Quotes by American Authors - Page 35

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
He saw her right after the seventh-period bell rang. She seemed dressed for the sole purpose of blending in with the lockers, but she stood out, anyway. It didn’t matter that her wide blue eyes were narrowed or that her pretty mouth was twisted into a near snarl — she was blatantly beautiful. It was kind of sick the way Ed was preoccupied with beautiful girls these days.He felt a little sorry for her. (He was also preoccupied with finding ways of feeling sorry for people.) She was new and trying hard not to look it. She was confused and trying to look tough. It was endearing is what it was.
Francine Pascal
There are two sacred causes in this world,” he said, holding up his pinkie and ring ringer. “Chance and necessity. By chance I was there to help when you had need.
Rachel Hartman
- It doesn't do anything obvious. But it might be able to do something in here. - Then she touched her hand to her heart. - Beautiful things sometimes do.
Veronica Roth
You need a man, Kara. A man you can open up to. A man whose passion for life matches yours. A man who grabs your hair in big fistfuls and twists and pulls it when he's fucking you. A man willing to walk wire for you.
Pamela Clare
You're a beautiful wreck.
C.L.Stone
The Clown turned his powdered face to the mirror."If to be fair is to be beautiful," he said, "who can compare with me in my white mask?""Who can compare with him in his white mask?" I asked Death beside me."Who can compare with me?" said Death, "for I am paler still.""You are very beautiful," sighed the Clown, turning his powdered face from the mirror.
Robert W. Chambers
There are exactly as many special occasions in life as we choose to celebrate.
Robert Brault
The most mesmerizing of artists is always like one who was merely drawing in the sand and people came to watch.
Criss Jami
Every morning we begin our new life with new joy. So let it be beautiful.
Debasish Mridha
He was close enough now to see that her profile was designed to do dramatic things to hearts: stop them, steal them, break them.
Julie Anne Long
Never look back. The past is done. The future is a blank canvas. Work on creating a masterpiece. Only you have the power to make your painting beautiful.
Suzy Kassem
I love you, Fitzwilliam Darcy--with all my heart.""And I love you, my dearest Elizabeth. Forever and ever.
Regina Jeffers
I shoved his arm with all my strength, but it wouldn’t budge. His waist rippled with sculpted muscles. His chest and shoulders bulged and spoke of great strength. It was one thing to assume he had a big frame, another to have it confirmed with the moon's light.
Kenya Wright
...my desire for him exploded into a great hunger. I was dizzy with it.
Kenya Wright
I'll never miss a chance to remind you of what a brat you were. A gloriously beautiful and very spoiled brat. I was utterly charmed by your complete self-absorption. It was rather like courting a cat.
Robin Hobb
To think I actually talked to the boy who nearly got you killed," Ivy mutters, shuddering with disgust. "I'm so sorry I did.""It's okay. You didn't know," I reassure her as we take a seat on some pool chairs."But you told me before what his appearance was. I should have recognized him!""It's fine, Ivy. Even if you did your best to avoid him, he would've found way to hit on you eventually."Ivy wrinkles her nose at the unfamiliar language. " 'Hit on'? What does that mean?""Flirting. Or, for Dunstan, more like a procedure. He's been hitting on any pretty girl he sees ever since he and Melanie broke up. I don't know if he's doing this to make her jealous or what, but it's really annoying."I look back up to see Ivy go rigid. For some reason she looks classically surprised; her hand is over her mouth, and the rosy blush is back with a vengeance,"Ivy? You okay?"Ivy removes her hand, muttering something so quietly I can't hear it."Sorry?""You called me pretty." The moment those words are said, Ivy stares down at her feet as her face gets brighter."Well, yeah," I murmur, my face hot. "You really are beautiful tonight, Ivy.
Colleen Boyd
You’re beautiful, too. I mean, you’re hot,” I blurted out. “But I always knew you would be.” My eyes widened as I realized what just streamed out of my mouth, and his grin turned into a smile. “Oh my God, I did not just say...any of that out loud.”“You did.”“Ugh.”Tipping his head back, he laughed deeply. And he laughed like he had in those rare instances when something truly amused him. He did so with a freedom I’d envied.I started to place my hands over my flaming face, but he caught my wrists, holding them between us. His eyes were lighter, dancing. “I can pretend you didn’t say that if that makes you feel better,” he suggested.Oh yes, that would be fabulous. I nodded.“I won’t forget it, though.
Jennifer L. Armentrout
Any ape can reach for a banana, but only humans can reach for the stars.
