“
We are not going to die."
Butters stared up at me, pale, his eyes terrified. "We're not?"
"No. And do you know why?" He shook his head. "Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I'm too stubborn to die." I hauled on the shirt even harder. "And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Dead Beat (The Dresden Files, #7))
“
Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
LAW 46
Never Appear Too Perfect
Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.
”
”
Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
“
If you walked away from a
toxic, negative, abusive,
one-sided, dead-end
low vibrational
relationship or friendship
— you won.
”
”
Lalah Delia
“
The more you talk about it, rehash it, rethink it, cross analyze it, debate it, respond to it, get paranoid about it, compete with it, complain about it, immortalize it, cry over it, kick it, defame it, stalk it, gossip about it, pray over it, put it down or dissect its motives it continues to rot in your brain. It is dead. It is over. It is gone. It is done. It is time to bury it because it is smelling up your life and no one wants to be near your rotted corpse of memories and decaying attitude. Be the funeral director of your life and bury that thing!
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
It was so strange, the way that life moved forward: the twists and the dead ends, the sudden opportunities. She supposed if you could predict or foresee everything that was going to happen, you’d lose the motivation to go through it all. The promise was always in the possibility.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Panic (Panic, #1))
“
I have licked the fire and danced in the ashes of every bridge I ever burned. I fear no hell from you.
”
”
Nicole Lyons (Hush)
“
Don't wait until people are dead to give them flowers.
”
”
Sean Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide)
“
Charlotte had been surrounded by men most of her adult life. Only one attracted her, only one had she fallen in love with – and he turned out to be cruel and broke her heart. But he was dead. She had killed him. He was a Nazi, an SS officer, dashing and charismatic … an evil person.
”
”
Hugo Woolley (The Wasp Trap (The Charlotte's War Trilogy Book 3))
“
Shout out to everyone transcending
a mindset, mentality, desire, belief,
emotion, habit, behavior or vibration,
that no longer serves them.
”
”
Lalah Delia
“
Don’t die with the music inside your head; let it be heard.
”
”
Abhaidev (The Gods Are Not Dead)
“
You have seen me fall; now see me rise.
”
”
Abhaidev (The Gods Are Not Dead)
“
Suicide is a form of murder— premeditated murder. It isn’t something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes some getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.
It’s important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there’s a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there’s a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there’s a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance.
The debate was wearing me out. Once you've posed that question, it won't go away. I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't. Anything I thought or did was immediately drawn into the debate. Made a stupid remark—why not kill myself? Missed the bus—better put an end to it all. Even the good got in there. I liked that movie—maybe I shouldn’t kill myself.
In reality, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy.
”
”
Susanna Kaysen
“
Ah cher ami, how poor in invention men are! They are They always think one commits suicide for a reason. But it's quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what's the good of dying intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? Once you are dead, they will take advantage of it to attribute idiotic or vulgar motives to your action. Martyrs, cher ami, must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood--never!
”
”
Albert Camus (The Fall)
“
When humans are not able to fathom the behaviour, actions, and motivations of others, they dismiss them as insane.
”
”
Abhaidev (The Gods Are Not Dead)
“
Are you insane?”
“When humans are not able to fathom the behaviour, actions, and motivations of others, they dismiss them as insane.
”
”
Abhaidev (The Gods Are Not Dead)
“
Just because
you feel lost
doesn't mean
that you are.
Sometimes you
just have to relax,
breathe deep,
and trust the path
you're on.
”
”
Lalah Delia
“
Everyone has moments of weakness. But that doesn't make you weak.
”
”
Katie Alender (As Dead As It Gets (Bad Girls Don't Die, #3))
“
You might be dying, but you’re not dead yet, you miserable wretch, now get up and do something before you allow your brother’s
sacrifice and everything we all have lost to be for nothing.
”
”
Alex Aster (Lightlark (Lightlark, #1))
“
I'll take that challenge. It's a dead hand against a living will.
”
”
Isaac Asimov (Foundation and Empire (Foundation, #2))
“
Every minute doing one thing is a minute not doing something else. Every choice is another choice not made another path grown over lost.
”
”
Jerry Weintraub (When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man)
“
Fawcett, quoting a companion, wrote that cannibalism “at least provides a reasonable motive for killing a man, which is more than you can say for civilized warfare.
”
”
David Grann (The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon)
“
Darken your room, shut the door, empty your mind. Yet you are still in
great company - the Numen and your Genius with all their media, and your
host of elementals and ghosts of your dead loves — are there! They need no light by which to see, no words to speak, no motive to enact except through your own purely formed desire.
