I’ll bend instead of break. I’ll survive. I’ll go on.
Throughout history, whole societies that seemed stable have imploded when self-righteous narcissists, enflamed by insane ideologies, so threatened the larger population of the sane that soon everyone feared to stand against the violence, whereupon madness accelerated. No one seemed to remember the lessons of history – or cared to learn them.
First, it is a mistake to presume to know anyone’s internal emotional landscape based on what external emotional signals they seem to be sending. Second, you can apologize for something you have done, but only a fool apologizes for things that other people have done, for he has no authority to do that.
A lot of people these days are the opposite of what they say they are, and a lot of them probably don’t even realize it. They’re opposed to racism even as they act like racists. They’re opposed to fascism, even as they act like fascists. The world’s gone weird.
The last twenty years had not been kind to him. He looked beaten by time, shrunken by care- and glad to be gone.
When feverish politics and demented ideology entwine, those who are not well anchored to the beliefs that allow a civil society can be swept away, becoming part of the storm of madness that lays waste to everything.
Why aren’t we designed to be unable to harm one another? Why aren’t our brains wired so that we can’t kill or rape or steal or lie or deceive? Why are we formed with the capacity to hate and envy?
Well,” he said, “you can either do the wrong thing and let a loss like that destroy you, or you can do the right thing and be properly grateful for all that came before the loss. Grief should drive you to your knees, but if you stay there forever, you’re saying you know better than God how the world should work. And you don’t.
To those who lack a conscience, there is no such thing as remorse.
Who in all the world ever stands up to really outrageous evil? Not many. Most people satisfy themselves by strongly opposing little evils, like hurtful words and unpopular ideas and gluttony, where the risk of angering violent people is low.
It is human nature to know we die and still to disbelieve it; otherwise, we might not carry on. When.
Truths we don’t want to hear always make the teller ugly to us.
On the quantum level, reality is spookily fragile and can be manipulated. By whom? By us. – Ganesh.
Sorrow might have grown into depression if he had been a less positive person, but his lifelong experience was that every spell of darkness lifted soon enough, so that light came again into the soul and mind and heart, which were not made for darkness.
I read to keep from being sad.
The envious among them corrupted all of their kind, seeding suspicion and resentment that became hatred, which they called a virtue, bitter hatred so destructive that they brought Earth to ruin.
Everyone has something to contribute. Everyone but sociopaths.
They say that ignorance is bliss. I think ignorance is the mother of extreme behavior, ensuring either a colorless and tedious life or one of passionate commitment to foolishness of one kind or another.
His love life was about as romantic as an arm-wrestling contest. He was self-aware enough to know that he – not the women – was the problem, but he didn’t know how to fix himself.
The Christmas tree twinkles, and miniature angel dogs hover among the branches.