But Are They Though Quotes & Sayings

Well, it's not so much a trembling,' was the answer - 'though they do quiver - as a complete derangement of the nervous system. They can't sign their names to the book; sometimes can't even hold the pen; look about 'em without appearing to know why, or where they are; and sometimes get up and sit down again, twenty times in a minute. This is when they're in the office, where they are taken with the hood on, as they were brought in. When they get outside the gate, they stop, and look first one way and then the other; not knowing which to take. Sometimes they stagger as if they were drunk, and sometimes are forced to lean against the fence, they're so bad: - but they clear off in course of time. — Charles Dickens

Many strange-looking people obviously dress according to deep convictions that are not shared by on-lookers - they clearly do not know how they actually look, but are satisfied with what their clothes make them feel and believe about their looks. These people may be the true originals, even though they are certainly not the best appreciated. The famous messages of dress, the well-known language of clothes, is very often not doing any communicating at all; a good deal of it is a form of private muttering. — Anne Hollander

The phrase comes to him before the emotion; but we must add that he is nevertheless a born writer, a man who detests meals, servants, ease, respectability or anything that gets between him and his art; who has kept his freedom when most of his contemporaries have long ago lost theirs; who is ashamed of nothing but being ashamed; who says whatever he has it in his mind to say, and has taught himself an accent, a cadence, indeed a language, for saying it in which, though they are not English, but Irish, will give him his place among the lesser immortals of our tongue. — Virginia Woolf

I mentioned early in this book the kind of rereading distinctive of a fan
the Tolkien addict, say, or the devotee of Jane Austen or Trollope or the Harry Potter books. The return to such books is often motivated by a desire to dwell for a time in a self-contained fictional universe, with its own boundaries and its own rules. (It is a moot question whether Austen and Trollope's first readers were drawn to their novels for these reasons, but their readers today often are.) Such rereading is not purely a matter of escapism, even though that is one reason for its attraction: we should note that it's not what readers are escaping from but that they are escaping into that counts most. Most of us do not find fictional worlds appealing because we find our own lives despicable, though censorious people often make that assumption. Auden once wrote that "there must always be ... escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep." The sleeper does not disdain consciousness. — Alan Jacobs

The animators are fantastic though. They'll shoot their own reference material, and just go into the car park or something. And they might shoot a very funny scene, or sometimes a serious scene. But they're really just trying to work out the motion. Yet what we get treated to is hilarious video of someone running around a parking lot with a broomstick and a helmet! — Chris Sanders

Let your rest be perfect in its season, like the rest of waters that are still. If you will have a model or your living, take neither the stars, for they fly without ceasing, nor the ocean that ebbs and flows, nor the river that cannot stay, but rather let your life be like that of the summer air, which has times of noble energy and times of perfect peace. It fills the sails of ships upon the sea, and the miller thanks it on the breezy uplands; it works generously for the health and wealth of all men, yet it claims it hours of rest.. I have pushed the fleet, I have turned the mill, I have refreshed the city, and now though the captain may walk impatiently on the quarter-deck, and the miller swear, and the city stink, I will stir no more until it pleases me. — Philip Gilbert Hamerton

If I have viewed them from a certain angle, it is because, seen from there, that is how they looked
which may be due to prismatic distortion, but which is therefore what they also are, though unaware of being it. — Jean Genet

Though Americans talk a good deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious, like Adlai Stevenson, is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn, like General Eisenhower. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging. — Russell Baker

Here I come to one of the memoir writer's difficulties
one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: 'This is what happened'; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. And the events mean very little unless we know first to whom they happened. — Virginia Woolf

Yes. Mind you, sociopaths experience many of the same needs we all do," Hetheridge continued. "They attend school, maintain jobs. I believe they can even love, in the way little children love - a combination of wanting and demanding. But sociopaths have no conscience, no innate sense of responsibility toward others. They cannot believe other people have separate lives beyond the sociopath's own needs and expectations. Sociopaths are incapable of empathy, though the more intelligent ones are frequently able to fake it. And that's the key. — Emma Jameson

How is it ... that the Son and Holy Spirit are not co-unoriginate with the Father, if they are co-eternal with Him? Because they are from Him, though not after Him. 'Being unoriginate' necessarily implies 'being eternal,' but 'being eternal' does not entail 'being unoriginate,' so long as the Father is referred to as origin. So because They have a cause They are not unoriginate ... a cause is not necessarily prior to its effects ... Because time is not involved, They are to that extent unoriginate ... for the sources of time are not subject to time. — Gregory Of Nazianzus

Dancing is, in itself, a very trifling and silly thing: but it is one of those established follies to which people of sense are sometimes obliged to conform; and then they should be able to do it well. And though I would not have you a dancer, yet, when you do dance, I would have you dance well, as I would have you do everything you do well. — Lord Chesterfield

