Its Not Personal Quotes & Sayings

I spent my childhood and youth on the outskirts of the Alps, in a region that was largely spared the immediate effects of the so-called hostilities. At the end of the war I was just one year old, so I can hardly have any impressions of that period of destruction based on personal experience. Yet to this day, when I see photographs or documentary films dating from the war I feel as if I were its child, so to speak, as if those horrors I did not experience cast a shadow over me ... I see pictures merging before my mind's eye - paths through the fields, river meadows, and mountain pastures mingling with images of destruction - and oddly enough, it is the latter, not the now entirely unreal idylls of my early childhood, that make me feel rather as if I were coming home ... — W.G. Sebald

One of the great myths about war is that there is a ground zero, a center stage, where the terrible forces unleashed by it can be witnessed, recounted, and replayed like the launching of a rocket. War is a human activity far too large to be contained in the experience of a single reporter in a single place and time in any meaningful way. When it comes, it happens to everyone. Everything is in its path. Yet this is the allure of war reporting, the chance of acquiring some personal mother lode of truth to beam back to the living rooms of a waiting nation. The fear that comes from reporting on a war is as much a fear of missing this mother load as it is of being injured or killed in battle, and it sets reporters apart from the people who have to fight wars. Soldiers have their own agonies to think about as a battle approaches. Missing the war is not generally one of them. — John Hockenberry

Relate to a life situation in the deepest sense: not from the standpoint of the ego that bemoans its fate and rebels against it, but from... the greater inner law that has left behind its small birth, the narrow realm of personal outlook, for the sake of renewal and rebirth. — Max Zeller

We cannot turn back the clock and relive cherished pastimes. We move beyond our origins. A person must make their way in an evolving social, political, and economic world order. We must not be too quick writing off the influence of our prior experiences, because the long tentacles the past remain vibrant strands within us. While the past does not cast our future in stone, its durable mold shapes our present. The ingrained strumming of our personal histories, sentimental or otherwise, also portents what might come along in our future. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Reflect on the "I" which can grasp all this. If the "I' can grasp the idea of the universe and its laws, then that "I" stands above all other things, stands aside from all other things, judges them, fathoms them. In that case, the "I" is not only liberated from earthly axioms, the earthly laws, but has its own law, which transcends the earthly. Now, whence comes that law? Certainly not from earth, where all reaches its issue, and vanishes beyond recall. Is that no indication of immortality? If there were no personal immortality, would you be worrying yourself about it, be searching for an answer? ... — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights-for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination. — Pope John Paul II

If New Orleans is not fully in the mainstream of culture, neither is it fully in the mainstream of time. Lacking a well-defined present, it lives somewhere between its past and its future, as if uncertain whether to advance or to retreat. Perhaps it is its perpetual ambivalence that is its secret charm. Somewhere between Preservation Hall and the Superdome, between voodoo and cybernetics, New Orleans listens eagerly to the seductive promises of the future but keeps at least one foot firmly planted in its history, and in the end, conforms, like an artist, not to the world but to its own inner being
ever mindful of its personal style. — Tom Robbins

I am shocked - excessively shocked! Your father would have been very glad to have left his ring to
Martin, let me tell you, only he thought it not right to leave it away from the heir!"
"Was it indeed a personal bequest?" inquired Gervase, interested. "That certainly must be held to enhance its value. It becomes, in fact, a
curio, for it must be quite the only piece of unentailed property which my father did bequeathe to me. I shall put it in a glass cabinet."
Martin, reddening, said: "I see what you are at! I'm not to be blamed if my father preferred me to you!"
"No, you are to be felicitated," said Gervase. — Georgette Heyer

Literary criticism can be no more than a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the book he is criticizing. Criticism can never be a science: it is, in the first place, much too personal, and in the second, it is concerned with values that science ignores. The touchstone is emotion, not reason. We judge a work of art by its effect on our sincere and vital emotion, and nothing else. All the critical twiddle-twaddle about style and form, all this pseudoscientific classifying and analysing of books in an imitation-botanical fashion, is mere impertinence and mostly dull jargon. — D.H. Lawrence

To what extent the machine abases us. - The machine is impersonal, it deprives the piece of work of its pride, of the individual goodness and faultiness that adheres to all work done by a machine - that is to say, of its little bit of humanity. In earlier times all purchasing from artisans was a bestowing of a distinction on individuals, and the things with which we surrounded ourselves were the insignia of these distinctions: household furniture and clothing thus became symbols of mutual esteem and personal solidarity, whereas we now seem to live in the midst of nothing but anonymous and impersonal slavery. - We must not purchase the alleviation of work at too high price. — Friedrich Nietzsche

George Orwell's '1984' frequently tops surveys of our greatest books: it's not a celebration of poetic language. It's decidedly anti-literary, a masterpiece of personal and political narrative sequence. And its subject matter is crucial, because what '1984' shows is that language can be a dirty trick. — Graham Joyce

