#to

Today wouldn't have happened if histories weren't falsified. ↗

— Toba Beta

#falsified #histories #knowledge #life #people

But our lives were not as they seemed, were they, Sophia? No one's life ever is. ↗

— Jean Plaidy

#life #queen-victoria #life

For anyone of a rational disposition, fashion is often nearly impossible to fathom. Throughout many periods of history – perhaps most – it can seem as if the whole impulse of fashion has been to look maximally ridiculous. If one could be maximally uncomfortable as well, the triumph was all the greater. ↗

— Bill Bryson

#history #humor #humor

Life, she realized, so often became a determined, relentless avoidance of pain-of one's own, of other people's. But sometimes pain had to be acknowledged and even touched so that one could move into it and through it and past it. Or else be destroyed by it. ↗

— Mary Balogh

#avoid #pain #touc #life

The happy life does not mean loving what we possess, but possessing what we love." Possession of the beloved, St. Thomas holds, takes place in an act of cognition, in seeing, in intuition, in contemplation. ↗

— Josef Pieper

#bartolome-de-medina #contemplation #happiness #st-thomas #life

For a while the hobbits continued to talk and think of the past journey and of the perils that lay ahead; but such was the virtue of the land of Rivendell that soon all fear and anxiety was lifted from their minds. The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over the present. Health and hope grew strong in them, and they were content with each good day as it came, taking pleasure in every meal, and in every word and song. ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#wisdom #life

Circenn moved swiftly, intending to catch the tear upon his finger, kiss it away, then kiss away all her pain and fear, and assure her that he would permit no harm to touch her and would spend his life making things up to her; but she dropped the flask onto the table and turned swiftly. "Please, leave me alone," she said and turned away from him. "Let me comfort you, Lisa," he entreated. "Leave me alone." For the first time in his life, Circenn felt utterly helpless. Let her grieve, his heart instructed. She would need to grieve, for discovering that the flask didn't work was tantamount to lowering her mother into a solitary grave. She would grieve her mother as if she'd in truth died that very day. May God forgive me, he prayed. I did not know what I was doing when I cursed that flask. ↗

— Karen Marie Moning

#karen-marie-moning #lisa #the-highlander-s-touch #forgiveness

In this life, you have winners and losers. the more you win, the higher you go. ↗

— Daniel Nayeri

#win #winning #life

Don't imagine it would be the usual kind of marriage." He seemed to withdraw even more. "It needn't even be consummated. Any woman I liked we'll enough to marry doesn't deserve to be saddled to me. If we marry, it will be a quiet wedding by special license in a back room. At the end, we'll go our separate ways--you, to your farm, and me..." He looked around the small room at the messy piles of paper. "I'm not offering to make a life with you. I'm merely giving you the chance to make your child legitimate. Nothing more." He watched her, his eyes hooded and wary. And deep inside... She had no notion as to what to say. She let out a long breath. "Oh, you are romantic. ↗

— Courtney Milan

#serena-burton #imagination

I would have preferred someone else to have been in charge of rescuing this story, but once again life has taught me that my role is to be a witness, not the leading actor. ↗

— Carlos Ruiz Zafón

#story #witness #life