โ
Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (The Collected Poems)
โ
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.
โ
โ
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
โ
Do your bit to save humanity from lapsing back into barbarity by reading all the novels you can.
โ
โ
Richard Hughes
โ
The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.
โ
โ
Ted Hughes (Letters of Ted Hughes)
โ
Some people you will always have about you whom you can trust, and no man these days can boast of more than that. Remember them; forget the others.
โ
โ
Hugh Lofting
โ
I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones. They erode our strength, our self-esteem, our very foundation.
โ
โ
Cheryl Hughes
โ
I loved my friend
He went away from me
There's nothing more to say
The poem ends,
Soft as it began-
I loved my friend.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.
โ
โ
W.H. Auden
โ
I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Whatโs writing really about? Itโs about trying to take fuller possession of the reality of your life.
โ
โ
Ted Hughes
โ
Hugh and I have been together for so long that in order to arouse extraordinary passion, we need to engage in physical combat. Once, he hit me on the back of the head with a broken wineglass, and I fell to the floor pretending to be unconscious. That was romantic, or would have been had he rushed to my side rather than stepping over my body to fetch the dustpan.
โ
โ
David Sedaris (Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim)
โ
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."
[Modernism's Patriarch (Time Magazine, June 10, 1996)]
โ
โ
Robert Hughes
โ
Looks like what drives me crazy
Don't have no effect on you--
But I'm gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (Selected Poems)
โ
Okay. Would you rather I looked like Hugh Jackman or George Clooney?โ
โJohnny Depp,โ she says.
She answers a little too fast for my comfort. โWhat the hell, Lake? Youโre supposed to say Will! Youโre supposed to say you want me to look like me!โ
โBut you weren't one of the options,โ she says.
โNeither was Johnny Depp!
โ
โ
Colleen Hoover (Point of Retreat (Slammed, #2))
โ
Bibliotropic," Hugh said. "Like sunflowers are heliotropic, they naturally turn towards the sun. We naturally turn towards the bookshop.
โ
โ
Jo Walton (Among Others)
โ
Folks, I'm telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean-
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
When people cheat in any arena, they diminish themselves-they threaten their own self-esteem and their relationships with others by undermining the trust they have in their ability to succeed and in their ability to be true.
โ
โ
Cheryl Hughes
โ
I stay cool, and dig all jive,
That's the way I stay alive.
My motto,
as I live and learn,
is
Dig and be dug
In return.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life is a broken-winged bird
that can not fly.
Hold fast to dreams
for when dreams go
life is a barren field
frozen with snow.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (The Collected Poems)
โ
Harlem
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (The Collected Poems)
โ
The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones.
โ
โ
Cheryl Hughes
โ
It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.
โ
โ
Hugh Laurie
โ
Because introverts are typically good listeners and, at least, have the appearance of calmness, we are attractive to emotionally needy people. Introverts, gratified that other people are initiating with them, can easily get caught in these exhausting and unsatisfying relationships.
โ
โ
Adam S. McHugh
โ
Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows,
Help us to see
That without the dust the rainbow
Would not be.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.
โ
โ
John Hughes (The Breakfast Club)
โ
Nobody wanted your dance,
Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering
Drowning life and your effort to save yourself,
Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,
Looking for something to give.
โ
โ
Ted Hughes (Birthday Letters)
โ
Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug' is just a wee voice telling you, 'I'd like my crayons back, please.
โ
โ
Hugh MacLeod (Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity)
โ
Here's to bottle caps,the Yankees, and 'birds', and most of all"...he paused and lowered his voice to a whisper.." and,most of all to a beautiful girl named Molly who refuses to believe the man-the man who loves her more than she'll ever know
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
โ
Introverts treasure the close relationships they have stretched so much to make.
โ
โ
Adam S. McHugh (Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture)
โ
A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.
โ
โ
Hugh Downs
โ
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Every part of you was made for me. Your lips were made to kiss mine, your eyes were made to wake up to me looking at you in my bed every morning, and your f***ing tongue was made to roll my name off of it. I am more certain of us than I'm certain that I require oxygen to breathe.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
โ
Hugh consoled me, saying, "Don't let it get to you. There are plenty of things you're good at."
When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he'll need some time to think.
โ
โ
David Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day)
โ
If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner.
