Quotes about living (10000 quotes, page 91)

“We lost a place, but my daughter was born at the same time. We were taking care of her in Los Angeles, because there’s a tradition that you don’t travel with a newborn. To give their body a chance to acclimate. So, literally, we were lying in bed, and my sister called me and said, ‘Turn on the TV.’ Our daughter’s lying there between us, and I looked over at my lady and said, ‘Baby, our place is gone!’ I just turned to my daughter and started kissing her. ‘That’s why you came, my girl. You saved our lives… you’re a lifesaver!”

Wesley Snipes (1962) film actor, Martial artist, film producer

Wesley Snipes, Wesley Snipes interview: 'Robert Downey Jr called me for advice about Iron Man' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11016602/Wesley-Snipes-interview-Robert-Downey-Jr-called-me-for-advice-about-Iron-Man.html, Daily Telegraph, 9 August 2014

Angels , Travel , Girl , Lying

“Depression is seductive: it offends and teases, frightens you and draws you in, tempting you with its promise of sweet oblivion, then overwhelming you with a nearly sexual power, squirming past your defenses, dissolving your will, invading the tired spirit so utterly that it becomes difficult to recall that you ever lived without it… or to imagine that you might live that way again. With all the guile of Satan himself, depression persuades you that its invasion was all your own idea, that you wanted it all along. It fogs the part of the brain that reasons, that knows right and wrong. It captures you with its warm, guilty, hateful pleasures, and, worst of all, it becomes familiar. All at once, you find yourself in thrall to the very thing that most terrifies you. Your work slides, your friendships slide, your marriage slides, but you scarcely notice: to be depressed is to be half in love with disaster.”

Stephen L. Carter book The Emperor of Ocean Park

Source: The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), Ch. 12, A Special Delivery, II

Love , Hate , Friendship , Marriage

“If you intend to change, decide what you want and live your life accordingly.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 19

Life , Change

“He didn’t think he would understand the strangeness of life if he lived to be a hundred years old.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Part 4 “The Price of Blood”, Chapter 14 (p. 443)
Tigana (1990)

Life , Understanding , Thinking

“Is not the reason of the confidence of the positive, critical, experimental scientists, and of the reverent attitude of the crowd towards their doctrines, still the same? At first it seems strange how the theory of evolution (which, like the redemption in theology, serves the majority as a popular expression of the whole new creed) can justify people in their injustice, and it seems as if the scientific theory dealt only with facts and did nothing but observe facts. But that only seems so. It seemed just the same in the case of theological doctrine: theology, it seemed, was only occupied with dogmas and had no relation to people's lives, and it seemed the same with regard to philosophy, which appeared to be occupied solely with transcendental reasonings. But that only seemed so. It was just the same with the Hegelian doctrine on a large scale and with the particular case of the Malthusian teaching.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

What then must we do? (1886)

People , Confidence , Appearance

“Adam Warlock, a being who wished nothing more than to spend the rest of his days within the peaceful environment of the Soul Gem. He now possesses the Infinite Power and the responsibility that goes with it. While I, whose entire life was dedicated to the pursuit of power, now find myself scraping out a living from the soil. Irony worthy of the drama.
Yet strangely enough though, I envy not Adam Warlock.
Somehow I feel, that in the long run, Thanos of Titan came out ahead in this particular deal.”

Jim Starlin (1949) Comic creator

Thanos, in The Infinity Gauntlet (1991), Issue 6 : The Final Confrontation

Life , Peace , Feeling , Soul

“All those large dreams by which men long live well
Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell.”

William Empson (1906–1984) English literary critic and poet

Source: This Last Pain' (1930), Line 21.

Men , Dreams , Hell

“Revolutionary suicide does not mean that I and my comrades have a death wish; it means just the opposite. We have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible. When reactionary forces crush us, we must move against these forces, even at the risk of death.”

Huey P. Newton book Revolutionary Suicide

Source: Revolutionary Suicide (1973), p. 3

Death , Hope , Suicide , Strong

“All this (the early excitement of Cybernetics) is now history, and in the decade which elapsed since these early baby steps of interdisciplinary communication, many more threads were picked up and interwoven into a remarkable tapestry of knowledge and endeavour: Bionics. It is good omen that at the right time the right name was found. For, bionics extends a great invitation to all who are willing not to stop at the investigation of a particular function or its realization, but to go on and to seek the universal signiﬁcance of these functions in living or artiﬁcial organisms.
The reader who goes through the following papers which constitute the transactions of the ﬁrst symposium held under the name Bionics will be surprised by the multitude of astonishing and unforeseen connections between concepts he believed to be familiar with. For instance, a couple of years ago, who would have thought to relate the reliability problem to multi-valued logics; or, who would have thought that integral or differential geometry would serve as an adequate tool in the theory of abstraction? It is hard to say in all these cases who was teaching whom: The life-sciences the engineering sciences, or vice versa? And rightly so, for it guarantees optimal information ﬂow, and everybody gains…”

Heinz von Foerster (1911–2002) Austrian American scientist and cybernetician

Von Foerster (1960) as cited in Peter M. Asaro (2007). "Heinz von Foerster and the Bio-Computing Movements of the 1960s," http://cybersophe.org/writing/Asaro%20HVF%26BCL.pdf
1960s

Life , History , Communication , Optimism

“To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit, which distinguished it from all that had gone before. It is a vital distinction.”

Edith Hamilton (1867–1963) American teacher and writer

Source: The Greek Way (1930), Ch. 1

Life , World , Beauty

“Americans live with the certain knowledge that the source of their greatness has not yet been released.”

Ralph Steadman book The Joke's Over

The Last Trip To Woody Creek, p. 376
The Joke's Over (2006)

Knowledge

“Clyde:' Frightened. Why, you yellow-belly. Do you want to live forever?”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

“All living things on earth are kindred.”

Edward Abbey book Desert Solitaire

"Serpents of Paradise", p. 22
Desert Solitaire (1968)

“Infancy, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, 'Heaven lies about us.' The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

World , Lying

“I am dying innocent. The sentence is wrong. God protect Germany and make Germany great again. Long live Germany! God protect my family!”

Fritz Sauckel (1894–1946) German general

Last words, 10/16/46. Quoted in "The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II" - Page 566 - by Jon E. Lewis - History - 2002.

God , Family

“Rural poetry is the pleasure ground of those who live in cities.”

Samuel Palmer (1805–1881) British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker

Introduction to Palmer's translation of Virgil's Eclogues

Pleasure

“A few specimens should suffice to show the quality of this man’s mind. In letter No. 163 he wrote: “The honour of Islam lies in insulting kufr and kafirs. One who respects the kafirs dishonours the Muslims… The real purpose of levying jiziya on them is to humiliate them to such an extent that they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It is intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honour and might of Islam.” In Letter No. 81 he said: “Cow-sacrifice in India is the noblest of Islamic practices. The kafirs may probably agree to pay jiziya but they shall never concede to cow-sacrifice.” After Guru Arjun Deva had been tortured and done to death by Jahangir, he wrote in letter No. 193 that “the execution of the accursed kafir of Gobindwal is an important achievement and is the cause of the great defeat of the Hindus.””

Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624) Indian philosopher

S.A.A. Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Agra, 1965, pp. 248-249. Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (1995). Muslim separatism: Causes and consequences. ISBN 9788185990262
From his letters

Death

“To LGBT men and women worldwide, let me say this: wherever you live and whatever the circumstances of your life, whether you are connected to a network of support or feel isolated and vulnerable, please know that you are not alone.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Remarks in Recognition of International Human Rights Day (December 6, 2011) http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2011/12/178368.htm
Secretary of State (2009–2013)

Life , Women , Men , Feeling

“I am unclear what a "role model" is, but those who used the term seemed to be saying that teachers are people children tend to emulate. In any event, many Miamians must have thought their children would become homosexual if subjected to homosexual teachers.
That prompted me to ponder teachers I haven't seen, and scarcely thought about, for decades, and for the first time I reflected on how their sex lives had affected my own. My first thought was that it was curious, perhaps perverse, that I have not turned out to be a spinster.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Role Models" (p.202)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

Children , People , Sex , Teachers

“Shortly after the ignominious expulsion of the Texas invaders, General J. H. Carleton was appointed to the command of this Department, and with the greatest promptitude he turned his attention to the freeing of the Territory from these lawless savages. To this great work he brought many years' experience and a perfect knowledge of the means to effect that end. He saw that the thirty (30) millions of dollars expended and the many lives lost in the former attempts at the subjugation, would not have been profitless, had not there been something radically wrong in the policy pursued. He was not long in ascertaining that treaties were as promises written in sand. nor in discovering that they had no recognized 'Head' authority to represent them; that each chief's influence and authority was immediately confined to his own followers or people; that any treaty signed by one or more of these chiefs had no binding effect on the remainder, and that there were a large number of the worst characters who acknowledged no chief at all. Hence it was that on all occasions when treaties were made, one party were continuing their depredations, whilst the other were making peace. And hence it was apparent that treaties were absolutely powerless for good. He adopted a new policy, i. e., placing them on a reservation (the wisdom of which is already manifest); a new era dawned on New Mexico, and the dying hope of the people was again revived; never more I trust, to meet with disappointment. He first organized a force against the Mescalero Apaches, which I had the honor to command. After a short and inexpensive campaign, the Mescaleros were placed on their present reservation.”

Kit Carson (1809–1868) American frontiersman and Union Army general

Letter to General James Henry Carleton (May 17, 1864)

Wisdom , People , Peace , Hope

“What I do for a living is somewhat like mercenary prostitution… I spend a lot of energy trying to find games to bring to alternate platforms, like Linux and MacOS, and in my free time, I work on various open source projects, and other freebies like that… so I guess I'm a hooker with a heart of gold, sorta.”

Ryan C. Gordon (1978) Computer programmer

Quoted in Michael Larabel, "An Interview with Ryan C. Gordon" http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=203&num=1 Phoronix (2003-09-08)

Game , Time , Heart

“Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.”

David Cronenberg (1943) Canadian film director, screenwriter and actor

Source: Cronenberg on Cronenberg (1997), Ch. 1, P. 7

Life , Way , Problem , Madness

“In her youth she had indulged a passion towards a young monarch of a neighbouring island, Glanden, whose subjects, though they enjoyed the benefits of fairly-dispensed justice, suffered such disparities of condition, that some of them were born with saddles on their backs, and others booted and spurred to mount and ride during their lives. Shocking! yet countless eyes certified its truth: nay, even the Glandens admit the charge, but deem their island the most delightful in the world, and the most favourable for human improvement and comfort.”

Alexander Bryan Johnson (1786–1867) United States philosopher and banker

The Philosophical Emperor, a Political Experiment, or, The Progress of a False Position: (1841)

Truth , Youth , World , Justice

“Only those who saw this terrible god of the jungle died; for was it not true that none left alive in the village had ever seen him? Therefore, those who had died at his hands must have seen him and paid the penalty with their lives.
As long as they supplied him with arrows and food he would not harm them unless they looked upon him, so it was ordered by Mbonga that in addition to the food offering there should also be laid out an offering of arrows for this Munan- go-Keewati, and this was done from then on.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 13 : His Own Kind

God , Food , Penalty

“The Civil Rights Movement was not a mirage; it was not a documentary; it was not even a television special; it was live and in living color.”

Yolanda King (1955–2007) American actress

1980s, A Dream Deferred (1989)
Context: The Civil Rights Movement was not a mirage; it was not a documentary; it was not even a television special; it was live and in living color. It should not surprise us that it was a woman who sparked the movement. If Rosa Parks had not chosen to stand up that day in December 1955 by remaining seated on that bus in Montgomery, we would not be here today celebrating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. But that was the incident that propelled him into leadership and ultimately triggered the ending of segregation in the South. The doors of educational and employment opportunities were opened and blacks, Hispanics, and women of all races streamed in on an unprecedented basis.

Color

“When [my mother] saw we were not going to be able to go back [to Cuba] it became increasingly important for her to make our culture very prevalent and very important in our lives -- and in our household. We spoke only Spanish. I didn't learn English until I went to school in first grade. And the [Cuban] music and the food was very much a part of our life. I'm glad for that, because it is as well for my children.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

BBC radio interview (December 13, 2006)
2007, 2008

Life , Children , School , Food

“When people live in freedom, they do not willingly choose leaders who pursue campaigns of terror. When people have hope in the future, they will not cede their lives to violence and extremism. So around the world, America is promoting human liberty, human rights, and human dignity. We are standing with dissidents and young democracies, providing AIDS medicine to bring dying patients back to life, and sparing mothers and babies from malaria. And this great republic born alone in liberty is leading the world toward a new age when freedom belongs to all nations.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)

Life , People , Age , World

“There are moments in life where the question of knowing whether one might think otherwise than one thinks and perceive otherwise than one sees is indispensable if one is to continue to observe or reflect… What is philosophy today… if it does not consist in, instead of legitimizing what we already know, undertaking to know how and how far it might be possible to think otherwise?… The ‘essay’ —which must be understood as a transforming test of oneself in the play of truth and not as a simplifying appropriation of someone else for the purpose of communication—is the living body of philosophy, if, at least, philosophy is today still what it was once, that is to say, an askesis, an exercise of the self, in thought.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Il y a des moments dans la vie où la question de savoir si on peut penser autrement qu’on ne pense et percevoir autrement qu’on ne voit est indispensable pour continuer à regarder ou à réfléchir… Qu’est-ce donc que la philosophie aujourd’hui… si elle ne consiste pas, au lieu de légitimer ce qu’on sait déjà, à entreprendre de savoir comment et jusqu’où il serait possible de penser autrement ?… L’ « essai »—qu’il faut entendre comme épreuve modificatrice de soi-même dans le jeu de la vérité et non comme appropriation simplificatrice d’autrui à des fins de communication—est le corps vivant de la philosophie, si du moins celle-ci est encore maintenant ce qu’elle était autrefois, c’est-à-dire une « ascèse », un exercice de soi, dans la pensée.
Vol. II : L’usage des plaisirs p. 15-16.
History of Sexuality (1976–1984)

Life , Truth , Exercises , Communication

“Probably no man living has done longer or more valuable service for the cause of Islamic revival than Maulana Muhammad Ali of Lahore. His literary works, with those of the late Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, have given fame and distinction to the Ahmadiyya Movement.”

Muhammad Ali (writer) (1874–1951) Pakistani scholar and leading figure of the Ahmadiyya Movement

Marmaduke Pickthall, Islamic Culture, quarterly review published from Hyderabad Deccan, India, October 1936, pp. 659–660
About

“Please, know that for as long as I live I will be haunted with the sorrow for what I did and when I die I will have counted it more mercy than I deserved to have lived the life I did. Until that day, I want you to also know, I will spend my life trying to do things that will touch the world in a good way, to give back for all I took from you. That’s the only thing I can offer with my hands and my heart. It’s simply all I have.”

Sean Sellers (1969–1999) American murderer

The Confession of My Crimes

Life , World , Way , Heart

“Only in democratic countries is there the beginning of a suspicion that the old axioms about the press being the bulwark of liberty is something that affects the daily life of the people—that it is a living warning rather than an ancient wisecrack. A people that wants to be free must arm itself with a free press.”

George Seldes (1890–1995) American journalist

Lords of the Press

Life , People , Country

“If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.”

Chelsea Manning (1987) United States Army soldier and whistleblower

Letter to Barack Obama (2013)

Women , Men , Time , Country

“I do not wish to neutralize the horror I feel at the destruction of Buddhist monuments with the thought that my national leaders did the same thing a decade ago. But I do believe that if this act sparks in us the desire to fight intolerance of all kinds, then surely the Buddha will not have lived and taught in vain.”

Anand Patwardhan (1950) Indian film director

Destruction of Buddhist monuments in Afghanistan and the Babri Masjid http://www.pucl.org/reports/National/2001/buddhist.htm (2001)

Feeling , Fight

“On a live performance: "If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet. If you feel like clapping your hands, clap your hands. And if you feel like taking off your shoes, take off your shoes. We are here to have a ball. So we want you to leave your worldly troubles outside and come in here and swing."”

Art Blakey (1919–1990) American jazz drummer and bandleader

Source At the Jazz Corner of the World, Blue Note, 1959.

Shoe , Feeling

“I believe in all-wise-and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individuals highest fulfillment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.”

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960) American financier and philanthropist

I Believe

Love , God , Happiness

“Most libertarians agree that all rights are, in effect, property rights, beginning with this fundamental right to self-ownership and control of one's own life. As owners of their own lives, individuals are completely free to do absolutely anything they wish with them — provided, of course, that it doesn't violate the identical right of others — whether the people around them approve of what they do or not.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

(with Rylla Cathryn Smith) What Libertarians Believe, "Introduction: The Zero Aggression Principle," http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle500-20090104-02.html 4 January 2009.

Life , People

“Pippa' Passworthy: This little upset across the water doesn’t mean anything. Threatened men live long and threatened wars never occur.”