He had never wanted to know anything about the part of her intimate life that he had not shared with her. Why should he take an interest now, still less take offense at it? Anyhow, he asked himself, what is an intimate secret? Is that where we hide what's most mysterious, most singular, most original about a human being? Are her intimate secrets what make Chantal the unique being he loves? No. What people keep secret is the most common, the most ordinary, the most prevalent thing, the same thing that everybody has: the body and its needs, its maladies, its manias-constipation for instance, or menstruation. We ashamedly conceal these intimate matters not because they are so personal but on the contrary, they are so lamentably impersonal. — Milan Kundera

When a woman understands the uniqueness of the female brain - how to care for it, how to make the most of its strengths, how to overcome its challenges, how to fall in love with it, and ultimately, how to unleash its full power - there is no stopping her. In her personal development, at work, and in her relationships, she can bring the best of herself to her family, her community, and her planet. By contrast, a woman who is not caring optimally for her brain, who is not giving it the full range of nutrients, exercise, sleep, and emotional support that it needs, is squandering her most valuable resource. If you are not taking good care of your brain, you are at a significantly higher risk of brain fog, memory problems, low energy, distractibility, poor decisions, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. — Daniel G. Amen

Eternity puts loss in its place. Losses are temporary. Every setback and defeat is put in its place because of eternity. And then add to that the realization that the work of the Redeemer takes every bad situation and works it for our good. So not only is every loss temporary, it is actually reversed in its effect to become a blessing and even grounds for personal promotion and gain. And all of that pertains to loss. This is why every believer is able to live with constant hope. — Bill Johnson

This idea of all education springing from and resting upon our relation to Almighty God-we do not merely give a religious education because that would seem to imply the possibility of some other education, a secular education, for example. But we hold that all education is divine, that every good gift of knowledge and insight comes from above, that the Lord the Holy Spirit is the supreme educator of mankind, and that the culmination of all education (which may at the same time be reached by a little child) is that personal knowledge of and intimacy with God in which our being finds its fullest perfection. — Charlotte M. Mason

Foch never for a moment thought about the easy ways of bringing his name before the public and the political world, or even about acquiring a reputation for military insight among the chiefs of the French army. He never posed as a central figure at public functions; he was never interviewed by the press; he made no use of the professional reviews to bring his name before military readers. Ile never published a line until his chiefs suggested the publication of his lectures at the Staff College. From the day when he received his first commission he was a hard-working student of war, patiently preparing himself to do his duty when the opportunity came, and meanwhile content to put all his energies into the work assigned to him. Success in the career of arms is not always associated with high personal character or with this modest pursuit of duty for its own sake. — Andrew Hilliard Atteridge

I'm not running for president because I think I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God. — John McCain

For a little sould that cries oout aloud for continued personal existence for itseld and its beloved, there is no help. For the sould which know itself no more as a unit, but as part of the Universal Unit of which the Beloved also is part; which feels within itself the throb of the Universal Life; for that soul there is not death. — Olive Schreiner

I believe the real reason we pursue anything in life is not for the thing itself, but for who we become on the way to its accomplishment. We strive to accomplish things in the attempt to mold ourselves. The greatest benefits Jiu Jitsu will have in your life will have nothing to do with Jiu Jitsu. It is this simple understanding that allows me to persist in my study. Even on the rare days when I may not have a burning desire to practice Jiu Jitsu, I am reminded that my practicing Jiu Jitsu is more accurately my practicing to become a better human being. The lessons I learn on the mat will serve me in every area of life
personal development, relationships, business, and the like. — Chris Matakas

Also in America, the Redemptorist priest and founder of the Paulist order, Fr. Isaac Hecker, was a great admirer of St. Catherine, seeing in her the perfect foil to those who claimed that Catholicism promotes a mechanical piety or fosters a sanctity unconcerned with the real needs of suffering humanity in society. To the latter charge he replied forcefully:
"Read the life of St. Catherine, and in imagination fancy her in the city hospital of Genoa, charged not only with the supervision and responsibility of its finances, but also overseeing the care of its sick inmates, taking an active, personal part in its duties as one of its nurses, and conducting the whole establishment with strict economy, perfect order, and the tenderest care and love! — Catherine Of Siena

Our Constitution was not intended to be used by ... any group to foist its personal religious beliefs on the rest of us. — Katharine Hepburn

The good die when they should live, the evil live when they should die; heroes perish and cowards escape; noble efforts do not succeed because they are noble, and wickedness is consumed in its own nature. Looking at truth is not at first a heartening experience--it becomes so, if at all, only with time, with infinite patience, and with the luck of a little personal happiness. — William Alexander Percy

If the topic be highly abstract, show its nature by concrete examples; if it be unfamiliar, make it figure as part of a story; if it be difficult, couple its acquisition with some prospect of personal gain. Above all things, make sure that it shall run through certain inner changes, since no unvarying object can possibly hold the mental field for long. Let your pupil wander from one aspect to another of your subject, if you do not wish him to wander from it altogether to something else, variety in unity being the secret of all interesting talk and thought. — William James