”
”
Austin Osman Spare (The Logomachy of Zos)
“
But gossip must see its characters
in black and white, equip them with
sins and motives easily conveyed in
the shorthand of conversation.
”
”
John Le Carré (Call for the Dead (George Smiley, #1))
“
We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead; we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us--who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)
“
Behind every creative act is a statement of love. Every artistic creation is a statement of gratitude.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
Going down in history is a dead end pursuit
”
”
Benny Bellamacina
“
To have touched the feet of Christ is no excuse for mistakes in punctuation.
If a man writes well only when he's drunk, then I'll tell him: Get drunk. And if he says that it's bad for his liver, I'll answer: What's your liver? A dead thing that lives while you live, whereas the poems you write live without while.
”
”
Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet)
“
Don't die before you're dead.
”
”
Rachel Wolchin
“
Lan shook his head sightly "He was better. But he thought I was finished, with only one arm. He never understood. You surrender after you're dead.
”
”
Robert Jordan (New Spring (The Wheel of Time, #0))
“
The will of life and death,
never share the same motivation...
we all know that love is the ultimate motive to die for...
but let’s not kid ourselves...
...we all know the ultimate motive to rise back from the dead is vengeance.
”
”
Non Nomen (The Unwords)
“
Each day is a new chance to improve your life, and that of your family, friends and colleagues. Be positive in your outlook, honest in your dealing and determined in your efforts. You will succeed
”
”
Arthur Crandon (Deadly Election)
“
Writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated deep down, by a fear or and fascination with mortality - by a desire to make the risky trip to the underworld and to bring something or someone back from the dead.
”
”
Margaret Atwood
“
A book is indeed dead until a reader brings it into life by reading it.
”
”
Aman Jassal (Rainbow - the shades of love)
“
Never underestimate a warrior; the lion in him may be sleeping, but that does not mean he’s dead.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Often we judge ourselves by our intentions and everyone else by their actions. It is possible to intend one thing while communicating something totally different. Sometimes our true motives are cleverly hidden even from us.
”
”
John Bevere (The Bait of Satan: Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense)
“
The insane conspiracy theories that motivate people who commit antisemitic violence reflect a fear of real freedom: a fondness for tyrants, an aversion to ideas unlike their own, and most of all, a casting-off of responsibility for complicated problems. None of this is a coincidence.
”
”
Dara Horn (People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present)
“
If you know how quickly people forget the dead you will start living your life on your own terms instead of other people’s terms.
”
”
Samuel Clément
“
People are motivated by three things, Rachel. Love …” A red marker clattered in with the rest. “Revenge …” A black one landed next to it. “And power,” she finished, tossing in a green one. “Trent has enough money to buy all three.”
“You forgot one,” I said, wondering if I should just keep my mouth shut. “Family.
”
”
Kim Harrison (Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, #1))
“
It’s not that we don’t trust you,” Royce said as Hadrian prepared the bow. “It’s just that we’ve learned over the years that honor among nobles is usually inversely proportionate to their rank. As a result, we prefer to rely on more concrete methods for motivations—such as self-preservation. You already know we don’t want you dead, but if you have ever been riding full tilt and had a horse buckle under you, you understand that death is always a possibility, and broken bones are almost a certainty.”
“There’s also the danger of missing the horse completely,” Hadrian added. “I’m a good shot, but even the best archers have bad days. So to answer your question—yes, you can control your own horse.
”
”
Michael J. Sullivan (Theft of Swords (The Riyria Revelations, #1-2))
“
Too much school."
"Would you rather be dead?! Would you rather die? Here, on your knees in the back of a convenience store?!
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
Never give up hope! If you do, you be dead already.
”
”
Rose in The Inspired Caregiver
“
Food for thought: Every dead body on Mount Everest was once a highly motivated person. Stay lazy my friends. It may save your life one day.
”
”
Oliver Markus Malloy (How to Defeat the Trump Cult: Want to Save Democracy? Share This Book)
“
In the dead of a long, black night it is hard to imagine a sunrise on the horizon extending its vibrant and warming rays, but that is how you hold out hope. Have faith that the morning you dream of will eventually come.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
“
We have certain demons who are motivated by the smell of food. They tend to get rather violent whenever they smell it. I personally wouldn’t be caught eating anything because I would end up dead. You might not. But you’d still have to fight them, and since some of them are rather ugly and really, really smelly, it might spoil your appetite. Then again, maybe not. Doesn’t spoil Noir’s. I think it makes him hungrier, especially when he guts them. Sick, but true. (Asmodeus)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dream Warrior (Dream-Hunter, #4; Dark-Hunter, #17))
“
When you don't pay attention to your intuition, or go against it, you may find that you feel a certain heaviness, lack of energy, a kind of deadness. This is because the life force is trying to come through and move you in a certain way, and it is being blocked.
