We Do Nothing Alone Quotes & Sayings

How about we make a date to do nothing but curl up together after school alone and Roku a Big Bang Theory marathon." I grinned at him. "No one but me knows what a dork you truly are." "I need to laugh, and Sheldon makes me laugh. — P.C. Cast

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

even our best efforts to control our lives are ultimately not good enough. Christ alone is the solid rock on which a (w)holistic response to stress can stand. Stress reminds us of our limitations, and our limitations remind us of our mortality. An appropriate and adequate response to pastoral stress must recognize the existential questions that are raised, the human responsibility to use what God has given us, and the theological truth that in and of ourselves we can do nothing. — Gary L. Harbaugh

The past doesn't exist. There is nothing to be sorry for. Today is when we start to live. Look ... look at the sea. The sea has no past. It is just there. It will never ask us to explain. The stars, the moon are there to light our way, to shine for us. What do they care what might have happened in the past? They are accompanying us, and are happy with that; can you see them shine? The stars are twinkling in the sky; would they do that if the past mattered? Wouldn't there be a huge storm if God wanted to punish us? We are alone, you and I, with no past, no memories, no guilt, nothing that can stand in the way of ... our love. — Ildefonso Falcones

I want to tell you a growing conviction with me, and that is that as we obey the leadings of the Spirit of God, we enable God to answer the prayers of other people. I mean that our lives, my life, is the answer to someone's prayer, prayed perhaps centuries ago.
It is more and more impossible to me to have programmes and plans because God alone has the plan, and our plans are only apt to hinder Him, and make it necessary for Him to break them up. I have the unspeakable knowledge that my life is the answer to prayers, and that God is blessing me and making me a blessing entirely of His sovereign grace and nothing to do with my merits, saving as I am bold enough to trust His leading and not the dictates of my own wisdom and common sense. — Oswald Chambers

It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing; medicine is the surgery of functions, as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs. Neither can do anything but remove obstructions; neither can cure; nature alone cures. Surgery removes the bullet out of the limb, which is an obstruction to cure, but nature heals the wound. So it is with medicine; the function of an organ becomes obstructed; medicine so far as we know, assists nature to remove the obstruction, but does nothing more. And what nursing has to do in either case, is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him. — Florence Nightingale

We are doomed Whatever days are left to us, we shall spend them alone. And we have heard of the corruption of solitude. We have torn ourselves from the truth which is our brother men, and there is no road back for us. and no redemption.
We know these things, but we do not care. We care for nothing on earth. We are tired. — Ayn Rand

We accept gods that don't speak to us. We accept gods that would place us in a world filled with injustices and do nothing as we struggle. It's easier than accepting that there's nothing out there at all, and that, in our darkest moments, we are truly alone. — Lauren DeStefano

The spiritual rest, which God particularly intends in this Commandment, is this: that we not only cease from our labor and trade, but much more, that we let God alone work in us and that we do nothing of our own with all our powers. — Martin Luther

Nothing out there tells us how we must live: we and we alone can now with confidence knowingly trust our own hearts, and admit that we do and must invent our own ethics. — Don Cupitt

Anything can hurt you, Harper. Even things you're supposed to be able to count on can hurt you."
"These things you speak of, do they include how we're supposed to rely on mothers and fathers never to die or leave us alone?"
"Exactly, but that's life, Harper. Nothing is guaranteed."
"You're right."
"But I can promise you that I would never intentionally hurt you and, although a promise is not a guarantee, it is still a promise and you can ask anyone I know, I'm good on my word."
"I don't know why but I believe you. — Fisher Amelie

Actual knowledge is identical with its object: in the individual, potential knowledge is in time prior to actual knowledge, but in the universe as a whole it is not prior even in time. Mind is not at one time knowing and at another not. When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal (we do not, however, remember its former activity because, while mind in this sense is impassible, mind as passive is destructible), and without it nothing thinks. — Aristotle.

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. — Reinhold Niebuhr

Impermanence and non-self are not negative. They are the doors that open to the true nature of reality. They are not the causes of our pain. It is our delusion that causes us to suffer. Regarding something that is impermanent as permanent, holding to something that is without self as having a self, we suffer. Impermanence is the same as non-self. Since phenomena are impermanent, they do not possess a permanent identity. Non-self is also emptiness. Emptiness of what? Empty of a permanent self. Non-self means also interbeing. Because everything is made of everything else, nothing can be by itself alone. Non-self is also interpenetration, because everything contains everything else. Non-self is also interdependence, because this is made of that. Each thing depends on all other things to be. That is interdependence. Nothing can be by itself alone. It has to inter-be with all other things. This is non-self. — Thich Nhat Hanh

In the car going home, I said, "We should have stayed." Bogie said, "No, we shouldn't. You must always remember we have a life of our own that has nothing to do with Frank. He chose to live the way he's living - alone. It's too bad if he's lonely, but that's his choice. We have our own road to travel, never forget that - we can't live his life. — James Kaplan

If you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer. — Ronald Reagan

As he journeyed alone toward the monster that is death, we could do nothing to help him, nor the others still alive; all the words of strength on our lips melted away, our love not great enough to bind them to life, and our hope not enough to will them to live. — Alfred Nestor

A process of self-deception to satisfy and summarily persuade yourself of righteousness. What one among us has any excuse but self-love? We do not create or confess a morality that is convenient, that lends itself to growth, and remains simple, that allows transgression without excuse or punishment. It would be wise and commonsense to do so, whatever the state of affairs in your mind. Nature eventually denies that which it affirms: Through permanent association with the same moral code we help desire to transgress. Desire of those things denied, the more you restrict the more you sin, but desire equally desires preservation of moral instinct, so desire is its own conflict (and weakly enough). Have no fear, the Bull of earth has long had nothing to do with your unclean conscience, your stagnant ideas of morality. The microbe alone would seem without fear! — Austin Osman Spare

Number 23 had plenty of redeeming qualities that made falling for him a justifiable accident. But our connection had nothing to do with our similarities, our differences, our aesthetic attractions, or our emotional and physical needs. When we spoke, he was truly with me. Our egos, our personas, expected social cues, the facades that everyone builds around them that are supposed to sculpt the way the world sees us, were stripped with Number 23 and I. He was immediately my best friend, familiar and safe - an epiphany that I had been spending my life alone in crowded rooms.
Our souls were naked. We initially curled into the warmth of that connection. But once we knew how real it was, we felt exposed, vulnerable, and raw. While his defense was his fearful recoil, mine was dictation. — Maggie Young

She will have reason in future to thank you for it," said Mary. Her face was serious. "We women own nothing absolutely, save what lies between our ears. Our virtue belongs first to our father and then to our husband. We dedicate our duty to our family. As soon as we share our thoughts with another, put pen to paper or thread a needle, all that we do and make belongs to someone else. So long as she has words and ideas, Annie will always possess something that is hers alone." "If — Deborah Harkness

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness. — Reinhold Niebuhr

Talking about religion becomes irrelevant when your partner is being raped or your child is dying from a disease you can cure. The old phrase applies that if we are to prove ourselves good then we must not do nothing. We must not let illness prosper when we can cure it. We must not allow abuse when we can stop it and we must not give in to a disease that may be mind numbing and leads to violence.
This is an advocacy not of reason alone but faith in each other, hope for our future, and love in accomplishing these goals without sacrificing self, but rather growing self and calling ourselves to self-giving, not self-sacrifice. — Leviak B. Kelly

Alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had achieved nothing. He had his life
it was not worth much
not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage,he thought, if I had had faith. We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one
we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist. — James Salter

The earth is not our home. We came from nothing, and to that condition our nostalgia
should turn. Why would anyone care about this dim bulb in the blackness of space? The earth produced us, or at least subsidized our evolution. Is it really entitled to receive a pardon, let alone the sacrifice of human lives, for this original sin - a capital crime in reverse (very much in the same way that reproduction makes one an accessory before the fact to an individual's death)? Someone once said that nature abhors a vacuum. This is precisely why nature should be abhorred. Instead, the nonhuman environment is simultaneously extolled and ravaged by a company of poor players who can no longer act naturally. It is one thing for the flora and fauna to feed and fight and breed in an unthinking continuance of their existence. It is quite another for us to do so in defiance of our own minds, which over and again pose the same question: "What are we still doing in this horrible place? — Thomas Ligotti

We used to talk about death, she said. We don't anymore. Why is that?
I don't know.
It's because it's here. There's nothing left to talk about.
I wouldn't leave you.
I don't care. It's meaningless. You can think of me as a faithless slut if you like. I've taken a new lover. He can give me what you cannot.
Death is not a lover.
O yes he is.
Please don't do this.
I'm sorry.
I can't do it alone. — Cormac McCarthy

The lesson is this: When the road gets dark and all hope seems lost, there's nothing to do but keep going. We, like Bilbo, must keep up our "hobbitry in heart." Even more important, as people of faith, we recognize that we are not alone. Whatever happens from this point on, we put our trust in God. And we go on. — Sarah Arthur

Honey, what happened to your arm?" Rita frowned, reached over, and ran her fingers across the bruises. "Both of them!" she added, noticing the other arm. The sleeves of her cover-up had ridden up. Meridith pulled them down. "Oh. It's nothing. A guest caught me by surprise last night." "What? Did he attack you, Meridith?" "Sort of, but Jake came and, well, kind of punched him, and everything's fine now." "Jake . . . ?" "The contractor I told you about." "Oh, right. Thank God he was there! Did you call the police?" "No. Jake booted him and his friends from the house." "But are you okay? You must have been terrified!" Meridith nodded. "I was. I was so relieved when Jake showed up. It was late at night, and I was alone on the beach - won't do that again." She gave a dry laugh. "I'm just glad you're okay. This Jake guy seems like quite the hero." She'd only vocalized what Meridith had been thinking. "We're lucky to have him around. — Denise Hunter

Why are the photographs of him as a little boy so incredibly hard to look at? Something is over. Now instead of those shiny moments being things we can share together in delighted memories, I, the survivor, have to bear them alone. So it is with all the memories of him. They all lead into blackness. All I can do is remember him, I cannot experience him. Nothing new can happen between us. — Nicholas Wolterstorff

The purpose of college, to put this all another way, is to turn adolescents into adults. You needn't go to school for that, but if you're going to be there anyway, then that's the most important thing to get accomplished. That is the true education: accept no substitutes. The idea that we should take the first four years of young adulthood and devote them to career preparation alone, neglecting every other part of life, is nothing short of an obscenity. If that's what people had you do, then you were robbed. And if you find yourself to be the same person at the end of college as you were at the beginning - the same beliefs, the same values, the same desires, the same goals for the same reasons - then you did it wrong. Go back and do it again. — William Deresiewicz

Nothing among all human emotions is more beautiful and more hopeless than the wish to be loved for oneself alone. Who are you anyway, next to countless others, to deserve such preference ? We do not want to be interchangeable; let no one be able to pinch-it for us. A figurative unmistakability claiming to be spatial and siritual. As though the earth had only one heaven, and heaven only one earth, we lay claim to the validity of both and, if we have one, we want to be the other. In reality, however, we are filled with planets, and countless heavens open their doors to us. — Elias Canetti

Like you and me," said Jade. "How we used to be."
"What do you mean? Crazy?"
"Living on our own world. Believing what we felt was separate from everything else. We couldn't do anything except be together and nothing else was real."
"That's right."
"Well, that's crazy. And you just said it was, even you."
"No, " I said, "not when we both believe it. Crazy people are alone and no one understands what they mean. But that's not our way. We both know and it makes complete sense. It's not when you make it true by living it. And other people believe it, too, remember. Believe it about us. Everyone who knows us, sees us together. We have that effect. — Scott Spencer

Sweet Goddess! she thought suddenly. I have never even spoken to him. I know nothing about the man, nothing at all.
What if he tries to get me into some sordid little room and force himself on me, like an animal? How will I fight him off? All alone, not able to cry for help?
No, it will not be like that, it could not be. I would have known if he were that kind of man, and felt repelled. He could not sing and write such beautiful verses, and look so fine if he were not the man I want him to be. Yes, when we meet, it will be as it is in his songs. He will obey, do exactly what I tell him and no more. Oh, I have hoped so long for this. Goddess of Love, let it be beautiful. — Robert Shea

O, what a world of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind! What ineffable essences, these touchless rememberings and unshowable reveries! And the privacy of it all! A secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do. An introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror. This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet is nothing at all - what is it?
And where did it come from?
And why? — Julian Jaynes

Historically, psychologists have looked at introversion as the absence of extroversion. They measure extroversion, and if you are low in it, then you are considered an introvert. This perpetuates the perception of introversion as negative space, and introverted activities as not really doing anything. We need to train ourselves, and others, out of this idea. We need to start seeing doing nothing (or reading, or working alone on projects, or whatever it is we do to recharge) as activities that are as valid as any social event. — Sophia Dembling

Aloneness and all-oneness is our authentic nature. We are always alone and all-one. We came into this planet alone and all-one. We will leave alone and all-one. And also during our whole staying in this world, no matter how we engage in relationships, we continue to be alone and all-one, though we may forget about it or pretend it is not the case.
True love has nothing to do with the idea that someone is the other half of my soul and that I need him or her in order to be whole and feel complete. Only when we can be alone and all-one with someone there is true love, regardless of whether that someone is still with us or not.
And yet ... I miss you ... — Franco Santoro

Sliding my fingers back inside of her, I shuddered when she clenched her muscles around my fingers. Once my fingers were soaked again, I held them up to her mouth so that she could taste, too. Her eyes widened and pooled with lust as she licked our come from my fingers. "Damien! It's so dirty ... but I'm so wet right now. Fuck me with your tongue!" I moaned from the look on her face alone. "Nothing we do together will ever be dirty baby. This is love. — Ella Fox

We must each walk through life on our own, but we don't have to do it alone. God wants a powerful people. He gives His power to those who are faithful. We have a sacred obligation to seek after the power of God and then to use that power as He directs. And when we have the power of God with us, nothing is impossible. — Sheri Dew

When Sartre says man has been thrown into the world, he is alone, there is no God, we are responsible for what we are, what we do, I say yes!"
The affirmative echoed around the woods. The dog pricked up his ears. This man has no one to talk to, thought Inni.
"But when he then asks me to be responsible for the world as well, for others, I say no! No. Why should I be? 'When man chooses himself, he chooses all men.' Why? I have not asked for anything. I have nothing to do with the vermin I see around me. I live out my time because I have to, that is all. — Cees Nooteboom

It wasn't easy for the two of us to build something out of nothing. I had that tendency toward solitude common only to children. When trying to accomplish something serious, I liked to do it myself. Having to check things out with other people and get them to understand seemed to me a great waste of time and energy when it was a lot easier to work alone in silence....Still, little, by little, the two of us learned to devote our bodies and minds to this newly created being we called "our home. — Haruki Murakami

How strange that we cannot love time. It spoils our loveliest moments. Nothing quite comes up to expectations because of it. We alone: animals, so far as we can see, are unaware of time, untroubled. Time is their natural environment. Why do we sense that it is not ours? — Sheldon Vanauken

Champagne, m'lord?'
'Have we got any? One bottle would do. Even a half-bottle.'
Smith's face puckered, as if manfully attempting to force his mind to grapple with a mathematical or philosophical problem of extraordinary complexity. His bearing suggested that he had certainly before heard the word 'champagne' used, if only in some distant, outlandish context; that devotion to his master alone gave him some apprehension of what this question - these ravings, almost - might mean. Nothing good could come of it. This was a disastrous way to talk. That was his unspoken message so far as champagne was concerned. After a long pause, he at last shook his head.
'I doubt if there is any champagne left, m'lord. — Anthony Powell

You think a man doesn't fall down, son? A real man falls down nine times and gets up ten. You think real men don't get scared? We do, all the time, especially when the people we love can be taken away from us. The key to manhood is being there, every morning when she wakes up, every night before she goes to bed. That's what a man does. It has nothing to do with how good you are with some shiny knives. And if you let her do this thing alone, then by God - — Ann Aguirre

No other life forms know they are alive, and neither do they know they will die. This is our curse alone. Without this hex upon our heads, we would never have withdrawn as far as we have from the natural - so far and for such a time that it is a relief to say what we have been trying with our all not to say: We have long since been denizens of the natural world. Everywhere around us are natural habitats, but within us is the shiver of startling and dreadful things. Simply put: We are not from here. If we vanished tomorrow, no organism on this planet would miss us. Nothing in nature needs us. — Thomas Ligotti

By the age of twenty, you know you're not going to be a rock star. By twenty-five, you know you're not going to be a dentist or any kind of professional. And by thirty, darkness starts moving in- you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy and successful. By thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, and you become resigned to your fate ...
... I mean, why do people live so long? What could be the difference between death at fifty-five and death at sixty-five or seventy-five or eighty-five? Those extra years ... what benefit could they possibly have? Why do we go on living even though nothing new happens, nothing new is learned, and nothing new is transmitted? At fifty-five, your story's pretty much over. — Douglas Coupland

But now the world breaks in on us, the world is shocked, the world looks upon our idyll as madness. The world maintains that no rational man or woman would have chosen this way of life - therefore, it is madness. Alone I confront them and tell them that nothing could be saner or truer! What do people really know about life? We fall in line, follow the pattern established by our mentors. Everything is based on assumptions; even time, space, motion, matter are nothing but supposition. The world has no new knowledge to impart; it merely accepts what is there. — Knut Hamsun

It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give. — Ursula K. Le Guin

A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak. He knows that God is love and that God's presence is felt at the very time when the only thing we do is to love. — Pope Benedict XVI

It had been impossible to decide how they were going to do it, because the goblin rarely left Harry, Ron, and Hermione alone together for more than five minutes at a time: "He could give my mother lessons," growled Ron, as the goblin's long fingers kept appearing around the edges of doors. With Bill's warning in mind, Harry could not help suspecting that Griphook was on the watch for possible skullduggery. Hermione disapproved so heartily of the planned double-cross that Harry had given up attempting to pick her brains on how best to do it; Ron, on the rare occasion that they had been able to snatch a few Griphook-free moments, had come up with nothing better than "We'll just have to wing it, mate. — J.K. Rowling

What can you or I do? Alone, almost nothing. Yet one person - you alone - can make the difference ... The failure of just one person to join, to participate, to do whatever he or she can - your failure or my failure - may mean that there is just one too few to win the fight for sanity, and so leave the world on the road to destruction. Each of us, all of us, must do what we can. — Archibald Cox

I must try and break through the cliches about Latin America. Superpowers and other outsiders have fought over us for centuries in ways that have nothing to do with our problems. In reality we are all alone. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Our single friends say they are going to be alone for the rest of their lives and we tell them they are crazy. We tell them they are definitely going to find someone. But how do we know? We know nothing. — Melissa Broder

Have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 4 June 1940 — Andrew Roberts

Be near me. The world is rowdy and nothing is certain. Do not stray. None of us was meant to face the day and the night alone, though that is what we do and memory now is a place of fading togetherness. Be near me. True love is what God intends. — Andrew O'Hagan

Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us.
-Rorschach. — Alan Moore

Teamwork may just be hard in certain lines of work. Under conditions of extreme complexity, we inevitably rely on a division of tasks and expertise - in the operating room, for example, there is the surgeon, the surgical assistant, the scrub nurse, the circulating nurse, the anesthesiologist, and so on. They can each be technical masters at what they do. That's what we train them to be, and that alone can take years. But the evidence suggests we need them to see their job not just as performing their isolated set of tasks well but also as helping the group get the best possible results. This requires finding a way to ensure that the group lets nothing fall between the cracks and also adapts as a team to whatever problems might arise. — Atul Gawande

Very often what happens in a local church today is that differences grow around personalities (either from within the church fellowship or from the wider church) and then become articulated around matters of doctrinal dispute. There may well be genuine theological disagreement, but the 'strife' emerges because personal relationships are not good. When the love of God is truly controlling such relationships within a church, areas of disagreement find their proper perspective and do not necessitate 'strife', let alone 'schism'.3 So-called 'clashes of personality' often, on analysis, are nothing much more than a failure, or even a refusal, to let God's love change us in our attitudes to one another. We allow theological differences (instead of the love of God) to determine the quality, openness and depth of our relationships. — David Prior

All of the evidence highlights the implicit bargain that is offered to citizens: pose no challenge and you have nothing to worry about. Mind your own business, and support or at least tolerate what we do, and you'll be fine. Put differently, you must refrain from provoking the authority that wields surveillance powers if you wish to be deemed free of wrongdoing. This is a deal that invites passivity, obedience, and conformity. The safest course, the way to ensure being "left alone," is to remain quiet, unthreatening, and compliant. — Glenn Greenwald

Can't you see,Jimmy?It's not a war about our freedom,it's a power struggle between rulers and bosses wanting more land,more power.The likes of you and me are just cannon fodder in their draft war.We should have nothing to do with it,let alone be supporting it! The only fight that concerns the working man is the one the trades unions are fighting against the bosses.That's the only struggle I'm bothered about and I don't give a toss if they're British bosses or German! — Janet MacLeod Trotter

Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here 'I lost my land' is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate
'We lost *our* land. — John Steinbeck

Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us. The important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything. — Saint Teresa Of Avila

When some people say, as they do, that when we preach faith alone good works are forbidden, it is as if I were to say to a sick man, "If you had health you would have the full use of all your limbs, but without health the works of all your limbs are nothing," and from this he wanted to infer that I had forbidden the works of his limbs. Whereas on the contrary I meant that the health must first be there to work all the works of all his limbs. In the same way faith must be the master-workman and captain in all the works, or they are nothing at all. — Martin Luther

No one "discovers" the future. The future is not a discovery. The future is not a destiny. The future is a decision, an intervention. Do nothing and we drift fatalistically into a future not driven by technology alone, but by other people's need, greed, and creed. The future is not some dim and distant region out there in time. The future is a reality that is coming to pass with each passing day, with each passing decision. — Leonard Sweet

When we let our mind relax, a moment will come when we rest without thoughts. This stable state is like an ocean without waves. Within this stability a thought arises. This thought is like a wave which forms on the surface of the ocean. When we leave this thought alone, do nothing with it, not "seizing" it, it subsides by itself into the mind where it came from. — Bokar Rinpoche

You know that my spells come from God, and that I would not harm any living creature. You believe that everyone should worship God in the way revealed to him. But that is not the way of this country. The way here is for all to do alike. I am despised because I do not wear shoes, because I do not cut my hair, and because I have visions. At home, in the old country, there were many like me, who had been touched by God, or who had seen things in the graveyard at night and were different afterward. We thought nothing of it, and let them alone. But here, if a man is different in his feet or in his head, they put him in the asylum ... That is the way; they have built the asylum for people who are different, and they will not even let us live in the holes with the badgers. — Willa Cather

Yes," some objectors declare, "I would like to expand my consciousness, but I feel that I must do it for myself."
To this, our usual reply is that doing everything for oneself can be an unbearably limiting factor as well as an exercise in egotism. What if we had to weave all our own clothes, grow our own food, make our own paper and so forth? In actuality we accomplish hardly anything without external instruments, tools or technological aids. Our manifest interdependence attests to nature's determination to force us to overcome isolationist tendencies. Even our two most essential physiological functions, eating and breathing, serve as constant reminders that in every respect we are obliged to use what lies outside of the confines of the bodily organism.
In the end, we do nothing alone and everything by our selves. — Marcia Moore

Why do we act as though our sin disqualifies us from the grace of God? That is the only thing that qualifies us! Anything else is a self-righteous attempt to earn God's grace. You cannot trust God's grace 99 percent. It's all or nothing. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that we want partial credit for our salvation. We want to be 1 percent of the equation. But if we try to save ourselves, we forfeit the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith. — Mark Batterson

No kid wants to be different. They want to belong, they desire the approval of others, and they, most often, aren't yet mentally strong enough to be able to stand alone. As we get older, though, most of us develop that capability. We learn that nothing feels better than truly loving yourself, even if it means those around you do not. We joyously find that we just don't give a damn anymore. And — Penelope Douglas

He leaned his head to me, his neck so close to my lips, I felt the heat coming off his skin. His breath was warm against my ear. His voice was a ragged snarl. "I miss you."
This wasn't happening.
"I worry about you." He dipped his head and looked into my eyes. "I worry something stupid will happen and I won't be there and you'll be gone. I worry we won't ever get a chance and it's driving me out of my skull."
No, no, no, no ...
We stared at each other. The tiny space between us felt too hot. Muscles bulged on his naked frame. He looked feral.
Mad gold eyes stared into mine. "Do you miss me, Kate?"
I closed my eyes trying to shut him out. I could lie then we would be back to square one. Nothing would be resolved. I'd still be alone, hating him and wanting him.
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me once. "Do you miss me?"
I took the plunge. "Yes. — Ilona Andrews

Everybody has asked the question ... "What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! — Frederick Douglass