#ness

If you listen quietly enough life will whisper its secrets to you ↗

— Rasheed Ogunlaru

#life #life-lessons-lessons #rasheed-ogunlaru #secrets-of-the-universe #secrets-to-happiness

Let me ask you outright, gentle reader, if there have not been hours, indeed whole days and weeks of your life, during which all your usual activities were painfully repugnant, and everything you believed in and valued seemed foolish and worthless? ↗

— Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann

#ichschmertz #weariness #life

Nothing else in all life is such a maker of joy and cheer as the privilege of doing good. ↗

— J.R. Miller

#joy #life

There exists yonder in the mountains," said the Bishop, "a tiny community no bigger than that, which I have not seen for three years. They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own one goat out of every thirty that they tend. They make very pretty woollen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on little flutes with six holes. They need to be told of the good God now and then. What would they say to a bishop who was afraid? What would they say if I did not go?" "But the brigands, Monseigneur?" "Hold," said the Bishop, "I must think of that. You are right. I may meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God." "But, Monseigneur, there is a band of them! A flock of wolves!" "Monsieur le maire, it may be that it is of this very flock of wolves that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd. Who knows the ways of Providence?" "They will rob you, Monseigneur." "I have nothing." "They will kill you." "An old goodman of a priest, who passes along mumbling his prayers? Bah! To what purpose?" "Oh, mon Dieu! what if you should meet them!" "I should beg alms of them for my poor." "Do not go, Monseigneur. In the name of Heaven! You are risking your life!" "Monsieur le maire," said the Bishop, "is that really all? I am not in the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#courage #righteousness #courage

The ill effects of thought come about when we forget that thought is a function of our consciousness... an ability that we as human beings have. We are the producers of our own thinking. ↗

— Richard Carlson

#about #beings #come #consciousness #effects

#1487: Hug a cow. ↗

— H. Jackson Brown Jr.

#happiness #hugs #life

I believe that we are all born for greatness yet most of us mire in the mediocrity of life. We become complacent or worse, discouraged and stagnate. We damn ourselves by not progressing. ↗

— Toni Sorenson

#greatness #life #progress #life

People are unhappy when they get something too easily. You have to sweat--that's the only moral they know. ↗

— Dany Laferrière

#life #life

Можно лежать на мосту и смотреть, как течет вода. Или бегать, или побродить по болоту в красных сапожках, или же свернуться клубочком и слушать, как дождь стучит по крыше. Быть счастливой очень легко. ↗

— Tove Jansson

#life-lessons #life

All zoos, even the most enlightened, are built upon the idea both beguiling and repellent—the notion that we can seek out the wildness of the world and behold its beauty, but that we must first contain that wildness. Zoos argue that they are fighting for the conservation of the Earth, that they educate the public and provide refuge and support for vanishing species. And they are right. Animal-rights groups argue that zoos traffic in living creatures, exploiting them for financial gain and amusement. And they are right. Caught inside this contradiction are the animals themselves, and the humans charged with their well-being. ↗

— Thomas French

#wildness #zoo #beauty