”
”
Shakti Gawain (Developing Intuition: Practical Guidance for Daily Life)
“
I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone recieved the news with pleasure. Several said, "Thank God that son of a bitch is dead."
Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise...
There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, "What can we do now?" How can we go on without him?"
In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, mo matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror....we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
”
”
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
“
You must prune to bloom. If the dead weight is not pruned and removed, it compromises the quality, performance, and output of the vine. When you prune what’s not working in your life, you make the space and place for renewal to happen and for new growth to spring forth.
”
”
Susan C. Young
“
What someone may lack in talent can be more than made up for in self-motivation, self-direction, and follow-through.
”
”
Miles Anthony Smith (Becoming Generation Flux: Why Traditional Career Planning is Dead: How to be Agile, Adapt to Ambiguity, and Develop Resilience)
“
Better broke than dead.
”
”
Rachel Caine (Fall of Night (The Morganville Vampires, #14))
“
The way to be irreplaceable is to become a social innovator. Start projects that motivate you to save the world and simultaneously make you money (and create mindshare) for your company. Social innovation makes magic happen.
”
”
Richie Norton (Résumés Are Dead and What to Do About It)
“
It began when they come took me from my home
And put me in Dead Row,
Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.
And I'll say it again
I..am..not..afraid..to..die.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is burning
And I think my head is glowing
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this weighing up of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is glowing
And I think my head is smoking
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this looks of disbelief.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway there was no proof
Nor a motive why.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm afraid I told a lie.
”
”
Charles Bukowski
“
So,Miss Fitt," Clarence said once we turned onto a tree-lined road beside the river, "you are no doubt wondering why I invited you out."
I swatted the ribbon from my eyes. "And here I assumed it was my unsurpassable good looks."
He chuckled. "That was, of course, part of my motivation."
"Only part?" I slid my gaze left and watched him from the corner of my eye. "Well then,the rest of your reason must be that bribe you mentioned the other evening."
"Something like that.
”
”
Susan Dennard (Something Strange and Deadly (Something Strange and Deadly, #1))
“
Whatever you do, don't wait to start those dreams.
”
”
Richie Norton (Résumés Are Dead and What to Do About It)
“
Peace is possible for dead bodies, living bodies can not expect peace on the way to the victory.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
Fawcett once described fear as the 'motive power of all evil' which had 'excluded humanity from the Garden of Eden.
”
”
David Grann (The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon)
“
You can’t change the world if your motive is revenge. Vibes like that just aren’t productive.
”
”
Charlie Huston (Already Dead (Joe Pitt, #1))
“
I was five, ice cream was my only motivation for wanting power anyway,
”
”
Naomi Novik (A Deadly Education (The Scholomance, #1))
“
The very best authors are no longer with us; so only read books written by dead people.
”
”
Kevin Ansbro
“
I wipe away tears. All these years I assumed that my dad was dead, but hearing this story makes the pain feel fresh again. "How did you keep going?"
Because as long as you were alive, there was hope. That's all people need in order to do amazing things, Alenna. Hope is the great human motivator. It always has been.
”
”
Lisa M. Stasse
“
When you get to the end of the road and feel like you've arrived at a place where you don't want to be, for pity sakes, turn around, back up and move in a different direction. There's no road in life that is a dead end unless you stop there permanently.
”
”
Toni Sorenson
“
The assault on education began more than a century ago by industrialists and capitalists such as Andrew Carnegie. In 1891, Carnegie congratulated the graduates of the Pierce College of Business for being “fully occupied in obtaining a knowledge of shorthand and typewriting” rather than wasting time “upon dead languages.” The industrialist Richard Teller Crane was even more pointed in his 1911 dismissal of what humanists call the “life of the mind.” No one who has “a taste for literature has a right to be happy” because “the only men entitled to happiness… is those who are useful.” The arrival of industrialists on university boards of trustees began as early as the 1870s and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business offered the first academic credential in business administration in 1881. The capitalists, from the start, complained that universities were unprofitable. These early twentieth century capitalists, like heads of investment houses and hedge-fund managers, were, as Donoghue writes “motivated by an ethically based anti-intellectualism that transcended interest in the financial bottom line. Their distrust of the ideal of intellectual inquiry for its own sake, led them to insist that if universities were to be preserved at all, they must operate on a different set of principles from those governing the liberal arts.
”
”
Chris Hedges (Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle)
“
Oh, the wondrous places through which I wander:
woodlands, meadows, and green hillsides yonder.
I hike over mossy, meandering paths.
Dead branches serve nicely as walking staffs.
