#uf

Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recognition of their need; He makes that life less sweet to them. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#suffering #family

However self-sufficient we may fancy ourselves, we exist only in relation -- to our friend, family, and life partners; to those we teach and mentor; to our co-workers, neighbors, strangers; and even to forces we cannot fully conceive of, let alone define. In many ways, we are our relationships. ↗

— Derrick A. Bell

#self #self-sufficency #family

To identify with others is to see something of yourself in them and to see something of them in yourself--even if the only thing you identify with is the desire to be free from suffering. ↗

— Melanie Joy

#factory-farming #food #identifying #meat #people

Over the years, Americans in particular have been all too willing to squander their hard-earned independence and freedom for the illusion of feeling safe under someone else's authority. The concept of self-sufficiency has been undermined in value over a scant few generations. The vast majority of the population seems to look down their noses upon self-reliance as some quaint dusty relic, entertained only by the hyperparanoid or those hopelessly incapable of fitting into mainstream society. ↗

— Cody Lundin

#preparedness #self-reliance #self-sufficiency #survival #freedom

When words can't make it better, hold my hand and don't let go. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#friendship #grief #hardships #life #richelle

No they called it the Codex Merlini because it was written by a guy named Ralph. ↗

— Karen Chance

#funny

I want to be a man of mountaintops: to scale the heights, achieve a sublime transcendence, and breathe in the thin air. Transcendence requires suffocation. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#suffocation #transcendence #funny

That's so cute! They have birdbaths in the church! ↗

— Hilary Duff

#funny #hilary-duff #funny

The payment made by a manufacturer to a patentee for the privilege of using the patent process, is usually termed, in commercial language, a rent; and under the same head must be ranked all extraordinary qualities of body and mind. ↗

— Nassau William Senior

#commercial #extraordinary #head #language #made

The jazz chord substitutions in a country song... that was another thing that bent people's ears. I guess that my favorites are the unique ones. It's not how fast you play. It's that unique blending of different stuff I'm most proud of. ↗

— Brian Setzer

#bent #blending #chord #country #different