#diction

There is only one hopeful suggestion that I can give you: By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist. If you find it inconceivable that an inventor of genius should be abandoned among ruins, and that a philosopher should wish to work as a cook in a diner--check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#existence #philosophy #nature

I knew by the signs it would be a hard winter. The hollies bore a heavy crop of berries and birds stripped them bare. Crows quarreled in reaped fields and owls cried in the mountains, mournful as widows. Fur and moss grew thicker than usual. Cold rains came, driven sideways through the trees by north winds, and snows followed. ↗

— Sarah Micklem

#folklore #nature #predictions #weather #winter

I bought salvation from a man on the street. He said, "Go down to the beach and let the waves wash your feet. ↗

— Gabriel Rheaume

#detroit #religious #spirituality #suicide #surreal

Even as a junkie I stayed true [to vegetarianism] - 'I shall have heroin, but I shan't have a hamburger.' What a sexy little paradox. ↗

— Russell Brand

#drugs #heroin #vegetarianism #sexy

He had tried to explain the way he felt to Danny once, about compulsive behavior and time rushing too fast and the Internet and drugs. Danny had only lifted one of his slender, mobile eyebrows and stared at him in smirking confusion. Danny did not think coke and computers were anything alike. But Jude had seen the way people hunched over their screens, clicking the refresh button again and again, waiting for some crucial if meaningless hit of information, and he thought it was almost exactly the same. ↗

— Joe Hill

#information #internet

One of the greatest evils is the foolishness of a good man. For the giving man to withhold helping someone in order to first assure personal fortification is not selfish, but to elude needless self-destruction; martyrdom is only practical when the thought is to die, else a good man faces the consequence of digging a hole from which he cannot escape, and truly helps no one in the long run. ↗

— Mike Norton

#die #dig #digging #escape #evil

Issues are like tissues. You pull one out and another appears! ↗

— Gary Goldstein

#alcohol #court #crime #diary #drugs

The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help, they have no hope. ↗

— Russell Brand

#drug-addiction #recovery #recovery

Shame was an emotion he had abandoned years earlier. Addicts know no shame. You disgrace yourself so many times you become immune to it. ↗

— John Grisham

#addicts #immunity #shame #shame

The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#contradiction #doctrines #paradox #practice #rules