#not

I nursed a worthless, pint drinker for twelve years and when my lazy, life-sucking, daddy finally died, I swore to God with tears in my eyes I'd never marry one. And then I did. ↗

— Kathryn Stockett

#life

We drink one another's health and spoil our own. ↗

— Jerome K. Jerome

#drink #health #our #own #spoil

We were anxious to begin our life as people who had no people. And it was easy to find an apartment because we had no standards; we were just amazed that it was *our* door, *our* rotting carpet, *our* cockroach infestation... We were excited about getting jobs; we hardly went anywhere without filling out an application. But once we were hired—as furniture sanders—we could hardly believe this was really what people did all day. Everything we had thought of as The World was actually the result of someone's job. Each line on the sidewalk, each saltine. Everyone had rotting carpet and a door to pay for. Aghast, we quit. There had to be a more dignified way to live. We needed time to consider ourselves, to come up with a theory about who we were and to set it to music. ↗

— Miranda July

#life

You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots. Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#choice #fyodor-dostoyevsky #life #notes-from-the-underground #reason

I've really only learned one thing in my life. One thing, in my heart, as deep as the deepest ocean in the world; no matter how bad it seems, it will always get better, ALWAYS. ↗

— Jamie Schoffman

#jamie-schoffman #not-all-out-of-love #life

I cannot stand authority. ↗

— Mikhail Baryshnikov

#cannot #i #stand

Bright light is injurious to those who see nothing. ↗

— Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

#injurious #light #nothing #see #those

A good leader is one who can tell another how to reach his or her potential; a great leader is one who can help another discover this potential for him or herself. ↗

— Bo Bennett

#discover #good #good leader #great #help

If peace cannot be maintained with honour, it is no longer peace. ↗

— John Russell

#honour #longer #maintained #peace

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be… ↗

— Joan Didion

#on-keeping-a-notebook #self #love