Quotes about use
page 75

“Anything I cannot thank God for for the sake of Christ, I may not thank God for at all; to do so would be sin…. We cannot rightly acknowledge the gifts of God unless we acknowledge the Mediator for whose sake alone they are given to us.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer book The Cost of Discipleship

Source: The Cost of Discipleship

God, Christ

“The time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us today…

… some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)
Context: Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.
Context: Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing, as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we're always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony. But we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for in all our history there has never been such a monumental dissent during a war, by the American people.

Silence, Betrayal, Time, Night

“When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.”

Dale Carnegie book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), p. 110

Hate, Happiness, Health, Sleep

“Secrets of the heart. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Secret, Time, Help, Heart

“Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also justice. But to grow in love requires work -- hard work. And it can bring pain because it implies loss -- loss of the certitudes, comforts, and hurts that shelter and define us.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Finding Peace

Love, Pain, Peace, Justice

“Kinky sex involves the use of duck feathers. Perverted sex involves the whole duck.”

Lewis Grizzard (1946–1994) American journalist

Sex

“The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Source: The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985

Way, History

“Lord, heap miseries upon us yet entwine our arts with laughters low.”

James Joyce book Finnegans Wake

Source: Finnegans Wake

Art, Laughter

“Then tell them we've all got meanness in us… But tell them we have some good in us too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. That's why we've got to make sure we pass it on.”

Billie Letts book Where the Heart Is

Variant: ... tell them that we have some good in us, too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. That’s why we’ve got to make sure we pass it on.
Source: Where the Heart Is

“Lookin up at the huge baboons, I wondered if Khufu had some sort of secret baboon code that would get us in. But instead he barked at the statues and cowered heroically behind my legs.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Secret

“It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.”

Conan O'Brien (1963) American television show host and comedian

Failure, Attitude

“Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: Thoughts in Solitude

“And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author

Love, Help

“Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us, and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us.
Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me, unrelentingly to rage on”

Homér Iliad

Source: The Iliad

Rage, Past, Hurt, Anger

“I think we look for the differences in people because it makes us less lonely.”

Carson McCullers (1917–1967) American writer

People, Thinking

“Books console us, calm us, prepare us, enrich us and redeem us.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Books

“Being alone makes us stronger. That’s the honest truth. But it’s cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

Truth

“We’re only human.”
“One of us, anyway. The other’s a reptile.”
“Harsh, Annabelle. Very harsh.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Match Me If You Can

“They can only kill us once.”

Immaculée Ilibagiza (1972) Rwandan writer

Source: Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

“I don’t like it when you use my shampoo, because then your hair smells like me, not you.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

“I don't know if there are men on the moon, but if there are they must be using the earth as their lunatic asylum”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Men

“The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.”

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

"A Book That Influenced Me"
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Books

“You could give us a hand instead of staring into space like a constipated camel.”

Angie Sage book Queste

Source: Queste

“Christ did not die to make good works merely possible or to produce a half-hearted pursuit. He died to produce in us a passion for good deeds. Christian purity is not the mere avoidance of evil, but the pursuit of good.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Source: The Passion of Jesus Christ

Passion, Evil, Heart, Christ

“People who truly love us can be divided into two categories: those who understand us, and those who forgive us our worst sins. Rarely do you find someone capable of both.”

Jonathan Carroll (1949) novelist, short story writer

Love, People, Forgiveness, Understanding

“It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I’d known, maybe I’d have kept tighter hold of them, and not let unseen tides pull us apart.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

Speed

“The emotion of love gives all of us a misleading illusion of knowing the other.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Love

“You're always believing ahead of your evidence. What was the evidence I could write a poem? I just believed it. The most creative thing in us is to believe in a thing.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“This is me.’" He handed her the precious scrap of paper. ‘Call me or I’ll call you, but one of us will call, yes? What I mean is it’s not a competition. You don’t lose if you phone first.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“Dimitri: "Were you really going to attack all of us? Doing that… protecting her like that—it was very brave. Stupid, but still brave. Why did you even try it?”
Rose: "Because I'm her guardian.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