The sunset paints scenery crimson and gold.
Oh, wondrous nature dyed in colors bold.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
“
All the talk of bullying and alienation provided an easy motive. Forty-eight hours after the massacre, USA Today pulled the threads together in a stunning cover story that fused the myths of jock-hunting, bully-revenge, and the TCM. “Students are beginning to describe how a long-simmering rivalry between the sullen members of their clique [the TCM] and the school’s athletes escalated and ultimately exploded in this week’s deadly violence,” it said. It described tension the previous spring, including daily fistfights. The details were accurate, the conclusions wrong. Most of the media followed. It was accepted as fact.
”
”
Dave Cullen (Columbine)
“
Ethan, you can choose to hope or you can choose to fear. Fear is a crippling disease. It takes over and paralyzes. Hope bolsters, motivates. People who fear, die. People who hope, live. Even in death they live.
”
”
Fisher Amelie (Fury (The Seven Deadly, #3))
“
Some people live such boring lives,its black and white,so dead! I choose to color my life with Fun, some blue some green,some red.-RVM
”
”
R.V.M.
“
A dead hero is better than a living coward.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
The full length of a frog doesn't have to be seen when it's dead. It has to be seen when it jumps. Aim for greater heights always.
”
”
Constance Chuks Friday
“
Civilization is a myth. That is the truth this world has taught us. We have not risen above our baser instincts... That is what always has and always will drive us.
”
”
Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Vol. 26: Call to Arms)
“
A person must find the courage to live a complete and full life. We learn to live when we stop being afraid and by engaging in critical analysis of our own thoughts, motives, emotions, and behavior. A tolerant person who lives without fear extends charity to the entire world. Courage always precedes an act of human grace, which expresses the luminosity of the human soul.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
Many rookie software managers think that they can "motivate" their programmers to work faster by giving them nice, "tight" (unrealistically short) schedules. I think this kind of motivation is brain-dead. When I'm behind schedule, I feel doomed and depressed and unmotivated. When I'm working ahead of schedule, I'm cheerful and productive. The schedule is not the place to play psychological games.
”
”
Joel Spolsky (Joel on Software)
“
The mystery of existence will always remain a mystery. All we know for sure is what the ancients knew: each succeeding generation forms a link in the braided cord of humanity. Each of our lives is shallower if we do not know and pay homage to where we came from. The past forms the world that we currently inhabit, and our actions today, comparable to our ancestors’ actions of yesterday, will reverberate in the history of tomorrow. While the tools of our trades evolve from generation to generation, the way that people behave and the motives behind their behavior remains constant. Each generation must chart the same dangerous territories of the heart. Each succeeding generation must diagnosis the illnesses that imperil their mental, physical, social, and economic wellbeing. Life is brutally painful and extraordinary joyful.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
Most of us will. We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive: love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead: we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us--who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed.
But what about those who plant such clues, for us to stumble on? Why do they bother? Egotism? Pity? Revenge? A simple claim to existence, like scribbling your initials on a washroom wall? The combination of presence and anonymity--confession without penance, truth without consequences--it has its attractions. Getting the blood off your hands, one way or another.
Those who leave such evidence can scarcely complain if strangers come along afterwards and poke their noses into every single thing that would once have been none of their business. And not only strangers: lovers, friends, relations. We're voyeurs, all of us. Why should we assume that anything in the past is ours for the taking, simply because we've found it? We're all grave robbers, once we open the doors locked by others.
But only locked. The rooms and their contents have been left intact. If those leaving them had wanted oblivion, there was always fire.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)
“
From the hood of his car, he hefted a large green insulated pack - the kind Fadlan's Falafel used for deliveries. "This is for you, Magnus. I hope you enjoy."
The scent of fresh falafel wafted out. True, I'd eaten falafel just a few hours ago, but my stomach growled because ... well, more falafel. "Man, you're the best. I can't believe - Wait. You're in the middle of a fast and you brought me food? That seems wrong."
"Just because I'm fasting doesn't mean you can't enjoy." He clapped me on my shoulder. "You'll be in my prayers. All of you."
I knew he was sincere. Me, I was an atheist. I only prayed sarcastically to my own father for a better colour of boat. Learning about the existence of Norse deities and the Nine Worlds had just made me more convinced that there was no grand divine plan. What kind of God would allow Zeus and Odin to run around the same cosmos, both claiming to be the king of creation, smiting mortals with lightning bolts and giving motivational seminars?
Bur Amir was a man of faith. He and Samirah believed in something bigger, a cosmic force that actually cared about humans. I suppose it was kind of comforting to know Amir had my back in the prayer department, even if I doubted there was anybody at the end of that line.
