“
You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face
”
”
Ian Fleming (You Only Live Twice (James Bond, #12))
“
Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely? All this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)
“
From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.
”
”
Albert Einstein
“
Hermione turned and beamed at Harry; her eyes, too, were full of tears.
‘…then I declare you bonded for life.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
“
You would have made a fine warrior, you know that?"
I am one. Death is my enemy."
Yeah, it is, isn't it." God, it made such sense that he'd bonded with her. She was a fighter… like him. "Your scalpel's your dagger."
Yup.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #5))
“
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
”
”
Kahlil Gibran
“
When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.
”
”
Clarence Darrow (The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow (Modern Library Classics))
“
Together we shared a bond not even death would violate.
”
”
Dee Remy (There Once Was A Boy)
“
How can I live without thee, how forego
Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,
To live again in these wild woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
However, I with thee have fixed my lot,
Certain to undergo like doom; if death
Consort with thee, death is to me as life;
So forcible within my heart I feel
The bond of nature draw me to my own,
My own in thee, for what thou art is mine;
Our state cannot be severed, we are one,
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.
”
”
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
“
This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!
”
”
William Shakespeare (Richard II)
“
love is undying,of that I feel certain.I mean deep,abiding,cherishing love.The love that gives protection even as you,my guardian angel,gave me protection long after you had gone-and continue to give this very day...
A love beyond Death-a love that makes Life alive!
”
”
Ruskin Bond (Scenes from a Writer's Life)
“
Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the dread of it.
”
”
Ian Fleming (The Spy Who Loved Me (James Bond, #10))
“
The bond between friends cannot be broken by chance; no interval of time or space can destroy it. Not even death itself can part true friends.
”
”
John Cassian
“
He and I…we share a bond. Not love, exactly. It goes beyond that. He is mine as surely as sun follows moon across the sky. Mine before ever I knew he existed. Mine until death and beyond.
”
”
Juliet Marillier (Son of the Shadows (Sevenwaters, #2))
“
You start to die the moment you are born. The whole of life is cutting through the pack with death. So take it easy.
”
”
Ian Fleming (Live and Let Die (James Bond, #2))
“
Not even death can keep us apart. Every part of you belongs to me, and I will tear any man apart who dares to get in my way. Bond or not.
”
”
J. Bree (Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #5))
“
I did it," I gasp, still reeling from the thrill and the fear. "I really-"
Quince's mouth is on mine in an instant.
His arms around my waist, mine around his neck. It's the fear, i know it's the fear. And the bond. And the adrenaline. That whole i-was-this-close-to-death-and-really-really-really-glad-to-be-alive emotional response. Anxiety and relief and joy swirl between us until i can't tell which are his and which are mine. I can't not be kissing him right now.
The urgency in his kiss tells me he feels the same.
”
”
Tera Lynn Childs (Forgive My Fins (Fins, #1))
“
And Victor, who was so good at picking things apart, at understanding how they worked, how he worked, looked at the photo, and felt … conflicted. Hate was too simple a word. He and Eli were bonded, by blood and death and science. They were alike, more so now than ever. And he had missed Eli. He wanted to see him. And he wanted to see him suffer. He wanted to see the look in Eli’s eyes when he lit them up with pain. He wanted his attention.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (Vicious (Villains, #1))
“
Dr. Webb says that losing a sibling is oftentimes much harder for a person than losing any other member of the family. "A sibling represents a person's past, present, and future," he says. "Spouses have each other, and even when one eventually dies, they have memories of a time when they existed before that other person and can more readily imagine a life without them. Likewise, parents may have other children to be concerned with--a future to protect for them. To lose a sibling is to lose the one person with whom one shares a lifelong bond that is meant to continue on into the future.
”
”
John Corey Whaley (Where Things Come Back)
“
The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.
”
”
Robert Louis Stevenson
“
The soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death. They hold through time so that yesterday’s love is part of today’s and the confidence in tomorrow’s love is also part of today’s. And when one dies, the memory lives in the other, and is warm and breathing. And when both die — I almost believe, rationalist though I am — that somewhere it remains, indestructible and eternal, enriching all of the universe by the mere fact that once it existed.
”
”
Isaac Asimov (It's Been a Good Life)
“
She was now drowning in that pool of desires without having any idea about the depth of it.
”
”
Viraj Mahajan (Derivation of Life)
“
I knew then that death could stop
a lot of things, but it could never cut the bond of friendship.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Sentinel (Covenant, #5))
“
He once told me about polar bears - what solitary animals they are. They mate just once a year. One time in a whole year. There is no such thing as a lasting male-female bond in their world. One male polar bear and one female polar bear meet by sheer chance somewhere in the frozen vastness, and they mate. It doesn't take long. And once they are finished, the male runs away from the female as if he is frightened to death: he runs from the place where they have mated. He never looks back - literally. The rest of the year he lives in deep solitude. Mutual communications - the touching of two hearts - do not exist for them. So, that is the story of polar bears - or at least it is what my employer told me about them.'
How very strange.'
Yes, it is strange. I remember asking my employer, ' Then what do polar bears exist for?' ' Yes, exactly,' he said with a big smile. 'Then what do we exist for?
”
”
Haruki Murakami (After the Quake)
“
I could kill you a thousand times over Abraham, but we would never be even. You took everything I had.
”
”
Christopher Buecheler (The Blood That Bonds (II AM Trilogy, #1))
“
Until death comes, all is life.
”
”
Ruskin Bond (A Little Night Music)
“
Bonding over illegal drugs hadn't magically solved our problems,
”
”
Shaun David Hutchinson (We Are the Ants)
“
Freedom! That was the thought that sung in her heart so that even though the future was so dim, it was iridescent like the mist over the river where the morning sun fell upon it. Freedom! Not only freedom from a bond that irked, and a companionship which depressed her; freedom, not only from the death which had threatened, but freedom from the love that had degraded her; freedom from all spiritual ties, the freedom of a disembodied spirit, and with freedom, courage , and a valiant unconcern for whatever was to come.
