Lis > Lis's Quotes

“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?”
― Lao-Tzu, The Way of Life

“Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.”
― Lao Tzu, Te-Tao Ching

“When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: Book of the Way

“When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”
― Maya Angelou

“It was so nice just to live in the moment, to enjoy holding him so closely, to pretend for a little while that they were merely two young people in love and nothing else.”
― Melissa de la Cruz, The Van Alen Legacy

“There are things
that make no sense,
that seem unreal,
that can’t be grasped
or understood
or explained,
that maybe don’t even exist…
And still, somehow, those wonderful things touch and change our lives.
Isn’t it strange?”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Secrets of a Noble Keykeeper

“I always am in a role, lovely – for you, for them – even for myself. Yeah... Even when I’m alone, I am still in a role – and I myself am the most exacting audience I have ever had.”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

“It's like pretending to be Santa and then stabbing someone with a candy cane!”
― J.B. Stanley, Chili Con Corpses