Used To Be Quotes (page 46)
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So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he...
Stanislaw Lem
Don't be like those people who believe in "positive thinking" and tell themselves that they're loved and strong and capable. You don't need to do that because you know it already. And when you doubt it? which happens, I think, quite often at this stage of evolution? do as I suggested. Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh. Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to...
Paulo Coelho
The Emperor of Ice-Cream Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Take from the dresser of deal, Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet...
Wallace Stevens
Lenin only believes in the revolution and in the virtue of expediency.'One must be prepared for every sacrifice, to use, if necessary, every stratagem, ruse, illegal method, to be determined to conceal the truth, for the sole purpose of accomplishing, despite everything, the communist task'.
Albert Camus
My selfbeing, my consciousness and feeling of myself, that taste of myself, of *I* and *me* above and in all things . . . is more distinctive than the taste of ale or alum, more distinctive than the smell of walnutleaf or camphor, and is incommunicable by any means to another man (as when I was a child I used to ask myself: What must it be to be someone else?).
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Love We Must Part. Love, we must part now: do not let it be. Calamitous and bitter. In the past. There has been too much moonlight and self-pity: Let us have done with it: for now at last. Never has sun more boldly paced the sky, Never were hearts more eager to be free, To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and INo longer hold them; we are husks, that see. The grain going forward to a different use. There is regret. Always, there is regret. But it is better that our lives unloose, As two...
Philip Larkin
And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship--even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected. In the wilderness God gave Israel the manna every day, and they had no need to worry about food and drink. Indeed, if they kept any of the manna over until the next day, it went bad. In the same way, the disciple must receive his portion from God every day. If he stores it up as a permanent possession, he spoils not only the gift, but himself as well, for he sets his heart on accumulated wealth, and makes it a barrier between himself...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellows; I'll have it come to question: If he dislike it, let him to our sister, Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one, Not to be over-ruled. Idle old man, That still would manage those authorities. That he hath given away! Now, by my life, Old fools are babes again; and must be used. With cheques as flatteries,--when they are seen abused. Remember what I tell you.
William Shakespeare
Uncomplicated birth seems to be the blueprint for coping with all later difficult situations in life. Various complications, such as prolonged and debilitating delivery, the use of forceps, or heavy anesthesia appear to be correlated to specific problems in dealing with future projects of all kinds. The same is true for induced birth, premature delivery, and Caesarean section.
Stanislav Grof
You experienced pain yesterday and you discovered that it led to pleasure. You experienced it today and found peace. That's why I'm telling you: Don't get used to it, because it's very easy to become habituated: it's a very powerful drug. It's in our daily lives, in our hidden sufferings, in the sacrifices we make, blaming love for the destruction of our dreams. Pain is frightening when it shows its real face, but it's seductive when it comes disguised as sacrifice or se-denial. Or cowardice....
Paulo Coelho
Up till now I always thought bickering was just something children did and they outgrew it. Of course, there's sometimes a reason to have a 'real' quarrel, but the verbal exchanges that take place here are just plain bickering. I should be used to the fact that these squabbles are daily occurrences, but I'm not and never will be as long as I'm the subject of nearly every discussion. (They refer to these as 'discussions instead of 'quarrels', but Germans don't know the difference!)
Anne Frank