”
”
W. Somerset Maugham (The Painted Veil)
“
Death moves about at random, without discriminating between the innocent and the evil, the poor and the rich. The only difference is that the poor usually handle it better.
”
”
Ruskin Bond (Landour Days: A Writer's Journal)
“
Whenever anybody whom we love dies, we discover that although death is commonplace it is terribly original. We may have thought about it all our lives, but if it comes close to us, it is quite a new, strange thing to us, for which we are entirely unprepared. It may, perhaps, not be the bare loss so much as the strength of the bond which is broken that is the surprise, and we are debtors in a way to death for revealing something in us which ordinary life disguises.
”
”
William Hale White (Clara Hopgood)
“
In these dangerous times, where it seems that the world is ripping apart at the seams, we all can learn how to survive from those who stare death squarely in the face every day and [we] should reach out to each other and bond as a community, rather than hide from the terrors of life at the end of the millennium.
”
”
Jonathan Larson (Rent)
“
Matters of the heart were important, but people tended to put too much stock in the particular organ when, in retrospect, it was only tissue. It pumped blood and the body couldn’t live without it, sure, but it had no actual bearing on love. The soul was what made a person distinct—the part that lived on after death, how one being connected to another, and what bound essence.
”
”
Kelly Moran (In diesem Moment (Wildflower Summer #2))
“
Those who deserve to die, die the death they deserve.
”
”
Ian Fleming (Live and Let Die (James Bond, #2))
“
I used to think Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story ever written. But now that I’m middle-aged, I know better. Oh, Romeo certainly thinks he loves his Juliet. Driven by hormones, he unquestionably lusts for her. But if he loves her, it’s a shallow love. You want proof?” Cagney didn’t wait for Dr. Victor to say yay or nay.
“Soon after meeting her for the first time, he realizes he forgot to ask her for her name. Can true love be founded upon such shallow acquaintance? I don’t think so. And at the end, when he thinks she’s dead, he finds no comfort in living out the remainder of his life within the paradigm of his love, at least keeping alive the memory of what they had briefly shared, even if it was no more than illusion, or more accurately, hormonal.
“Those of us watching events unfold from the darkness know she merely lies in slumber. But does he seek the reason for her life-like appearance? No. Instead he accuses Death of amorousness, convinced that the ‘lean abhorred monster’ endeavors to keep Juliet in her present state, her cheeks flushed, so that she might cater to his own dissolute desires. But does Romeo hold her in his arms one last time and feel the warmth of her blood still coursing through her veins? Does he pinch her to see if she might awaken? Hold a mirror to her nose to see if her breath fogs it? Once, twice, three times a ‘no.’”
Cagney sighed, listened to the leather creak as he shifted his weight in his chair.
“No,” he repeated. “His alleged love is so superficial and selfish that he seeks to escape the pain of loss by taking his own life. That’s not love, but obsessive infatuation. Had they wed—Juliet bearing many children, bonding, growing together, the masks of the star-struck teens they once were long ago cast away, basking in the comforting campfire of a love born of a lifetime together, not devoured by the raging forest fire of youth that consumes everything and leaves behind nothing—and she died of natural causes, would Romeo have been so moved to take his own life, or would he have grieved properly, for her loss and not just his own?
”
”
J. Conrad Guest (The Cobb Legacy)
“
What use are morals to a God of Death? Nothing.
”
”
J. Bree (Blood Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #3))
“
James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death.
”
”
Ian Fleming (Goldfinger (James Bond, #7))
“
We love our dear ones deeply and miss them when they leave us.
But we know that the bond of love is greater than death.
”
”
Harold Klemp
“
You know, nothing is stronger than blood bonds. What else is the reason for the success of life insurance policies? Why bother with what happens to your blood relatives after your death? After all, you stop existing. Why then bother about what is happening to your kids, and why be concerned about what is happening on Earth even? Well, it’s because, after one’s final exit, one lives through one’s children.
”
”
Abhaidev (The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit)
“
And until death comes, all is life.
”
”
Ruskin Bond (A Book of Simple Living: Brief Notes from the Hills)
“
Three marital bonds exist: Karmic, Dharmic and Cosmic. The first are of pain, misery, hunger, nakedness, disgrace. The second are of success, bliss, love, financial progress, etc. The third are only for the select, pure and holy souls and bring inexhaustible happiness.
”
”
Samael Aun Weor (Beyond Death: What Happens When We Die and How to Prepare Now to Take Advantage of It)
“
It is not just a question of blowing up a building or shooting a prime minister. Such bourgeois horseplay is not contemplated. Our operation must be delicate, refined and aimed at the heart of the Intelligence apparat of the West.
”
”
Ian Fleming (From Russia with Love (James Bond, #5))
“
Ours is a spiritual bond I treasure, something deep and strong, and older than time. We are, in essence, the same person, two sides to one coin. Death unites us.
”
”
J.D. Robb (Obsession in Death (In Death #40))
“
Without programmed cell death, the bonds that bind cells in complex multicellular organisms might never have evolved.
”
”
Nick Lane (Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the meaning of life (Oxford Landmark Science))
“
There are so many moments in our life which we cannot describe with mere words. There are not enough adjectives to justify the emotions behind such moments. Those moments are your life- they define who you truly are
”
”
Viraj Mahajan (Derivation of Life)
“
Our age reminds one of the dissolution of the Greek city-state: Everything goes on as usual and yet there is no longer anyone who believes in it. The invisible spiritual bond which gives it validity, no longer exists, and so the whole age is at once comic and tragic--tragic because it is perishing, comic because it goes on.
”
”
Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: A Fragment of Life)
“
She was few inches taller than him and when for the first time her promising eyes met with his, he knew it would be more than friendship. He was too young to name that feeling then. But love...above all relationships knows no age.
”
”
Viraj Mahajan (Derivation of Life)
“
Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows with great dignity. He had asked for a bottle of red wine and had drunk half of it. He refused the help of the Protestant minister the Reverend William Hull who offered to read the Bible with him: he had only two more hours to live and therefore no “time to waste.” He walked the fifty yards from his cell to the execution chamber calm and erect with his hands bound behind him. When the guards tied his ankles and knees he asked them to loosen the bonds so that he could stand straight. “I don’t need that ” he said when the black hood was offered him. He was in complete command of himself nay he was more: he was completely himself. Nothing could have demonstrated this more convincingly than the grotesque silliness of his last words. He began by stating emphatically that he was a Gottgläubiger to express in common Nazi fashion that he was no Christian and did not believe in life after death. He then proceeded: “After a short while gentlemen we shall all meet again. Such is the fate of all men. Long live Germany long live Argentina long live Austria. I shall not forget them.” In the face of death he had found the cliché used in funeral oratory. Under the gallows his memory played him the last trick he was “elated” and he forgot that this was his own funeral.
It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us-the lesson of the fearsome word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.
”
”
Hannah Arendt (Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil)
“
At an early age I found myself facing the incomprehensible, the unthinkable, death. Ever since, I have known nothing on this earth can be shared because we own nothing. There is a word inside us stronger than all others - and more personal. A word of solitude and certainty, so buried in its night that it is barely audible to itself. A word of refusal, but also of absolute commitment, forging its bonds of silence in the emfathomable silence of the bond.
This word cannot be shared. Only sacrificed.
”
”
Edmond Jabès
“
The naked man who lay splayed out on his face beside the swimming pool might have been dead.
”
”
Ian Fleming (From Russia with Love (James Bond, #5))
“
It was simply a way of giving herself some relief, because actually they were joined till death by a bond that was more solid than love: a common prick of conscience.
”
”
Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude)
“
These stories always take us to some far away places which we can never visit in real life.
”
”
Viraj Mahajan (Derivation of Life)
“
It was only by escaping into the desert that Moses and the Jews were able to solidify their identity and reemerge as a social and political force.
Jesus spent his forty days in the wilderness, and Mohammed, too, fled Mecca at a time of great peril for a period of retreat. He and just a handful of his most devoted supporters used this period to deepen their bonds, to understand who they were and what they stood for, to let time work its good. Then this little band of believers reemerged to conquer Mecca and the Arabian Peninsula and later, after Mohammed's death, to defeat the Byzantines and the Persian empire, spreading Islam over vast territories. Around the world every mythology has a hero who retreats, even to Hades itself in the case of Odysseus, to find himself.
”
”
Robert Greene (The 33 Strategies of War)
“
I am sick to death of bonding through kinship and “the family,” and I long for models of solidarity and human unity and difference rooted in friendship, work, partially shared purposes, intractable collective pain, inescapable mortality, and persistent hope … Ties through blood … have been bloody enough already.
”
”
Donna J. Haraway
“
He was freed from the servitude that bonded people with blood. Love never played a part in his life. It was more than evident he had not been wanted by his parents. He’d been the annoying gnat people swatted at. But now he was the last one standing. And freedom had never tasted so good.
”
”
V. Theia (Hades: The death of a man. The life of a monster. (Renegade Souls MC Romance Saga #3.5))
“
Follow your fate, and be satisfied with it, and be glad not to be a second-hand motor salesman, or a yellow-press journalist, pickled in gin and nicotine, or a cripple - or dead.
”
”
Ian Fleming (From Russia with Love (James Bond, #5))
“
I guess what I'll miss most are the wasted opportunities to live my life and the lost potential to make great friends with everyone I sat next to for four years. I'll miss how we never got to bond over sleepovers where everyone stayed up and played Xbox Infinity and board games all night, all because I was too scared.
”
”
Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End (Death-Cast, #1))
“
We've been very lonely, but we had it easy. Because death is so heavy - we, too young to know about it, couldn't handle it. After this you and I may end up seeing nothing but suffering, difficulty and ugliness, but if only you'll agree to it, I want for us to go on to more difficult places, happier places, what ever comes, together. I want you to make the decision after you're completely better, so take your time thinking about it. In the mean time, though, don't disappear on me.
”
”
Banana Yoshimoto (Kitchen)
“
To lose a sibling is to lose the one person with whom one shares a lifelong bond that is meant to continue on into the future.” I understood this to mean that as a seventeen-year-old whose brother was most likely dead, I was acting t like a complete ass-hat for a good reason. Not only had my brother disappeared, but–and bear with me here–a part of my very being had gone with him. Stories about us could, from then on, be told from only one perspective. Memories could be told but not shared.
”
”
John Croory Whaley
“
A covenant is a bond in blood sovereignly administered. When God enters into a covenantal relationship with men, he sovereignly institutes a life-and-death bond. A covenant is a bond in blood, or a bond of life and death, sovereignly administered.
”
”
O. Palmer Robertson
“
Jesus Christ lives. He is our Savior, our Redeemer. He is a glorious, resurrected being. He has the capacity to communicate love that is so powerful, so overwhelming as to surpass the capacity of the human tongue to express adequately. He gave His life to break the bonds of death. His Atonement made fully active the plan of happiness of His Father in Heaven.
”
”
Richard G. Scott
“
Men of today seem to feel more acutely than ever the paradox of their condition. They know themselves to be the supreme end to which all action should be subordinated, but the exigencies of action force them to treat one another as instruments or obstacles, as means. The more widespread their mastery of the world, the more they find themselves crushed by uncontrollable forces. Though they are masters of the atomic bomb, yet it is created only to destroy them. Each one has the incomparable taste in his mouth of his own life, and yet each feels himself more insignificant than an insect within the immense collectivity whose limits are one with the earth's. Perhaps in no other age have they manifested their grandeur more brilliantly, and in no other age has this grandeur been so horribly flouted. In spite of so many stubborn lies, at every moment, at every opportunity, the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of the insignificance and the sovereign importance of each man and all men.
