"Enjoy when you can and endure when you must" - Goethe
On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness
The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls Of mastodons, are billiard balls.
The sword of Charlemagne the Just Is ferric oxide, known as rust.
The grizzly bear whose potent hug Was feared by all, is now a rug.
Great Caesar’s bust is on my shelf, And I don’t feel so well myself.
For a dinner date, I eat light all day to save room, then I go all in: I choose this meal and this order, and I choose you, the person across from me, to share it with. There's a beautiful intimacy in a meal like that. -anthony Bourdain
Sit back and enjoy your problems. You don't always have to solve 'em. - Marina Diamandis
The real secrets are not the ones I tell. ~Mason Cooley
“The most successful people in the world aren’t usually the brightest. They are the ones who persevere.”
Something my therapist and I went over a couple weeks ago.
@UKGuy offered:
• Ross Perot (R.I.P.)
I offer:
When all life in the world is gone the cockroaches will still be around. Crikey!
• Steve Irwin (R.I.P.)
Camille: That was uncalled for.
Petra: If we waited until it was called for, it would never happen.
From When Night Falls
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." [Voltaire
"But it turns out that people who are grounded and secure don't change much under stress. That's what being grounded means."
"Necessity is sometimes a higher God than truth"
Terry Brooks
I don't necessarily agree but I do think it's very clever!
Some days are just bad days, that's all. You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that's just the way it is!
Dita Von Teese
“They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.”
— Samuel Beckett
Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.
Alfred Austin
"Granny Weatherwax was gathering Herbs when they came up the track. Everyday herbs of sickroom and kitchen are known as simples. Granny's Herbs weren't simples. They were complicateds or they were nothing. And there was none of the airy-fairy business with a pretty basket and a pair of dainty snippers. Granny used a knife. And a chair held in front of her. And a leather hat, gloves and apron as secondary lines of defence. Even she didn't know where some of the Herbs came from. Roots and seeds were traded all over the world, and maybe further. Some had flowers that turned as you passed by, some fired their thorns at passing birds and several were staked, not so that they wouldn't fall over, but so they'd still be there next day." —Terry Pratchett, The Sea and Little Fishes
"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it."
"Be mindful of your self-talk; it’s a conversation with the universe.” – David James Lees
Dance like nobody's watching Love like you've never been hurt Sing like nobody's listening Live like it's heaven on earth
-W. Purkey
“Within the hierarchy of fabrications that compose our lives—families, countries, gods—the self incontestably ranks highest. Just below the self is the family, which has proven itself more durable than national or ethnic affiliations, with these in turn outranking god-figures for their staying power. So any progress toward the salvation of humankind will probably begin from the bottom—when our gods have been devalued to the status of refrigerator magnets or lawn ornaments. Following the death rattle of deities, it would appear that nations or ethnic communities are next in line for the boneyard. Only after fealty to countries, gods, and families has been shucked off can we even think about coming to grips with the least endangered of fabrications—the self.”
— Thomas Ligotti
"I don't see how it is that the defender starts the war."
"It isn't that complicated. The attacker doesn't want war. The attacker wants to conquer. If the defender would simply allow him to do so, there would be no war."
—an exchange between Vladimir Taltos and Sethra Lavode; Dragon (by Steven Brust)
It's a valid point. If one person punches another in the face, that's not a fight: it's assault. It's only a fight if the one hit strikes back.
Of course, one wonders how much it really matters who started the fight. Why should the one who started it be automatically at fault?
And which is worse: to hit someone when you don't want a fight—you just want them to sit there and take it—or to hit someone in order to make them stop hitting you (even though this means turning one-sided abuse into a two-sided fight)? Surely it's better to start the war than to sit there and let yourself be conquered. Isn't it?
I like this author. He makes me think.
“Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse.”
“Supernatural Horror in Literature” ― H P Lovecraft
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
“We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful.” ― Eric Michael Leventhal
“Life's big questions are big in the sense that they are momentuous. However, contrary to appearances, they are not big in the sense of being unanswerable. It is only that the answers are generally unpalatable. There is no great mystery, but there is plenty of horror.”
— David Benetar
I have nothing to declare except my genius.
Oscar Wilde
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.
George R.R. Martin
There is a difference between what you are feeling and how you are behaving. Change your behavior and your feelings will change.
"If you like your Doctor, you can keep your Doctor"