Stewart Stafford Quotes

When you choose to look down on something, you render yourself incapable of understanding it.

Halloween is a celebration of the inversion of reality and a necessary Gothic hat-tip to the darker aspects of life, death and ourselves.

Do not weep for those who have found Death's embrace early, for they weep for us that linger on in this mortal world of pain.

Being a control freak is a weakness, not a strength. If you can't allow others to shine, you're exhibiting signs of narcissism and showing a lack of self-confidence. It is isolation through ego.

Time spent reading a book, even a bad one, is never wasted.

Try to ensure that your acts of kindness don't become open doors of exploitation to others.

The quickest way to run out of time is to think you have enough of it,

Love is a journey and a destination - long and excruciating on the way, unexpected and ecstatic if found.

Beware the self-righteous man, for he will destroy the world many times over before he sees his folly.

December is... by Stewart Stafford December is all that we give, And whatever we receive, It is those who surround us, And those who have taken leave. December is celebrating light, Where only darkness dwells, It is the ripping of wrapping paper, And tempting culinary smells. December is letting go, Of all the past year's fails, And starting anew in January, As time again chases its tail. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

At the darkest time of year, Lord Yule laid down his beard of snow and cloak of frost and ice to illuminate the gloom.

Power swells the head and shatters the crown.

Anyone who dies by their own hand always has my sympathy. It's easy to sit in judgement on another's struggle from the outside without ever living in their suffocating darkness. If there is an explanation left behind, it usually confirms how relentlessly harsh and unfair they were on themselves. Mourn their release with mercy and gratitude for doing what they were capable of in their short lives.

Fantasy is a reaction to the constraints of reality.

The bravest thing David Bowie ever did was to go on stage after Queen at Live Aid.

Separate text from context and all that remains is a con.

SPOILER ALERT: We all die in the end.

When kindness is your compass, you will find guidance to the right path in this life and the next.

Never become an adult! They're stressed-out, miserable creatures.

Confidence is when you believe in yourself and your abilities, arrogance is when you think you are better than others and act accordingly. You could say that arrogance is false confidence and that the person displaying it is overcompensating for their inner inadequacies.

Never forget those who go out of their way to help or harm you.

Cats are unpredictable as they don't know what they're going to do next until they make it happen through nosiness, invention, acrobatics, and sheer force of will.

Going to a country where you don't speak the language is like wading into the sea when you can't swim - it's intimidating at first, not impossible, and ultimately manageable.

Truth is only harsh if you're unable to face it.

Niagara falls, Viagra rises.

Think logically, and you have a chance to solve a problem. Reacting emotionally to it prolongs and worsens your dilemma.

You know what really wears you out? People telling you that you look tired all the time!

In war, the damage you inflict on the enemy might be immediately apparent. The damage you inflict on yourself in doing so will only become apparent later.

Rebellion is the first step on the path to originality.

Those who clap you on the back with one hand may clench envy's mask behind theirs with the other.

Ghosts are the manifestation of the longing of loss.

Across a golden Autumn tapestry appear the spirits of our ancient selves demanding recognition and reward for one haunted night. Sated, they retreat from winter’s onslaught and retire to subconscious hibernation for another twelvemonth.

It is often asked why the greatest performers are so timid in private. Confident people get attention naturally. Shy people must do something extraordinary or outrageous to have similar recognition.

The most overcrowded vessel is the one that sails on the golden sea of memories.

Any time you see a cat, the day automatically becomes 10% better.

You could fill three lifetimes with the things people say about you when you're not there.

The scale of the mess we leave behind is proportionate to the level of respect we have for others.

History is dramatic license, covertly-financed with a sprinkling of gold dust from the newly-enthroned.

If someone threatens you for telling a joke, that's all the more reason to tell it. Humour is the perfect antidote to fanaticism.

There is a way of walking through rain without getting hit by a single drop - you just have to find what it is.

I read a report that said 88% of adults trust their doctors - well, 100% of dead people don't!

Never listen to destructive criticism - it's only meant to silence you.

Insecurity is the enemy of knowledge.

The privilege of living a long life comes at a price -the increasing loss of those we know and love around us.

The brain is like a muscle; books are the diet and writing is the workout.

Reunions are the first day of school all over again. Time casts away familiarity and replaces it with warm confusion. Seeing how the years have frayed the friends of our youth reminds us that we too have irrevocably changed and can never return to a state of innocence again.

Assuming things is the equivalent of sleepwalking blindfolded on a cliff edge fully expecting a safety net to be there to break the fall should you topple over the precipice. In one moment, a leap of logic becomes a fall from grace.

Stalkers have an obsessive over-identification with their unwilling target but also a latent envy of their talents and/or beauty, If they can't possess the person totally, they will destroy the victim's qualities that they can never have.

Being a prophet in the wilderness speaking truth to power typically leads to poverty and punishment. It is far easier to follow the lucrative trade winds of popular opinion but withheld honesty results in forgotten words.

February Soup by Stewart Stafford The February fog, Turns all into blobs, Orange street lights, To Valentine's Night. When the wind strays, Fog's mantle is grey, Laying misty bouquets, On barren, muddied days. The daffodils of March, Can cheer up Plutarch, Adorned in Kelly green, No sign of foggy screens. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

You need to make a decision - are you are an imitator or an innovator?

Arguing is the Olympics of talking

Writing is the spectrum through which the chaos of life can be seen, studied and understood.

When your life flashes before your eyes at the end, make sure it's a good movie you're watching.

Domineering-types may appear omnipotent but, inevitably, will smother everything they love and lose all.

Life doesn't end, you just run out of road.

Attempting to appropriate or denigrate the popularity of others will backfire and undermine yours.

You don’t need 20/20 vision to see that 2020 is a giant caca burrito getting forced down our throats.

Strive to leave a legacy beyond your limitations and far beyond the expectations of others.

The eldest child is the golden one, the middle child invisible, and the youngest child is loud.

Life is an endless trial and death its certain verdict, but there are many recesses to enjoy before then.

If an artist can occupy the void of artistry while simultaneously parodying its iconography, they can have their metaphorical cake and cannibalise its crumbs too.

Loyalty comes before price or prize. If not, the ties that bind become constricting garrottes as creeping spinal flesh awaits a dagger's thrust.

Are those conspirators that you spy through your window or is it a mirror reflecting the chattering parasites in your mind?

Micro-managing creativity kills it. To encourage creative brilliance, foster an atmosphere where it can thrive and then step out of the way and let it happen.

Life's so much simpler when you're dead!

You don't get great art by playing it safe.

The gears of narcissism propel the dictator and how tempting it is to shift them into overdrive while drunk on power. The genocidal hangover comes later.

Truth is a well we all draw from and slowly poison, as we use it in ways for which it was never intended.

Adulthood is an attempt to become the antithesis of the wounded child within us.

Truth is an ideal we aspire to. Fact is an agreement on the general consensus of what truth is. Honesty is a personal truth shared.

Spies are, by nature and necessity, pathological liars who strive to make their endgames justify their meanness.

When the hysteria of a witch-hunt is granted supremacy over the logic, values and spirit of the law, justice can only become a warped, alien concept in that society.

In the ashes of bitter tragedy, lie the seeds of astonishing rebirth.

Closure is when raw memory blurs to become the folklore of life.

A superhero is just an ordinary person who has found a better way to mask their human frailties.

White males can't win these days - if they have something, they're "privileged" and if they want something, they're displaying "entitlement.

A man will never receive an invitation to participate in the secret relationships the woman in his life has with other females.

There's only one thing worse than never having found love, and that's finding it and having it taken away from you - then you truly know what you've lost.

Honesty is the rarest commodity in the 21st century. No one looks to the political class or journalists for truth these days. The average Joe seems to spend most of their time peddling a ludicrous, flawless Facebook version of their lives. The peer pressure of political correctness forgoes truth for the sake of groupthink. It seems that comedians and writers represent the last bastion of candour out there today.

The tide of hope approaches us and recedes from us as we stand on the mortal shore - some of us wait for it to arrive, some chase after it, but we all vanish into the sunset and our footprints in the sand fade in time. The feet of infants replace ours, and the dance of the tide commences anew.

Dickensian poverty tends to occur after Christmas in January. For it is then, with pockets empty, diary decimated and larder bare, that the general populace sinks into a collective pauper's hibernation until Valentine's Day.

Gloomy days, whether meteorological or psychological, lend themselves more to the creation of Gothic horror. On those insular days, the mind gravitates towards the unseen and the subconscious. Days of blinding sunshine banish the desire to ruminate and it is replaced with a longing to participate in the outside world.

Karens have a best friend - Becky. She's the one who goes with them to talk to the manager and backs them up and remains silent when she calls the cops on black guys she sees in her area. Becky is Karen's tag-team partner and an enabler. Don't be a Becky.

The only way to ensure democracy functions correctly is to question its governance constantly. Fail to do so and you may awake to find yourself living in a police state.

2020 is the year that black people became the center of the universe, white people got evicted from the human race, and buying toilet paper became the new gold rush.

There could be no half-measures, Nothing half-done, Oh, stopping Christmas would be so much fun!

Theology is a study of the series of disagreements that are the world's religions. Atheism fundamentally disagrees with these disagreements that preceded it.

Every piece of art in the world was once a blank space that someone chose to fill with inspiration, imagination, fear, obsession, logic, love, or passion.

Certainty is the calm before the storm.

Whenever I read the term 'belief system', somewhere between my eyes and my brain, it becomes 'coping mechanism.

An obsessive is an addict-in-waiting.

Those we underestimate in life can often serve as guides to our lack of vision.

Writers strive to create definitive statements but forget that their work is often viewed through the cracked spectacles of perception. Others can take what is written, twist it to their own agenda and present it back to the author as fact, contrary to the original intention.

A Blackberry Winter by Stewart Stafford Pond ice beneath the hawthorn tree, Reeds grasping from the frigid sculpture, Freezing fog clinging to land and foliage, Nature hindered but still in amelioration. Horses in crunching frosted footsteps march, To break the water trough's thick glaze, And drink thirstily in raw, jagged gulps, Until the thaw smoothes itself upon milder days. A swan slips and skates on the icicled river, Hoarfrost-encrusted rocks a guard of honour, The Anatidae ascension, maladroit but effective, Sure to pluck better days from its plumed reign. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

A traitor only becomes one if their plot is discovered. The imposition of guilt means nothing to those who feign loyalty. More skilled conspirators wield treason as a clinical tool of regime change and political expediency. Then, with their own hand writing history, such traitors may wear the clothes of patriots.

The internet is the most important tool for disseminating information we've had since the invention of the printing press. Unfortunately, it's also one of the best ways of stealing or suppressing information and for putting out misinformation.

Pathological liars lie most often to themselves about their ability to fool others. They think they're geniuses at it when most people see through their constant deceit in a split second. Yet their brittle egos and lack of self-awareness (the reasons they lie in the first place) prevent them from noticing they're bad liars. Thus, they never learn, progress, and become better people.

Is there any sight more exquisite than a field of canary yellow rapeseed on a day of blinding sunlight? The colour appears to transcend structure and live and dance and breathe. Nature reveals its primordial palette and invites insects to pollinate and Man to dare to dream of creating something so vibrant, shockingly intense and timeless. It is the golden ignition of the divine spark of creativity writ large.

As the last human lay dying in their shallow grave, they fashioned a crude grave marker from wood. It read: "Man - Terroriser of Fish and Great Destroyer of all he made, found or was gifted." They then covered themselves with earth and quietly passed away. Seeing this, God left the Universe and took the Sun with him.