I think the truth is probably that enormous, sudden, dramatic, unexpected, life-changing experiences are not translatable or explainable to anyone else, and this is because they really are unique and particular - though not unique in the way the Christian girl believed. This is because their power isn't just a result of the experience itself, but also of the circumstances in which it hits you, of everything in your previous life-experience which has led up to it and made you exactly who and what you are when the experience hits you. — David Foster Wallace

I have used the words and expressions which my experiences from Minsk to Kharkov to the Don suggested to me. But I should have reserved those words and expressions for what came later, even though they are not strong enough. It is a mistake to use intense words without carefully weighing and measuring them, or they will have already been used when one needs them later. It's a mistake, for instance, to used the word frightful to describe a few broken up companions mixed into the ground: but it's a mistake that might be forgiven. — Guy Sajer

Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy.
But the memory of something painful does just the opposite. It retains its original shape, all bony fingers and pointy elbows. Every time it returns, you get a quick poke in the eye or jab in the stomach. The memory of being unhappy has the power to hurt us long after the fact. We feel the injury anew each and every time we think of it. — Cameron Dokey

Radicals often suspect beauty of corruption. Uptight fuckers though they sometimes are, they're right in one thing: art alone cannot change the world. Pens can't take on swords, let alone Predator drones. But as disappointment and violence spread, the antidote is a generosity that the best art can still inspire.

Art is hope against cynicism, creation against entropy. To make art is an act of both love and defiance. Though I'm a cynic, I believe these things are all we have. — Molly Crabapple

One thing about our show that wasn't even in my awareness, but was brought to my attention by other people, is that our show is about these love-based relationships. Even though the characters are obviously going through different conflicts, you can really feel that the characters love each other. And they really try their best. — Steve Zissis

My Most True Assassin, Enclosed are seven books from my personal library that I have recently read and enjoyed immensely. You are, of course, free to read as many of the books in the castle library as you wish, but I command you to read these first so that we might discuss them. I promise they are not dull, for I am not one inclined to sit through pages of nonsense and bloated speech, though perhaps you enjoy works and authors who think very highly of themselves. Most affectionately, Dorian Havilliard — Sarah J. Maas

Religion and its defenders have always been the most insidious enemy of the true faith precisely because they are not glaring opponents; they are impostors. A raving pagan is easier to dismiss than an elder in your church. Before Jesus came along, the Pharisees ran the show. Everybody took what they said as gospel - even though it didn't sound like good news at all. But we wrestle not against flesh and blood. The Pharisees and their brethren down through the ages have merely acted - unknowingly, for the most part - as puppets, the mouthpiece of the Enemy. — John Eldredge

We must be convinced that there are no such things as 'Christian principles.' There is the Person of Christ, who is the principle of everything. But if we wish to be faithful to Him, we cannot dream of reducing Christianity to it certain number of principles (though this is often done), the consequences of which can be logically deduced. This tendency to transform the work of the Living God into a philosophical doctrine is the constant temptation of theologians, and also of the faithful, and their greatest disloyalty when they transform the action of the Spirit which brings forth fruit in themselves into an ethic, a new law, into 'principles' which only have to be 'applied. — Jacques Ellul

I wouldn't even feel sorry for us if I was going against us. I know teams are licking their chops. The Bulls or Milwaukee, they're excited. Even though somebody is hurt they're still excited because they feel like we're a man down and we might not be as strong, but we're confident here. We got the players to still make something special happen. Guys just have to step up as a unit. — Tristan Thompson

People have suggested that perhaps we are too affluent to be telling this story, which is amazing to me because then I wonder what story I am allowed to tell. Having been working with the homeless for the past years, I noticed lots of things about them, but one thing I really noticed was that they were probably too busy just getting though the day to make a film about themselves. — Paul Bettany

They send a person who can never stay,: she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help ... Just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with." The night was quiet except for the gurgle of the fountains and waves lapping on the shore. It took me a long time to realize what she was saying. "Me?" I asked. "If you could see your face." She suppressed a smile, though her eyes were still teary. "Of course, you." "That's why you've been pulling away all this time?" "Itried very hard. But I can't help it. The Fates are cruel. They sent you to me, my brave one, knowing that you would break my heart." "But ... I'm just ... I mean, I'm just me." "That is enough," Calypso promised. — Rick Riordan

Of course there always will be darkness but I realize now something inhabits it. Historical or not. Sometimes it seems like a cat, the panther with its moon mad gait or a tiger with stripes of ash and eyes as wild as winter oceans. Sometimes it's the curve of a wrist or what's left of romance, still hiding in the drawer of some long lost nightstand or carefully drawn in the margins of an old discarded calendar. Sometimes it's even just a vapor trail speeding west, prophetic, over clouds aglow with dangerous light. Of course these are only images, my images, and in the end they're born out of something much more akin to a Voice, which though invisible to the eye and frequently unheard by even the ear still continues, day and night, year after year, to sweep through us all. — Mark Z. Danielewski