โ
โ
Malcolm Muggeridge
โ
What kind of sick bastard burns down a Christmas tree?โ
Hugh and I exchanged glances. โThatโs an excellent question,โ I said dryly.
Peter looked startled. โWas it you?โ he asked Hugh.
โNo,โ said the imp. โIt was Carter.โ
โYour Christmas tree was burned down by an angel?โ asked Cody.
โYup. The irony isnโt lost on me
โ
โ
Richelle Mead (Succubus Dreams (Georgina Kincaid, #3))
โ
Roy: "Looks like it's starting to rain"
Riza: "But..It's not raining..."
Roy: "Yes it is. This is the rain.
โ
โ
Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 4 (Fullmetal Alchemist, #4))
โ
I am so tired of waiting.
Arenโt you,
for the world to become good
and beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
and cut the world in twoโ
and see what worms are eating
at the rind.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings)
โ
What happens in the heart, simply happens
โ
โ
Ted Hughes
โ
So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (Selected Poems)
โ
When introverts are in conflict with each other...it may require a map in order to follow all the silences, nonverbal cues and passive-aggressive behaviors!
โ
โ
Adam S. McHugh
โ
No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves
โ
โ
Hugh Prather (I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me)
โ
The dreamer in her
Had fallen in love with me and she did not know it.
That moment the dreamer in me
Fell in love with her and I knew it
โ
โ
Ted Hughes (Birthday Letters)
โ
When you want something this badly, you don't just give up. You fight and fight until you absolutely can't fight anymore.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
โ
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Just because you love someone, doesn't mean you have to be involved with them. Love is not a bandage to cover wounds.
โ
โ
Hugh Elliott
โ
Iโve never felt so heartbroken and so in love at the same time. If you wouldโve told me the day we met that you were going to break my heartโ and that days, months, or even years would pass, that I would still be hurting like thisโit wouldnโt have stopped me from falling in love with you.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
โ
I swear to the Lord,I still can't see,Why Democracy means,Everybody but me.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Gather out of star-dust,
Earth-dust,
Cloud-dust,
Storm-dust,
And splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust,
Not for sale.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
He could not stand. It was not
That he could not thrive, he was born
With everything but the will โ
That can be deformed, just like a limb.
Death was more interesting to him.
Life could not get his attention.
โ
โ
Ted Hughes (Season songs)
โ
The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.
โ
โ
Hugh MacLeod
โ
To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only Heaven.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (The Collected Poems)
โ
I am not particularly interested in
saving time; I prefer to enjoy it.
โ
โ
Eduardo Galeano
โ
The sea is a desert of waves,
A wilderness of water.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (Selected Poems)
โ
I never was someone who was at ease with happiness.
โ
โ
Hugh Laurie
โ
Sometimes bad choices bring us to the right people, Emily.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
โ
...the only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it,....
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (The Big Sea)
โ
All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself.
โ
โ
Hugh Prather (Notes to Myself)
โ
How could you ever feel comfortable if no matter where you went you felt like you belonged someplace else?
โ
โ
Mark Peter Hughes (Lemonade Mouth)
โ
When we see a door closed very tight, God sees a window right in our sight.
โ
โ
Carolyn Cutler Hughes (Through God's Eye)
โ
Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one's conscience to get in the way.
โ
โ
Hugh Howey (The Unraveling (Wool, #4))
โ
I have never killed anybody, it is true, but it is because I lacked the courage or the time, not because I lacked the desire
โ
โ
Eduardo Galeano
โ
Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the goodness
Be wasted forever.
Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the return
Be never.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes (Selected Poems)
โ
An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Hughes: (Talking for Mustang) 'I won't allow you to die under my jurisdiction because it'd be a pain to clean up the mess.' That's what he said.
Edward: Fine. Tell him, 'Understood. I'll never die before you, colonel, you @#'$ idiot.'
Hughes: Ha ha ha! They say the ruder you are, the luckier you are! In that case, you and Roy are gonna live forever!
โ
โ
Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 2 (Fullmetal Alchemist, #2))
โ
I want the late-night drives, the sunset watching, the screaming, the yelling, and the crying. I know I'll definitely want the make-up sex that comes after all of the screaming and crying. I want the good, the bad, and the in-between. All of it is what's going to make us amazing together.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
โ
I asked you, baby,
If you understood-
You told me that you didn't,
But you thought you would.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Doll, you're going to get me out of your system as much as I'm going to get you out of mine. It's impossible.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
โ
Desandra shrugged her shoulders. "Hey, Kate? Have you thought of walking up to Hugh and telling him that he's got the biggest dick ever?" She spread her arms to the size of a baseball bat.
"No, you think it would work?" I asked.
"It's worth a try. May be he'll be so happy you noticed his pork sword, he'll forget all about trying to kill us."
Pork sword. Kill me now. "I'll think about it."
Ascanio began patting his clothes.
"What?" Derek growled.
"Looking for something to take notes with.
โ
โ
Ilona Andrews (Magic Breaks (Kate Daniels, #7))
โ
Good morning, Revolution: You're the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Now, my mom always said two wrongs don't make a right. But she never said anything about four wrongs, and that always left me confused.
โ
โ
Hugh Laurie
โ
You are who you choose to be.
โ
โ
Ted Hughes (The Iron Man)
โ
Cheap little rhymes
A cheap little tune
Are sometimes as dangerous
As a sliver of the moon.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
This was the tricky bit. The really tricky bit, trickiness cubed.
โ
โ
Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)
โ
It's astonishing the amount of time that certain straight people devote to gay sex - trying to determine what goes where and how often. They can't imagine any system outside their own, and seem obsessed with the idea of roles, both in bed and out of it. Who calls whom a bitch? Who cries harder when the cat dies? Which one spends the most time in the bathroom? I guess they think that it's that cut-and-dried, though of course it's not. Hugh might do the cooking, and actually wear an apron while he's at it, but he also chops the firewood, repairs the hot-water heater, and could tear off my arm with no more effort than it takes to uproot a dandelion.
โ
โ
David Sedaris (When You Are Engulfed in Flames)
โ
We were written for one another, and I wouldn't change one line in our romance novel. The good, the bad, the in between. It's ours. We own it.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Pulse (Collide, #2))
โ
The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does.
โ
โ
Hugh MacLeod
โ
I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier, it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery. I've never been convinced that happiness is the object of the game. I'm wary of happiness.
โ
โ
Hugh Laurie
โ
God is the supreme uncreated light of which Wisdom is born, but there was never a time when God's Wisdom did not exist.
โ
โ
Merritt Yerkes Hughes (Ten Perspectives on Milton)
โ
With the weight of his body, he pressed her back against the wall, and licked the soft spot below her earlobe. "Tell me how much you f***ing want me," he breathed.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
โ
A faint smile touched Emilyโs mouth. โYou want kids?โ
โI want bucketloads tucked neatly into a minivan,โ he laughed.
โGavin Blake in a minivan?โ
โAbsolutely,โ he replied, reaching for his beer. โA funky forest green one, too.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
โ
In order to get the things I want, it helps me to pretend Iโm a figure in a daytime drama, a schemer. Soap opera characters make emphatic pronouncements. They ball up their fists and state their goals out loud. โI will destroy Buchanan Enterprises,โ they say. โPhoebe Wallingford will pay for what sheโs done to our family.โ Walking home with the back half of the twelve-foot ladder, I turned to look in the direction of Hughโs loft. โYou will be mine,โ I commanded.
โ
โ
David Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day)
โ
An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know.
All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was!-that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how, every instant . . .
โ
โ
Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)
โ
Nothing is free. Everything has to be paid for. For every profit in one thing, payment in some other thing. For every life, a death. Even your music, of which we have heard so much, that had to be paid for. Your wife was the payment for your music. Hell is now satisfied.
โ
โ
Ted Hughes (The Tiger's Bones)
โ
Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes.
โ
โ
Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)
โ
When introverts go to church, we crave sanctuary in every sense of the word, as we flee from the disorienting distractions of twenty-first-century life. We desire to escape from superficial relationships, trivial communications and the constant noise that pervade our world, and find rest in the probing depths of God's love.
โ
โ
Adam S. McHugh (Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture)
โ
I canโt promise you itโll always be sweet and tender because you and I fight hard. But Iโm pretty sure it wonโt be a horror ride either because you and I love even harder. What I can promise is youโll always mean more to me than my next breath, and itโll always be you in my life. No one else.
โ
โ
Gail McHugh (Pulse (Collide, #2))
โ
Sometimes, when I find it hard to sleep, Iโll think of when we first met, of the newness of each otherโs body, and my impatience to know everything about this person. Looking back, I should have taken it more slowly, measured him out over the course of fifty years rather than cramming him in so quickly. By the end of our first month together, heโd been so thoroughly interrogated that all I had left was breaking newsโwhat little had happened in the few hours since Iโd last seen him. Were he a cop or an emergency-room doctor, there might have been a lot to catch up on, but, like me, Hugh works alone, so there was never much to report. โI ate some potato chips,โ he might say, to which Iโd reply, โWhat kind?โ or โThatโs funny, so did I!โ More often than not weโd just breathe into our separate receivers.
Are you still there?โ
Iโm here.โ
Good. Donโt hang up.โ
I wonโt.
โ
โ
David Sedaris
โ
ุงูู
ูุธููู ูุง ูุนู
ููู
ุงูุณูุงุณููู ูุชุญุฏุซูู ููููู
ูุง ูููููู ุดูุฆุง
ุงูุฃุตูุงุช ุชุตูุช ููููุง ูุง ุชูุชุฎุจ
ูุณุงุฆู ุงูุฅุนูุงู
ุชุดูู ุงูู
ุนููู
ุงุช
ุงูู
ุฏุงุฑุณ ุชุนููู
ุงูุฌูู
ุงููุถุงุฉ ูุนุงูุจูู ุงูุถุญุงูุง
ุงูุฌูุด ูุดู ุงูุญุฑุจ ุถุฏ ู
ูุงุทูู ุจูุฏู
ูุง ููุงูุญ ุฑุฌุงู ุงูุดุฑุทุฉ ุงูุฌุฑูู
ุฉ ูุฃููู
ู
ุดุบูููู ุฌุฏุงู ุจุงุฑุชูุงุจูุง
ุงูุฅููุงุณุงุช ุชุตุจุญ ู
ุฌุชู
ุนูุฉ ุจููู
ุง ุงูุฃุฑุจุงุญ ุชุฌุนู ุฎุงุตุฉ
ุงููููุฏ ุฃูุซุฑ ุญุฑูุฉ ู
ู ุงูุจุดุฑ
ุงูุจุดุฑ ูู
ูู ุฎุฏู
ุฉ ุงูุฃุดูุงุก
โ
โ
Eduardo Galeano
โ
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
โ
โ
Langston Hughes
โ
Hay criminales que proclaman tan campantes โla matรฉ porque era mรญaโ, asรญ no mรกs, como si fuera cosa de sentido comรบn y justo de toda justicia y derecho de propiedad privada, que hace al hombre dueรฑo de la mujer. Pero ninguno, ninguno, ni el mรกs macho de los supermachos tiene la valentรญa de confesar โla matรฉ por miedoโ, porque al fin y al cabo el miedo de la mujer a la violencia del hombre es el espejo del miedo del hombre a la mujer sin miedo.
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Eduardo Galeano
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I want it all, Emily. I want to spend my nights holding hands with you,โ he breathed the words into her ear. โI want the all-day texting.โ He kissed her temple and caressed her cheek. โI want the laughing and the forehead kisses.โ He softly ran his lips over her forehead. โI want the date nights, the movie watching, and the breakfast making.โ He dragged his hands through her hair, his teeth tugging gently at her bottom lip. โI want the late-night drives, the sunset watching, the screaming, the yelling, and the crying.โ Still kissing her, he smiled against her mouth. โI know Iโll definitely want the make up sex that comes after the screaming and the crying. In want the good, the bad and e in between. All of it is what's going to make us amazing together,
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Gail McHugh (Collide (Collide, #1))
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I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that - I donโt mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. Itโs a really odd thing that weโre now seeing people saying โwrite down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleepโ, and โcheer upโ and โhappiness is our birthrightโ and so on. Weโre kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - itโs rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they donโt teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say โQuick! Move on! Cheer up!โ Iโd like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word โhappinessโ and to replace it with the word โwholenessโ. Ask yourself โis this contributing to my wholeness?โ and if youโre having a bad day, it is.
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Hugh Mackay
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The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. it opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. in moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.
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Frederick Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)