#lt

It's like when you read a book and you know that the words are important, but the images blossoming in your imagination are even more important because it's your mind that allows the words to come to life. ↗

— Jack Gantos

#imagination

To get rich, one must have but a single idea, one fixed, hard, immutable thought: the desire to make a heap of gold. And in order to increase this heap of gold, one must be inflexible, a usurer, thief, extortionist, and murderer! And one must especially mistreat the small and the weak! And when this mountain of gold has been amassed, one can climb up on it, and from up on the summit, a smile on one’s lips, one can contemplate the valley of poor wretches that one has created. ↗

— Petrus Borel

#poverty #rich #wealth #capitalism

...It sounded like a dragon breathing in time with me, like I had this pet dragon who was cuddled up next to me and cared enough about me to time his breaths to mine. ↗

— John Green

#pet-dragon #the-fault-in-our-stars #pets

My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#sociology #sociology

I refer to what is called mysterium iniquitatis, meaning, as I see it, that a crime in the final analysis remains inexplicable inasmuch as it cannot be fully traced back to biological, psychological and/or sociological factors. Totally explaining one’s crime would be tantamount to explaining away his or her guilt and to seeing in him or her not a free and responsible human being but a machine to be repaired. Even criminals themselves abhor this treatment and prefer to be held responsible for their deeds. From a convict serving his sentence in an Illinois penitentiary I received a letter in which he deplored that 'the criminal never has a chance to explain himself. He is offered a variety of excuses to choose from. Society is blamed and in many instances the blame is put on the victim. ↗

— Viktor E. Frankl

#guilt #sociology

When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous. As a result, social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings ↗

— Octavio Paz

#language #society #grammar

Thats the spirit-one part brave,three parts fool. ↗

— Christopher Paolini

#christopher #dragon #eragon #paolini #young

I situate myself, and seat myself, And where you recline I shall recline, For every armchair belonging to you as good as belongs to me. I loaf and curl up my tail I yawn and loaf at my ease after rolling in the catnip patch." (From Meow of Myself, from LEAVES OF CATNIP) ↗

— Henry N. Beard

#humor #leaves-of-grass #song-of-myself #walt-whitman #humor

It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you, Hazel Grace ↗

— John Green

#best-book-ever #cute #funny #humour #john-green

I like using big words because it gets a response out of people. They say, 'Was that an insult?' Soon I'll have enough scars to make an impression as the strong, silent type. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#funny #humor #vocabulary #funny