You'll excuse me, Mrs. Graye,' she said, 'but 'tis the old gentleman's birthday, and they always have a lot of people to dinner on that day, though he's getting up in years now. However, none of them are sleepers - she generally keeps the house pretty clear of lodgers (being a lady with no intimate friends, though many acquaintances), which, though it gives us less to do, makes it all the duller for the younger maids in the house.' Mrs. Morris then proceeded to give in fragmentary speeches an outline of the constitution and government of the estate. — Thomas Hardy

I read recently in an article by G.K. Chesterton, that sex without gestation and parturition is like blowing the trumpets and waving the flags without doing any of the fighting. From a woman such words, though displaying inexperience, might come with dignity; from a man they are an unforgivable, intolerable insult. What is man's part in sex but a perpetual waving of flags and blowing of trumpets and avoidance of the fighting? — Dora Russell

Twist and wring out the budget, work extra hours, sell something, or have a garage sale, but quickly get your $1,000. Most of you should hit this step in less than a month. If it looks as though it is going to take longer, do something radical. Deliver pizzas, work part-time, or sell something else. Get crazy. You are way too close to the edge of falling over a major money cliff here. Remember, if the Joneses (all the broke people) think you are cool, you are heading the wrong way. If they think you are crazy, you are probably on track. — Dave Ramsey

Let me put it this way: You cannot live in the world without being in pain, spiritual and physical pain. We have developed mechanisms to deal with these pains, to overcome them somehow. Therapy, religion and spirituality, relationships, material success. All this can work, but also become a problem itself.
The pursuit of happiness has even been put into the American constitution a couple centuries ago. Today we're so rich, we own much more than we need, we have liberties unknown before, even though they are endangered in the current political climate in the US - and we forget how wonderful it nevertheless is, compared to most other political and economic systems. We have a saying that goes: Give a man enough rope and he hangs himself. — David Foster Wallace

The greatest risks are never the ones you can see and measure, but the ones you can't see and therefore can never measure. The ones that seem so far outside the boundary of normal probability that you can't imagine they could happen in your lifetime - even though, of course, they do happen, more often than you care to realize. — Charles Wheelan

Who ... what are they?"
"My pride and glory," Alex said fondly. "Betty and Lucy Coltrane. Best damned bouncers in the business. Though of course I'd never tell them that. Fiercer than pit bulls and cheaper to run. Married to each other. They had a dog once, but they ate it. — Simon R. Green

The point was that the 'continual toil' and want of leisure of the majority of the population would automatically exclude them from active participation in government though, of course, not from being represented and from choosing their representatives. But representation is no more than a matter of 'self-preservation' or self-interest, necessary to protect the lives of the labourers and to shield them against the encroachment of government; these essentially negative safeguards by no means open the political realm to the many, nor can they arouse in them that 'passion for distinction' - the 'desire not only to equal or resemble, but to excel' - which, according to John Adams, 'next to self-preservation will forever be the great spring of human actions'. Hence the predicament of the poor after their self-preservation has been assured is that their lives are without consequence, and that they remain excluded from the light of the public realm where excellence can shine; — Hannah Arendt

There are good books, indifferent books, and bad books. Amongst the good books some are honest, inspiring, moving, prophetic and improving. But in my language there is another category: there are Ah! Books. This is one of them. Ah! Books are those which induce a fundamental change in the reader's consciousness. They widen his sensibility in such a way that he is able to look upon familiar things as though he is seeing and understanding them for the first time. Ah! Books are galvanic. They touch the nerve centre of the whole being so that the reader receives an almost palpable physical shock. A tremor of excited perception ripples through the person. — Vernon Sproxton

When he is away from her, he tries to conjure up her face. He closes his eyes, but the magic eludes him. When they are together he watches, learning her features, her gestures. Still, afterwards, he cannot make it happen. It is as though when she does she takes everything of herself with her. — Aminatta Forna

Humankind, which discovers its capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through its own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of things that are. People think that they can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to their wills, as though the earth did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which human beings can indeed develop but must not betray. — Pope John Paul II

Fresh proof of the risks you run in writing about players, and of the advisability of not standing to leeward of their self-esteem when one has had the misfortune to wound it in the slightest degree. When you criticize a singer, you do not have his colleagues up in arms against you. Indeed, they generally feel that you have not been severe enough. But the virtuoso instrumentalist who belongs to a well-known musical organization always claims that in criticizing him you are 'insulting' the whole institution, and though the contention is absurd he sometimes succeeds in making the other players believe it. — Hector Berlioz

