#simi

Oh, that's typical of you modern young men; you've nibbled at science and it's made you ill, because you've not been able to satisfy that old craving for the absolute that you absorbed in your nurseries. You'd like science to give you all the answers at one go, whereas we're only just beginning to understand it, and it'll probably never be anything but an eternal quest. And so you repudiate science, you fall back on religion, and religion won't have you any more. Then you relapse into pessimism...Yes, it's the disease of our age, of the end of the century: you're all inverted Werthers. ↗

— Émile Zola

#religion #science #age

There is, after all, no moral difference between the bigot and the tolerator. They are from case to case positive or negative. One man is bigoted because he was given the sword of truth, another because he is angered in thoughtlessness; then, one man is tolerant because he was given the flag of peace, another because he is cowardly and wishes to hide all guilt. ↗

— Criss Jami

#bigotry #cowardice #differentiation #flag #guilt

Lugh's decided to stick with bein mad at me. It's like traveling with a storm cloud. One of them that hangs low an heavy. The kind that builds an broods an keeps on buildin an brood in till everybody's got a sick headache. ↗

— Moira Young

#imagery #simile #anger

Her courage seemed to collapse around her ankles like an old pair of elastic undies ↗

— Julie Anne Grasso

#middle-grade #simile #courage

My tears are like a whole pack of dogs on leashes; no matter how I try to tug them back, they just keep barreling forward. ↗

— Holly Schindler

#beauty

Beauty soaks reality as water fills a rag. ↗

— Chet Raymo

#reality #simile #water #beauty

For better or worse, pessimism without compromise lacks public appeal. In all, the few who have gone to the pains of arguing for a sullen appraisal of life might as well never have been born. As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have a unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings ↗

— Thomas Ligotti

#change

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#simile #communication

One couple described the effects as being, “dated hard, married quick, and then ignored.” They got into church alright, but the church never got into them; they were let in easily enough, but they never felt they were counted on. ↗

— Sue Mallory

#dating

He was going to die soon, you knew when you saw those eyes. There was no sign of life in his flesh, just the barest traces of what had once been a life. His body was like a dilapidated old house from which all furniture and fixtures have been removed and which awaited now only its final demolition. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#dying #human #simile #death