H. G. Wells book The Shape of Things to Come

Things to Come (1936)

Men , War , Water

“Man lives very well upon flesh, you say, but, if he thinks this food to be natural to him, why does he not use it as it is, as furnished to him by Nature? But, in fact, he shrinks in horror from seizing and rending living or even raw flesh with his teeth, and lights a fire to change its natural and proper condition. … What is clearer than that man is not furnished for hunting, much less for eating, other animals? In one word, we seem to be admirably admonished by Cicero that man was destined for other things than for seizing and cutting the throats of other animals. If you answer that ‘that may be said to be an industry ordered by Nature, by which such weapons are invented,’ then, behold! it is by the very same artificial instrument that men make weapons for mutual slaughter. Do they this at the instigation of Nature? Can a use so noxious be called natural?”

Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) French philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, priest, and scientist

Faculty is given by Nature, but it is our own fault that we make a perverse use of it.
Letter to Van Helmont, quoted in The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-eating https://archive.org/stream/ethicsofdietcate00will/ethicsofdietcate00will#page/n3/mode/2up by Howard Williams (London: F. Pitman, 1883), pp. 103-104.

Men , Food , Nature , Thinking

“God has come again and again in various Forms, has spoken again and again in different words and different languages the Same One Truth — but how many are there that live up to it? Instead of making Truth the vitalbreath of his life, man compromises by making over and over againa mechanical religion of it—a handy staff to lean on in times of adversity, a soothing balm for his conscience or a tradition to be followed.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

44 : God Alone Is, p. 74.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

Life , God , Truth , Religion

“Because his living presence became such an uncommonly global one, that ministry [Jackson’s individual spiritual concerns] reflected universal ecumenical principles dressed up in ultra-modern dance grooves, love songs to nature, lyrical eulogies in the form of musical elegies, and sermons sung with passionate intensity and suffering eloquence.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(from Work and Soul in Michael Jackson’s This Is It).
From Articles, Essays, and Poems, On Michael Jackson

Love , Music , Nature , Suffering

“For many of us, living under the Trump administration has cast everything into sharper relief: It’s as if we’ve all been given fancy polarized sunglasses with which to more clearly see the fault lines of the patriarchy. It’s no longer possible to ignore what was there all along.”

Lauren Duca (1991) American journalist

Sexism, Remembered and Forgotten (November 17, 2017)

“From the preceding examples, we may get some idea of the change in perspective that may occur in our reading and interpretation of the philosophical works of antiquity when we consider them from the point of view of the practice of spiritual exercises. Philosophy then appears in its original aspect: not as a theoretical construct, but as a method for training people to live and to look at the world in a new way. It is an attempt to transform mankind. Contemporary historians of philosophy are today scarcely inclined to pay attention to this aspect, although it is an essential one. The reason for this is that, in conformity with a tradition inherited from the Middle Ages … they consider philosophy to be purely abstract-theoretical activity.”

Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) French historian and philosopher

trans. Michael Chase (1995), p. 107
La Philosophie comme manière de vivre (2001)

People , Age , World , Way

“This fella from National Geographic says 'no human being has ever seen a live dinosaur'. But hold on a minute; does he know that? Or does he think that? In order to know that, wouldn't he have to know everybody that ever lived?”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Dinosaurs and the Bible

Thinking

“It is something to remember, if we feel distant from humans. We owe a great deal to human love. We live forever by the grace of human love, which rocked strange children in their cradles and did not despair and did not turn away. I know which side of my heritage my soul comes from. Our fathers were demons. Our mothers were heroes.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Catarina Loss, to Magnus Bane and Ragnor Fell in 1890, p. 42.
The Bane Chronicles, What Really Happened in Peru (2013)

Love , Children , Feeling , Soul

“I would say that the feminine values are now the values of America; sensitivity is more important than truth; feelings are more important than facts; commitment is more important than individuality; children are more important than people; safety is more important than fun. I always hear women say, "Y'know, married men live longer." Uh, yes, and an indoor cat… also… lives longer. It's a fur-ball with a broken spirit that can only look out on a world it will never enjoy, but it does, technically, live longer.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Victory Begins at Home (20 January 2004)

Women , Men , Children , People

“It's not that everything needs to have substance, but when nothing does then you know we’re living in a bankrupt society, an artistically bankrupt society, and that’s not okay. I think there’s room for forms of entertainment that are very light and frivolous and fun, but when those forms of entertainment, forms of "art" if you will, become presented as something more than that, and are believed to be something more than that, then we’ve got a lot of problems.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

Skinnie magazine, March 2010, p. 29

Art , Problem , Thinking , Light

“The living voice is that which sways the soul.”

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 3, 9.
Letters, Book II

Soul

“Rohde became more and more firmly bound to the bourgeois world, its institutions and accepted opinions. … The contrast between the two natures makes Rohde and Nietzsche exemplary representatives of two distinctive worlds. In their youth they both live in the realm of boundless possibilities and feel an affinity through the exuberance of their noble aspirations. Subsequently they go in opposite directions. Nietzsche remains young, leaving concrete reality as his task assumes existential import. Rohde grows old, bourgeois, stable, and skeptical. Hence courage is a fundamental trait in Nietzsche, plaintive self-irony in Rohde. … Rohde retained the interests but not the attitudes of his youth; he looked to the world of the Greeks for the object of his contemplation rather than the norm of obligation.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

Source: Nietzsche (1946), pp. 61-62

Youth , World , Feeling , Courage

“The best way to honor friends who have died is to treat our living ones with equal affection.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

Way

“[Ed Grimley] lives in a retirement home in New Jersey. It's called the Retirement Home in New Jersey for Characters Who Were Interesting in the '80s for About an Hour. He's there with the Whiners, Gumby and Jon Lovitz's 'That's the ticket' guy.”

Martin Short (1950) Canadian stand-up comedian

"Hot Seat", Time Out New York; Issue 565: July 27–August 2, 2006

Guy , Home

“I wanted to show some of the faces of Washington’s inaction — to share a small sliver of the lives we’ve lost because our nation is overflowing with guns. This issue is only controversial in the halls of Congress. Outside Washington, people understand the horror of gun violence and are increasingly unwilling to tolerate a Congress that is owned and operated by the gun lobby.”