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States ... — George Orwell

Significant changes in the growth rate of money supply, even small ones, impact the financial markets first. Then, they impact changes in the real economy, usually in six to nine months, but in a range of three to 18 months. Usually in about two years in the US, they correlate with changes in the rate of inflation or deflation."
"The leads are long and variable, though the more inflation a society has experienced, history shows, the shorter the time lead will be between a change in money supply growth and the subsequent change in inflation. — Milton Friedman

Ideas are like beards. Men don't have them until they grow up. Somebody said that, but I can't remember who."
"Voltaire," the younger man said. He rubbed his chin and smiled, a cheerful,
unaffected smile. "Voltaire might be off the mark, though, when it comes to me. I have hardly any beard at all, but have loved thinking about things since I was a kid."
His face was indeed smooth, with no hint of a beard. His eyebrows were narrow, but thick, his ears nicely formed, like lovely seashells. "I wonder if what Voltaire meant wasn't ideas as much as meditation," Tsukuru said. The man inclined his head a fraction. "Pain is what gives rise to meditation. It has
nothing to do with age, let alone beards. — Haruki Murakami

We are not to renounce our senses and experience, nor (that which is the undoubted Word of God) our natural Reason. For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate, till the coming again of our blessed savior, and therefore not to be folded up in the napkin of an implicate faith, but employed in the purchase of justice, peace, and true religion. For though there be many things in God's Word above Reason
that is to say, which cannot by natural reason be either demonstrated or confuted
yet there is nothing contrary to it. — Thomas Hobbes

Satirical writers and speakers are not half so clever as they think themselves, nor as they are thought to be. They do winnow the corn, it is true, but it is to feed upon the chaff. I am sorry to add that they who are always speaking ill of others are also very apt to be doing ill to them. It requires some talent and some generosity to find out talent and generosity in others, though nothing but self-conceit and malice are needed to discover or to imagine faults. It is much easier for an ill-natured man than for a good-natured man to be smart and witty. — James Sharp

After giving a student the basic mating patterns and strategies you must begin giving them advanced concepts. At first these ideas will not make sense, many players will have a vague idea of what you are talking about but nothing more. Even a fragmented understanding of these concepts will prove useful though, and eventually they will improve as these lessons are assimilated by repetition and example. — Jeremy Silman

I have heard that all ideas of equality are visionary - that they can never be realized - and I believe it. But surely, though there must be hewers of wood, and drawers of water, they ought to have the absolute necessaries of life. — Charlotte Turner Smith

But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it's as though knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary. — Diana Gabaldon

An adult female orang-utan cannot defeat an adult male spotted hyena. That is the plain empirical truth. Let it become known among zoologists. Had Orange Juice been a male, had she loomed as large on the scales as she did in my heart, it might have been another matter. But portly and overfed though she was from living in the comfort of a zoo, even so she tipped the scales at barely 110 pounds. Female orang-utans are half the size of males. But it is not simply a question of weight and brute strength. Orange Juice was far from defenseless. What it comes down to is attitude and knowledge. What does a fruit eater know about killing? Where would it learn where to bite, how hard, for how long? An orang-utan may be taller, may have very strong and agile arms and long canines, but if it does not know how to use these as weapons, they are of little use. The hyena, with only its jaws, will overcome the ape because it knows what it wants and how to get it. — Yann Martel

There are times when I wouldn't rule violence out. I personally don't like violence at all. But it wasn't until we had the Trafalgar Square riots that the Poll Tax went out in Britain. When people take to the streets and fight the police, it's the one thing the government can't control. You can march round in circles for the rest of your life and they can ignore it, but once you start damaging property and fighting with the police, they can't. Even though they tar you with a brush and say you're a set of bastards, they have to actually tone down what they are doing. — Alice Nutter

Now listen to me. I will not walk on one-way streets any longer. Your wound is my wound, (though you don't know that mine is yours), and I do what I can, but the well will run dry. You will use us up. There are women whose first stretching across borders was into your lives. When they discover how you make use of their compassion, they will turn away heartsick, stricken, withering in the freshness of their hope. There are women who were leaders, who worked night and day, defeated not by foreign policy, but by the sexual politics of solidarity, bitter now, unable to work anywhere near you. How dare you speak of the New Woman! We are your richest resource besides your endurance, and you use us like rags to wrap around your pain. — Aurora Levins Morales

Don't you think the stairs are a good place for reading letters? I do. One is somehow suspended. One is on neutral ground - not in one's own world nor in a strange one. They are an almost perfect meeting place. Oh Heavens! How stairs do fascinate me when I think of it. Waiting for people - sitting on strange stairs - hearing steps far above, watching the light playing by itself - hearing - far below a door, looking down into a kind of dim brightness, watching someone come up. But I could go on forever. Must put them in a story though! People come out of themselves on stairs - they issue forth, unprotected. — Katherine Mansfield

A customs man at JFK had asked them to open the suitcases (in case they were smuggling in Indian fruits or sweets, perhaps). 'Ulysses!' the large bespectacled disbelieving customs man had said. 'Are you a student?' Ananda had nodded, though he was in the equivalent of high school. 'I wouldn't read Ulysses unless I was a student!' said the customs man, shutting the suitcase after his glimpse into the tantalising freemasonry of studenthood. A potentially incendiary book then - on the verge of being, but not quite, contraband. And near-unreadable. Ananda — Amit Chaudhuri

About three million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade. — Bill Gates

No one has entered since. We know about the Wombs too, though not where they are. Incarceron is efficient; it was designed to be. It doesn't waste dead matter, but recycles everything. In those cells it grows new inmates. Perhaps animals too. — Catherine Fisher

I am an ambassador," Akretenesh warned me, anger bringing his confidence back. "You cannot shoot."
"I don't mean to," I reassured him, still smiling. I adopted his soothing tones. "Indeed, you are the only man I won't shoot. But if I aimed at anyone else, it might give others a dangerously mistaken sense of their own safety." I raised my voice a trifle, though it wasn't really necessary. "We will have another vote, Xorcheus."
They elected me Sounis. It was unanimous. — Megan Whalen Turner

Everyone wants rather to be pleasing to women and that desire is not altogether, though it is very largely, a manifestation of vanity. But one cannot aim to be pleasing to women any more than one can aim to have taste, or beauty of expression, or happiness; for these things are not specific aims which one may learn to attain; they are descriptions of the adequacy of one's living. To try to be happy is to try to build a machine with no other specification than that it shall run noiselessly. — J. Robert Oppenheimer

Inevitably, this is how Christianity has come to be understood by a great many good people who have no better instruction in it than they receive from ranters and politicians. Under such circumstances, it is only to their credit that they reject it. Though I am not competent to judge in such matters, it would not surprise me at all to learn in any ultimate reckoning that these "Nones" as they are called, for the box they check when asked their religion, are better Christians than the Christians. But they have not been given the chance even to reject the beautiful, generous heritage that might otherwise have come to them. The learned and uncantankerous traditions seem, as I have said, to have fallen silent, to have retreated within their walls to dabble in feckless innovation and to watch their numbers dwindle. — Marilynne Robinson

That in their sacrifices to humanity they ran no risks, not even to their property; that after all they were not so noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight though useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that many of them are not aware that they have such an institution as the jail in their village. — Henry David Thoreau

People have called it different things over the years, fight, attitude, determination, but I've always called it hope. The simple truth is, though they abused your body, what they did in no way diminished your power. You are not less because of what happened to you, if anything you are more. You have gained a strength many will never have, a resiliency unknown before, and while you will always fight the demons that now have free range inside of you, you will do it with skills and power few can share. — Kim Schubert

Kerrigan?" she tried again.
"Aye, Lady Mouse. I am here."
Relieved, she smiled at the sound of his voice in her head. During the day, he was oft silent. But at night ... at night he would speak softly to her and tell her of his travels through time as he eluded those who were after him.
"Where are you today, my lord?"
"I'm in Venice, during a carnival. It's beautiful here. There are minstrels and acrobats all around. Plenty of places to hide from Morgen and her spies."
"You are safe?"
"Aye, Lady Mouse. I am always safe. But I've no wish to talk about me. How are you doing?"
"I miss you."
She swore she could feel his pain as well as her own.
"I miss you as well and I think of you constantly."
-Kerrigan and Seren communicating though their thoughts as they were apart. — Kinley MacGregor

I believe in the absolute oneness of God and, therefore, also of humanity. What though we have many bodies? We have but one soul. The rays of the sun are many through refraction. But they have the same source. I cannot, therefore, detach myself from the wickedest soul (nor may I be denied identity with the most virtuous). — Mahatma Gandhi

You may not mean to, but you do seem to look down your nose at many of us mere mortals muddling along down here. I feel as though you think everyone should be better than they are. I certainly think you expect me to behave like some sort of perfect princess. But I'm just an ordinary girl who wants to grow up and find out where I belong in the world. — Emily Arden

Malicious acts are performed by people for personal gain ... Sorcerers, though, have an ulterior purpose for their acts, which has nothing to do with personal gain. The fact that they enjoy their acts does not count as gain. Rather, it is a condition of their character. The average man acts only if there is a chance for profit. Warriors say they act not for profit but for the spirit. — Carlos Castaneda

I have learned that we may change the very nature of our thoughts, by changing the tone of voice we are thinking in! No one has ever paid attention to what tone of voice they are speaking in, during the time that their words are going on in their heads! People only pay attention to their tones of voice when their words are on their tongues! But it is the tone of voice we think in, that is responsible for creating the energy we emit. You may be screaming on the inside and even though you are calm on the outside, you are going to create the energy of your thoughts. If you want real change in your life, in your mind - really, just change the tone of voice that you think in! — C. JoyBell C.

