Tag: quotes

Is the Habit of Hope Immoral?

“She wondered, faintly, if it was immoral to raise children in the habit of hope. Was it not, in the end, all the harder for them to adjust to the reality of how the world worked?”
– Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

PERSONAL NOTE: Too cynical? Perhaps. I’ve wondered the same. I think, however, that I’d rather hope than not. Yes, if you don’t maintain hope, you won’t be disappointed; but if you don’t hope, you will also be just as miserable the whole time as you would be for the far shorter periods of disappointment you might experience. Also, I like to believe the positive attitude that Hope provides decreases the frequency with which you will be disappointed, as you will be more likely to make the sacrifices or changes necessary to achieve your goals if you have Hope, versus the cynical expectation of failure and the associated “Why bother?” mentality that goes with it.

Home Is Where You Are Never Forgiven

“Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven, so you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it.”
– Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

PERSONAL NOTE: Holy crap this seems incredibly true from my experience of struggling for acceptance in a relationship with someone who uses guilt in place of love, where the concept of Unconditional Love is a fantasy, versus a reality of Lingering Resentments. I’m not sure if the cost of belonging in such situations is worth it, but I do wonder sometimes the reverse: if deciding to not pay that cost in one person’s case is worth not belonging.

If one door closes, look for an opening door.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

– Helen Keller

NOTE: As usual I later looked back for the original source of this quote and verify its attribution to Keller. Turns out she did say it, but some original version of the saying was around before then, and its many sources and variations is muddled if interesting (to me). Regardles, the saying is another of those that I find very True.

Not Lost…

“Not all those who wander are lost.”
– J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

J. R. R. TolkienI love this quote and it means many things to me. Just this line alone is awesome, but the entire stanza of the poem that it comes from is also pretty amazing and deep and bears quoting too. So for good measure, here’s that stanza:

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
– J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Be Proud of All You Do

Much of what I do would be considered blue-collar, manual labor. And I kind of like it. You can see what you have accomplished each day. I care what other’s think of my work and ethic, but mostly, I care what I think about it.

“People call this blue-collar. I don’t care what color your shirt is. You bring pride to the job, people notice. Even if they don’t, you notice.”
– NCIS S12E17 “The Artful Dodger”

Anger punishes

This too shall pass.
“Serenity” – This too shall pass.

I like this quote. It rings true for me.

“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.”

It is commonly attributed to Buddha. In fact I most recently saw it and a bunch of other powerful quotes on this Buddha Quotes page that a friend happened to like or comment about on social media. But as this page on a “Fake Buddha Quotes” website shows the phrasing of this quote makes that very unlikely. In fact the Fake Quotes site has an entire page dedicated to the veracity the the first Quotes Page, showing that many of the quotes were not “from” Buddha. Continue reading Anger punishes

The golden apples of the sun

WB Yeats 1908Stumbled across this old W. B. Yeats poem in the weirdest of places (a sci-fi show). The mention of this poem interested me enough that I looked the poem up and it meant a lot to me. Wish I could write like this.

Anyway, thought I would quote it here so I won’t forget it. Continue reading The golden apples of the sun

Can you resurrect dead dreams?

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook that really hit me where I live today. I’m going to quote it in it’s entirety here cause I do NOT want to forget this. I’ve looked it up. The source is the book “The Pilgrimage” by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. You can find this on a page of his blog. I’m going to look into reading “The Pilgrimage” and his novel “The Alchemist” which I read a lot of raves about. Anyway, on to the quote… Continue reading Can you resurrect dead dreams?