Our Time Quotes - Page 26

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  The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Emotional, Mind

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.72, Image

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• In our time, the symbol of state intrusion into the private life is the mandatory urine test.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Tests, Life Is, Intrusion

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays”, p.64, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Attempts to wake before our time are often punished, especially by those who love us most. Because they, bless them, are asleep. They think anyone who wakes up, or who, still asleep, realizes that what is taken to be real is a ‘dream’ is going crazy.

  R. D. Laing

  Dream, Crazy, Real

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• And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.

  John Steinbeck

  Women, Equality, Circus

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.26, Penguin

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• The man of knowledge in our time is bowed down under a burden he never imagined he would ever have: the overproduction of truth that cannot be consumed.

  Ernest Becker

  Men, Burden, Denial Of Death

  Ernest Becker (1997). “The Denial of Death”, p.18, Simon and Schuster

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• Who but the artist has the power to open man up, to set free the imagination? The others - priest, teacher, saint, statesman, warrior - hold us to the path of history. They keep us chained to the rock, that the vultures may eat out our hearts. It is the artist who has the courage to go against the crowd; he is the unrecognized "hero of our time" - and of all time.

  Henry Miller

  Teacher, Hero, Heart

  Henry Miller (1962). “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”, p.60, New Directions Publishing

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• The emotion of fear often works overtime. Even when there is no immediate threat, our body may remain tight and on guard, our mind narrowed to focus on what might go wrong. When this happens, fear is no longer functioning to secure our survival. We are caught in the trance of fear and our moment-to-moment experience becomes bound in reactivity. We spend our time and energy defending our life rather than living it fully.

  Tara Brach

  Focus, Survival, Mind

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• Peeta smiles and douses Haymitch's knife in white liquor from a bottle on the floor. He wipes the blade clean on his shirt tail and slices the bread. Peeta keeps all of us in fresh baked goods. I hunt. He bakes. Haymitch drinks. We have our own ways to stay busy, to keep thought of our time as contestants in the Hunger Games at bay.

  Suzanne Collins

  Knives, Games, White

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• The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Real, Party, Thinking

  Simon Cottee, Thomas Cushman, Christopher Hitchens (2008). “Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left”, p.5207, NYU Press

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• Let us remember, too, that greatness is not always a matter of the scale of one’s life, but of the quality of one’s life. True greatness is not always tied to the scope of our tasks, but to the quality of how we carry out our tasks whatever they are. In that attitude, let us give our time, ourselves, and our talents to the things that really matter now, things which will still matter a thousand years from now.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Attitude, Greatness, Years

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• I see this as the central issue of our time: how to find a substitute for war in human ingenuity, imagination, courage, sacrifice, patience... War is not inevitable, however persistent it is, however long a history it has in human affairs. It does not come out of some instinctive human need. It is manufactured by political leaders, who then must make a tremendous effort--by enticement, by propaganda, by coercion--to mobilize a normally reluctant population to go to war.

  Howard Zinn

  War, Sacrifice, Issues

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• He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Wise, Time, Men

  Albert Schweitzer (2010). “The Quest of the Historical Jesus”, p.401, Lulu.com

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• The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.

  Stephen King

  Writing, Ideas, Creative

  Stephen King (2000). “On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft”, p.59, Simon and Schuster

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• Our time here is brief, our risk enormous. Don't waste the one or increase the other, if you please.

  Stephen King

  Risk, Waste, Increase

  Stephen King, Michael Whelan (2004). “The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower”, p.208, Simon and Schuster

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• It's a little known fact, but parents are like superheroes. With just a few magic words they can make you feel ten feet tall and bulletproof, they can slay the dragons of doubt and worry, they can make your problems disappear. But of course they can only do this as long as you're a child. When you've become an adult, become the master of your own universe, they're not as powerful as they once were. Maybe that's why so many of us take our time growing up.

  Lisa Unger

  Powerful, Children, Growing Up

  Lisa Unger (2010). “Four Thrillers by Lisa Unger: Beautiful Lies, Sliver of Truth, Black Out, Die for You”, p.54, Crown

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• How shrunk, how dwindled, in our times Creation's mighty seed - For Man has broke the Fellowship With murder, lust, and greed.

  Margaret Atwood

  Men, Greed, Lust

  Margaret Atwood (2009). “The Year of the Flood”, p.21, Anchor

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• Tell me anything. Tell me everything. Revoke our time apart. Love me fierce in danger.

  James Ellroy

  Fierce, Time Apart, Danger

  James Ellroy (1997). “White Jazz”, Ballantine Books

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• I do not live happily or comfortably With the cleverness of our times. The talk is all about computers, The news is all about bombs and blood. This morning, in the fresh field, I came upon a hidden nest. It held four warm, speckled eggs. I touched them. Then went away softly, Having felt something more wonderful Than all the electricity of New York City.

  Mary Oliver

  Morning, New York, Blood

  Mary Oliver (2009). “Evidence: Poems”, p.40, Beacon Press

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• If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.

  Carl Sagan

  Book, Library, Lifetime

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.306, Ballantine Books

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• I'm convinced the true history of our time isn't what we read in newspapers or books...True history is almost invisible. It flows like an underground spring. It takes place in the shadows, and in silence, George. And only a chosen few know what that history is.

  Félix J. Palma

  Spring, Book, Silence

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• She made a sound of regret. ‘We come second, you and I, Luc-ien,’ she said. ‘Our allegiance is always to our kingdoms. Without that allegiance, our people would fall.’ She placed her head back against his chest and he felt her tears. ‘This is not our time.’ ‘But that will never mean I love you less,’ he said.

  Melina Marchetta

  Regret, Fall, Love You

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• Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we are capable of comprehending. What a stunted, insignificant god that would be! If my mind is the size of a soda can and God is the size of all the oceans, it would be stupid for me to say He is only the small amount of water I can scoop into my little can. God is so much bigger, so far beyond our time-encased, air/food/sleep-dependent lives.

  Francis Chan

  Stupid, Ocean, Sleep

  Francis Chan, Preston Sprinkle (2014). “The Francis Chan Collection: Crazy Love, Forgotten God, Erasing Hell, and Multiply”, p.21, David C Cook

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• Anxiety, the illness of our time, comes primarily from our inability to dwell in the present moment.

  Nhat Hanh

  Anxiety, Inability, Moments

  Nhất Hạnh (Thích.), Thich Nhat Hanh (1998). “The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering Into Peace, Joy, & Liberation : the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, & Other Basic Buddhist Teachings”

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• The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Honesty, Believe, Issues

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• Our priorities are most visible in how we use our time. Someone has said, “Three things never come back—the spent arrow, the spoken word, and the lost opportunity.” We cannot recycle or save the time allotted to us each day. With time, we have only one opportunity for choice, and then it is gone forever.

  Dallin H. Oaks

  Opportunity, Arrows, Priorities

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