Smoking Motivational Quotes

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Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, but in fact it is the very source of our creativity. As Kafka said, “The meaning of life is that it ends.” Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory)
Woe betides anyone getting in the way of people that keep on muddying the waters, throwing up smoke screens and clouding issues, so as to conceal their dubious motivations. ("Could the milkman be the devil?")
Erik Pevernagie
As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better.
Laini Taylor (Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #2))
Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create. Philosophers have proclaimed this for thousands of years just as vehemently as we insist upon ignoring it generation after generation.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory)
Baby, it's all just smoke and mirrors, Since you left me in choke and shivers. Baby, it's all just crashing down, Since you let me down. Baby, it's all just wanting you around, Since you turned swound. Baby, it's all just hopeless, Since you went headless.
Hareem Ch (Muse Buzz)
People are crazy about food, smoking, drinking, girls but not about their dreams.
Amit Kalantri
A man worth being with is one… That never lies to you Is kind to people that have hurt him A person that respects another’s life That has manners and shows people respect That goes out of his way to help people That feels every person, no matter how difficult, deserves compassion Who believes you are the most beautiful person he has ever met Who brags about your accomplishments with pride Who talks to you about anything and everything because no bad news will make him love you less That is a peacemaker That will see you through illness Who keeps his promises Who doesn’t blame others, but finds the good in them That raises you up and motivates you to reach for the stars That doesn’t need fame, money or anything materialistic to be happy That is gentle and patient with children Who won’t let you lie to yourself; he tells you what you need to hear, in order to help you grow Who lives what he says he believes in Who doesn’t hold a grudge or hold onto the past Who doesn’t ask his family members to deliberately hurt people that have hurt him Who will run with your dreams That makes you laugh at the world and yourself Who forgives and is quick to apologize Who doesn’t betray you by having inappropriate conversations with other women Who doesn’t react when he is angry, decides when he is sad or keep promises he doesn’t plan to keep Who takes his children’s spiritual life very seriously and teaches by example Who never seeks revenge or would ever put another person down Who communicates to solve problems Who doesn’t play games or passive aggressively ignores people to hurt them Who is real and doesn’t pretend to be something he is not Who has the power to free you from yourself through his positive outlook Who has a deep respect for women and treats them like a daughter of God Who doesn’t have an ego or believes he is better than anyone Who is labeled constantly by people as the nicest person they have ever met Who works hard to provide for the family Who doesn’t feel the need to drink alcohol to have a good time, smoke or do drugs Who doesn't have to hang out a bar with his friends, but would rather spend his time with his family Who is morally free from sin Who sees your potential to be great Who doesn't think a woman's place has to be in the home; he supports your life mission, where ever that takes you Who is a gentleman Who is honest and lives with integrity Who never discusses your private business with anyone Who will protect his family Who forgives, forgets, repairs and restores When you find a man that possesses these traits then all the little things you don’t have in common don’t matter. This is the type of man worth being grateful for.
Shannon L. Alder
Before he could lose courage he flung himself back and slammed his sleep-inducer to full theta.
James Tiptree Jr. (Her Smoke Rose Up Forever)
When a stranger on the street makes a sexual comment, he is making a private assessment of me public. And though I’ve never been seriously worried that I would be attacked, it does make me feel unguarded, unprotected. Regardless of his motive, the stranger on the street makes an assumption based on my physique: He presumes I might be receptive to his unpoetic, unsolicited comments. (Would he allow a friend to say “Nice tits” to his mother? His sister? His daughter?) And although I should know better, I, too, equate my body with my soul and the result, at least sometimes, is a deep shame of both. Rape is a thousand times worse: The ultimate theft of self-control, it often leads to a breakdown in the victim’s sense of self-worth. Girls who are molested, for instance, often go on to engage in risky behavior—having intercourse at an early age, not using contraception, smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. This behavior, it seems to me, is at least in part because their self-perception as autonomous, worthy human beings in control of their environment has been taken from them.
Leora Tanenbaum (Slut!: Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation)
One, just one, but definitely one of the great benefits of private prayer is that you can’t hide from your motives. In corporate prayer, we can sound like “all that”. We can blow Jesus smoke like nobody’s bizness in a crowd but, get alone with Him, and He won’t let you get away with the fake stuff. Try blowing Jesus smoke in your prayer closet and you’ll cough on it every time. Truth? That penetrating gaze of His hurts, but afterwards, it never fails to heal.
Shellie Rushing Tomlinson
Some lessons you learn gradually and some you learn in a sudden moment, like a flash going off in a dark room. I sift and rake and dig around in my vivid recollections of young Sean on the floor in summer, and I try to see what makes him tick, but I know a secret about young Sean, I guess, that he kind of ends up telling the world: nothing makes him tick. It just happens all by itself, tick tick tick tick tick, without any proximal cause, with nothing underneath it. He is like a jellyfish adrift in the sea, throbbing quietly in the warm waves of the surf just off the highway where the dusty white vans with smoked windows and indistinct decals near their wheel hubs roll innocently past.
John Darnielle (Wolf in White Van)
It began when they come took me from my home And put me in Dead Row, Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know. And I'll say it again I..am..not..afraid..to..die. And the mercy seat is waiting And I think my head is burning And in a way I'm yearning To be done with all this measuring of truth. An eye for an eye A tooth for a tooth And anyway I told the truth And I'm not afraid to die. And the mercy seat is burning And I think my head is glowing And in a way I'm hoping To be done with all this weighing up of truth. An eye for an eye And a tooth for a tooth And I've got nothing left to lose And I'm not afraid to die. And the mercy seat is glowing And I think my head is smoking And in a way I'm hoping To be done with all this looks of disbelief. An eye for an eye And a tooth for a tooth And anyway there was no proof Nor a motive why. And the mercy seat is waiting And I think my head is burning And in a way I'm yearning To be done with all this measuring of truth. An eye for an eye And a truth for a truth And anyway I told the truth But I'm afraid I told a lie.
Charles Bukowski
As Kafka said, “The meaning of life is that it ends.” Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory)
Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, but in fact it is the very source of our creativity. As Kafka said, "That meaning of life is that it ends." Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love and create.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory)
Here’s the powerful part: there are many different ways to address the same underlying motive. One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run. Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use. Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones)
Suppose ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’ are just other universes.” “Just other universes,” Eliza repeated, smiling. “And the Big Bang was just an explosion.” Dr. Chaudhary chuckled. “Is another universe bigger or smaller than the idea of God? Does it matter? If there is a sphere where ‘angels’ dwell, is it a matter of semantics, whether we choose to call it Heaven?” “No,” Eliza replied, swiftly and firmly, a bit to her own surprise. “It isn’t a matter of semantics. It’s a matter of motive.” “I beg your pardon?” Dr. Chaudhary gave her a quizzical look. Something in Eliza’s tone had hardened. “What do they want?” she asked. “I think that’s the bigger question. They came from somewhere.” There is another universe. “And if that somewhere has nothing to do with ‘God’ ”—It doesn’t.—“then they’re acting on their own behalf. And that’s scary.
Laini Taylor (Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #3))
Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create....The great achievements of humanity were born out of the deadlines imposed by death...if he lived forever , chances are he would be rendered boring, listless, and unmotivated, robbed of life’s richness, by dull routine.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory)
Recall what used to be the theme of poetry in the romantic era. In neat verses the poet lets us share his private, bourgeois emotions: his sufferings great and small, his nostalgias, his religious or political pre-occupations, and, if he were English, his pipe-smoking reveries. On occasions, individual genius allowed a more subtle emanation to envelope the human nucleus of the poem - as we find in Baudelaire for example. But this splendour was a by-product. All the poet wished was to be a human being. When he writes, I believe today's poet simply wishes to be a poet.
José Ortega y Gasset (The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays on Art, Culture and Literature)
How it must pain God when He frees us from slavery, whether it be to food, alcohol, overspending, smoking, binging, purging . . . whatever our stronghold is, only to find us returning to it once again, hoping to find tranquility—excusing the struggle we have with our weakness so we can worship and cling to the calf once again.
Candace Cameron Bure (Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness)
The meaning of life is that it ends.” Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory)
because the cigarette or spliff was an indispensable technology, a substitute for speech in social situations, a way to occupy the mouth and hands when alone, a deep breathing technique that rendered exhalation material, a way to measure and/or pass the time. More important than the easily satisfiable addiction, what the little cylinders provided me was a prefabricated motivation and transition, a way to approach or depart from a group of people or a topic, enter or exit a room, conjoin or punctuate a sentence. The hardest part of quitting would be the loss of narrative function; it would be like removing telephones or newspapers from the movies of Hollywood’s Golden Age; there would be no possible link between scenes, no way to circulate information or close distance, and when I imagined quitting smoking, I imagined “settling down,” not because I associated quitting with a more mature self-care, but because I couldn’t imagine moving through an array of social spaces without the cigarette as bridge or exit strategy.
Ben Lerner (Leaving the Atocha Station)
The problem, David, is your cynicism only runs one direction. If somebody comes on TV and says everything is great and wonderful, you don’t believe it, you say they’re blowing smoke up your butt. You demand proof. But if one second later, some guy comes on and says everything is falling apart, you automatically believe it, no questions asked. If those people had told you that this mine monster situation was no big deal and that we should just go home, you wouldn’t have believed them, not for a second. But the moment they said it was a Class G apocalypse, you were on board. As if nobody ever has motivation to tell you things are worse than they really are. And you know for a fact that’s not true! Nothing controls people like fear.
David Wong (What the Hell Did I Just Read (John Dies at the End, #3))
A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice—we win, or we perish! They won.
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich (Start Motivational Books))
Smoking eats.. YOU.
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Guru with Guitar)
You are not smoking cigarette, it's cigarette that is smoking you.
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Guru with Guitar)
Fires! Fires everywhere! Surrounding me, the smoke and glare! I breathe it in day after day. Send rain! Please wash it all away! God sighs, “Oh, now you choose to pray?
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
I’m not worried about that. Aidan loves Sam, and a man can do great things when he’s motivated by love.”               Maggie
Lauren Gilley (Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor, #4))
For one more time, he decided to give away smoking. And then, she happened one more time in his head.
Nishikant (The Papery Onions)
Some people emit negative fumes, while others vibrate POSITIVE ENERGY. Stay close to the Positive ones; otherwise you will be smoked to death.-RVM
inspirational Motivational
Hamilton and others suggest we might consider inactivity as a serious health hazard, on a par with smoking when it comes to health risks. He
Michelle Segar (No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness)
Consider with thyself; as the rain is more than the drops, and as the fire is greater than the smoke; but the drops and the smoke remain behind: so the quantity which is past did more exceed.
COMPTON GAGE
Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, but in fact it is the very source of our creativity. As Kafka said, “The meaning of life is that it ends.” Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create. Philosophers have proclaimed this for thousands of years just as vehemently as we insist upon ignoring it generation after generation.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory)
Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, bit in fact it is the very source of our creativity. As Kafka said, "The meaning of life is that it ends." Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory)
When you’ve invested a lot of time in being accessible and keeping up with what’s happening, it’s easy to conclude that it all has a certain value, even if what you have done might not be important. This is called rationalization. The New York Review of Books labeled the battle between producers of apps “the new opium wars,” and the paper claims that “marketers have adopted addiction as an explicit commercial strategy.” The only difference is that the pushers aren’t peddling a product that can be smoked in a pipe, but rather is ingested via sugar-coated apps. In a way, silence is the opposition to all of this. It’s about getting inside what you are doing. Experiencing rather than overthinking. Allowing each moment to be big enough. Not living through other people and other things. Shutting out the world and fashioning your own silence whenever you run, cook food, have sex, study, chat, work, think of a new idea, read or dance.
Erling Kagge (Stillhet i støyens tid. Gleden ved å stenge verden ute)
As Christians we face two tasks in our evangelism: saving the soul and saving the mind, that is to say, not only converting people spiritually, but converting them intellectually as well. And the Church is lagging dangerously behind with regard to this second task. If the church loses the intellectual battle in one generation, then evangelism will become immeasurably more difficult in the next. The war is not yet lost, and it is one which we must not lose: souls of men and women hang in the balance. For the sake of greater effectiveness in witnessing to Jesus Christ Himself, as well as for their own sakes, evangelicals cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual existence. Thinking about your faith is indeed a virtue, for it helps you to better understand and defend your faith. But thinking about your faith is not equivalent to doubting your faith. Doubt is never a purely intellectual problem. There is a spiritual dimension to the problem that must be recognized. Never lose sight of the fact that you are involved in spiritual warfare and there is an enemy of your soul who hates you intensely, whose goal is your destruction, and who will stop at nothing to destroy you. Reason can be used to defend our faith by formulating arguments for the existence of God or by refuting objections. But though the arguments so developed serve to confirm the truth of our faith, they are not properly the basis of our faith, for that is supplied by the witness of the Holy Spirit Himself. Even if there were no arguments in defense of the faith, our faith would still have its firm foundation. The more I learn, the more desperately ignorant I feel. Further study only serves to open up to one's consciousness all the endless vistas of knowledge, even in one's own field, about which one knows absolutely nothing. Don't let your doubts just sit there: pursue them and keep after them until you drive them into the ground. We should be cautious, indeed, about thinking that we have come upon the decisive disproof of our faith. It is pretty unlikely that we have found the irrefutable objection. The history of philosophy is littered with the wrecks of such objections. Given the confidence that the Holy Spirit inspires, we should esteem lightly the arguments and objections that generate our doubts. These, then, are some of the obstacles to answered prayer: sin in our lives, wrong motives, lack of faith, lack of earnestness, lack of perseverance, lack of accordance with God’s will. If any of those obstacles hinders our prayers, then we cannot claim with confidence Jesus’ promise, “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it”. And so I was led to what was for me a radical new insight into the will of God, namely, that God’s will for our lives can include failure. In other words, God’s will may be that you fail, and He may lead you into failure! For there are things that God has to teach you through failure that He could never teach you through success. So many in our day seem to have been distracted from what was, is and always will be the true priority for every human being — that is, learning to know God in Christ. My greatest fear is that I should some day stand before the Lord and see all my works go up in smoke like so much “wood, hay, and stubble”. The chief purpose of life is not happiness, but knowledge of God. People tend naturally to assume that if God exists, then His purpose for human life is happiness in this life. God’s role is to provide a comfortable environment for His human pets. But on the Christian view, this is false. We are not God’s pets, and the goal of human life is not happiness per se, but the knowledge of God—which in the end will bring true and everlasting human fulfilment. Many evils occur in life which may be utterly pointless with respect to the goal of producing human happiness; but they may not be pointless with respect to producing a deeper knowledge of God.
