#stand

Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#god #loss #purpose #understanding #death

When a writer dies you get a higher standard of obituary. ↗

— Arthur Smith

#get #higher #higher standard #obituary #standard

He finally understood...the thing that the people during the Paleolitic Age, freaking 20,000 to 8,000 B.C., were after when they came up with mythologies to do with flight—a desire for the magic of the sky, for something bigger than their feet treading the earth. ↗

— Maud Casey

#gods #mythology #understanding #age

The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. ↗

— Margaret Chase Smith

#character #easy #easy way #moral #moral character

Carrie felt this as a personal reproof. She read "Dora Thorne," or had a great deal in the past. It seemed only fair to her, but she supposed that people thought it very fine. Now this clear- eyed, fine-headed youth, who looked something like a student to her, made fun of it. It was poor to him, not worth reading. She looked down, and for the first time felt the pain of not understanding. ↗

— Theodore Dreiser

#book #understanding #youth #art

Macbeth is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of Macbeth. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting. ↗

— Ian Mckellen

#attracts #audiences #easy #exciting #great

I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place. ↗

— Xun Zi

#could #distance #far #farther #found

If you want to understand Jesus, you have to study the whole Bible. Christian duty is not defined solely by the words in red. ↗

— Randall Terry

#christian #defined #duty #jesus #red

Listen, she said, "cherubim have come to my planet before." "I know that. Where do you think I got my information?" "What do you know about us?" "I have heard that your host planet is shadowed, that it is troubled." "It is beautiful," Meg said defensively. She felt a rippling of his wings. "In the middle of your cities?" "Well-no-but I don't live in a city." "And is your planet peaceful?" "Well-no-it isn't very peaceful." "I had the idea," Proginoskes moved reluctantly within her mind, "that there are wars on your planet. People fighting and killing each other." "Yes, that's so, but-" "And children go hungry." "Yes." "And people don't understand each other." "Not always." "And there's-there's hate?" "Yes." She felt Proginoskes pulling away. "All I want to do," he was murmuring to himself, "is go some place quiet and recite the names of the stars... ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#angels #cherubim #earth #hate #history

It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe. ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#meditation #mind #understanding #business