#s

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which,if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilites, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - These are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#art

A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; -- not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#books #language #life #reading #words

The only difference between a grown-up's mistake and a child's is the size of the consequence. ↗

— Teresa R. Funke

#courage #inspiration #mistakes #world-war-ii #courage

There is no place for grief in a house which serves the Muse. ↗

— Sappho

#grief #muse #art

Courage is indispensible because in politics not life but the world is at stake. ↗

— Hannah Arendt

#politics #courage

Very much indeed of what we call moral education is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion. ↗

— H.G. Wells

#courage

You're a leader. It's your job to keep your passion hot. Do whatever you have to do, read whatever you have to read, go wherever you have to go to stay fired up. And don't apologize to anybody.  ↗

— Bill Hybels

#leadership #courage

As long as a man had the courage to reject what society told him to do, he could live life on his own terms. To what end? To be free. But free to what end? To read books, to write books, to think. ↗

— Paul Auster

#courage

I've never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. ↗

— Barack Obama

#hope #optimism #courage

The wide world is full of people wanting help, Jon. Would that some could find the courage to help themselves. - Lord Commander Mormont ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#george-r-r-martin #jon-snow #lord-commander-mormont #song-of-ice-and-fire #courage