”
”
Simone de Beauvoir (The Ethics of Ambiguity)
“
Well," he said slowly, "sometimes there's a passion that comes in its springtime to ill fate or death. And because it ends in its beauty, it's what the harpers sing of and the poets make stories of: the love that escapes the years....
"All or nothing, the true lover says, and that's the truth of it. My love will never die, he says. He claims eternity. And rightly. How can it die when it's life itself? What do we know of eternity but the glimpse we get of it when we enter in that bond?
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Other Wind (Earthsea Cycle, #6))
“
From the first, Istanbul had given him the impression of a town where, with the night, horror creeps out of the stones. It seemed to him a town the centuries had so drenched in blood and violence that, when daylight went out, the ghosts of its dead were its only population.
”
”
Ian Fleming (From Russia with Love (James Bond, #5))
“
Hear this now. Nothing, not even death, will keep me from loving you. Though this body may wither and become a dry shell, my spirit will pursue you until the end of time. We will never be apart.” He covered her mouth with his and tasted her blood. Trailing tender kisses across her cheek and jawline, he nestled against her neck. “Eternally yours,” he whispered. She clutched his head and offered her throat. “Together forever,” she responded. Broderick hesitated, her erratic pulse beating against his tongue. “Give me peace,” she whispered in a tortured breath. “Do this for me.” “I will love you forever, Davina.” His fangs pierced her cool skin and Broderick drank the life from his wife, granting her wish…and tormenting his already damned soul.
”
”
Arial Burnz (Midnight Captive (Bonded By Blood Vampire Chronicles, #2))
“
I was keenly conscious of the comrades-in-arms who had fallen with me. A bond surpassing by a hundredfold that which I had known in life bound me to them. I felt a sense of inexpressible relief and realized that I had feared, more than death, separation from them. I apprehended that excruciating war survivor's torment, the sense of isolation and self-betrayal experienced by those who had elected to cling yet to breath when their comrades had let loose their grip.
”
”
Steven Pressfield
“
I have noticed a curious bifurcation in outcome in the way romances are written by women et written by men - Love Story, The Bridges of Madison County, every James Bond tale ever penned, even the film named above - end with the woman either lost or dead. And the man free to love, or at least to have sex, again. Romances (in the modern genre sense) written by women end with the couple alive, together, and in a committed and at least potentially fertile relationship, ready to turn to the work of their world. In other words, men's romances are about love and death; women's romances are about love and life.
”
”
Lois McMaster Bujold
“
And Essie was real. Even without the heart bond existing, warm and taunting him with the life now out of his reach, he would know she was real. Because he never would have dreamed a talkative human princess with her flaming red hair and freckles. He did not have enough of an imagination to have conjured her.
”
”
Tara Grayce (Death Wind (Elven Alliance, #3))
“
Our schools will not improve if we continue to focus only on reading and mathematics while ignoring the other studies that are essential elements of a good education. Schools that expect nothing more of their students than mastery of basic skills will not produce graduates who are ready for college or the modern workplace.
***
Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure. The tests we have now provide useful information about students' progress in reading and mathematics, but they cannot measure what matters most in education....What is tested may ultimately be less important that what is untested...
***
Our schools will not improve if we continue to close neighborhood schools in the name of reform. Neighborhood schools are often the anchors of their communities, a steady presence that helps to cement the bond of community among neighbors.
***
Our schools cannot improve if charter schools siphon away the most motivated students and their families in the poorest communities from the regular public schools.
***
Our schools will not improve if we continue to drive away experienced principals and replace them with neophytes who have taken a leadership training course but have little or no experience as teachers.
***
Our schools cannot be improved if we ignore the disadvantages associated with poverty that affect children's ability to learn. Children who have grown up in poverty need extra resources, including preschool and medical care.
”
”
Diane Ravitch (The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education)
“
It was not something you could call friendship; it was at once less and more. The sharing of such experiences created a bond and set them apart from all others. It was not something that could be told to another person. There were no words with a meaning both could understand which would impart the physical horror or the heights and depths of emotion.
”
”
Anne Perry (A Sudden, Fearful Death (William Monk, #4))
“
He(Samuel, known as 'the Pea') was as apprehensive, weak and nervous about things as Swaminathan was. The bond between them was laughter. They were able to see together the same absurdities and incongruities in things. The most trivial and unnoticeable thing to others would tickle them to death.
”
”
R.K. Narayan (Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher: Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series))
“
I might be able to help, Daigian," Nynaeve said, leaning forward, laying her hand on the other woman's knee. "If I were to attempt a Healing, perhaps..."
"No," the woman said curtly.
"But—"
"I doubt you could help."
"Anything can be Healed," Nynaeve said stubbornly, "even if we don't know how yet. Anything save death."
"And what would you do, dear?" Daigian asked.
[...]
"I could do something," Nynaeve said. "This pain you feel, it has to be an effect of the bond, and therefore something to do with the One Power. If the Power causes your pain, then the Power can take that pain away."
"And why would I want that?" Daigian asked, in control once again.
"Well... well, because it's pain. It hurts."
"It should," Daigian said. "Eben is dead. Would you want to forget your pain if you lost that hulking giant of yours? Have your feelings for him cut away like some spoiled chunk of flesh in an otherwise good roast?"
Nynaeve opened her mouth, but stopped. Would she? It wasn't that simple—her feelings for Lan were genuine, and not due to a bond. He was her husband, and she loved him. Daigian had been possessive of her Warder, but it had been the affection of an aunt for her favored nephew. It wasn't the same.
