Effort Quotes (page 5)
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But Moominpappa wasn't listening, because just at that moment he had got the right grip on a big round boulder, and with a great thud it rolled down the slope. It made two very clear sparks and left a faint but enchanting smell of gunpowder behind. Now it was lying at the bottom, just where it should lie. It was wonderful to roll stones, first pushing with all one's might, then feeling them beginning to move just a little at first -- then a little more -- and then giving way and rolling into...
Tove Jansson
Well, the fact is," said Celia, in a burst of girlish frankness, "Irather think I've killed George."Killed him, eh?"It was a solution that had not occurred to me, but now that it waspresented for my inspection I could see its merits. In these days ofnational effort, when we are all working together to try to make ourbeloved land fit for heroes to live in, it was astonishing that nobodybefore had thought of a simple, obvious thing like killing GeorgeMackintosh. George Mackintosh was...
P. G. Wodehouse
Conversations are efforts toward good relations. They are an elementary form of reciprocity. They are the exercise of our love for each other. They are the enemies of our loneliness, our doubt, our anxiety, our tendencies to abdicate. To continue to be in good conversation over our enormous and terrifying problems is to be calling out to each other in the night. If we attend with imagination and devotion to our conversations, we will find what we need; and someone among us will act—it does...
Barry Lopez
Gratitude goes beyond the 'mine' and 'thine' and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
Henri Nouwen
Sometimes, "never let them see you sweat," is truly bad advice. The work of an individual who cares often exposes the grit and determination and effort that it takes to be present. Perfecting your talk, refining your essay and polishing your service until all elements of you disappear might be obvious tactics, but they remove the thing we were looking for: you.
Seth Godin
In the world of the dreamer there was solitude: all the exaltations and joys came in the moment of preparation for living. They took place in solitude. But with action came anxiety, and the sense of insuperable effort made to match the dream, and with it came weariness, discouragement, and the flight into solitude again. And then in solitude, in the opium den of remembrance, the possibility of pleasure again. What was she seeking to salvage from the daily current of living, what sudden...
Anais Nin
Autunm eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends. From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk: then time returns to the shell. In the mirror it's Sunday, in dream there is room for sleeping, our mouths speak the truth. My eye moves down to the sex of my loved one: we look at each other, we exchange dark words, we love each other like poppy and recollection, we sleep like wine in the conches, like the sea in the moon's blood ray. We stand by the window embracing, and people look up...
Paul Celan