Uncontrived Quotes & Sayings

Until all Africans stand and speak as free human beings, equal in the eyes of the Almighty; until that day, the African continent shall not know peace. — Haile Selassie

Osha," Bran asked as they crossed the yard. "Do you know the way north? To the Wall and ... and even past?" "The way's easy. Look for the Ice Dragon, and chase the blue star in the rider's eye. — George R R Martin

With uncontrived sincerity he said, "I want to know you." That was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me. — Dan Harris

Why do most great pictures look uncontrived? Why do photographers bother with the deception, especially since it so often requires the hardest work of all? The answer is, I think, that the deception is necessary if the goal of art is to be reached: only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace. — Robert Adams

Together they waited for the sky to flip over like the turning of a page, the bone-colored moon giving way to a brilliant sun, the promise of a new day, and Ellie was surprised to find herself thinking of the little town in France, the one with all the miracles. She could only hope that in a place filled with so many wonders, it would have still been possible to appreciate something as remarkable and ordinary as all this. — Jennifer E. Smith

This life is a war we are not yet
winning for our daughters' children.
Don't do your enemies' work for them.
Finish your own. — Marge Piercy

If everything had a label, we would live in a fully delineated but false world. — Mason Cooley

Since pure awareness of nowness is real Enlightenment,
in openness and contentment I found the Truth in my heart.
By simply relaxing in this uncontrived, open, and natural state,
we obtain the quality of effortless freedom of whatever arises. — Jigdral Yeshe Dorje

One's capacity for metaphor is one's capacity for a full life. — Joseph Chilton Pearce

The Hollywood sirens are shrieking, while down some search lit alley runs some lost belief. — Joni Mitchell

Matt?"
"Yeah?"
A barely there sigh escaped her lips. "I really want to sleep with you, but ... "
"Damn," he said. "That was a great sentence right up to the 'but'."
-Amy and Matt — Jill Shalvis

I have discovered a universal rule which seems to apply more than any other in all human actions or words: namely, to steer away from affectation at all costs, as if it were a rough and dangerous reef, and (to use perhaps a novel word for it) to practise in all things a certain nonchalance [sprezzatura] which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless. — Baldassare Castiglione

Sure am glad I'm not royalty," I muttered. "I wouldn't want to have to bump uglies with someone I can't stand. On a regular basis. And no one else."
"Ow!" I exclaimed, trying to yank my fingers from Trent but finding them caught. Then I colored, realizing what I'd said. "Oh ... sorry," I stammered, meaning it. "That was insensitive."
Trent's frown turned into a sly smirk. "Bump uglies?" he said, eyes on the table behind me. "You are a font of gutter slang, Rachel. We must do this again. — Kim Harrison

Love is as strong as fire. — Elizabeth Hunter

My aim is a continuous, sustained, uncontrived image, motivated by nothing but passion. — Rico Lebrun

Mr. Poe couldn't think of anything else to say that might have comforted the Baudelaire orphans, but I wish now that I had the power to go back in time and speak to these three sobbing children. — Lemony Snicket

We must be wise taskmasters and not require of ourselves what we cannot possibly perform. Recreation we must have. Otherwise, the strings of our soul, wound up to an unnatural tension, will break. — Elizabeth Prentiss

We should cast aside all childish games that fetter and exhaust body, speech and mind.
Stretching out in inconceivable nonaction, in the unstructured matrix, the actuality of emptiness,
where the natural perfection of reality lies, we should gaze at the uncontrived sameness of every experience,
all conditioning and ambition resolved with finality. — Longchenpa

One Taste is not some experience you bring about through effort; rather, it is the actual condition of all experience before you do anything to it. This uncontrived state is prior to effort, prior to grasping, prior to avoiding. It is the real world before you do anything to it, including the effort to "see it nondually". — Ken Wilber

Those who ignore or belittle karmic cause and result are followers of the nihilist heretics. Those who base their confidence only upon the view of emptiness will plunge lower and lower toward the extreme view of nihilism. Those who catapult into this negative direction will never find freedom from the lower states of existence and will be far removed from the higher realms. They say that doctrines emphasizing conventional meanings such as cause and result, compassion, and meritorious accumulations will not bring buddhahood, whereas the uncontrived definitive meaning that resembles the sky is what the great yogis must meditate upon. Among nihilistic views, that is the epitome; and among lower paths, that is the lowest of all. How amazing to claim that, by blocking the cause, a result can be accomplished. — Longchen Rabjam

Making the solution seem so completely inevitable and obvious, so uncontrived and natural - it's so hard! — Jonathan Ive