#lit

The pressure of adversity is the most powerful sustainer of accountability. It's as though everything you do is multiplied by 50 in order to surpass those with a head-start. I was never capable of slacking when at the threshold of failure. ↗

— Criss Jami

#adversity #compel #drive #endure #failure

The scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value. ↗

— Washington Irving

#solitude #thoughts #adversity

The lesson we are indebted to Egypt for, our future generations learned that in the face of oppression silence is never golden. ↗

— Aysha Taryam

#democracy #dictators #dictatorship #egypt #philosophy

Generalization is flawed thinking only when applied to individuals. It is the most accurate way to describe the mass, the Wad. And yours is a democracy, a dictatorship of the Wad. ↗

— Trevanian

#generalizations #politics #dictatorship

It is the philosophers, theologians, and evangelists who are said to be filled with pride and bigotry due to the strong convictions that they represent. On the contrary, teachings can be either taken or dismissed; whereas voting is the only thing the average person can do to force everyone to live how they would prefer. A simple vote is among the largest yet most acceptable forms of bigotry, and that is because people play the card only when they feel that in doing so it conveniences themselves. ↗

— Criss Jami

#bigotry #convenience #convictions #evangelists #hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in speech, which is a gauge of the heart's state. ↗

— Hamza Yusuf

#spirituality #hypocrisy

It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind. ↗

— نجيب محفوظ

#heart #sentimentality #skepticism #skepticism

Do the children who prefer books set in the real, ordinary, workaday world ever read as obsessively as those who would much rather be transported into other worlds entirely? ↗

— Laura Miller

#children #escapism #fantasy #reading #reality

Truth  is that we all need facts we cannot continue to eat only the food that is given to us. Sometimes we have to feed ourselves otherwise we set our self up for dependency on the wrong nutrition without realizing that we were being poisoned the whole time. ↗

— R. Lewis

#love #politics #power-of-words #truth #food

Every one is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#humility #love