c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Sometimes, you must know "Why", that happen, or this will happen...!?
— Deyth Banger
Stupid questions will never exist and won't ever exist.
— Deyth Banger
What has happen it will stay here The Seasoning house ( A film which a lot of people should have access).
— Deyth Banger
But neither will anyone ask us whether we will it or do not will it when the spiritual strength of the West fails and the West starts to come apart at the seams, when this moribund pseudocivilization collapses into itself, pulling all forces into confusion and allowing them to suffocate in madness.Whether such a thing occurs or does not occur, this depends solely on whether we as a historical-spiritual Volk will ourselves, still and again, or whether we will ourselves no longer. Each individual has a part in deciding this, even if, and precisely if, he seeks to evade this decision.But it is our will that our Volk fulfill its historical mission.
— Martin Heidegger, The Self-Assertion of the German University
There was still about them what had always reminded Magnus of an old legend he’d heard of the red thread of fate: that an invisible scarlet thread bound certain people, and however tangled it became, it could not and would not break.
— Cassandra Clare, The Midnight Heir
As long as you think like that, you'll be as brainless and helpless as the actual cuff of Astia. Use your will, Elli, for surely you have one. How else did you survive the torture that nearly killed you? How else did you make it to the woods? How else are you right here, after weeks of winter spent living in a cave, for stars' sake, looking stronger and healthier than I ever expected? No will, my arse.
— Sarah Fine, The Impostor Queen
There is a greater will, a greater need and purpose hidden within each life, and there is an inner law that knows best how each must live and that is worth stealing for; it’s worth dying for, and worth living for as well.
— Michael Meade, Fate and Destiny, The Two Agreements of the Soul
Jem had moved the same way coming in, but as Will neared him, Jem took a step toward his former parabatai, and the step was swift, eager, and human, as if being close to the people whom he loved made him feel made of flesh and racing blood once more.“You’re here,” said Will, and implicit in the words was the sense that Will’s contentment was complete. Now Jem was there, all was right with the world.
— Cassandra Clare, The Midnight Heir
But before you set out to make your mark, you should ask yourself, "For whom will this be done?
— James C. Dobson
I, too, have my code. As long as I love you, your will must be my will. If you believe that yielding to me would be weakness, that accepting my love would destroy you, I will not touch you. You must come to me with the whole of your will, or not at all.
— Robert Shea, All Things Are Lights
I am of the opinion that there is nothing which has been produced by the will of man which cannot in its turn be altered by another human will.
— Adolf Hitler
The bullies literally cram their will down the throats of those who are weaker.
— James C. Dobson
The more you depend on the will and Cosmic Energy to sustain yourself, the less your food requirements; the more you depend on food, the weaker your will and the less your recourse to Cosmic Energy.
— Paramhansa Yogananda
But I knew very well how the persona you chose to present to the world could be very different from what was inside.I knew how grief could make you behave in ways you couldn’t even begin to understand.
— Jojo Moyes, Me Before You
Naught is there mightier than God;Yet hath He not the might to turnMy Will from willing what it will,My yearning as it needs must yearn?
— Angelus Silesius, Selections from The Cherubinic Wanderer
It was not by gentle sweetness and self-abnegation that order was brought out of chaos; it was by strict method, by stern discipline, by rigid attention to detail, by ceaseless labor, by the fixed determination of an indomitable will.
— Lytton Strachey
Most people will actually tell you, traveling to those exotic places is enjoying life, but really they are spending away and whining away their lives.
— Sunday Adelaja
Those who are equipped will survived. Those who are not will not.
— Angelo Quiamco
Today however, a new generation must arise that will take their works further. This generation must rely less on signs and wonders but rely more on developing skills and building industries
— Sunday Adelaja
Most of the time, yesterday’s level of increase will not be enough to secure tomorrow"s increase
— Sunday Adelaja
There is the fullness of our love, whereGod is knowable, whether willful or involuntary.
— Marieta Maglas- Eschatological Regression
A man can do as he will, but not will as he will.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
Michael grew silent, his gaze softening as he looked from me to Will, and a dim light of hope flickered in my heart. “You would mourn for h
— Courtney Allison Moulton, Shadows in the Silence
O my brothers, I dedicate and direct you to a new nobility: you shall become procreators and cultivators and sowers of the future — verily, not to a nobility that you might buy like shopkeepers and with shopkeepers' gold: for whatever has its price has little value. Not whence you came shall henceforth constitute your honor, but whither you are going! Your will and your foot which has a will to go over and beyond yourselves — that shall constitute your new honor.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Weariness, which seeketh to get to the ultimate with one leap, with a death-leap; a poor ignorant weariness, unwilling even to will any longer: that created all Gods and backworlds.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
hope is just a feeling...will is the real thing....
— Parag Tipnis
You have truly gained the mastery of the very stronghold of philosophy, Mother. For without doubt only for lack of words you did not elaborate on this subject as did Tullius [Cicero], whose words will follow. For in the Hortensius, the book he wrote on the praise and defense of philosophy, he said: ‘But see, surely not the philosophers but all given to argument say that those who live just as they wish are happy.’ This is definitely false; for to want what is not appropriate is the worst of all miseries. It is not so miserable not to get what you want as to want to get what you ought not. Wickedness of will brings to everyone greater evil than good fortune brings good.
— Augustine of Hippo
You must be willing to change. You must be willing to break the deal you made with the devils within. You must be willing to leave the past and not be tempted to rebound when times are tough. You must be willing to let go of everything and anyone that takes you back to your sins.You must be willing to have hope. You must be willing to have hope that you can change and that you will and that you will be better.You must believe you are worthy of change and you are worthy of improvement and you are worthy of being the best.You must be willing to set aside your negative notions about life, about hardships, about people, about things, about yourself. You must be willing to stop feeling sorry for yourself while looking at the world move around you. Get up and make something of yourself.
— ابن قيم الجوزية
Right! Let's get on with it! All right... you... Will... have trained as apprentice to Ranger Halt of Redmont Fief these last five twelvemonths and blah blah blah and so on and so on. You've shown the necessary level of proficiency in the use of the weapons a Ranger uses- the longbow, the saxe knife, the throwing knife."He paused and glanced up Halt. "He has shown the proficiency, hasn't he? Of course he has," he went on, before Halt could answer. "Furthermore, you are a trusted officer in the service of the King and so on and so on and hi diddle diddle dee dee..." He glanced up again. "These forms really do carry on a bit, don't they? But I have to make a pretense of reading them. And so forth and so on and such like." He paused, nodded several times, then continued."So basically..." He flicked a few more pages, found the one he was after and then continued, "You are in all ways ready to assume the position and authority of a fully operational Ranger in the Kingdom of Araluen. Correct?"He glanced up again, his eyebrows raised. Will realized he was waiting for an answer."Correct," he said hastily, then in case that wasn't enough, he added, "Yes. I mean... I do... I am. Yes.""Well, good for you.
— John Flanagan, Erak's Ransom
You will never be fully resigned to the will of God if you are troubled by human opinion of you, or if you make for yourself a little idol of what people say.
— Michael Molinos, The Spiritual Guide
Some of them will, but most of them are willed. Some of them are genuine, but most of them are bad actors.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
If religion is against homosexuality, then it is against the will and happiness of people.
— M.F. Moonzajer
You can steal someone's Art,But not their Heart.You can immitate them,But you can never be like them.You can hurt them,But you cannot kill their will to love again.You can leave,But your space will always be filled by someone better than you.
— Nomthandazo Tsembeni
Because what God wants, that, and only that, is also what we want—but we don't know it. God comes and awakens our souls, revealing to them their real, though unknown, desire. This is the secret, Brother Leo. To do the will of God means to do my own most deeply hidden will.
— Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis
If you have a very strong will to travel, the road will suddenly appear before you!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
If you have a very strong will to travel, the road will suddenly appear before!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
A will can save one’s family from being put into a quagmired pit of legal conundrum, in case of death (which may even be untimely).
— Henrietta Newton Martin
If your are an expatriate, a 'will' is required because, the laws of the country in which you reside would be different from that of your home country, and when the inevitable (death) occurs (untimely), your property /possessions may be exposed to the discretion of the state laws for the allocation of your property to someone, you may have never wished that they possess your property and be an heir to your assets.
— Henrietta Newton Martin
I always wondered why god has not given us wings ... it has given us Will instead .. fly or not not to fly.. its up to us
— Sagar Gosavi
God’s ways and His will come in His own perfect time.
— Elizabeth George, Walking with the Women of the Bible: A Devotional Journey Through God's Word
He wasn't into one-night stands, he wasn't into scoring just to see if he could, he wasn't into acting just charming enough to get what he wanted before cutting loose in favor of someone new and attractive. He just wasn't like that. He would never be like that. When he met a girl, the first question he asked himself wasn't whether she was good for a few dates; it was whether she was the kind of girl he could imagine spending time with in the long haul.
— Nicolas Sparks
Only when your inner life is right will your outer life be right as well.
— Jim George
As long as we acknowledge them, there's nothing to fear.
— G.Axis
The Rangers were founded over one hundred and fifty years ago, in King Herbert's reign. Do you know anything about him?" Halt looked sideways at the boy sitting beside him, tossing the question out quickly to see his response. Will hesitated. He vaugely remembered the name from history lessons in the Ward, but he couldn't remember any details. Still, he decided he'd try to bluff his way through it..."Oh ... yes," he said, "King Herbert. We learned about him.""Really?" said the Ranger expansively. "Perhaps you could tell me a little about him?" He leaned back and crossed his legs, getting himself comfortable..."He was ..." he hesitated, pretending to gather his thoughts. "The king." That much he was sure of. Halt merely smiled and made a rolling gesture with his hand that meant go on. "He was the king ... a hundred and fifty years ago," Will said, trying to sound certain of his facts. The Ranger smiled at him, gesturing for him to continue yet again. "Ummm ... well, I seem to recall that he was the one who founded the Ranger Corps," he said hopefully, and Halt raised his eyebrows in mock surprise."Really? You recall that, do you?
— John Flanagan, The Ruins of Gorlan
How can you sleep at a time like this?” she asked, but the only answer was a low snore. She looked at him suspiciously. In the short time she had been with him, she had never before heard him snore.“You’re faking,” she said.“No. I’m really fast asleep,” came his voice from under the cowl.
— John Flanagan, The Royal Ranger
Anything happening,” she whispered.“Aside from you blundering about like a lost elephant?” he asked, in the same low tone.She nodded, accepting the rebuke. “Aside from that.
— John Flanagan, The Royal Ranger
Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War
God uses the flawed, the failures, and the imperfect to accomplish His perfect will.
— Elizabeth George
You are one of the few successful persons I know.""Me? Why?""You know precisely what you are doing and you do it well.""But I don't really do much of anything.""And of course the quantity means nothing to you, nor the weight others place upon your actions. In my eyes, that makes you a success.""By not giving a damn? But I do, you know.""Of course you do, of course you do! But it is a matter of style, an awareness of choice—
— Roger Zelazny, Doorways in the Sand
We can each sit and wait to die, from the very day of our births. Those of us who do not do so, choose to ask--and to answer--the two questions that define every conscious creature: What do I want? and What will I do to get it? Which are, finally, only one question: What is my will? Caine teaches us that the answer is always found within our own experience; our lives provide the structure of the question, and a properly phrased question contains its own answer
— Matthew Woodring Stover, Blade of Tyshalle
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare—lorries or no lorries—and saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest—or your host—if he or she should prove ignorant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues.
— Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears
Will covers a multitude of flaws, just as love covers a multitude of sins.
— Brent Weeks, The Black Prism
You've always said I should have an inquiring mind," she said. "I have. But not an interrupting one.
— John Flanagan, The Royal Ranger
Thank you for stitching me up" I say."I seem to have a talent for it.
— Bethany Griffin, Dance of the Red Death
The cause-effect sequences in our brains are just as determining, just as inescapable, as anywhere else in Nature.
— Corliss Lamont
I always thought about you. From the night I took you home. I never really stopped thinking about you.
— Bethany Griffin, Dance of the Red Death
Trying hard and working hard is its own reward. It feeds the soul. It affirms your will and your power. And it radiates from you, lighting the way for all those who see you.
— Charles M. Blow
There is something indefinable in an entrepreneur, and I saw that in Steve," he said. " He was interested not just in engineering, but also the business aspects. I taught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, " Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.
— Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs
She perceived that her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. She could not at that moment have done other than denied and resisted. She wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before. and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered that she had. But she could not realise why or how she should have yielded, feeling as she then did.
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Where there's a will, there's a way." Yeah, better hope you get left tons of money.
— Kirn Hans, Behind My Mask
I am dramatic," said Will. "If i had not been a Shadowhunter, i would have had a future on the stage.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
Perhaps not," said Will, who had ears like a bat's. "But I would make a radiant bride.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
I don't know why I ever helped you.""You like broken things.
— Cassandra Clare, The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Princess
Faith," said Jem. "That you were better than you thought you were. Forgiveness, that you need not always punish yourself. I always loved you, Will. Whatever you did. And now I need you to do for me what I connot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my heart when mine is done with beating.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
I'll find you, Will!"Then the wind filled the big, square sail of the wolfship and she heeled away from the shore, moving faster and faster towards the northeast. For a long time after she'd dropped below the horizon, the sodden figure sat there, his horse chest-deep in the rolling waves, staring after the ship. And his lips still moved, in a silent promis only he could hear.
— John Flanagan, The Burning Bridge
Charlotte said that if I chose, I could cease to be a Gray and take the name my mother should have had before she was married. I could be a Starkweather. I could have a true Shadowhunter name." She heard Will exhale a breath. It came out a puff of white in the cold. His eyes were blue and wide and clear, fixed on her face. He wore the expression of a man who had steeled himself to do a terrifying thing, and was carrying it through. "Of course you can have a true Shadowhunter name," Will said. "You can have mine.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
Amy hated--hated--the way the grown-ups her parents had surrounded themselves with were so quick to offer prayers and so low to actually do anything. Old women who barely left the house for anything but bingo and congratulated themselves on never drinking alcohol or saying dirty words, thinking God created humans to stay home and watch televangelists and just run out the clock until the day they die. Well, Amy figured you don't need more than five minutes on this planet to figure out that one thing we know about God--maybe the only thing--is that he favors those who act. David also believed that, through he didn't realize it.
— David Wong, This Book Is Full of Spiders
Astrology has no more useful function than this, to discover the inmost nature of a man and to bring it out into his consciousness, that he may fulfil it according to the law of light.
— Aleister Crowley, The Complete Astrological Writings
Then again, there’s nothing simple about Will. I think back to what he can do—bend earth, resist shading, his immense strength—and it’s glaringly inaccurate to consider him a human. But then I can’t think of him as a draki either. And this strikes me as sad. Will doesn’t belong anywhere. Not among humans. Not among draki.But he belongs with me. The conviction is still there, as senseless and dangerous as always, seeping into my bones, my heart. A fact I wouldn’t change even if I could.
— Sophie Jordan, Hidden
Will leans forward, pulls off his mask, and kisses my forehead. "I'm glad I was the one to save you this time" he whispers.
— Bethany Griffin, Masque of the Red Death
Nature intends all men and women to be mental and spiritual giants, and does not intend that any one should follow the will of another.
— Christian D. Larson
It is when the heavenly fire has departed and the soul is cool again that we discover the real quality of our will.
— Jean Nicolas Grou
The ones who say "you can't" and "you won't" are probably the ones that are scared that you will.
— Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics
Right is what benefits a nation, even if it is against the will of the people.
— M.F. Moonzajer
I am already living, but something is telling me with unchallengeable authority: you are not living properly. The numinous authority of form enjoys the prerogative of being able to tell me 'You must'. It is the authority of a different life in this life. This authority touches on a subtle insufficiency within me that is older and freer than sin; it is my innermost not-yet. In my most conscious moment, I am affected by the absolute objection to my status quo: my change is the one thing that is necessary. If you do indeed subsequently change your life, what you are doing is no different from what you desire with your whole will as soon as you feel how a vertical tension that is valid for you unhinges your life.
— Peter Sloterdijk, Du mußt dein Leben ändern
There can be so many suggestions and opinions too
—  What matters is that you acknowledge at your depths and stand by it like a Rock...
Rage flared up in Tessa and she considered belting Woolsey with the poker whether he came near her or not. He had moved awfully quickly while fighting Will, though, and she didn’t fancy her chances. “You don’t know James Carstairs. Don’t speak about him.”“Love him, do you?” Woolsey managed to make it sound unpleasant. “But you love Will, too.”Tessa froze. She had known that Magnus knew of Will’s affection for her, but the idea that what she felt for him in return was written across her face was too terrifying to contemplate.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
I am not going to live, and I can choose to be as much for her as I can be, to burn as brightly for her as I wish, and for a shorter time, than to burden her with someone only half-alive for a longer time. It is my choice, William, and you cannot make it for me.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
By the Angel, it just crushed Sophocles," noted Will. "Has no one respect for the classics these days?
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
If I held a revolver to your head, James, and pulled the trigger, would it really matter if I did not know that there were not bullets in the chambers?
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
Always when Will did something to protect Tessa, Jem thought it was for his sake, not for Will's. Always Will wished Jem could be entirely right. Each needle prick had it own name. Guilt. Shame. Love.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
Halt! How are you? What have you been doing? Where's Abelard? How's Crowley? What's this all about?" "I'm glad to see you rate my horse more important than our Corps Commandant," Halt said, one eyebrow rising in the expression that Will knew so well. Early in their relationship, he had thought it was an expression of displeasure. He had learned years ago that it was, for Halt, the equivalent of a smile.
— John Flanagan, The Sorcerer in the North
I can't - I'll chop off my own foot!" "If you're going to chop off anyone's foot, chop off Benedict's," Will muttered.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince
The the uncertainty was dispelled and the melancholy lifted as he saw a familiar stocky figure moving near one of the tents. "Halt!" he cried out gladly, and a slight pressure with his knees set Tug galloping through the deserted Gathering site. The dog, caught by surprise, barked once, then shot in pursuit like an arrow from a bow. The grim-faced Ranger straightened from the fire at the sound of his former student's voice. He stood, hands on hips and a frown on his face as Will and Tug careered toward him. But inside, there was a lightening of his heart that he never failed to feel when in Will's company. Not for the first time, the realization hit Halt that Will was no longer a mere boy. No one wore the Silver Oakleaf if he hadn't proven himself to be worthy. Despite himself, he felt a surge of pride.
— John Flanagan, The Sorcerer in the North
How does the story really go?Does she ever cross your mind?Does she ever steal your nights?Is she still a part of you?Do you ever wish she were still by your side?And what would you do?If she walked up here tomorrow And told you that she loved you?Would you drop it all and run to her?Would you tell her you love her too?Or would you simply send her home?And tell her you’ve moved on?Tell me, Buddy, what would you do?
— Laura     Miller, Butterfly Weeds
Already, Cullum felt a stirring of interest. The name Horace and the mention of an oakleaf symbol struck a chord in his memory. Sir Horace, the Oakleaf Knight, was a legendary figure in Araluen, even in a place as remote as Norgate. Of course, the more remote the location, the more garbled and fantastic the legends became. As Cullum had hear tell, Sir Horace had been a youth of sixteen when he defeated the tyrant Morgarath in single combat, slicing the head off the evil lord's shoulders with one might strocke of a massive broadsword.Then, in the company of the equally legendary Ranger Halt, Sir Horace had traveled across the Stormwhite Sea to defeat the Riders from the East and rescue Princess Cassandra and her companion, the apprentice Ranger known as Will. Will! The significance of the name suddenly registered with the innkeeper. The jongleur's name was Will. Now here he was, in a cowled cloak, festooned with recurve bow and a quiver of arrows. He looked more closely and saw the hilt of a heavy saxe knife just visible at his waist. No doubt about it, Cullum thought, these cheerful young men were two of Araluen's greatest heroes!
— John Flanagan, The Siege of Macindaw
You pushed it too far. You shouldn't take the same risk again.""Says the guy who got shot.
— Joss Stirling, Seeking Crystal
I leaned back to look at her, seeing only her, this girl who was Ally but also Alona, and who bore a resemblance to a friend i'd once had but was someone new. Someone i could live without, but didn't want to
— Stacey Kade, Body & Soul
Zed and Sky had stayed behind and were chatting with Will, Sky sitting on Zed's knee as if nothing was going to get them apart again in a hurry. Victor and Uriel were playing cards at the kitchen table. Trace looked cute in an apron, chopping vegetables with a surgeon's precision.
— Joss Stirling, Seeking Crystal
Across that threshold I had been afraid to cross, things suddenly seemed so very simple. There was but a single vision, God, who was all in all; there was but one will that directed all things, God's will. I had only to see it, to discern it in every circumstance in which I found myself, and let myself be ruled by it. God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things. To discern this in every situation and circumstance, to see His will in all things, was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust. Nothing could separate me from Him, because He was in all things. No danger could threaten me, no fear could shake me, except the fear of losing sight of Him. The future, hidden as it was, was hidden in His will and therefore acceptable to me no matter what it might bring. The past, with all its failures, was not forgotten; it remained to remind me of the weakness of human nature and the folly of putting any faith in self. But it no longer depressed me. I looked no longer to self to guide me, relied on it no longer in any way, so it could not again fail me. By renouncing, finally and completely, all control of my life and future destiny, I was relieved as a consequence of all responsibility. I was freed thereby from anxiety and worry, from every tension, and could float serenely upon the tide of God's sustaining providence in perfect peace of soul.
— Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me
You have to remember that there are reasons to live, and that at least a few people are decent, and that the world is worthwhile some of the time, okay?”I raise my face to his, wanting another kiss, but he stops me.“You will remember?”The balloon bumps downward again. His eyes are still closed.“Why don’t you open your eyes?”He opens one and squints at me for a second. “I’m terrified of heights,” he says.
— Bethany Griffin, Masque of the Red Death
He stiffens against me, pain written all over the mess of a face. He grabs my face in his hands. Holds me. "It's not over. We're not through, Jacinda." His eyes blister, glitter darkly."I'll find you. I will. We'll be together again.
— Sophie Jordan, Firelight
I once saw a show about an amputee who lost his leg and still feels it. He actually wakes up at night to scratch his leg as if it’s still there, attached to him. They call it a phantom limb.I would be like that. A phantom draki, tormented with the memory of what I once was.
— Sophie Jordan, Firelight
I love you,” he said. He almost yelled it. “And I know that sounds crazy. That’s what you say at the beginning of something, not when it’s almost reached its end. But – I don’t care. I just want to be with you. Maybe it’ll only be for these next few weeks. Maybe it’ll be forever. We can’t know what’ll happen, Anna. All I know is I love you and…we should be together. We just have to be together. We need to be together.
— Michelle Dalton, Sixteenth Summer
There are two sorts of good wills. The one says, "I would do well, but it gives me trouble, and I will not do it." The other, "I wish to do well, but I have not as much power as I have will; it is this which holds me back." The first fills Hell, the second Paradise.
— Francis de Sales
The Marquess shrugged. “I’m a shadow. I do know I am a shadow, Iago. I know most of the time. It’s only when I cannot bear how everyone looks at me down here that I make myself forget it. Shadows are the other side of yourself. I had longings to be good, even then. I was just stronger than my wanting. I’m stronger than anything, really, when I want to be.” The Marquess’s hair turned white as the snow. “Do you know, we’re right underneath Springtime Parish? This place is the opposite of springtime. Everything past prime, boarded up for the season. Just above us, the light shines golden on daffodils full of rainwine and heartgrass and a terrible, wicked, sad girl I can’t get back to. I don’t even know if I want to. Do I want to be her again? Or do I want to be free? I come here to think about that. To be near her and consider it. I think I shall never be free. I think I traded my freedom for a better story. It was a better story, even if the ending needed work.
— Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There
You're ruining that book!" He pointed to the page I'd torn out. "That's a perfectly good book!" Holding his gaze, I reached down and ripped another page out. "I'm making roses." "Well, it's my book." "Sorry." I tore out another.
— Kate Avery Ellison, The Curse Girl
You want to break the curse, I want to break the curse. We don't need to be nice. We need to be effective. Just help me figure it out, and I'll make you a rich woman.
— Kate Avery Ellison, The Curse Girl
...'undertow'. It describes (...) how underneath our own everyday lives - the shopping and squabbles and weeding and trips to the vet - there's a sense of being dragged slowly off, not against our will but regardless of it. And fighting the undertow, as children are quick to learn, is not usually the best way of getting back to the beach. Floating along with it, on the other hand, can be fatal. It's really the struggle, the argument with oneself, that interests...
— Robert Dessaix, Picador New Writing
In man - in the history of mankind, this has happened many times, and occupation leaders cling on to the land that they're occupying. People fight to liberate their land. But in the end, the people's will is what achieves victory.
— Hassan Nasrallah
We all know so goddamn well what's best for other people that it seems unnecessary we get to know them before imposing our will on them.
— Taylor Nadeau, The Death of Edwin Hubble
It became clear that Keisha Blake could not start something without finishing it. If she climbed onto the boundary wall of Caldwell, she was compelled to walk the entire wall, no matter the obstructions in her path (beer cans, branches). This compulsion, applied to other fields, manifested itself as "intelligence." Every unknown word sent her to a dictionary--in search of something like "completion"--and every book led to another book, a process that, of course, could never be completed. This route through early life gave her no small portion of joy, and, indeed, it seemed at first that her desires and her capacities were basically aligned. She wanted to read things--could not resist wanting to read things--and reading was easily done, and relatively inexpensive. On the other hand, that she should receive any praise for such reflexive habits baffled the girl, for she knew herself to be fantastically stupid about many things. Wasn't it possible that what others mistook for intelligence was in fact only a sort of mutation of the will?
— Zadie Smith
The free-will of man cannot impune the sovereignty of God, and conversely the sovereignty of God would not impune the free-will of men".
— R. Alan Woods
The will is the keystone in the arch of human achievement. It is the culmination of our complex mental faculties. It is the power that rules minds, men and nations.
— Thomas Parker Boyd
Will stared at him with utter disbelief. “Am I really supposed to answer that? What do you think I want? I want you.” He added bitterly, “Who wouldn’t want you? Seeing you’re so sweet-tempered and understanding.
— Josh Lanyon, Dead Run
There is a simplicity to war. Attacking is the only secret. Dare- and the world yields. How quickly they forget that all it takes to change the course of history... is the will of a single man.
— Captain Price
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
— Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
I rebel
—  therefore I exist.
One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.
— Anton Chekhov
The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
I want my name to mean me.
— Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
One must not let oneself be misled: they say 'Judge not!' but they send to Hell everything that stands in their way.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ
I have crossed the seas, I have left cities behind me,and I have followed the source of rivers towards theirsource or plunged into forests, always making for othercities. I have had women, I have fought with men ; andI could never turn back any more than a record can spinin reverse. And all that was leading me where ?To this very moment...
— Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance.
— Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt
After awhile you could get used to anything.
— Albert Camus, The Stranger
You know these things as thoughts, but your thoughts are not your experiences, they are an echo and after-effect of your experiences: as when your room trembles whe na carriage goes past. I however am sitting in the carriage, and often I am the carriage itself.Ina man who thinks like this, the dichotomy between thinking and feeling, intellect and passion, has really disappeared. He feels his thoughts. He can fall in love with an idea. An idea can make him ill.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
You say 'I' and you are proud of this word. But greater than this- although you will not believe in it - is your body and its great intelligence, which does not say 'I' but performs 'I'.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
It's not always easy to distinguish between existentialism and a bad mood.
— Matthew Woodring Stover, Blade of Tyshalle
At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people tell him to do (totalitarianism).
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be.
— Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism
I spent the afternoon musing on Life. If you come to think of it, what a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see what I mean.
— P.G. Wodehouse
The books we need are of the kind that act upon us like a misfortune,that makes us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide,lost in a forest remote from all human habitation
— Franz Kafka, The Trial
Uncertainty is the normal state.
— Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
This is awful. I don't know what's going to happen to me or to anyone else in the world.
— Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories
I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality.
— Rabih Alameddine, Koolaids: The Art of War
All that is transitory is but a metaphor.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
— Rollo May
One must have at least a readiness to love the other person, broadly speaking, if one is to be able to understand him.
— Rollo May, Existence
Existence is illusory and it is eternal.
— Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
Know yourselves- be infertile and let the earth be silent after ye.
— Peter Wessel Zapffe, The Last Messiah
In the face of the obscene, explicit malice of the jungle, which lacks only dinosaurs as punctuation, I feel like a half-finished, poorly expressed sentence in a cheap novel.
— Werner Herzog
Nothingness haunts Being.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
Barefoot conducts his seminars on his houseboat in Sausalito. It costs a hundred dollars to find out why we are on this Earth. You also get a sandwich, but I wasn't hungry that day. John Lennon had just been killed and I think I know why we are on this Earth; it's to find out that what you love the most will be taken away from you, probably due to an error in high places rather than by design.
— Philip K. Dick
All the labor of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction. So now, my friends, if that is true, and it is true, what is the point?
— Bertrand Russell
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
— Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
When a lack of white blood cells exposes the horizon of being, one has to make a choice. To cloister yourself away in a germ-free environment, alive but alone, or to embrace the woman you love and catch your death of cold at the marriage ceremony? What a great show. It’s inner-directed script was unmatched by any other soap opera.
— Benson Bruno, A Story That Talks about Talking Is Like Chatter to Chattering Teeth, and Every Set of Dentures Can Attest to the Fact That No..
Afternoon experience: autographing exposed legs, outstretched in lines like matchsticks. Afternoon epiphany: Those with smooth, hairless legs would soon lose all evidence of my contact when the sweat causes the ink from the marker to run. I am ephemeral. Skepticism would be the reaction to those with thick leg hair, as their curls frazzle the lines of my name outward illegibly. Among the scaly-legged, I flaked off immediately, like I never was at all.
— Benson Bruno, A Story That Talks about Talking Is Like Chatter to Chattering Teeth, and Every Set of Dentures Can Attest to the Fact That No..
At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it.
— Albert Camus, The Stranger
If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space? Those of us who are forced by their own sensibilities to view their lives in this perspective — who recognize that there is no purpose they can comprehend and that amidst a countless myriad of stars their existence goes unknown and unchronicled — can fall prey all too easily to the ultimate anomie. The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache.
— Stanley Kubrick
Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.... Through words and concepts we shall never reach beyond the wall off relations, to some sort of fabulous primal ground of things.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.
— Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity
No one is accountable for existing at all, or for being constituted as he is, or for living in the circumstances and surroundings in which he lives. The fatality of his nature cannot be disentangled from the fatality of all that which has been and will be. He is not the result of a special design, a will, a purpose; he is not the subject of an attempt to attain an 'ideal of man' or an 'ideal of happiness' or an 'ideal of morality'--it is absurd to want to hand over his nature to some purpose or other. We invented the concept 'purpose': in reality purpose is lacking...One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole--there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, condemn the whole...
— Friedrich Nietzsche, A Nietzsche Reader
In comparison with capitalism, which reconstituted man as an economic animal; in comparison with Marxism, which found man an object made up of organized matter; in comparison with catholicism, which saw him as the unwitting plaything of an imperious unseen power (the Divine Will); in comparison with dialectical materialism, which saw him as unwitting plaything of the deterministic evolution of the means of production- existentialism made man a god
— Ali Shariati
I want to see the world without explaining away its mystery by calling things wicked, righteous, sinful, and good. I want to erase in myself the easy explanations, the always mendacious explanations about why things happen the way they do, and in this way, come to know the mystery of being–-not by any approximation in thought, but by being. I want to be and not be ashamed of being.
— Therese Doucet, A Lost Argument
There can be no stronger proof of the impoverishment of our contemporary culture than the popular - though profoundly mistaken - definition of myth as falsehood.
— Rollo May
There comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. The schoolteacher is well aware of this. And the question is not one of knowing what punishment or reward attends the making of this calculation. The question is that of knowing whether two and two do make four.
— Albert Camus
He had stylized himself--life was easier that way. He had chosen a physical mould just as writer chooses a technical form.
— Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear
Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.
— Albert Camus
Sometimes I couldn't figure it out, what all the living was for.
— Jane Hamilton, The Book of Ruth
One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole…But nothing exists apart from the whole!
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ
For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist.
— Vladimir Nabokov
I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. the will to a system is a lack of integrity.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
There is no human nature, since there is no god to conceive it.
— Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions
What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough to follow its own commandments: I mean, not to kill, not to take the lives of others to justify itself.
— Ernest Becker
But now the world breaks in on us, the world is shocked, the world looks upon our idyll as madness. The world maintains that no rational man or woman would have chosen this way of life - therefore, it is madness. Alone I confront them and tell them that nothing could be saner or truer! What do people really know about life? We fall in line, follow the pattern established by our mentors. Everything is based on assumptions; even time, space, motion, matter are nothing but supposition. The world has no new knowledge to impart; it merely accepts what is there.
— Knut Hamsun, Mysteries
His face was neither handsome nor anything else. It just was.
— Tarjei Vesaas, The Birds
Integrity is unity of the personality; it implies being brutally honest with ourselves about our intentionality. Since intentionality is inextricably bound up with the daimonic, this is never an easy, nor always pleasant pursuit. But being willing to admit our daimonic tendencies - to know them consciously and to wisely oversee them - brings with it the invaluable blessing of freedom, vigor, inner strength, and self-acceptance.
— Stephen A. Diamond, Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic
All she had to do was make the simplest of gestures - open her hands and let go her hold. She lifted one hand and moved the fingers of it; they responded, in surprise and obedience, and this obedience of a thousand little unsuspected muscles was in itself a miracle. Why ask for more?
— Simone de Beauvoir, She Came to Stay
Does love always form, like a pearl, around the hardened bits of life?
— Andrew Sean Greer, The Story of a Marriage
For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.
— Albert Camus, The Stranger