#is

What, did you think," she asked, laughing as he struggled up the bank, "that I, a Gaulish maiden, could not swim?" "I did not think anything about it," Malchus said; "I saw you pushed in and followed without thinking at all." Although they imperfectly understood each other's words the meaning was clear; the girl put her hand on his shoulder and looked frankly up in his face. "I thank you," she said, "just the same as if you had saved my life. You meant to do so, and it was very good of you, a great chief of this army, to hazard your life for a Gaulish maiden. Clotilde will never forget. ↗

— G.A. Henty

#life

[W]hen I see men callously and cheerfully denying women the full use of their bodies, while insisting with sobs and howls on the satisfaction of their own, I simply can't find it heroic, or kind, or anything but pretty rotten and feeble. ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#double-standards #empowerment #feminism #gender #hypocrisy

Who do you spend time with? Criticizers or encouragers? Surround yourself with those who believe in you. Your life is too important for anything less. ↗

— Steve Goodier

#encouragement #positive #time #life

There's nothing an artist needs more - even more than excellent tools and stamina - than a deadline. ↗

— Adriana Trigiani

#deadline #stamina #tools #life

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." How often I think of that 'ought.' No sugary sentiment there. Just the stern, glorious trumpet call, OUGHT. But can words tell the joy buried deep within? Mine cannot. It laughs at words. ↗

— Amy Carmichael

#sacrifice #life

Nights and days came and passed And summer and winter and the rain. And it was good to be a little Island. A part of the world and a world of its own All surrounded by the bright blue sea. ↗

— Margaret Wise Brown

#life #life

The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole! We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#philosophy #philosophy-of-life #life

Tree It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose. That great calm being, this clutter of soup pots and books-- Already the first branch-tips brush at the window. Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life. ↗

— Jane Hirshfield

#nature #wisdom #life

Despite all their flaws, zoos wake us up. They invite us to step outside our most basic assumptions. Offered for our contemplation, the animals remind us of nature’s impossibly varied schemes for survival, all the strategies that species rely upon for courtship and mating and protecting the young and establishing dominance and hunting for something to eat and avoiding being eaten. On a good day, zoos shake people into recognizing the manifold possibilities of existence, what it’s like to walk across the Earth, or swim in its oceans of fly above its forests—even though most animals on display will never have the chance to do any of those things again, at least not in the wild. ↗

— Thomas French

#existence #nature #survival #wild #wildness

There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently quiet. ↗

— George Eliot

#life