"A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humour, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so."

"Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay."

"Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence."

"Suspect your own motives, and all excuses."

"Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."

"Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and - since there is no other metaphor - also the soul."

"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals."

"I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light."

- Christopher Hitchens

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No Bees no honey.. No work no money

Advice is worthless until the time is right to hear it - Tim Booth

A true friend laughs at your stories even when they're not so good, and sympathizes with your troubles even when they're not so bad

Every path has its puddle

The heart that truly loves never forgets

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power" ~ Abraham Lincoln

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So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination...

JK Rowling

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life is like a bicycle, to keep your balance you have to keep moving - Einstein

I hate incomplete thoughts. They're so...

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LIFE EATS LIFE.

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Wrestled with a shark once, well actually it was a dolphin, but you can't tell people that; they don't like to hear you punched a dolphin in the face
- How Not to Live Your Life

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book

To keep the body in good health is a duty...otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear

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The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives - Albert Einstein

You cannot love a car the way you love a horse. The horse brings out human feelings the way machines cannot do. Things like machines may develop or neglect certain things in people ... Machines make our life impersonal and stultify certain elements in us and create an impersonal environment. - Albert Einstein

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner - Albert Einstein

we feel and have less reality with people we disagree with

~ Dr. Seuss ~

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

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I've bought a big bat.
I'm all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”

“How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

"I'm afraid sometimes
you'll play lonely games too,
games you can't win
because you'll play against you"

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

-~-

“We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness” Albert Schweitzer

“Happiness? That's nothing more than a good health and a poor memory.” Albert Schweitzer

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier” Albert Schweitzer

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..from Hasidic texts

In the service of God, one can learn three things from a child and seven from a thief

From a child you can learn (1) always to be happy (2) never to sit idle; and (3) to cry for anything one wants.

From a thief you should learn (1) work at night (2) if one cannot gain what one wants in one night to try again the next night; (3) to love one's coworkers just as thieves love each other; (4) to be willing to risk one's life even for a little thing (5) not to attach too much value to things even though one has risked one's life for them - just as a thief will resell a stolen article for a fraction of its real value; (6) to withstand all kinds of beatings and tortures but to remain what you are; and (7) to believe that your work is worthwhile and nothing will change it.

another:

You can learn something from everything. Even from a train, a telephone and a telegram.

From a train, you can learn that in one second one can miss everything. From a telephone you can learn that what you say over here can be heard over there. And from a telegram that all words are counted and charged.

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Interviewer - In "Wedding Song" you sing: "I love you more than ever/Now that the past is gone. " But in Tangled up in Blue" you sing: "But all the while I was alone/The past was close behind." Between these two couplets lies an important boundary

Bob Dylan - We allow our past to exist. Our credibility is based on our past. But deep in our soul we have no past. I don't think we have a past, any more than we have a name. You can say we have a past if we have a future. Do we have a future? No. So how can our past exist if the future doesn't exist?

Interviewer - So what are the songs on 'Blood on the Tracks' about?

Bob Dylan - The Present.

Interviewer - Why did you say "I love you more than ever/Now the past is gone"?

Bob Dylan - That's delusion. That's gone.

Interviewer - And what about "And all the while I was alone/The past was close behind"?

Bob Dylan - That's more delusion. Delusion is close behind.

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Interviewer - The Buddhist tradition talks about illusion, the Jewish tradition about allusion, which do you feel closer to?

Bob Dylan - I believe in both, but I probably lean to allusion. I'm not a Buddhist. I believe in life, but not this life.

Interviewer - What life do you belive in?

Bob Dylan - Real life.

Interviewer - Do you ever experience real life?

Bob Dylan - I experience it all the time. It's beyond this life.

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Discussion groups, chat lines, support networks - the new millenium. The age of the all vocalising all important fuck up. Normal men and women spilling the contents of their troubled souls in to the ears of the uninterested.

Excreting the sorry waste of their emotional innards in all manner of public places; pubs, telly, newspapers. If only they'd zip it and heed their inner voice, the one that never lies, the one that screams at ya in the dead of night. Oh I, it is better to remain silent, than be thought a repressed old fart and opens one mouth and be discovered a babbling self-obsessed fool. Shameless

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she's gonna treat him like shit, because she will have given him what he has built up in his mind as the end-all, be-all of human existence. She won't respect him, 'cause you can't respect somebody who kisses your ass. It just doesn't work.

-~-

Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people

-~-

You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough

-~-

When the scorer comes to write against your name,
it matters not who won or lost,
but how you played the game.

-~-

Life is what happens whilst you're busy making other plans

-~-

"Our brains have always out raced our hearts - our science charges ahead, while our souls lag behind" - BSG.

You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person

-~-

Will Turner: That's not true. I am not obsessed with treasure
Captain Jack Sparrow: Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.
...

Captain Jack Sparrow: Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid
...

Captain Barbossa: Jack Sparrow? Impossible!

Captain Jack Sparrow: Improbable, not impossible

"They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom." Confucius

"Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you criticize him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes!"

I travel to lots of new places. But it always seems to be a place I've been before - Mad Men

Dr Hartl is passionate about the effort, but even he is surprised by the fervent nature of some tau adherents. "What's amazing is the 'conversion experience': people find themselves almost violently angry at pi. They feel like they've been lied to their whole lives, so it's amazing how many people express their displeasure with pi in the strongest possible terms - often involving profanity.

Benjamin Franklin

He that would live in peace and at ease, must not speak all he knows or all he sees

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body

Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it

And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles

He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things

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Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once