#val

In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives. . . . ↗

— Stephen King

#ben #dystopia #king #life #man

When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival. ↗

— Yann Martel

#survival-instinct #life

August: You know, somethings don't matter that much...like the color of a house...But lifting a person's heart--now that matters. The whole problem with people--" Lily: They don't know what matters and what doesn't... August:...They know what matters, but they don't choose it...The hardest thing on earth is to choose what matters. ↗

— Sue Monk Kidd

#life #meaning #values #life

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#survival #life

If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#existence #life #value #life

To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life. (Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 8 September 1935) ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#artists #falsification #gain #greed #honesty

When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn't work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form -- or a species -- will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap. ↗

— Eckhart Tolle

#consciousness #crisis #evolution #nature #survival

Defeat is for the valiant. Only they will know the honour of losing and the joy of winning I am not here to tell you that defeat is a part of life: we all know that. Only the defeated know Love. Because it is in the realm of love that we fight our first battles – and generally lose. I am here to tell you that there are people who have never been defeated. They are the ones who never fought. They managed to avoid scars, humiliations, feelings of helplessness, as well as those moments when even warriors doubt the existence of God.’’ Manuscript Found In Accra – Paulo Coelho ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#defeat #denial #doubt #god #helplessness

Lucas went even paler. “Then you’re on the track to suicide,” he whispered. “Take my advice, Valentine. Run. Run as fast as you can, for as long as you can. Steal whatever bit of life you can. You’re already dead. ↗

— Lilith Saintcrow

#life

I wrote Unwind for lots of reasons, and it poses questions about a lot of subjects. To state it briefly, I wanted to point out how when people take intractable positions on an issue, and stick to extreme sides, sometimes the result is a compromise that is worse than either extreme. I meant it as a wake up call to society -- and to point out that sometimes the problem IS that we take sides on an issue, when a different sort of approach is needed. It's also to pose questions about what it means to be alive. Where does life begin, where does it end -- and point out that there is no single answer to these questions. The problem is people who think there are simple answers. People who see things as simple black-and-white right-and-wrong are the type of people who will end up with a world like the world in Unwind. ↗

— Neal Shusterman

#dystopian #morality #sanctity-of-life #social-commentary #unwind