#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

Usually if nobody hates a piece, nobody loves it, either; and a magazine which sets itself the goal of provoking thought is not doing its job if everybody agrees with what it does. ↗

— Stanley Schmidt

#doing #either #everybody #goal #hates

Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness. I am still looking for the beauty in that. ↗

— Maggie Nelson

#loneliness #sadness #thought-provoking #beauty

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

We lost weight and grew thin. We stopped bleeding. We stopped dreaming. We stopped wanting. ↗

— Julie Otsuka

#thought-provoking #dreams

There are symbolic dreams-dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities-realities that symbolize a dream ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#dreams

Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries—but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was. ↗

— Ransom Riggs

#mystery #stars #thought-provoking #mystery

When we are babies...we need an authoritative figure to guide and take care of us. We ask no questions about that authority and imagine that the small circumference of family life is the limit of the universe...As we mature, our horizon expands and we begin to question. This continues until we either throw over our creators--our parents--for good and take their place as the creative force in our lives or find replacements for them because the terror and responsibility are too great. People go one way or the other, and this accounts for all of the great personal and political divides throughout history. ↗

— Charlotte Rogan

#family

Socrates: Have you noticed on our journey how often the citizens of this new land remind each other it is a free country? Plato: I have, and think it odd they do this. Socrates: How so, Plato? Plato: It is like reminding a baker he is a baker, or a sculptor he is a sculptor. Socrates: You mean to say if someone is convinced of their trade, they have no need to be reminded. Plato: That is correct. Socrates: I agree. If these citizens were convinced of their freedom, they would not need reminders. ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#civil-liberty #free-country #freedom #freedom-of-thought #gadfly

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