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21 " The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea, 'What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!' He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would shoot him quickly and have done with it." The prince paused and all waited, expecting him to go on again and finish the story." Is that all?" asked Aglaya." All? Yes," said the prince, emerging from a momentary reverie." And why did you tell us this?" " Oh, I happened to recall it, that's all! It fitted into the conversation—" " You probably wish to deduce, prince," said Alexandra, " that moments of time cannot be reckoned by money value, and that sometimes five minutes are worth priceless treasures. All this is very praiseworthy; but may I ask about this friend of yours, who told you the terrible experience of his life? He was reprieved, you say; in other words, they did restore to him that 'eternity of days.' What did he do with these riches of time? Did he keep careful account of his minutes?" " Oh no, he didn't! I asked him myself. He said that he had not lived a bit as he had intended, and had wasted many, and many a minute." " Very well, then there's an experiment, and the thing is proved; one cannot live and count each moment; say what you like, but one cannot." " That is true," said the prince, " I have thought so myself. And yet, why shouldn't one do it?" " You think, then, that you could live more wisely than other people?" said Aglaya." I have had that idea." " And you have it still?" " Yes — I have it still," the prince replied. "
22 " When you continuously give attention to a positive thought, it becomes a dominant thought. Repeating this thought will become a bigger part of your vibration. "
― Hina Hashmi , Your Life A Practical Guide to Happiness Peace and Fulfilment
23 " The glow lasted through the night, beyond the bar's closing, when there were no cabs on the street. And so Mathilde and Lotto decided to walk home, her arm in his, chatting about nothing, about everything, the unpleasant, hot breath of the subway belching up from the grates. 'Chthonic', he said, booze letting loose the pretension at his core, which she still found sweet, an allowance from the glory. It was so late, there were few other people out, and it felt, just for this moment, that they had the city to themselves.She thought of all the life just underfoot, the teem of it that they were passing over, unknowing. She said, 'Did you know that the total weight of all the ants on Earth is the same as the total weight of all the humans on Earth.' She, who drank to excess, was a little bit drunk, it was true, there was so much relief in the evening.When the curtains closed against the backdrop, an enormous bolder blocking their future had rolled away.'They'll still be here when we're gone,' he said. He was drinking from a flask. By the time they were home, he'd be sozzeled. 'The ants and the jellyfish and the cockroaches, they will be the kings of the Earth.'...'They deserve this place more than we do,' she said. 'We've been reckless with our gifts.' He smiled and looked up. There were no stars, there was too much smog for them.'Did you know,' he said, 'they just found out just a while ago that there are billions of worlds that can support life in our galaxy alone.'...She felt a sting behind here eyes, but couldn't say why this thought touched her.He saw clear through and understood. He knew her. The things he didn't know about her would sink an ocean liner. He knew her.'We're lonely down here,' he said, 'it's true, but we're not alone.'In the hazy space after he died, when she lived in a sort of timeless underground grief, she saw on the internet a video about what would happen to our galaxy in billions of years. We are in an immensely slow tango with the Andromeda galaxy, both galaxies shaped like spirals with outstretched arms, and we are moving toward each other like spinning bodies. The galaxies will gain speed as they draw near, casting off blue sparks, new stars until they spin past each other, and then the long arms of both galaxies will reach longingly out and grasp hands at the last moment and they will come spinning back in the opposite direction, their legs entwined, never hitting, until the second swirl becomes a clutch, a dip, a kiss, and then at the very center of things, when they are at their closest, there will open a supermassive black hole. "
― Lauren Groff , Fates and Furies
24 " A thought, no matter how small and forgotten, always has an eternal impact on the Cosmos. Most times, we can only see the material and just about beyond the immediate, but if we could trace this thought through all Creation... well, it would be a whole universe in itself. "
― Adriano Bulla
25 " The beauty of this world where almost everyone was gone. If hell is other people, what is a world with almost no people in it? Perhaps soon humanity would simply flicker out, but Kirsten found this thought more peaceful than sad. So many species had appeared and later vanished from this earth; what was one more? How many people were even left now? "
― Emily St. John Mandel , Station Eleven
26 " The capitalist mind perceives the world purely in terms of material resources to be used for its benefit, to increase productivity and profit without thought of long term consequence. If there is still a vague and oppressive sense of guilt, of wrongness and imbalance, this gnawing guilt spurs capitalism on to greater acts of consumption, more ... Read moreviolent attempts to subjugate nature, more totalizing efforts to create distractions. To the " rational materialist" mind, death is the end of everything; this thought feeds its rage against nature, which has placed it in this position of despair. "
27 " The river reflected whatever it chose of sky and bridge and burning tree, and when the undergraduate had oared his boat through the reflections they closed again, completely, as if they had never been. There one might have sat the clock round lost in thought. Thought --to call it by a prouder name than it deserved-- had let its line down into the stream. It swayed, minute after minute, hither and thither among the reflections and the weeds, letting the water lift it and sink it until --you know the little tug -- the sudden conglomeration of an idea at the end of one's line: and then the cautious hauling of it in, and the careful laying of it out? Alas, laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked; the sort of fish that a good fisherman puts back into the water so that it may grow fatter and be one day worth cooking and eating. "
― Virginia Woolf , A Room of One's Own
28 " The gym cat appears to those who will die. He is our totem." This thought came to me a few weeks ago. I shared it with no one of course. "
29 " There were times . . . when it occurred to me that I was repeating my mother's life. Usually this thought struck me as funny. But if I happened to be tired, or if there were extra bills to pay and no money to pay them with, it seemed awful. I'd think 'This isn't the way our lives are supposed to be going.' Then I'd think 'Half the world has the same idea. "
― Stephen King , On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
30 " Therefore, perception, which I count as the most wonderful of instruments, has just as little reality as that of my poor senses. However I might conceive of matter, it is always something different from what I understood it to be. But it is not only that I can never completely perceive the essence of matter, but also it's that it has no being. Spray water on a hot oven and it is instantaneously vaporized, if I throw a lump of sugar into a cup of tea it melts. If I break the cup I'm drinking out of, I'll have nothing but shards - but no longer a cup. If, however, being can be turned into not-being with the flip of the wrist, then it is not worth talking about it as being. Not-being, death, is the real essence of all matter, life is only a negation of this essence for an infinitely short span of time. But the thought of the drop of water, or the lump of sugar remains immutable, it can never be broken, vaporated, or melted. So isn't this thought to be spoken of with much greater right as reality, than fluctuating material is? " From The Diary Of An Orange Tree "
31 " Kurt Marnul can win Mr. Austria," I thought, " and he's already told me that I could too if I train hard, so that's what I'm going to do." This thought made the hours of lifting tons of steel and iron actually a joy. Every painful set, every extra rep, was a step toward my goal of winning Mr. Austria and entering the Mr. Europe competition. "
32 " It can't be more than a quarter of a mile to the finish, but it seems to go on forever. Do I really have to do this? My legs are entirely dead. Would it really matter if I stopped here?But I know I'd regret it if I did, so I plod leadenly on, distracting myself...with the thought that, whatever troubles I may have been carrying around in my head before the race, I have now entirely forgotten what they were. This thought is rather refreshing. Whatever physical pains it has involved, this ordeal has utterly absorbed me, forcing my brain to focus on the kind of concerns for which it evolved - navigation, survival, balance, digging deep - rather than on the fretful urban anxieties to which it has become habituated. Reconnecting with your inner animal, I suppose you could call it; and it feels good. Especially when, blissfully, I catch sight of the finish. "
