Inspirational Quotes from Books discussion

When a trout rising to a fly gets hooked on a line and finds itself unable to swim about freely, it begins a fight which results in struggles and splashes and sometimes escape. Often, of course, the situation is too tough for him.

In the same way the human being struggles with his environment and with the hooks that catch him. Sometimes he masters his difficulties, sometimes they are too much for him. His struggles are all the world sees, and it naturally misunderstands them. It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.

--Karl MenningerWhatever Became of Sin?

One should find out why a man is alone before one lets him alone, for he may not want to be alone.

Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean's Watch

Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Don't trouble it. Don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent.

Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

How strange! I was just thinking a moment ago of how long it took me to realize that animals really do have feelings. Even birds to some extent.

A few years ago a baby blackbird decided to come and live indoors with us. No kidding. I put him outside regularly in case his mother was looking for him but he looked forlorn and pecked on the window until I let him in. Compassion got the better of me, fortunately, and I just let him come and go as he wished until he was ready to fly away. Until then, he sat next to me on the garden bench and followed me inside and sat on the kitchen table while I worked in the kitchen.

It changed how I felt about birds. And that's why my hero in One Dark Night whistles like a blackbird.

Science is discovering today that animals feel much more emotion and understand a great deal more than humanity is accustomed to credit. Those of us who have lived closely with animals such as dogs, horses and birds have long known this. In fact, scientists have begun to realise that parrots and other Psittacenes have the intelligence of a bright 3 or 4 year old child!

Back in the late eighties, my mother rescued a little Dachshund crossbreed that had been dumped at the local vet. She made friends with my sister's Bernese mountain dog, and they often played and napped together. A couple of years later the Bernese was stolen, and never seen again. I was visiting my mother and she put on a videotape of the dogs playing so I could see how beautiful it was. When the crossbreed heard her friend barking on the tape, she became so distressed--looking behind the TV, trying to get between the sofa and the wall to "find" him--it was obvious that she remembered her friend and missed him! I finally made my mother turn the tape off. She was more amused than anything at her dog's reaction; I found her amusement rather heartless. (But then she could be surprisingly heartless when least expected.)

"My father, of blessed memory, once said to me of the verse in Genesis: "And He saw all that He did and it was good"--my father once said that the seeing of God is not like the seeing of Man. Man sees only between the blinks of his eyes. He does not know what the world is like during the blinks. He sees the world in pieces, in fragments. But the Master of the Universe sees the world whole, unbroken. That world is good. Our seeing is broken. Can we make it like the seeing of God?"

---Chaim Potok, The Gift of Asher Lev

If there's cruelty in the world, then it's up to us to try to make things kinder.

Lori Olding, The Origami Nun

Hi Orinoco, I've been away for several weeks but it's nice to come back and find you are carrying on, inspiring us and making us think.

"I think the bravest thing most of us do is to get up each morning and to face whatever life has in store for us. This is no small matter, considering our feelings, our sensitivity, our vulnerability and our awareness, however repressed, of how unpredictable and tenuous life and the world are. We are not aided by the considerable and ever-increasing complexity of the cultures we live in."Compassion and Self Hate: An Alternative to Despair

I'm always surprised I haven't been run over yet. As your quotation suggests, there are a lot of things 'out there' that make it safer to stay in bed!

“If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose deep inflicted lacerations never heal - cutting injuries and insults of serrated and poison-dripping edge - so, too, there are consolations of tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to retain their echo: caressing kindnesses - loved, lingered over through a whole life, recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

If people of goodwill do not act against evil, then they assent to evil.
--Maimonides

Oy you! That's another one of the themes in my books :o) That's two in one day!

I haven't finished writing this one yet, so I'm not going to say any more!

Anna wrote: "Oy you! That's another one of the themes in my books :o) That's two in one day!

I haven't finished writing this one yet, so I'm not going to say any more!"

Actually I think the Maimonides quote may be the original of that quote that's attributed to just about everyone, "In order for evil to triumph it is only necessary that good men do nothing."

I've just looked him up - I love the title of his book The Guide for the Perplexed which a lot of other writers seem to have used too. Poor man - some of his work is so good that everyone pinches it.

Maimonides aka the Rambam--one of the great rabbis of history, along with Rashi, Hillel, etc.

You cannot engage a person's mind unless you engage the person and appreciate who they are and what they are.

---Barbara Ruch in the Introduction to The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Dr. Seuss
Cute Inspirational Quotes About Success In Life

Sofia wrote: "Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Dr. Seuss
Cute Inspirational Quotes About Success In Life"

Thank you, Sofia. Too often I get the feeling I'm all alone in here.

You're never alone, Orinoco!

I always appreciate your thoughts.

To calm people, to comfort them in their suffering, listen to them when they speak. Sometimes you feel like taking their hands; sometimes you even feel like putting your arms around them, but there are people with whom you can't do that. Listening to them can be encouragement enough.

Quoi de neuf sur la guerre ?

So true.

A decent world is built on small acts of kindness.
Aunt Dimity's Christmas