Simon Balfre > Simon's Quotes

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free.
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (...) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

“Don't look at me in that tone of voice.”
― Dorothy Parker

“Tell him I was too fucking busy-- or vice versa.”
― Dorothy Parker

“You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.”
― Dorothy Parker, You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker

“Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.”
― Dorothy Parker

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The English country gentleman galloping after the fox – the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. ”
― Oscar Wilde

“We are as gods to beasts of the field. We order the time of their birth and the time of their death. Between times, we have a duty.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“Them as can do, has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“She prowled the city on moonlit nights, and OK, there was the occasional chicken, but she always remembered where she'd been and went round the next day to shove some money under the door. It was hard to be a vegetarian who had to pick bits of meat out of her teeth in the morning. She was definately on top of it, though. It was easy to be a vegetarian by day. It was preventing yourself from becoming a humanitarian at night that took the real effort.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

“How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”
― Charles de Gaulle

“You become the monster you fear the worst, so the monster won't overtake you.”
― Suzanne Weyn, The Bar Code Tattoo

“Yes it is," said the Professor. "Wait—" he motioned to Richard, who was about to go out again and investigate— "let it be. It won’t be long."

Richard stared in disbelief. "You say there’s a horse in your bathroom, and all you can do is stand there naming Beatles songs?"

The Professor looked blankly at him.

"Listen," he said, "I'm sorry if...I alarmed you earlier, it was just a slight turn. These things happen, my dear fellow, don't upset yourself about it. Dear me, I've known odder things in my time. Many of them. Far odder. She's only a horse, for heaven's sake. I'll go and let her out later. Please don't concern yourself. Let us revive our spirits with some port."

"But...how did it get in there?"

"Well, the bathroom window's open. I expect she came in through that."

Richard looked at him, not for the first and certainly not for the last time, through eyes that were narrowed with suspicion.

"You're doing it deliberately, aren't you," he said.

"Doing what, my dear fellow?”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Half of me is filled with bursting words and half of me is painfully shy. I crave solitude yet also crave people. I want to pour life and love into everything yet also nurture my self-care and go gently. I want to live within the rush of primal, intuitive decision, yet also wish to sit and contemplate. This is the messiness of life - that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.”
― Victoria Erickson

“Soulmates aren't the ones who make you happiest, no. They're instead the ones who make you feel the most. Burning edges and scars and stars. Old pangs, captivation and beauty. Strain and shadows and worry and yearning. Sweetness and madness and dreamlike surrender. They hurl you into the abyss. They taste like hope.”
― Victoria Erickson

“Just because you are soft doesn't mean you are not a force. Honey and wildfire are both the colour gold.”
― Victoria Erickson, Edge of Wonder: Notes from the Wildness of Being

“To be fully human is to be wild. Wild is the strange pull and whispering wisdom. It’s the gentle nudge and the forceful ache. It is your truth, passed down from the ancients, and the very stream of life in your blood. Wild is the soul where passion and creativity reside, and the quickening of your heart. Wild is what is real, and wild is your home.”
― Victoria Erickson

“Rather than fearfully shutting down your sensitivity, dive in deeper into all possible feeling. As you expand, keep only those who are not afraid of oceans”
― Victoria Erickson

“Promise to stay wild with me. We'll seek and return and stay to find beauty and the extraordinary in all the spaces we can claim. We'll know how to live. How to breathe magic into the mundane.”
― Victoria Erickson

“Women are powerful, and I see them stifle this every. single. day. Stop looking to be saved and hiding your magic. Stop tossing aside your voice and valid emotions. Stop wasting your time with fake friends and chasing men like they're cures.
Material things, better jobs, and other people- they won't fill your gap. Only you can do that. Life is short. Rise up and step back into your awesome, innate power. You are compassion and creative force and divine life itself. You are a Goddess.”
― Victoria Erickson

“Like most sensitive souls, you already know you’re sensitive. You soak up others’ moods and desires like a sponge. You absorb sensation the way a paintbrush grasps each colour it touches on a palette.”
― Victoria Erickson

“When connections are real, they simply never die. They can be buried, or ignored or walked away from, but never broken. If you deeply resonated with another person or place, the connection remains despite any distance, time, situation, lack of presence, or circumstance. If you’re doubtful then just try it – go and visit a person or place and see if there’s any sense at all of the space between now and then. If it was truly real, you’ll be instantly swept back into the moment it was before it left – during the same year and place with the same wonder and hope, comfort and heartbeat. Real connections live on forever.”
― Victoria Erickson

“Solitude isn’t loneliness. Solitude is when the entire serene universe seems to surround and hold you quietly.”
― Victoria Erickson

“I love getting older. My understanding deepens. I can see what connects, I can weave stories of experience and apply them. I can integrate the lessons. Things simply become more and more fascinating. Beauty reveals itself in thousands of forms.”
― Victoria Erickson

“The greatest gift anyone could give anyone is for the other to feel worthy, adored and more than enough for all that they are.
This is a gentle reminder that the people you surround yourself with in every direction should feel both uplifting and safe to your mind and heart.
Not confusing, not draining, not controlling, not vague, not calculating, not unreliable, not cold, not dismissive, and not manipulative.
Don’t mess around with the energy you take into your body and being, work wise, friendship wise, and relationship wise.
Life is too short and delicate for these damaging things.
It’s really that simple.”
― Victoria Erickson

“Sometimes someone isn’t ready to see the bright side. Sometimes they need to sit with the shadow first. So be a friend and sit with them. Make the darkness beautiful.”
― Victoria Erickson

“And sometimes you find yourself back where you started, but stronger and softer all at once.
Swim inside the ocean of tenderness, yet build boundaries on the sand.
An open heart is a paradise to protect.”
― Victoria Erickson, Rhythms and Roads

“The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.”
“It must come sometimes to ‘jam to-day,’” Alice objected.
“No, it ca’n’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know”
― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There