Terribleness Quotes & Sayings

It began to strike me that the point of my education was a kind of discomfort, was the process that would not award me my own especial Dream but would break all the dreams, all the comforting myths of Africa, of America, and everywhere, and would leave me only with humanity in all its terribleness. And there was so much terrible out there, even among us. You must understand this. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

You are constantly told in depression that your judgment is compromised, but a part of depression is that it touches cognition. That you are having a breakdown does not mean that your life isn't a mess. If there are issues you have successfully skirted or avoided for years, they come cropping back up and stare you full in the face, and one aspect of depression is a deep knowledge that the comforting doctors who assure you that your judgment is bad are wrong. You are in touch with the real terribleness of your life. You can accept rationally that later, after the medication sets in, you will be better able to deal with the terribleness, but you will not be free of it. When you are depressed, the past and future are absorbed entirely by the present moment, as in the world of a three-year-old. You cannot remember a time when you felt better, at least not clearly; and you certainly cannot imagine a future time when you will feel better. — Andrew Solomon

Meditation may be done in silence & stillness, by using voice & sound, or by engaging the body in movement. All forms emphasize the training of attention. — Sharon Salzberg

When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in that chase. The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation, but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being. — Albert Einstein

The Ides of March. A sky-lidded night plain. A star-loaded sky. A moon without a pond to primp in. A wind without a leaf to tease. A nighthawk without a wire to rest on. A couple without a corner to turn. Her sandals, his wheels, made a popcorn-eating sound in the sand. — Tom Robbins

No good thing can last forever, because people are terrible and we have this feeling, we all have this feeling, that if not for that essential terribleness we could have gotten further by now. Done better. Done more. — Catherynne M Valente

Some cultures, for instance, are collectivist; others are individualistic. Collectivist cultures, like Japan and other Confucian nations, value social harmony more than any one person's happiness. Individualistic cultures, like the United States, value personal satisfaction more than communal harmony. That's why the Japanese have a well-known expression: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down." In America, the nail that sticks out gets a promotion or a shot at American Idol. We are a nation of protruding nails. — Eric Weiner

There is no beauty, if it doesn't show some of the terribleness of life. — Marlene Dumas

{2:141} This is a people that have passed away; they shall have what they earned and you shall have what you earn, and you shall not be called upon to answer for what they did. Start — Anonymous

I left the Midwest thinking I didn't fit in. But when I got to New York, I realized how truly Midwestern I was. — Jim Gaffigan

The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer. — Friedrich Nietzsche

He who does not at some time, with definite determination consent to the terribleness of life, or even exalt in it, never takes possession of the inexpressible fullness of the power of our existence. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I have done film, television and theatre - all at a pretty substantial level - I don't think it's possible for American actors to do that. — Helen Mirren

The Alchemist' is the modern bible. — Carla Golian

VARANASI TRAFFIC is shambolic. It's a humbling reminder that the British drive on the left side of the road and we (Indians) drive on what's left of the road. "The traffic is not terrible at all," wrote novelist Geoff Dyer. "It is beyond any idea of terribleness. It is beyond any idea of traffic. — Guru Madhavan