John Kelly Ireland
- on religion
Religious people and donkeys: A donkey is a simple creature - it would follow a carrot on a stick, but it is still capable, even with its most basic of intellect of determining when there is no carrot.
Robert G Ingersoll
- on religion
Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief. It came with the threat of everlasting torture on its lips. It meant war on earth and perdition hereafter.
H.L. Mencken
- on religion
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind-that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
The Daily Stoic
The time that passes, Seneca reminds us, is death. It belongs to death. So why are you rushing? Why are you thinking about the future at the expense of the present? Life is too short to be lived in fast forward. Slow down. Breathe it in. Enjoy it.
The Daily Stoic
Seneca's advice? Why are you borrowing unhappiness? Why would you be miserable now just because you might be in the future? Who has time for anxiety? We should be fortifying ourselves for what may come. Why waste time preferring one outcome to another? We are ready for all of them equally.
Ursula K. LeGuin
- The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas
The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, for considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.
Akuzai
- HOPE
There aren't many things a human can't do. We always find a way to get things done, and if something doesn't exist, it's just another opportunity to push our imagination. Whatever good or bad things people go through, there is always a clock behind it ticking away. All that's necessary is acknowledgment and determination to act upon it. Everything else will take care of itself.
Yeshka
- University
I have to make the decision very soon, as to what I do at university. How am I supposed to know what I wish to do with the rest of my life? There are so many options and as an indecisive person, I am struggling to choose. Is it fair to expect teenagers with little world experience to make such a decision when it's going to cost them so much money?
BingBong
- Where are they?
My friends have me, but I don't think I have them. I am that friend, that one friend who always listens to rants and gives advice. I am that friend, that one friend who's always available to hang out when they're dealing with something at home. I am that friend, that one friend who would know if they're not okay. I am that friend. But who are my friends? Where are my friends? Does it ever cross their minds how I'm doing? Does it ever cross their minds if I'm okay? I don't think so...
BingBong
- Can You Feel My Heart - Bring Me The Horizon
I'm scared to get close but I hate being alone. I long for that feeling to not feel at all. The higher I get, the lower I sink. I can't drown my demons, they know how to swim.
Kim Seokjin
- Epiphany
I'm the one I should love in this world. The shining me, precious soul of mine. I realize only now, so I love me. Though I'm not perfect, I'm so beautiful. I'm the one I should love. Even if you get disturbed and feel afraid, walk forward. Meet your true self that you hid inside the storm.
Solitary Ruin
- The Coffee of Coffees
I'll love you dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet. And the river jumps over the mountain. And the salmon sings in the street. I'll love you till the ocean is folded and hung up to dry. And the seven stars go squawking. Like geese about in the sky.
Mark Haddon
- A white lie - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
When I got home Father was sitting at the table in the kitchen and he had made me a supper. He was wearing a lumberjack shirt. The supper was baked beans and broccoli and two slices of ham and they were laid out on the plate so that they were not touching. He said, "Where have you been?" And I said, "I have been out." This is called a white lie. A white lie is not a lie at all. It is where you tell the truth but you do not tell all of the truth.
Mark Haddon
- Mother & Mrs. Forbes
Mrs. Forbes at school said that when Mother died she had gone to heaven. That was because Mrs. Forbes is very old and she believes in heaven. And she wears tracksuit trousers because she says that they are more comfortable than normal trousers. And one of her legs is very slightly shorter than the other because of an accident on a motorbike.
Mark Haddon
- A heart attack - The Curius Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
A heart attack is when some of the muscles in the heart stop getting blood and die. There are two types of heart attack. The first is an embolism. That is when a blood clot blocks one of the blood vessels taking blood to the muscles in the heart. The other one is an aneurysm and that is when a blood vessel breaks and the blood doesn't get to the heart muscles because it is leaking.
Solitary Ruin
- Someone He Would Never Know
We used to joke that you weren't real - a figment of my imagination. Then I told you about my idea to write a book about it; a boy who suffered from schizophrenia, and a girl who was nothing more than a figment of his own imagination. Everything was so perfect. In the end though... I realized that you really were just a figment of my imagination. I realized that I was the boy, longing for someone he would never know.
- Olivia Rodrigo
- Traitor
You betrayed me, and I know that you'll never feel sorry for the way I hurt, yeah. You talked to her when we were together, loved you at your worst but that didn't matter. It took you two weeks to go off and date her, guess you didn't cheat, but you're still a traitor.
Ellen Bass
- The World Has Need of You
I can hardly imagine it as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient prayer of my arms swinging in counterpoint to my feet. It's a hard time to be human. We know too much and too little. Does the breeze need us? The cliffs? The gulls? If you've managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn't care. But when Newton's apple fell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, fell towards the apple as well.
Catherine M Valente
- The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
They are hungry, too, you know. At the bottom of philosophy something very true and very desperate whispers: Everyone is hungry all the time. Everyone is starving. Everyone wants so much, more than they can stomach, but the appetite doesn't converse much with the stomach. Everyone is hungry and not only for food - for comfort and love and excitement and the opposite of being alone. Almost everything awful anyone does is to get those things and keep them.
Mary Oliver
- moments
There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled. Like, telling someone you love them. Or giving your money away, all of it. Your heart is beating, isn't it? You're not in chains, are you? There is nothing more pathetic than caution when headlong might save a life, even, possibly, your own.
