β
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
β
β
Friedrich Nietzsche
β
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
β
β
Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)
β
Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections)
β
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?
β
β
Albert Camus
β
Is this the part where you say if I hurt her, you'll kill me?"
"No" Simon said, "If you hurt Clary she's quite capable of killing you herself. Possibly with a variety of weapons.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
β
Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off.
β
β
Stephen King (Storm of the Century)
β
It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing.
β
β
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
β
It kills me sometimes, how people die.
β
β
Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
β
Find what you love and let it kill you.
β
β
Charles Bukowski
β
But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.
β
β
Albert Camus
β
Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?"
"Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?"
"Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Titanβs Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
β
Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.
β
β
Terry Pratchett (Small Gods (Discworld, #13))
β
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
β
β
Voltaire
β
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
β
β
George Bernard Shaw
β
Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.
β
β
Margaret Atwood
β
I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.
β
β
David Levithan (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)
β
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
My dear,
Find what you love and let it kill you.
Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.
Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.
For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but itβs much better to be killed by a lover.
~ Falsely yours
β
β
Kinky Friedman
β
It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill.
β
β
Emilie Autumn (The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls)
β
For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
β
β
Charles Bukowski
β
People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
β
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.
β
β
G.K. Chesterton
β
Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #2))
β
I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.
β
β
Bill Watterson
β
You deal with mythological stuff for a few years, you learn that paradises are usually places where you get killed.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #4))
β
There are perhaps many causes worth dying for, but to me, certainly, there are none worth killing for.
β
β
Albert Dietrich (Army GI, Pacifist CO: The World War II Letters of Frank Dietrich and Albert Dietrich)
β
Ignorance killed the cat; curiosity was framed!
β
β
C.J. Cherryh
β
You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me."
"I was ninety percent sure."
"I see," Clary said. There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hands on his cheek, more in surprise than pain.
"What the hell was that for?"
"The other ten percent.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
If you were going to die, I was going to die with you. I couldnβt stop thinking it over and over as you screamed, as I tried to kill her: you were my mate, my mate, my mate.
β
β
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
β
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword
β
β
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol)
β
The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
Love: It will kill you and save you, both
β
β
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
β
I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it.
β
β
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
β
I forgot that's what gets you all hot and bothered, Jace, girls killing things."
"I like anyone killing things, especially me." he said with a smile.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
I don't want tea," said Clary, with muffled force. "I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them."
"Unfortunately," said Hodge, "we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin
β
Has anyone noticed this whole city is looking for us, mad at us, or wants to kill us?"
"So?" said Kaz.
"Well, usually it's just half the city.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
β
You cannot kill a breeze, a wind, a fragrance; you cannot kill a dream or an ambition.
β
β
Michel Onfray
β
You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise!
β
β
Maya Angelou
β
I set off, off to kill the man I love.
β
β
Richelle Mead (Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy, #3))
β
The way he looked at you. I got it then. He loved you, and it was killing him. He won't get over you, Clary, he can't.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
β
I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.
β
β
Gautama Buddha
β
There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
β
β
Howard Zinn
β
There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.
β
β
J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5: The Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski, Vol. 2)
β
Art and love are the same thing: Itβs the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.
β
β
Chuck Klosterman (Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story)
β
My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!
β
β
William Goldman (The Princess Bride)
β
Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures.
No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh.
β
β
Tahereh Mafi (Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3))
β
Life is not so idiotically mathematical that only the big eat the small; it is just as common for a bee to kill a lion or at least to drive it mad.
β
β
August Strindberg (Miss Julie)
β
and he suddenly knew that if she killed herself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with the same blinding rush of pain, but it would happen. You couldn't live for very long without a heart.
β
β
Jodi Picoult
β
Jesper knocked his head against the hull and cast his eyes heavenward. βFine. But if Pekka Rollins kills us all, Iβm going to get Wylanβs ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.β
Brekkerβs lips quirked. βIβll just hire Matthiasβ ghost to kick your ghostβs ass.β
βMy ghost wonβt associate with your ghost,β Matthias said primly, and then wondered if the sea air was rotting his brain.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
β
Oh no. Don't smile. You'll kill me. I stop breathing when you smile.
β
β
Tessa Dare (A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #3))
β
If you're texting Magnus to say 'I think u r kewl,' I'm going to kill you."
"Who's Magnus?" Max inquired.
"He's a warlock," said Alec.
"A sexy, sexy warlock," Isabelle told Max, ignoring Alec's look of total fury.
"But warlocks are bad," protested Max, looking baffled.
"Exactly," said Isabelle.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
β
You didn't kill him. He would have killed you, but you didn't kill him."
"So? He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.
β
β
Tamora Pierce (In the Hand of the Goddess (Song of the Lioness, #2))
β
She'll kill me if she finds you in here. Can you climb trees? Tell me you can climb a tree!"
Patch grinned, "I can fly.
β
β
Becca Fitzpatrick (Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush, #1))
β
Every hour wounds. The last one kills.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))
β
There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Ask me if I sparkle and Iβll kill you where you stand.β (Bones)
β
β
Jeaniene Frost (This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5))
β
Mockingbirds donβt do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They donβt eat up peopleβs gardens, donβt nest in corncribs, they donβt do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. Thatβs why itβs a sin to kill a mockingbird.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
Atticus, he was real nice."
"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
Did you really want to die?"
"No one commits suicide because they want to die."
"Then why do they do it?"
"Because they want to stop the pain.
β
β
Tiffanie DeBartolo (How to Kill a Rock Star)
β
Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you--haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!
β
β
Emily BrontΓ« (Wuthering Heights)
β
When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.
β
β
Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner)
β
Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.
β
β
Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast)
β
If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
β
β
Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms)
β
Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
Pain is strange. A cat killing a bird, a car accident, a fire.... Pain arrives, BANG, and there it is, it sits on you. It's real. And to anybody watching, you look foolish. Like you've suddenly become an idiot. There's no cure for it unless you know somebody who understands how you feel, and knows how to help.
β
β
Charles Bukowski
β
The so-called βpsychotically depressedβ person who tries to kill herself doesnβt do so out of quote βhopelessnessβ or any abstract conviction that lifeβs assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fireβs flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. Itβs not desiring the fall; itβs terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling βDonβt!β and βHang on!β, can understand the jump. Not really. Youβd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
β
β
David Foster Wallace
β
I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I aim with my eye.
I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I shoot with my mind.
I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father.
I kill with my heart.
β
β
Stephen King (The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1))
β
For instance, this new idea that You-Know-Who can kill with a single glance from his eyes. Thatβs a basilisk, listeners. One simple test: Check whether the thing thatβs glaring at you has got legs. If it has, itβs safe to look into its eyes, although if it really is You-Know-Who, thatβs still likely to be the last thing you ever do.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
β
Because, if you could love someone, and keep loving them, without being loved back . . . then that love had to be real. It hurt too much to be anything else.
β
β
Sarah Cross (Kill Me Softly (Beau Rivage, #1))
β
With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.
β
β
Charles Bukowski
β
Atticus said to Jem one day, "Iβd rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know youβll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit βem, but remember itβs a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your fatherβs right," she said. "Mockingbirds donβt do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They donβt eat up peopleβs gardens, donβt nest in corn cribs, they donβt do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. Thatβs why itβs a sin to kill a mockingbird.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: Iβm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I donβt accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic β on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg β or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
β
β
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
β
Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought so hard." And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.
β
β
Sally Brampton (Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression)
β
Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.
β
β
Ellen DeGeneres
β
1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.
β
β
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
β
As you grow older, youβll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and donβt you forget itβwhenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.
β
β
Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (The Little Prince)
β
I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe oneβs very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?
β
β
Voltaire (Candide: or, Optimism)
β
Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.
β
β
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
β
livid, adj.
Fuck You for cheating on me. Fuck you for reducing it to the word cheating. As if this were a card game, and you sneaked a look at my hand. Who came up with the term cheating, anyway? A cheater, I imagine. Someone who thought liar was too harsh. Someone who thought devastator was too emotional. The same person who thought, oops, heβd gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Fuck you. This isnβt about slipping yourself an extra twenty dollars of Monopoly money. These are our lives. You went and broke our lives. You are so much worse than a cheater. You killed something. And you killed it when its back was turned.
β
β
David Levithan (The Lover's Dictionary)
β
So you don't ever get angry at him?"
Jem laughed out loud. "I would hardly say that. Sometimes I want to strangle him."
"How on earth do you prevent yourself?"
"I go to my favorite place in London," said Jem, "and I stand and look at the water, and I think about the continuity of life, and how the river rolls on, oblivious of the petty upsets in our lives."
Tessa was fascinated. "Does that work?"
"Not really, but after that I think about how I could kill him while he slept if I really wanted to, and then I feel better.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
β
A pair of werewolves occupied another booth. They were eating raw shanks of lamb and arguing about who would win in a fight: Dumbledore from Harry Potter books or Magnus Bane.
"Dumbledore would totally win," said the first one. "He has the badass Killing Curse."
The second lycanthrope made a trenchant point. "But Dumbledore isn't real."
"I don't think Magnus Bane is real either," scoffed the first. "Have you ever met him?"
"This is so weird," said Clary, slinking down in her seat. "Are you listening to them?"
"No. It's rude to eavesdrop," said Jace.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
β
I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest."
His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.
Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.
β
β
Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander, #2))
β
Jace?"
"Yeah?"
"How did you know I had Shadowhunter blood? Was there some way you could tell?"
The elevator arrived with a final groan. Jace unlatched the gate and slid it open. The inside reminded Clary of a birdcage, all black metal and decorative bits of gilt. "I guessed," he said, latching the door behind them. "It seemed like the most likely explanation."
"You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me."
He pressed a button in the wall, and the elevator lurched into action with a vibrating groan that she felt all through the bones in her feet. "I was ninety percent sure."
"I see," Clary said.
There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put a hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. "What the hell was that for?"
The other ten percent," she said, and they rode the rest of the way down to the street in silence.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
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Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space)
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You know what would help?" I asked, not meeting his eyes.
"Hmm?"
"If you turned off this crap music and put on something that came out after the Berlin Wall went down."
Dimitri laughted. "Your worst class is history, yet somehow, you know everything about Eastern Europe."
"Hey, gotta have material for my jokes, Comrade." Still smiling, he turned the radio dail. To a country station.
"Hey! This isn't what I had in mind," I exclaimed. I could tell he was on the verge of laughing again.
"Pick. It's one or the other."
I sighed. "Go back to the 1980s stuff."
He flipped the dail, and I crossed my arms over my chest as some vaguely European-sounding band sang about how video had killed the radio star. I wished someone would kill this radio.
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Richelle Mead (Frostbite (Vampire Academy, #2))
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The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships.
These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...
Remember, to spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person might not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
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Bob Moorehead (Words Aptly Spoken)
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It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
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Edgar Allan Poe