Lea Noring > Lea's Quotes

“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don't find myself saying, "Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner." I don't try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”
― Carl R. Rogers, A Way of Being

“When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”
― Émile Durkheim

“It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale.”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“We will surely get to our destination if we join hands.”
― Aung San Suu Kyi

“The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.”
― Annie Dillard

“I alternate between thinking of the planet as home - dear and familiar stone hearth and garden - and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners.”
― Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

“I closed the box and put it in a closet.
There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.”
― Joan Didion, Where I Was From

“That no one dies of migraine seems to someone deep in an attack as an ambiguous blessing.”
― Joan Didion, The White Album

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“I don't want to live, I want to love first and live incidentally.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald

“It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill.”
― Emilie Autumn, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

“I used to advertise my loyalty and I don't believe there is a single person I loved that I didn't eventually betray.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.”
― Rensis Likert

“Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem. ”
― John Galsworthy

“You know, you’re a little complicated after all.”
“Oh no,” she assured him hastily. “No, I’m not really - I’m just a - I’m just a whole lot of different simple people.”
― F.Scott Fitzgerald

“The key is to learn to respect and honor the complications of other people's lives”
― Goldie Hawn

“There are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armour, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment.”
― Gerald Kersh

“Did you have one of those days today, like a nail in the foot? Did the pterodactyl corpse dropped by the ghost of your mother from the spectral Hindenburg forever circling the Earth come smashing through the lid of your glass coffin? Did the New York strip steak you attacked at dinner suddenly show a mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth, and did it snap off the end of your fork, the last solid-gold fork from the set Anastasia pressed into your hands as they took her away to be shot? Is the slab under your apartment building moaning that it cannot stand the weight on its back a moment longer, and is the building stretching and creaking? Did a good friend betray you today, or did that good friend merely keep silent and fail to come to your aid? Are you holding the razor at your throat this very instant? Take heart, comfort is at hand. This is the hour that stretches. Djan karet. We are the cavalry. We're here. Put away the pills. We'll get you through this bloody night. Next time, it'll be your turn to help us.
"Eidolons" (1988)”
― Harlan Ellison

“Maybe, love is always forgiveness, to a degree.”
― Joyce Carol Oates

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
― Mother Teresa

“I want to be in a relationship where you telling me you love me is just a ceremonious validation of what you already show me.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies. (from "Loving Your Enemies")”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire.”
― Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims

“If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.”
― Confucius

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. ”
― Pablo Picasso, Pablo Picasso: Metamorphoses of the Human Form : Graphic Works, 1895-1972

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.”
― Soren Kierkegaard