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Sometimes for our sanity own sanity we just have to look at the bigger picture.
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Jojo Moyes (After You (Me Before You, #2))
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The healing power of art is not a rhetorical fantasy. Fighting to keep language, language became my sanity and my strength. It still is, and I know of no pain that art cannot assuage. For some, music, for some, pictures, for me, primarily, poetry, whether found in poems or in prose, cuts through noise and hurt, opens the wound to clean it, and then gradually teaches it to heal itself. Wounds need to be taught to heal themselves.
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Jeanette Winterson (Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery)
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the balloon pops and I walk across a kitchen on a rainy day in February to check on eggs and bread and wine and sanity to check on glue to paste nice pictures on these walls.
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Charles Bukowski (The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills)
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And then Harry Potter had launched in to a speech that was inspiring, yet vague. A speech to the effect that Fred and George and Lee had tremendous potential if they could just learn to be weirder. To make people's live surreal, instead of just surprising them with the equivalents of buckets of water propped above doors. (Fred and George had exchanged interested looks, they'd never thought of that one.) Harry Potter had invoked a picture of the prank they'd pulled on Neville - which, Harry had mentioned with some remorse, the Sorting Hat had chewed him out on - but which must have made Neville doubt his own sanity. For Neville it would have felt like being suddendly transported into an alternate universe. The same way everyone else had felt when they'd seen Snape apologize. That was the true power of pranking.
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Eliezer Yudkowsky (Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality)
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This had disaster written all over it. Jack wasn't exactly the picture of discretion-or sanity,for that matter.
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Kiersten White (Supernaturally (Paranormalcy, #2))
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He was an old Drag man with his bit getting short. He was the first to attempt to teach me to control my emotions. He would say, “Always remember whether you be sucker or hustler in the world out there, you’ve got that vital edge if you can iron-clad your feelings. I picture the human mind as a movie screen. If you’re a dopey sucker, you’ll just sit and watch all kinds of mindwrecking, damn fool movies on that screen.” He said. “Son, there is no reason except a stupid one for anybody to project on that screen anything that will worry him or dull that vital edge. After all, we are the absolute bosses of that whole theatre and show in our minds. We even write the script. So always write positive, dynamic scripts and show only the best movies for you on that screen whether you are pimp or priest.” His rundown of his screen theory saved my sanity many years later. He was a twisted wise man and one day when he wasn’t looking, a movie flashed on the screen. The title was “Death For an Old Con.
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Iceberg Slim (Pimp: The Story of My Life)
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The point is that you have here a direct, unmistakable assault on sanity and decency; and even - since some of Dali’s pictures would tend to poison the imagination like a pornographic postcard - on life itself. What Dali has done and what he has imagined is debatable, but in his outlook, his character, the bedrock decency of a human being does not exist. He is as anti-social as a flea. Clearly, such people are undesirable, and a society in which they can flourish has something wrong with it.
Now, if you showed this book, with its illustrations, to Lord Elton, to Mr. Alfred Noyes, to The Times leader writers who exult over the “eclipse of the highbrow” - in fact, to any “sensible” art-hating English person - it is easy to imagine what kind of response you would get. They would flatly refuse to see any merit in Dali whatever. Such people are not only unable to admit that what is morally degraded can be æsthetically right, but their real demand of every artist is that he shall pat them on the back and tell them that thought is unnecessary. And they can be especially dangerous at a time like the present, when the Ministry of Information and the British Council put power into their hands. For their impulse is not only to crush every new talent as it appears, but to castrate the past as well. Witness the renewed highbrow-baiting that is now going on in this country and America, with its outcry not only against Joyce, Proust and Lawrence, but even against T. S. Eliot.
But if you talk to the kind of person who can see Dali’s merits, the response that you get is not as a rule very much better. If you say that Dali, though a brilliant draughtsman, is a dirty little scoundrel, you are looked upon as a savage. If you say that you don’t like rotting corpses, and that people who do like rotting corpses are mentally diseased, it is assumed that you lack the æsthetic sense. Since “Mannequin rotting in a taxicab” is a good composition. And between these two fallacies there is no middle position, but we seldom hear much about it. On the one side Kulturbolschewismus: on the other (though the phrase itself is out of fashion) “Art for Art’s sake.” Obscenity is a very difficult question to discuss honestly. People are too frightened either of seeming to be shocked or of seeming not to be shocked, to be able to define the relationship between art and morals.
It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people. Just pronounce the magic word “Art,” and everything is O.K.
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George Orwell (Dickens, Dali And Others: (Authorized Orwell Edition): A Mariner Books Classic)
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A sane person who dwells among the mad will become insane because they will act like the mad. One who cares and treats the insane will have mad traits. A sane man who lives among the mad will be made mad by virtue of his associations and dealings. No sane person can dwell among the mad unless if that person is mad himself/herself. A mad person percieves madness and has no clear object or picture that can come out of his mind. Remember sore grapes can ruin good tasty grapes when taken together.You can't live amongst pigs if you are not a pig yourself. Therefore how can the mad treat their fellow mad. That is vanity too be treated by a mad physician who thinks he is sane. The treatment of a mad person speaks volumes and appears to suggest and show that they are treated in a haphazard way without a clear path in regard to recovering their sanity.
