Alternative Lives Quotes & Sayings

The possibility of an alternative love story is a reminder that the life we are leading is only one of a myriad of possible lives, and it is the impossibility of leading them all that plunges us into sadness. — Alain De Botton

His joy dribbled away, turned into a deep mourning for the twenty people who'd lost their lives. Despite the alternative, despite knowing that if they hadn't tried to escape, all of them might've died, it still hurt, even though he hadn't known them very well. Such a display of death - how could it be considered a victory? — James Dashner

It's all very well to run around saying regulation is bad, get the government off our backs, etc. Of course our lives are regulated. When you come to a stop sign, you stop; if you want to go fishing, you get a license; if you want to shoot ducks, you can shoot only three ducks. The alternative is dead bodies at the intersection, no fish, and no ducks. OK?
(Getting Control of the Frontier, Gainsville Sun, March 22, 1995) — Molly Ivins

Co-creating our lives from a heart-centered and spirit-connected space is simply more efficient, effective and healthy. — Heidi DuPree

There were undoubtedly those to whom killing was easy and pleasurable: he had met a few such. Millions had been successfully trained to end others' lives; he, Strike, was one of them. Humans killed opportunistically, for advantage and in defense, discovering in themselves the capacity for bloodshed when no alternative seemed possible; but there were also people who had drawn up short, even under the most intense pressure, unable to press their advantage, to seize the opportunity, to break the final and greatest taboo. — Robert Galbraith

4Shbab has been dubbed Islamic MTV. Its creator, who is an Egyptian TV producer called Ahmed Abu Haiba, wants young people to be inspired by Islam to lead better lives. He reckons the best way to get that message across is to use the enormously popular medium of music videos. 4Shbab was set up as an alternative to existing Arab music channels. — Shereen El Feki

Initially, after David's diagnosis, I would cringe when I read
books or articles by cancer survivors who stated that cancer had
been a gift in their lives. How could all that David endured be
viewed as a gift? The invasive surgery, the weeks of chemotherapy
and radiation: a gift?
Yet, after the cancer, David would often reach for my hand and
say, "If it is cancer that is responsible for our new relationship, then
it was all worth it." And I'd reluctantly agree that cancer had been a
gift in our lives. We'd both seen the other alternative: patients and
survivors who had become bitter and angry, and neither one of us
wanted to become that. — Mary Potter Kenyon

To be young and aware is to know you're being lied to; to know that a bright green future is possible; to know that we can reimagine the world, rebuild our cities, redesign our lives, retool our factories, distribute innovation and creativity and all live in a world that is not only better than the alternative, but much better than the world we have now. — Alex Steffen

Some readers are tempted to ignore the challenges of their own lives and to live completely in the alternative reality of books. This can be dangerous and sinful, a rejection of the real world in which God has placed us. — Gene Edward Veith Jr.

Last spring, David had offered this crazy solution to our woes, only half in jest: ... "What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together- in misery, but happy to not be apart." Let it be a testimony to how desperately I love this guy that I have spent the last ten months giving that offer serious consideration. The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she will eat his soul. Or I might learn how to ... stop trying to eat his soul. — Elizabeth Gilbert

We are committed with our lives to building a different model and a different future for humanity, the Earth, and other species. We have envisaged a moral alternative to economic globalization and we will not rest until we see it realized. — Maude Barlow

Ah, clever clogs, but it will have happened in one of my alternative lives. You know
the lives hot-shot scientists tell us we are living at the same time as this one we know about. Which being so, how do you know that what happens in one of your alternative lives doesn't sometimes leak through into your consciousness in this life, and make you sad that you aren't living that particular alternative life instead of this one? Don't you sometimes feel depressed for no reason you can think of? I do. And maybe that's why. We've had a leak from an alternative life and want that life now. Like wanting an ice cream when you were little, which you knew was in the freezer, but your mom wouldn't let you have it. — Aidan Chambers

This is how you've been imprinted to use your relationship to power - to use it against yourself. Every day we create reality based on what we've been programmed to believe. So we spend most of our lives not really thinking clearly and coherently - not initiated thought. We spend a great deal of our lives not really living, but existing in programmed, reactive belief that we call thought. We can blame the oppressor, the predatory mindset, we can blame it forever and it doesn't mind. It doesn't care. We need to use our energy, our intelligence in an alternative way to the way we have been using it. - John Trudell — Kelly Cutrone

Many people spend their whole lives somewhere they don't want to be out of fear that the alternative is worse. — Jo Nesbo

For many of us, sport has provided the continuity in our lives, the alternative family to the one we left behind. It gives us something to talk about, to preen about, to care about. — John Thorn

Prayer is essentially the practice of the presence of God, and that is the road to Heaven. There is no alternative. God is the only game in town. All other roads are dead ends. Since we must give our all to the one true God, we must not give any part to idols, to the many false gods that now bite away at our lives. — Peter Kreeft

Schedule a comprehensive evaluation to not only provide a formal diagnosis, but to also delineate a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses. You will then be ready to participate in designing a total treatment plan that meets your unique needs. Get Treatment An effective, total treatment program is essential to future success. Such programs usually include a combination of medication, psychotherapy, coaching, alternative treatments, and necessary related services (support groups, counseling, family therapy, etc.). ADHD can have serious consequences, but it is treatable with safe and effective medications that can change people's lives. (See Question 35 for a more in-depth discussion of medications used to treat ADHD.) — Patricia O. Quinn

In our own contemporary context of the rat race of anxiety, the celebration of Sabbath is an act of both resistance and alternative. It is resistance because it is a visible insistence that our lives are not defined by the production and consumption of commodity goods. — Walter Brueggemann

What Wiesenfeld meant by "alternative," and what was hinted by RBG's use of the phrase life partner was a marriage in which the woman didn't lose herself and her autonomy, in which two humans shared their lives and goals on equal footing. — Irin Carmon

(There is) art that states the problems of society and wakes people up to make changes in their lives or in their communities, ... art that offers an alternative, that demonstrates human behavior that can become a model for creativity, cooperation, freedom and playfulness, and ... art that in itself provides glimpses of a larger consciousness or reflects upon the inexplicable. — Meredith Monk

Among other things, drag queens are living testimony to the way women used to want to be, the way some people still want them to be, and the way some women still actually want to be. Drags are ambulatory archives of ideal moviestar womanhood. They perform a documentary service, usually consecrating their lives to keeping the glittering alternative alive and available for (not-too-close) inspection. — Andy Warhol

We live through books; we have adventures in them, we lead alternative lives through them. We expand our memories through them. And that sometimes art can offer us more intense experiences of the world than life itself can. — Anthony Doerr

We all have something in our rear view mirrors that will try and distract us from moving forward ... Unfortunately some greater than others. But if we keep our minds focus in the present no matter how hard it gets ... The Universe has no other alternative but to take us to where we need to be in our lives!
So Stay STRONG. Be HAPPY And ALWAYS Keep FOCUS — Timothy Pina

My request today is simple. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Find somebody, anybody, that's different than you. Somebody that has made you feel ill-will or even hateful. Somebody whose life decisions have made you uncomfortable. Somebody who practices a different religion than you do. Somebody who has been lost to addiction. Somebody with a criminal past. Somebody who dresses "below" you. Somebody with disabilities. Somebody who lives an alternative lifestyle. Somebody without a home.
Somebody that you, until now, would always avoid, always look down on, and always be disgusted by.
Reach your arm out and put it around them.
And then, tell them they're all right. Tell them they have a friend. Tell them you love them.
If you or I wanna make a change in this world, that's where we're gonna be able to do it. That's where we'll start.
Every. Single. Time. — Dan Pearce

Just imagine, how much easier our lives would be if we were born with a 'user guide or owner's manual' which could tell us what to eat and how to live healthy. — Erika M. Szabo

Without world unification the species would destroy itself by the enlarged powers that had come to it. This, said the men of science, is no theory, no political alternative; it is a statement of fact. Men had to pool their political, economic and educational lives. There was no other way for them but a series of degenerative phases leading very plainly to extinction. They could not revert now. They had to go on - up or down. They had gone too far with civilisation and in societies, to sink back into a merely "animal" life again. The hold of the primates on life had always been a precarious one. Except where they were under human protection all the other great apes were extinct. Now plainly man had to go on to a larger life, a planetary existence, or perish in his turn. — H.G.Wells

I don't believe that we should limit waterboarding - or, quite frankly, any other alternative torture technique - if it means saving Americans' lives. — Aaron Schock

To engage human energy, human skill, and human talent in the service of peace, for the alternative is unthinkable - war, destruction, and desolation; and to build a world community which will stand as a lasting monument to the millions of men and women, to such devoted and distinguished world citizens and fighters for peace as the late Dag Hammarskjold, who have given their lives that we may live in happiness and peace ... — Albert Lutuli

Can I persuade you that if you let a driver into your lane, or thank a sales clerk, or smile at someone in a hallway, you can change his or her life? Of course not - but if you don't go through the day with the assumption that small moments and small gestures can touch people's lives, what is the alternative belief? — Robert Maurer

People talk about 'lives of significance'-as if there's an alternative. If you're not leading a life of significance, you're not living. — Andrew Williams

Writing novels is a way of living alternative lives. — Melvyn Bragg

The happiest marriages are full of alternative lives, lived in the head, unknown to the partner. — John Bayley

Homeboy Bakery is an alternative to kids who have found themselves, regrettably, in gangs and want to redirect their lives. — Greg Boyle

An opportunity lost may have motivated us to find a satisfying alternative. Adversity or suffering may have taught us certain important skills. Some writers have felt new appreciation for their lives after surviving a serious illness or disability. A fortunate outcome does not invalidate the unfortunate aspect. — Nan Merrick Phifer

There are many strengths in modern society, but one of its weaknesses is the breakdown of many of the old structures and networks that supported people in times of crisis and need. Whenever we lose a strengthening element in society, we need to replace it with alternative systems as quickly as possible. Befriending schemes are a crucial part of this process, because they fill the gap that social erosion has left in the lives of so many vulnerable people. — Richard Holloway

The truth is I don't know what happens to the spirits of the dead when they leave this world. Priests may claim to, even Truthseeker may claim to. However nobody truly knows. All Truthseeker truly knows is that Ishar, Kirfell, Orion and Avanti are lies. He has no proof of an alternative. I don't know. There may be nothing beyond this dark reality we live in, but that doesn't feel right to me. We love, we hate, we fight, we strive... People's lives seem too complex and important to be simply extinguished like a candle.'

~Vexis Zaelwarsh
Deathsworn Arc 5: The Temple of the Mad God — Martyn Stanley

( ... ) contemporary art has become a kind of alternative religion for atheists. ( ... ) For many art world insiders and art aficionados of other kinds, concept-driven art is a kind of existencial channel through which they bring meaning to their lives. It demands leaps of faith, but it rewards the believer with a sense of consequence. Moreover, just as churches and other ritualistic meeting places serve a social function, so art events generate a sense of community around shared interests — Sarah Thornton

The extra time and trouble required to follow Dr. Bob's alternative schedule are hard to justify unless the dangers of contracting infectious diseases early in life are minimized and the dangers of vaccinating early in life are exaggerated. Much of The Vaccine Book is devoted to this minimization and exaggeration. Tetanus is not a disease that affects infants, according to Dr. Bob, Hib disease is rare, and measles is not that bad. He does not mention that tetanus kills hundreds of thousands of babies in the developing world every year, that most children will encounter the bacteria that causes Hib disease within the first two years of their lives, and that measles has killed more children than any other disease in history. — Eula Biss

What the recognition of all this means is not only that the class struggle is omnipresent but also that the struggles of those of us who are waged and the struggles of those of us who are unwaged are inherently related through the common refusal of work, that is, the refusal of the reduction of our lives to work, and the struggle for alternative ways of being. Thus the Old Left definition of the working class as the waged proletariat is obsolete, not only because capital has integrated the unwaged into its self-reproduction, but also because the struggles of the unwaged are integrally related to, and can be complementary to, those of the waged. — Harry Cleaver

...it pointed to an alternative approach, a 'negative path' to happiness, that entailed taking a radically different stance towards those things that most of us spend our lives trying to avoid. It involved learning to enjoy uncertainty, embracing insecurity, stopping trying to think positively, becoming familiar with failure, even learning to value death. In short, all these people seemed to agree that in order to be truly happy, we might actually need to be willing to experience more negative emotions - or, at the very least to learn to stop running quite so hard from them. — Oliver Burkeman

Yes, it's unfortunate that we have been conditioned to see an alternative to motherhood as not normal. But you do all realise that some of the most brilliant women in the world don't have kids, right? Oprah, Gloria Steinem, Helen Mirren, Dolly Parton? Do you think their lives carry an air of tragedy because they never had children? I don't. I'm sure they all had different reasons for not doing it, some maybe couldn't, some didn't want to, but these women's lives are not empty because of that. I think it's important we take the lead from our heroes and for everyone to stop valuing women on whether they do, or do not, become mothers. The irony of yours and your listeners' opinions is that it is you boxing women in to these roles, not men. It's highly un-feminist of you.' She — Dawn O'Porter

What was the power that induced strong soldiers to put off their jackets and shirts, and present their hands to be tied up, and tortured for hours, it might be, under the scourge, with an air of ready volition? The moral coercion of despair; the result of an unconscious calculation of chances that satisfies them that it is ultimately better to do all that, bad as it is, than try the alternative. These unconscious calculations are going on every day with each of us, and the results embody themselves in our lives; and no one knows that there has been a process and a balance struck, and that what they see, and very likely blame, is by the fiat of an invisible but quite irresistible power. — J. Sheridan Le Fanu

But I'm not sure it actually matters what we read. Our lives continue along the straight lines that have been set out for us. Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative. Maybe that's one of the reasons we enjoy it. — Anthony Horowitz

At the meeting I argued that the state had given us no alternative to violence. I said it was wrong and immoral to subject our people to armed attacks by the state without offering them some kind of alternative. I mentioned again that people on their own had taken up arms. Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we saved lives by attacking symbols of oppression, and not people? If we did not take the lead now, I said, we would soon be latecomers and followers to a movement we did not control. — Nelson Mandela

For Kuyper, both of these models embody a fundamental error. The medieval perspective rightly acknowledged God's rule over all cultural activity, but it mistakenly thought that this rule was to be mediated by the church. The secularist perspective rightly wanted to liberate culture from ecclesiastical control, but it wrongly insisted that to do so was to take it out from under God's rule. Kuyper's alternative is summarized in the "not one square inch" manifesto. God's soverign rule extends over all of our lives. All that we do takes place-to use a favorite kuyperian phrase-Coram Deo before the face of God. — Richard J. Mouw

Good innovators typically think very big and they think very small. New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look. And they are sometimes found when you are doing your most abstract and philosophical thinking, considering why the world is the way that it is and whether there might be an alternative to the dominant paradigm. Rarely can they be found in the temperate latitudes between they two spaces, where we spend 99 percent of our lives. — Nate Silver