Such Things Quotes (page 8)
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Serenity. Now you could wish for that, naming no conditions: a permanent inner vacation, escape made good. To somehow have this motionlessness that he drew in with the sweet air he inhaled for his inward weather always. But there were problems too with wishing for moral qualities, serenity, large-mindedness. The interdiction (which Pierce thought obvious) against wishing for such things as artistic abilities -- sit down at the piano, the Appassionata flows suddenly from your fingertips --...
John Crowley
There is no such thing as educational value in the abstract. The notion that some subjects and methods and that acquaintance with certain facts and truths possess educational value in and of themselves is the reason why traditional education reduced the material of education so largely to a diet of predigested materials.
John Dewey
He who has attained the freedom of reason to any extent cannot, for a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face of the earth - and not even as a traveler towards a final goal, for there is no such thing. But he certainly wants to observe and keep his eyes open to whatever actually happens in the world; therefore he cannot attach his heart too firmly to anything individual; he must have in himself something wandering that takes pleasure in change and transitoriness.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There's no such thing as "The One", she once said. They were at dinner in Taipei, with a supplier and his wife. The couple had been married forty years. The idea that there's just one person in the world you're meant to be with, it's illogical, she said. She'd had a few drinks and was enjoying her own loud thoughts. The math just doesn't work! Who you end up with, it's really just an accident of proximity.
Dave Eggers
All real art is, in its true sense, is a religious impulse; there is no such thing as a non-religious subject. But much bad or downright sacrilegious art depicts so-called religious subjects…Conversely, much great religious art has been written or painted or composed by people who thought they were atheists.
Madeleine L'Engle
...If there's a noise in the woods, and there's nobody around to hear it, is it really a noise?"Of course it is," she replied calmly."How did you reach that conclusion?" Beldin demanded."Because there's no such thing as an empty place, uncle. There are always creatures around --wild animals, mice, insects, birds --and they can all hear."But what if there weren't? What if the woods are truly empty?"Why waste your time talking about an impossibility?
David Eddings
Friends.
They aren’t any such thing as good friend or bad friend.
Maybe there are just friend.
People who stand by you when you're hurt and who helped you feel not so lonely.
Maybe there are worth being scared for and hoping for and living for.
Maybe worth dying for too.
If that what has to be.
No bad friends.
Only people you want.
Need to be with.
People who build their houses in your heart.
Stephen King
A person does not, as I had imagined, stand motionless and clear before our eyes with his merits, his defects, his plans, his intentions with regard to ourselves (like a garden at which we gaze through a railing with all its borders spread out before us), but is a shadow which we can never penetrate, of which there can be no such thing as direct knowledge, with respect to which we form countless beliefs, based upon words and sometimes actions, neither of which can give us anything but...
Marcel Proust
Freedom is not a constant attribute which we either "have" or "have not." In fact, there is no such thing as "freedom" except as a word and an abstract concept. There is only one reality: the act of freeing ourselves in the process of making choices. In this process the degree of our capacity to make choices varies with each act, with our practice of life.
Erich Fromm
Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.'Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look. I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is argued that because they believed thoroughly in a just, moral God they could put there faith there and let the smaller insecurities take care of themselves. But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potential moral units- because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust...
John Steinbeck
Your father was no longer a young man. he was already in his fifties.'
Fifty-six,' Eddie said blankly.
Fifty-six,' the old woman repeated. 'His body had been weakened, the ocean had left him vulnerable, pneumonia took hold of him, and in time, he died.'
Because of Mickey?' Eddie said.
Because of loyalty,' she said.
People don’t die because of loyalty.'
They don’t?' she smiled. 'Religion? government? Are we not loyal to such things, sometimes to the death?'
Eddie shrugged.
Better,' she said,...
Mitch Albom
