#helplessness

Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#hearts #helplessness #man #morality #much

And I ask myself what it is about me that makes this wonderful, beautiful woman return. Is it because I'm pathetic, helpless in my current state, completely dependent on her? Or is it my sense of humour, my willingness to tease her, to joke my way into painful, secret places? Do I help her understand herself? Do I make her happy? Do I do something for her that her husband and son can't do? Has she fallen in love with me? As the days pass and I continue to heal, my body knitting itself back together, I begin to allow myself to think that she has. ↗

— Mohsin Hamid

#dependence #happiness #helplessness #love #pathetic

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter. ↗

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

#follows #helplessness #learned #matter #quitting

The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power). ↗

— Dawn Powell

#basis #comedy #death #disease #greed

Fuck this. Fuck this wondering. Fuck this trying and trying. Fuck this belief that two people can become one ideal. Fuck this helplessness. Fuck this waiting for something to happen that probably won't ever happen. ↗

— David Levithan

#helplessness #rant #unbelief #belief

Our power knows no limits, yet we cannot find food for a starving child, or a home for a refugee. Our knowledge is without measure and we build the weapons that will destroy us. We live on the edge of ourselves, terrified of the darkness within. We have harmed, corrupted and ruined, we have made mistakes and deceived. ↗

— John le Carré

#power #world-order #food

It's going to be a hard time; we can count on that. But with all the misery, what opportunities to show mercy and brotherly love in our land, which has sinned so greatly against love. And patience! For now is the time when the victors, in the blind triumph of their victory, are likely to make mistakes. But that's not our concern, for we shall only be the sufferers, not the agents of suffering. What a power for peace will lie in our own powerlessness if we can only glimpse in it the sign of grace! ↗

— Margot Benary-Isbert

#peace #suffering #war #love

Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing. ↗

— Herodotus

#men

If I look at the mass I will never act. ↗

— Mother Teresa

#apathy #genocide #helplessness #inspirational #power

As the plane got closer to Miami, I had this terrible feeling he was dying. Maybe he was telling me that he was going. I felt anger, panic, despair and helplessness. ↗

— Robin Gibb

#closer #despair #dying #feeling #felt