But would Nynaeve want that pain taken away? She closed her mouth, suddenly realizing the honor in Daigian's words. "I see. I'm sorry.
”
”
Robert Jordan (The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, #12))
“
If your problem is being chronically starved of social bonds, then part of the solution is to bond with the heroin itself and the relief it gives you. But a bigger part is to bond with the subculture that comes with taking heroin—the tribe of fellow users all embarked on the same mission and facing the same threats and risking death every day with you. It gives you an identity. It gives you a life of highs and lows, instead of relentless monotony. The world stops being indifferent to you, and starts being hostile—which is at least proof that you exist, that you aren’t dead already. The heroin helps users deal with the pain of being unable to form normal bonds with other humans. The heroin subculture gives them bonds with other human beings.
”
”
Johann Hari (Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs)
“
Bullying is an attack upon the runts of the litter - the weak of the species, and it is predicated on a lack of bond with the parents. If a child has a secure bond with the parents, that forms a force-field around the child in terms of bullying. If the child does not have a strong bond with the parents, then it's like being separated from the herd - those
are the ones who get picked off by the human predators in childhood and adulthood. So keep your contacts as close as you can, they provide an amazing shield against bullies and users.
”
”
Stefan Molyneux
“
Compassion, Brené Brown explains, is the expression of ‘a deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to each other’ by the bonds of shared human imperfection, of suffering and of love and of goodness. If we make the vulnerable choice to connect with empathy—to be vulnerable, excruciatingly so, in order to access that in me which has suffered as you are now suffering—we bring compassion alive by communicating that bond, so others know they are never alone.
”
”
Sarah Krasnostein (The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster)
“
Because we are the same,” I burst out. “You are not the only one of us with bloodied hands and a death on your conscience,” I reminded him, not bothering to disguise my anger. “Why must you do this? Why must you test me?” The tight muscle in his jaw relaxed into slackness. “I did not think to test you.” “Yes, you did. You do it every time you find yourself in danger of relying too much upon me, or hadn’t you noticed? You are so afraid of depending upon another soul that you will burn down your own house rather than risk someone else doing it. You are so determined to believe that your wounds make you less than human that you think yourself a monster when others are merely men. And whatever this bond that is between us, whatever this thing is that makes us akin to one another, you do not trust it. Because you do not trust yourself. But I am tired of the games, Stoker. And I am tired of your little monstrosities when I have atrocities of my own to account for.
”
”
Deanna Raybourn (A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell, #3))
“
If you do that, I won't ever let you go." If the physical connection had sealed them together, this would turn that seal into an unbreakable glue. "Even my death won't free you." The psychic scars would be irreparable.
"Whether we bond or not, your loss would change me forever." A quiet voice that held so much power it vibrated with it. "You are written indelibly on my soul, Zaira. Nothing will ever alter what you are to me.
”
”
Nalini Singh (Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling, #14))
“
[Feeney] "Nearly blew ourselves up about an hour ago, right, Roarke?"
Roarke rose and tucked his hands in his pockets. "I never doubted you for an instant Captain."
"Like hell." In tune with his man, Feeney grinned. "If you weren't saying your prayers, boyo, I was saying mine. Still, I can't think of many others I'd be pleased to be blown to hell with."
"The feeling's nearly mutual."
"If you two have finished your little male bonding dance, would you care to explain what the hell I'm supposed to be looking at here?" [Eve]
”
”
J.D. Robb (Rapture in Death (In Death, #4))
“
Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? but that somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived, Peter survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of the house there, ugly rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Mrs Dalloway)
“
When he reached his own room again, he found Khloe curled up on his bed, asleep. He stood over her, watching her sleep peacefully for a few moments before taking a deep breath and moving to the other side of the bed. He sat down on top of the covers next to her and watched the rise and fall of her chest as she slept. He withdrew a leather bond journal from the nightstand drawer and tried to push Hecate’s words from his mind.
Khloe is yours to deal with.
”
”
Lia Davis (Death's Storm (The Divinities, #2))
“
The written word is an attempt at completeness when there is no one impatiently awaiting you in a dimly lit bedroom--awaiting your tales of the day, as the healing hands of someone who knew turn to you and touch you, and you lose yourself so completely in another that you are momentarily delivered from yourself. Whispering across the pillow comes a kind voice that might tell you how to get out of certain difficulties, from someone who might mercifully detach you from your complications. When there is no matching of lives, and we live on a strict diet of the self, the most intimate bond can be with the words that we write:
Oh often have I washed and dressed
And what's to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I've done my best
And all's to do again.
I ask myself if there is an irresponsible aspect in relaying thoughts of pain as inspiration, and I wonder whether Housman actually infected the sensitives further, and pulled them back into additional darkness. Surely it is true that everything in the imagination seems worse then it actually is--especially when one is alone and horizontal (in bed, as in the coffin). Housman was always alone--thinking himself to death, with no matronly wife to signal to the watching world that Alfred Edward was quite alright--for isn't that partly the aim of scoring a partner: to trumpet the mental all-clear to a world where how things seem is far more important than how things are? Now snugly in eternity, Housman still occupies my mind. His best moments were in Art, and not in the cut and thrust of human relationships. Yet he said more about human relationships than those who manage to feast on them. You see you can't have it both ways
”
”
Morrissey (Autobiography)
“
All these women. And Trina. Trina,” she repeated, with considerable passion as she gripped his shirt. “And gooey dessert and body things and chick-vids. All night. Slumber party. Do you know what that means?”
“I’ve had many dreams of them. Will there be pillow fights?”
She spun him around so his back hit the door. “Don’t. Leave. Me.”
“Darling.” He kissed her brow. “I must. I must.”
“No. You can bring Vegas here. Because . . . you’re you. You can do that. We’ll have Vegas here, and that’ll be good. I’ll buy you a lap dance.”
“That’s so sweet. But I’m going. I’ll be back tomorrow, and lay a cool cloth on your fevered brow.”
