Sayings & Quotes

[Lilith7]

"Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone.
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own."

Adam Lindsay Gordon


"Small deeds of goodness in the aftermath of trouble can blanket the world with renewed hearts and minds"
Anon

"God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh."
Voltaire

"We must act responsibly. To the degree to which we should oppose everything that could give itself to war, to crime, to catastrophe. Because we who lived through the war know how it begins, where it comes from. We know that it does not begin only with bombs & rockets, but with fanaticism & pride, stupidity & contempt, ignorance & hatred. It feeds on all that grows on that & from that.
That is why, just as some of us fight the pollution of the air, we should fight the polluting of human affairs by ignorance & hatred."

Ryzard Kapuscinski
From Just me, Sheila Hancock.

[Lilith7]

"I put
my heart &
soul into
my work, &
have lost my
mind in the
process."

Vincent
Van Gogh.


"They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Pastor Martin Niemoller

"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thought nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."
Anon.


"Some people drink at the fountain of knowledge, others only gargle."
Anon


"There are few things more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own."
Anon

[Rumpelteazer]

"I put
my heart &
soul into
my work, &
have lost my
mind in the
process."

Vincent
Van Gogh.


"They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Pastor Martin Niemoller

"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thought nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."
Anon.


"Some people drink at the fountain of knowledge, others only gargle."
Anon


"There are few things more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own."
Anon

........................and then they came for the unvaccinated.

[crafters_corner]

I told the truth, and said I was busy.
I was busy;
but not in a way most people understand.

I was busy taking deeper breaths.
I was busy silencing irrational thoughts.
I was busy calming a racing heart.
I was busy telling myself I am okay.

Sometimes, this is my busy -
and I will not apologize for it.”

― Brittin Oakman (Anxiety doesn't knock first)

---

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor"
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
1931-2021


You are now with your dear friend, our beloved Nelson Mandela (our Tata; father figure to our nation)

On apartheid

“We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.”

[Lilith7]

John Ruskin, "Unto this last", 1860.

"I desire, in closing this series of introductory papers, to leave this one great fact clearly stated. THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE. Life including all its powers of love of joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings . . ."


"In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him & a cat that will ignore him."
Derek Bruce.


"If you want to be happy for a short time, get drunk;

Happy for a long time, fall in love;

Happy for ever, take up gardening."

Chinese Proverb

[Lilith7]

"Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. "
Jules Feiffer

"I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of a little baby when it wakes in the morning & coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle."

Vincent Van Gogh


“We have now reached the point where every goon with a grievance, every bitter bigot, merely has to place the prefix, ‘I know this is not politically correct, but…’ in front of the usual string of insults in order to be not just safe from criticism, but actually a card, a lad, even a hero. Conversely, to talk about poverty and inequality, to draw attention to the reality that discrimination and injustice are still facts of life, is to commit the sin of political correctness. Anti-PC has become the latest cover for creeps. It is a godsend for every curmudgeon and crank, from fascists to the merely smug”
Fintan O’ Toole

[Lilith7]

Political Correctness Gone Mad - the distress call of the thwarted bigot

'Political correctness' was made up by old Tories and the like to bitch about the fact that you can't treat dykes, ni**ers, spi*s, w*gs and shirtlifters the way you used to.
( Christopher Brookmyre, both possibly slightly paraphrased without losing any of the sense)



"The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall."
Chinese proverb


"Some people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some people move our souls to dance.
They awaken us to a new understanding, with the passing whisper of their wisdom.
Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon.
They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never ever the same."
Author Unknown

[Lilith7]

'Freedom means choosing your burden.'
Hephzibah Menuhin


"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."
George Santayana

"Its not the pace of life that concerns me it’s the sudden stop at the end."
Anon

"Some people find fault like there was a reward for it."
Anon

"My father in law always said "For the first thirty years you try and kill yourself thereafter you do all you can to stay alive.
How true this is, for thirty years you think you are indestructible."


"The older I get the better I was."
Van Dyke Parks



"One of the hardest things in life is deciding which bridge to cross and which to burn."
David Russell
David Russell

[Lilith7]

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, & applying the wrong remedies."

Groucho Marx.

"Happiness is an inside job."
Anon


"What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t invent with your tongue."
Yiddish proverb



"Art warms even an icy and depressed heart, opening it to lofty spiritual experiences. By means of art we are sometimes sent....dimly, briefly..... revelations unattainable by reason.
Like that little mirror in the fairy tales.... look into it, and you’ll see not yourself, but for a moment, that which passeth understanding, a realm to which no man can ride or fly, and for which the soul begins to ache."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

[Lilith7]

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them but leave them in power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."

Sir Josiah Stamp, Chairman - Bank of England


"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it because it is right. "

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


"His Mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
Mae West

[Lilith7]

“My ambition is to unite the world through the eyes of these children & let today’s cultures understand that in order to sustain our societies, we must protect & nurture all children, & also protect & nurture the child within us all. It is our responsibility to love these children, to let them bring love back to the world, & to keep our eyes open to the wonderment of childhood.”

Mackenzie Thorpe

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
Dom Helda Camara


"The rich lack it. The poor have it. If you eat it, you die."
Anon

[Lilith7]

"Cuando la mierda se hace de valor, el pobre nacera sin culo."

"When shit becomes of value, the poor will be born without arseholes."
Spanish (Argentinean?) proverb, said to have been framed & hanging above the desk of Ernest Hemingway, who despite queries refused to say what the Spanish words said. After his death it was translated.


"the Bible is a book that opens with a story about a magic garden with talking animals and an angry giant. It features a talking shrubbery that teaches the reluctant hero how to wield his magic wand. And it ends with a bizarre zombie snuff porn fantasy, complete with the zombie king commanding his thralls to fondle his intestines through the gaping wound in his side.
The best part? A modern-day shaman can chant a magic spell over stale bread and cheap wine, causing it to reanimate into the living flesh and blood of the zombie king…and anybody who eats the “flesh” and drinks the “blood” will themselves become an undead zombie vampire.
And this is somehow supposed to be desirable."
Thank you, Pharyngula

"Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendants
Outnumber your friends. "
from Crossing the Border by OGDEN NASH

[Lilith7]

"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
Winston Churchill

"At my age I do what Mark Twain did. I get my daily paper, look at the obituaries /death page and if I’m not there carry on as usual......"
Patrick Moore

"Memorial services are the cocktail parties of the geriatric set."
Harold MacMillan


"From the deepest desires often comes the deadliest hate."
Socrates

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them."
Charles Caleb Colton

[Lilith7]

"End discrimination. Hate everybody."
Anon

"We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves."
John Locke

'Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less."
Anon

"The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea on a yacht."
G. K. Chesterton.

"Your car is German. Your vodka is Russian. Your pizza is Italian. Your kebab is Turkish. Your democracy is Greek. Your coffee is Brazilian. Your movies are American. Your tea is Tamil. Your shirt is Indian. Your oil is Saudi Arabian.
Your electronics are Chinese. Your numbers are Arabic & your letters Latin, & you complain because your neighbour is an immigrant? Pull yourself together!"
Anon

[Lilith7]

"We don't always have to be strong
sometimes our strength is expressed in
being vulnerable.
Sometimes we need to fall apart to regroup
and stay on track.
We all have days when we cannot push any harder,
cannot hold back self-doubt,
cannot stop focusing on fear,
cannot be strong.

These are the days when we cannot focus on
being responsible.
Occasionally, we don't want to get out of
our pyjamas.
Sometimes we cry in front of people.
We expose our tiredness, irritability, or anger.
Those days are okay. They are just okay.

Part of taking care of ourselves means
we give ourselves permission to "fall apart"
when we need to.
We do not need to be perpetual tower of strength.
We ARE strong.
We have proven that.

Our strength will continue if we allow ourselves
the courage to feel scared, weak, and vulnerable.
when we need to experience those feelings.

Today help me to know that is okay to
allow myself to be human.
Help me not to feel guilty or punish myself
when I need to "fall apart"

Melody Beattie

"The religion of one age is the entertainment of the next."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"People take different roads seeking fulfilment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost."
Dalai Lama.

[Lilith7]

In a December 2005 interview with BBC Radio Five Live"
Attenborough stated that he considers himself an agnostic.
When asked whether his observation of the natural world has given him faith in a creator, he generally responds with some version of this story, making reference to the parasitic worm:

My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things.

But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy'.

He has explained that he feels the evidence all over the planet clearly shows
evolution to be the best way to explain the diversity of life, and that "as far as I'm concerned, if there is a supreme being then he chose organic evolution as a way of bringing into existence the natural world."
Attenborough was asked if he at any time had any religious faith. He replied simply, "No He has also said "It never really occurred to me to believe in God".


"There is so much good in the worst of us
And so much bad in the best of us
That it ill behoves any of us
To find fault with the rest of us."
Anon


"Oh love is a wonderful cycle of song,
a model of extemporanea.
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
and I am Marie of Rumania. "
Dorothy Parker

[Lilith7]

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Martin Luther King

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
Marcus Aurelius

“For women, getting angry is socially unacceptable, even when the anger is over violence, discrimination, misogyny, and other forms of oppression. Anger is unacceptable because angry women are women in touch with their passion and power, especially in relation to men, which threatens the entire patriarchal order.
It’s unacceptable because it forces men to confront the reality of male privilege and women’s oppression and their involvement in it, even if only as passive beneficiaries. Women’s anger challenges men to acknowledge attempts to trivialize oppression with “I was only kidding.”

And women’s anger is unacceptable to men who look to women to take care of them, to prop up their need to feel in control, and to support them in their competition with other men. When women are less than gracious and good-humored about their own oppression, men often feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, at a loss, and therefore vulnerable.”

And because angry women are women in touch with their passion and power, especially in relation to men, which threatens the entire patriarchal order. It’s unacceptable because it forces men to confront the reality of male privilege and women’s oppression and their involvement in it, even if only as passive beneficiaries. Women’s anger challenges men to acknowledge attempts to trivialize oppression with “I was only kidding.” And women’s anger is unacceptable to men who look to women to take care of them, to prop up their need to feel in control, and to support them in their competition with other men. When women are less than gracious and good-humored about their own oppression, men often feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, at a loss, and therefore vulnerable.”
- Allan G. Johnson

"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."
Soren Kierkegard.

[Lilith7]

" When the famous and rich enter the front door of the law courts, justice goes out the back door."
Dominic Dunne


'That's the problem with religion: you beat your way past the clerics, fight your way through the demons, stand before the holy of holies, and when you rip away the veil, there's nothing there but a mirror.'
Owen Rowley

"In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of."
Confucius

"Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old."
Winston Churchill

[Lilith7]

'Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.'
Seneca the Younger

"Everybody does the best with what they have to work with.
Some don't make it as far as others do.

It is not failure, it is life."
Anon

"I think we should maybe have the courage to identify ourselves with & humanise the torturer. Maybe we should look at ourselves, instead of saying “never again”, which does not work. We could maybe try to ask a new question, as well as a very old one: ”how is it possible?”
We may find the answers in ourselves."

Francois Bizot, ethnologist captured by the Khmer Rouge in 1971 & author of the memoir The gate.

“There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes”
James Morrow

"Come to bed."
"I can't - someone is *wrong* on the internet"
- paraphrasing Randall Munroe

[Lilith7]

"I tried working one time but I had to give it up. I was liking it too much and didn't want to become a slave to the habit."
Oscar Levant


“If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.”
Albert Einstein


'Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.'
Al Franken


"If you have behaved badly, repent; make
what amends you can and address yourself
to the task of behaving better next
time.
On no account brood over your
wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not
the best way of getting clean."
Aldous Huxley