Address Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Address. Here they are! All 100 of them:

I address you all tonight for who you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.
Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret)
The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
Thomas Paine (A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal on the Affairs of North America)
Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses)
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address)
Will: "Nice place to live, isn't it? Let's hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two ..." Jem: "Indeed. Perhaps, if we're fortunate, we can still catch syphilis." "Or demon pox," Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs.
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." [Address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 November 2004]
Desmond Tutu
Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.
Nora Ephron
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
John F. Kennedy
Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?
Mark Twain
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. [Address at Rice University, September 12 1962]
John F. Kennedy
When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice.
Brené Brown (The Gifts of Imperfection)
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. [Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]
John F. Kennedy
I'm going to make it a law that the correct way to address your sovereign is my giving a high five.' Kai's smiled brightened. 'That's genius. Me too.
Marissa Meyer (Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4))
Unhealthy love is based on two people trying to escape their problems through their emotions for each other—in other words, they’re using each other as an escape. Healthy love is based on two people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other’s support.
Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Abraham Lincoln (Great Speeches / Abraham Lincoln: with Historical Notes by John Grafton)
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
John Stuart Mill (Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 (Collected Works))
Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. [Commencement Address at Yale University, June 11 1962]
John F. Kennedy
We don't have an address," I said, "but we do know where he works." "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Vee asked, eyes brightening briefly through the haze of chemical sedation. "Based on past experience, I hope not.
Becca Fitzpatrick (Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush, #1))
Listen: this world is the lunatic's sphere, Don't always agree it's real, Even with my feet upon it And the postman knowing my door My address is somewhere else.
The Gift
If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. [Commencement Address at American University, June 10 1963]
John F. Kennedy
I know I wrote letters to people with no address on this earth, I know that you are dead. But I hear you. I hear all of you. We were here. Our lives matter.
Ava Dellaira (Love Letters to the Dead)
John Muir, Earth — planet, Universe [Muir's home address, as inscribed on the inside front cover of his first field journal]
John Muir
I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud. —address to the Society for Psychical Research in England
C.G. Jung
Who’s there?” he called, then frowned. “Of course,” he added, addressing the darkness all around, “even I, as a Shadowhunter, have seen enough movies to know that anyone who yells ‘Who’s there?’ is going to be instantly killed.
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women." [Commencement Address, Wellesley College, 1996]
Nora Ephron
You shall address me as ‘My Dearest’,’ he repeated in a mocking voice, trying to copy her tone. ‘You will forget all about this conversation when you leave this room.’ It was interesting that tone; it had a sort of hypnotising ring to it.
Max Nowaz (The Three Witches and the Master)
My fore-parts, as you so ineloquently put it, have names.” I pointed to my right breast. “This is Danger.” Then my left. “And this is Will Robinson. I would appreciate it if you addressed them accordingly.” After a long pause in which he took the time to blink several times, he asked, “You named your breasts?” I turned my back to him with a shrug. “I named my ovaries, too, but they don’t get out as much.
Darynda Jones (First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson, #1))
Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate. [Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]
John F. Kennedy
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future. [Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, June 26 1963]
John F. Kennedy
The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. [Commencement Address at Yale University, June 11 1962]
John F. Kennedy
Mankind must put an end to war - or war will put an end to mankind. [Address before the United Nations, September 25 1961]
John F. Kennedy
As she had done when she introduced the US president in Berlin, she addressed him publicly with the informal du for the first time since the NSA controversy in 2013.
Claudia Clark (Dear Barack: The Extraordinary Partnership of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel)
That’s the part I was stuck in, the part where you accept the apology because it’s easier than addressing the root of the problem,
Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there? I imagine you laughing at my small joke; I imagine you groaning; I imagine you throwing my words away. Do I have you still? Do I address empty air and the flies that will eat this carcass? You could leave me for five years, you could return never—and I have to write the rest of this not knowing.
Amal El-Mohtar (This Is How You Lose the Time War)
I read my eyes out and can't read half enough...the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.
