Not Afraid Quotes (page 19)
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I could fight with the living but I could not fight the dead. If there was some woman in London that Maxim loved, someone he wrote to, visited, dined with, slept with, I could fight her. We would stand on common ground. I should not be afraid. Anger and jealousy were things that could be conquered. One day the woman would grow old or tired or different, and Maxim would not love her anymore. But Rebecca would never grow old. Rebecca would always be the same. And she and I could not fight. She...
Daphne du Maurier
We are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that the mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it, nor his love of exercise less...
C. S. Lewis
there is a loneliness in this world so greatthat you can see it in the slow movement ofthe hands of a clock. people so tiredmutilatedeither by love or no love. people just are not good to each otherone on one. the rich are not good to the richthe poor are not good to the poor. we are afraid. our educational system tells usthat we can all bebig-ass winners. it hasn't told usabout the guttersor the suicides. or the terror of one personaching in one placealoneuntouchedunspoken towatering a plant.
Charles Bukowski
But I'm afraid it can't be done."Certainly not; it can't be done," repeated the Humbug."Why not?" asked Milo."Why not indeed?" exclaimed the bug, who seemed equally at home on either side of an argument."Much too difficult," replied the king."Of course," emphasized the bug, "much too difficult."You could if you really wanted to," insisted Milo."By all means, if you really wanted to, you could," the Humbug agreed."How?" asked Azaz, glaring at the bug."How?" inquired Milo, looking the same...
Norton Juster
The Pope replied, “of what should we not be afraid? We should not fear the truth about ourselves.” He spoke of how Saint Peter himself, the rock on which Christ had built his church, had told Christ to leave him, “for I am a sinful man.” Peter was a sinful man. We all are, including popes. We are imperfect and “our hearts are anxious.” But we cannot and should not let the fact of our unworthiness and flaws and failures build that wall with a kind of inverted pride that says, Oh, I’m so...
Peggy Noonan
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case....
Mary Oliver
She has form," he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove - "that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks merely of music, and everybody knows that arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.
Oscar Wilde
The notion that someone who does not hold your views holds the reciprocal of them, or simply hasn't got any, has, whatever its comforts for those afraid reality is going to go away unless we believe very hard in it, not conduced to much in the way of clarity in the anti-relativist discussion, but merely to far too many people spending far too much time describing at length what it is they do not maintain than seems in any way profitable.
Clifford Geertz
To be afraid is the condition of loving knowledge. Were I not dying of fear, I'd not know how to exist myself, I wouldn't get the notices of existence, I wouldn't record with delight the miniscule passage of a blue tit, its wing dipped in gold on the dusk. Were I not dying of sorrow I wouldn't with nostalgia be present at the creation of the world, the squirrel nuptials this morning I wouldn't care. Creatures are born to a backdrop of adieux.
Helene Cixous
To be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not; it is to think that one knows what one does not know. No one knows with regard to death wheather it is not really the greatest blessing that can happen to man; but people dread it as though they were certain it is the greatest evil." -The Last Days of Socrates
Plato