William Lane Craig (Hard Questions, Real Answers)
Does he smoke marijuana?” I asked, aware that marijuana’s mind expansion properties are the motive behind the government’s adamant opposition to the herb. Since it can render mind control uncontrollable by penetrating memory compartmentalization, marijuana use is strictly forbidden in the military, special forces, among spies, etc.
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
Nobody must question your right to smoke, but I've right, too, not to inhale your smoke. First of all, health abuse is not a right; use of right ought to lead to life, not blight. You have right to party with unchecked noise, but I've right, too, not be pained by your noise. In short, a right can't be claimed as a right, if it violates other people's right.
Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol
One person looks around and see a universe created by a God who watches over its long unfurling, marking the fall of sparrows and listening to the prayers of his finest creation. Another person believes that life, in all its baroque complexity, is a chemical aberration that will briefly decorate the surface of a ball of rock spinning somewhere among a billion galaxies. And the two of them could talk for hours and find no greater difference between each other, for neither set of beliefs makes us kinder or wiser. William the Bastard forcing Harold to swear over the bones of Saint Jerome, the Church of Rome rent asunder by the King's Great Matter, the twin towers folding into smoke. Religion fueling the turns and reverses of human history, or so it seems, but twist them all to catch a different light and those same passionate beliefs seem no more than banners thrown up to hide the usual engines of greed and fear. And in our single lives? Those smaller turns and reverses? Is it religion which trammels and frees, which gives or withholds hope? Or are these, too, those old base motives dressed up for a Sunday morning? Are they reasons or excuses?
Mark Haddon (The Red House)
In “My Adventures in the Ozone Layer,” he cast the scientific community as dominated by self-interest. “It’s not difficult to understand some of the motivations behind the drive to regulate CFCs out of existence,” he wrote. “For scientists: prestige, more grants for research, press conferences, and newspaper stories. Also the feeling that maybe they are saving the world for future generations.”69 (As if saving the world would be a bad thing!)
Naomi Oreskes (Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming)
fact, the vast majority of weekly churchgoers are socially well-adjusted and successful across a broad range of outcomes. Compared to their secular counterparts, religious people tend to smoke less,16 donate and volunteer more,17 have more social connections,18 get and stay married more,19 and have more kids.20 They also live longer,21 earn more money,22 experience less depression,23 and report greater happiness and fulfillment in their lives.24
Kevin Simler (The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life)
If we are at war with Covid 19 (Corona Virus) . In war there must be casualties and collateral damages. Drink, smoke, loot, visit friends, go outside , go to parties, events, funerals, church and clubs at your own risk. Be ignorant, don't wash your hands and gather in groups at your own risk. You might become the percentage of casualty or just be safe , stay home and practice social distance. We can defeat the virus, but as for how long will it take.It is up to you.
D.J. Kyos
People knit for their own reasons, but some of the most intense knitters I know are the ones who used it to help them quit smoking. It’s a perfect plan, really; knitting keeps your hands busy, and it is relaxing and repetitive enough to hold off most of the urges to smoke. You get to spend your cigarette money on yarn, a powerful motivator, and two weeks after you quit you have four sweaters, three hats, and several really big afghans. Knitting can be a useful tool for self-improvement.
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much)
motivation for not eating meat and dairy is to maintain optimal health, not to rid myself of the obsession and compulsion that are the hallmark of addiction. If obsession and compulsion are the issue—smoking cigarettes, not being able to stop texting your toxic ex, self-harm—and you want to get past it, you need a Bright Line. If health is your objective, there is no evidence that perfect is better than “really good.” Seriously. You can comply with a health goal 95 percent of the time, and it will benefit you as much as 100 percent perfection.
Susan Peirce Thompson (Bright Line Eating: The Science of Living Happy, Thin and Free)
Taxes are often higher when price-sensitivity is low. For example, the government charges high taxes on petrol and cigarettes, not for environmental and health reasons but because people who buy these products need to drive and are addicted to smoking; they won’t change their behaviour much even in the face of large taxes. (If you think that taxes on petrol are motivated by environmental concerns, think again: despite the environmental impacts of air travel, electricity and domestic heating, 90 per cent of all ‘environmental’ taxes in the UK in 2009 were paid by motorists.)
Tim Harford (The Undercover Economist)
When we penetrate the smokescreen of controversies regarding false accusations, ‘recovered memories’, ‘recanters’, references to ‘satanic ritual abuse’ and the incorporation of elements of cultural myths into some accounts, we are left with the reality that in the vast majority of cases it is not the over-reporting or exaggeration of trauma that is the principal problem. Rather it is society’s unwillingness to know, the perpetrators’ strongly motivated efforts to hide their criminal acts, and the relative ease they are often afforded by societal institutions and practices in doing so. - The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Viewpoint)
Warwick Middleton
The people who actually consumed the roasted flesh were not the dead person’s closest blood relatives, such as wives or children. That honor—and it was indeed an honor—went to chosen people who were like blood to the deceased: in-laws, extended relatives, and community members, known as affines. None of the affines were vengeful, flesh-hungry savages, desperate for the taste of grilled human, and neither were they after the protein the human flesh provided—both common motives ascribed to cannibals. In fact, the corpse, which had been laid out over several days in the warm, humid climate of the Amazon rain forest, was often well into various stages of decomposition. Eating the flesh would have been a smelly, foul experience. The affines often had to excuse themselves to vomit before returning to eat again.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory)
And in many other cities which for him were all identical - hotel, taxi. a hall in a cafe or club. These cities, these regular rows of blurry lamps marching past and suddenly advancing and encircling a stone horse in a square, were as much a habitual and unnecessary integument as the wooden pieces and the black and white board, and he accepted this external life as something inevitable but completely uninteresting. Similarly, in his way of dressing and in the manner of his everyday life, he was prompted by extremely dim motives, stopping to think about nothing, rarely changing his linens, automatically winding his watch at night, shaving with the same safety blade until it ceased to cut altogether, and feeding haphazardly and plainly. From some kind of melancholy inertia he continued to order at dinner the same mineral water, which effervesced slightly in the sinuses and evoked a tickling sensation in the corner of his eyes, like tears for the vanished Valentinov. Only rarely did he notice his own existence, when for example lack of breath - the revenge of a heavy body - forced him to halt with open mouth on a staircase, or when he had a toothache, or when at a late hour during his chess cogitations an outstretched hand shaking a matchbox failed to evoke in it the rattle of matches, and the cigarette that seemed to have been thrust unnoticed into his mouth by someone else suddenly grew and asserted itself, solid, soulless, and static, and his whole life became concentrated in the single desire to smoke, although goodness knows how many cigarettes had already been unconsciously consumed, In general, life around him was so opaque and demanded so little effort of him that it sometimes seemed someone - a mysterious, invisible manager - continued to take him from tournament to tournament; but occasionally there were odd moments, such quietness all around, and when you looked out into the corridor - shoes, shoes, shoes, standing at all the door, and in your ears the roar of loneliness.
Vladimir Nabokov (The Luzhin Defense)
A sudden yowl from up ahead had them all starting. A small tree smoked on one side, the faint glow of fire darting from a burning patch of dead foliage. The yowl came again. Matt hurried over and peered up the tree to see a calico cat, its green eyes staring down, as if in accusation. "No," Reyna said, stopping beside him. "We are not rescuing the cat." "But the tree -" "- is on fire. I see that. Have you ever owned a cat? If they can go up, they can come down. Guaranteed." Matt eyed the feline. It eyed him back, then yowled, as if to say Well, hurry it up. "It might be too scared to come down," he said. "It's a cat," Reyna said. "They don't get scared - just annoyed, which I'm going to get if you insist on playing hero and rescuing that faker." She scowled at the cat. "Yes, I mean you. Faker." The cat sniffed, then turned to Matt, clearly sensing the softer touch. Owen stepped forward. "If you'll feel better rescuing the cat, Matt, then go ahead. We aren't on a tight schedule." Reyna waved her arms around the smoking street. "Um, Ragnarök?" "And the longer you two bicker ..." "Fine," Reyna said. "I've got this." Before Matt could protest, she walked to the base of the tree, grabbed the lowest branch, and swung up. "Rodeo girl, remember? Also, five years of gymnastics, which my mother thought would make me more graceful and feminine. Her mistake." She shimmied along a branch. "Come on, faker. I'm your designated hero for today." She looked down at Matt. "And if you ever tell anyone I rescued a cat from a tree ..." Before Matt could answer, the cat sprang to the ground. "Arggh!" Reyna said. "You scared him out," Matt said. "He just needed the extra motivation. No, wait. It's a she. Calicos are almost always female." "Are they? Huh." Reyna swung out. The cat sat on the ground below, watching. "See?" Matt said. "She's grateful." "She's gloating. Let's go.
K.L. Armstrong (Thor's Serpents (The Blackwell Pages #3))
Creating “Correct” Children in the Classroom One of the most popular discipline programs in American schools is called Assertive Discipline. It teaches teachers to inflict the old “obey or suffer” method of control on students. Here you disguise the threat of punishment by calling it a choice the child is making. As in, “You have a choice, you can either finish your homework or miss the outing this weekend.” Then when the child chooses to try to protect his dignity against this form of terrorism, by refusing to do his homework, you tell him he has chosen his logical, natural consequence of being excluded from the outing. Putting it this way helps the parent or teacher mitigate against the bad feelings and guilt that would otherwise arise to tell the adult that they are operating outside the principles of compassionate relating. This insidious method is even worse than outand-out punishing, where you can at least rebel against your punisher. The use of this mind game teaches the child the false, crazy-making belief that they wanted something bad or painful to happen to them. These programs also have the stated intention of getting the child to be angry with himself for making a poor choice. In this smoke and mirrors game, the children are “causing” everything to happen and the teachers are the puppets of the children’s choices. The only ones who are not taking responsibility for their actions are the adults. Another popular coercive strategy is to use “peer pressure” to create compliance. For instance, a teacher tells her class that if anyone misbehaves then they all won’t get their pizza party. What a great way to turn children against each other. All this is done to help (translation: compel) children to behave themselves. But of course they are not behaving themselves: they are being “behaved” by the adults. Well-meaning teachers and parents try to teach children to be motivated (translation: do boring or aversive stuff without questioning why), responsible (translation: thoughtless conformity to the house rules) people. When surveys are conducted in which fourth-graders are asked what being good means, over 90% answer “being quiet.” And when teachers are asked what happens in a successful classroom, the answer is, “the teacher is able to keep the students on task” (translation: in line, doing what they are told). Consulting firms measuring teacher competence consider this a major criterion of teacher effectiveness. In other words if the students are quietly doing what they were told the teacher is evaluated as good. However my understanding of ‘real learning’ with twenty to forty children is that it is quite naturally a bit noisy and messy. Otherwise children are just playing a nice game of school, based on indoctrination and little integrated retained education. Both punishments and rewards foster a preoccupation with a narrow egocentric self-interest that undermines good values. All little Johnny is thinking about is “How much will you give me if I do X? How can I avoid getting punished if I do Y? What do they want me to do and what happens to me if I don’t do it?” Instead we could teach him to ask, “What kind of person do I want to be and what kind of community do I want to help make?” And Mom is thinking “You didn’t do what I wanted, so now I’m going to make something unpleasant happen to you, for your own good to help you fit into our (dominance/submission based) society.” This contributes to a culture of coercion and prevents a community of compassion. And as we are learning on the global level with our war on terrorism, as you use your energy and resources to punish people you run out of energy and resources to protect people. And even if children look well-behaved, they are not behaving themselves They are being behaved by controlling parents and teachers.
Kelly Bryson (Don't Be Nice, Be Real: Balancing Passion for Self with Compassion for Others)
Look back at history. Look at any great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn't they all preach the sacrifice of personal joy? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven't they all had a single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? Haven't you been able to catch their theme song — 'Give up, give up, give up, give up'? Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy — and you've damned it. That's how far we've come. We've tied happiness to guilt. And we've got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born into a sacrificial furnace — lie on a bed of nails — go into the desert to mortify the flesh — don't dance — don't go to the movies on Sunday — don't try to get rich — don't smoke — don't drink. It's all the same line. The great line. Fools think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, old-fashioned. But there's always a purpose in nonsense. Don't bother to examine a folly — ask yourself only what it accomplishes. Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people that they'll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don't have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. 'Universal Harmony' — 'Eternal Spirit' — 'Divine Purpose' — 'Nirvana' — 'Paradise' — 'Racial Supremacy' — 'The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.' Internal corruption, Peter. That's the oldest one of all. The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it. Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice — run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. But if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it's your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself — that will be the man who's not after your soul. That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him come and you'll scream your empty heads off, howling that he's a selfish monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries.
Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
In the uncertain hour before the morning Near the ending of interminable night At the recurrent end of the unending After the dark dove with the flickering tongue Had passed below the horizon of his homing While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin Over the asphalt where no other sound was Between three districts whence the smoke arose I met one walking, loitering and hurried As if blown towards me like the metal leaves Before the urban dawn wind unresisting. And as I fixed upon the down-turned face That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge The first-met stranger in the waning dusk I caught the sudden look of some dead master Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled Both one and many; in the brown baked features The eyes of a familiar compound ghost Both intimate and unidentifiable. So I assumed a double part, and cried And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are you here?' Although we were not. I was still the same, Knowing myself yet being someone other— And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed To compel the recognition they preceded. And so, compliant to the common wind, Too strange to each other for misunderstanding, In concord at this intersection time Of meeting nowhere, no before and after, We trod the pavement in a dead patrol. I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy, Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak: I may not comprehend, may not remember.' And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten. These things have served their purpose: let them be. So with your own, and pray they be forgiven By others, as I pray you to forgive Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail. For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. But, as the passage now presents no hindrance To the spirit unappeased and peregrine Between two worlds become much like each other, So I find words I never thought to speak In streets I never thought I should revisit When I left my body on a distant shore. Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us To purify the dialect of the tribe And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight, Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort. First, the cold friction of expiring sense Without enchantment, offering no promise But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit As body and soul begin to fall asunder. Second, the conscious impotence of rage At human folly, and the laceration Of laughter at what ceases to amuse. And last, the rending pain of re-enactment Of all that you have done, and been; the shame Of motives late revealed, and the awareness Of things ill done and done to others' harm Which once you took for exercise of virtue. Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains. From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.' The day was breaking. In the disfigured street He left me, with a kind of valediction, And faded on the blowing of the horn. -T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding
T.S. Eliot
When He Needs Freedom from Destructive Behavior Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. EPHESIANS 6:10-11 IT’S DIFFICULT FOR A WIFE to see her husband exhibit any kind of destructive behavior. In watching him doing something repeatedly that hurts his health or jeopardizes their family, she sees her future going over a cliff. There can be such terrible consequences for his behavior that it could ruin them financially, as well as destroy him physically or mentally. Whether it is drinking alcohol, taking drugs, gambling, smoking, reckless eating habits, or whatever else she observes her husband doing that could destroy him or endanger her or their children, it can be so heartbreaking to her that she cannot live with it. Every woman has to decide what she can and cannot tolerate. Life is hard enough without your husband finding ways to make it worse. And she must decide how much she can allow her children to witness before it seriously affects them too. You may not see behavior as seriously destructive as that in your husband, but perhaps he is taking unnecessary chances with his safety, such as driving too fast, or riding a motorcycle without a helmet, or being careless with dangerous machinery or equipment, or refusing to see a doctor when he should, or not following the doctor’s orders and thereby jeopardizing his health. There is only so much you can say or do to try to motivate your husband to stop destructive behavior if he is intent on doing it. But God can do miracles when you fervently pray to Him about it. He hears your prayers, and He wants your husband to be free as much as you do. Your prayers can help your husband open his eyes to see the truth. Your prayers can help him to understand how to put on the whole armor of God so he can stand against these plans of the enemy for his destruction. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray You would set my husband free from any destructive behavior he has acquired. Wake him up to the folly of his ways and show him when he is being foolish. Break the chains that bind him and open his blind eyes. Strengthen him where his weakness controls him. Enable him to see when the enemy has erected a stronghold in his life. Help him to understand how his behavior affects me and our children, as well as other family members, coworkers, and friends. Tell me what I can do to help make this situation better. I know I cannot change him, and I am unable to make anything happen. Only You can open his eyes, deliver him, and set him free from destructive behavior. I know foolish actions are not Your will for his life, and there is a big price to pay for everything that is not Your will. I pray that neither I nor my children will have to pay any price for his careless behavior. Whatever the reason he appears to have little regard for me, our children, or himself by continuing any reckless behavior, I pray You would deliver him from it completely. You are greater and more powerful than whatever draws him away from Your best. I trust You to set him free to be all You made him to be. In Jesus’ name I pray.
Stormie Omartian (The Power of a Praying Wife Devotional)
This could be one reason that paying people to stop smoking often works in the short run. It replaces one (dangerous) addiction with another (more benign) one.
Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
Likewise, several studies show that paying people to exercise, stop smoking, or take their medicines produces terrific results at first—but the healthy behavior disappears once the incentives are removed.
Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
What drives Icarium to fight?" "When under control, it is... inequity. Injustice." "And when out of control?" "Then... nothing." "And the difference between the two is one of magnitude." "And of motivation." "Are you sure? Even if inequity, in triggering his violence, then ascends, crossing no obvious threshold, into all-destroying annihilation? Mappo Trell, I believe motivations prove, ultimately, insignificant. Slaughter is slaughter. Upon either side of the battlefield the face grins with blunt stupidity, even as smoke fills the sky from horizon to horizon, even as crops wither and die, even as sweet land turns to salt. Inequity ends, Trell, when no-one and nothing is left standing.
Steven Erikson (The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #6))
Life is as uneventful as looking up right now and staring at your space. How dare men advise courage! It’s imagination we need. Our battlefield is not one of swords and smoke, but of quietness and boredom. If you attempt something extraordinary, it is by Latin prefix, ‘extra’, and no one will understand that part until it happens. And oftentimes, you can’t defeat the quiet with muscle, strength, or toughness, because the thing you are holding is too fragile and could therefore be consequently lost by your tight grip. You must therefore work the other muscle: faith
Kristian Ventura (The Goodbye Song)
Motivational interviewing has been the subject of more than a thousand controlled trials; a bibliography that simply lists them runs sixty-seven pages. It’s been used effectively by health professionals to help people stop smoking, abusing drugs and alcohol, gambling, and having unsafe sex, as well as to improve their diets and exercise habits, overcome eating disorders, and lose weight.
Adam M. Grant (Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know)
habit: a cue, or something that triggers us to perform a routine, so that we may receive a reward. For example: You smell cigarette smoke (the cue), you reach for a cigarette and light it up (the routine), and you get a nicotine buzz (the reward). Duhigg asserts that we don’t really break habits; rather we change out the routine from existing habit loops. In other words, when we are trying to extinguish a habit, the cue remains and the reward remains, we just change out the middle part. In the case of cigarette smoking, you still have the same cues (stress, the smell of smoke, seeing people inhale). The difference is what you do with those cues. Maybe you go for a run, or make a pot of coffee, or do some breathing exercises instead. Whatever it is, the new, healthier routine needs to provide a similar reward so you are motivated to replicate it in the future.
