#matter

If we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself. ↗

— Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

#committees #confronting #conscience #courage #everything

No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen. ↗

— Minor White

#chosen #enough #film #how #long

Because Margo knows the secret of leaving, the secret I have only just now learned; leaving feels good and pure only when you leave something important, something that mattered to you. Pulling life out by the roots. But you can't do that until your life has grown roots. ↗

— John Green

#grow-roots #important #leaving #something-matters #life

There was only silence. It was the silence of matter caught in the act and embarrassed. There were no cells moving, and yet there were cells. I could see the shape of the land, how it lay holding silence. Its poise and its stillness were unendurable, like the ring of the silence you hear in your skull when you're little and notice you're living the ring which resumes later in life when you're sick. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#land #life #matter #silence #life

Partying means drinking. It also means playing records by Lou Reed and Chicago, which I thought was a city but is also a band it turns out. ↗

— Ron Currie Jr.

#drink #everything-matters #fun #lou-reed #music

We're all people", he said simply. "It doesn't matter if you're two, thirty-two, or ninety-two. Everyone wants to be treated with respect. Everyone wants to feel like they matter in this world. ↗

— Megan McCafferty

#people #respect #respect

Whiskey's to tough, Champagne costs too much, Vodka puts my mouth in gear. I hope this refrain, Will help me explain, As a matter of fact, I like beer. ↗

— Tom T. Hall

#champagne #costs #explain #fact #gear

You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average-sized adult you will contain within your modest frame no less than 7 X 10^18 joules of potential energy—enough to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point. ↗

— Bill Bryson

#matter #physics #liberalism

Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters. ↗

— John Green

#nerdfighters #paper-towns #things-that-matter #beauty

Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them. ↗

— Georges Bataille

#despair #dreams #give #how #intellectual