#us

But wasn't that always the way. It's never something huge that changes everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you're busy focusing on the big picture. ↗

— Sarah Dessen

#business

Fallujah was a Guernica with no Picasso. A city of 300,000 was deprived of water, electricity, and food, emptied of most of its inhabitants who ended up parked in camps. Then came the methodical bombing and recapture of the city block by block. When soldiers occupied the hospital, The New York Times managed to justify this act on grounds that the hospital served as an enemy propaganda center by exaggerating the number of casualties. And by the way, just how many casualties were there? Nobody knows, there is no body count for Iraqis. When estimates are published, even by reputable scientific reviews, they are denounced as exaggerated. Finally, the inhabitants were allowed to return to their devastated city, by way of military checkpoints, and start to sift through the rubble, under the watchful eye of soldiers and biometric controls. ↗

— Jean Bricmont

#foreign-policy #france #human-rights #iraq #kosovo-war

There I was, cold, isolated and desperate for something I knew I couldn't have. A solution. A remedy. Anything. ...I hated it. Alone and confused was the last place I wanted to be. Somehow I knew I deserved this. ↗

— Brian Krans

#blame #confusion #culpability #longing #blame

I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly! ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#jealousy #vanity #beauty

a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment. Which is pretty amazing, when you actually think about it. ↗

— Sarah Dessen

#music #change

Like a sculptor, if necessary, carve a friend out of stone. Realize that your inner sight is blind and try to see a treasure in everyone. ↗

— Rumi

#muhammad #muslim #poetry #rumi #unity

We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change. ↗

— Sheryl Sandberg

#career #inspirational #self-help #women #business

Because I don't think God trusts just anybody with so much heartache. The world has not yet seen what God can do with a man who gives both halves of a broken heart to him. And I don't doubt that a man like that can change the world...or at least a little part of it. ↗

— Chris Fabry

#change #christian #god #heartache #hope

If you really want to focus on something, says Castellanos, the optimum amount of time to spend on it is ninety minutes. "Then change tasks. And watch out for interruptions once you're really concentrating, because it will take you twenty minutes to recover. ↗

— Winifred Gallagher

#concentration #focus #change

She's no flibberti-gibberti mamzell, but a whir-stir-get-lost-sir bundla dynamite! ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#satan