Troubling Quotes (page 53)
If the human race develops an electronic nervous system, outside the bodies of individual people, thus giving us all one mind and one global body, this is almost precisely what has happened in the organization of cells which compose our own bodies. We have already done it. [...] If all this ends with the human race leaving no more trace of itself in the universe than a system of electronic patterns, why should that trouble us? For that is exactly what we are now!
Alan Watts
Without faith to act as a governor, the human mind is a runaway worry generator, a dynamo of negative expectations. And because your life is yours to shape as you wish with free will, if you entertain too much anxiety about too many things, if you place no trust in providence, what you fear will more often come to pass. We make so many of our own troubles, from mere mishaps to disasters, by dwelling on the possibility of them until the possible becomes inevitable.
Dean Koontz
I can't imagine finding anybody to take your place."You might not find a person that easily, but you could probably find a way without too much trouble," Aomama noted. The dowager looked at Aomame calmly, her lips forming a satisfied smile. "That may be true," she said, "but I almost surely could never find anthing to take the place of what we are sharing here and now. You are you and only you. I'm very grateful for that. More grateful than I can say.
Haruki Murakami
I shall stick to our vow: never, never under any circumstances, to say anything unbecoming of the other...The trouble, of course, is that most successful men are prone to some form of vanity. There comes a stage in their lives when they consider it permissible to be egotistic and to brag to the public at large about their unique achievements.
Nelson Mandela
Behind it was that vast suspension bridge which always troubles me because it reminds me that in this mechanized age I am as little able to understand my environment as any primitive woman who thinks that a waterfall is inhabited by a spirit, and indeed less so, for her opinion might from a poetical point of view be correct.
Rebecca West
It all boils down to instinct, good or bad. Artistic creation must be spontaneous. It comes from the heart; it has to pass through the brain; and still one needs the guts, and good old, indispensable technique, to bring it to the light of day. That, at least, is how I see the process, not that I have ever been able to pin it down very exactly in my own case. You hear a voice inside. You obey it, and produce whatever it told you to produce; and then you wait and see. And oh! The trouble you're...
Maurice Chevalier
Around the world–even in some of the countries most troubled by poverty or civil war or pollution–many thoughtful people are making a deep, concerted search for a way to live in harmony with each other and the earth. Their efforts, which rarely reach the headlines, are among the most important events occurring today. Sometimes these people call themselves peace workers, at other times environmentalists, but most of the time they work in humble anonymity. They are simply quiet people changing...
Eknath Easwaran
How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless."
"Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them."
"I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.
Oscar Wilde