Senses Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Senses. Here they are! All 100 of them:

β€œ
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
”
”
Isaac Asimov (Foundation (Foundation, #1))
β€œ
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.
”
”
Robert Frost
β€œ
There's plenty of sense in nonsense sometimes, if you wish to look for it.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
β€œ
There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.
”
”
Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
β€œ
The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!
”
”
Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility)
β€œ
Top 15 Things Money Can’t Buy Time. Happiness. Inner Peace. Integrity. Love. Character. Manners. Health. Respect. Morals. Trust. Patience. Class. Common sense. Dignity.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
”
”
W.B. Yeats
β€œ
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
”
”
Arthur C. Clarke
β€œ
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
”
”
Euripides (The Bacchae)
β€œ
I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.
”
”
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
β€œ
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
”
”
James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time)
β€œ
You might want to lie down," Magnus advised. "I find that it helps when the crushing sense of horrible realization sets in.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
β€œ
It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.
”
”
Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1))
β€œ
Well, she's not responding to my advances," he observed more brightly than he felt, "so she must be dead." "Or she's a woman of good taste and sense.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
β€œ
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.
”
”
Jim Morrison
β€œ
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
β€œ
Just tell me how to be different in a way that makes sense.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
β€œ
I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.
”
”
Matt Groening
β€œ
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
”
”
Rafael Sabatini (Scaramouche (Scaramouche, #1))
β€œ
The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.
”
”
AnaΓ―s Nin
β€œ
Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to me, but Grover looked concerned. "That's us," he said. "Those five nuts right there." "Which one is me?" I asked. "The little deformed one," Zoe suggested. "Oh, shut up.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
β€œ
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
”
”
Tom Clancy
β€œ
I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe
β€œ
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
β€œ
Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
”
”
Frank Herbert (Dune (Dune, #1))
β€œ
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
β€œ
Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.
”
”
Sally Rooney (Normal People)
β€œ
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
β€œ
Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.
”
”
Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
β€œ
I’m under absolutely no obligation to make sense to you.
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
β€œ
It’s fascinating. You know all these words, and they’re all English, but when you string them together into sentences, they just don’t make any sense.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
β€œ
Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.
”
”
Mitch Albom
β€œ
Time to leave now, get out of this room, go somewhere, anywhere; sharpen this feeling of happiness and freedom, stretch your limbs, fill your eyes, be awake, wider awake, vividly awake in every sense and every pore.
”
”
Stefan Zweig (The Post-Office Girl)
β€œ
Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.
”
”
John Hodgman
β€œ
Common sense is not so common.
”
”
Voltaire (A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary)
β€œ
The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.
”
”
C.G. Jung
β€œ
My turn shall also come: I sense the spreading of a wing.
”
”
Osip Mandelstam (The Selected Poems)
β€œ
It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.
”
”
Albert Einstein
β€œ
Give the children love, more love and still more love – and the common sense will come by itself.
”
”
Astrid Lindgren
β€œ
The world doesn't make sense until you force it to.
”
”
Frank Miller
β€œ
Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
”
”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Literary Remains)
β€œ
Because you can't argue with all the fools in the world. It's easier to let them have their way, then trick them when they're not paying attention.
”
”
Christopher Paolini
β€œ
The future is there... looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become.
”
”
William Gibson (Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1))
β€œ
The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
β€œ
Strong people have a strong sense of self-worth and self-awareness; they don’t need the approval of others.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humor, giving you the thing you always wanted at the worst time possible.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Sugar Daddy (Travises, #1))
β€œ
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
β€œ
I want to see you. Know your voice. Recognize you when you first come 'round the corner. Sense your scent when I come into a room you've just left. Know the lift of your heel, the glide of your foot. Become familiar with the way you purse your lips then let them part, just the slightest bit, when I lean in to your space and kiss you. I want to know the joy of how you whisper "more
”
”
Rumi (Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi)
β€œ
It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.
”
”
John Joseph Powell (The Secret of Staying in Love)
β€œ
Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside
”
”
Sarah Dessen (Along for the Ride)
β€œ
This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.
”
”
Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending)
β€œ
Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.
”
”
Anton Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard)
β€œ
Unless you love someone, nothing else makes sense.
”
”
E.E. Cummings
β€œ
No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day. This is all practice.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)
β€œ
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
”
”
Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark)
β€œ
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Slaughterhouse-Five)
β€œ
It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.
”
”
Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility)
β€œ
When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer
β€œ
We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.
”
”
Amy Tan (The Hundred Secret Senses)
β€œ
There's something that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick.
”
”
Steven Moffat
β€œ
When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)
β€œ
Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)
β€œ
Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.
”
”
Robert Frost
β€œ
I pout my lower lip for a second, but then I grin as the pieces come together. "That's why you like me!" I exclaim. "Because you're not very nice either! It makes so much more sense now.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Insurgent (Divergent, #2))
β€œ
When you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.
”
”
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)
β€œ
You weren't able to talk sense into him?" Well, we kind of tried to kill each other in a duel to the death." I see. You tried the diplomatic approach.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #2))
β€œ
I live in my dreams β€” that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference.
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Demian. Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend)
β€œ
Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.
”
”
George Carlin
β€œ
Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, neverβ€”in nothing, great or small, large or pettyβ€”never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
”
”
Winston S. Churchill (Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches)
β€œ
It was one of those times you feel a sense of loss, even though you didn't have something in the first place. I guess that's what disappointment is- a sense of loss for something you never had.
”
”
Deb Caletti (The Nature of Jade)
β€œ
He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?” He turned back to Venkat. β€œI wonder what he’s thinking right now.” LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.
”
”
Andy Weir (The Martian)
β€œ
When I fall in love, it will be forever.
”
”
Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility: The Screenplay)
β€œ
I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.
”
”
Richard Wright (Black Boy)
β€œ
I like music," she said slowly, "because when I hear it, I . . . I lose myself within myself, if that makes any sense. I become empty and full all at once, and I can feel the whole earth roiling around me. When I play. I'm not . . . for once, I'm not destroying, I'm creating.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1))
β€œ
When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.
”
”
Maya Angelou
β€œ
I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.
”
”
Maya Angelou
β€œ
I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!
”
”
J.K. Rowling
β€œ
Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.
”
”
Ray Bradbury
β€œ
This is an important lesson to remember when you're having a bad day, a bad month, or a shitty year. Things will change: you won't feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most. I believe you can't feel real joy unless you've felt heartache. You can't have a sense of victory unless you know what it means to fail. You can't know what it's like to feel holy until you know what it's like to feel really fucking evil. And you can't be birthed again until you've died.
”
”
Kelly Cutrone (If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You)
β€œ
Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine. And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)
β€œ
I feel like my life is so scattered right now. Like it's all the small pieces of paper and someone's turned on the fan. But, talking to you makes me feel like the fan's been turned off for a little bit. Like things could actually make sense. You completely unscatter me, and I appreciate that so much.
”
”
John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)
β€œ
Lighting new cigarettes, pouring more drinks. It has been a beautiful fight. Still is.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense)
β€œ
If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.
”
”
Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility)
β€œ
We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.
”
”
Ray Bradbury
β€œ
To have Faith in Christ means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
β€œ
A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
β€œ
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
”
”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
β€œ
Laugh, even when you feel too sick or too worn out or tired. Smile, even when you're trying not to cry and the tears are blurring your vision. Sing, even when people stare at you and tell you your voice is crappy. Trust, even when your heart begs you not to. Twirl, even when your mind makes no sense of what you see. Frolick, even when you are made fun of. Kiss, even when others are watching. Sleep, even when you're afraid of what the dreams might bring. Run, even when it feels like you can't run any more. And, always, remember, even when the memories pinch your heart. Because the pain of all your experience is what makes you the person you are now. And without your experience---you are an empty page, a blank notebook, a missing lyric. What makes you brave is your willingness to live through your terrible life and hold your head up high the next day. So don't live life in fear. Because you are stronger now, after all the crap has happened, than you ever were back before it started.
”
”
Alysha Speer
β€œ
Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can't control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That's what it was like for me. I didn't plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if oyu planned on fallin gin love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has happened only once, and that's why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I'll never forget a single moment of it.
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
β€œ
Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! - an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else.
”
”
Ayn Rand
β€œ
The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does." They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World Revisited)
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bob Moorehead (Words Aptly Spoken)
β€œ
Because humans are complicated beasts, the monster said. How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour? How can an apothecary be evil-tempered but right-thinking? How can a parson be wrong-thinking but good-hearted? How can invisible men make themselves more lonely by being seen? "I don't know," Connor shrugged, exhausted. "Your stories never made any sense to me." The answer is that it does not matter what you think, the monster said, because your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day. You wanted her to go at the same time you were desperate for me to save her. Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both.
”
”
Patrick Ness (A Monster Calls)
β€œ
When Great Trees Fall When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety. When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves. And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.
”
”
Maya Angelou
β€œ
A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet "for sale", who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his "normal" contemporaries. Not rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society, rather than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man trying to adapt himself to a sick society. In the process of going further in his analysis, i.e. of growing to greater independence and productivity,his neurotic symptoms will cure themselves.
”
”
Erich Fromm (The Art of Being)
β€œ
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: β€œIt’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to." [MovieMaker Magazine #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ]
”
”
Jim Jarmusch
β€œ
Get Off The Scale! You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable. Day after day, countless people across the globe get on a scale in search of validation of beauty and social acceptance. Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life. It’s true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That’s it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don’t give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β€œ
Vhat ozzer abilities do you haf?" ter Borcht snapped, which his assistant waited, pen in hand. Gazzy thought. "I have X-ray vision," he said. He peered at ter Borcht's chest, then blinked and looked alarmed. Ter Borcht was startled for a second, but then he frowned. "Don't write dat down," he told his assistant in irritation. The assistant froze in midsentence. "You. Do you haf any qualities dat distinguish you in any way?" Nudge chewed on a fingernail. "You mean, like, besides the WINGS?" She shook her shoulders gently, and her beautiful fawn-colored wings unfolded a bit. His face flushed, and I felt like cheering. "Yes," he said stiffly. "Besides de vings." "Hmm. Besides de vings." Nudge tapped one finger against her chin. "Um..." Her face brightened. "I once ate nine Snickers bars in one sitting. Without barfing. That was a record!" "Hardly a special talent," ter Borcht said witheringly. Nudge was offended. "Yeah? Let's see YOU do it." ... "I vill now eat nine Snickers bars," Gazzy said in a perfect, creepy imitation of ter Borcht's voice, "visout bahfing." Iggy rubbed his forehead with one hand. "Well, I have a highly developed sense of irony." Ter Borcht tsked. "You are a liability to your group. I assume you alvays hold on to someone's shirt, yes? Following dem closely?" "Only when I'm trying to steal their dessert" ...Fang pretended to think, gazing up at the ceiling. "Besides my fashion sense? I play a mean harmonica." "I vill now destroy de Snickuhs bahrs!" Gazzy barked.
”
”
James Patterson
β€œ
I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is ... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman (The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman)
β€œ
Nothing on this planet can compare with a woman’s loveβ€”it is kind and compassionate, patient and nurturing, generous and sweet and unconditional. Pure. If you are her man, she will walk on water and through a mountain for you, too, no matter how you’ve acted out, no matter what crazy thing you’ve done, no matter the time or demand. If you are her man, she will talk to you until there just aren’t any more words left to say, encourage you when you’re at rock bottom and think there just isn’t any way out, hold you in her arms when you’re sick, and laugh with you when you’re up. And if you’re her man and that woman loves youβ€”I mean really loves you?β€”she will shine you up when you’re dusty, encourage you when you’re down, defend you even when she’s not so sure you were right, and hang on your every word, even when you’re not saying anything worth listening to. And no matter what you do, no matter how many times her friends say you’re no good, no matter how many times you slam the door on the relationship, she will give you her very best and then some, and keep right on trying to win over your heart, even when you act like everything she’s done to convince you she’s The One just isn’t good enough. That’s a woman’s loveβ€”it stands the test of time, logic, and all circumstance.
”
”
Steve Harvey (Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment)