#eli

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched." [My Uncle Sosthenes] ↗

— Guy de Maupassant

#fanaticism #patriotism #religion #wars #religion

But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most you and Malfoy’ll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you knows enough magic to do any real damage. I bet he expected you to refuse, anyway.” “And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?” “Throw it away and punch him on the nose,” Ron suggested. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#wizards #magic

For the way loneliness is worse when you return to it after a reprieve—like the soul’s version of putting on a wet bathing suit, clammy and miserable. ↗

— Laini Taylor

#loneliness #young-adult #fantasy

A wager?" I repeated. "Yes," he said, and gave me a slow smile, bright with challenge. ... "Stake?" I asked cautiously. He was still smiling, an odd sort of smile, hard to define. "A kiss." My first reaction was outrage, but then I remembered that I was on my way to Court, and that had to be the kind of thing they did at Court. And if I win I don't have to collect. I hesitated only a moment longer, lured by the thought of open sky, and speed, and winning. "Done," I said. ↗

— Sherwood Smith

#meliara #shevraeth #vidanric #wager #challenge

Atheism and agnosticism signify the rejection of certain images and concepts of God or of truth, which are historically conditioned and therefore inadequate. Atheism is a challenge to religion to purifiy its images and concepts and come nearer to the truth of divine mystery. ↗

— Bede Griffiths

#atheism #idols #religion #religion

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. ↗

— William Arthur Ward

#feeling #giving #gratitude #like #present

The pieces all fit together. Yet everything was falling apart. ↗

— Nicholas Sparks

#fall

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. ↗

— Isaac Asimov

#television

I'm standing in a slaughterhouse where the cattle are begging to become hamburgers. I have a right to be jumpy. ↗

— Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

#comedy #hamburgers #shattered-mirror #comedy

All great and precious things are lonely. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#lonely