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David Ssembajjo (The Stolen Gift)
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The Dalai Lama’s Principles for Ethical Strategies3 Ensure that compassion is the motivation. Any problem must take into account the big picture and long-term consequences rather than short-term feasibility. In applying reason, we must stay honest, unbiased, and self-aware, vigilant to avoid self-delusion. Stay humble—know the limits of our knowledge and also realize we can easily be misguided in a rapidly changing reality. The foremost concern is the well-being of humanity and the planet we inhabit.
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Margaret J. Wheatley (Who Do We Choose to Be?: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity)
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Women of the world, our time has come!
Our leaders have taken us down a road of destruction. Aggressive, masculine reflexes have created more violence and rage, have left us with little hope for remedy in the Middle East or anywhere else. Our hope of
survival lies in honoring the feminine, that which a patriarchal society has tried vehemently to squelch.
Their legacy has left us living in a deluded universe, a world that worships a fixed and righteous view. In order to feel secure, we only welcome change that men in power determine for us. Our patriarchal religions are prime examples of this, creating a one-sided world gone from static, brittle believes.
Let us remember that patriarchy is founded on division not unity. We concentrate on the differences instead of giving importance to the similarities. There is good and bad, there is black and white. We are constantly in a state of opposites. Where does unity come into the picture?
It is no wonder women have been seen as evil, an abhorrent influence that must be destroyed. Intuition, psychic energy, spiritual force, the unknown, creation itself…merely feminine mockeries of sanity—or so it has been claimed by religious men in power. Women have died at the stake for challenging such beliefs, and to this day dogmatic religious views have persisted in undermining the feminine.
Therefore it is up to us to develop a balance between the feminine and the masculine. That’s the formula for a stable democracy. Wisdom and compassion working together will swing the pendulum away from aggression and fear toward peace and conciliation. I’ll venture to say it’s already begun. We have reached a critical mass.
Now the energy of woman is being powerfully unleashed. Negative powers have reached levels where enough of us are reacting against them to instigate change. The critical mass that we have reached cannot be turned back, and the force of it will literally shift the energy of our planet, creating a new paradigm.
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Perri Birney (Pure Vision: The Magdalene Revelation)
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Finally, mothers who feel valuable can view the larger picture in life, knowing that, while they will always be moms, someday the intense parenting phase will pass and they will be on to utilizing different gifts.
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Meg Meeker (The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming Our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity)
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Sometimes for our own sanity we just have to look at the bigger picture.
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Jojo Moyes (After You (Me Before You, #2))
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Gaslighting is a psychological tool that psychopaths use to mess with their victims’ hold on reality during the devalue phase. It’s a form of mental manipulation that eventually causes the target to question her own sanity and to mistrust her perception of reality. The most common example is a P denying something he said or did. The P is so adamant and incredulous in his denial that his partner second-guesses herself and then finally decides that she must be confused, misremembering, going insane. I think back to the day Marco tagged and then untagged me in the sunglasses picture. How easily I decided to let it go; how easily I let myself be convinced that I was probably confused—maybe Marco never tagged the picture, maybe I was going insane from sleep deprivation.
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Jen Waite (A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal)
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If you have the power—if you are the editor of a series of textbooks to be read by millions of young people—you can so constrict the language or so distort it as to ensure that thought-crime does not occur. You can, for instance, make sure that pictures of soldiers are female, and pictures of hair stylists are male. You can studiously avoid the words “mother” and “father.” You can avoid all reference to such virtues as womanliness and manliness. You can excise all stories of masculine honor and camaraderie. You can excise all stories of feminine gentleness and their care for children. You want them not to have the very tools they need to form the idea of a virtuous man or a virtuous woman. You couch everything in an unnatural language, such as Newspeak.
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Anthony Esolen (Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity)
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2014 Andy’s message continues You know, Young, before you came along, the other students I chaperoned were mere duties to me. Life with them was much simpler. When you came into the picture, it became more difficult for me to separate the sex act and the intimate relationship we shared. I would often end up at an emotional crossroads when you were summoned to perform sexual duties. No matter how I told myself that you were merely performing a sexual favour and that love doesn’t enter into that equation, an acrid taste plagued me, even when I busied myself with passionate projects while waiting for you to complete your tasks. These negativities ate at my core, challenging my sanity and begging me to snatch you away from the sexual situations. A part of me wanted to possess you rather than permit you to come into your own. Yet as soon as I saw you, happy and bouncing into view, my levelheadedness and sound judgement would return. Once again, I could wrap you in my arms and surround you with my love. Although I may have seemed composed, those were indeed trying times. I had to restrain my irrationality so I wouldn’t jeopardise our E.R.O.S. statuses. Like you, I was also pushing the green-eyed monster back into its abysmal lair. Reflecting on those experiences, I’m surprised I managed to constrain myself. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m grateful for my Bahriji training and E.R.O.S. experiences – without them, I would not have been as strong or resilient. I remember Eric Hoffer, the American moral and social philosopher, who wrote, “Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.” Though I don’t consider E.R.O.S. recruits and members sinners, I think our experiences were, in a way, saintly – were they not? Well, young one (you will always be my ‘young one’), I’ll message you again. For now I bid you au revoir mon ami. I’ll be in touch. Love, Andy
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Young (Turpitude (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 4))
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Another very serious mechanism of identification is found in language.
