Visibly Better Quotes & Sayings

Our truth-allergic, experience-addicted populace wants transformation but doesn't want the loss of freedom and control associated with submitting to authority within a committed community. Many "converts" seem to make decisions for Christ but soon lose their enthusiasm because they are offered quick programs for follow-up and small group fellowship rather than a lifelong, embodied experience of community. Many churches do not even have a process for becoming a member. As a result, converts' lives are often not visibly different from those in the culture around them. The older, more communal processes of traditional churches are better at bringing about a more thorough transformation of life. — Timothy Keller

The time has come when I am for everybody fighting the rebels. Let Indians fight them; let the Negroes fight them; and if you have got any strong-legged jackasses in Iwoa that can kick rebels to death, they have my hearty consent. — Abraham Lincoln

This time, after a moment, he called her bluff.

"Perhaps Philippa and I should be thrown together a little more. She might become attached to me if she knew me better." Kate, brightening visibly, ignored the gleam in his eye.

"That would make her sorry for you?"

"It might. The object of any sort of clinical study deserves compassion, don't you think?"

"Snakes don't," said Katherine inconsequently. "I hate snakes."

"And yet you feed them on honey cakes and forbid them to defend themselves."

"Defencelessness is not a noted characteristic of serpents. Anyhow, I can't have them lying rattling about the house. It gets on the nerves."

"It does if you handle it by rattling back. — Dorothy Dunnett

Writing about race and crime was not new territory for me. But it can be treacherous. So here are my rules: No stereotypes. No generalizations. No explanations. No apologies. Just the facts, ma'am. — Colin Flaherty

I don't have time for regrets. I go forward; I'm a doer, and I always have projects and dreams. — Guler Sabanci

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope. — Epictetus

Nothing in the Shastra, which is manifestly contrary to universal truths and morals, can stand. — Mahatma Gandhi

Meditation is not a means to an end. Meditation is simply being who you are. Meditation is the rigorous refusal to identify yourself with who you are not. — Yogi Kanna

It's the way it works," she said in clipped tones. "For one rise, another must fall."
"But why? Why can't we just rise, and everybody else can stay where they are? I wouldn't care!"
"And you think I would?" Keisha demanded. She glared at me, the visibly pulled herself back. When she exhaled, her nostrils flared. "Say you've taken a math test. Or an English test, since you love books so much. And you get a hundred. You're psyched, right? 'Mom, I got a hundred! I got the highest grade in the class!'" She raised her eyebrows. "But say everybody else gets a hundred, too. Are you still as proud?"
"Of course," I said stubbornly. "I'd still have my A."
"Bullshit. You like your As because other people get Cs. Because that means you're smarted than they are. Better than they are."
"I don't think I'm better than anyone."
"Then you're and idiot. — Lauren Myracle

To see how transfer of antifragility works, consider two scenarios, in which the market does the same thing on average but following different paths. Path 1: market goes up 50 percent, then goes back down to erase all gains. Path 2: market does not move at all. Visibly Path 1, the more volatile, is more profitable to the managers, who can cash in their stock options. So the more jagged the route, the better it is for them. And of course society - here the retirees - has the exact opposite payoff since they finance bankers and chief executives. Retirees get less upside than downside. Society pays for the losses of the bankers, but gets no bonuses from them. If you don't see this transfer of antifragility as theft, you certainly have a problem. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Being booed off stage is just an applause from ghosts! — Sharon Needles

Like slipping on a banana peel around a corner at eighty miles an hour. Piece of cake. — Brandon Sanderson

Where's the need of singing now? — Edwin Arlington Robinson

She brought the bite to her mouth and chewed slowly, as if savoring the sweet. But he knew better. She was stalling. Using the tart as an excuse to occupy her mouth so she couldn't answer his questions. Darius tugged her plate out of reach before she could stab a second bite. "Nicole." His use of her given name had the desired effect. Her chin jerked up and her eyes widened as she scanned his face. "Your safety is not a trifling matter." The urge to cover her hand with his speared through him, but he resisted, not knowing how she'd interpret such a gesture. Unsure, as well, how he'd want her to interpret it. "While you are at Oakhaven, you are under my protection. Whatever you are running away from - " "I'm not running away." Her eyes sparked, and she visibly bristled as if he'd offended her. "I'm simply taking care of an . . . an errand for my father. It requires a bit of secrecy, is all, and there are competitors who wish to . . . interfere. — Karen Witemeyer

Yes, business really does change. 400 years ago, corporations were formed by royal decree. 300 years ago, many countries were powered by slave labour, or its closest moral equivalent. 200 years ago, debtors didn't go bankrupt, they went to prison. 100 years ago - well, business is largely the same as it was a century ago. And that's exactly the problem. Business hasn't changed, but today's array of tectonic global shocks demands a different, radically better kind of business. Yesterday's corporations visibly cannot meet today's economic challenges. — Umair Haque

Jedediah pulled out his pocketknife, reached over her, and snipped the rose to place in her hair. "Looks better there." In the moonlight, he wasn't sure if she blushed or not. Her eyes seemed all soft and glowing, her lips the color of the pink rose, slightly parted and tempting him. Before he knew what he was doing, his arms had circled her in a swift embrace. Heat filled his face, and his heart pounded so hard he was sure Patience could hear it. Would she let him kiss her? But she was already pulling away, visibly shaken. Her fingers touched her hair, patting it into place, and her eyes, large with surprise, looked into his, then quickly away. "I . . . Jed . . . I think we'd better go back inside and join the party." "I'm - I'm truly sorry, Patience. I don't know . . . I'm not sure what came over me just now. It must be the moonlight and the roses." And you, he said only to himself. — Maggie Brendan

The post-Soviet mafia wove a spider's web of dirty money around the world. Where better to attack it than to start with the Ukrainian criminal heavyweights - the 'family' and its closest circle? — Yulia Tymoshenko