Quotes & Sayings About Obstinate

From what Natalie could observe, by middle age, every person's life had rolled some distance downhill, even if it was a very gentle slope, coming to rest at a place of disappointment. Some spheres of an individual's life might have gone spectacularly well but there would always be an obstinate slab of disappointment in another department - a stalled career, inability to have kids, a dismal marriage, whatever. — Debra Oswald

And so, finding that, for once, I was not sorry to be alone, I said to myself: I am happy. Perfectly happy, I repeated, as my eyes roamed wide over the brilliant desolate sea and the empty contours of the land. Were they, after all, searching for something that was lacking? I hardly knew. A tiny obstinate figure by the dwarf obelisk under an enormous sky, I declared for the third time: I am absolutely happy, absolutely content. And, increasingly overcome by a profound melancholy which I interpreted simply as an appetite for supper I began to walk downhill, towards my sitting room, my holiday task and my lonely bed. — Christopher Isherwood

Our men have been real Frenchmen, and their wives
I may say it
have been worthy of them. You may see all their portraits at our house in Auvergne; every one of them an "injured" beauty, but not one of them hanging her head. Not one of them had the bad taste to be jealous ... These are great traditions, and it doesn't seem to me fair that a little American bourgeoise should come in and pretend to alter them, and should hang her photograph, with her obstinate little "air penche — Henry James

Resolute, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve. — Ambrose Bierce

Everything had become song. The curve of the road beneath the clouds here, and there the strokes of dark earth, the green and the gray, the torn pink of clay and gravel under fingertips. The consonance was above all that of the muffled shadow and grass to the depths of sky, where a flutter of cheerful feathers quivered.

In these dreams there are also black walnut trees, and then a forest that opens in a breeze. Nothing. Nothing more than the obstinate sound of wind. — Deborah Heissler

Nothing is more dangerous in practice, than an obstinate, unbending adherence to a system, particularly in its application to the wants and errors of mankind. — Jean-Baptiste Say

You have no idea. Lillith was defiant and obstinate. Adam was, well, he was a man. He thought with his dick. He asked God for a companion. It was his only request. God told him his wife would show herself to him. He misunderstood. He came upon Lillith bathing in the lake. — T.L. Brown

The shortest route is not the most direct one, but rather the one where the most favorable winds swell our sails:Mthat is the lesson that seafarers teach. Not to abide by this lesson is to be obstinate: here, firmness of character is tainted with stupidity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Even after the Truth has been realised, there remains that strong, obstinate impression that one is still an ego - the agent and experiencer. This has to be carefully removed by living in a state of constant identification with the supreme non-dual Self. Full Awakening is the eventual ceasing of all the mental impressions of being an ego. — Adi Shankara

We must define flattery and praise; they are distinct. Trajan was encouraged to virtue by the panegyric Pliny; Tiberius became obstinate in vice from the flattery of his senators. — Louis XVI Of France

Disease, and most specially opprobrious, suppressed, secret disease, creates a certain critical opposition to the world, to mediocre life, disposes a man to be obstinate and ironical toward civil order, so that he seeks refuge in free thought, in books, in study. — Thomas Mann

Many are obstinate with regard to the pathway once they have set upon it, few with regard to the goal. — Friedrich Nietzsche

John Whipple did not allow his anger at such treatment to obscure his judgment. In years of trading around the Pacific he had often met obstinate men and the cruel situations which they produce, and he had learned that in such confrontations his only chance of winning lay in doing exactly what in conscience ought to be done. It was by reliance upon this conviction that he had quietly made his way in such disparate jungles as Valparaiso, Batavia, Singapore and Honolulu. — James A. Michener

She would simply wait on the bridge, calm and obstinate, until events, real events, not her own fantasies, roe to her challenge, and dispelled her insignificance. — Ian McEwan

The pastoral labours of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked and gradually united against him two sorts of enemies; the aspiring clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners, who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom thundered from the pulpit of St. Sophia against the degeneracy of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without wounding or even marking the character of any individual. — Edward Gibbon

The most obstinate beliefs that mortals entertain about themselves are such as they have no evidence for beyond a constant, spontaneous pulsing of their self-satisfaction - as it were a hidden seed of madness, a confidence that they can move the world without precise notion of standing-place or lever. — George Eliot

When I asked Vera why Michael was so obstinate, she told me that some asshole had recently broken Eliza's heart. A drummer, no less. Hell, even I know girls should stay away from the goddamn drummers. — Tiffanie DeBartolo

Whether it's your health, wealth, happiness, or any other element of your entire life experience, it is essential to keep in mind the importance of the movement of your attention. You must be obstinate and persistent in not allowing the viewpoints or information of others to alter your inner world. You know what you wish to become and what you would like to manifest for yourself. — Wayne W. Dyer

Timidity is a disease of the mind, obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded that any impediment is insuperable has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had not before. — Samuel Johnson

The concept of a connotation is often explained by the conjugational formula devised by Bertrand Russell in a 1950s radio interview: I am firm; you are obstinate; he is pigheaded. The formula was turned into a word game in a radio show and newspaper feature and elicited hundreds of triplets. I am slim; you are thin; he is scrawny. I am a perfectionist; you are anal; he is a control freak. I am exploring my sexuality; you are promiscuous; she is a slut. In each triplet the literal meaning of the words is held constant, but the emotional meaning ranges from attractive to neutral to offensive. — Steven Pinker

It is of course, entirely possible that men (or anyone who is relatively privileged) are most defensive, most obstinate and unseeing when they are worried about losing privileges ... In the reactions of husbands, I detect a haunting worry about what they will lose when true gender equality arrives. — Faye J Crosby

And in my spine, at the very core of me, I am a tiger. Passionate and daring, impetuous, longing to rebel. Unpredictable and quick-tempered. But also determined and as obstinate as a solid wall of shidan--stone. — Cameron Dokey

It is better to enlighten men's minds than to teach them to be obstinate in their prejudices. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Saul tapped his wife's obstinate chin. "Mrs. Benedict, you certainly are. You promised to obey."
"That was thirty years ago! Before the wedding ceremony caught up with the modern age."
"Well, I for one am holding you to that. Gondola for two, in the moonlight, with champagne and roses. — Joss Stirling

Philosophy arises from an unusually obstinate attempt to arrive at real knowledge. What passes for knowledge in ordinary life suffers from three defects: it is cocksure, vague and self-contradictory. The first step towards philosophy consists in becoming aware of these defects, not in order to rest content with a lazy scepticism, but in order to substitute an amended kind of knowledge which shall be tentative, precise and self-consistent. — Bertrand Russell

The Rusanovs loved the People, their great People. They served the People and were ready to give their lives for the People. But as the years went by they found themselves less and less able to tolerate actual human beings, those obstinate creatures who were always resistant, refusing to do what they were told to and, besides, demanding something for themselves. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool. — Katharine Whitehorn

Few men are so obstinate in their atheism, that a pressing danger will not compel them to acknowledgment of a divine power ... — Plato

I like mountains, always have done. Big obstinate bits of rock sticking up where they're not wanted and getting in folk's way. Great. Climbing them is a different matter altogether though. I hate that. — Mark Lawrence

You see four guys bunched on a corner waiting for you, you either run like hell in the opposite direction without hesitation, or you keep on walking without slowing down or speeding up or breaking stride ... Truth is, it's smarter to run. The best fight is the one you don't have. But I have never claimed to be smart. Just obstinate, and occasionally bad-tempered. Some guys kick cats. I keep walking. - Jack Reacher — Lee Child

His thoughts became as scattered and aimless as the rivulets sluicing down her lush curves. She was a goddess rising from the water. Like Botticelli's Birth of Venus, except with heavy silvery hair darkened by her bath that, unlike Venus, she didn't use to hide her feminine secrets. She stood with her chin held at an obstinate angle, her shoulders straight in an observance of good posture, those soft gray eyes staring at him with a mixture of resolution and expectation. — Kerrigan Byrne

The two commonest mistakes in judgement ... are, the confounding of shyness with arrogance - a very common mistake indeed - and the not understanding that an obstinate nature exists in a perpetual struggle with itself. — Charles Dickens

Time and time again, the obstinate refusal of the tsarist regime to concede reforms turned what should have been a political problem into a revolutionary crisis ... the tsarist regime's downfall was not inevitable; but its own stupidity made it so. — Orlando Figes

I don't feel quite so lightly about it," I admitted. "But I'm not sure that that's virtue - it's more likely merely habit. And an obstinate refusal to face facts isn't going to bring anything back, or help us at all. I think we'll have to try to see ourselves not as the robbers of all this but more as - well, the unwilling heirs to it." "Yes. I suppose it is - something like that," she agreed in a qualified way. She — John Wyndham

Every man is bound to answer these questions to himself, according to the best of his conscience and understanding, and to act agreeably to the genuine and sober dictates of his judgment. This is a duty from which nothing can give him a dispensation. 'Tis one that he is called upon, nay, constrained by all the obligations that form the bands of society, to discharge sincerely and honestly. No partial motive, no particular interest, no pride of opinion, no temporary passion or prejudice, will justify to himself, to his country, or to his posterity, an improper election of the part he is to act. Let him beware of an obstinate adherence to party; let him reflect that the object upon which he is to decide is not a particular interest of the community, but the very existence of the nation ... — Alexander Hamilton

I was a peaceful sedentary man, a lover of a quiet life, with no appetite for perils and commotions. But I was beginning to realise that I was very obstinate. — John Buchan

My wife comes foremost; then the honour'd mould
Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand
The grandchild to her blood. But, out, affection!
All bond and privilege of nature, break!
Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.
What is that curt'sy worth? or those doves' eyes,
Which can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not
Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows;
As if Olympus to a molehill should
In supplication nod: and my young boy
Hath an aspect of intercession, which
Great nature cries 'Deny not.' let the Volsces
Plough Rome and harrow Italy: I'll never
Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand,
As if a man were author of himself
And knew no other kin. — William Shakespeare

I have become an obstinate heretic in the eyes of my colleagues. Momentary success carries more power of conviction than reflections upon principles. — Albert Einstein

history n. Discipline that, in reminding us that the world existed before we did, creates identity malfunction and is therefore banned from schools along with foreign languages, the province of obstinate and eccentric foreigners.
Those who worry that, if we do not study history, we are doomed to repeat it need not be concerned. Everyone, whether or not he studies history, is doomed to repeat history.
hobby — Rhoda Koenig

Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical. — Blaise Pascal

One day when George III was insane he heard that the Americans never had afternoon tea. This mace him very obstinate and he invited them all to a compulsory tea-party at Boston: the Americans, however, started pouring the tea into Boston harbour and went on pouring things into Boston harbour until they were quite Independent, thus causing the United States. — W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman

You're obstinate, pliant, merry, morose, all at once. For me there's no living with you, or without you. — Marcus Valerius Martialis

Leading the Jewish people is not easy
we are a divided, obstinate, highly individualistic people who have cultivated faith, sharp wittedness and polemics to a very high level. — Shimon Peres

Though if infidels were to be converted by force, if those that are either blind or obstinate were to be drawn off from their errors by armed soldiers, we know very well that it was much more easy for Him to do it with armies of heavenly legions than for any son of the Church, how potent soever, with all his dragoons. — John Locke

The world doesn't come to the clever folks, it comes to the stubborn, obstinate, one-idea-at-a-time people. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

When people misjudge, they inhale and exhale with obstinate, stagnant prejudice." ~ Angelica Hopes, If I Could Tell You — Angelica Hopes

Skye kissed her forehead. "You saved my life."
Katsa smiled. "You Lienid are very outward in your affection."
"I'm going to name my firstborn child after you."
Katsa laughed at that. "For the child's sake, wait for a girl. Or even better, wait until all your children are older and give my name to whichever is the most troublesome and obstinate."
Skye burst into laughter and hugged her, and Katsa returned his embrace. And realized that quite without her intending it, her guarded heart had made another friend. — Kristin Cashore

Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring through timidity. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. — Karl Marx

Michael spoke slowly and sternly, as if scolding an obstinate child. "Kate, let me be very clear about this. You will not continue this murder investigation, under any circumstances. I forbid it." Michael's words were unequivocal, not to be challenged. He was man. He was in charge. He expected no argument.
He was an idiot. — Tracy Weber

I know that age, it's a particularly obstinate one, and a thousand bogies won't make you fear the future. A pity we can't change over. — Daphne Du Maurier

There should be no tenacity of insistence or obstinate insistence of any kind. If there is any tenacity, it should be the kind that will go away if you tell it to! — Dada Bhagwan

The tyranny of mankind; it was like the obstinate drip of water falling on a stone and hollowing it little by little; and this drip continued, falling obstinately, falling without pause on the souls of the children. — Halldor Laxness

When either grace is turned into painted, but rotten nature, as Arminians do, or into wantonness, as others do, the error to me is of a far other and higher elevation, than opinions touching church government. Tenacious adhering to Antinomian errors, with an obstinate and final persistence in them, both as touching faith to, and suitable practice of them, I shall think, cannot be fathered upon any of the regenerated; for it is an opinion not in the margin and borders, but in the page and body, and too near the centre and vital parts of the gospel. — Samuel Rutherford

To yield is grievous, but the obstinate soul
That fights with Fate, is smitten grievously. — Sophocles

I bid you conquer in your warfare against your four great enemies, the world, the devil, the flesh, and above all, that obstinate and perverse self-will, unaided by which the other three would be comparatively powerless. — Augustus William Hare

Among other common lies, we have the _silent_ lie
the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they _speak_ no lie, they lie not at all. — Mark Twain

Rebuke

Obstinate regression
bringing untold paths
of deep dark foreboding
depression... — Muse

Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen natures; for they struggle hard to be such. — Charles Dickens

Worldly life is not an impediment; your obstinacies and your ignorance of the self are only the impediments. — Dada Bhagwan

I feel my disease, and I feel that my want of alarm and lively affecting conviction forms its most obstinate ingredient; I try to stir up the emotion, and feel myself harassed and distressed at the impotency of my own meditations. But why linger without the threshold in the face of a warm and urgent invitation? "Come unto me." Do not think it is your office to heal one part of the disease, and Christ's to heal the remainder. — Thomas Chalmers

Those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised — William Wordsworth

A mind is accustomed to mathematical deduction, when confronted with the faulty foundations of astrology, resists a long, long time, like an obstinate mule, until compelled by beating and curses to put its foot into that dirty puddle. — Johannes Kepler

When the Gauls laid waste Rome, they found the senators clothed in their robes, and seated in stern tranquillity in their curule chairs; in this manner they suffered death without resistance or supplication. Such conduct was in them applauded as noble and magnanimous; in the hapless Indians it was reviled as both obstinate and sullen. How truly are we the dupes of show and circumstances! How different is virtue, clothed in purple and enthroned in state, from virtue, naked and destitute, and perishing obscurely in a wilderness. — Washington Irving

Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small, that it scarcely admits of calculation. Commerce, therefore, in my opinion, is apt to decay in absolute governments, not because it is there less secure, but because it is less honourable. — David Hume

In every [other] pursuit men without natural aptitude succeed by obstinate study of technique, but who is not a poet by nature can never become one by art. — Giambattista Vico

Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus. — Margaret Thatcher

Week after week we were reduced to starting the same letter over again and copying out the same appeals, so that after a certain time words which had at first been torn bleeding from our hearts became void of sense. We copied them down mechanically, trying by means of these dead words to give some idea of our ordeal. And in the end, the conventional call of a telegram seemed to us preferable to this sterile, obstinate monologue and this arid conversation with a blank wall. — Albert Camus

From his childhood on he had had an obstinate nature and his name became a byword for virtue and truthfulness. "That's incredible, even if Cato says so," was a common expression. — Anthony Everitt

I do think that there is a profound reservoir of creativity and imagination in everyone I've ever met, and sometimes if someone is persistent and perversely obstinate enough to persevere, then they want to be helped. There is a way to help them. — Philip Schultz

But he had only received that sort of answer usually given by those who are more obstinate in following their own course, than strong in justifying it. — Walter Scott

I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate. — Michel De Montaigne

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck." Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy. — Elizabeth Bishop

OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy. — Ambrose Bierce

Without intending to, without even knowing it, he demonstrated with his life that his father had been right when he repeated until his dying day that there was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager so lucid or dangerous, than a poet. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

If he had known unstructured
space is a deluge
and stocked his log house-
boat with all the animals
even the wolves,
he might have floated.
But obstinate he
stated, The land is solid
and stamped,
watching his foot sink
down through the stone
up to his knee.
From Progressive insanities of a pioneer — Margaret Atwood

Let it be virtuous to be obstinate. — William Shakespeare

If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists
and I am inclined to think it is so
it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse; in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool. — Charles Caleb Colton

God you're obstinate." It was a snarl. "Must make me a masochist that I like that about you." Her wolf bared its canines, charmed but trying not to allow it to matter. "I only get worse the more you know me. Consider it a lucky escape. — Nalini Singh

Unfolding of karmic effect is self-resulting (swaparinami). Therefore, whatever the unfolding karmic effect does is correct. Do not be obstinate there. The unfolding of karmic effect indeed means that it has come before you to give the result. Why not stop interfering in it? — Dada Bhagwan

It's only by being obstinate that anything is got, or done. — Rumer Godden

In the time before Gnan (time before 1958 when Dada Bhagwan got manifested) there was obstinacy within me. 'I' discovered that obstinacy does not let the light of Gnan (Eternal Knowledge) to come through. Then I saw all that obstinacy, and it was destroyed. Thereafter the Gnan (Eternal Knowledge) manifested. One has to observe one's own self that where lies the obstinacies. The Self is an observatory itself. — Dada Bhagwan

It is useless to check the vain dunce who has caught the mania of scribbling, whether prose or poetry, canzonets or criticisms,
let such a one go on till the disease exhausts itself. Opposition like water, thrown on burning oil, but increases the evil, because a person of weak judgment will seldom listen to reason, but become obstinate under reproof. — Sarah Josepha Hale

Quinces are ripe...when they are the yellow of canary wings in midflight. they are ripe when their scent teases you with the snap of green apples and the perfumed embrace of coral roses. but even then quinces remain a fruit, hard and obstinate--useless...until they are simmered, coddled for hours above a low, steady flame. add honey and water and watch their dry, bone-colored flesh soak-up the heat, coating itself in an opulent orange, not of the sunrises that you never see but of the insides of tree-ripened papayas, a color you can taste. to answer your questionlove is not a bowl of quinces yellowing in a blue and white china bowl, seen but untouched. ~The Book of Salt — Monique Truong

Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody. — Marcus Aurelius

He was obstinate in the way that only truly miserable people can be obstinate. — Rachel Cohn

A prison chaplain in the West of England confessed he had given up one prisoner as hopeless, so stubborn was he against any approach by him, and known throughout the jail as the most truculent and obstinate troublemaker.
But one day the governor was told of a visitor who insisted on seeing him. To his surprise, it was a little girl. "He's my daddy," she explained, "It's his birthday." The governor allowed the prisoner to be sent for.
"Daddy," said the child as he was brought in, "this was your birthday, so I wanted to come and see you." Then taking a lock of hair out of her pocket, she offered it to him. "I had no money to buy a present for you. But I brought this, a lock of my own hair."
The prisoner broke down and clasped her in his arms, sobbing. He became a changed man after that and guarded, as his most precious possession, the lock of hair that reminded him that somebody still loved him. — Francis Gay

In time of war all countries behave equally badly, because the power of action is handed over to stupid and obstinate men. — Kenneth Clark

The Christian must therefore walk in the middle path, and set these two classes of men before his eyes. He may meet with hardened and obstinate ceremonialists, who, like deaf adders, refuse to listen to the truth of liberty, and cry up, enjoin, and urge on us their ceremonies, as if they could justify us without faith. Such were the Jews of old, who would not understand, that they might act well. These men we must resist, do just the contrary to what they do, and be bold to give them offence, lest by this impious notion of theirs they should deceive many along with themselves. Before the eyes of these men it is expedient to eat flesh, to break fasts, and to do in behalf of the liberty of faith things which they hold to be the greatest sins. — Martin Luther

being the key word there." Her grin took the sting out of her words. Juan chuckled, patting her on the head. "You're getting more and more like your mother every day." Tilting her head, she batted her eyelashes several times. "You mean intelligent and beautiful?" "Mouthy and obstinate." He pointed at the carvings on the wall. "Whether you like it or not, this curse could mean trouble. — Ann Charles

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated. — Mary Shelley

By that time it was already clear that the next prime minster was going to be Golda Meir, a woman whom I frankly detested - a mutual sentiment, I might add. I knew her as an opinionated, obstinate person, primitive in her outlook, rigid in her attitudes, with a genius for reaching and exploiting the deepest fears and prejudices of the Jewish masses. I was certain that with her as prime minister, all peace efforts would come to a total standstill. — Uri Avnery

One should not be obstinate even in worldly interaction. If you are obstinate with a 'collector', what will he do? He will throw you in jail. So then what will happen if you are obstinate with God? God won't put you in jail, but his happiness upon you will break (will go away). — Dada Bhagwan

And, echoing Jerott, 'So why in hell have you come?' Philippa's gaze, bright and owlish and obstinate, held his to the end.

'To look after the baby,' she answered. And disconcertingly, after a second's blank pause, Francis Crawford flung back his damp head and laughed. — Dorothy Dunnett

The truth about myself? I'm obstinate, self-assured, ambitious and sloppy. I think I lead a quite normal life, certainly with five hours of trainig per day. Many people would probably be surprised if they met me. — Franziska Van Almsick

They also have at that critical point of death the opportunity to be converted to God through repentance. And if they are so obstinate that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from malice, it is possible to make a quite probable judgment that they would never come away from evil. — Thomas Aquinas

With fools, there is no companionship. Rather than to live with men who are selfish, vain, quarrelsome, and obstinate, let a man walk alone. — Buddha

The male sex still constitute in many ways the most obstinate vested interest one can find. — Francis Aungier

To resist the social pressure now put even on one's leisure time, requires a tougher upbringing and a more obstinate willfulness about going one's own way, than ever before. — Robert Graves

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.
The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted. — Rabindranath Tagore