#tho

One minute was enough, Tyler said, "A person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection. ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#perfection #effort

There can be no settlement of a great cause without discussion, and people will not discuss a cause until their attention is drawn to it. ↗

— William Jennings Bryan

#cause #discuss #discussion #drawn #great

Inevitably it follows that anyone with an independent mind must become 'one who resists or opposes an authority or established convention': a rebel. ...And if enough people come to agree with—and follow—the REBEL, we now have a DEVIL. Until, of course, still more people agree. And then, finally, we have ... GREATNESS. ↗

— Nicholas Tharcher

#independent-thought #metaphysics #philosophy #independence

A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to. ↗

— Banksy

#initiative #oxymoron #paradox #independence

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

Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species. ↗

— John Green

#books #fiction #on-fiction #effort

There is a comfort in conformity, a security in control, that is appealing. There is a thrill in domination, and we are all secretly attracted to violence. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#violence #war #violence

Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#impossible #plan #vision #vision

Social conservatism and neoconservatism have revived authoritarian conservatism, and not for the better of conservatism or American democracy. True conservatism is cautious and prudent. Authoritarianism is rash and radical. American democracy has benefited from true conservatism, but authoritarianism offers potentially serious trouble for any democracy. ↗

— John W. Dean

#conservatism #democracy #politics #democracy

What an author doesn't know could fill a book. ↗

— Holly Black

#books #knowledge #authority