There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.
If you walked away from a
toxic, negative, abusive,
one-sided, dead-end
low vibrational
relationship or friendship
— you won.
We could do it, you know.”
“What?”
“Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it.
After the Tiananmen Massacre, I felt compelled not only to continue writing but to actively resist the restrictions placed on freedom of speech. I set up the publishing company in Hong Kong, with offices in Shenzhen in mainland China, and managed to publish works of fiction, philosophy, and politics by unapproved authors.
Democracy should always be viewed with a philosophical perspective rather than a political one, because after all democracy was born to a philosopher and murdered by a politician.
Coaching 101: First you build the team, and then you build the torture chamber for underperformers.
I’m a big believer in putting things off, In fact, I even put off procrastinating.-Ella Varner
Have you ever had a girlfriend, Kenji?What? He looks mortally offended. Do I look like the kind of guy who’s never had a girlfriend? Have you even met me?
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
…a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn’t be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet.
If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.
The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.
Some people are born with tornadoes in their lives, but constellations in their eyes. Other people are born with stars at their feet, but their souls are lost at sea.
Trauma is personal. It does not disappear if it is not validated. When it is ignored or invalidated the silent screams continue internally heard only by the one held captive. When someone enters the pain and hears the screams healing can begin.
Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.
The pretended physical philosophy of modern days strips Man of all his moral attributes, or holds them of no account in the estimate of his origin and place in the created world.
You’re still a little shy, I see, the wizard noted. I think if you ignore evil, my friend, it tends to grow stronger. (Quinhelm, the wizard – from BRIGGEN)
Why hasn’t anyone killed him yet?”“Dumb luck,” Wit said. “In that I’m lucky you’re all so dumb.
The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.
There would be no need for love if perfection were possible. Love arises from our imperfection, from our being different and always in need of the forgiveness, encouragement and that missing half of ourselves that we are searching for, as the Greek myth tells us, in order to complete ourselves.
This world
that was our home
for a brief spell
never brought us anything
but pain and grief;
its a shame that not one of our problems
was ever solved.
We depart
with a thousand regrets
in our hearts.
Inside of all of us there is the need and the desire to be heard, to have our innermost thoughts, feelings and desires expressed for others to hear, to see and to understand. We all want to matter to someone, to leave a mark. Writers just take those thoughts, feelings and desires and express them in such a way that the reader not only reads them but feels them as well.
The strategic adversary is fascism… the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
French existentialism is an unhelpful philosophy in which to couch modern feminism: born from the ravages of the Second World War, it is a cynical, individualistic school of thought that posits the self and personal choice as the measure of life’s entire meaning.
I might have added, as it entered my mind to do, that some people found satisfaction in being. Being. Others in becoming. Being people have all the breaks. Becoming people are very unlucky, always in a tizzy. The Becoming people are always have to make explanations or offer justifications of the Being people. While the Being people provoke these explanations.
A bird is safe in its nest – but that is not what its wings are made for.
Every time I annoy him he retreats into his No Mundanes Allowed tree house. Simon pointed at Jace.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
Life is not always easy to live, but the opportunity to do so is a blessing beyond comprehension. In the process of living, we will face struggles, many of which will cause us to suffer and to experience pain.
The love of these people and of my fans mean more than any award or special accomplishment.
Can’t stand all these poisonous creatures, all these snakes and insects and fish and things. Wretched things, biting everybody. And then people expect me to tell them what to do about it. I’ll tell them what to do. Don’t get bitten in the first place. (quoting Dr. Struan Sutherland)
Things will get easier, people’s minds will change, and you should be alive to see it.
Whatever you see you gotta keep a sense of humor; you gotta be able to smile through all the bullshit.
Love those who hurt you the most, because they are probably the ones closest to you.
They, too, are on a path, and just like you they are learning to walk before they can fly. Imagine if everybody you hurt in life turned their backs on you? You would be playing a hell of a lot of solitaire.
Love them no matter what.
I believe when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade…and try to find someone whose life has given them vodka, and have a party.
As soon as the printing press started flooding Europe with books, people were complaining that there were too many books and that it was going to change philosophy and the course of human thought in ways that wouldn’t necessarily be good.
However, while the Nazi barbarians and their collaborators threatened the entire world, I could not accept his philosophy and, after several earlier attempts, was finally accepted into the Canadian Infantry Corps during the last year of World War II.
You know, the whole philosophy of ad hoc combinations has its strengths and its weaknesses.
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.
I consider it an extremely dangerous doctrine, because the more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves.
I spent most of my youth hauling sides of beef and pork to my father’s shop. Carrying you is far more enjoyable.How sweet, Annabelle mumbled sickly, her eyes closed. Every woman dreams of being told that she’s preferable to a dead cow.
You climbed into my window in the middle of the night. So, either you’re some kind of Vampire or some kind of Perv. Which is it?
I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it’s such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.
One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.
If a man was around when Aunt Kathy came by, she would berate him and throw him out. I even saw her toss guys out at gunpoint. She’d threaten them and say, “I will shoot you until I can’t see you!” I remember thinking, “How is that possible? That’s a lot of damn shooting!”
I’m the biggest critic of my own work, but sometimes you nail a chapter so good that you have to take a step back and admire that bitch.
We’ve been doing this here since 1968, so we have been identified as an example of a free, democratic school, and many professors want to expose their students to our philosophy.
I’ve always felt like we’re all human beings and we’re all basically given the tools to make whatever choices we want to make. How we treat other people. How we treat ourselves. Just the whole philosophy of that and the philosophical logic of that is that we’re all capable of great acts of evil, and we’re all capable of great acts of good.
The door opened.We’re here, said Mrs. Rogers.Aunt Myra came in.Now! said Amelia Bedelia.Greetings, greetings, greetings,said the three children.What’s that about? said Mrs. Rogers.You said to greet Aunt Myra with Carols, said Amelia Bedelia.Here’s Carol Lee, Carol Green, and Carol Lake.What lovely Carols, said Aunt Myra.Thank you.
Very occasionally, if you pay really close attention, life doesn’t suck.
Above all, if what you’ve done is stupid, but it works, it ain’t stupid.
As for monkeys, I would have five, and they would be named: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Do Pretty Much Whatever The Hell You Want, and Expensive Attorney.
I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.
I’m calm, Rachel insisted. Every time I’m around you, some monsters attack us. What’s to be nervous about?Look, I said. I’m sorry about the band room. I hope they didn’t kick you our or anything.Nah. They asked me a lot of questions about you. I played dumb.Was it hard? Annabeth asked.