#al

Autumn is as joyful and sweet as an untimely end. ↗

— Remy de Gourmont

#fall #melancholy #melancholy

The storm before the calm. ↗

— Cameron Conaway

#stress #stress

It's hard to think when someone's trying to kill you. We human beings aren't wired to be rational and creative when we know our lives are in danger of a swift and violent end. The body has definite ideas of which survival strategies it prefers to embrace, and those are generally limited to "rip threat to pieces" or "run like hell." No thinking need be involved, as far as our instincts are concerned. Our instincts were a long time in the making, though, and the threats that can come after us now have outpaced them. You can't outrun a bullet, and you don't go hand-to-hand with a gunman unless you're certain you are about to die anyway. Speed and mindless aggression weren't going to keep me alive. ↗

— Jim Butcher

#survival-instinct #strategy

State ownership! It leads only to absurd and monstrous conclusions; state ownership means state monopoly, concentrated in the hands of one party and its adherents, and that state brings only ruin and bankruptcy to all. ↗

— Benito Mussolini

#economics #fascism #monopoly #politics #socialism

Whenever we want to combat our enemies, first and foremost we must start by understanding them rather than exaggerating their motives. ↗

— Criss Jami

#battle #bias #combat #discernment #disputes

Gwynn, she was always talking about wanting to be drunk and honestly I did want to encourage that, I wanted to go to a bar with her and let all the stuff sobriety pushed down be released so I could catch it in my palms and finally kiss her. She was just so sad. Melancholy was a fleshy wave permanently cresting on her face, she had to speak through it when she talked. ↗

— Michelle Tea

#emotion #longing #love #melancholy #sobriety

The goblins of the city may hold committees to divide a single potato, but the strong and the cruel still sit on the hill, and drink vodka, and wear black furs, and slurp borscht by the pail, like blood. Children may wear through their socks marching in righteous parades, but Papa never misses his wine with supper. Therefore, it is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair. At least, one eats better that way. And morality is more dependent on the state of one’s stomach than of one’s nation. ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#strength #survival-of-the-fittest #communism

Congratulations," he said, his voice dry. "You finally managed to find a woman as tragically noble as yourself. I didn't think one existed." "I'm not tragic." Kaldar held up his hand. "Spare me. Some children are born wearing a silk shirt; you were born wrapped in melancholy. When they slapped you to make you cry, you just sighed heavily and a single tear rolled from your eye." He dragged his finger from the corner of his left eye to his cheek. " Your first words were probably 'woe is me.'" "My first words were 'Kaldar, shut up!' because you talked too much. Still do. ↗

— Ilona Andrews

#kaldar-mar #richard-mar #melancholy

A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succeeded. It is shewing your inferiority. If you are bored, on the other hand, it is the person who has tried in vain to please you who is inferior. ↗

— Stendhal

#personality #melancholy

Such days of autumnal decline hold a strange mystery which adds to the gravity of all our moods. ↗

— Charles Nodier

#fall #melancholy #melancholy