Taken Quotes - Page 15

A picture is what it is and I've never noticed that it helps to talk about them, or answer specific questions about them, much less volunteer information in words. It wouldn't make any sense to explain them. Kind of diminishes them. People always want to know when something was taken, where it was taken, and, God knows, why it was taken. It gets really ridiculous. I mean, they're right there, whatever they are.

Literature, real literature, must not be gulped down like some potion which may be good for the heart or good for the brain—the brain, that stomach of the soul. Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed—then its lovely reek will be smelt in the hollow of the palm, it will be munched and rolled upon the tongue with relish; then, and only then, its rare flavor will be appreciated at its true worth and the broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you have contributed something of your own blood.

So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.

Penetrate deeply in the secret existence of anyone about you, even of the man or woman whom you count happiest, and you will come upon things they spend all their efforts to hide. Fair as the exterior may be, if you go in, you will find bare places, heaps of rubbish that can never be taken away, cold hearths, desolate altars, and windows veiled with cobwebs.

The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.

I've seen my family work so hard and come up, and I've seen it all get taken away. I had to man up, and part of that was sleeping in my car, getting an apartment for a month, and getting evicted the next month. Staying in the $25 - $35 hotels. I just never panicked. I stayed focused and I never surrendered.

Democracy no longer means what it was meant to. It has been taken back into the workshop. Each of its institutions has been hollowed out, and it has been returned to us as a vehicle for the free market, of the corporations. For the corporations, by the corporations.

A whole world is taken to the grave with the dead person; each one of us is unique and unrepeatable.

Time is an ethereal and sometimes cruel goddess. In her relentless passing, she steals away our youth and vitality, often in ways that seem insignificant until we finally realize how much she has taken. Still, she is also a generous deity, who offers to replace what she has seized with a deeper wisdom and a clearer vision of life's enigmas. In this sense, time can be our most powerful ally-if we are patient enough.

If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in the bus in Montgomery, she'd still be standing.

If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.

Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations.

Power intoxicates men. It is never voluntarily surrendered. It must be taken from them.

A society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody else’s life is simply immoral.

I strive for an architecture from which nothing can be taken away.

Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace.

An Indian's dress of deer skins, which is wet a hundred times upon his back, dries soft; and his lodge also, which stands in the rains, and even through the severity of winter, is taken down as soft and as clean as when it was first put up.

If I had taken my doctor's advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn't have lived to go to his funeral.

The dynamic element in my philosophy, taken as a whole, can be seen as an obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction.

I think it's taken me this long to really trust myself, but now I do, I really do. Thanks to my experience and wisdom, I've learned not to be so naive and trusting. Today I question everything and listen to my instincts.

Are you becoming more sweet-spirited, more like Jesus? Are you looking soberly in the mirror each day and praying, ‘Lord, I want to conform to Your image in every area of my life’? Or has your bitterness taken root, turning into rebellion and hardness of heart? Have you learned to shield yourself from the convicting voice of God’s Spirit?

I had no idea, but I realized that probably thirty to forty percent of my brainpower was taken up with the questions that I couldn't answer- because I had no direction. When I got clear on exactly where I wanted to go, and set the goals to get there, my mind calmed down.

One day the President and Mrs. Coolidge were visiting a government farm. Soon after their arrival they were taken off on separate tours. When Mrs. Coolidge passed the chicken pens she paused to ask the man in charge if the rooster copulates more than once each day. "Dozens of times, was the reply." "Please tell that to the President," Mrs. Coolidge requested. When the President passed the pens and was told about the roosters, he asked "Same hen every time?" "Oh no, Mr. President, a different one each time." The President nodded slowly, then said, "Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge."

Opportunities increase as they are taken.

I’ll admit that my garden now grows hope in lavish profusion, leaving little room for anything else. I suppose it has squeezed out more practical plants like caution and common sense. Still, though, hope does not flourish in every garden, and I feel thankful it has taken root in mine.