John Adams (Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife)
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." [Preface to Brissot's Address to His Constituents (1794)]
Edmund Burke (On Empire, Liberty, and Reform: Speeches and Letters)
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. [State of the Union Address January 11 1962]
John F. Kennedy
Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. Cesar Chavez Address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Nov. 9, 1984
César Chávez
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages
Adam Smith (An Inquiry into the Nature & Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol 1)
So many things I had thought forgotten Return to my mind with stranger pain: Like letters that arrive addressed to someone Who left the house so many years ago. from “Why Did I Dream of You Last Night?,
Philip Larkin (Collected Poems)
Where her books were, she was. Get the books right and the rest will follow. Now she could address the rest of the room.
Maureen Johnson (Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1))
A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
John Adams (Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife)
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Abraham Lincoln (The Gettysburg Address)
We cannot negotiate with people who say what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable." [ The Berlin Crisis: Radio and Television Address to the American People (The White House, July 25, 1961)]
John F. Kennedy
All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.
Edward W. Said
If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal. [Commencement Address at American University, June 10 1963]
John F. Kennedy
The basic confrontation which seemed to be colonialism versus anti-colonialism, indeed capitalism versus socialism, is already losing its importance. What matters today, the issue which blocks the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity will have to address this question, no matter how devastating the consequences may be.
Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth)
Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory.
Jim Carrey
Let’s get to know each other. My name’s William, William More, but you can call me Willy. I’m an engineer-chemist who graduated from MIT. So . . . but you’re all alike to me . . . of course, you would be . . . you’re robots. And all your names are that sort of, um . . . codes, technical numbers . . . I need some marker where I can pick you out. Well, well, to you I’ll call . . .,” and Willy pondered for a moment, “Gumball, yes, Gumball! Do you mind?” “No, sir, actually no,” CSE-TR-03 said, agreeing with its new given name. “Ah, that’s wonderful. And then you’re Darwin,” Willy said, accosting the second robot. “Look what a nice name—Darwin! What do you say, eh?” “What can I say, sir? I like it,” CSE-TR-02 agreed too. “Yes, a human name with a past . . . You and Gumball . . . are from the same family, the Methanesons!” “It turns out thus, sir,” Darwin confirmed its family belonging. “And you’re like Larry. You’re Larry. Do you know that?” More addressed the next robot in line. “Yes, sir, just now I learned that,” the third robot said, accepted its name as well.
Todor Bombov (Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan: A Science Fiction Novel)
The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
John Adams (Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife)
When I write, I hold nothing back. I write like he'll never read it. Because he never will. Every secret thought, every careful observation, everything I've saved up inside me, I put it all in the letter. When I'm done, I seal it, I address it, and then I put it in my teal hatbox.
Jenny Han (To All the Boys I've Loved Before (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #1))
You don't have to pick me up," I said in a rush. "Considering you have no idea where we're going and I have no intention of telling you, I'm quite sure that I do." "I can meet you somewhere centrally located." Noah sounded amused. "I promise to press my trousers before meeting your family. I'll even bring flowers for the occasion." "Oh, God. Please don't." I said. Maybe honesty is the best policy. "My family is going to screw with my life if you come over." I knew them far too well. "Congratulations-- you just made the prospect all the more enticing. What is your address?
Michelle Hodkin (The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #1))
Cheaters are cowards that are tempted to chase the fantasy of what could be… instead of courageously addressing their own self-destructive behavior and cultivating what is.
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
Do you still distrust me?” “No. Take your necklace with you so you can think of me when I’m not there.”
Brown brought the necklace over to her and put it on her neck.
“I think it rather suits me,” she laughed and left.
Brown didn’t understand what had made him insist she wear the necklace. Maybe it
was the readiness with which she had made love, or her frequent disappearances lately,
he was just curious. There was no harm in checking, before he parted with the money.
Later that evening, before going to sleep he decided to have a look at her location and
he was in for a surprise. She had not left Central City at all. In fact she was at the same
friend’s address as she had been the last time.
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
John Adams (Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife)
As I look out at all of you gathered here, I want to say that I don't see a room full of Parisians in top hats and diamonds and silk dresses. I don't see bankers and housewives and store clerks. No. I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.
Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret)
Men," he began his address to the officers, measuring his pauses carefully. "You're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it.
Joseph Heller (Catch-22)
All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.
Thomas Jefferson (Writings: Autobiography / Notes on the State of Virginia / Public and Private Papers / Addresses / Letters)
Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily - no hourly - and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither greeting nor addressing each other, whether out of etiquette or their own whim.
Thomas Mann (Death in Venice)
If there is a thing I truly despise, it is being addressed as "dearie." When I write my magnum opus, A Treatise Upon All Poison, and come to "Cyanide," I am going to put under "Uses" the phrase "Particularly efficacious in the cure of those who call one 'Dearie.
Alan Bradley (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce, #1))
Jem raised his hand, and his witchlight flared into life, frightening a group of blackbeetles. They scurried across the floor, causing Will to grimace. “Nice place to live, isn’t it? Let’s hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two…” “Indeed. Perhaps, if we’re fortunate, we can still catch syphilis.” “Or demon pox,” Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs. It swung open, unlocked as the front door had been. “There’s always demon pox.” “Demon pox does not exist.” “Oh ye of little faith,” said Will, disappearing into the darkness under the stairs.
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
I'd learned enough from life's experiences to understand that destiny's interventions can sometimes be read as invitation for us to address and even surmount our biggest fears. It doesn't take a great genius to recognize that when you are pushed by circumstance to do the one thing you have always most specifically loathed and feared, this can be, at the very least, an interesting growth opportunity.
Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage)
When you notice someone does something toxic the first time, don't wait for the second time before you address it or cut them off. Many survivors are used to the "wait and see" tactic which only leaves them vulnerable to a second attack. As your boundaries get stronger, the wait time gets shorter. You never have justify your intuition.
Shahida Arabi
I don’t have hopes,” Mad explained, studying the address. “I have faith.” He looked at her in surprise. “Well, that’s a funny word to hear coming from you.” “How come?” “Because,” he said, “well, you know. Religion is based on faith.” “But you realize,” she said carefully, as if not to embarrass him further, “that faith isn’t based on religion. Right?
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
If you are feeling more yourself, there is a problem best addressed immediately," said the queen. "In my nightshirt?" The king wriggled, as ever, out of straightforward obedience. "Your attendants. I have spoken to them. You will speak to them as well." "Ah. They have seen me in my nightshirt." He looked down at his sleeve, embroidered with white flowers. "Not in your nightshirt, though.
Megan Whalen Turner (The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief, #3))
Do you know,' he said again softly, addressing his hands, 'what it is to love someone, and never - never! - be able to give them peace, or joy, or happiness?' He looked up then, eyes filled with pain. 'To know that you cannot give them happiness, not through any fault of yours or theirs, but only because you were not born the right person for them?
Diana Gabaldon (Voyager (Outlander, #3))
There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room. It is even stranger than a man talking to himself or a woman standing dreaming at her stove. It is as if another planet is communicating with you. Suddenly the TV reveals itself for what it really is; a video of another world, ultimately addressed to no one at all, delivering its own message.
Jean Baudrillard (America)
Though Alec had never seen the occupants of the first floor loft, they seemed to be engaged in a tempestuous romance. Once there had been a bunch of someone's belongings strewn all over the landing with a note attached to a jacket lapel addressed to "A lying liar who lies." Right now there was a bouquet of flowers taped to the door with a card tucked among the blooms that read I'M SORRY. That was the thing about New York: you always knew more about your neighbors' business than you wanted to.
Cassandra Clare (City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments, #5))
Used in combination with genomics, AI could help pharma companies to develop new drugs for rare diseases. The rarer a disease is, the smaller the market is and so the less likely it is to have been addressed. Big pharma is hesitant to take on the high development costs for new drugs if there’s no sign of a return on investment. Biological processes are complex, and that means that they lead to multidimensional data that human beings struggle to wrap their heads around. The good news is that AI is the perfect tool to spot patterns in this kind of data.
Ronald M. Razmi (AI Doctor: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare - A Guide for Users, Buyers, Builders, and Investors)
people had been working for so many years to make the world a safe, organized place. nobody realized how boring it would become. with the whole world property-lined and speed-limited and zoned and taxed and regulated, with everyone tested and registered and addressed and recorded. nobody had left much room for adventure, except maybe the kind you could buy. on a roller coaster. at a movie. still, it would always be that kind of faux excitement. you know the dinosaurs aren't going to eat the kids. the test audiences have outvoted any chance of even a major faux disaster. and because there's no possibility of real disaster, real risk, we're left with no chance for real salvation. real elation. real excitement. Joy. Discovery. Invention. the laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom. without access to true chaos, we'll never have true peace.
Chuck Palahniuk (Asfixia)
Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come --
Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot)
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Reinhold Niebuhr (The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses)
When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However [Dr. Rush] observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice... I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did. {The Anas, February 1, 1800, written shortly after the death of first US president George Washington}
Thomas Jefferson (The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson)
Almost all arguments are needless because the two ideas being fought over are both broken ideas that stem from a faulty system that’s poisoned by money and power. If you take away money from the equation, people would find that most of the broken ideas and labels they argue over would instantly evaporate. It would behoove humanity to focus on addressing the root issue to solve the myriad of problems stemming from it, and many a root’s problem is money. Money is the main problem that’s holding us back from advancing as a civilization. Well, if you want to be exact, the main problem is the mindset of those who govern, regulate, and influence this planet, which is mostly done with money. So humanity’s mindset is the main problem, and I say ‘humanity’s mindset’ instead of the elite’s mindset because those who govern and regulate the world disseminate their skewed mindset to the common man like an infection, so it also becomes the common man’s mindset. But money is the main problematic tool that those with the skewed mindset who govern and regulate the world utilize to fulfill their agendas.
Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
Again I take a taxi to Clichy address, but feel that I do not want to go on loving Henry more actively than he loves me (having realized that nobody will ever love me in that overabundant, overexpressive, overthoughtful, overhuman way I love people), and so I will wait for him. So I ask taxi driver to drop me at the Galeries Lafayette, where I begin to look for a new hat and to shop for Christmas. Pride? I don't know. A kind of wise retreat. I need people too much. So I bury my gigantic defect, my overflow of love, under trivialities, like a child. I amuse myself with a new hat.
Anaïs Nin (Incest: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1932-1934))
Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives — he didn’t belong to the library, so he’d never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake: Mr. H. Potter The Cupboard under the Stairs 4 Privet Drive Little Whinging Surrey
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
Marry me. Nay, marriage will cost us precious moments together. Let us make sweet, passionate love right here. Let me bear your children.” A primal growl signaled Miss Lynn getting over her shock at being thus addressed. She lunged forward; Jack deftly rolled off the bench, jumping up out of her reach. “Goodness, I didn’t expect you to be quite this enthusiastic about my advances. If I don’t play hard to get, how will I ever know whether or not you respect me?
Kiersten White (Supernaturally (Paranormalcy, #2))
So I feared not just the violence of this world but the rules designed to protect you from it, the rules that would have you contort your body to address the block, and contort again to be taken seriously by colleagues, and contort again so as not to give the police a reason. All my life I’d heard people tell their black boys and black girls to “be twice as good,” which is to say “accept half as much.” These words would be spoken with a veneer of religious nobility, as though they evidenced some unspoken quality, some undetected courage, when in fact all they evidenced was the gun to our head and the hand in our pocket. This is how we lose our softness. This is how they steal our right to smile.
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
The furies are at home in the mirror; it is their address. Even the clearest water, if deep enough can drown. Never think to surprise them. Your face approaching ever so friendly is the white flag they ignore. There is no truce with the furies. A mirror’s temperature is always at zero. It is ice in the veins. Its camera is an X—ray. It is a chalice held out to you in silent communion, where gaspingly you partake of a shifting identity never your own.
R.S. Thomas
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Abraham Lincoln (Great Speeches / Abraham Lincoln: with Historical Notes by John Grafton)
Back To December is a song that addresses a first for me. In that I've never apologized in a song before. Whether it be good or bad or an apology. The person I wrote this song about deserves this. This is about a person who was incredible to me- just perfect in a relationship- and I was very careless with him. So, this is a song full of words that I would say to him that he deserves to hear. I’ve never felt the need to apologize in a song before, but in the last two years I’ve experienced a lot, a lot of different kinds of learning lessons And sometimes you learn a lesson too late and at that point you need to apologize because you were careless. ['Back To December'] is about a person who was incredible to me, just perfect to me in a relationship, and I was really careless with him I’ve written songs about things like burning my ex boyfriends pictures… I’ve written songs about the times that I’ve been hurt by love. But then one day I woke up and realized that I had hurt somebody… And so I wrote this song to tell him I’m sorry
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift - Speak Now Songbook: Piano/Vocal/Guitar)
Um..." Hazel faltered. "You mean you won't... you're not going to-" "Claim your life?" Thantos asked. "Well, let's see..." He pulled a pure-black iPad from thin air. Death, tapped the screen a few times, and all Frank could think was: Please don't let there be an app for reaping souls. "I don't see you on the list," Thantos said. "Pluto gives me specific orders for escaped souls, you see. For some reason, he has not issued a warrant for yours. Perhaps he feels your life is not finished, or it could be n oversight. If you'd like me to call and ask-" "No!" Hazel yelped. "That's okay." "Are you sure?" Death asked helpfully. "I have video-conferencing enabled. I have his Skype address here somewhere...
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
When we were five, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our answers were thing like astronaut, president, or in my case… princess. When we were ten, they asked again and we answered - rock star, cowboy, or in my case, gold medalist. But now that we've grown up, they want a serious answer. Well, how 'bout this: who the hell knows?! This isn't the time to make hard and fast decisions, its time to make mistakes. Take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere chill. Fall in love - a lot. Major in philosophy 'cause there's no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind. Then change it again, because nothing is permanent. So make as many mistakes as you can. That way, someday, when they ask again what we want to be… we won't have to guess. We'll know. [from the movie]
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse)
Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, ....whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or accidental condition of circumstance.
Thomas Jefferson (Writings: Autobiography / Notes on the State of Virginia / Public and Private Papers / Addresses / Letters)
I almost miss the sound of your voice but know that the rain outside my window will suffice for tonight. I’m not drunk yet, but we haven’t spoken in months now and I wanted to tell you that someone threw a bouquet of roses in the trash bin on the corner of my street, and I wanted to cry because, because — well, you know exactly why. And, I guess I’m calling because only you understand how that would break my heart. I’m running out of things to say. My gas is running on empty. I’ve stopped stealing pages out of poetry books, but last week I pocketed a thesaurus and looked for synonyms for you but could only find rain and more rain and a thunderstorm that sounded like glass, like crystal, like an orchestra. I wanted to tell you that I’m not afraid of being moved anymore; Not afraid of this heart packing up its things and flying transcontinental with only a wool coat and a pocket with a folded-up address inside. I’ve saved up enough money to disappear. I know you never thought the day would come. Do you remember when we said goodbye and promised that it was only for then? It’s been years since I last saw you, years since we last have spoken. Sometimes, it gets quiet enough that I can hear the cicadas rubbing their thighs against each other’s. I’ve forgotten almost everything about you already, except that your skin was soft, like the belly of a peach, and how you would laugh, making fun of me for the way I pronounced almonds like I was falling in love with language.
Shinji Moon
And I Decided (From Arabic) And I decided to go Round the world on freedom's bicycle By ways illegal As the travels of wind. When asked for my address I give the address of all sidewalks I chose as permanent residence. When asked for my papers, I show them your eyes And am allowed to pass For they know that travel in the cities of your eyes, my dear, Is the right of all world citizens. وقررت نزار قباني وقررت أن أطوفَ العالمَ على درّاجة الحرِّية.. وبنفسِ الطريقةِ غيرِ الشرعيِّة التي تستعملها الريح عندما تسافر.. وإذا سأَلوني عن عُنواني أعطيتُهم عنوانَ كلِّ الأرصِفة التي اخترتها مكاناً دائماً لإقامتي. وإذا سألوني عن أوراقي أريتُهُم عينيكِ، يا حبيبتي.. فَتَرَكوني أمرّ.. لأنهم يعرفونَ أنَّ السفر في مدائن عينيكِ.. من حق جميع المواطينَ في العالم
نزار قباني
Daughter! Get you an honest Man for a Husband, and keep him honest. No matter whether he is rich, provided he be independent. Regard the Honour and moral Character of the Man more than all other Circumstances. Think of no other Greatness but that of the soul, no other Riches but those of the Heart. An honest, Sensible humane Man, above all the Littlenesses of Vanity, and Extravagances of Imagination, labouring to do good rather than be rich, to be usefull rather than make a show, living in a modest Simplicity clearly within his Means and free from Debts or Obligations, is really the most respectable Man in Society, makes himself and all about him the most happy.
John Adams (Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife)
Reality Check His lying is not contigent on who you are or what you do. His lying is not your fault. Lying is his choice and his problem, and if he makes that choice with you, he will make it with any other woman he’s with. That doesn’t mean you’re an angel and he’s the devil. It does mean that if he doesn’t like certain things about you, he has many ways to address them besides lying. If there are sexual problems between you, there are many resources available to help you. Nothing can change until you hold him responsible and accountable for lying and stop blaming yourself. The lies we tell ourselves to keep from seeing the truth about our lovers don’t feel like lies. They feel comfortable, familiar, and true. We repeat them like a mantra and cling to them like security blankets, hoping to calm ourselves and regain our sense that the world works the way we believe it ought to. Self-lies are false friends we look to for comfort and protection—and for a short time they may make us feel better. But we can only keep the truth at bay for so long. Our self-lies can’t erase his lies, and as we’ll see, the longer we try to pretend they can, the more we deepen the hurt.
Susan Forward
Since every country stands in numerous and various relations with the other countries of the world, and many, our own among the number, exercise actual authority over some of these, a knowledge of the established rules of international morality is essential to the duty of every nation, and therefore of every person in it who helps to make up the nation, and whose voice and feeling form a part of what is called public opinion. Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject. It depends on the habit of attending to and looking into public transactions, and on the degree of information and solid judgment respecting them that exists in the community, whether the conduct of the nation as a nation, both within itself and towards others, shall be selfish, corrupt, and tyrannical, or rational and enlightened, just and noble.
John Stuart Mill (Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 (Collected Works))
A therapist once said to me, “If you face the choice between feeling guilt and resentment, choose the guilt every time.” It is wisdom I have passed on to many others since. If a refusal saddles you with guilt, while consent leaves resentment in its wake, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide. Negative thinking allows us to gaze unflinchingly on our own behalf at what does not work. We have seen in study after study that compulsive positive thinkers are more likely to develop disease and less likely to survive. Genuine positive thinking — or, more deeply, positive being — empowers us to know that we have nothing to fear from truth. “Health is not just a matter of thinking happy thoughts,” writes the molecular researcher Candace Pert. “Sometimes the biggest impetus to healing can come from jump-starting the immune system with a burst of long-suppressed anger.” Anger, or the healthy experience of it, is one of the seven A’s of healing. Each of the seven A’s addresses one of the embedded visceral beliefs that predispose to illness and undermine healing.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
Brod's life was a slow realization that the world was not for her, and that for whatever reason, she would never be happy and honest at the same time. She felt as if she were brimming, always producing and hoarding more love inside of her. But there was no release. Table, ivory, elephant charm, rainbow, onion, hairdo, mollusk, Shabbos, violence, cuticle, melodrama, ditch, honey, doily...None of it moved her. She addressed her world honestly, searching for something deserving of the volumes of love she knew she had within her, but to each she would have to say, I don't love you. Bark-brown fence post: I don't love you. Poem too long: I don't love you. Lunch in a bowl: I don't love you. Physics, the idea of you, the laws of you: I don't love you. Nothing felt like anything more than what it actually was. Everything was just a thing, mired completely in its thingness. If we were to open a random page in her journal- which she must have kept and kept with her at all times, not fearing that it would be lost, or discovered and read, but that she would one day stumble upon that thing which was finally worth writing about and remembering, only to find that she had no place to write it- we would find some rendering of the following sentiment: I am not in love.
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything Is Illuminated)
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
George Washington (George Washington's Farewell Address (Books of American Wisdom))
I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be ever maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce, and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all. It is our business to manufacture for ourselves whatever we can, to keep our markets open for what we can spare or want; and the less we have to do with the amities or enmities of Europe, the better. Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.
Thomas Jefferson (Writings: Autobiography / Notes on the State of Virginia / Public and Private Papers / Addresses / Letters)
The growing number of gated communities in our nation is but one example of the obsession with safety. With guards at the gate, individuals still have bars and elaborate internal security systems. Americans spend more than thirty billion dollars a year on security. When I have stayed with friends in these communities and inquired as to whether all the security is in response to an actual danger I am told “not really," that it is the fear of threat rather than a real threat that is the catalyst for an obsession with safety that borders on madness. Culturally we bear witness to this madness every day. We can all tell endless stories of how it makes itself known in everyday life. For example, an adult white male answers the door when a young Asian male rings the bell. We live in a culture where without responding to any gesture of aggression or hostility on the part of the stranger, who is simply lost and trying to find the correct address, the white male shoots him, believing he is protecting his life and his property. This is an everyday example of madness. The person who is really the threat here is the home owner who has been so well socialized by the thinking of white supremacy, of capitalism, of patriarchy that he can no longer respond rationally. White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proved by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action. Mass media then brings us the news of this in a newspeak manner that sounds almost jocular and celebratory, as though no tragedy has happened, as though the sacrifice of a young life was necessary to uphold property values and white patriarchal honor. Viewers are encouraged feel sympathy for the white male home owner who made a mistake. The fact that this mistake led to the violent death of an innocent young man does not register; the narrative is worded in a manner that encourages viewers to identify with the one who made the mistake by doing what we are led to feel we might all do to “protect our property at all costs from any sense of perceived threat. " This is what the worship of death looks like.
bell hooks (All About Love: New Visions)
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln (The Gettysburg Address)
It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "How young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are." "All young ladies accomplished? My dear Charles, what do you mean?" "Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time without being informed that she was very accomplished." "Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished." "Nor I, I am sure." said Miss Bingley. "Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman." "Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it." "Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can really be esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved." "All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." "I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder at your knowing any.
Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Abraham Lincoln (Great Speeches / Abraham Lincoln: with Historical Notes by John Grafton)
I have always been interested in this man. My father had a set of Tom Paine's books on the shelf at home. I must have opened the covers about the time I was 13. And I can still remember the flash of enlightenment which shone from his pages. It was a revelation, indeed, to encounter his views on political and religious matters, so different from the views of many people around us. Of course I did not understand him very well, but his sincerity and ardor made an impression upon me that nothing has ever served to lessen. I have heard it said that Paine borrowed from Montesquieu and Rousseau. Maybe he had read them both and learned something from each. I do not know. But I doubt that Paine ever borrowed a line from any man... Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp. There is nothing false, little that is subtle, and an impressive lack of the negative in Paine. He literally cried to his reader for a comprehending hour, and then filled that hour with such sagacious reasoning as we find surpassed nowhere else in American letters - seldom in any school of writing. Paine would have been the last to look upon himself as a man of letters. Liberty was the dear companion of his heart; truth in all things his object. ...we, perhaps, remember him best for his declaration: 'The world is my country; to do good my religion.' Again we see the spontaneous genius at work in 'The Rights of Man', and that genius busy at his favorite task - liberty. Written hurriedly and in the heat of controversy, 'The Rights of Man' yet compares favorably with classical models, and in some places rises to vaulting heights. Its appearance outmatched events attending Burke's effort in his 'Reflections'. Instantly the English public caught hold of this new contribution. It was more than a defense of liberty; it was a world declaration of what Paine had declared before in the Colonies. His reasoning was so cogent, his command of the subject so broad, that his legion of enemies found it hard to answer him. 'Tom Paine is quite right,' said Pitt, the Prime Minister, 'but if I were to encourage his views we should have a bloody revolution.' Here we see the progressive quality of Paine's genius at its best. 'The Rights of Man' amplified and reasserted what already had been said in 'Common Sense', with now a greater force and the power of a maturing mind. Just when Paine was at the height of his renown, an indictment for treason confronted him. About the same time he was elected a member of the Revolutionary Assembly and escaped to France. So little did he know of the French tongue that addresses to his constituents had to be translated by an interpreter. But he sat in the assembly. Shrinking from the guillotine, he encountered Robespierre's enmity, and presently found himself in prison, facing that dread instrument. But his imprisonment was fertile. Already he had written the first part of 'The Age of Reason' and now turned his time to the latter part. Presently his second escape cheated Robespierre of vengeance, and in the course of events 'The Age of Reason' appeared. Instantly it became a source of contention which still endures. Paine returned to the United States a little broken, and went to live at his home in New Rochelle - a public gift. Many of his old companions in the struggle for liberty avoided him, and he was publicly condemned by the unthinking. {The Philosophy of Paine, June 7, 1925}
Thomas A. Edison (Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison)