Home > Topic > the very things
1 " You will see that the things you desire most are the very things that bring you the greatest sorrow. "
― , Phantom (The Last Vampire, #4)
2 " This world, in which reason is more and more at home, is not habitable. It is hard and cold like those depots in which are piled up goods that cannot satisfy: neither clothe those who are naked, nor feed those who are hungry; it is as impersonal as factory hangars and industrial cities in which manufactured things remain abstract, true with statistical truth and borne on the anonymous circuit of the economy, resulting from skilful planning decisions which cannot prevent, but prepare disasters. There it is, the mind in its masculine essence, living on the outside, exposed to the violent, blinding sun, to the trade winds that beat against it and beat it down, on a land without folds, rootless, solitary and wandering and thus already alienated by the very things which it caused to be produced and which remain untameable and hostile. "
― Emmanuel Levinas
3 " In case you’re short on definitions, here’s one. Insanity: ‘Destroying the very things that sustain us.’ And if we’re so short-sighted so as to make such preposterous choices, then it’s not all that preposterous to believe that shortly our end will be in sight. "
― Craig D. Lounsbrough
4 " Because I did not understand the difference between meaning and happiness, I did not appreciate that life could be meaningful without being happy. I didn’t understand that meaning and happiness are occasionally opposed, such that the self-sacrifice that yields meaning may come at the cost of the very things on which happiness most depends. I erroneously assumed that if I were unhappy then my life lacked significance. "
5 " Love is hard. We try to love one another. But generally the quality and quantity of our love for one another is found wanting, because we find it difficult, if not impossible, to look beyond those things that are ugly and unlovable in those we try to love. Even though the things that are ugly and unlovable in ourselves are the very things that cause us to cry out for love. "
― Doug Worgul , Thin Blue Smoke
6 " You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive. "
― James Baldwin
7 " Remember that fear causes to happen the very things it fears. That's why fear should be unknown to us. "
― Louis de Bernières
8 " The power to compel is not the same thing as leadership, and one does inspire the other. You are not a leader, Walters, you are a bully and a coward of the worst kind. the fear you believe you inspire is merely the fear in which you constantly live, and it undermines the very leadership you profess to have. Strip a bully of his pulpit and he becomes a cowering, quivering thing... You will never lose the fear because it defines you, and the very things you seek to annihilate will be those which ultimately destroy you. "
― April White , Cheating Death (The Immortal Descendants, #5)
9 " Those things that are not within your control can often be the very things that set you free. "
― Julieanne O'Connor , SPELLING IT OUT FOR YOUR CAREER (Spelling It Out, #2)
10 " Sometimes the very things that we’re expending our lives to sustain are the very things that are killing our ability to live. And against our blind and frequently raging protests, these are the very things that God let’s die so that we can live. "
11 " The world brazenly touts freedom as both the inalienable right and morally liberating justification to mindlessly play in the filth that lies all around me. And the slight bit of sanity that yet remains within me asks, ‘what raging madness would prompt me to incessantly wallow in the very things that will eventually swallow me? "
― Craig D. Lounsbrough , An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus
12 " Words can be honed to crafted perfection by the finest wordsmiths. Yet, if we trust solely in the expanse of them to explain this God of ours or articulate our experience of Him, we will have brutally destroyed the very things we are attempting to explain. And if I should do that, no words can describe how badly I wish I had no words. "
13 " Sooner or later I will realize that the very things I most desperately need are the very things I am unable to give myself. Therefore, I will either be left despising the fact that I am doomed to live out a life that is perpetually empty, or I will realize that an empty tomb is the single thing that will eternally fill me. "
14 " A true pilgrimage requires letting go of the very things most people try to hold onto. In seeking after what the soul desires, we become pilgrims with no home but the path the soul would have us follow. "
― , Fate and Destiny, The Two Agreements of the Soul
15 " More often than not, the foolishness of our humanity drives us to destroy the very things that we need to keep ourselves from destroying ourselves. And because that’s the case, God will never allow us to destroy Christmas. "
16 " The most compassionate and peaceful thing you can do for yourself and others is to let go of the past, let go of the anger, let go of trying to hurt people that wronged you. There are thousands of people dying from cancer that wish they had someone to care about them and be with them during their final days. There are children being sold into sex trafficking and are hoping someone would rescue them. There are homeless people that wish they had something warm to wear or eat. There is an entire species being wiped out because not enough people care about our oceans. Today, remember that there is someone praying for the very things you take for granted. Spend your effort where God needs you to be--on the front lines of the war on earth, not on the battlefields of the past. "
― Shannon L. Alder
17 " Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees. "
― Brandon Sanderson , The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)
18 " Always remember that those with very important paths to fulfill will always be forced by life into the fear of the very things that their true paths consist of, in order to prevent the destiny from ever happening. Or perhaps, in order to strengthen the courage of the heart, because courage is to look into a direction, make a choice and to actually do that which you are afraid of, and what is destiny if it is not fulfilled by a heart full of courage and brawn? "
― C. JoyBell C.
19 " Be careful, fathers, when you inordinately desire things to be better for your children than they were for you. Do not, however unintentionally, make things worse by removing the requirement for reasonable work as part of their experience, thereby insulating your children from the very things that helped make you what you are. "
― Neal A. Maxwell
20 " Children need to know that the things that make them vastly different from one another are the very things that make them beautifully special. "