The Constitution did not give Americans freedom; they had been free long before it was written, and when it was put up for ratification they eyed it suspiciously, lest it infringe their freedom. The Federalists, the advocates of ratification, went to great pains to assure the people that under the Constitution they would be just as free as they ever were. Madison, in particular, stressed the point that there would be no change in their personal status in the new setup, that the contemplated government would simply be the foreign department of the several states. The Constitution itself is a testimonial to the temper of the times, for it fashioned a government so restricted in its powers as to prevent any infraction of freedom; that was the reason for the famous "checks and balances." Any other kind of constitution could not have got by. — Frank Chodorov

Happiness is yours in the here and now. The painful states of anxiety and loneliness are abolished permanently. Financial affairs are not financial problems. You are at ease with yourself. You are not at the mercy of unfulfilled cravings. Confusion is replaced with clarity. There is a relieving answer to every tormenting question. You possess a True Self. Something can be done about every unhappy condition. While living in the world you can be inwardly detached from its sorrows to live with personal peace and sanity. — Vernon Howard

The kings had, however, begun to realize its potential for extending communication, in an almost magical way, beyond what could be accomplished with the spoken word. Writing could perpetually and eternally address an audience on a king's behalf; the words were always there, even when the king was not thinking about them. Given that the population was almost entirely illiterate, such an audience was mostly made up of gods. The statuette of the king's personal god (or sometimes of the king himself), inscribed with the same text as the tablet, could therefore pray continuously in a way that a real person could not. — Amanda H. Podany

If there hadn't been a sixth day, man would not exist; copper would always be copper; and lead just lead. It's true that everything has its Personal Legend, but one day that Personal Legend will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new Personal Legend, until, someday, the Soul of the World becomes one thing only. — Paulo Coelho

Lou took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of just-cut flowers, fresh tamales from the food stands, and sunshine. She preferred the West Allis farmers' market to all others in the area, with its open sides, wide walkways, and rows of stalls. More recently, small tents serving hot sandwiches and fresh Mexican food had popped up outside the brick walls. It all looked so good, she'd learned long ago to come with limited funds or she would buy more produce than she could possibly use. She relished talking to the farmers, learning about what they grew and where. She liked to search for farmers growing something new and interesting she could use at Luella's.
But today's visit was personal, not business. Sue had dragged her out to West Allis for a little lunch and some girl time with fall squash and Honeycrisp apples. — Amy E. Reichert

Having gone through so many of the personal things I've gone through, its about creating an (online) space for girls to be heard. I don't profess to have all the answers. But Ask Elizabeth is a space where girls are not alone. — Elizabeth Berkley

A canon is a guarded catalogue of that speech, music and art which houses inside us, which is irrevocably familiar to our homecomings. And this will include, if honestly arrived at and declared (even if solely to oneself), all manner of ephemera, trivial, and possibly mendacious matter ... No manor woman need justify his personal anthology, his canonic welcomes. Love does not argue its necessities. — George Steiner

It's so technical. It's nothing personal. You're not fighting really, you're missing each other by a half of foot at least, ideally more and you get a few knocks and bruises. But with the kissing, you do kiss someone. Its lips on lips. — Colin Farrell

The first truth is the most basic affirmation of our faith: God loves us. This is not a general rule to which you, personally, may be an exception. It is not a conditional rule that applies only when you are good, pure, and lovable. God's passionate and personal love for each and every human being expresses who God is. Unfailing love is the divine nature and the divine choice in relation to us. God loves us with an overwhelming love that none of our sins can erase.While we can grieve and disappoint this love, nothing we do or fail to do can alter its depth or reality. It is a gift, a given.We cannot control whether God loves us by efforts to gain this love or even to lose it. Since we neither deserve nor earn such love, God's fondest dream is that we will receive and respond to it. — Marjorie, J. Thompson

It is not a dream that someday, nations will be able to settle their difficulties without war, just as individuals now settle their personal feuds without resorting to arguments of physical strength or sharp steel. For, then, humanity will have created international jurisdiction and a power to enforce its laws. — Ellen Key

I could have forced myself to adapt," said Taads. "In this world the individual self is of such importance that it is allowed to become absorbed in itself and to grub around in its trivial personal history for years on end with the help of a psychiatrist, so as to be able to cope. But I don't think that is important enough. And then suicide is no longer a disgrace. If I had done it earlier, I would have done it in hatred, but that is no longer the case."
"Hatred?"
"I used to hate the world. People, smells, dogs, feet, telephones, newspapers, voices - everything filled me with the greatest disgust. I have always been afraid I might murder somebody. Suicide is when you have been all around the world with your fear and your aggression and you end up by yourself again."
"It remains aggression."
"Not necessarily."
"What are you waiting for then?"
"For the right moment. The time has not yet come." He said it amiably, as if he were talking to a child. — Cees Nooteboom

Although yoga has its origins in ancient India, its methods and purposes are universal, relying not on cultural background, faith or deity, but simply on the individual. Yoga has become important in the lives of many contemporary Westerners, sometimes as a way of improving health and fitness of the body, but also as a means of personal and spiritual development. — Tara Fraser

Three or four million heads of households don't turn into tramps and cheats overnight, nor do they lose the habits and standards of a lifetime ... They don't drink any more than the rest of us, they don't lie any more, they're no lazier than the rest of us ... An eighth or a tenth of the earning population does not change its character which has been generations in the molding, or, if such a change actually occurs, we can scarcely charge it up to personal sin. — Harry Hopkins

The quest, I am beginning to think, whether it be for money, for notoriety, reputation, increase of pride, whether it leads us to thievery, slaughter, sacrifice, the quest is one and the same. All the striving is for one end. I do not entirely understand this impulse. But it seems to me that its final end is the desire for pure freedom. We are all drawn toward the same craters of the spirit--to know what we are and what we are for, to know our purpose, to seek grace. And, if the quest is the same, the differences in our personal histories, which hitherto meant so much to us, become of minor importance. — Saul Bellow

I believe no amount of business school training or work experience can teach what is ultimately a matter of personal character. Businesses are not dishonest or greedy, people are. Thus, a business, successful or not, is merely a reflection of the character of its leadership. — S. Truett Cathy

Mysticism, according to its historical and psychological definitions, is the direct intuition or experience of God; and a mystic is a person who has, to a greater or less degree, such a direct experience
one whose religion and life are centered, not merely on an accepted belief or practice, but on that which the person regards as first hand personal knowledge. — Evelyn Underhill

Dandyism is not even, as many unthinking people seem to suppose, an immoderate interest in personal appearance and material elegance. For the true dandy these things are only a symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his personality ... What, then, is this ruling passion that has turned into a creed and created its own skilled tyrants? What is this unwritten constitution that has created so haughty a caste? It is, a bone all, a burning need to to acquire originality, within the apparent bounds of convention, it's is a sort of cult of oneself, which can dispense even with what are commonly called illusions. It is the delight in causing astonishment, and the proud satisfaction of never oneself being astonished. — Charles Baudelaire

The most important thing is that man should be the measure of all structures, including economic structures, and not that man be made to measure for those structures. The most important thing is not to lose sight of personal relationships - i.e., the relationships between man and his co-workers, between subordinates and their superiors, between man and his work, between this work and its consequences. — Vaclav Havel

On the other hand, there is no sin in thought, word, or deed, no matter how personal or secret, that does not inflict injury upon the whole fellowship. An element of sickness gets into the body; perhaps nobody knows where it comes from or in what member it has lodged, but the body is infected. This is the proper metaphor for the Christian community. We are members of a body, not only when we choose to be, but in our whole existence. Every member serves the whole body, either to its health or to its destruction. This is no mere theory; it is a spiritual reality. And the Christian community has often experienced its effects with disturbing clarity, sometimes destructively and sometimes fortunately. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The truth is that sometimes art may not exactly reflect one's personal politics, but the story, the drama, the thing you're trying to say, might want to go in a certain direction, and while it may seem like it has resonance with things that are happening topically, you kind of want the world you're creating to have its own internal logic. — Tim Minear

Q: Why do you use swear words on your blog, but never the F word?
A: Because I'm saving the F word for the day when I write a blog post about the for-profit health insurance industry and the way its CEOs become wealthy by not only preying on, but exacerbating, other people's personal tragedies.
*ahem*
Happy Monday, everyone :o) — Kristin Cashore

Liberalism is not anarchism, nor has it anything whatsoever to do with anarchism.
The liberal understands quite clearly that without resort to compulsion, the existence of society would be endangered and that behind the rules of conduct whose
observance is necessary to assure peaceful human cooperation must stand the threat of force if the whole edifice of society is not to be continually at the mercy of any one of its members. One must be in a position to compel the person who will not respect the lives, health, personal freedom, or private property of others to acquiesce in the rules of life in society. This is the function that the liberal doctrine assigns to the state: the protection of property, liberty, and peace. — Ludwig Von Mises

Women are all born with a special, independent organ that allows them to lie. This was Dr. Tokai's personal opinion. It depends on the person, he said about the kind of lies they tell, what situation they tell them in, and how the lies are told. But at a certain point in their lives, all women tell lies, and they lie about important things. They lie about unimportant things, too, but they also don't hesitate to lie about the most important things. And when they do, most women's expressions and voices don't change at all, since it's not them lysing, but this independent organ they're equipped with that's acting on its own. That's why - except for a few special cases - they can still have a clear conscience and never lose sleep over anything they say. — Haruki Murakami

My overall point is that 'one and dones' are not healthy for college basketball. I should not have made it personal to Kentucky and its players and I apologize. — Bobby Knight

At its core, banking is not simply about profit, but about personal relationships. — Felix Rohatyn

Whatever. There is a natural order to things, a hierarchy. And no less so in man. For man may be the master of nature, but he is also part of it. Every living thing, from the greatest of all men to the lowliest earthworm has its place. It is very important that the groundhog not think he is tiger, nor a sparrow believe he is a hawk. A frog would not make a very good shark, would it? One must know their place in the world" ~ Baroness von Berge, Greta Greaves of Austria — Austin Scott Collins

Self-respect is the very cement of character, without which character will not form nor stand; a personal ideal is the only possible foundation for self-respect, without which self-respect degenerates into vanity or conceit, or is lost entirely, its place being taken by worthlessness and the consciousness of worthlessness; and that is the end of all character. It is often said that if we do not respect ourselves no one else will respect us; this is rather a dangerous way to put it; let us rather say that if we are not worthy of our own respect we cannot claim the respect of others. True self-respect is a matter of being and never of mere seeming. As Paulsen says, "It is vanity that desires first of all to be seen and admired, and then, if possible, really to be something; whereas proper self esteem desires first of all to be something, and' then, if possible, to have its worth recognized. — Edward O. Sisson

The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically. — Ralph Ellison

To some he was its champion and to others its demise, which would make no sense at all had the game not become an arena for the vitriolic national discourse over race, feminism, gender, central versus local power, and personal liberty. Every single divisive issue electrifying the American body politic has a twin in the game. It just carries a mace and a couple of fireball spells. — Anonymous

As I see it today, Hitler and Goebbels were in fact molded by the mob itself, guided by its yearnings and its daydreams. Of course, Goebbels and Hitler knew how to penetrate through to the instincts of their audiences; but in the deeper sense they derived their whole existence from these audiences. Certainly the masses roared to the beat set by Hitler's and Goebbels' baton; yet they were not the true conductors. The mob determined the theme. To compensate for misery, insecurity, unemployment, and hopelessness, this anonymous assemblage wallowed for hours at a time in obsessions, savagery and license. The personal unhappiness caused by the breakdown of the economy was replaced by a frenzy that demanded victims. By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Jews, they gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions. — Albert Speer

The systems of stereotypes may be the core of our personal tradition, the defenses of our position in society. They are an ordered more or less consistent picture of the world, to which our habits, our tastes, our capacities, our comforts and our hopes have adjusted themselves. They may not be a complete picture of the world, but they are a picture of a possible world to which we are adapted. In that world, people and things have their well-known places, and do certain expected things. We feel at home there. We fit in. We are members.
[ ... ]
It is not merely a short cut. It is all these things and something more. It is the guarantee of our self-respect; it is the projection upon the world of our own sense or our own value, our own position, and our own rights. [ ... ] They are the fortress of our traditions, and behind its defenses we can continue to feel ourselves safe in the position we occupy. — Walter Lippmann

Halakha, as the human way of life in accordance with the Torah, does not aim at absolute truth, nor does it run after the fata- morgana of universal truth. Neither of them is accessible to human beings. Its aim is "earthly truth" that the human intellect is able to grasp and for whose pursuance in life man must accept personal responsibility. — Eliezer Berkovits

The filmmaking process is a very personal one to me, I mean it really is a personal kind of communication. It's not as though its a study of fear or any of that stuff. — David Cronenberg

Formula 1 racing had a personal scandal right up at the top of its governing body that was so weird, that was so flagrantly salacious and bizarre, that I think it not only reassured American racing fans that Formula 1, yes, really is kind of weird. — Rachel Maddow

So, you tumbled that wolf you were with?" Mercy was too much a pack animal to take offense at the personal question. She grinned. "How did you know it was me?" "Do I look senile to you?"
...
"Yes," Mercy said. "And I'm not doing it again." If she kept telling herself that, maybe her traitorous body would actually notice and shut up with its demands. The older woman gave her a sour look. "Damn shame. What, you like them prettier?" A snort. "In my day, we liked men who looked like men. — Nalini Singh

Emperor held court from his Iron Throne, made from the personal weapons of all those monarchs the Emperors of the past had conquered and deposed, each glazed and guarded against rust. The throne itself was over six feet tall and four feet in width; a monolithic piece of furniture, it was so heavy that it had not been moved so much as a finger-length in centuries. Anyone looking at it could only be struck by its sheer mass - and must begin calculating just how many sword blades, axes, and lance points must have gone into the making of it ... None — Mercedes Lackey

How strange, this habit of weeping. Do animals weep? Surely they feel sadness - but do they express it with tears? He doubts it. He has never heard of a weeping cat or dog, or of a weeping wild animal. It seems to be a uniquely human trait. He doesn't see what purpose it serves. He weeps hard, even violently, and at the end of it, what? Desolate tiredness. A handkerchief soaked in tears and mucus. Red eyes for everyone to notice. And weeping is undignified. It lies beyond the tutorials of etiquette and remains a personal idiom, individual in its expression. The twist of face, quantity of tears, quality of sob, pitch of voice, volume of clamour, effect on the complexion, the play of hands, the posture taken: One discovers weeping - one's weeping personality - only upon weeping. It is a strange discovery, not only to others but to oneself. Resolve — Yann Martel

Sulfuric ether was sweet and hot, pungent and burning to the palate. It did not smell the least, to Nardi, of turpentine, but rather of large, white, oversweet flowers, fat, fleshy, prehistoric in their size and substance. He thought of these flowers as fringed, mouthed, and pistiled with sticky aroma, with pink-tipped, translucent styles and stigmas that moved in flower throats like beckoning fingers. Lush, languorously heavy, meltingly ephemeral, an indulgence to the New World tropics or an Old World greenhouse - something akin to night-blooming cereus. Ether, to him, was the nectar of such flowers, gathered and carried in the mouths of foot-long bumblebees, its aroma as old as Egypt, as modern as white walled hospitals, as personal and familiar as his own vague euphoric befuddlement. — Judy Cuevas

We are about to understand, but have not yet understood. This moment is important because it generally does not lie up to its promise. We abandon the process of reflection. Not much of a decision about the personal meaning of love, justice or success is achieved, and we move on to something else. Looking at Twombly's painting assists us in a crucial thought: 'The part of me that wonders about important questions and then gets confused has not had enough recognition — Alain De Botton

Since the dawn of the twentieth century, we have been told that
the federal government has the answers to solve all of society's problems.
We have been promised, by supposedly serious men who have
sworn an oath before God and man, that if we just give Washington,
D.C., more of our money and more of our personal freedom, the
problems of poverty, illiteracy, racism, unemployment, crime, and
corruption will all be solved. Today, each and every one of these
problems is worse than it has ever been. The federal government and
its blood-sucking bureaucracies do not have a solution to the problem,
they are the problem. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

Happiness, after all, is generally measured as reported satisfaction with one's life - a state of mind perhaps more accessible to those who are affluent, who conform to social norms, who suppress judgment in the service of faith, and who are not overly bothered by societal injustice...The real conservatism of positive psychology lies in its attachment to the status quo, with all its inequalities and abuses of power. Positive psychologists' tests of happiness and well-being, for example, rest heavily on measures of personal contentment with things as they are. — Barbara Ehrenreich

In a poem, melody, or picture, we are forced with a mystery: quality in the metaphysical sense of the word. How could the difference between an original painting and its copy be explained by means of quantity? The original possesses the quality of beauty and 'every copy is ugly'. The difference does not arise from the fact that something has been added or taken away from the copy in the quantitative sense of the word; it lies in the personal touch between the artist and the work of art. Quality can only be 'in touch' with a personality. — Alija Izetbegovic

Make no mistake. The greatest destroyer of ecology. The greatest source of waste, depletion and pollution. The greatest purveyor of violence, war, crime, poverty, animal abuse and inhumanity. The greatest generator of personal and social neurosis, mental disorders, depression, anxiety. Not to mention the greatest source of social paralysis, stopping us from moving into new methodologies for personal health, global sustainability and progress on this planet, is not some corrupt government or legislation.
Not some rogue corporation or banking cartel.
Not some flaw of human nature and not some secret cabal that controls the world.
It is the socioeconomic system itself at its very foundation. — Peter Joseph

I have read all of Daniel Aaron's books, and admired them, but in The Americanist I believe he has composed an intellectual and social memoir for which he will be remembered. His self-portrait is marked by personal tact and admirable restraint: he is and is not its subject. The Americanist is a vision of otherness: literary and academic friends and acquaintances, here and abroad. Eloquently phrased and free of nostalgia, it catches a lost world that yet engendered much of our own. — Harold Bloom

Personal power is something that is not visible. We can see its effects, but we cannot see power itself. In the same way, we see the effects of wind, but we cannot actually see the wind. — Frederick Lenz

And my theory about professional artists was as follows: artists are not necessarily the most creative or inspired individuals in any given community. Instead they are those individuals most willing to exploit their own creativity and inspiration, most willing to gain personal profit from their unconscious and its emanations, those with the most missionary zeal for the dissemination of their own idiosyncratic perspectives. Questions of pure creativity clearly lay elsewhere. — Jacob Wren

If soul does not evolve it is dead ... even if its body still breathes. — T.F. Hodge

Here, then, are some ways we can try to prevent mistakes. We can foster the ability to listen to each other and the freedom to speak our minds. We can create open and transparent environments instead of cultures of secrecy and concealment. And we can permit and encourage everyone, not just a powerful inner circle, to speak up when they see the potential for error.
These measures might be a prescription for identifying and eliminating mistakes, but they sound like something else: a prescription for democracy. That's not an accident. Although we don't normally think of it in these terms, democratic governance represents another method - this time a political rather than an industrial or personal one - for accepting the existence of error and trying to curtail its more dangerous incarnations. — Kathryn Schulz

It was in Spain that [my generation] learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many, the world over, feel the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy. — Albert Camus

I am sure that nothing has such a decisive influence upon a man's course as his personal appearance, and not so much his appearance as his belief in its attractiveness or unattractiveness. — Leo Tolstoy

Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. You have taught us more than anyone I know how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships that change its color, flavor, rhythms, intensities. — Anais Nin

Break out to go out:

The birds dare to break the egg shell
It does so in order to get out of that Hell
When it finally succeeds, it'll then fly
To its comfort zone it'll say bye
Are you being confined in a small space
How long will you remain at that place?
Before you can explore more territories,
Break away from the former glories.
Yesterday's excellence is today's average
You must strive to be better age after age
Never accept the available mediocrity
As the only preferable opportunity
Decide to grow from below to hero
And make it a point to vacate level zero
Reach out and arise with power
God's blessings on you, will shower
Agree to grow, never attempt to be slow
Be not afraid. Never doubt. You'll flow
The grace of God will be your guide
Taking you along, side by side. — Israelmore Ayivor

But the truth about obedience in the kingdom of Jesus, as should be clear by now, is that it really is abundance. Kingdom obedience is kingdom abundance. They are not two separate things. The inner condition of the soul from which strength and love and peace flow is the very same condition that generously blesses the oppressor and lovingly offers the other cheek. These Christlike behaviors are expressions of a pervasive personal strength and its joy, not of weakness, morbidity, sorrow - or raw exertion of will - as is so often assumed. And — Dallas Willard

It is sufficiently evident from many circumstances, that the doctrine of the divinity of Christ did not establish itself without much opposition, especially from the unlearned among the Christians, who thought that it savoured of Polytheism , that it was introduced by those who had had a philosophical education, and was by degrees adopted by others, on account of its covering the great offence of the cross , by exalting the personal dignity of our Saviour. — Joseph Priestley

There comes a point when you begin to connect to the dots, when the chosen paths begin to mean something, when the picture starts to reveal itself. It is probably not at all what you had envisioned, but somewhere deep inside, perhaps you always knew. The journey was there for a reason. Its was there for you and for the others that have traveled along with you. The strength and comfort that comes from that awareness is amazing and beyond words. Once experienced, it becomes the biggest part of you. So let it unfold. Let your life reveal its lessons. Follow your heart, as it will not lead you astray. Find your passion and let its energy run through you in ways you have never experienced. With that, your real life will begin. — Angela Bushman

They who plead an absolute right cannot be satisfied with anything short of personal representation, because all natural rights must be the rights of individuals; as by nature there is no such thing as politic or corporate personality; all these things are mere fictions of law, they are creatures of voluntary institution; men as men are individuals, and nothing else. They, therefore, who reject the principle of natural and personal representation, are essentially and eternally at variance with those who claim it. As to the first sort of reformers, it is ridiculous to talk to them of the British constitution upon any or upon all of its bases; for they lay it down that every man ought to govern himself, and that where he cannot go himself he must send his representative; that all other government is usurpation; and is so far from having a claim to our obedience, it is not only our right, but our duty, to resist it. — Edmund Burke

It has not been without bitter resistance by the clergy that woman's property and educational rights have advanced. Woman's anti-slavery work, her temperance work, her demand for personal rights, for political equality, for religious freedom and every step of kindred character has met with opposition from the church as a body and from the clergy as exponents of its views. — Matilda Joslyn Gage

Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else's snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It's world-creating.

It's raw, exposed dreaming. It's humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next.

It's what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience. — Laurie Perez

the other vices seize individuals, this is the one passion that sometimes takes hold of an entire state. Never has an entire people burned with love for a woman, no state in its entirety has placed its hope in money or profit; ambition seizes men one by one on a personal basis, lack of self-restraint does not afflict a whole people; often they rush to anger in one mass. — Seneca.

Accustomed to the calm aspects of things, she turned, instead, toward the more tumultuous. She loved the sea only for its storms, and greenery only when it grew up here and there among ruins. She needed to derive from things a sort of personal gain; and she rejected as useless everything that did not contribute to the immediate gratification of her heart, - being by temperament more sentimental than artistic, in search of emotions and not landscapes. — Gustave Flaubert

It isn't possible to kill part of your "self" unless you kill yourself first. If you ruin your conscious personality, the so-called ego-personality, you deprive the self of its real goal, namely to become real itself. The goal of life is the realization of the self. If you kill yourself you abolish that will of the self to become real, but it may arrest your personal development inasmuch it is not explained. You ought to realise that suicide is murder, since after suicide there remains a corpse exactly as with any ordinary murder. Only it is yourself that has been killed. — Carl Jung

My mother died of colon cancer one week after my eleventh birthday, and that fact has shaped my life. All that I have become and much that I have not become, I trace directly or indirectly to her death ... In my professional and personal life, I have lived with the awareness of death's imminence for more than half a century, and labored in its constant presence for all but the first decade of that time. — Sherwin B. Nuland

No doubt science cannot admit of compromises, and can only bring out the complete truth. Hence there must be controversy, and the strife may be, and sometimes must be, sharp. But must it even then be personal? Does it help science to attack the man as well as the statement? On the contrary, has not science the noble privilege of carrying on its controversies without personal quarrels? — Rudolf Virchow

She loved the sea for its storms alone, cared for vegetation only when it grew here and there among ruins. She had to extract a kind of personal advantage from things and she rejected as useless everything that promised no immediate gratification - for her temperament was more sentimental than artistic, and what she was looking for was emotions, not scenery. — Gustave Flaubert

In civilized communities, property as well as personal rights are the essential object of the laws, which encourage industry by securing the enjoyment of its fruits: that industry from which property results, and that enjoyment which consists not merely in its immediate use, but in its posthumous destination to objects of choice and of kindred affection. In a just and free government, therefore, the rights both of property and of persons ought to be effectually guarded. — James Madison

Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. It is not about the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and more potent hope becomes.
Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness, the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on all of us. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope's power. Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves. Hope does not separate us from them. Hope sees in our enemy our own face. — Chris Hedges

THIS BOOK DOES not claim to be an account of facts and events but of personal experiences, experiences which millions of prisoners have suffered time and again. It is the inside story of a concentration camp, told by one of its survivors. This tale is not concerned with the great horrors, which have already been described often enough (though less often believed), but with the multitude of small torments. In other words, it will try to answer this question: How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner? — Viktor E. Frankl

And there was a deeper, less visible effect of the Truman loyalty program. Seeing its consequences for certain individuals and fearing its intrusion on their own lives, many in the government sought protection by strongly asserting their anti-Communism. In the public action that ensued, policy was based not on reality but, instinctively or deliberately, on personal caution ... Those who urged a militant and sometimes military anti-Communism were considered sound, trustworthy and personally safe; those who questioned such a course were politically unsafe, possible even slightly disloyal. — John Kenneth Galbraith

In French culture, the best way of buying time or getting off the hook entirely in a thorny personal situation is to claim that it's complicated. The French did not invent love, but they did invent romance, so they've had more time than any other culture on earth to refine the nuances of its language. — Mark Zero

Though not necessarily aware of when we feel purpose and meaning, we are nearly always aware of the sickening feeling when we don't possess them. This isn't an intellectual misapprehension; it is a gut sense of disorientation and a loss of personal direction. Rarely are brute mental effort and self-help pep talks able to rekindle the missing feeling. For most of us, we simply wait patiently, knowing from past experience that the feeling will return in its own sweet time ... Of particular interest is [Tolstoy's] conclusion as to the inability of science and reason to provide a personal sense of meaning. — Robert A. Burton

Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person. Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. In it God shows Himself to us. That He answers prayers is a corollary - not necessarily the most important one - from that revelation. What He does is learned from what He is. — C.S. Lewis

Hollywood keeps before its child audiences a string of glorified young heroes, everyone of whom is an unhesitating and violent Anarchist. His one answer to everything that annoys him or disparages his country or his parents or his young lady or his personal code of manly conduct is to give the offender a "sock" in the jaw ... My observation leads me to believe that it is not the virtuous people who are good at socking jaws. — George Bernard Shaw

There are nations in whom the passion for governing others is so much stronger than the desire of personal independence, that for the mere shadow of the one they are found ready to sacrifice the whole of the other. Each one of their number is willing, like the private soldier in an army, to abdicate his personal freedom of action into the hands of his general, provided the army is triumphant and victorious, and he is able to flatter himself that he is one of a conquering host, though the notion that he has himself any share in the domination exercised over the conquered is an illusion. A government strictly limited in its powers and attributions, required to hold its hands from overmeddling, and to let most things go on without its assuming the part of guardian or director, is not to the taste of such a people. — John Stuart Mill

A man who leaves his wife is also a kind of immigrant. He rejects the home he's always known for another. Is it a surprise that Americans have the highest divorce rate in the world? If ditched lovers are also counted, then our rate of betrayal becomes truly stratospheric. To start over and advance or save ourselves, if only in our minds, we're willing to destroy everything. Soaked in a depthless, sampling culture, we're also expert at forgetting. Not only do we have no historical memory, but our personal past can be willfully and instantly erased, with hardly a ripple in its wake, and there's no one around, no community, to remind us of our shames. Extreme narcissists, we cling to bizarre narratives that allow us to make the most preposterous statements without flinching, or indulge in the most perverse and damaging behaviors. — Linh Dinh

Creative people come often at a stark difference between the kind and the mean spirited. Be they an artist or not in life their personal ingenuity is often a marvel to behold. They create opportunities where none were just seconds prior in existence. Creative souls without flexibility are
an easy hallmark for a tyrant in behavior. The opposite is also true those creative types open to flexibility are usually more often than not easy going in demeanor. When such subcategories of personalities are highly intuitive they also
shift their behavior to match the presence of their peers. Very much like an empathic chameleon able to change its colors so as to fit in out of habit or necessity. — Ivan Alexander Pozo-Illas

We did not find direct evidence that Secretary Hillary Clinton's personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. — James Comey

It seems to me that an often quiet, but often palpable presiding image here ... is the interpretive absorption of the child or adolescent whose sense of personal queerness may or may not (yet?) have resolved ... Such a child - if she reads at all - is reading for important news about herself, without knowing what form that news will take; with only the patchiest familiarity with its codes; without, even, more than hungrily hypothesizing to what questions this news may proffer an answer. — Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick