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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Authors who have changed you, with their words
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
Thoreau. (David Henry, for you pedants. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) )
I could have sorted numerous quotes but whoever did this did pretty well.
Although I will go with:
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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Drifting Star
Drifting against the wind
# 12799
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Posted
I'm absolutely with you on Thoreau, and would be very hard pressed to choose just one.
The first quote that springs to mind, though, is one that I found when I was a teenager. It was in the fruit bowl, scribbled in my mum's handwriting on a bit of paper torn from a newspaper. I have never been able to find out who said or wrote it, although I would hazard a guess that it was heard on Radio 4.
"They are free who are not afraid to go to the end of their thoughts."
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The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Heraclitus
Posts: 3126 | From: A thin place. | Registered: Jul 2007
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The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
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Posted
A lot of stuff by the late Andrew M. Greeley... none of which I can remember right now... sorry! Teeth are killing me--but when the meds kick in, I'll be back with quotes!
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God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
Thomas Merton 'The Sign of Jonas,' which was his first published journal. Tracks his life from just after he entered the Trappist monastery through his ordinations to diaconate and priesthood, and is the book primarily responsible for forming my personal spirituality (if I have any).
It's not possible to quote any of it, really, but it's a splendid read.
It was pretty heavily redacted by the Trappist censors, and was later published (with much less editing) in his complete journals.
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You can't retire from a calling.
Posts: 1675 | From: saint meinrad, IN | Registered: Apr 2006
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Ursula K. LeGuin. Two by: quote:
The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pendants and sophisticates, of 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.
quote:
The creative adult is the child who has survived.
...and three (because I already quoted it on the "Morality of Atheists" thread: quote:
Do you see how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls, the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth an light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole.
But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.
I started reading her as a young adult and she taught me to look for the extra layers in life and literature.
[ 07. December 2013, 23:09: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Gentle reminder: as always, please beware of copyright. Short quotes are fine if they illustrate the point you want to make; links, including to longer passages, are good too.
Thanks!
Ariel
Heaven Host
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
I think I have to go with Martin Heidegger:
quote:
The Authentic Life is the life in which, whatever we do, we are willing to take full responsibility for it.
It hit me between the eyes as an 18 year old undergrad and it still does that 46 years later!
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
Chaim Potok's books changed my life. I can't provide any specific quotes but they showed the way that faith (in his case Judaism) can be a constant strand through every part of your life. They also showed the importance of ritual, something that was missing in my ultra evo life up until that point. Randomly I think a pile of novels about Jews that I read as a teenager (and have since reread several times) were very influential in my eventually becoming a Catholic.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Shaun Tan. From The Red Tree - The World is a deaf machine
This picture book gives the best description of depression I have ever read. When words failed me in describing it to other people I just gave then a copy of the book.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Rick Berman, who wrote the words John Luc Picard uttered in episode The Inner Light on Star Trek, The Next Generation. Within episode, Cpt Picard lives an entire lifetime within 20 mins in his head. It created for me a profound sense of the importance of intentional living, to make decisions and not to refrain from making them.
-- I'm not at the level of the rest of the posters on this thread I fear. Considering what I consider to be literature.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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