"Thanks, man." I shook his hand one last time.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #3))
“
How we interact in our world that we inhabit determines how much happiness human beings enjoy. The ego guides human beings in performing their practical activities, and egotistical utility in turn motivates human behavior. An inflated ego can cause human beings to live in a corrupt and unethical manner that is hostile to other humans and the environment. A person’s passions can imprison them.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
In retrospect I realize that fate was a ladder on which, at the time, I could not afford to miss a single rung. To skip out on even one scene would have meant never making it to the top, although it would have been by far the easier choice. What motivated me was probably that little light still left in my half-dead heart, glittering in the darkness. Yet without it, perhaps, I might have slept better.
”
”
Banana Yoshimoto (Kitchen)
“
People undergo several sequential steps in maturing from infancy including childhood, adolescences, young adulthood, middle age, and old age. Each stage presents distinct challenges that require a person to amend how they think and act. The motive for seeking significant change in a person’s manner of perceiving the world and behaving vary. Alteration of person’s mindset can commence with a growing sense of awareness that a person is dissatisfied with an aspect of his or her life, which cause a person consciously to consider amending their lifestyle.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
It is a special blessing to belong among those who can and may devote their best energies to the contemplation and exploration of objective and timeless things. How happy and grateful I am for having been granted this blessing, which bestows upon one a large measure of independence from one's personal fate and from the attitude of one's contemporaries. Yet this independence must not inure us to the awareness of the duties that constantly bind us to the past, present and future of humankind at large.
Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here, involuntarily and uninvited, for a short stay, without knowing the why and the wherefore. In our daily lives we feel only that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own.
I am often troubled by the thought that my life is based to such a large extent on the work of my fellow human beings, and I am aware of my great indebtedness to them.
I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.
I have never coveted affluence and luxury and even despise them a good deal. My passion for social justice has often brought me into conflict with people, as has my aversion to any obligation and dependence I did not regard as absolutely necessary.
[Part 2]
I have a high regard for the individual and an insuperable distaste for violence and fanaticism. All these motives have made me a passionate pacifist and antimilitarist. I am against any chauvinism, even in the guise of mere patriotism.
Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as does any exaggerated personality cult. I am an adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I know well the weaknesses of the democratic form of government. Social equality and economic protection of the individual have always seemed to me the important communal aims of the state.
Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice keeps me from feeling isolated.
The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all there is.
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Albert Einstein
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The unhappiness of men, maintained by Socrates, depends upon their badness being brought home to them in conscience. If, because of their insensibility or lack of proper reproof, the error of their way is not impressed upon them, they have no motive to reform. The fact that the evil-doer has become such gradually, and does not realize the evil in him, is no reason why we should not blame him; it is the function of blame to make him and others realize it, to define evil-doer when he is dead, or has sincerely and openly repented, not while he remains a force for wrong.
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Charles Horton Cooley (Social Organization by Charles H. Cooley)
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In the same five years three new colleges were founded at Cambridge—Trinity, Corpus Christi, and Clare—although love of learning, like love in marriage, was not always the motive. Corpus Christi was founded in 1352 because fees for celebrating masses for the dead were so inflated after the plague that two guilds of Cambridge decided to establish a college whose scholars, as clerics, would be required to pray for their deceased members.
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Barbara W. Tuchman (A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century)
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Parents should learn to stop nagging their children about how well they could do “if you only tried more, or cared more.” Trying and caring, in specific areas, is built into people; or else it comes to them later, if they mature properly; or it never comes at all. But it is dead certain that no young person was ever motivated by a querulous, disappointed parent more concerned with his own pride than with the child’s ultimate self-actualization.
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Sydney J. Harris
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I maintain, then, that scientific psychology (and, it may be added, the psychology of the same kind that we all unconsciously practise when we try to "figure to ourselves" the stirrings of our own or others' souls) has, in its inability to discover or even to approach the essence of the soul, simply added one more to the symbols that collectively make up the Macrocosm of the culture-man. Like everything else that is no longer becoming but become, it has put a mechanism in place of an organism. We miss in its picture that which fills our feeling of life (and should surely be " soul " if anything is) the Destiny-quality, the necessary directedness of existence, the possibility that life in its course actualizes. I do not believe that the word "Destiny" figures in any psychological system whatsoever — and we know that nothing in the world could be more remote from actual life-experience and knowledge of men than a system without such elements. Associations, apperceptions, affections, motives, thought, feeling, will — all are dead mechanisms, the mere topography
of which constitutes the insignificant total of our "soul-science." One looked for Life and one found an ornamental pattern of notions. And the soul remained what it was, something that could neither be thought nor represented, the secret, the ever-becoming, the pure experience.
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Oswald Spengler (The Decline of the West, Vol 1: Form and Actuality)
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When you're bouncing around from pin to pin, it is probably very difficult to know that outside the game there's a room and outside the room there's a town and outside the town there's a country and outside the country there's a world and outside the world there's a billion trillion stars and that's only the start of it... but it's there, d'you see? Once you know about it, you can stop worrying about the slot at the bottom. And you might bounce around a good deal longer.
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Terry Pratchett (Johnny and the Dead (Johnny Maxwell, #2))
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What’s ‘at supposed tae mean?” He asked insulted.
“Everyone always has an ulterior motive.” I replied.
“Well I dinnae, an’ I’m nae claimin’ tae be innocent. I was lookin’ fur ye, as per yer mother’s request. Nae hidden agenda here!” He said sternly. “Besides, if I wanted ye dead, you’d be dead.” He stressed out the last part.
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S.L. Ross
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We are Evolution. We are the Revolution. We have come to revalue all values. It’s time to get off your knees. Friends, fellow gods and goddesses, it’s time to rise. Join our Sacred Cause. Transform this world. Undergo the ultimate personal and collective metamorphosis. The old gods are dead. We are the new gods. On whose side will you stand on the fateful fields of Armageddon? Will you support the evil tyrants of the past, or will you make your stand shoulder to shoulder with those who will never serve any gods but will instead become gods themselves?
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Thomas Stark (Base Reality: Ultimate Existence (The Truth Series Book 16))
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It’s an old illness you suffer from, Mr. Smiley,” she continued, taking a cigarette from the box; “and I have seen many victims of it. The mind becomes separated from the body; it thinks without reality, rules a paper kingdom and devises without emotion the ruin of its paper victims. But sometimes the division between your world and ours is incomplete; the files grow heads and arms and legs, and that’s a terrible moment, isn’t it? The names have families as well as records, and human motives to explain the sad little dossiers and their make-believe sins. When that happens I am sorry for you.
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John Le Carré (Call for the Dead (George Smiley, #1))
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The darkness of the room is pulsing with gunfire, and by our standards we are grossly outnumbered - there are only three of us to every one of them - but something is tipping things in our favor. Our manic speed is uncharacteristic of the Dead, and our prey are not prepared for it. Is this all coming from me? Creatures without desire usually don't move quickly, but they're following my lead, and I am an angry whirlwind.
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Isaac Marion (Warm Bodies (Warm Bodies, #1))
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Now, an idea is not the same thing as a fact. A fact is something that is dead, in and of itself. It has no consciousness, no will to power, no motivation, no action. There are billions of dead facts. The internet is a graveyard of dead facts. But an idea that grips a person is alive. It wants to express itself, to live in the world. It is for this reason that the depth psychologists—Freud and Jung paramount among them—insisted that the human psyche was a battleground for ideas.
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Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
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One of the universally despised sins is hypocrisy, falsely pretending to hold beliefs, feelings, standards qualities, opinions, virtues, motivations, or other characteristics that a person does not actually hold. Powerful people tend to be the greatest hypocrites, which accounts for why scandal, false preachers, and mealy-mouthed persons are so prevalent in bastions of reigning political parties. Hypocrisy occurs because some people are too lazy, weak-willed, or stupid to live up to their professed beliefs. It also occurs because of a propensity of people to engage in self-deception and self-ignorance, reliance upon fabricated (“pseudo evidence”) perceived through a self-serving bias, failure to challenge personal beliefs and behavior, and refusal to listen to justified criticism.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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Don't even listen to No body including your friends who tells you to Move On in life.
They often will have destroyed your Motivation causing an unexpected anxiety, and a severe brain stress until you give up.
No matter how dead serious they are in order for you to understand them, reject their Anti-statement with the Power of your Assertion. They will foolishly halter your situation you had been encountering over the past year, when it all started from the beginning.
Therefore, you MUST KEEP MOVING FORWARD.
DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE.
Train yourself to get strong so you can outsmart and surpass the famous people who came before you.
That is the way of succeeding in life in order to prove to everyone you've overcome the Obstacles and your Anxiety.
Keep moving forward always surpasses moving on.
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Luis Cosajay
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Our present conscious self and our shadow must learn how to coexist. The first step to attaining personal transcendence commences when the conscious mind and the unconscious mind square off and battle for preeminence. A person who achieves self-realization understands the interworking of both their conscious mind and the unconscious mind and integrates their unique dichotomy into their sense of a self. A person who suffers from a personality disorders or neuroses failed to confront their shadow or unsuccessfully integrated the conflicting motives of the conscious mind and the unconscious mind into a central and fully integrated persona.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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They always think one
commits suicide for a reason. But it is quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what is the good of dying
intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? Once you are dead, they will take advantage of it to attribute idiotic or
vulgar motives to your action. Martyrs,cherami, must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood--never! Besides,
let us not beat about the bush; I love life--that is my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life. Such avidity has
something plebeian about it, don't you think?
