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"My favourite piece of information is that Branwell Brontë, brother of Emily and Charlotte, died standing up, leaning against a mantelpiece, in order to prove it could be done. This is not quite true, in fact. My absolute favourite piece of information is that young sloths are so inept they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs and fall out of trees. However, this is not relevant to what is currently on my mind because it concerns sloths, whereas the Branwell Brontë piece of information concerns writers, feeling like death, and doing things to prove they can be done—all of which are pertinent to my current situation to a degree that is, frankly, spooky."
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"The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party when the masks are dropped."
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Personal Development
"It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality."
Author Name
Personal Development
"It is hope--with regard to our careers, our love lives, our children, our politicians, and our planet--that is primarily to blame for angering and embittering us. The incompatibility between the grandeur of our aspirations and the mean reality of our condition generates the violent disappointments which rack our days and etch themselves in lines of acrimony across our faces."
Author Name
Personal Development
"But alas, the world is not a wish-granting factory."
Author Name
Personal Development
"You cannot change reality by ignoring it."
Author Name
Personal Development
"I don't know why everyoneis still trying to find out whether heaven and hell exist.Why do we need more evidence?They exist here on this very Earth.Heaven is standing atop Mount Qasiounoverlooking the Damascene sightswith the wind carrying Qabbani'sdulcet words all around you.And hell is only four hours away in Aleppo where children's cries drown out the explosions of mortar bombsuntil they lose their voice,their families, and their limbs.Yes, hell certainly does existright now, at this moment,as I pen this poem. And all we're doingto extinguish this hellfireis sighing, shrugging, liking, and sharing.Tell me: what exactly does that makeus? Are we any better than the gatekeepers of hell?"
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Personal Development
"Look at him now, poor fellow. That's what a dose of reality does for you...Never touch the stuff myself, you understand. Find it gets in the way of the hallucinations."
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Personal Development
"Everything that looks too perfect is too perfect to be perfect."
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Personal Development
"It now seemed to me that all my other guesses had been only self-pleasing dreams spun out of my wishes, but now I was awake."
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Personal Development
"Sometimes in the quest for enlightenment the only thing that gets lighter is your wallet."
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Personal Development
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"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Flying
"Just because you see something, it doesn't mean to say it's there. And if you don't see something, it doesn't mean to say it's not there. It's only what your senses bring to your attention."
Awareness
"I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
Happiness
"What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
Happiness
"I'm a scientist and I know what constitutes proof. But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that."
Science
"Aberystwyth (n.)A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for."
Sentiment
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."
Science
"Since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation - every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake."
Science
"There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again."
Relationship
"Marvin: Look, look, no, just think. They left me - an ordinary, menial robot - to stop you - a gigantic, heavy-duty battle machine - whilst they ran off to save themselves... What do you think they would leave me with? Frogstar Robot: Well, er, something pretty damn devastating I would expect. Marvin: Expect? Oh yes, expect. I'll tell you what they gave me to protect myself with, shall I? Frogstar Robot: Yes all right. Marvin: Nothing. Frogstar Robot: What? Marvin: Nothing at all. Not an electronic sausage. Frogstar Robot: Well, doesn't that just take the biscuit!"
Technology
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