Quotes & Sayings About Not Being Who I Used To Be

I dedicate my work today to the furtherance of all things good. Whether I am paid or not, whether I am working out in the world or planting my own garden, I dedicate whatever I am doing today to the uplifting of all things. May the activity of my mind and work of my hands be of service to the healing of the world. Today I remember that there is only one work: to be who I am capable of being, to do what I am capable of doing to make the world a better place. May my life be of use to something greater than myself, that I might feel the joy of being used. Dear God, Today I dedicate all I am and all that I have, That love might use me as a conduit of its power. Illumine my mind and increase my understanding, Hone my personality and deepen my skills, That all I do might glorify Your presence in the world. And so it is. Amen. — Marianne Williamson

To spoil means to put no limit on caprice, to give one the impression that everything is permitted to him and that he has no obligations. The young child exposed to this regime has no experience of its own limits. By reason of the removal of all external restraint, all clashing with other things, he comes actually to believe that he is the only one that exists, and gets used to not considering others, especially not considering them as superior to himself. This feeling of another's superiority could only be instilled into him by someone who, being stronger than he is, should force him to give up some desire, to restrict himself, to restrain himself. He would then have learned this fundamental discipline: "Here I end and here begins another more powerful than I am. In the world, apparently, there are two people: I myself and another superior to me. — Ortega Y Gasset

I approach the creation-evolution dispute not as a scientist but as a problem of law, which means among other things that I know something about the ways that words are used in arguments. What first drew my attention to the question was the way the rules of argument seemed to be structured to make it impossible to question whether what we are being told about evolution is really true. For example, the Academy's rule against negative argument automatically eliminates the possibility that science has not discovered how complex organisms could have developed. However wrong the current answer may be, it stands until a better answer arrives. It is as if a criminal defendant were not allowed to present an alibi unless he could also show who did commit the crime. — Phillip E. Johnson

At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages, mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have - I believe the English already use the phrase - "parity of esteem." An even more drastic scheme is not impossible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma - Beelzebub, what a useful word! - by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out 'A Cat Sat On A Mat'. — C.S. Lewis

When Chris talks, he has a very clear and authoritative manner - but don't let yourself be lulled into a feeling of complete confidence that he's right. Yes, he used to be a spacewalking instructor and evaluator and he's Mr. EVA, but he hasn't done a walk since 2001. There have been a lot of changes since then. I don't want the junior trainers to ignore that little voice inside and not question something just because it's being said with authority by someone who's been here a long time. At — Chris Hadfield

Is this the girl?" Kieran's voice was very different: It sounded like waves sliding up the shore. Like warm water under pale light. It was seductive, with an edge of cold. He looked at Emma as if she were a new kind of flower, one he wasn't sure he liked. "She's pretty," he said. "I didn't think she'd be pretty. You didn't mention it."
Iarlath shrugged. "You've always been partial to blondes," he said.
"Okay, seriously?" Emma snapped her fingers. "I am right here. And I was not aware I was being invited to a game of 'Who's the Hottest?'"
I wasn't aware you were invited at all," said Kieran. His speech had a casual edge, as if he was used to talking to humans.
"Rude," said Emma. — Cassandra Clare

But even now, especially now, it seems to me that women have a strength about them that men never had. And I wonder how did men always get portrayed in the movies and such as the strong ones? How did it come to be that women are made to look like the weak ones who need protectin'? Truth is, it's men who need the protectin'. Really they do. Women have the strong thing inside of them and the can get through anything. They just can. They're used to pain of child birthing - pain no man knows - and some women being battered around and not treated right through all the centuries and having to learn at a real young age how to stay alive on the inside when the outside is being hurt real bad. Most all women know that. But men. Those poor men. They just don't have the inside strength the women do. It's harder for men to feel pain. — Sarah Felix Burns

I'm different now, but back then I used to be the type of guy who would say, "I like you. Do you also like me or not? No? Tell me the truth. I'll give you time to think about it!" But now This isn't a lie but I've had 3 girlfriends, and I've dated each of them for 3 years. When it comes to dating, I'm the type who would be with someone for a long time. Before we start dating, I'd keep watching her. It's because I hate being hurt. I tend to give my everything once I date — Yunho

Codfish aristocracy' is what they call us. Men who've made a fortune in business, but are common-born."
"Why codfish?"
"It used to refer to the rich merchants who settled the American colonies and made their money in the cod trade. Now it means any successful businessman."
"Nouveau riche is another term," Helen added. "It's never used as a compliment, of course. But it should be. Being self-made is something to be admired." As she felt his soundless chuckle, she insisted, "It is."
Rhys turned his head to kiss her. "You've no need to flatter my vanity."
"I'm not flattering you. I think you're remarkable. — Lisa Kleypas

A woman may achieve greatness, or at any rate great renown, by merely being a wonderful wife and mother, like the mother of the Gracchi; whereas the men who have achieved great renown by being devoted husbands and fathers might be counted on the fingers of one hand. Charles I was an unfortunate king, but an admirable family man. Still, you would scarcely class him as one of the world's great fathers, and his children were not an unqualified success. Dear me! Being a great father is either a very difficult or a very sadly unrewarded profession. Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him - or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Did you bite someone?' Jack enquired.
'I laughed at people, which is much worse. My laughter has sharper teeth than any dog. It tears people apart who wish to be taken seriously, but I could not help myself. There were many complaints and finally a man in a brown suit came and looked at me. He was very important and not used to being laughed at, but I could see he had dandruff on his collar, and there was a spot of his breakfast egg on his lapel. You should have seen him - so puffed up and proud of himself. I couldn't help but laugh and that made people see him as I did, and so they laughed too. All of a sudden everyone realised that for all his status in official matters, he was a man who lived alone and was loveless. — Isobelle Carmody

Pride," observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, "is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it it very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or the other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have other think of us. — Jane Austen

We are used to the idea of giving witness to one's life as an important and noble counterpoint to being unheard, especially when applied to people in certain disadvantaged, oppressed or unacceptable situations. But in a slightly more pathological way, I'm not sure that we aren't seeing the emergence of a society in which almost everyone who isn't famous considers themselves cruelly and unfairly unheard. As though being famous, and the subject of wide attention, is considered to be a fulfilled human being's natural state - and so, as a corollary, the cruelly unheard millions are perpetually primed and fired up to answer any and all questions in order to redress this awful imbalance. — Chris Heath

But to return to my own case, I thought more modestly of my book and it would be inaccurate even to say that I thought of those who would read it as "my" readers. For it seemed to me that they would not be "my" readers but the readers of their own selves, my book being merely a sort of magnifying glass like those which the optician at Combray used to offer his customers - it would be my book, but with its help I would furnish them with the means of reading what lay inside themselves. So that I should not ask them to praise me or to censure me, but simply to tell me whether "it really is like that," I should ask them whether the words that they read within themselves are the same as those which I have written (though a discrepancy in this respect need not always be the consequence of an error on my part, since the explanation could also be that the reader had eyes for which my book was not a suitable instrument). — Marcel Proust

So the peasants are used as targets in war?" I doubted. "Does the Overhead feel that is necessary to kill off one of their own? Peasants are being placed as diversions on the front line like they mean nothing - "
"Would you rather save the strong, or spare the weak?" Mother questioned me.
"Why can we not do both?" I returned.
"Because Heaven has its reasons, Anastasia," Mother chimed quietly. "It is Heavens way to balance those who are strong and those who are weak. It cannot be changed. — Barbara C. Doyle

It's about personal development. It's about creating your own character and pushing it to the limit. It's about pushing yourself so far out of your own and everybody else's idea of who you are and what you're capable of, that you no longer believe in limits. It's about reaching beyond your so-called potential, because your potential is never where you or anyone else expects it to be, not even close. It's about being able to say with the last breath of your life I used all my potential and all my talents and pushed myself to the limit. I could not have fought any harder. — Charlotte Eriksson

Sometimes people claim they don't need a crutch like Jesus, but he's not a crutch, he's a teacher. If you want to be a writer, you read the classics. If you want to make great music you listen to music that's been made by great musicians who have gone before. If you're studying to be a painter, it's a good idea to study the great masters. If Picasso came into your room while you were learning to draw and said 'Hi, I have a couple of hours would you like some hints?' would you say no? So it is with spiritual masters: Jesus, Buddha or any other enlightened being. They're geniuses in the way they used their minds and hearts just as Beethoven was a genius with music, or Shakespeare a genius with words. Why not learn from them, follow their lead, study what they were doing right. — Marianne Williamson

Your mother left you. Trevor used you and gave you up. Your father is dead. None of it was your fault, yet you constantly want to saddle yourself with the guilt, and this ridiculous notion of being unworthy. Its fucking destroying you. And not just you. Everyone who cares about you. So just shut up. I may not know the depth of you pain. I may not have been with you through every single dramatic incident that has happened in you life, but I love you, Sarah. And I want you to be happy. — S.J. Wright

Eople with character may be loud or quiet, but they do tend to have a certain level of self
respect. Self
respect is not the same as self
confidence or self
esteem. Self
respect is not based on IQ or any of the mental or physical gifts that help get you into a competitive college. It is not comparative. It is not earned by being better than other people at something. It is earned by being better than you used to be, by being dependable in times of testing, straight in times of temptation. It emerges in one who is morally dependable. Self
respect is produced by inner triumphs, not external ones. It can only be earned by a person who has endured some internal temptation, who has confronted their own weaknesses and who knows, Well, if worse comes to worst, I can endure that. I can overcome that. — David Brooks

I was to grow used to hearing, around New York, the annoying way in which people would say: 'Edward Said, such a suave and articulate and witty man,' with the unspoken suffix 'for a Palestinian.' It irritated him, too, naturally enough, but in my private opinion it strengthened him in his determination to be an ambassador or spokesman for those who lived in camps or under occupation (or both). He almost overdid the ambassadorial aspect if you ask me, being always just too faultlessly dressed and spiffily turned out. Fools often contrasted this attention to his tenue with his membership of the Palestine National Council, the then-parliament-in-exile of the people without a land. In fact, his taking part in this rather shambolic assembly was a kind of noblesse oblige: an assurance to his landsmen (and also to himself) that he had not allowed and never would allow himself to forget their plight. The downside of this noblesse was only to strike me much later on. — Christopher Hitchens

Is it okay to do something wrong if you're doing it to protect someone who deserves to be helped?"

"That's an odd question Is there anything you need to tell me?"
but I think sometimes you have to tell a white lie,. It's like when Grandma and Grandpa were here for the funeral. They didn't say a word about Grandpa being sick. They tried to protect us because they knew we had enough to deal with. I wondered if you thought they did the right thing by not telling us."

Her mother let out a soft sigh. "You're right. We call it a white lie. We do that to protect the ones we love. I used to think it was totally wrong no matter what the reasoning was. Now I think I've changed my mind a bit."
"No," Ele said, — Peggy M. McAloon

Eggie?" from the backdoor had him cringing. Darla walked in, her gaze glancing at the three males before she walked over to Eggie. She gazed up at him and he waited for it. Lord, she must be mad. Her being a feminist and all. Not that he blamed her. He deserved it. "Why are you standing here naked, with your brothers, and smelling like blood?" "I'm not sure explaining it would make it any better." "Okay. I need your car," she said, surprising him "Sure. Told you to take it whenever you need it." "Yeah, I know. But I thought I should let you know I'm not just taking it out. I need to race it." "Race it? Against who?" "Cats." "You need to race cats?" "Yeah. I don't have a choice. Janie Mae bet on us winning and if we lose, we can't get what we need to make the pies we promised everyone because that's the money she used. So we race the cats, we win, we make pie.". — Shelly Laurenston

When you're scared - and I mean really scared, not just hearing a noise in the night, or standing toe to toe with someone twice your size who wants to pound you into the earth - it feels as if you're being injected with darkness. It's like black water as cold as ice settling in your body where your blood and marrow used to be, pushing every other feeling out as it fills you from your feet to your scalp. It leaves you with nothing. — Alexander Gordon Smith

They thought back on the tales that the soldier had told. They remembered Hazel, the gentle Bethlehem donkey, who used the last of her strength helping those who needed her. They remembered the donkey who stood on the mountain and accepted suffering so that others would not know pain. They remembered the donkey with a hundred names, the sturdy friend of Jack who proved that the most humble being can have the most courageous heart. They gazed at the soldier, who said, 'I fear that John will be sorry he gave the silver donkey to me. The silver donkey belongs to the trustworthy and the brave. — Sonya Hartnett

You know what I remember most vividly from that hospital? There were creases in the pillowcase.
"I was in pain when they brought me in. They'd bandaged me up before transporting me, but they hand't had anything to deaden that kind of pain. So I wasn't clear in my head. I don't remember who was holding the stretcher, anything like that.
"But when they lifted me up, and I looked at the cot I'd be transferred to, even as they tipped me onto it, I noticed the creases in the pillowcase, and it was everything I could do not to cry. You get used to things being dusty and gritty and oily, you really do, but then, when there's something clean, something that's been folded carefully, and unfolded carefully and it's there for your head, it's like your heart, it's like I don't know, I can't describe it. — Alison Jean Lester

I would not be a good mother. I mean, I love being an aunt to my niece and nephew. And I used to want to, like, adopt 10 kids - because I had friends who were adopted, and I thought that was the coolest thing, to be chosen. But again, my job is too selfish. — Kelly Clarkson

It used to be said in antislavery days that a people who would tacitly consent to the enslavement of 4,000,000 human beings were incapable of being just to each other, and I believe this same rule holds with regard to the injustice practiced by men towards women. So long as all men conspire to rob women of the citizen's right to perfect equality in all the privileges and immunities of our so-called "free" government, we can not expect these same men to be capable of perfect justice to each other. — Susan B. Anthony

At that moment, when I had the TV sound off, I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn't feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting - do you see? I guess you don't. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it 'absence of appropriate affect.' So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair. So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I think that's a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything, about staying here on Earth after everybody who's smart has emigrated, don't you think? — Philip K. Dick

When I was a boy there were two curious men running about who were called the optimist and the pessimist. I constantly used the words myself, but I cheerfully confess that I never had any very special idea of what they meant. The only thing which might be considered evident was that they could not mean what they said; for the ordinary verbal explanation was that the optimist thought this world as good as it could be, while the pessimist thought it as bad as it could be. Both these statements being obviously raving nonsense, one had to cast about for other explanations. An optimist could not mean a man who thought everything right and nothing wrong. For that is meaningless; it is like calling everything right and nothing left. Upon the whole, I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself. — G.K. Chesterton

I saw that Roy was not inclined to be amused. I was not annoyed, for I am quite used to people not being amused at my jokes. I often think that the purest type of the artist is the humorist who laughs alone at his own jests. — W. Somerset Maugham

My concern with this is not about who owns the trademark. If a label is used chiefly to lionize "us" and demonize "them," we'd be better off without it. Rather, my concern is that the richness and breadth of Reformed faith and practice are being reduced to a few doctrines. In the process, even those doctrines lose much of their supporting rationale. In fact, their meaning changes at crucial points. For example, I believe that the doctrine of election is inextricably bound up with covenant theology and with the covenantal life that is shaped in the New Testament by the means of grace. As I have argued, even "eternal security" is different from the doctrine of perseverance. — Michael S. Horton

Well, besides, I've arranged with the computer that anyone who doesn't look and sound like one of us will be killed if he - or she - tries to board the ship. I've taken the liberty of explaining that to the Port Commander. I told him very politely that I would love to turn off that particular facility out of deference to the reputation that the Sayshell City Spaceport holds for absolute integrity and security - throughout the Galaxy, I said - but the ship is a new model and I didn't know how to turn it off."
"He didn't believe that, surely."
"Of course not! But he had to pretend he did, as otherwise he would have had no choice but to be insulted. And since there would be nothing he could do about that, being insulted would only lead to humiliation. And since he didn't want that, the simplest path to follow was to believe what I said."
"And that's another example of how people are?"
"Yes. You'll get used to this. — Isaac Asimov

Pride is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed, that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what would have others think of us. — Jane Austen

This is a weird feeling in my life I have to deal with, not being a violent man anymore when my whole life's reputation was built on being extremely violent. I just don't know how to deal with that right now. I don't even go to strip clubs no more. I don't know who I am sometimes, but I am not the guy I used to be. I'm not an angel or anything. I'm still lascivious, periodically. I'm just looking for some balance in my life — Mike Tyson

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that I'd stumbled across the kind of man I used to find irresistible, or that he'd managed to stare right inside my brain to locate my weaknesses. The thrill of being wanted while pretending not to be interested was a game I'd played over and over during my youth. I'd grown up since then. I'd done more than my share of getting mixed up with men who were all ego and muscles, and he reminded me exactly why I'd given them up.
Unfortunately, my body hadn't got the memo yet. — Kyra Lennon

My eyes fix on my reflection in the mirror as the water warms up for my shower.
I'm not sure if it's just my perception, but I look older than my thirty-eight years.
I certainly feel older, too.
I feel like I've lived more than one lifetime, each of them lasting an eternity. An eternity of rage, and resentment, and wrongdoing ... it takes its toll on a man, that's for certain. But none of it had half as much effect on me as this past year. Something I learned was sentiment can take it out of you. I used to have no regard for myself - or anybody, for that matter. I had no reason to live anymore. But now that I care about what happens to her - and for her sake, me - I'm growing exhausted from the constant worry.
Worry my past will catch up to us.
Worry that she'll be the one to pay for those sins.
It's the consequence, I think, of loving me.
The consequence of being with someone who lived so carelessly. — J.M. Darhower

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. 'It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]' (Gen. 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is 'notoriously difficult to translate.' The various attempts we have in English are "helper" or "companion" or the notorious "help meet." Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat ... disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing "One day I shall be a help meet?" Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it "sustainer beside him"
The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately. — Stasi Eldredge