β
Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Good books don't give up all their secrets at once.
β
β
Stephen King
β
One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
β
β
Stephen Hawking
β
The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
β
β
Anna Quindlen
β
This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
Keep Going
Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.
β
β
Elizabeth Strout (Abide with Me)
β
And now Iβm looking at you,β he said, βand youβre asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before β bits of myself to the Lightwoods, to Isabelle and Alec, but it took years to do it β but, Clary, since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
β
Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Just... isn't giving up allowed sometimes? Isn't it okay to say, βThis really hurts, so Iβm going to stop tryingβ?β
βIt sets a dangerous precedent.β
βFor avoiding pain?β
βFor avoiding life.
β
β
Rainbow Rowell (Fangirl)
β
You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
β
β
Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon)
β
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
β
β
Alice Walker
β
You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.
β
β
Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)
β
Never give up... No one knows what's going to happen next.
β
β
L. Frank Baum
β
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
β
β
Benjamin Franklin (Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin)
β
If she's amazing, she won't be easy. If she's easy, she won't be amazing. If she's worth it, you wont give up. If you give up, you're not worthy. ... Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.
β
β
Bob Marley (Bob Marley: Guitar Chord Songbook (Guitar Chord Songbooks))
β
The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.
β
β
Jim Morrison
β
The biggest wall you have to climb is the one you build in your mind: Never let your mind talk you out of your dreams, trick you into giving up. Never let your mind become the greatest obstacle to success. To get your mind on the right track, the rest will follow.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.
But sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.
That is the sort of bravery I must have now.
β
β
Veronica Roth (Allegiant (Divergent, #3))
β
It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.
β
β
Babe Ruth
β
Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joyβthe experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.
β
β
BrenΓ© Brown
β
Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.
β
β
Anne Lamott
β
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.
β
β
Mark Twain
β
I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.
β
β
Albert Einstein
β
Never stop dreaming,
never stop believing,
never give up,
never stop trying, and
never stop learning.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
My dear young cousin, if there's one thing I've learned over the eons, it's that you can't give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it.
β
β
Rick Riordan
β
giving up doesn't always mean your weak sometimes your just strong enough to let go
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
When the going gets tough, put one foot in front of the other and just keep going. Donβt give up.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
When all else fails, give up and go to the library.
β
β
Stephen King (11/22/63)
β
But, if for some reason we're not closer, if something has gotten between us, please, I'm begging youβ¦don't give up on me. Stay. Stay with me. Work it out with me. Just don't leave meβ¦please.
β
β
S.C. Stephens (Effortless (Thoughtless, #2))
β
Heroes aren't always the ones who win," she said. "They're the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don't give up. That's what makes them heroes.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
β
I wanted to teach myself some life lessons at the age of 60 and one of them was that you donβt give up.
β
β
Diana Nyad
β
Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.
β
β
Laura Ingalls Wilder (The Long Winter (Little House, #6))
β
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
β
β
Benjamin Franklin
β
There's a chance that the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to you. Don't give up on him.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
β
No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not.
β
β
Sally Rooney (Normal People)
β
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
β
β
Dalai Lama XIV
β
For years now, I've wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part of sleep. Now sleeping is the last thing I want to do.
β
β
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
β
When things go wrong, don't go with them.
β
β
Elvis Presley
β
When you go through a hard period,
When everything seems to oppose you,
... When you feel you cannot even bear one more minute,
NEVER GIVE UP!
Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!
β
β
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Essential Rumi)
β
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
β
β
Thomas A. Edison
β
What is the bravest thing you've ever said? asked the boy.
'Help,' said the horse.
'Asking for help isn't giving up,' said the horse. 'It's refusing to give up.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
If you donβt give up on something you truly believe in, you will find a way.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.
β
β
Oprah Winfrey
β
You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.
β
β
Woody Allen
β
Even if things don't unfold the way you expected, don't be disheartened or give up. One who continues to advance will win in the end.
