#side

I am often described to my irritation as a 'contrarian' and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. (At least on that occasion I lived up to the title by ridiculing the word in my introduction to the book's first chapter.) It is actually a pity that our culture doesn't have a good vernacular word for an oppositionist or even for someone who tries to do his own thinking: the word 'dissident' can't be self-conferred because it is really a title of honor that has to be won or earned, while terms like 'gadfly' or 'maverick' are somehow trivial and condescending as well as over-full of self-regard. And I've lost count of the number of memoirs by old comrades or ex-comrades that have titles like 'Against the Stream,' 'Against the Current,' 'Minority of One,' 'Breaking Ranks' and so forth—all of them lending point to Harold Rosenberg's withering remark about 'the herd of independent minds.' Even when I was quite young I disliked being called a 'rebel': it seemed to make the patronizing suggestion that 'questioning authority' was part of a 'phase' through which I would naturally go. On the contrary, I was a relatively well-behaved and well-mannered boy, and chose my battles with some deliberation rather than just thinking with my hormones. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#contrarianism #dissent #dissidents #free-thought #harold-rosenberg

Our findings with reference to organized crime was that organized crime as an entity didn't participate in the assassination of the president. However, we were unable to preclude the possibility of individual members of organized crime having participated. ↗

— Louis Stokes

#crime #entity #findings #having #however

But Above all things truth beareth away the victory ↗

— Plato

#victory

Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it. ↗

— Eudora Welty

#became #becoming #first #found #i

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is! ↗

— Anne Frank

#everyone #good #good news #great #him

It's too cold outside for angels to fly. ↗

— Ed Sheeran

#addict #angels #cold #drug #ed

The worst wounds, the deadliest of them, aren't the ones people see on the outside. They're the ones that make us bleed internally. ↗

— Sherrilyn Kenyon

#deadliest #heal #hurt #internally #outside

Writing is the great invention of the world. ↗

— Abraham Lincoln

#us-presidents #writing #writing-life #inspirational

I love you crookedly because my heart's been unhinged from birth. The doctors gave me strict instructions not to fall in love: my fragile clockwork heart would never survive. But when you gave me a dose of love so powerful - far beyond my wildest dreams - that I felt able to confront anything for you, I decided to put my life in your hands. ↗

— Mathias Malzieu

#broken-hearted-quotes #one-sidedness #risking-it-all #dreams

With heightened senses it remained motionless and looked through bulbous eyes. It could taste fear in the air. Pheromones. Sweat. Food was near, but more importantly, so was its new home. ↗

— Stephen Craig

#creature #horror #inside #food