#erin

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. ↗

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#squandering #time #waste #life

The common man wants nothing of life but health, longevity, amusement, comfort -- "happiness." He who does not despise this should turn his eyes from world history, for it contains nothing of the sort. The best that history has created is great suffering. ↗

— Oswald Spengler

#history #struggle #suffering #life

One learns a good deal in the school of suffering. I wonder what would have happened to me if I had had an easy life, and had not had the privilege of tasting the joys of jail and all it means." ~ Badsha Khan, quote in Nonviolent Soldier of Islam, p. 87 ↗

— Eknath Easwaran

#life

Ever poised on that cusp between past and future, we tie memories to souvenirs like string to trees along life’s path, marking the trail in case we lose ourselves around a bend of tomorrow’s road. ↗

— Susan Lendroth

#memory #nostalgia #past #remembering #souvenir

This was too much for him to handle. It was like watching memories of his life play out from a different camera angle, sometimes with new scenes added. He was living DVD extras. ↗

— Dennis Sharpe

#hell #repeating #suffering #time-travel #life

it seemed to him that no matter what evils a man had committed, making him suffer purely for the sake of suffering was pointless. It didn't undo the harm he had wrought; it didn't please anyone or improve anyone's life. ↗

— Kim Fielding

#life #suffering #wisdom #life

Why would someone for whom talking was torture want to talk all the time before thousands of Athenians? Because otherwise he’d have drown himself at high tide. My sister- so shy, so sincere- once wanted to be an actress. The best jazz drummer I’ve ever heard had only one arm. We all choose a calling that’s the most radical contradiction of ourselves. ↗

— David Shields

#speech-impediments #stammar #stutter #stuttering #life

The feeling of loving her and being loved by her welled up in him, and he could taste the adrenaline in the back of his throat, and maybe it wasn't over, and maybe he could feel her hand in his again and hear her loud, brash voice contort itself into a whisper to say I-love-you as if it were a secret, and an immense one. ↗

— John Greene

#heartbreak #i-love-you #love #love

Love is Love no matter old you are, and I knew if I gave you enough time, you'd come back to me. ↗

— Nicholas Sparks

#love #love

I don't understand why it's a sin if you love something and want to keep it from having to suffer. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#suffering #love