#ren

A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools. ↗

— Thucydides

#well-roundedness #law

Oh, and I certainly don't suffer from schizophrenia. I quite enjoy it. And so do I. ↗

— Emilie Autumn

#schizophrenia #suffering

Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#parenting #teaching #parenting

I wished to see storms only on those coasts where they raged with most violence... ↗

— Marcel Proust

#proust #violence

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American. Military, naval, legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto discourses are mingled at every turn. The French language, like Paris, has attempted, through its Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by comparison, is a shameless whore. ↗

— Stephen Fry

#french #humour #language #london #paris

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. ↗

— Robert Louis Stevenson

#individualism #preference #independence

Independence isn't doing your own thing; it's doing the right thing on your own. ↗

— Kim John Payne

#independence

Mother." Alec's voice as he interrupted his mother was firm, implacable, and not unkind. "Father. There's something I have to tell you." He smiled at them. "I'm seeing someone." Robert Lightwood looked at his son with some exasperation. "Alec," he said. "This is hardly the time." "Yes, it is. This is important. You see, I'm not just seeing anyone." Words seemed to be pouring out of Alec in a torrent, while his parents looked on in confusion. Isabelle and Magnus were staring at him with expressions of nearly identical astonishment. "I'm seeing a Downworlder. In fact, I'm seeing a war—" Magnus's fingers moved, quick as a flash of light, in Alec's direction. There was a faint shimmer in the air around Alec — his eyes rolled up — and he dropped to the floor, felled like a tree. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#city-of-ashes #parenting

Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#strength #violence #violence

Strength isn't about bearing a cross of grief or shame. Strength comes from choosing your own path, and living with the consequences. ↗

— Jennifer Armintrout

#path