One Man Side Life Quotes & Sayings

I am an artist. And An artist is simply a man who is pulled along by a river: on one side sanity lies, and the other madness, yet he will find no peace on either, as the current of his art drags him away from the everyday life on it's banks, where others watch, unable to help him until he reaches the immensity of the ocean. — Felix J. Palma

Life turns on small choices.
A last-minute decision to take a shortcut over a snowy pass.
A shrugging dismissal of the odd-looking man in the long coat standing off to one side.
A decision to postpone a physical exam till a less busy time.
A word spoken with the best intentions.
Looking back, after the lives are destroyed, the blood spilt, the families shattered, and even the courses of nations changed forever, the mistakes that started the doomsday clock ticking down often seem minor, even innocent-even virtuous. So easy to make.
David Eller would give anything-no, everything-to go back and undo those mistakes. But life does not give us that chance. Like everyone else, he has no choice but to dangle from the hand of that clock, trying in vain to pull them backward as they tick inexorably toward zero. — William Carmichael

Gil sat baking in the sun for at least 45 minutes before one of the tour guides noticed him looking listless and leaning to his left side. As she approached him, she noticed that he had a stupid grin on his face.
"Are you all right, Mr. Cohen?" she asked as she tried to slowly help him to his feet.
His shirt was drenched with sweat and his skin was mostly clammy, signally that he was suffering from the middle stages of heat stroke.
"It's not so bad?" he muttered as he struggled to stand straight up. "What not so bad, Mr. Cohen?" one of the tour guides asked.
"Death," Gil stated in a glazed response.
The guide looked at the heat-stricken man who appeared to have amoment of clarity amidst all of the sweat and dehydration. "Why is death not so bad?" she pressed on. Gil took a big swig of Gatorade and replied, "Because life wasn't so great. — Phil Wohl

Being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had learned still another new, consolatory truth - that nothing in this world is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled while the — Leo Tolstoy

It was easy to be good and kind in times of plenty. The trying times were the moments that defined a man.
And love? Love was something that did much to change a person. It brought joy as it brought suffering, and in turn brought about those moments that defined one's character. Love gave life to the lifeless. It was the greatest of all living powers.
But, as with all things, love had a dark side to it. — Renee Ahdieh

You will then. Listen here ... I've always got this to look forward to: I'll settle down by that man's side. I'll be as virtuous as any woman. I've made up my mind to it and I'll be it. And I'll be bored stiff for the rest of my life. Except for one thing. I can torment that man. And I'll do it. Do you understand how I'll do it? There are many ways. But if the worst comes to the worst I can always drive him silly ... by corrupting the child!' She was panting a little, and round her brown eyes the whites showed. 'I'll get even with him. I can. I know how, you see. And with you, through him, for tormenting me. I've come all the way from Brittany without stopping. I haven't slept ... But I can ... — Ford Madox Ford

He made a small movement of his head. "Do you love Pennhyll as well as you do the mountain upon which it sits?"
"I find it much like you."
His mouth quirked, and then, curved in another smile. She stared, transfixed by the sight. "Unpleasant and forlorn?"
She tipped her head to one side, considering him. She felt an odd sensation of understanding this harsh man who was, in fact, a stranger to her. "Not entirely unpleasant, that I will admit. Nor forlorn, either."
"Do not tell me you find me amiable."
"Certainly not. Like Pennhyll, you are strong and fierce." She felt, ridiculous as it was, that she knew him better than she knew herself. "To make a life here is to have courage and heart, and those you surely have. — Carolyn Jewel

The tension between religion and science is an old problem. In the fourth century, Christians and scientists were deadlocked over the matter of the earth's shape. Saint Augustine, a wise man who knew the difference between the outer life and the inner life, wrote: 'What concern is it of mine whether heaven is like a sphere and the earth is enclosed by it and suspended in the middle of the universe, or whether heaven like a disk above the earth covers it over on one side? These facts would be of no avail for my salvation.' Augustine attached little importance to science and left it alone. If a reading of the Bible conflicted with a scientific view that was certain truth, he humbly admitted that he had interpreted the Bible erroneously. He could afford to be humble, for in his inmost convictions he looked upon science the way a master looks upon his pet, as a creature with intelligence but lacking in higher understanding, and something irrelevant to the search for meaning in life. — Ronald W. Dworkin

Under Zia's regime life for women in Pakistan became much more restricted. Jinnah said, "No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women." But General Zia brought in Islamic laws which reduced a woman's evidence in court to count for only half that of a man's. Soon our prisons were full of cases like that of a thirteen-year-old girl who was raped and became pregnant and was then sent to prison for adultery because she couldn't produce four male witnesses to prove it was a crime. — Malala Yousafzai

All my life long I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women. Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has not been one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a woman, but a woman doing a man's work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done me. I cannot forget, for injustice is a sixth sense, and rouses all the others. — Amelia Barr

PRETEND YOU ARE DRIVING a car in the middle of a thunderstorm and you happen upon three people on the side of the road. One of them is a frail old woman, who looks on the verge of collapse. Another is a friend who once saved your life. The other is the romantic interest of your dreams, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet him or her. You have only one other seat in the car. Who do you pick up? There's a good reason to choose any of the three. The old woman needs help. The friend deserves your payback. And clearly, a happy future with the man or woman of your dreams will have an enormous long-term impact on your life. So, who should you pick? The old woman, of course. Then, give the car keys to your friend, and stay behind with the romantic interest to wait for the bus! — Shane Snow

Our poor human heart is flawed: it is like a cake without the frosting: the first two acts of the theatre without the climax. Even its design is marred for a small piece is missing out of the side. That is why it remains so unsatisfied: it wants life and it gets death: it wants Truth and it has to settle for an education; it craves love and gets only intermittent euphoria's with satieties. Samples, reflections and fractions are only tastes, not mouthfuls. A divine trick has been played on the human heart as if a violin teacher gave his pupil an instrument with one string missing. God kept a part of man's heart in Heaven, so that discontent would drive him back again to Him Who is Eternal Life, All-Knowing Truth and the Abiding Ecstasy of Love. — Fulton J. Sheen

In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of "the common good" and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed. In this world irrationality clings to man like his shadow so that the right things get done for the wrong reasons?afterwards, we dredge up the right reasons for justification. It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral; a world where "reconciliation" means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it. — Saul Alinsky

Don't you miss having a man? Don't you want to get married?"
He [Patrick Sonnier] is simple and direct. I'm simple and direct back.
I tell him that even as a young woman I didn't want to marry one man and have one family, I always wanted a wider arena for my love. But intimacy means a lot to me, I tell him. "I have close friends - men and women. I couldn't make it without intimacy."
"Yeah?" he says.
"Yeah," I say. "But there's a costly side to celibacy, too, a deep loneliness sometimes. There are moments, especially on Sunday afternoons, when I smell the smoke in the neighborhood from family barbecues, and feel like a fool not to have pursued a "normal" life. But, then, I've figured out that loneliness is part of everyone's life, part of being human - the private, solitary part of us that no one else can touch." (p. 127) — Helen Prejean

I was young at Myna, that first time. When had the change come? He had retreated to here, to Collegium, to spin his awkward webs of intrigue and to lecture at the College. Then, years on, the call had come for action. He had gone to that chest in which he stored his youth and found that, like some armour long unworn, it had rusted away.
He tried to tell himself that this was not like the grumbling of any other man who finds the prime of his life behind him. I need my youth and strength now, as never before. A shame that one could no husband time until one needed it. All his thoughts rang hollow. He was past his best and that was the thorn that would not be plucked from his side. He was no different from any tradesman or scholar who, during a life of indolence, pauses partway up the stairs to think, This was not so hard, yesterday. — Adrian Tchaikovsky

I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention of I know not whom. It lasts no time at all, and is worth nothing. One breaks one's neck in living. Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances. Happiness is an antique reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: 'All is vanity.' I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps. — Victor Hugo

Suppose it were true - Adam, the most rigidly honest
man it was possible to find, living all his life on stolen money. Lee laughed to himself - now this
second will, and Aron, whose purity was a little on the self-indulgent side, living all his life on the
profits from a whorehouse. Was this some kind of joke or did things balance so that if one went too far
in one direction an automatic slide moved on the scale and the balance was re-established? — John Steinbeck

He was intensely moved by the grandeur of the struggle for life, and the ethical rule which it suggested seemed to fit in with his predispositions. He said to himself that might was right. Society stood on one side, an organism with its own laws of growth and self-preservation, while the individual stood on the other. The actions which were to the advantage of society it termed virtuous and those which were not it called vicious. Good and evil meant nothing more than that. Sin was a prejudice from which the free man should rid himself. Society had three arms in its — W. Somerset Maugham

I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life (I am wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with them, remembering how they had been employed, and seeing them enjoy the ride. I was not angry with them; I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among creatures with whom I had no community of nature. They were very cheerful. The old man sat in front to drive, and the two young people sat behind him, and whenever he spoke to them leaned forward, the one on one side of his chubby face and the other on the other, and made a great deal of him. They would have talked to me too, but I held back, and moped in my corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, though it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgement came upon them for their hardness of heart. So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and — Charles Dickens

Despite her apparent freedom, her life consisted of endless hours spent waiting for a miracle, for true love, for an adventure with the same romantic ending she had seen in films and read about in books. A writer once said that it is not time that changes man, nor knowledge; the only thing that can change someone's mind is love. What nonsense!
The person who wrote that clearly knew only one side of the coin.
Love was undoubtedly one of the things capable of changing a person's whole life, from one moment to the next. But there was the other side of the coin, the second thing that could make a human being take a totally different course from the one he or she had planned; and that was called despair. Yes, perhaps love really could transform someone, but despair did the job more quickly. — Paulo Coelho

I'm a rich man, Brick, yep, I'm a mighty rich man. Y'know how much I'm worth? Guess, Brick! Guess how much I'm worth! Close to ten million in cash an' blue chip stocks, outside, mind you, of twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile! But a man can't buy his life with it, he can't buy back his life with it when his life has been spent, that's one thing not offered in the Europe fire-sale or in the American markets or any markets on earth, a man can't buy his life with it, he can't buy back his life when his life is finished ...
Big Daddy: (pp. 65) — Tennessee Williams

At the age when we are all of us most apt to take our colouring, in the form of a reflection from the colouring of other people, he had been sent abroad, and had been passed on from one nation to another, before there was time for any one colouring more than another to settle itself on him firmly. As a consequence of this, he had come back with so many different sides to his character, all more or less jarring with each other, that he seemed to pass his life in a state of perpetual contradiction with himself. He could be a busy man, and a lazy man; cloudy in the head, and clear in the head; a model of determination, and a spectacle of helplessness, all together. He had his French side, and his German side, and his Italian side
the original English foundation showing through, every now and then, as much as to say, Here I am, sorely transmogrified, as you see, but there's something of me left at the bottom of him still. — Wilkie Collins

I remember when A love Supreme was released - I heard it at a friends house ... Man it was incredible. That record sounded different than the rest. I was trying to gather my spirituality together, trying to get an understanding of life ... I felt Coltrane was the first musician who made a transition from one side to the other. — Maurice White

He can be made to take a positive pleasure in the perception that the two sides of his life are inconsistent... by exploiting his vanity. He can... enjoy kneeling beside the grocer on Sunday just because he remembers that the grocer could not possibly understand the urbane and mocking world which he inhabited on Saturday evening; and contrariwise, to enjoy the bawdy and blasphemy over the coffee with these admirable friends all the more because he is aware of a "deeper," "spiritual" world within him which they can not understand. You see the idea - the worldly friends touch him on one side and the grocer on the other, and he is the complete, balanced, complex man who sees round them all. Thus, while being permanently treacherous to at least two sets of people, he will feel, instead of same, a continual under-current of self-satisfaction... and that to cease to do so would be "priggish," "intolerant," and... "Puritanical. — C.S. Lewis

Does killing become easier, as natural as a reflex?" she pressed. "Not to me, I've set out to intentionally take only one man's life." He flattened his back against the cool stones, bending his knee and placing the bottom of his boot on the post near his other knee. He remained impassive as he chewed on a blade of sweetgrass. "Who? Why?" she asked when he didn't expound. "Perhaps I'll tell you one day, if you hang around." He glanced at her, a half-grin curling up one side of his inviting mouth.

-Calinda & Lynx — Janelle Taylor

When you are on the bright side of life, do not forget the people who are on the dark side and remember that man can easily slip from one side to the other! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

She did not respond, only clung harder to my embrace, and I held her with all the afflictions of a man torn by love. What a miracle she was, what a truly exquisite paragon of beauty and virtue so incredibly combined. And all perhaps wrenched from my grasp because of a war I had no real interest in nor knowledge of. In that moment I did not care who won, if only it would end and I could be with her. I would accept the whole responsibility of defeat if I had to, if only it meant a life with her by my side.
I just wanted her. Needed her. As simply and clearly as one needs food and oxygen and light, I needed her in my life.
And above us, flittering tranquilly in the trees above, the finches and skylarks continued to sing peacefully into the fading sun. — Jamie L. Harding

How certain are you that this forest is Darken Wood, Raistin?"
"How certain is one of anything, Half-Elven?" the mage replied. "I am not certain of drawing my next breath. But go ahead. Walk into the wood that no living man has ever walked out. Death is life's one great certainty, Tanis."
The half-elf felt a sudden urge to throw Raistlin off the side of the mountain. — Margaret Weis

Relationships are a development and a dance between our inner male and female sides. A one-sided development of the male side leads to ego, struggle, destructivity and a separation from life.
A one-sided development of our female side leads to dependence and passivity. It is when we have developed a balance and harmony between both our male and female side that a new spark of joy, creativity and wholeness arises within ourselves. — Swami Dhyan Giten

The systematic abuse with which the newspapers of one side assail every candidate coming forward on the other, is the cause of many honorable men, who have a regard to their reputation, being deterred from entering public life; and of the people being thus deprived of some better servants than any they have. — Harriet Martineau

Passing from one dimension to another, he feels that nothing is left behind, but rather is always with him in the moment. His life is no more a myth than other man's, his needs much the same. The only price he pays for this exquisite singularity may be the intrusion of his fellow dreamers who sometimes call him on the telephone. They mean no harm. They too are innocent. Clarity is all any man seeks, this Somnambulist merely find his on the other Side. — Ralph Gibson

There was once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life:
1. He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else.
2. He would make himself a small, strange mustache.
3. He would one day rule the world.
... Yes, the Fuhrer decided that he would rule the world with words. — Markus Zusak

He moved on from Anatole France to the eighteenth-century philosophers, though not to Rousseau. Perhaps this was because one side of him - the side easily moved by passion - was too close to Rousseau. Instead, he approached the author of 'Candide', who was closer to another side of him - the cool and richly intellectual side.
At twenty-nine, life no longer held any brightness for him, but Voltaire supplied him with man-made wings.
Spreading these man-made wings, he soared with ease into the sky. The higher he flew, the farther below him sank the joys and sorrows of a life bathed in the light of intellect. Dropping ironies and smiles upon the shabby towns below, he climbed through the open sky, straight for the sun - as if he had forgotten about that ancient Greek who plunged to his death in the ocean when his man-made wings were singed by the sun. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Are there any two words in all of the English language more closely twinned than courage and cowardice? I do not think there is a man alive who will not yearn to possess the former and dread to be accused of the latter. One is held to be the apogee of man's character, the other its nadir. An yet, to me the two sit side by side on the circle of life, removed from each other by the merest degree of arc. (MARCH - Chapter 11 - page 168) — Geraldine Brooks

But love and hate, he thought now, good and evil, lived side by side in the human heart, and not merely in differing proportions in one man and the next, but all good and all evil. One had merely to look for a little of either to find it all, one had merely to scratch the surface. All things had opposites close by, every decision a reason against it, every animal an animal that destroys it, the male the female, the positive the negative ... Nothing could be without its opposite bound up with it. Could space exist in a building without objects that stopped it? Could energy exist without matter, or matter without energy? Matter and energy, the inert and the active, once considered opposites, were now known to be one. — Patricia Highsmith

Becoming aware of our inner man and woman means to discover the roots and creative potential of both the male and female aspect within ourselves. Becoming aware of the inner man and woman means to understand that they have different visions of life. It means to understand that they have different perspectives and views of life. The inner man and woman are our two wings of love and freedom. Through awareness, acceptance and understanding, we can allow our two wings to develop in a deep and natural harmony. In the world today, a one-sided development of the male side leads to destructivity. A one-sided development of the male side leads to ego, struggle, exhaustion and a separation from life. A one-sided development of the female side leads to passivity and dependence. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Prophecy of Balance (Year of the Cat)

"There must be balance," Source repeated,
"For mankind to flourish on the Earth-Throne he's seated."

His life is a gift from the gods, they created,
And the power to wield choice, but the outcome is weighted.

Seeing the harm and chaos humans manifest,
Wore heavily upon the goodness within their immortal breast.

But the gods disagreed, and two groups they split,
Each one possessing their own talent and wit.

One side fights for freedom of Man's soul,
But the other wants slavery, and Man to control.

So Source cried, "Enough! Now Observers will be sent,
To assist with human minds you've cleverly bent!"

For balance, the pendulum won't sway too far to one side,
And Universal Laws each god must abide.

The gods agreed, but did not stop with their plan,
To influence mankind as much as they can. — Kendi Thompson

By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic "the self-transcendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself
be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself
by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love
the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence. — Viktor E. Frankl

This hand says you spend the rest of your life with me," he said, holding out his left hand, "and this one says I spend the rest of my life with you. Choose."
She bit her lip, tears welling in her eyes. She took both of his hands in hers and he shuddered. "I will die protecting you," he says.
There was a look of dismay on her face. "Just like a man of this kingdom, Finnikin. Talking of death, yours or mine, is not a good way to begin a-"
Isaboe gave a small gasp when he leaned forward, his lips an inch away from hers. "I will die for you," he whispered.
She cupped his face in her hands. "But promise me you'll live for me first, my love. Because nothing we are about to do is going to be easy and I need you by my side. — Melina Marchetta

They had a fabulous sex life. Drake was an attentive, tender lover who took his time in pleasing her. But every once in a while something in him changed and she caught a glimpse of the truly dangerous man he really was. She hadn't tamed him, not one bit. He just chose to show her a tender side he said he'd only discovered with her.
But sometimes the tiger in him growled and clawed its way to the surface. And then the sex was incandescent. — Lisa Marie Rice

I do not like the killers, and the killing bravely and well crap. I do not like the bully boys, the Teddy Roosevelt's, the Hemingways, the Ruarks. They are merely slightly more sophisticated versions of the New Jersey file clerks who swarm into the Adirondacks in the fall, in red cap, beard stubble and taut hero's grin, talking out of the side of their mouths, exuding fumes of bourbon, come to slay the ferocious white-tailed deer. It is the search for balls. A man should have one chance to bring something down. He should have his shot at something, a shining running something, and see it come a-tumbling down, all mucus and steaming blood stench and gouted excrement, the eyes going dull during the final muscle spasms. And if he is, in all parts and purposes, a man, he will file that away as a part of his process of growth and life and eventual death. And if he is perpetually, hopelessly a boy, he will lust to go do it again, with a bigger beast. — John D. MacDonald

According to Islam, whenever we are struck by illness or misfortune or someone hurts us, there is a higher purpose behind it, which we may not understand at the time,' one of them said to me. 'That's where trust comes in. Through suffering, God helps us to better ourselves and make good our mistakes. It is a form of purification and also God's way of testing the strength of our faith and the goodness of our character.' Another lady suggested I look on the bright side.

'Suffering draws us closer to God and that is our aim in life,' she said. Then she quoted Rumi who had said, 'It is pain that draws man to his Lord, because when he is well, he doesn't remember the Lord.' I tried to look at the positive and believe that there was a higher, spiritual perspective on what I had just been through, and all the advice I was given helped me a lot. But it took quite a while for my heart to catch up with my mind. — Kristiane Backer

Man, furthermore, must make his choices as an individual, for individuality is one side of one's consciousness of one's self. We can see this point clearly when we realize that consciousness of one's self is always a unique act - I can never know exactly how you see yourself and you never can know exactly how I relate to myself. This is the inner sanctum where each man must stand alone. This fact makes for much of the tragedy and inescapable isolation in human life, but it also indicates again that we must find the strength in ourselves to stand in our own inner sanctum as individuals. — Rollo May

Thinking and planning is one side of life; doing is another. A man cannot be
doing all the time. — Mary Stewart

But it wasn't mine anymore. It was his. I was his. Something in that flirted with the submissive I knew that lurked inside. How long had I waited and searched for the right man? One who could dominate me with more than just words? A sadist that liked the extreme side of life? That's what I needed, and one with a darkness to match my own. — Alaska Angelini

What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side? From sorrow to sorrow? To button up one cause of vexation! And unbutton another! — Laurence Sterne

Instead, that possessive side of him, the one that recognized Tate as his match, his equal in all ways he ever could have imagined, stirred to life, as he acknowledged the possibility of being bound to this man forever, in every way he could be. Curious — Ella Frank