Caron Simon > Simon's Quotes

“To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.”
― Clarence Darrow, The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Ma liberté
Longtemps je t'ai gardée
Comme une perle rare
Ma liberté
c'est toi qui m'as aidé
A larguer les amarres
Pour aller n'importe où
Pour aller jusqu'au bout
Des chemins de fortune
Pour cueillir en rêvant
Une rose des vents
Sur un rayon de lune

Ma liberté
Devant tes volontés
Mon âme était soumise
Ma liberté
je t'avais tout donné
Ma dernière chemise
Et combien j'ai souffert
Pour pouvoir satisfaire
Tes moindres exigences
J'ai changé de pays
J'ai perdu mes amis
Pour gagner ta confiance

Ma liberté
Tu as su désarmer
Toutes mes habitudes
Ma liberté
toi qui m'as fait aimer
Même la solitude
Toi qui m'as fait sourire
Quand je voyais finir
Une belle aventure
Toi qui m'as protégé
Quand j'allais me cacher
Pour soigner mes blessures

Ma liberté
Pourtant je t'ai quittée
Une nuit de décembre
J'ai déserté les chemins écartés
Que nous suivions ensemble
Lorsque sans me méfier
Les pieds et poings liés
Je me suis laissé faire
Et je t'ai trahie pour
Une prison d'amour
Et sa belle geôlière
Et je t'ai trahie pour
Une prison d'amour
Et sa belle geôlière”
― Georges Moustaki

“Chers Amis,
Ce que vous avez pris pour mes oeuvres n’était que les déchets de moi-même, ces raclures de l’âme que l’homme normal n’accueille pas.
Que mon mal depuis lors ait reculé ou avancé, la question pour moi n’est pas là, elle est dans la douleur et la sidération persistante de mon esprit.
Me voici de retour à M..., où j’ai retrouvé la sensation d’engourdissement et de vertige, ce besoin brusque et fou de sommeil, cette perte soudaine de mes forces avec un sentiment de vaste douleur, d’abrutissement instantané.”
― Antonin Artaud, L'Ombilic des Limbes: suivi de Le Pèse-nerfs et autres textes

“In order to eat, you have to be hungry. In order to learn, you have to be ignorant. Ignorance is a condition of learning. Pain is a condition of health. Passion is a condition of thought. Death is a condition of life.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Leviathan

“I've never been free in my whole life. Inside I've always chased myself. I've become intolerable to myself. I live in a lacerating duality. I'm seemingly free, but I'm a prisoner inside of me.”
― Clarice Lispector, A Breath of Life

“For I am I: ergo, the truth of myself; my own sphinx, conflict, chaos, vortex—asymmetric to all rhythms, oblique to all paths. I am the prism between black and white: mine own unison in duality.”
― Austin Osman Spare

“We, all who live, have
A life that is lived
And another life that is thought,
And the only life we have
It's the one that is divided
In right or wrong.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners, schedules, beepers. Chronos is time at her worst. Chronos keeps track. ...Chronos is the world's time. Kairos is transcendence, infinity, reverence, joy, passion, love, the Sacred. Kairos is intimacy with the Real. Kairos is time at her best. ...Kairos is Spirit's time. We exist in chronos. We long for kairos. That's our duality. Chronos requires speed so that it won't be wasted. Kairos requires space so that it might be savored. We do in chronos. In kairos we're allowed to be ... It takes only a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment. All that kairos asks is our willingness to stop running long enough to hear the music of the spheres.”
― Sarah Ban Breathnach