Thoughtful Living Quotes & Sayings

I got a number of very thoughtful responses to the email I sent out last night, most of which I don't have time to respond to right now. Thanks everyone for the encouragement, questions, criticism. Daniel's response was particularly inspiring to me and deserves to be shared. The resistance of Israeli Jewish people to the occupation and the enormous risk taken by those refusing to serve in the Israeli military offers an example, especially for those of us living in the United States, of how to behave when you discover that atrocities are being commited in your name. Thank you. — Rachel Corrie

And I sat there at the patio,
while the whole of universe,
was getting engulfed,
in the whitest whiteness of snow.

Down, near my rough paw,
is soft snow,
mannering a fidgeting embryo.

I monitored the snow that plunged,
on the soil of my backyard,
and realized it melting fast.
Was that the temperature or,
my eyes on it overcast?

While I think of this melted exalt,
I am obliged to ask,
What ought happens to the thoughts?
Where do they get tossed?
When they are forgot?

Scorched?
Scoffed?
Deformed?
Unadorned? — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been. — John Greenleaf Whittier

A life is similar to a book. Some chapters are boring,a few emotional, a handful memorable,others saddening,one or two thoughtful and many full of smiles. — Elizabeth Adeniyi

On the side of box of my superman costume it actually said - 'Do not attempt to fly!' — Jerry Seinfeld

A comedian is sort of like a wild animal. It really just depends on where you catch them. Sometimes they want to cuddle up, and sometimes they'll snap at you. But for me, more often than not, if I'm talking to somebody who makes their living in comedy, it'll be a very thoughtful conversation driven from an emotionally honest place. — Nick Kroll

To a thoughtful biographer, [Ebling Mis's house] was "the symbolization of a retreat from a non-academic reality", a society columnist gushed silkily at its "frightfully masculine atmosphere of careless disorder", a University Ph.D called it brusquely, "bookish, but unorganized", a non-university friend said, "good for a drink anytime and you can put your feet on the sofa", and a breezy newsweekly broadcast, that went in for color, spoke of the "rooky, down-to-earth, no-nonsense living quarters of blaspheming, Leftish, balding Ebling Mis".
To Bayta, who thought of no audience but herself at the moment, and who had the advantage of first-hand information, it was merely sloppy. — Isaac Asimov

Sitting at our back doorsteps, all we need to live a good life lies about us. Sun, wind, people, buildings, stones, sea, birds and plants surround us. Cooperation with all these things brings harmony, opposition to them brings disaster and chaos. — Bill Mollison

Lord, Your Word says that he who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe (Prov. 28:26). I've come to realize that I cannot trust in myself. My safety is in learning to trust in You, Lord. — Beth Moore

The major source of photochemical smog - petroleum-fueled vehicles - can be replaced by emission-free electric vehicles. — Barry Commoner

I love this planet ... I want to see the environment preserved and I want to see the human race preserved. And I'd like to see everybody living decently in a more equitable, kind-hearted, thoughtful, generous world. — Ted Turner

Little in his brief life was lost on him; there are premonitions of Nineteen Eighty-Four even in his memoir of schooldays 'Such, Such Were the Joys'. Experiences in the colonies and the BBC can be seen to have furnished raw materials; so indeed can his reading of Evgeny Zamyatin's We and other dystopian literature from the early days of Stalinism. But the transcendent or crystallising moment undoubtedly occurred in Spain, or at any rate in Catalonia. This was where Orwell suffered the premonitory pangs of a man living under a police regime: a police regime ruling in the name of socialism and the people. For a Westerner, at least, this epiphany was a relatively novel thing; it brushed the sleeves of many thoughtful and humane people, who barely allowed it to interrupt their preoccupation with the 'main enemy', fascism. But on Orwell it made a permanent impression. — Christopher Hitchens

Without thoughtful effort and purposeful change, human life does not improve. The key to living a meaningful life is to accept reality. There is no inherent meaning to life just as there is no hidden meaning behind death. Life is limited and death is simply an ending. The only meaning to life is what each person passionately commits their life to accomplishing. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I was living in Paris, which is a very beautiful, very wonderful place, but a tight place as a city, a tight place culturally. Its people are very brilliant, thoughtful, the place functions, but it's a historical place in some ways, like a big museum. — Nicolas Berggruen

Consider your actions and words. Be thoughtful when expressing your feelings or concerns. Sometimes it's not what you say, but the way you say it. That makes all the difference — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

Do you know how wind and water are unstoppable? The smallest cracks give wind and water all they need to creep through and make it chilly and wet. Well, I am also kind of drafty and leaky. I cannot stop up my fissures with purchases at the mall. Neither can I hold back the wind and the water with my expectations of living a spartan life. — Dave Bruno

Even the best weapon is an unhappy tool, hateful to living things. So the follower of the Way stays away from it. Weapons are unhappy tools, not chosen by thoughtful people, to be used only when there is no choice, and with a calm, still mind, without enjoyment. To enjoy using weapons is to enjoy killing people, and to enjoy killing people is to lose your share in the common good. It is right that the murder of many people be mourned and lamented. It is right that a victor in war be received with funeral ceremonies. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Really good writing has purpose and that purpose should be to shape other minds to desire truth and a more noble purpose in life and to become more thoughtful and knowledgable about important things like being kind and loving towards all living beings on our planet and not just humans but all animals. — Susan Waterfield

That's how we do it in the black community; we give back to the people who made us who we are. We never forget that. — Snoop Dogg

Living is a creative and active process of diligent learning that entails industrious human action, attentive awareness, and thoughtful reflection. Learning is one facet of human beings innate capacity that can provide a sense of worthiness to human life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I saw a lot of working class men and women - myself included - living a deeper, more thoughtful life than would have been possible without the church... The sense of belonging to something big, something important, lent unity and meaning. — Jeanette Winterson

When the days are too short, chances are you are living at your best. — Earl Nightingale

Why now that he's sober and thoughtful, and living as a good man, does he get in the worst trouble of his life? — Louise Erdrich

One should never fear sorrow because it is the stepping stone to happiness," - Rig Veda — Bharadwaj

I am not interested in shooting new things - I am interested to see things new. — Ernst Haas

For if I do something, I never do it thoughtlessly. — Diane Ackerman

Marriage is about compromising,' he told me. 'Families are about compromising, being anything other than a hermit is about compromising. Parliamentary democracy certainly is.' He snorted. 'Nothing but.' He drained his glass. 'You either learn to compromise or you resign yourself to shouting from the sidelines for the rest of your life.' He looked thoughtful. 'Or you arrange to become a dictator. There's always that, I suppose.' He shrugged. 'Not a great set of choices, really, but that's the price we pay for living together. And it's that or solitude. Then you really do become a wanker. Another drink? — Iain Banks

Everything really desirable has come about because of, or in spite of, wine! — Lawrence Durrell

Aim high, but do not aim so high that you totally miss the target. What really matters is that he will love you, that he will respect you, that he will honor you, that he will be absolutely true to you, that he will give you the freedom of expression and let you fly in the development of your own talents. He is not going to be perfect, but if he is kind and thoughtful, if he knows how to work and earn a living, if he is honest and full of faith, the chances are you will not go wrong, that you will be immensely happy. — Gordon B. Hinckley

In Globetrotter, David Albahari explores the consciousness of emigres from the former Yugoslavia, Croatia and Serbia, showing that while abroad, many of us are even more intensely preoccupied with our histories than we were while living in Yugoslavia. His narrative structured out of realistic details and perceptions with self-conscious meditation blending history, civilization and its discontents, and personal experience reaches a density and intensity akin to Krasznahorkai's and Thomas Bernhard's. An intensely idiosyncratic narrative, enjoyable and thoughtful. — Josip Novakovich