#classic

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." [On British Labour politician Stafford Cripps.] ↗

— Winston Churchill

#classic-insult #vice #virtue #leadership

My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#excellence #life

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the ceremony known as afternoon tea ↗

— Henry James

#classics #edwardian #life

When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made. ↗

— E.M. Forster

#love #life

Outside Styx's apartment was not the first time Rochester and I had met, or would it be the last. We first encountered each other at Haworth House in Yorkshire when my mind was young and the barrier between reality and make-believe had not yet hardened into the shell that cocoons us in adult life. The barrier was soft, pliable and, for a moment, thanks to the kindness of a stranger and the power of a good storytelling voice, I made the short journey--and returned. ↗

— Jasper Fforde

#characters #classic #reality #storytelling #life

And when long years and seasons wheeling brought around that point of time ordained for him to make his passage homeward, trials and dangers, even so, attended him even in Ithaca, near those he loved. ↗

— Homer

#journey #odyssey #love

The spiritual life is a gift. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit, who lifts us up into the kingdom of God's love. But to say that being lifted up into the kingdom of love is a divine gift does not mean that we wait passively until the gift is offered to us. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#life

Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all, that fatal madness—she with those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, gliding over the heads of men to trap us all. She entangles one man, now another. ↗

— Homer

#greece #ruin #men

And Pandora pointed out to Epimetheus that he neither had wings nor wheels & so he should therefore not expect that of her also.And that besides,she had also brought with her a jar containing 10,000 gifts from Zeus for the blunder he had made in distributing to the beasts all the abilities that should have been given to men.And thus, he should be satisfied with whatever he had been given.As she, Pandora, had spoken. ↗

— Nicholas Chong

#men

Jonah-John-if I had been a Sam, I would have been a Jonah still-not because I have been unlucky for others, but because somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places, at certain times, without fail. Conveyances and motives, both conventional and bizarre, have been provided. And, according to plan, at each appointed second, at each appointed place this Jonah was there. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#literature #science-fiction #motivational