Do you remember all of your audiences?" Marco asks.
"Not all of them," Celia says. "But I remember the people who look at me the way you do."
"What way might that be?"
"As though they cannot decide if they are afraid of me or they want to kiss me."
" I am not afraid of you," Marco says. — Erin Morgenstern

Moved from other parts of the world to work here, but they keep their citizenship with their home country. They are required to carry a visitor registration card (called a "green card"), which allows them to work here even though they aren't citizens. Actually, we all should carry spiritual green cards to remind us that our citizenship is in heaven. God says that his children are to think differently about life from the way unbelievers do. "All they think about is this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives."63 Real believers realize that there will be far more to life than just the few years we live on this planet. — Rick Warren

I can hardly thinke there was any scared into Heaven; they go the surest way to Heaven who would serve God without a Hell; other Mercenaries, that crouch unto Him in feare of Hell, though they terme themselves servants, are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty. — Thomas Browne

One of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its leaders constantly gave in to the temptation of power - political power, military power, economic power, or moral and spiritual power - even though they continued to speak in the name of Jesus, who did not cling to his divine power but emptied himself and became as we are. — David A. Livermore

Surely the fates are forever kind, though Nature's laws are more immutable than any despot's, yet to man's daily life they rarelyseem rigid, but permit him to relax with license in summer weather. He is not harshly reminded of the things he may not do. — Henry David Thoreau

This wish to satisfy someone greater than the Self, to be found acceptable, to belong at last, is a struggle familiar to many psychotherapy patients. In their lives they waste themselves on wondering how they are doing, on trying to figure out the expectations of others so that they can become someone in the eyes of others. They try to be practical, to be reasonable, to figure it all out in their heads. It is as though if only they could get the words straight in their heads, if only they could find the correct formula, then everything else in their lives would be magically straightened out. They are sure there is a right way to do things, though they have not yet found it. Someone in authority must know ... It is as thought if it were discovered that two and two really did not equal four (but five), then at that moment all over the world every machine would stop operating, all of the lights would go out. (110) — Sheldon B. Kopp

There are many likewise, who go on in a round of duties, a model of performances, that think they shall go to heaven; but if you examine them, though they have a Christ in their heads, they have no Christ in their hearts. — George Whitefield

Well,' he said, 'I don't know. What's the use of my generalizing? I only know my own case. I like women, but I don't desire them. I like talking to them; but talking to them, though it makes me intimate in one direction, sets me poles apart from them as far as kissing is concerned. So there you are! But don't take me as a general example, probably I'm just a special case: one of the men who like women, but don't love women, and even hate them if they force me into a pretence of love, or an entangled appearance. — D.H. Lawrence

It is immediately apparent, however, that this sense-world, this seemingly real external universe - though it may be useful and valid in other respects - cannot be the external world, but only the Self's projected picture of it ... The evidence of the senses, then, cannot be accepted as evidence of the nature of ultimate reality; useful servants, they are dangerous guides. — Evelyn Underhill

I'm right here," he said. "Dad's right here. I'm going nowhere. Just gonna wait until you're ready to come out into the world, and then your mom and I are going to take care of you. So you hang tight, we
clear? Do your thing, and we'll wait for however long it takes."
With his free hand, he took Layla's palm, and put it over his own.
"Your family is right here. Waiting for you ... and we love you."
It was totally stupid to talk to what was, no doubt, nothing but a bundle of cells. But he couldn't help
it. The words, the actions ... they were at once totally his, and yet coming from a place that was foreign to him.
Felt right, though.
Felt ... like what a father was supposed to do. — J.R. Ward

Opposites though they are, both solitude and solidarity are essential if the artist is to produce works that are not only significant to his or her age, but that will also speak to future generations. — Rollo May

War! When I but think of this word, I feel bewildered, as though they were speaking to me of sorcery, of the Inquisition, of a distant, finished, abominable, monstrous, unnatural thing. When they speak to us of cannibals, we smile proudly, as we proclaim our superiority to these savages. Who are the real savages? Those who struggle in order to eat those whom they vanquish, or those who struggle merely to kill? — Guy De Maupassant

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. — Kahlil Gibran

I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now. I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden. These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past. — Ishmael Beah

When I left England, my hope of India's conversion was very strong; but amongst so many obstacles, it would die, unless upheld by God. Well, I have God, and His Word is true. Though the superstitions of the heathen were a thousand times stronger than they are, and the example of the Europeans a thousand times worse; though I were deserted by all and persecuted by all, yet my faith, fixed on the sure Word, would rise above all obstructions and overcome every trial. God's cause will triumph. (William Carey, quoted in Iain Murray, The Puritan Hope, Banner of Truth 1971, p 140.) — William Carey

I try to conjure, to raise my own spirits, from wherever they are. I need to remember what they look like. I try to hold them still behind my eyes, their faces, like pictures in an album. But they won't stay still for me, they move, there's a smile and it's gone, their features curl and bend as if the paper's burning, blackness eats them. A glimpse, a pale shimmer on the air; a glow, aurora, dance of electrons, then a face again, faces. But they fade, though I stretch out my arms towards them, they slip away from me, ghosts at daybreak. Back to wherever they are. — Margaret Atwood

The motives behind scientism are culturally significant. They have been mixed, as usual: genuine curiosity in search of truth; the rage for certainty and for unity; and the snobbish desire to earn the label scientist when that became a high social and intellectual rank. But these efforts, even though vain, have not been without harm, to the inventors and to the world at large. The "findings" have inspired policies affecting daily life that were enforced with the same absolute assurance as earlier ones based on religion. At the same time, the workers in the realm of intuition, the gifted finessers - artists, moralists, philosophers, historians, political theorists, and theologians - were either diverted from their proper task, while others were looking on them with disdain as dabblers in the suburbs of Truth. — Jacques Barzun

It was not just the drink, though, that was making me happy, but the tenderness of things, the simple goodness of the world. This sunset, for instance, how lavishly it was laid on, the clouds, the light on the sea, that heartbreaking, blue-green distance, laid on, all of it, as if to console some lost suffering waybarer. I have never really got used to being on this earth. Somethings I think our presence here is due to a cosmic blunder, that we were meant for another planet altogether, with other arrangements, and other laws, and other, grimmer skies. I try to imagine it, our true place, off on the far side of the galaxy, whirling and whirling. And the ones who were meant for here, are they out there, baffled and homesick, like us? No, they would have become extinct long ago. How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was meant to contain us? — John Banville

These are amongst the last memories I shall relinquish to the page, though I am hanging onto them for now and for as long as I can. When they are gone, will there be anything left of me? Am I nothing but memory? — J.S. Watts

Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration. As for other practical opinions, though not absolutely free from all error, if they do not tend to establish domination over others, or civil impunity to the Church in which they are taught, there can be no reason why they should not be tolerated. — John Locke

NO. No no no. I don't want to screw you. I just love you. When did who you want to screw become the whole game? Since when is the person you want to screw the only person you get to love? It's so stupid, Tiny! I mean, Jesus, who even gives a fuck about sex?! People act like it's the most important thing humans do, but come on. How can our sentient fucking lives revolve around something slugs can do. I mean, who you want to screw and whether you screw them? Those are important questions, I guess. But they're not that important. You know what's important? Who would you die for? Who do you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why he needs you? Whose drunken nose would you pick?! — John Green

Women Are Not Roses Women have no beginning only continual flows. Though rivers flow women are not rivers. Women are not roses they are not oceans or stars. i would like to tell her this but i think she already knows. — Ana Castillo

Hands are difficult. You would think they would be just five quick lines, but no, they have personalities as intimate as faces. Elizabeth's hands, for instance - they are fine hands, with long fingers that remind me of tapered candles. A person one has loved - the memory of their hands. Did they flutter or sit still? Dry? Moist? Cool on a hot forehead? What? That is what I wish to express in my paintings. The memory - of the movement - of very particular hands, even though they appear to be unmoving on canvas. — Sarah Ruhl

There are many things that people do happily that I can't imagine why they would do it ... But I have to say that even though I am critical or judgmental of society at large, I'm not critical of people individually. We are who we are. — Ian MacKaye

Who thinks they're not open-minded? Our hypothetical prim miss from the suburbs thinks she's open-minded. Hasn't she been taught to be? Ask anyone, and they'll say the same thing: they're pretty open-minded, though they draw the line at things that are really wrong. (Some tribes may avoid "wrong" as judgemental, and may instead use a more neutral sounding euphemism like "negative" or "destructive".)

