#provoking

I shake my head. I can't imagine living the way he does-always keeping track of who gave me what and what I should give them in return, incapable of love or loyalty or forgiveness, a one-eyed man with a knife in hand, looking fr someone else's eye to poke out. That isn't life. It's some paler version of life. I wonder where he learned if from. p. 395 ↗

— Veronica Roth

#forgiveness

When something terrible happens, a lifetime of small events and unremarkable decisions, of unresolved anger, and unexplored fears begins to play itself out in ways you least expect. You've been going along from one day to the next, not realizing that all those disparate words and gestures were adding up to something, a conclusion, you didn't anticipate. And later, when you begin to retrace your steps you see that you will need to reach back further than you could have imagined, beyond words and thoughts and even dreams, perhaps to make sense of what happened. ↗

— Christina Baker Kline

#anger

Lead us not into temptation' often means, among other things, 'Deny me those gratifying invitations, those highly interesting contacts, that participation in the brilliant movements of our age, which I so often, at such risk, desire.' Reflections on the Psalms, ch 7 ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#age

But was that not the task you set me? To defend the helpless against the strong?" "Indeed it was Master Weed. But who is to say who is helpless, and who is strong?" .........."If you seek the power to alter fate, you must also bear responsibility for the consequences. For you cannot change the fate of only one being; all fates are intertwined." "I performed the task," I protest. "I did what you bid me do." "You defended the weak from the strong." Larkspur speaks as if from far away. "But who will defend these poor weak infants against you!? ↗

— Maryrose Wood

#change

For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is as bitter as wormword, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell ↗

— Justin Cronin

#morality #religious #sin #thought-provoking #death

Knowledge is what enables one to be wrong. (p. 11) ↗

— Mike Higton

#education

While we may judge things as good or bad, karma doesn't. It's a simple case of like gets like, the ultimate balancing act, nothing more, nothing less. And if you're deteremined to fix every situation you deem as bad, or difficult, or somehow unsavory, then you rob the person of their own chance to fix it, learn from it, or even grow from it. Some things, no matter how painful, happen for a reason. A reason you or I may not be able to grasp at first sight, not without knowing a person's entire life story—their cumulative past. And to just barge in and interfere, no matter how well-intentioned, would be akin to robbing them of their journey. Something that's better not done. ↗

— Alyson Noel

#thought-provoking #inspirational

Just when you’ve squared up to the solemn realisation that life is a bitch, it turns round and does something nice, just to confuse you. - Emily Spitzer, The Better Mousetrap ↗

— Tom Holt

#life

As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love. ↗

— Pythagoras

#massacre #thought-provoking #love

It's not," Mormont told him. "Gods save us, boy, you're not blind and you're not stupid. When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne? ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#men