β
β
Daisaku Ikeda
β
Hermes gazed up at the stars. 'My dear young cousin, if there's one thing I've learned over the eons, it's that you can't give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it. It doesn't matter if they hate you, or embarrass you, or simply don't appreciate your genius for inventing the Internet--
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #2))
β
I wouldn't change it," Simon said. "I wouldn't give up loving you. Not for anything. You know what Raphael told me? That I didn't know how to be a good vampire, that vampires accept that they're dead. But as long as I remember what it was like to love you, I'll always feel like I'm alive.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
β
In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.
β
β
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything)
β
Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.
β
β
Bob Marley (Bob Marley - Legend)
β
Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.
β
β
Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves)
β
Don't allow your mind to tell your heart what to do. The mind gives up easily
β
β
Paulo Coelho
β
You can't become a decent horseman until you fall off and get up again, a good number of times.
There's life in a nutshell.
β
β
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
β
It doesnβt matter how many times you get knocked down. All that matters is you get up one more time than you were knocked down.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
I was so scared to give up depression, fearing that somehow the worst part of me was actually all of me.
β
β
Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation)
β
Here, Iβll show you how to use it. Let me see your foot.β
βThatβs a pretty intimate demand in the angel world. It usually takes dinner, some wine, and sparkling conversation for me to give up my feet.
β
β
Susan Ee (Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1))
β
Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.
β
β
Charles Jones (Life Is Tremendous: Enthusiasm Makes the Difference!)
β
If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.
β
β
Brandon Sanderson (The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3))
β
It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard, she said, is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.
β
β
Shauna Niequist (Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way)
β
If you want to live where people are not afraid of mice, you must give up living in palaces.
β
β
E. Lockhart (We Were Liars)
β
The one who falls and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried. Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Once we give up searching for approval we often find it easier to earn respect.
β
β
Gloria Steinem
β
When you blame others, you give up your power to change.
β
β
Robert Anthony
β
You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.
β
β
Joseph Campbell
β
At what point do you give up - decide enough is enough? There is only one answer really. Never.
β
β
Tabitha Suzuma (Forbidden)
β
Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.
β
β
Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose)
β
In an undertone, I murmured, "This isn't over. I won't give up on you."
"I've given up on you," he said back, voice also soft. "Love fades. Mine has.
β
β
Richelle Mead (Spirit Bound (Vampire Academy, #5))
β
When you are tempted to give up, your breakthrough is probably just around the corner.
β
β
Joyce Meyer
β
Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.
β
β
Earl Nightingale
β
It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.
β
β
George Eliot
β
Seven Steps to Success
1) Make a commitment to grow daily.
2) Value the process more than events.
3) Don't wait for inspiration.
4) Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity.
5) Dream big.
6) Plan your priorities.
7) Give up to go up.
β
β
John C. Maxwell
β
Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
It matters that you don't just give up.
β
β
Stephen Hawking
β
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?
β
β
Lance Armstrong (It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life)
β
But in good time you'll see that sometimes what matters isn't what one gives but what one gives up.
β
β
Carlos Ruiz ZafΓ³n (The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1))
β
You can not die of grief, though it feels as if you can. A heart does not actually break, though sometimes your chest aches as if it is breaking. Grief dims with time. It is the way of things. There comes a day when you smile again, and you feel like a traitor. How dare I feel happy. How dare I be glad in a world where my father is no more. And then you cry fresh tears, because you do not miss him as much as you once did, and giving up your grief is another kind of death.
β
β
Laurell K. Hamilton
β
No. Don't give up hope just yet. It's the last thing to go. When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.
β
β
Pittacus Lore (I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies, #1))
β
The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.
β
β
Baruch Spinoza
β
I'm listening to someone give up. Someone I knewβsomeone I liked. I'm listening... but still, I'm too late.
β
β
Jay Asher (Thirteen Reasons Why)
β
I'll kill for you, give up everything i own for you...but i won't give you up.
β
β
Sylvia Day (Reflected in You (Crossfire, #2))
β
Don't give up the fight,
Stand up for your rights.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
A warrior does not give up what he loves, he finds the love in what he does
β
β
Dan Millman (Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives)
β
It is never too late to give up your prejudices
β
β
Henry David Thoreau
β
Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave 'til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.
β
β
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (Words of Paradise: Selected Poems of Rumi)
β
The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. . .It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
β
β
C.S. Lewis
β
I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Nothing in life is easy. But that's no reason to give up. You'll be surprised what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. After all, you only have one life, so you should try to make the most of it.
β
β
Louis Sachar
β
He'd written me up a proposal of why dating him was a sound decision. It had included things like "I'll give up cigarettes unless I really, really need one" and "I'll unleash romantic surprises every week, such as: an impromptu picnic, roses, or a trip to Parisβbut not actually any of those things because now they're not surprises.
β
β
Richelle Mead (Spirit Bound (Vampire Academy, #5))
β
God knows your value; He sees your potential. You may not understand everything you are going through right now. But hold your head up high, knowing that God is in control and he has a great plan and purpose for your life. Your dreams may not have turned out exactly as youβd hoped, but the bible says that Godβs ways are better and higher than our ways, even when everybody else rejects you, remember, God stands before you with His arms open wide. He always accepts you. He always confirms your value. God sees your two good moves! You are His prized possession. No matter what you go through in life, no matter how many disappointments you suffer, your value in Godβs eyes always remains the same. You will always be the apple of His eye. He will never give up on you, so donβt give up on yourself.
β
β
Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential)
β
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, NIV)
β
β
Anonymous (Study Bible: NIV)
β
He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.
β
β
Jean-Paul Sartre
β
I'm afraid that we all make mistakes. One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes. If we lie about having made a mistake, then it can't be corrected and it festers. On the other hand, if we give up just because we made a mistake, even a big mistake, none of us would get far in life.
β
β
Terry Goodkind (Confessor (Sword of Truth, #11))
β
Sometimes life gets in your
way.
it gets all up in your damn
way.
But it doesn't get all up in your damn way
because it wants you to just
give up
and let it
take control.
Life doesn't get all up in your damn way because it just wants you to
hand
it all
over
and be
carried along.
Life wants you to
fight
it
Learn how to make it your
own.
it wants you to grab and
axe
and
hack
through the
wood.
It wants you to get a
sledgehammer
and
break
through
concrete.
It wants you to grab a
torch
and
burn
through the metal and
steel
until you can reach through and
grab
it.
Life wants you to
grab
all the
organized,
the
alphabetized,
the
chronological,
the
sequenced.
It wants you to mix it all
together,
stir
it up,
blend
it.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Slammed (Slammed, #1))
β
NEVER GIVE UP
No matter what is going on
Never give up
Develop the heart
Too much energy in your country
Is spent developing the mind
Instead of the heart
Be compassionate
Not just to your friends
But to everyone
Be compassionate
Work for peace
In your heart and in the world
Work for peace
And I say again
Never give up
No matter what is going on around you
Never give up
β
β
Dalai Lama XIV
β
You Chose
You chose.
You chose.
You chose.
You chose to give away your love.
You chose to have a broken heart.
You chose to give up.
You chose to hang on.
You chose to react.
You chose to feel insecure.
You chose to feel anger.
You chose to fight back.
You chose to have hope.
You chose to be naΓ―ve.
You chose to ignore your intuition.
You chose to ignore advice.
You chose to look the other way.
You chose to not listen.
You chose to be stuck in the past.
You chose your perspective.
You chose to blame.
You chose to be right.
You chose your pride.
You chose your games.
You chose your ego.
You chose your paranoia.
You chose to compete.
You chose your enemies.
You chose your consequences.
You chose.
You chose.
You chose.
You chose.
However, you are not alone. Generations of women in your family have chosen. Women around the world have chosen. We all have chosen at one time in our lives. We stand behind you now screaming:
Choose to let go.
Choose dignity.
Choose to forgive yourself.
Choose to forgive others.
Choose to see your value.
Choose to show the world youβre not a victim.
Choose to make us proud.
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Hereβs a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages
1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didnβt stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5.
3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on βBright Eyes.β
4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank.
5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13.
6) Nadia ComΔneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14.
7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15.
8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil.
9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19.
10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961.
11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936.
12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23
13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24
14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record
15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity
16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France
17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures βDavidβ and βPietaβ by age 28
18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world
19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter
20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind
22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest
23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech βI Have a Dream."
24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics
25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight
26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions.
27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon.
28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas
30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driverβs order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger
31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States
32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out.
33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games"
34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out.
35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa.
36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president.
37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels.
38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat".
40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived
41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise
42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out
43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US
44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats
45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President
β
β
Pablo
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This isnβt about the Ravens. This is about you. This is about everything it took you to get to this point, everything it cost you, and everyone who laughed when you dared to dream of something big and bright. Youβre here tonight because you refused to give up and refused to give in. Youβre here where they all said youβd never be, and no one can say you havenβt earned the right to play this game.
βAll eyes are on you. Itβs time to show them what youβre made of. Thereβs no room for doubt, no room for second guesses, no room for error. This is your night. This is your game. This is your moment. Seize it with everything youβve got. Pull out all the stops and lay it all on the line. Fight because you donβt know how to die quietly. Win because you donβt know how to lose. This kingβs ruled long enoughβitβs time to tear his castle down.
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Nora Sakavic (The King's Men (All for the Game, #3))
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Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
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C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
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Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldnβt have any alternative. But he hoped it was a long way off. Because he rather liked people. It was major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past millennium, when heβd felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, thereβs nothing we can do to them that they donβt do to themselves and they do things weβve never even thought of, often involving electrodes. Theyβve got what we lack. Theyβve got imagination. And electricity, of course. One of them had written it, hadnβt heβ¦βHell is empty, and all the devils are here.
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Terry Pratchett (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)
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The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man β state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world...
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
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Karl Marx (Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right)
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In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appalling powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed.
In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazi's once were.
And with good reason.
In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want.
Piece of cake.
In case you haven't noticed, we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class.
Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything.
Piece of cake.
The O'Reilly Factor.
So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called "In These Times."
Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic "New York Times" guaranteed there were weapons of destruction there.
Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn't even seen the First World War. War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.
Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don't you wish you could have something named after you?
Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people too. I am a veteran of the Second World War and I have to say this is the not the first time I surrendered to a pitiless war machine.
My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse."
Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas!
Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.
What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations and made it all their own?
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (A Man Without a Country)
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HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant.
HELPED are those who love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity.
HELPED are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long.
HELPED are those who love others unsplit off from their faults; to them will be given clarity of vision.
HELPED are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception, and realize an partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.
HELPED are those who love the Earth, their mother, and who willingly suffer that she may not die; in their grief over her pain they will weep rivers of blood, and in their joy in her lively response to love, they will converse with the trees.
HELPED are those whose ever act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a child.
HELPED are those who risk themselves for others' sakes; to them will be given increasing opportunities for ever greater risks. Theirs will be a vision of the word in which no one's gift is despised or lost.
HELPED are those who strive to give up their anger; their reward will be that in any confrontation their first thoughts will never be of violence or of war.
HELPED are those whose every act is a prayer for peace; on them depends the future of the world.
HELPED are those who forgive; their reward shall be forgiveness of every evil done to them. It will be in their power, therefore, to envision the new Earth.
HELPED are those who are shown the existence of the Creator's magic in the Universe; they shall experience delight and astonishment without ceasing.
HELPED are those who laugh with a pure heart; theirs will be the company of the jolly righteous.
HELPED are those who love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love all the colors of the animals and plants; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who love the lesbian, the gay, and the straight, as they love the sun, the moon, and the stars. None of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who love the broken and the whole; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who do not join mobs; theirs shall be the understanding that to attack in anger is to murder in confusion.
HELPED are those who find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence of another--plant, animal, river, or human being. They shall be joined by a multitude of the timid.
HELPED are those who lose their fear of death; theirs is the power to envision the future in a blade of grass.
HELPED are those who love and actively support the diversity of life; they shall be secure in their differences.
HELPED are those who KNOW.
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Alice Walker