Heriberto Charley > Heriberto's Quotes

“People who see themselves as “good” are much more likely to do “evil” things. This is because believing you are the “good guy” allows you to define your actions as good because you are the one doing them. This is why many successful cultures frame humans as intrinsically wretched. It can seem harsh to raise a child to believe deeply in their own wretchedness, but doing so helps them remember to always second-guess themselves by remembering their lesser, selfishly motivated instincts. Instincts that run counter to your morality and values have every bit as much access to your intelligence as “the better angels” of your consciousness and will use your own knowledge and wit to justify their whims. You can’t outreason your worst impulses without stacking the deck in your favor. Coming from a culture that anticipates bad impulses and steels you against them can do that. That said, cultures will no doubt develop different, less harsh mechanisms for achieving the same outcome.”
― Simone Collins, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion: A playbook for sculpting cultures that overcome demographic collapse & facilitate long-term human flourishing

“Are dreams less real because they are temporary? Or are fleeting, moving, changing things examples of their own kind of reality, a different speed?…The sea is a dream.”
― Sally Ann Hunter, Transfigured Sea

“There are four steps to gaining ownership and intentionality over your personal identity and beliefs: Determining your objective function What is the purpose of my life? Determining your ideological tree How do I best fulfill that purpose? Determining your personal identity Who do I want to be? Determining your public identity How do I want others to think of me?”
― Malcolm Collins, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life: A Guide to Creating Your Own Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions

“Nothing remains.  The destruction is complete: love, lives, families, friends, cities, homes – all gone now.  All our efforts to be good, to do the right thing, to act well, to be just and generous are now for naught.  Because juxtaposed against any hope for fairness is wickedness, pure and simple.  In some abstract formulation these things may exist in equal measure, which is to say that the scales balance when taking all things into consideration. But that is fantasy, the stuff of religion, hope beyond all reason. Because for those caught in the whirlwind, in the chaos of manifest evil, despair is all there is. Civilization falls away: everything is pointless now.  Survival requires reciprocity. What then if there is none?”
― John Payton Foden, Magenta

“Donde, he offered a piece of candy to a little
   boy.”
― Kyle Keyes, Under the Bus

“The way I see it, it's got nothing to do with all of that. It has to do with love...A person don't got a soul until that person is loved. If a mother loves her baby--wants her baby--it's got a soul from the moment she knows it's there. The moment you're loved, that's when you got your soul.

--Diego”
― Neal Shusterman, Unwind

“When will you give up these mad adventures, and leave others to fight their own battles and to save their own lives as best they may?'

When your ladyship has ceased to be the most admired woman in Europe, namely, when I am in my grave.”
― Emmuska Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel

“We must defend ourselves according to our opponents' ability, not their intentions.”
― Koushun Takami, Battle Royale

“Striving for uniqueness in a world of sameness”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“You have a peace about you. You have a wisdom. You have a way of living life that kicks my butt and pushes me around, and it beats me out of my idiocy and narrow-mindness. You, Addy, you, have shown me what life is all about”
― Heath Sommer

“Aspasia had herself fallen into very good fortune. So good that at the age of twenty years, she’d probably used up the whole life’s portion of good luck that Tyche had allotted her. To make good fortune last—for herself and the child in her womb—would be up to her.”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece

“I haven’t got a clue why his bones disintegrated, but look at the bright side,” laughed Adam. “We won’t have to dispose of the body. I’ll get a pan and brush in a minute and flush him down the toilet.”
― Max Nowaz, The Three Witches and the Master

“To catch a wild animal, you have to use the right bait.
What happens to the bait? I haven't decided yet.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“The hungry men were seen, followed by their valets, roaming the quais and guards' quarters; gleaning from their outside friends all the dinners they could find; for, according to Aramis, in prosperity one should sow meals right and left, in order to harvest some in adversity.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

“All human temperaments were considered to belong to one or another of the four humors—sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“When a worker is injured at an IBP plant in Texas, he or she is immediately presented with a waiver. Signing the waiver means forever surrendering the right to sue IBP on any grounds. Workers who sign the waiver may receive medical care under IBP's Workplace Injury Settlement Program. Or they may not. Once workers sign, IBP and its company-approved doctors have control over the job-related medical treatment - for life. Under the program's terms, seeking treatment from an independent physician can be grounds for losing all medical benefits. Workers who refuse to sign the IBP waiver not only risk getting no medical care from the company, but also risk being fired on the spot...Injured workers almost always sign the waiver. The pressure to do so is immense. An IBP medical case manager will literally bring the waiver to a hospital emergency room in order to obtain an injured worker's signature. When Lonita Leal's right hand was mangled by a hamburger grinder at the IBP plant in Amarillo, a case manager talked her into signing the waiver with her left hand as she waited in the hospital for surgery. When Duane Mullin had both hands crushed in a hammer mill at the same plant, an IBP representative persuaded him to sign the waiver with a pen held in his mouth.”
― Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

“#metooasachild”
― Aimee Cabo Nikolov, Love is the Answer, God is the Cure: A True Story of Abuse, Betrayal and Unconditional Love

“Life is a Verb”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The most direct path to Party was raising pigs. The company had several dozen of these and they occupied an unequaled place in the hearts of the soldiers; officers and men alike would hang around the pigsty, observing, commenting, and willing the animals to grow. If the pigs were doing well, the swine herds were the darlings of the company, and there were many contestants for this profession.

Xiao-her became a full-time swineherd. It was hard, filthy work, not to mention the psychological pressure.

Every night he and his colleagues took turns to get up in the small hours to give the pigs an extra feed. When a sow produced piglets they kept watch night after night in case she crushed them. Precious soybeans were carefully picked, washed, ground, strained, made into 'soybean milk," and lovingly fed to the mother to stimulate her milk.

Life in the air force was very unlike what Xiao-her had imagined. Producing food took up more than a third of the entire time he was in the military. At the end of a year's arduous pig raising, Xiao-her was accepted into the Party.

Like many others, he put his feet up and began to take it easy.

After membership in the Party, everyone's ambition was to become an officer; whatever advantage the former brought, the latter doubled it. Getting to be an officer depended on being picked by one's superiors, so the key was never to displease them. One day Xiao-her was summoned to see one of the college's political commissars.

Xiao-her was on tenterhooks, not knowing whether he was in for some unexpected good fortune or total disaster. The commissar, a plump man in his fifties with puffy eyes and a loud, commanding voice, looked exceedingly benign as he lit up a cigarette and asked Xiao-her about his family background, age, and state of health. He also asked whether he had a fiance to which Xiao-her replied that he did not. It struck Xiao-her as a good sign that the man was being so personal. The commissar went on to praise him: "You have studied Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought conscientiously. You have worked hard. The masses have a good impression of you. Of course, you must keep on being modest; modesty makes you progress," and so on. By the time the commissar stubbed out his cigarette, Xiao-her thought his promotion was in his pocket.”
― Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

“If the onset of wrinkles in middle age were referred to as laughter lines, then to look at him, Scott thought, Twinkle's life must have been hilarious. He had sharp eyes that often seemed to visually contradict the lack of intelligence that could be derived from listening to him talk. There might not be a lot to respect in Twinkle, but Scott liked him. He just didn't want to end up like him.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“We were wasting time. She could try and arrest me and would fail.”
― Murray Bailey, The Prisoner of Acre

“Heinrich replied, “The fact that Kramer’s radio station has  been wiped out by the British Navy in now classified information!”
― Michael G. Kramer, His Forefathers and Mick

“It was Sunday evening when it finally stopped raining. He and his dad went into the forest, and it was super wet. There were pools of water everywhere. And sure enough, the stream had jumped its banks. It looked like a torrent because it was running so fast. Joey had never seen the stream like that.”
― Ellen J. Lewinberg, Joey and His Friend Water

“When people tell you that "you've changed" what they really mean is...they haven't. It's easy to see movement when you're standing still. Change is inevitable and embracing your evolution in this lifetime is what's supposed to happen, but there are those that will fight against it. We are meant to examine all that life has to offer, explore our gifts, welcome love and release the loss. ”
― C. Toni Graham

“Nine roses around the lion…God in heaven that’s the Tumbaar coat-of-arms.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Steel Blood

“I call my accent Frenglian. A wee bit of French mixed with English and Sicilian." She emitted a small chuckle at her new made-up word.”
― Alyssa Hall, And Then I Heard the Quiet

“The image of the sensual, sleep-laden Naomi made him smile. And wish he’d been lying on the pillow next to her when she’d opened her eyes. Lucky pillow.”
― Lotchie Burton, Gabriel's Fire

“Before going to breakfast, you are in your
room experiencing the gongs of a classic religious
bell, a unique and cuddly invitation to the morning meditation session. In ten minutes it will be 7:00 a.m.—dawn’s brisk reminder that life will never be easy. Mornings are a bit cruel.”
― Tom Hillman, Digging for God

“...if He made us, He must know He is to blame when He has made us weak or evil. And He must understand why we have been so made, and when we throw ourselves into the dust before Him, and pray for help and pardon, surely--surely He will lend an ear!”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Lady of Quality

“It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise.”
― George R.R. Martin