#rin

The common man wants nothing of life but health, longevity, amusement, comfort -- "happiness." He who does not despise this should turn his eyes from world history, for it contains nothing of the sort. The best that history has created is great suffering. ↗

— Oswald Spengler

#history #struggle #suffering #life

One learns a good deal in the school of suffering. I wonder what would have happened to me if I had had an easy life, and had not had the privilege of tasting the joys of jail and all it means." ~ Badsha Khan, quote in Nonviolent Soldier of Islam, p. 87 ↗

— Eknath Easwaran

#life

I will not be someone who abandons my principles as soon as they become inconvenient. I will not be someone who says that certain things have to be done… as long as somebody else does them. ↗

— Zoe Cannon

#life

If you have a problem and you can't find a solution, you meet again tomorrow and you keep talking until you find a solution. You can disagree with behavior or a particular position, but you do not resort to calling an opponent worthless. ↗

— Kofi Annan

#inspiring #kofi-annan #inspirational

[...] the state is not immoral but amoral; half of it exists outside morality ↗

— Jacques Barzun

#the-prince #life

[The prince] dare not let ethics keep him from doing whatever evil must be done to preserve himself and the state. ↗

— Jacques Barzun

#the-prince #life

Ever poised on that cusp between past and future, we tie memories to souvenirs like string to trees along life’s path, marking the trail in case we lose ourselves around a bend of tomorrow’s road. ↗

— Susan Lendroth

#memory #nostalgia #past #remembering #souvenir

This was too much for him to handle. It was like watching memories of his life play out from a different camera angle, sometimes with new scenes added. He was living DVD extras. ↗

— Dennis Sharpe

#hell #repeating #suffering #time-travel #life

In Shahid's view, the best way through difficult times, as through life in general, was just to go along with things. It was a rare problem that couldn't be solved by being ignored. ↗

— John Lanchester

#difficulties #going-along #ignoring-things #life #problems

it seemed to him that no matter what evils a man had committed, making him suffer purely for the sake of suffering was pointless. It didn't undo the harm he had wrought; it didn't please anyone or improve anyone's life. ↗

— Kim Fielding

#life #suffering #wisdom #life