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Albert Camus (The Fall)
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The popular media and conventional wisdom, including the medical profession's traditional approach to nutrition, have created and continue to perpetuate this problem through inadequate, outdated dietary counseling. Attempts to universalize dietary therapies so that one-diet-fits-all influences the flawed claims against meats and fats, thereby encouraging overconsumption of grains. Government-sponsored guides to healthy eating, such as the USDA's food pyramid, which advocates six to eleven servings of grains daily for everyone, lag far behind current research and continue to preach dangerously old-fashioned ideas. Because the USDA's function is largely the promotion of agriculture and agricultural products, there is a clear conflict of interest inherent in any USDA claim of healthful benefits arising from any agricultural product. Popular beliefs and politically motivated promotion, not science, continue to dictate dietary recommendations, leading to debilitating and deadly diseases that are wholly or partly preventable.
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Ron Hoggan (Dangerous Grains: Why Gluten Cereal Grains May Be Hazardous To Your Health)
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Alderic, Knight of the Order of the City and the Assault, hereditary Guardian of the King's Peace of Mind, a man not unremembered among the makers of myth, pondered so long upon the Gibbelins' hoard that by now he deemed it his. Alas that I should say of so perilous a venture, undertaken at dead of night by a valorous man, that its motive was sheer avarice! Yet upon avarice only the Gibbelins relied to keep their larders full, and once in every hundred years sent spies into the cities of men to see how avarice did, and always the spies returned again to the tower saying that all was well.
It may be thought that, as the years went on and men came by fearful ends on that tower's wall, fewer and fewer would come to the Gibbelins' table: but the Gibbelins found otherwise.
("The Hoard Of The Gibbelins")
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Lord Dunsany (Monster Mix)
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This is always true of those men who have surrendered themselves to an overruling purpose. It does not so much impel them from without, nor even operate as a motive power within, but grows incorporate with all that they think and feel, and finally converts them into little else save that one principle. When such begins to be the predicament, it is not cowardice, but wisdom, to avoid these victims. They have no heart, no sympathy, no reason, no conscience. They will keep no friend, unless he make himself the mirror of their purpose; they will smite and slay you, and trample your dead corpse under foot, all the more readily, if you take the first step with them, and cannot take the second, and the third, and every other step of their terribly strait path. They have an idol to which they consecrate themselves high-priest, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is most precious; and never once seem to suspect—so cunning has the Devil been with them—that this false deity, in whose iron features, immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only benignity and love, is but a spectrum of the very priest himself, projected upon the surrounding darkness. And the higher and purer the original object, and the more unselfishly it may have been taken up, the slighter is the probability that they can be led to recognize the process by which godlike benevolence has been debased into all-devouring egotism.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Blithedale Romance [with Biographical Introduction])
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So instead of providing another intellectual answer that would be ignored, David cut right to the heart. He said, “You’re raising all of these objections because you’re sleeping with your girlfriend. Am I right?” All the blood drained from the young man’s face. He was caught. He was rejecting God because he didn’t like God’s morality. And he was disguising it with feigned intellectual objections. This young man wasn’t the first atheist or agnostic to admit that his desire to follow his own agenda was keeping him out of the kingdom. In the first chapter of his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul revealed this tendency we humans have to “suppress the truth” about God in order to follow our own desires. In other words, unbelief is more motivated by the heart than the head. Some prominent atheists have admitted this. Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously wrote, “God is dead and we have killed him,” also wrote, “If one were to prove this God of the Christians to us, we should be even less able to believe in him.”[24] Obviously Nietzsche’s rejection of God was not intellectual! Professor Thomas Nagel of NYU more recently wrote, “I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My
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Frank Turek (Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case)
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The first girl I dated was named Cammie Anthony. She was a year older than me. She had failed eleventh-grade calculus and had to take
it again with my class.
The specific chemicals that are released when we have a crush are called norepinephrine, dopamine, and endogenous opioids.
I remember Cammie reaching to hold my hand in a movie theater.
We went to see a horror movie, and it was unclear if we were going as friends or on a date.
Norepinephrine is what causes our bodies to have sweaty palms and increased heart rates.
I remember lying awake in my bed texting Cammie until three in the morning.
Dopamine is energizing; it makes us feel motivated and attentive.
I remember every time my phone pinged with a text from Cammie, I felt happy.
Endogenous opioids are part of our reward system. It's what makes having a crush feel enjoyable rather than just crushing.
Oxytocin and vasopressin are the chemicals that make us feel calm, secure, comfortable, and emotionally attached to long-term partners.
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Emily Austin (Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead)
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We’re in a period right now where nobody asks any questions about psychology. No one has any feeling for human motivation. No one talks about sexuality in terms of emotional needs and symbolism and the legacy of childhood. Sexuality has been politicized--“Don’t ask any questions!” "No discussion!" “Gay is exactly equivalent to straight!” And thus in this period of psychological blindness or inertness, our art has become dull. There’s nothing interesting being written--in fiction or plays or movies. Everything is boring because of our failure to ask psychological questions.
So I say there is a big parallel between Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton--aside from their initials! Young feminists need to understand that this abusive behavior by powerful men signifies their sense that female power is much bigger than they are! These two people, Clinton and Cosby, are emotionally infantile--they're engaged in a war with female power. It has something to do with their early sense of being smothered by female power--and this pathetic, abusive and criminal behavior is the result of their sense of inadequacy.
Now, in order to understand that, people would have to read my first book, "Sexual Personae"--which of course is far too complex for the ordinary feminist or academic mind! It’s too complex because it requires a sense of the ambivalence of human life. Everything is not black and white, for heaven's sake! We are formed by all kinds of strange or vague memories from childhood. That kind of understanding is needed to see that Cosby was involved in a symbiotic, push-pull thing with his wife, where he went out and did these awful things to assert his own independence. But for that, he required the women to be inert. He needed them to be dead! Cosby is actually a necrophiliac--a style that was popular in the late Victorian period in the nineteenth-century.
It's hard to believe now, but you had men digging up corpses from graveyards, stealing the bodies, hiding them under their beds, and then having sex with them. So that’s exactly what’s happening here: to give a woman a drug, to make her inert, to make her dead is the man saying that I need her to be dead for me to function. She’s too powerful for me as a living woman. And this is what is also going on in those barbaric fraternity orgies, where women are sexually assaulted while lying unconscious. And women don’t understand this! They have no idea why any men would find it arousing to have sex with a young woman who’s passed out at a fraternity house. But it’s necrophilia--this fear and envy of a woman’s power.
And it’s the same thing with Bill Clinton: to find the answer, you have to look at his relationship to his flamboyant mother. He felt smothered by her in some way. But let's be clear--I’m not trying to blame the mother! What I’m saying is that male sexuality is extremely complicated, and the formation of male identity is very tentative and sensitive--but feminist rhetoric doesn’t allow for it. This is why women are having so much trouble dealing with men in the feminist era. They don’t understand men, and they demonize men.
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Camille Paglia
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Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.
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Seth Godin (Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?: And Other Provocations, 2006-2012)
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Westcliff paused at the bedside and glanced at the two women. “This is going to be rather unpleasant,” he said. “Therefore, if anyone has a weak stomach…” His gaze lingered meaningfully on Lillian, who grimaced.
“I do, as you well know,” she admitted. “But I can overcome it if necessary.”
A sudden smile appeared on the earl’s impassive face. “We’ll spare you for now, love. Would you like to go to another room?”
“I’ll sit by the window,” Lillian said, and sped gratefully away from the bed.
Westcliff glanced at Evie, a silent question in his eyes.
“Where shall I stand?” she asked.
“On my left. We’ll need a great many towels and rags, so if you would be willing to replace the soiled ones when necessary—”
“Yes, of course.” She took her place beside him, while Cam stood on his right. As Evie looked up at Westcliff’s bold, purposeful profile, she suddenly found it hard to believe that this powerful man, whom she had always found so intimidating, was willing to go to this extent to help a friend who had betrayed him. A rush of gratitude came over her, and she could not stop herself from tugging lightly at his shirtsleeve. “My lord…before we begin, I must tell you…”
Westcliff inclined his dark head. “Yes?”
Since he wasn’t as tall as Sebastian, it was a relatively easy matter for Evie to stand on her toes and kiss his lean cheek. “Thank you for helping him,” she said, staring into his surprised black eyes. “You’re the most honorable man I’ve ever known.” Her words caused a flush to rise beneath the sun-bronzed tan of his face, and for the first time in their acquaintance the earl seemed at a loss for words.
Lillian smiled as she watched them from across the room. “His motives are not completely heroic,” she said to Evie. “I’m sure he’s relishing the opportunity to literally pour salt on St. Vincent’s wounds.” Despite the facetious remark, Lillian went deadly pale and gripped the chair arms as Westcliff took a thin, gleaming lancet in hand and proceeded to gently open and drain the wound.
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Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3))