24-hour work is what Italy and Holland did after the war. The lights never went out! ~ Diana Vreeland

All right," Eric agreed. "If you were me, and your wife were sick, desperately so, with no hope of recovery, would you leave her? Or would you stay with her, even if you had traveled ten years into the future and knew for an absolute certainty that the damage to her brain could never be reversed? And staying with her would mean-"
"I can see what it would mean, sir," the cab broke in. "It would mean no other life for you beyond caring for her."
"That's right," Eric said.
"I'd stay with her," the cab decided.
"Why?"
"Because," the cab said, "life is composed of reality configurations so constituted. To abandon her would be to say, I can't endure reality as such. I have to have uniquely special easier conditions."
"I think I agree," Eric said after a time. "I think I will stay with her."
God bless you, sir," the cab said. "I can see that you're a good man. ~ Philip K. Dick

I:

GOD, I seem to have an undefined connection with nature. At times, it's more than what I see and at other times more than what I hear. What am I missing Dear GOD?

GOD:

Son, seek inspiration from nature. Seek answers from nature. For nature represents me in all my glory.
Allow the rainbow to paint you with hope and joy.
Allow the roar of the waves to light up your passion.
Allow the flowers to make your soul fragrant.
Allow the mountains to teach to be lofty.
Allow the valleys to teach you to be humble.
Allow the sunset to instill hope for another beginning tomorrow.
Allow the sunrise to whisper to you "today is your day"
Allow the forests to teach you to give shade to others since the joy is in giving and not receiving.
Allow the rains to reach and touch each cell in your body as my communique

I speak in many forms. Son, it's how you decode them. ~ Rahul Bijlaney

What I realized with Funny or Die is that I could take it into my own hands. On a much smaller scale, I think these videos are an accurate representation of who I am. As weird as they may be, I'm at least proud of them, and it showed that I do have a slightly different voice. I can't tell you how often people bring up these videos in interviews, and I'm so happy to talk about them because we created them from the ground up. ~ Dave Franco

Why run? I run because I am an animal. I run because it is part of my genetic wiring. I run because millions of years of evolution have left me programmed to run. And finally, I run because there's no better way to see the sun rise and set ... What the years have shown me is that running clarifies the thinking process as well as purifies the body. I think best - most broadly and most fully - when I am running. ~ Amby Burfoot

The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress. ~ Hendrik Willem Van Loon

But it is a singular love, because it is a love whose foundation is not physical attraction, or pleasure, or intellect, but fear. You have never known fear until you have a child, and maybe that is what tricks us into thinking that it is more magnificent, because the fear itself is more magnificent. Every day, your first thought is not "I love him" but "How is he?" The world, overnight, rearranges itself into an obstacle course of terrors. I would hold him in my arms and wait to cross the street and would think how absurd it was that my child, that any child, could expect to survive this life. It seemed as improbable ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Psychologism is, I believe, correct only in so far as it insists upon what may be called 'methodological individualism' as opposed to 'methodological collectivism'; it rightly insists that the 'behaviour' and the 'actions' of collectives, such as states or social groups, must be reduced to the behaviour and to the actions of human individuals. But the belief that the choice of such an individualist method implies the choice of a psychological method is mistaken. ~ Karl Popper

Life is like a box of crayons. Most people are the 8 color boxes, but what you're really looking for are the 64 color boxes with the sharpeners on the back. I fancy myself to be a 64 color box, though I've got a few missing. It's okay though, because I've got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal. I have a bit of a problem though in that I can only meet the 8 color boxes. Does anyone else have that problem? I mean there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation. So when I meet someone who's an 8 color type ... I'm like, hey girl, Magenta! and she's like, oh, you mean purple! and she goes off on her purple thing, and I'm like, no I want Magenta! ~ John Mayer

Both In and Out of the Game Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. Walt Whitman ~ Jed McKenna

You just make different music on a computer. And you can make wonderful music on a computer, but don't pretend that the machinery is transparent. It makes as much difference to what you're doing as it does if you play an acoustic guitar as opposed to a kettledrum. You're not going to make the same music. ~ Brian Eno

What we need, we are told every day, is more and better leadership. But what this demand involves is a closer and closer approximation to fascism. The fascists alone have evolved an efficient form of leadership: efficient leadership is fascism. ~ Herbert Read

For me, feminism isn't just about gender equality as an end goal, because that implied that the structures we live under currently are the correct ones and the only problem with them is that women do not experience equity beneath them. I disagree. I am in favour of reimagine what out societies should look like, including the ways in which masculine ideas of power and leadership are absorbed as natural and normal. Feminism is also about liberating women from the expectation that we behave in a certain kind of way in order to be taken seriously or given any kind of power at all, however nominal it might be. ~ Clementine Ford

There are mainly four types of living beings: vegetables, parasites, animals and humans. Vegetables go through life without any conscience of what it means to be alive, and all they can do is react to what happens around them and unto them. Parasites take advantage of others beings to survive but cannot survive on their own. In fact, they rather kill their host than to improve themselves independently. Animals are driven by basic instincts, like sex and pleasure for food. Animals can have attachments but that is as far as they go in what concerns love. Now human, they are capable of all that, plus the ability to love on will, to change, help others change, and create any reality they want to experience. However, almost everyone I encounter, is either pretending to be a plant, a parasite or an animal, not a human. Few people know what it means to be human, and that's how the waste their own existence. This said, we wouldn't need to answer questions about life purpose when the purpose is understood in being what one was born to be. ~ Robin Sacredfire

You can argue that it expresses a degree of difference between He closed the door and He slammed the door, and you'll get no argument from me . . . . but what about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before He closed the door firmly? Shouldn't this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, isn't firmly an extra word? Isn't it redundant? Someone out there is now accusing me of being tiresome and anal-retentive. I deny it. I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. ~ Stephen King

Someone else was approaching, and Jackson was none too happy about it. He hadn't seen Devonmont since the house party and wouldn't mind never seeing the man again, but since Devonmont was his new sister-in-law's cousin, that was unlikely.
As the man neared them, Celia cast Jackson an assessing glance. "You do know he never meant a thing to me."
"That makes me only slightly less inclined to smash his face in."
"Jackson!" she said laughingly. "You would never do any such thing."
"Try me." He glanced at her. "Don't let this sober façade fool you, sweeting. When it comes to you, I can be as jealous as the next man."
"Well, you have no reason." She leaned up to kiss his cheek and whisper, "You're the only man I'll ever love."
He was still reveling in that remark when Devonmont reached them. "I take it this would not be a good time for me to kiss the bride?" he drawled.
Jackson glared at him.
"That's what I thought," Devonmont said, laughing. "But seriously, Pinter, you're a very lucky man."
"How well I know it," Jackson said.
"And I say most sincerely that your wife is a very lucky woman as well."
Jackson was taken aback. "Thank you, sir," he managed.
After Devonmont nodded and walked away, Celia said, "Surely that softens you toward him a little."
"Perhaps," Jackson conceded. "Though it's a good thing Lyons isn't here. I don't think I could be civil to both in one day. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

I think some women try to make you feel you're not all female because you haven't given birth. There are a lot of prejudices. Some women think women who have animals are deeply sad, because what they really want is a child. Mind you, there's probably an element of truth in that. ~ Alison Goldfrapp

I awake with a start, shaking the cobwebs of sleep from my mind. It's pitch-dark out, the wind howling. It takes a couple seconds to get my bearings, to realize I'm in my parents' bed, Ryder beside me, on his side, facing me. Our hands are still joined, though our fingers are slack now.
"Hey, you," he says sleepily. "That one was loud, huh?"
"What was?"
"Thunder. Rattled the windows pretty bad."
"What time is it?"
"Middle of the night, I'd say."
I could check my phone, but that would require sitting up and letting go of his hand. Right now, I don't want to do that. I'm too comfortable. "Have you gotten any sleep at all?" I ask him, my mouth dry and cottony.
"I think I drifted off for a little bit. Till…you know…the thunder started up again."
"Oh. Sorry."
"It should calm down some when the eye moves through."
"If there's still an eye by the time it gets here. The center of circulation usually starts breaking up once it goes inland." Yeah, all those hours watching the Weather Channel occasionally come in handy.
He gives my hand a gentle squeeze. "Wow, maybe you should consider studying meteorology. You know, if the whole film-school thing doesn't work out for you."
"I could double major," I shoot back.
"I bet you could."
"What are you going to study?" I ask, curious now. "I mean, besides football. You've got to major in something, don't you?"
He doesn't answer right away. I wonder what's going through hi ~ Kristi Cook

It is less that you are an adversary and more that you are someone with an opinion that (although frightening to me) might in some way enrich my own. And if I raise myself to being a partner with you on this mutual journey of ours, and if I refuse to bow to the posture of being a frightened adversary as you intersect my journey with a journey different than my own, we can profoundly change what we would have otherwise both died fighting over. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough