No Tension Quotes & Sayings

No painting can exist without the tension of what it figures and what it concretely consists of. The pleasure of what it could mean and the pain of what it's not. — Marlene Dumas

I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing. For this reason the sadness too passes: the new thing in us, the added thing, has entered into our heart, has gone into its inmost chamber and is not even there any more, - is already in our blood. And we do not learn what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing has happened, and yet we have changed, as a house changes into which a guest has entered. — Rainer Maria Rilke

The desire for perfect release and the real-world impossibility of perfect, whenever-you-want-it release had together produced a tension they could no longer stand. — David Foster Wallace

As a general rule, no one should ever be allowed to say there is no history of racial tension here, because that sentence has never been true anywhere on Earth, — John Oliver

At the heart of racism stands Satan, not man. No one is more pleased by the racial tension in the world than God's ultimate enemy. I'm sure he marvels at how shallow we humans tend to be, by hating one another simply because of skin color! If you are a child of the Most High God and you are fighting in this war of division and hatred (even if only in thought), you are fighting for the enemy.

If this is you, you need to repent of this sin and start seeing others the way God sees them, as made in His image. If not, Satan will keep stirring your mind with thoughts that will not only further stoke the burning hatred of racism deep within you, it will put even more distance between you and the One who saw your unformed body before the foundations of the world, and knit you together in your mother's womb. — Patrick Higgins

A meditator cannot smoke, for the simple reason that he never feels nervous, in anxiety, in tension. Smoking helps - on a momentary basis - to forget about your anxieties, your tensions, your nervousness. Other things can do the same - chewing gum can do the same, but smoking does it the best. In your deep unconscious, smoking is related with sucking milk from your mother's breast. And as civilization has grown, no woman wants the child to be brought up by breast-feeding - naturally; he will destroy the breast. The breast will lose its roundness, its beauty. — Rajneesh

To truly accept a thing one must have no inner tension about it. — Will Advise

She sat at the window of the train ... The window frame trembled with the speed of the motion, the pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while ... She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up ... It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance. She thought: For just a few moments
while this lasts
it is all right to surrender completely
to forget everything and just permit yourself to feel. She thought: Let go
drop the controls
this is it. — Ayn Rand

He foll0wed her as she crossed to the four-station apparatus. His attention was glued to her butt the whole way. realizing what he was doing, he snapped his gaze away and checked to make sure no one had noticed.
Nope. They were all too busy staring at Jamie's butt. — Sarah Mayberry

Joe hid his grin. "A little grab-ass is not accosting." At the worst of times, Luna could amuse him. And now he finally had her where he wanted her.
...
Her mesmerizing eyes shone with annoyance and disbelief. "I barely knew you, Joe. I brought you a sandwich, and half a minute later you had your hands all over me."
Despite his aches and pains, the memory warmed Joe. Locking onto her gaze, he said in his defense, "You have that kind of bottom, honey. All round and soft."
Her color deepened. "Of all the stupid, sexist
"
"It's irresistible," Joe insisted, and meant it. "It begs for a man's hands. It
" There looked to be an explosion imminent, so Joe wisely let that go for now and instead distracted her. "And for your information, no. I didn't get beat up by a woman." He snorted. "How absurd is that?"
"I dunno." Her body vibrated with tension. "I'm ready to beat you up."
-Joe and Luna — Lori Foster

I know positively - yes Rieux I can say I know the world inside out as no one on earth is free from it. And I know too that we must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in careless moment we breathe in somebody's face and fasten the infection on him. What's natural is the microbe. All the rest- health integrity purity if you like - is a product of the human will of vigilance that must never falter. The good man the man who infects hardly anyone is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention. And it needs tremendous will-power a never ending tension of the mind to avoid such lapses. Yes Rieux it's a wearying business being plague-stricken. But it's still more wearying to refuse to be it. That's why everybody in the world today looks so tired everyone is more or less sick of plague. But that is also why some of us who want to get the plague out of their systems feel such desperate weariness a weariness from which nothing remains to set us free except death. — Albert Camus

In music, consonant chords are point of arrival. Rest. There's no tension. Most pop music hooks are consonant, which is why most people like them. They're catchy but interchangeable. Boring. Dissonant Intervals, however are full of tension, you can't predict which way they're going to go. It makes limited people uncomfortable
frustrated, because they don't understand the point, and people hate what they don't understand. But the ones who get it,"
he said, lifting a hand to my face,
"find it fascinating. Beautiful."
He traced the shape of my mouth with his thumb.
"Like you. — Michelle Hodkin

When you have no intention then you have no tension! Be flexible. — Mooji

There's always been a lot of pressure and tension on the line. If 'Pi' didn't work out, I have no idea what my career would be. I don't think I would have gotten another shot at it. If 'Requiem for a Dream' didn't work out, they would have called me a 'one-hit wonder with a sophomore slump'. — Darren Aronofsky

You are no one in my life," she said in a voice fraught with tension. "You cannot tell me what to - "
"Oh, I can," he bit out, his voice a gravelly purr that abraded her skin and sparked something inside her. His hand slid around her nape and hauled her closer. His pirate's eyes swallowed her up and forced all the air out from her lungs in one great rush. "I will."
She opened her mouth to protest, but his mouth covered hers. Claimed her. It was the only word for it. This was a taking. And she the taken. — Sophie Jordan

Dylan, in her skintight black jeans, safety-pinned shirt, and bulky armbands, with her hair sticking out in every direction and that black freshly smeared around her eyes, doesn't just smile, doesn't just walk toward Maddy and put her arms around her. No. Instead, every muscle in her whole body seems to lose all tension, her step forward resembles a skip, and she lets out a hey that might as well say, I love you, you are so beautiful, no one in the world is as amazing as you are. — Nina LaCour

Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? Nothing else. Tell me then, you men, do you wish to live in error? We do not. No one who lives in error is free. Do you wish to live in fear? Do you wish to live in sorrow? Do you wish to live in tension? By no means. No one who is in a state of fear or sorrow or tension is free, but whoever is delivered from sorrows or fears or anxieties, he is at the same time also delivered from servitude. — Epictetus

He tightened his arms, not wanting Ty to move away. "It's more than just fucking around now," he said. "Isn't it?" He made sure the tone of his voice emphasized that it wasn't really a question. Ty was motionless in response. He didn't even seem to be breathing. The silence stretched on, edging toward tension. Finally, he let out his breath quietly and lowered his head. "No," he lied blithely, just as he'd done in a hotel in New York City over a year ago. Zane chuckled. A classic Grady response, and definitely the one he preferred to hear. A "yes" just might have given him a heart attack. He held Ty close. "You owe me." "Owe you?" Ty repeated in a rough, questioning voice as Zane felt his heartbeat begin to speed up. "Mm hmm. How I've wanted you," Zane breathed. "It scares the hell out of me." "I know," Ty murmured as he turned in place and nuzzled against Zane's neck. — Abigail Roux

Futurists are already predicting the day mankind builds its replacement, Artificial Intelligence. Daniel Wilson shows what might happen when that computer realizes its creators are no longer needed. Lean prose, great characters, and almost unbearable tension ensure that Robopocalypse is going to be a blockbuster. Once started I defy anyone to put it down. — Jack Du Brul

Data matters. It's the very essence of what we care about. Personal data is not equivalent to a real person - it's much better. It takes no space, costs almost nothing to maintain, lasts forever, and is far easier to replicate and transport. Data is worth more than its weight in gold - certainly so, since data weighs nothing; it has no mass. Data about a person is not as valuable as the person, but since the data is so much cheaper to manage, it's a far better investment. Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at The Atlantic, points out that a user's data can be purchased for about half a cent, but the average user's value to the Internet advertising ecosystem is estimated at $1,200 per year. Data's value - its power, its meaning - is the very thing that also makes it sensitive. The more data, the more power. The more powerful the data, the more sensitive. So the tension we're feeling is unavoidable. — Eric Siegel

And if the child feels loved, the body is relaxed, the eyes are bright, there is a smile on the face; in some way the flesh becomes "transparent." A child that is loved is beautiful. But what happens when children feel they are not loved? There is tension, fear, loneliness and terrible anguish, which we can call "inner pain," the opposite of "inner peace." Children are too small and weak to be able to fend for themselves; they have no defense mechanisms. If a child feels unloved and unwanted, he or she will develop a broken self-image. I have never heard any of the men or women whom we have welcomed into our community criticize their parents, even though many of them have suffered a great deal from rejection or abandonment in their families. Rather than blaming their parents, they blame themselves. "If I am not loved, it is because I am not lovable, I am no good. I am evil. — Jean Vanier

One of the things that adds tension to our lives is small frustrations. Losing car keys can give you a panic attack. Not being able to find a comb when you get out of the shower, losing scissors and nail clippers, can make you fight with your roommate. The problem is that we think that these things are not supposed to happen to us. And that's what makes us tense. We think we can avoid these frustrations by making ourselves and others be more careful. I like to take the opposite tack-to assume that these things are a part of life and that they will happen no matter what. — Jennifer James

Believing that no one is better than the other. You know I grew up in the South. My senior year there was a very big racial tension. — Herschel Walker

Left alone, I am overtaken by the northern void-no wind, no cloud, no track, no bird, only the crystal crescents between peaks, the ringing monuments of rock that, freed from the talons of ice and snow, thrust an implacable being into the blue. In the early light, the rock shadows on the snow are sharp; in the tension between light and dark is the power of the universe. This stillness to which all returns, this is reality, and soul and sanity have no more meaning than a gust of snow; such transience and insignificance are exalting, terrifying, all at once ... Snow mountains, more than sea or sky, serve as a mirror to one's own true being, utterly still, utterly clear, a void, an Emptiness without life or sound that carries in Itself all life, all sound. — Peter Matthiessen

No, what they want is to experience a passion so huge, overwhelming, powerful and irresistible that it obliterates any guilt or tension or culpability they might feel about betraying their perceived responsibilities. — David Foster Wallace

Saw a film on cancer yesterday, shown by the English delegation. No doubt about it. I'm right. "Migratory cancer cells" are amoebic formations. They are produced from disintegrating tissue and thus demonstrate the law of tension and charge in its purest form - as does the orgastic convulsion.
Now money is a must - cancer the main issue - in every respect, even political.
It was a staggering experience. My intuition is good. I depend on it. Was absolutely driven to buy a microscope. The sight of the cancer cells was exactly as I had previously imagined it, had almost physically felt it would be. Cancer is an autoinfection of the body, of an organ. And researchers have no idea of what, hor, or where!! — Wilhelm Reich

What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh. — Steve Martin

Excitement is interwoven with uncertainty, and with our willingness to embrace the unknown rather than to shield ourselves from it. But this very tension leaves us feeling vulnerable. I caution my patients that there is no such thing as safe sex. — Esther Perel

A lot of actors say that no villain wants to be a villain, generally. They don't might being evil, maybe, but they have an agenda that they can justify. Otherwise, a little bit of that tension goes, if you're just a villain and everyone hates you because you're mean. — Liam McIntyre

No attempt should be made to "reconcile" Yahweh's hardening of Pharaoh's heart (plagues 6,8,9,10) with statements in the other plagues that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
The tension cannot be resolved in a facile manner by suggesting, for example, that Pharaoh has already demonstrated his recalcitrance, so Yahweh merely helps the process along, or that he is doing what Pharaoh would have done on his own anyway. Rather, 9:12 is a striking reminder of what God has been trying to teach Moses and Israel since the beginning of the Exodus episode: He is in complete control. However Pharaoh might have reacted is given the chance is not brought into the discussion. He is not even given that chance. Yahweh hardens his heart. It is best to allow the tension of the text to remain. — Peter Enns

It wasn't to be endured! For half an hour, the Captain shot off salvo after salvo of the very worst sort of profanity. He started with the sun and ran down the list of planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, to the very meteors themselves. He was starting on the nearer fixed stars, when he collapsed from sheer nervous exhaustion. He was so excited that he never thought to ask us what we were doing in the storeroom in the first place, and for that Whitefield and I were duly grateful.
But Captain Bartlett is no fool. Having purged his system of its nervous tension, he saw clearly that that which cannot be cured must be endured. — Isaac Asimov

Yet a man assumes that a woman's refusal is just part of a game. Or, at any rate, a lot of men assume that. When a man says no, it's no. When a woman says no, it's yes, or at least maybe. There is even a joke to that effect. And little by little, women begin to believe in this view of themselves. Finally, after centuries of living under the shadow of such assumptions, they no longer know what they want and can never make up their minds about anything. And men, of course, compound the problem by mocking them for their indecisiveness and blaming it on biology, hormones, premenstrual tension. — Erica Jong

They have a baby grand piano, but no one in the family plays. They have shelves of books they've never read, and the tension between the couples was so thick it nearly choked us. — Ruta Sepetys

I suspect the next 10 years will be years of turmoil and hardship the globe over, and with that will come a surge in a certain kind of American patriotism. Therefore, American Christians will be challenged to remember where our true fealty lies. I'm not saying there's no place for patriotism. But Christians are people whose first allegiance cannot be to a nation-state, not to any nation-state. Increased geopolitical tension may tempt us to forget that. — Lauren F. Winner

There was a pause. "I thought - I thought you were going to try to open the gate. Not that I want to push you, but ... I don't know, I think it's the right thing to do."
I scowled up at the ceiling, picking at the rug under my fingers. "Well, yeah, it probably is, but is pisses me off that they're just assuming I will."
Lend laughed, the sound making some of the tension in my shoulders relax. "Yeah, that's paranormals for you. Always bossing people around. Prophecies this, prophecies that."
"And do any of their prophecies say please? No, not a single one. — Kiersten White

Superb accuracy in water measurement, Jessica thought. And she noted that the walls of the meter trough held no trace of moisture after the water's passage. The water flowed off those walls without binding tension. She saw a profound clue to Fremen technology in the simple fact: they were perfectionists. — Frank Herbert

Going home means getting comfortable being who you are and who your soul really wants to be. There is no strain with that. The strain and tension come when we're not being who our soul wants to be and we're someplace where our soul doesn't feel at home. — Melody Beattie

His smile is beautiful. It's the kind of smile that can take away all nervousness and tension in a room, no matter how big. I have no choice but to smile back. — S. Elle Cameron

The tension between 'yes' and 'no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot', makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self. — Anatole Broyard

There's a sense you get from the Coens' work, like 'No Country for Old Men,' where you put these characters in situations, and you just let this painful amount of time take place. Part of the tension is just how long it takes to get out of that scene. — Noah Hawley

Have you tried calling her?" Daryl asked, easing the tension around us only slightly. "No," I answered, shaking my head. "Only texts." "What the fuck is with your generation? A phone is for talking. You know, with your voice? You think she wants to hear from you through misspelled words? She wants to hear you, man. Call her. — K.M. Scott

Another intruder that plagues our good health is sleeplessness. Insomnia is much like constipation in that stress or nervous tension can bring it on or aggravate it until there's almost no coping with it. That's why you find sleeping pills in so many medicine cabinets next to the laxatives. — Jack LaLanne

Non-violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored ... I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, and there is a type of constructive tension that is necessary for growth. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In adventure books there weren't awkward pauses or embarrassing social scenes. In morality plays and farces there were rarely serious discussions of racial tension, mob mentality, pogroms, or plague. In scientific books there were no dinnertime revelations of a terrible matter. Life is a strange mix of all these genres... and it doesn't have nearly as neat and happy ending as you often get in books. — Liz Braswell

There are some aspects of work you need to keep working on and no matter what environment you are in. Continuous learning is very important. It's what I call 'competitive tension', which is about having a competition around. — Viswanathan Anand

For nearly twenty years, Bismarck preserved the peace and eased international tension with his moderation and flexibility. But he paid the price of misunderstood greatness, for his successors and would-be imitators could draw no better lesson from his example than multiplying arms and waging a war which would cause the suicide of European civilization. — Henry Kissinger

It's tough to be a 15- or 16-year-old athlete competing around the country. There's tension, there's media. I had no idea what I was getting into. — Lance Armstrong

The gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move towards the vision. We call this gap creative tension. — Peter Senge

No matter how hard we strive for objectivity, writers are biased toward tension - those moments in which character is forged and revealed. — Brad Stone

By the time they passed Malindi in the early-afternoon hours, Munroe could feel the syntax, the grammar, the resonance of patterns of the country's lingua franca beginning to form, could feel the tension relaxing now that the key to the aural lock had been handed over, and soon enough, over time and of its own accord, her ability to speak would grow and she would rapidly become more and more fluent.

This same poisonous gift - this savant like ability to visualize the way the words configured into shapes - had defined her life and turned her into what she was now. Without language, there would have been no gunrunning, without gunrunning no nights in the jungle fighting off the worst of human predators, without the nights, no instinct of self-preservation and the speed and the need to kill that had marked her every moment, waking and sleeping, since. — Taylor Stevens

If a person can accept reality as it is, in that very acceptance, all tension disappears. Anguish, anxiety, despair - they all simply evaporate. And when there is no anxiety, no tension, no fragmentariness, no division, no schizophrenia, then suddenly there is joy. Then suddenly there is love, then suddenly there is compassion. These are not ideals; these are very natural phenomena. — Osho

There is no knowing beyond that membrane, the meniscus of death. What can be seen from here is distorted, refracted. All we can know are those untrustworthy glimpses
that and rumour. The prattle. The dead gossip: it is the reverberation of that gossip against the surface tension of death that the better mediums hear. It is like listening to whispered secrets through a toilet door. It is a crude and muffled susurrus. — China Mieville

We don't like to hurt. And there is no worse pain for fallen people than facing an emptiness we cannot fill. To enter into pain seems rather foolish when we can run from it through denial. We simply cannot get it through our head that, with a nature twisted by sin, the route to joy always involves the very worst sort of internal suffering we can imagine. We rebel at that thought. We weren't designed to hurt. The physical and personal capacities to feel that God built into us were intended to provide pleasures, like good health and close relationships. When they don't, when our head throbs with tension and our heart is broken by rejection, we want relief. With deep passion, we long to experience what we were designed to enjoy. — Larry Crabb

You'll be angry, but I'm going to ask anyway. Will you marry me?' The unsupported voice, the one that happened when he couldn't breathe, but had to speak.
I nudged his hands apart to see his face, and found it faintly overcast by tension. 'No,' I said gently,
He blinked again and asked, his voice unaltered, 'May I ask you once a year, every seventh of December, in case the answer changes?'
'Yes. I don't think it will.'
'Oh. I only ask because I hate the thought of not having breakfast with you for the rest of my life.'
'My dear,' I said. 'Jamie. That's a different question.'
'Oh. Will you have breakfast with me for the rest of my life?'
'Probably. — Steven Brust

If you have had no tension in your life, never been screwed up by problems, your mortality well within your own grasp, and someone tells you that God so loved you that He gave His Son to die for you, nothing but good manners will keep you from being amused. — Oswald Chambers

When you're making music or playing a song, I find the moments when there are no instruments being played even stronger than when they are being played. Because they add tension. It's also an ego-less thing - a place where you have no ego - when you're with a bunch of musicians who stop and listen instead. — Sarah McLachlan

Vitality, understood both somatically and mentally, is itself the medium that contains a gradient between more and less. It therefore contains the vertical component that guides ascents within itself, and has no need of additional external or metaphysical attractors. That God is supposedly dead is irrelevant in this context. With or without God, each person will only get as far as their form carries them.
Naturally 'God', during the time of his effective cultural representation, was the most convincing attractor for those forms of life and practice which strove 'towards Him' - and this towards-Him was identical to 'upwards'. Nietzsche's concern to preserve vertical tension after the death of God proves how seriously he took his task as the 'last metaphysician', without overlooking the comical aspect of his mission. He had found his great role as a witness to the vertical dimension without God. — Peter Sloterdijk

This process of being mature in an anxious organisation has been likened to learning to sail against the wind; and as any sailor will tell you, this requires concentration and tolerating some tension as the wind pressures the vessel to let it take over the controls. Good skippers know how to tolerate sufficient tension to keep a steady course. They don't try to overpower their vessel with too much sail in order to get to the finish line faster, as they know this will inevitably knock them backwards. They also know not to panic and retreat to the safe harbour of familiarity. They focus on their key tasks of setting the course and letting the crew know their intensions so that each person can get on with focusing on their own tasks. There's only one path to growing this ability: through patient, thoughtful perseverance in the midst of experience ... no short cuts to be found. — Jenny Brown

Of course, an exhausting day at sail lines and nets left little energy to expend on running or laughing. Perhaps that was why her parents couldn't appreciate her music-it wouldn't appear to be hard work to them. Menolly shook her hands, letting them flap from her wrists. They ached and trembled from the constricted movements and tension of an hour of intensive playing. No, her parents would never understand that playing musical instruments could be as hard work as sailing or fishing. — Anne McCaffrey

No mention, no tension, free mind. — Bhima

No expectations, no tension between goals and performance, no outrage, resolve or intention, no action, no results. There's only one way to get a government - and a nation - to stop drifting to low performance. That's to wake up and insist on higher standards. — Donella Meadows

She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance. — Ayn Rand

The night before I married you your father made me promise to always take care of you." I laughed a little, easily able to picture my tall, burly father cornering the young knight I had fallen in love with. "To the best of my ability I have kept that promise." I laid my hand on his chest to comfort the tension that rippled through his muscles.
"You have, Lance," I assured him. He took my hand in his and turned very serious.
"No, I haven't. I haven't provided you with everything you need. — Derendrea

What ever happened to mental hygiene?" he asked rhetorically. "It doesn't exist - and never did. When you went through high school, you were never taught how to deal with stress, how to deal with trauma, how to deal with tension and anxiety - with the whole list of mood impairments. There's no preventive maintenance. We know how to prevent cavities. But we don't teach children how to be resilient, how to cope with stress on a daily basis. — William J. Broad

The believer's cross is no longer any and every kind of suffering, sickness, or tension, the bearing of which is demanded. The believer's cross must be, like his Lord's, the price of his social nonconformity. It is not, like sickness or catastrophe, an inexplicable, unpredictable suffering; it is the end of the path freely chosen after counting the cost. It is not, like Luther's or Thomas Muntzer's or Zinzendorf's or Kierkegaard's cross, an inward wrestling of the sensitive soul with self and sin; it is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to come. — John Howard Yoder

One can say that Javert is our conscience. The ever lurking presence of the law and our own condemnation. The tension between who we were and who we are and who we can be. Javert represents that inescapable, shameful past that forever haunts and persues one's conscience. Javert is the man of the law, and ... There are no surprises with the law. The principle of retribution is simple and monotonous, like Euclidean logic. It's closed to all alternatives and shut up against divine or human intervention ... Indeed, Javert represents the merciless application of the law, the blind Justice that in the end is befuddled by hope and the possibility of redemption without punishment. — Cristiane Serruya

There's no such thing as a superhuman. But the only thing I got to tell you, if you take a dog and kick him around he's got to be alert, he's got to be more sharper than you. Well, we've been kicked around for two thousand years. We're not more smarter, we're more alert. — Mordecai Richler

Just as we can play beautiful music only when the strings on the violin are in proper tension, so we can grow only when we are stretched from what we are to what we can be. There is no growth without tension. — J. Grant Howard

A ship, like a human being, moves best when it is slightly athwart the wind, when it has to keep its sails tight and attend its course. Ships, like men, do poorly when the wind is directly behind, pushing them sloppily on their way so that no care is required in steering or in the management of sails; the wind seems favorable, for it blows in the direction one is heading, but actually it is destructive because it induces a relaxation in tension and skill. What is needed is a wind slightly opposed to the ship, for then tension can be maintained, and juices can flow and ideas can germinate, for ships, like men, respond to challenge. — James A. Michener

Whether we fear the existence of boundaries with others or crave more of them, there's no denying that individuation and separation are inevitable parts of loving relationships that become the site of tension. — Sharon Salzberg

On the one hand I follow a vocation because I have an ability that I should exercise, but I want to use it for a reason, because I don't see that the freedoms that I enjoy are God-given realities. So I have a very healthy, activist general tension in me which feels that no, this is not gratuitous, it is important to keep this in focus. — Wolfgang Tillmans

When I get ready for a high-profile event, it's really about sleep and making sure I'm eating something healthy, and then it's always important to stretch to stay limber. No matter what, you want to feel as loose as possible, because it's easy to get full of excitement or tension with all that's going on. — Darby Stanchfield

You're JOKING!" said Fred Weasley loudly.
The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody's arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.
"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar ... "
Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.
"Er - but maybe this is not the time ... no ... " said Dumbledore. — J.K. Rowling

I believe that almost all our sorrows are moments of tension which we experience as a paralysis, because we no longer hear our estranged feelings living. Because we are alone with the strange thing that has entered into us; because for a moment everything familiar and customary has been taken from us; because we stand in the middle of a crossing where we cannot remain standing. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact. — Lyndon B. Johnson

That was my first kiss ... like, ever."
"That was your first kiss?"
"You couldn't tell?" My eyes widened in utter surprise.
"You seemed nervous, yeah. But I had no idea," he said with a laugh. "Is it a total guy move if I think that's pretty awesome?"
"That you were my first kiss? Why?" I smiled, the tension lessening with each laugh that came from his beautiful mouth. He squeezed my hand in his.
"Because I'm planning to be your last. — Melissa Brown

In the theory of psycho-analysis we have no hesitation in assuming that the course taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the pleasure principle. We believe, that is to say, that the course of those events is invariably set in motion by an unpleasurable tension, and that it takes a direction such that its final outcome coincides with a lowering of that tension that is, with an avoidance of unpleasure or a production of pleasure. — Sigmund Freud

Intention, Attention, No Tension. — Marci Shimoff

Newness only becomes mere evil in its totalitarian format, where all the tension between individual and society, that once gave rise to the category of the new, is dissipated. Today the appeal to newness, of no matter what kind, provided only that it is archaic enough, has become universal, the omnipresent medium of false mimesis. The decomposition of the subject is consummated in his self-abandonment to an ever-changing sameness. — Theodor Adorno

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

The wife's list, no matter how long or short, communicates to the husband, "I don't like you. I don't accept you. But if you perform the way I think you should, then I will like and accept you." And no matter how long the husband's list may be, it says in like manner to his wife, "I don't like you either. But if you stop caring about things so much, if you stop feeling the way you feel and noticing the things you notice, then I will accept and like you. — Jeff VanVonderen

Amelia took a deep breath. "What you didn't mention, Mr. Rohan, was that if a Roma steals a woman from her bed according to tradition, it is with the purpose of marriage in mind. And the so-called stealing is prearranged and encouraged by the bride-to-be."
Cam gave her a charming smile, deliberately dispelling the tension. "It lacks subtlety, but it hastens the proceedings considerably, doesn't it? No asking for the father's permission, no banns, no prolonged betrothal. Very efficient, a Romany courtship. — Lisa Kleypas

I tried to speak, to tell Kit I wasn't dead. No sound came out. But I managed to lift one arm a few inches and execute a tiny wave. Hello, still alive. In a fuck ton of pain, but not dead. — Sonya Bateman

Shakespeare knows that the tension between men as they are and men as they ought to be will forever remain unresolved. Man's imperfectability is no more an excuse for total permissiveness, however, than are man's imperfections a reason for inflexible intolerance. — Theodore Dalrymple

Desperately she reached for his dark head, pulled him harder against her, and his tongue slipped over the aching bud of her sex. The silence of the room was punctuated by her gasping breaths, the suckling sounds he made, and the creak of the chair as she rocked forward, upward, straining to capture his tantalizing mouth. Just as she thought she could no longer bear the intimate torture, the tension exploded in a rapturous burst of fire. She cried out and shuddered, her legs jerking up against the upholstered chair arms, and the spasms went on and on until she finally begged him to stop. — Lisa Kleypas

The word "surrender" is often interpreted as giving up, as weakness, as admitting defeat. Although this is one way to use the word, we will use it in a different way. Surrendering means letting go of your resistance to the total openness of who you are. It means giving up the tension of the little vortex you believe yourself to be and realizing the deep power of the ocean you truly are. It means to open with no boundaries, emotional or physical, so you ease wide beyond any limiting sense of self you might have. — David Deida

You can't expect not to face obstacles in life.
When people meet, their different energies conflict.
Where there is no energy, there is no conflict and wher there is no conflict, there is no creation.
Conflict is the source of creation.
One needs to know how to powerfully embrace the tension that arises when opposing energies meet, when there's conflict and struggle. — Ilchi Lee

Relaxation means allowing yourself to fall into a state where you are not doing anything, because if you are doing something, tension will continue. It is a state of non-doing. You simply relax and you enjoy the feeling of relaxation. Relax into yourself, just close your eyes, and listen to all that is happening all around. No need to feel anything as distraction. The moment you feel it is a distraction, you are denying God. This moment God has come to you as a bird. Don't deny. — Rajneesh

[Daemon's] arms tightened, drew her closer as his hand stroked up and down her back, just for the simple pleasure of it. She sighed. The tension in her muscles eased a bit, and she rested against him more fully.
He wasn't thinking of seduction when his hands began to wander over her - or when her hands hesitantly stroked him.
He wasn't thinking of seduction when his body delighted in how different the silky skin of her neck felt under his mouth compared to the robe beneath his hands.
He wasn't thinking of sex when he opened his robe and then hers so that only that film of spidersilk separated skin from skin. Or when even the spidersilk no longer separated them.
He wasn't thinking of sex when his mouth settled over hers and he sent them both sliding into dark, hot desire. And by the time he found himself in bed, listening to her purr with pleasure while he moved inside her, he wasn't able to think at all. — Anne Bishop

KNOW YOUR DOPE FIEND. YOUR LIFE MAY DEPEND ON IT! You will not be able to see his eyes because of the Tea-Shades, but his knuckles will be white from inner tension and his pants will be crusted with semen from constantly jacking off when he can't find a rape victim. He will stagger and babble when questioned. He will not respect your badge. The Dope Fiend fears nothing. He will attack, for no reason, with every weapon at his command-including yours. BEWARE. Any officer apprehending a suspected marijuana addict should use all necessary force immediately. One stitch in time (on him) will usually save nine on you. Good luck.
-The Chief — Hunter S. Thompson

But there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites; hence it is necessary to discover the opposite to the attitude of the conscious mind. — C. G. Jung

She was looking at his face; it was the face she had known ... There was no sign of tragedy, no bitterness, no tension - only the radiant mockery, matured and stressed, the look of dangerously unpredictable amusement, and the great, guiltless serenity of spirit. — Ayn Rand

I am already living, but something is telling me with unchallengeable authority: you are not living properly. The numinous authority of form enjoys the prerogative of being able to tell me 'You must'.
It is the authority of a different life in this life. This authority touches on a subtle insufficiency within me that is older and freer than sin; it is my innermost not-yet. In my most conscious moment, I am affected by the absolute objection to my status quo: my change is the one thing that is necessary. If you do indeed subsequently change your life, what you are doing is no different from what you desire with your whole will as soon as you feel how a vertical tension that is valid for you unhinges your life. — Peter Sloterdijk

Whenever there is injustice, there is tension. But in China it is very hard to release your anger unless you burn yourself or you jump from a bridge. In a society where there is no freedom of the press, it is difficult for victims to be noticed. — Ai Weiwei

It was no use. Edward rolled his head back against his shoulders, trying to ease the tension. He would have to make a trip to London soon to spend a night or even two at Aphrodite's Grotto. Perhaps after that he could be in his secretary's presence without lustful thoughts taking over his mind. — Elizabeth Hoyt

How do you define difficult?"
"By your presence."
She grinned fully, delighted to feel the tension
dissipate. "Now you are just flattering me for no
reason."
He grunted.
"On the contrary," she said, as if his grunt had
been a worded response. "It was most flattering."
He stared at her.
"What? Did you think I wouldn't figure out how to
interpret your grunts? — Anne Mallory

Becoming conscious of racism does not mean you are a racist. — Auliq Ice

The failure of reorientation therapy is why the "ex-gay" ministry Exodus International shut down in 2013. It places gay Christians who adhere to the traditional biblical interpretation in an agonizing, irresolvable tension. In order to truly flee from sin as well as the temptation to sin, they must constantly attempt what has proven impossible: to reconstitute themselves so they are no longer sexual beings at all. — Matthew Vines

Attention is the vital thing and there is no tension in attention. It just happens to be a similar word. It's not concentration or straining. Attention has the openness of a young child not yet dominated by the conceptual mind. — Eckhart Tolle

Perhaps all human progress stems from the tension between two basic drives: to have just what everyone else has and to have what no one has. — Judith Stone