Several lovely bloggers (seriously, like seventy-two of ya!) asked me to do the quote challenge again. But, because I’m a nogoodterribleverybad person, I only remember the first one who asked me: And that was Ndumiso Mncwabe over at Music Smells Like Noise. He has an original and creative blog going over there – I do hope you’ll check him out; he’s one of my favorites. And okay y’all, it was nowhere near seventy-two. More like seventy-one. Yeah. And I should have kept a list so I could give everybody a shout-out. My bad.
It’s been a while since I was asked, but I wanted to put a little more time between now and the first one I did. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that I’m a sucker for a good quote. And I’m doing it today because I’m in a supershitty mood so I need to do this to occupy myself.
(Disclosure thingy: I actually wrote this yesterday and scheduled it to post this morning. Since you’re all aware of my wild ups and downs, I’m probably in a better mood by now. But as of writing? FUCKTHEWORLDMAN. Not the worldman. The world, man. Because I don’t know who the Worldman is, but I’m not really keen on doing him.)
Y’all know, rebel that I am (snort), I’m gonna fuck the rules all up. If I recall correctly from last time, I’m supposed to do three quotes over the course of three days. But I think the new one going around has a twist: one or three quotes each day for three days, nominating three people each day.
And you homies oughta know by now that shit ain’t happenin’.
In fact, what I’m gonna do right now is give you a shitload of quotes all at once, and I’ll try to keep them all sufficiently moody to suit my mood. (How many times am I gonna say mood in this post? How many licks will it take to count them? Start licking and lemme know.) (Also ew. Stop licking your monitor.)
And then, I’m gonna nominate all of you. To gimme some quotes in comments. Or post some on your own pages. Whatever floats your goat. (I know it’s supposed to be boat. Don’t you think I know that? Goats are better than boats. Trust me.) (Oooo better still, a goat in a boat. Why didn’t I think of that?!)
But first, here’s some mood music to set the tone.
Ahhhhhh, that’s better. Nothing like some good ole ambient acid jazz trip hop (seriously will we ever agree on genres?). Now, where was I? Ah yes, to the quotes! I’m gonna share some that I keep in my own personal stash of quotey goodness.
Existential Mumbo Jumbo (that I love. So stop calling it mumbo jumbo. Jerk.)
On the walls of the cave, only the shadows are the truth. ~Plato
The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject … And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them … Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced. Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate … Nature does not reveal her mysteries once and for all. ~Seneca
Whew. I love this stuff.
Isn’t that the truth? Can you really say you’ve experienced true passion without struggle? I know I can’t. Next up:
He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being. ~Jean-Paul Sartre
Oh yeah, I’m not even done.
Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level. ~Ernest Becker
This next one is one of my all-time favorite quotes. Ever. Period.
The wound is the place where the light enters you. ~Rumi
And that’s a damn good thing, because:
We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing. ~Charles Bukowski
I should probably lighten the mood, huh? At least attempt to? Cuz damn.
Lightening the Mood, or At Least Attempting To
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. ~Dalai Lama XIV
That’s what I’m talkin’ about, yo. Next up:
The past beats inside me like a second heart. ~John Banville
Whoopsie. That wasn’t very light, was it? (But true.) Lemme try again:
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. ~Eleanor Roosevelt
Ahhh, that’s much better and an important one for me to remind myself of. I think I’ve got the hang of this now. Here we go:
“Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it. ~Ursula K. Le Guin
I’m on a roll!
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist; that is all. ~Oscar Wilde
Ooooops. My bad. Good quote, though. And true. Here, I’ll leave you with one final choice quote from my vaults:
How about you? What quoth ye?
stephellaneous.wordpress.com 