Strong Quotes (page 75)
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That which rules within, when it is according to nature, will always adapt itself easily to that which is possible and is presented to it. For it requires no definite material, in moving toward its purpose, but rather certain conditions; and it makes a material for itself out of that which opposes it, as a great fire lays hold of a mass that would have extinguished a tiny flame: when the fire is strong, it soon appropriates to itself the matter that is heaped on it and consumes it, rising...
Marcus Aurelius
She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness... Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods... The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
At certain times I have no race. I am me. I belong to no race or time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads. I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife. I have a strong suspicion, but I can't be sure, that much that passes for constant love is a golded-up moment walking in its sleep. Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. Sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can anyone deny...
Zora Neale Hurston
And yet, I found I could survive. I was alert, I felt the pain - the aching loss that radiated out from my chest, sending wracking waves of hurt through my limbs and head - but it was manageable. I could live through it. I didn't feel like the pain had weakened over time, rather that I'd grown strong enough to bear it.
Stephenie Meyer
I would browse for half an hour or so in the secondhand bookstores in the neighborhood. Owning my own 'library' was my only materialistic ambition; in fact, trying to decide which two of these thousands of books to buy that week, I would frequently get so excited that by the time the purchase was accomplished I had to make use of the bookseller's toilet facilities. I don't believe that either microbe or laxative has ever affected me so strongly as the discovery that I was all at once the...
Philip Roth
Pirate Dreams. Needles and pins, Needles and pins, Sew me a sail to catch me the wind. Sew me a sail strong as the gale, Carpenter, bring out your hammers and nails. Hammers and nails, hammers and nails, Build me a boat to go chasing the whales. Chasing the whales, sailing the blue. Find me a captain and sign me a crew. Captain and crew, captain and crew, Take me, oh take me to anywhere new.
Shel Silverstein
The necropolis has never seemed a city of death to me; I know its purple roses (which other people think so hideous) shelter hundreds of small animals and birds. The executions I have seen performed and have performed myself so often are no more than a trade, a butchery of human beings who are for the most part less innocent and less valuable than cattle. When I think of my own death, or the death of someone who has been kind to me, or even of the death of the sun, the image that comes to my...
Gene Wolfe
Therefore, doing the Stations of the Cross was still more laborious than consoling, and required a sacrifice. It was much the same with all my devotions. They did not come easily or spontaneously, and they very seldom brought with them any strong sensible satisfaction. Nevertheless the work of performing them ended in a profound and fortifying peace: a peace that was scarcely perceptible, but which deepened and which, as my passions subsided, became more and more real, more and more sure,...
Thomas Merton