A) Thus we have only one name, say 'apple' for the: (a)un-speakable, un-eatable event or scientific process; (b) the un-speakable but eatable abstraction of low order, the object; (c) the un-speakable and un-eatable 'mental' picture, or higher order abstraction, on semantic levels; (d) and for a definition on verbal levels.
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Alfred Korzybski (Science and Sanity An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics)
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Every time I close my eyes I can still see her--- beaming up at the camera in that flimsy excuse for clothing, her hair a golden halo around her head, her body backlit and glorious.
I am filled with rage.
At the photographer for taking that picture.
At Cassie for allowing so many others to see her practically naked.
At all seven billion people on this planet who have the theoretical ability to see that picture of her with a few simple clicks of a button.
At myself.
As I sit hunched over my desk I try desperately to ignore the urgent, now-familiar ache in my loins. As Cassie sleeps innocently, unknowingly in the next room, I clutch at what remains of my sanity and of my self-control.
Because God's thumbs--- when I saw that picture of her all I could think was how badly I want Cassie to wear that "bathing suit" of hers for me.
If I had been there when it was taken, it would have been all I could do to keep myself from easing those delicate little straps of fabric off her shoulders and baring the rest of her beautiful body to my eyes.
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Jenna Levine (My Roommate Is a Vampire (My Vampires, #1))
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Now that you have a picture of what your niche is, think about the core message of your blog.
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Meera Kothand (The Blog Startup: Proven Strategies to Launch Smart and Exponentially Grow Your Audience, Brand, and Income without Losing Your Sanity or Crying Bucketloads of Tears)
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But how do you actually get this information? To get a deep picture of who your audience are and what they want, you need to 1. Research your ideal reader. 2. Create a persona based on that research. I’m going to give you a hack that I regularly use to find this information.
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Meera Kothand (The Blog Startup: Proven Strategies to Launch Smart and Exponentially Grow Your Audience, Brand, and Income without Losing Your Sanity or Crying Bucketloads of Tears)
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It makes more sense to more flexibly zoom out to see the full picture of yourself;
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Jenny Taitz (How to Be Single and Happy: Science-Based Strategies for Keeping Your Sanity While Looking for a Soul Mate)
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I walked out into the parking lot and found the space he’d written on the rental folder. I frowned at the bright yellow and black machine that sat there waiting for me. What is that? A riding lawnmower? “This can’t be right,” I said to no one. I was the only one out there, so I don’t know who I thought I was talking to, but having a thousand conversations in my head over the last twenty-four hours was making me question my own sanity. Probably talking out loud to myself wasn’t any better, but what the hell … might as well change up the crazy every once in a while to keep it fresh.
I pressed the button on the key ring and the headlights flashed on once, proving this was not a mistake. “A Smart Car? Are you kidding me?” It looked like a giant, wasp-yellow roller skate. Maybe not even a giant one; maybe just a large-ish roller skate. Surely looking like a giant wasp flying down a country road was a bad idea for a girl with a sting-allergy…
I debated in my head whether I should go and argue for one of the other fifty full-sized cars on the lot, but then gave up on the idea five seconds later. “Screw it,” I said, annoyed as hell. “Might as well get eight hundred miles to the gallon, right?!” The tone of my voice had drifted a little over to the hysterical side, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was barely hanging on, the stress almost enough to send me to the looney bin. I just kept picturing Bradley saying, “You got married? To a complete stranger? In Las Vegas? When you were drunk? By a guy named Elvis?” It was too horrible to fully fathom. He’d dump me just for humiliating him in front of all his clients and his frat brothers and his parents. There were so many people expecting me to be the perfect fiancée.
I threw my overnight bag in the passenger seat and drove off the lot, wishing I could peel out and really express my anger in a satisfyingly loud and obnoxious way. But I quickly learned that a Smart Car doesn’t know how to peel out; it’s not equipped to do much with its lawn-mower sized engine. It just knows how to deliver me from Point A to Point B on a very small amount of gas with almost zero elbow room. I felt like a clown buzzing around in her little circus car. The only things missing were a little face paint and some floppy shoes. At first I thought I was also missing one of those brass honky-horns that clowns carry around, but then I pressed on the steering wheel and found out differently. Yes, it’s true. The Smart Car comes equipped with a clown honky-horn.
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Elle Casey (Shine Not Burn (Shine Not Burn, #1))
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And when the sun shone, the shore resembled some magical seam holding the last fraying threads of her sanity together.
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A.M. Shine (Stay in the Light)