Famous Quotes & Sayings

Simone Weil

The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth.

Simon Anholt

The real success story of branding in recent decades has been the way in which companies have used their brands to turn the satisfaction of complex and even spiritual needs into commercial transactions.

Thomas Merton

If you want to have a spiritual life you must unify your life. A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all.

Thomas Merton

The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived.

Thomas Merton

Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false Self. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves.

Tony Campolo

Today, some of the most spiritual people I know claim to be without religion.

Rumi

Pain is a treasure, for it contains mercies.

Rumi

Work on your strong qualities and become resplendent like the ruby. Practice self-denial and accept difficulty. Always see infinite life in letting the self die. Your stoniness will decrease; your ruby nature will grow. The signs of self-existence will leave your body, and ecstasy will take you over.

Rumi

Darkness may hide the trees and the flowers from the eyes but it cannot hide love from the soul.

Dean Karnazes

I never feel more alive than when I'm in great pain, struggling against insurmountable odds and untold adversity. Hardship? Suffering? Bring it!

Amber Benson

Mindi Scott has a real talent for getting inside her protagonist's head. She sketches out Coley's story in grand swathes, and then paints in all the little details, so that you feel as though you are enmeshed in Coley's brain: thinking her thoughts, feeling her confusion, anger, and, in the end, pain. I just don't think it's possible to read this book and not identify with Coley in some way.

Amartya Sen

If the knowledge of torture of others makes you sick, it is a case of sympathy... It can be argued that behaviour based on sympathy is in an important sense egoistic, for one is oneself pleased at others' pleasure and pained at others' pain, and the pursuit of one's own utility may thus be helped by sympathetic action.

Chuck Palahniuk

Fertility says, "Can you relax and just let things happen?" I ask, does she mean, like disasters, like pain, like misery? Can I just let all that happen? "And Joy," she says, "and Serenity, and Happiness, and Contentment." She says all the wings of the Columbia Memorial Mausoleum. "You don't have to control everything," she says. "You can't control everything." But you can be ready for disaster. A sign goes by saying, Buckle Up. "If you worry about disaster all of the time, that's what you are going to get," Fertility says.

Chuck Palahniuk

Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That’s the earth. Why it goes around. We’re the rocks. And what happens to us—the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse—why, that’s just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.

Christopher Paolini

I'm not the person I once was. I have Thorn now, and... I'm not fighting for myself anymore....It makes a difference....I used to think you were a fool to keep risking your life as you have...I know better now. I understand...why. I understand...' His [Murtagh] eyes widened and his grimace relaxed, as if his pain was forgotten, and an inner light seemed to illuminate his features. 'I understand-we understand.

Christopher Moore

We know there's going to be nothing but pain, but we go back again and again.

Christopher Moore

Little-boy love...the cleanest pain I've ever known. Love without desire, conditions, or limits - a pure and radiant glow in the heart that could make me giddy and sad and glorious all at once. Where does it go? Why, in all their experiments, did the Magi never try to capture that purity in a bottle? Perhaps they couldn't.

Angelina Jolie

What is it that turns people into artists? It often comes from some kind of pain or angst, a need to understand or express something. It very rarely comes from confidence, being raised by parents who want to hear what you have to say and wants to encourage you.

Bella Thorne

I don't really hashtag things. Unless I'm talking to somebody and I'm being funny and I say something mean but then I'm like, Hashtag...something that's funny. I like to only hashtag funny things, not real stuff.

Billy Blanks

Today is a reality, tomorrow's a promise, and yesterday's history!

Ani Difranco

You've got your whole life to do something, And that's not very long. So why don't you give me a call When you're willing to fight For what you think is real, For what you think is right.

Allen Tate

The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.

Allen Ginsberg

I want to be a saint, a real saint while I am young, for there is so much work to do.

Ann Brashares

It took the real thing to show you the size of your delusions.

Allen West

In the real world, I see conservatives volunteering at adoption agencies, at churches, at bake sales and the local American Legion Post while the only charity a progressive sends is a smug sermon on fair share and what fairness is.

Allen West

I'm a conservative because I believe in peace - real peace, not just the peace of mind. I'm a conservative because we understand that real peace comes from the Marine Corps, not the Peace Corps.

Aga Khan IV

The Muslim world, with its history and cultures, and indeed its different interpretations of Islam, is still little known in the West... The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and Western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides.