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Quotes by Belgian Authors
"As poverty has been reduced in terms of mere survival, it has become more profound in terms of our way of life."
"I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person."
"We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity."
"There are more truths in twenty-four hours of a man's life than in all the philosophies."
"At synods, I usually wait about a week before I speak. First I listen. I feel the temperature. I listen to what has been said, what has not been said, and what I think needs to be said at that point."
"When the past gets its teeth into our daily life, it may get to grips with an astringent reality and adjust our timeline. By recognizing ourselves in the light of our history, we become aware of what we are. ['Going back to yesterday']"
"When people become prisoners of daily habits and happen to be hostages of choices, which they made in the past, but which they finally do not actually want, they experience the need to abandon their corporeal prison at a certain time in life. ['Corporeal prison']"
"Some are in tune with the swanky, but not in tune with themselves. Their desire has become the desire of the others. ['Buying now. Dying later']"
"To be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been."
"A truth that disheartens because it is true is of more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods."
"Before Vatican II, in theology, as in other areas, the discipline was fixed. After the council there has been a revolution - a chaotic revolution - with free discussion on everything. There is now no common theology or philosophy as there was before."
"I decided, very early on, just to accept life unconditionally; I never expected it to do anything special for me, yet I seemed to accomplish far more than I had ever hoped. Most of the time it just happened to me without my ever seeking it."
"I have to be alone very often. I'd be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That's how I refuel."
"There's a hell of a lot of freedom in this rock and roll circus... it's where all the freaks go - it's the environment for me."
"Revolution is an instrument, like a party is an instrument."
"Lightness and weightiness are both linked to a philosophy of life. They are choices in life. Heaviness can be the embodiment of a sense of responsibility, the expression of maturity, the result of profound meditation or the emanation of a search for meaning in life. Weightiness, however, may also lead to a feeling of oppression, when it is felt as a burden, an unbearable burden. Then time has come to let loose and things can finally lose their gravity. ['The unbearable heaviness of being']"
"When we fail to reflect on the underlying currents of our life’s circumstances, we risk developing lasting doubts about the accuracy of our interpretations. A clear and honest examination of our actions and desires helps us avoid falling into the frustrating gap between our own expectations and those of others." ['Alors, tout a basculé']
"Is happiness a sort of blissful state of mind or just a kind of surreal propensity? It may be hard to recognize its very nature, if we remain guilelessly confined in a state of woeful unawareness or in a no-man's-land of emotions. In their dogged and obstinate quest for the zenith of happiness, many forget to take pleasure in the small things of everyday and, thus, become disgruntled and depressed instead, which leads them to a mire of gloom. ['C'est quand le bonheur ']"
"Fortunately, in the place where I went out, they had set up a little previously a fence which prevented me finally from smashing against trees. I went out with a broken leg only. A small price to be paid at the time for an accident of this kind."
"Postmen have a legendary aura. A ring at the doorbell may inflame a sense of expectation, suspense, secrecy, hazard or even intrigue. Ringing twice may imply a warning that trouble is on the way or an appeal to make the coast clear. Not all mailmen, though, will ring twice and await an eye-catching Lana Turner, whom they can whisper: "With my brains and your looks, we could go places. ['The postman always rings twice']"
"My mouth has a tendency to get me into trouble, but because I'm so small and I take on people who are lager than me. If someone punched me, I'd get my drummer beat them up."
"Before the season begins, I had even damaged some frames, but Ken did not hold it against me and kept all his confidence. He was the one who incontestably changed my life, because without his help, I do not know what I will have become."
"To be happy is only to have freed one's soul from the unrest of unhappiness."
"We don't want protectionism at the heart of the European Union."
"In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create."
"There are no conditions in which we subordinate the interests of the class as a whole to the interests of any sect, any chapel, any separate organization."
"If we expect to "know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we may have a hard time seeing the whole picture, since the truth is a willful construction that allows us often merely to "guess. ['Hinter der Mattscheibe']"
"My father bought me a little cardboard accordion, and when I was three I got this little machine."
"Once we get to know where and why the skeletons of the past are buried, we can start wading across our muddled memories into the open plains of a new horizon. ['Going back to yesterday']"
"I guess the line between being paranoid and being a rock star is smaller than one would expect."
"People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone."
"I'd be interested in finding out if there is a light you walk into, and if you do meet people from your life and walk hand in hand with Jesus. I would hate for my death to be tragic: I'd like to be old when it happens. But hopefully a young death is unlikely."
"Many men remain spoiled boys that have never grown up. Women are prepared to raise them and take pain with patience, both as a condescendant contribution to supercilious compassion and as a proof of the eminence of their sense of worth. ['PrAat-A -penser" / "Ready-to-wear thinking']"
"A living together becomes a living apart, when the pineal gland has not been able to create a luster of spiritual togetherness and emotional attachment. ['I wonder what went wrong.']"
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