#ow

Sometimes great power brings out the worst in us, and unfortunately, it isn't until people are given it that we see the true shades of their character. ↗

— Barbara Kloss

#malevolence #power #too-little-too-late #life

There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate. The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;" And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;" And the lily whispers, "I wait." She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead, Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red. ↗

— Alfred Tennyson

#love #poetry #life

Delphine witnessed awful things occurring to other humans. Worse than that, she was powerless to alter their fate. It would be that way all her life--disasters, falling like chairs all around her, falling so close they disarranged her hair, but not touching her. ↗

— Louise Erdrich

#powerlessness #witnessing #life

Ranulf had spent much of his life watching those he loved wrestle with the seductive, lethal lure of kingship. It had proved the ruination of his cousin Stephen, a good man who had not made a good king. For his sister Maude, it had been an unrequited love affair, a passion she could neither capture nor renounce. For Hywel, it had been an illusion, a golden glow ever shimmering along the horizon. He believed that his nephew had come the closest to mastery of it, but at what cost? ↗

— Sharon Kay Penman

#life

A saving, though an immethodical knowledge of Christ, will bring us to heaven, John 17: 2, but a regular and methodical, as well as a saving knowledge of him, will bring heaven into us, Col. 2: 2, 3. ↗

— John Flavel

#heaven #knowledge #puritans #salvation #life

My life is my book, but I can't read it. ↗

— Marty Rubin

#mystery #the-unknown #life

You want to fall, that's all. You think it can't go on like that. It's as if your life is a perch on the edge of a cliff and going forward seems impossible, not for a lack of will, but a lack of space. The possibility of another day stands in defiance of the laws of physics. And you can't go back. So you want to fall, let go, give up, but you can't. And every breath you take reminds you of that fact. So it goes. ↗

— The Yellow Birds

#life

Najveću vrijednost imaju neizreciva znanja, ali još uvijek se nadam, ako ispišem podosta toga, i ona će se nazrijeti negdje između redova. ↗

— Jasna Horvat

#knowledge #life #writing #life

I had cooperated. I could not have refused. I was smitten with her, half in love but also afraid, because in my life (and she seemed to know this) I had not loved anyone without having been wounded. Love was power and possession, love caused pain: you were never more exposed than when you were in love, never more wounded; possession was an enslavement, something stifling. ↗

— Paul Theroux

#love #possession #power #life

I wanted a life full of intrigue and mystery, new environments, and new people...[a] temporary life with no fear of being trapped, ↗

— Addy Stevens

#life-lessons #personal-growth #life