V.S. Ramachandran
Elizabeth called it my mane of hair; I called it my bane of hair. However, it was far worse looking when it was short, sticking straight up or out at awkward angles; at least when it was long it almost obeyed gravity.
Penny Reid
I didn’t like how my body seemed to be intent on sabotaging my brain, especially since my brain was so good at sabotaging itself.
Penny Reid
I'd rather be ignored as a frog than eaten as a human.
E.D. Baker
For your information, Lester, there are at least five wonderful parts of the female body that can be viewed by the owner only with a hand mirror.'And as they stared after me, I went regally back down the hallway and up the stairs to Dad's room.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
We poetically construct our identity as human beings, together with our values, largely through reciprocal relationships with animals. They provide us with essential points of reference, as well as illustrations of the qualities that we may choose to emulate or avoid in ourselves. Any major change in our relationships with animals, individual or collective, reverberates profoundly in our character as human beings, in ways that go far beyond immediately pragmatic concerns. When a species becomes extinct, something perishes in the human soul as well.
Boria Sax
In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Dr. John Nash Ott had discovered by 1987 that glass, artificial light sources, electricity and electronic systems were having extensive detrimental effects on plants, animals and humans.
Steven Magee
Ionizing smoke detectors unnaturally raise the background radiation levels in the human environment.
Steven Magee
If you fill the atmosphere with toxins, then you really cannot be surprised if the solar radiation transmission through it becomes toxic to humans.
Steven Magee
The electrical, electronics and wireless radio frequency (RF) industries are creating an increasingly high radiation environment for the human. This is comparable to the elevated radiation environment found at high altitudes and smart health researchers would be wise to contrast high altitude diseases to the epidemics of our time, such as Autism, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Fibromyalgia, Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS), and so on.
Steven Magee
The rise of Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) in the USA population can be traced back to President Bill Clinton. While memorable for sexual foreplay with Monica Lewinsky, EHS people associate him with the 1996 Telecommunications Act that prohibits the protection of human health and safety from the known biologically toxic effects of wireless radio frequency (RF) radiation.
Steven Magee
I recently cleared up my Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS). The condition is real, it has a sound foundation as to why it occurs in the human, and can be cleared up by taking the appropriate steps.
Steven Magee
The upper management team had informed me that an employee that worked for me was a poor performer and would be terminated soon. This employee was clearly displaying mental health issues that were causing problems in the workplace. When I followed the company procedures and reported this to human resources, their response was to inform me that my contract would not be renewed and I would be immediately fired if anyone complained about me. This was my introduction to how mental health issues are handled in the USA.
Steven Magee
Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) is the most fascinating subject that I have ever encountered in human health!
Steven Magee
Trees emit a wide variety of electromagentic radiation and it is regarded as healthy to live in a natural area that is surrounded by trees due to these beneficial emissions to human health.
Steven Magee
The human has no genetic adaptation to modern industrialized products and needs to be careful with prolonged exposure to these for good health.
Steven Magee
The human has genetic adaptation to natural electromagnetic radiation. Increasing, reducing or removing the natural radiation exposures results in a sickened human that may progress onto a diseased state.
Steven Magee
I have argued that when we encounter other humans we experience them first as persons, and cannot help but do so. This means that in order to see a human person as an animal or organism we must abstract from the totality of our experience. My suggestion is that we take this fact seriously in understanding the ontology of everyday objects. According to this proposal a “human animal” or “human organism” is not a thing in its own right, but rather a particular perspective we take on ourselves and our lives, one that attends only to our purely biological functions.
Marya Schechtman
The most important thing that a human must do in order to maintain good health is to be aware of the environment that they grew up in and to keep it throughout life.
Steven Magee
I fear no hell, just as I expect no heaven. Nabokov summed up a nonbeliever’s view of the cosmos, and our place in it, thus: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” The 19th-century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle put it slightly differently: “One life. A little gleam of Time between two Eternities.” Though I have many memories to cherish, I value the present, my time on earth, those around me now. I miss those who have departed, and recognize, painful as it is, that I will never be reunited with them. There is the here and now – no more. But certainly no less. Being an adult means, as Orwell put it, having the “power of facing unpleasant facts.” True adulthood begins with doing just that, with renouncing comforting fables. There is something liberating in recognizing ourselves as mammals with some fourscore years (if we’re lucky) to make the most of on this earth.There is also something intrinsically courageous about being an atheist. Atheists confront death without mythology or sugarcoating. That takes courage.
