#inspirational

[P]eople need to use their intelligence to evaluate what they find to be true and untrue in the Bible. This is how we need to live life generally. Everything we hear and see we need to evaluate—whether the inspiring writings of the Bible or the inspiring writings of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or George Eliot, of Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, or the Dalai Lama. ↗

— Bart D. Ehrman

#intelligence #life #literature #religion #inspirational

A novel is not an allegory...it is a sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel; you inhale the experience. So start breathing. I just want you to remember this. That is all; class dismissed. ↗

— Azar Nafisi

#experience

I started off wanting to change the world, now I'm just hoping the world doesn't change me. ↗

— Ray Mileur

#ray-mileur #change

I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My characters—I would like to have them heavier, more three-dimensional ... My characters have a profession, have characteristics; you know their age, their family situation, and everything. But I try to make each one of those characters heavy, like a statue, and to be the brother of everybody in the world. ↗

— Georges Simenon

#inspirational #writing #age

Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive, that you understand going to die, and you live a better life because of it. ↗

— Mitch Albom

#life-lessons #age

The three most harmful negative emotions are anger, guilt, and fear. And anger is number one. It is also the strongest and most dangerous of all passions. ↗

— Joyce Meyer

#anger

A foolish man question: “what is love?” A madman answer: “Love is an omnipresent attribute of human life. Our appetite will always be unfulfilled for love. It is better for us because without it, earth will not rotate, seasons will not change, birds will not sing and life will not exit.” What do you think? ↗

— Santosh Kalwar

#love #poem #romance #change

The funny thing about an impossibility is that it tends to be a magnet for those who would prove it otherwise. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#dreams #fortitude #goals #impossible #inspirational

It's disturbing how fast weeds take root in my garden of worthiness. They're so hard to pull. And grow back so easily. ↗

— Wendelin Van Draanen

#dreams

The essential elements of giving are power and love - activity and affection - and the consciousness of the race testifies that in the high and appropriate exercise of these is a blessedness greater than any other. ↗

— Mark Hopkins

#activity #affection #any #appropriate #blessedness