Quotes by Authors - Page 4986

These ideas can be made more concrete with a parable, which I borrow from John Fowles’s wonderful novel, The Magus.Conchis, the principle character in the novel, finds himself Mayor of his hometown in Greece when the Nazi occupation begins. One day, three Communistpartisans who recently killed some German soldiers are caught. The Nazi commandant gives Conchis, as Mayor, a choice — either Conchis will execute the three partisans himself to set an example of loyalty to the new regime, or the Nazis will execute every male in the town.Should Conchis act as a collaborator with the Nazis and take on himself thedirect guilt of killing three men? Or should he refuse and, by default, be responsible for the killing of over 300 men?I often use this moral riddle to determine the degree to which people are hypnotized by Ideology. The totally hypnotized, of course, have an answer at once; they know beyond doubt what is correct, because they have memorized the Rule Book. It doesn’t matter whose Rule Book they rely on — Ayn Rand’s or Joan Baez’s or the Pope’s or Lenin’s or Elephant Doody Comix — the hypnosis is indicated by lack of pause for thought, feeling and evaluation. The response is immediate because it is because mechanical. Those who are not totally hypnotized—those who have some awareness of concrete events of sensory space-time, outside their heads— find the problem terrible and terrifying and admit they don’t know any 'correct' answer.I don’t know the 'correct' answer either, and I doubt that there is one. Theuniverse may not contain 'right' and 'wrong' answers to everything just because Ideologists want to have 'right' and 'wrong' answers in all cases, anymore than it provides hot and cold running water before humans start tinkering with it. I feel sure that, for those awakened from hypnosis, every hour of every day presents choices that are just as puzzling (although fortunately not as monstrous) as this parable. That is why it appears a terrible burden to be aware of who you are, where you are, and what is going on around you, and why most people would prefer to retreat into Ideology, abstraction, myth and self-hypnosis.To come out of our heads, then, also means to come to our senses, literally—to live with awareness of the bottle of beer on the table and the bleeding body in the street. Without polemic intent, I think this involves waking from hypnosis in a very literal sense. Only one individual can do it at a time, and nobody else can do it for you. You have to do it all alone.
Robert Anton Wilson
Rule number one: Why is it that the one time a cute guy talks to you, you have a friend who’s in crisis?
Candace Bushnell
This thing I am feeling, I’m almost certain, is the closest I’ll ever come to standing somewhere in between truth and reconciliation.
Raquel Cepeda
You can always tell the heart of man by what he do, and by what he don't do...
Steven J. Carroll
Intellectuals are judged not by their morals, but by the quality of their ideas, which are rarely reducible to simple verdicts of truth or falsity, if only because banalities are by definition accurate.
Perry Anderson
Trust the story ... the storyteller may dissemble and deceive, the story can't: the story can only ever be itself.
James Robertson
Perhaps conscience did not always produce cowards. Sometimes it made a man feel better about himself.
Robert Ludlum
You must first of all think justly. Don’t sit in judgment over others when you don’t know the truth of the matter.
Pramoedya Ananta Toer
If it's true what is said, that only the wise discover the wise, then it must also be true that the lone wolf symbolizes either the biggest fool on the planet or the biggest Einstein on the planet.
Criss Jami
I need to be casual but not too casual. Dressy but not too dressy. I need him to think I just threw on the first thing I found and that I'm not taking this too seriously or overthinking it or even that I was thinking about it at all. Because I'm not. I'm totally not thinking about him, and I don't want him to think I was thinking about him, but I don't want him to think that I'm not thinking about him, because clearly he thought about me enough to ask me out and it would be mean not to be thinking about him at all, so I need just the right amount of thinking, and I'm not sure if that means boots and a skirt or skinny jeans and ballet flats. Help!
Gemma Halliday
One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.
Alain de Botton
Be positive. Be true. Be kind.
Roy Bennett
Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer.
Frederic Raphael
The truth had lacerated him to the bone, had punctured his heart, and had ripped through his soul. The truth had slain him and tended to his wounds. The truth had hated him and loved him. The truth had opened his eyes to his own faults.
Brenda Sutton Rose
Could mankind declare it was truly wise? Did man know everything on earth, or would he ever? Certainly not!
E.A. Bucchianeri
The truth must be quite plain, if one could just clear away the litter.
Agatha Christie
He gave himself to them completely, with no guilt, no shame, no reservation, and in that surrender he found a quiet, shining pearl he had never known existed - himself. He was Sam. He was Sunshine. He was Peaches.
Heidi Cullinan
I don’t need words, I just need you to come back.” - Taryn
Suzanne Wright
I am the only one of us who brings in any money. the other two cannot make money fortune telling. this is because they only tell the truth, and the truth is not what people want to hear. it is a bad thing and it troubles people, so they do not come back.
Neil Gaiman
When we begin to reflect Christ, the Bible, when more understood as being centered around Christ, seems to be potentially every man's biography regarding God's promised experiences and truth for him - his individual, unique path of humbling oneself before the Lord and then being exalted by the Lord back into his true and righteous personhood. Many followers may speak of it merely to try to change other people (before changing themselves), but the prophets speak of it as a living word which miraculously tells their very own experiences.
Criss Jami
All works of nonfiction, or memoir, have to first and foremost be art before they can be true. They have to be artful first before they can be truthful... If you emphasize the truth-telling at the expense of art, nobody is going to be interested in it. And if you sacrifice truth in the name of art, you risk triviality. There's a constant balance between those two.
Alan Shapiro
Don't buy into a superficial reality. It has an expiration date.
Truth Devour
Some, often without knowing it, suffered from being deprived of the company of friends and from their inability to get in touch with them through the usual channels of friendship, letters, trains, and boats. Others, fewer these, Tarrou may have been one of them, had desired reunion with something they couldn't have defined, but which seemed to them the only desirable thing on earth. For want of a better name, they sometimes called it peace.
Albert Camus
This is the reason why atheists protest the “God” gene and religious will hate andprotest religion as a virus. They were blindfolded at an early age, and their psychological issues werethe blindfold. The facts are often used as weapons rather than information to convey truth.
Leviak B. Kelly
ARTThe world is full of confusion and contradiction. We cannot expect to do anything that is absolutely right. We can only measure rightness by the truth within ourselves. And our own truth will never be quite the same as somebody else's. I wish that I could touch you and be sure that it was the right thing to do. I only want to touch you briefly. Just once so that you will know. We are flesh and blood and full of faults. But we are also full of warmth. The world is full of confusion but there is compassion in its midst. communication via simple touch can transmit so much of us in just one minute. Like a painting or a piece of music. I want to touch your soul. I only wish I could be sure it was the right thing to do.
Jay Woodman
We’re fine.’ A few feet away, Aurum snarled quietly, which meant Nico was lying.
Rick Riordan
Don’t be afraid to stand tall in YOUR truth! Boldly and confidently face everything that has, and is, keeping you bound. Fight for your inner peace! Fight for your happiness! Fight for everything and everybody that’s important to you! You are NOT a victim! Don’t even play into that. You owe it to yourself to LIVE! Live your life without the regrets, without the resentments, without the unforgiveness, without the blame game, without the self-pity, without any and everything that keeps you from experiencing true joy within! You are too important to waste your life away! Learn to appreciate and value your life, but most importantly, learn to appreciate and value yourself! You count too, no matter what you’ve done!
Stephanie Lahart
Take lightly what you hear about individuals. We need not distort trust for our paltry little political agendas. We tend to trust soulless, carried information more than we trust soulful human beings; but really most people aren't so bad once you sit down and have an honest, one-on-one conversation with them, once, with an open heart, you listen to their explanations as to why they act the way they act, or say what they say, or do what they do.
Criss Jami
The only cure to all this madness; is too dream, far and wide, if possibility doesn't knock, create a damn door. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't make it. If the journey your travelling seems to far fetched and wild beyond your imagination; continue on it, great things come to the risk takers. And last but not least, live today; here, right now, you'll thank your future self for it later.
Nikki Rowe
Some men can love forever, some for six years, some for six months, and others for six hours.
Michael Bassey Johnson
Each one of us comes out of our mother's body crying, with or without exceptions. But we are not aware of it. Are you? Do you remember that you cried the very first time you come out of your mother's body? If not, then why are you crying now?
Santosh Kalwar
However unlikely it may seem, it is the truth and, therefore, one hundred percent likely.
Catherynne M. Valente
I believe that if there is a huge chunk of white/truth in you, you will be drawn mostly to truth. If there is a lot of black/ego in you, you will naturally migrate to darkness/ego. We can't change our natural compositions or our attraction to certain lighting, but we can slowly change our angle of perception. Anyone can work on balancing their inner lighting simply by adjusting their outer lenses. All you have to do is learn to use your heart before your mind to see things. There is no light greater than truth, and it shines at the heart of all creation. Be like a butterfly and celebrate it every day. It is inside you. Be aware of it so it can cultivate it to grow stronger and bigger.
Suzy Kassem
He who stands by his heart has God in him. Our conscience is what unites us with God.
Suzy Kassem
Stand up for what is just against the unjust.
Suzy Kassem
We were so little when you took away all our sins.
Maggie Stiefvater
TRUTHWhenever you stand up For your conscience, Be prepared to be hated By the wicked. But never, ever,Let that scare you;For whenever you Stand up for God, By him, You are loved.
Suzy Kassem
It did not seem odd to Max that what he had imagined about Stumps was really true, because this was exactly how games you made up worked. Of course they were true. In your mind.
Pauline Clarke
Just because they're a story doesn't mean they're not real.
Heather Bouwman
For there to be harmony and peace, everything must be balanced. And for there to be balance, there must be equality. And where there is equality, there will be justice. And where justice is honored and preserved, there will always be truth. Eliminate the concept of division by class, skills, race, income, and nationality. We are all equals with a common pulse to survive. Every human requires food and water. Every human has a dream and desire to be happy. Every human responds to love, suffering and pain. Every human bleeds the same color and occupies the same world. Let us recognize that we are all part of each other. We are all human. We are all one.
Suzy Kassem
A man says something. Sometimes it turns out to be the truth, but this has nothing to do with the man who says it.
Karen Joy Fowler
Basically all the religions,sciences and powers of the world boil down to a simple truth. The Best Story Teller will win in the end!
Stanley Victor Paskavich
Like most novelists, I like to do exactly the opposite of what I'm told. It's in my nature as a novelist. Novelists can't trust anything they haven't seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands. (Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, JERUSALEM POST, Feb. 15, 2009)
Haruki Murakami
The most popular labor saving device is still money.
Phyllis George
It can be difficult to speak truth to power. Circumstances, however, have made doing so increasingly necessary.
Aberjhani
It must have been then that I began to lose faith in reasonable argument as the sole measure of truth.
Margaret Atwood
The worst part of being okay is that okay is far from happy.
Anna Todd
What you choose also chooses you.
Kamand Kojouri
He has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand on a tower before ten thousand people and tell them that twice two is four.
G.K. Chesterton
These are the three stages of enlightenment, the three glimpses of satori. 1. The first stage enlightenment:A Glimpse of the WholeThe first stage of enlightenment is short glimpse from faraway of the whole. It is a short glimpse of being. The first stage of enlightenment is when, for the first time, for a single moment the mind is not functioning. The ordinary ego is still present at the first stage of enlightenment, but you experience for a short while that there is something beyond the ego. There is a gap, a silence and emptiness, where there is not thought between you and existence. You and existence meet and merge for a moment. And for the first time the seed, the thirst and longing, for enlightenment, the meeting between you and existence, will grow in your heart. 2. The second stage of enlightenment:Silence, Relaxation, Togetherness, Inner BeingThe second stage of enlightenment is a new order, a harmony, from within, which comes from the inner being. It is the quality of freedom.The inner chaos has disappeared and a new silence, relaxation and togetherness has arisen.Your own wisdom from within has arisen.A subtle ego is still present in the second stage of enlightenment. The Hindus has three names for the ego:1. Ahamkar, which is the ordinary ego.2. Asmita, which is the quality of Am-ness, of no ego. It is a very silent ego, not aggreessive, but it is still a subtle ego.3. Atma, the third word is Atma, when the Am-ness is also lost. This is what Buddha callas no-self, pure being.In the second stage of enlightenment you become capable of being in the inner being, in the gap, in the meditative quality within, in the silence and emptiness.For hours, for days, you can remain in the gap, in utter aloneness, in God. Still you need effort to remain in the gap, and if you drop the effort, the gap will disappear. Love, meditation and prayer becomes the way to increase the effort in the search for God. Then the second stage becomes a more conscious effort. Now you know the way, you now the direction. 3. The third stage of enlightenment: Ocean, Wholeness, No-self, Pure beingAt the third stage of enlightenment, at the third step of Satori, our individual river flowing silently, suddenly reaches to the Ocean and becomes one with the Ocean.At the third Satori, the ego is lost, and there is Atma, pure being. You are, but without any boundaries. The river has become the Ocean, the Whole.It has become a vast emptiness, just like the pure sky. The third stage of enlightenment happens when you have become capable of finding the inner being, the meditative quality within, the gap, the inner silence and emptiness, so that it becomes a natural quality. You can find the gap whenever you want.This is what tantra callas Mahamudra, the great orgasm, what Buddha calls Nirvana, what Lao Tzu calls Tao and what Jesus calls the kingdom of God.You have found the door to God. You have come home.
Swami Dhyan Giten
Stand up for what is right against the wrong.
Suzy Kassem
Sometimes, the things They say, the laws They make, the way the world spins doesn't make any sense at all...Which is exactly why you have to ask "Why?" and keep on asking until you get the TRUTH...
Joe Kelly
...at last I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had.
Brenda Ueland
I know certain truths about life.
Dana Reinhardt
Sometimes before your luck can be good,someone else's has to be bad
Maisie Mosco
If only [people] understood that every thought is both false and true! False by one-sidenedness resulting from man's inability to embrace the whole truth, and true as an expression of one fact of human endeavor.
Leo Tolstoy
In any government, interests precede truth.
Toba Beta
I see the Christian world like this: we've inherited a divided map of the truth, and each of us has a piece. Our traditions teach us that no one else has a valid map and that our own church's piece shows us all the terrain and roads that exist. In fact, there is much more terrain, more roads, and more truth for us to see if we can accept and read one another's maps, fitting them together to give us a clearer picture of the larger Christian tradition.
Michael Spencer
Today wouldn't have happened if histories weren't falsified.
Toba Beta
Smartass Disciple: Master, I feel really really confused about the truth.Master of Stupidity: Only confused? Walk in my shoes then you tell me.
Toba Beta