Stupidity

“If you hear a "prominent" economist using the word 'equilibrium,' or 'normal distribution,' do not argue with him; just ignore him, or try to put a rat down his shirt.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“Luke: Boy, it's lucky you have these compartments.
Han: I use them for smuggling. I never thought I'd be smuggling myself in them. This is ridiculous.”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

Source: A New Hope

Boy

“But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

People

“Let us, then, be up and doing.
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Psalm of Life

St. 9.
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Longfellow's Poems

Fate, Learning, Waiting, Heart

“I don't expect life to make sense," he said after a few moments, "but it could certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 5 “The Five-Year Game: Starting Position” section 1 (p. 250)
Context: Locke put his head in his hands and sighed.
“I don’t expect life to make sense,” he said after a few moments, “but it would certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.”

Life, Sense

“When the light at Vernon turned green, we stepped into the street and George grabbed my hand and the ghosts of our younger selves crossed with us.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Light

“It's your fault, Eeyore. You've never been to see any of us. You just stay here in this one corner of the Forest waiting for the others to come to you. Why don't you go to THEM sometimes?”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

Source: The House at Pooh Corner

Waiting

“And Meredith and Bonnie, who's going to bend some spoons for us next. I'm going to throw you down a rope… that is, unless Bonnie can levitate you out.”

L.J. Smith book The Vampire Diaries: The Struggle

Source: The Struggle

“Time does not change us it just unfolds us”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Sketchbook 1946-1949

Change, Time

“Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.”

Barry Lopez (1945) American writer

“The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Men, Books, Study, Reading

“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Volume iii, p. 453
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Context: Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. Pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

“It's of no use to look back and say, "I should have been different." At any given moment, we are the way we are, and we see what we're able to see. For that reason, guilt is always inappropriate.”

Charlotte Joko Beck (1917–2011) US American Zen Teacher

Source: Nothing Special

Way

“The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: On Love

Feeling, Kiss, Forgetting

“Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay

Way, Thinking, Country

“You said sloppy! Look, I didn't even use my sword; I hit him with my head, like a moron.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

“He faced us. “You hear that, guys? A batch of cookies is depending on me. If you get me killed on the way to camp, I am going be ticked off.”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

Way, Guy, Dependency

“I don't use a crap camera, I don't eat junk, and I'm not going to a dance where the boys are bores”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Source: Viola in Reel Life

Boy, Dance

“Sadie got up and kissed Amos on the forehead. “Leave it to us, Uncle. I’ve got a plan.”
“That,” I said, “sounds like very bad news.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Kiss

“The world will always punish the few people with special talents the rest of us don’t recognize as real.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005)

People, World

“Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got used to it.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1910s
Source: A Little Book in C Major (1916)

Truth

“The only thing for it is to use men for sex and never let any of them get so close they could hurt you.”

Dorothy Koomson book My Best Friend's Girl

Source: My Best Friend's Girl

Men, Sex, Hurt

“This is our time. Until that time stops - for one of us, for both – it is our time. Now. Will you waste it, because you are afraid?”

Diana Gabaldon book Drums of Autumn

Source: Drums of Autumn

Time

“The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless.”

Umberto Eco book The Name of the Rose

Source: The Name of the Rose

Imagination

“Some people feel love in their hearts, Julie. Some of us feel it all way into our souls. We're the ones who can't forget.”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Source: Paradise

Love, People, Way, Feeling

“Let us not ask for miracles, let us not ask for concern with what is good for the country of him who comes as a stranger to make his fortune and leave afterwards.”

José Rizal book Noli Me Tángere

Source: Noli Me Tángere

Country

“We can't look to the world to restore our worth; we're here to restore our worth to the world. The world outside us can reflect our glory, but it cannot create it. It cannot crown us. Only God can crown us, and he already has.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

God, World

“Macon: “It’s true. And if that doesn’t work, use the Jedi Mind Trick. But only if you really have to.”
Halley: “The what?”
Macon: “The Jedi Mind Trick.” He looked at me. “Didn’t you ever see Star Wars?”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You

War, Star

“This is what it means to live on. When granted hope, a person uses it as fuel, as a guidepost to life. It is impossible to live without hope.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

Life, Hope, Personality

“And now all the others are saying, "What about Us?" So perhaps the best thing to do is to stop writing Introductions and get on with the book.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Source: The World of Winnie-the-Pooh

Books

“I don't pretend to be wise, but I am observing, and I see a great deal more than you'd imagine. I'm interested in other people's experiences and inconsistencies, and, though I can't explain, I remember and use them for my own benefit.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

People, Imagination

“There's this saying: in an all-blue world, colour doesn't exist… If something seems strange, you question it; but if the outside world is too distant to use as a comparison then nothing seems strange.”

Alex Garland book The Beach

Source: The Beach

World, Question, Distant

“If we can't respect the way we earn it, money has no value. If we can't use it to make life better for our families and loved ones, money has no purpose.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Love, Life, Money, Family

“Another of these strong silent men. The world is full of us.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Men, World, Strong

“Sometimes it is better not to talk about art by using the word "art". If we just act with awareness and integrity, our art will flower, and we don't have to talk about it at all.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Art, Flowers

“Tis not that dieing hurts us so- tis living- hurts us more.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Hurt

“They won’t get you without getting us and believe me, we’re not about to make our enemies happy and die here. (Nykyrian)
Damn straight. We have too many people to continue pissing off. (Syn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Happiness, People

“I've always had a theory that some of us are born with nerve endings longer than our bodies”

Joy Harjo (1951) American writer

Source: In Mad Love and War

“The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation… Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom

Source: The Last Kingdom

Men

“4: Stories let us lie to ourselves. And those lies satisfy our desires.”

Seth Godin book All Marketers Are Liars

All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World

Lie

“Language always betrays us, tells the truth when we want to lie, and dissolves into formlessness when we would most like to be precise.”

Jeanette Winterson book Sexing the Cherry

Source: Sexing the Cherry

Truth, Lie

“Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Life, God, Art

“God leads us. God will do the right thing at the right time. And what a difference that makes.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear

God, Time

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”

Anatole France book The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

Tous les changements, même les plus souhaités ont leur mélancolie, car ce que nous quittons, c'est une partie de nous-mêmes; il faut mourir à une vie pour entrer dans une autre.
Pt. II, ch. 4
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)

Life, Change, Parting, Goodbye

“Perhaps some of us have to go through dark and devious ways before we can find the river of peace or the highroad to the soul's destination.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Peace, Way, Soul

“Our sins describe us, and our prohibitions describe our sins.”

Russell Banks (1940) American author

Success Stories

“But sooner or later, no matter who you are, life uses everyone as its whipping boy.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Silence

Life, Boy

“Life isn't fair," Owen told her. "Get used to it.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Life

“Your voice is your identity. If you don't use it, you're halfway to Asphodel already.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“… if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it—SOME.”

Eleanor H. Porter book Pollyanna

Source: Pollyanna

God, Time

“Ill-fitting grammar are like ill-fitting shoes. You can get used to it for a bit, but then one day your toes fall off and you can't walk to the bathroom.”

Jasper Fforde book One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

Source: One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

Shoe

“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.”

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Source: Selected Poems

“Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time." Page 212.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Variant: I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time.
Source: Life of Pi

Time

“To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: At Home: Essays 1982-1988

“Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is a literal shame, but most of us can: Americans spend less than 10 percent of their income on food, less than the citizens of any other nation.”

Michael Pollan book Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

Source: Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

Food

“Weapons are allowed. Dirty tricks are expected. But try not to kill anybody!” Tantalus smiled at us like we were all naughty children. “Any killing will result in harsh punishment. No s’mores at the campfire for a week! Now ready your chariots!”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Children, Smile

“Whatever we call it - mind, character, soul - we like to think we possess something that is greater than the sum of our neurons and that animates us.”

Susanna Kaysen (1948) American writer

Soul, Thinking, Animals

“All of us, all of us, all of us trying to save our immortal souls, some ways seemingly more round about and mysterious than others. We are having a good time here. But hope all will be revealed soon.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

Source: All of Us: The Collected Poems

Hope, Way, Soul, Time

“If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)
Source: The Inaugural Speeches and Messages of Thomas Jefferson, Esq.: Late President of the United States: Together with the Inaugural Speech of James Madison, Esq. ...

Error, Change