Jealous

God is indeed a jealous God.
He cannot bear to see
That we had rather not with Him
But with each other play.
--Emily Dickinson

Post-Literate

The post-literate sensibility is offended by anything that isn't television, views with suspicion the compound sentence, the subordinate clause, words of more than three syllables.
--Lewis Lapham

Communicate

The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.
--J. B. Priestley

Regeneration

The slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. If one gets rid of these habits, one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration.
--George Orwell

Partially Insane

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.
--Mark Twain

Old Men

Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and empty desolation
--T.S. Eliot (East Coker)

No Meaning

Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.
--C.S. Lewis

Love and Death

Love is stronger than death.
--Paul Tillich

Particular

Our lessons in this lifetime are simply our struggles to smooth the flow of life through and around our particular flaws.
--Suzanne Clothier

In Death

We live in death, which is all around us, and waiting in us. Yet modern men and women--meaning not those people of this current age but those who embrace the modern prejudices--live as if death is not a part of life but only an end.
--Dean Koontz

Emotion

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
--Mark Twain

Encourages

In marriage, when those tight times happen, when you feel, "Oh, shit, this is terrible, I'm outta here," you take it as an opportunity to learn more about each other, get closer, and enlarge your love. Then that precious feeling kind of pulls you together and encourages you in the next tough time.
--Jeff Bridges

Noise

Relationships of every kind are riddled with overinterpreted noise. How many angry exchanges are triggered by extraneous comments or fleeting looks, many of which are attributable to passing moods?
--Ted Cadsby

The Choice

The observer's choice of what he shall look for has an inescapable consequence for what he will find.
--John Archibald Wheeler (physicist)

Soul

Soul is most pregnant and ready to be born in relationships, since we can't be human without them. We cannot save our soul, much less find it, alone.
--Gary Zukav

Dread

May you dream you are dreaming, in a warm soft bed.
And may the voices inside you that fill you with dread,
Make the sound of thousands of angels instead,
Tonight where you might be laying your head.
--Patty Griffin

Hour of Death

We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance.
--Marcel Proust

All Created Things

By means of all created things without exception, the divine assaults us, penetrates us and molds us.
--Teilhard de Chardin

Regrets

The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.
--Alexander Payne

Peace

Peace isn't a place with no stress, but a place where you take the stress as it comes, in stride, and don't let it rule you. You let it flow through you, and then smile and breathe.
--Leo Babauta

Humane

The responsibility for being humane lies strictly within our own hearts; we cannot and should not depend on external authorities to guide us.  
--Suzanne Clothier