Holly Whitaker (Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol)
LINKLETTER: Another big difference between alcohol and marijuana is that when people smoke marijuana, they smoke it to get high. When most people drink, they drink to be sociable. NIXON: A person does not drink to get drunk. LINKLETTER: That’s right. NIXON: A person drinks to have fun. This being Nixon, the conversation soon turned racist, with Linkletter in parrot mode: NIXON: Asia, the Middle East, portions of Latin America . . . I’ve seen what drugs have done to those countries. Everybody knows what it’s done to the Chinese. The Indians are hopeless anyway. The Burmese— LINKLETTER: That’s right. NIXON: Why are the Communists so hard on drugs? It’s because they love to booze. I mean, the Russians, they drink pretty good. LINKLETTER: That’s right. NIXON: The Swedes drink too much, the Finns drink too, the British have always been heavy boozers, and the Irish, of course, the most, but on the other hand, they survive as strong races. LINKLETTER: That’s right. NIXON: At least with liquor, I don’t lose motivation.
Rick Emerson (Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries)
Here’s the powerful part: there are many different ways to address the same underlying motive. One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run. Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use.
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
True Beauty is not attracting the wrong kind of attention from others True Beauty is not dressing like a man, smoking like a man, or fighting like a man.
Shaila Touchton
If you burn pure rice, pure cow ghee with the proper mantras and do the agnihotram with that pure organic desi cow dung cake, that smoke, air, can keep you hunger-free, fully charged. All your internal organs active, at least for 8 hours.
Paramahamsa Nithyananda
without craving a change—we have no reason to act. What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers. You do not crave smoking a cigarette, you crave the feeling of relief it provides. You are not motivated by brushing your teeth but rather by the feeling of a clean mouth.
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
Parasites means that which does not have its own independent life, but gets empowered, comes alive by the nearness or the existence sitting on you willingly or unwillingly. Whether you like it or not, it catches, it sits in you and gets empowered. Your muscle memories have parasites. The parasites sitting in your muscle memory is responsible for all your addictions and tiredness.These parasite can just trigger you, it can trigger the muscle memory of certain food or certain drug, alcohol, smoking, marijuana; it can trigger any of these memories and force you to consume them again. Addictions related to eating, drugs, sex, pornography or any type of addictions, is because of the parasites sitting in your muscle memory.
Paramahamsa Nithyananda
A tea or a cigarette is never just a sip or a smoke, every time you sip a tea, same patterns are cherished, every time you smoke, same patterns getting cherished. If you are addicted, you will know, look in, every time with those activities, you will have the same patterns. Even shower, every time when you stand under the shower, same patterns. I am telling you, if seeking becomes your first response team, you will break tons and tons of patterns, just an ordinary sipping a cup of tea can lead you to Enlightenment.
Nithyananda Paramahamsaa Paramahamsa
Habit formation, in The Power of Habit, author Charles Duhigg talks about three components necessary to form a habit. A cue, or something that triggers us to perform a routine so that we may receive a reward. For example, you smell cigarette smoke, the cue, you reach for a cigarette, and light it up, the routine, and you get a nicotine buzz, the reward. Duhigg asserts that we don't really break habits, rather we change out the routine from existing habit loops. In other words, when we are trying to extinguish a habit, the cue remains, and the reward remains, we just change out the middle part. In the case of cigarette smoking, you still have the same cues, the stress, the smell, the smoke, seeing people inhale. The difference is what you do with those cues. Maybe you go for a run or make a pot of coffee or do some breathing exercises instead. Whatever it is, the new healthier routine needs to provide a similar reward, so you're motivated to replicate it in the future. If it doesn't get you off it won't work.
Holly Whitaker (Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol)
Chemically induced joy comes at a cost. That cost can be high. Very, very high. So high that you’re going to think twice after reading what science has to say about drug use. One study found that adolescents who smoke just a couple of joints of marijuana show changes in their brains. That’s not a couple of years of smoking or the decades that some adults rack up. It’s just two joints. A research team led by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a professor and psychiatrist at the McGill University Health Center in Montreal, discovered that teenagers using cannabis had a nearly 40% greater risk of depression and a 50% greater risk of suicidal ideation in adulthood. Dr. Gobbi stated that “given the large number of adolescents who smoke cannabis, the risk in the population becomes very big. About 7% of depression is probably linked to the use of cannabis in adolescence, which translates into more than 400,000 cases.” The research that revealed these startling numbers was not just a single study of adolescent marijuana use. It was a meta-analysis and review of 11 studies with a total of 23,317 teenage subjects followed through young adulthood. Further, Gobbi’s team only reviewed studies that provided information on depression in the subjects prior to their cannabis use. “We considered only studies that controlled for [preexisting] depression,” said Dr. Gobbi. “They were not depressed before using marijuana, so they probably weren’t using it to self-medicate.” Marijuana use preceded depression. The specific findings of Gobbi’s research include: The risk of depression associated with marijuana use in teens below age 18 is 1.4 times higher than among nonusers. The risk of suicidal thoughts is 1.5 times higher. The likelihood that teen marijuana users will attempt suicide is 3.46 times greater. In adults with prolonged marijuana use, the wiring of the brain degrades. Areas affected include the hippocampus (learning and memory), insula (compassion), and prefrontal cortex (executive functions). The authors of one study stated that “regular cannabis use is associated with gray matter volume reduction in the medial temporal cortex, temporal pole, parahippocampal gyrus, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex; these regions are rich in cannabinoid CB1 receptors and functionally associated with motivational, emotional, and affective processing. Furthermore, these changes correlate with the frequency of cannabis use . . . [while the] . . . age of onset of drug use also influences the magnitude of these changes.” A large number of studies show that cannabis use both increases anxiety and depression and leads to worse health. Key parts of your brain shrink more, based on how early you began smoking weed, and how often you smoke it. That’s a “high” price to pay.
Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
ashtray.” Gradually, public opinion swayed public practice and public policy, forcing legislation and litigation that would affect most homes and every public space in America. After fifty years, fewer than 23 percent of Americans smoke, and hundreds of millions of lives and dollars have been affected or saved. Following that model, we could change parental practices in this country—not in one year or one presidential administration, but over several decades. It would work, however, only if we followed that three-pronged attack, because different people are motivated to change for
Jim Trelease (The Read-Aloud Handbook)
knowing that I wanted to be a piano player, and knowing that practicing, of course, was just something piano players did, I turned my daily practice into a habit. Now, habits get a bad rap; we tend to think of things like biting our nails or smoking when we talk about them. But really, a habit is defined as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.” Tooth brushing is a habit (for most of us). So is showing up to work on time. Those are some good habits. Habits can be good; say it with me. Once you’ve trained your brain to view practicing as a habit, the next step is finding the motivation to adopt that habit. The key to motivation, I’ve learned, is coupling your profound inspiration to a strong belief in yourself, and that’s not something even the best teacher is able to instill. It has to come from within. Building a strong core identity to drive your motivation requires first believing that you’ll eventually master the skill you’ve set out to learn—no matter how farfetched that might initially seem to yourself and others. Having the correct image of yourself is really key here; you have to think of yourself as the thing you want to be long before other people think of you as that. You may only have taken one trumpet lesson and sound horrible, but you still must think of yourself as a trumpet player in order for the habit to stick. You are whatever you do repeatedly. Practicing became such a constant in my day—and in such a natural, unforced way—that I hardly had to think about it. It had become, in other words, a habit.