“Tomorrow?” She actually went light-headed. “You’re not coming back tonight?”
“You wouldn’t be in this state now if you paid attention. I’m taking a shuttle full of men to Las Vegas late this afternoon. There will be ribaldry, and a possible need to post bond. I’ve made arrangements. I’ll bring back this same shuttle full of men—hopefully—tomorrow afternoon.”
“Let me come with you.”
“Let me see your penis.”
“Oh, God! Can’t I just use yours?”
“At any other time. Now pull yourself together, and remember that when all this is over, you’ll very likely arrest a killer who’s also a dirty cop. It’s like a twofer.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Best I have.
”
”
J.D. Robb (Promises in Death (In Death, #28))
“
Sirs, I am but a nameless man,
A rhymester without a home,
Yet since I come of the Wessex clay
And carry the cross of Rome,
I will even answer the mighty earl
That asked of Wessex men
Why they be meek and monkish folk,
And bow to the White Lord's broken yoke;
What sign have we save blood and smoke?
Here is my answer then.
That on you is fallen the shadow,
And not upon the Name;
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame.
That though you hunt the Christian man
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.
That though all lances split on you,
All swords be heaved in vain,
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.
Your lord sits high in the saddle,
A broken-hearted king,
But our king Alfred, lost from fame,
Fallen among foes or bonds of shame,
In I know not what mean trade or name,
Has still some song to sing.
Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein,
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within;
Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb
Men wandering ceaselessly,
If it be not better to fast for joy
Than feast for misery.
Nor monkish order only
Slides down, as field to fen,
All things achieved and chosen pass,
As the White Horse fades in the grass,
No work of Christian men.
Ere the sad gods that made your gods
Saw their sad sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale,
That you have left to darken and fail,
Was cut out of the grass.
Therefore your end is on you,
Is on you and your kings,
Not for a fire in Ely fen,
Not that your gods are nine or ten,
But because it is only Christian men
Guard even heathen things.
For our God hath blessed creation,
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God's death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Ballad of the White Horse)
“
There is an intimate bond between the sufferings of Christ and the conflict and suffering in each Christian life. The daily dying of the Christian is a prolongation of Christ’s own death. Paul writes in Romans 6:3, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Baptism is not merely a momentary dying; it inaugurates a lifelong state of death to the world, to the flesh and to sin. Our daily death to selfishness, dishonesty and degraded love is our personal participation in the fellowship of His sufferings.
”
”
Brennan Manning (The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus)
“
Then Almitra spoke again and said, and what of Marriage master? And he answered saying: You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.
”
”
Kahlil Gibran
“
When we were little, Scarlett and I were utterly convinced that we'd originally been one person in our mother's belly. We believed that somehow, half of us wanted to be born and half wanted to stay. So our heart had to be broken in two so that Scarlett could be born first, and then I finally braved the outside world a few years later. It made sense, in our pig-tailed heads--it explained why, when we ran through grass or danced or spun in circle long enough, we would lose track of who was who and it started to feel as if there were some organic, elegant link between us, our single heart holding the same tempo and pumping the same blood. That was before the attack, though. Now our hearts link only when we're hunting, when Scarlett looks at me with a sort of beautiful excitement that's more powerful than her scars and then tears after a Fenris as though her life depends on its death. I follow, always, because it's the only time when our hearts beat in perfect harmony, the only time when I'm certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are one person broken in two.
”
”
Jackson Pearce (Sisters Red (Fairytale Retellings, #1))
“
Dr. Morris soon recognized that the difference between successful and unsuccessful marriages can often be traced to how well couples are able to "bond" during the courtship period. By bonding he referred to the process by which a man and woman become cemented together emotionally. It describes the chemistry that permits two previous strangers to become intensely valuable to one another. It helps them weather the storms of life and remain committed in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, forsaking all others until they are parted in death. It is a phenomenal experience that almost defies description.
”
”
James C. Dobson
“
Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not. Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own. Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger.
I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter; I forget that there abides the old in the new, and that there also thou abidest.
Through birth and death, in this world or in others, wherever thou leadest me it is thou, the same, the one companion of my endless life who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar.
When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of many.
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore (Gitanjali)
“
Freedom as a given seems the very antithesis of death. While we dread death, we generally consider freedom to be unequivocally positive. Has not the history of Western civilization been punctuated with yearnings for freedom, even driven by it? Yet freedom from an existential perspective is bonded to anxiety in asserting that, contrary to everyday experience, we do not enter into, and ultimately leave, a well-structured universe with an eternal grand design. Freedom means that one is responsible for one’s own choices, actions, one’s own life situation. Though the word responsible may be used in a variety of ways, I prefer Sartre’s definition: to be responsible is to “be the author of,” each of us being thus the author of his or her own life design. We are free to be anything but unfree: we are, Sartre would say, condemned to freedom.
”
”
Irvin D. Yalom (Love's Executioner)
“
In trials of ir'n and silver fain
“The dead will rise and walk again
“The blesséd few that touch the light
“Will aid the war against the night.
“But one by one they all will die
“Without a cause to rule them by
“As Darkness spreads across the land
“He'll wield the oceans in his hand.
“Five warriors will oppose his reign
“And overthrow the Shadow Thane
“They come from sides both dark and light
“The realm the mortals call “twilight.”
“A magus crowned with boughs of fire
“Will rise like Phoenix from his pyre
“A beast of shadows touched with sight
“Will claim a Dark One as her knight
“The next, a prophet doomed to fail
“Will find her powers to avail
“The final: one mere mortal man
“Who bears the mark upon his hand
“The circle closes round these few
“Made sacred by the bonds they hew
“But if one fails then so shall all
“Bring death to those of Evenfall.
”
”
Nenia Campbell (Black Beast (Shadow Thane, #1))
“
But as to the influence of the death of someone near on those he leaves behind, it has long seemed to me that this ought to be no other than a higher responsibility. Does the person who passes away not leave all the things he had begun in hundreds of ways to be continued by those who outlive him, if they had shared any kind of inner bond at all? In recent years I had to live through so many close experiences of death, but not one person has been taken from me without my having found the tasks around me increased. The weight of this unexplained and perhaps greatest event, which only due to a misunderstanding has gained the reputation of being arbitrary and cruel, presses us (I think increasingly) more evenly and more deeply into life and places the utmost obligations on our slowly growing strengths.
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation (Modern Library Classics))
“
Yeah!" said the Dean, now in a grip of a wild, unwizardly machismo. "We're mean! Yeah! Are we mean?"
The Archchancellor raised his eyebrows, and then turned to the rest of the wizards.
"Are we mean?" he said.
"Er.. I'm feeling reasonably mean," said the Lecturer of Recent Runes.
"I'm definitely very mean, I think," said the Bursar. "It's having no boots that does it," he added.
"I'll be mean if everyone else is," said the Senior Wrangler.
The Archchancellor turned back to the Dean.
"Yes," he said, "it appears that we are all mean."
"Yo!" said the Dean.
"Yo what?" said Ridcully.
"It's not a yo what, it's just a yo," said the Senior Wrangler, behind him. "It's a general street greeting and affirmative with convivial military ingroup and masculine bonding-ritual overtones."
"What? What, like 'jolly good'?" said Ridcully.
"I suppose so..." said the Senior Wrangler, reluctantly.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Reaper Man (Discworld, #11; Death, #2))
“
You know, I really liked those days back in Soul Society! Shinigami are always in death's way because of their existence and line of work. We may die the next day. We may be talking at one moment and dead at the next. No one talks about it, but everyone has that thought in the corner of their minds. We saw death up close. We felt death up close. That's why we were able to cherish each day. Death will eventually come to us all. But that's what made us united. That's what I believed. But you... Aizen, I don't hate you because you betrayed us. I hate you because you made me hurt my friends! You used me...and trampled on our bonds and our feelings! Aizen! I'm seething with an anger that's been boiling for a hundred years! I won't go back to the way I was until I kill you!' -Hiyori
'Even if you approach me recklessly or carefully, or even if you don't approach me at all, the end result will be the same. I'm not talking about the things to come. Your end is inescapable. It's an event of the past. What do you have to fear? All of you already died on that night a hundred years ago.'-Aizen
'Aizen!!!' -Hiyori
”
”
Tite Kubo
“
What is the object of human life? The enlightened conservative does not believe that the end or aim of life is competition; or success; or enjoyment; or longevity; or power; or possessions. He believes instead, that the object of life is Love. He knows that the just and ordered society is that in which Love governs us, so far as Love ever can reign in this world of sorrows; and he
knows that the anarchical or the tyrannical society is that in which Love lies corrupt. He has learnt that Love is the source of all being, and that Hell itself is ordained by Love. He understands that Death, when we have finished the part that was assigned to us, is the reward of Love. And he
apprehends the truth that the greatest happiness ever granted to a man is the privilege of being happy in the hour of his death.
He has no intention of converting this human society of ours into an efficient machine for efficient machine-operators, dominated by master mechanics. Men are put into this world, he realizes, to
struggle, to suffer, to contend against the evil that is in their neighbors and in themselves, and to aspire toward the triumph of Love. They are put into this world to live like men, and to die like men. He seeks to preserve a society which allows men to attain manhood, rather than keeping them within bonds of perpetual childhood. With Dante, he looks upward from this place of slime, this world of gorgons and chimeras, toward the light which gives Love to this poor earth and all the stars. And, with Burke, he knows that "they will never love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.
”
”
Russell Kirk (Prospects for Conservatives)
“
1
You said ‘The world is going back to Paganism’.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia’s fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it. By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother
Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. At the hour
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush
Arose (it is the mark of freemen’s children) as they trooped,
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance.
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods,
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men,
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing.
Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune
Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions;
Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears …
You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop.
2
Or did you mean another kind of heathenry?
Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth,
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm.
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond wil1 break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand,
Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs;
You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune).
”
”
C.S. Lewis
“
A ceremony then. One could well argue that there are not categories of no ceremony but only ceremonies of greater or lesser degree and deferring to this argument we will say that this is a ceremony of a certain magnitude perhaps more commonly known as a ritual. A ritual includes the letting of blood. Rituals which fail in this requirement are but mock rituals. Here every man knows the false at once. Never doubt it. That feeling in the breast that evokes a child's memory of loneliness such as when the other have gone and only the game is left with its solitary participant. A solitary game, without opponent. Where only the rules are at hazard. Dont look away. We are not speaking of mysteries. You of all men are no stranger to that feeling, the emptiness and the despair. It is that which we take arms against, is it not? Is not blood the tempering agent in the mortar which bonds? The judge leaned closer. What do you think death is, man? Of whom do we speak when we speak of a man who was and is not? Are these blind riddles or are they not some part of every man's jurisdiction? What is death if not an agency? And whom does he intend toward?
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
“
George Williams, the revered evolutionary biologist, describes the natural world as “grossly immoral.” Having no foresight or compassion, natural selection “can honestly be described as a process for maximizing short-sighted selfishness.” On top of all the miseries inflicted by predators and parasites, the members of a species show no pity to their own kind. Infanticide, siblicide, and rape can be observed in many kinds of animals; infidelity is common even in so-called pair-bonded species; cannibalism can be expected in all species that are not strict vegetarians; death from fighting is more common in most animal species than it is in the most violent American cities. Commenting on how biologists used to describe the killing of starving deer by mountain lions as an act of mercy, Williams wrote: “The simple facts are that both predation and starvation are painful prospects for deer, and that the lion's lot is no more enviable. Perhaps biology would have been able to mature more rapidly in a culture not dominated by Judeo-Christian theology and the Romantic tradition. It might have been well served by the First Holy Truth from [Buddha's] Sermon at Benares: “Birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful...”” As soon as we recognize that there is nothing morally commendable about the products of evolution, we can describe human psychology honestly, without the fear that identifying a “natural” trait is the same as condoning it. As Katharine Hepburn says to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature)
“
Perspective - Use It or Lose It. If you turned to this page, you're forgetting that what is going on around you is not reality. Think about that.
Remember where you came from, where you're going, and why you created the mess you got yourself into in the first place.
You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.
Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, and teachers.
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a false messiah.
Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.
The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Think about these once in awhile, and watch your answers change.
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life.
Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.
There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
Imagine the universe beautiful and just and perfect.
Then be sure of one thing:
The Is has imagined it quite a bit better than you have.
The original sin is to limit the Is. Don't.
A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion....this is the place to go now.
But the sky knows the reason and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.
You are never given a wish without being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.
Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours.
If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.
The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums.
It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.
Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.
In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.
The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, "I've got responsibilities."
The truth you speak has no past and no future. It is, and that's all it needs to be.
Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
You're going to die a horrible death, remember. It's all good training, and you'll enjoy it more if you keep the facts in mind.
Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution it not generally understood by less advanced lifeforms, and they'll call you crazy.
Everything above may be wrong!
”
”
Richard Bach
“
It is interesting to note that the people who had a good relationship with the person who died often heal their grief much more easily than those whose relationship with the deceased was filled with turmoil, bitterness, or disappointment. The reason is that a positive relationship is associated with good memories, and remembering and reprocessing these memories helps in the healing process. When people who had a bad relationship think back on it, they have to relive the pain. In their mind, they are still trying to fix what was wrong, to heal the wound, but they can’t. In addition, the guilt they carry with them impairs the healing process. Donna is a case in point. Donna and her mother had had a stormy relationship, fighting constantly over things that seemed insignificant in and of themselves. Yet in spite of their problems, the year after her mother’s death was the hardest of Donna’s life. Her husband could not understand the force of her grief; all he had ever heard her do was complain that her mother was selfish and uninterested in her. What he failed to understand was that Donna had to grieve not only over her mother’s death, but also over the fact that now she would never have the mother-daughter bond she had always wanted. Death had ended all her hopes.
”
”
Daniel G. Amen (Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness)
“
Higher purpose: I am here to serve. I am here to inspire. I am here to love. I am here to live my truth. Communion: I will appreciate someone who doesn’t know that I feel that way. I will overlook the tension and be friendly to someone who has ignored me. I will express at least one feeling that has made me feel guilty or embarrassed. Awareness: I will spend ten minutes observing instead of speaking. I will sit quietly by myself just to sense how my body feels. If someone irritates me, I will ask myself what I really feel beneath the anger—and I won’t stop paying attention until the anger is gone. Acceptance: I will spend five minutes thinking about the best qualities of someone I really dislike. I will read about a group that I consider totally intolerant and try to see the world as they do. I will look in the mirror and describe myself exactly as if I were the perfect mother or father I wish I had had (beginning with the sentence “How beautiful you are in my eyes”). Creativity: I will imagine five things I could do that my family would never expect—and then I will do at least one of them. I will outline a novel based on my life (every incident will be true, but no one would ever guess that I am the hero). I will invent something in my mind that the world desperately needs. Being: I will spend half an hour in a peaceful place doing nothing except feeling what it is like to exist. I will lie outstretched on the grass and feel the earth languidly revolving under me. I will take in three breaths and let them out as gently as possible. Efficiency: I will let at least two things out of my control and see what happens. I will gaze at a rose and reflect on whether I could make it open faster or more beautifully than it already does—then I will ask if my life has blossomed this efficiently. I will lie in a quiet place by the ocean, or with a tape of the sea, and breathe in its rhythms. Bonding: When I catch myself looking away from someone, I will remember to look into the person’s eyes. I will bestow a loving gaze on someone I have taken for granted. I will express sympathy to someone who needs it, preferably a stranger. Giving: I will buy lunch and give it to someone in need on the street (or I will go to a café and eat lunch with the person). I will compliment someone for a quality that I know the individual values in him- or herself. I will give my children as much of my undivided time today as they want. Immortality: I will read a scripture about the soul and the promise of life after death. I will write down five things I want my life to be remembered for. I will sit and silently experience the gap between breathing in and breathing out, feeling the eternal in the present moment.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life)
“
The noise of the town some floors below was greatly muted. In a state of complete mental detachment, he went over the events, the circumstances and the stages of destruction in their lives. Seen in the frozen light of a restrictive past, everything seemed clear, conclusive and indisputable. Now it seemed unthinkable that a girl of seventeen shoudl be so naive; it was particularly unbelieveable that a girl of seventeen should set so much store by love. If the surveys in the magazines were to be believed, things had changed a great deal in the twenty-five years since Annabelle was a teenager. Young girls today were more sensible, more sophisticated. Nowadays they worried more about their exam results and did their best to ensure they would have a decent career. For them, going out with boys was simply a game, a distraction motivated as much by narcissism as by sexual pleasure. They later would try to make a good marriage, basing their decision on a range of social and professional criteria, as well as on shared interests and tastes. Of course, in doing this they cut themselves off from any possibility of happiness--a condition indissociable from the outdated, intensely close bonds so incompatible with the exercise of reason--but this was their attempt to escape the moral and emotional suffering which had so tortured their forebears. This hope was, unfortunately, rapidly disappointed; the passing of love's torments simply left the field clear for boredom, emptiness and an anguished wait for old age and death. The second part of Annabelle's life therefore had been much more dismal and sad than the first, of which, in the end, she had no memory at all.
”
”
Michel Houellebecq