Jeffrey Tayler
Everything was brighter and more colorful in those years, as if my childhood was ending in an explosion of unreal passion that made my life feel sacred and holy.
Roman Payne
Blame is a Defense Against PowerlessnessBetrayal trauma changes you. You have endured a life-altering shock, and are likely living with PTSD symptoms— hypervigilance, flashbacks and bewilderment—with broken trust, with the inability to cope with many situations, and with the complete shut down of parts of your mind, including your ability to focus and regulate your emotions.Nevertheless, if you are unable to recognize the higher purpose in your pain, to forgive and forget and move on, you clearly have chosen to be addicted to your pain and must enjoy playing the victim.And the worst is, we are only too ready to agree with this assessment! Trauma victims commonly blame themselves. Blaming oneself for the shame of being a victim is recognized by trauma specialists as a defense against the extreme powerlessness we feel in the wake of a traumatic event. Self-blame continues the illusion of control shock destroys, but prevents us from the necessary working through of the traumatic feelings and memories to heal and recover.
Sandra Lee Dennis
There were no toys under the bed--that wasn't why he liked it. Why he liked it was that there wasn't anything under the bed--no chickens, no Joey, no Eloise, no sheep, no "no"s. He could lie under the bed and not be told anything at all
Jane Smiley
My painful memories sift through me like sand through stretched fingers. Only small pieces cling and stay around for me to keep, the rest just disappear. I know not where and I don’t
Willow Madison
I once took a poo in the woods while hunched over like an animal. It was AWESOME.
Drew Barrymore
When I was instructed to use medical oxygen to do my job at the W. M. Keck Observatory from 2001 to 2006, I was never told about the legal health information that is now posted on oxygen cylinders. My memories of the green medical oxygen cylinders that we would use daily is that they had no information on them and we were never given a recognised legal oxygen administration training course for routine daily use or a medical prescription from a doctor. We were shown the three oxygen cylinders at the facility and told to use them whenever we developed headaches, which was multiple times daily. It was common to find all three oxygen cylinders in use by other very high altitude workers and to have to line up to get a turn on the magical medical gas.
Steven Magee
[Think] of an experience from your childhood. Something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all you really were there at the time, weren't you? How else could you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place. Every bit of you has been replaced many times over (which is why you eat, of course). You are not even the same shape as you were then. The point is that you are like a cloud: something that persists over long periods, while simultaneously being in flux. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made. If that does not make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does, because it is important.
Steve Grand
Community service has become a patch for morality. You can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck.
Timothy J. Keller
The moral high ground to which I aspired had turned into a slippery slope.
Alfred Alcorn
Sustainable change, after all, depends not upon compliance with external mandates or blind adherence to regulation, but rather upon the pursuit of the greater good.
Douglas B. Reeves
Especially when it comes to animals used for food, humanity’s reasoning power and concern about fairness plummets.
Karen Davis
A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday.
Russell Baker
Putting some 'gray in play,' as Chad referred to it, always helped. HE said the act of rationalizing the pros and cons helped to cloud the issues enough to avoid a moral quandary. It allowed us to believe the ends justified the means. Seeing gray helped to remove the black-and-white, right and wrong ethical choices.. . Had I become so jaded in my life that I had actually forgotten the difference between right and wrong? Or had I simply tried to ignore the difference so I could sleep at least two or three hours a night?
Luke Lively
Mankind's first sin gave us the ability to know both good and evil. Our subsequent sins make us increasingly unable to tell the difference.
Ron Brackin
To permit this gross new revelation to fade, or be forgiven, would be to devalue our most essential standard of what constitutes the unpardonable. And for what? For the reputation of a man who turns out to be not even a Holocaust denier but a Holocaust affirmer. There has to be a moral limit, and either this has to be it or we must cease pretending to ourselves that we observe one.
Christopher Hitchens
For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is as bitter as wormword, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell
Justin Cronin
Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail ­ as you surely will ­ adjust your lives, not the standards.
Ted Koppel
There are no saints either. We are immortal, but not so unlike the humans as you think. We have enemies, we have duties, we hate, we struggle, and we love.
Jessica Fortunato
Napoleon loved only himself, but, unlike Hitler, he hated nobody.
J. Christopher Herold
The greatest miracle was that in the end I could actually feel pity for those men because they were so deluded: they thought they had power and really they had nothing. I will never forget it. And from that moment on I've never really hated anymore. It all turned around when I sat there thinking what poor empty souls they were.
Diet Eman
When you hate something, you chain yourself to it.
Steve Maraboli