I believe we must take our subtle spiritual intuitions seriously
and view them as the quintessence that underlies the ordinary world.
The rejection of the sacred is the fundamental reason for our existential discontent.
“I love you" and “I am sorry” spoken into the universe
are two sentiments forever worth declaring.
Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files Issue #323
Today was the absolute worst day ever
And don’t try to convince me that
There’s something good in every day
Because, when you take a closer look,
This world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don’t last.
And it’s not true that
It’s all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be attained
Only if one’s surroundings are good
It’s not true that good exists
I’m sure you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It’s all beyond my control
And you’ll never in a million years hear me say
Today was a very good day
Now read it from bottom to top, the other way,
And see what I really feel about my day.
Chanie Gorkin
Gall’s law says: “A complex system that works is invariably
found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.
A complex system designed from scratch never works
and cannot be patched up to make it work.
You have to start over with a working simple system.”
John Gall, Systemantics
He who fears he shall suffer,
already suffers what he fears.
Michel de Montaigne, Essays
One does not become fully human painlessly.
Rollo May, Foreword to Existential-Phenomenological Alternatives for Psychology
You know my friends, there comes a time
when people get tired of being trampled
by the iron feet of oppression.
There comes a time my friends,
when people get tired of being plunged
across the abyss of humiliation,
where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair.
There comes a time when people get tired
of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July
and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.
There comes a time.
Martin Luther, King Jr., Montgomery Bus Boycott speech, December 1955
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God,
True to our native land.
James Weldon Johnson
Fernando Pessoa
Debate doesn't really change things.
It gets you bogged in deeper.
If you can address or reopen the subject with something new,
something from a different angle, then there is some hope....
Seamus Heaney, Paris Review 1997
Maybe truly understanding the world requires participating in it.
James Somers, Open Mind, The New Yorker, November 2025
Civilised life is based on a huge number of illusions
in which we all collaborate willingly.
The trouble is, we forget after a while
that they are illusions and
we are deeply shocked
when reality is torn down around us.
J.G. Ballard, The Guardian interview 2003
The way we see the problem is the problem.
Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
I suspect the most we can hope for,
and it's no small hope,
is that we never give up,
that we never stop giving ourselves permission
to try to love and receive love.
Elizabeth Strout, Abide with Me: A Novel
Jesus did not give the parables to teach us how to live.
He gave them, I believe, to correct our notions
about who God is and who God loves.
Philip Yancey, What's So Amazing About Grace?
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Wendell Berry
We are too much in awe of those who succeed
and far too dismissive of those who fail.
And, most of all, we become much too passive.
We overlook just how large a role we all play—
and by “we” I mean society—
in determining who makes it and who doesn’t.
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success
If nothing matters,
it should not matter that nothing matters,
and yet it does matter.
Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy
A memory is a complicated thing,
a relative to truth, but not its twin.
Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
I don't think writers are sacred, but words are.
They deserve respect.
If you get the right ones in the right order,
you might nudge the world a little or make a poem
that children will speak for you when you are dead.
Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing
You live your life at the time you live it —
you don't have much of an overview
when what's happening to you is still happening.
John Irving, In One Person: A Novel
True perfection consists in the love of God and our neighbour,
and the better we keep both these commandments, the more perfect we shall be.
Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle
For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear--
When you are the hammer, Strike.
Edwin Markham
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes,
then you are making new things, trying new things,
learning, living, pushing yourself,
changing yourself, changing your world.
You’re doing things you’ve never done before,
and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
Neil Gaiman, 2009 blog post
Be at war with your vices,
at peace with your neighbors,
and let every new year find you a better man.
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack