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1 " Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you. "
― Christopher Hitchens , Letters to a Young Contrarian
2 " Be the player in your own dream life. Don't be a spectator watching your dreams every day "
3 " To become a spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life. "
― Oscar Wilde
4 " His body walks out onto the darkened stage , and a roar goes up from the crowd. He stands in front of the mic, and he can feel his face twist in a sneer-the Elvis sneer from his dreams-though he never told it to move. He is powerless now, a spectator at his own moment of glory. "
― , Voice
5 " I was a spectator who had gotten free admission to a freak show. "
― Steven Ramirez , Tell Me When I'm Dead (Tell Me When I'm Dead #1)
6 " The purpose of any healthy relationship is to find someone that will magnify your life's experiences, not tolerate it or become a spectator of it. "
― Shannon L. Alder
7 " You weren't born to be a spectator of others while they live life to the fullest. You too were born to make the world a better place, so put your talents into good use. "
8 " During my stay in the United States, I witnessed the spontaneous formation of committees in a country for the pursuit and prosecution of a man who had committed a great crime. In Europe, a criminal is an unhappy man who is struggling for his life against the agents of power, whilst the people are merely a spectator of the conflict: in America, he is looked upon as an enemy of the human race, and the whole of mankind is against him. "
― Alexis de Tocqueville , Democracy in America
9 " Did you have any yourself?" she said." Just one." Harold thought of David, but it was too much to explain. He saw the boy as a toddler and how his face darkened in sunshine like a ripe nut. He wanted to describe the soft dimples of flesh at his knees, and the way he walked in his first pair of shoes, staring down, as if unable to credit they were still attached to his feet. He thought of him lying in hit cot, his fingers so appallingly small and perfect over his wool blanket. You could look at them and fear they might dissolve beneath your touch.Mothering had come so naturally to Maureen. It was as if another woman had been waiting inside her all along, ready to slip out. She knew how to swing her body so that a baby slept; how to soften her voice; how to curl her hand to support his head. She knew what temperature the water should be in his bath, and when he needed to nap, and how to knit him blue wool socks. He had no idea she knew these things and he had watched with awe, like a spectator from the shadows. It both deepened his love for her and lifted her apart, so that just at the moment when he thought their marriage would intensify, it seemed to lose its way, or at least set them in different places. He peered at his baby son, with his solemn eyes, and felt consumed with fear. What if he was hungry? What if he was unhappy? What if other boys hit him when he went to school? There was so much to protect him from, Harold was overwhelmed. He wondered if other men had found the new responsibility of parenting as terrifying, or whether it had been a fault that was only in himself. It was different these days. You saw men pushing buggies and feeding babies with no worries at all. "
10 " Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will provide plenty of time for silence. "
― Christopher Hitchens
11 " Don't be a spectator in the kingdom of God , find something that you can do , at-least even going to church is one of them "
― Alinani joe
12 " Spirits flitted through the red-and-orange sky like leaves blown on the October wind. They dipped and darted over the brownstones and housing projects, swooped around the towering glass palaces, and dove into the crooked alleyways. Sierra smiled. The world had become so much more alive once she learned to see the dead. For a few moments, she just stood there, let herself be a spectator to the ever unfolding drama of city lights and spirits. "
― Daniel José Older , Shadowhouse Fall (Shadowshaper Cypher #2)
13 " Being a spectator of calamities taking place in an other country is a quintessential modern experience, the cumulative offering by more than a century and a half's worth of those professional, specialized tourists known as journalists. "
14 " I used to feel spiritually inferior because I had not experienced the more spectacular manifestations of the Spirit and could not point to any bona fide “miracles” in my life. Increasingly, though, I have come to see that what I value may differ greatly from what God values. Jesus, often reluctant to perform miracles, considered it progress when he departed earth and entrusted the mission to his flawed disciples. Like a proud parent, God seems to take more delight as a spectator of the bumbling achievements of stripling children than in any self-display of omnipotence. From God’s perspective, if I may speculate, the great advance in human history may be what happened at Pentecost, which restored the direct correspondence of spirit to Spirit that had been lost in Eden. I want God to act in direct, impressive, irrefutable ways. God wants to “share power” with the likes of me, accomplishing his work through people, not despite them. "
― Philip Yancey , Reaching for the Invisible God: What Can We Expect to Find?
15 " Life, it is true, can be grasped in all its confused futility merely by opening one's eyes and sitting passively, a spectator on the stands of history - but to understand the social processes and conflicts, the interplay between individual and group, even the physicality of human experience, we have need of small-scale models. "