#lit

We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in any society – a life free from violence and fear. ↗

— Nelson Mandela

#fear #responsibility #violence #vulnerability #life

This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#escape #literature #reading #words #life

When my TV show, 'Sports Jobs with Junior Seau,' assigned me to be a 'Sports Illustrated' reporter for a weekend, I didn't realize I'd have to squeeze it in around another sports job. I had planned to retire from the NFL to enjoy the cushy lifestyle of a full-time reality TV star, but I wound up getting run over by a bull. ↗

— Junior Seau

#around #assigned #bull #enjoy #full-time

People don’t realize, he said, how important it is to wake up every morning with a song in your heart.” J. Krishnamurti. “The song stands for a sense of joy in existence, a joy that is free of any good or bad choices. ↗

— Deepak Chopra

#music #spirituality #life

Morality is neither rational nor absolute nor natural. World has known many moral systems, each of which advances claims universality; all moral systems are therefore particular, serving a specific purpose for their propagators or creators, and enforcing a certain regime that disciplines human beings for social life by narrowing our perspectives and limiting our horizons. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#morality #life

It is the sheer ugliness and banality of everyday life which turns my blood to ice and makes me cringe in terror. ↗

— Jean Lorrain

#horror #life #reality #terror #ugly

One of the most moral acts is to create a space in which life can move forward. ↗

— Robert M. Pirsig

#morality #progress #life

Literature differs from life in that life is amorphously full of detail, and rarely directs us toward it, wheras literature teaches us to notice. Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life. ↗

— James Wood

#fiction #james-wood #literature #life

What, what am I to do with all of this life? ↗

— Gwendolyn Brooks

#life

The body, the mind, and the spirit don't form a pyramid, they form a circle. Each of them runs into the other two. The body isn't below the mind and the spirit; from the point of view it's between them. if you reside too much in the mind, then you get too abstract and cut off from the world. You long for the spiritual life, but you can't get to it, and you fall into despair. The exercise of the senses frees you from abstraction and opens the way to transcendence. ↗

— Jane Smiley

#balance #humor #spirituality #life