I gathered my shoes and wallet on the other side of the metal detector and took a last glance at my father, who was still there, still waving.That mangled finger had always been a symbol of his shortcomings and deformities to me, but now I saw it was also a testament to all that he'd sacrificed for our family.He'd lost that trigger finger building the business that had fed and clothed me. I imagined he was not only waving me goodbye but waving me forward with that symbol of his own woundedness. —Shozan Jack Haubner More about this quote Tags: family sacrifice business fatherhood Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It's better to go into the world half-cocked than not to go into the world at all. —James Hillman More about this quote Tags: action world better Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Artists who whine because they need a grant and the government doesn't help them — well, tough shit. I had the same problem. I worked in a bookstore for seven years to make money to buy art supplies. And that was fine. I don't think artists should ever expect anything from anybody. For the artist, sacrifice and hardship are a part of the process. —Patti Smith More about this quote Tags: art government sacrifice Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Happy and content one day, / ambition and desire eat you alive the next. / It's always been this way. Back and forth, / back and forth. That's the way it goes. —David Budbill More about this quote Tags: ambition desire Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There's an African proverb: "When death finds you, may it find you alive." Alive means living your own damn life, not the life that your parents wanted, or the life some cultural group or political party wanted, but the life that your own soul wants to live. —Michael Meade More about this quote Tags: life living parents death desire want Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Our thoughts limit what we're capable of doing. There are external forces arrayed against us, but there are also internal forces that sabotage us before we even get started. Our mind is good at setting us up for failure and getting us to think small. But I have found that we will do for love that which we don't think is possible. So the question to ask ourselves is "What do I love? —Julia Butterfly Hill More about this quote Tags: love mind failure thoughts sabotage Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The worst indictment I ever heard from my father was when he'd say of another man, "He's so lazy he stinks. —Joseph Bathanti More about this quote Tags: laziness insults Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Sisyphus was a highly productive worker. —Sparrow More about this quote Tags: work productivity Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Possibly the heart of our humanity is to want something we cannot achieve by our own efforts. —Tim Farrington More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
No one who has stood for high values — love, truth, justice — has died being able to declare victory, once and for all. If we embrace values like those, we need to find ways to stand in the gap for the long haul, and be prepared to die without having achieved our goals. —Parker J. Palmer More about this quote Tags: justice truth love time death goals victory Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It was thanks to women like Eppie that this moment in history could exist — a moment when a woman could be a serious contender for the presidency of the United States. In the 1970s Eppie had defied her husband by helping to found a Planned Parenthood branch in her town. She'd started a women's empowerment group before most of us even knew what empowerment meant. —Mally Z. Ray More about this quote Tags: politics history power feminism women empowerment Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Romania had been under communist rule since 1945, but it was after Ceausescu came to power in 1965 that life really began to deteriorate. . . . Then, one night in the late 1980s, a group of men dressed as street sweepers draped the statue of Lenin in Bucharest with big truck tires and set them on fire. It was a bold and daring act in a country where, it was said, for every Romanian on the street there were two secret police officers. The next morning traffic was detoured while workers from nearby factories were brought in to clean the statue with razor blades. That day I realized that change was possible. —Florin Ion Firimita More about this quote Tags: history power change communism daring Romania Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
This increasingly intelligent, fast-moving civilization needs to be applying some of its intelligence to things that change slowly. . . . If we are constantly tending to the immediate, day-to-day problems, we'll lose that sense of the long term, and then we could be really sorry. —Stewart Brand More about this quote Tags: intelligence time perception perspective change civilization Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
To everyone's surprise, wildlife abounds in the deserted environs of the doomed [Chernobyl] nuclear plant. Elk, wild pigs, wolves, and rabbits all seem to be flourishing. These animals have somehow learned to cope with the high levels of radiation. Who knows, perhaps there are mutations: A pig that can climb. A rabbit with a prehensile tail. An elk with a unicorn's horn. Cells are quick-change artists. Life loves life. Humans may end, but the world won't. —Sybil Smith More about this quote Tags: life danger nature disaster animals wildlife nuclear power mutation Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
They told me that her blood was too thick for her heart to pump, and I wondered how it was that someone stayed alive so long after nothing's left. I had seen bugs crushed and gone so quickly. I couldn't decide if life was fragile or tenacious beyond belief. —Patricia Bralley More about this quote Tags: life health death blood fragility Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email