#na

Where in the bloody hell did that come from?" asks the other person behind the counter. Or more precisely, on top of the counter, where her ridiculously attractive, English-accented boyfriend is perched. He's the other thing I like about Anna. Wherever she goes, he follows. He nods toward the baby wipe. "What else are you carrying in your pockets? Dust rags? Furniture polish?" "Watch it," she says. "Or I'll scrub your arms, Étienne." He grins. "As long as you do it in private. ↗

— Stephanie Perkins

#Étienne-st-clair #english

The menu is not the meal. ↗

— Alan Wilson Watts

#metaphysics #names #nominalism #philosophy #power-of-words

I want to talk to you. I want to listen to you. I want to walk with you and, yes, I want you in m bed. That's what I want today. That's what I'll want in a hundred years. If you promise to be my wife forever, I will pledge myself to your happiness. ↗

— Christina Dodd

#historical #historical-romance #queen #queen-victoria #romance

My Creed I do not choose to be a common man, It is my right to be uncommon … if I can, I seek opportunity … not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen. Humbled and dulled by having the State look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; To dream and to build. To fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole; I prefer the challenges of life To the guaranteed existence; The thrill of fulfillment To the stale calm of Utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence Nor my dignity for a handout I will never cower before any master Nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect. Proud and unafraid; To think and act for myself, To enjoy the benefit of my creations And to face the world boldly and say: This, with God’s help, I have done All this is what it means To be an Entrepreneur. ↗

— Dean Alfange

#dreams

Don't let the walls fall down and crash your dreams. Build more walls up as you succeed. ↗

— Laci Midgley

#dreams

Islam and Christianity promise eternal paradise to the faithful. And that is a powerful opiate, certainly, the hope of a better life to come. But there's a Sufi story that challenges the notion that people believe only because they need an opiate. Rabe'a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seem running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, 'I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven of fear of hell, but because He is God. ↗

— John Green

#faith

I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run towards it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your foot ↗

— Nadia Comaneci

#fear #gymnast #challenge

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#fate #universe

Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and most remarkable race which has appeared in the world. — Winston S. Churchill ↗

— Ellen Brazer

#espionage #historical-novel #history #holocaust #intrigue

Happy? Most of the time? Happiness is always a fleeting thing," he said, "It never rests upon anyone as a permanent state, though many of us persist in believing in the foolish idea that if this would just happen or that we would be happy for the rest of our lives. I know moments of happiness just as most other people do. Perhaps I have learned to find it in ways that would pass some people by. I feel the summer heat here at this moment and see the trees and the water and hear that invisible gull overhead. I feel the novelty of having company when I usually come here alone. And this moment brings me happiness. ↗

— Mary Balogh

#simply-love #sydnam-butler #love