When people are bad at math, they know it, because they get the wrong answers on tests. But when people are bad at open-mindedness they don't know it. In fact they tend to think the opposite. — Paul Graham

A lot of the young people make beautiful films or big films or are able to finance them, but they can't get anyone to distribute them, they can't get anyone to see them, so they go to these thousands of film festivals. So I still believe that even though a young kid might be able to make a masterpiece or something that changes the direction of cinema, the issue of how to get it to people is still not solved. — Francis Ford Coppola

Do you think it interests me that this painting represents two figures? These two figures existed, they exist no more. The sight of them gave me an initial emotion, little by little their real presence grew indistinct. They became a fiction for me, then they disappeared, or rather, were turned into problems of all kinds. For me they are no longer two figures but shapes and colours. Don't misunderstand me: shapes and colours, though, that sum up the idea of the two figures and preserve the vibration of their existence. — Pablo Picasso

You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore ... But let there be spaces in your togetherness ... Love one another, but make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not of the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. — Kahlil Gibran

It was apparent that all of mankind is actually motivated by inner love, but has simply become unaware; most people live their lives as though they're sleepers unawakened to the perception of who they really are. — David Hawkins

though. Our Azadian friends are always rather nonplussed by our lack of a flag or a symbol, and the Culture rep here - you'll meet him tonight if he remembers to turn up - thought it was a pity there was no Culture anthem for bands to play when our people come here, so he whistled them the first song that came into his head, and they've been playing that at receptions and ceremonies for the last eight years." "I thought I recognized one of the tunes they played," Gurgeh admitted. The drone pushed his arms up and made some more adjustments. "Yes, but the first song that came into the guy's head was 'Lick Me Out'; have you heard the lyrics?" "Ah." Gurgeh grinned. "That song. Yes, that could be awkward." "Damn right. If they find out they'll probably declare war. Usual Contact snafu. — Iain M. Banks

Could the observers of the crucifixion "clearly perceive" the ways of God? No - even though they were looking right at a wonder of grace. They saw only darkness and pain, and the categories of human reason are sure God cannot be working in and through that. So they called Jesus to "come down now from the cross," sneering, "He saved others . . . but he can't save himself." (Matt 27:42 NIV). But they did not realize he could save others only because he did not save himself. Only — Timothy J. Keller

All those religions
they contradict each other on every point but every one of them is filled with ways to help people to be brave enough to laugh even though they know they are dying. — Robert A. Heinlein

And the answer is: You are wrong. The Faeries are not gone. But they are no longer what they were. I watched it and did not help them, though I could have. I cheered. I cheered and I wept and I was glad. Perhaps I should not have been. Perhaps laughing at agony is a Fairy's game and I should not have moved my pieces on their board. — Catherynne M Valente

He has spoken blasphemy." This was a wrong charge to bring - for Pilate, having his superstition again aroused - is even more afraid to put him to death. And he comes out again, and says, "I find no fault in Him." What a strong contest between good and evil in that man's heart! But they cried out again, "If you let this man go you are not Caesar's friend." They hit the mark this time, and he yields to their clamor. He brings forth a basin of water, and he washes his hands before them all, and he says, "I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it." A poor way of escaping! That water could not wash the blood from his hands, though their cry did bring the blood on their heads - "His blood be on us, and on our children. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Like all poetical natures he loved ignorant people. He knew that in the soul of one who is ignorant there is always room for a great idea. But he could not stand stupid people, especially those who are made stupid by education: people who are full of opinions not one of which they even understand, a peculiarly modern type, summed up by Christ when he describes it as the type of one who has the key of knowledge, cannot use it himself, and does not allow other people to use it, though it may be made to open the gate of God's Kingdom. — Oscar Wilde

Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit. — Edward Young

All great fighting is the same, Eragon, even as all great warriors are the same. Past a certain point, it does not matter whether you wield a sword, a claw, a tooth or a tail. It is true, you must be capable with your weapon, but anyone with the time, and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness, and it is those qualities that the best warriors share, even if, on the surface, they appear completely different. — Christopher Paolini

I felt guilty that I hadn't thought of Kizuki right away, as if I had somehow abandoned him. Back in my room, though, I came to think of it this way: two and a half years have gone by since it happened, and Kizuki is still seventeen years old. Not that this means my memory of him has faded. The things that his death gave rise to are still there, bright and clear, inside me, some of them even clearer than when they were new. What I want to say is this: I'm going to turn twenty soon. Part of what Kizuki and I shared when we were sixteen and seventeen has already vanished, and no amount of crying is going to bring that back. I can't explain it any better than this, but I think that you can probably understand what I felt and what I am trying to say. — Haruki Murakami

I had a very good time when I did The Gleaners - even though the people are poor, and I was suffering to see the conditions, and plus they are not such lovely hearts. They are tough to each other, they beat each other, they are rude and they are violent and they drink. They're not sweethearts, you know, but some were so interesting. — Agnes Varda

I am so unimaginably sorry for doing what I am going to do, but you see I have all these fears. The fears and doubts I have are so real, so are they really as childish and silly as you always say they are. Sometimes, I am sad and so bitterly lonely and at times, I feel useless, as if I cannot accomplish even the simplest task. Do not get me wrong, I do not always feel this way, because we do laugh and we do often have fun together, but always though I still have this lonely, sadness in my chest. If you looked at me, you would never know the turmoil inside of me. — Lynette Ferreira