Live Living Quotes & Sayings

Until we are willing and able to make the connections between what we are eating and what was required to get it on our plate, and how it affects us to buy, serve, and eat it, we will be unable to make the connections that will allow us to live wisely and harmoniously on this earth.When we cannot make connections, we cannot understand, and we are less free, less intelligent, less loving, and less happy. — Will Tuttle

My solo travels in Paris have brought many perfect hours of being alone but not a moment of loneliness. People who depend on other people are often in hiding from themselves. Two and a quarter million people live in the City of Light: you will see many of them and you will pass them in the street, but when you see Notre Dame after dark and walk home and perhaps stop to have a drink in the Marais, you can feel that the only thing that is missing from your experience is the common dependence on someone to distract your attention. You are living without it: you are on vacation. — Andrew O'Hagan

I'm in a little bit of a different situation, because working in the business that I do and living in the city that I live in, I haven't had a problem with people who are gay. Since I was 10 I've been working alongside them, and some of my best friends are gay. — Jason Bateman

wrestling with a curiosity about country living that seemed strangely akin to a homophobic person "struggling with same-sex attraction." As much as I wanted to be a creature of the city, as much as I'd organized my entire life around the overpriced, undersized vagaries of Manhattan living, I sometimes found myself wanting desperately to live on a farm, or at least near one. — Meghan Daum

For students who have not been required to confess that it is easier to learn theology then live it, it is tempting to think maturity is more a matter of knowing in a matter of living — Paul David Tripp

A writer can't just be well-educated or good at research; to build a living, breathing world with interesting characters, you have to write from the gut. I'm not saying you have to live your life like a fantasy adventure. The trick is the ability to synthesize your own everyday experiences into your fiction. Infuse your characters with believable emotions and motivations. Infuse your world with rich sensory detail. For that you have to be in touch with your own existence and your own soul, the dark and the light of it. — Lynn Flewelling

I once read the sentence 'I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache an about lying awake.' That's true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. — C.S. Lewis

A man's usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals insofar as he can.
It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune make for a finer, nobler type of manhood.
Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. — Theodore Roosevelt

If you cannot live with hope and create with intention or be kind to a stranger, bury your head. You are not living at all. — Dawn Garcia

Religion grows with the intelligence of man, but all religions of the past and probably all of the future will sooner or later become petrified forms instead of living helps to mankind. Until that time comes, however, if religion of any name or nature makes man more happy, comfortable, and able to live peaceably with his brothers, it is good. — Luther Burbank

Living well is a courageous act. — Alexandra Stoddard

People who choose to earn money first, people who put off their real plans until later, until they are rich, are not necessarily wrong. People who want only to live, and who reckon living is absolute freedom, the exclusive pursuit of happiness, the sole satisfaction of their desires and instincts, the immediate enjoyment of the boundless riches of the world [ ... ] such people will always be unhappy. It is true [ ... ] that there are people for whom this kind of dilemma does not arise, or hardly arises, either because they are too poor and have no requirements beyond a slightly better diet, slightly better housing, slightly less work, or because they are too rich, from the start, to understand the import or even the meaning of such a distinction. But nowadays and in our part of the world, more and more people are neither rich nor poor: they dream of wealth, and could become wealthy; and that is where their misfortunes begin."
-from "Things: A Story of the Sixties — Georges Perec

A live unexamined isn't worth living. I will add, A life unlived isn't worth examining. — Oscar Wilde

Live in the Acts of the Apostles, and every day you will see some miracle worked by the power of the living God. — Smith Wigglesworth

Hello, Master. I'm running now - but I've had time to reflect on your teachings. You say the living sometimes have to suffer to serve a larger goal. I've seen how you live by that. Well, I have a goal now, too. Justice. For myself, for my friends, for the people sacrificed to the plans of the so-called infallible. And it will definitely involve some suffering. Because, you see, I've had a vision of my own. One day, one of you is going to confess and clear my name. And to make sure, I'm going to hunt down each and every one of you. The one that confesses, lives. I don't care which one of you does it. It doesn't matter where they send you. You have a death mark, same as me. Don't look for me, Lucien. Because I'll find you. And if I do end up collapsing the Jedi Order, just remember one thing. You started it."

-Zayne Carrick, KOTR comics — John Jackson Miller

Nothing I do is thought out or planned or premeditated. It's just that I'm breathing and living! You just have to breathe and live. — Banks

As individuals begin to align with their original intent and live a life on purpose, they invite in their highest guidance. I have come to know that the only way to access the assistance of the ascended masters is to become like them so that they can recognize themselves. It does no good to pray for guidance and help if we're living an ego-centered life. At — Wayne W. Dyer

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

One result of this productive system is that the middle class has grown from being about 15 percent of the population in 1920 to being 86 percent of the population in 2011. While some of the population always seem to live at the poverty line, the vast majority of Americans today are affluent compared to their grandparents. They have the money to buy the products produced by American industry. In the process, the definition of poverty has changed. The majority of Americans who are classified by the government as living at the poverty level have indoor plumbing, color television sets, cell phones, air-conditioning, washers and dryers, microwaves, automobiles, and access to free health care. They are also a significant buying group. — Arthur Hughes

In the car going home, I said, "We should have stayed." Bogie said, "No, we shouldn't. You must always remember we have a life of our own that has nothing to do with Frank. He chose to live the way he's living - alone. It's too bad if he's lonely, but that's his choice. We have our own road to travel, never forget that - we can't live his life. — James Kaplan

You live in a world where you can drive through the drive-thru, flop down in a chair to work all day, and spend your evening on the couch, in front of the TV, before you crawl off to your cozy bed. Even if you work hard all day, your day-to-day living can make your body soft. And that softness is a modern-day killer, the equivalent of the savanna-dweller's lion (actually, the lion was better, since it kept people moving). — Cameron Diaz

Don't go through life with a closed mind. Allow innovations and creativity to flow. We should always challenge ourselves to excel in more ways than one. Be open to ideas or suggestions on how to improve. And, the chances of reaching your goals will increase enormously. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

Time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person's life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps. Afternoons in the sun with someone's hand clutched in one's own. The fragrance of flowerbeds in fresh bloom. Sundays in a cafe. Grandchildren, perhaps. One finds a way of living for the sake of someone else's future. — Fredrik Backman

I've always been someone who's really tried to live in the here and now. My memory isn't very good so maybe that's why, but it just seems like I've been living this life, my current chapter, for a really long time and I don't really remember what it was like before. It's just been sort of ingrained in me. What I deal with day to day. — Jude Law

Understand this: The Bible presents Christ. You have an inner sense of an indwelling Lord. You either have that or you do not. The man God needs will live in a vital, living relationship with Jesus Christ. — Gene Edwards

You can live with almost any condition if you're living within a community of people who can share a common understanding. — Annie Lennox

You can't live life waiting for things to go wrong, because then you're not really living. Everyone is going to die. That is part of the journey of living. What matters most is living each day you do have like it might be yout last. — Missy Johnson

This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark. The growing piles of ashes and cinders in the back yards were the only evidence that the wasteful, consuming process of life went on at all. — Willa Cather

Take away religion, take away philosophy, take away the higher aims of art, and you deprive ordinary people of the ways in which they can represent their apartness. Human nature, once something to live up to, becomes something to live down to instead. Biological reductionism nurtures this 'living down', which is why people so readily fall for it. It makes cynicism respectable and degeneracy chic. It abolishes our kind, and with it our kindness. — Roger Scruton

They were empowered and fulfilled. They dated occasionally but were just as happy living the feminist dream of a professional woman not answerable to any man. Do what they wanted to, go where they wanted to and spend indecent amount of money on clothes and shoes, it was all good. There were not slaves to diets, shaving hairy legs, waxing eyebrows, dying their roots, endless showers, applying tons of make-up and trying to be domestic goddesses. They could slum around in leisure suits and runners reading Cosmo with a fag in their mouth and a cup of coffee in their hands. There could be slummy mummies or tidy queens or takeaway junkies it all depended on their daily rota and social live. Good, freedom was definitely good. One husband in a lifetime was enough for them — Annette J. Dunlea

It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, to-morrow, and dying to-day, insolvent ... — Henry David Thoreau

Selfishness is not living your life as you wish to live it. Selfishness is wanting others to live their lives as you wish them to. — Oscar Wilde

The way to happiness: Keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Scatter sunshine, forget self, think of others. Try this for a week and you will be surprised. — Norman Vincent Peale

For the first time Topper's established routine of living gave place to a disorderly desire to live. — Thorne Smith

Tact is an ability to live in the midst of ugliness without getting ugly. — Debasish Mridha

May God grant your a great grace to live the fullness of life in the coming year. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Necessity demands that one should carefully examine who it is that comes to the position of spiritual authority; and coming solemnly to this point, how he should live; and living well, how he should teach; and teaching rightly, with what kind of self-examination he should learn of his own weakness. — Gregory The Great

Once you consider the premise that Episodes I through III are not live-action movies with extensive special effects, but rather animated features with a few living actors rotoscoped in, many of the more common critical objections to the movies simply wither away. — David Brin

Hello. It is Monday. I live in Sun City. Sun City is a city that is entirely contained inside an enormous concrete building in the shape of a sun. Its rays house our living quarters; its circular centre is where we work and shop. No one has ever been outside of the city; it is generally suspected that the environment outside of the city is uninhabitable. — Mike Russell

We live in a self-organizing and self-correcting universe. For every problem, there is a potentially miraculous solution. A closed heart deflects the miracle, while an open heart brings it forth ... In every moment, we make a choice between the heavenly awareness of our connection to all living things, or the hell of the delusion that we are separate and alone. The mind will manufacture according to our choice; whichever we choose, we will seem to experience. — Marianne Williamson

And, I think: I am but one more drop in the great sea of matter, defined, with the ability to realize my existence. Of the millions, I, too, was potentially everything at birth. I, too, was stunted, narrowed, warped, by my environment, my outcroppings of heredity. I, too, will find a set of beliefs, of standards to live by, yet the very satisfaction of finding them will be marred by the fact that I have reached the ultimate in shallow, two-dimensional living - a set of values. — Sylvia Plath

Live a fearless life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Living out one's faith is either no way to live or the only way to live; it's either imprisonment, or the only path to freedom. It offers happiness, or it frustrates the pursuit. There is no half-love, half-religion, half-worship, half-belief, half-truth. There is no kinda-sorta. — Tarek Saab

The A-B-C's of Living Life's Purpose: A=Accept all things you can't change. B=Be Grateful for all that you have. C=Constantly create progress towards to your goals & dreams. — Hal Elrod

But being brave isn't about living every minute exhilarated. It's about waking up and knowing that despite the worry and the sadness and the deep, dark fear, you're going to go forth anyway. That you're going to try anyway. That you have a choice, and you're going to choose to live, today, bravely. — E. Katherine Kottaras

Ever since our Surfin' Safari' began in the early 1960's, the relations'hip with The Beach Boys and water has been synonymous. 'Surfin', 'Catch a Wave', and 'Surfin' USA' are songs which capture the feelings of being out in the water without a care in the world, living a dream so many long to live no matter where they are from. — Mike Love

I wanted to know if we could live in that state of love, not just every so often, but as an ongoing reality. The answer is YES. There are people who are doing just that, and I wanted to share with the world how they're consistently living in a state of love. — Marci Shimoff

Rows of books around me stand,
Fence me in on either hand;
Through that forest of dead words
I would hunt the living birds
So I write these lines for you
Who have felt the death-wish too,
All the wires are cut, my friends
Live beyond the severed ends. — Louis MacNeice

I won't lie to you. This changes things. It may even change you. I know it will change me."
"I guess it's a reminder of the uncertainty in life and the foolishness of merely existing when the world is pleading with you to live. If you take anything from this, please take that. We take life for granted. We have to stop that. We have to start living. — Samantha Young

When we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we are, in a measure, shutting tomorrow out of our prayer. We do not live in tomorrow but in today. We do not seek tomorrow's grace or tomorrow's bread. They thrive best, and get most out of life, who live in the living present. They pray best who pray for today's needs, not for tomorrow's, which may render our prayers unnecessary and redundant by not existing at all! — E. M. Bounds

You must not die. You must not die by any hand, but least of all your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not die. For if he is still with the quick Undead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy. By the day, or the night, in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not die. Nay, nor think of death, till this great evil be past. — Bram Stoker

The most basic activism we can have in our lives is to live consciously in a nation living in fantasies. Living consciously is living with a core of healthy self-esteem. You will face reality, you will not delude yourself. — Bell Hooks

The struggle is not lost. I believe we have to live, as long as we live, in the expectation and hope of changing the world for the better. That may sound naive. It may even sound sentimental. Never mind: I believe it. What are we to live for, except life itself? And, with all our doubts, with all our flaws, with all our problems, I believe that we will carry on, with God's help. — Margaret Laurence

Live like you were dying, Love because you are. — Mark Green

While living I want to live well. — Geronimo

Make art and live simply. — Shawn Lukas

For years, i lived my life, waiting for the other shoe to drop ... i thought control was something i could have over my life. My goal was to live life, in such a way, that i would never again have to suffer any form of trauma or abuse that would remind me of my painful past. I was living life on a tightrope of tension. I was only happy when things went smoothly and came apart at the seams when i was thrown a curveball.
NOW, i realize, that the key to happiness is surrendering to the illusion of control. And to trust that, no matter what happens to me, i have the infinite inner-wisdom and strength to find my way through. — Jaeda DeWalt

After living in LA for 8 years, I sort of wanted a change, but there's not much production in New York, which is where I primarily live, so I just sort of drifted over to London. — Alex Winter

No one who works for a living should live in poverty. — Edward Kennedy

My problem is that my body acts before my brain thinks ... it sometimes brings me huge trouble, or also huge success. recently, my body and brain got come to an agreement. it may be far better to live this gambling life than living in boring average ... they at least make my art more interesting — Hiroko Sakai

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book ... or you take a trip ... and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken. — Anais Nin

What does it mean to be human, to continue to live as human, to remain _faithful_ to the Divine while living in a cultural, sociogeopoltical, and religious world where power disparity between/among humans based on religious world where power disparity between/among humans based on their nationality, citizenship, gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, religion and so forth still prevails? The act of _theologizing_ for me involves responding to these questions and stimulating the practice of liberating and enlarging human possibility in our daily reality. — Namsoon Kang

There are three motives for which we live; we live for the body, we live for the mind, we live for the soul. No one of these is better or holier than the other; all are alike desirable, and no one of the three - body, mind, or soul - can live fully if either of the others is cut short of full life and expression. — Wallace D. Wattles

If we continue to live as we are living, will the promised blessings be fulfilled? — Carlos A. Godoy

Most people's greatest regret is not living the life they knew they could live. — Todd Stocker

In order to live a life worth leading, you must first lead a life worth living. — Chief Long Spear Who Hunts Beavers

There's too much judgment out there. Really what we need to be doing is just all of us finding our own paths towards living the best lives we can live as clearly and boldly in accordance with our own personal values. And that's what I'm trying to do. — Cory Booker

Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark. — Amos Oz

I necessarily fear change except that it's so seldom for the better. It's just that I can live with any number of things going straight to hell as long as these streams continue to hold up. If this amounts to living in a fool's paradise, don't waste your time trying to explain that to the fool. — John Gierach

Life is about living, and I intend to live it to the fullest, don't you? — Sam Crescent

Why can't we all live together in love and in peace? — Lailah Gifty Akita

The great men of earth are the shadow men, who, having lived and died, now live again and forever through their undying thoughts. Thus living, though their footfalls are heard no more, their voices are louder than the thunder, and unceasing as the flow of tides or air. — Henry Ward Beecher

The woman who truly intends to live a good life is already living phenomenally since intent is part of the achievement. — Maya Angelou

The attitude of gratitude is the highest way of living, and is the biggest truth, the highest truth. You cannot live with applied consciousness until you understand that you have to be grateful for what you have. If you are grateful for what you have, then Mother Nature will give you more. — Harbhajan Singh Yogi

Living your life constructs your soul, not a few seconds of daily prayer. — James Cook

Live by your own sacred standard. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible; to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance, to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit. — Dawna Markova

People who simply live their life and care only about bearing children are under the influence of a misbelief that they are people — Sunday Adelaja

Focus forward, not around you.
In the moment;
Not behind you.
Don't grimace in the whys,
Relish in 'Yes-es;' - Be Positive ...
When you amplify the goods,
you'll see bads as infinitesimally minuscule.
Glorify and Cleanse ... first and foremost ,
YOUR perception.
#levitate — Tiffany Luard

I'd think it strange that the boardinghouse attracted both him and me, but that's what cheap places do
draw in people with no money. An apartment of my own was unthinkable at that time of my life, and even if I'd found an affordable one it wouldn't have satisfied my fundamental need to live in a communal past, or what I imagined the past to be like: a world full of antiques. — David Sedaris

When you live as I do, you cannot indulge in jealousy. If you do, it will rip you apart. — David Levithan

What is it that makes us who we are and what we are? Is it only our blood, the color of our hair, our skin, and our eyes? Or is it believing in what we believe and living the way we live? — Aleksandra Layland

It is possible to be solitary in one's mind while living in a crowd, and it is possible for one who is solitary to live in the crowd of his own thoughts. — Syncletica Of Alexandria

Live together as united people in a beautiful peaceful world. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Your life is not meant to be lived in a way to satisfy someone's expectation out of you! Live your life in your own way. — Avijeet Das

We live first and find reasons later. — Marty Rubin

How to earn a viable standard of living while giving vent to their desire to perform creative activities is the quintessential challenge for modern humans. Some people settle for jobs filled with drudgery and in their free time immerse themselves in hobbies that provide them with personal happiness. Other people prefer to find work that makes them happy, even if this occupation requires them to live a more modest standard of living. The greater their impulse is for curiosity and creativity, the less likely that a person will exchange personal happiness for economic security. — Kilroy J. Oldster

For the first time in memory, I was unable to sleep not because I was anxious but because I was excited. To live in a damp crowded asshole and sing
if these guys don't know the secret to living, I don't know who does. (The Grieving Owl, page 157) — David Sedaris

First I was dying to finish high school and start college.
And then I was dying to finish college and start working.
And then I was dying to marry and have children.
And then I was dying for my children to grow old enough for school so I could return to work.
And then I was dying to retire.
And now, I am dying ... and suddenly I realize I forgot to live. — Anonymous

Beaten biscuits: This is the most laborious of cakes, and also the most unwholesome, even when made in the best manner. We do not recommend it; but there is no accounting for tastes. Children would not eat these biscuits-nor grown persons either, if they can get any other sort of bread. When living in a town where there are bakers, there is no excuse for making Maryland biscuit. Believe nobody that says they are not unwholesome ... Better to live on Indian cakes. — Eliza Leslie

Words are words. People add meaning to words.
Information is information. With words people add value to information.
Words breathe life into information. Words move mountains of information.
Words are action. Momentum for living evolves from pursuit of deeper, wider and higher significance, utility and value of words.
Words we sow, nourish and harvest feed hungry minds and hearts. Gathered words strengthen, ignite and release us.
Words identify, signify and proclaim our individuality. Words pronounce a purposeful life's choices.
With wisdom, courage and patience we must choose high-performing words for long-term relationships. Chosen words become soul mates. — John R. Dallas Jr.

We thought the hard part was over - but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you're all busted up inside and out - there is nothing harder. — Paullina Simons

I would sooner have the approval of my own conscience and know that I had done my duty than to have the praise of all the world and not have the approval of my own conscience. A man's own conscience, when he is living as he should live, is the finest monitor and the best judge in all the world. Men can accuse you of wrong-doing, and it has no effect at all if you know they lie and you have done that which is right — Heber J. Grant

The Bible admonishes us to live each day fully - not living in the past or the future. But God never intends for us to walk blindly from day to day. He expects us to discern what He is doing and what He desires. He intends for us to have a capacity to see beneath the surface of life and to expose and analyze the unseen. — Charles F. Stanley

There are those who say that spiritual enlightenment is achieved through the denial of oneself; you must deny yourself many things, go and live in a mountaintop, never mingle with other people, talk to the birds..but I say to you, why should you dismantle your home? Where is the meaning in removing the bricks from your walls one by one? What is the purpose in uprooting your floors? Is there any significance in only allowing yourself a tin roof and a muddy bed? Why deny your house its structure? A truly enlightened soul is strong enough, is bright enough to live and shine through, even in a beautiful house! There is no need to ransack the house in order to see an inner beauty etched against a distraught surrounding. A bright and beautiful soul can shine forth even from inside an equally beautiful surrounding. — C. JoyBell C.

Without living, there will be no learning. Without learning, there will be no growth. Without growth, there will be no change. The only way you learn is by trying. You may make mistakes but you have to remember that doing so will lead to change. Be willing to learn from experiences, grow and live to become better not bitter. — Kemi Sogunle

If you dread tomorrow it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up being today don't you see ... We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters: to build something now at any price using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and so we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present with real plans made by living people. — Muriel Barbery

No one has it all figured out, especially not the people who are acting like they do and judging you because of it. Pretending to be something you aren't because you're trying to please a bunch of judgmental hypocrites and shitheads is not the way to be happy. Living the life you want to live is. It really is that simple. — Tucker Max

But are you finding monastic history a very compelling reason to live?"
"I'm not human," he said. "I don't require a reason to live. Living is my default condition."
I couldn't help it; I laughed, and teas weleld in my eyes. That answer was quintessentially Orma, distilled to his elemental Orma-ness. — Rachel Hartman

The justification for those actions was that we were living in a very hard, predatory, cloak-and-dagger world and that the only way to deal with a totalitarian enemy was to intimidate him. The trouble with this theory was that while we live in a world of plot and counterplot, we also live in a world of cause and effect. Whatever the cause for the decision to legitimize and regularize deceit abroad, the inevitable effect was the practice of deceit at home. — Norman Cousins