"A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity."
-- Robert Heinlein
"It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness"
-- Chinese Proverb
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give
orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert A. Heinlein
"Shared pain is lessenned
Shared joy is increased"
-- Spider Robinson
A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul, but a sick body is a prison".
-- Francis Bacon
"I have called upon the Godess and found her within myself"
-- Marion Zimmer Bradley (Mists of Avalon)
"Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep woods, and I'd look up into the sky - up - up - up - into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer".
-- L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)
"I've heard women say, 'My feet hurt terribly in these high heels -- I can't stand them. Oogh, my girdle!'. But point out that flat sandals are sold on every corner, and that many women have chosen to wear loose flowing dresses, regardless of fashion, and you discover quickly that she doesn't really want her feet to stop hurting, or her waistline free.
What she really wants is to have her legs admired. 'Men all like high heels', she'll say -- and the pains in her feet mean nothing to her, compared with what she really wants -- to have her legs and figure admired by some hypothetical man who likes high heels.
Furthermore, she will joyously band together to criticize some other woman who wars flat 'space shoes' or sandals, even if that woman answers the comments about men liking high heels with, 'So I'll find a man who likes low heels instead'.
Now once again, I am not criticizing these people, although their lives would be simpler if they ever stopped to figure out exactly what it is they want, and why. I am simply pointing out that what people think they want is often only secondary to what they do want".
--- Marion Zimmer Bradley
Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last fish has been caught, only after the last river has been poisoned, only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten
-- *Cree Indian Prophecy*
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"I know not what a feminist is. I only know that I am called one when I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat." -- Rebecca West |
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It is not by accident that the happiest people are those who make a conscious effort to live useful lives. Their happiness is not a shallow exhilaration where life is one continuous intoxicating party. Rather, their happiness is a deep sense of inner peace that comes when they believe their lives have meaning and that they are making a difference for good in the world
-- *Ernest Fitzgerald*
"We're all lying in the gutter, but some of us are gazing at the stars."
-- Oscar Wilde
"Do not doubt that you are born to create. Do not believe for a minute that the realm of art belongs only to others. Find what brings you joy and go there. That is your place to create, to move with the spirit, for the Muse lingers near the home of our joy"
-- *Jan Phillips*
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"The difference is deeper than I thought. Even those who till the earth, when they are Christians, come to a way of life which is far from the earth; they say that their God has given them dominion over all growing things and every beast of the field. Whereas we dwellers in hillside and swamp, forest and far field, we know that it is not we who have the dominion over nature, but she who has dominion over us, from the moment lust stirs in the loins of our fathers and desire in the womb of our mothers to bring us forth, under her dominion, to when we quicken in the womb and are brought forth in her time, to the lives of plant and animal which must be sacrificed to feed and swaddle and clothe us and give us strength to live ... all, all of these things are under the domain of the Goddess and without her beneficent mercy none of us could draw a living breath, but all things would be barren and die." -- Marion Zimmer Bradley
"Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it"
"People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges."
"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."
"Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excssive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the na�ve, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty','meaningless', or 'dishonest' and scorn to use them. No matter how 'pure' their motives, they thereby throw sand into the machinery that does not work too well at best."
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children,to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the
best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!"
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"Peace will come only when you become fully aware that your thoughts are not from outside yourself; they come from within, and are thus wholly yours, the only things in this universe over which it is
legitimate to have total control. You, not your thoughts and memories, rule your mind, and it is you, no other, who bid them come and go. The man who allows his own thoughts to torment him is like a
man who clasps a scorpion-ant to his breast, bidding it to bite him further."
- Marion Zimmer Bradley (Stormqueen)
"You who are called a thousand names
May we all remember that we are cells in your body, and dance together.
You are the grain and the loaf that sustains us each day.
And as you are patient with our strugggles to learn,
So shall we be patient with ourselves and each other.
We are radiant light and sacred dark -- the balance.
You are the embrace that heartens, and the freedom beyond fear
Within you we are born. We grow, live and die -- and you bring us around the circle to rebirth. Within us, you dance forever."
-- Starhawk