Scott Bradlee (Outside the Jukebox: How I Turned My Vintage Music Obsession into My Dream Gig)
Like a veil over a flame, desire cloaks the brilliance of one’s knowledge, casting shadows upon the clarity of understanding. Only through the gentle breeze of introspection can the smoke dissipate, revealing the radiant truth within.
Shree Shambav (Death: Light of Life and the Shadow of Death)
Everyone is talking about self improvement these days. It’s so fashionable. Quitting smoking, stop drinking or working out. But what these people forget is that in order to self improve one has to self destruct first. No Ying without Yang. One can only rise to immense heights after one has reached the bottom of the pit. And that’s what you want to do? Self destruct? Asks Benny. Sure why not? Always a good reason to. And who knows... maybe it even motivates me to actually self improve one day! So, let’s self destruct!
Ryan Gelpke (2018: Our Summer of Creeping Boredom and Beautiful Shimmering (Howl Gang Legend Book 3))
Well, think about it if you must. And then just say yes.
Jay Ebben (Smokescreen: A Jewish Approach to Stop Smoking)
There’s no lonelier feeling than when a crowd of people is staring at you and there’s nowhere to hide. But you know what you do? You take your lumps and then give it another shot the next time. A better shot. That’s all you can do.
Jay Ebben (Smokescreen: A Jewish Approach to Stop Smoking)
It is my argument that American liberalism is a totalitarian political religion, but not necessarily an Orwellian one. It is nice, not brutal. Nannying, not bullying. But it is definitely totalitarian--or "holistic", if you prefer--in that liberalism today sees no realm of human life that is beyond political significance, from what you eat to what you smoke to what you say. Sex is political. Food is political. Sports, entertainment, your inner motives and outer appearance, all have political salience for liberal fascists. Liberals place their faith in priestly experts who know better, who plan, exhort, badger, and scold. They try to use science to discredit traditional notions of religion and faith, but they speak the language of pluralism and spirituality to defend "nontraditional" beliefs. Just as with classical fascism, liberal fascists speak of a "Third Way" between right and left where all good things go together and all hard choices are "false choices". The idea that there are no hard choices--that is, choices between competing goods--is religious and totalitarian because it assumes that all good things are fundamentally compatible. The conservatives or classical liberal vision understands that life is unfair, that man is flawed, and that the only perfect society, the only real utopia, waits for us in the next life. Liberal fascism differs from classical fascism in many ways. I don't deny this. Indeed, it is central to my point. Fascisms differ from each other because they grow out of different soil. What unites them are their emotional or instinctual impulses, such as the quest for community, the urge to "get beyond" politics, a faith in the perfectibility of man and the authority of experts, and an obsession with the aesthetics of youth, the cult of action, and the need for an all powerful state to coordinate society at the national or global level. Most of all, they share the belief--what I call the totalitarian temptation--that with the right amount of tinkering we can realize the utopian dream of "creating a better world".
Jonah Goldberg (Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning)
Today more than ever before, its time to go through with life. Stop thinking so hard about what it is that you want to do. Go out and conquer your dreams! Only you can walk your path. Remember that inner voice and use it to drive yourself straight to your determined finish line!
Sereda Aleta Dailey (How to Stop Smoking in 30 Days or Less!)
As a realist, I can argue that there is no fire without smoke and not the other way around.
Mwanandeke Kindembo (Sinless)
When you move beyond your 40th birthday, there are a number of lifestyle factors that should underpin your fitness lifestyle. Consider the following 7 factors and think about how you stack up in regard to them. Do you: Get regular (at least 6 monthly) medical checkups? Not smoke? Get regular exercise? Eat sensibly and in moderation? Strive to maintain a balanced weight? Know how to relax? Drink alcohol in moderation?
Nick Swettenham (Total Fitness After 40: The 7 Life Changing Foundations You Need for Strength, Health and Motivation in your 40s, 50s, 60s and Beyond)
There is not a single reason why you should give up. If there are thorns, there are roses. If there is a light outside, a hole or a crack or a door, a window, must be made inside. If there is the smell of smoke in the air, a house or maybe an entire village is just somewhere near. There is not a single reason why you should give up. But there are a thousand reasons why you must not.
Khadija Rupa
Taking and giving meditation (tong len) Tong len is a foundational meditation in Tibetan Buddhism in which we envision taking away the suffering of others and giving them happiness. There are many different versions of this meditation. The following is a very simple version, and no less powerful because of that. Adopt the optimal meditation posture—remember to keep a straight back. Take a few deep breaths and exhale. As you do, imagine you are letting go of all thoughts, feelings and experiences. As far as possible try to be pure consciousness, abiding in the here and now. Begin your meditation with the following motivation: By the practice of this meditation, may NAME of PET and all living beings be immediately, completely and permanently purified of all disease, pain, sickness and suffering. May this meditation be a direct cause for us to attain enlightenment, For the benefit of all living beings without exception. Focusing on your in-breaths, imagine that you are inhaling radiant, white light. This light represents healing, purification, balance and blissful energy. Imagine it filling your body, until every cell is completely permeated with it. Keep on breathing like this, with the focus on the qualities of the light that you inhale. After some minutes, change the focus of your attention to your exhalations. Visualise that you exhale a dark, smoke-like light. The darkness represents whatever pain, illness or potential for illness, negativity of body, speech or mind you experience. With each out-breath imagine you are able to release more and more of this negativity. Keep on breathing like this, with the focus on the qualities of the light that you exhale. After some minutes, combine the two, so that you are both letting go of negativity and illness as well as breathing in radiant wellbeing. Now that you have some practice, imagine that you are inhaling and exhaling these qualities on behalf of your pet/s. Whatever you breathe in, you direct into their being. Whatever you exhale, you do so on their behalf. You are a conduit for healing energy, and for letting go of all suffering. Make this the main focus of your meditation session—the taking away of your pet’s sickness and suffering and the giving of purification, healing and wellbeing. You may decide to assign, say, three or four breaths to each of the following qualities to give structure to your meditation: In-breaths Out-breaths Taking in healing energy Getting rid of all physical and mental disease Complete purification/cleansing/healing All physical sickness/pain/suffering Radiant wellbeing—energy and vitality All mental negativity/distress/anxiety Peace, balance, mental tranquillity Hatred, craving and all delusions Love and compassion End the session as you began: By the practice of this meditation, may NAME of PET and all living beings be immediately, completely and permanently purified of all disease, pain, sickness and suffering. May this meditation be a direct cause for us to attain enlightenment, For the benefit of all living beings without exception.
David Michie (Buddhism for Pet Lovers: Supporting our closest companions through life and death)
Finally, as I’ve emphasized, there is the level of conscious public policy. A Soviet official issuing a planning document, or an American politician calling for job creation, might not be entirely aware of the likely effects of their action. Still, once a situation is created, even as an unintended side effect, politicians can be expected to size up the larger political implications of that situation when they make up their minds what—if anything—to do about it. Does this mean that members of the political class might actually collude in the maintenance of useless employment? If that seems a daring claim, even conspiracy talk, consider the following quote, from an interview with then US president Barack Obama about some of the reasons why he bucked the preferences of the electorate and insisted on maintaining a private, for-profit health insurance system in America: “I don’t think in ideological terms. I never have,” Obama said, continuing on the health care theme. “Everybody who supports single-payer health care says, ‘Look at all this money we would be saving from insurance and paperwork.’ That represents one million, two million, three million jobs [filled by] people who are working at Blue Cross Blue Shield or Kaiser or other places. What are we doing with them? Where are we employing them?”9 I would encourage the reader to reflect on this passage because it might be considered a smoking gun. What is the president saying here? He acknowledges that millions of jobs in medical insurance companies like Kaiser or Blue Cross are unnecessary. He even acknowledges that a socialized health system would be more efficient than the current market-based system, since it would reduce unnecessary paperwork and reduplication of effort by dozens of competing private firms. But he’s also saying it would be undesirable for that very reason. One motive, he insists, for maintaining the existing market-based system is precisely its inefficiency, since it is better to maintain those millions of basically useless office jobs than to cast about trying to find something else for the paper pushers to do.10 So here is the most powerful man in the world at the time publicly reflecting on his signature legislative achievement—and he is insisting that a major factor in the form that legislature took is the preservation of bullshit jobs.
David Graeber (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory)
Here’s the powerful part: there are many different ways to address the same underlying motive. One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run.
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice—we win, or we perish! They won. Every
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich (Start Motivational Books))
Technology has changed the way we work, and consequently, our posture. Today, sitting has been referred to as the new smoking. This has been exacerbated by the development of handheld devices and the onset of 'tech neck'. Take the Peterson 21 day posture challenge for 'Confident Assured Posture' for a healthy future. Stand tall and live longer.
Cindy Ann Peterson (My Style, My Way: Top Experts Reveal How to Create Yours Today)
December 28, Today I am aware that I have some basic issues like abandonment. My fear of being left is so powerful and pervasive that I hardly identify it as fear. It takes so little to activate my feelings of rejection disinterest omega someone I love, a turned away head, those I care about having their own lives and relationships; these things are all frightening to me and have the capacity to mobilize deep feelings of anger, resentment and hurt. I read all sorts of deeper motives into this kind of behavior from other people and create scenarios in my mind where I am ultimately left, I realize today that I cannot have people in my life in a healthy, comfortable way if I am daily haunted by the fear that they will leave me. I can live a comfortable life. The first lesson of life is to burn our own smoke; that is, not to inflict on outsiders our personal sorrows and petty morbidness, not to keep thinking of ourselves as exceptional cases. James Russell Loweell
Tian Dayton
This book will show you how to harness the power of kaizen: using small steps to accomplish large goals. Kaizen is an ancient philosophy captured in this powerful statement from the Tao Te Ching: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Though it is rooted in ancient philosophy, it is just as practical and effective when applied to our hectic modern lives. Kaizen has two definitions: using very small steps to improve a habit, a process, or product using very small moments to inspire new products and inventions I’ll show you how easy change can be when the brain’s preference for change is honored. You’ll discover many examples of how small steps can achieve your biggest dreams. Using kaizen, you can change bad habits, like smoking or overeating, and form good ones, like exercising or unlocking creativity. In business, you’ll learn how to motivate and empower employees in ways that will inspire them. But first, let’s examine some common beliefs about change, and how kaizen dismantles all the obstacles we may have spent years putting in our way.
Robert Maurer (One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way)
How many Catholics—indeed, how many Catholic missionaries—hold those same beliefs today? How many would be willing to proclaim those beliefs to an unfamiliar and quite likely hostile audience? How many truly believe that the opportunity to convey the Gospel message is worth the risk of offending an audience, worth the risk of being rejected and scorned, worth even the risk of life itself? If the work of evangelization is not worth those risks, then why do we honor the martyrs who took them? Were they foolish? Were they intemperate zealots motivated by noble ideals, no doubt, but wanting in prudence? Did they, in the end, do any good for those pagan tribes?
Philip F. Lawler (The Smoke of Satan: How Corrupt and Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, and the Faithful . . . and What Can Be Done About It)
The first step is the same for all of us: put down the cigarette, or your preferred nicotine-based weapon of choice. The next step, and the one after, and the one after that, for as long as it takes for the veil of illusion to lift – and lift it will, I promise you, if you give time time – is a walk in the park, compared to your life as a smoker. Just keep on walking. Trust yourself. Trust the process. Trust anything, but the lies your nicotine addiction is telling you.
JF Hunter, 40-Day Companion to Quitting Smoking
Catholic activists have always insisted that the laws they seek to enact or preserve—such as laws protecting innocent human life, or those defining marriage as a lifetime union between a man and a woman—reflect moral norms that can be explained without reference to any specific religious beliefs, norms that are inscribed on the human heart. So Catholics engaged in public debate, acting from the best of motives, have sought to couch their arguments in purely secular terms. Ironically, Catholics might have had more success in the world of politics if, instead of trying to make moral norms more palatable to a secular audience, we had devoted our attention to turning secularists into Catholics—putting our primary emphasis on religious conversions and letting political matters take care of themselves. We thought we were following a subtle strategy, hoping to change minds without first changing hearts. But that approach has failed. Pure evangelization would have been more effective, even from a purely political perspective.
Philip F. Lawler (The Smoke of Satan: How Corrupt and Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, and the Faithful . . . and What Can Be Done About It)
Politically, statism breeds a swarm of “little Caesars,” who are motivated by power-lust. Culturally, statism breeds still lower a species: a swarm of “little Neros,” who sing odes to depravity while the lives of their forced audiences go up in smoke.
Ayn Rand (Philosophy: Who Needs It)
Another curious case is that of the word assassin, which you may use to describe a certain kind of politically motivated killer. The word derives from the historical case of a certain religious sect that used to murder people while under the influence of hashis. The word for someone who smokes hashish is hashashin.
Martin Cohen (Philosophy For Dummies, UK Edition)
Let The Insults And Mockeries Be Your Motivation See How Far It Takes You" - "Never Allow Negative Energies To Dominate The Pleasures Of An Experience" Nkolika Peace ifeanaesese smoke Okoye art
Nkolika Peace ifeanaesese smoke Okoye art
It was almost beyond belief to her that she would be making a pact with herself. She would use this experience as motivation to stop smoking for the rest of her life. After some reconsideration, she thought probably not.
Ann Greyson