Chris Murphy (1973) American politician

"Senator Responds to Trump’s N.R.A. Speech With Photos of Shooting Victims" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/us/politics/christopher-murphy-guns-trump.html?_r=0, 17 Apr 2017

People , Understanding

“[God] puts a new spirit within [homosexuals], and gives them a new heart with new desires. Thousands of ex-gays attest to the power of God to change lives.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

Source: You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

God , Change , Heart

“I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labour and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead ofnearer to it — at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Love , Men , People , Dreams

“[About her vegan diet] I guess I'm a very compassionate person so hearing about animal abuse kind of triggered something in me that maybe I should try it… I'm really into health and fitness and wellness, so this kind of tied into it. I thought I was just going to do it until the (2010) Olympics, but then I didn't go to the Olympics, and then I ended up liking it so much, I think I'll be a vegan for the rest of my life. … My energy is so much better, I don't hit that wall at 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I sleep well, my skin is better, everything just feels well. And it transfers into my attitude, everything in my life has just become a lot calmer, everything I'm putting in me is clean and genuine and organic and in turn, the way I live my life has started to follow that path.”

Meagan Duhamel (1985) Canadian pair skater

" Canadian pairs champ Meagan Duhamel credits vegan diet for good health http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/02/07/canadian-pairs-champ-meag_n_1261130.html" by Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press, in The Huffington Post Canada (2 July 2012)

Life , Health , Way , Feeling

“People frequently ask why my canvases are compartmentalized. No one ever asks this about a house. A man with a large family would not choose to live in a one-room house... I am like a man with a large family and must have many rooms. The children of my imagination occupy the various compartments of my painting, each independent and occupying its own place. At the same time they have the proper atmosphere in which to function together, in harmony and as a unified group. One can say that my paintings are like a house, in which each occupant has a room of his own.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

Arts and Architecture, vol. 68, no 9, September 1951, p. 21.
1950s

Children , People , Family , Imagination

“He said that while one would like to say that God will punish those who do such things and that people often speak in just this way it was his experience that God could not be spoken for and that men with wicked histories often enjoyed lives of comfort and that they died in peace and were buried with honor. He said that it was a mistake to expect too much of justice in this world. He said that the notion that evil is seldom rewarded was greatly overspoken for if there were no advantage to it then men would shun it and how could virtue then be attached to its repudiation?”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

The Crossing (1994)

Men , God , People , World

“In arguing against Zionism's designation of the Palestinian revolution as "terrorism," Arafat likened the Palestinian resistance to the American Revolution, the European anti-Nazi resistance, and the anticolonial struggles in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. After reviewing the British and Zionist outrages against the Palestinian people, Arafat emphasized that "all this has made our people neither vindictive nor vengeful. Nor has it caused us to resort to the racism of our enemies… For we deplore all those crimes committed against the Jews, we also deplore all the real discrimination suffered by them because of their faith." Arafat concluded by calling on Jews to oppose racism and desist from supporting the racist Israeli state, enjoining them to live as equals with Palestinians in a democratic Palestine.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
On the PLO

People , Faith , Support , Suffering

“Following daily such a dread-
ful trade to earn a living,
With every second on that cliff
So cruel and unforgiving”

Alan Brownjohn (1931) British writer

“Axiom: Novel must have either one living character or a perfect pattern: fails otherwise.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 6

Perfection

“Life is, without a doubt, complex and confusing. My faith is my sanity. There are people who choose to live on the surface of things. I have yet to find the surface. And with all the beauty in the underneath, I am not certain I want to live on the surface should I find it. I stopped looking a long time ago.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

Life , People , Faith , Beauty

“Superstition has caused so much confusion, darkness, and deception. Dogma has been used to tyrannize over the lives of the people. So, this is the time for change and of some transformation based on reason, science, critical thinking, and humanity. People are yearning for freedom and emancipation. Humanism is critical in delivering that change and in the realization of social renewal.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

An Interview with Dr. Leo Igwe — Founder, Nigerian Humanist Movement (2017)

People , Thinking , Freedom , Science

“From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no man lives forever,
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

The Garden of Proserpine.
Undated

Love , Men , God , Fear

“If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Attributed to Mead in Mead Childhood Education Vol. 54 (1977) by Association for Childhood Education International, p. 126
1970s

Life , People , Sense

“Our stories are funny because we lived them, and we survived them. The worse the incident was when it was happening, the funnier the story had become to us over the years.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Nicholas Sparks, Chapter 16, p. 303
2000s, Three Weeks with My Brother (2004)

“These are strange times, when we are healthier than ever but more anxious about our health. According to all the standard benchmarks, we've never had it so healthy. Longevity in the West continues to rise -- a typical British woman can now expect to live to seventy-nine, eight years more than just half a century ago, and over double the life expectation when Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837. Break the figures down a bit and you find other encouraging signs even in the recent past; in 1950, the UK experienced 26,000 infant deaths; within half a century that had fallen by 80 per cent. Deaths in the UK from infectious diseases nearly halved between 1970 and 1992; between 1971 and 1991 stroke deaths dropped by 40 per cent and coronary heart disease fatalities by 19 per cent -- and those are diseases widely perceived to be worsening.”

Roy Porter (1946–2002) British historian

Introduction, lead paragraph; as cited nytimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/porter-benefit.html 1998
The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (1997)

Life , Death , Health , Disease

“It doesn't matter that [Christians] aren't paying attention to their religious doctrine, because marriage is not a sacred institution; it's a human invention. I'm married for the same reason other atheists like Penn Jillette are; it's partly for tax purposes, but also rights for partnership, possession, deathbed presence, inheritance and other benefits that civil unions just don't provide. But even if we made civil unions exactly identical to marriage, why can't we call it a marriage? "Because the Bible defines a marriage as one man and one woman". No, it doesn't! It is so irritating when everybody says that, because it's so wrong. First of all, the Bible doesn't define marriage at all. Secondly, if it did, that's not the description that it gives; the way the Bible describes marriage is creepy, criminal and cruel. According to the Bible, anyone you "cleave into" more than once becomes your bride if she happens to be living with you, and there's no limit on how many of them you can have, so it seems to me that the Bible defines marriage as one man and however many women that man can afford to keep in his house.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Biblical Family Values https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bldw8X5apnY (July 11, 2015)

Women , Marriage , Way , Housing

“In our thinking there is no longer any spark of the uplifting flight of concepts or of the ecstasies of understanding. We are enlightened, we are apathetic. No one talks anymore of a love of wisdom. There is no longer any knowledge whose friend (philos) one could be. It does not occur to us to love the kind of knowledge we have; rather we ask ourselves how we might contrive to live with it without becoming ossified.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. xxvi

Love , Wisdom , Understanding , Knowledge

“Of all the sights and sounds which attracted me on my first arrival to live in London in the mid-thirties, one combined operation left a lingering, individual spell. I naturally went to Hyde Park to hear the orators, the best of the many free entertainments on offer in the capital. I heard the purest milk of the world flowing, then as now, from the platform of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

Debts of Honour, 1980.
1980s

World , Nature

“The Violencia that ravaged Colombia for the next decade, pitting Liberals against the ruling Conservatives, took 200,000 lives – a catastrophe worse than any endured in Peru. This was the historical background to Márquez’s early career as a journalist and writer. But he seems to have remained eerily untouched by it.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Ch 10. "Tropical Recall, Gabriel García Márquez" (2005)

“The age which we live in is not suited to idle complacency or to pleasant dreams of past greatness.”

Vincent Massey (1887–1967) Governor General of Canada

Address at the Convocation of the University of Manitoba, October 28, 1952
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)

Age , Dreams , Past

“He realized now that to be afraid of this death he was staring at with animal terror meant to be afraid of life. Fear of dying justified a limitless attachment to what is alive in man. And all those who had not made the gestures necessary to live their lives, all those who feared and exalted impotence — they were afraid of death because of the sanction it gave to a life in which they had not been involved. They had not lived enough, never having lived at all.”

Albert Camus book A Happy Death

A Happy Death (1971)

Life , Death , Fear , Animals

“My eight years in Brooklyn gave me a new vision of America, or rather America gave me a new vision of a part of itself, Brooklyn. They were wonderful years. A community of over three million people, proud, hurt, jealous, seeking geographical, social, emotional status as a city apart and alone and sufficient. One could not live for eight years in Brooklyn and not catch its spirit of devotion to its baseball club, such as no other city in America equaled. Call it loyalty, and so it was. It would be a crime against a community of three million people to move the Dodgers. Not that the move was unlawful, since people have the right to do as they please with their property. But a baseball club in any city in America is a quasi-public institution, and in Brooklyn the Dodgers were public without the quasi.”

Branch Rickey (1881–1965) American baseball player and coach

On the relocation of the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles; quoted in Bob McGee, <i>The Greatest Ballpark Ever: Ebbets Field and the Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers</i> (Rutgers University Press, 2005, ISBN 0813536006), p. 294 http://books.google.ca/books?id=BOZyd7v1cDAC&pg=PA294&dq=%22public+without+the+quasi

People , Communication , Parting , Hurt

“For the moment we will put aside the consideration of the effect upon others — which is so infinitely more important — and think only of the results for the man himself. It is necessary to do this because one of the objections frequently brought against vegetarianism is that it is a beautiful theory, but one the working of which is impracticable, since it is supposed that a man cannot live without devouring dead flesh. That objection is irrational, and is founded upon ignorance or perversion of facts. I am myself an example of its falsity; for I have lived without the pollution of flesh food — without meat, fish or fowl — for the last thirty-eight years, and I not only still survive, but have been during all that time in remarkably good health. Nor am I in any way peculiar in this, for I know some thousands of others who have done the same thing. I know some younger ones who have been so happy as to be unpolluted by the eating of flesh during the whole of their lives; and they are distinctly freer from disease than those who partake of such things.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Vegetarianism and Occultism (1913), p. 4-5

Health , Disease , Food , Beauty

“When I did TV shows and movies, the studios did demographic research. They were shocked to find that my audience isn't just men who are too drunk to turn off the TV after football. It's women, too. I don't know exactly why, other than that I've tried to remain true to myself for all these years. I have gone through a lot, and I've been open about it. Maybe they look at me and can see how you can grow up, have children, continue to be sexy, get married and divorced and, though you grew up poor, live the American dream. I'm very blessed. I'm happy for it all.”

Pamela Anderson (1967) Canadian-American model, producer, author, former showgirl

Playboy, May 2004.

Women , Men , Children , Dreams

“It remains true that Michelangelo's intensely personal use of the nude greatly altered its character. He changed it from a means of embodying ideas to a means of expressing emotions; he transformed it from the world of living to the world of becoming. And he projected his world of the imagination with such unequaled artistic power that its shadow fell on every male nude in art for three hundred and fifty years. Painters either imitated his heroic poses and proportions or they reacted against them self-consciously and sought a new repertoire of attitudes in the art of fifth-century Greece. In the nineteenth century the ghost of Michelangelo was still posing the models in art schools.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. V: Energy

World , School , Art , Imagination

“In this world that destroys me, the only thing that I can do is to live my weakness. That weakness is my only strength.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

World

“There were three men whose lives became confused in history and merged, and whose composite history became known as the life of Christ... Each was highly gifted psychically, knew of his role, and accepted it willingly. The three men were a part of one entity, gaining physical existence in one time. They were not born on the same date, however. There are reasons why the entity did not return as one person. For one thing, the full consciousness would be too strong for one physical vehicle. For another, the entity wanted a more diversified environment than could otherwise be provided.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Seth Material (1970), p. 271-272

Life , Men , History , Strong

“To say that I would have done otherwise had I wanted to is simply to say that I would have lived in a different universe had I been in a different universe.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, Free Will (2012), p. 20

Universe

“The whole history of my life, and in essence the whole history of the working class consists of this: that we have lived and fought under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin.”

Mikhail Kalinin (1875–1946) Soviet politician

Quoted in "USSR Information Bulletin" - Page 322 - World War, 1939-1945 - 1942

Life , History

“…I simply don’t want the poems mixed up with my life or opinions or picture or any other regrettable concomitants. I look like a bear and live in a cave; but you should worry.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

of not wanting to write a preface for his first volume of verse, The Rage for the Lost Penny (1940); “A Note on Poetry”, p. 47
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Life

“One must have lived on such diet to discover what ghastly trouble the necessity of swallowing one's food become.”

Joseph Conrad book An Outpost of Progress

Tales of Unrest http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1202/1202-h/1202-h.htm. An Outpost of Progress (1902)

Food

“All this sitting about in cafés to calm down
Simply wears me out. And their idea of literature!
The idiotic cut of the stanzas; the novels, full up, gross.

I have lived it, and I know too much.
My café nerves are breaking me
With black, exhausting information.”

Rosemary Tonks (1928–2014) British poet

The Sofas, Fogs and Cinemas

Literature , Idea

“I'm afraid that I got put off by the kings, queens, christs, disciples, priests, and priestesses who seemed to parade through the psyches of my contemporaries; and by the reincarnational data given by many psychics. It seems that almost everyone has a distinguished reincarnational family tree, blooming with famous historic personages. I've often thought that these purported past lives of fame and grandeur represent more heroic portions of the psyche, buried beneath prosaic life; I was willing to admit their value in reminding a contemporary personality of its own greater abilities and potentials.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 51

Life , Family , Tree , Past

“If what was supposed to have been destroyed in Paradise was destructible, then it was not decisive; but if it was indestructible, then we are living in a false belief.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

74
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

Decision , Falseness

“"I don't sit here / I want to live above / I want to live just once!"
(from Brava Giulia, 1987)”

Vasco Rossi (1980) Italian singer-songwriter

Song lyrics

“Those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword' say the Scriptures, and it may well be that in the progress of events the working class of Ireland may be called upon to face the stern necessity of taking the sword (or rifle) against the capitalist class.”

James Connolly (1868–1916) Irish republican and socialist leader

The Worker, 30 January, 1915. Reprinted in P. Beresford Ellis (ed.), James Connolly - Selected Writings, p. 210.

“Excessively precise economic analysis can lead to assessing everything in terms of its easily measurable melt value - the value that thieves get from stealing copper wiring from isolated houses, that vandals got from tearing down Greek temples for the lead joints holding the marble blocks together, that shortsighted timber companies get from liquidating their forests. The standard to insist on is live value. What is something worth when it's working?”

Stewart Brand book Whole Earth Discipline

Whole Earth Discipline (2009), page 277.

Tear , Housing

“It is better to live poorly upon the fruits of God’s goodness than live plentifully upon the products of our own sin.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

In a sermon titled 'Our Condition' - "Indebted Ghanaian Saved From Prostitution By TB Joshua" http://www.theghanaianjournal.com/2009/08/04/indebted-ghanaian-saved-from-prostitution-by-tb-joshua/ The Ghanaian Journal (August 4 2009)

God

“It took one tweet on Monday evening as I left the office to light the virtual touchpaper. At five past nine I tapped: "Now Guardian prevented from reporting parliament for unreportable reasons. Did John Wilkes live in vain?"… By the time I got home, after stopping off for a meal with friends, the Twittersphere had gone into meltdown. Twitterers had sleuthed down Farrelly's question, published the relevant links and were now seriously on the case. By midday on Tuesday "Trafigura" was one of the most searched terms in Europe, helped along by re-tweets by Stephen Fry and his 830,000-odd followers.
… One or two legal experts uncovered the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840, wondering if that would help? Common #hashtags were quickly developed, making the material easily discoverable. By lunchtime – an hour before we were due in court – Trafigura threw in the towel. The textbook stuff – elaborate carrot, expensive stick – had been blown away by a newspaper together with the mass collaboration of total strangers on the web. Trafigura thought it was buying silence. A combination of old media – the Guardian – and new – Twitter – turned attempted obscurity into mass notoriety.”

Alan Rusbridger (1953) British newspaper editor

Alan Rusbridger " The Trafigura fiasco tears up the textbook http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/14/trafigura-fiasco-tears-up-textbook" The Guardian, Wednesday 14 October 2009; As cited in Paul Bradshaw, ‎Liisa Rohumaa (2013) The Online Journalism Handbook: Skills to survive and thrive in the Digital Age. p. 176.
2000s

Home , Search , Question , Light

“Live to your rebirth and do what you will
(Oh by jingo)
Forget all I've said, please bear me no ill.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

After All
Song lyrics, The Man Who Sold the World (1970)

Forgetting

“The life of a couple is lived on the mental level of the more mediocre of the two beings who compose it.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Marriage

Life

“Existential envy which is directed against the other person’s very nature, is the strongest source of ressentiment. It is as if it whispers continually: “I can forgive everything, but not that you are— that you are what you are—that I am not what you are—indeed that I am not you.” This form of envy strips the opponent of his very existence, for this existence as such is felt to be a “pressure,” a “reproach,” and an unbearable humiliation. In the lives of great men there are always critical periods of instability, in which they alternately envy and try to love those whose merits they cannot but esteem. Only gradually, one of these attitudes will predominate. Here lies the meaning of Goethe’s reflection that “against another’s great merits, there is no remedy but love.””

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 52-53

Love , Men , Forgiveness , Nature

“The people who live here [in and around Davos] are proud. The hard work, which is done with great love, the way they treat animals (you very seldom see an animal being mishandled) entitle them to be proud. In most cases, work here has reached the ideal standard of being done with love. You can see it in the movements of their hands. And that, in turn, ennobles the facial expression and imbues all personal contacts with a great delicacy.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

Quote, c. 1920; as cited by Kornfield, E. W.; Stauffer, Christine E. Stauffer (1992), Biography Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Kirchner Museum Davos. Retrieved March 21, 2016; from Wikipedia: Kirchner
1920's

Love , People , Way , Animals

““If there was anything, anything more at all, after this crazy mix-up we call living, I could feel that there might be some point to the whole frantic business, even if I did not know and could not know the full answer while I was alive.”
“And suppose there was not? Suppose that when a man’s body disintegrates, he himself disappears absolutely. I’m bound to say I find it a probable hypothesis.”
“Well— It wouldn’t be cheerful knowledge, but it would be better than not knowing. You could plan your life rationally, at least. A man might even be able to get a certain amount of satisfaction in planning things better for the future, after he’s gone. A vicarious pleasure in the anticipation.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 10, “—the only game in town”, p. 105

Life , Pleasure , Feeling , Business

“Mahatma Buddha has also left a deep imprint on my life. In my personal room also, there are three-four statues of the Buddha…. In Buddhism, I see dharma entrenched in karuna (compassion). I believe compassion is the most valuable essence of life. When I formed the government, these values got ingrained even deeper. What attracts me about Buddha is his inclusive philosophy; secondly, his modernity; and thirdly, his belief in the importance of Sangathan—the idea of Sangha. This underlies all his philosophy. I would often wonder how Buddha managed to reach all over the world. What was it about him that lit sparks everywhere he went, took ordinary human beings towards their kartavya (duty) and appealed to the lower status groups as well? Buddhism does not have too much tam-jham or celebration of big utsavs. There is a direct connect of the individual with the Divine. That entire thought system touches me deeply. Moreover, wherever Buddha went, the region witnessed prosperity. Even though China had a different belief system but Buddha has maintained his influence on China as well. Recently, I went to China and found that their government was introducing me to Buddhist elements of their culture with great pride. I got to know that China is making a film on Hiuen-Tsang. I took a pro-active role and wrote to those people saying that they should not forget the part about his stay in Gujarat. Hiuen-Tsang lived for a long time in the village where I was born. He has written about a hostel in that village where 1,000 student monks resided. After I became chief minister, I got the area excavated and found archeological evidence of things described by Hiuen-Tsang. This means Mahatma Buddha’s philosophy would have had some influence on my ancestors.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi quoted from Kishwar, Madhu (2014). Modi, Muslims and media: Voices from Narendra Modi's Gujarat. p.388-389
2013

Life , People , World , Idea

“There are four causes of infidelity and loss of belief in Allah: hankering after whims, a passion to dispute every argument, deviation from truth; and dissension, because whoever hankers after whims does not incline towards truth; whoever keeps on disputing every argument on account of his ignorance, will always remain blind to truth, whoever deviates from truth because of ignorance, will always take good for evil and evil for good and he will always remain intoxicated with misguidance. And whoever makes a breach (with Allah and His Messenger) his path becomes difficult, his affairs will become complicated and his way to salvation will be uncertain.
Similarly, doubt has also four aspects absurd reasoning; fear; vacillation and hesitation; and unreasonable surrender to infidelity, because one who has accustomed himself to unreasonable and absurd discussions will never see the Light of Truth and will always live in the darkness of ignorance. One who is afraid to face facts (of life, death and the life after death) will always turn away from ultimate reality, one who allows doubts and uncertainties to vacillate him will always be under the control of Satan and one who surrenders himself to infidelity accepts damnation in both the worlds.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Life , Death , Truth , World

“We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that it divided; but the men: — Divided into mere segments of men — broken into small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now it is a good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished, — sand of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what it is — we should think that there might be some loss in it also. And the great cry that rises from our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, — that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching nor preaching, for to teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach at them, if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can only be met by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and making them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience or beauty, or cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the workman; and by equally determined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling labour.”

John Ruskin book The Stones of Venice

Volume II, chapter VI, section 16.
The Stones of Venice (1853)

Life , Men , Beauty , Way

“There are some surely whom you like and whom you dislike, for whom you entertain esteem and for whom you feel contempt? Have you not thought that you have some duties toward them, that you can aid them in leading better lives?”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

Source: Cosmopolis (1892), Ch. 1 "A Dilettante and a Believer"

Feeling

“Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty (1859), Ch. III: Of Individuality, As One of the Elements of Well-Being

Nature , Tree

“I want to tell you why I did this. My mother was the first one to tell me about the Statue of Liberty. She saw at first from the deck of the ship that brought her to America: she was an immigrant. She impressed upon me how precious our liberty is and how easily it can be lost. And then one day it occurred to me that I could show with magic how we take our freedom for granted. Sometimes we don't realize how important something is until it's gone. So I asked our government for permission to let me make the Statue of Liberty disappear… just for a few minutes. I thought that if we faced emptiness where, for as long as we can remember, that great lady is, lifted up our land, why then… we might imagine what the world would be like without liberty and we realize how precious our freedom really is. And then I will make the Statue of Liberty reappear, by remembering the world that made it appear in the first place. The world is freedom. Freedom is the true magic. It's beyond the power of any magician. But wherever one human being guarantees another the same rights he or she enjoys, we find freedom. [The curtain between the live audience and the Statue of Liberty used to hide the secret of its disappearance is raised] How long can we stay free? But just as long as we keep thinking, and speaking, and acting as free human beings. Our ancestors just couldn’t. We can. And I will show you the way. Nooooow!”

David Copperfield (1956) American illusionist

The curtain is lowered and the Statue of Liberty reappears
From "The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears" (April 8th, 1983)

Secret , World , Way , Imagination

Quotes about living page 91

Quotes about living
page 91