#uma

Life was about to take her away from here. Fro the place where she'd become herself. This sold little village that never changed but helped its inhabitants to change. She's arrived straight from art college full of avant-garde ideas, wearing shades of gray and seeing the world in black and white. So sure of herself. But here, in the middle of nowhere, she'd discovered color. And nuance. She'd learned this from the villagers, who'd been generous enough to lend her their souls to paint. Not as perfect human beings, but as flawed, struggling men and women. Filled with fear and uncertainty and, in at least one case, martinis. ↗

— Louise Penny

#art

Human reason can excuse any evil. ↗

— Veronica Roth

#evil #humanity #reasoning #evil

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#good-and-evil #humanity #native-americans #self-determination #fighting

If the prisoner is beaten, it is an arrogant expression of fear. ↗

— Ghassan Kanafani

#prisoners #resistance #short-story

Philosophy cannot be extinguished, though men will try ... The spirit seeks the light, that is its nature. It wishes to return to its origin, and must forever try to reach enlightenment. ↗

— Iain Pears

#human-spirit #philosophy #dreams

A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet "for sale", who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his "normal" contemporaries. Not rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society, rather than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man trying to adapt himself to a sick society. In the process of going further in his analysis, i.e. of growing to greater independence and productivity,his neurotic symptoms will cure themselves. ↗

— Erich Fromm

#philosophy #psychoanalysis #psychology #experience

Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#monogamy #morality #conscience

Having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night is a very old human need. ↗

— Margaret Mead

#human #lonely #need #lonely

To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet. ↗

— Ray Bradbury

#contrariness #ebooks #humanity #internet #reading

Love taught me to die with dignity that I might come forth anew in splendor. Born once of flesh, then again of fire, I was reborn a third time to the sound of my name humming haikus in heaven’s mouth. ↗

— Aberjhani

#dignity #faith #haiku #heaven #human-mortality