Power Quotes (page 49)
Most people, if you describe a train of events to them will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backward, or analytically.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Some of us have a ragged faith. You cry for a long time, and then after that are defeated and flattened for a long time. Then somehow life starts up again. ... Some aching beauty comes with huge loss, although maybe not right away when it would be helpful. Life is a very powerful force, despite the constant discouragement. So if you are a person with connections to life, a few tendrils eventually break through the sidewalk of loss, and you notice them, maybe space out studying them for a few...
Anne Lamott
The things here are stronger--the things that differentiate us from one another are too powerful. The common interest is no longer decisive. It has broken up already and given place to the interest of the individual. Now and then something still will shine through from that other time when we all wore the same rig, but already it is dwindled and dim. These others here are still our comrades and yet our comrades no longer--that is what is so sad. All else went west in the war, but comradeship...
Erich Maria Remarque
From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is.
George Orwell
The god of Delos, proud in victory, Saw Cupid draw his bow's taut arc, and said:'Mischievous boy, what are a brave man's arms. To you? That gear becomes my shoulders best. My aim is sure; I wound my enemies, I wound wild beasts; my countless arrows slew. But now the bloated Python, whose vast coils. Across so many acres spread their blight. You and your loves! You have your torch to light them! Let that content you; never claim my fame!'And Venus' son replied: 'Your bow, Apollo, May vanquish...
Ovid
If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, ‘Because it was he; because it was I.’ There is, beyond what I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable and inevitable power that brought on this union.
Michel de Montaigne