#vocation

Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just. ↗

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

#just #only #provocation #revenge #those

All anger is not sinful, because some degree of it, and on some occasions, is inevitable. But it becomes sinful and contradicts the rule of Scripture when it is conceived upon slight and inadequate provocation, and when it continues long. ↗

— Wilson Mizner

#because #becomes #conceived #continues #contradicts

Waiting is the great vocation of the dispossessed. ↗

— Mary Gordon

#great #vocation #waiting

There is no excuse for anyone to write fiction for public consumption unless he has been called to do so by the presence of a gift. It is the nature of fiction not to be good for much unless it is good in itself. ↗

— Flannery O'Connor

#fiction #on-fiction #talent #value #vocation

For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is constantly ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#creativity #nietzsche #vocation #art

You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you're not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn't a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now. ↗

— Anaïs Nin

#education #experiments #growth #life #mistakes

Oh, the torment bred in the race, the grinding scream of death and the stroke that hits the vein, the hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief, the curse no man can bear. But there is a cure in the house, and not outside it, no, not from others but from them, their bloody strife. We sing to you, dark gods beneath the earth. Now hear, you blissful powers underground -- answer the call, send help. Bless the children, give them triumph now. ↗

— Aeschylus

#invocation #death

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. ↗

— Parker J. Palmer

#life #life-plan #vocation #life

The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved. ↗

— Emma Goldman

#demand #equal #equal rights #every #fair

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. ↗

— Georges Simenon

#unhappiness #vocation #writing