#provoking

If people can't stand being alone, they have no choice but to die ↗

— Natsuo Kirino

#sad #thought-provoking #life

I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one and the same. For my entire life I longed for love. I knew it was not right for me - as a girl and later as a woman - to want or expect it, but I did, and this unjustified desire has been at the root of every problem I have experienced in my life. ↗

— Lisa See

#life

... one would like to be both [loved and feared], but as it is difficult to combine both love and fear, if one has to choose between them it is far safer to be feared than loved ↗

— Niccolò Machiavelli

#love

To know that we are only angels weighed down by filth, free of guilt? The bacteria in our bellies are responsible for the farts which shame us, tiny monsters shitting in their billions all over our pure skin create the acid reek of "our" sweat. And Slade: when the "inner voices" tell us we're unworthy or instruct us to "love" and "hate," despite our best instincts... are these incessant distracting thoughts our own? Or do we only hear the voice of the eternal germ screaming in our heads? ↗

— Grant Morrison

#thought-provoking #love

I suddenly began to realize that everybody in America is a natural-born thief. ↗

— Jack Kerouac

#nature

What work do I have to do then?" said Will, but went on at once, "No, on second thought, don't tell me. I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I'll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I'll be resentful because it'll feel as if I didn't have a choice, and if I don't do it, I'll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#materialism

Look, it's a mainstream animated movie, and how often are those considered thought provoking? It's meant to be a great time at the theater, but it's also designed to work on more than one level. ↗

— Brad Bird

#animated #considered #designed #great #great time

Faustus, who embraced evil and shunned righteousness, became the foremost symbol of the misuse of free will, that sublime gift from God with its inherent opportunity to choose virtue and reject iniquity. “What shall a man gain if he has the whole world and lose his soul,” (Matt. 16: v. 26) - but for a notorious name, the ethereal shadow of a career, and a brief life of fleeting pleasure with no true peace? This was the blackest and most captivating tragedy of all, few could have remained indifferent to the growing intrigue of this individual who apparently shook hands with the devil and freely chose to descend to the molten, sulphuric chasm of Hell for all eternity for so little in exchange. It is a drama that continues to fascinate today as powerfully as when Faustus first disseminated his infamous card in the Heidelberg locale to the scandal of his generation. In fine, a life of good or evil, the hope of Heaven or the despair of Hell, Faustus stands as a reminder that the choice between these two absolutes also falls to us. ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#evil #evil-men #faust #faust-legend #faustian

At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find your inner motivation to seek for new ideas on your own. ↗

— Bill Watterson

#thought-provoking #motivational

If a man cannot serve two masters, neither can Christianity, or several thousand of them as the case may be. ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#christian #christianity #god #one-christ-one-church #religion