The Moments We Stand Quotes & Sayings

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

Far too often, it is at the moment where we finally stand on the very precipice of some great thing that we turn and abandon it, for it is at these seminal moments that fear wins and greatness dies. The beauty of Christmas is that God steps over precipices. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

We stand before a burning bush whenever other human beings share with us something of their relationship with God or something of the movements of their hearts. In such moments may we always realize that we stand on holy ground — Margaret Silf

Life pulls down every person to the least possible negativity and thrusts them outward to shine. It is the fight that matters; when you reach the bottom, you are left with no choice but to pick yourself up and climb every difficult step. Feeling down
and letting situations tear you apart proves that we all are human and nothing more or less. So, there is no need to worry about the devastating moments; there will come a moment
when you will be forced to stand for your rights and make one single move that will pull you into the world of success. Seize the moment and grow, that's all you can do and that's why you are born. — Kavipriya Moorthy

There are so many moments to remember and sometimes I think that maybe we're not really people at all. Maybe moments are what we are ... Sometimes I just survive. But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more. — Markus Zusak

Real life is a funny thing, you know. In real life, saying the right thing at the right moment is beyond crucial. So crucial, in fact, that most of us start to hesitate, for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But lately what I've begun to fear more that that is letting the moment pass without saying anything.
I think most of us fear reaching the end of our life, and looking back, regretting the moments we didn't speak up. When we didn't say "I love you." When we should've said "I'm Sorry." When we didn't stand up for ourselves or some one who needed help. — Taylor Swift

It's the what if? The what then? And we know that if we go for it, if we risk it, we immediately stand to lose it. But weirdly, some part of us believes the feeling is two-way, because it must be; it's too special not to be. We believe that something's been shared, even if the evidence we have is ... what? A look that lasted a breath longer then we're used to? A second glance, when the glance could easily have been to check whether there are any cabs coming, or whether the jacket we're wearing that's caught their eyes would look good on their boyfriend, or why it is we seem to be staring at them.
I saw you. You don't use overhead handles on the train. Hoped it would jolt and you would fall to me. But no.
I smiled. These small moments, never said out loud, as formed and perfect as sweet little haikus, romance and longing carved out in the dust of a grubby city. — Danny Wallace

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

So how are we going to get into the temple, anyway? Are we going to fight our way through the Necromancers on our own?'
'No, we're going to find a way to let our friends in, and then we'll let them fight while we stand by and look smug.'
'I like that plan.'
'It has its moments. — Derek Landy

In moments of peace such as I experienced that day with Edal there exists some unritual reunion with the rest of creation without which the lives of many are trivial. 'Extinct' applies as much to an essential mental attitude as to the vanished creatures of the earth such as the Dodo. We can no longer await some scientific revelation to avoid the destruction of our species in this context; the evidence is all there, the writing on the wall. The way back cannot be the same for all of us, but for those like myself it means a descent of the rungs until we stand again amid the other creatures of the earth and share to some small extent their vision of it, even though this may be labelled Wordsworthian romanticism. — Gavin Maxwell

We are here for what amounts to a few/hours,/a day at most./We feel around making sense of the terrain,/our own new limbs,/Bumping up against a herd of bodies/until one becomes home./Moments sweep past. The grass bends/then learns again to stand. — Tracy K. Smith

It occurs to me how close happiness and sadness are. So closely knitted together. Such a thin line, a thread-like divide that in the midst of emotions, it trembles, blurring the territory of exact opposites ... how quickly a moment of love was snapped away to a moment of hate ... Of how love and war stand upon the very same foundations. How, in my darkest moments, my most fearful times, when faced, became my bravest. When feeling at your weakest you end up showing more strength, when at your lowest are suddenly lifted above higher than you've ever been. They all border one another, the opposites, and how we can be altered. Despair can be altered by one simple smile offered by a stranger; confidence can become fear by the arrival of one uneasy presence. ... How similar emotions are. — Cecelia Ahern

We do it for those tiny moments when the world opens up and we're no longer alone. Those moments when we realize that we aren't the center of the universe, but to one single person, we're their entire existence. We are what they live for and we matter to them more than anything. No matter how hard we get knocked down, we stand back up, and we face the darkness that's inside us and we raise our fist at it and tell it, not today. You won't have me yet. I won't let you take that last bit of my soul. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Regardless of what I do, whether I write a book or whether I act or whether I host, I'll always do stand-up comedy because those moments, that's what I crave. If I do something funny, and I hear a crowd laugh in that moment, we're all sharing the exact same experience and the exact same feeling. — Howie Mandel

It makes sense that your response to a bad break-up line would be to set someone on fire," I responded. "Fire is magical to us because it embodies the passage of time. We can never grasp time because it is invisible, unreachable and continually slipping from our grasp. Do we live in the present? How can we? The present is infinitesimally small. It can't contain human action. We teeter on the brink between our assumed future...where we will be in moments to come...and our memory of the past...where we think we just were. The present doesn't exist in a comprehensible way. Similarly, fire is something we can neither grasp nor touch, yet it has a clear effect...the decay and collapse of life, the acceleration of entropy. Thus when we stand mesmerized by fire, we are actually mesmerized by our own mortality. — David David Katzman

If we stand in the openings of the present moment, with all the length and breadth of our faculties unselfishly adjusted to what it reveals, we are in the best condition to receive what God is always ready to communicate. — Thomas Cogswell Upham

I've wandered through the real world, and written myself through the darkness of the streets inside me. I see people walking through the city and wonder where they've been, and what the moments of their lives have done to them. If they're anything like me, their moments have held them up and shot them down.
Sometimes I just survive.
But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.
That's when the stories show up in me.
They find me all the time.
They're made of underdogs and fighters. They're made of hunger and desire and trying to live decent.
The only trouble is, I don't know which of those stories comes first.
Maybe they all just merge into one.
We'll see, I guess.
I'll let you know when I decide. — Markus Zusak

We do not need definite beliefs because their objects are necessarily true. We need them because they enable us to stand on steady spots from which the truth may be glimpsed. And not simply glimpsed - because certainly revelation is available outside of dogma; indeed all dogma, if it's alive at all, is the result of revelation at one time or another - but gathered in. Definite beliefs are what make the radical mystery - those moments when we suddenly know there is a God, about whom we "know" absolutely nothing - accessible to us and our ordinary, unmysterious lives. And more crucially: definite beliefs enable us to withstand the storms of suffering that come into every life, and that tend to destroy any spiritual disposition that does not have deep roots. — Christian Wiman

Because we love the Lord, we should be spiritually sensitive to moments when the powerful and important truths of the gospel can be shared with others. Perhaps more importantly, however, we should seek at all times to purify ourselves and to lead such worthy lives that the Light of Christ emanates from us in all that we say and do. Our day-to-day lives should stand as immutable witness of our faith in Christ. — M. Russell Ballard

All I'm trying to say is, be kind to yourself. This one life is all we've got, and we all make mistakes along the way. Do things we oughtn't, fail to do those we should. See those moments for what they were. Learn from them what you can. And then stand up a little taller and keep marching forward. In the end it's how we keep going that matters. The world won't remember our falls unless we never pick ourselves up. — J. Leigh Bralick

Whether or not any of us become racists is a choice we make. And we are called to choose again and again where we stand on the issue of racism at different moments in our life. — Bell Hooks

You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, 'It happened overnight.' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing. — Colson Whitehead

Sometimes the most beautiful moments in our lives are things that hurt badly at the time. We only see them for what they really were when we stand at the very end and look back. — Emily Henry

Thoughts of You
There were times when I was with him and it was too much. Does that make sense? When someone stirs a world of emotion in you and it's so intense you can barely stand to be with him.
During those moments, I wanted so desperately to leave - to go home, walk into my bedroom, and shut the door behind me. Crawl into bed and lay there in the dark, tracing the outline of my lips with my fingers - replaying everything he said, everything we did. I wanted to be left alone - with nothing other than my thought of him. — Lang Leav

There are moments in life, and they happen so infrequently that they tend to really stand out, when life hands you the gift of perspective. Sometimes, we forget to show our appreciation. Sometimes, we get our priorities mixed up. And, sometimes, we forget how far we've come. But life always has a way of nudging you to remind you about these important things. — Cassia Leo

At times, the confident lose confidence, the patient lose their cool, the generous act selfish, and the knowledgeable second guess what they know. And guess what? We're all human. We all make mistakes, we lose our tempers, and we get caught off guard. We stumble, we slip, and we spin out of control sometimes. But that's usually the worst of it. We all have our moments. Most of the time, we're remarkable. So stand beside the people you love through their trying times of imperfection, and offer yourself the same courtesy. For more tips on how to live a productive life, read "The Angel Affect" and join the mission. — Anonymous

How lovely the months, the years with him had been. At the moment I hadn't understood their importance, and now here I was, growing sad. The rain the cold the snow the scents of Spring along the Arno and on the flowering streets of the city, the warmth we gave each other. Choosing a dress, glasses. His pleasure in changing me. And Paris, the exciting trip to a foreign country, the cafes, the politics, the literature, the revolution that would soon arrive, even though the working class was becoming integrated. And him. His room at night. His body. All finished. I tossed nervously in my bed unable to sleep. I'm lying to myself , I thought. Had it really been so wonderful ? I knew very well that at that time, too, there had been shame. And uneasiness, and humiliation, and disgust: accept, submit force yourself. Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to rigorous examination — Elena Ferrante

It is always the first and last steps that are the hardest to take. We walk away and try not to turn back, or we stand just outside the gates, terrified to find what's waiting for us now that we've returned. In between, we stumble blindly from one place and life to the next. We try to do the best we can. There are moments like this, however, when we are neither coming nor going, and all we have to do is sit and look back on the life we have made. — Dinaw Mengestu

If any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for alcoholics we appear somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us a while on the firing line, see the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children; let the solving of these problems become a part of their daily work, and even of their sleeping moments, and the most cynical will not wonder that we have accepted and encouraged this movement. We feel, after years of experience, that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up among them. — William Duncan Silkworth

But in life we don't usually get to choose the time of our defining moments. We just have to stand and face them when they come, no matter what sort of a state we're in. — Darren Shan